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Various thoughts on a variety of topics.

Various Thoughts

Various thoughts on a variety of topics.

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  • Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo. & HACHI-NANTTE, Sore wa Nai Deshou!

    Posted on September 1, 2020 7:08 am by Offkorn Comment

    As Kuzu no Honkai is a sex-focused romantic drama with comedic elements, Araburu Kisetsu no Otome-domo yo is a sex-focused romantic comedy with dramatic elements. The comedy style here is quite manic, which compliments the various emotional breakdowns surprisingly well. The melodramatic plot developments though… not so much. The club-disbandment, creepy theater troupe leader, and puritanical school officials subplots were all completely unnecessary.

    Hachi-nantte, Sore wa Nai Deshou! could also be considered unnecessary, as it doesn’t really do anything that hasn’t been done before. That said, I think it should get credit for taking the trappings of an overpowered MC harem show and subverting them somewhat. Although the protagonist is strong, he can’t just steamroll his opposition and often finds himself tangled up in political obligations, and though the show is ~technically~ a harem only one of the girls is a love interest (the others are just there for the security the position brings) and there’s only one brief ecchi-related scene (used for comedy).

    I also attempted to watch Kono Oto Tomare! and Hi Score Girl: The club room being occupied by delinquents was too much to deal with in the former, while in the case of the latter Ono’s home situation proved the deal-killer.

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer 2020 - Spring Anime Related and tagged Action Comedy Comic Adaptation Coming of Age Crunchyroll Dramatic Support Fantasy Finished HiDive Incomplete Source Novel Adaptation Romance School Life Series Televised
  • Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken & Dungeon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka II: FAMILIA MYTH

    Posted on August 31, 2020 8:53 am by Offkorn Comment

    A fairly standard overpowered protagonist show, Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken’s defining feature is that almost everyone’s either extremely nice/reasonable or becomes so after being defeated in some manner (whether it be through force, conversation, or trickery). It’s very much a ‘sit back and enjoy yourself’ kind of production without much in the way of nuance or depth to get bogged down on; even the ecchi elements are practically wholesome when compared to what you normally find in harem series.

    DanMachi’s second season on the other hand is very much not a ‘sit back and enjoy’ type of show, infested as it is with manufactured drama and asshole antagonists. A large number of storytellers get stuck between crafting the start of their story and concluding it, generally either because they get lost/sidetracked along the way or get greedy with early success and want to drag things out as long as possible. This appears to be a case of the latter.

    None of these three arcs advance the various plot threads introduced by the prequel, and each features new antagonists whose only apparent purpose is to be defeated in random ways (likely to never be seen again). Not helping matters is that the action scenes are notably lacking… something. I’m not sure what exactly, just that they don’t match up favorably to earlier ones. Much like this season as a whole.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8449

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    This entry was posted in 2018 - Autumn 2019 - Summer 2019 - Winter 2021 - Summer 2021 - Winter Anime Related and tagged Action Comedy Comic Adaptation Crunchyroll DanMachi Drama Dramatic Support Ecchi Fantasy Funimation Harem Hulu Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Series Televised TenSura
  • Carole & Tuesday & Toaru Kagaku no Accelerator

    Posted on August 30, 2020 7:29 pm by Offkorn Comment

    For the most part, Carole & Tuesday is a variation on the classic A Star is Born sort of story; you have two amateur musicians from vastly different backgrounds connecting to overcome early adversity and make music that moves the masses. The characters are mostly fun, but the core problem here is that much of the music the show features is pretty generic (particularly the songs in the first half or so) and doesn’t match the characters who are supposed to be singing them. Listened to on their own without the visuals some of the songs are surprisingly good, but almost none of them work within the context of the show.

    It also has a number of other things going on as subplots, such as anti-immigration politics and corrupt businessmen, an obsessive stalker, fame-based breakdowns, a conniving manager, parental abandonment, and advanced AI supplanting humanity. All of these end up more engaging than the main story… which is more damning than praiseworthy.

