Blog Archive

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Choyoyu ends:

Fantastic franchises are ending left and right these days.  Today I read the final volume of Choyoyu, aka, 'High School Prodigies in Another World,' volume 10.  First the anime ended so I read the manga, then the manga ended so I read the books.  Now the books are over and the whole story is complete.  Volume 10 was great, in keeping with the entire series, which relies on philosophical debate instead of combat to resolve differences.  This volume was taken to the extreme -- the bad guy was so much stronger than them that there was no hope of resistance, even with an arsenal of nuclear weapons.  At that point the only thing you can do is persuade your opponent, and so that's what they did, in a believable manner that would persuade anyone -- an all you can eat buffet with hot soup, bunny girls and diamond jewelry.

It's a shame Tsukasa went with Lyrule instead of Ringo but oh well, you can't win them all.  Ringo has the greater glory of being represented in '100 Waifus,' so overall she wins.

With these tales' conclusions, 13 out of my favorite 28 light novel series are completed and translated into English, and 37 out of 75 of my favorite manga are the same.  They're both a little under half.  It's great for two different series of this worth to end on the same day, but as you can see we're still nowhere near satisfactory.  English translators need to step up their game, as do Japanese authors, and see all these works through to completion.  If I can do it so can they.

Mikakunin de Shinkoukei ends:

The final chapter had lots of color panels and was particularly beautiful.  Nothing climactic occurred.  They continued their ordinary lives, getting along, and got married.  Kobeni in her wedding dress was unrecognizable.  Hairstyle and makeup changes a lot.  ^_^.  They lived happily ever after.  This ideal ending is exactly what I wanted and expected from one of the top 100 waifus ever made, and one of the top 100 relationships ever shown in fiction.  My story borrowed from the best.  Now I don't have to worry about the canon source work contradicting my follow-up anymore, everything is aligned because nothing changed in the canon story for years.

I did have to make another edit to '100 Waifus,' sadly meaning my new paperback copy is already out of date.  The Burj Khalifa is spelled with an 'h,' which I hadn't noticed until now.  But at least the spelling is corrected now, and at least the error is so minor it doesn't much matter that I can't correct the paperback version.  At least the digital version of the book is perfect.

I've begun playing Unicorn Overlord and it's perfect.  An amazing, updated Ogre Battle with voice acting, HD graphics, more complicated gameplay, a larger world, etc.  Ogre Battle was already perfect and they found a way to improve upon the formula.  I hope the game stretches on and on because I never want to stop playing.  There are so many different classes and each class gets new skills as they level, plus equipment also can give you new skills, and basically the game is infinitely deep.  I like that my army is getting rather huge but still is composed of named characters who are integral to the plot.  Everyone in the army feels significant despite being a small portion of my battle power.

I finished my rewatch of Sokushi Cheat, thus proving it belongs as a great anime in my rankings.  The humor of everyone dying instantly is great, but the main draw of the story is how sweet and charming Tomochika is and what great outfits she wears.  She really is the star of the show.  The only anime left to rewatch is Sousou no Frieren, but I'm in no hurry.  If you want to be technical I've already rewatched the first 'cour' of Frieren, and that alone would be enough to justify its ranking, so it has earned its place too by now.

March Madness resumes tomorrow, and continues for the next four days, so the crazy busy days of March continue.

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Now the Fire Emblem Holy War manga is also over:

Maybe I haven't been following the story closely enough, or my memory just sucks, but this final chapter seems to come out of the blue and declare everything solved when in fact nothing was solved.  What happened to that evil brother of Julia backed by some sort of evil dark god or demon or whatever with some sort of evil clan of demon worshippers?  Did I just forget when they were defeated?  Oh well.  The sheer number of characters in that story who all looked alike made it almost impossible to understand.

The manga admits that it ceased following the plot of the game at some point, which makes it all the more frustrating.

There's nothing new about Islamic terrorism.  It's a feature of their religion that they are completely merciless towards the infidel (or heretic when it's internecine violence).  It is odd that these ISIS terrorists were less fanatical than usual, running away and trying to preserve their lives instead of dying as martyrs while killing as many enemies as they could.  That might imply they're actually some other group only posing as Islamic terrorists, or it might imply they were just a particularly cowardly group of Islamic terrorists.  The killers said they did it for money, but that's absurd.  What use is money if you don't live to collect?  And there's no way they could possibly go into the heart of Moscow, shoot up all those people for an hour, and then drive off in the same car as they came, and expect to get away long enough to collect some wonderful bounty.  Most Islamic terrorists expect to collect their reward in paradise, they aren't so stupid as to think they can get away with these acts on Earth.  There are plenty of Muslims who hate Russia, who has been fighting a war with Islamic radicals since forever.  Honestly for hundreds of years, but recently against ISIS in Syria and the Chechens.  So it would have made so much more sense if these guys were just random aggrieved Muslims who said they did it because they hated Russia and don't fear death because Allah will give them 72 virgins.

