Eluvianii

The game came today! I was rather sleepy so I thought, maybe this time it won't consume my life and I'll prioritize sleeping, so naturally I ended up with a 9-hour session. The impressive thing is how little I accomplished in those 9 hours, two short dungeons and two dialogue runs. I genuinely don't know how that took so long, given the lack of side-quests. Still, it was an amazing start, and it feels great to be with these characters again.

Mine hasn't even shipped yet. Hell, I got it from Amazon so there's always a chance they'll go "Oops, actually we ran out of stock" D': Tbh these last few days I'm struggling to keep motivation up for other games, and even if Reverie is only a few days away, the wait is legit feeling long. I don't remember the last time I was so excited for something that time slowed down to a crawl, it's like being a kid waiting for Christmas. It's a nice feeling honestly.

Ok, that scene. That scene was a work of art. Starting at the beginning, the way Erika's eyes lit up when a locked room finally appeared, that was funnier than it should. I actually can't tell if she can't tell reality apart from fiction or if, under the premise that this is a game board, she already considers the whole of Rokkenjima to be fiction. She's already comparing it to books (I'm guessing that was an "And Then There Were None" reference), as if the epitaph murders would represent a literary achievement instead if a, uh, crime achievement I guess. Now, messed up as the comparison was, I loved that Battler played along with it with the sole purpose of roasting her. That was so storming satisfying. And I was roasted along with her. "I don't even read 100 books a year, I should hesitate to call myself a reader", hah, I probably don't even know the alphabet by those standards. This has been the opposite of Episode 4. We came from 6 twilights in a single chapter to postponing the second one forever. Will they even get there? It looked like Bern was about to win after only the first. Unless Natsuhi isn't the culprit, which would be interesting. Also, I can't believe I forgot last time. Jessica can't be an accomplice. This episode's whole deal was that the corpses are all real and them playing dead is not even a possibility. Welp, back to square one. Why would Natsuhi do this? I'm back at the "atonement for killing the other baby" theory, shaky as it is...

Finished High Score Girl. I swear, this is one of the absolute most adorable couples I've seen in a piece of fiction, and I'm both satisfied I got to see 24 episodes of it, and dying to see more. The fighting games history class aspect of the show was really interesting too. The gaming industry of the 90s is something I usually only get to see in documentaries and stuff, so following a character living through the times was really cool. Only thing I would say I disliked about the show is the presence, if relatively small, of a love triangle. But that's only because I like the main couple so much, I resented pretty much any character that caused the plot to deviate from that. But the third person is a good character too and I can't exactly say she didn't contribute to the plot. I'm sad it's over, though I hear there's a sequel/spin-off that takes place about 10 years later. That's quite the leap and likely not what I want to see but if I can revisit these characters I'll take it.

Ouch, harsh. But fair. But hey, Ryukishi's main message is "don't push your sins/sufferinh onto others", which already came up so, looking forward to the rapid fire of redemption arcs. Unless we go the irredeemable route in which case Episode 8 will be a massacre. The whole two minutes of the servants in the kitchen before they knew about the murders were cute. By which I mean Shannon and Gohda singing.

Not knowing if you'll wake up at 7am or 12pm sure is fun cries

You know, her being a real human somehow makes it even funnier. Er, what's that about a rat? Ok so, this session was in a word, eventful. Oh hey, Battler just quoted his favorite Higurashi character, I remember that conversation. Sadly, I can't recall who said that. Rena? Shion? And Natsuhi! It's easy to forget because everyone is so used to it, but those headaches of hers are very worrying. I don't want to suddenly find out she has brain cancer. I hope it's just migraines from the stress. That's still terrible but, it can be overcome at least. Random thought, they must have some storming good umbrellas in Rokkenjima. I mean, this is a typhoon. Every time I remember taking an umbrella out with any mild wind, it just turned inside out. Now imagine how strong the winds must be there.

