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Hi Hi

I'm actually in the middle of moving to our new house this month, and I'm currently spending all free time during the week planning what we need and all free time during the weekend moving our stuff, cleaning, building Ikea furniture, etc. but I must have overworked myself because I came down with some kind of cold or flu or something. On the plus side, that means I'm home from work for a few days and have time to write a message!

Quick life update: We only started moving 2 weeks ago because the house paperwork was delayed for several moths, but finally it's happening for real for real this time. Furniture is expensive too, who knew? Also Natsu went full Millennial at the start of this year and went on sick leave due to "stress at work" aka "I don't like working and want free vacation" which is apparently very easy to do in this country. Cunt took 3 months off and left me with double work. Then at the end of it all he up and quit anyways. Was a real dick move. We're still searching for a replacement even now. Double work for 8 months is ass, I'll have you know. At least they gave me a raise. Helps with the house costs I guess. The cunt did always give me weird vibes so ultimately maybe it's for the best he's gone. He was literally the type of weeb who openly talked about Asian women being the most statistically desirable...weirdo. Well I guess add Natsu to the pile of greasy, selfish, lazy weebs looking for an Asian girlfriend. Good riddance.

Moving on...

House of the Dragon: I never read Fire & Blood, but from what I gather online they're moving through the story at a snails pace. I agree that S1 felt like the good part of Game of Thrones and S2 felt a bit like the beginning of the downfall of GoT. I wouldn't put it quite as bad or sloppy as GoT's later seasons, but there were definitely some...shit moments. Daemon's entire plot line this season REALLY felt ass-pulled. He spends most of the entire season on some kind of weeks/months long drug trip doing basically nothing...just brain dead levels of story telling. I also read somewhere that pretty late into the writing process for this season they cut the episode count from 10 to 8. Which I think explains why this season felt like it just sorta...ended. The theory is that they didn't have enough time to do major rewrites so just decided to basically leave out the last 2 episodes this season. In any case, if HoTD is already showing the same signs it took GoT 5 seasons to get to I don't have particularly high hopes for HoTD's next 2 seasons. The CGI dragon battles are great, I even like a lot of the characters and acting, but it's all coming together clunky. That one black Targaryen girl in the last episode just wanders off to find a dragon? She's like...a royal princess and traveling with a caravan of other people who absolutely know her. Now THAT is some GoT s8 level writing. Still curious about s3 (maybe production will move more smoothly and they'll sort some stuff out?) but hopes are solidly lower now. S1 = 9/10. S2 = 6/10.

Side note: Have you ever taken a look at George RR Martin's blog btw? I used to (naively) think we were at least getting Winds of Winter at some point (just never A Dream of Spring), but lately I don't even think we're getting Winds. Dude's brain is cooked.

Cyberpunk: My first 10/10 anime or manga in Idk how many years. This is exactly the kind of story I want to see more of. Hyper violence, amazing soundtrack, real consequences, and doesn't try to create 10 seasons and a cinematic universe. It knew exactly when and how to end and never pulled any punches. Doesn't hurt that Lucy is A+ waifu material and gets her boobs out either. I also really appreciate that Dave and Lucy actually get together early on and have a real relationship rather than the anime-esque stare longingly into each others eyes for 5 seasons while blushing until, at long last, they finally hold hands. And as you mentioned, episodes 6 and 10 are real standout gut-punch beautiful episodes which I feel like we only see from anime once every few years and Cyberpunk managed to have 2 by itself in 10 episodes. I will admit that the post time skip episodes (7,8,9) are not quite as good as the first 6, but I feel like episode 10 more than made up for it. Those last 5 minutes are cinema to me. For weeks afterwards I was listening to "I Really Want to Stay at Your House" daily. I still listen to it today. It really hit me in a way I didn't think anime was capable of hitting me anymore. Sure, it's not literally perfect, but I had to give it the highest rating possible for making me hopeful for the genre again.

