Various thoughts on a variety of topics.
Kiitarou finds himself forced to live in a neglected side building after being kicked out of the main house by his uncle. It turns out to be inhabited by a zashiki-warashi, and together they soon stumble across many other varieties of supernatural creatures.
A slice of life comedy fond of quick mood shifts from daily life scenes to gags. It mostly relies on slapstick, dipping occasionally into parody. There’s also a small love triangle.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
One night while playing a free-to-play RPG, Koyuki is given the opportunity to become a real magical girl. With visions of being able help people with magic dancing in her head she accepts almost instantly… only to discover that the magical girls of the real world have a very different purpose than those in fantasy.
An example of the ‘innocent game actually has sinister motives’ variety of show, this starts out earnest and cheerful only to quickly become dark and violent. Unlike some others though it doesn’t fall back on comedy or rapid mood shifts.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Fansub.co
Wikipedia
Ren Homura has just returned to his hometown after a lengthy absence with no memories of the place. After being forced to replace his smartphone after an accident, he finds himself caught up in a game where monsters are summoned to do battle against one another… a game which seems to be related to his lost memories.
For the most part this is not a serious show and plays just about everything for laughs with a random sense of humor; it’s only in the last quarter or so it becomes a full battle shounen. It’s also shorter than the episode count would suggest, as each is only ~7 minutes long. Episodes with longer runtimes are padded with advertisements for various things related to the game and Anime.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
An ordinary high school boy finds himself awakening from a strange dream with an unexplained cut on his palm, while a second dream shortly after gifts him with a card that he swears to protect with his life. This card is able to summon a hero from the past to battle on his behalf in a death game to decide China’s fate.
The show starts out using a standard proxy-battle setup and features a pronounced manga-style texture filter; a visual choice that may make it difficult to watch. Each episode runs ~10 minutes and it ends as the story continues to evolve.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Wikipedia
The kingdom of Germania has just invaded the small duchy of Eylstadt, whose princess is in a neutral territory lobbying for the assistance of Britannia and its allies. Captured by enemy soldiers and on the verge of sacrificing herself she encounters a most unlikely ally from her past: Izetta, the world’s last magic user.
A sort of alternate history, this show re-tells the early events of World War II with the twist of enlisting the aid of a powerful sorceress against Germany before the USA got involved. While for the most part a war drama with occasional daily life interludes, it concludes as something of a sci-fi/fantasy spectacle.
More Information:
aniDB
Crunchyroll
Fansub.co
Wikipedia
The private investigators of the Armed Detective Agency handle cases the police and military cannot, thanks to the unique powers at their disposal. They’re not the only ones with supernatural powers though and often find themselves facing off against those who direct their abilities toward more nefarious ends.
An action-comedy featuring a mix of character deformation and reaction-based humor peppered with periodic bursts of drama and mystery. It starts off slightly episodic, with each episode being focused on either a single case or a particular part of an ongoing case, eventually becoming plot driven with a greater focus on drama.
More Information:
aniDB (1, 2, 3, 4)
Crunchyroll
Fansub.co (1, 2)
Wikipedia
Ling Xia has just graduated and is having trouble finding a job. After a run-in with a suspicious ‘fortune teller’ she finds herself embroiled in the spirit world, her fate entwined with that of a young general who oversees one of the limbo areas for the dead known as requiem streets.
The episodes alternate between a present-day time period focused on Ling’s tribulations (action/drama with a few bits of comedy) and flashing back to Yanbing’s past (mainly drama), showing how he became the area’s guardian. It’s essentially two separate battle shounens packaged as one and ends just as the real journey begins.
More Information:
aniDB
Wikipedia
Set in a world where humans are fighting a war against werewolves, this TV special tells the tale of how a soldier and young linguistics expert try to befriend a captured werewolf in order to break their language code.
Note that this arose from a ‘Create an Anime Scenario’ competition, so do not expect a complete story. It’s a mix of drama and battle shounen with a hint at the end of eventually becoming something altogether different.
More Information:
aniDB
Wikipedia
A young girl from the city transfers to a school in the countryside. The students there, most of whom are talking animals, suspect she may be related to a powerful wind spirit called Matasaburo.
A short fairy tale-like story presented with picturebook visuals set in the modern day.
More Information:
aniDB
Wikipedia
Back during GOG‘s Insomnia Sale I picked up a bunch of games, then grabbed some card-related ones on a weekend sale a bit later. Due to the winter Anime season recently ending I didn’t really have much time to mess around with them. Some first impressions on the ones I did get a chance to play are listed below.
Card City Nights: A card battle game where you build your deck from booster packs from various sets like a physical card game. It seems fun from the two matches I played, it’s just going to require a decent time investment to deal with all the variables like set variety and deck building strategy. I definitely plan on coming back to it later.
Gothic 2 Gold Edition: Playing this reminded me of Risen, which turned out to be from the same developer. I’m only at level 2 at the moment (having cleared out most of the quests in the starting area), but it’s not really grabbing me so far. The main problem is the awful combat/movement controls; moving around is finicky and it’s difficult to tell if you’re close enough to something to hit it (or for it to hit you). The secondary problem is that, considering there’s a finite amount of XP and learning points all go toward increasing the same skills/attributes, I’m unsure what’s the most efficient way to go about building the character. I suspect it will get better once I get to a high enough level where boars can’t 1-shot me.
HuniePop: I was under the impression this was a puzzle game with dating sim aspects when I grabbed it. It’s actually the reverse. The puzzle aspects are fun, but they’re really not worth dealing with all the dating sim crap.
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition: While it’s certainly nice to have all the BGII kits available to choose from, the lack of certain basic configuration options really hurts it (not being able to set your fullscreen resolution is complete bullshit) and the GUI seems to have less options (in the original you could right-click an ability slot to change it to a different ability, here that doesn’t seem possible). I can’t speak of any other additions/changes just yet since I’ve only cleared the few quests in the starting town so far.
King of Dragon Pass: There’s a lot of stuff going on here, and it will take quite some time to really grasp what does what and how to best manipulate the various options. After getting attacked by 100+ bandits on the second turn (the village started with 10 dedicated warriors) I decided to put it aside until I get a chance to read through a FAQ or 3.
Renowned Explorers: International Society: Only played through the tutorial and the first mission so far, but this seems fairly inventive and like a lot of fun. The only issues I see at the moment are that it’s a bit difficult to choose how to spend your resources, and that while there are indeed multiple ways to win the conflicts, there is a clear best way to win them (winning in one of the other ways gives you a lesser or no reward) which can discourage particular playstyles.
RuneStone Keeper: This has been compared to Minesweeper, and while that’s not a bad comparison it’s somewhat misleading. This is a lot less strategic than Minesweeper. What you get when you click a particular tile is completely random and you rarely get any sort of hint/indication as to what may be on it. A tile might be a monster, it might be empty, it might be a trap, it might be a shop/spell/tool. You never know and it’s very difficult (potentially impossible depending on what tools you find) to prepare for. The game may be good as a time waster, but I would not consider ever trying to play in a serious attempt to ‘win’.