Erika Furudo? Really? I guess using her real name would mess up the background check but, come on. Well, in any case, I look forward to having a detective here. An insult to Beatrice's board or not, I really want to see how that turns out.

Ok, I admit I might have shoehorned that one a little bit. I wanted it to fit with the idea that this was happening for her sake, but now that I think about it that's Witch theory, not Human theory. To be honest I hope it's human Beatrice. I do want her to be more than the 1000-year old illusion of a witch. But if I go that route, I don't know what Battler could have done to wrong a dead girl. I guess it might just be that she vowed to try and do something about the massacre, and this whole drama has been her plan, which resulted in a lot of suffering for herself (according to Lambda). So when that plan reached its conclusion and it thoroughly failed, she was just sorta, allowing herself to rest. So not a lot of progress the last few days but this new info is interesting. Since like, Episode 2 I've been assuming that Beatrice can do whatever she wants as long as she respects the final state of the crime scene, but now I'm told that the magic displayed has a logic to it. Natsuhi created a plan to make it seem like Kinzo was alive, therefore we can write that he was revived. Natsuhi thought that her coming up with a plan was some kind of divine intervention by Beatrice, therefore we can write that they know each other and have a contract. I didn't expect the rule to be so specific. With enough creativity you could solve like half the story by attacking from that front. Just linking magic events to character traits and vice versa until you have the whole thing mapped out. Even better if you assume the one controlling the magic events is the culprit for each episode. So Natsuhi for Episode 5 (and presumably 1), Eva for 3, and so on. That's really cool. Omg Natsuhi and Krauss as newlyweds are so darn cute what the hell. Is every couple in this game hiding such sheer adorableness? I won't hold my breath for Rudolph x Asumu and Rosa x Mysterious Man X but hey, who knows. Also, I've been kind of addicted to Discode for the last few days. It has such a "To be continued" energy to it, I love it. Every time I hear the intro, the ending scene for Episode 4 just replays in my head, it's great. In that sense it kind of reminds me of Mourning Refrain.

I believe they're all about the same. Switch should be lower res and lower quality textures so there's that.

You know, I would absolutely believe the "you're not the real Battler" thing just means that he stopped being himself by missing six years, if they hadn't gone the extra mile by saying he's a literal body double. Well, first thought was that this might be the first instance of a separation between Beatrice the witch and Beatrice the girl. If she used that as an excuse, saying that the sin committed wasn't against her still holds. But even though I would love to know more about Beato as a person, this has one too many holes. Second thought was that this wasn't actually Beatrice but Maria in disguise. I do think the sin was mainly against her (in case I'm right about what the sin is), and after Battler disappointed her, Witch Beato told her to go rest. And we do see Maria later dead, quite close by, in what seems to be just a peaceful dream. It also seems that Beato is doing all of this for Maria specifically, so her anger and disappointment would make sense. If this was it though, it does feel weird that later it's Maria who's consoling Beato and not the other way around so I'm absolutely not sure about this. Oh god I can hear it. So there's double lyrics here. Carrol would be proud.

