Lurker > Robazoid

We've only got a few weeks left in the year. We had some solid participation in 2018, and several people finished their lists! For the first time since this started, I was not among them. Someday I hope to cycle back to video games, I've just been too busy with other hobbies.

I did want to ask, would people here prefer someone else being in charge of this in 2019? I feel kind of silly worrying about it since this isn't the sort of thing that really has a 'host' (I certainly never felt like it was my place to police lists, for example, and I always tried to only change challenges when there was a clear consensus) but I worry people were bothered that the topics were being made by someone who barely participated. There isn't a whole lot to it aside from making the topic, especially if you use the bump-bot command, so I don't mind being in charge again. Just let me know if someone else feels they would be more active and wants the responsibility!

There's also the question of if we should change any of the challenges for 2019. I remember at the beginning of the year a few people mentioned wanting more challenges that had to do with the content of the game (like the central theme ones) and less, for lack of a better term, stat-based ones. Well, now is the time to share preferences and ideas!
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Bump again
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Bumpo
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kaleee posted...

yeh looks like Locke's out

Damn, Locke is my favorite edgelord character
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I finished watching through Re:ZERO this weekend and I really enjoyed it. It easily surpassed Overlord to become my favorite isekai, but a lot of that was because I inherently like time-restarting as a concept so it had an unfair advantage with me. I thought all of the arcs were exciting and I really enjoyed the character development of everyone. I only have one complaint, really, which I'll keep that to the spoiler tags below.

I glanced at Crunchyroll comments while watching and saw a lot of people disliking Subaru's whining, but I dunno, I thought it was deserved. The poor guy kept dying horrifically and couldn't even tell anyone about it without shadow hands squeezing his heart. I liked the dynamic between him and Emilia too, even if the extent of how quickly and how deeply he loved her felt a bit much sometimes. She really wanted to believe in him but he was acting so crazy. I couldn't blame her for sending him away in the third arc. Plus they had a nice resolution where Subaru has grown a lot and Emilia seems ready to accept him at her side. I also have to give a shout-out to how awesome time-restarting is as a premise and Re:ZERO handled it well. They weren't treated as easy so he couldn't just brute-force his way through, and most of the improvements he made in subsequent runs felt earned.

My only real problem with the anime was with the other candidates to the throne, they were all such lame caricatures. "I'll rule the kingdom because I want to own everything!" *crowd nods along* "I'll rule the kingdom because it will amuse me!" *crowd nods along* "I want to rule the kingdom and bring equality to everyone" *crowd glares because it isn't sure it can trust the half-elf*. It all felt so forced. Everyone else in the narrative felt like a nuanced character and here are these three jokers laughing about a village that's going to be slaughtered. It would've been so easy to write them as unable to help for pragmatic reasons without making them all full-on heartless. Still, they were a minor part of the narrative overall so I guess it wasn't as bad as it could've been.

Final thought: Rem was great but I still can't help but wonder why she's the super popular one when Emilia was the best girl by a long shot.
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I finished Etotama today and, while it certainly had its flaws, the fact that is was super fun more than made up for them. The premise is basically that the animals from the Chinese zodiac are anime girls (because one of the laws of the universe is that everything in existence will be anthropomorphized into anime girls at some point) and it specifically follows the cat, Nya-tan, as she tries to beat them all up and get into the zodiac herself. I found the humor to be great, specifically the fact that they broke the fourth wall frequently and hilariously, but the dumb situations they often found themselves in were a lot of fun too. Even the boring main character dude had his moments. Nya-tan was the best part of the anime though. She was always so hyper and had a totally undeserved high opinion of herself (speaking as a cat owner, that makes her a typical cat), and while she was practically designed to be annoying I found Nya-tan to be the fun kind of annoying. The battles were all in a chibi 3D style too, which I found an odd choice at first but that animation style actually allowed a lot of impressive moments so I guess it worked out.

Anyway, there's my post for an anime probably no one here has seen or cares about. Etotama was fun.
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kateee posted...

i think i'm ready to watch 2018 stuff now. already some sequels i'm planning to watch but other than that, which one or two shows should i check out?

It's not the most popular choice, but A.I.C.O.: Incarnation on Netflix is my favorite of the year so far. It might be worth checking out if you're in the mood for a sci-fi anime. Just make sure you watch it with subtitles because the dub is terrible.

Otherwise, Laid-Back Camp, Hinamatsuri, and A Place Further than the Universe were all pretty well liked by most people who saw them. Devilman Crybaby was a bit more divisive but the people who like it seem to really like it so it might be worth checking out too.
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Heck yeah, Kakegurui was great!

