Poll of the Day > Anime, Manga, VN, JRPG, Related Things Discussion Topic LXXXVIII

(+) Yeah! (+)

Ok I finished vinland saga now and it was damn good but I have the same feeling I had after psycho pass season 1 that leaves me really failing to see how the story could continue to be nearly as good afterwards.

Askeladd's death was fairly well executed and in some ways he had to die for the story. He was too effective to allow thorfinn to grow and you see this same type of character killed off all the time in shows. Ironically thors was killed off for the same reason. The problem is, askeladd kind of IS the show. Removing by far the most interesting character from the story leaves a huge gap to be filled. The battle for succession is also wrapped up and theres no reason to think canute will have much trouble wiping out the inevitable rebellion with thorkell by his side.

Even if they do throw in some new OP warriors to fight against it will kind of be from out of nowhere since we already say the dane and english armies plus thorkell has already had a whole season of build up so seeing him be matched or surpassed by someone just introduced would feel pretty lame.

From the brief things I've seen hinting about the future, it seems to kind of go the ruroni kenshin route with this season 1 of the anime being samurai X. A real shame. I suppose I'll just have to pretend the story ends here. Canute is on the throne with few obstacles to the revolution he wants to create, thorfinn is freed from his revenge obsession, leif found thorfinn, good enough for me I guess. Every episode of this anime was great and the finale was no exception, I just kind of wish they'd wrapped it all up here.

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Vinland Saga is very good, also consistent from the beginning

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Holy hell, this boss Yunalesca is insane.

I feel like I'm supposed to be stronger than this at this point in the game.

Everyone is nearing the end of their sphere grids, yet no one is able to deal more than 4-5000 in damage consistently, and the bosses have like HP in the 100,000s, and can 2-shot anyone.

Am I doing something wrong?


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Yunalesca is a wall, it's normal.

And the person who translated the first Psycho Pass manga also translated the second one, and I really don't want to read it now.

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Been playing Borderlands 3. Feels like Borderlands, which is good. I stopped doing side quests a while ago and I'm just doing the main story. Will do the side things after I finish up the story, before resetting to tvhm. At least I think the loot rewards from the quests should scale to a higher level when they're done after the main story is finished.

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Glanced at Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle today. May wind up tracking it down eventually. In general, I need a new manga source.

Also I really hate MangaRock's approach to going legit, where they pretend that they didn't understand that their piracy had an impact on content creators, where they try to act like the good guys despite both directly profiting from intellectual copyright infringement via ads and indirectly profiting via using stolen content to build a userbase, etc.

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Also watched vinland saga recently.

Askeladd said it the best. This is why I hate kids. Thorfinn titular stupid kid.


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T0ffee posted...

Holy hell, this boss Yunalesca is insane.

tip to overcoming her main shenanigan (spoilering it in case you wanna figure it out yourself): zombie status effect prevents death from landing

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eating4fun posted...

Also watched vinland saga recently.

Yeah thorfinn acts like a typical league of legends player for the entire anime but fortunately it's not really about him. Askeladd is the best villain protagonist/anti-hero I've seen in quite a while.

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I had a rough time dealing with Yunalesca, too, but there is a gimmick there.

Not as rough as the second fight with Seymour, though. That sucked.

Zeus posted...

Glanced at Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle today. May wind up tracking it down eventually. In general, I need a new manga source.

Tsubasa is the point at which I generally stopped following CLAMP. The switch to that bedamned 'noodle people' art style drove me nuts (see also: Code Geass). Almost as bad as the 'only six faces on paper doll bodies' Gundam Seed art style, IMO. The story is at least semi-interesting, but I found it too hard to get invested when I was too busy thinking, "Good God, if this was the real world, her arms would be six feet long." Still have no idea why CLAMP made that stylistic choice.

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Yeah...the very first time I played FFX I got to Yunalesca could not beat her. I don't remember why I did this but in that save I just restarted the game from the beginning and leveled up a lot more before that fight. I don't remember why I restarted though. Was there a save sphere right next to the boss fight that you can't go to a point further back or something?

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AllstarSniper32 posted...

Yeah...the very first time I played FFX I got to Yunalesca could not beat her. I don't remember why I did this but in that save I just restarted the game from the beginning and leveled up a lot more before that fight. I don't remember why I restarted though. Was there a save sphere right next to the boss fight that you can't go to a point further back or something?

Nope. I can still go back to an area with enemies if I want to grind. Bad thing is they give out piss poor ap.

FFX is on hold for now though, since I'm playing through BTB's Brave New World mod for FF6.


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T0ffee posted...

Nope. I can still go back to an area with enemies if I want to grind. Bad thing is they give out piss poor ap.

Hm, then I truly don't know why I just completely restarted. Oh, I think this is before you have access to the flying ship. I think the best area to grind is the calm lands arena thingy but I would have had to run all the way back there. I feel like that would have been my line of thinking.

