Hacky, slash-y, chained weapon attack-y
Another week, another comparison between two games I’ve talked about at length on this blog before concerning warriors scorned by the powers that be and in a way that requires service to an opponent and/or taking the entirety of the Pantheon and unleashing the wrath of Timur the Lame onto it.
Maybe it was a coincidence, but Stalin never should’ve trusted Hitler for that long. Same with Mussolini, they already hated each other.
Read More »赤くノ一VS隻狼
I don’t think Google Translate is doing me any favors.
Two weeks ago, I revisited the video game Red Ninja: End of Honor after leaving it be for a few months and briefly mentioning it during the 2025 Year in Review wrap-up. I was initially left quite sour by its dodgy mechanics interfering terribly with the plot and keeping me from getting as far as I wanted. The exploration design philosophy combines objectives with freedom of exploration so there’s no two ways to clear a level, which excites me having played Castlevania and various Metroidvanias, sometimes of a lewder variety to go along with the gothic subculture of Castlevania.
This has a SFW version if you wanna game without playing with two joysticks.
Read More »Alternatively known as: Jack, And, S[monkeys]t
Breaking up the Red Ninja: End of Honor Blog Post Saga momentarily to bring you the wonderful world of an animanga series featuring otaku culture and the comedic deconstruction of otaku culture.
No, not that one. We did that before. Twice.
Read More »A GAP! THERE’S A GAP!! NURSE!!!
Yeah, I intended for this week’s post to be about the Fate franchise, but that behemoth requires attention that I can’t split from a bunch of other things work and non-work related. The dedication necessary to commit to it exists, but it’s going to be broken off from several other things I either need to do or am viewing first. Something something undivided attention, something something divided like a math problem, something something… yeah, I can definitely do it, but whether I remember to knock it out before Christmas this year is up in the air with all the moving parts laid out and getting ready to be laid out so instead, I’ll knock out some thoughts and opinions for once about things I care about.
Yet it was available for free on Tubi a few years ago
Due in no small part to its popularity and wide appeal, Shonen action-battle series get all the media attention at home and abroad, unintentionally hiding other genres in the process. So it’s not a big surprise or concern when people erroneously claim that the longest running animanga series is One Piece, or JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, or Dragon Ball. All have been running for decades, with the latter two debuting at the end of the Showa era. The subject of this post however has been in serialization since 1968.
If you don’t deal with your demons, they will deal with you
Late anime director Satoshi Kon created and directed the 2004 anime series Paranoia Agent. In 2020, Toonami picked up the series for broadcast for my viewing pleasure. It follows a timid character designer known as Tsukiko Sagi who gains fame from a pink dog mascot known as Maromi. Under pressure from higher-ups to imitate and essentially mass produce her prior success, she finds herself knocked unconscious by a mysterious boy on golden skates wielding a crooked gold bat. The detectives on the scene, Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwa, don’t fully buy the story until another victim shows up and after that come more and more victims of the attacks. Every victim has essentially the same description of the perp: young buy with inline skates, a crooked bat, and a baseball cap. There’s two names for the kid in sub and dub: the sub refers to him as Golden Bat; and the dub refers to him as Lil’ Slugger. The dub name for the “antagonist” might be some holdover from times past, but I prefer Golden Bat because it’s one of the most identifiable objects on the antagonist’s person.
From a plot standpoint, Kon’s creation is a mystery thriller with some psychological horror blended into this cocktail. You don’t know who the antagonist is beyond the victim’s descriptions so that nails down the mystery. He’s a serial assaulter who attacks without warning, which adds to the thriller elements. And the psychological horror element has to do with the nature of the attacks. Post-assault all of the characters can consistently describe what was going on when they were attacked and what the assailant looked like or was wielding, but prior to that just about every one of them has some sort of mental health condition that makes them somewhat unreliable. That, or they’re some kind of opportunist with an ulterior motive or they’re hiding a deep, dark secret that they’d rather bring with them to the grave than make peace with.
Even more British than the GTA series
Although the GTA series routinely satirizes American culture from the safety and comfort of the same three locations–budget NYC, discount Miami, and dollar store Los Angeles, plus surrounding areas–the heart and soul of the series is Britain and there was an expansion pack for the original GTA, set in London and featuring James Bond of all people.
Not for nothing, I welcome more games set in the UK to break the mold for a change
Read More »One of the few Rockstar products nearly banned in the U.S.
Banning and heavily scrutinizing entertainment products has been a time-honored tradition ever since Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, and Doom were released in the early 1990s. Violence, gore, and in Night Trap’s case, violence against women. All of these follow on a legacy of learning too late that being devil may care about the contents of an entertainment product can lead to controversy and public outcry. Not all of these can be accurately predicted, but if I didn’t do my research on Jaws or Gremlins before taking my kids there, I’d really have only myself to blame if the kids have nightmares.
Never mind the boat, you’re gonna need to explain to the misses why Timmy doesn’t like sharks all of a sudden before sleeping on the couch tonight.
Read More »What I’ve been reading this year
Right before we get to the crux of this post, I had a second look at my notes and noticed a gap between November 28 and December 12. I forgot to fill that in in time so before we properly wrap it up, next week will be something of an intermission discussing a controversial video game even by RockStar’s standards. Here’s a few vague hints: Jack Thompson tried to have it made illegal, it was banned in several countries, including the US at first, and the real kicker, it’s primarily a stealth game, so you get rewards when you knock skulls around without people noticing. Now for the real focus of this post.
The end of the year is on the horizon and before we close out the Year of Cordis Die, let’s recap some of the manga I’ve been pirating. I’ve talked at length about manga I’ve been pirating and recommending for as long as this blog has been up, some series I’ve recommended and others I haven’t mentioned yet. So for this post, there will be updates on what I’ve been reading this year, coupled with some looks at manga I’ve yet to mention on the blog. Here’s some series I have lined up, unordered:
Some of these are familiar to the long-timers, others I haven’t spoken a word of once on this blog, even in passing. Take these as holiday recommendations to get you through the time-honored tradition of repeating yesterday’s Christmas songs until Boxing Day.
Read More »The story of one of the best demon hunters with a supplement
Making another breakthrough in legacy video game franchises this time with Devil May Cry, the story of Dante, a supernatural gun for hire who hunts down every paranormal entity on earth to keep these forces from invasion and conquest. In his arsenal are a pair of handguns lovingly dubbed Ebony and Ivory to reflect their coloring, one blued and one chromed, so if you were in the market for a pair of collector’s items, you’ve gotta make sure Dante’s dead enough to pilfer his weapons. A sword is also attached to his back and seems to do roughly the same amount of damage as the buster sword from Final Fantasy VII.
The series debuted in 2001, spearheaded by Capcom when they were still respectable and didn’t pimp out the Resident Evil series over the course of the 2000s. Now let me see if I’ve got this right: a man named Dante ventures through hellish conditions to bring the light of the lord to humanity. Yes, the independent game wiki and associated Wikipedia page both mention the Divine Comedy as a source of inspiration, but unlike Dante Alighieri’s satire of the Holy See, Capcom’s crack adds 2000s edginess that’d be replicated in the likes of God of War and Max Payne, adds a skills-based combat system mostly based on your ability to move and shoot (though less balletic John Woo/Matrix-like than Max Payne, and more Soul Eater’s Death the Kid sans the strong pinky action).
Kid must do push-ups with his pinkies to be able to pull this off
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Opinions on Entertainment 