Because these Muslims are so different from normal it makes you wonder if they aren't secretly Ukrainian agents only posing as ISIS.  Ukraine has already established that they're totally fine with mass murdering innocent civilians and attempt to do so every day.  This is just the sort of thing they'd do.  If some Ukrainian groomers found some dumb, amoral Tajiks and spun them some dumb story about how they could kill all these people for money and get away with it, that would explain why they were Muslim terrorists but didn't think like Muslim terrorists or act like Muslim terrorists.

But it's just as likely these Muslims were just dumb or cowardly or whatever and that's why they didn't act like all other Muslim terrorists in history.  The plausible deniability makes it impossible to punish Ukraine for this, or the USA or Britain or whatever spy agency planned this attack.  Maybe they did, but maybe they didn't, so there's no way to get the world's sympathy on your side if you lash out against someone you perceive to be the culprit but nobody else does.  I think Russia will just have to take this hit on the chin like all the others, Nordstream and the like.  I don't think there will ever be conclusive proof as to who the real perpetrators were.

Regardless, these Muslims are a perfect example why Islam should be destroyed, its ideology and adherents wiped off the face of the map and transferred to the ash heap of history.  This is what they're always doing, whether it's 9/11, Beslan, Moscow, October 7th, Spain, London, France, Indonesia, India, etc., etc.  They're fanatical killing machines who have declared war on the entire world.  It's us or them, and if we follow the current trend line it's going to be them.  They keep expanding in territory and population, and we keep shrinking.  We can't keep letting them get away with this shit.  There have to be consequences.  Muslims are not victims, they're perpetrators.  We're the victims.  Just because our military is stronger than theirs doesn't mean we have to let them get away with everything and we can never retaliate.  We should exercise our advantage while we still have it, because in 50 years or so they're going to be stronger than us, and we'll rue the day we missed our opportunity because it felt like bullying or unsportsmanlike or whatever.

Islam is an ideology.  It can be completely extinguished without a single person having to die.  No 'innocent' need face any consequences.  All they have to do is renounce Islam and join the civilized world in the fight against Islam.  But no one who sticks to this religion is innocent, by definition.  It is the religion of mass murder and genocide, rape and child molestation, slave raiding, genital mutilation, wrapping women in trash bags, and forbidding scientific innovation.  The sooner the world realizes this the sooner we could liberate the world from this awful burden weighing us all down -- Muslims also suffer from being Muslim, just like we suffer from Islamic terrorism and crime.  Every atrocity we suffer is optional, it's a voluntary decision, we could stomp out Islam in a day.  I've been calling for it for decades.  In the end if you tolerate evil in your midst you can't really say you're the victim of it.  Your tolerance is an implicit approval that means you're just as much the perpetrator as the Tajik of the day.  People who refuse to treat Islam like the evil ideology it is have no right to complain when Islam rises up to bite them.

There's nothing new under the sun.  The attack on Moscow yesterday could have been a news story from any time in the last 50 years.  It's all so tiresome to keep recommending solutions or offer condolences or condemn the evildoers when you know nothing is going to happen and nothing will ever change.  We may as well treat these attacks like bad weather events and ignore them they're such an unchanging feature of life.  The political will necessary to change the world for the better isn't there.  Not only on this issue, but every issue, so we'll just have to ignore politics and find happiness as individuals.  That's all any individual can do.

It's a shame Oakland lost in overtime.  I was really rooting for the Cinderella story to continue.  It looks like March Madness isn't going to be that 'mad' this time around, all the favored teams are winning.

Villains to the Rescue:

My fictional character hall of fame was down 2 entries compared to its initiation, which was unacceptable, given that I'd finally thrown off all limits to its size and was looking forward to growing the list, not shrinking it.  But it turns out I don't have to wait until I've played Unicorn Overlord, there were two obvious inclusions available already -- Orochimaru and Rob Lucci.  These super cool villains from Naruto and One Piece aren't people you'd want to name your sons after, but they are people who personally elevated the stories they were in to unprecedented heights.  Strong, smart, with sinister long term planning skills and backed by powerful organizations, the two are strangely similar.  They're both masters of infiltration.  One transforms into a snake and the other into a leopard, but that's still similar considering most people don't transform into animals at all.

