#I finally watched the automata anime | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

i--antimony · 4 months

Text

2023 year in review roundup

wow!! what a fucking year!!! goodbye and good riddance! happy first day of 2024!

this year i did 37 tuesdayposts! there were 53 tuesdays so that's about 70%! some of them were on fri/sat instead as shabbosposts but i think posting on tuesday or even monday does just work better for some fucking reason. maybe because friday and saturday are days that i am most likely to do New Activities for making/playing/watching/reading??? and so on monday or tuesday i can recap the just-finished weekend. shrug! we love tuesday so it's fine.

listening listened to all of twilight mirage and a little over half of partizan! shrieking shack podcast, just king things, well there's your problem, miscellaneous music (maneskin probably a notable winner in there)

reading a lot of little articles. a little tgcf. SO much fanfic. 'every heart a doorway' (bad). 'birthday of the world' le guin (good).

playing a little disco elysium. a little minecraft. a little nier automata. a little hadesgame. a LOT of pokemon go. and i got into magic the gathering this year!

watching a lot of youtube videos. so many gd youtube videos. evangelion, history of the world part ii, cunk on earth, vox machina animated series, cowboy bebop, first season of peaky blinders, the new tgcf donghua season!

making i did very little drawing/painting/illustration beyond life drawing a few times...however i was very prolific in crafting! i also theoretically made valentines gifts. i do not remember what they were tho lol.

fiber arts: i completed a big embroidery project (fermenting dregs album art hoodie), quantum shawl, mesh market bag, case for my knew laptop, finished that blue tank top even though i hate it, fixed the lining on my yellow knitted cowl, made a little knitted headphone top cover that i will probably redo differently, headband ear warmer for my roommate's mom, and FINALLY i just barely finished the scarf for my SO before the end of 2023!

print block carving: wristwatch print, gavelbocken holiday card print

misc/writing: some songxuexiao fencing au. some harrowhark abhorsen au. neocities website!

and so much pottery! this is all of it, barring the things i already gave away as presents before this photo (two pots and a little box and the little raven guy), but wow! that's so many fuckin object!

misc what a fucking year. some bad! had to file a big car insurance claim! got really sick while abroad and that persisted for a long fucking time! mini summer breakdown! some good stuff too - passed quantum mechanics FOREVER good fucking bye, did my first successful academic conference, finally started feeling better around the end of the year! learned my lesson: it's not fuckin worth stressing yourself to death over, and also i can't just Be At Home Aimlessly for months any more. it's bad for my mental health.

reviewing 2023 resolutions and goals --> I’d love to start writing again and play more horn but we’ll see i basically didn't do any creative writing at all this year barring a few lines of fanfic ideas (the abhorsen/tlt crossover one) HOWEVER i READ a lot of fanfic to marinate in and i played a LOT more french horn!! i joined the little youth orchestra which is like, uber goofy, but it means ive been playing on a regular basis again!

--> I also wanna listen to more weird music, and invest in actually owning some files, especially for some of the lesser-known bands and through bandcamp and stuff i spent all year meaning to do this and kept pushing it off so it rolls over into next year.

--> I really want to kind of dial those [unhealthy coping mechanisms] back again, focus more on existing in Reality and more in each moment, which hopefully will also help with some of the skin picking and other anxious habits that resurfaced. maybe more yoga, maybe re-establishing a meditation process lol lmao. nah. but definitely rolling it over into 2024.

--> I would love to think more about my fashion and how I present myself too, and work on making and tailoring more of my clothing in general actually not bad! basically zero tailoring but i did a pretty good job wearing some cute outfits.

--> I’ve been pretty good about being active so I’d like to keep that up, I still can’t do a pull-up but maybe this is the year! (lol) I should also start doing some minor exercises for my shitty arthritis toes to keep those okay once again: lol lmao. health issues had me really regress in some of my gains goals. plus side is toes are doin pretty normal.

--> a lot of last year was kind of a wash regarding research so I’m really looking forward to refocusing on that and really getting things moving. oh it moved! in a good way! i'm making good progress and hopefully i will keep that momentum going!

--> finally! I want to get back to tabletop! I miss doing it so much! it fell by the wayside for me because of how busy and overwhelmed I was, especially this past fall semester, but I want to start running and playing games with my pals again a little! i should have been putting these in playing as i went oops. the tabletop group i've run was a little fallow this year due to at least half of our group, including myself, not being in Tabletop Mood but we've played a lot of res arcana and other such games instead.

i had a few other resolutions in my digital planner on my ipad that didn't go in the writeup last year: namely, practice languages more (i did practice my mandarin a little but did not really learn any hebrew or korean unfortunately) and establish a non-software component of my research (nope, not in the cards, but i'm hoping to do something else this summer to let me get better with physical data/setups), and finishing the masters degree requirements (that will be the end of this upcoming spring semester), but overall i really did hit most of my resolutions and goals! even with being ill for a while! (except the finances. i am simply not looking at them <3)

2024 resolutions and goals

definitely some rollover! i will format this to hopefully be a little easier to respond to next year:

- get back on a regular workout schedule: swimming 1x a week, weights once or twice a week. would like to try and work towards my One Pullup goal again. would also be cool to try and work towards a hand/headstand. - try and be more mindful. i'm going to continue the grief therapy but also think about meditating more, doing more yoga, and so on. - there's a gallery on main street that solicits work from local artists for bimonthy themed exhibitions and i really want to submit at least one thing to it this year! the one due by end of january is themed 'florals', and the one two months after that is 'layers', so i'd really like to submit something to one of those. - more weird art! use that big canvas i bought in literally 2022! paint!!! - finally put together that travel journal from korea & japan (and also scrapbook-ify the papers i have leftover in a pile from that) - also, maybe do current scrapbook a little different? might need a new binder at the very least. - hang up that expensive quilt i bought in august - speaking of quilt: do some hand quilting, english paper piercing! i have so much fucking fabric! - find a new apartment to move into that hopefully won't suck! - try to secure some sort of summer internship or project that will let me develop some new skillsets that i might not be getting with my current research - finish the masters degree - write...a paper? for the work i just presented??? - keep tweaking neocities and make some more pages - keep track of recipes this year as well in my making section

i might start a little spreadsheet this year to keep better track of all my stuff because i really did Not want to go through all my separate listening and reading sections and extract what i liked the most, etc. this post required me to first back up a few extra early tuesdayposts from this year to dreamwidth, and then skim all of them to accumulate the above, and that was kinda a pain. and i love an excuse to start a new spreadsheet.

we did it! happy 2024! i don't think i have anything else to add to this wrapup but if i think of something i'll tack it into the upcoming Normal Tuesdaypost tomorrow! good job good night and good luck everyone!

#tuesdayposting

9 notes · View notes

thequietkid-moonie · 9 months

Text

My status with the fandoms

Here is the list of the fandoms I write for with my currently status, how im going with the story in case you are interested in request for something specific of the story or something else

🐭 My hero academia

[ Reading the manga, until the Meta Liberation Army Arc ]

🐭 Komi-san can't communicate

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Shuumatsu no Valkyrie

[ Full the anime - Almsot at day with the manga ]

🐭 Kiss him, not me

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 A silent voice

[ Full the manga ]

🐭 Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun

[ Full the anime - Almost at day with the manga ]

🐭 Kakegurui

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon

[ The anime until season 4 (crystal) - Full the manga ]

🐭 Assassination Classroom

[ Full the anime - Full the manga ]

🐭 Happy Sugar Life

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Puella Magi Madoka Magica

[ Full the anime (including Rebellion) ]

🐭 Card Captor Sakura

[ Full the anime - Full the manga ]

🐭 Pumpkin Night

[ Reading the manga, until the battle at the Hirayama Clinic ]

🐭 Spy x Family

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Hamefura

[ Only the first season of the anime ]

🐭 Kaguya-sama Love is war

[ Only two season of the anime ]

🐭 The way of a House Husband

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Romantic Killer

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Your lie in April

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Ouran High School Host Club

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Kaleido Star

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 My Dress-Up Darling

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Wotakoi

[ Full the anime - Almost finish the manga ]

🐭 Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid

[ Only the first season of the anime ]

🐭 Oshi no Ko

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Devilman Crybaby

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Gakuen Babysitter

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Lost Song

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Gakkou Gurashi

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Brand New Animal

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Ousama Ranking

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 One Punch Man

[ Full the anime - Reading the manga, until Monster Association Arc (final preparations, prelude to invation) ]

🐭 ReZero Starting a new life in a another world

[ Watching the second season of the anime ]

🐭 Yuri on Ice!!!

