Hashire Sori Yo…

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Kaze no you ni/Tsukimi hara wo/Padoru Padoru!

This would’ve come out on Friday, but I had to pack my two bookbags for the holidays. Thought I was gonna look a gift of two weeks* of holiday leave in the mouth? (Actually, 11 days, but I also have a 4-day pass.)

Veteran weebs know what the image above means. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, and everything else Christmas-y. The holidays are a lot of things: great, awful, a mixed bag, an empty bag, and a bunch of other stuff. While this post is gonna be a happy holidays to all, it’s also gonna be a setup for a New Year’s reflection of this blog as well as a look back at the content I’ve written for this year and the content that was released, continued, suspended, or discontinued. Hitting the ground in 2025 with memories and goals. Knowing me, I may entertain theories with plausibility or significant evidence, but for most things I tend to stick with the facts. You’ll almost never hear or see me make a genuine guarantee unless it’s in my notes or I have evidence and research.

Now I do have plans in my notes to review my content for 2024, but that’s a January thing, and seeing as it’s a day before I return to duty, it’ll either be delayed or published ahead of schedule. Preferably the latter so I can focus on packing up, and New Year’s Eve or Day would be perfect ideally. For a look into the future though, of all the animanga I’ve viewed or games I’ve played, a fair few favorites stand out that have wide fanfare, but I’ve either admired out of respect for the reputation or not directly engaged in myself. Others I plan on writing about after a thorough amount of time. For example, I have a decent amount of time on my emulator with the original Yakuza game, though most fans would implore newcomers to try the Kiwami updates instead.

Still, a plus for Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku is that it’s generally easy to get into and the number of games released since 2005 gives newcomers a backlog to play catch-ups should they choose. And I do choose that method, real life responsibilities and desires would be damned, but being a responsible adult comes first.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are series I’ve encountered through osmosis. Memes, lore dumps, wikis, explorations; individual fans have tried to explain and recommend their own series, but from the outside looking in, I feel about it the same I feel about the Dune series, best explained with this meme.

Credit: u/netotz, r/dunememes

The series’ in question that I’m referring to are Senran Kagura, Fate, and Idolmaster. Each of these has a large following, both foreign and domestic, but my previous attempts to jump into the deeper lore and find a starting point has been met with mixed results. From easiest to hardest to understand, it’s SK, Idolmaster, and Fate. And I’ll start with SK.

The series’ Wikipedia page describes it as a multimedia franchise spearheaded by none other than Kenichiro Takaki, launched in Japan in 2011 with developers Tamsoft and Marvelous. The first game in the series released domestically is translated with the subtitle “Portrait of Girls” and was ported in 2013 with the subtitle Burst. So that’s simple, boot up an emulator or track down a still working 3DS or similar handheld and get some gameplay in, right? Wrong…

Opening up a can of worms called backwards compatibility and legalese, there’s a myriad of reasons why that’s not the most feasible way to do it for most. Of course, any potato computer can run a 3DS emulator–I did it myself to play Kirby: Planet Robobot and Triple Deluxe for old times’ sake–but the difference between eastern and western developers shows in the pudding. Eastern game devs will gladly re-release and remake old games for new hardware, such as the aforementioned Kiwami remakes of the old Yakuza PS2 games, whereas western devs can’t or won’t re-release remakes. Unless it’s Naughty Dog patting themselves too hard on the back with The Last of Us.

Narcissism is calling a PS4 port a remaster, when it was only a one-year release difference.

What I’ve noticed with eastern and specifically Japanese creators is that they’re accommodating enough to make their products available to all, though from what I’ve seen it can get hectic sometimes. If done poorly, a series can have numerous remakes or remasters or be disappeared and reintroduced, such was the case with JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Domestically, there weren’t many problems with manga releases, but western distributors either got a bad hand or dealt a bad hand with all the bravado and overconfidence that killed Macbeth. Long ago and today, it was considered sinful by the fandom to skip parts and lo and behold Viz Media was the one to ruin it in the mid-1990s. The approach was sound, but the execution necessitated the cancellation and re-release of a western release. To play devil’s advocate, Araki’s playlist disguised as a manga makes things difficult for copyright reasons, but it’s a miracle it was able to work so well, even if it took a quarter century to reach this goal.

25 years, people, 25 years. That’s how long it took for the first volume of Phantom Blood to get a successful anime adaptation. And the series had been through OVAs and a lost movie. If it was released contemporarily, we’d be halfway through a JoJolion adaptation with rumors of a JoJoLands adaptation getting a greenlight for Q3 2026.

For Senran Kagura, the source of confusion can come from the names they have, especially overseas. This itself isn’t a new concept, going back decades with international releases of Japanese anything, games notably; sorta like how Earthbound outside of Japan is known as Mother (which is its own wormhole of naming and releases). Couple SK with a limited anime adaptation in 2018, an OVA, and several spinoff games and it can seem like a lot to catch up to. I’m only one mission into Shinovi Versus thus far and I have an extended topic discussion lined up for February. This time, I’m going to try my best to get through Shinovi Versus and at least start another game in the series. So, does SK have a tricky starting point? Yes, but personally I found it easier than the next one I’ve been trying to find a starting point for: Idolmaster.

What makes this one trickier is that it didn’t start off with a console release, but with an arcade release in 2005, later ported in 2007 to the Xbox 360 in Japan. Clearly, it was successful to get a franchise of its own, but from what I’ve heard, Xbox and Microsoft don’t enjoy wide popularity in the Land of the Rising Sun. Sony and Panasonic have a wider reach on their native soil, but this series’ Wikipedia claims Xbox Live had better hardware. Who else but a computer company to push the limits, right?

So much for Sony, I suppose? The Wikipedia also suggests that that was just a test with subsequent releases getting PlayStation or mobile releases. Though over the course of 11 years, there’s been many releases. Again, spinoffs are no issue, but the volume of them in games like these makes finding the origin point tougher than it needs to be, especially when they’re neither conventionally named nor released in the right order for an international audience. Circling back to the Earthbound series, even if it’s true that the fanbase isn’t big enough to warrant a wide release, the small headcount was dedicated enough to translate the series themselves.

But the blame for that can’t always fall on the devs; copyright law is no joke no matter what part of the world you’re in. It’s part of the reason JoJo’s was so hard to introduce to the west. Let’s award the Benefit of Doubt in general cases and say that if it wasn’t for the corps of copyright and lawsuits, more players would play more games, no matter how obscure they are to the general populace. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s a monolith of a series that has one hell of a reputation. Starting as a visual novel, getting two separate anime adaptations (the latter made to correct the former’s mistakes), and spawning a franchise with more twists and turns than M. Night Shyamalan and Christopher Nolan could think of. Pretzels look at the timeline and think, “Holy knots, guy! The f[crunch]k am I lookin’ at?!” Of course, I’m talking about the Fate franchise.

The emperor of long and convoluted timelines, and the source of upwards of 35 to 40% of all anime-based memes, it started with a visual novel in 2004 and hasn’t stopped running. Even if you messed up the train tracks ahead, the Fate Express continues on through the power of fandom and fanservice. This passage from the associated Wikipedia page says as much:

I’ve wanted to get into Fate for a few years now, but its reputation has held me back from taking the plunge. Also being a seasoned weeb myself, I know how hideous fandoms can get (see the My Hero Academia fanbase for more details, and cleanse yourself afterwards. IYKYK). Thankfully, there’s not much in the way of ugliness for the Fate series, but to quote a Welsh monke, “if Dragon Ball fans are the ghetto, Fate fans are the crack dealers.” Some of the more vocally dedicated types will stop at damn near nothing until every newcomer lives and dies by Fate and has immersed themselves in all the VNs, anime, movies, games, and other merch that a franchise this influential can spawn.

Channel: Trash Taste Highlights

With just this video, I don’t really need to elaborate further. Someone will tell me that Fate is easier to get into than I fear, and I guess I can take their word on that being blinder than Kenshi from Mortal Kombat or Toph Beifong in this regard, but what would help is if there was someone out there who will meet normies and newcomers with some interest at the halfway point instead of leaving us to fight off a pack of wolves with a stick and a book of pressed 4- and 5-leaf clovers. You can expect to see more in-depth opinions about all of these in a post about s[horse neighing] not (yet) reviewed after the New Year.

