I realized I might as well talk about non-anime things here too 🤔 (by talking about recent games I can show that I’m not 2.5 years behind on EVERYTHING)
This will probably be the end of the seasonal format too (it’s clearly not working as far as catching up goes). Honestly I give up lol… it’ll be harder to organize, but for the sake of my Saitou Souma backlog, I’m just going to watch things in whatever order from now on.
The last post was in June, meaning that this one was written over the course of 9 months and there’s probably some outdated stuff I missed when doing the final pass. Honestly I’m just eager to finally be able to hit the Publish button on this post…
Fall 2017 anime (…)
Fate/stay night Heaven’s Feel 1 – 8/10
It’s movie-budget ufotable OG Fate. What else is there to say?
Shokugeki no Souma S3 Part 1 – 8/10
Shokugeki is one of those consistently-good shows, but I think I might be starting to feel the fatigue. Maybe. I’ll let you know after part 2.
Kino no Tabi the Animated Series – 8/10
I’ve already watched the original series, but this one has Saitou Souma as Hermes, so… yeah. Child Kino is cute. Where can I get a motorbike companion voiced by Souma…
Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru S2 – 7/10
Wasuyu was alright. Predictable, but I don’t think that could’ve been avoided. Yuusha chapter was quite good though. Mimori > Karin > Yuuna > Sonoko > Gin > Fuu > Itsuki
Imouto sae Ireba Ii. – 7/10
This was my designated trash show to watch for this season, but it’s weird because there’s actually a decent story interspersed between the trash… and yet it’s still pretty much unrecommendable to most people I know. Interestingly enough, by the end of the show I actually liked most of the characters about the same. I guess that’s what good character development does. I’m also pretty curious about what happens next with the various plot threads, but realistically I’ll probably never have time to read the LNs so… orz. Chihiro > Miyako > Nayuta (it’s almost even between them tbh, and I support Kanikou) > Ashley >>> Kaiko
Ballroom e Youkoso – 7/10
Pretty unique theme and art style which I respect even if it doesn’t quite appeal to me. Best char was Kiyoharu.
Blend S – 7/10
Pretty cute show, and I wasn’t expecting the romcom elements. Still a bit lacking in substance but it was a fun watch. Maika = Kaho > Miu > Mafuyu > Hideri
Net-juu no Susume – 7/10
As an MMO addict myself I thought this show would be right up my alley but… I dunno. I’m usually great at suspension of disbelief, but this actually managed to go too far lol. At least it managed to redeem itself at the end.
Konohana Kitan – 7/10
This was cute but none of the characters *really* stood out to me, which is important when it comes to me enjoying a SoL. Kiri > Satsuki > Yuzu > Natsume > Ren > Okiku > Sakura
Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou – 6.5/10
I think this show was objectively good in every way, but I guess it just wasn’t for me because I watched the whole thing and absorbed almost none of it. I feel like I can’t give it a lower rating than that though, because I really did like the concept… oh well.
Houseki no Kuni – 6.5/10
This show had some good parts but I can’t really say I’m interested in the surrealistic imagery and philosophical monologues and whatnot so it was a bit boring for me. No one really stood out to me as a favourite character, so I’m not going to do a ranking. I don’t like large casts…
Wake Up, Girls! Shinshou – 6/10
I love WUG so it hurts me to put them so far down (especially when they already went through a heartbreaking disband), but this is about the anime and I really didn’t like the new anime character designs. Story-wise it wasn’t that great either. It felt less realistic than the previous series/movies and some of the interpersonal conflicts seemed really childish/trivial. The new songs were great though, and RGR is okay. (Strictly character ranking) Miyu > Mayu > Yoshino > Shiho > Megumi > Minami/Kaya > Nanami > Airi > Otome > Moka/Itsuka/Ayumi
Love Live! Sunshine!! S2 – 6/10
I think LL is always going to be a 6/10 show for me lol… Anyway after 3 straight years of Aqours at AX, I’m a bit tired of seeing them wworz You/Yohane > Sarah > Riko > Chika > Kanan > Leah > Hanamaru > Dia > Mari > Ruby
THE IDOLM@STER SideM – 6/10
I honestly find it really hard to get into most male idol franchises, which is kind of weird because I should be the ideal target audience… but I guess it’s just the music style and lack of story depth (IDOLiSH7 nails both of these aspects though, hence why I actually do like it w, will go into more detail further down). And in SideM’s case, honestly none of the guys really appeal to me at all lol. I think my favourite character is actually the producer 🤔 Oh well, I tried. Producer > Touma > Kyousuke > Kaoru > Teru > Tsubasa > Minori > Rui > Shouta > Shiki > Haruna > Hayato > Jirou > Kyouji > Michio > Natsuki > Hokuto > Jun > Yuusuke > Pierre (extremely lazy ranking)
Other things I watched:
Akame ga Kill! – 6.5/10
I only watched this for Saitou Souma… Fortunately it wasn’t as gory as I was expecting, so at least I didn’t have to suffer. Anyway this show was OK I guess. I liked Akame but she didn’t seem to get nearly enough spotlight considering she’s the title character? It was a tough call for best girl, but sadly the reason why it was tough was because Akame didn’t do enough, Chelsea got killed off while she was still growing on me, and Mine didn’t make her case until the end… orz
Girls: Akame > Mine/Chelsea > Esdeath > Kurome > Leone > Najenda > Sheele > Seryuu
Guys: Lubbock > Susanoo > Tatsumi > Wave > Bulat > Run > Bols > Stylish
Only ranked Night Raid and the Jaegers because I kind of forgot the other miscellaneous villains already lol.
Uta no Prince-sama Maji LOVE 1000% – 7/10
Uta no Prince-sama Maji LOVE 2000% – 6.5/10
Uta no Prince-sama Maji LOVE Revolutions – 6/10
Uta no Prince-sama Maji LOVE Legend Star – 6/10
I watched this in preparation for AX, but I also played a few routes from the original VN first, and was surprised at how the stories and events are COMPLETELY different. Like… I don’t think there was any overlap whatsoever aside from the characters’ base personalities o_O (and even then there were some slight differences, and Haruka actually got a background story). The VN was mostly uninteresting to me, so the anime (s1, at least) was actually a lot more engaging (although still eye-rolling at times) and I liked Masato/Shou/Otoya more in the anime than in the VN (Tokiya and Ren were better in the VN imo. Natsuki was very different but I don’t like either version lol). Tokiya’s route was more emotional than anything in the anime, but that’s what happens when there’s actual romance ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The later seasons were kind of meh… cast grew too much for my taste and most of the new characters felt shallow. Ended up not really caring for Quartet Night and Heavens.
Music-wise… Maji LOVE 1000% is a great song and there are some other gems, but most of them were kind of average.
Doing the character ranking is actually kind of hard because it’s different depending on the medium… but I’ll just go with anime ranking: Tokiya > Masato > Shou > Ringo > Ren > Ryuuya > Ai > Eiji > Otoya > Kira > Haruka > Tomochika > Nagi > Ranmaru > Reiji > Yamato > Shion > Eiichi > Cecil > Camus > Van > Natsuki
Hand Shakers – 6/10
We group watched this because it was supposed to be absolutely terrible, but… it actually wasn’t that bad? Like, it definitely wasn’t a good show, but there were some surprising highlights and I thought the aesthetics were interesting. It managed to be bad in an entertaining way, so I can’t fault it for that w
Misc games
The last post was in June, so I guess I’ll just post everything I’ve dabbled in since then 🤔
FFXIV: Shadowbringers – 10/10
This must be the greatest expansion story of all time; I have no idea how they’re going to top it. I imagine my overall rating for the expansion will dip a bit over the next 2 year cycle, but honestly, it was just so good. I could go on forever but in the interest of finishing this post sometime this year, I won’t. All I’m gonna say is that I love Thancred and Exarch. I also love FF8, so this is definitely going to be a great expansion for me.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses
The first Switch game I actually played (1 hour of Smash for Joker doesn’t count). I’m kind of hesitant to say this, but… it’s not really as good as I expected? And my expectations were already low… Man, I dunno. Everyone is showering it with praise, but I got around 30 hours in and it still didn’t click for me. The town exploration segments feel tedious and repetitive (this coming from someone with a very high tolerance for repetitive grinds lol) and I guess the main thing is that there isn’t a character I really like. Just looking at recent gen FE, Awakening had Chrom and Lucina, and Fates had… quite a few, actually, despite how much I got burnt out by that game. I haven’t gotten attached to anyone in 3H yet u_u Maybe it’s the character designs? This might also be blasphemy, but I’ve never really been into Kurahana’s designs orz
Uta no Prince-sama Repeat Love
This is the Vita port of the original PSP game. It’s kind of crazy how different it is from the anime (which I already talked about earlier so I’ll try not to repeat myself). But STARISH isn’t a thing in the game; it’s only individual character routes. Also the rhythm minigame is actually pretty damn hard on hard mode; I was surprised considering the usual (lack of) difficulty in otomege minigames. I only got through Otoya, Tokiya, and Natsuki routes so far. Otoya and Natsuki were fairly average imo, but Tokiya’s route was ridiculously good wtf? I got really emotionally invested in it, which rarely happens these days. No wonder he’s the most popular. Anyway the Vita port is quite dense with extra stories so it’ll probably take me a while to get through the rest.