[ Full the anime ]

🐭 Mob Psycho 100

[ Only two seasons of the anime ]

🐭 Haikyuu!!

[ Only the first three season of the anime ]

🐭 Majo Taisen

[ At day with the manga ]

🐭 Danganronpa

- Trigger Happy Havoc

[ Only the anime ]

- Goodbye Despair

[ Full the game ]

- Ultra Despair Girls

[ Full the game ]

- Killing Harmony

[ Full the game ]

🐭 Omori

[ Full the game ]

🐭 Doki Doki Literature Club

[ Full the game + DLC ]

🐭 The Legend of Zelda

- Skyward Sword

[ Full the game ]

- Ocarina of Time

[ Full the game + the manga ]

- Majora's Mask

[ Full the game + the manga ]

- Link's awakening

[ Full the game ]

- Between Words

[ Full the game ]

- Beath of the wild

[ Full the game ]

🐭 NieR Replicant

[ Full the game + All the endings (including the one of the remake) ]

🐭 NieR Automata

[ Full the game + All the endings ]

🐭 Hi fi Rush

[ Full the game ]

🐭 Miraculous Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir

[ Watching the 4 season ]

🐭 Gravity Falls

[ Fully the show ]

#moonie news #anime x reader #manga x reader #video games x reader #cartoons x reader #cartoon x reader

13 notes · View notes

brucebocchi · 9 months

Text

very glad the first cour of the nier automata anime finally finished up and i’m relieved that there’s confirmation that there will be a second to tell the entire story.

i still feel like i need to reserve judgment until it’s finished out as a series though. the first cour was a very nice if condensed retelling of routes A and B, but the real meat hasn’t happened yet.

i still can’t say if it’s worth watching if you haven’t played the game; i feel like i’d need to see how it ends to say for sure. i trust yoko taro to ensure the series is competent even if it can’t be entirely faithful, because nier automata’s story structure as it originally was was endemic to it being a video game.

for now, play the game if you’ve even considered it.

#anime reviews

9 notes · View notes

automatayaoi · 9 months

Text

hiii its an active content day for me 🐸 finally starting on writing kero into kkc scenes, this is pretty short but i wanted to establish why/how they end up going with the others to mont saint michel. i also included the relevant manga pages at the end so u can imagine them there 💕

The ringing in their ears--that was all there was at first. Harsh and shrill, so loud they could barely hear their heart pounding underneath it. Then it was was the ache, blooming all across their body and sharpened at the edges by a sting. They try to sit up, but their world having so recently been turned on its head makes their stomach lurch with the effort, and they have to stop before they tumble further down whatever grassy ditch they landed in.

Voices start to cut through the noise, and they reach for the closest as it turns familiar. Lise--right, Lise’s voice. They’d been sitting with her and the others in the back of the circus truck, when there was--something, an explosion maybe, and they’d all been sent flying. Kero had grabbed onto Lise, more out of instinct than anything. And then the pain, the ringing, the ache; at least they softened the blow for her, hopefully.

There’s another voice, too, unfamiliar, coasting over something they can’t place. Too quiet to be caught under the still pulsing ring, but the noise is sharp; a creaking, metal-on-metal tick that sets their nerves on edge--

A scream cuts through the haze, and the aches fall away as Kero’s focus comes to a narrow point. One hand closes around a clammy, trembling shoulder as the other plants in the dirt to force themselves upward. Their vision is still fuzzy, whether from smoke or concussion, and the shapes in front of them don’t make sense; massive, towering not-quite animals, twisted bodies staring through them as a predator watches prey. They shudder, nearly freezing then, but they can hear Ryouko crying again, and they force themselves forward.

“Fuck, what the fuck,” is all Kero manages as their arms wrap around the two girls in front of them. They try to pull them back, turn to shield the girls with their body, but they barely even have time to breathe before the animal-things are bounding towards them all teeth and claws, and the only thing they can do is squeeze their eyes shut and hope they aren’t screaming, too.

Something blows past them, so close they feel a sudden burn as the corner of a claw takes a chunk out of their earlobe--but it’s far less than the evisceration they’d been expecting. The realization goes through them like a shock, and just as quick, they’re pushing up onto shaky legs and pulling the girls up with them, instinct driving their body before their head can wrap around why they aren’t dead yet.

“Go, move, now!” The second all three are on their feet, Kero starts to push the girl out in front of them. They don’t know where to turn, which direction is safe, but they know they have to run and get as far away as they can. Even if part of them knows they won’t be able to outrun creatures like that--if they could even be called creatures.

“We have to stand our ground!” Lise protests, but Kero just keeps pushing, following along behind Ryouko as she sprints for a thatched house a few yards away.

“Standing our ground will get us killed, Lise!” They can feel that man--an automata, they’re sure now--glaring into their back, and it’s all they can do to keep their feet steady and not trip over their own fear.

It almost works, until they hear the pounding of claws against the dirt as the automata yells to take their heads.

That’s when the terror seizes them--and when Lise suddenly stops in her tracks.

“What are you doing?!” Kero nearly runs right into her, and has to skid to the side to avoid knocking her down, instead bumping into Ryouko as they turn on their heel. Lise doesn’t answer them; she just stands, shoulders squared, and all too calmly takes a carpetbeater hanging off the nearby clothesline.

“Kero, Ryouko. Please, just watch me.” She glances back at the two, seeming to pay no heed to the automata monsters running towards them, towards her. No trace of fear weighs her down or cracks the unshakable confidence that now radiates from her.

“I’m still a wild animal tamer.”

#frog croak #this thing is Rough but its not even the main focus so. puts it down gently #selfship #selfship fic #self insert fic #self insert #my stuff #my fics #si; karakuri circus #ship; smiling with you

8 notes · View notes

koholintnightmare · 3 months

Text

finished a (partial) rewatch of the 1.1a anime

yes, they made some things different but i didnt really pay much attention at the time. mostly because i wasnt as in Deep as i am now

i am going crazy with new context/info from playing the other games since the anime aired. will be jotting down whatever the fuck i think of as i think of it

rest under a cut because im a bit Uhhhh

futaba and yotsuba in a2s flashback making it seem like theyre gonna go with the route where a2 meets the red girls and show their meeting in part 2?

i said this^ as a joke recently because i forgot a lot of what happens in the anime, but. in the last episode of the anime, i thought she said "entertain us, 9s" but no. she fucking says "entertain us, no.9" meaning that they KNOW about what the original no.9 did and his relation to 9s and how theyre going to activate the virus backdoor to further their plans

the fast glitchy scenes at the end that show 9s being killed by 2b, implying we'll see one of his 48 executions

he also had a previous glitchy moment where a weird memory overlaid itself on top of 2b as he looked at her in the present, making it seem like he remembered her killing him before

that memory was near the shopping center, and the final scenes of the anime were also at the shopping center. wondering how far theyll take this and show every time shes killed him

the church mod of course but adam having access to WCS victims and just??? keeping them there???

one of them looked like brother nier???????

the fucking hexcodes

im going insane with the hexcodes

the church mod, while i havent played it, apparently put the statues of the intoner sisters from drakengard 3 in the background. haha, neat detail right.

