Eluvianii

I have finally finished an anime season where I watched the last episode of a show close to release. Three of them in fact. I'm so proud of myself. Rock is a Lady's Modesty was my favorite one this season, or at least my favorite that started this season (if I count everything that aired regardless of starting date the apothecary is at the top). I'm a sucker for music shows and this one was amazing. Probably helped that one of my favorite bands did all the performances. Food for the Soul was an instant comfort show and the highlight of my Sundays (it aired on Saturdays, but this is a perfect Sunday afternoon show for me). Nothing happens in it, just hanging out and food. Fine by me. It's an original work so it's not like it has more material to adapt, and it certainly doesn't need it, but I wouldn't say no to a season 2. Witch Watch is fun. It feels like the result of an author who's frustrated after years of tropes. Whenever there's an opportunity for standard anime drama it goes "Sike, we're not doing that" and resolves what would become a multi volume arc in other stories by the end of the episode. Pretty refreshing. Also a surprise because I spent the last 3 months convinced this was a season long, only for episode 12 to come and tell me there's 14 more to come. So looking forward to that. Apothecary Diaries was stellar. Episode 23 is episode of the year material. This is also the season where I decided to look up the volume count and uh, there's material for 6 more seasons...? And the story is still ongoing......? I'm gonna be waiting forever if I stay with the anime, screw that, I'm gonna read. Once Upon a Witch's Death is the show I'm procrastinating on. I like it but. To borrow a phrase I heard somewhere, it's a great show trapped inside a good show. Like it's good but it deserved to be better. I'll probably finish it but I'm slightly disappointed. As for summer, idk, I added way too much to my watch list, and I'm probably gonna drop most of it so we'll see. So far I'm sticking with Lord of Mysteries and Dandadan. I also started the one about the veteran adventurer opening a restaurant and I liked it so probably that one too. Oh, and the one about the detective, it's hilarious. Gonna see what else is cool.

Oh. That makes a lot more sense than I'd like. I saw some people hoping that this show helps donghua break into mainstream but hearing that it might not be worth it...

Well, first two episodes of Lord of Mysteries just dropped. Which is a bit odd and has me wondering what kind of schedule we're looking at. But regardless, it's good. Its so good. Animation is good, backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous, love the character designs and voices. It feels a bit like ufotable with its 2d animation over 3d backgrounds, though I think these backgrounds are more detailed than anything I've seen from ufotable, to the point I can't fathom how this is even feasible. It's going rather fast and skipping most of the fluff, which I guess is par for the course, but it does feel really weird in a story that is originally mostly fluff. This just means that it transitioned from mostly slice of life with some action, to mostly action with some slice of life, and I think it went reasonably well. Only issue I see so far is that episode 1 speedruns a lot of worldbuilding that the book took its sweet time with, so donghua only people might have a hard time absorbing it, but it's probably fine. Incredibly satisfied with this adaptation so far, it's probably gonna be my main watch this season.

Damn, bold words. I'll check it out. Surely I won't regret adding another super long story to my pile. I'll try to balance this out with short stuff. Thank goodness for light novels. Standing recommendation for the two I mentioned. I only have read one volume of each but they're great. Good if you like a story with likeable villains as protagonists in the case of the first, or a ridiculously gothic setting with stupid cool cosmic-horror-themed progression powers for the latter.

Definitely not short. And I admit I don't have the sequel on hand. But the base story is, apparently, 3.5k pages. Which is shorter than the other web novels I'm reading which are Practical Guide to Evil clocking in at 7.3k and Lord of Mysteries at 8.4k. And the latter also has a sequel series that I'm just not daring to see how long it is just yet. And it's going to be a trilogy... Web novel authors are just really verbose.

Ah, that one. It's been on my tbr for a minute. I think I've read the first couple chapters once or twice. Might check it out. At least it's shorter than the other stuff I'm reading... Man I should pick up something short.

Been getting into those. Lord of Mysteries reads a little weird in English but it's really cool (plus the show starting this week, yay). A Practical Guide to Evil is kind of addictive. I've also dipped my toes in a few others but not far enough to really say I've read them, like Wandering Inn, Heretical Edge, oh, and Cinnamon Bun. Ah, wanna check out Wildbow too, everyone says he's great. Planning on starting with Pact or Pale from him.