Chainsaw Man: Part 2 of chainsaw man is a bit weird. It has a "new" main character. Some school girl who also gets possessed by a devil. But then I feel like the mangaka realized this was kinda dull so Denji shows up again and kinda becomes the main character yet again. Honestly, I don't keep up with it much anymore and I've kind of lost the plot at this point. Something about how there is a church of the chainsaw man and somehow all the people in the city are now turning into chainsaw mans, and the new main character school girl gave Denji a hand job out of nowhere. I'm leaving it alone for a while and will maybe pick it back up in a couple years and start over from the beginning of part 2. It's definitely not bad, but it's not part 1. Still waiting for the Reze movie though. Think it's going to be great.

Btw, I *think* Makima's goal was to give Denji friends and purpose and meaning to his life and then take it all away in order for the real chainsaw man to take over his body and then...she was going to try controlling the real chainsaw man? But then the real chainsaw man was too powerful maybe? Shit, I don't really know what she was up to either...but it felt cool.

Boys on the Run: Yea, so in my spoiler tags I mention that the manga goes in circles and boy fucking does it. So you dropped it when the main character gets NTR'd and he finds a new girl who almost gets gang raped, right? That's when I figured he was going to FINALLY get into boxing. I had been waiting for him to start boxing for fucking volumes as the description of the manga literally says it's a manga about a guy getting into boxing...but the dude never learns to box. False fucking advertising. Instead, the new girl traveled to some art school to do some work (she's literally a nude model btw). Main character goes to surprise visit and guess who shows up but NTR girl number 1. After she realizes that new girl and mc are both kinda into each other she goes full psycho mode and takes mc to a love hotel and tries to sleep with him. Mc is like "fuck yes" and gets naked but then conveniently changes his mind last second and leaves. Girl 1 takes a picture of him with her in the love hotel and sends it to Girl 2. Girl 2 gets super pissed. Then once they're all back home and Girl 1 is out of the picture permanently, Girl 2's ex husband (who is also an ex-pro boxer) shows up and starts fucking Girl 2. The ex husband beats the shit out of mc and laughs at him for never fucking girl 2 thus mc gets NTR'd again. Eventually he gets Girl 2 to break up with the husband, punches him one time and blah blah blah he finally gets together with girl 2. The end. Oh, and in the last chapter some kid that goes to the boxing gym blows up his school with a nail bomb and the mc takes the blame and goes to jail for 10 years. Literally. But when he gets out of jail girl 2 is waiting for him...so win I guess? I really thought this would be a manga about learning to box and gaining self confidence, but it was really just strange NTR, slice of life, romance, with a half baked plot. Really disappointed.

Hell's Paradise: Watched this as it was rec'd as a comparison to JuJutsu Kaisen. First off, it's not as good as JJK, but it's...pretty good. The main character is basically immortal right off the bat, which is interesting but also kind of makes some fights anti-climactic. And there was a twist in the last episode or two that makes me curious for the next season. In a weird way I would say it's a bit of a combination between Gantz and Naruto. The characters feel very Naruto "I'm the smart one, I'm the cool blind guy, I'm a ninja that makes fire, I'm a woman that's trying to prove myself, etc" and they all seem to have just about 1 unique power. So very shounen-esque. But they're also in a sort of "fight to survive" kind of situation which makes it feel Gantz-like. It's not as good as either one of those, but I'll watch the next season. Action is pretty good. The characters are pretty good. I'm not exactly sure if any one thing really jumps out though. I probably wouldn't rec this to you if you didn't ask about it, but it's only 13 episodes and the first few episodes pretty much give you the vibe of the whole season. So if you don't like it after 2-3 episodes you can drop it.

JuJutsu Kaisen: If you want a nudge to get into season 2 just know that at one point the animation gets so good, that when the show was originally airing, people starting protesting against MAPPA on twitter because there's no way they could've animated that without abusing their employees. Around episodes 15-17ish is the best animation I've ever seen in anything. Story is more or less shounen, but the animation and visuals and fight scenes (which are the entire 2nd season pretty much) are on another planet even compared to season 1. Eagerly awaiting season 3.

I'm forgetting things, but I've got a fever and I've gone through like 10 tissues of snot while typing this out so I'll probably end it here. Oh, I also watched shogun. It's pretty great. You hear they're making a season 2? It's gonna be shit most likely. Not based on any source material or anything.

