Lurker > pyresword

Maquia was a movie I ended up not caring much about, despite generally being a Mari Okada fan. (Though admittedly even before this I'd have characterized her writing as hit-or-miss)

I remember really liking some moments at the beginning, but then losing interest somewhere in the middle of the movie. I think the story they were trying to tell was too dependent on the worldbuilding side of things when the worldbuilding just wasn't that solid in my opinion.

There were definitely individually good moments spaced throughout despite this, but I can't say I had much overall investment in the story.
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So I actually kind of did end up liking the wildcard matches even if they did almost all have bad results.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Waluigi1 posted...

Also I know this is going back really far but I just can't understand this opinion at all. The way they go so intricately into the combat systems is one of my favorite things about the show. I just love the nitty gritty stuff like that.

The explanations are often long and drawn out and boring themselves, and the story doesn't actually follow the rules in any way that feels meaningful anyway. Though, in a by-the-book sense they of course do follow the rules--I guess the real issue is that the limitations of the combat system don't come across to the viewer as limitations because they're so arbitrary and are frequently twisted beyond recognition anyways.

And like, I'd rather they just don't explain anything then fail to develop a very intricate system. If they're fighting each other with the power of friendship then that might be kind of dumb, but at least it's quick to explain and doesn't leave me with the severe sense of cognitive dissonance that numerous moments in this series do. I like that the battles are strategic which probably is in part due to this, but I'm not at all convinced it's entirely dependent on the complexities of the system.
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Night is Short I thought was a movie that was pretty good but not one of my favorites, so I guess this is probably around where I'd rank it if I'd watched the whole list probably?

The whole thing was a lot of fun, though it didn't help that I never stopped viewing it as Tatami Galaxy-lite. I never got as attached to the characters here as I did with Tatami, probably as a result of the shorter run-time. Also I didn't ever feel this movie really tied all of its themes together as completely as some of Yuasa's other works, which didn't help matters. Overall it was still a very fun movie with some interesting themes and ideas though and one I'd gladly recommend to others.
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The narration was one of my favorite things about the Chimera Ant arc in the subbed version. I think it's just a stylistic preference.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

HYMN
Memories Rushing By
-
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Corrik7 posted...

Cancel culture. Scary.

I can at least understand complaining about this normally, but in this case public relations is literally part of his job and he failed at it.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

The FGC and it's followers have always been wierd as hell, because I've seen people I would usually consider completely decent defend or wave away this kind of stuff because "the player is too good to let go".

I don't think this is that weird? It can be fun to watch people play regardless of who they are or what type of person they are, and that's what FGC spectators are there for in the first place. I know in my case a good example is Hyuga, who was an extremely skilled Smash player who brought something to the table that nobody else did as basically the only Toon Link player at the top level. Even if I can rationally identify it as a good decision and agree with it, I was still sad at the fact that I wouldn't get to see him play in matches anymore.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

I liked The Tatami Galaxy more, which is one of my all time favorite series. It sort of depends what you're looking for though, and imo you can't really go wrong with either.

Stylistically The Tatami Galaxy is extraordinarily similar to The Night is Short, Walk on Girl, so if that's one of the movies from the list you liked than I'd definitely say Tatami Galaxy is a good choice. (In addition to animation and thematic similarities, the source material is by the same author and there are even some overlapping supporting characters)

Ping Pong is a somewhat more down-to-earth sports series, though I will say that it's much more about the players and exploring their characters/personalities than it is about the sport itself. The animation style can be a bit of a tough pill to swallow, but once I got used to it I think actually does a good job and lends a pretty distinctive style to the series. I would say don't judge the animation style by looking at images from Google or something though, because it looks much better in motion than it does in still images.
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The biggest one is probably Ping Pong the Animation.

Off-hand there's also Kaiba, which I haven't seen, and more recently Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken, which I wasn't actually super big on myself but was pretty well received.