Finished Shin Sakura Wars at around 27 hours and 30 minutes. Such a fun game, it's like a playable Saturday morning cartoon. Just with uh, a lot more opportunities to be inappropriate I suppose. I swear man, all games should be this colorful. Well, maybe not, but the vibe I get from it is so relaxing and enjoyable. This is a cheer up game if I've ever seen one. I'm simultaneously glad and regretful that this game was my introduction to the series. There's a huge emphasis on letting the player know how cool the original Imperial Combat Revue was, and how many good moments they had together. There's also the bromide system that includes a lot of scenes from previous game, and I'm just left wondering what those scenes are about, when did they happen, I wanna see. So I can't help but wonder how cool all of that would have been if I had played the other games first. On the other hand, now I'm really pumped to play said games. Of course, only 3 of those games are available. Games 3 and 4 still lack a fanstranslation, so after catching up with the rest I'm either looking at waiting for years for a translation, or studying Japanese for years so I can play them on my own. Both options are a bit daunting timewise but I guess either way this will be a long term project. Regardless, good game. Glad I'm getting into this franchise. Saving the world from demons with the power of love, music, and mechas is a bit silly but undeniably cool. Also best theme song ever. No, really, what's with all the vocal theme songs. There's one for each combat unit, one for near each female character in the game, plus the ending theme. This game is pretty much an album. Go listen to those, they're so good.

Bit of a shame but it's still way earlier than I'd have expected.

Hmmm, this got complicated. Sure, I do like jazz. What's the best waffle topping?

The quiz daydream and the bullet hell daydream had 3 parts each iirc. Didn't you mention you were gonna skip those past part 1? Maybe each part counted individually.

Finished Persona 3 Reload at 99 hours with 55 minutes, which is almost exactly the same length down to the minute of my original playthrough of Portable back in like 2015. This is the game that introduced me to RPGs, not the first one I played but certainly the first one I finished. It's also the game that taught me English. Had some experience from playing Twilight Princess but making the jump from that to this was a real struggle. I was obsessed with this game at the time but as the years passed I stopped seeing it in such a high regard. The memories faded, were replaced with those of newer and shinier games, maybe I was too young back then to appreciate the finer details, maybe my vocab was not wide enough to understand it. Whatever may have happened, this remake brought everything back to me and then some. I can say, I didn't remember this being so good. The beginning was a bit rough, which does align with what I remembered. Characters are not exactly role models and some of them are hard to tolerate. Goodness knows early game Yukari is my least favorite character in the series. But now I think that's one of the strengths of the game. 4 and 5 make it easier on you, every party member enters the group through a big revelation, they start their stories well on the way to becoming their ideal selves, you can't help but cheer them on. But here they haven't even taken the first step. 3 just hands you this group that's in such a bad shape, they're just stumbling around and hurting each other in the process, it's not super fun. But that also means you get to see them rise right from the bottom. And it's such a beautiful journey. Game also comes with a few extras. Namely evening hang outs with the gang, and a social link substitute for the guys (cause they didn't have one). I think this was handled a bit sloppily and overall makes the time management aspect of the game even harder than before. But it's so worth it. I have a new appreciation for some of the characters. Junpei who was already my favorite was elevated even more. And the evening hangouts add so much emotion to certain portions of the game. For anyone looking to play, don't skip the study sessions, even if you don't need the academics. Some of the best scenes in the game are hidden away there. Overall, I think I still prefer 5. I like the vibe, there's pretty much no repetition which is a huge achievement, the story is not as heavy, so it's easier to just enjoy, and the gameplay is plainly more fun, even if what we're comparing it to is Reload. However, 3's strong points are ridiculously strong, to the point that the next 2 games don't even come close, and I very much doubt 6 will (though I'd love to be wrong). As for the strong points in question, first of all is character development. I love every character I've met in this series, but the transformation this cast undergoes is brutal. By the end they're just different people, and everything is told so well. You can follow every single step of their struggle with so much detail. Plus the relationships they develop with each other are amazing to witness. The other one would be the ending. Persona 3 has to have on of the best endings I've ever seen. I will admit I mostly found it kinda confusing and unsatisfying back in the day, but it grew on me with time, and seeing again now after so long, especially with the way it's been remade. Well, tears were shed. So in short I had an absolute blast with the game, I definitely think this has become the definitive version. At this point the only reasons I can think of to go back are nostalgia, and FeMC. I really wish we could have gotten FeMC, but I can see that's pretty much another game on top of the main one. Also looking forward to playing Episode Aigis eventually. I played Portable, so I never got to see what happened there, and I did hear this version improved the gameplay, so I'll have to get the expansion pass at some point.

