We face another Necroprentice, who this time has raised the Dragon defenders of a razed village.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 235 – Zombie Dragon I
Slaughterhouse Rock: Film Review
And now we move fully into the horror films with an ‘80s supernatural horror slasher film – Slaughterhouse Rock, with a bunch of college students being terrorized by a supernatural terror. Also, it’s scored by Mark Mothersbaugh and Devo, so it’s gotta be good – right? Right?
Read moreCall of the Night: Anime Review
Moving belatedly into horror content for the month of October we have Call of the Night, the last of the anime series from the Summer 2022 season that I watched. Okay, frankly it’s not exactly horror – at least not until the back half of the series, but I would describe it as being somewhat horror adjacent. By which I mean, there are vampires.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 234 – Uncivil Sybil III
We finish taking down this patrol, leaving us to wonder about the “artifacts” they mentioned at the start of the fight.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 233 – Uncivil Sybil II
Once more, we get stuck in, with the Rune Fencers and Valkyries turning out to be rather squishy.
Read moreKumoricon 2022 Announcement
Come to Kumoricon 2022, Nov 11-13th: https://www.kumoricon.org/
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 232 – Uncivil Sybil I
We encounter a group that hasn’t gotten the “We Didn’t do a Genocide” memo, and end up having to fight them.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 231 – Cold Reception III
We clear the way, and do some fiddling with our main party members’ equipment loadout to use some items we picked up earlier.
Read moreCyberpunk: Edgerunners Anime Review
There are not a lot of anime series explicitly based off of tabletop RPGs – Record of Grancrest War, Record of Lodoss War, Rune Soldier Louie, and Night Wizard are some of the few that come directly to mind. None of those – I should mention, are particularly based heavily on Western tabletop RPGs (aside from Lodoss starting as a D&D campaign, before moving through Tunnels & Trolls and eventually becoming a Sword World campaign). So, it is impressive to see Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to be perhaps one of the first anime series to wear the western TRPG connection right on its sleeve. Yes, the show is tied in to CD Projekt Red’s video game – but right from the jump the series credits leads off with “Based on a world created by Mike Pondsmith” – showing how much of its influences it wears on its neon sleeve tattoo. Thankfully, Studio Trigger, who animated this, also does right by its source material far more Cyberpunk 2077 did from the jump.
Read moreAnime Review: Lycoris Recoil
Lycoris Recoil is something of a modern retooling of a genre that we haven’t seen in a while – the Girls With Guns anime series. In particular, Lycoris Recoil in this case has a mix of “Cute Girls Doing Cute Things” as a recurring B-plot, with the conspiracy thriller elements covering the series A-plots, with action informed now not by the John Woo films of years past, but the modern John Wick films. All of this works tremendously well.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 230 – Cold Reception II
Cistina demonstrates the power of the Dragoon class, as we join to battle with the monsters.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 229 – Cold Reception I
We start to open the path to the tomb, and end up fighting a whole bunch of Dragons on the way.
Read moreFilm Review: Ghost of Yotsuya (1959)
It’s time for the first of my two horror film reviews for this year, with a look at the 1959 version of Ghost of Yotsuya.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 228 – Even More Randos II
We get these critters out of our way, and move on.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 227 – Even More Randos I
We have another random encounter on our way to a side-quest.
Read moreAnime Review: Engage Kiss
Engage Kiss is one of the lighter fanservice series from the Summer 2022 season – there were much (*ahem*) harder shows (like Slave Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World – which was borderline smut – and also leaned into some of the grosser elements of the isekai genre) – but Engage Kiss was more palatable about it. Even more, A-1 Pictures paired some of that fan-service with some gorgeously animated fight scenes, making for a series that, while flawed, was really enjoyable to watch. Some spoilers below the cut
Read moreBook Review: Amongst Our Weapons
Lies Sleeping, the seventh book in the Rivers of London series, left a lot of open questions about the world of the setting while it wrapped a bunch of the threads around the Faceless Man. Probably the biggest one was around the Sons of Weyland – a group of practitioners who were also powerful magical craftspeople – having made various battle staves, along with the magical wards in and around The Folly. On top of that – The October Man also built up some more groundwork for various magical practitioners and organizations outside of England. Well, Amongst Our Weapons decides to pick up both those threads and runs with them. There will be some minor spoilers below the cut.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 226 – Spell Shopping
We gear up a little bit, and train some party members on additional spells.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 225 – Afterlife Cocktail
We learn the full story of the Pirate’s Graveyard.
Read moreBreaking Down The Knightfall Saga: Knightquest – The Crusade Part 4
One more superpowered assassin this time, as Batman takes on the Rocket Roller-blade wearing ex-CIA super-assassin Mekros.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 224 – Dead Men Tell No Tales IV
We finally take out this dungeon’s final boss.
Read moreLet’s Play Tactics Ogre PSP: Ep. 223 – Dead Men Tell No Tales III
We manage to move some of the party up to the middle island.
Read moreAnime Review: Tokyo Mew Mew New
Tokyo Mew Mew was an oversight in my anime viewing when I was growing up. When I was a kid and watched cartoons with any degree of regularity on Cartoon Network or on Saturday Mornings, the main Magical Girl Show was Sailor Moon. When I got older, 4Kids picked up Tokyo Mew Mew as Mew Mew Power – but by that point I was familiar enough with anime, but immature enough when it came to my opinion of my own taste to dismiss almost anything licensed by 4Kids by reflex. Switch to this year, when we get a remake of Tokyo Mew Mew, appropriately titled Tokyo Mew Mew New, released a little bit after the passing of the original manga’s creator – Reiko Yoshida – and I figured now’s as good a time as any to look into what I missed.
Read moreAnime Review: Ranking of Kings
Ranking of Kings is a show that, frankly, I missed the boat on. It was a show that everyone on AniTwitter, everyone on the anime podcasts I listened to were praising to high heavens, but I pushed off watching it. Until now. Now I’ve finally watched it and it’s time to give the show the consideration it deserves.
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