The same as years ago, 1/5 of great anime is still receiving new content.  But what's really impressive is 100% of the top 9 anime is receiving new content.  The top 14 is almost 100% too, with 86% receiving sequels soon.  Since 1/3 of all great anime in terms of quantity of episodes is concentrated on this very top echelon, what happens at the top has more impact than everything going on at the bottom.  I'd say the anime industry is still going to be fine until these major, top 20 type franchises take their final bows.  And it isn't clear when that's going to happen, for any of them.  There's even rumors that the Bleach manga is going to resume after all this time.  At the very least we'll be fine until 2026.

Sousou no Frieren ended without an anime sequel announcement, but it did make vague hints that there would probably be a sequel someday.  I'm so confident this series will get a sequel I'm not even adding it to my wishlist.  It's assured already so wishing is pointless.  It's one of the most popular series of all time, beloved by critics and the masses alike.

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Manga coming and going:

The bad news is Dragon Ball Super, One Piece and Sousou no Frieren are all going on hiatus, and Isekai Shihai no Skill Taker is over.  The good news is Release that Witch and Zettai Karen Children are being translated again.  So about the same amount of good manga is coming out as before.

I watched the first episode of Sand Land (by Akira Toriyama) and was distressed to find out it was cg, not anime, and basically a ripoff of Disgaea.  That's all I needed to see before I dropped it.  I hope Dragon Ball Daima is better than this or Toriyama's dying legacy won't amount to much.

I was so confident that this 41st edition of '100 Waifus' was the final completely edited version that I ordered yet another paperback version of the book, this time updated to the latest edition.  I want at least one real copy of the real final version of this masterpiece.  If the first paperback didn't work out, try, try again.  Now my plan is to read this coming paperback for the 42nd time and prove the book really doesn't need any further edits and my work is done.  42 is the number known as the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything, so maybe this book, the all-book, which has all the answers, was fated to be read 42 times before it was done.

Sokushi Cheat's anime ended today.  I hope it gets a sequel season.  The source work is already finished so they could adapt the whole thing. . .if there was any justice in this world. . . And if pigs had wings. . .

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Music Hall of Fame updated:

This has been a long time coming.  I've been listening to Granblue Fantasy Relink's soundtrack for weeks now (listening 100 times while reading '100 Waifus,' killing two birds with one stone.)  Combined with the one new song from FF7 Rebirth, Gongaga Region, there were 33 new songs I wanted to add to my music hall of fame.  However, I also wanted to stick with 5500 songs overall, and exactly 1100 songs per each rating tier, 1 through 5.  This was a tall order and and an insane amount of work.

First off, I was extremely tough on the Relink music, rarely giving it more than 1 star, because a 1-star song will only displace one song, but any higher and you end up needing to demote 2, 3, or 4 songs.  Only extraordinarily good songs got good ratings -- Managarmr Sequestration Primal and Pyet A received 4-star ratings.  Gongaga Region received a 5-star rating.  For Lyria's True Happiness, Seedhollow Theme, and Sundappled Grove Battle received 3-star ratings.  Ainsteddo Battle, Clear Horizons, Leautagne Island, and Rolan's Theme received 2-star ratings.  The rest 1-star.

Due to this I only had to find a manageable number of songs to demote from my 4, 3, and 2 star tiers.  After listening to every single song in my entire hall of fame, I did find enough songs to demote to make room.  I also found some songs to promote.  I flipped four 4-star themes to 5-star:  Okaerinasai, The Great Sword's Base, Main Theme of Terra Battle and Snake Remains Chamber.  To make room I demoted Gift, What Lies Within, flowers and Yuusha.  To make room for Gongaga Region I demoted Battle of the Heroes.

I flipped some 3-star songs to 4 -- Ima Kono Toki wo, Priere, Head Like a Hole, Heavy Slash, Fighting Black Cat Girl, Cold Wind Flash and Full Bloom in the Breeze.  I also up-jumped two songs all the way from 1-star to 4-star -- Lost Shine from Uma Musume and Rat a Tat!!! from Idolm@ster.  I forget who I demoted to make room.

I deleted six songs entirely from my 1-star tier, never wanting to hear them again.  But I still needed 27 more songs to disappear to make room for the new Granblue content.  The solution was to stitch together a bunch of short songs into singular medleys.  I created a Mega Man medley and an rpg game medley, which absorbed a bunch of short songs which really didn't deserve a full slot in my hall of fame, and turned them into respectable longer songs like their neighbors.