I kinda just devoured the first volume of A Practical Guide to Evil. It's kinda been a while since I was this glued to a book. My sleeping schedule was already in poor shape but this book managed to do some extra damage to it. My expectations for the thing were kinda average since the summary didn't give me the biggest picture on what this was going to be like, but I guess it's the most popular web serial for a reason. Magic is cool (as magic usually is), it goes half the way through being a litrpg, but doesn't land there. No stats, no levels, but yes classes, and I like the way they work tbh. The author turned fantasy tropes into a magic system and I find that unbelievably cool. Even more so the fact that he made it work. The world feels big and someone seems to be having fun revealing it just a tiny drop at a time. First volume represents an incredibly small portion of the total page count, so I can only imagine how big this world becomes. There's also this weird feeling I get reading this. Pretty much every character here is a bad guy, protagonist included despite her trying not to be. They all make choices that would make me hate a person for life. But they're likable bad guys, and watching them make said choices can be really satisfying. It's like watching an action movie where you can turn off your brain and ignore the ever increasing body count of the protagonist, except this book doesn't really let you turn off your brain because it keeps bringing up how morally dubious everything is. Enjoyable, but it does feel strange (to me anyway). Gotta say tho, I don't know if there's a revised version of the book on kindle or something, but the web version has probably the most grammar errors I've seen in one of these. A particularly bad portion of the book even starts using first person and third person both within the same sentence (novel is told in first person, but for a few chapters, the author regularly forgot). Curiously not many typos, mostly you'll see the wrong word being used. Like someone ran the draft through Microsoft Word's spell check without manually checking the result. Looking forward to see how big the story becomes. The transition to book 2 already seems to be quite a leap in scope, and I'd imagine it only keeps growing from there. It is a pretty damn daunting story though, length-wise. Don't get me wrong, few things get me as excited as a stupidly long fantasy epic, but can't deny that the commitment is hard to keep up. Hope I'm up for the task.

Used to do a bit of piano. I should really get back to it.

Just watched one of my childhood favorites after who knows how many years, Alice in Wonderland, the 1999 one. Such a weird movie, and strangely probably the most faithful adaptation I've seen. Not 100% but more than others. The practical effects are really charming though the costumes are downright terrifying. Part of the appeal imo but still nightmare fuel. Also, while I think part of the appeal of the books is how nothing changes between the beginning and the end, a dream story for the sake of itself, I do think it's pretty clever how they took all the reciting Alice does to make her own little coming of age story. That one flew right over my head as a kid, but I think it works really well. And gotta say, this is the first time I watch the movie in English and goodness, the Queen of Hearts' screeches were ear drilling. Someone had fun with that role. I love Turtle Soup so much. On that note, I'm happy to see the griffin wasn't cooking the turtle. Somehow my memory of the scene was that the turtle singing about the soup became it. Super cute and charming movie, I will probably continue to rewatch this one in the future. Not sure if that's the movie itself, my own nostalgia, or just the fact that I enjoy pretty much anything Alice in Wonderland, but it doesn't really matter, it's worth a watch.

Finished the first volume of Lord of Mysteries, Clown. It's a fun read. Mostly sol, with some good action here and there. It introduces all these occultist and lovecraftian concepts for its magic system, but also keeps the tone (mostly) light, so you can focus on how ridiculously cool the magic is without having to worry about every single character meeting a horrible mind breaking death (some do though). Progression is fun, I like the characters, wish we got more pov changes. Looking forward to Volume 2.

So apparently FC's remake is getting a new localization, which I'm ok with, actually quite hopeful about it. But apparently they also changed the entire cast except for Olivier and Zin. Now that's really weird, I thought seiyuus usually married their roles. I've seen actors voicing characters from the 70s that they obviously can't pull off anymore and that don't sound very good, simply because it's tradition. It's such an odd choice that they decided to change so many people here.

