NOW PLAYING
What I'm currently watching, reading, playing, or listening to
TV
- Number 1 Sentai Gozyuger
- A number of friends have fallen off this one, but I'm still going strong. The beginning of the show is kind of weak in terms of characterization for the team, but every week now they say something or think something or do something that just drives me crazy. Hoeru is a truly miserable person in ways that FASCINATE me. I'm so glad his doggy behavior is more than just a bit he does. The others kind of see him as this lost puppy too. They just are incapable of hating him.
We'd be sad if our dog went missing.
That line singlehandedly rewired my brain chemistry. - Digimon Universe: Appli Monsters (Rewatch, Episode 24/52)
- Appmon is probably my favorite digimon season, but I haven't watched it all the way through since it first aired, so I'm hankering to come back to it and see if it still holds up.
Episode 12 Update:
Yeah, so this show is EXACTLY as good as I remember it. I can't believe it holds up just as well 9 years later. It might even be "more relevant" now as technology advances and "AI" becomes a more relevant part of daily life. Obviously, there aren't intelligent, sentient "AI" like Leviathan running around in real life, but I find it interesting how technology hasn't really "outpaced" Appmon's scifi future yet.
I found myself on the verge of tears thinking about how Rei learned to cook for his little brother and then when that brother went missing, he started subsisting off of convinience store food while he overworked himself. It's something so simple, a detail that many other shows wouldn't care to showcase. It's a tangible change for the worse in Rei's life following Hajime's kidnapping. The poor kid is taking TERRIBLE care of himself. - Kamen Rider Zeztz
- It's kind of a given that I watch this year's Kamen Rider. We're really early, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Show's really stylish and the characters are lovable. Really like the detective guy. He's so smiley.
- Digimon Beatbreak
- The new digimon season! What an interesting world they've managed to set up in a single episode. It's very kind of like if Devil Survivor took place in a techno future where everyone's phones were taking their vitals all the time and also shaped like eggs.
GAMES
- The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy (Dawg, I don't know how to categorize my progress in this game.)
- Truly incredible game so far. It was a really fascinating decision to basically TELL AN ENTIRE STORY before the
true game
begins. Very Ushikoshi in that way. Most of the things I like about Ushikoshi and Kodaka's works are present in Hundred Line. I can't wait to REALLY dig into the meat of this game's themes and what not once I've played more of it. (has already played over 100 hours of Hundred Line...) - Tsukihime (Akiha Route)
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A visual novel I've heard a LOT of very good things about. As a big Melty Blood enjoyer, I knew I had to read it at some point. Completely different vibe, but I AM enjoying it greatly. It does suffer a little from the wider eroge problem of "Hi, which of these sex things is supposed to be scary and which are supposed to be hot?" but, the atmosphere is immaculate. I'm an even bigger fan of Arcuied now than I was before.
With the near side routes behind me, I can pretty safely say I'm enjoying Tsukihime. It's a story about resisting compulsions to do harm to others. Really resonant if you have, say, ocd. Despite this entire cast being difficult-to-be-around jackasses, they're lovable. Ciel's such a little weirdo. "Oh, it's for the mission. I'm only playing and having fun and laughing and eating curry for the sake of the mission." Sure, girlie.
I'm really interested in what the Ciel-Sensei lesson at the end of her good end meant when it said the Far Side routes are "A completely different story". Having played Fate/Stay Night, I know the kinds of vibes they put into a route like that... but Tsukihime has had that same kind of depressive energy the whole way through. I can only imagine its Far Side rotues are far more intense than Heaven's Feel was. We'll see. I'll get back to you from the Far Side of the Moon. - Melty Blood: Type Lumina
- The game that got me involved with the FGC again. If it weren't for this, I wouldn't have met some of the friends I have now. I'm enjoying it a lot. It's super snappy and responsibe. The aerial footsies is something truly unique to this game. Jumping in is SO STRONG. Most importantly of all, I love Arcuied.
Time Stranger's gameplay systems have a surprising amount of depth compared to Cyber Sleuth. It's a bit of a spreadsheet game when you factor in the Digifarm. Making sure my digimon are prepared to digivolve by the time the next stage is unlocked is pretty fun. It encouraged me to swap memebers in and out of my team over the course of the game. The game encourages you to use a variety of digimon and moves. If you try to barrel through with one team of all one type or what have you, you're in trouble.
I'll talk more about the story some other time, but it keeps taking turns that make me go, "Oh. Oh, we're not even CLOSE to done, huh?" I thought I'd know a lot more about it all than I actually did going in, but Time Stranger STILL has surprises in store for me.
BOOKS
- Destroy All Humans, They Can't Be Regenerated
- This one's a manga about Magic: The Gathering and LOVE. It follows two very stupid teens as they pursue their passion for the card game and for one another. I'm liking it a lot thus far. I'm about 5 volumes deep; it manages to keep me turning pages with some truly immaculate combos and a pretty cute romance plotline. Multiple times, characters have dueled with love confessions on the line. Every single time, it gets me.
I always feel bad for the secondary love interest in this kind of story, though. Yakumo just wants to be happy with Kano, but I know that can't happen. It was so rough watching her lose to Sawatari at the regional. The kind of games neither player can afford to lose are my favorite in manga like this, even if the results are emotionally devestating.
Most TCG manga and anime have a clear and obvious "villain" who cannot be allowed to win. Destroy All Humans lacks this, but it opens the door for plenty of scenarios where a game's result can be both shocking AND deserved. Major character twists ride on if a character sideboarded correctly or not.
Sideboarding doesn't even get addressed in a lot of other works like this... By default, matches in DAH are best-of-3s. Sometimes they'll skip over a particularly decisive Game 2 victory to focus on the deciding game, with Gmae 1 being an introduction to both players' strategies as they feel each other out. It grounds the gameplay in the realism of actually going to a Magic tournament with your sideboard in hand while making sure the pace isn't bogged down by making every game take three times as long as it should.
