Star Crossed Anime

Mayoiga – 06

May 7, 2016 by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Mayoiga

Back stories time! This week of Mayoiga dedicated itself for backstories of many characters. Too many characters indeed. This is for me the turning point of Mayoiga, where many facts are revealed and we seem to head to the new phase. The show now becomes much clearer and have a sense of direction. This week, Lovepon, Mikage, Nyanta, Jigoku all have their own stories to tell. Most of them ridiculous as they are (like the silicon part, or the monk, or the 12//20 mix-up, or the bullying girls, basically all of them), but they all serve their purposes. Lovepon, for example, has been a source of complaint for the last few weeks as being one-note and anime-like, but with this week’s reveals, she was also a victim of injustice, violence and her own hatred. The use of heavy symbolisms in these flashback scenes could rivals Kunihiko Ikuhara’s shows anytime, and I mean it in a good way. The devil, the silicon, the bees and the laughing train are representative of their characters’ deepest fears, their CG designs make us feel both uneasiness and alien, and that exactly what the show aims for. Those flashbacks give us a reason to care for those characters and I for once root for them when they running away from that thing. The most effective story is for me, Nyanta. Being bullied is more common than you would think and people tend to do more extreme and painful things to cope with it. In her case, this is to shoot those bullying girls with a BB gun. There is a sadness behind all that and Mayoiga (briefly) nailed that raw emotion.

So it appears that the Lost Village is a place where people have to face their darkest sides, they have to face the negative feeling (like hatred, shame) that they had buried inside themselves, which for me is very fitting. Remember all of them want to go to the Lost Village because they want to run away from their problems to make a new life there. Well they can physically escape from it but they have to face their own issues in order to really get over it. As I suspected, Masaki is the main source to all the mysteries, but I don’t think she’s a ghost yet. From what the paper says she was just disappeared, so I think she was stuck in this lost village ever since. There are two things that baffles me this week: first, how the hell that those 4 people were chasing by god-know-what but they somehow all escape from it, I originally thought they would be killed or at least be vanished. What’s else going to happen after this? Second, I find that Koharun’s habit of stop talking and then singing in the middle of conversations is a bit chilling, it’s like she’s a ghost. Hell! Mayoiga! You might be the only one show that can pull it off.

Mayoiga this week delivered all the ambitious intentions it promised since its premiere. Just for this time, I feel glad that I haven’t given up on this. Whether it going to stay this inspiring or stumble for the rest of the series is everyone guess. At least we’ll always have this episode. We’ll always have Paris.

~SuperMario~

K-Off’s Ongoing Manga Recommendations (embedded links)

May 7, 2016 by K-Off, posted in Anime Reviews, Manga Experiment

If you frequent the frontpage of Imgur or r/manga often, you may have seen some of my past manga recommendation lists before, but here’s some ongoing manga that I’ll recommend for now. This is in no particular order of best-worst, I’ve also embedded the links to the scanlations into the images for your convenience.

1. Kumo desu ga, nani ka?

A girl is mysteriously taken from her classroom and is reincarnated as a spider in an RPG-like fantasy world. Now at the bottom of the food chain, she needs to adapt to the current situation with willpower in order to live. Adapted from a novel, it only has a handful of chapters out so far but as far as I can tell the release schedule isn’t too bad and the art suits the comedic narrative. It’s about a spider willing to do whatever she can to survive. That’s the extent of the story but it’s fun to read. I can see the premise becoming overly gimmicky later down the line, but I’d still give this a shot.

2. Katsute Kami Datta Kemonotachi

During a war, a handful soldiers volunteer to undergo experiments to become beasts to serve their country. When the war is over, they find that the country they served no longer has a place for them back home and it’s about the daughter of one of these monsters who wants to avenge her father. Great action, good art, but it’s let down by its pretty weak narrative and overly fast pacing. Despite that, its story isn’t all that difficult to follow and the characters are interesting, I especially like the background story into the war. That being said, I can see the story working better as an anime adaptation.

3. Kanojo wa Rokurokubi

A story about a long-necked girl’s love life: Kanoi Natsuki, a Japanese traditional long-necked creature Rokurokubi, and her childhood friend Itsuki, visit the same school and there seems to be more between them besides friendship. This is undoubtedly much more interesting than most other manga of this type. It’s supposedly by a hentai artist, but it’s really pleasant to see so little fan service. This is an all around fluff-comedic twist on japanese horror that’s yet another nice, slow-paced series from the looks of it so far.