I dunno. I'm tired. Gunna stick some tissues up my nose and take a nap. Sorry for whatever I didn't reply to.

Until next time.

https://youtu.be/EWZxThGh5wQ?si=ETqU8XVXnX-hr2IN

The dude in HEALTH keeps liking my Facebook posts from like two years ago on their page. I'm probably one of their oldest fans. lol.

Sorry I've been doing some things and ignored your post while I updated what manga I was reading because who the FUCK watches weekly seasonal anime when it's all isekai garbage.

I don't hold onto AUKN but some people have made a career out of it of sorts, I've just moved on. Don't speak to a single person from that site anymore, people drift apart and move on. Do you still speak to Fabricated Lunatic?

I own GUNDAM: THE ORIGIN as Anime Limited were releasing it in boxsets. It's on the to watch pile with Belladonna of Sadness and Kaiba being next in line. I like Hathaway's Flash because I think it was an amazing closure for the UC at the time from Tomino with some form of bitter sweet irony, so yeah I know what happens.

Will respond to your long message later, probably after HotD like you mentioned - also did you purposely use the smallest font possible or did MAL shrink your letters because you typed so much? Brutal on the eyes, that.

Anyways, just watched the 2 new seasons of new Bleach and then saw your message right afterwards so you happened to be in the right place at the right time. Like you, I was also tempted to watch Bleach after seeing the announcement trailer because it's admittedly pretty awesome. As you mentioned there is a remixed soundtrack along with better animation. The manga is also finished* so i (naively) thought this would mean better pacing, cutting out some fat, etc.

It's not that. It's just Bleach again. The animation is marginally improved from when original Bleach aired...15 years ago? While pretty good, I've seen a lot better so hard to make that a main selling point. The remixed songs are nice, but they also only pop up a handful of times throughout both seasons and not to any great effect. I didn't expect any good characters or plot, but I was at least hoping for some good fights and it really didn't even deliver on that front. On every level, really. A lot of boring powers, a lot of confusing powers, a lot of comedic relief characters fighting (so no tension), a lot of throw-away cookie cutter characters fighting (again, no tension), a lot of cutting away from fights as soon as anything remotely interesting happens, a lot of "you haven't even seen my final form" so every fight just drags on until someone decides to use their actual real powers. Pacing is complete dog shit. The bow and arrow guy joins the evil team at the end of s1 as a big shock moment, barely explains why, and spends the entire second season not saying a single word or doing anything at all. Also he'll end up rejoining the good guys after Ichigo does some talk no jutsu anyways so it doesn't even end up mattering. Dumb as shit.

*this is where I explain that I finished the Bleach manga back in the day and can confirm that it also isn't good. In the middle of a bunch of important fights it literally just ends. Fade to black. There is one chapter where the characters reminisce and explain what happened after the jarring cut and then it's over. The mangaka just didn't feel like continuing the story so the blood war arc is essentially unfinished. I assume he was burnt out? But one reason I was also interested in this new Bleach was that they had a chance to properly finish the story and fix all the mistakes that come along when a burnt out mangaka is still trying to force out manga chapters every week. But looks like none of that is happening. Maybe they'll still tack on an actual "fleshed out" conclusion to the arc, but aren't doing any major revisions or neatening anything up. So, we're left with this really messy result.

I was hoping for a Jujutsu Kaisen lite experience with cool visuals and fights, but it's just mediocre outdated shounen with mediocre outdated shounen fights. Story is very start-stop. Fights are very start-stop. Frustrating to watch. Comparing this to JJK is an insult to JJK.


Anyways, Bleach rant over. Proper message coming in a few months maybe.

PS: Aizen is still alive, btw. Just in some special prison. Honestly can't remember if this ends up mattering or not. Don't feel like looking it up. I guess we'll never know.

Linkin Park's first two albums I like. lol.

I've seen HEALTH live twice, I got the Asian dude who is like the social media presence for the band to sign my copy of Max Payne 3 in Manchester. Still remember when some lad went "YO THAT GUY GOT MAX PAYNE 3 SIGNED." I came across them in the 2009 blogspot album share days when they just released Get Color and fucked with them hard. Third album was eh... Fourth album was good. New one is okay.

