Lurker > YoukaiSlayer

I felt like despite being generic it was pretty decent. An enjoyable time but nothing memorable.
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While I liked the fight, I feel like I'm the only one that didn't think too much of it. I liked main girls fight in the first round better and was kinda disappointed with the whole tournament arc. I'm not really sure why. I like show as a whole enough I think and I like tournament arcs in general. I think I'm just sort of uninvested in super power battles when it almost seems like rock paper scissors in terms of who wins. I just remember feeling a lot more excited a the end of season 1. I still need to finish mha though. I watched the tourny arc when it had just finished. Still have the next arc left.
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I agree in real life (my birthdays in march) but not between those anime.
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Weak? It has new kino no tabi and shokugeki no soma. I feel like this is the best looking line up in a while. Of course, things could always disappoint or surprise. Also for some reason march omes in like a lion refused to appear on my season line up until I searched for it manually. Now it appears with the rest. That was really strange.
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We never find out about the blue haired kids gender but based on pronouns its probably a boy.
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I'm ninja
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This isn't really anime related or anything but I FINALLY figured out what was making my art tablet fuck up in gimp and fix it (something about the expressview causing major issues). I have nowhere else to talk about this and I've spent like 10 total hours over a few weeks troubleshooting this bullshit problem and it's finally solved and I can finally use pressure sensitivity. Yay.

To make this post somewhat relevant, how is the new season going? First episodes have aired for everything as far as I know. I see this is the season we finally get that new kino to tabi. I'm hoping it lives up to the old stuff since I loved the original series. I would be very surprised if shokugeki no soma S3 wasn't awesome.

I see a series whose title sounds like some inuyasha x shiki crossover fighting game with inuyashiki but apparently its some sci-fi psychological action show. Maybe something like psycho pass. Has good ratings so far, love the genre.

Got some shoujo sci-fi fantasy show. Dang, the season of sci-fi. I'm not complaining.

UQHolder seems to also fall in the same sci-fi theme. I remember someone here talking about the manga and how great it was(something about lolis).

A few more sci-fi shows. Jesus, I was kind of joking at first but there really is a ton of sci-fi this season.

Whats looking good, whats meh, what seems interesting but it's too soon to tell?
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True, but not seeing ko x rin animated would be a bummer. Granted I've done a fair bit of writing over the last year so I know what ya mean. Sad that none of it is in a usable state but I'ma finish this one dammit.
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Sakura trick's fanservice was just kissing anyway. People said that the show was just to show us a bunch of anime girls kissing and had no substance. While I disagree, even if that were true, I'd have been fine with it. IIRC I think I might have actually teared up at one part and the romance is easily the most adorable I can think of in anime.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

"Watch for the yuri, stay for the feels."

This entirely is what worries me. As strange as it might sound. I've had my fill of yuri feels. I want yuri light hearted rom com stuff, preferably with ecchi and at least some level of kissing. Oh wait, you are talking about sakura trick. It's basically the one bastion of good ecchi anime. Some yuri fans say it is fanservicy trash but I say they can go fuck themselves because I loved that show. Minutes of sweet yuri kissing every episode. Demolition d+ had a good bit on it in one of his seasonal preview things that has that gif I can never find with the "lesbian physics" part (gamefaqs won't let me put what it actually was without autoflagging it).
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I_Abibde posted...

I hope I can shed a little light on the New Game! situation here: The reason the anime ends the way it does is that it caught up to the 4-koma on which it was based. Since there was no more material to adapt, they had to stop there (or run the risk of anime-original endings). I still hope for a Season 3, but ... it is unlikely to happen any time soon.

As far as yuri goes, I prefer regular ol' yuri. I have no use for Protag-kunus Interruptus. And there is certainly a niche for futa, but that is not normally my thing. I suppose I am not too angry about New Game! ending the way it does because yuri bait is its own thing, and I know that fanficcers (... like myself) will pick up the slack that the source leaves. *shrugs*

Yeah I'm aware that 64 of 68-69 chapters have been adapted already so it goes on the long list of season 3 never shows. I suppose it's the manga I have the problem with for writing it that way.