4. Sumikko no Sora-san

About a philosophizing tortoise named Plato who, after moving to the countryside with his owner, finds a young girl named Sora whom he mistakes for Socrates and goes on adventures with, not much to say about its plot. I’m not big on philosophy but this is a really pleasant series to follow. If you don’t mind a slow, meandering series that doesn’t have an over-arching plot, this is looking good so far.

5. Chikyuu no Houkago

In the year 20xx, thousands of mysterious entities called Phantoms appear in cities around the world and people begin to disappear enmasse. Exactly one year later after their initial appearance, a group of students in Japan are seemingly the only people left in the world, and this is about how they go about their lives regardless of the post-apocalypse. This is by far the best of its genre in my opinion, the fan service gets tiresome and irritating at times but that’s just personal. Otherwise there is lots of intrigue around the Phantoms and it hits a soft spot for me as a fan of post-apocalyptic stories.

6. Watari-kun no xx ga Houkai Sunzen

Watari Nao’s life revolves around taking care of the only remaining person in his family, his little sister after their parents pass away. This is pretty risky for me to recommend because it’s currently going on a nosedive for me personally as it’s now devolving into a yandere-harem story with an awkward sense of narrative structure, but if you like that genre this is alright I guess. The “little sister” element isn’t much of a problem by the way, it’s frankly annoying at times but at least the writer never uses her for fan-service.

7. Ajin-chan wa Kataritai

Succubus, Dullahan and Vampire. They are known as Ajin, or “Demi”s and are slightly different than the average human. They have lived alongside humans for ages under persecution. However, in recent years, they have become accepted as members of society. This manga follows a high school biology teacher who has a great interest in Demis and his interaction with the various Demis in his school, each with their own first-world problems. For a story involving succubi, vampires, etc, there is no fan service at all and this is a really unoffensive slice of life. I highly recommend reading this if you’re into comedies with a great male lead and interesting side characters.

8. Asagao to Kase-san

Yamada, the Plant Appointee to her high school and responsible for weeding the campus grounds, catches the attention of the school’s track and field star, Kase and this is about two young girls’ romance. This is probably one of the best yuri slice of lifes out of the few I’ve read, the art style is airy and the story itself is great without becoming too angsty at any point. I almost always do not have the patience for a series like this but this one was approachable and easy to follow, thanks to Mike for this recommendation. Even if you’re not into shojo/yuri manga, I’d recommend you give this one a try, it reads more like a shonen along the lines of Horimiya in terms of its target demographic. This series officially ended with issue 14, but it’s still being continued by the writer online but a group has unfortunately yet to pick them up. But the chapters that are currently translated are pretty much good on their own.

9. Exciting Feelings

This is currently one of the best yuri stories out there, recommended again by Mike (or was it realjustified, can’t remember) from this site. This follows the story of two college girls, each with their own problems, tired by the drudgery of a typical college romance. The build up to their romance is simply very well paced, the writer has explicitly stated he won’t ever rush the pacing. Support the artist by only reading it from the link above, because it doesn’t cost much to support the author via viewcounts. This link shows you how to read the English translated chapters on Comico. You can try reading a few chapters yourself on Imgur here but again I’d recommend you read this via the link I’ve embedded into the image.

Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress – 04

May 6, 2016 by HelghastKillzone, posted in Currently Watching:, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri

Episode four comes out swinging with tons of action, resolves its internal tensions and looks forwards to its second arc with hopeful optimism. There are no brakes on the Hayajiro, especially when the Kabane launches a surprise offensive and interrupts the cliffhanger that was going nowhere fast thanks to Kurusu’s intervention.

I was worried that the continuous bickering over the Kabaneri and retarded decision making would be an annoying barrier but thankfully, those concerns were swiftly dashed away. Nothing was more satisfying than seeing a sword-wielding Kabane slice his way through the would-be conspirators and then a good chunk of the hapless passengers unlucky enough to be caught in the wrong place. It is worth noting that Memui recognize the Kabane type as a Wazotori only adds to her mysterious origins and that she knows much more than she lets on.

Wit Studio knows how to animate fight scenes and they definitely do a good job having some well-executed sword fighting mixed up with ranged combat. All the fighting inside and on top of the train carries the Attack of Titan vibes that catapulted that production studio to the forefront. That being said, there were some animation quality issues that I could see in several scenes such as the still frames and other oddities in the more fluid sequences Hopefully, it won’t be a repeat of what happened in the latter parts of Attack of Titan, where there was a significant drop as the animators scrambled to complete episodes.