    As for the Index Accelerator spinoff, it appears to take place sometime before Index III and mostly features a bunch of new characters who don’t really have much going for them. Accelerator himself is a pretty annoying/one-note character (albeit not as bad as Touma), so its weird anyone would make a series nominally centered around him to begin with. Another oddity is the rather large amount of situational ecchi; girls wandering around and/or fighting in their underwear is quite common.

    Speaking of ecchi: Don’t watch Plunderer unless you’re fond of sexual-assault level harassment guised as cartoonish comedy.

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Spring 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Anime Original Comic Adaptation Comic Relief Drama Ecchi Finished Funimation Music Netflix Partial Adaptation Science Fiction Series Televised Toaru Urban Fantasy
  • Venom & SPIDER-MAN: Far From Home

    Posted on August 29, 2020 8:46 pm by Offkorn Comment

    The 2018 Venom movie is a reboot of the character which draws inspiration from the Planet of the Symbiotes comic plotline, which makes it a little strange that people were surprised it came across like a love story; it was a love story. Overall I think this focuses a little too much on being goofy and would’ve been better if Brock had more agency instead of basically being piloted by the symbiote for much of the runtime. The visual effects are solid though and I’m now cautiously optimistic for the upcoming Maximum Carnage adaptation.

    The second of the Marvel co-produced Spider-Man films, Far From Home, acts as a postscript to Endgame (which is mainly why I watched it, having been ambivalent about Homecoming) in addition to advancing its own ongoing relationship plotline. It has pretty much all the same pros/cons as its prequel (impressive visuals; Parker’s still in school) and will probably end up better if you aren’t familiar with the featured villain ahead of time.

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    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged Action Comedy Comic Adaptation Dramatic Support Marvel Comics Movie Paranormal Romance School Life Science Fiction
  • Cannon busters & Arifureta SHOKUGYOU de SEKAISAIKYOU

    Posted on August 29, 2020 1:57 pm by Offkorn Comment

    Cannon Busters is a bit of an odd series (which I suppose should be expected since it’s an adaptation of a western comic); there’s a notable contrast between the cartoonish animation and often dark/violent event developments that doesn’t always work. The comedic interplay between the protagonist’s mercenary exasperation and the two robots’ more innocent personalities on the other hand remains consistently entertaining throughout. The action scenes are so-so.

    Its greatest flaw in the end is that it’s unfinished, much like the source material, and the point where it ends does not engender much enthusiasm for a continuation.

    The Arifureta adaptation had a troubled production history, to the point that my expectations going in were rock bottom… which is a good place to be if you want to be pleasantly surprised. Which I was… to an extent. The setup and development here resembles Tate no Yuusha‘s, but the beginning is much too drawn out, the protagonist’s abilities don’t feel in any way natural, and the action scenes heavily feature some pretty awful CGI.

    The reaction and harem-related comedy is intermittently amusing, but the action is so bad and drama so generic that it’s barely worth bothering with even if you don’t mind skipping through large swathes of runtime to seek out the good bits.

    Also a quick note about two series I had a viscerally negative reaction to: Everything about Okaasan Online just screamed ‘turn it off!’ while the 2018 production of GeGeGe no Kitarou gave the impression it was made for elementary/middle schoolers.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8449

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Adventure Arifureta Comedy Comic Adaptation Drama Ecchi Fantasy Finished Funimation Harem Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Netflix Paranormal Romance Science Fiction Series Televised
  • Assorted Non-Comedy Anime

    Posted on August 27, 2020 9:43 am by Offkorn Comment

    Fairy gone: I can’t think of a single good reason to keep watching this series beyond the pilot episode; the characters are awful and the fairies are Persona ripoffs.