Going through my notes whilst finishing this up, I realize some stuff should’ve been up at least a week before I thought they’d be (this post included), but life and work had gotten in the way. The holidays aren’t gonna make that any easier for the last few topics, but I’ve been beating the odds for as long as I can remember and come hell or high water, I’m gonna make this work. Figuring it all out will have to come later.

Before I part, why don’t I give you a channel recommendation for the Holidays? Behold, Geopold!

https://www.youtube.com/@Geopoldd/videos

Not dissimilar from Gattsu, Geopold is another YouTube channel that introduces different parts of the world by way of the power of internet memes. Describing himself as “Birmingham’s Travel Agent,” going off of that alone, he’s confident that that he’s well-traveled enough to give an unbiased opinion about the places he’s– okay, I’m joking, he’s gonna meme these places off the map, and keep mememing them. Now that travel agent thing may be a joke, and if that’s what you’re looking for than stop where you are, have a drink of your choosing (Kirin or Asahi for me) and watch him grossly oversimplify white people… or the state of Florida…

The next topic (fingers crossed, it’ll be out by Friday or Saturday night) will be an out of season third-person shooter game that only eight people remember.

If you’re at all curious about the plot, here’s a small hint: the Maryland prison system has been better, all things considered.

Ananta: Anime GTA?

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We’re getting anime GTA before GTA 6!

If it releases before GTA 6 does (and some outlets seem to suggest this as the case), the opening joke will become more prophetic than I meant it to. Anime and the Grand Theft Auto series aren’t too things that always mix themselves, but talking to any gamer or anime fan, you may find that they’re the same people. One of them is writing this blog right now! Matter of fact, GTA Online has a few cars that can be customized with anime liveries. You can have your very own Itasha of the GTA anime parody Princess Robot Bubblegum.

For some reason, I was more embarrassed of this than I was of High School DxD, and that series proudly shows boobs and ass in nearly every scene!

But to get away from a parody of an East Asian medium present in a game developed by Northern Englishmen and Scots, let’s go to an upcoming game whose development team is in East Asia and is drawing comparisons to a game developed by Northern Brits.

Announced in August 2023 under the working title Project Mugen, Ananta is described as a fantasy urban RPG open-world, not dissimilar from Zenless Zone Zero but with much more to do gameplay-wise. Driving, city exploration, minigames, and Spider-Man’s wrists.

Not much is known about the plot as of writing, but the associated Wikipedia page (which will definitely be updated post-release and interviews) explains that its protagonists are paranormal investigators with some kind of extrasensory perception (ESP). These abilities are being used to fight against the main antagonistic force known as Chaos.

Channel: Mugen Official

I haven’t the slightest idea who specifically asked for this, but I want to buy them a present. A six-foot tall cake with a stripper or porn star of their choosing.

It’ll be hard to see this as a gacha game with how it looks and what it’s supposed to have, being an amalgamation of GTA, Honkai: Star Rail, Spider-Man for PS4, and Zenless Zone Zero, with a dash of Mob Psycho 100. Write what you know, learn more so you can know more, write even more. It’s also worth making the distinction between the devs of this game and Mihoyo. They’re another Chinese company based in Hangzhou called Naked Rain. Due to the whales that coalesce around paid DLC and many gacha games, they most likely do have the capacity and resources to make a game like this, but they’re not. ZZZ comes close and it’s still not a 1 to 1.

Ananta’s trailer seems to promise the ability to drive around the city, or, according to the Wikipedia, cities with planned updates. A game with multiple cities. It might be due to the resources needed to include multiple cities, but I would love it if more games had more maps to explore without locking it behind an expansion pack, DLC, or any other paywall. Even a loading screen would be serviceable, to me at least. It’s what made Midnight Club 3 and the old Need for Speed games so memorable and exciting.

Also, I have to circle back to GTA for a rant. Liberty City, Vice City, Los Santos: the big three stand-ins for NYC, Miami, and Los Angeles and victims of the RockStar game design of “take well-known big city and make it an island.” There’s a few theories floating around that the reason for this is a great big satire on the old “self-absorbed Americans live in their own world” stereotype and to be honest, I’d say the joke is quite old. It may have worked before, but with GTA: San Andreas having stand-ins for Vegas and Frisco as Las Venturas and San Fierro respectively as well as an area that can be viewed as the rural part of NorCal, there’s evidence from RockStar that they can and could (read: should) make a multi-city game. Or frankenstein their three cities together. Multiple fan artists have done it in the years since.

Source: sengin*

* The source for that map is hard to find seeing as it’s nearly 10 years old. Nevertheless, we have a good base, even if conceptual in design. There was also Ubisoft’s The Crew which had a truncated map of the lower 48, and most MMORPGs to go off of for a true open-world GTA-esque game. Come on, RockStar, give us what we really want.

Sorry, back on topic. Ananta is available for pre-registration so you can be among the first get it once it’s available. And you can bet you’re bottom dollar, I’ve already pre-registered and I’ll definitely be one of the first to play it as soon as I acquire the yottabytes necessary to house them all. Maybe I should make a rant of modern gaming, there’s enough material online for me to use as examples… as well as anecdotes and memes of people moving files around for storage; a story I know all too well.

It’s easy to say that I’m excited for Ananta and want it to succeed. That kind of goes without saying, gacha games are plenty successful as shown by Mihoyo’s output and I don’t just mean the whales funding it better than any Wall Street investor. But I’m going to take a page from the Det. Cole Phelps Institute and match that excitement with some skepticism. No assumptions, wait for more trailers and information to be revealed, look into some theories, and most importantly, prioritize the facts. To quote the God of War:

  1. Expect the worst;
  2. Assume nothing, and;
  3. Always anticipate [danger]

Credit: alexloai64

A series of great quotes to follow, not just in a hack-n-slash god-pulverizing simulator, and something I’ll keep in mind whilst eagerly awaiting more updates on Ananta/Mugen.

My First Gyaru Anime

Tiberius3 Comments

This may or may not ring some bells

A while ago, I stated that the YouTuber Knowing Better claimed that Hollywood has a greater influence on the military than you’d believe. Sticking with that logic, based on my observations, I want to say that it’s a bit similar in Japan. Stories get told and retold and inspire mangaka to start putting pen to panel. In this context, the subject is that of subcultures. If you’re familiar with western culture, you’re familiar with some age-old subcultures: the goths, the jocks, the nerds, the popular kids, the emos, the preps, and the townies–all of which can be found in RockStar’s hidden gem Bully.

You already know I recommend the s[marbles falling]t out of this.

In Japan, there are several other subcultures that have come and gone over the years: bosozoku (motorcycle enthusiasts), delinquents (bancho/sukeban), otaku (nerds but extra), and the topic of this post: gyaru.

I’ve talked before about gyaru/gal animanga, including one that got an adaptation this year. Now, we’re taking a look at another gyaru-centric series: My First Girlfriend is a Gal (alternative title: Hajimete no Gal).

Another relic from my community college days, I was made aware of it from a WatchMojo Top 10 list on the worst girlfriends in anime voiced by Todd Haberkorn when they kept him locked away in their basement. Don’t worry, it was more of a mancave; think of it like the Scandinavian approach to imprisonment.

In that list, one of the characters from the anime, deuteragonist and love interest, Yukana Yame, made the list for essentially leading the protagonist, Junichi Hashiba, on. Not an unfair or untrue assessment, but when I had a look, I felt that there was more to it than that. But I’m somersaulting over a battleship here, let’s build up.

Typical romcom anime, a trio of dudes have a conversation describing perverted and sexual things about the girls in their class. One such girl makes the topic of conversation and on a dare, Junichi is challenged to ask her out on a date. Scummy. And Yukana entertains it. Also scummy. Honestly, I remember being that horny both at that age and when I watched this series, and I did watch it from beginning to end, mainly because of the eye candy.