Ayme continues to turn the corner from being a timid daughter living in the shadow of her father to being a rather daring leader. Pivoting around from being relinquished of the masterkey and picking up a weapon to lead the defense from the Kabane horde, she continues to grow as a character that speaks of courage and badassery especially when it comes to her awesome steampowered bow. While the mechanics of how such a bow can operate are highly questionable, it is no doubt a very unique and cool looking weapon in a setting that is already steeped in steampunk design philosophy. Another great part is the music that is layered on thick and heavy with Sawano’s traditional styles that only ramps up the intensity as the fight progress through the train as well as the two insert songs. I felt that while the first song was pretty good, it went on for far too long with the key change being evident of that fact. However, the extended outro that coming from a different part of the full ED was a nice touch in rounding off the first arc.

All the distractors are either dead or send cowering into a corner, everyone gets along and the Hayajiro is chugging along into the sunset. The first four episodes of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress were highly enjoyable to me and as the numbers from MAL indicates, this is the most popular and highest rated show (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable doesn’t count) airing this season. Buy your tickets and get onboard because the wild ride is only getting started.

Bungou Stray Dogs – 05

May 6, 2016 by SuperMario, posted in Bungou Stray Dogs, Currently Watching:

Bungou Stray Dogs once again goes sidetrack this week, which means that this episode is a filler one and doesn’t advance the plot at all. The main rivalry between the Armed Detective Agency and Port Mafia; which I originally thought to be 4, 5-episodes arc, seems to stretch out until the end of this season, or the fall season for that matter, now that they announced that the second part will premier in this October. But with all that said, this is one of the best episode Bungou Stray Dogs have ever pulled off. Look, I’m a sucker of shows that care about characters. As long as a show can take their time to focus on character’s development and character’s interactions, I will be content with it. Back in previous few weeks, I had my concerns of the supporting characters being flat with some over the top traits, well this episode is an answer to that. In fact, I am fine if the rest of Bungou Stray Dogs go with this direction.

This week is all about Ranpo with his gift Ultra-Deduction, and he makes the best out of it. The murder case is simple enough to not distract the flow of the episode. Although the case itself isn’t really coherent when you think about it (like if the two were really couple, she should have realized sooner that the guy being controlled by Port Mafia), it makes up by its emotion core and further showcase the ability of Ranpo. Atsushi becomes a sidekick this week and this is for the better. In fact, Atsushi and Dagai interactions are not the strong part of the show (mainly because they would go to the usual banters of Atsushi feeling useless and Dagai bragging about suicide), but this week it’s working since they discuss about someone else, and give more lights about that character in the process. All of the usual gags are absent, and even the part about Dagai being stuck in the net and still going on about double suicide seems funnier this week.

Now into the best revelation of this week: Out of all the characters from Armed Detective Agency, Ranpo is the only one who doesn’t possess natural gifted. The word “gifted” in fact always baffled me. Gifted means that the person have an exceptional talent, but isn’t it matter if one who does not have it to begin with turns out to be talented? People with gifted usually take their ability for granted, so they just don’t know or care that other people have to try hard to reach that level. This is demonstrated well in Ranpo. Because he is not a natural gifted, he had to try harder to become what he is now and his skill now is far more powerful than any natural gifted peers. Another thing is that “gifted” alone is not what makes them great, it is really a combination of:

”Ten percent luck, twenty percent skill.

Fifteen percent concentrated power of will.

Five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain.

And a hundred percent reason to remember the name”

~SuperMario~

New Manga Spotlight – Konya wa Tsuki ga Kirei Desu ga, Toriaezu Shi ne, Shoujo Fujuubun and Shimanami Tasogare

May 6, 2016 by AidanAK47, posted in Anime Reviews, Manga Experiment, New Manga Spotlights, Reviews by AidanAK47

Konya wa Tsuki ga Kirei Desu ga, Toriaezu Shi ne

Two chapters so far. Ah love, that sweet nectar which all seek to experience. And truly there is nothing more romantic than gathering up your courage, inviting the girl you love up to the roof, taking her by the shoulders and proclaiming with all your heart “I want to murder you.” Yes this isn’t some nice little tale about true love but rather something darker. Our protagonist is in love with a girl he’s been friends with for a long time. The love looks to be clearly mutual but he can’t seem to gather the courage to confess. However one night he tries to stop a man assaulting a girl and is infected with some kind of virus. On the plus side he gains immense supernatural strength for short periods. But on the negative side he is now feeling massive urges to kill people and his feelings are directed strongest at the love of his life. He finds himself daydreaming about strangling her with her own intestines and stabbing her to death. It’s still up in the air to where this is going but so far I am liking it. The changes in the protagonist from a demoore cleaning addict to a dangerous psychopath is a good sign and one his classmates are becoming aware of. There are also hints that maybe the girl he loves is infected with the same disease. I am really quite interested to see what happens with our disturbed couple.