Edit: Oh there's also Kemonozume, which I forgot about.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

I still have to watch Mind Game. On the whole I haven't enjoyed Yuasa's films nearly as much as his TV series, but they've still all been pretty good watches either way.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Maybe they assume everyone was like me and was already spoiled by Falcom's Cold Steel 4 promo material long before either game had an English release. :(
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

I liked School Rumble a lot, though it took some time to come into its own I think.

Definitely further towards the comedy side of things than Kaguya though.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Hopes and Dreams
Silence in the Sunlight Filtering Through Trees
Dark Legacy
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Season 2 of Kaguya has just been really good overall. Loved episode 10 in particular.

Not directly related necessarily but Ishigami the best.
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I will definitely trash movies or shows that successfully execute terrible ideas.

That being said I would not group Colorful into this category because I don't think it was very successful in doing what it was trying to do and think that its ideas were quite good.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Colorful is one of the movies I watched and I thought it was...okay, maybe? Really neat idea that lacked in execution for many parts. I can't remember specifically what I thought was lacking because it was a long time ago and I found the movie really unmemorable as a whole, but yeah.

It doesn't particularly strike me as a divisive film like the results here suggest, though I guess I can see it really resonating with some people while others might respond more like I did.

I do remember really not liking the voice work here, though I actually can't remember whether I watched it subbed or dubbed...
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

PrinceKaro posted...

After watching more of Oshii's work I am convinced that the aberration in his filmography is not Sky Crawlers, but rather Ghost in the Shell, and he is primarily a creator of dull pointless movies that think they are deeper than they really are. Such as this one.

I haven't seen any of his other things, but as far as I'm concerned this seems like a pretty on-point description of Ghost in the Shell.
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+3 Ar-ciel Ar-manaf
+3 Moonlight Concert
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

I will say that based on the clips I've seen of the show, Raak is probably the one that improved the most in the transition from webtoon to anime.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

YO-KAI Disco (Hell's Entrance World)
MARIA

Can I vote to just cancel match 2 and eliminate both songs today?
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

xp1337 posted...

ban temperatures in excess of 70 degrees Fahrenheit

This I cannot abide by. Anything below 72 is absolutely unbearable.

Humidity sucks though.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Chess is a game that takes a very long time to get good at I think--something like years depending on where exactly your metric for "good" is. You can speed things up with targeted improvement efforts/coaching, but it's still difficult.
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I can't I'm not subscribed to Funimation
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

My overall ranking: Sky SC > Ao > Sky The 3rd > CS3 > Zero > Sky FC > CS1 > CS2

For me Cold Steel 3 is saved by having a strong core cast, good gameplay, and a really good first 2 chapters even if they didn't end up building to anything I cared about. I do have problems with the overall plot of the game though, which I think I've pretty much already brought up in the topic.

Also Cold Steel 3 has Vantage Masters which is something none of the other games can say, and is probably legitimately a contributing factor >.>

I don't know what to expect for Cold Steel IV. I could easily see it ending up very bad for similar reasons to what I think you're implying. But on the other hand, I think one of the things holding CS3 back is that it had to keep the player in the dark for as long as it did, so it might be that my interest increases now that (presumably) all the cards are on the table and they can just tell the story they want. Also I'm hoping that the return of (CS4 character appearance spoilers?) the SSS and the Brights can improve things. It's also been a somewhat divisive game--some of the fans really don't like it but there are also some long-time fans who will swear by it. So I don't know--we'll see. I'm also told it still has Vantage Masters...

CS3 has my least favorite soundtrack by a longshot, but I've never seen eye-to-eye with the fanbase on this issue.
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Ok I don't really have anything specific to say but Episode 10 of Kaguya was really good
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I actually really liked Millium in this game despite kind of hating her in the first 2.

For the most part I didn't care at all about the Old Class VII members in CS3 at any point, but she was great and I also thought Machias had somewhat of a cool part.
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I think Irina and Gwyn knew about his allegiance at the beginning, but I don't think they knew the full extent of his plans or the fact that he was still alive in the present.

Could be wrong, I confess to not remembering this part so well.
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30min is usally considered rapid or classical I think and yeah I'd probably have a much lower barrier to resigning under those time controls.