For me anyway, to have successful yuri bait, you need to leave the bait intact. The ending damages the yuri bait IMO. Now any real fanfic either takes place way in the future or retcons some shit. With the tone shift, increased fan service and mid season character introductions, I kind of wonder if the manga was in trouble right before the first season of the anime aired.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

For me, the harem route is the only right route!

Hell yeah! Harem route is true route.

We've had some almost yuri ecchi harems. Valkyrie drive is probably the closest but it's not REALLY a harem, it's just a series of pairings. Keijo is sort of close but it's not actually yuri, just the most enjoyable type of yuri bait. Maria holic is basically the entirely perfect set up, lesbian pervert goes to all girls school to perv on girls and find lesbian love BUT her nosebleeds, while funny, entirely prevent any yuri from even approaching possible. Season 3 never. Matsurika best girl.
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I actually like futa. If ya need to put a dick in the yuri, do it that way. I guess I'm making it seem like I care more than I do. There have actually been times when I've looked up a yuri pairing and found NO yuri results, only straight results, and that is legitimately upsetting, but it's not really a big deal if the yuri results do exist in decent quantity.

All in all it's just kind of painful to be a yuri fan a lot between the infrequent anime and the ridiculous number of tragic endings so it kinda sucks to have to look for closure outside the source material and then be hit with a bunch of non yuri.

One day we will get an actual yuri ecchi harem show and all will be right with the world. If I magically get super rich, alongside "the list" it'd be awesome to open an anime studio that produces exclusively yuri.
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Self insert as a girl then. It's yuri. The main character still usually exists for that. I'm fairly convinced most artists are not actually 30-50 old tokyo businessmen anyway.
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In non yuri news (at least as far as I know, I guess theres always hope) I just checked out those gameplay videos for code vein aka anime dark souls and it looks better than I expected for an alpha. One handed sword way too strong though. The boss looked like it would be pretty fun.
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I don't understand how someone could watch a yuri show and think. "You know what this needs, a fat guy in his 30s putting his penis inside this beautiful romance between 2 girls." It's very clear that 80% of people that draw hentai feel that way, but I don't get it. Just give me fanart of the obvious pairing please.
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It's been a really long time since I saw claymore but I remember liking it quite a lot until near the end. Even the anime original ending wasn't THAT bad. Like, it was awful, but it wasn't ambitious enough to truly ruin the entire show so maybe it doesn't belong on my list. My list is mostly for shows that I legitimately wish I had not seen. Even a bad show that sucked dick is usually not something that weighs on me. This feeling is reserved almost entirely for shows that I really truly loved, up until the ending, which somehow tainted my memories of the show to a point I regret the whole experience.

That said, I feel like I'm over new game. Season 1 hasn't gone anywhere and thinking about these other shows has perhaps put new game into perspective. While I still think the ending was abysmal, I don't regret watching the show, I'm just that much more determined to make something similar that ends in the way I think is best.

Still, I can't help but think of how much I could have loved new game if they didn't rush the character development so much. I think it would have been fine to leave Aoba in her starting position for another season or 2 so we can really see her grow and earn the position she wants as we see ko settle into her job as AD and eventually get with rin. Perhaps have Aoba become character designer in season 4, and AD in season 5 where ko takes a more backseat role as producer with her would be girlfriend rin. That's a version of New Game I would have cherished.

The more I thought back on season 2 the more it seems like they tried to move the show way too fast and ko was just caught in the crossfire as the characters ran out of room to grow. The addition of new characters just exacerbated that. In the end, these "fuwafuwa" shows are about maintaining that atmosphere and feeling rather than the plot and I feel season 2 threw that out to pursue something more dramatic when that's not at all what I wanted from this series.
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FellWolf posted...

Me :)

Damn you bastard. There's plenty of hot non yuri girls to see get fucked. Leave my yuri out of it.
FellWolf posted...