Shoujo Fujuubun

Two chapters so far with this one. So our protagonist is cycling and happens to spot a terrible car accident which involves preschoolers. However he manages to notice that after the little girls friend gets hit by a truck, she takes special care to save her game on a gameboy she was playing before running over to help her friend or even reacting to it. Unfortunately for him the little girl knew he noticed her odd action and seems to be targeting him. It looked to be hint that this girl is some kind of demon aiming to keep him silent. The end of the second chapter is quite creepy but it is still up in the air about what this story is really about. The artwork is great and we have a college student in the lead instead of a high school student. It looks like these two are going to have some kind of partnership which will likely involve this little girl creature harvesting souls. But that’s just me spitballing here. Besides we have Niso Issin here, author of the monogatari series whose heavy on dialogue and light on sense. Perhaps this may turn out to be a back and forth talking battle between a weird little girl and an aspiring author.

Shimanami Tasogare

After recently moving to Onomichi, Hiroshima, high school student Tasuku Kaname is thrown into despair at the possibility that he may have been outed for being gay. Convinced his life is over, his despair turns into shock when he sees a woman jump out of a window of a nearby house. Tasuku races to the house in a panic only to discover that it’s a public meeting lounge owned by the woman he saw before. Tasuku comes face to face with the woman as she walks past him unharmed, but not before she implies that she had been watching him from afar. Confused, Tasuku follows her up to the top of a steep hill where she offers to briefly listen to what’s on his mind. Although Tasuku doesn’t go into too much detail, he later accepts her invitation to come to the lounge to meet others with similar troubles.

So by pure bad luck our protagonist is found out to be gay by his classmates after they search his phone history. The main bulk of the story seems to be about homosexuality and the problems that come with coming out of the closet. Getting ostracised and disowned or even coming to terms with it yourself. I would like to think that homosexuality isn’t quite as discriminated against as it was in the past. Though who knows how its viewed in a traditional heavy society like Japan. The good thing about this series is that it treats how this discrimination works. It’s not some in your face kind of obnoxious level where you have some ignorant jackass practically shouting utter bile at him. Instead it’s a much more subdued and insensitive level. The kind of discrimination you would expect in real life. Our protagonist finds a bit of a safe haven in a lounge that has others with problems like himself and an enigmatic person who may even be somewhat supernatural. The series may go beyond just homosexuality as there do seem to be other residents in this lounge with their own stories to tell. I think it’s nice to see this subject dealt with in a more serious manner rather than the heavy homosexual caricatures present in anime or the blatantly fan pandering nature of BL.

Some Quick highlights

Good Night World

This has more chapters than usual with about ten chapters out. It’s about a group of players who live as a loving family in a virtual online MMO. They each do this to escape their dysfunctional family but are completely unaware that they are genuine family in real life. So we have a family who ignore each other in real life and focus on playing an MMO so they can play fake family with some other MMO players while all of them being completely unaware that the members of their fake family are in fact their real family in disguise. It’s confusing but you will get it when you read it. It’s strange as these people cannot get along with each other in the real world yet unknowingly are the perfect caring family in the virtual world.

Fire Punch

This is a cautious recommendation as I feel this title is trying a little too hard to be edgy with it’s so far one chapter. It does have it’s interesting points and reminds me of Attack on Titan in both good and bad ways. The idea of a frozen world where the protagonist has control over fire and wishes to take revenge on an oppressive military regime has me somewhat interested.

Criminale!
This is pretty much a harem with some pretty eccentric characters. It gets points for having the girls have genuine negative traits instead of good traits disguised as bad ones. Otherwise it’s pretty standard.

