Blog Announcement: End Times

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I apologize if this appears sudden, but I’ve decided to take a step back from this blog indefinitely. I think I’ve been struggling for a long time to keep myself going out a vague sense of obligation, but I think I’m finally done.

I want to stress that I see this as a problem that I have caused for myself. I truly feel grateful for and humbled by the all of the readers I’ve had throughout the years. It might sound self-aggrandizing, but it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve kept this blog alive for 8 years giving myself a break. I think it’s a testament to how welcomed I’ve felt by the anime community if nothing else.

I generally avoid talking too much about my personal life, but I think it’s only fair to explain the large contributing factor to this decision. For a while now, I’ve treated this blog like a second job, and it has coexisted peacefully with my day job. However, that balance has recently changed. I won’t go too much into it, but I essentially chose to take on more responsibilities as a formal web developer (owing a lot of that decision to this blog).

When I started this blog, I was in the final months of college, and I just don’t have the same time I once had. I know it might seem silly with the 1-2 hours I spend each day on this blog, but I can honestly say that the time adds up. In many ways, I’d say it’s been long enough that I’ve built much of my life around this routine. I’m probably taking a drastic measure, but I truly want to see what my life looks like when I’m not thinking about these things.

So, what does this mean for you? For the time being, I will be keeping the site up and running while I consider my next project. Currently, I have no real plans, other than having some stress-free time with my family over the holidays. My personal domain will likely turn into something else eventually, but the WordPress version of the blog won’t be going anywhere.

If you’re still interested in what I have to say, I’m hoping to move a lot more of my snap commentary to Twitter now that I don’t have to feel guilty about reposting the same comments in a blog post. If you’d like to hear more from me, then I think following me there would be the best way. I also do occasional Twitch streams and post random YouTube videos if that’s more your thing.

Otherwise, I’d just like to end by saying that I truly appreciate everyone who has read what I’ve said on this blog. I can honestly say that I don’t regret starting the blog, and I’m happy to have had this opportunity.

Houkago Saikoro Club Episode 11: A whole new game

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Once again, we’re back with Midori’s game. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way. I actually think the progress that she makes in this episode is cool, and her background contextualizes her game quite well. It feels a bit weird that next week’s episode is the last one. I wonder where it will go. The end of the episode almost suggests a return to Miki’s insecurities.

To Midori’s credit, she definitely takes the criticism in this episode much better than before. It’s not like she was overly rude about it in the previous iteration, but she was clearly shying away from it. I also liked how this episode uses the game as a window into her past, since it would make sense that she would base the game on an experience she felt was important.

I think this episode initially comes off with a typical message of creating something you’re happy with rather than catering to an audience. However, I think it does more to approach the importance of gameplay through strategy. It sounds like the real issue with Midori’s first game was that she was restricting paths to victory. As a result, people tended to fall on the same approach to playing the game.

The strength of the final iteration seemed to come from giving the players more ways to play the game. That’s why the conversation on strategy arises, since the girls are now able to come up with numerous unique playstyles.

Asi I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have an issue with Emmy’s character. It’s great that she’s supportive of Midori throughout the episode, but she still seems way too perfect. She knows exactly what Midori’s thinking, and she doesn’t seem to be wrong at any point. There’s something off-putting about that.

Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne Episode 10: Party time

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It’s weird seeing the series slow down after it skipped through so much content. This week’s episode features a brief throwback to Mile’s academy days, but it’s otherwise another team bonding mission. Admittedly, I think the misunderstandings in this episode were fun, especially when Mile has a literal god as her sounding board. I just get the sense that the series has made it a point to get us here when it could have just stayed slice of life at a leisurely pace.

Well, I’ll give this flashback credit for being on-topic. These stories always make me feel bad for the friends that Mile left behind when she ran away.

I think it’s surprisingly sweet of Reina to feel jealous of Mile’s academy friends.

It’s hilarious that Mile hesitates to spy on her friends while they’re on their quest, but she’s totally fine with spying on their private lives. I was okay with the cookie stealing, but measuring Reina’s chest is a bit suspect.

It’s really not hard to figure out where this entire episode is going with the plot threads it sets up, but I will always give this series props for churning out great faces. This episode was a gold mine for reaction face screenshots, so it gets my thumbs up.

Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia Episode 10: A goddess’s aid

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With one goddess recruited, it’s time to move on to the next one. This week’s episode was surprisingly light in tone, feature a surprising number of gags for how important the main mission is. I’m not even talking about Jaguar Warrior here. Of course, she’s there to be a comedic relief character, but there were jokes taken at even Gilgamesh’s expense. That’s why I would call it a humorous episode overall, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Quetzalcoatl makes Jaguar Warrior’s personality feel much more understandable. Still, it was fun watching her interact with the Ritsuka, especially when she offers to switch sides almost immediately. I curious about Mash’s comments, though. She seems to be looking a lot deeper into Quetzalcoatl’s behavior and finding something strange about it. Or maybe she’s just jealous. Who knows?