I mean sure, it wouldn't make sense to include Kinzo if he was thoroughly inaccurate to the person he was. But also, we know people's memories of him are overblown. You can say the craziest thing and everyone thinks he would be capable of doing it. "I wouldn't put it past Kinzo" is the key to the greatest character exaggeration you could come up with. About Battler and his sin, I'm doubting myself now, but that is what I remember reading. Beato was criticising Battler, saying how the real one would remember, and immediately after she says something like "No, the real one wouldn't have done it in the first place". I'm curious now, might look it up on a video or something. Anyway, read the prologue and a bit of chapter 1. Man, Battler's promise to never feel sympathy for Beato again lasted a whole 5 minutes. Not that I'm complaining. I like their dynamic when they're on good terms. If only she was awake so I could see it... Natsuhi was already pretty much at the top of my favorite character list along with Maria, but she seems to want to climb higher. I can tell I'm gonna like this episode, she was sorely lacking screen time. Also, this look into her dynamic with Krauss is cool. So far I had the impression that the relationship leaned too far into Krauss being in control, but now it just seems that Natsuhi restrains herself, but is ruthless when action is required. They're a good match. And we go back into discussing who Kinzo was as a person. Who's this kind and reasonable Kinzo? Was he actually this kind to Natsuhi when he was alive? I don't know who this man is but I like him a lot. Couple details I forgot to mention last time. So Battler doesn't actually remember his meetings with Bern and Lambda, even though they pretty much reignited his fighting spirit more than once. Weird. Also, Happy Maria is a banger. I did take the risk to look up the lyrics though, and they don't seem to make any sort of sense. I wonder if it's a particularly strong case of of bad English comprehension on the side of the lyricist, or a particular strong case of mistransliteration on the side of the person posting the lyrics online. Or maybe they just deliberately wrote them with a Lewis Carrol philosophy of nonsense in mind, that would be cool.

I shall wait then. Meanwhile, I want to start by facepalming. I was about to go on my usual "I have no real basis for this but I think..." and propose that all the furniture was imagined by Maria. I was even going to compare it to Toy Story. It was then, and only then, that I realized I had been given the evidence for it, fitting with that exact comparison, days ago, during the first half of the episode. And I had just not noticed. So instead of taking the hint and shaping the theory around it, I had to randomly come up with the theory to even realize I had the hint, which is really stupid and way too lucky. It does explain that one scene where Kinzo is verbally abusing the rabbits. When they talked about how one of them died and then she appeared in the character list, both the scene and her description kinda suggested we were supposed to know what they were talking about. So of course we were, we saw Rosa slamming her into the wall. Anyway, to the main point. I think that's all I have for now. Though I did read a lot since my previous post so I'm surely forgetting stuff. At the moment I'm fighting a boss called "Stop reading". I still have time to read for two or three hours but I want to have a clear line between the first and second halves of the story, and leave at least tonight to think about it and maybe come up with something new. I did just randomly realize the thing about Maria's toys while washing dishes like half an hour ago so it could happen, who knows. Looking forward to tomorrow. The game promises a new "Game Master", excited to see who's the new writer. Possibly Battler (wait, that doesn't make sense).

Haven't watched the movie yet but this goes straight into my list of favorites for the year. Beware of spoilers though, it feels like half the movie made it into the video.

How did the arc with the darkest bits so far turn into this? Well, who cares? This has been amazing. One of the things that made Higurashi hard to read for me was that once things got bad, they just kept getting worse until the end of the episode, so keeping motivation up was an issue (though that changed in the last three episodes thankfully). This back and forth is a lot easier. The joke about the rabbits dealing with menus and calling IT, and the one about loser flags, they win. They just win. Pack up, boys, those two are clearly not gonna be topped, might as well stop here. I hereby declare the deus ex machina based on rpg multipliers and villain clichés is completely valid. Moving on. I do hope Virgilia is not only comic relief from now on but, I just couldn't stop laughing the whole sequence. She's good at this. George is being stupid cool right now, and I think I just fell in love with Jessica. I think I'll just bask in the feeling of the characters I love winning before it all falls apart. Though best case scenario, we have another Minagoroshi in our hands and even though everyone will die, they may do so in a hopeful note. A guy can dream. Also, it is now my headcanon that Beatrice was personally playing the 'bing-bong' sound with every loser flag and you can't convince me otherwise.

Unfortunately, people kept demanding more from Thaidakar.

Oh. Well that makes sense, Japan isn't exactly huge, how many schools for rich girls and an iron grip can there be? I was kinda sorta counting the orphanage too though. Not a school but kids lived and learned there. And that one truly was hell. Edit: Hold it! There's another thing. The pin for the vault was written in a magic circle in episode 3. That had no business being there. Even if we go along with the idea that Beatrice the witch was managing Kinzo's finances using the latest security measures, there's no reason for her to paint the thing on the wall. So my guess is that Eva didn't find gold, she found a pin. George was among the ones to find the circle, right? Maybe she saw herself losing this and wanted George to work it out and use the money?