Anyway, I just finished Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches. It was good but I couldn't help but feel like it didn't live up to its full potential. A lot of things felt rushed and quite a few characters weren't really developed so I think this is a matter of this just not having enough episodes for the story it wanted to cover, and Crunchyroll comments from people who read the manga seemed to back that up. My other complaint is that I often felt that it didn't handle its subject matter as delicately as it probably should have. I understand that there was a story reason for it but man was there ever a lot of forced kisses in this. Still, I liked the major characters and the powers were used well, so it was definitely enjoyable by the end. Shiraishi was great, I'm glad they got together in the end.
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LapisLazuli posted...

Honestly Roba, I'm surprised you enjoyed such a dour series, even if it's one of the best. Some of the revelations in that series made me physically ill and upset.

And I'm glad I finally have something I can point to as an argument that I don't automatically hate dour things! What usually bothers me about grim stories is that quite often people are either evil for no actual reason or they're so over-the-top edgy that it just makes me angry. Here, despite how harsh a lot of the revelations were, I could see how they logically came to those conclusions and understand why they were acting that way. Nothing was used solely to create melodrama or bad feelings, both just naturally arose from the characters and their shitty situation.
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I can see that interpretation from how they had same-sex relationships during school but were expected to grow out of it and marry someone of the opposite sex as adults, but I'm not sure if being anti-gay was the intention. They talked a lot about forming a society of love like bonobos, so it's easy to imagine that everyone is bisexual. Setting up romantic expectations like this gives them a sexual outlet that won't risk (incredibly dangerous) children as teens while still leaving room for actual, state-approved children once they're adults. To me it was just another reflection of the shitty decisions they had to make to keep their society safe but yeah, I won't argue too hard if someone wants to view it as anti-gay even if I don't fully agree.
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pyresword posted...

For the life of me though I will never understand the evidently common belief that the characters are a weakness of this series.

I'm not sure if this is a common view elsewhere, but if you're referring to what I said I just meant that their development didn't feel like as much of a focus as the actions they took to explore the setting. They were all still good characters.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Any thoughts on the three arcs in FtNW, Roba?

I really liked the beginning of the first arc when it was slowly trickling out information about the setting and revealing just how messed up the society was. The second half of the arc where they were running from rats wasn't as good, mostly because it felt odd that they went from still training their powers to push around rocks a few days earlier to Satoru suddenly being able to carve up a huge rock and bombard enemy rats all night (it also didn't help that one of the episodes had really funky animation for some reason) but it was still enjoyable. The second arc was good too because it explored some of the reasons for their society's harsh decisions (to prevent karmic demons and ogres) as well as the natural consequences of forcing children to live like that when two of them ran away to escape it. This was probably my favorite part of the series now that I think about it. The third arc was a bit of a step back to running from rats (though it was nice to see the consequences of having a slave caste like that, too), but I found it better than in the first arc because of the ogre. It was oddly compelling to have an enemy they couldn't defeat, and her origin of being stolen from her parents and raised as a rat was a good tragic background. This kid was born because their harsh measures failed, and the damage she caused underscored the need for them... but she was also only born because those harsh measures drove two kids to run away. It's an interesting conundrum and I was kind of glad the series ended without finding an easy solution for the society to adopt moving forward.
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I just finished From the New World. I thought it was really good, especially the world-building and how everything that was introduced was examined in terms of their logical consequences. The characters were good too, of course, but this was definitely a story where the setting took center stage and I enjoyed seeing it expanded on and explored.

It was just super interesting seeing the kind of paranoid society that arose in order to survive the sudden appearance of psychic powers. Like, there are settings like My Hero Academia where the world somehow stays recognizable despite almost everyone having some random, potentially destructive super-power, but FtNW's setting is probably the more realistic outcome of such crazy evolution. There were a lot of grim decisions made to prevent danger from arising, and by the end I had a hard time arguing against the necessity of most of them. I hope Saki managed to create a better world in the end but I have a hard time imagining how she might've done it.
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Cyclops
Homura
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Oh sorry, I put the episode number there for that exact reason!
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LapisLazuli posted...

Hanebado is the only super odd placement on that list, honestly.

Once you watch more, you're tune may change!

I hope so but so far every time it looks like it might turn things around it just gets worse. Ep 4 spoilers but it finally looked like Hanesaki was going to have fun with a match but then the girl her mother left her for showed up, shattered her own teammate, and then purposefully triggered Hanesaki's PTSD because this is an anime where fun is not allowed
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Metroid
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Max Caulfield
Captain Spirit
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Time for my final first episode impressions of the season, and the last time I'll post my ranking until my traditional post-season write-ups that I'm sure everyone looks forward to.

Attack on Titan S3 actually started a lot better than I was expecting given the concerns people have been voicing about it. This is an S3 thing so I'll spoiler-tag this but a badass serial killer leading a group of what look like mercenaries is awesome. I'm actually looking forward to human vs human conflict after only recently finishing both of the titan-focused seasons.