BUT with yoko taros decision to include church mod into the anime and also be aware of it, he could have some Fun with the anime. he did already specify that itd differ from the game

The Fucking Hexcodes are actual messages with reports about the androids (collective) and their fight against the machines

but as it goes on, the way theyre written sounds more and more like another individual who Records things

"Record", "Report", "Old World", "Magical Weapons", "Timeline "Branch", "Divergence", "Singularity"

Gee I Wonder What Other Observatory Android Talks Like Tha iiiiits fucking accord. Its Accord. Accord is watching the automata timelines and their branches now.

a drakengard character is in automata and seems to be More Involved (to the limits of an observer, at least?) rather than just some flyers related to her shop, and an npc mentioning her

WILL WE GET ACCORD IN AUTOMATA-- WAIT THIS IS NOW GOING OFF

i juST REMEMBERED THAT IN TJE 1.3AA PLAY WHICH IS BASED ON A2S BACKSTORY BUT THE BOYS VERSION, THEY HAD ACCORD? ACCORD WAS IN THAT. ACCORD IS ALREADY INVOLVED IN AUTOMATA.

UHHHHH. SHIT WELL ANYWAY CONTINUING FROM THAT. pascals despair is going to be worse this time because instead of the kids having a group death, they seemed to be eating each other instead

devola and popola backstory and their exile due to the actions of the other units who failed project gestalt

probably more references to replicant as a whole??? considering the flashbacks they put in? they also showed angelus impaled on Tokyo tower but i missed that part of the rewatch. i only watched a few episodes w my friend and missed that

literally EVERYTHING going on with the change from adams death to eves death???? seeing adam become more fleshed out as a character as he is based around hate, realizing his brother meant everything, LOSING said brother, and then going berserk while also indulging in the hatred hes so obsessed with. be it towards other machines, the androids, or himself for allowing himself to miss sight of his own treasure (eve)

my brain is fizzing out and my hands ar estarting to hurt because of how much i typed and how cold it is but. holy shit i am obsessed. its so good. it all just keeps going. and going. and going

#natm lb #Uhhhh hm thays a lot of obvious fhings probablg but i just love the depth this gave???#i will also have to see if someone got the entire concert scenario written up and if its comparable with any of this #like how the church ties into the rest

3 notes · View notes

glassvines · 4 months

Text

Thoughts On 2023 Favorites

TV Shows 1. Good Omens season 2: Oops, I'm obsessed again. You can make the argument that a second (and PHEW eventual third) season was unnecessary, but I disagree. It was nice to get a season that wasn't so breakneck in it's pacing. Everything slowed down a bit and focused in on Aziraphale and Crowley's shenanigans. Which, let's be honest, is what the audience wants. That being said, I liked everything else about it too. A cute/silly plot, fun new characters, and a devastatingly sad finale that left me distraught. I could not have asked for more really. (Except more kissing. Please tell me there will be more kissing.) 2. Lockwood and Co: A spooky premise that probably took a lot of effort to appear even semi-believable [as a tv show]. Yet, it was pulled off with flying colors. It was also perfectly atmospheric and charming, so of course netflix canceled it. I plan on reading the books.

Animation (TV & Films) 1. Murder Drones: 2023 was a good year for indie animation overall, and out of all of them Murder Drones was the show to win my entire heart. Perfect setup for horror and YA spoofing, but also well written enough that I enjoyed the character focus and progression as well. I'm psyched for the final two episodes set to release in the spring. 2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: If any movie of recent memory deserved a decent sequel it was this one, so I'm very happy it turned out as great as it did. One of the few comic-book films I bothered with in 2023. 3. Hilda season 3: Easily one of my all-time favorites from Netflix, so I'm beyond happy it has a great ending now. Gorgeous animation, a lovable main and support cast, and perfect chill vibes. Deserves a bluray release. 4. Elemental: Listen. Pixar's still got it this was so cute. You're forgiven for The Good Dinosaur Peter Sohn. 5. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: So much fun tho. Love the current creative trend in cg films happening thanks to Into the Spider-verse. Also, the No Diggity scene was incredible. The movie has an A+ soundtrack. Anime (TV & Films) 1. Trigun Stampede: So relieved this turned out to be great, considering the original is a favorite of mine. Not a easy feat in the age awful, cash-grab reboots. 2. The Boy And The Heron: Honestly? My favorite Miyazaki film since Howl's Moving Castle. Genuinely moving and left me misty-eyed. 3. Demon Slayer: Swordsmith Village Arc: This show is so pretty. Still surprised how well the series portrays it’s simple, compelling cast. Like it’s an effortless sort of thing (it’s not). 4. Suzume: Makoto Shinkai's last three movies just make me happy okay. Happy and hopeful. The best comfort movies ever. Video Games I have a steam deck now so you'd think I played a bunch of video games last year but, no. I didn't get heavily into much last year. Played some Hades though? Live Films || Note: I watched so many great classic horror movies this year that I had never given a proper watch. I would like to continue that this year!! 1. Talk to Me: Please make more horror movies Danny and Michael Philippou. This one was wild. 2. Dark City: The fact that The Matrix got four movies and this didn't get any sequels is a fucking tragedy. 3. Coherence: Love me a simple, creepy sci-fi movie with an interesting premise. Apparently, quite a lot of the film is improvised as well? That blew my mind. 4. Greener Grass: More films that just feel like one big Adult Swim skit please. This style of script is hysterical to me. 5. Caveat: This goes on my fave list simply for scaring the shit out of me lmao. Movies walk a fine line, when the intention is to make you uncomfortable for long periods of time. They risk being irritating instead of entertaining. Caveat had me shrieking at my tv (in a delighted sort of way).

Honorable Mentions 1. Lore Olympus 2. Nier Automata anime 3. Asteroid City + Wes Anderson's new short films 4. OPLA

Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2024 1. Dune 2 2. Second season of Severance hopefully! 3. Madoka Magica Movie 4: Walpurgisnacht: Rising?? Is it finally happening or what? 4. New Magnus Archives

Some Creative & General Goals for 2024 I feel like I was drawing a lot more in 2023! Still nothing worth posting online, but I'm making some progress I think (slowly but surely). Goals: make more art for my siblings when they request it, finish some digital art that I started, and finish the diorama piece I planned out. On the general goals I'd like to travel more! Particularly, I'd like to visit some national parks.

#new year #new year's #some comments #glassvines gets irl

2 notes · View notes

gentrigger · 1 year

Note

Hi, I came across SWS and your art early last year and absolutely love the general aesthetic and vibe. I'm trying to get some people on board to actually run a few sessions but I'm finding it surprisingly hard to come up with both inspiration or just stories and art which have a similar sort of feel. Do you have any suggestions for stuff I could read, watch, look at, whatever that you feel is inspiring?