    Katsute KAMI Datta KEMONO-tachi e: This show does not make a good first impression. While it amazingly enough manages to overcome that handicap by focusing on the corruption of various characters’ personal desires, by the halfway point that effort turns out to be for naught when it goes all-in on the battle shounen angle. The (thankfully rare) bits of comedy are also uniformly terrible.

    Assassins Pride: Questionable beginning aside, this briefly fooled me into thinking it was going to be a fairly standard ‘academy tournament’ or ‘rise of the underdog’ type of story… only to turn into a discordant mess of unrelated ideas instead.

    Granbelm: A magical mecha battle royale series with Madoka-like characters and an early streak of comic relief centered on the protagonist’s airhead façade. The problem is that it starts when the battle has been raging for a year, so instead of exciting early eliminations you have an extended see-sawing stalemate that wears out its welcome before the series is even half over and big dramatic moments that come across as arbitrary. What’s really annoying though is that episodes 10 & 11 (which have an almost completely different theme) are pretty damn good.

    How disappointing. An almost complete wash, I’m wondering if I should just stick to comedies.

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn 2019 - Spring 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Anime Original Battle Shounen Comic Adaptation Comic Relief Crunchyroll Drama Dropped Fantasy Finished Funimation HiDive Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Paranormal Romance Series Televised Urban Fantasy
  • I⊃:INVΛ⊃≡⊃ & Inception

    Posted on August 26, 2020 10:21 am by Offkorn Comment

    ID: Invaded is a series in the vein of Psycho-Pass if Psycho-Pass readings resembled Inception‘s dream-diving. It’s far more of a mystery-thriller than an action series however and unfortunately gets weird in a manner similar to King of Thorn toward the end (the Akane stand-in being made even smaller is another oddity).

    Speaking of Inception, that happens to be a movie I’ve referenced a time or two in the past in relation to newer works… yet, I never actually saw the whole thing. I had only seen the trailer and read the Wikipedia summary.

    Having now watched it, it doesn’t appear I was missing much. It’s not as mind-bendy as you would think (Doctor Strange gets weirder than it does) and in effect just ends up a variation on the standard heist movie formula popularized by movies like Ocean’s Eleven and The Italian Job. Which doesn’t make it not worth watching… just that the description evokes something more innovative than the reality.

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    This entry was posted in 2020 - Winter Anime Related Movie & TV Related and tagged Anime Original Funimation Movie Mystery Romance Science Fiction Series Televised Thriller Workplace
  • Lord El-Melloi II Case Files: {Rail Zeppelin} Grace note & Maou-sama, Retry!

    Posted on August 25, 2020 9:06 am by Offkorn Comment

    The Lord El-Melloi II Case Files series turned out to be a direct sequel to Fate/Zero that ends shortly before the beginning of Fate/Stay Night. Making it a perfect choice to watch between the two. Even better, it features two notable characters from Fate/Apocrypha and Prisma Illya (making it easier to watch those series afterward).

    Content-wise it’s something like a detective mystery series infused with some standard Fate/-style action and occasional comic relief. The first episode is not representative of the series as a whole (the stand-alone episode 0 serves that role far better), to the point that if the backstory revealed within weren’t somewhat necessary I’d suggest skipping it entirely, while the rest of the episodes are split between an early episodic focus and a plot-driven remainder. There’s also a bit of a subfocus on philosophy, which would’ve probably ended up as boring as Zero‘s couch scenes had they not decided to keep the camera moving here. Even the most dialog-heavy sequences always have something to look at.

    Maou-sama, Retry! unfortunately doesn’t compliment anything. It’s nothing but a pale imitation of Overlord with a worse protagonist and more gratuitous ecchi. Just ignore it.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8449

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    This entry was posted in 2018 - Autumn 2019 - Summer Anime Related and tagged Action Adventure Comedy Comic Relief Drama Dropped Ecchi Fantasy Fate/ Finished Funimation Harem Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Mystery Partial Adaptation Urban Fantasy
  • Deus Ex: M△NKIND DIVIDED & Mary Skelter: NIGHTMARES

    Posted on August 25, 2020 6:50 am by Offkorn Comment

    The sequel to Human Revolution, Mankind Divided got an extremely hostile reception upon its release. Mainly due to its monetization aspects and what at the time was considered an overly heavy-handed depiction of police vs. activists… neither of which appear to be particularly egregious in retrospect.