What didn't you like about madoka's ending?

It's honestly hard to remember at this point. Kind of funny since I wrote so much arguing about it. A lot of it had to do with not exploring the limits of wishes. For instance, why doesn't kyuubi get a girl to wish "entropy is solved". Boom. One girl gets sacrificed, universe saved, effort saved. Why?

OH WAIT. I remember what my main frustration was. A writing sin that seems to only bother me. The invalidation of the journey. If the actions the main character took since the beginning were pointless AND we get anything but a perfectly happy ending, I will be frothing at the mouth. That is also why katanagatari is on my list. Main character of madoka was homura btw before that causes confusion.

I also felt that the show did not earn it's sad ending. The powers the main characters had at their disposal (time travel and infinite wishes) are simply too great to conceivably end up with anything but the happiest possible ending. If they had gone through the effort of creating clear and understandable limits or at least showed the characters trying these obvious things it would have been possible to end up with a sad ending that felt earned, but thats not what happened.

Yami to boushi is on my list for basically all of the above and then some. As much as I'm angry at new game right now, I was so much more angry at that show. It does it all. Invalidation of journey, ruining of yuri pairing character, twisting of yuri pairing in a unique way, memory rewrite, all of this, against the source material, and for absolutely no gain.. The rest of yami to boushi was so good and the ending being such an affront to humanity crushed me when I watched that.

Gantz source material is as far as I know, fine. It just had a completely butchered anime original ending.

The shrine maiden one was honestly probably not worth being too upset over. I'm pretty sure the show as a whole was pretty meh so a bad ending isn't really ruining too much.

EDIT: Claymore should also be on my list for the same reason as gantz.
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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Also going to rule 34 to hopefully sort out some feelings of unresolved yuri and so help me god if artists haven't solved this I'm going to be upset with the whole internet.

Fortunately the internet gets to live another day. Although it always frustrates me when yuri characters get drawn getting fucked by dudes. Like why? Who is wanting that? Oh well, found a well drawn kiss of the 2 characters so that eases my rage a little a bit.
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What frustrates me possibly more than that (ok not more than that but still) is that out of the 220ish people that rated the last episode, I'm the only one that gave it a 1/5. Almost everybody else loved it. Season 2 is rated more highly than season 1. This feels like madoka's ending all over again.

At least I've learned from that one. I've done my rage posts, I've vented, I'm just going to try and forget this anime ever happened and move on rather than be sucked into a 3 week argument that causes me to write a novels worth of posts that are probably still chronicled somewhere on the madoka sub forums on MAL. Also going to rule 34 to hopefully sort out some feelings of unresolved yuri and so help me god if artists haven't solved this I'm going to be upset with the whole internet.

This goes on my list of anime, that if I ever somehow get insanely rich, I'm going to try to get the rights to so I can fix the endings. Others on the list include yami to boushi, madoka, katanagatari, gantz (although a brotherhood style re-adaptation is really all it needs), that one yuri show about shrine maidens, and I think a few more I've tried to block out. Hm...most of these are for ruining my yuri. For some reason yuri was not allowed to have a happy ending before sakura trick came out.
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Season 1 is. Season 2 decides to add melodrama to the mix to spice things up and the ends in a way that was not only unnecessary but also incredibly frustrating. I almost let the show get away with the decrease in quality from the first season because they upped the yuri levels but that worked massively to its disadvantage in the end. Not only did it make sure to leave the relationship I care about unresolved, it did it in such a way as to ruin the character for me, so I don't even want the character to be happy anymore.

If the show had a reason to do this, I might be more forgiving, but as you mentioned, it's a chill SoL, that's all I wanted from it. I learned nothing, I gained nothing, I lost everything. I regret watching season 2.
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Whelp, that was the worst thing I've witnessed in quite some time. The level of loathing I feel towards the writer of new game is indescribable. I don't think I'd watch another season if they made one.
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Hazuki (in new game!!) is godlike. What a wonderful human being. May her reign at the company be eternal.

