Moyashimon Returns, Hyouka, and Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

With Summer finally ending, anime series are bound to follow. This post is going to start off the wave of opinions that you'll see in the coming weeks. So let's dig in.

Moyashimon Returns

This was a great series and a good sequel to season 1. The story starts right where the last season left off. Making alcohol for the sake of science and agriculture university antics. Each episode flowed nicely into the next, which made it feel like the entire season was one big arc.

A complaint I had in the beginning was that the character designs were changed from the original. I'm not really sure what happened here since it apparently has the same studio and director behind it. Different staff? It's not like the character designs got any better, so why change it? I also noticed how they spent way too much time in France. This was definitely where the main conflict was but it kinda felt like it dragged too long. It could also be that most of the cast wasn't even in France. At least we got introduced to a new character, the hot blond pictured above. Next to the trap.

I should also address the sour reception that this season had. I liked it. If you're looking for science, go read a textbook. I will admit, there wasn't as much microbe and fermentation science involved within the season. But it was to make room for the character development and the events that were established in season 1.

Uwahh~

Hyouka

Easily a favorite from the season. I was a fan of it from the start. Slice of life adventures of mundane mysteries and a cast of characters that the fandom will forever keep shipping. I'm definitely going to give this a rewatch this since it's really that good. In fact, I rewatched a few of the early episodes already.

However, I do have some complaints. I'll start with a shallow one, I really can't stand Satoshi. I don't think it's the character itself, it's the character in combination with the voice actor. I know that the voice actor has done better roles with different voices but I hate it when he falls into this type cast. So annoying. Then there's Oreki's voice actor who, quite frankly, could've been replaced with someone else who specializes in that category. I know his voice actor can act really well but this role really isn't meant for him. I know some people will argue against me since they're SO used to these voices that they couldn't imagine anything different. Keep in mind that I really like this show. Holy shit.

The best part of the series was definitely the culture festival arc. Because of this, the rest of the episodes felt semi-inferior in comparison. The final episode had an okay resolution but I kinda feel like the imagined Oreki confession wasn't needed and actually made it worse. I won't go into detail but you can look up interpretations of the final scene elsewhere. It already makes sense to me. I can keep going on about this show but we would have to speak personally for this to happen. Overall, if you like slice of life as well as KyoAni then you'll like this. Amazing and worth a rewatch

Maybe this will convince people to watch it.

 Jinrui wa Suitai Shimashita

I'm very glad that I picked this up on a whim. It was really good, might even be another favorite of the season. They really captured the style of the manga perfectly by using similar techniques in the art/animation. The comedy was good with a dash of dark and the pacing was well done in a different way. Of course, there were times when I wasn't really excited to watch it but that quickly goes away once I start watching it.

My favorite arcs would have to be the manga arc and the school arc. These are the two that stick out in my mind when looking back at the series. The show is very quirky and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes overlooked as time goes on. I'm pretty sure fans of ABe would enjoy this one. The best way to know if you like it is by watching it. I should also mention that the opening was performed by nano.RIPE and the ending by Itou Masumi. Two of my favorite performers in anime music that I enjoy. A rewatch is definitely happening and I really hope we get a second season.

:D

Note: Yes, I know about some people closing their blogs and it's really sad to see. It's all about comments, if you really enjoyed this then you wouldn't close it. I hope they don't close forever. I know I don't comment much so sorry.

Some video games I played

I haven't been talking about what video games I've been playing lately, so this post is going to be dedicated to that. I planned to add another poll but it won't let me for some reason.

Let's start at the very beginning. I was playing Dark Souls quite a bit and I was really liking it. But then I got stuck at a certain part of the game. I don't know the names of the locations but it was the area where you had to fight two bosses at once. You might be thinking, "Oh, that shouldn't be a problem." But it IS. I tried a few more times, grinded, and even got new armor but nothing helped. Normally I would keep trying but I just stopped playing. I was stuck in that area and you can't go back to the hub until you beat the boss. Yes, literally stuck there. The game became unappealing at that point. I'll go back to it someday, I think.