I left AUKN in 2012 because it wasn't really for me anymore, a lot of normies on there and a bunch of older people left. I still go to 4chan a lot more frequently now because places like Twitter are just people wanting attention and to build a brand for themselves. Fuck that.

I only read physical print Heavenly Delusion but yes... The kids in the school are really relevant you could say. I mean the end of the anime sort of tells you their fate really.

Bruh I was listening to HEALTH in like... 2009.

Been a while buddy. I know we’re no strangers to year long hiatuses, but I’ve been going through a bit of a weeaboo renaissance lately and haven’t had anyone to share/vent with. Figured I might as well dump my thoughts here while they’re still somewhat “fresh”. Feel free to respond to or ignore however much you want. Let’s start with something you’ll be familiar with.

Attack on Titan: It’s done done. The finale that never wanted to end. Good god, did they ever drag this out to stupid proportions. Felt more like something I had to watch rather than something I wanted to. Also, idk if it’s just me but I felt like they fucked up the one last good moment in the series - where Mikasa chops Eren’s head off. In manga, it’s more ambiguous and you don’t realize she did it until her little vision is over and she’s tonguing him. But in anime you fully see her sword go through his entire neck before her vision starts. I get it’s a small thing, but not a fan of that interpretation. Also thankfully they cut out the “Thanks for the genocide, Eren xD” dialogue, but still wasn’t nearly enough to salvage the ending. First half of the series was lightning in a bottle and nothing they changed/cut would ever make this last half hold a candle to it. Glad we can all finally move on now (pls god don’t let there be an AoT: The next generation)

Heavenly Delusion: Not exactly sure how this one landed on my radar to be honest. I think it was rec’d by a youtuber or something. In any event, the premise really intrigued me. Post apocalyptic world, strange monsters, and a very bizarre side story involving a futuristic school with strangely powerful children and a hidden agenda. It’s all connected, but how exactly is a mystery the show isn’t quick to reveal. It’s a recent show only premiering in 2023 so only one season (13 episodes) out at the moment and I think that’s to its advantage. A big part of the appeal is all the unexplained crazy shit that comes out of nowhere so I think once the series progresses and it needs to start explaining some of this stuff, it might lose some appeal. But at the moment it’s an entertaining watch which is good at grabbing your attention and stringing you along.

Nana: This one is because of my wife. A few months ago she started learning Japanese out of the blue. She likes learning and studying and wanted a challenging subject which would take her a while to master, thus she landed on learning a difficult language. This has included hours and hours of Japanese flash cards, Japanese vocab books, podcasts, and of course anime. One of the anime my wife watched when she was a teenager was Nana and so she wanted to revisit it again as an adult learning Japanese. I joined her at her request and this show has definitely been…strange. It was partly what I expected: Very shoujo art style, lots of melodrama, lots of focus on romance. But there were some parts I didn’t expect: Like how the main character states in the very first episode that she had an affair with an older married man when she was still in high school…and that she loved him…and that she didn’t even know his name. Just an all-time naive and delusional character, but also I’ve never seen a main character get taken advantage of so consistently like this. Like I’m 21 episodes in and it’s happened kind of a lot to her so far. I really just want her to grow a spine and mature a bit, develop as a character, etc. But according to my wife things actually get worse as the series progresses. Apparently the series will just keep getting more and more depressing. I never dabbled much in Shoujo so this has been a bit of an eye opening experience for me. I still can’t say it’s actually any good (It tackles adult themes of sexual relationships and self worth and doesn’t handle them particularly gracefully), but it’s more interesting than I thought it’d be. Why on earth my wife was watching this when she was 14, I have no idea.