Overall I kinda feel like I liked the first season better so far but I'm only half way through this one. The new character is kinda meh and hifumi have less of a role is annoying. Also their game just kind of doesn't seem good or fun. I've liked the extra focus and development for nene though and they have definitely stepped up their yuri undertone game. Guess I'll just have to see how it progresses.
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I_Abibde posted...

The tone of Season 2 ends up being very different, but I feel it is a good and natural change for the characters. Ended up being great, IMO.

Hopefully that means the tone of Rin's tongue makes a good and natural change into Ko's mouth. If they don't eventually by the end of new game as a series end up together I'm gonna be bummed and I could easily see them never actually going anywhere with it.
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Watching new game S2. Going from yuri VN about making a game to yuribait anime about making a video game. If this doesn't help keep me motivated to work (on game design) I don't know what will.

Only one episode into season 2 and it seems like the quality hasn't gone down at all which is great. In fact, it seems even more evident that Rin likes Ko. Hopefully that goes somewhere cause Ko is best girl but even if it doesn't I'll still enjoy the bait.
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Cory in the house is the undisputed the best anime.

Also dang guys, this wave of good anime and games is ruining my sleep schedule. I can't fall asleep cause I feel like I just have so many things to think about and I'm supposed to be hanging out with a friend tomorrow but it's 6 AM and I still feel pretty awake. Sigh, maybe I'll finish the renpy tutorial, it seems simple enough at least compared to javascript.
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I can say the writing for sakura gamer was pretty solid. Made me laugh a fair bit and the characters were very likeable. I liked all the knockoff versions of games like penultimate phantasy and snowsquall entertainments underclock.

I have nothing to really compare it too. It wasn't exactly on the same level as DDLC that I was talking about a few days ago but thats a deep psychological masterpiece. Those are the only 2 VNs I've actually finished. I still hate reading but it's a lot easier when they throw boobs and yuri at you and it's only a few hours long (or DDLC's case when they give me 8 hours of pure PTSD).

I feel like I'm getting spoiled lately. I've seen and played so much good stuff over the last month or two and even the things that werent masterpieces were still pretty good. On top of that I still have new game 2 left to watch. I'm actually feeling motivated to work on a game again.
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Played a sakura game today cause I've been seeing them around on steam forever and they finally threw what looked to be a good yuri flavored one at me. It was sakura gamers, a somewhat hilarious story/dating sim about lesbians making a dating sim about lesbians. It has some pretty funny meta commentary. Apparently the people doing it got a new writer who is much better and previous sakura games have pretty shit writing, wouldn't know. They were trying to charge for the uncensored patch though which is pretty scummy but fortunately the internet had my back and I found it for free.
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Lol, in my sleep deprived state after ending doki doki lit club last night I put sayori's name as sayaka for whatever reason. Too late to edit, if anyone plays the game (please do) and reads what I wrote, sayaka = sayori. Pretty sure I didn't mess up any of the other names.
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Hit the character limit. Continued from previous post. Great black wall part 2.

If she can't figure out how love you, she'll just leave you alone. Not only does it match exactly what happened with sayaka it also on another level matches exactly what is happening as she is singing it with herself. That type of phrasing is suicidal depressed person speak for "leave you alone by killing myself so I won't be in your way or have to watch you". Specifically the way sayaka is trying so hard to find a replacement for herself so she won't feel as guilty leaving is terrifying. I remember that all too well. Scariest thing you can hear from some suffering like that is "goodbye" and when they are trying to make sure it won't hurt you too bad, thats when you gotta worry.

The whole time I just wanted to tell sayaka that I could tell she was hurting and do anything I could to promise her to stay alive. That I wouldn't let her go that easily no matter what she wants, even if she hates me for it. Thats what I did in real life. In this game you don't do that. In this game she dies. She likely would have died anyway, it's hard to say, but being able to see the signs and having no way to get your character to do anything about it is a special kind of horror.