We Rent Tsukumogami was fine I guess. It looks like it'll revolve around mysteries like Holmes of Kyoto but this has a slightly more interesting premise (possessed items vs antiques, especially since Holmes wasted no time before abandoning its premise) so I'm hopeful it'll be okay even if this first episode was kind of basic.

Season Rankings so far:
Revue Starlight
Cells at Work
Planet With
Happy Sugar Life
Chio's School Road
Asobi Asobase
Overlord S3
Banana Fish
Angolmois
Attack on Titan S3
Harukana Receive
Phantom in the Twilight
Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs
Music Girls
We Rent Tsukumogami
Holmes of Kyoto
Angels of Death
Dropkick on my Devil
Seven Senses of the Re'Union
How Not to Summon a Demon Lord
Grand Blue Dreaming
Island
The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar
Lord of Vermilion
Hanebado

More like HaneBADo m i rite (and no I probably won't be dropping anything because if I finish the lower junk it'll help balance out my overall anime ranking).
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There's one fun character on Island but so far the story is nonsense and you can feel them rushing through important developments from the VN.
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Steins;Gate
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Trading for Girls' Last Tour, auto, I can save now
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From the New World
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I couldn't help but notice how a poll about Bleach got quite a few more votes than the previous topic's poll about currently airing anime. Stop living in the past, man.
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unknown_duck posted...

From the New World auto

For BanG Dream
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Monogatari
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Damn, I had this exact poll idea in mind for the next time I needed to make a topic and couldn't think of anything else.

GranzonEx posted...

pyresword posted...

Crap does this mean I'm gonna have to come up with a poll when I'm not even watching anime atm other than MHA and Steins;Gate

now you know how I feel lol

The obvious solution would be for you two to start watching more anime imho
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LapisLazuli posted...

Roba you gotta get in on that Yuru Yuri.

That video certainly makes a compelling argument! Once I finish a few more things (I was an idiot a few weeks ago and started watching like eleven anime at once) I'll try to get around to it.
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For what it's worth, Music Girls is actually pretty decent. It's just so blatantly a discount idol anime with shallow yet fun characters so don't watch it unless that sounds like exactly what you want (it was exactly what I wanted and I'm enjoying it).

Anyway, I've finished watching both seasons of Non Non Biyori. I thought it was good but it wasn't quite at my preferred place on the comedy/slice-of-life spectrum. The slow pacing and quiet panning shots definitely fit well for the laid-back country tone, but there were times where they held a shot of a tree for fifteen seconds and I just wanted it to move on. I suppose it just wasn't entirely for me, but it was still very high quality and I'm glad I watched it. Renge was always a lot of fun.

I'm up to episode 18 in Hunter x Hunter so I guess I can post a comment on that too. The cool sniper lady who I mentioned in a previous post came back! Shame about that pin getting flicked through her face, looks like she's definitely gone now. RIP cool background sniper lady.

The Zevil Island test was my favorite part of the anime so far, though. It sort of had a Battle Royale vibe, and I liked the tension of not knowing who was hunting who. They'd also finally whittled down the applicants to the point where everyone felt special and had their own moment, so that was nice. Gon stealing Hisoka's badge was neat too. Lastly, as fun as he is as a character, I can't help but wonder if Leorio really deserves to have made it this far. The others have been carrying him through literally every challenge.
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Metroid;Luigi
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I'm still enjoying Happy Sugar Life but, yeah, you have to be in the mood for crazy people doing crazy things. I think it's pretty impressive that they're managing to keep a steady tone that's neither too grim nor too happy, which is perfect for me even if it won't necessarily be for everyone.

I also agree that Grand Blue ep 2 was indeed a bit better, though I still wouldn't call it good. It just became tolerable instead of annoying.
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Corrik posted...

Mobilezoid posted...

Politics aren't a protected belief.

Also Corrik please use one of the several politics topics for this junk, I don't want to have to put you on ignore.

You can ignore me, bud. If you simply cannot not open topics you do not wish to post in, that is a you issue. I will not be told I have to post in specific topics.

Alright, I honestly can't remember the last time you've posted anything constructive anyway so I doubt I'll be missing anything other than your useless politics spam because you're too fucking lazy to use a flair.
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MenuWars posted...

personifies the slaughtering of millions of idiots.

Uhhh you might want to rethink calling Holocaust victims idiots.
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Also if you want anyone else I can get them too, I don't have time for another trade with my second save
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Lightning and Yuna, please
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Zidane
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Metroid;Trace
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Lightning
Yuna
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Wario;Luigi
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I'm a day closer to everyone else's deaths too though so it all evens out.
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pjbasis posted...

Its weird you didnt like death parade even though it went exactly the way you should have hoped. To me it was trying to subvert all those procedural shows that put people in extraordinary situations to judge them.