These days, the terminally online “crusaders” would cry fowl at a busty teenage girl, but this is where I play the hypocrisy card as just about every single one of us knew or knows someone whose bodies developed that fast. I definitely did. What the hell happened to “no bodyshaming?” Hmmm? But f[anime girl moaning]k it.

Now that I look back on it, with the experience I’ve gained (mostly from observing other relationships flop around my single ass), never mind a bond formed by ignorance, this is a bond formed by deception. They didn’t even start out taking each other seriously; Junichi was expecting the hardest rejection while Yukana initially planned on milking him dry without using her hands. I’m very sorry about that; it’ll happen again.

But to play Saul Goodman and defend these clients, there is some character development for them both. They hang out more often, and Junichi gradually adheres to the lessons imparted to us by history’s greatest philosophers: the Spice Girls

♫ If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends ♫

And Yukana’s BFFs include but are not limited to Ranko Honjo, a contendor for the Bimbo Olympics who wants to f[snaps fingers]k both Junichi and Yukana (most likely at the same time); Yui Kashi, a Twitch streamer whose desire is to wrap everyone around her finger (she ain’t beating Makima, just saying); Nene Fujinoki, Junichi’s childhood friend and one of the bustiest lolis I’ve ever seen until Ilulu (also the subject of a specific character’s troubling fetish; more to follow later); and a few others who, although reportedly got more love in the anime than the manga, not enough to make a big enough impact over the course of 10 episodes.

Even though it doesn’t really start out with the best of intentions, the character development does leave them marginally better than when they began. Junichi stops letting his penis think for him the more he learns about Yukana and her… well, it’s not a harem, but she functionally has more women than Junichi will hope to have. Out-rizzed by your own girl…

Fortunately, you know who to turn to whenever you want a threesome.

If Yukana was ever the subject of salacious rumors, her behavior on screen discredits such slander. Like Junichi, it’s highly suggested that not only is she too a virgin, she may be even more nervous about her first time than Junichi is. The gyaru aesthetic is all for show and tell, as in she’s showing her friends and the audience while telling us that she just likes pretty things. But that’s a given.

Conversely, to use the teachings of Lao Zi, within this light side is a bit of a dark side. I mentioned earlier that one of Junichi’s friends, Minoru Kobayakawa, has a troublingly illegal fetish that conjures up the message of the Oingo Boingo song Little Girls. Not lolis or short girls, young girls. He does nothing to hide it in the anime (no clue if its subdued in the manga) and will remind you what his ideal type is. He’s a disturbingly honest Harvey Weinstein sans the influence of Hollywood kickbacks.

The series plays it off as a joke which is probably lost on me since I cringed every time Minoru made an appearance. All things considered, the other Minoru from My Hero Academia was divisive in his own right, but probably shouldn’t have had as much hate directed towards him as this Minoru. Inappropriate and depraved, at least he eyed up adults.

Also, he gets humbled at every turn so whatever debt he owes, he’s overpaid it.

The other Minoru… one of the other guys said it best when he claimed he’d end up on the sex offender registry. Don’t take this as a dissuasion or an argument against watching the anime; this is still a recommendation, just keep in mind that this troubling aspect is in the show. It’s a short viewing, 10 episodes and an OVA that I haven’t seen myself. And of course, you have the choice of sitting through ads like a trooper and joining the dark side and becoming a pirate. The side effect of the latter choice is fighting Luffy.

Forgotten Mortal Kombat Plot Points that Had Potential

Tiberius1 Comment

With more time and care, these could’ve helped the old games

This post was originally supposed to be about different archetypes in anime, though I’m delaying that to sometime in December as I don’t yet have enough research to discuss those in full detail. This week, however, I’ll bring up something that has crossed my mind before, but not with enough frequency to expand upon: forgotten plot points from the 3D Mortal Kombat universe.

The original idea came from a MojoPlays video that I couldn’t f[head rip]king find until a few minutes before writing this because I misremembered the title. Abandoned Story Threads instead of Forgotten Plot Points; potato, potahto. Either way, the video can be viewed on the MojoPlays channel through the link below.

Credit: MojoPlays

The gist of the video is that throughout the series, the Mortal Kombat games have introduced plot points that were about to heat up only for the devs to go in a different direction. With over 30 years out on the market, you’ve got your pick of the litter to choose from. For this week, it’s the 3D games from MK Deadly Alliance to Armageddon. Here’s the f[scream of pain]king short version: starting with Deadly Alliance, Quan Chi escaped from a fiery ass-whoopin’ at Scorpion’s hands, discovering the Dragon King’s “undefeatable” army in the process and bringing these mummified warriors to Shang Tsung where they formed a bond based on ignorance.

Context:

Channel: Kamidogu

After the Deadly Alliance is formed, they remove all obstacles that would block them from ruling all existence. Not happy sucking up to Shao Kahn for millennia, they kill him in his throne room then make their way to the Wu Shi Academy where Shang Tsung finally gets to consume the soul of the greatest warrior in Mortal Kombat History: The Great Kung Lao I mean, Liu Kang!

OGs can’t be beat!

So with Liu Kang and Shao Kahn dead, they operate a tournament under false pretenses in Outworld and use the defeated to return the mummified army to life with the goal of marching on Earthrealm with malicious intent. Raiden saw this from the heavens and organized the remaining warriors across the realms to stop them. Fun fact, you can find archived websites and forums debating the plot points of then-upcoming games, like this website MKSecrets.net, which for some reason still looks like it was made in 2001 even though it has details on MK1 (2023)… I thought that was most Japanese websites…?

Anyway, MK: Deception picks up from the premise of Deadly Alliance only the sorcerers were too powerful for all of the warriors (could’ve probably sent them all as a group, but MK9 proves that that wouldn’t have helped much) and so at his wits end, Raiden challenges them himself. Not even a thunder god could defeat the sorcerers and realizing that their goals were nearly complete, what was left was the amulet Quan Chi stole from Shinnok in MK4. He hangs onto it defeating Shang Tsung in the process, only to have Onaga reborn (hinted at from Reptile’s ending in the last game) and return to reclaim the army that the sorcerers so generously returned to life with the souls of conquered fighters.

All three men realize that danger was marching towards them and while they managed to temporarily hold them back, Raiden uses a last ditch attack on the Dragon King. It failed to even scratch him and he grabs a hold of the amulet which will be needed to form the six Kamidogu into a single entity.

Channel: MKIceAndFire

As for how Onaga acquired the Kamidogu, well it involved tricking a young boy named Shujinko and leading him across reality by the nose for 40 years. If this game were canon, that would’ve come back to bite Onaga in the ass, only for Shujinko’s efforts to go unrecognized as redemption and still get punished by a Dark Raiden. This will become important later.

Shaolin Monks was a bit of a beat ’em up remake of MKII (kinda) and I’d already talked about that before, so we’re skipping it considering it has nothing to do with the 3D trilogy anyway.

Armageddon was supposed to cap it all off and the more I’ve thought about it, the more it felt like a final send off before Midway got the crappy ideas out of the way in time to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010.

Let’s not be too harsh though, it did help pave the way for the Injustice line.

Story-wise, the protector god of Edenia, Argus, is made aware that between the actions of the sorcerers and Shujinko being duped for that long, the warriors of the realms were learning more about the construction of the realms than the Elder Gods would be comfortable with and proposed to Argus to come up with a solution. He suggested total annihilation to protect the realms from their own residents, but his wife Delia suggested depowering them all since there were many heroes who fought tooth and nail to defend the realms from evil, not the least of which was Shao Kahn and Shinnok (whom we learn later was banished to the Netherrealm for eternity for treachery, leaving Quan Chi to do the heavy lifting through the Brotherhood of Shadow).