I'm so very glad there is a special ending in this game. It ends with sayaka saying the words I always wanted to hear after goodbye. "Come visit again soon". I don't know how much thought he put into that world choice, but there is no better way you could end this kind of game in my opinion. It gives such a level of relief and katharsis for me and it feels almost like it was hand made for me and what I've gone through specifically. The note at the end of the special end from the developer as well is very nice and inspiring. Somehow this horrific tale of my worst nightmares come back to haunt me gave me some small bit of closure in real life and left me feeling happy and even inspired to create. I've been up for 23 hours now and I regret nothing. I'm sure the game would be so much less special to someone that hasn't in some way interacted with suicidal depression but if you ever have, I feel like theres no way this game won't feel special.
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Whelp. I got the secret ending in doki doki lit club and it was worth the time (even if I already saw the ending). Im gonna have to talk about this and it's pretty much all spoilers so enjoy the black wall I guess. I implore you not to spoil yourself for this game.

This thing is another masterpiece. I've been quite lucky with media in the past few months. Haikyuu, monogatari, made in abyss, and now this. And this definitely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as those works. It hits me on such a personal level. I know I've mentioned it before but I dated a girl that was suicidally depressed once. All 3 of the characters that aren't monika are exactly her. I knew from the moment I read the second (natsuki's, after yuri's) poem this was a game about suicide and depression despite the initially cheery atmosphere

The thoughts, the conversations, the feelings. This game was pure PTSD for back then. I put every ounce of my being for over a year into keeping this girl alive and every single day it felt like that could easily be her last. I had to watch day after day as she stopped trusting me, as she stopped loving me, as she drew closer to the edge. I received a very bittersweet ending in real life. She is still alive today but she left what was left of me by the end of it. I had become such a wreck by the end of it that I was barely even a person anymore, I was just a thing that existed to keep her alive, and I got just a little bit worse at it every day. Whenever I had brief moments of free time I didn't even know what to do with myself. The concept of fun was almost foreign to me at that point.

I remember staying late on the phone till the sun came up so many times, begging her not to kill herself, pleading, crying as she would plead with me to let her go. It kept her alive but of course that hurt her too. This game illustrates that if you play through the beginning over and over exhausting every choice. Theres no option that doesn't deeply hurt sayaka but in real life you don't have the luxury of knowing that. You can't help but feel like there had to be a better way and that you just can't think of it. The end of route 1 was my nightmare for almost 2 years.

She also liked writing and drawing a lot. I read plenty of her poems. They would be right at the home in the game, hell I'd believe she wrote them if you told me so. I've never seen anything that captures all those feelings and mannerisms so well as this game. The cracks in their armor are so lifelike. Seeing them get deleted in the game was quite powerful, their character literally gone forever.

On your first run you don't even know if you had a choice or not. You can't help but feel like you fucked up. The stories are interconnected so well that it gives the illusion of there being so many more options than there actually are and it makes it feel like your choices actually killed sayaka. The moment you don't go to wake her up in the morning I knew it was too late. It's just brilliantly done. In the act of exposing the rigged system you go through all the possible routes in act 1 and get to see into each character and you can't help but be re enamored by it's authenticity and craftsmanship all over again. The writer of this has either struggled with suicidal depression personally or at least experienced it second hand like I have. It's just too accurate for that not to be the case.

Act 2 and monika is still fantastically handled though. While monika doesn't resonate with me as personally, her character is entirely unique to video games. All her poems struggle to come to terms with "the epiphany" which is that she is a game character and nothing in the game is real or matters. It's just genius having a character like that be the "villain". In the end hearing her play the piano and talk in a human voice was pretty amazing. The lyrics of the song are depressing if you listen to it. She essentially commits suicide so you can be happy without her.
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I'm pretty sure I even cried listening to shelter once although I maintain thats the most concentrated dose of bittersweet you could create in 6 minutes.

