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Wulff

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Posts posted by Wulff

  5. Posted

    I already posted my picture but seeing as people are blogging, I'm going to as well.

     

    The year of anime that was 2016 feels very foggy to me in retrospect. In general, I just had a really hard time picking out stuff that was really memorable in terms of anime, which is why my picture is very empty compared to the 2015 one. I was struggling to put shows/characters in each of the categories and I couldn't even think of honourable mentions for most of them. I blame the fact that so much happened in my personal life (joining the army, finishing basic, blablabla). It actually bothers me, because I don't think that 2016 was a bad year for anime, which is why I am going to earnestly try and think back on the year in this post.

     



    Winter 2016

    Oh boy, where to begin. Ignoring that I just said that 2016 wasn't a bad year for anime, the winter season for me was an almost unmitigated disaster. The director of Darker than Black released his new show Dimension W and it fell short on just about every expectation I had of it. I couldn't even finish it, it was that offensive to me. I had to call it quits halfway when it started a who-dun-it murder/mystery arc that felt really tangential, which just isn't OK in a 12 episode anime. When a show is that short, it has to be to the point content wise or it just ends up going no where. The only good thing we got from Dimension W was the dance performed by one of the shows protagonists in the OP. It stands out for being laughably out of place. The winter season also brought us Dagashi Kashi, which was pure product placement and ad-space thinly veiled behind a poor anime plotline with plenty of suggestive content and general fanservice. I had an interest originally because I thought the show had neat character designs (and it does), but it's just a whole big pile of nothing and most episodes are simply the female lead eating various different phallic candies while the male lead tries to contain his raging boner. At least the porn is good.

     

    The season wasn't all bad however, as it did give us three anime that I consider well above par for the average. Namely Ajin, Boku Dake ga Inai Machi and KonoSuba. I've already blogged about these three extensively in the past, so all I'll say is if you go and read the synopsis for each of them and think "yeah this sounds like it could be okay", definitely watch them. They're good.

     

    [Note: Winter also aired "Shouwa Genruko Rakugo Shinjuu" which I haven't seen myself but have been told is Elder God Tier in terms of pure anime greatness.]

     



    Spring 2016

    The spring season had a lot of good, some bad and one extremely controversial anime. It was also the season I watched the most total anime in (11 shows). Studio Dogakobo who have become my favourites when it comes to animating cute girls doing cute things produced perhaps their most painfully mediocre tv anime in recent memory, Sansha Sanyou. It wasn't bad, it was just overwhelmingly average and relatively uninteresting. It didn't give me the same fuzzy feelings that their later show NEW GAME! would do. Production IMS (renowned for being very average in everything they do) released High School Fleet (or "HaiFuri") which I was hoping would be akin to Girls und Panzer but with warships. Instead it turned out to be frustratingly stupid and took itself way too seriously. It failed to balance the fluffy elements with the serious ones and ended up falling flat on its face. I like the German naval officer whose name I forget, every other character sucked, fuck off Garfield you fat cat.

     

    Studio Trigger most famous for Kill la Kill and Little Witch Academia released their pet project "Kiznaiver" and was met with raised eyebrows and half-hearted applause. It sounded like a Trigger anime, it looked like a Trigger anime but it didn't feel like one. It had no soul and ended up just being bland. The MC of Kiznaiver is easily one of the worst characters of 2016. Finally there was the anime Joker Game, which I have to applaud for at least stepping outside the regular high school teenage girls boundaries of modern anime with it's dark and moody 1930s theme. Unfortunately the show doesn't have much going for it other than its setting, as the story doesn't feel complete and the characters are nothing to write home about. It's episodic nature and large cast makes it hard to give a fuck about anyone.

     

    Plenty of good shows came out in spring too and we'll jump straight from mediocre to the good stuff. Sakamoto Desu ga, Re:Zero, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, Flying Witch and Boku no Hero Academia were all shows that ranged from good to great. Re:Zero obviously takes the prize for most controversial. That anime was by far the most viewed and discussed of all of them. Love it or hate it, or just hate parts of it, there is no doubt that it was the most successful anime of the season in terms of sales and creating a buzz. Sakamoto translated very well from manga to anime, Kabaneri was a solid show for 80% of it with an unfortunate ending, Flying Witch was super comfy and BnHA pressed all the right shounen buttons.

