Board 8 > Jeff Zero & Leonhart in Different Houses: The Odyssey Concludes [JZLF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Darker Side one is kind of annoying because there are no checkpoints and every section is basically trial and error, so you essentially have to die once to figure it out and then do the whole level over again. I don't even know how long this thing is or if I'm close to beating it yet.
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Internet went out at the house, so I'm at McDonald's at the moment. I guess if it's not back up later, I won't be watching any anime.
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Looks like we're okay now!

So in Yu Yu Hakusho, Yusuke and Sensui trade blows for a couple of episodes until the latter activates Dyne Mode and transforms his arm into a gun. Apparently, he's got seven personalities to help him cope with all the stuff he's seen. Koenma shows up at the end of the episode, with the promise of something big happening when he finally removes that pacifier from his mouth. What will happen?!
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In F/SN UBW, we're reintroduced to Kirei, who explains the basics of the Grail War to Shirou. According to him, killing all the other Masters is necessary for the Grail to take its full form, and that's why it didn't work properly last time. He also says that the one person who got their hands on it and made a wish wasn't recognized as the proper winner of the previous war, but I'm not sure if he's talking about himself or Kiritsugu. Also, Gilgamesh (I guess I can't just call him Archer anymore, huh) shows up and banters with Kirei a bit about getting to meet Shirou.

Also, Ilya shows up (for some reason, Shirou doesn't think to question why she's calling him big brother) with Berserker, and this thing might be even more ridiculously overpowered than F/Z's version. Hearing Stephanie Sheh tell Berserker to kill them all in such a sweet, serene voice is causing a lot of dissonance for me, but I guess that's the point! Apparently, Berserker can regenerate, even from a normally fatal wound. You'd think these Berserkers would be the Servant everyone wants, not Saber! Shirou is able to sense Archer's incoming attack and saves Saber, which makes me wonder if he doesn't have some sort of special ESP about it since you're not normally supposed to be able to sense that stuff. Archer says he can't sense other Masters besides his own, for instance. That might end up being his special skill, I guess.
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kids calling older boys onii-chan is a normal thing in Japan

it's one of the perks of the sub
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LeonhartFour posted...

Hearing Stephanie Sheh tell Berserker to kill them all in such a sweet, serene voice is causing a lot of dissonance for me, but I guess that's the point!

I haven't heard the dub but it sounds like she did a good job.
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...I don't think the subs would actually help me with that because I would still be confused about why he's not confused. This is a cultural thing that I don't get, in this instance.
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Calling someone onii-chan is kinda like calling someone "mister" in English. A younger version of it.
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I decided to watch an episode of Frasier while I was already on Netflix since I haven't watched it in forever.

Man, that show is so good.
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You clearly need to play more FFV four job fiestas if you think berserkers are desirable...!

But yeah berserkers are kind of insane (Kariya's was sometimes just going off and doing his own thing) which is the drawback of that class.
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I remember my dad watching Frasier a lot when I was a kid. The few episodes I've seen have been pretty good.
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yeah I would never want to be a Berserker because that would suck
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All right, I got the Multi Moon on Darker Side. I get that they were trying to replicate the Grandmaster Galaxy from Galaxy 2, but this wasn't that. It was a decent run through a bunch of the more memorable enemy captures and setpieces, but it wasn't as well designed as Grandmaster was.

Now all that's left is cleanup in the other Kingdoms.
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I can't tell if Yu Yu Hakusho wants me to take it seriously or not. They were already starting to lose me with the whole, "Sensui's really a good person it's just his other personalities that do all this evil stuff his soul is actually pure" and then they pulled this number:

*Sensui's true personality manifests itself*

Kurama: "wow he seems totally different now, so innocent and pure"

*cue Sensui laughing maniacally*

uh okay dude if you say so

And then they went one step further!

Koenma: "How could you have mastered that technique?! It takes at least 40 years of training!"

Sensui: "well between seven personalities that's only six years LOLOLOLO"

But poor Koenma. Both Yusuke and Sensui ruined his chance to finally be cool.

And then they're doing some serious mood whiplash by saying that Yusuke's about to sacrifice himself to beat Sensui, so who even knows. This show might be more schizo than Sensui himself...!
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LeonhartFour posted...

Koenma: "How could you have mastered that technique?! It takes at least 40 years of training!"