Ryukishi, when I die I'm going to hell just so I can drag you there with me. sigh I think I've reached a point where I can safely say this dude has made me suffer more than any other writer. At this point I'm more attached to Satoko and Maria than most other fictional characters, so of course he goes and treats them like that. Before I go into that, I mean, you're right. I'm dangerously close to the point where I'm supposed to have all the info I need to crack the plot open, it's just that this new possibility is both unexpected and scary. I had been assuming that every game was a different fragment, but if it turns out it's all one fragment, that kinda messes with my dream of an "everyone lives" ending. (spoiler tags are probably pointless at this point but what the heck. If I leave my walls of text out in the open this page will be unscrollable.) Anyway, on to chapter 11. 11. That would be the beginning of the third act in previous episodes, but this time around, as far as I know, nothing has happened yet inside the board. I'm curious how that will wrap up. Will they speedrun the thing or will this episode be unusually long? Looking forward to finding out. Also, I wonder if Ryukishi has a bad experience with boarding schools or something similar. They seem to be a theme of his and he always portraits them as absolute hell. Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to add. I'm starting to really like the Stakes. Sure, I liked their chaotic energy before, and their strange dynamic with Battler, but, playful or not, it was hard to call their behavior anything other than evil. But now. With Ange and without Beatrice, they seem so... caring. The way they condemn the very sins they represent when displayed with ill intentions, while wearing them as badges of pride when applying them to their own ideals. Like there's a right way and a wrong way to be greedy. I think it's really cool and makes them look more like their own characters than ever before.

If you like action combat, Crosscode is an option too. Beautiful sprites, combat is ridiculously fun, and you can mess around a lot with skill combinations.

Free at last! Uni is out of the way so I can sink into this (I need to. I'm pretty sure once I have Reverie in my hands, I'll forget any and all other forms of entertainment for a few months). Oh yeah. I spotted Kinzo in Shokugeki no Soma So that was funny. Anyway, plot, yeah. It's interesting that if I were to make a compilation of good quotes, like half of them would be Maria's. Tonight's favorite is "Becoming happy isn't the same thing as accepting your current misfortune. It means creating a new happiness within your current misfortune". Speaking of her sigh random extra thought, it's nice to see Ryukishi makes a distinction between Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Even if it was just a small reference, most stories seem to pretend they're both the same book for some reason.

Nice, that's really good to hear. The bar was pretty high.

There really is a fair amount of sexual assault huh. Call me clueless but I hadn't noticed. Not that many instances but still noticeable when I think about it. I only really remembered that one time it happens during the first season of Alicization, and then only because the author got backlash for it. Which, speaking of, the author replied to by saying it wasn't a scene he was particularly proud of, and that it being an adaptation, he actually wrote the scene years prior, but that since then he's matured as a writer and doesn't rely on that stuff anymore. So I guess whenever the next arc is animated we can expect something, I guess cleaner?

This might be a bit of an unpopular opinion but I think SAO gets better as it goes. The first arc is a bit messy because it tries to do too much with too little time, it keeps jumping from one genre to the next every other chapter and then it forces itself to rush the ending. Second one has way too many flaws imo but it's needed for continuity. It's at least a pretty enjoyable ride. Third arc feels a lot more grounded in what it wants to do. Fourth arc is a complete 180 in focus but a good one I think and it's my current favorite. Fifth arc I'm still watching (it's longer than the first four out together) but so far it's a lot more promising than any of the previous ones so I'm excited for that. So yeah, it doesn't turn into a masterpiece or anything but I do think it has been consistently getting better.

I can already tell this band is gonna be my best discovery of the year.