     

    Unfortunately, the spring season also produced two of the most awful pieces of anime that I've seen in a while. The first of these two is Mayoiga. Talk about a fucking trainwreck of an anime. L I T E R A L L Y nothing happens in that show, despite the fact that it tries to be suspenseful. An absolute waste of fucking time that spawned a slew of forced memes, most of which were unfunny. The second is Kuma Miko. Cute artstyle, cute main character, seemingly innocent premise and yet the actual show is very cruel and not really fun to watch at all. The main character is put through so much shit that you can't help but pity the poor girl. The show ends with her dreams being crushed and her accepting a fate she wanted desperately to avoid.

     



    Summer 2016

    The summer season gave us several continuations of established shows. Love Live Sunshine, the second season of Shokugeki no Souma and a Berserk continuation no less. Due to personal lack of interest, I was unable to finish Love Live Sunshine and Shokugeki and I will refrain from commenting on those. Berserk 2016 however was a catastrophic failure. The adaptation from manga to anime was lacking and the poorly done 3D CG that the show was made from didn't help the viewing experience one bit. As a fan of Berserk who has consumed most of the content available for the IP, the 2016 anime was a failure. It had almost zero redeeming factors.

     

    On the bright side we were blessed with several good anime in during the summer as well. Kono Bijustsu-bu ni wa Mondai ga Aru, Amaama to Inazuma, 91 Days, Mob Psycho 100 and NEW GAME! were all quality shows within their genre. 

     



    Fall 2016

    I only watched 4 anime that aired during the fall season and all 4 of them were really good. Drifters was the one I was the most excited about and it delivered pretty decently. Second season has already been confirmed! Hibike Euphonium Season 2 was fucking amazing and didn't lose any of the quality from its first season. It was pretty much perfect. Keijo!!!!!!!!! was an anime I watched the entirety of in one sitting together with five friends and it was honestly pretty fucking great. I was expecting to be annoyed and instead I was just entertained. Yes its stupid as fuck, but it owns that stupidity and makes it fun. The surprise of the season was the anime Flip Flappers. I knew nothing about it other than it had a silly name and was apparently yuri-bait and going into it blind was a really, really, fun experience. Some unnecessary fanservice that detracted from the experience, but otherwise a really fun watch. It's one of those shows where you're watching it, you think "Oh it would be really fucking cool if this happened" and then it just fucking happens. It knows how to provide on the entertainment front.

    hugthebed2 reacted to this

  7. Posted

    On 4/2/2017 at 3:27 PM, Moby said:

    Is Berseria as fun? From what I saw, it took a few levels in edgyness.

     

    Berseria is fun. It has an overwhelming amount of content like the Tales series games tend to do, so there is at least a bang for your buck in that aspect. In terms of its Edge™ it is honestly not bad. It's quite a different spin on the story, considering that Tales games have been very "classic" JRPG in terms of protag character and overall storyline. Berseria is a little different. In fact I think it is fair to say that Tales of Berseria has you playing the bad guys rather than the good guys. That being said, the characters don't really feel evil. Yeah they don't really give a fuck if they have to kill some people to achieve their goals, but they don't actively attempt to antagonize the innocents. It's mainly the protagonist character Velvet that is edgy, but she has a pretty good reason for being like she is, which is you discover in the first ~2 hours of gameplay.

     

    Did I mention it has waifu dress-up? It has waifu dress-up.

     

    Overall I'm like 10 hours in and I've maybe completed 5% of the total game (sidequests included in this estimate) and it has been fun. Magilou best girl.

  9. Posted

    In the wake of a turbulent year of politics both at home and internationally, I've found myself making an attempt at getting a little bit more involved in general. I used to be a member of the Social Democratic youth party and I was actually very active at rallies and debates in the year leading up to the general election and when my party ultimately won the majority vote, I was stoked. The SD government turned out to be incompetent and left my country in a worse state than they had received it. They didn't uphold any of their promises and in general left a stain on the history of the party. After that I left the youth party and distanced myself from politics in general.