They’re granted the power to do this and choose to do so by making a competition of things for their sons Taven and Daegon. If things went to plan, the two men would engage in a friendly competition, grab their weapons and armor and race to defeat their mother’s firespawn (half-brother?) Blaze to achieve full godhood as both of them are demigods. In reality, the two brothers, under the watchful eye of a pair of dragons, Orin and Caro, are set on a different path. Caro, who was the guardian dragon of Daegon, lost contact with Blaze believing it to be an early sign to set him on his path. Instead, Daegon forms the Red Dragon clan in Caro’s name and signs off on unethical science experiments for the purpose of choking existence into coughing Blaze up. The way its presented makes me think of Unit 731 in Manchuria and its surgeon general Shiro Ishii. If you don’t know, look it up at your own peril.

This makes Daegon the antagonist of the Konquest mode and through no fault of his own Taven loses sight of the purpose of his quest. And his frustration and confusion at this whole course of events is best reflected at the several times he’s questioned and even considered abandoning ship. The quest stopped being fun for him as he lost the things he cherished. Blaze appeared at the end to catch him up to at least what the true purpose of the quest was and Taven is a hero if we compare him to the Ancient Greek model similar to Perseus or Theseus. Self-serving at times, but the guy still knows the difference between good and evil. Daegon’s descent into evil seems random until he learned that he was supposed to lose the quest and decided to take matters into his own hands, hence the birth of the Red Dragon.

Dropped and abandoned plot points are still a problem for the series as it’s developed a reputation for introducing points and leaving them to collect dust. We barely get five minutes with the concept before the devs (read: Ed Boon and John Tobias) moved onto something else. You could say the fandom is also to blame for this as dedicated fans have asked (demanded) the team to release canonically deceased characters as DLC, but staying with the 3D games where the problem expanded, there’s more to say about it during this era than anywhere else in the series.

Starting with Deadly Alliance, Shao Kahn was established to be killed in the intro to this game, with Deception and Shujinko’s story acting as a prequel taking place some years before the events of Deadly Alliance where it all converges. Shujinko himself was invited twice by the White Lotus Society and later by Shang Tsung himself to represent Earthrealm in the tournament but couldn’t attend for different reasons. The White Lotus got tired of waiting for him to power up (never mind that the tournament is hosted every 50 years) and due to his cleansing journey with Nightwolf, he had to go back to the Netherrealm to gather more hatred, from none other than the ghost of Hanzo Hasashi.

This part doesn’t necessarily screw around with the timeline as egregiously as following plot points, but Armageddon is where it all breaks down. Canonically dead characters are resurrected off-screen and based on what we know we can connect the dots, but often the devs are a bit cagey when it comes to showing how, who and/or why characters are returned to life. The 2011 continuity shows that Quan Chi has brought Noob and Sindel back to life and claimed the souls of those killed by Sindel herself in the eleventh hour, but it’s not shown whether he brought Shao Kahn back to life or if he did why he’d do so, or even why the rest of the villains would agree to this arrangement.

Channel: BruskPoet

I’m not saying this moment in the story is bad, I like it a lot. But the nonexistent explanation for how all this can come to be is what sours me on it somewhat. I’d say there’s no care for a consistent timeline especially in a fighting game (something that doesn’t escape Tekken), but I think it’s more along the lines of the devs wanting their personal favorites to shine brighter than the others, which is why the franchise works better as video games and toy lines than it does movies.

Most of the time…

For what it’s worth, the characters have been mostly consistent with a few touch ups here and there, but if you ask people like The4thSnake, there’s a lot under the hood that could use some light to heavy rewiring from individual characters to whole ass f[swords clashing]king plot points, like what I’ve been writing about here. I’m a bit torn personally, because it brings a charm not found in other series, but this many plot holes treats the timeline like a redheaded step child. Doesn’t stop people from trying, as I’ve stated before, I rewrote MK: Shaolin Monks myself like it was Dragon Ball as that was what I was watching at the time.

Why bother with the 3D games, though? Well, of all the plot points introduced and left by the wayside, the 3D games did it the most and the worst of any other era, which seems to be the result of developmental inconsistencies prior to release on store shelves. It certainly hasn’t stopped people from trying though and it likely will keep going for as long as there is a Mortal Kombat to fix. Nothing too serious at this point, but it’s both fun to expand on what was and offer critique for one of the series most tumultuous times in its history.

Genshiken: A Full Review*

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Well, more episodes to cover at least

Gonna have to be entirely honest here, the timeline I gave myself to fully watch Genshiken couldn’t be adhered to. Life got in the way. C’est la vie. But now that I think about it, having covered series before only partly, halfway, or most of the way through, it got me thinking that I don’t necessarily have to complete a series to review it. I think I get more mileage if I watch enough to understand without necessarily having to complete the series. Completion does help, but to quote Jack Torrance, “All work and no play makes [Tiberius] a dull boy.” Now to the review.

It wasn’t long ago that I caught this anime by way of one of the anime subreddits and in that clip, four otaku speak wildly to a normie about the beauties of a niche Japanese rape game.

Not necessarily a turn off for weebs, if the Redo of Healer’s overwhelmingly female fanbase is any indicator and certainly not one for me as I ventured into this anime expecting more off-the-cuff conversations and it’s a lot more mellow than that clip would lead anyone to believe. As I’ve said before, it’s an anime about a quartet of otaku, sometimes joined by the sometimes Y otaku who has himself a girlfriend hellbent on shaming them into being normal. As a weeb, I take offense, but knowing what I know about the internet when this anime was on air in 2004, she wasn’t the only one yelling this from the heavens.

Further, even I have my limits on my own hobbies, though limit doesn’t necessarily mean quit. Moderation is the key. So as I watched more of Genshiken, the more I saw of the slice of life aspects, similar to shows like Azumanga Daioh, Lucky Star, and K-On!, but instead of a multitude of cute girls doing cute things cutely, it’s a bunch of college dudes taking half the share of the oppression shared by gamers because they were brave enough to say no to the rat race by engaging in their hobbies. But it does share a similarity with the aforementioned series, namely progression. Azumanga follows the girls throughout high school; Lucky Star does the same even if it’s famous for talking about nothing, and K-On! adds to the roster in the form of Azunyan, weak to the power of the headpat.

Credit: r/HeadPats, u/BTN099

The slice of life genre has its detractors who balk at the idea of a show about f[pages flipping]k and all, but as someone who enjoys many genres SoL being one of them, it’s a nice break from all the methamphetamine fueled action found in Shonen or the isekai singularity. I like beating up ghosts or searching for the One Piece or defeating space Hitler as much as the next guy, but I don’t always want to see that. Something something variety, something something slice of life.

Besides, Genshiken is a series that speaks to weebs because it’s about weebs. You definitely have nerd friends and may yourself be a nerd in some aspect, especially if you’re subscribed to this blog or check in every week. We all have that circle of friends who geeks out over the same things. I had mine in middle and high school and I met mine both times I was in basic training and when I was in AIT, and that passion turned from video games to anime (but of course, games are still a major part of my life; I’m currently building a gaming PC).

Credit: Naumovski

The passion is what speaks to me, this collection of nerds coming together to discuss the important things in life, such as Oppai, Medium or Flat — which is a trick debate because all size makes the wood rise, especially when paired with thicc thighs that save lives. I do recall that rant on the character of Saki Kasukabe and her intense criticism of the medium of animanga as a whole. Watching further was the right choice and I do recommend continuing the series in whichever form you find best as further episodes see her eating her own words every time she gets humbled.

No one can be this dedicated to animanga, you say? Well, conventions beg to differ. Childish, you say? Well, yesterday’s weebs are parents now — see Latin America’s love of Dragon Ball for more details. Women are definitely not interested, you say? Well, not only does my comment about Redo of Healer having a massive female fanbase stand tall, but so does a new character introduced in Season 1: Kanako Ono:

Makes me think of Tomoko Kuroki from WataMote.

Beyond that, Genshiken is a chronicle of passionate animanga geeks whose love of the medium is not tempered by naysayers and is surprisingly large to newcomers and tourists. Once again, for those who wish to view the series, I implore you to find whatever piracy site works best for you. Most anime streaming sites (read: Crunchyroll) aren’t guaranteed to have the full series.

Now That You’ve Tasted My Saliva, Wanna be My Boyfriend?