Finally got a chance to think on this one! Deep down I made SwS because there's not media that scratches all my itches at once in regards to what it is exactly, especially in the TTRPG sphere BUT there are a few core pieces of media/experiences that have banged around in my head that have formed it and may help you with forming the right mood and ideas for the world. -Princess Mononoke was what tripped my love of animism. Masked spirits of the land and such, which ultimately lead to my interest in shinto beliefs, specifically the many kami of various types. Kami of the land, kami of old heroes, kami of objects. It sets the mind ablaze. -Nier Automata hits a lot of themes that are central to SwS. The ruins of an old world being interpreted by those who live in its shadow. What is worth preserving and what sort of future can you forge ahead with those lessons? Are we stuck in cycles of violence or can we declare independence? Aesthetically the ruined cities also echo the atmosphere of the world. -Kino No Tabi (Kino's Journey) is an old inspiration of mine for the various ways that cultures and societies come together and fall apart. For those not familiar its about a traveler who rides a motorcycle from town to town and stays in each town for 3 days, which she's decided is enough time to learn what you need to know about each town. it's a land of societies that exist as islands though, where they accept travelers, yet govern themselves without outside interference. I could gush about it for a while but all you need to know is I have a tapestry of Kino above my bed. There's a good 2003 anime that I recommend before the 2017 anime, though I started with the light novel, of which I think there's only 1 officially translated to english due to copyright shenanigans. -Girls Last Tour is a similar energy to kino no tabi but is also a bit gay -The Earthsea Cycle Novel Series Digs into some feelings about names, identity, and the magic in words that is very SwS-y. -Urban exploration photography of abandoned places such as those in the zone of chernobyl, and abandoned places of Japan are definitely the right aesthetic direction for the ruins of Wake. -Madoka Magicka, specifically the domains of the witches has a feel for the dreamcore aesthetics that surround some of the more powerful major deities, and the magic they hold. -Quick music video recommendations that oddly hit the right mood for SwS are: UKRampage - QUI, ファイトソング (Fight Song) - Eve, 心海 - Eve (Actually most of Eve's music videos), Secret - Harumaki Gohan, I wish I had been midnight. "Justice", Open Mike Eagle & Paul White - "Dang Is Invincible" Ultimately I'm always refining my tastes for what Wake is like and they don't feel complete, but I always wonder if my vision for it will ever feel wholly complete. It's a sort of exploration of my own tastes and conveying them and handing them to others to collab with them. Thumbing through my roots like this is always so enlightening though so thanks for the question!

#songs we sing #asks

16 notes · View notes

johnlocsin-johnyakuza · 2 years

Text

Me and my Father (the guy in the Crusader Armor) are currently stuck in the closet with, whatever that is outside because father began tweaking.

So we decided to open up a blog and travel to different universes to pass the time, and he forgot to turn on asks when we made this, so I did it for him.

Name: John, or J/Jp for short, and Jojo for Nickname

Pronouns: He/Him

Nationality: Filipino 🇵🇭

Sexuality: Bisexual

Religion: Christian ✝️ (Me and my family support the LGBTQ community)

Raised in New Jersey

Me and Fathers Fandoms:

Yakuza, Judgment/Lost Judgment, Call of Duty, Doom, Wolfenstein, Fallout, Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Henry Stickmin, Minecraft, Roblox, Monster Hunter, Fallout, Skyrim, Wolfensetin, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Spy X Family, Dragon Ball Z, Metal Gear, Omori, God of War, Asura’s Wrath, FromSoftWare Games (Dark Souls, BloodBorne, Sekiro, Elden Ring, Armored Core), Nintendo and Sega games, Team Fortress 2, OverWatch, Madness Combat, Marvel, DC, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Street Fighter, Ubisoft Games (The Division, For Honor, R6, Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs), Hollow Knight, FNAF, UnderTale, DeltaRune, Ace Combat, Project Wingman, UltraKill, Darkest Dungeon, Payday, Silent Hill, Telltale Games, Left 4 Dead 2, Halo, Need for Speed, Nintendo and Sega Games, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Baldi’s Basics, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Uncharted, Infamous, SCP, Dragon Ball Z, Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil, Signalis, Dead Space, Ghost of Tsushima, Warhamner 40K, Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, Forbidden Siren, Fatal Frame, LittleBigPlanet, Star Wars, Scriptwelder games, Hitman, House of the Dead, Time Crisis, Multiple Other RPG Maker Games (Yume Nikki, OFF, Oneshot), Sifu, Just Shapes and Beats, Lacey Flash Games Series, Persona Series, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, I Expect You To Die VR Games, Spec Ops: The Line, Borderlands, Earth Defense Force, Crysis, Danganronpa, GTA Series, Red Dead Redemption, Disco Elysium, Lies of P, Chainsaw Man, Killing Floor, Trepang2, The Amazing Digital Circus, Murder Drones, SMG4, RWBY, Red Vs. Blue, Lethal Company, FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, Needy Streamer Overload, Object Shows (BFDI, Inanimate Insanity, Etc.), Hotline Miami, Helldivers, Nier Automata

Me and Fathers Interests:

Video Games, Music, Martial Arts, Tabletop Games (Specifically Dungeons and Dragons), Art/Paintings, Horror, Action, Visual Novel Games, Vtubers, Anime, Manga

(Will add more Fandoms and Interests overtime)

Btw I make Moodboards as well, if you want to me to make one just let me know.

Blog won't always be Spoiler-Free

My Voice Reveal, doubling as a motivation Ted-talk I felt like doing:

35 notes · View notes

canmom · 1 year

Text

NieR Automata Anime ep 4-5

Continuing commentary from [part 1] and [part 2-3].

The NieR Automata anime continues to be... really good actually! A really good companion piece to the game, and even if you encountered it in isolation you’d probably get quite a bit out of it. I am increasingly relieved I didn’t judge it solely on the first episode.

As before the focus on this commentary will be looking at how they adapted the game, how it relates to the broader NieR context, references (e.g. books being read by the characters), and also the cool stuff the anime does to take advantage of the new medium.

Episode 4

Episode 4 covers the Amusement Park area and the machine lifeform Simone, aka ボーヴォワール (Beauvoir) in Japanese.

This episode was delayed, with the rushed production of the anime as a whole unable to cope with a COVID outbreak. Given that it’s kind of crazy what an impressive action sequence they deliver.

The episode opens with Machine Lifeforms watching a play. In the game, if you return to the Amusement Park some time after defeating Simone, you can watch a group of machine lifeforms perform a play called ‘Romeos and Juliets’ which has to be seen, seriously...

youtube

In the anime, we open with a less absolutely destructive play, although a machine lifeform still gets stabbed. We see a machine couple with painted-on eyelashes holding each other... and behind them we see a crucified android.

...followed by a rapid montage of her and other androids decaying.

The setup is pretty clear: this is a horror one!

At the Resistance Camp, 2B and 9S are receiving their orders from Lily and Jackass. This serves as exposition that normal androids only drink water...

...and YoRHa androids don’t. (Because their Black Boxes come from Machine Lifeforms, but we don’t know that yet!)

They do a great job of distinguishing the body language of Lily (cool, reserved) and Jackass (excitable, broad motions) which wasn’t really possible in the game. Poking and prodding 9S, wiggling like a worm...

The YoRHa recap the previous episode, and Jackass speculates that with the machine lifeforms evolving this way, peace might yet be possible. As we’ll see, 9S’s genocidal streak is really emphasised in the anime; here, he refuses to accept anything other than total annihilation of the machines and foreshadows his ‘I’m going to kill every last one of them’ break from route C...

The Japanese is actually quite plain: すべてを、破壊するまだです。It is perfectly valid to translate to “every last one of them” and it fits the dramatic finality of 9S’s line, but you could also just put “all of them”.

Next up we have a scene of the Commander in the bunker. This calls back to the YoRHa stage play, where the Commander pleads to send reinforcement to the YoRHa test squad, and is flatly denied.

Visually, the “Council of Humanity” is here represented by a moon with a segment taken out, resembling an eyeball. It’s a cool visual!

And in closeups, we see a circuit board pattern, which kind of foreshadows that the Council of Humanity is not human at all...

The Council declares that Adam, Eve and other unique machine lifeforms are all part of the plan, and to continue to use the Resistance as decoys.

YoRHa’s plan is completely nuts honestly. Not surprisingly since it was concocted by a traumatised android shortly before he blew up, but seriously. The primary aim of YoRHa is propaganda, to motivate the resistance to fight harder to overcome the machines on behalf of a phantom humanity - but they treat that same resistance as worthless and disposable constantly so who’s even supposed to spread the legend of YoRHa? They sacrifice endless units to goofy experiments to try to find the most efficient personality types, even though they’re planning to sacrifice the whole army in the end. They spend a huge amount of resources on attempting to squash security leaks among the androids, such as the Executioner type units, but their base security is completely useless against the machines.