Ah, sorry, I tried to get it across without too much whining but I really hated several of the episodes and most of the rest were just boring. The fact that one overarching plot thread wound up being pretty good wasn't enough to save it for me overall.

Also, is judging from extraordinary situations that really a common enough plot setup to deserve being subverted? Off the top of my head I can only think of this and maybe the Saw movies.
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I guess I was due for a controversial opinion, but I really didn't like Death Parade. There were a few things I appreciated about it by the end, enough that I didn't hate it, but for the most part it was just too grim and edgy for me. I also didn't agree with the philosophical stance the world was based on but I guess I should tag those thoughts.

It started off on the wrong foot for me when it seemed like it was treating people's "darkness" as something inherent to their souls. Like that doctor in the first episode never would've freaked out if he hadn't heard something super coincidentally specific that made him think his wife was cheating on him (and, you know, if she wasn't actually cheating on him). Put that dude's soul into another life where another of an infinite set of possibilities would happen and he might've been fine. Same for the wife, and same for everyone really. Even the murderous detective was an upstanding citizen by all accounts until a random event broke him. If you'll permit me some pointless philosophizing, if we even have souls I believe they're nothing more than a foundation and the things we encounter are what truly shape us. I just couldn't get behind the whole judgment setup where they were treating it like there actually was a right or wrong answer to any of this.

Though, to the show's credit, it actually went on to explore this theme more than I expected it to. Chiyuki rightfully pointed out that he was forcing people into extreme situations and (duh) making them react in extreme ways, just like almost anyone would. It didn't necessarily say anything about their souls. It was nice seeing the story reach that same conclusion, I guess, but I was still left with the feeling that it kind of invalidated all the stories that came before it and made the whole series a little pointless. Especially since nothing really changed in the end. I dunno, all that world-building never really went anywhere.

When I first saw the premise, I hoped this would be something more like helping people come to terms with the lives that they lived so they could move on to whatever comes next. That's what Chiyuki's arc wound up being about and I thought that whole thing was beautiful, especially the skating scene where she relived her memories. I wanted more of that and less endless twists about how one person was actually more terrible than the other (also terrible) person because fate shit on them.

At the very least I hope we can all agree that the OP was amazing.
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The easiest way I've found to tell who is streaming what is this Wikipedia page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anime_releases_made_concurrently_in_the_United_States_and_Japan
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Luigi;Metroid

A game where Luigi needs to save the last Metroid
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Got any cool HxH updates?

I'm only on episode 11 so still not very far in, but I guess I can tag a minor comment even though this can barely be considered spoilers. During the big crowd shots at the start of the exam I picked out a cool looking sniper lady (applicant 80) and for awhile I made a game of trying to find her in crowd shots to see how far she made it. I think the swamp got her though because she's been gone for awhile. A lot of them were generic background dudes but it's neat how a few were given such detailed designs only to not matter at all.
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Girls' Last Tour
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After visiting my brother and spending time with his 1.5 year old, my nephew is great and I love him but it sort of convinced me that I shouldn't have kids. I don't think I'm the kind of person who could dedicate the time year-round. My cat is almost too much of a nuisance and she can walk down the hall without me worrying that she might find something to kill herself with.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Hey Roba, you ever considered checking out Centaur's Worries? It's kind of a supernatural slice of life with some interesting unique traits. I'm reading the manga now for some reason and was reminded of its greatness.

It looks like that's the same thing as A Centaur's Life, and in that case I've been slowly working towards it for awhile ever since you mentioned it before! It might not be right away (my backlog just from HxH, Symphogear, and A Certain Scientific Railgun is already 200 episodes and those aren't the only things I've started in addition to keeping up with the season) but I'll try to get to it soon. Thanks for reminding me of it, though!
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Celes
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Trading for Lightning auto
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I've finally finished Brave Witches and man did it ever suck. Like, I didn't love Strike Witches to begin with but this spinoff was measurably worse in every way. A lot of these problems are fundamental to the franchise (the Nueroi are mindless, aimless blob-shaped foes and those are super boring) but Strike Witches was at least kind of fun. The characters were always flat, but even after just the first season of Strike Witches I knew their primary gimmicks and their names.

Brave Witches, by comparison, I honestly couldn't say anything meaningful for several of those girls, and I hated two of the few they actually bothered to develop, which didn't help. The comedic moments weren't funny, and the battles were poorly animated and never carried any tension or excitement. Like, Strike Witches at least had a few neat moments, Brave Witches had zero. Anyway I could go on but I think I've made my point.

Pointless story time: the whole reason I even started this franchise was because I liked Yuki Yuna's voice actress and a character in this was one of the few other meaningful roles she's had. I started with Strike Witches, which wasn't great so I took a long break, and now that I finally watched Brave Witches... she voices the shy character who barely talks. I got trolled hard.
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