The anime I was thinking of earlier that was ecchi harem was hentai ouji but I'm pretty sure it's been a lot more than that that I've cried to. I've learned it's about 10% what's happening and 90% the music going with it.
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Whelp, I've been ruined. What a ride that game was (doki-doki literature club). I also looked up the secret ending cause I'm a lazy fuck and I almost feel like going back to get it anyway despite the hour or two it would take.

THEN I looked up hidden shit about the game because I knew there would be and DAMN, they went all out. You can check the reddit thread after you finish (it's all stuff unrelated to this game anyway, just hidden in the game files).

I did not expect this game though. It was good on so many different levels. I don't want to say anymore and risk spoiling anything but with it being free and a 5~ hour VN with this kind of quality, you basically owe it to yourself to play it.
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This game is not over when the first "playthrough" ends. Make sure you try to start a new game/try to load a save. Also this game is absolutely deviously genius. I feel like I'm gonna end up doing some research and starting a fresh playthrough after my first full playthrough ends.
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Assuming you aren't already suicidally depressed, go play this game immediately, it's free. DO NOT look at any reviews or comments, do not think, just play it.
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That sounds pretty interesting but since I haven't heard of it so I assume it's a manga. I might at least check it out.

Speaking of checking things out, in a spree of alcohol and a series of odd events I ended up downloading "doki doki literate club" on steam (it's free and has astoundingly high reviews for having been just released). I'm pretty sure I've already figured out why but my god is the ending going to fucking ruin me. Like I'm 99.9% sure something awful happens to everyone you don't choose, very probably suicide or something based on the warning, but honestly even if nothing bad happened, all the girls are so likeable and so pitiable that turning down any of them is going to destroy me. The way all of the girls are so likeable is actually really surprising. They aren't just likeable in the anime way, they feel pretty relateable.

I hope whatever the impending tragic ending is doesn't make this sound hilarious. I also realize there is a small chance that the warning and foreshadowing is entirely troll and that everything turns out fine which would make me so happy but thats probably just wishful thinking.

I have a feeling I might be very strongly recommending this by the time I finish it.
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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Maybe I'll torture myself by looking up the current and upcoming MMOs again.

Well this as always was a mistake. When will they even fucking try to make an immersive MMO focused on exploration and adventure instead of boring ass grinding and HOTBARS. I HATE HOTBARS. Believe it or not MMO devs, its possible to make a game that doesn't have fucking hotbars or skill rotations and it actually inherently makes the game vastly better when you remove those elements.
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I really don't know what to play or watch next. The void left by MiA being over is severe but at the same time, it hasn't finished scratching my fantasy adventure itch. I need more, but I don't know where to turn. I just want to explore a fantastical world that I can find truly interesting with characters that I don't want to strangle but it feels like everything either falls short or is too short in duration. Maybe I'll torture myself by looking up the current and upcoming MMOs again. It's been at least a month or two since I've done that. Sigh...
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I'm a cry baby when it comes to anime. I've cried during ecchi harem shows.
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I'm ninja
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Only way she ever sees her friends again is if riko survives AND her friends also dive to the bottom since you cannot come up from the 6th layer (or i suppose if they come up with some BS way to come back up, still no clue whats at the bottom after all).
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My only problem with that term at all is I feel like the abyss isn't a cave. It has a lot more in common with an underwater chasm which is something you either dive or delve into. The curse for the earlier layers is also just exactly decompression sickness symptoms that you get from surfacing too fast when diving. I've also played a lot of mount and blade warband so when I think raiders I think vikings and bandits and stuff.
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Looks like horriblesubs. They did a fine job though IMO. It's almost exactly the manga translation with only 3 notable differences. Cave raiders/delvers, curse/burden, hollow/narehate. I found an awesome thing though. A tweet where the translator explained why he chose what he did.

The japanese term for cave raiders/delvers translates to essentially "search+cave+professional" and while delvers left out the cave part entirely he felt it should have a different term. Sites like ANN had translated it as cave raiders and he felt the term sounded good. IMO delvers is better but it's fine either way, they don't really use the term much past the beginning anyway.