But that’s the point, right? YoRHa is irrational bc the huge forces that we are caught up in are just as irrational. And thinking of this as a purely rational military operation, rather than something happening for religious reasons, is a mistake.

After this, we lead into the main plot of the episode, with 2B and 9S on their way to investigate the Amusement Park region. Before that, however, they see a supply launch to the moon; further foreshadowing.

Later, 9S will discover that the shipments to the moon contain only water, indicating that the moon is only populated by androids and there are no real humans. So the beginning of this episode has all been setup.

We get a message from from the crucified android. “Ah, what a beautiful stage...” - setup to the dichotomy of beauty and death that is going to be the theme explored in the rest of this episode.

Like in the game, the route to the Amusement Park from the City Ruins passes through a sewer. We get a brief montage of painted scenes from the game, including the rabbit boss...

...and the rollercoaster...

But we’re not going to dwell very long in the Amusement Park before going straight to the stage.

A Beautiful Song begins in a music box version, and we see the machine lifeforms from the play earlier professing love. Pod 153 explains the concept of the theatre to a dismissive 9S; then the players explode and Simone enters.

The outset of the fight is fairly close to the game, although there’s some small differences.

Like with the Engels fight, Simone is a 3D model, while 2B and 9S are 2D animated into a 3D scene with 2D effects animation. The CGI still doesn’t look great, but broadly it’s executed much better here. There’s some seriously impressive mobile camerawork.

In the game, you don’t get much of a sense of what Simone’s deal is in your first playthrough as 2B, but then as 9S you get visions of her motivation. She wants another machine, named after Jean-Paul Sartre and goes to increasing lengths to ‘become beautiful’ - returning to a constant refrain of ‘he won’t look my way’. (In real life, Sartre and de Beauvoir had a polyamorous relationship; Sartre was the one jealous. I gotta actually read de Beauvoir to get a better sense of what NieR is riffing on, if it is).

In the anime, the emphasis is less on Sartre, although we do see him...

The flayed, still-living androids on posts come in to open what will be a parade of ero-guro imagery...

Things really get going with dat psychosexual imagery, though, once 9S hacks into de Beauvoir. As we’ve seen, the anime presents hacking as a kind of full-immersion VR where 9S dives into the memories of the hacking target. Inside de Beauvoir, he first finds a huge space full of images of feminised machine lifeforms, the plates shattering as he walks past...

The hacking space is indicated by letterboxing a cinematic 2.39:1 aspect ratio.

He finds a mirror and then is confronted by an array of photos of the same machine in a red dress and various kinds of makeup. The floor transforms into a huge made up face.

9S shatters it with his sword. Outside the hacking dimension, 2B is holding him in a pietà pose. Simone explodes her dress and goes into bitey girldick mode.

Back in hacking space, 9S finds himself in a misty swamp containing a giant statue of an indifferent Sartre. With a Dutch angle to make it look extra big.

A representation of Simone with smudged makeup shows up in a wedding dress.

9S stabs her, she turns to sludge, arms drag him underwater, and he finds himself arm-bondaged to a wall in a bedroom full of discarded dummy/doll parts.

Simone, here a generic Small Stubby, discards parts until giving up in frustration, with scribbles all over her face, and comes to 9S where she starts trying to rip off his arm.

Abruptly she is pulled into a giant metal mouth. (Check out those bendy smears!) A match cut identifies this mouth with the big girldick dentata menacing 2B.

In the hacking world, a huge grinding wheel appears inside the mouth, reminiscent of Marx. Simone now stumbles blindly around the fight arena, bouncing off the walls. 2B orders Pod 042 to let her hack, despite the risk of a B unit attempting hacking.

Given how coldly she has treated (this incarnation of!) 9S until now, this might underline that there’s more going on with her feelings about him. If the first episode didn’t massively tip its hand there lol. Anyway, she arrives just in the nick of time to save 9S from getting ground up.

...kinda Utena-like framing there maybe?

This prompts Simone to charge atop the spinning wheel, giving 9S an opening to throw his sword into her face. The effect of this is to explode the metal covering.

The inner structure of her head suggests that 9S has actually smashed the teeth as well and gone straight into her throat with his sword. Hmm. HMMMMMMMMM. Yeah ok.

This gives 2B and 9S an opening to destroy Simone’s core with the pod laser. We get a final shot of her catching the attention of Sartre at last...

We see Simone’s core disintegrate - further setup for the eventual reveal that YoRHa Black Boxes are built from Machine Cores.

After the battle, the two machines from the opening come in to see the play and give flowers to Simone, one of them referring to her as ‘mum’! Suggesting that maybe Simone and Sartre went further in their relationship and adopted some Stubbies as kids in this version? 9S tramples the roses to mercilessly cut them down.

The puppet show this time is pretty brief and the ‘ending’ is basically that the commander pushes the bunker crew too hard.

So, to comment on this episode: in the game, the Simone fight is extremely cool - bringing to mind the Intoner fights in Drakengard 3, but considerably better executed! - but ultimately you just defeat Simone the same way you would defeat any normal enemy. If you hack her as 9S, I don’t believe you get any special hacking zones.

Here, they’re going all Silent Hill with the sexual imagery. I’m still not entirely sure what I make of the whole Simone episode of NieR Automata. There’s definitely something of the transfeminine monster angle in the whole ‘massive bitey schlong’ thing, the “Buffalo Bill” pursuit of feminine beauty by destroying someone else’s body (in this case, the androids that Simone uses as adornment). They’re mixing together a whole lot of images here: we already had the stage itself, gibbeted corpses, Wagnerian opera, the usual YoRHa doll imagery; now we can add the big juicy mouth stuff and a bit of bondage too. The Machine Lifeforms are generally trying to explore different ways of being human, and Simone represents insecure vanity leading to an obsession with aesthetics that can never really be satisfied. But there’s a reason ‘unrequited feelings’ is such an enduring subject for stories.

In the game, when you defeat Simone, there isn’t much of an immediate followup. The final scene with 9S killing the two childlike machines is a good one for setting up the later developments, and also for creating more of a contrast between the affects of the two MCs. 9S is interesting because he has much more access than nearly anyone to the inner lives of the machines, but also he is one of the most insistent that the machines don’t have real subjectivity, and they’re playing that up here in the anime.

Episode 5

Now we get Adam and Eve for real! In this episode we get a couple of their rooftop scenes from the game. The anime has more room for character animation, to express Eve’s fidgety boredom.

We see a lot of books in this episode. In the first scene, Adam is reading Being and Nothingness, by Sartre. Later, in Pascal’s village, we see his bookshelf contains Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and five volumes of Republic, presumably Plato’s.

In the final scene of Adam and Eve, Eve is grumbling about having to read a book titled Natural History, possibly the one by Pliny the Elder. Adam is reading a book titled Vice Amply Rewarded, which is the subtitle of the novel Juliette by the Marquis de Sade.

OK, the plot of the episode proper! This one’s kinda great! We finally get the introduction of Pascal and the pacifist village, but rather than simply reprise the game, we add some cool new elements...

We open with 2B and 9S making their way across the ravine to the department store.

They changed the geography a bit here. In the game, you meet the pacifist machines right after defeating Simone, and their area can be accessed by a series of bridges from the Amusement Park; later it connects to the City Ruins and the Forest zones. The department store is very small, and it’s a route to the forest zone, but it is notably where you first meet Emil, who bursts out of the inside of a Machine Lifeform’s head which really underlines the similarity. It’s also where Emil made his underground monument to Kainé, full of Lunar Tears, where 2B will eventually be buried. But the above ground part of it is pretty barebones, just a large room.