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Perhaps romance has always been weird

No matter your relationship status, you’ve definitely seen pictures and memes or heard stories through the grapevine about how certain people are made for each other. When applied to fiction, fanbases notoriously put certain characters together and creatively put whatever circumstances they can concoct to make it happen in their own fanfics. Sometimes it works, but other times it’s more or less an appeal to a certain character for a variety of reasons. And as you might expect, other aspects of the fanbase can get perverse in this matter. This typically happens when a series is presented as neutrally as possible. The series I’m talking about here starts off in a strange position by virtue of its own title:

Nazo no Kanojo X or Mysterious Girlfriend X gained fame at the time of release for one of its characters, Mikoto Urabe, releasing the sluice gate she has for a mouth and leaking all of her drool. A sane man would probably be put off by this aspect, but curiosity overrules sanity and the other character, Akira Tsubaki, licks some of the drool she leaves on her desk while napping during lunch. Why would he do that? Don’t bother looking for answers to that question because it goes unacknowledged for the remainder of the show.

Urabe is a riddle inside a mystery wrapped in an enigma. She’s introduced as the new girl and in the first episode bursts into uncontrollable laughter. She’s awfully cagey for a girl romantically involved with Tsubaki, and more or less prefers this sort of arrangement, even keeping a pair of scissors tucked into her underwear. Of all the talk you hear on social media of fighting back suspected and would-be rapists, Urabe is ready to make sashimi out of anyone. S[sword unsheathing]t-talking is for the weak.

Credit: SoundwaveSuperior69 on DeviantArt

Tsubaki meanwhile is the polar opposite of his girlfriend. An open book with an evident circle of friends and interests, you don’t really have to guess what’s on his mind, what he did or what he’s gonna do next. Obligatory: run-of-the-mill male protagonist ends up with “quirky” female protagonist. There’s a name for this specific trope and I won’t rest until I learn it! The closest would probably be manic pixie dream girl, but I personally think that’s a dubious label to throw into this.

Either way, the two are practically ripped from the bizarro world of shipping. Whereas established characters will be randomly paired by the fandom, mangaka Riichi Ueshiba started out that way. Call Urabe a foil to this slice of bread we call a male protagonist with her hentai protagonist hair, anti-molestor blades, unorthodox outlook on life, and obsession with saliva. The last of those being the tamest fetish I’ve seen or heard of, and no I won’t elaborate on what I think is the wildest one I’m aware of.

So that’s them as individuals, how do they behave as a couple? Initially, I was gonna say that her cagey personality gets in the way of things, but on closer inspection, it feels a bit more like she wears a slightly longer pair of pants. Think of it this way, Tsubaki is smitten yet nervous around her due to a lack of dating/romantic experience whereas Urabe has scissors rated E for everyone… and I do mean everyone. She sets hard boundaries, but will make concessions to let her Tsubaki into her space. Her flavor of introvert is honest yet taciturn as she won’t even fake a smile for a picture. Lack of sportsmanship? Considering, she talks to only like two or three people all anime, that’s an easy assumption to make though I’ve heard it explained (can’t remember where, sorry) that most of the action happens offscreen. In this case, any number of wild stories can be made about the girl and Ueshiba may or may not elaborate further. Actually, it’s possible to argue that Urabe herself is in some capacity an extension of Ueshiba, the mangaka.

A quick googling shows that the number of interviews he’s done is close to the number of fingers on the average human hand. Photographs are even more elusive as I’m certain there don’t exist any that he’s agreed to share. Even without any expectations, I knew for a fact that Urabe would live up to the mysterious moniker but for it to likely be connected to the man who conceptualized her character is practically “write what you know” in living color. And in this instance, Ueshiba seems to be the only one who knows. Not that he’s the first or only one to subscribe to that philosophy.

Now why am I watching this anime? Once again, I’m doing so on a whim. The romance does intrigue me, but more so the appeal of Who’s This Drooling Girl? is the fact that it’s a break from the action-heavy series we’re getting these days. It had its 15 minutes of fame a decade ago, but now that more people are paying attention to other things developing in contemporary manga (as well as disappointing endings), going to series only five people globally know about is a nice change of pace.

I’d also like to highlight how much of a deconstruction of many tropes Urabe is.

Unlike most other characters, she leaves the audience and the characters guessing. Again, not the first character to do this, but one of the few who does it in less overt ways. The most she’ll do is test whether you can stomach her drool (that sounded better in my head (>_<)); if you can succeed, you two are meant to be. If not, well the effort was made and the question was answered.

Based on my description of her in regard to Tsubaki in general, it sounds like I described a yandere, but Urabe isn’t like that. She shows that she cares about him, but is the last person who’d reach out for a hug from him, especially in public. She’s like a planet: her gravitational pull reels him in, but not too close. As explained in the series (and this blog from 2018), she doesn’t need him to be physically close for there to be a bond. Her drool does the heavy lifting for her there. More than just a test of her connection to whomever tastes it, it’s properties seem to activate different senses and feelings especially in Tsubaki. It’ll make him sick, feel pain, give him a window into Urabe’s true feelings; I’ve never heard of anyone’s saliva doing that so the bond is either that strong or she’s aN aLiEn?!?!?

Again, neither Urabe nor Ueshiba will elaborate, so that’s up to you to decide. For what it’s worth, the manga has 12 volumes, 13 episodes and an OVA ripe for the pirating. Enjoy having questions go unanswered.

Also, Urabe can definitely make twintails work. Shame it’s only in one episode, but fanart thankfully picks up the slack.

Rewatching One Piece

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Following up on some classics

About two months ago, I made a declaration to go back to some classic anime, those being Dragon Ball Z (the Kai dub) and One Piece. Why these two specifically? No particular reason, just that with Kai, it was a redub of the original DBZ anime that aired when I was a kid and in an abridged fashion. The reason Funimation did this was to commemorate the anime’s 20th anniversary. As for One Piece, you’d be hard pressed to find an anime fan who hasn’t heard of or watched or planned on watching One Piece. As I write this, someone just finished the most recent episode of One Piece and is blazing through the manga right now. Someone else has the entire box set and omnibus and a third fan has taken it further, emulating Zoro in appearance, technique and awful sense of direction.

I made the declaration to give One Piece a rewatch and try (keyword: try) to play catch ups. Kind of ridiculous 1,000 episodes in, but not impossible. Thing is, I kept getting held up either by work or my personal desires at the time. That declaration was made in September and as of writing this, I’m only 19 episodes in. It would be more, but I have an explanation for the part that’s within my control. The simplest answer is that I’m not the biggest fan of binge watching.

Netflix spearheaded this phenomenon in the mid-2010s and I had been questioning it for the better part of a decade. The more I learned about Netflix’s formula, the more I began to criticize it. It’s normal for a show to get pulled or stop airing after several years, but Netflix’s pattern of batch releases has created a culture built around rapid mass consumption of media… with little thought given to subcultures built around a particular show. Not to mention, too many great shows of theirs get s[banging metal]t-canned after one season and the hype is lost on me. Shows that have already aired though are the only reason I’m still on that platform for now, but the influence of one can trickle elsewhere and I don’t like how influential Netflix has been over the years.

This blog covers obscure and old media as its bread and butter; and while I do cover recently aired/currently airing shows or recently released video games, I don’t recall covering that many newer series of any kind. That’s more suited to guys like this:

He can afford to watch and talk about anime on a regular basis now that he and Trash Taste are under the GeeXPlus umbrella, whereas I’m currently doing Signal Corps things in the Army. Sidenote: if you join the Army and are put in Air Defense Artillery, I strongly implore you to choose any other branch. You’ll get more time to yourself when able.

As for the time I’ve been able to scrounge up for myself and spend on watching things I like, I’ve been dividing it between One Piece and other shows. I’m still not all that far into Genshiken (and I plan to write that up in two weeks), and I’ve been caught up watching my favorite history documentaries, as well as another manuscript. Can I get all of this done outside of duty? Yes. Is it easy? F[bonobo screech]k no. It’s a very challenging series of feats I’ve taken on for myself, and my laziness has stifled progress in a few areas. Couple it with a gacha game addiction and it’s a miracle I got to the first 20 episodes.