Sensui: "well between seven personalities that's only six years LOLOLOLO"

Man I pulled out my manga to confirm this and it's not in there at all. Koenma just remarks about how Genkai couldn't do it. Sensui than says it's merely about innate talent without mention of split personalities. Anime is more loose with the script than I imagined.
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I dunno maybe the dub just flubbed it or something

He does mention that you do have to have an innate desire to change the world to reach that level of power and Genkai didn't have that, so she couldn't.
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There's really not enough panels in the manga for more lines of dialogue, so the rest is probably just expansion of the anime. Early FUNI dubs had an unfortunate habit of trying to add in their own lines, who knows.
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feels like an improvement to me imhotbqh
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chillllll
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Did F/SN UBW just turn into a harem anime? Now Shirou, Saber, Sakura, and that crazy teacher are all living together. Also, unless I'm mistaken, they're shipteasing Shirou/Saber of all things pretty hard, so I feel like this will end badly for Sakura. Man, is it a Mato's fate to be pitiable or something, even the adopted ones? Speaking of which, I'm pretty confident that this Shinji dude is Caster's Master (or at least I assume the Servant we saw was Caster since Archer identified Caster as female). Also, Rin switches from tsundere to yandere as she tries to kill Shirou to teach him a lesson or something. Plus, Ilya wants to torment him in place of Kiritsugu, who is apparently dead now. All the girls are out for him, huh?

As an aside, Saber doesn't want to reveal her true name to Shirou for fear that a more experienced mage would be able to read his mind, so they're keeping her true identity a secret so far. I feel like this would be a much bigger deal for me if I had watched this first because they treat it so nonchalantly in Fate/Zero (since I guess they assume people would watch/play F/SN first).
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i mean F/SN originally was an eroge >_>
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Fate/Zero and Fate/stay night both reveal things about each other so a person really just needs to pick one to start with. I don't think Saber's identity was ever really a big deal, though.
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kateee posted...

i mean F/SN originally was an eroge >_>

well yeah but I figured the anime wouldn't be since F/Z barely had any elements of this sort of thing in it
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It was definitely a big deal in the Fate route, which focuses on Saber. Though I played the game like ten years ago so i'unno.
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LeonhartFour posted...

well yeah but I figured the anime wouldn't be since F/Z barely had any elements of this sort of thing in it

Zero isn't an eroge adaptation though. it was written as a prequel novel so Urobuchi didn't have to include that stuff. F/SN is limited in a sense because they're trying to abide by the source material and it's apparent in some instances.
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Servant identities become less secret over time. In the original F/SN, just about all of them are treated as major reveals to some degree. In Zero, I think there's only one (Lancelot) that's actually important and kept secret. And then in Apocrypha none of them are really secret at all.
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Yeah, Berserker's identity is the only one that isn't revealed early on. You even have Rider boldly proclaiming his identity to all within earshot.
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that specifically was to show that Rider was a badass because he didn't care about customs or any danger that would come as a result of his reveal

it's kind of undermined when everyone else finds their own reason to nonchalantly reveal theirs but it was progressive for the time!
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It's lucky that Iskander was in FZ and not UBW because he would get eaten alive by the servants in this current war

In fact almost every servant in the current war is stronger than their counterparts in FZ
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I certainly haven't done extensive research, but I always thought the Fate/Zero servants were stronger than the Fate/Stay Night ones as a whole.

Then again maybe I shouldn't comment at all here. I've always believed a problem with the Fate series is that the power levels have no consistency and that any character can become selectively overpowered as the plot demands it.
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that's a problem with battle stories in general. I feel like Fate does a better job of that than most, though I agree it's far from perfect.
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Fate seems to make it look like it's largely matchup dependent. Like, Saber would be better against some classes and worse against others. She can handle Berserker, but Archer can't. But yeah, characters will be as strong as the plot demands. Yu Yu Hakusho is a pretty good example of that.

Also, I went out and bought the six movie Star Wars set since it was relatively cheap compared to what I would've had to pay otherwise.
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Yeah, that's the intent. It's not about power levels. Fights can go differently depending on the matchups or all sorts of other factors.
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pyresword posted...

I certainly haven't done extensive research, but I always thought the Fate/Zero servants were stronger than the Fate/Stay Night ones as a whole.

zero has gil. gil solos.

Seriously, I think FSN has the advantage if you correct for Gil never being serious.

Class Comparison/Power Rankings Opinion (probably unnecessarily hidden behind spoiler tags)

Saber: F/Z. Saber is statistically better under Kiritsugu because he's a competent mage and Shirou is lol. But if you wanted to call this a draw because lol same saber, sure.
Archer: F/Z. Literally Gil. Granted, Gil has the issue of never being serious.
Lancer: FSN. lol.
Rider: F/Z, I think.
Caster: FSN lol.
Berserker: FSN because lmao.
Assassin: ...FSN, probably. Because F/Z Assassin is a joke.