9S excitedly picks over toothbrushes, plates, pans and even a PS4 - the first platform that NieR Automata was released on.

He asks 2B to call him ‘Nines’, but she refuses. (She knows she’ll have to kill this 9S eventually, and she’s trying not to get attached.)

The department store is much larger in the anime...

9S explains how he wants to go shopping with 2B and buy her a T-shirt after the war. His body language is really cute. 2B shuts him down with the usual ‘emotions are prohibited’.

They meet the Machine Lifeform village, where they’re all waving white flags. The Machine Lifeforms in the village are a mix of 2D animation and cel-shaded CG, and the first half of the episode is 9S getting over his skepticism that there could be peaceful machine lifeforms disconnected from the network, and deciding to try to learn more about them.

One interesting difference from the game is that here, the Stubbies actually come in a variety of sizes...

...cementing the roleplaying of ‘parents’ and ‘children’ in the village. We see various machines in outfits either painted on or made out of scraps of cloth; there’s a couple of cameos of sidequest characters from the games, notably the pair of sisters with pink and blue bows:

Sadly the part of the dynamic where the Medium Stubby was the big sister and the Large Stubby was the younger sister seems to have been dropped.

After this montage, things diverge from the game in a really interesting way. 2B and 9S see a ravine by the edge of the village, and descend, where they find...

...a tree with an Emil in it! 9S determines he can hack this Emil because something something radio waves, and dives in to find memories of NieR Replicant while Emil (Sacrifice) plays:

The desert outside Facade.

The garden in the Shadowlord’s ‘castle’, the last thing the gang saw before Devola and Popola’s betrayal.

Devola and Popola’s library, with the roof broken open by the Shadowlord’s attack; a highly traumatic location for Emil since this is where he was forced to use his power to turn Kainé to stone to protect the village.

Kainé and Grimoire Weiss; likely the scene where Kainé was revived after the time skip. Kainé acknowledged Emil immediately despite his changed form.

Devola and Popola in the library, their faces obscured, representing their deceit. The one time Emil entered this office, they told him and Kainé to sleep outside the village.

Nier himself, taking care of Yonah. Not entirely clear when Emil would have seen this!

Emil forcibly discconects 9S, but 9S pulls up some data about him.

This is very different to what happens in the game, where 2B and 9S don’t have the first clue what Emil is and almost attack him on their first meeting! The pane on the left shows Emil’s mansion and the fountain which conceals the entrance to the hidden lab; the pane in the middle shows the multiple-Emil head form he adopts during the optional battle in the desert before changing to Halua chained up underground; the pane on the right shows Emil and Halua in their human forms before the evil child experiments. 9S refers to Emil as a weapon, an ‘it’.

At that point Pascal arrives and explains the pacifist village worship Emil(!) and that’s why Pascal stopped fighting. We get a flashback which uses a high contrast saturated colour scheme reminiscent of Takashi Koike, one of the coolest sequences in the whole anime.

Just like P-chan/Beepy did when rising from the mountain, Emil says one word: 生きて (live!) The magical force of this command causes Pascal to awaken. We get to see an older version of the Machine Lifeform army, where the fundamental modular unit is a Pascal-like chassis:

Pascal is given the ability to fear death. And he’s terrified by his indifference to the lives of his comrades. だから。。。

...he becomes a pacifist, and founds the village.

As Pascal is pulled back to the other machines, one of whom has found a music box (from an earlier sidequest at the resistance camp... I have so much useful knowledge in my brain lmao), 9S retreats to a nearby rooftop and derides them as selfish as it starts raining in a big old pathetic fallacy moment.

He says separating from the network and yet forming a village is a contradiction. 2B and pod 153 reply that it is impossible to live alone. 9S’s vision flickers with a glitch, showing the department store briefly...

He awkwardly tries to cover for it by making a kinda childishly flirty comment towards 2B - one that underlines the distance that still exists between them and 9S’s sense of loneliness. 2B gets it and instructs Pod 042 to mark the department store so that one day in the future, they really might go shopping there...

But we end the scene in an indirect mirror shot of 2B looking after him with a grim expression.

She knows that isn’t happening. (Don’t think too hard about the perspective of this shot lmao.)

As 2B and 9S return to the village, they see one of the machine children trying to keep the music box to itself...

Pascal is hopelessly ill-equipped to stop the conflict and the children fight; inevitably the music-box is broken.

The androids observe that, even in the pacifist village where there is no war against the androids, conflicts still break out just due to conflicting interests. 9S almost intervenes, but is interrupted by a message from Operator 21O.

Finally we have the last scene with Adam and Eve.

The post-credits puppet show omake scene depicts the effect of the self-destruct input, which causes 9S’s shorts and 2B’s skirt to get blown up ingame. This leads to sexy illustrations of both androids...

Unfortunately Emil gets the same idea.

We get ending Y from the game, where Emil kills everyone on Earth. I think this would be incomprehensible if you haven’t done Emil’s mission in the game.

All in all, a really cool episode. I loved the style of Pascal’s flashback and it’s cool to flesh out his character a bit more. Creating a connection between Emil and the pacifist machines is fascinating. The game definitely intimates towards a connection between Emil and the Machine Lifeforms from the moment Emil is introduced, and given that Emil was fighting the aliens, it seems very likely that they built the Machine Lifeforms in his image. But I don’t know of anywhere this is actually spelled out explicitly (and it’s kind of contradicted if the old model of Machine Lifeform looked like Pascal). Still, if that was true... in a sense you could even say the Machine Lifeforms give Emil - the last surviving human, permanently kept in this child state by his magical immortality - a way of growing up!

Also it’s nice to see anime Kainé lol.

I had a lot of doubts about this adaptation at first, and the conditions it’s being made in are pretty dire honestly, but despite all that, they are genuinely managing to add something that makes the adaptation a worthwhile addition. They’re being reasonably judicious with the action, which lets it be really flashy when they do show it; I’m really looking forward to seeing what they do with characters like Gruen and the Forest Kingdom later. Most importantly, they seem to be getting the tone right.

If we’re up to episode 5 and we’ve only just met Pascal, I can only assume they won’t cover the entire game in this one anime. I suspect they’ll probably just take it up to the end of Route A/B - at least, I hope they don’t try to cram the whole of Route C into a couple of episodes.

Anyway, really glad this is turning out to be good after all. I still need to write up NieR Automata on my NieR guide pages and I’ll definitely be including this anime when I do.

#nier automata #nier automata ver 1.1a #anime #nier #nier automata anime #nier automata spoilers #computer games

8 notes · View notes

youthofpandas · 1 year

Text

Kris year in review (in which i talk about everything i remember that i watched and played and read) bc I like to talk about things . this is so incredibly long do not feel like you have to look at this okay guys. okay. I already wrote this up so im just gonna post it

Games I played:

AI: The Somnium Files - a fantastic game I highly recommend if you like weird characters and stories and are a fan of visual novels/adventure games <3 super fun

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim - AMAZING cast of characters and fun gameplay I didn’t want to stop playing, great plot I will be thinking about forever…

Bugsnax - very funny and cute and I loved catching every bugsnax and the fun characters I want to play the 2nd one when it comes out

Psyconauts - a cult classic for a reason. Loved it’s style but the final level is so bad I would not wish it upon my worst enemy. Looking forward to finishing 2 one day

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 - I haven’t gotten to finish this one yet (I got 80 hours in okay??) but I’m incredibly excited to get back to it. GOTY BABY!!! GAME OF ALL TIME!!

Nier Automata - ALSO THE GAME OF ALL TIME this is a must play it broke me it healed me it made me see the beauty of art and story telling that games are capable of it’s really just fantastic. for the love of god do not stop after ending A. Love this game so much.