    Sure the existence of the Breach minigame and QR codes is immersion breaking, but it’s not like you have to play it or use them to progress. The in-game depiction of police in the face of a legitimate threat meanwhile is, if anything, too restrained when compared to the ongoing real-life police response to imagined threats. Greater issues than either of those are the general clunkiness of the character interactions/movement, and the incredibly annoying energy system. Everything needs energy and there’s apparently no way to recharge it (beyond the basic minimum ‘1-bar’ level) aside from limited consumable items.

    Unlike Dishonored 2, while you can use stealth to get past any obstacle here, you’re equally able to go in guns blazing and play it like a conventional cover-based FPS. That should be a good thing, but instead it ends up clashing a bit with the highly non-linear layout of the various maps; going from peaceful exploring to bullets flying everywhere causes enough whiplash to sort of force you into a stealth mindset in order to keep things consistent. It’s a weird combination and I didn’t end up getting very far before uninstalling out of disinterest.

    And now for something competently different:

    When I first saw Mary Skelter: Nightmares pop-up on GOG, for some reason I thought it was going to resemble the dungeon portions of Tokyo Xanadu. As it turns out, that was completely offbase. Instead it’s a dungeon-mapping game like Elminage & Labyrinth of Lost Souls with an FFT-like job/skill system and a few galge elements. There’s a lot going on here in terms of character/equipment customization, to the point that (at the start of Chapter 2) I’m really not sure learning the upgrade systems’ intricacies will be worth the effort… particularly since the character interactions are so frequently cringe-inducing.

    Related posts:

    1. Nier: Automata – First Impressions This game is quite a bit different from conventional RPGs....
    2. Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls – Conclusion Having just beat the the main storyline with two characters...
    3. Cosmic Star Heroine & Starpoint Gemini Warlords Cosmic Star Heroine is a throwback to early sprite-based RPGs...
    4. Random GOG Games Back during GOG‘s Insomnia Sale I picked up a bunch...
    5. ELEX If you’ve ever played a Gothic or Risen game before,...

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    This entry was posted in PC Video Game Related and tagged Exploration First Person Perspective FPS RPG Science Fiction Urban Fantasy
  • Tejina Senpai & ITAI no wa IYA nano de BOUGYORYOKU ni KYOKUFURI Shitai to OMOIMASU.

    Posted on August 23, 2020 4:19 pm by Offkorn 1 Comment

    The half-length episode series Tejina Senpai starts out as an amusing enough version of Ueno-san, only to run out of steam partway through and lean ever more heavily on lewdness as a crutch. The joke variety is also lacking and the additional two members that eventually get added to the club don’t really help much in that department (unless you’re a fan of inexplicable pseudo-incest).

    Also a comedy, Bofuri takes the virtual fantasy land action-adventure aspects of Sword Art Online and combines them with a somewhat random style of reaction humor focusing on Mary Sue parody. Before the guild gets formed most of the amusement comes from the sharp contrast between Maple’s appearance/personality and fondness for unintentional brutality… and this part of the show works fantastically. Eventually however it leans too far into the ‘overpowered main character’ shtick to the point event developments become tiresome. Remarkably high-quality action scenes throughout though.

    That’s the danger of parody: You run the risk of becoming the very thing you’re trying to laugh at.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8449

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Summer 2020 - Winter Anime Related and tagged Action Adventure Comedy Comic Adaptation Crunchyroll Ecchi Fantasy Finished Funimation Incomplete Source Novel Adaptation Parody Romance School Life Science Fiction Series Televised Virtual World

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