• Princess Tutu

    Ahiru pines for Mytho, yet both may as well be worlds apart based on their personalities and abilities. No one is more aware of this than Ahiru herself and she wishes she could do something, anything, for him. A wish that ends up granted late one night by a mysterious man.

    A ballet-centric story about a story about a duck who becomes a magical girl. It’s very heavy on comedy and absurdity, to the point that the dramatic and romantic aspects are almost completely overshadowed.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Wikipedia

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  • Kimi no Na wa.

    Taki Tachibana lives in Tokyo while Mitsuha Miyamizu lives in the countryside. Despite their distance the two will both occasionally awake from a dream to find that they have swapped bodies. What is the source of this phenomenon and how will they cope with having to live a stranger’s life?

    An otherwise conventional romance with a bit of supernatural mystery and a prominent amnesia theme.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Wikipedia


  • Diablo III – Season Journey

    Despite my earlier misgivings, the facts remain that I both love collecting loot and don’t much mind mindlessly clicking things. So I went and bought the game+expansion (not the Necromancer though… not yet).

    Seeing a new season had started and that there were item rewards for participating in it, I went and made a Crusader and started playing through the campaign. Only at the end of Act 1 did it become apparent that the Season Acts do not match up with the Campaign Acts; you’re supposed to play seasonal characters in Adventure Mode (which was helpfully auto-unlocked). So that’s what I did.

    Despite wanting to make a Hammerdin, the loot table was having other ideas (Ancient Gyrfalcon flail) and I first ended up with a fire-based Blessed Shield build which was used to clear the first few seasonal hurdles and get the free loot. Seeing more ranks awaited and wanting to get to Greater Rift level 70 to unlock ancient primals I decided to keep going.

    Eventually the Hammerdin drops appeared, which let me switch to that and quickly hit GR70 at about Paragon level 512 with only 3 pieces of ancient equipment. There progress stalled a bit as further ranks required completing conquests, with all except the GR75 seeming out of reach. But then I realized there was a trick to completing the 50 million gold one: Just open 46 Horadric Chests at once, since each contains 1.1 million on Torment 13 difficulty. Since they were needed anyway in order to extract more legendary powers (awesome feature) and upgrade my gear enough to reach GR75 it wasn’t even a hassle.

    So here I am now with the season’s Conqueror rank completed at Paragon 643. The last rank requires completing three conquests and clearing a T13 Rift in under 4 minutes, so I’m pretty sure this is the end of the journey (while I do have the equipment for a speedy Bomber build, for some reason it only seems to be able to handle T10 easily). The last reward is only a portrait frame anyway, so it’s not like I’m missing anything. Now it’s time to go play the campaign and find out the answers to all these questions that have been raised by jumping around from area to area out of order.


  • Mahou Tsukai Tai! (TV)

    Having defeated the massive alien construct that mysteriously appeared in their town, the magic club must now deal with the giant sakura tree that has been left in its place.

    This continues directly from where the OVA series left off and so it would be a good idea to watch that first. That said it’s very different from the prequel, aside from the comedy style, and takes a much slower slice of life approach.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Crunchyroll
    Wikipedia


  • Diablo III – First Impressions

    After ignoring this game for many years I decided to see where it was currently at… for reasons I don’t recall. After seeing that a trial version was available in addition to new DLC having recently been released, I said to hell with it and installed it.

    After nearly exhausting the trial with the Monk and playing a bit with the Demon Hunter and Wizard I’ve come to the following conclusion: If you want an immersive experience go play Titan Quest instead, if however you just want to mindlessly click on things while collecting loot then this game has you covered.

    The problems here (cartoony zoomed-in visuals, limited abilities, non-existent leveling options) all seem traceable to having a ‘console-first’ strategy. There’s some severe oversimplification, to the point that I don’t see much reason to play different classes beyond experiencing the specialized voice acting and flavor text (which, admittedly, is a nice touch). Regardless of the class you pick the combat cycle is going to be the same: Use one skill a bunch to build up resources then a second to spend them, while maybe tossing off a cooldown skill from time to time.

    Compounding matters is that skill damage is based on weapon damage. All skill damage. Use a skill to punch someone with a monk while wielding a club? That’s fine; the club’s damage will be used. Playing a Wizard? Go right ahead and equip a longbow or sword since your spells all use their base damage for some reason. A Demon Hunter? The arrow-based skills require wielding a bow at least… which ends up being not much of a requirement since the other skills (Throw Knife for instance) have no problem using bow damage. Moreover, what’s even the point of having all these different weapon types when you can’t make basic attacks in the first place? Cosmetic concerns I guess?