Ongoing Manga I am currently reading

Chainsaw Man - starting off with the best one. CSM is so incredibly important to me and one of the best stories I have ever read. if you have talked to me at ALL you know how I cannot shut up about Denji and i AM NOT SORRY!!!

I Want to Hold Aono-kun so Badly I Could Die - fantastic supernatural/horror themed romance and one of my favorite romances I read this year

Black Clover - made me realize how truly trash bnha is at writing women lmao. Good battle shonen but nothing overwhelming special about it. It understands the basics and does them all well

D Gray Man - didn’t catch up on this one yet but it’s got great characters and some of the worst action paneling I’ve ever seen.

Dungeon Meshi - y’all were right it’s funny and can be very touching at time

A Condition Called Love - I can fix him romance but make it not feel toxic the manga. Super cute I love them.

Toilet Bound Hanako-kun - I feel like I started this last year but I know that can’t be true… supernatural + romance + cute art. It’s made me cry.

Jujutsu Kaisen - loved this baby and then I caught up to the current arc and it was the worst shit of all time. Megumi my depressed king.

Frieren Beyond Journeys End - fantastic please read it I love these bitches so much

Spy x Family - it’s SxF it’s good we all know this

Manga I finished reading

Cardcaptor Sakura - I think this is my first CLAMP manga I finished. LOVED sakura and shaoran they are so small. so many good aspects to this series and then all of the age gap bullshit is there so IDK hard to recommend but I enjoyed reading all of the parts that weren't about horrible relationships

Horimiya - CUTE I love romance where you get to follow them as a couple <3 there were a few bad spots in it (miyamura's piercings being compared to self harm in that one chapter.......???????) but over all a good read

Astra: Lost in Space - fun scifi adventure with good characters. pretty short and easy read. its fun

You Got Me, Senpai - SO CUTE one of the best relationships I've read in a manga. adorable.

Drowning Love - verrry good and complex, a mature story with darker elements (check out trigger warnings for it) and a very engaging coming of age story about two kinda horrible kids with too much attention pointed their way living in a small town. anime adaptation WHEN

Wake Up, Sleeping Beauty - super cute romance, supernatural elements. loved it

Orange - think this would be a perfect read if the time travel element wasn't explained like That and also Suwa >>> Kakeru and what they did to his character in that bonus story was just mean

Goodbye, Eri - everyone should read this. beautiful, stays with you. fantastic exploration on what arts purpose is

A Kiss, For Real - it was cute. the summary makes it sound more romance focused than it actually is, there is a lot of focus on the MCs journey of growth and what she wants to do with her life. Romance was cute but not exceptionally so

Takopi's Original Sin - overhyped as hell. depressing outlook on life. thought some of it was fine but it is overall too cruel to say i enjoyed it, especially with a cast this young

The Girl From The Other Side - I actually 100% cannot remember if I read this last year or not. anyways. BEAUTIFUL art, great characters, compelling mysteries

Junji Ito's Dissolving Classroom - not his best work by far, but it is one of his earliest so I don't care too much.

Spotless Love: This Love Cannot Be Any More Beautiful. - I haven't been adding the ones that aren't popular unless I really enjoyed them, but idk this one is just so wild I felt the need to throw it on here. girl who loves to clean x child assassin is certainly a relationship dynamic. they're funny

Anime I watched <3 THIS SECTION WILL BE LONG SORRY

Akiba Maid War - this is not very good but it is entertaining so...

Ano Hana - rewatched this one finally! still one of the best dramas of all time. did you know childe and jintan have the same english VA bc I know. I know this now.

BNA - the plot point about how the furries were victims in the literal real world holocaust made me kind of hate this I won't lie. also the best friend fox girl Nazuna is one of the most unbearable characters ever. when you lead a cult pretending to be an important religious figure to a culture you are not part of because you like attention i guess?? it is not a good look in a show that already deals so heavily in antisemetic themes & imagery for it's villains.... sorry to whoever recommended this to me :( great animation

Dance Dance Danseur - did not like the MC but I did like the FMC and Rival character, good animation. I read the authors shoujo title Drowning Love this year and it should've gotten the adaptation TBH but this was fine, last few episodes carried

Death Parade - rewatched this one this year and it is still amazing. OP is still one of the best out there.

Do It Yourself!! - not incredibly remarkable yuri bait with a fantastic art style. its fine if you like cute girls doing cute things while being gay genre

Erased - for a mystery story the culprit is laughably obvious. the rest of it is pretty good though. oh lol other than the weird jokes about the protags taste in girls but it never followed through on anything so compared to other series im too tired to care

Keep Your Hand's Off Eizouken - starts off strong but I couldn't keep caring by the end tbh. it does not help I started it and then stopped for like 7 months and then finally finished the show so that's probably rly affecting my feelings

Today's Menu for the Emiya Family - certified apron boy moment

Fire Force - do NOT fucking watch this show is is so actually bad. However. Arthur is so funny I have to finish the series

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works - rin best girl. maybe fate isn't so bad after all.

Fruits Basket (2019) all seasons - LOVE ME SOME SHOUJO!!!! it slays everyone needs to watch this NOW

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 - fantastic movie i need to watch it again

Kaguya-sama Love is War - only watched the first season but it's fun, not the best without breaks. the people saying this is the best animanga romance need to read more shoujo though

Mob Psycho 100 s3 - I cried. It's beautiful. I don't need to say anything else

NGE - this was a rewatch a long time coming. Truly didn't understand shit watching this as a teenager lol. it's better than I could've imagined and a lot of the criticisms i used to have were actually stupid and a byproduct of not understanding what it was doing

Sarazanmai - 10/10 gay kappa connections cycles trauma love mafia boxes cops otters I WANT TO CONNECT, but.........

spy x family s1 - its good its sxf

Zombieland Saga + Revenge - first idol anime I watched. the main girl was way too relatable for comfort. good time.

Movies I watched (I am bad at talking about movies sorry)

Turning Red - super good loved the everything I can’t believe it came out this year. I’ve watched it 3 times.

Scream (the entire movie series) - it’s scream baby idk what else to say. First one is fantastic the rest are okay I guess but man… that first one is just sooo good it’s hard to live up to it

The Sea Beast - fun movie! Almost forgot I watched it

Monster High: The Movie - perfection 10/10 high art it should’ve been called Monster High: The Film

Skinamarink - loooove me a horror movie that says fuck doing what other movies do I am doing my own thing. Did not actually love the thing it did but it’s definitely not a bad movie

Wendell & Wild - STOP MOTION SWEEP !!!! Great movie I will return to on future Halloweens. Think the plot got a bit too big for the movies runtime or whatever but I really don’t care bc it was good so whatever

Disney’s ZOMBIES trilogy - bad.

Disney’s Descendants trilogy - bisexual. Less bad than zombies

The VelociPastor - a masterpiece baby!!

Glass Onion - absolutely fantastic, words can’t describe how fun this movie is

Pinocchio - stunning stop motion and a beautiful story that brought me to tears. icon.