So really if you strike Saber from the list and account for Gil's arrogance, it's really only Rider where F/Z probably has a clean win IMO.

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As for Chaos;Child. I finished Chapter 8 and played a little of Chapter 9. Just as I was feeling good that I had figured something out much earlier oh my god.

game still needs more of best character arimura though

also how the hell was this a 12 episode anime.

how is that possible.

i almost have to see that now
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I probably wouldn't recommend seeing an anime adaptation of a game that needed way more than 12 episodes

although it can't be worse than the Clannad movie where you try to cram a 100 hour game into 90 minutes
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LeonhartFour posted...

I probably wouldn't recommend seeing an anime adaptation of a game that needed way more than 12 episodes

No, I mean. I have to see how they tried to accomplish this.

It doesn't seem possible! Think trying to do Steins;Gate in 12 episodes or something. And I'm not even finished with Chaos;Child yet!
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yeah I know what you're saying

and I am telling you as someone who watched the Clannad movie that it's a better idea on paper than it is in reality
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I'm not talking about FZ team vs FSN team. Just their individual classes compared to themselves.

Gil would not solo if this was a team vs team fight.

UBW spoilers

Gil isn't even the best Archer lol. He would get wrecked so hard by Archer with a master that can provide him enough mana. Yes Gil can shoot a ton of shit at you but Archer is a complete servant. Shirou beat Gil when he got into melee range.
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oh we're doing that are we
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xp1337 posted...

As for Chaos;Child. I finished Chapter 8 and played a little of Chapter 9. Just as I was feeling good that I had figured something out much earlier oh my god.

game still needs more of best character arimura though

also how the hell was this a 12 episode anime.

how is that possible.

i almost have to see that now

If you do, I wouldn't mind hearing about how each episode differs from the VN. At the very least, the anime does seem to cover a full story arc.
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Chaos;head's anime adapted the full VN and was terrible regardless. 12 episodes just wasn't nearly enough (plus the animation was terrible).
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Gil is canonically the strongest servant. >_>

It was literally stated that if he gave a damn he could have won the 4th Holy Grail War (Fate/Zero if you're not up on the terms, Leon) in a single night if he actually tried.

Like I said though, you have to correct for the fact that he's too damn arrogant to ever take things seriously. (F/Z Spoilers) Against Rider is the closest he ever gets in F/Z and he obliterates him without effort still.

Team Rocket Elite posted...

If you do, I wouldn't mind hearing about how each episode differs from the VN. At the very least, the anime does seem to cover a full story arc.

We'll see. If I do, it'd probably still be a while off since I'm still playing and haven't even reached any endings, though I think I'm getting pretty close? Feels like it at least. It's also a fairly big "if." If I do though, I definitely would do that though.
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the fact that Rider got within an inch of his face makes him the real winner of that war imhotbqh
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The thing about the "matchup" argument is that if the details of why the matchups matter aren't sufficiently justified, or they feel unnatural, then it's effectively the same thing as the power levels being arbitrary in the first place.

Some franchises, like Hunter x Hunter, do a pretty good job with this, but Fate I don't think is always in the same category.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Chaos;head's anime adapted the full VN and was terrible regardless. 12 episodes just wasn't nearly enough (plus the animation was terrible).

Chaos;head is by far the shortest Science;Adventure VN, and could've probably been done in 12 episodes, if it were done well.

It just... wasn't.
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Are you sure about that? I read SG in Japanese as one of my first VNs so I'm not totally sure how long it is compared to CH, but HLTB is telling me average length for CH is 22.5 hours and average length for SG is 23 hours.
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pyresword posted...

Some franchises, like Hunter x Hunter, do a pretty good job with this, but Fate I don't think is always in the same category.

Eyyyooo
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In total fairness I actually think Fate > HxH overall. I was just talking about that one specific aspect of the show there. HxH still pretty great of course, but I don't consider it the masterpiece of the battle shounen genre that many others do.

(Not that I think that about Fate either, but it still manages to edge out HxH)
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Are you sure about that? I read SG in Japanese as one of my first VNs so I'm not totally sure how long it is compared to CH, but HLTB is telling me average length for CH is 22.5 hours and average length for SG is 23 hours.

I actually went back and double-checked. C;H is 25k lines to S;G's 32k, but they're almost identical in terms of KB.

Weird. I could've sworn S;G was a lot longer.
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Breaking news! I went back to the Wooded Kingdom and finally beat that Koopa Race that gave me so much trouble before! I might actually get every Power Moon after all! I'm up to 820 now, with Cap, Wooded, Cloud, Lost, Snow, Ruined, and Darker Side all done, and I'm pretty close on a few others.
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