These past few years have been a time of resurgence for various classic anime & manga franchises – not only with the long-running new adaptation of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, but also with an adaptation of Ushio & Tora, and a sequel to Inuyasha, it only seemed appropriate that someone returned to the manga that put Rumiko Takahashi on the map in Japan – Urusei Yatsura.
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Weird of the White Wolf is the fourth part of the first of the current set of Elric omnibus volumes, and undoubtedly, this is where things get serious. I mean – there were serious things before, but this is where Elric gets shoved headlong into his destiny (the “Weird” in the title referring the Old English use of the word – Wyrd – meaning destiny) – like it or not (tending towards “or not”). And this is helped by the fact that here is where we encounter the first stories in the publication order, even if they’re not the first in Elric’s internal chronology.
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We have another fight with a whole bunch of Golems.
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I take on the second area of the dungeon, and get hit with slow a bunch.
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Bomberman has moved up to the 64-bit generation, and we have a Mortal Kombat spinoff title.
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We make our second attempt at the start of the Earth Temple.
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We start off the Earth temple, and have a slight loadout hiccup.
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This month we’re discussing My Dress-Up Darling – a romantic comedy anime (with some fanservice) all about cosplay, followed up by a discussion about this year’s Crunchyroll Anime Awards and the r/Anime Awards.
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A time travel fiction concept that definitely falls under the category of “things I didn’t quite realize was a sub-sub-genre” until recently is the “Don’t Meet Your Heroes” story (with the alternative addendum of “Or do, I’m not your parental figure”). Basically, a story where the main characters travel back in time, either intentionally or unintentionally, and end up meeting someone (whether a singular person or multiple people) who are on the eve of doing some thing instrumental to the timeline, and who one or multiple of the protagonists idolizes, with the grand reveal being that they aren’t quite the kind of person that history has remembered them as being. Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Huchings – March’s Sword & Laser book club pick – is a really great example of this kind of story.
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Fourth shrine down, 1 to go.
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It’s time to take on the Water Temple guardian.
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As part of the build-up for Final Fantasy XVI, it’s time to give my thoughts on the past couple main Final Fantasy games.
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We manage to get through without Denam getting yeeted into the void.
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We have this temple’s map with treacherous pitfalls to watch out for.
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Recently, the first volume of the Slayers novels – which had been translated twice in the past (once by Tokyopop & now by J-Novel Club) received an audiobook review. This was ultimately the impetus I needed to get around to reading this, and this case, listening to the audiobook, read by Lisa Ortiz – the actress who voiced Lina in the English dub of the TV series.
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Final Fantasy XV had a lot of DLC planned, to expand on the game’s story by providing additional plot details during the big time skip before the game’s final act, expanding on the game’s backstory, and even providing an alternate ending. We got… some of it. We got the backstory expansion. We got some elaboration on what characters were doing when they were off-camera at certain parts of the game. However, we didn’t get the whole story – we didn’t get the expansion discussing the time skip, and we didn’t get the alternate ending. However, the game’s writers wanted to make sure that story was told, leading to The Dawn of the Future – which adapts one released episode, and the plots of a bunch of unreleased ones, to give an alternate ending.
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We prove ourselves king of the hill and take our pro-pain implements onward.
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We get a fight with a big island in the middle with enemies on all sides.
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We have the return of Victor Fries, and Renee Montoya getting up close and personal with AzBat.
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We clean these enemies out so we can continue on.
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We encounter a new type of Lizardperson.
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Deadly Ever After is the first Rivers of London story to be published after Amongst Our Weapons, and the first to move the timeline forward after that point, and a little past that point as well. It’s also one that moves the focus of the story clearly beyond The Folly, with the focus being more on the River Goddesses themselves.
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Crunchyroll has held their 2023 Anime Awards Ceremony – the first one that was in person since the pandemic and the first ever in Japan, and I have some thoughts on the presentation.
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I ultimately end up going offline and continuing play that way.
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