~AidanAK47~

Joker Game – 05

May 6, 2016 by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Joker Game

One of the things I wished for joker game to show me was that the spies of D-agency were not superhuman demi-gods who can handle anything. This episode nearly accomplishes that as one of the spies of D-agency is found out and captured. However it falters in that the spy was purposefully sold out and a ridiculously convoluted escape plan was ready for him. Even the highest most professional people don’t use plans that depend on a massive amount of pure coincidence and luck. Let me get the plan straight, you trained recruits to resist amnesia and truth scrum and decide to purposefully sell out an agent. Then instead of giving him a clear plan of escape, you give him the novel robinson crusoe and hope that he just so happens to make a connection between a single character in the novel and a symbol drawn on a door. A door which he can only find if he makes a mistake and follows the maps he was allowed to see. Thus when the soldiers come to check on him a sleeper agent will falsely report that he didn’t find him. For an agency that laughed off the idea of killing someone to hide your tracks because it’s too risky, why is it that your alternative is even riskier? There are dozens of things that could of went wrong here. What if they didn’t get him to send false info back to Japan? What if they asked him different questions during interrogation? What if he didn’t follow the maps because as he said before, they were likely a trap? What if he didn’t spot the symbol? What if he didn’t know what it meant? What if someone rubbed the symbol off? What if they did a second sweep of the area and the sleeper agent was assigned to a different part of the building? For super amazing spies this plan sure seems like it wasn’t thought out. Thus the biggest problem of the show remains, the D-agency is far too overpowered and all knowing. That truly diminished what effect this episode could have had as I never truly believed that he was abandoned and it just became a matter of how he would escape. So I didn’t have much attachment to the events on screen as I didn’t believe their was any real risk.

The design of the villain of the week was most outrageous this time around as we have a man with a head of Megamind interrogating our spy. Since last episode our villains have been getting more comic book villain styled while our heroes appearances make them difficult to tell apart. In fact personality wise is their any difference between our heroes? All of them seem to be around the same skill level and don’t really have any defining character traits. They for the most part are interchangeable and while that is a useful feature for a spy to have, it makes our protagonists seem unremarkable. The solider from the first episode had more character than all of them combined as at least he had perspective on his job and values. The spies don’t seem to hold any feelings regarding their job or have any personal aspirations. Which again makes for good spies but utterly dull characters. If the goal of this episodic format is to show the differences between the spies and their methods then it’s failing greatly for what one spy can do I can see any of the others do exactly the same. I can’t even remember their names or match the faces so it might as well be the same main character for all these short stories. Normally in a episodic show the first episodes sets up a group of dynamic characters and gives them a vague goal to strive towards. Cowboy bebop, hand in a bounty and get money. Samurai Champloo, find the samurai that smells of sunflowers. Mushishi, investigate mushi incidents. The strength of such a series is the ability to place a character in any situation imaginable, be it realistic or not. However here there are no consistent characters, nor is there a defined goal. Which makes these last episodes feel rather pointless. There’s no interesting characters, the spies goal is only revealed in the final minutes of an episode and whatever situation is easily resolved by episodes end. So I must ask, why should I care? I don’t think Joker Game is a bad show but if this is going to continue then I must be given a reason to care about what’s happening on screen. I need investment and you gave me that in the first two episodes but since you removed the two characters I do give a damn about I have found my interest slipping. I pray this is all leading up to something, perhaps that story promised in the synopsis, but it’s possible that once Joker game finally does decide to kick into gear that I will have lost all interest in it.

~AidanAK47~

Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei video game review- 35/100 (avoid it like the plague)

May 6, 2016 by K-Off, posted in Anime Reviews, Game Reviews

To preface, I’d call this the poor man’s Fire Emblem if it wasn’t so damn expensive for its quality, not to mention so difficult to find. Here in New York City outside of lower Manhattan, there’s game stores in Brooklyn, Queens, Flatiron, and Newport, to a total count of 12 game stores in a 20 mile radius, and not one location had this cursed game for a while. I certainly did not want to preorder this because the Japanese E-shop rated this game 1/5 stars at one point, and the way in which marketing constantly hit us over the head with the fan service characters did make me not want to buy the game at all. But I just got out of Fire Emblem Fates and finished Bravely Default, so I needed to try this series out for myself. I won’t even bother to structure this review like my Fates review, because it’s just that cynical, shallow, and undeserving of your money. I’m going to compare this game to Fire Emblem a lot, because that’s clearly what it wants me to do by riding on the coat tails of the Fire Emblem hype train.

It’s difficult to play this without thinking about why this was released in the first place.

Immediately upon jumping into the game, I noticed a lack of quality on the production end of things, despite its improvements from the Japanese version of the game. For one, the voices. God, the voices. It follows the Fire Emblem route of dialogue in that the characters say a short phrase followed by a line of text, but the voices still cut in and out inconsistently from time to time – this originally happened on the Japanese version a lot more and it doesn’t seem to have gotten much better in the NA localized version. Speaking of which, there is no sense of pacing, characters pop in and out of dialogue text scenes without even a fade transition and it’s pretty jarring to sit through when you start to say “where the hell did he/she come from?” to yourself. But the NA version is apparently a masterpiece compared to the initial state of the Japanese version last year. Whenever there was a transition from one scene to another, there was apparently an abrupt black screen for a few frames before it cut back into another scene. Those black frames are still there, but now they have fade transitions. Great job, they’ve finally remembered to do the basic minimum: test the game.