    The entire experience just leaves a bad aftertaste.


  • Project Zeorymer

    15 years ago a secret society had their most powerful mecha, the godlike Zeorymer, stolen by a traitor and were forced underground. Now having nearly finished constructing seven other robots they set out to recover what was stolen and cement their domination of the world. The original thief is long dead however and it falls to Masato Akitsu, who knows nothing about any of this, to pilot Zeorymer against the incoming enemy attacks.

    An action-heavy series which has a number of character-driven dramatic subplots and a little nudity. Though inspired by a manga, this version heavily alters the characters and plot developments to a point where it can no longer be considered an adaptation.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Wikipedia


  • Owarimonogatari

    Ougi Oshino, a mysterious individual claiming relation to Meme Oshino, has inserted themselves into Koyomi’s life and begins to take great interest in both his past and future. An interest which puts him on a collision course with Izuko Gaen.

    This portion of the Monogatari franchise is specifically tied to Monogatari: Second Season, Tsukimonogatari, and Koyomimonogatari: The first three stories take place after Koyomi episodes 6 & 7 and focus on Koyomi’s past, the fourth is a recollection of his side of Nekomonogatari (Shiro) told following Tsuki‘s events, and the remaining three continue from Koyomi‘s last episode to conclude the highschool chapter of his life.

    More Information:
    aniDB (1), (2)
    Crunchyroll
    Wikipedia


  • Shuumatsu Nani Shitemasuka? Isogashii Desuka? Sukutte Moratte Ii Desuka?

    Centuries in the past seventeen beasts appeared and wiped out the human race while the other races fled to floating islands. There they now live out their lives with the fairies, who resemble human girls and are the only ones able to use the weapons humanity left behind, acting as a defense against any of the beasts that manage to attack from the surface. Into this new order steps Willem Kmetsch, a human who was frozen in time and has become a caretaker for these living weapons.

    A mixed-genre series that starts out as almost a slice of life comedy before eventually fully transforming into an action-infused romantic drama. As far as ecchi content goes, there are only a few scenes scattered around.

    More Information:
    aniDB
    Crunchyroll
    Fansub.co
    Wikipedia

    Continue reading  Post ID 3449


  • GWENT – Rank 19

    After switching through a bunch of decks, and falling all the way down to 3400, the realization hit that I simply was no longer having any fun playing the game. A fundamental change was in order. So rather than thinking about what would be good against the current metagame (which is a crapshoot to predict with the blind matchmaking) I instead just put together a bunch of cards that would be fun to play.

    Ironically, I ended up with a variation of Dagon-Butterfly:

    • Foglet x3, Celaeno Harpy x3, Ekimmara x2, Earth Elemental x2, Arachas x3, Lacerate x2
    • Grave Hag, Fiend, Katakan, Water Hag, Decoy, Monster Nest
    • Ge’els, Triss: Butterflies, Woodland Spirit, Succubus

    Now this is not an optimized deck; it has only two methods of calling fog, the Arachas seem orphaned, the consume aspects come across as half-baked, and you can get an awful draw with multiple Foglets/Arachas. Yet its variety, and flexibility (Weather, Butterflies, Succubus, Resilience, Grave Hag, Behemoth/Foglet via Monster Nest), is exactly what I ended up liking most about it and the only real complaint is a lack of card draw.

    It brought me up to 4050 in rather short order considering I only played enough each day to reach the first daily reward (a countermeasure against burning out again). Assuming nothing changes I’ll probably stick with this for the foreseeable future, though I’m curious about a Dwarf-Resilience deck I saw a few times that takes a similar approach (it ran Sheldon, Blue Mountain Elves, and even a couple Skirmishers).


  • Zero kara Hajimeru Mahou no Sho

    War rages across the land, with witches fighting back against the church and state for their indiscriminate witch hunts. In the midst of this the witch Zero leaves the seclusion of the forest to track down her stolen grimoire. Not being familiar with the outside world, she contracts a beastman mercenary to be her bodyguard and the two set off to find the grimoire before it destroys the world.

    An action drama revolving around witch hunts, civil war, and the theme of corrupted good intentions.

    More Information:
    Amazon
    aniDB
    Wikipedia

    Continue reading  Post ID 3449