But whatever, all I know for sure is that I restarted, grinded where ever it was I grinded and when I got to Yunalesca again she was quite easy.

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Watched newest season of SAO and what a weird ending point. It basically doesn't have an ending. You'd think another episode is coming next week if outside sources didn't say it's the last episode of this season with it returning for another cour in spring. Poor choice IMO.

SAO has to be the most consistently inconsistent anime of all time. Some parts are legitimately cool and even clever sometimes but then some parts are just so bad and stupid. This entire scenario they have set up just falls apart at even the slightest amount of thought.

Why would a superuser account not have access to a virtual console? Why would ALO character data not be backed up? Why would no one just report these fuckers to the press and government? How the actual FUCK does the turtle sub control room have a phone line to the outside world but they aren't using it to call for help from the other ship whose only excuse for not intervening is that they assume the crew was taken hostage which is demonstrably false? How can other people log into underworld despite not having STL devices? How can they not shut off outside connections to a remote server in the middle of the ocean? Why do they pretend like ECM doesn't exist? Why would a locked out console even be able to access user accounts? Why do grunt humans even bother fighting when knights are essentially WMDs? Why not put archer guy on a dragon and load him up with like 5k arrows? Why would a superuser account not have access to teleportation? For that matter can't they just take asuna out and then relog her on top of vecta as many times as they want? Why a lot of things.

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I've been thinking of rewatching SAO and watching the newer stuff. Though, Vinland Saga definitely comes first. I'm through 5 eps of it so far. It's a bit slow, but interesting so far. I have a foreboding feeling about bad things happening to Ylva, but I hope that's not going to happen.

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dragon504 posted...

I've been thinking of rewatching SAO and watching the newer stuff. Though, Vinland Saga definitely comes first. I'm through 5 eps of it so far. It's a bit slow, but interesting so far. I have a foreboding feeling about bad things happening to Ylva, but I hope that's not going to happen.

The show picks up pace right after where you are. New SAO stuff kind of sucks but the action is pretty cool and they at least throw enough nonsense at you to stop it from being boring most of the time.

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I think I'll just play the Vita game.

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Oh, that one is the Vita game.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

SAO has to be the most consistently inconsistent anime of all time.

Web novel writing quality, akin to taking trash-tier fanfic and throwing a bunch of money at it.

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But I mean, there are parts of SAO with actually good writing. That's whats so baffling. It feels like I'm seeing a complete amateur with real unpolished talent given a huge budget way before he is ready for it. I'm rather fond of his technology and world building. I think it's probably the most realistic version of the near future in sci-fi (both SAO and accel world minus the battling and time stopping powers). Something like psycho pass is maybe more interesting of a setting and the writing of the first season at least is consistently good, but I doubt the real world will ever see anything like it.

The writer's biggest problem IMO is he has no idea how to write any kind of villain besides worst possible human being murderer psychopath rapist. All his villains could be main characters in hentai, I think that sums it up. A bit ironic because his first villain isn't actually like that. I enjoyed the mystery and odd detached obsession behind whatever his name was (kayaba?).

The writer also just seems unable to reach his relatively strong story moments intelligently. A tie between kirito and first villain resulting in the game ending before kirito is actually killed is a very strong finish IMO, but the bullshittery used to get there kind of ruined it and that sort of thing is rampant throughout SAO. In the current season the actual war was really cool but the set up around it is so flimsy. When they got the phone call from the outside in the sub control room it's like what the fuck, you can literally call out to the outside world but you just didn't?!? Then they proceed to forget they have that capability immediately after they hang up.

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reki was very much an ascended amateur; he just had really lucky timing and pretty neat worldbuilding for his (at the time) fairly unique idea. still boggles my mind just how close he released the web novel for SAO to the release of .hack//SIGN

accel world took off earlier in the light novel craze, he got them to revisit SAO as a light novel, SAO took off big time, and a decade after he originally penned it, SAO finally got its huge budget anime. but it's still fundamentally a 2002 PSO/everquest/Ragnarok Online fan's self-indulging fantasy. the framework can't be so easily fixed

i still think it's good for what it is, but I also think stuff like seiken tsukai no world break/wise man's grandchild/how not to summon a demon lord/etc are great for what they are as well. none of em are trying to be revolutionary, they're just trying to have a good time with specific niche interests. honestly the most baffling part is just how mainstream loved SAO became to me

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Unsure if I want to give SAO after gun gale a try.

Last thing I watched was 5 episodes of Alternative.

P.S.
Ascendance of a book worm, nice little show, like a budget Dr Stone .

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agesboy posted...

honestly the most baffling part is just how mainstream loved SAO became to me

Cool guy with 2 swards gets harem of 40 big tittied girls.

