Just gonna take a moment to appreciate some highlights from the upcoming summer anime season.

We’ve got Gin no Saji, Free!, Dangan Ronpa, something by the same guy who did Tatami Galaxy, Monogatari Season 2, a Fate/stay spin-off, and an adaptation of that one hikikomori manga with the light novel name that the internet seems to like so much.  On the movie side, we’ve got Kick-Heart and some Ghibli.

Brains Base, meanwhile, continues to feed off my tears…..Blood Lad looks like it could be okay though.

So THIS is how you do horror exposition.

Boogiepop Phantom was already atmospheric as fuck, with some of the most excellent sound editing I’ve heard in a while and a unique visual style creating a perfect horror mood.  This episode, though, proved that it has the substance to flesh out that funk.  It was perfect, what else can I say.

The characters are weaving together nicely, and we learn more about Butterfly Girl and Baby Detective.  Layered above this, though, is a couple of cops passing time by chit-chatting about rumors.  The repetition of certain key phrases lets you know that something’s up, but the climactic pay-off at the end is still just fantastic.  Not only do we get the first blatant talk of the mysterious Organization behind all the freaky stuff going on, but at the same time we also get excellent characterization of the cop we already knew was freaky himself.  It paints a wonderfully grotesque picture of a monster who casually fucks with people when he gets bored.

You had my curiosity, but now you have my attention.

SWIMBROS IS A GO

KYOANI ALL IS FORGIVEN

Still searching for that mystical beast Free Time.  But I’m going to draw, dangit, before I go crazy.

- Samus.  It’s about time I drew some Samus.

- I’d like to draw the Link from each tLoZ game I completely beat.  So far that’s just Skyward Sword and Minish Cap Link, but I’m working on it.

- Swap Silver stuff!  The protagonists and my Pokemon team, for starters.

- My gosh darn story already.

So I’m in the process of my very first Nuzlocke using a randomized ROM of Soul Silver!  I figured this was fitting, because Silver was the first Pokemon game I played and it holds a special spot in my heart.  All Pokemon are conditionally randomized (trainer teams will favor types, a route’s wild Pokemon will stay static, no legendaries, etc), and the Trainer names are randomized for the fun of it, but that’s it (moves, typing, abilities etc stay the same).  I used this most excellent universal randomizer.

I decided to genderbend all the major characters for the heck of it too, so the game now stars Gwen (genderbend of Gold) and her rival Simone (genderbend of Silver).  Also there’s some kid Larry with a Marill or whatever.  I’m also planning to redesign the gym leaders based on their newly randomized teams.  I’ve beaten the first three gyms so far, and they changed to Grass, Steel and Electric respectively.  Pretty fun stuff!

Anyway, the point of all this is I’m having a blast with the random Pokemon and I’d like to make some sort of comic out of it.  I’ve got some light plot in mind, but nothing too serious.  What I don’t have is any free time, but still, look forward to it eventually!

So who else thinks it would be very, very bad if every Spades Slick that’s running around now somehow combined?  We’ve got one with the powers of Lord English, one with the authority of Lord English and the Felt, and one with the powers of a First Guardian.  Just Gurren-Lagann-level-GATTAI or whatever and BAM, instant mini-Lord English?

Not like it would ever happen.  But it’s a scary thought.

Ah, that new season smell.  These are the shows I’m going to check out, until I’m convinced otherwise.  This will turn into a first impressions post once the first episodes actually air / I watch them.

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge - Yeah…..you know that uncomfortable feeling when you laugh at someone and then immediately realize they weren’t actually joking?  Awkward.

Karneval - Well.  I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised.  The production values, direction, and pace were unexpectedly good.  Let’s see if it can keep that up.  I don’t sense much potential from the characters, but they work well enough and aren’t gratingly annoying, and it could definitely be a brainless fun watch.

Hataraku Maou-sama! - I’ve gotten so used to having comedy rubbed all in my face that I almost forgot how to laugh.  If this show runs out of steam, it’ll be a damn shame.  Between this and Azazel-san, it should be a great season for comedy if nothing else.