     

    Now here's the core of the problem I am currently having. I don't know if political rhetoric changed drastically since I was involved, or it has always been like this and I didn't pay much attention to it as a teenager, but the amount of absolute bullshit people are conceding the politicians and political parties that peddle opinions that fit their world view is insane! I have been reading debates on online forums, listened to political discussion on podcasts and even taken time out of my schedule to watch political debates on TV. I have seen laymen and "your average joe" present their opinions and fiercely debate them and I've seen professional politicians do it exactly the same and they seem to all be guilty of the same thing.

     

    When did it become acceptable to counter arguments with the excuse that the words being uttered are "just hyperbolic"? It's seriously, seriously frustrating to me, that if I am discussing/arguing/debating a political issue with someone, they often end up defending their point of view with "Well that's not what (s)he meant" in reference to a statement I am questioning. It happens A LOT with Trump supporters in my experience and it happens A LOT with really left-leaning liberals. They'll deflect criticism of their favoured politicians by stating that what they said isn't actually what they meant or say that it was "clearly hyperbole" and shake their heads at the fact that I was too stupid to realize that. Is that shit really OK? How can we live in a world where a politician can make a concrete statement on live television and then later his supporters twist his/her words into something that wasn't actually said in order to defend said politician? I don't get it at all. Am I retarded? Combined with the serious case of "Whataboutism" that is currently consuming many political debates, I honestly feel deflated and disinterested in politics once more, because it turns out that what you're saying is actually 100% up to interpretation and as such, any statement can be twisted into something completely different and thus a politician can never be held accountable for what they say and/or promise.

     

    I feel like politics have probably always been like this and I am just noticing now, but fuck me dude.

  10. Posted

    Milky movie was fucking great, the best part were their magical girl transformations near the end.

     

    Speaking of things that are (most likely) the exact opposite of great, the Youjo Senki anime adaptation is airing this season and I feel that it is my duty as a fan of the source material to watch it, despite the fact that it looks... Not very good, to put it mildly. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, who knows. If you're not familiar with the source material for Youjo Senki and thought the anime sounded interesting this season, I really do recommend reading the light novels and/or the manga. It's good. It's a pretty weird premise, but it's good.

     

    And if you're not familiar with Youjo Senki at all, let me explain it a little bit to you, because I have yet to read a summary of the story that does it justice. I should warn you now that it is "Isekai", so if that bothers you, then you should probably leave it be.

     

     

    TL;DR

    An "I-Am-Very-Smart" Japanese Salaryman is being a prick to everyone and everything, including puppies and babies. He is killed and the proceeds to be a fucking prick towards God. God gets pissed and punishes him by giving him new life as a pure aryan loli in what is really-not-nazi-germany-i-promise and also (s)he is now really good at magic and shit. So she grows up a little goes into world war 2 (this time with magic!) and does some cool shit, kills some people, gets a really high honour medal. cool stuff. Then she comes back home expecting R&R but instead gets fucked in the ass (figuratively you perverts) by God once again and is now cursed blessed with a device that makes her super-sayan but literally mindfucks her everytime she uses it until she is nothing more but a drooling, prayer-reciting retard. Also the war is still going on and she g-g-gobba go back!

     

     

    Being a salaryman in Japan in the modern world is a pretty tough job and only the most devious and unscrupulous of men will rise to the top of the foodchain. One such man is the main character of Youjo Senki, a man with absolutely zero qualms regarding his behaviour towards his co-workers and fellow human being in general. He is willing to step on anyone in order to further advance his career and he is pretty good at it too. Basically he's all business and he is cold as ice. One day, his behaviour backfires on him and as he is waiting for a train, he is pushed onto the tracks by a vengeful ex-coworker and is killed. He finds himself in an unfamiliar place, face to face with a being that declares itself as "God" and he is there to lead this Japanese salaryman to the afterlife. Unfortunately the hubris of the main character knows no bounds even in death and he arrogantly denounces God to his face, berating him and telling him that mankind has no need for such a being in this day and age. He even goes as far as to insinuate that "God" might in fact just be a devil.