Look at this embarrassment. The game would have you believe these are two separate locations, and this happens only a minute apart from each other just minutes into the game.

That was the state of the game back then and it hasn’t gotten much better. It’s to the point where they reuse the same, bland backgrounds with a lazy color adjustment done in Photoshop just a minute after they last used it. You have to wonder if they even knew what they were doing when they were making this Fire Emblem clone or just didn’t care; I’m going with both. On the art department, there’s really nothing outstanding about any of it, it’s by Satoshi Urushihara and Hiroshi Kaieda so I suppose I expected better from them besides bland character designs, over-use of fan service, and the uncomfortable sheer number of half-naked loli characters. It’s not as if other JRPGs don’t have fan service, but once it begins going overboard I can tell that the developers are hoping to cover up the crappy game itself with pretty visuals and pandering fan service.

Lastly, the music is just terrible, it’s a stupid cluster of 10-15 second loops of generic fantasy rpg music, with bland rock music that isn’t rock, and it’s frankly just hilarious that they made a soundtrack CD, as if anyone would ever want to listen to this garbage ever again. Yet I know that with this situation, it’s a desperate attempt to try and attract as much buyers as possible, because they can’t possibly be proud of this soundtrack, very similar to the hole that Lord of Magna was in a few years ago. Yet at least Lord of Magna wasn’t a disaster, and it actually had a decent soundtrack.

The models are just lazy. Look at that puke-green grass.

Now, the gameplay. This is perhaps the most atrocious abomination I’ve ever seen as of late, surprising when all Langrisser has done is attempt to copy Fire Emblem’s combat mechanics. Since they just rushed it out the door in order to release the game at the same time as Fire Emblem Fates in Japan, everything is shallow, irritating, and half-assed. The battlescapes look like they were ripped straight from a 2006 DS game, the UI is awkward, the bottom screen is rarely used at all, and the battle animation scenes (as you can see above) are just utter trash. They didn’t bother to render a proper battle area and we get just a space with some textures and low-res buildings slapped onto it, with 3D sprite characters which were clearly not a stylistic choice – they did it because it would save time and money. Aside from the utterly garbage visuals of the gameplay, combat itself is very similar to Fire Emblem, with a rock-paper-scissor mechanic, except you can control multiple grunt units in addition to the main characters in your party. This sounds interesting, until you see just how boring it is in actual gameplay. There is little to no difference between different types of units, the range of your units is basically the same whether they’re on horseback or motorcycle (yes, an out of place steampunk motorcycle in a traditionally fantasy RPG). I haven’t played any of the original Langrisser titles so while I can’t say whether or not this game is an improvement, it brings nothing interesting to the table. Ultimately, the gameplay isn’t just simply a shallow rip-off. It’s a frustrating, uninteresting, and unbalanced experience that somehow managed to infuriate me within the first ten minutes. I wouldn’t recommend this even with a price drop.

~~K-Off~~

Storytelling:	5/10 – By-the-books-fantasy RPG story.
Gameplay:	2/10 – Unbalanced, clunky, and lazy.
User Interface:	3/10 – Messy, cluttered.
Production values:	4/10 – Decent-yet bland art, terrible music, lazy visuals, and buggy dialogue.

Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World – 05

May 4, 2016 by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World

So Subaru has started his first repeat of this arc and at least this time he’s quick to come to terms with it. Though it is nice to see that he hasn’t shrugged off the progress he made getting wiped out without warning. But this time at least he’s at least making a plan and that plan is to repeat his actions from before. This may seem pointless but it does make for a good plan as it allows him to look over his actions with more detail and yet despite making all the same moves, things turn out differently than before. Rem and Ram get closer to him this time and things seemly turn out better than before. I believe the reason for this change was simply due to Subaru not noticing that he was making use of knowledge from his first run. He followed the guidelines for cutting potatoes before Ram told him how, he went over to his uniform before being told where it was and other small details that Subaru didn’t notice he was doing but Rem did. They brushed it off with Ram saying that Rem was bothered by Subaru’s messy hair but I doubt that was actually the case. In fact I believe Ram and Roswaal was much more concerned with Subaru this time around as both of them interacted with him more than the first run. It’s possible that due to him acting more suspicious they wished to scope him out more so Roswaal went to the bath around the same time to talk with him there and Ram began tutoring him on reading and writing to get a closer view of him. Perhaps even falling asleep in the middle of the lessons was a plot to see if Subaru would attempt to kill her in her sleep. As for the thing about Subaru being able to speak their native tongue yet not being able to read it, well I don’t really see it as much of an issue. After all you could say that this world speaks english by coincidence but doesn’t write it the same way or simply that whatever translation magic on him only works on spoken word and not on written words. Either way it’s not that important. When America goes to Japan everyone speaks English, when Japan goes to America everyone speaks Japanese so whatever the alternate universe that they happen to land on is fair game.