There's a lot of those and I love them dearly. It is true that it isn't hard to get them all and they do start repeating but there were more than I expected.

Finished Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, at a little under 104 hours, which would put it somewhere around 54 hours playing the expansion. And of course, by finishing I just mean I rolled credits on it. There's still more story to be seen, bigger and meaner monsters to fight, and I'm not uninstalling this until Fatalis is down. The game was a fun time, though I had to go through a long and frustrating period of acceptance regarding the game being so... gimmicky. Take Resuscitate to Velkhana if you don't want to be incapacitated half the fight. Take Effluvia Resistance to Vaal Hazak if you don't want to have an unfairly low amount of health the whole time. Take wind resistance to Kushala if you want to hit him at all. Preparation has always been a big part of the series, but whereas in say, GU and Rise (the ones I've played the most), ignoring a monster's gimmick just results in a harder fight, here doing so entirely prevents you from playing effectively, and sucks all the fun out in the process. Once I accepted that there was no way out of this, the game did become a lot easier, but I can't say I enjoyed unlocking the next monster in the story, only to be told I would have to go farm a different armor for a few hunts just to not throw the controller out the window. That has happened once in a while in the other games of course, but once I upgrade I can usually carry the same couple armors a few ranks. Here I almost needed one for each Elder. Anyway, if you do go prepared, most fights are a lot of fun. Banbaro is easily my favorite new normal monster in the expansion (which there's probably like 2 so not a lot of competition, but still). He's too big and hittable for his own good, but he's beautiful and fun. I love the new locale. Snowy regions usually involve a rocky mountain, or a glacier, so having at least 2 or 3 areas being a forest instantly shot it to the top as far as World goes. Fought a couple new elders, Namielle is easily my favorite elder in World, and probably my favorite overall monster. It's so damn pretty. The final boss was also pretty good, and sort of terrifying (Capcom is pretty good at that), and actually had a proper storyline leading up to it. Really enjoyed it overall. Though I guess from my hunter's point of view it might have been underwhelming, did not beat Nergigante and did not beat Shara, lol It's been fun, I look forward to Alatreon, I look forward to Fatalis, and I look forward to doin some fashion hunting. There's a layered set I wanna get but I need hunter rank 50, and somehow after finishing the main story I only made it to 45. Damn it goes slow in this game.

I think it's at one of the shop thingies next to the gacha, the one where you craft equipment. Just remember you need 3 of a kind.

The final stretch can be kinda daunting yeah. I clocked like 3 hours from my save file at the final boss door until credits. Enjoyed every second but that's the kinda thing that scares away potential players. I couldn't remember if there were places to save in the middle, good to know there are.

I will admit I probably like this one more than most in their last album. Not that those were bad but this one is just really good. A new favorite for sure.

Watched the first episode of Rock is a Lady's Modesty, and it was great. I can't believe Akane and Kanami from Band-Maid get a full part in a show via their instruments. It's gonna be one of my main shows this season for sure.

I can see them not committing to ideals, but that doesn't mean they're not living them already. Honestly, some of the characters already covered on the thread I feel like would not become Radiants at all. Peter strikes me as a bit of a reluctant Windrunner. Not nearly enough of a boy scout and he will claim not to care all he wants, but when he sees someone in need of protection he will act. Gamora seems like a Skybreaker. The code she follows might not be the closest one to the justice we know, but she follows it strictly, even if it costs her life. Groot doesn't give me a lot to work with but I will go with Stoneward. Rocket is a Dustbringer. Mantis would be an Edgedancer. Drax is a difficult one. He breaks one of the first rules but I would go with another Stoneward. He's an odd one, but "there when needed". Nebula feels like a cookie cutter Willshaper.

Been seeing all around how apparently it's the most common thing ever to plan a session 0, going about the things they recommend doing during one, and that's slightly surprising. My table just goes "Yeah, new campaign. Bring a level 5 character next week. 10k to spend and 50 points. See ya." Of course we end up having a session 0 anyway because translating the character into Foundry still takes a while, plus asking questions about feats, items and stuff, but it's never really on purpose. We just kinda fall under the weight of our own lack of preparation.