AMNESIA LATER – 5/10 (for reference, I gave the original game a 6)
I’m not really sure why I’m bothering to play FDs for a game I thought was overrated, but I guess the series has just been milked for so long that it has to at least be kind of good, right? Well I dunno… most of this FD was pretty boring to me lol. The only route that was interesting to me was Touma’s after story, but it was mostly because it had to address the stuff that went down in his original route. Heck, it even made me like Rika lol. I did like how the MC finally gets to think for herself throughout all of the after stories though. And the final story with the reunion with Orion was really cute w. I didn’t like Orion in the original but he gained a lot of points here. Maybe it was the hoodie. Touma > Shin > Orion > Kent > Ikki > Ukyou > Waka
POSSESSION MAGENTA – 3/10 but Souta is 10/10
I heard this game was pretty mediocre (to put it lightly) *but* I also heard positive things about the character voiced by Souma, and well, that’s enough for me lol. The only other HuneX game I’ve played is Arcana Famiglia, and at a glance they share some similarities. Sarachi Yomi does the art for both, and their style is quite stylish and unique. Both also have unique UIs and systems (in AF it was the comic book style presentation, and in PM it’s the card stuff). I’m a sucker for cool UI so it did gain points with me there.
…Now that I’ve said something positive about it, holy crap the pacing in this game is terrible. Every chapter (besides first and last) follows the exact same formula but with a different character and it does not stray from the formula AT ALL. And despite being a mystery about serial killings, there’s barely any clues given at all. I think this might be one of the most poorly written stories I’ve ever read. Even the final chapter (where the character route branch is) plays out almost exactly the same way every time. The details of the final conflict change but the context and result is always the same. And if you want 100%, you have to slog through that chapter 18 times because there’s 6 guys and 3 endings for each. God it hurts just remembering it.
…But that said, it’s vexing because… the characters are actually pretty damn likeable. Their quirks are entertaining and the voice acting is great. I (obviously) played this game for Souma, and if I wasn’t already in love with the guy’s voice, Souta here would’ve done it for sure. I’ve heard a lot of Souma’s different voices, but this one might be my favourite of all (and that’s saying a lot). It didn’t help that Souta was also the most endearing of the cast (ginpatsu syndrome strikes again…) and I’m a sucker for childhood friends in otomege. The rest of the seiyuu also did a fantastic job. So, even though the story was terrible, I still went through all of it because of the characters orz. Souta > Kanade > Kousuke > Minjye > Taiga > Yuuichirou > Ayame
Koi to Producer – 6.5/10
The money-grabbing in this mobile game is actually ridiculous at times, but the art is nice and the story is decently interesting so far. It also requires very little time commitment so I managed to keep up with it more regularly than other mobile games (although I still quit after less than a year). I played the JP version (it’s a Chinese game), but I wonder if I should’ve went EN instead because I think everything is more expensive in the JP ver lol… oh well. Haku > Kira > Zen/Simon
IDOLiSH7 – 8/10
I was pretty indifferent to the main group but my love for Saitou Souma led me to TRIGGER, and TRIGGER is good… So I was going to play the Vita game (because gacha is evil), but apparently it takes place in between part 2 and 3 of the story, so I resigned to installing the mobile game and playing it extremely casually (like, once every few days kind of casual)… and then got caught up maximizing the anniversary campaigns and before I knew it I was hooked orz. The story and music were surprisingly good. TRIGGER got introduced earlier than I expected, and I got a lot of Tenn cards during the anniversary, so I am enjoying my time :) (Man I wrote this so long ago. i7 is good, guys. I just wish there was autoplay)
i7 is a bit strange because while I enjoy the music and I like most of the seiyuu, I don’t like most of the characters lol… I guess if I had to rank them: Tenn >>> Riku >> Sougo > (everyone else in some sort of order) > Tamaki/Nagi. Nagi is unfortunate because I like Eguchi Takuya in other things… but I can’t stand the over-exaggerated foreigner voice at all (same reason why I couldn’t like Mari from Aqours even though Ainya is cute). Similarly, I find myself unexpectedly drawn to KENN’s raspy singing, but Tamaki is annoying to me orz.