Well Subaru goes through his week yet again and even manages to do better this time with charming both Emilia and Rem. One particular odd happening was when Subaru mentioned about liking demons more than god’s, Rem practically beamed a smile at him. The way she reacted and her constant reverence for her sister seems to suggest that Ram may possibly be a demon. Or in a world that already has elves, a demon race may also be present in this world and the twin maids happen to be of that race. As Subaru reaches the repeating point it looks like this time Re:zero might end on a heartwarming note as Subaru once again makes a promise to go on a date with Emilia while she is tutoring him. Then the after credits scene happened and let me say, bravo. That scene was really well done and intense. The dark looming feeling of something about to happen and the shocking brutality of his death was a truly impactful moment. This does bring me to my next point though which happens to be a matter of gore. Now the manga and LN didn’t spare any details on the grisly nature of Subarus deaths but the anime has taken a more reserved approach to the matter.

I don’t know if it will be changed in the blu-rays but they try to keep gore to minimum while instead focusing on Subaru’s reaction to it. Truthfully I am not sure what is more effective as the gore does tend to be gratuitous in the manga. What you don’t see tends to affect you a lot more but in this case people might misunderstand about the nature of Subaru’s wound from the attack. You likely think Subaru’s arm was ripped off but you would be wrong. It wasn’t just Subarus arm, his entire left side of his torso was ripped clean off. They did a great shot of showing Subarus pain in the anime but the manga had this one panel which just had Subaru’s despaired face on it and the words “I want to die” bolded over it. It puts home just how much pain Subaru was in but admittedly it’s not what I consider needed. The point to get that Subaru died horribly while still not knowing what killed him. On that matter I wonder, just what is happening here? We have two factors at work. One is a mysterious illness that hits Subaru at his time and causes him to constantly vomit. It’s my base assumption that this is what killed him in the first run. The only particular causes for this could be a type of poisoning or perhaps that dog bite that Subaru has gotten twice now. The second factor is this strange murderer wielding some kind of chain weapon and happened to be going about the mansion’s halls when Subaru was looking for help. This seems unrelated to Subaru’s illness as why would this person feel the need to personally butcher him if he was going to die anyway? My guess here is that two people are out for Subaru’s life but one of them only came into play the second time around. The murder was also exceedingly malicious as they seem to have purposefully wounded Subaru gravely before putting him out of his misery. Taking into account the speed of the weapon, I am fairly certain they could have hit him with a fatal shot from the start before he could feel pain. They deliberately waited for Subaru to writhe in agony for a bit before giving him a fatal blow. The question is, who did Subaru antagonize that he didn’t in the previous run? The likely suspects would be Ram and Roswaal but then who is responsible for Subaru’s illness? In any case, I doubt Subaru is going to walk this death off as easily as he did his last ones.

~AidanAK47~

Kiznaiver – 04

May 4, 2016 by AidanAK47, posted in Currently Watching:, Kiznaiver

There are certain advantages to keeping your plot in the dark when storytelling. In the beginning stages when your audience is most attentive, if you manage to present questions they are interested in seeing answered then it provides a reason for the viewer to keep watching. However this tactic only continues to work as long as you provide a steady stream of answers throughout the series. If you don’t well then people are going to get tired of chasing a carrot on a stick. This essentially is the problem with Kiznaivers plot. We are given a mystery(What is the purpose of the Kiznaiver program) and the that mystery is left to the wayside despite the many efforts of the characters to inquire further about it. The things we learn about the Kiznaiver system in these last few episodes has been insignificant and it isn’t helped by Noriko being obnoxiously tight lipped about the subject. So in regards to the plot, we know that these people were chosen for some reason to participate in an experiment with ill defined objectives and no clear procedure. Essentially we know absolutely nothing besides a goal to survive the summer vacation. Survive what? Who knows? So here stands the the issue, how to get engaged to a story whose stakes, objective and difficulty are unknown. I am of course not asking to be spoon fed all this but I would like to be able to gain some footing on where this all stands. I haven’t even been able to decide which genre to attribute this to. My biggest fear is that the matter of shared pain is going to get sidecast in favor of just hijinks.