I think the hidden gem in this episode goes to Ishtar’s faces. I know I’m biased towards these kinds of things, but I think it makes her a strong addition to the cast. I think it’s great that she tends to have a less enthusiastic reaction to most events as a goddess.

Oh, that’s what the sneeze in the previous episode was supposed to mean. Based on previous conversations, I guess this is supposed to be Ishtar’s real appearance, but I just see it as Ereshkigal from the game.

I’m curious how much sense this comment makes to people who have only seen the anime. In the game, Quetzalcoatl’s boss version is immune to attacks from good-aligned Servants, so you were forced to fight her with neutral or evil Servants (unless you cheese her with Servants that don’t have an alignment). I wonder how this will be incorporated into the fight in this adaptation.

Stop bullying Ishtar, Fou.

I think it’s hilarious that Jaguar Warrior is recruited with literal harem protagonist power. And to top it off, Merlin specifically requests that Ritsuka do it, so it’s just an established fact of the world.

No Guns Life Episode 9: A new job

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Well, I guess this week’s episode gets right into the next story. Presumably, the focus will be on Tetsurou as he tries to get Juuzou to accept him as an apprentice of sorts. It looked like the episode was attempting to show how evil Beruehren is as well. It was kind of a weird episode for me overall, since it seemed like it was trying to start something up, but there were multiple stories happening at the same time.

I like the idea of summarizing the previous episodes by telling the story from the antagonists’ point of view, but this Wurzel executive group seems unnecessarily cryptic. It’s like the series is going to great lengths to make them look extra evil. Anyway, it’s a strange way to handle the aftermath of the previous episode, but I give it props for messing with perspective.

This is starting to look like a drug company’s cover-up. Is that what the Extended are supposed to represent here?

Mary’s interactions with Juuzou in this episode are pretty entertaining. I’d like to see Juuzou start training Tetsurou somehow, so he no longer has to rely so much on Harmony.

To be honest, my first reaction to Mary’s story about her brother was that he was going to turn out to be Juuzou. It technically could still be the case, but I think it’s a lot less likely if they’re supposedly related.

Colt feels like a weird character to me. He seems like the kind of person who has fallen on hard time, so I guess I need to be sympathetic towards him. However, I can’t see him as being anyone more than the blabbermouth who reveals Tetsurou’s powers to the enemy.

When I saw the ending of the episode, I was wondering if I should conclude that Colt was secretly Saryshagan. However, it looks like the guy offering the job is covering his face up, so I guess Colt’s just placed himself in danger again. Does this mean Tetsurou got himself mixed up in something sketchy again?

Houkago Saikoro Club Episode 10: Relationship building

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I feel like it’s probably sad that we’ve gotten so far in this series before it showed a game I’d actually played before. I’m probably going to get judged for this. That aside, this week’s episode seems to look more at Aya for a bit. I still think the pacing in this series is weird overall. Both stories in the episode seemed too quick, and I would have honestly preferred if the entire episode was devoted to building the relationships from the second half.

It was fairly brief, but Blokus was a game I played in high school. I didn’t realize that it was designed in France, so that’s cool to know. I tend to like these kinds of spatial/strategy games.

To be honest, I had a hard time finding Aya’s argument with her father convincing. I think she’s perfectly justified in being upset with him, but she seems to forgive him too easily to me. I get that she probably just needed some time to vent at him, but the context of the game seemed weak.

Was it just me who didn’t really get the game in the second half? I got the sense that I was missing some key information about how the game was played, and it was mostly just an excuse to pair the girls up. To be fair, I kind of like the pairings in this episode, but I think the episode would have benefited if this section was given more time.

I’m guessing the idea behind the episode was to showcase the girls’ individual personalities through the shopping aspect, but that would have come out better if the rules were clear. I can’t tell whether Miki was just being naturally modest or if she was playing towards some kind of strategy.

Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne Episode 9: Back to questing

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Well, this week’s episode didn’t make the most progress in the world, but I suppose the girls need to upgrade their base of operations. Does this technically count as the onsen episode? I guess it’s possible that the relationship with Booneclift becomes important later. Other than that, the episode is a fairly straightforward quest to capture a wyvern.

The bit at the beginning about the difficulties of facing a wyvern was pretty entertaining. I’ve played enough D&D to appreciate when the monsters are smart enough to retreat. I’m kind of curious why it’s only the wyvern that’s a problem in this regard, but maybe intelligent creatures are rare in this world.

The extended gag for this episode is Mile’s secret plan of tossing her comrades directly into the fight. I can’t say I fully disagree with this plan, to be fair. I do somewhat get the sense that several scenes could have been explained better. Pauline gets an idea of her own, but she passes out before anything can be done.

Reina gets excessively embarrassed to the point of stripping in the forest for some reason. These feel like moments that would be more fleshed out in the novel.

Booneclift’s story about the wyvern is definitely a reference, but it’s such a common story that I’m not sure which one it’s supposed to be. I guess it was funny to see Mile arguing with him about the name of the Wyvern.

This scene was unexpectedly hilarious to me for some reason. Maybe it’s the combination of the faces with Booneclift’s surprisingly accurate statement.