Now, at some point I decided to go back and give Fate/Extra another try since the game was severely lackluster when I first played it. Well, it was still kinda poop. The gameplay is the main problem here. Sure, they tried to make it different but it's just really sluggish and boring. It doesn't have that "fun" factor that other RPGs are supposed to have with its gameplay. I guess this is why they bundled it with a figma. The dungeons are kinda bland and the school, the main hub area, feels hollow and boring. But for some reason I kept playing. I don't know why. Maybe it was the mediocre story or the quirky interactions with a more rude SEIBAH. Or maybe it was my video game pride saying, "I'm gonna beat this fucking game! FUCK YEAH!" I stopped playing this game around 2 weeks ago. I was pretty far into it. I'm not sure if I enjoyed playing the game or I liked the thought of me beating it. One thing is for certain, I will come back to it.

 At the same time I played Phantasy Star Online 2. I signed up during the open beta since I couldn't wait anymore. The game was awesome, it was everything you'd expect from the sequel to Phantasy Star Online. I don't play it too much since there's nothing that really compels me to play more. It's pretty much a huge grind, which is what the series is about. A fun grind, though.

True hero of GUNDAMu

 Let's move onto some recent games. I've been playing Gundam Battle Operation, a lot. It was the one that I was looking forward to and it did not disappoint. Well, there is one thing. Being a free to play online game, you can only play up to three matches. Once those matches are up, you have to wait two hours for one more chance to play. This can stack up to three. You also get rewarded free matches for doing various things like ranking up. There's also the quick method, which is to pay money to add a set amount of games. It isn't pay to win since matchmaking does a good job at pairing you up with similarly ranked players.

I mostly play as Zeon.

The game is all online multiplayer, so no local play. You start off with a junker grunt mobile suit and later on you can upgrade to better grunt mobile suits. Yup, this game is mostly grunt units and it's pretty cool. There are those super special, high level mechs such as the Dom, Gouf, and da GUNDAM. These take quite a bit of time to unlock but if you've been playing every chance you get since the beginning, then you'd probably have these mechs by now. I, personally, have not so I'm still using level 2 mechs.

I wish you could use this in the game.

Actually, I just barely unlocked the painting option. Yeah, you can paint your mechs and the pilot. Fucking awesome. Paint it red to go three times faster. Oh, and I'm doing surprisingly well when I play, sometimes I do the best out of the entire team. I'm at the stage where I do better than most people but I can't beat high level people since their mechs are much more advanced than mine so I go down in two hits. Finding out how to use custom search led me to play with high level people. Never again. As you can tell, I really like this game. Maybe some of you with PS3s can come join the fun. It's only on Japanese PSN so you need a Japanese account. The game is, of course, completely in Japanese but still very playable for those that don't know the language. The controls will take some getting used to, as do a lot of games, but you really need to learn how to control effectively if you want to become the best newtype there is. If you're curious, check out some gameplay videos on youtube.

There's a couple more games I've been playing but I'll save those for later.  Next post, probably.

So, what have you been playing?

Boring, unmotivated

I haven't even watched the show but I find her cute.

Recently I've been playing a lot of video games. No really, I've been spending more time on them than usual. I don't know what it is, it feels like my body wants to do this more than anything else. It's not like I'm playing the same video games either. I keep playing random things, maybe revisiting the same game after a couple days but I can't seem to commit to one game. I'm not sure if I'm going through some sort of phase. Is it because I'm unsatisfied with life? Again, I'm not sure.

Hmm, Toonami is going to start up again and I'm not too ecstatic about that. It's something that should've been left alone since that time period has passed already. I mean, I've felt that TV was obsolete two years ago. Yet people still want this block back for some reason. I understand, for some it's fuel for extreme nostalgia. But if you look at it objectively, you'll see that it's not really a bright idea. This is all my opinion though so I might sound full of shit. It just seems like people need to learn to let go of the past.

I'm starting to feel a bit unmotivated right now. It could be a number of factors but I personally blame the hot weather. I usually don't feel like doing anything during this time since being hot is very unpleasant. I'm also a bit sick so it only makes it worse.

That's it for now.