Hunter x Hunter: God, what a shitshow. I fully blame this one on a Youtuber I like. He mentioned it was his favorite shounen in a few videos over the course of several years, and I figured I was already watching one anime so I might as well start another one. My job was also pretty busy at the time and a bit stressful so I wanted something simple and nostalgia-y to watch after work. So a shounen that aired around the same time as Naruto, Bleach, etc. felt like a decent fit. It started out pretty fucking awful. But then again lots of anime / manga start out slow and then eventually build to something greater. I kept waiting for HxH to have its “Zabuza arc” moment or its “Chunin Exam” epic level fights or something akin to Gaara vs Rock Lee or some twist or death or betrayal or literally anything at all interesting that would hook me. I’m 77 fucking episodes in and it never happened. All of the fights are shit. Every single one. The most entertaining thing they did was transport their souls into a video game and play dodgeball. That isn’t sarcasm. It was nice to turn my brain off for 20 minutes and watch a cartoon after work, but I wish I had spent that time watching an actually good cartoon instead of this mess.

Jujutsu Kaisen: Speaking of good cartoons. This was actually one my wife wanted to watch and I figured at the very least the fights in this show would be much better than Hunter x Hunter. And yes, I was correct. The 1st season is mostly about cool, epic fights. And that’s kind of it. And then the 2nd season surprised me with just how much better it was than the 1st season in every way. Characters get more depth and the fights get even more epic and larger scale. Animation is also top notch. Funny how MAPPA animated both JJK and the final seasons of AoT. They clearly had a favorite and spoilers it wasn’t AoT. This series is mainstream popular right now and I think it’s pretty deserved. I rec it if you’re in the mood for a bit of action with great production quality. Probably my favorite thing I’ve seen in the past few years next to Chainsaw Man. (yes, I understand I haven’t seen much, but still…)

Chainsaw Man: I never really had any intention of reading the manga, but when I saw the announcement trailer for the Chainsaw Man movie “Reze Arc”, it gave me a good vibe and I decided to take the dive. And I’m glad I did. It’s sometimes sweet and sometimes batshit insane, good characters, hyper violence action, and some solid twists and turns. Despite it being ongoing, “Part 1” has ended with most of the main storylines concluding and “Part 2” is a bit of a sequel + reboot combined. Part 2 is a bit slower and not as good as part 1, but then of course it would be. But I still think part 1 is good enough on its own to recommend.

Blood on the Track: Almost not worth mentioning since I can see you already dropped it. I finished it only because I noticed all the chapters were out and it’s also a very quick read with lots of textless pages. Still not worth your time. MILF goes to jail/asylum, there’s a 20 year time skip, main character is a depressed loser factory worker, his mom is free now but old with dementia or some such, they meet, she gives her childhood backstory about her parents not loving her, she falls down stairs or something and he takes care of her until she dies. The end. Saved you a bunch of time and spared you from seeing the main dude wash the literal shit off of his old decrepit mother. And yes, that does take up an entire chapter. Thank me later.

I think that’s about everything anime/manga related for now. Maybe more to come in the near future. We’ll see how long my renaissance lasts.

In real life news, my wife and I are in the process of buying a house. Our offer was accepted and once all the paperwork, loans, etc. are done we’ll probably be moving in in a few months. Took longer than I would have liked to get to this point (3 and a half years living with her family), but it’s finally happening. A lot of time and effort and furniture will need to be put into the new house, but I’ll gladly pay that price for a bit of privacy. Can’t even shit in our house right now without someone listening.

Okay, that’s all. Way too typed out but had to blow this load before too much time passed and everything went soft. Hope you’re still alive and such.

Goodbye again, my friend.

Hi again,

Feel like it's about time for my yearly message. I'm actually typing this out at work right now since I aint got nothing else to do atm. One of the reasons IT support is a nice job. When it's slow, I can always watch youtube, browse the internet, etc. I even read that web comic, solo leveling, at work. I think it was rec'd by someone on youtube or something. As you can tell by my rating it a 6, it wasn't really all that good. It's kind of a typical story about a world where some people were randomly granted powers one day and the protag was one of them. But SHOCK he's actually super weak. Until one day when he's randomly granted powers AGAIN but this time he's super strong and keeps getting stronger! I guess that's what you call an Isekai? Where there's like a leveling system like a video game? For all my weebness, I'm actually completely unfamiliar with Isekais so this was my first attempt at the genre. Quite disappointing eventually. It started off as a kind of power fantasy which is perfectly fine, but once the main character basically becomes the strongest person in the universe it gets extremely stale extremely quickly. The isekai leveling aspect is almost entirely dropped, and the author feels it's necessary to remind you how super awesome and strong and cool and badass the main character is ALL THE DAMN TIME. It's incredibly cringe. I would not recommend it to anyone. But it was a quick and easy read while at work and once I was about half way through I just felt like completing it even though my heart wasn't in it anymore. Spoilers: Even though women blush at the very sight of him since he's so strong and cool and handsome (also yes, he gets sexier as he levels up), he never gets with any of them. I get it's not that kind of story, but still. Kind of pathetic.

