Lurker > Orochimaru_Fan

Despair of ELFERIA

Emil Karma is far from champion material by any means. Or so I like to think anyway, given that it is one of three retirees this year I actually outright disliked. (the other two being Big Blue and Six Feet Thunder). That raw figure is better than it could've been but the fact that it won isn't something I'm terribly pleased by, and a bit of a mark on a contest that I felt had otherwise recovered as best it could from the not-particularly-great results early on. I said it before, but I preferred Hills of Radiant Wind in the masters bracket to it and that says something, given that I didn't even take that past round 1 against a song I wasn't terribly big on. I'm not sure if I prefer it to any prior champion, not even the likes of Reset. And does anyone even like Reset?

Thought not.

By contrast ELFERIA is great and one of the best champions to date without a doubt... Okay, maybe with some doubt. That contest's final may have had a lot of controversy surrounding it and many may never like its outcome, but I for one am proud of it and the fact it even made it there, overcoming a significant hurdle prior in Undertale (the song), boistered then by a colossal voting pool of UT supporters that were a lot more fervent than they were this year (reminder that even a song as trivial on its soundtrack as CORE nearly won its bracket), both comprised of VGMC regulars and, uh, less regulars. It thankfully avoided other potential UT hurdles up to that seemingly inevitable final match thanks to two particular Bracket B near-retirees that both did pretty well in the masters, but still had to come out on top of a slew of other exceedingly good tracks that seemed to crowd the bracket in its late stages, including a nom of my own that had a bit of a cinderella run in its own right. I supported it through much of that and despite me kind of not being all that vocal in doing so at the time compared to other songs (RIP Ricordando il Passato's literally perfect long version), I DID still take it as far as the bracket finals in my favourites bracket, which covers how I really felt about it pretty well. If there's one thing negative I will say about it, it's that it wasn't and still isn't my favourite Nekomata Master song, but I'm basically addicted to all of his music nowadays so that doesn't really mean much.

Truthfully such is the dismal state of the retirees this contest that while there were numerous songs I strongly would've considered voting for over it among the retirees of last contest, I think of this year's retirees... no, actually, of this year's final 16 even, there's only actually one song that I'd pick over it, that song of course being Daddy Mulk. Sorry for not being around for it when it narrowly lost in this year's semis/Bracket B finals. It hurts that it barely got edged out there after coming so far, and certainly not just because it cost me that bracket. Still, much like stuff like Ricordando last contest, I'm glad it even made it that far, and hey, at least it didn't lose to a song I outright disliked like FCDH did... Hey, if Emil Karma loses this can we treat this and last contest as effectively one entity?

Also, going back to that one nom of mine that had a run last year, the dubiously named "OST 7" now known as Luna Ascension EX, I still can't believe how well my gambit of nominating a song that sounded similar to stuff from UT paid off then. The tragically ironic thing is that while I both expected and wanted it to do relatively well, I never took it out of R1 in my aforementioned favs bracket. Sadly, it ran into Sunshine -Destructive-, the successor to You -Destructive- and another song I really wanted to see do well. Maybe next year, once the game's actually out on Steam, it might actually go places...? And maybe a game by the name of Acceleration of Suguri 2 also being out on there then may make a difference too...? Find out next time on VGMC.)

Prologue B

oh hey the contest actually got half-decent in my absence that's neat. pretty sure I've had too many setbacks to capitalise in any of the brackets at all, but hey

FCDH
Final Song

good day

Whereabouts of Light
-
U.N. Owen Was Her?

I'll be honest and say that I think I officially don't fully get Laguerra del Mundo. It's kind of a whatever song in my opinion, and my least favourite of the evidently four different songs from Granado Espada that have been in these contests by a noticeable margin. Similarly, Whereabouts of Light is a song I'm quite indifferent to, at least compared to the other Light song that Laguerra disposed of, but it still easily gets my vote here.
If nothing else, it continuing to well does have one benefit in that it retroactively makes Sai-Hate Galaxy and all the other songs I liked from its initial 8pack look better than they probably otherwise would've, but that still doesn't mean I'm okay with it retiring.

NCL/Final Song is a rare sight as far as my bracket is concerned, as it is a match where I had both songs in my favourites bracket. And it was quite a tossup at that, NCL more or less proving itself as one of my favourite songs in the masters bracket despite me not even taking it past R3. Final Song I took to the finals (fittingly) but even then NCL came too damn close for me to really make a clear pick then, and I'm still not sure how I feel about the match even after a couple of relistens now, hence the abstention. Best match today pretty easily.