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Been playing a fair bit of disgaea 5 the last few days. It's been pretty fun. I feel like the evilities do a pretty good job in incentivizing using more than one unit even though that's probably still optimal time wise.
helIy posted...

Cool guy with 2 swards gets harem of 40 big tittied girls.

Minus the 2 swords part thats the plot of like 30% of all anime. I think it was the idea of vrmmo that caused it to take off so well. I still remember the hype online after the first SAO episode aired and the rage when the first arc was shown to be more about living in an MMO as opposed to brutal death game it looked to be at first.

I wish someone good would take another stab at .hack//sign style anime. For me it's been the only MMO anime to even remotely capture what people are like while playing MMOs. People afk in town. Trolling people cause they are bored. Escaping from their real life they don't want to deal with. The way you get to see some pretty real issues but almost exclusively from the side of the escapism rather than the problem was refreshing and it made those brief IRL scenes pretty powerful IMO. I also like that hack//sign technically is yuri even though thats irrelevant to the plot. The actual infection aura plot was mysterious and ok but not as interesting as the rest for me.

Every other anime that tackles MMOs is like log horizon or GGO alternative where everyone is having a great time and it's all running super smoothly and theres just infinite content and everyone IRL is either a murderous psychopath villain or a well adjusted nerd/waifu with like 20 friends IRL. That has not been my experience online. I've met people that were almost exact copies of the entire .hack//sign cast at various points.

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.hack//SIGN was sufficiently intellectually challenging that I doubt we will see another thing like that.

helIy posted...

Cool guy with 2 swards gets harem of 40 big tittied girls.

All of whom have the same face. :-P

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Been playing a fair bit of disgaea 5 the last few days. It's been pretty fun. I feel like the evilities do a pretty good job in incentivizing using more than one unit even though that's probably still optimal time wise.

Kinda has spoilers but at the same time not really? Anyways, these are all of my characters!

https://youtu.be/zBGQkKIjOc8

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Disgaea 5 is the only game I've got platinum for. Though, I think there was one fight I didn't do.

Ran out of Vinland Saga. :(

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I_Abibde posted...

.hack//SIGN was sufficiently intellectually challenging that I doubt we will see another thing like that.

SIGN was extremely good in some areas and incredibly deficient in others. The pacing was atrocious and it felt like so little actually happened onscreen. I still look back upon it fondly (I watched it a lot during a period where I played almost nothing but PSO), but man... went I went back for my rewatch a few years ago, it was so mind-numbing sometimes.

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Yeah those low points are why I wish someone would tackle the same themes again. A lot could be done better and it suffers somewhat from the whole .hack series being multimedia so the show isn't complete on it's own.

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The music was fuckin' great though.

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You aren't wrong. Yuki kajiura in her prime. I think pandora hearts is her best soundtrack but .hack//sign is probably 2nd place for me.

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Platinum in any Disgaea game is no mean feat.

I agree about Kajiura, though. I still listen to the SIGN OSTs. Having Kajiura do the SAO OSTs after that feels ... cheap. Like having Sakuraba do both Star Ocean and Tales.

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Star Ocean and Tales osts are so interchangeable, I find it kind of hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0UhMAxIsDw

This could be a Tales battle theme and nobody would bat an eye. The only real difference between Tales and Star Ocean is that Star Ocean has more synth keyboard. But not as much synth keyboard as Baten Kaitos, which also sounds interchangeable...

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Yeah, I still like em though. When it comes to jrpgs I think xenoblade is my favorite soundtrack as well. Great but also very distinct. They will know our names is probably my favorite boss theme.

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Oh man, shit is getting HYPE in Solo Leveling.

Once again, I highly recommend this series to anyone who is even slightly a fan of manga/manhwa.

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I read decently far ahead in the novels. Is this the arc where they go fight the ants? I hope solo leveling gets a good anime someday. Tower of god is getting one so it's not out of the question.

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Yeah, it's the Ant arc.

And it's gorgeous.

Solo Leveling really is ahead of other manhwas just by its art alone.


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That arc is a pretty solid turning point in the story. Reminded me of the chimera ant arc from hxh for obvious reasons. It's hard for me to remember the order of events. Has he already gone to the top of the 100 floor demon tower? I know he has bel for a lot of what I've read but I can't remember specifically what.

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Ascendance of a Bookworm turned out better then I thought. You just have to get over the 5/6 year olds acting like they're adults. I really did enjoy it though. Glad we get a second season this spring.

And if anyone missed it just saw Hinamatsuri which was an amazing show that reminds me a bit of Nichijou.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

That arc is a pretty solid turning point in the story. Reminded me of the chimera ant arc from hxh for obvious reasons. It's hard for me to remember the order of events. Has he already gone to the top of the 100 floor demon tower? I know he has bel for a lot of what I've read but I can't remember specifically what.