Variety is the spice of life, Terry!

Still, 19 episodes gives me a decent amount to talk about even for an anime this long and old. So how did I enjoy starting from number 1? Pretty well! I can’t recall the last time I watched One Piece before this quest of mine, but the most memorable arc I watched before it became too inconvenient was the one where Nami came down with a bad fever. Quick googling revealed that that’s known as the Five-Day Disease. This was at least ten years ago and Toonami was (and still is) airing the reruns to my knowledge. A show that helped build the block and make these shows household names isn’t gonna be dropped by the network, but it will be moved to make room for new shows. To my knowledge, it had been moved to at least 2:30AM or 3AM and my days of watching episodes in rapid succession are long gone.

C’est la vie.

I’m still watching One Piece and hope to at least clear 250 episodes by sometime next year, probably by Spring or early Summer. So far, Luffy had gathered a crew of three and is about to recruit the fourth member. Zoro was freed from capital punishment, Nami was insistent that her relationship is purely transactional and she’s not a pirate (not dissimilar from the “I’m not a furry” crowd), and Usopp whose sweet little lies would make him a match for Hol Horse in a game of wits. It also goes to show that similar to Hol Horse, he’s not prone to hurting unnecessarily. Lies, yes, but attacking the innocent isn’t something he’ll do. It might be the same for Hol Horse, but until I finish Crazy Diamond’s Demonic Heartbreak, I’ll confirm for sure.

As of writing this, Sanji is set to join the crew next (those who know, don’t spoil anything so I can still see for myself how everyone joins the crew). The wheels turn slowly but they turn either way, so I hope to follow up with an update sometime in the future.

Back to YouTube channel recommendations, this time with Dr Mod

https://www.youtube.com/@DrModGTA

A recent discovery of mine, this channel covers just about everything GTA-related. Older games, recent games, and even the upcoming GTA VI are a staple on this channel. Some of my own early work covers the GTA series, though not to the lengths that Dr Mod does, so if you’d like something to hold you over until we return to modern day Vice City, enjoy Dr Mod.

And maybe also pirate Vice City and Vice City Stories as well. They won’t take up a lot of space on your hard drive. I speak from experience.

You Dropped This, Queen of Karuta

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Another niche series about Japanese culture

Certainly has been a while since I’ve covered a more niche animanga series, one that had a marketing push on the associated streaming sites, notably Crunchyroll and the now-defunct VRV in 2018. I remember as I’d paid them no mind whilst watching Boruto or FLCL or Soul Eater. Recently, I’d been looking more into Chihayafuru as I’d found very few people talking about it and due to more and more action-heavy series getting adapted that year and the years to follow, it’s no wonder it flew under the radar. As I’d looked further into it, it got me thinking about a series I’d talked about sometime last year: Akane-banashi.

Both are about traditional Japanese cultural products that require research for outsiders to get an idea of what it entails, but can still be enjoyed without prior knowledge; both feature female protagonists engaged in a sport of the mind, further broadening the definition of what a sport is or can entail; both of those female protagonists have a giant competitive edge in said sport; and personality-wise, both girls have a tomboyish history that shines when engaged in their respective sports.

Akane-banashi’s specialty is rakugo, where a lone performer tells any number of comedic stories on a center stage. Normally, they’re old folktales from Japanese history and mythology, and the last time I read the manga, they hardly strayed from the style of storytelling expected of the time they written/spoken, but can sometimes be adapted to more modern audiences, similar to the 1996 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

For Chihayafuru, the tradition this time is Karuta, a card game based on matching similar looking cards, though in the series it’s more about Japanese poetry. This version of the game has a caller who reads a portion of a poem written in Hiragana and the player nabs the card as fast as they can. Experts can get them before the stanza is fully read aloud. The main lead protagonist is Chihaya Ayase.

Initially, she was (and still is) supportive of her big sister’s modeling future, but became infatuated with Karuta after being introduced to it by a boy from Fukui Prefecture named Arata Wataya. The impoverished little boy didn’t have a lot to his name, living in a dirty, cluttered dwelling with 80% of his clothes being hand-me-downs from relatives. Further isolating him from the rest of his Tokyoite classmates as a child was his “hick” accent. For some reason, people outside of Tokyo Prefecture are referred to like this, which I think is ridiculous, but then again, I live in a country that celebrates even linguistic diversity, so personally, not much separates a Mississippian from a Michigander or a Nevadan. All Americans, different circumstances.

Still, while Arata struggles to fit in, he’s a Karuta prodigy at a young age, taking to heart the adage of: “If you’re going to do one thing, be good at that one thing,” like Zenitsu’s Thunder Breathing.

One-trick pony? It’s easy to say that, but different series like Golden Kamuy capitalize hard on one-trick pony characters, from Sugimoto’s extreme (and painful) survivalism to Shiraishi’s Houdini tactics to Ushiyama’s history as a dangerous judoka. Being good at one thing really only matters if its applicable to other things and in this case, Karuta is both the main connecting element for all the characters and the center of a competition within the series.

Learning from Arata the fundamentals of Karuta, Chihaya is encouraged to go big and make it her dream to become a de facto Karuta world champion, mostly because Karuta doesn’t really exist outside of Japan with the same claim to fame as Mahjong or Hanafuda. Along with the two, an old friend Taichi joins them and his contrast to himself is stark both financially and socially. Taichi is a rich Tokyoite who can actually afford to be petty while Arata’s childhood poverty humbles him greatly. As such, Taichi starts off spoiled and jealous, but his best excuse is due to the high expectations put on him by his family, namely his strict mother. And you thought wealth would be easy!

Yet as the three rejoin as adolescents, they found an afterschool club called the Mizusawa Karuta club and work towards the goal of becoming Karuta champions. I’m still checking the series out as of writing, having only completed episode 1 and the first chapter (and thus getting the research from the Wikipedia page), but other things that stand out is that it’s my first Josei series. Josei is typically aimed at a demographic of young women and is notorious for its inclusion of romance into the plot. Josei itself, sadly, doesn’t get as much exposure as Shonen, Seinen, or Shojo genres which is part of what hurts series like Chihayafuru compared to Akane-banashi, which is under the Shonen genre and licensed by Shonen Jump and Viz Media.

Couple these with the niche of Karuta, whoever expected the series to get wide praise would’ve had to fight sleepless nights for something to hardly ever come from conventional animanga media outlets. And that’s quite a shame. No matter what you think of the concept, the series is beautifully drawn and animated–the production quality narrows the gap between itself and something like The Elusive Samurai.

Channel: Crunchyroll

Speaking of animation, it’s worth pointing out that Chihayafuru was adapted by Madhouse, responsible for Overlord, Trigun, and No Game No Life. This also brings me to another matter going back to Akane-banashi. Niche subjects especially those that would be found in a book on Japanese history and/or culture don’t often get the animanga treatment and if/when they do, not always successfully. Rurouni Kenshin benefits from the battle aspect more so than its setting, as does Samurai Champloo because both series have a concept that has universal knowledge: the samurai and the ronin.

Akane-banashi and Chihayafuru differ by offering battles of wit instead of battles of physical strength and power. They both also rely on parts of Japanese culture that rarely get outside notoriety, leading to limited viewership. I have no idea if the performance of the Chihayafuru anime is a case for why not everything will get an anime adaptation or should not, but if by some chance that was the metric in use, then it’s not a fair assessment to make. Even then, it wouldn’t be the first time the art of rakugo was animated.

Be honest, you only know what this is because of its hyper-energetic ending animation.

No matter the future of Akane-banashi, it still has a future, whereas Chihayafuru’s manga ran from 2007 to 2022 and its anime running from 2011 to 2020. Once again, I call upon my advocacy of piracy to view the anime and/or the manga with little issue.

That Time I Sped-ran the Terminator Movies

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And developed a skepticism of A.I.