#kris actually talks #posting this at 4am hoping nobody will notice it

11 notes · View notes

deltaengineering · 7 months

Text

Summer Anime 2023: GoHands saves anime

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale S2

I wasn't really all that impressed with S1 of Sugar Apple, but it was fun enough. There was a chance it would do away with its naive ruminations on chauvinism and slavery, after all. And yeah, it did that. But maybe I should have stated more clearly that that bland nonsense also needs to be replaced with something better, and that part certainly did not happen. The show fills the vacant space with two things: The kind of completely uninteresting worldbuilding and politics that were all over S1, weren't good there either, but were so insubstantial they weren't worth of note. Well, now they are. The other is that we get a ridiculously evil over the top villain that's amusing for one episode, but gets old really fast. Not to mention that everyone (outside of the designated villain, which is why you know he's bad) seems to love Anne now, especially Challe. So the spicy romance interplay is gone and Challe is now an edgy white knight that tips his fedora to m'lady. And the big finale is that Anne inspires a dozen pretty boys to invent Christmas, somehow. This one just is very poorly written and as of S2 has optimized out all things that distract from that. 4/10

Noble Farmer

The appeal of Noble Farmer isn't what the show does, but what it is: Notable action shounen mangaka Hiromu Arakawa telling a few anecdotes about her growing up as a farmer on Hokkaido. Of course we've known that since Silver Spoon, but it's still enough of a novelty to just barely carry this short series. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's not. As usual, a short doesn't actually need to be all that good to be an easy watch, but I've seen better ones. 5/10

Instead Of Zom 100 You Get NieR:Automata Ver1.1a

Why hello, we have a vacant 5/10 spot for mysterious reasons. Let's talk about a production disaster from the season before that just managed to end in this one. To be honest, I've already forgotten about Near A Tomato Service Pack 1 (Backer Beta) so I'll have to patch it up with my knowledge of the game, which is probably for the better anyway. Or is it? I am one of the few people that don't think that Nier Automata is the pinnacle of storytelling¹, so one reason to even give this a chance is to see if the story clicks better if it's told in a more straightforward way. But then it just seems that the opposite is true: Yes, it is indeed the main plot of Nier Automata, but the lack of nonlinearity and other assorted participatory/environmental storytelling just points out that there isn't all that much to that, especially towards the end when it's just about beating up the big monster, but in a sad way. The few things that it does change or add either don't amount to anything we didn't already know or have their payoff pushed onto the sequel. At least the music is still fantastic but it's just literally the game music, so that's nothing new either. This anime is probably for the fans, but even the fans will quickly realize that it's inferior to the real thing - though for them, inferior to the BEST. STORY. EVER!!!! is likely still plenty good enough. 5/10

¹ Before a million salty Yoko Taro fans jump down my throat, it's pretty good, okay? Just not as exceptional as you think. Thank you.

Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-

So why does this exist. I can only imagine that Numazu has a bit of surplus marketing budget now, so here we go, Aqours is back... In the form of an appealing, but pretty bog standard children's show. Sunshine already wasn't the most profound Love Live show, nor did it have the most multidimensional characters, but naturally this is a shallower version of that - with the curious exception of Mari, who somehow is a more well-rounded character here than she originally was (though what that means is left as an exercise to the reader). Yoshiko herself of course has a bit more going on, but she better have, given that this show is very definitely about her and her problems - and it's still not really enough. All of this of course is expected from a children's afternoon show where the big bad is a vague "calamity" that doesn't even get defined as much as being made out of people's negative emotions or something like that. No it's just uh, bad (and by bad I mean purple), and then gets defeated by friendship and good vibes and an Aquors single. This show should have really done more random nonsense like Chika and her sisters randomly having a Sentai team and Dia being Kamen Rider for tedious IRL reasons, but that quirkiness is so minor it feels more out of place than anything. I don't want to be too harsh on this because it's still fundamentally a good time, but there really just isn't much to it. But I guess that's just how it goes with entrenched franchises, right? 6/10

GoHands presents the GoHands Power Hour featuring The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses and The Masterful Cat Is Depressed Again Today

Before I get to the details of these shows, there's quite a bit they have in common, and that is, obviously, being made by GoHands. I have a pretty complicated history with GoHands. Yes, I did watch the whole Handhakersverse mostly because it was unbelievably ugly, but on the other hand, there is something to be said about an unique, consistent aesthetic: GoHands is dreamcore. I don't think it's pretty, but I do think it's fascinating, which is why I wasn't amused when every Anime Opinion Haver immediately wrote these two off as being unwatchable and took cheap shots on Ecks Dot Com. So I'll watch them. I thought. That'll show em.

The punchline was obvious: Neither of these shows are crassly ugly in a meaningful way. They're a bit overdone, but honestly they're more reminiscent of some SHAFT productions. Really, outside a few meme gif shots in the first episodes, there's nothing special about the looks apart from an overreliance on postproduction gimmicks like particle and lighting effects and stifling color correction, and everyone loves those when KyoAni does them. So there goes the reason to watch them... Except then, in a truly GoHandsian further twist, they're actually good. I'm as puzzled as you are.

Well, "good" is maybe a bit much. Glasses Girl is definitely watchable though, mostly just because Mie is remarkably cute. Of course, this being an entry in the "my classmate is wacky and I can't deal with it" genre, the same cannot be said of Komura, whose React-Man antics are most charitably described as "occasionally not annoying". The show gets a lot of credit for actually finding new ways to make the one joke that is in its title reasonably fresh, and it even manages to elicit some d'aww feelings towards the clumsy kid romance it develops into. I can't tell a lie, it's fine. 6/10

This one honestly is pretty good though, even though the absurd wish fulfilment setup of "I'm a lonely dysfunctional office lady but my cat is actually a perfect homemaker" seems thoroughly sketchy. To be honest, Yukichi actually does act like a cat, so I can only assume this is indeed written by a lonely dysfunctional office lady. As far as surreal daily life comedies go, this one's a winner though. It's cute, it's funny, and all that. A rather simple comedy about a very obvious joke setup, but there's enough going on in the periphery to make it not boring - and then there's hooks like half the female cast having a crush on Saku, which if acted upon would instantly make this one of the dankest yuri shows of all time. One can only dream. 7/10

BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!

It's always the same with these gacha franchise shows. Even when they're good, they're always bloated by too many characters, too many established plots, too much desire to make everyone equally likeable, and a strict adherence to the status quo. Over the years, many a time I have written "but what can you do". What can you do, indeed?

So here comes MyGO, where the plan apparently was "how about THIS time we just don't do any of that". Now, this part is interesting only for people like me who watched this show as part of the franchise. Nobody else would (or, honestly, should) care that this franchise show breaks the mould uncommonly hard — only whether it's good. Thankfully, MyGO is also just one of the best teen drama shows around, franchise or not. I guess it really helps if you make a show that a writer would actually want to write and not just a bunch of corporate mandates, but Ayana Yuniko takes it no the next level and does things that even "regular" shows in a similar lane don't attempt; for example, Tomori completely fixes the problems I had with Bocchi (of The Rock fame) by being treated appropriately seriously. Now, I don't want to oversell this show, you won't get the next Kids on the Slope here - it's still a small-scale anime about a bunch of drama kids that produces not one, but two marketable bands in the end. But within this framework, it really is about as good as it gets. Every character is complicated and has major personality flaws, which seems very risky but extremely worth when it pays off like here. In short, it's textbook character drama. It's a bit silly at times, but I'll accept that as yeah, teen girls in bands can be pretty goddamn silly. It also doesn't have an ending, but I'd question whether a low-key drama like this even can have a proper ending. They manage to make their disastrous teen band work for a bit, what more can you expect?

I guess I should mention the looks also, which are nothing particularly special when you know the fairly high level of CG animation Sanzigen have consistently been doing. Of course this serious show doesn't have much of the cartooniness, but makes up for it with select instances of really good direction — MyGO has a particular knack for uncomfortable wide angles.

In the end, MyGO is an uncommonly legitimate character drama with low stakes. It can dip into melodrama but not any worse than these shows always do. Ironically the most questionable aspect is that there will be a sequel based on the other band, Ave Mujica, which work extreme well as a joke about how they are everything MyGO is not. But that makes them an awful band full of awful people, and I'm not sure if I want to actually watch that. It's certainly a tall order, but then again, I didn't expect much from this show to begin with. For now it's an 8/10

#anime #review #summer2023 #sugar apple fairy tale #noble farmer #nier automata #genjitsu no yohane #the girl i like forgot her glasses #dekiru neko wa kyou mo yuuutsu #bang dream it's mygo

5 notes · View notes