I mean, I can’t really argue with these priorities.

Fall 2019 Grab Bag Week 9: Assassins Pride

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Assassins Pride Episode 8

I was initially hard on this show, but I think I’ve come to accept it for the most part. I still think that the story is skipping around too much to the point where valuable information is being lost. This is coming from someone who hasn’t read the source material. It’s just that obvious. However, I think that many of the character moments are making up for this in the long run.

Even if the development comes out of nowhere, I think this and the previous episode set up a decent mystery surrounding Kufa. It ultimately culminates in Melida learning about his vampire half, which seems like a reasonable development. Melida also has some solid interactions with Laque as the two investigate the town.

I think the use of the mystery spots in this story is great. I liked seeing Melida figure out that Blossom is using them to hide his experiments with a convenient excuse. I’m guessing that Kufa helped her reach this conclusion by showing her the cave with no gravity. Doing so probably made her wonder why some of the mystery spots were considered off-limits.

Going straight to “death” for Rosetti was kind of a weird choice. It’s hard to believe a character like her would die so easily, so it seems like such a hollow development. It might make more sense if Blossom was lying about it, but it’s hard to fully grasp the scene with how much the series skips overall.

Along a similar vein, Melida’s visions throughout the story felt a bit jarring to me. Given how the episode ends, I’m not sure if I’m supposed to conclude that Rosetti was a half-vampire like Kufa this whole time. It seems to make the most sense if she’s unwittingly the culprit for every attack. However, the flashbacks seem to suggest that Kufa was the experiment victim from seven years ago.

Fate/Grand Order: Babylonia Episode 9: How to recruit a goddess

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Compared to the grand spectacle of last week, this episode was more chill, as the heroes attempt to recoup their losses. I was happy to see the focus on Ishtar, and she’s turning out to be a great character. It makes the sacrifice of the other Servants seem so much more worth it. Plus, I can’t complain about extra screen time for Rin.

While this is definitely a liberal interpretation of Greek mythology, it’s a cool story. As a fun fact, Medusa was believed to be the only Gorgon who wasn’t immortal. So, she’s technically the least god-like of the three. However, I like how this story of Medusa becoming Gorgon sounds, especially when you factor in Ana’s identity.

There’s something oddly fitting about throwing a ton of jewels at Ishtar to get her to join the team. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It has come out in small ways in previous episodes, but this episode certainly solidifies Ishtar’s cute side.

I think it’s hilarious that Ishtar gets this false impression about Ritsuka’s intentions. Most of her scenes in this episode make her feel much more human. She claims that the ratio between the goddess and the human host is 70 to 30, which is much higher than I was expecting for the human side. It really comes out in scenes like this.

I do like the idea behind Ishtar’s motivation. She’s trying to shoulder the burden of humanity’s suffering as a goddess to spare them the pain. She even literally calls herself a target for blame, so that humans can pin the cruelty of the world on a supernatural being. I think we as a society (at least in the developed world) are moving away from this crutch, so I like seeing this somewhat antiquated notion showing up in a fitting time period.

No Guns Life Episode 8: Release full power

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This week’s episode was a strange mix of high intensity from Juuzou’s transformation and a meandering monologue from Armed. I don’t know if it’s supposed to feel more realistic, but I get the sense that Armed is often dancing around the subject when he’s providing background that I want to hear. I might just be tired of him ranting about the greater good or whatever. There also seems to be some kind of growth for Olivier in this episode as well, but it might have needed some more setup.

The episode tells us a decent amount about Juuzou’s past as a Gun Slave unit. It’s not directly stated as far as I could tell, but it seems like his body was turned into a literal weapon during the war. It makes me wonder what happened to the rest, though. We’ve seen that Seven is a similar unit, but how rare are these survivors?

I suppose a reasonable explanation is that the rest of the units went mad, and only a few were able to retain their humanity. Seeing Juuzou go nuts in this episode was pretty cool. Since he’s a later unit, it makes sense that he would be able to overpower Armed. I suppose it’s meant to counter the earlier statement about Juuzou’s lack of strategy. When he goes completely automatic, the strategy aspect doesn’t seem to matter at all.

It was a nice moment having Juuzou regain consciousness when Olivier asks him to kill Armed. I do think it’s awkward that she finds out the truth only because Armed continuously narrates everything out loud. I understand that he’s a hero in the public eye, but he seriously needs to learn to shut up.

I guess I’m not sold on Olivier’s change of heart. I think it makes sense for Juuzou to push her to do the right thing, but I think it would have been more effective if she had linked it to her memory of her father. Nothing from the conversation at the beginning of the episode seems relevant to her choice. At best, I think you could argue that she chooses to go back to the plan she told her father, reaching a position of power and dealing with Armed through the proper government channels.

I think Armed was a decent antagonist, but I don’t have a problem with him being a puppet all along. I would have liked to have seen him reporting to government officials, but I guess it’s simpler if he’s a puppet for Beruehren. At the end of the day, the company controls everything, huh?