Regular viewers will know that in the animanga space, I’m fairly okay with keeping up with series, especially when they merchandise and franchise out like Naruto or Dragon Ball. In the west, however, this gets trickier and more challenging for a number of reasons. Reboots/remakes/retcons, etc., screw with canon so much that it starts to look like a hentai doujin with some of the most accursed tags. Franchising itself, I highlighted just now, but it’s not always done neatly or with a solid plan. For example, Star Wars is the champion and great-grandfather of all references. People are insane enough to catalog every single reference to George Lucas’ brainchild, but what makes this an insane task specifically for this franchise is George Lucas getting in the way of his own vision by constantly remaking everything. Creatives tend to be this way, as I would know, but I’d probably not be this uptight about my own projects.

There are a few series whose franchises I’ve followed with full or near-consistency to say that I approach expert level knowledge. Those three are Deadpool, the reboot Planet of the Apes trilogy, and the topic of this post, Terminator. But while Merc with a Mouth and Upright Apes were more gradual, I started to follow the Terminator franchise more closely around 2014.

I don’t recall specifically what brought this on, but I think it might have been a rumor of sorts of an upcoming movie at the time, the fifth one in the franchise and on reflection one of the least warmly received sequels probably since 2009’s Salvation, Terminator: Genisys.

If I was a cynical asshole, I’d probably write up a snarky review about how the franchise only exists because Arnold made it so in the 1980s, his absence in Salvation proves that he was the adhesive holding it all together, and his return in this one is both a proof of concept while also reminding us that glue eventually ages too. Both harsh and what it would look like if not written by a fan but a critic looking to get paid for every character in their document. But I’m vaulting over the USS Theodore Roosevelt on this one.

The sudden confirmation of another movie made me want to play catch-ups, hold the mustard, on the franchise and I did so in an era prior to my current methods of pirating. Pre-adpocalypse, YouTube let you get away with nearly anything visual media-wise though some artists’ estates and family were hook-deep into the copyright claim booth (or I’d remember being able to listen to Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing at the time), but my first way to look into the franchise was on YouTube, right next to a now deleted channel that had the full length version of Saving Private Ryan. It’s still possible even now to find channels daring to upload full- or seemingly full-length versions of the original 1984 movie, but be careful. Sometimes editing tricks are used to get past the censorship and burn away minutes of your life.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day couldn’t be found on YouTube so I went to a now-defunct torrenting site to watch it. The fate of that site is one shared by several, taken down in a global effort to crack down on piracy. Did it lead to arrests? I didn’t care honestly. Watching movies without spending the pennies to do so was still a challenge for me personally, but I kept trying. I did it with 300 and would nonetheless keep doing it until I discovered services like Tubi and was able to pay for Netflix.

Then of course there was Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines which came out when I was about 4 years old. So technically, this was my introduction to the series, considering I watched it at a babysitter’s house at the time. Rewatching it at 16 and comparing it to the last two films, it was a decent addition to the series as a whole, but not as good as 1 or Judgment Day.

All things considered, I think the third film is looked on two harshly. Dark Fate tried to rewrite it starting here and personally I don’t think Rise of the Machines deserved that. Salvation, however…

I’m exaggerating, but if I had to use a metaphor, if Terminators 1 and 2 were the exciting points, 3 is the midpoint before Salvation starts going down hill, and gradually. I admit that I’m a bit biased here largely because I was watching them all in rapid succession in the lead up to Genisys. Hell, I’d caught up to all the movies long before it was ready for a theatrical release and by the time it released, I once again relied on the dark powers of piracy.

I saw it the following year when I was 17. I don’t remember the trailers spoiling it for me as much, but putting the major plot points, twist included, is almost never a good sign. But I pushed on through and to recap all the movies (spoilers, but it shouldn’t matter anymore):

  1. Terminator 1: cyborg is sent back to kill the mother of the resistance. The resistance has the same idea and sends an agent back to save the mother (and also father the leader of the resistance)
  2. Terminator 2: cyborg is captured and reprogrammed by the resistance to save the leader as a child when the same thing is tried again with an even deadlier model. Mom is also there, in an asylum, “why are you booing me, I’m right” style.
  3. Terminator 3: leader of the resistance afflicted with trauma at the killer cyborgs trying to kill him all his life, another one is his guardian and they try to destroy SkyNet at the source. Love story subplot, chased by Terminatrix, Terminatrix fails, but SkyNet lives on in backup hard drives (I can’t remember it that well)
  4. Terminator 4: full-blown war, leader of resistance sees to combat meanwhile death row inmate is lethal injectioned and transformed unknowingly into a cyborg to get close to the leader but deviates from its mission purpose, leader almost dies but the deviant cyborg/ex-death row inmate saves him at the eleventh hour, SkyNet is disturbingly patient
  5. Terminator 5: resistance ongoing, SkyNet’s next trick is to kill the leader and make a cyborg of him, meanwhile father of the resistance goes back to 1984 as usual (fanservice detected) to find that the timeline’s been f[dial-up modem]ked very thoroughly, they go back to the present (2017) to fight with better weaponry (I think), the Golden Gate Bridge falls for the millionth time in history (it happens a lot in action movies for some reason), cyborg leader of the resistance is defeated, SkyNet still operates…

…and thus was born an effort to rewrite the damn movies. Or at least that’s what the media thought at the time. Dark Fate was the franchise’s last ditch effort at recapturing the magic and to do the third movie justice since it doesn’t fit as neatly into canon as one would’ve hoped pre-release, but the efforts were in vain.

As a fan of the series, Genisys was the let-down that keeps on letting down. It started out well but the grave got so deep, Satan needed to come up and tell the funeral directors that that’s not how grave digging works. I don’t wanna be harsh on the Terminator franchise, the concept does still play on a lot of fears and anxieties, many of which are becoming true 40 years later, but to see where it is now is disappointing. The only thing I have to show for it now is an uncanny apprehension for anything A.I. It took me longer than normal to even try using chatbots and I treat them like Wikipedia or r/AskReddit most of the time. I guess I’m just still testing it. For what it’s worth, if you’re going to go into the franchise yourself, watch the first 3 movies and then maybe go watch the Sarah Connor Chronicles TV series.

And then finish it off with the R-rated uncut version of Robocop 1 and 2 for more sci-fi action gore.

Shimoneta, High School DxD, and Monster Musume: Horny Trio

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The three that carried me in community college

Yonks ago, I mentioned an upcoming post that was initially meant to be just another double bill, but it occurred to me that there was a third series that I felt was appropriate to lump in with the other two. These are the three anime that I watched all through college:

  1. Shimoneta: A Boring World Where the Concept of Dirty Jokes Doesn’t Exist
  2. High School DxD, and;
  3. Monster Musume

And we’ll go through them one-by-one. The titles of each should be a giveaway but just in case: each of these series contains sexually suggestive themes, language and imagery. Reader discretion is advised.

Shimoneta (2015):

Another anime to get its start in the world of early 2010s light novels, Shimoneta’s concept is exactly as it says on the tin. All language of a sexually suggestive or provocative nature is illegal and if uttered, the speaker(s) is/are arrested by the Decency Squad, a specialized morality police unit whose purpose is to track down and subdue anyone who dares utter such obscene words.

How do they know people are saying s[poop]t, f[moans]k, and ass? By the collars around their necks. They’re designed (read: programmed) to monitor different trigger words, I suspect, by way of detecting the movements of the mouth when certain words are spoken, sort of like how most YouTubers, TikTokers, etc. have to censor/monitor their own speech to keep from the Demon of Demonitization at bay. (Side note: f[plastic wrap]k the algorithm for doing that to our favorite creators.)

One such character is the protagonist, Tanukichi Okuma. He’s a brand new student to Tokioka Academy and a witness to the indecency of another character he meets later: Blue Snow, real name Ayame Kajou. Ayame takes the alias of Blue Snow whilst on a crusade to dismantle the shackles of this dystopian system of policing speech by way of challenging the response time of the Decency Squad. Under normal circumstances, suggestive language is how you get slapped on the dick (or in Ayame’s case, the tits), but she evades that by dialing a number on her cellphone that deactivates the collar on her neck for three minutes a day, letting her unleash a bevy of inappropriate sayings.