UN Owen has the distinction of being the only other song left from my favs bracket still in the masters. In it I took it to R4 much to my surprise, and it ended up losing out to the song I picked overall (one which, uh, did less than great in reality, bowing out in R1 with minimal fanfare). Of course, this is far from a bracket pick. Tuxedo Knight, or at least this remixed version of it that I now know is specifically for the Steam version of the remake, technically actually making it a 2010s song after all go figure, manages to spend four minutes without looping, and goes basically nowhere in the process. I used to kind of like this song, but this contest I've realised I just don't like it nearly as much as I did back then. If I did, I probably wouldn't have easily picked R-Type Title over it and strongly considered also picking Hills of Radiant Wind over it too, in a contest where I've also been really down on NieR music too. I almost feel it would've been better, at least as far as I'm concerned, to have had the original Tuxedo Knight instead... Though I still wouldn't have picked it here. UN Owen's simply a better song, yet again surprisingly. I mean, it isn't even close to being one of my favourite 2hu themes!

Radical Dreamers, now as a dungeon crawler/VN hybrid title for Switch.

Fateful Confrontation
The Explosion

yeesh

Id ~ Purpose
U.N. Owen Was Her?

... Pretty sure not even Gundemonium Recollection can be referred to as being from this decade. A quick look at the tvtropes page tells me it first came out in 2007. And that's the remake at that, so it's quite possible that Tuxedo Knight could date to as far back as 2003, hardly a year after Touhou 6... Though probably not this particular version of the song.

goldenslaughterer
Knight of a Foreign Country

Why was day 55 so perfect

Whereabouts of Light

Night of Nights isn't even from a video game, right? I thought it was just a remix of something from Touhou by Beatmario...

Radical Dreamers

Battle With Magus
Flying Clouds, Drifting Haze
Life

bold Other vote for Peggle (Deluxe)

hms to Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2, GrimGrimoire, Ar tonelico, Atelier Iris 3, Etrian Odyssey and Senko no Ronde, in addition to a decent amount of the stuff listed.

Bodhisattva Kill
Sexualizer
Rave On

Master's was close-ish. Main bracket was not.

Yesterday's Opponents are Today's Ingredients
Id ~ Purpose
Sky-Clad Observer

All very easy matches. YOaTI > SCO > Id >> Journey Without End > Monolith >>> In the Final... actually top 3 are pretty interchangeable

EXEC_LINCA/
Brickworks
The Final Song

easy

goldenslaughterer
Scrap I/O
New Castle Legions -Stage 1 Mix-

I wonder if Burnout 3 counts as notable. I guess if Suikoden V's on the poll, then probably.

weak pic for 2003. clearly should've replaced ffx-2 with a good game like Big Rigs.

or more unironically, PoP: The Sands of Time, and moving X-2 down to the bottom replacing Disgaea.

bump

I decided to make up for that other 2004 whiners support topic being so garbage by making an objectively best one

no I am my own man one of a kind

OrangeCrush980 posted...

more votes

same

Why?

Because of MGS3? No. Half Life 2? No. Tales of Symphonia? No. Paper Mario TTYD? No. Halo 2? No. FFXI? No. GTA San Andreas? Fable? Far Cry? Battlefront? Rome: Total War? Pokemon FR/LG? Metroid: Zero Mission? Prime 2: Echoes? Pikmin 2? Baten Kaitos? Viewtiful Joe? Spider-Man 2? Sly 2? Jak 3? Katamari Damacy? RollerCoaster Tycoon 3? Sims 2? Tony Hawk's Underground 2? NFS Underground 2?? DBZ Budokai 3? WoW??? All no. And nope, much as I love them, it's not because of games like Ace Combat 5, Four Swords Adventures or Burnout 3, or even Shadow Hearts: Covenant, Gradius V or SMT Nocturne, either.

There is one reason and one reason alone that 2004 is the best.

Dang, when I was going through the xaki songs, I meant to note down Proud dust too but completely forgot to. Not that it matters really. Still siding with my overall pick, naturally.

As far as the vocal songs go, Birth of new witch is probably the most memorable song, but I have mixed feelings on it both with vocals and without, remarkably. I'm rather partial toward Occultics no Majo and also Yakusoku. If it'd been mastered a little bit more, Revelations would likely be up there too. That said, Ricordando il passato is easily the best of the lot if factoring in full versions. I also wish the vocal version of Golden Nocturne actually got used at all, instead of being relegated to a single remix album for the anime. Like come on, at the very least it should've been on one of Luck Ganriki's own albums... oh well.