Black Star Theater Starless – 7.5/10
This mobage has some of the most galaxy brain min-maxing details I’ve ever seen in a rhythm game. It would take so long to explain that I don’t even want to do it… Anyway, I played this game because it has Saitou Souma (big surprise there). The art is nice and the setting is fairly unique. Also the story chunks are pretty small so it was pretty easy to keep up with on that front, although I still didn’t last that long. There were some service hiccups but the game itself is built quite well (it’s by Donuts, the T7S devs) and it did some pretty interesting things with story branching mechanics. It’s a good game but ultimately it was too high maintenance for me to keep up with alongside everything else.
Step Ride – 7/10 because there isn’t much content but it’s also 100% free
Another game with Saitou Souma <_<; Anyway this one is kind of interesting because it’s a browser game with no MTX whatsoever–apparently they plan to monetize it by selling merch. Which is cool, but I’m not sure how successful it’s going to be. The “game” itself is basically a pure VN with 5-minute chapters released a few times a week (and chara-specific episodes). The theme is bike racing which is pretty cool, but aside from Souma the rest of the cast seems to be mostly 新人? Not that that’s a bad thing, but I wonder how many players they’ll be able to pull in. (Or at least this was true at the time when I wrote this. Some of them have gotten notable roles now… which means this post took way too long, as usual…) Hikaru > Sougo > Touya > Gen = Akira > Ayato = Lemon
Also I just wanna say that Souma uses a really deep voice for his character here, and it’s great… I think this is about as deep as it can get.
Palette Parade – dropped/10
This mobage has Saitou Souma but it’s also laggy AF. The loading screens are so long that they have a built-in drawing tool so you can draw while you wait (except it’s laggy AF and doesn’t have an undo button so you can’t even draw properly). I liked the theme (all of the characters are based off of artists from different historical eras) but the gameplay is pretty boring so I couldn’t really bring myself to continue.
Hoshinari Echoes – 6.5/10
There isn’t really anything wrong with this mobage, but it’s pretty much just a generic RPG and the grind elements are kind of boring. The production value is pretty high though; a ton of unique graphical assets and the (long) main story is fully voiced. Souma’s character isn’t my favourite (probably third or so) but he randomly whips out a guitar and breaks out in song during conversations, which I enjoy a lot :v
Tsukino Paradise – 5/10
I pushed this ahead in the backlog since it was shutting down in February. I love the SolidS cast a lot and their lives are really fun! But I procrastinated getting into Tsukipro because there’s a looot of good seiyuu in there, so I confined myself to just SolidS until now lol. Anyway as it turns out, Six Gravity, Procellarum, and SOARA’s songs are pretty good too. Not much of a fan of Growth or QUELL. Also, this game was pretty lacking in story quality and QoL so I can see why it shut down v: Also also, jump notes SUCK. The learning curve on this rhythm game is ridiculous =_= Not going to do a chara ranking because I don’t have much of an opinion on most of them.
Stand My Heroes
I like the gameplay in this mobage a lot; the puzzle game is addictive and requires a good amount of thinking. I don’t play it seriously enough to give it a ranking though; I couldn’t get into the story much (especially since it’s not fully voiced) so I just play for fun every now and then and roll on the occasional Souma banner.
I also bought TMS Encore and Summer Pockets but I’ll write about them when I’m done…
The backlog is suffocating me…