Based on her appearance here, Ayame adopts a Clark Kent persona when around others only to don a mask (a pair of panties, yes, really) when it’s time for her 180 seconds of lewd infamy.

The series isn’t just a man vs society conflict at play, there’s an actual antagonist in the series and she starts off as innocent and pure until the following happens to her:

Channe: Khánh Senseii Anime Kiss

The birth of the villainess of this series. Anna Nishikinomiya begins the series as the class president of Tokioka, but after a mishap in one of the episodes, Okuma plants a kiss on her by accident. If she had any knowledge of even romance, she’d probably have a normal reaction, but this unleashes metaphorical and literal floodgates. She conflates love with lust and 85% of the scenes that she’s in is a display of female-on-male sexual assault/rape. I’m not kidding.

Obviously, it’s played for laughs in the series and there’s a lot to be said about societal discourse surrounding male victims and their female perpetrators (a discussion I’m not qualified to talk about on a blog based on entertainment, but would have no problem entertaining in mixed company), but without getting too dark and focusing mainly on the central theme of the series, Shimoneta is a display of the consequences of policing morality and human behavior. If you’ve been on the internet for quite some time, you may recall an era when cancel culture went haywire and a small fraction of forum posters chastised trolls online to hell and back for a few racy comments here and there. Not that it was unwarranted, the internet around the time of the GamerGate controversy was an interesting time to be on the internet, but interspersed with genuine policing were impromptu witch hunts conflating ignorance with curiosity, and this went beyond just suggestive or provocative commentary, lest we forget the cultural appropriation vs appreciation argument that was prevalent at the time. Though these days, the conversation has moved towards intentionally ignoring sex organs, due to a variety of factors that have massively influenced the internet. Sorry, digressing.

In Shimoneta’s case, it proves how difficult at the least; Sisyphean at the most such a task of policing even speech can be. Not to mention a shortfall that accompanies the series from start to finish about how to go about this. You’ll notice that speech patterns themselves are the main crime, not the physical aspect itself. Now, there would still be procreation which this world would likely allow for survival’s sake, but another conversation can be had about how conspiracy to commit is addressed more seriously than an actual crime in this world.

This blog from 2018 has more to say about Anna herself and with a finer brush than the broadstrokes I employed here.

Having said all that, I still recommend this anime for anyone wanting a closer look at an example of how bad overpolicing behavior can get or if you just wanna see the most athletic Japanese school girl in the world hunt down the object of her “affection.” Beware her homemade cookies, IYKYK. Now onto:

High School DxD (2012-2018)

My personal favorite for being R-rated and uncensored, the light novel ran from 2008 to 2018, ending around the same time as the anime’s fourth season. Whereas Shimoneta’s content is light on explicit nudity and fan service, High School DxD throws the censorship to the wind. Back during the Funimation days, the English dub played up both the nudity and the jiggle physics. From threatening to get naked to actually getting naked; I like the progression so far.

In High School DxD, Kuoh Academy recently transitions into a co-ed school for the new schoolyear. A few male students enroll, likely taking advantage of the 8 to 1 ratio of girls to boys in the hopes of scoring big before Kuoh fully integrates. One of these boys is a massive pervert and otaku named Issei Hyoudo. He initially fits the bill of a stereotypical otaku in all but appearance. Body pillows, an alarm clock with different anime girl archetypes waking him up every morning, an extensive hentai and porn collection shared with his two other friends, and a MIGHTY NEED to get some titty.

It just so happens that one particular set of breasts happens to belong to this devilishly gorgeous redhead, Rias Gremory. More than just a sight for sore eyes, Lady Rias is a fierce fighter and one to defend those she cherishes to her dying breath. Outside of battle, she’s a kindhearted young woman, compassionate, and reliable. She’s the head of Kuoh’s occult club, thinly masking her connection to the paranormal as a devil herself and making great use of the common tropes associated with angels and demons/devils: angels are depicted as bone ugly to ward off evil while demons are depicted as drop dead gorgeous to tempt mankind into following their id. In an ironic twist, the series depicts devils as more heroic than the beings they fight against.

As much as I make that sound like an engagement wearing the clothes of praise, there’s an actual plot behind the plot here. It takes a lot of cues and tropes from the Christian bible with the concept of angels, devils, and fallen angels. Following the devils, their depiction seems more sympathetic in the series as the factions do have a fair share of shady and unscrupulous characters. The overall plot plays up the biblical angle with the fan service going into overdrive, so Rias, Issei, and the Occult club are all (knights) in service of Satan, or in this case, in service of one of those appointed as a satan. To quote Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, “if you’re gonna be a sinner, be the best sinner on the block,” and it seems that Issei is guaranteed to live up to those ideals.

The juxtaposition of magical action and theological babble with T and A and convenient panty shots is what kept me going until about halfway through the fourth season. When it comes to censorship, normally I’m an opponent depending on the company I’m with. Throwing out f[crunch]ks, s[footsteps]ts, damns, asses, and other such forbidden words in a room full of bureaucrats allergic to the sun makes you seem immature compared to a gathering of mobsters, gangsters, or even servicemembers, all things considered. I censor swearing and nudity here for presentability and professionalism, but seeing as I’m writing about a trio of anime that joke or outright show you uncensored boobs, if it wasn’t for the presentation, this whole blog would have no reins. Before we move on to the third and final series I want to talk about, let this ending convince you to watch High School DxD if the above hasn’t already:

Channel: SE NPAI

And last but certainly not least:

Monster Musume (2015):

A harem series like High School DxD but appealing to even more fetishes while also putting the protagonist in a tricky situation like Shimoneta, though with a different context. The plot of this horny adjacent series is that monster girls of various mythical origins are enrolled in a program not dissimilar from foreign exchange student programs in real life and one of the people who is accidented/voluntold into the program is regular human person No. 4986 Kimihito Kurusu.

One of the coordinators, Agent Smith, mistakenly sends a lamia (snake girl) Miia to his house to take care of her under the the circumstances that they refrain from conflict or copulation. Easy rules for Kurusu to follow considering the consequences, but as the series goes on and more and more monster girls share a roof with the man, his physical restraints are put to the test seeing as these women are physically capable of bending him like straw. More than once, he’s been grievously injured through accidents as none of the girls are even remotely aware of their gap in human endurance and their own strength.

Basically, it’s the equivalent of swapping Kratos, a character of pure strength and raw anger with Lester the Unlikely from his titular game. Kurusu exists in a world where monster girls damage him even without the promise or threat of snu snu, and yet, he’s not that kind of guy to engage in his temptations. Using Okuma and Issei as a scale of unfortunate to pervy, Kurusu is definitely closer to Okuma, yet we can put in a different category for him specifically seeing as how he doesn’t exactly live to fulfill is silly desires. He’s a blank slate of sorts that the viewer may put themselves in the shoes of.

Monster Musume has the makings of a horror show without the horror. It’s a harem romcom slice of life with horror elements featuring a protagonist who simply wants to live the most normal life allowed by this society, but is forced to share not only this world, but his dwelling with a harem of monster girls he’s forbidden from touching intimately because the agent that f[piano]ked him is functionally identical to Aqua from KonoSuba.

Don’t let the Matrix reference fool you, she’s not as efficient as those clones. But she does look good in a suit.

Another thing worth mentioning is that while the other two series in this post began as light novels, Monster Musume is a manga first, with a spin off light novel series that also got an anime adaptation: Monster Girl Doctor.

Take these three as my recommendations for when you think there’s too much wholesomeness to go around and not enough lewdness. There’s the possibility of getting muscled by the thirstiest girl in the world whilst on a crusade to curtail censorship; a harem of lovely ladies whose tits shake even when still; and a harem of lovely mythical monster ladies who’d each be wife material all their own if it wasn’t for the rules.

Whatever pirate site you watch your anime on (don’t worry, your secret is safe with me), give these all a watch if you haven’t done so already. And if you’ve seen them, see them again! Do it!!