If you're talking about him getting the dragon mount, then yeah, the manhwa's covered that already.

As of the latest chapter, the manhwa's just at the moment where Jin Woo trades with one of his shadows, saves the Korean S Team, and has a staredown with the Super Ant.

Kinda amazing to see Jin Woo just completely wreck the ants the other S-Tiers were having problems with.

Also, this

https://i.imgur.com/UuJTXJh.jpg

is just plain HYPE in its purest essence.

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I want more DanMachi.

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T0ffee posted...

As of the latest chapter,

Yeah thats the point in the series where you go "ok, he's probably the strongest guy ever now". His effort and work have finally rewarded him with surpassing everyone else in the story, and by a large margin.

It also helps illustrate that a difference in power just makes everyone else irrelevant. You can kinda see why they would look down on weak adventurers or whatever they are called. One man can be worth millions.

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helIy posted...

I want more DanMachi.

Same. I'm kinda surprised how much I like the show since a lot of it is pretty generic. I think it's one of those odds examples of how theres actually not many fantasy adventure shows somehow even with the isekai boom.

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helIy posted...

I want more DanMachi.

So do I, but you and I aren't supposed to agree on anything, so you can't have any. :-P

As for why the show has the appeal it does, I think it has a lot to do with the secondary characters (and our main character not being a complete asshat)

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helIy posted...

I want more DanMachi.

The mobile game has a lot of extra story. But... it is a mobile game.

But shit, the story of Argonaut is really good. The danmachi writer wrote its outline years ago, but never really had a chance to put it anywhere till the mobile game. If nothing else, it might be worth looking up on youtube or something.

Set in a time before the gods mingled with humanity, it's about a boy named Argo (who looks suspiciously like Bell) defying the king of the last bastion of humanity in order to save the princess Ariadne (who looks suspiciously like Ais). He's an utterly powerless but charismatic idealist striving to become a hero, and he's a hell of a lot more interesting of a protagonist than Bell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzsUxsY9aA0

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Yeah thats the point in the series where you go "ok, he's probably the strongest guy ever now". His effort and work have finally rewarded him with surpassing everyone else in the story, and by a large margin.

It also helps illustrate that a difference in power just makes everyone else irrelevant. You can kinda see why they would look down on weak adventurers or whatever they are called. One man can be worth millions.

Yeah he's probably the strongest S Ranker out there, but the manhwa foreshadowed the National Class Hunters a while back as potentially stronger foes.

Haven't read the source novel, but I am excited to see if they'll actually pose a bit of a challenge to our favorite necromancer.

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I was talking more about the Manga than the show, which I don't want.

The manga has been on hiatus for like a year, because the artist lost a flash drive that had all the chapters on it.

And instead of just redoing it, they got someone else to make the manga, and instead of just continuing off at the last chapter, they're skipping over the War Game arc, which is fuckin ridiculous.

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K-On is on Netflix now so I've been binge rewatching it.

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Well that was a tedious nightmare. Iceborne just launched on PC and it may be the worst japanese launch yet. I guess Nier:A was worse.

For whatever incomprehensible reason, old save files are not compatible with iceborne so if you haven't played and saved the game in the last several months, your save is effectively gone. I had not played in over a year. Fortunately, I made back ups cause I expect incompetence with japanese devs+PC even though it was delayed months behind console so they could make work well. Lol, what a fucking waste of time that was.

I had to use a save editing tool and someone else's recent save to drag my character over to the new file in slot 2 (presumably the game can read slot 1's data and thats how it get's to the menu), mod the new file to have my steam ID, then load it up and fix several issues in game. That took hours to figure out and thank god that save editing tool existed.

Then, I get in game and it looks awful. Not like kinda bad, but like, clearly there is some kind of problem bad. So I look that up and the fix is at least fairly easy. Set graphics to minimum, save, exit game, reload game, change graphics settings back.

Fortunately I didn't use any mods because that also breaks your game. There's no error message for it either, it just hangs when loading your character image.

And of course, the cherry on top is the completely expected radio silence from capcom. Are they aware of the issues? Will they fix them soon? Are they laughing maniacally at PC users that they seem to hate with a passion? Who the fuck knows cause we haven't heard a word. The forums are on fire and it's a complete shitshow.

Why are lone modders with 2 days time more capable than entire teams of japanese PC porting devs with like an entire year of time? And it's not like this is an isolated indecent, it's the fucking norm. I'm so sick of this shit.

At least in the end I and my friend were able to fix our saves and get the game to run well enough for now. Way to completely annihilate my hype though by forcing me to troubleshoot issues for like 5 hours.

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Plus, according to the steam reviews, there seems to be a very widespread issues involving performance becoming atrocious and unplayable upon installing the DLC.

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