(Roughly speaking I'd say classical is >30 minutes, rapid is ~10-30 minutes, blitz is 3-10 minutes, and anything less is bullet, but I don't know what the official definitions are.)

My advice when facing weird openings like 1. a3 that don't directly threaten anything is to just ignore them and develop your pieces normally to good squares. For the most part you can't actually exploit them in any short-term sense, and usually when people play these openings a main motivation is just to confuse you.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

The Grimoire of Alice
Fire Island Volcano
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

What time control were you playing on? I don't generally resign if I'm playing blitz/bullet just because people screw up pretty badly under time pressure at all levels of play.

Of course that also depends how bad a goof you mean...I generally do resign if I hang a queen on accident or something in the opening/early midgame.
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Aw yeah gungi player. Probably ended up as one of my favorite characters.

(...is there a reason nobody is saying her name? Is it not said in the show right when she's introduced?)
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xp1337 posted...

That's not true, IIRC.

The Fourth Anguis's lines are written in a distinctive way that is shared with Lechter but their VAs are different. The Fourth Anguis shares a VA with Carl Regnitz if you want to go down that rabbit hole. Or better yet, Dogi.

Of course any Fourth Anguis theories need to now consider that CS3 reveals that they were a former member of the Order of the Moonlight Horse who joined along with Sharon and Enforcer III.

I'd thought both things were true, but that the fanbase generally put more weight into the speech pattern issue, on the assumption that just whatever voice actors happened to be on-hand were used for the Celestial Globe scene. It's been a while since I dug into this though.

Ultimately I don't believe any of these anyways, with Lechter being the least likely in my mind, particularly in light of the new information which you mentioned about the Order of the Moonlight Horse.
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Solfadore posted...

Oh snap Nielsen as 1st Anguis would be really cool. I hadn't even thought of that (and also missed pretty much all of his questline in the relevant game, sadly!).

When I played the game I knew about the theory going into it, and I still just can't see it despite having watched for it. I don't know. To be fair though, this sort of nuance could be easily lost in the translation process, especially considering it wasn't even a final translation
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GenesisSaga posted...

I don't know who this movie was made for, and I can only guess parents of young children or young children themselves.

I mean they literally already made Wolf Children and Boy and the Beast so I don't think this should be that controversial. Just because Wolf Children was a movie that also had mass appeal by accident doesn't change who the target audience was.
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Solfadore posted...

To be fully transparent, I admit I've also done a bit of a Kurt-style "I don't recognize this combat style SO CLEARLY OUROBOROS", and have long pinned Lechter as a potential candidate for secret Anguis. I have no basis or evidence for this, other than the fact that (IIRC) one of the remaining Anguis (the 5th, I think?) is supposed/thought to be a young man, and Lechter kind of just fits the mold.

I think this was the 4th Anguis, and I know that at least as of the end of CS2 this was heavily theorized by the Trails fanbase. Not sure how or if those theories changed after CS3/CS4.

If you're curious, some other very popular theories from that time were:

1st anguis = Nielsen
5th anguis = Barkhorn

For the record, though I think there are compelling cases to be made, I ultimately don't think I buy any of the above theories myself. Though the 1st anguis one is certainly very interesting and would be awesome if it did turn out to be true.

Edit: Oh and I forgot to add--one thing in favor of the 4th anguis theory is that when the 4th anguis appears in the Celestial Globe in Sky The 3rd Evo, he has the same Japanese voice actor as Lechter, though this isn't necessarily meaningful as he also voiced at least one other character in the series who I can't remember right now.
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I do think the series will continue portraying Osborne's methods as sinister and questionable regardless, at least. I just worry they'll go too far down the ancient evil route when trying to justify his actions. Or that they already have gone too far.
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Solfadore posted...

Either way, I'm not sure where this is all going to lead. Ash seemed to not fully be in control of his faculties when he shot the Emperor, which plays off of the Emperor's prior comments on a 'curse'. Again, I hope that's not quite true since I'd prefer characters to make actual mistakes and have actual flaws rather than be goaded into action by MAGIC, but we'll see.