However when the plot falters it is then carried by its cast. I am not sure what to think of out new addition as I hope there’s more to him than his Machoism gimmick. But the banter between the Kiznaivers is delightful. They are a colourful bunch that they bounce off each other well and keep things from getting dull. What I really like to see is the small hints to characters. For one the two main teachers of the series look to be involved with the Kiznaiver project and seem to have a level of combat background. The guidance counselor pulling out a machine gun while suggesting to her students that she could advise them on how to kill someone hints at her being some kind of hitman. There are also small things with the characters, namely I believe Niko doesn’t have friends so she considers the Kiznaivers her friends. When Maki shoots her down for suggesting it the matter really hits Niko hard. I am pretty sure Maki’s past has to do with he being thorny around matters of friendship but I get the feeling that Niko may in fact be a very lonely girl. Thus her extraneous efforts to be eccentric are a means to get people to notice her. I like how she got everyone to exchange contact info as a means of getting back at Maki. Speaking of which I must mention that scene where Niko pops in in one frame out of nowhere. That’s definitely trigger mixing animation saving techniques with humor as the characters themselves seemed just as shocked as the audience when she teleported out of nowhere. I also like how they changed the characters clothes while still keeping to a certain style of the character. It’s often something we take for granted in fiction but often characters stay in the same clothes throughout the show and yet here we have characters changing into something new. It might be a one time thing as school is over so they no longer need their uniforms but it’s admittedly refreshing.

Not a lot happened this episode but something has started to gear up and that is character shipping. Nothing is quite as telling as our group splitting up into individual boy girl pairings. Romances are beginning to kick up whether we like it or not. Noriko and Agata have a Kuudere dynamic going on though Agata looks to have just an interest in her in general than romantically. Noriko on the other hand gives the impression of being much more interested in him. Chidori and Tenga bring a smile to my face even if the situation is cliche. Chidori is getting jealous of Agata growing attached to Noriko but she’s also warming up to Tenga. It’s just me but I like to think of these two as the reincarnation of Kamina and Yoko which is helped by their similar designs. It becomes rather heartwarming to see Chidori go all tsundere on him then. Niko and Hisomu haven’t had much interaction besides her being annoyed at him because she doesn’t want a bigger weirdo than her in the team. Yuta and Maki are the more mature couple with Yuta being interested in her despite her cold personality and Maki shooting him down with no remorse.(That breast jab at Yuta. What a burn.) The two play off each other well but I think he is going to need to crack her secret before he can melt away her armour. Honestly I am not sure on what to think of this pairing up of characters as it does feel manufactured with how they perfectly match up but I am not opposed as long as Okada doesn’t start revving up the teenage angst. It looks like the bullies are joining in as temporary Kiznaivers next time so perhaps these two are a new obstacle for the group to face.

~AidanAK47~

Flying witch – 04

May 1, 2016 by SuperMario, posted in Currently Watching:, Flying Witch

Flying witch again delivers strong material this week and I actually think this is their best episode so far. Mostly because the 2 parts are well connected this week, and our new character Inuka is so natural and fit in like a glove, in addition they have an absurd and whimsical story to boost. I have to highlight the chemistry between Inuka and Chinatsu here, as they are easily the best out of this already solid episode. The back and forth conversation between them in the fortune teller corner, for example, was so deadpan and consistent. Chinatsu constantly touches Inuka’s ears while Inuka was furious about Akane is another good touch. Inuka’s panic over Makoto’s name is so well-delivered that it gets me every time. And Makoto cure portion, oh my god, it’s so hilarious. Now I get the sense that Makoto might not become a great witch after all, but that is fine by me. Flying Witch is so full of little moments that you would miss it if you don’t notice well. Cases in point, I love the way the hamster (Al) shakes uncontrollably when the black cat comes near him (with his dry “meow” no less), or the shot keeps avoiding Inuka’s real face until the very end. Boy she was so my type too! On the site note, I’m not really sure what Akame is wearing, I guess it is a Vietnamese traditional dress (ao dai) (you can view it here, https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/51/1d/87/511d8711fff800a9d326e99ab4dde94d.jpg), please correct me if I’m wrong.

Flying witch is a charming show but never really a funny show, its comedic is often whimsical rather than laugh out loud. But Flying witch has a knack for comedic timing and punch. In this episode, those were executed very well (from Inuka‘s “Akame” crying to Mako’s cure portion). The visual is as lovely as ever, from the blossom trees to the festival itself, and the music, all of them help to bring atmosphere to the show. Overall I’m overjoy with this episode. As long as Flying witch continue to tell those pleasant stories, with full of little details and some deadpan humors, I’m all in.

~SuperMario~