Surprisingly, for all the stuff he did, dai didn't really have many standout contributions in Chiru. I'm still very partial to Soar though. Other ones I liked include Puppet Show, though mainly for how it plays on Toy Box. Oh yeah, and Sakutarou's Adventure and ALIVE were good. And I guess Final Answer too, though I generally don't like it as much as Soar at all. Beyond those... meh.

As far as ZTS stuff goes, all four of his major songs in Chiru were very solid. I must apologise and say that I unfortunately do really like LEC. That said, I'm not sure if I'd outright consider it my favourite among them. The executioner is very high up there too, and resurrected replayer has grown on me a lot lately. And that's before addressing the elephant in the room that is Discolor, which I'd probably go with over any of them. Oh yeah, and I want to say that his one new atmospheric tension song in Chiru, Ridicule, is possibly my favourite song of its kind in the series, which is really something coming from the one artist who did those kinds of songs for the soundtrack without really specialising in them.

I was actually kind of tempted to go with something from -45, but after giving all of his Chiru stuff (which, actually, is the bulk of all his Umineko music) a skim listen, I can safely say I'm not going to. I'd only consider putting Kuina or Patchwork Chimera in the top 10 even. Beyond that, largely disappointing all around, especially with regard to Aci-L.

There were definitely a fair share of xaki tracks I was a fan of. I definitely regard lie alaia and l&d circulation relatively highly, and 7 weights is an unexpectedly good followup to Discolor of all things. And of course then there's The End of the World. There were some that I feel tried to be a little too quirky (like reflection call incorporating the acoustic guitar) and pretty much anything that had a choral element in it, while interesting, all ultimately came across as very monotonous. Still, l&d circulation tho.

Actually, pre-holder had some pretty good choir stuff in chiru. Like half of his stuff more or less ended up becoming de-facto themes for Featherine, and it made all of those non-sequitur philisophy scenes worth paying attention to. Pretty impressive stuff really, in light of how xaki later demonstrating how easy it is to drop the ball at times with songs like that.

And that's all why I pick Anti-Demon Sequentia. HM to Bizarre Divertimento.

To the End of the Wilderness ~ To a New Journey
Undertale
The Explosion

Solid day. Sinister Gale the only real weak link here. Masters match especially good today.

Battle Music vs Daddy Mulk hype

I wanted to be able to pick that match in my favourites bracket because I think both are excellent, but it was too hard because of all the other good songs in that pack. Bit sad that those other ones are gone now, but still glad to see that this match has come to fruition.

That aside, solid results all around for days 45 and 47, but jeez. Day 46 results are just plain bad. Mostly due to that second match, and not just because of liberatedliberator losing, but predominantly because Blue Radiance really isn't any good.

Don't Speak Her Name!
Sunshine Coastline
U.N. Owen Was Her?

Good day.

Well, Huh?! is literally flawless so it must be that.

Quantum Sea Lindwurm
Battle With Magus
Right Hand from Behind

Three good matches here. Took some deciding each of them. Especially the third match.

(Okay, the best is actually Lavos' Theme. HMs to Guardia Castle, The Hidden Truth, Tyranno Lair, In the Depths of the Night, and the Epilogue theme (aka. Crono and Marle but longer). And pretty well all of the songs added to the PS1 and DS releases. And apologies if I used all the wrong names, I'm running off a poor memory of the music box in the DS version, which if I recall had different song title translations to begin with)

Rising Up
Into the Light
Knight of a Foreign Country

azuarc posted...

and everything I would have voted for loses.

same, minus the would have

RIP Sasuke

and yeah, looks like Brickworks is the only one of my noms (or supports) making it to R3. I still have... I think two supports that are still alive but I don't feel confident in their chances of making it any further.

Whereabouts of Light
End of All (Land)
Awakening ~Nurburgring Suite~

Really really good day.

One Final Effort
MARIA
Sasuke Uchiha

hi hello yes I return

Soar
QuelI->EX[cez]->{kranz};
World Revolution

Good first match. I'd probably have easily taken the Yakuza song if it had only been just one part of the song.

It's weird, I generally like Emil Karma a decent amount but I've just been consistently underwhelmed by it since the start of this contest. I guess it doesn't help that it's drawing competition like this though. I don't know if I'd have ever picked it here, even without being down on it.