This is a lot of why I don't like the plot behind Cold Steel 3 the more I reflect on it. I'm hoping Cold Steel 4 does more to contextualize this, but I don't know. It also feels a lot to me like they're trying to foreshadow a "Osborne was a good guy all along we swear!" type of twist which would just be utterly disastrous if they actually end up going that route.

And yeah I also thought the dragon plotline was pretty mediocre.
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I never saw this one. I would consider myself a "Hosoda fan" maybe, but I didn't like Boy and the Beast much, and then the synopsis of this movie really did not sound like something that would appeal to me. Also my friend who did see it and tends to have similar views as me didn't seem to like it much.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

I've been watching Jonathon Schrantz play what is apparently called the Nakhmanson Gambit which is apparently almost a real opening. (Meaning dubious at the top level but offers white chances at lower levels and is very deadly if black does not play accurately.) For reference, Stockfish evaluates the starting position as only -1.2 at depth 34 after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. d4 exd4 5. O-O Nxe4 6. Nc3?!, despite sacrificing a pawn and minor piece.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdXzaUZAPGE

Jonathon Schrantz is one of my favorite chess streamers (though I only watch on Youtube). He's not quite the strongest, but I do find that he's very good at effectively communicating the key aspects of positions when he's talking about them, which is good for learning. Also sometimes he puts out less instructive but more entertaining content like this. He's also perhaps more well-known for appearing quite frequently in the Saint Louis Chess Club Youtube videos which I think are very good.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Haven't really gotten too much into OTB/in-person tournaments. I was started to attempt to this year but then COVID-19 has forced me to put that on hold for the time being. In any case I play online a lot though lichess, which I've found is a good free site to use.

redrocket posted...

Its not actually popular. Its a meme opening.

Well...I don't know about right now but there was a period of time where it was absolutely a fad for chess streamers to play the opening while messing around. I guess it's open to interpretation whether or not that makes it a "popular opening" because obviously it's disastrously bad and was never being used in serious games, but yeah.
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Tag. Chess is cool.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

I could understand that comment if we were spoiling things but there has literally been more anime spoilers than webtoon-only spoilers in this topic.
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Menji posted...

I watched the first six episodes and it was interesting but then it turned into My Hero Academia at school and I was like eh... is that most of it or do they get away from the classroom setting?

Yes, though only in part 2 which is (immediately) after the first anime season will end.
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The entire beginning of the Hell Train arc was definitely my least favorite part so far. Name Hunt Station and (spoilers for part 2 of the webcomic about 2/3 to 3/4 through) Floor of Death were both great arcs however, imo. I've just started the Hidden Floor arc though and am not really that into it, at least at present.

Although the first part of Hell Train does have one of my absolute favorite moments of the entire comic. (Avoiding specifics, I'll just say it's in episodes 184 and 185 of part 2.)

I also really liked the Workshop Battle, though yes I didn't really care for its finale much.
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Yuri is good but Endorsi is obviously the best.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

CoolCly posted...

it's so strange to me that someone like this would be composing anime music.... Does that include the opening / ending?

I think just the OST--not the opening or ending.

I don't know how he got into the industry to begin with but I'd say by now he's probably an established figure? (Not 100% sure) He already made a pretty big name for himself with the Made in Abyss soundtrack, and he's also worked on Shield Hero and this since then.
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I've been reading the Webtoon and it's been consistently enjoyable although admittedly not amazing. My favorite parts are actually mostly in part 2 of the webtoon, but the first arc is also good. Also some parts of part 2 have dragged a lot which isn't really a problem that the first part had.

I know the music for the anime is done by Kevin Penkin, which makes me pretty confident the show is worth watching even if only for that.
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Yikes.

This isn't even in my bottom 6 from this list and I've only seen 8 of them. Some of the tragic parts don't have the impact I think they were supposed to but overall a really great movie.
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+3 Mechalullaby
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.

Mac Arrowny posted...

omg Hakuowlo rather than Hakuoro who did this

This has bothered me so much also, but it's probably just because I'm so used to seeing the other way spelled out.
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I didn't do guru this year but azuarc can be in my sig anyways.