Oh yea, my job: Natsu is what Natsu is. Pretty cringe and weeby, but I guess my line of work attracts that kind of person. In another life where I don't grow up with crippling social anxiety I could've turned out similar. I don't watch enough (re: any) anime to engage in weeby conversations with him so thankfully I feel like I'm spared from the worst. Work is mostly fine, all things considered. I don't think my company really attracts weebs, but there are a handful of actual Japanese people who move here temporarily to work in our office. And let me tell you, it's kind of a trip. The first time I helped a Japanese guy with a computer problem and he unironically gave me a half bow and said "Thank you Adam-san" a small part of me felt fulfilled. Definitely something my weeb brain will never forget.

I'm indeed still married, but it's not all sunshine and daisies. We still live in her mom's house with her two (lazy and messy) brothers and as a fairly recently married 32 year old I would like to move out and live together just with my wife. But my wife doesn't want to move out...yet. She doesn't want to rent something or buy an apartment. She wants to buy a house and she doesn't want to take out a big loan. This means we'll be living with her mom and two (again, VERY messy) brothers for some indefinite amount of time. Possibly 2-3 more years. Or longer. Idk. As a very private and introverted person I really crave a place of my own which is nice and clean and organized and quiet and right now I live somewhere which is kind of the opposite of that. And now my wife gets mad at me for essentially dishonoring her family home whenever I bring up wanting to move out. Very frustrating. I don't know if life ever stops being hard no matter what you do. As sad and unhealthy as it is I sometimes find myself craving my old life of sitting in a room, alone, with no responsibilities. Old habits die hard and all. I'll just need to keep powering through. It's not like we'll be living in her mom's house forever...

Chainsaw Man: Back to fun stuff. I wasn't 100% sold on the first episode either. Kind of strange and directionless I felt. But the animation was just so damn good. And I agree with you completely, the show is just such a vibe. The first few chapters of the manga that I tried some years ago just didn't have that. I love how Denji is motivated by and thinks about sex all the time, but I do wish he wasn't literally 16...I don't know why literally every shounen character has to be a child. He could've easily been made 18 to remove a lot of the creepiness factor (Wasn't eye patch girl an adult? Was her seducing him predatory? Also why was it so hot?), but I digress. It still feels like a shounen for people who are tired of shounen. That episode where the snake girl and katana man attack the squad and eye patch girl dies was actually a revelation. They came completely out of nowhere and tragically killed off a character we had just gotten to know and like. Just like that. So sudden. So impactful. Legitimately one of the best episodes of anime I've ever seen. Also that scene when the main lady who recruits Denji does that whole thing where she like strokes his hand and make him squeeze her boob...also a great episode. I'm all for female seduction. Give me more. Excited for season 2. Oh yea, and also the action is good too or whatever.

Shingeki: About time you finished it. I absolutely didn't like the ending. I think everything that happened after Eren and the squad came back from overseas is pretty weak. When I said I didn't hate the final chapter it was because it was par for the course with what Shingeki had been for the past couple years. The final chapter by itself doesn't deserve the hate it gets because that hate should be spread evenly across like 40 chapters. The final chapter didn't ruin Shingeki. It had already been ruined slowly and meticulously over time. The best days of AoT were well and truly in the past. Female titan reveal, Bertholt and Reiner reveal, beast titan, Erwin charge and that whole fight basically. Even Erin's sneak attack on Marly and the ensuing Paradis invasion was pretty epic. But the story telling after that is just messy and bad all the way until the last chapter. Fans just coped so hard that they believed the 40 bad and messy chapters were all going to eventually make perfect sense and the last chapter would be some God chapter which proved Eren was a 5D chess grandmaster brain wizard. But yea...no. The story really does just fall apart into an incomprehensible and uncompelling mess. That's kind of it. I still had a ton of fun reading/watching the earlier parts. No swath of bad chapters will ever change that. It's the same reason I find the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones to still be some of the greatest television I've ever watched. Shit last few seasons, but I'll never not enjoy the first few.