World Revolution is far from my favourite CT battle theme (it might actually be my least favourite even), but it proved to be unexpectedly solid competition in the master's match.

Rose-Killing Carmilla
Hive Of The Mantids
La Mer

Three surprisingly good matches.

Daddy Mulk
This Silence is Mine
-

Two exceedingly good matches that could've potentially made this day the best of round 1, but unfortunately followed by a thoroughly underwhelming side bracket match that dashes those hopes.

Hana kagerou
Class::XIO_PROCEED;
Flight of the Bamboo Cutter ~ Lunatic Princess

LastPandemic
Liberated liberater
This Journey Without End

Blue Radiance is the only song I can say I hate from today, so... a distinct improvement over yesterday.

RIP Presto.

Neat third match. Also since the first of the matches is upon us, I just want to say that it's also neat that both of my first two noms to ever make it into the contests (This Journey Without End and Sasuke Uchiha, unless I'm overlooking something else) are in the masters bracket.

Desire Blue Sky
Krook's March
Melody of Aqua

A passable masters match to make up for the very weak regular matches today.

azuarc posted...

Orochimaru_Fan posted...

since it's not even a prediction in the slightest.

neither is anyone else's.

true lol, guess I'll keep going.

I like how there is really only one good song out of the 8 in bracket b over the next couple of days after today, then the two days after that have about five songs I'd pick over anything from B3 and B2, and possibly B1 as well. Even the song I like the least among that latter 8 (She Wants Me Dead) I'd probably still vote for over anything tomorrow or yesterday. A truly balanced bracket.

Daddy Mulk vs Fallen Angel was one of the first matches I decided in my favourites bracket, but that's not to mean it wasn't a tossup. Just that I'd listened to both more than enough in noms (I did support both, even if I ended up dropping support from the latter) and had a view already, albeit only just. I want to say that that match is unreasonably good for an R1 match and whatever loses then really shouldn't. Putting it in the context of a Mycro post, it's like my... I dunno, I guess like third favourite song in the contest facing my... I guess 12th sounds about right.

Similarly, the match before it is also ridiculous. So basically, Daddy Mulk is easily among my favourite redbook audio-era songs, and that says something. And yet, this contest introduced something else that manages to rival it in my mind. The battle music from Last Armageddon is nothing short of excellent. I didn't end up supporting it like I did Daddy Mulk, but it was on my potential support list for most of the nomination period (a list which, checking now, also included stuff like Hitomi no LAZhWARD, which I took to the Bracket A finals in my favs bracket, Rising Up which I narrowly didn't take over a song I took to the Bracket B finals in round 3, and the Black Knight 2000 theme, which... okay, maybe that one didn't need to be on there). And I preferred it over the rest of the stuff on there. So needless to say it was something I was expecting to take decently far in my favs bracket at least. Especially with the prospects of a round 3 match against Daddy Mulk not looking too bad. But... I ended up not even taking it out of round 1. Never mind a top-tier Gust song, Class::XIO_PROCEED; is a top-tier Akiko Shikata song and I can't believe it just gets plonked down in a division with so many songs I kinda actually care about.

Oh yeah and I guess This Silence is Mine is there too how about that. After listening to that not long after the Final Song today, I can actually safely say I prefer it to Final Song right now which is kinda actually really something else. A shame it too is trapped in this hell 8pack.

Sunshine Coastline
The Best Is Yet To Come
The Final Song

much as I want to support a good memesong, this is still an incredibly easy first match
nebula's pretty good but still easy second match too
last match most lopsided of all, why is final song so ridiculously good

listening ahead in bracket b I'm really not looking forward to tomorrow's matches.

okay all the first episodes I planned to watch for the time being are now watchded, here's the worst impressions of them

Granblue
is ok I guess

Alice and KnucklesZouroku
I thought this would be a pretty ambitious Barakamonlike but I guess it's not really one? its quality really depends on what direction the show actually wants to go in. idk I guess it's decent?

Little Witch Academia second cour
p good, seconding that view that the new OP and ED are way better, though I am admittedly on the fence about the visuals in the new OP

Souryo to Majiwaru Shikiyoku no Yoru ni...
more lewd than that one about the student council president. also kinda lame

Sekai no Yamizukan
can this even be called anime at all

F A Girls
ha get it (warning: lots of CG. cute models tho)

Akashic Records of a Bastard Magic Instructor (I forget if that's the full title or not just pretend it is okay)
garbage LN shit that trips over its insufferable and generic character tropes as much as it tries to liven things up. second episode was an improvement but not by much

Armed Girl's Machiavellism
garbage manga shit that trips over its insufferable and generic character tropes as much as it tries to liven things up. second episode was even worse than the first

Sagrada Reset
you know, I'm usually able to tolerate incredibly dry mystery anime like this. not this time. this is just... ugh.