     

    Infuriated by the behaviour of this mortal man, God decides to punish him. Rather than letting him move on to the afterlife, he punishes him with rebirth, only this time he will not be reborn on Earth as he knows it, but rather in a different world torn by war, ravaged by magic and he will live his life in this world as a girl no less. And so our main character finds himself born into this new word, in an unfamiliar country, in an unfamiliar place and in an unfamiliar body. His new life is not glamorous, he is born an orphan and raised by the church of this world. His new body is "blessed" with an extreme affinity for magic (which exists in this world) and as such "she" is an object of interest in this world from a young age. Ultimately the main character decides to pursue a career within the military, as it is the only place where men and women have equal opportunity. Having been reborn into this world retaining all the knowledge of his previous life and having been blessed with superior magical capabilities, it doesn't take long for the main character to be declared a prodigy and to start climbing the ladder of military career.

     

    As it would just so happen, the main character was born into "totally-not-nazi-germany" during a very large conflict that is also "totally-not-world-war-2" and as such he ends up on the frontlines very quickly. (I just want to make a quick note that this conflict is actually a mixture of WW1 and WW2 and it even takes place in the calendar years between those two conflicts, but it's overall closer to WW2 than anything else in its concept). After proving herself on the frontline, our main character is returned to the rear for some less stressful duties. Unfortunately she ends up having to assist a crazed inventor with his latest (and greatest) creation, which is a new tool for people with magical capabilities to harness. The whole situation is less than safe and our main character would have met her end here if not for the intervention of the entity known as "God". The device ends up working (read: not killing everyone involved in the test and within a 5-mile radius) but it is only because of divine intervention. In the midst of the confusion, the main character is approached by one of God's servants and told that she must carry this blessed device into battle. It's important to note that the main character resents God and everything religious because of him putting her into this world. This new device is a double-edged sword. On one hand it is extremely powerful and will give her the upper hand in any confrontation, but everytime she uses it, she is forced to exclaim her love for the God above and her mind will gradually erode into that of a pious zealot.

     

    Fuck.
     

     

  11. Posted

    7 hours ago, Facade said:

    You sure seem upset that we fucked off and made another server so that we can have easy access to an admin/mod to make changes. Shouldn't you be happy that you and your friends have a free space to talk rather than sit in the channel we used, muted and deafened as a group.

     

    I completely forgot about this lmao. Don't worry, I'm certain it was just a really funny joke and that they were all sitting together on Mumble laughing about how fucking hilarious it was while spamming anime reaction pictures as if they were still on 4chan while jerking off that one guy that I forget the name of, who was (is?) a genuine anime-shipper.

     

    btw this is just banter calm down.

    Paero reacted to this

  17. Posted

    Having only caught up on this discussion just now, I want to throw in my 2 cents to the whole argument from a perspective outside the US. I suppose the fact that I am not American and the fact that I do not live in America could be grounds for dismissing my argument because I am not smart enough to make a comparison that is 100/100 relevant to the current state of the US, because my experience isn't with the US but rather my own country (Denmark). I hope you will read anyway.

     

    The Danish people cherish some ideas that I think would be best described as the "core values" of what it means to be a Dane and how life in Denmark should be. I'm not going to go into detail of what these core values are, because that is besides the point I am trying to make. In the recent decades, Denmark has experienced an increasing influx of people from eastern europe and the middle east migrating here. Some of them have been refugees seeking a safe haven from one of the many conflicts in the world, most have been economic migrants looking for better work opportunities to support their families. Denmark is a socialist state and has been for many decades at this point. Abiding by the law and following the will of the collective community in general are things that are very important to us. This is also part of the reason why crime in Denmark has been and is very low, we nurture respect and goodwill towards the community from a very young age and most people would never even dream of stealing over here. Doors, bicycles and even cars are left unlocked in the streets, because people trust each other to that level. Of course crime exists, but it is a very, very small number of crimes that are commited.