I did watch the season 4 part 3 part 1 episode 1 part 1 extended episode and they did a good job animating it all. I'm curious how they'll treat the "Thank you for committing genocide" part, and if even main stream normies will react poorly to that. But who knows. I'm not holding my breath for the "final final part for real this time part 15" episode to drop.

Okay, that's about as much as I can type today. Thanks for the sundome milky way rec. I've got it favorited on my second web browser for a rainy day.

See ya.

Hey, been a while. I have no idea what we were talking about last time either so thanks for giving me a pass. I finally got a job in Belgium a few months ago, and I've had a lot less free time to type messages and such. So yes, I am still very much alive and married. The job is IT support, similar to my previous job in the states, and it's a very multinational company so everyone in the office speaks English. It's actually a Japanese company so there's probably a bit of irony considering I'm a weeb (former weeb?) typing about it on an anime website. Speaking of weebs, my new colleague, who started just a couple weeks ago, is a real treat. He loves Fairy Tail so much that he convinced his friends to call him 'Natsu' (This is the name of a Fairy Tail character I've recently learned) in real life, at least according to him... he also uses words like 'waifu' and even strongly recommended I watch the anime 'How Not to Summon a Demon Lord'. His reasoning? "It's very close to being Hentai!". He also chain-smokes and slurps redbull like he's some sort of caffeine vampire. A true work of art.

But I digress, let's talk about House of the Dragon: Similar to you, I didn't have high expectations going in, but goddammit if I didn't get sucked in after only a single episode. Season one was fucking great. Full stop. The performances by the actors of Daemon and especially King Viserys were incredible. All the acting really was very strong. I didn't mind the actress switch too much and I actually feel the increased pacing was good to make it feel more different from Game of Thrones. It's definitely a different kind of story. I'm looking forward to season 2 as well. Should be a lot of dying. I just hope they eventually stick the landing otherwise I'll never trust another show based in the GoT universe ever again. You heard they're working on a Jon Snow spin off too right? Should be utter shit.

As for the side story books, I don't think I can handle reading another unfinished GoT series. George recently said in an interview that he's still got 500 pages left of Winds of Winter. That could still take another decade and that's IF the 75 year old obese man has relatively good health. We're all doomed, my good friend. Doomed.

Sweet Home: I think we did talk about this in our old messages a bit? Yea, I definitely stalled. It just kind of kept going and going. The same characters kept fighting the same monsters over and over again. Started to get repetitive and the characters themselves were just never all that interesting. It's probably a drop from me. Was fun at the beginning, but overstayed it's welcome.

Chainsaw Man: Are you watching this? What the absolute fuck is this show? I tried reading the manga a long while back and never got past the first few chapters. It just didn't vibe with me. But the anime is a different beast. MAPPA really really put their A team on Chainsaw Man and it shows in every aspect. I don't see it on your list so I won't spoil anything, but I think you need to check it out. Trust me. I don't rec things lightly.

Naruto: I had seen that video before you posted it on my page. I'm a true Narutard through and through. I don't know how or why they would remake Naruto since I'm pretty sure they covered the entire manga beat for beat (with a lot of filler in between of course), but fuck me if I won't still watch it if they come out with a remake.

I think that's about all for now. Until next time, whenever that will be.