Sakura Quest
the least intolerable PA Works anime in a while. Understandably, since they're trying to bring back a feeling from one of their last actually good shows. it's alright? 4/10

Tsuki ga Kirei
I covered this already so as you can surmise I think it's pretty alright

Clockwork Planet
Here's a warning from someone who loves NGNL. Don't watch this. It's complete trash.

Renai Bouken (Love Tyrant)
it's good I think? haven't watched episode 2 yet to be fair and I hear that they completely blitzed through the source material in the first episode which makes it probably pretty hard to evaluate fairly.

Hinako Note
it's okay to say a moeshit show is objectively garbage. this moeshit show is objectively garbage.

Twin Angel Break
pretty generic and lame but it has a trap in it and I respect that.

KADO
based off episode 0 and 1 the general tone... kind of reminds me of Classroom Crisis in that it's slightly more political and serious than it needs to be. Also, uses cg very poorly for some characters. 4/10 it's not really that good

Bahamut: Virgin Soul
it's pretty good so far

Re:Creators
I feel the GATE comparisons are fair even if GATE was a garbage show and this isn't so far. I am also more than a little worried that this is going to trip up on some things GATE managed to avoid, like inserting a lot of melodrama (I mean, this is TROYCA we're talking about here). For the time being I'll just say that yeah it's definitely one of the shows of the season to watch for sure.

Eromanga Sensei
apparently this was straight up written by Oreimo's author, which has left me with less than a vote of confidence. First episode was okayish, very worried about what I'm hearing about the second.

Grimoire of Zero
furries. I guess it's not complete trash. 3/10 at least not as bad as Liger Code 1945 or whatever that random furry OVA from december was called

The Anonymous Noise
90% disappointed with this. 10% of me can't help but think that performance was cool though. still dropping.

WorldEnd/SukaSuka/impossibly long LN title
also furries but less so. it certainly has quite a budget, though the directing is questionable. Opening on two montages was a bit much, especially when they didn't really reveal what the show was really about until the end of the episode. 5/10 wow these Barakamonlikes are getting carried away

I was looking back on past results just last night and ran into that. The sad thing is I actually like Prelude and actually would've voted for it. Even worse, Metal Gear Saga never even retired.

I guess I can't feel too down on that bracket though, since some things clearly went right. Like Moon Over the Castle making it out of it.

That aside I guess I should finish my bracket. I said it before and I'll say it again that I don't mind if my prediction is made into a late one since it's not even a prediction in the slightest, but I might as well.

Wanglicious posted...

look, you're watching frame art girls if you want to see an ad of tiny girl robots fighting. if you're not into that, just drop it.

I was kidding. Meh joke I know, I just figured I'd sneak in some remark about the second episode since I've somehow ended up watching the first five to ten minutes of the episode a good four times now over the last few days before finding myself being called to do other things hell, I even got called while writing that post which is why I rushed it and didn't say what I meant to. Even now during the long weekend I keep finding myself too preoccupied to catch up on anime :/

Realtalk though I can't say I expected there to be a yuri kiss scene in Frame Arms Girl. Caught me even more off-guard than the one in Kemono Friends, somehow.

should hopefully have all my first episode ratings done soon, but am currently preoccupied a good few days behind, trying to bring myself to watch frame arms girls episode 2 without flat out giving it a kneejerk drop in response to the ridiculous treatment of "trauma" in the show.

J-E-N-O-V-A
Don't Speak Her Name!
Sonic Boom

First match weak. Second pretty alright, but very easy. Last was good.

Ghost Lead
Ernst
Denshou no Shi -Verum-

Ernst makes me wish I was listening to Moon Over the Castle. I treat that as a pretty good thing, actually. Also, I still very nearly took Sky Scraper High over it. Second match easily best today.

Work It Out
Got Hive of Ra
Awe of She

Actual matches >>> side bracket today

also uninformed (person who hasn't gotten around to playing ToCS) question here, why not Risking Everything, Here We Stand instead? Not used in-game or what?

also also I kinda want to say Megalopolis for the poll actually