I can pull this trick off a few more times, because I still have songs as short as 22 seconds long, but only a few more times.  Around 30 seconds in length songs become reasonable and competitive with their longer cousins.  At that point I think I'll give up on maintaining my perfect equilibrium of 5500 songs and 1100 per tier.  It's just too much work balancing everything.  It's crazy how much effort it took to do this, I don't ever want to do this again.  But at least for a few more months I can hold the line.  Who knows, maybe there won't be any more good music ever released for the rest of time and I can rest easy.  I can always hope.

For anyone who wants to dig down into all the gory details, there's always my good music permapost, which has been updated with all the new changes and information.

I'm done editing my music and my book.  Now I can relax and watch March Madness in peace.  No more work!

'In Another World With 100 Waifus' read and edited for the 41st time:

First off, congratulations to Stetson and Grambling for their first invitation to the Dance.  I've timed things perfectly, finishing my reread right when March Madness begins.  No downtime in my life, that's for sure.

Chapter 59 had two more edits.  I changed the word 'between' to 'over' for greater clarity, and 'Muslims' to 'Moors' for greater parallelism.  It doesn't make sense to talk about Mongols, Muslims and Turks -- Mongols and Turks were also Muslim.  So what I needed was to specify the second group of Muslims into a more granular tribe like I had the first and third groups, and Moor turned out to be what I was looking for.  Chapter 59 is the newest chapter so it makes sense that there's still some slapdash wording in need of improvement.  But now it's fixed.  Now the entire book is fixed.  People can read the new and improved '100 Waifus' now, knowing that all problems have been ironed out, and only smooth sailing awaits them:

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-1.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-2.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/02/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-3.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/03/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-4.html

https://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2019/05/in-another-world-with-100-waifus-part-7.html

The nature of the edits this time were twofold -- the name gallery and a couple sentences were changed to reflect my new knowledge stemming from playing Irotoridori no Sekai and FF7 Rebirth since the previous edition -- and a few minor errors or poor phrasings were fixed that had been overlooked up until now.  Every possible way to improve the book has been utilized.  I haven't experienced any new art since Irotoridori and Rebirth, so '100 Waifus' is absolutely totally up to date, and by reading the paperback version of the book I was able to more easily catch all the remaining errors in need of correction.  In other words the book is as perfect as I can make it.  I thought that was true of the 40th edition, but it's now definitely true of the 41st.

Unlike the previous editions, I didn't come away from this book thinking 'waifu x didn't get enough screen time, I should add in another scene with her.'  Waifus x, y, and z all got enough screen time to make whatever points they needed to make.  Why they liked Christopher, why Christopher liked them, it's all there in the book already.  Even Levy got her day in the sun.

This book is basically the combination of three things -- intimacy, name galleries, and creating utopia.  Reading the intimate portions in paperback is even more immersive and erotic than before.  Those portions completely floored me.  I was amazed at their power considering this was the 41st time (and only a month since the last time), it was more emotional than ever before.  For people who think making love, expressing or showing affection is boring or belittling, I can only extend my pity for your desiccated soul.  It's in fact the best thing in life, and it's no wonder that the writing that conveys it is the best writing in the world.

The name galleries were a chore this time.  There were so very many names, so often coming back to back with nothing else inbetween.  But I admit doing my homework paid off.  By paying close attention to the names I was able to identify areas for improvement and improve the book thereby.  In addition I was able to improve the fictional character hall of fame, a related but separate permapost, changing over 30 names for the better.  So I'm glad even for this part of the book.

As for describing and building the perfect society and creed from the ground up, the book pulled this off perfectly.  Chapter 4, Chapter 15, Chapter 40, Chapters 44-46, Chapter 52, Chapter 58, Chapter 59.  Each of them gave an amazing and unbeatable argument for why Christopher's world and worldview is superior to modernity.  Of course this argument, this pleading, can be found everywhere, across the entire book, but it's more pronounced and persuasive in those sections.  The arguments are irrefutable.  They cannot be made any better, nor can there be any utopia better than Eden's.  As Cute says, 'This is the place to build a home.  This is the place to start a family.'

To paraphrase Haruka Haruno, "this book is the best at everything!"  It has the best and most physical, emotional and spiritual bonding, the best and most names, and the best philosophy and most persuasive arguments for people to adopt said philosophy.

I come away from this book in awe that it exists and that I was able to write it.  There is nothing else like it in this world.  Just to be clear about what just happened -- I reread '100 Waifus' for the 41st time, a month after reading it for the 40th time, instead of a) playing a new great visual novel, b) playing more of the best video game of all time, FF7 Rebirth, c) playing an all new video game which is also surely great, Unicorn Overlord, d) rewatching my 4th favorite anime, Pretty Cure.  A book, mere words on paper, for the 41st time, beat anime, visual novels and video games.

There is only one book in the world that can do that, and it's this one right here.