     

    But here's what happens when we receive refugees and other immigrants in our country: We try our hardest to integrate them into society. Unfortunately it seems to be the case that many of them, especially middle-eastern newcomers, are quite reluctant to "adapt" to the ways of the Danish society. I'm not saying that they should give up their cultural or religious identities, but I am saying that currently there doesn't seem to even be an attempt from the vast majority of immigrants to become a part of Denmark and her culture. I won't call our integration methods and policies perfect, but compared to other nationalities, the middle-eastern people are quite bad when it comes to this. This had since led to the creation of ghettos, criminal gangs and an overall increase in crime. These are just pure and simple facts. This causes a bit of a grumble with the Danish population, because we're used to people respecting the law, respecting our values and generally have the same outlook on what life in Denmark should be like. This grumble stirs and grows when you then add illegal immigrants into the equation. Not only do they display the same tendencies as the people who have legally immigrated, but they then also abuse our system in order to receive welfare.

     

    I'm sure that many people would say that the "Danish mentality" is old-fashioned, but we're a country that likes the way things are and the way things have been. As long as immigrants go through the proper channels and attempt to participate in our integration programs, there is no problem. We understand that it takes time, people over here aren't ignorant. This has nothing to do with racism or cultural white-washing of people who aren't Danish. They're free to practice the same rituals they used to do, believe in the same god they used to do, celebrate the same holidays they used to do, as long as they don't try and shove these things down our throat. As long as they show the want and willingness to respect the country and the community that took them under its wing, they're free to do as they like (Within the confinements of the law of course).

     

    From that perspective, I can sit here and nod to some of the things I see Raison writing. I don't agree with everything that is being said, in fact I don't even agree with most of it, but I can see the standpoint where it comes from. The wish to uphold some core values in a country that is dear to you and ultimately get rid of the people that are not respecting the process (Illegal immigrants fx.). I'm not defending any notions of racism or ultranationalism or whatever has been brought up in this discussion. I also think that people on both sides of the argument have allowed their passion to flare a bit too much. I hope my American friends on this board will respect that while you might have different political values, you're still countrymen.

     

    I know that this post has only touched on one of many issues that are currently hot topics. It is not that I have forgotten them or do not care about them, it is just that I am not entirely sure what to say about them, so I will refrain from doing so. But please do not think that I am so narrow-minded to believe that illegal immigration is the only problem America faces, it is just the topic I wished to comment on.

    A 1970 Corvette, Idiot Cube, John Caveson and 3 others reacted to this

  18. Posted

     

    Hey I have a neat new tune you guys could adopt for presidential appearances

     

     

    Memes aside, I remain tentatively positive in the face of this election. I am not politically involved enough to really have too much of an opinion that I can defend with facts and direct quotes. I'm slightly worried about the effect this will have on politics in my country, as Denmark has been a very close supporter of the US following the effort during and after WWII with the Marshal Aid and such. Since then, Denmark has backed up around the US in most of their decisions, most recent one being the creation of ISAF and going to war in Iraq/Afghanistan, where we dutifully followed America into the war. I doubt this will change much with Trump being elected POTUS and currently it seems to be affecting the political landscape in my country quite significantly. In recent years, a political party called "Dansk Folkeparti" (Danish People's Party) has been gaining serious traction and they are among the most right-leaning nationalistic parties in our government. I personally believe that Trump being elected will only increase this traction, because DF have openly stated that they agree with a lot of the things Trump has said. Not to mention that the pot has been seriously stirred in regards to whether or not Denmark should remain a part of the EU (Following Brexit). As I understand it, Trump was very pro the UK leaving the EU and at this rate, we might see such options being earnestly considered for Denmark.

    A 1970 Corvette and Paero reacted to this

  25. Posted

    On a bit of a tangent here, I wanted to share something from basic training in this thread.

     

    So basically the Royal Danish Army recently acquired brand new rifles for their infantry. Unfortunately because this shipment of rifles was custom-tooled for some reason I am not too sure about, all the barrel attachments the RDA has in stock at the moment are not actually able to be properly attached to these new rifles. This rendered our collection M203's effectively useless, until someone came up with the brilliant idea of doing this.



    VOBYFl6.jpg

    So we had to lug around these fucking amalgamations around all day when we were doing field exercises.

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