Devil Survivor 2 The Animation - The character designs look a little off to me, I dunno.  It seems to be a fine adaptation so far, which is nice for a show based off a game, but unfortunately I don’t care too much about said games.  Whether or not I’ll keep watching it depends on how good the rest of the shows this season are.

Aku no Hana - AKA Rotoscoping The Animation.  It certainly has a unique and vaguely unsettling feel to it, which I’m willing to believe they intended.  Seriously guys, they didn’t rotoscope it just for shits and giggles.  I imagine they didn’t just make this a live-action show because of whatever shit goes down once shit gets real.  Beyond that, this episode was all about building setting and atmosphere with subtlety and style, and I think it’s going to pay off in spades.

Yondemasuyo Azazel-san Z - More of the same, which is of course not a bad thing because if you didn’t watch / like the first season you wouldn’t be watching this anyway.

Shingeki no Kyojin - Just like Shinsekai yori used to be really fond of its blurry-cam, this show seems to like….”whooshing”, I guess would be the most concise way to put it?  The shit with the speedlines and the yelling.  Come on.  Don’t be afraid to be subtle.  We get that shit in this world sucks a big one.  I have faith that it’ll iron out the wrinkles and grow out of this, though, just like Shinsekai did.  What we saw of the action was nice and the art is interesting.

Suisei no Gargantia - I’m immediately getting unwelcome flashbacks to Real Drive.  Half an episode of decent laser light shows and then…..then we meet the REAL main character, Ms Peppy Perma-blush Sparkle-eye Animal-mascot McGee.  It isn’t nearly as bad as Real Drive in that it’s not an insta-drop, but I’m still very, very displeased.  Okay, okay, I’m just being grumpy, the episode was actually really well constructed (in fact, easily one of the best openers of the season) and the female lead isn’t THAT bad.  But still.  Also, why is it always Earth?  Wouldn’t it be more interesting to just have it be a random planet with intelligent humanoid life that no one had ever heard of before?  Sure, we and the male lead have emotional attachments to Earth or whatever, but it’s just so overdone.  Space is fucking huge, guys, especially when you mix wormholes in with it.  Yes, I am nitpicking now.  If it does have to be Earth, at least they have the decency to tell us right off the bat instead of making it the Anticlimactic Big Reveal at the end.

Arata Kangatari - When you don’t even have the production values to make a convincing dog bark….There are MUCH better options available if this is the kind of show you want to watch: Escaflowne, Twelve Kingdoms, and Seirei no Moribito just being the first that come to mind.

Kakumeiki Valvrave - Wow, what a hot mess.  Ridiculousness on this level has to be experienced personally.  I await all the Guilty Crown comparisons.  I don’t have time to waste on this though; I’m perfectly content to have Gargantia as my only mech of the season.

Aside from a couple obvious hard-hitters and a few solid comedies, this season seems fairly lackluster, especially for spring.  We’ll see how it all shakes out.  With only Chihaya2ru carrying over from last season, my standards will probably relax a bit.

Holy shit, I just had a LoZ revelation.  I’m sure someone else has noticed this, but I only just did and I’m flipping out.

I’m doing the Biggoron’s Sword quest right now, and you know the creepy chick in the Lost Woods who gives you the saw, and says that everyone will turn into a Stalfos?  You’re like, psh, whatever creepy small un-aging fairy child, that’ll never happen to me.

But the Doomed Timeline Spirit-Wolf Mentor Link in Twilight Princess (Hyrule Historia confirmed that he was really a version of Link, right?)

is totally a Stalfos.

!!!!!

I am now officially in the end-game of OoT!  Things to do include:

- Biggoron’s Sword quest

- Gold Skulltulas….

- Ice Arrows

- The fucking Gerudo arrow mini-game (for the Biggest Quiver)

- Poe Quest for the bottle

- Finish planting all the beans (I paid money for the stupid things)

And then all that remains is to take down Ganon (and visit the last Great Fairy)!  I’ll go straight into Majora’s Mask after I finish….even though it’s going to kick my ass, I must say I anticipate that it’ll be the most enjoyable ass-kicking I have ever received.

積ん読 - tsundoku - Buying books and not reading them, typically leaving them in stacks with other such books (literally, to amass or stack books)

I knew there was a reason I liked this language.