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Various thoughts on a variety of topics.

Various Thoughts

Various thoughts on a variety of topics.

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  • 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 8388

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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.

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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 8388

    No related posts.


    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
  • LEGIⓧN & THE ALIENIST

    Posted on August 21, 2020 11:35 am by Offkorn Comment

    Based off of a Marvel Comics’ character, the 3-season television series Legion is a study in high-concept insanity. It takes guts to make something so deliberately incoherent, to essentially thread together one concept episode after another until you have a consistently inconsistent schizophrenic tapestry… that I can’t deny. Doesn’t mean it’s worth watching though.

    The Alienist is something quite a bit different. A Victorian era thriller with police procedural elements set in New York City, its first season mainly busies itself with highlighting police corruption and reminding people that prostitution is a gender-neutral profession. I’m not at all surprised that it had a middling reception (though I liked the first half or so), especially since the narrative basically falls apart once the focus shifts to ‘the west’.

    The second season, subtitled Angel of Darkness, puts a greater focus on Sara and women’s suffrage in general with the murder victims being babies this time rather than adolescents. The corruption elements here come across as excessive/overwhelming and the work as a whole almost feels less like a thriller and more like soapbox preaching. Meaning I can’t really recommend watching this series either.

    No related posts.


    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged Action Comic Adaptation Drama History Marvel Comics Mystery Novel Adaptation Paranormal Romance Romance Series Televised Thriller Urban Fantasy
  • SHINCHOU YUUSHA ~Kono YUUSHA ga ORE TUEEE Kuse ni SHINCHOU Sugiru~ & Hataage! Kemono Michi

    Posted on August 19, 2020 1:53 pm by Offkorn 1 Comment

    Shinchou Yuusha is an interesting series in that you can clearly see it’s an amalgam of earlier works, yet the fusion is pulled off competently enough to result in a consistent whole. The reaction-based comedy is stylistically identical to Konosuba‘s, but in content it’s quite different with a much greater focus on JRPG parody than sex/ecchi. Meanwhile it also has a Goblin Slayer-like stoically single-minded main character and splashes of similar gory drama.

    The combination never comes across as forced, with the one seamlessly blending into the other.

    After that somewhat surprising success story, it seemed like a good idea to try another series (strike while the iron’s hot and all that). Which is where Hataage! Kemono Michi comes in. Also a comedic isekai with a… monomaniac central character the two seemed like they might complement one another. And despite this being more ecchi-centric they actually do. There’s no genre shifts here though; it’s pure comedy.

    As a sidenote: I didn’t realize these two aired at the same time when deciding what to watch after Shinchou Yuusha. It’s strange that shows with such a similar theme (and I’m not talking about them both being isekai) got scheduled in the same season.

    Continue reading → Post ID 8388

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    This entry was posted in 2019 - Autumn Anime Related and tagged Comedy Comic Adaptation Dramatic Support Ecchi Fantasy Finished Funimation Incomplete Source LN Adaptation Paranormal Romance Parody Series Sports Televised
  • PROJECT POWER & JOHN WICK₃: PARABELLUM

    Posted on August 18, 2020 8:09 am by Offkorn Comment

    Seeing the description for Project Power immediately brought to mind The Boys, and there are a few aesthetic similarities there. Overall though I’d have to say it’s a very different type of show which relies much too heavily on gimmicks/tropes; once the almost buddy-cop dynamic between the kid and other two leads is formed the level of believability just falls straight through the floor. It does however have some pretty cool visual effects.

    The third John Wick movie picks up immediately from where the last left off and… ultimately doesn’t really go anywhere over the course of its runtime. If you’ve seen the two previous movies, and I suggest doing so, then know that this continues amping up the ridiculousness level of the gun/fist/knife fights. Meaning that if the prequel was bordering on too much then this’ll likely be unwatchable (many of the fights end up with a strange dichotomy of being both laughably cartoonish and disconcertingly gory).

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    This entry was posted in Movie & TV Related and tagged Action Drama Movie Science Fiction
  • DISHONORED2 & DEATH OF THE OUTSIDER

    Posted on August 18, 2020 5:49 am by Offkorn Comment

    The sequel to Dishonored plays pretty much the same way while giving more freedom in the Chaos department. You’re no longer locked into the chaotic ending after killing a certain number of people, but instead based mainly on who you kill with quantity being very much secondary. There’s also a variety of endings depending on how you resolve the main missions.

    It’s meant to be played through at least twice, once as Emily and once as Corvo (and if you want all the achievements, those playthroughs will have a no power/power and high/low Chaos split). You don’t need to have played the prequel or its two DLC to follow what happens here, but those that have will benefit from quite a number of references (the Low Chaos outcomes are canon). For those that haven’t… just be aware that this is primarily a stealth-based game; the melee combat is pretty clunky and you’re not really meant to fight foes directly.

    The follow-up, Death of the Outsider, is more like a stand-alone DLC than a proper game. It’s roughly half the size with no collectibles aside from paintings, doesn’t feature a Chaos system, has automatic power upgrades/unlocks, and there are only two endings (wholly determined by your choice in the last mission). While it too treats the non-lethal path through its prequel as canon, oddly enough the lethal ending here comes across as far more natural than the non-lethal one. So while I can certainly recommend buying Dishonored 2 (assuming you like stealth FPP games) I have to suggest skipping Death of the Outsider unless it’s on sale for like $5.

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    This entry was posted in PC Video Game Related and tagged Fantasy First Person Perspective RPG Steampunk
  • DISCO ELYSIUM & ARA FELL: Enhanced Edition

    Posted on August 12, 2020 9:07 am by Offkorn Comment

    Ever since its release last year, I’ve heard pretty much nothing but good things about Disco Elysium. Yet, as with Tides of Numenera, despite buying it shortly after I had no intention of actually playing it. I’ve never been a fan of time limits after all and roleplaying a broke, middle-aged failure was not exactly high on my to-do list (and besides, the deluge of screenshots made playing effectively superfluous anyway since the gameplay is dialog and point/click-based).

    After playing for a bit last week I’ve come to the conclusion that all the praise is well-deserved and the screenshots are absolutely representative of the game. I’ve also confirmed that, despite that (and despite the time limit not being as important as it seemed at first), it’s just not the sort of game I enjoy playing. I like having active gameplay in my RPGs… even ones that end up 90% dialog. DE feels to me almost like an adventure game or visual novel.

    Moving on we come to Ara Fell, a throwback RPG Maker game whose setting brings to mind early Ys. I never played the original, but the itemization and leveling system was apparently (based on reading an early walkthrough) quite a bit different prior to this Enhanced Edition.

    While the innovative (for the genre) mana regen system is refreshing and the irreverent humor manages to avoid Cosmic Star Heroine extremes, like a lot of these games this one suffers pacing issues. The first three chapters are solid enough, but afterward you’ll soon run out of things to craft (making exploration mostly pointless) and the storyline quickly becomes infested with deus ex machina and questionable developments. Finishing it becomes a real chore. Is it worth the $15 non-sale price? Yeah, probably. Just keep your expectations low.

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    This entry was posted in PC Video Game Related and tagged Fantasy RPG Third Person Perspective

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