In the anime they very clearly say the word noroi which means curse so this is a case of the anime doing it better. I'm not sure if the manga also used noroi but at the very least the spoken words in the anime leave no other translation. Not sure why the manga uses burden although honestly I think it sounds better just because it sounds unique.

Narehate is a term that means a shadow of one's former self. You could use it to describe a washed up actress or something. The manga translators just transliterated it and left it as narehate whereas the anime translator decided to give it a real translation and felt that hollow was appropriate. In this case I can see arguments for both sides. I personally feel narehate (or something unique) is better in this case but hollow works just fine I suppose. Some fan translations apparently had it translated as "end result" but the anime guy felt that was too neutral when the term narehate has a clear negative connotation. IMO I feel end result used to describe a living thing has a sinister connotation but maybe thats just me.

I think the orb spiker was also transliterated and explained with a note in the manga IIRC but the translation is totally fine.
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While the manga is great, I really would watch the anime if at all possible. It's got some of the best art and such an amazing OST. I'm actually still listening to an hour long cut down version of the OST (removing some of the ambience tracks that aren't very exciting on their own) on repeat. I've never heard anything like it. In some ways it reminds me of earlier yuki kajiura works like hack sign and pandora hearts mostly in the way it's unique but extremely consistent in it's style (they don't actually sound similar, they just invoke a similar feeling).

The art is directed by the person that has done lots of art direction for ghibli and this is their masterwork so far. The monsters all move believably and the backgrounds especially when combined with the well used and amazing OST are just breathtaking. With just how incredible the environments are, it can actually be legitimately confusing in the manga sometimes since it's black and white with no motion. The beginning of the arc after the anime I remember having amazing art in the manga but I had no fucking clue what I was looking at. Like, I new it was awesome looking and absurdly well drawn, but I still couldn't really comprehend what it was I was seeing.

The manga also doesn't go that far past the anime (took me about 2 hours to read the rest and I'm not a particularly fast reader) and the adaptation is pretty faithful (word for word in most parts).
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I'm ninja
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Man this has to be the longest I've thought about a show after it ended in some time. I keep finding myself thinking about made in abyss. I've been thinking about how well it pulls off the whole "stay optimistic through adversity" theme with riko when thats usually an extremely frustrating trait for me to see in characters. I really feel like the writing has set up her optimism and cheerfulness very well, so it feels deserved and not just unrealistic or painfully naive.

Firstly, the main drive behind riko is her sense of wonder and awe in regards to the abyss. She is really truly and fully drawn into the abyss. The show starts off with her trying to do whatever she can so they will hurry up and let her go a little deeper. The show also instills in the viewer that same sense of wonder that she has. It just seems obvious that she would be obsessed with they abyss with how mysterious and awesome it looks. The music and artwork really help sell this.

That establishes her drive and source of optimism, but thats only half the puzzle. Horrors await in the abyss and she will have to overcome them. Just really wanting to see the bottom of the abyss isn't enough to overcome some of the horrific shit she goes through. This is where I feel like most characters of her type fail. Riko is prepared. Riko has spent all 12 years of her life learning about the abyss with the intention of eventually setting off on a journey to the bottom, never to return.

While at first it appears she might be treating the whole thing too lightly, once shit hits the fan we see that that isn't the case. She is fully aware she will likely end up dead without reaching the bottom and is fully aware of the creatures of the abyss and the many methods they have of viciously killing her since she has obsessively poured over all the information from abyss she could get her hands on.

It's on the 4th layer we really get to see how mentally and emotionally prepared she is for the journey and that to me is the moment her character goes from average to great. That's why it feels completely normal and fair for her to keep laughing and smiling when things aren't actively horrible. From reading around I think she is the least popular of the main characters but to me that doesn't feel fair, after seeing her archetype done wrong so many times and done so right in this instance. Theres also the fact that she acts a lot more like a believable 12 year old than the vast majority of child characters. They really captured the good and bad aspects of kids IMO. That child like wonder for the world but also the lack of caution as well.