Just finished Gantz and found your Battle Royal recommendation, and i'm hella sold thank u

oh damn, i can't imagine paying for something like that XD

i actually think i found DearS through Chobits page ("similar to this anime"), thats another anime im avoiding for sure lol.

i have been looking into more obscure shows tho. i just finished Gilgamesh and... it was definitely a weird experience. the music and atmosphere were great but the animation and story/characters were absolutely terrible. it had one interesting idea that i hadn't seen anywhere else. basically some chemical explosion/nuke or whatever happens. now the sky just mirrors the ground and it has a "silver, murky look". added so much to the mood

>make me geek out to music when memories are attached

oh i know what u mean haha

my recommendations are "Sim City" and "Technique Of Relief" (sim city feels similar to berserk's ost so probably start with that. ToR is an awesome record too, many say its his best)

Cool Blue Flames recommendations. lol
I bet you wrote it long time ago and when you where much younger. Not many people are this bold nowadays.

Your comment about the Laughing Man case having a more 'human edge' is curiously on-point; I've never thought of it like this before. Also your comparison between S.A.C. 2nd GIG and the Patlabor 2 Movie is insightful, especially the extent of Oshii's influence on the first one.

Hey! i just saw your "DearS" review and i have to say its genuinely the funniest review i've ever seen on this site and its from 2009! looking up old posts/reviews is oddly fun lol

the art does look real crappy tho, so does the premise. i wonder what goes through their mind when they make stuff like this

on a side note, u got nice favorites! i really need to check some of these out. have u listened to Hirasawa's albums too or just the OSTs?

I loved your recommendation on many series and I also see series like Maison Ikkoku, Rainbow, NHK, Ashita No Joe, Ginga Tetsudou 999, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu and Touch all being appreciated by someone which brings immeasurable happiness to my heart.

I know it's been a few weeks since my message, but I feel like I didn't really give you too many of my thoughts about Squid Game - of which I have many. My wife refused to watch it and I don't have any other friends on the internet or IRL so I haven't been able to vent about it until now. Anyways, here goes:

Positives: I thought the beginning was very strong. Shooting hundreds of innocent people so quickly and mercilessly in the first game was a huge shock and I think it was an excellent hook for the show. Nothing grabs people like piles of innocent dead bodies. The second episode being much slower and entirely about character development was also a good choice. In Gantz, some of the better chapters were just following the characters between the games and getting to know them in normal life a bit. It gives the story and the characters a lot of much needed weight. The marbles game was hands down the best part of the show specifically because we had grown to know and like the characters. Brutal and tragic just the way I like it.

Negatives: I already mentioned the horrible American actors in my first message so I won't go into that anymore here, but I do feel like their appearance, performances aside, is the weakest part of Squid Game. Finding out the game is run by psychotic rich people is kind of...meh. It's just not interesting. I think the cop character was doing some interesting things, but it was disappointing when his arc basically ended with a giant "See you in Season 2" screen.

Worst part of the show by far though is the glass jumping game. Every other game is more or less skill based with everyone having a somewhat equal chance...more or less. But the glass game is absolute pure randomness. They could have just as easily replaced the game with Russian roulette. And making people jump in a specific order is super duper not fair. Shit "game" design. And why the fuck did a random dude who worked in a glass factory show up out of fucking nowhere at the very end??? That's unforgivably lazy writing. And then after they beat the shitty fucking game all the glass explodes??? And because of that unnecessary explosion one of the 3 remaining characters gets mortally wounded by a shard of glass. Nothing like that happened at the end of any other game so it just felt like a shitty plot device. Which it was. And I don't know why. I think seeing the last 3 people in an empty room duke it out in a 1v1v1 knife fight would've been incredibly tense. But instead the girl can't fight at all and basically just dies of her wound. Pretty lame.

Overall: Despite it's flaws I thought it was mostly great. An 8-9/10. But as I mentioned in my first message I do really worry about season 2. They'll have to introduce an almost entirely new cast of characters, which isn't easy to do in a second season. Also people will be expecting horrifically brutal games of death from the get go so the shock value will be completely gone. And it seems like they might be focusing more on the people behind the Squid Games and the overarching plot which was the weakest part of the show to begin with. Similar to Gantz, this doesn't feel like a show that should want to spend time explaining itself. That didn't end well for Gantz and I can't imagine it will for Squid Game either. I'm glad more shows like this are being made, but this one in particular feels like it will be a one-season wonder. Hopefully I'm wrong. But I am excited for all the copycats that are going to come afterwards.

Anyways, NOW my 10 month break is going to begin.

- Adam