I can't even really bring myself to start another anime yet because I feel like i'm not done thinking about made in abyss. It's weird just how great this season turned out to be. We had 2 of the shows I would consider in my all time favorties (made in abyss, and monogatari series) and both of them even ended up in the top 15 anime shows on MAL. That's not counting the series that are still quite good like kakegurui and boku no hero academia. A lot of people really liked princess principal as well so I need to make sure I give that a watch at some point.
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I'm ninja
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Wahhh?! Come on theres one character running around calling all the others her waifu's and the eternally tsundere status of playstation characters. Also isn't the oracle of xbox in open yuri love with vert (one sided sadly)?
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I'm ninja
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eating4fun posted...

1st episode of Juuni Taisen was neat and went beyond my expectations. Nisio Isin is a fucking legend. It's like he took a bet to make action shlock on a whim, but the work oozes originality and confidence solely because of his writing style.

I don't know many japanese writers by name but nisio isin is easily my favorite. It's like he can't help but be interesting no matter what he writes.
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I'm ninja
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Yeah but now and then, here and there is actually a sci-fi show where everything runs on the power of garbage plot holes and sheer stupidy. That is the one show where I actually can't understand why it has high ratings. Theres other highly rated shows I don't like, but I at least understand why people liked them. Why does no one care that all the characters are constantly really stupid and that everything everyone does seems like it was intentionally chosen as the worst possible course of action (those fucking assassins man, just why)? Also people misinterpreting the scene with a girl and rock as suicide (you don't bash yourself in the stomach with a rock to commit suicide, it has a different and painfully obvious intention) when that was not what was happening greatly frustrates me as well. Just steal some damn water from earth that you don't even fucking need with your dimensional transfer device you idiots.
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I'm ninja
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That does blow. I have so far found neptunia games to be among the better ports from japan. Hopefully you get it working.
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I'm ninja
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Made in abyss is about as shonen and kiddy as texhnolyze. Has a much more vivid color palette though. Considering thematically that the show is about pressing on through the darkness (literally and metaphorically) it's likely to get even more fucked up in the future. The horror of the arc after the anime is awful but it's not like the story eases up after that. Sadly the story hasn't really continued much after that either. I must know whats at the bottom. Is layer 7 the last layer or is there more? What about the other white whistles and their special relics? What is a blessing? I NEED to know (this shouldn't be spoilers).

I heard the manga used to be really behind on translations but it seems current at the moment and hopefully its newfound popularity will keep it current. Also somewhat hearteningly kinema citrus expressed some desire to adapt more of it in the future (aside from the ova side story thing they are already planning).

I'm kind of surprised the last episode did as well as it did. The overall rating for the show jumped from about 8.4 to 8.8 since the last episode aired and considering its in no way conclusive for the series I was rather surprised. I did read a fair bit of the episode 13 discussion and a lot of people seemed to love it and bumped up their score based on it. Maybe it would have felt better if I hadn't read the manga, not that there is anything bad about episode 13 in the slightest, just would have left me really curious if I hadn't already read ahead.
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I'm ninja
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OlorinTheOtaku posted...

I'm probably gonna read the Made In Abyss manga soon. It sounds cool.

Might as well watch the anime. its pretty faithful. Pretty sure the manga starts on chapter 26 after episode 13. That said you can blaze through whats left of the manga in like 2 hours (and I'm a slow reader).
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I'm ninja
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Watched the last made in abyss episode and I'm kinda surprised. The name "the challengers" threw me off. I expected the story to go all the way to the 5th layer but it didn't. It wasn't rushed in the slightest, and was basically word for word what the manga had with the exception of the info balloon sent up, that didn't happen in the manga IIRC. They also somewhat tastefully altered the hotsprings part since it shows riko naked in the manga and she is 12.

And to think, the anime still hasn't explained cartridges aside from bondrewd mentioning them at one point in a flashback. if you thought this was traumatic...Made in abyss is not for the faint of heart. I want to know whats at the bottom of the abyss so bad.
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I'm ninja
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