I like cookbooks. They are the fusion of my love for cooking and food, and my background in technical writing. I also love fantasy fiction & roleplaying games, with The Elder Scrolls series in particular. So, when I first played Skyrim and found there was cooking in the game, one of my first thoughts was “Man, an Elder Scrolls cookbook would be neat!” So, when one finally came out, I knew that I needed to check it out. Much as with the second Von Bek novel, I should have been looking at the Monkey’s Paw.
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City in Autumn Stars: Novel Review
In my review of The Warhound and the World’s Pain, I lamented that the book felt too short, and that the sexual assault sequence served no purpose. I should have noticed the finger curl on the monkey’s paw.
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Akudama Drive: Anime Review
We occasionally get new Cyberpunk anime every now and then, though usually, the protagonists of those series have some degree of… license by the establishment. The Major in Ghost in the Shell is a government agent. So are the protagonists of Cyber City Oedo 808. The Knight Sabers from Bubblegum Crisis are superhero mercenaries who contract with the government. Rare are the cyberpunk anime that have protagonists who work for hire, not only outside the law but in violation of the law. Akudama Drive is one of the series that fits that theme, and utterly nails the concept.
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Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear: Anime Review
I’ve generally avoided a lot of the more OP Isekai Anime series – no wish fulfillment shows with characters that have a superpowered cheat ability getting ported into a fantasy world modeled on a MMORPG in my watched list. Oh, there are Isekai shows on there, and even ones with people who have abilities that are somewhat overpowered (Log Horizon comes to mind). However, all of those are ones that are cases where an existing power from the game’s world is applied differently. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is the first show with this concept that I’ve ended up watching, and it’s probably the best place to jump in on this idea.
Continue readingAnother light issue, but we get our first dedicated coverage of a third party N64 game.
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Iwa-kakeru: Sport Climbing Girls: Anime Review
Iwa-kakeru kind of got a bad break. This year was the year where we were supposed to get the Tokyo Summer Olympics and with it, as one of the new events, Bouldering – or Sport Climbing. So, Iwa-kakeru would have been placed to perfectly strike when the iron was hot, adapting a manga about this brand new Olympic sport, to rise off of the heat of that Olympic fever. And then COVID-19 happened and the Summer Olympics were pushed back at least one year. So, the question becomes whether Iwa-kakeru can hold up without that boost of Olympic excitement.
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Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You: Anime Review
I’ve reviewed most of the anime adaptations of Hayate: The Combat Butler, and reviewed much of the manga that’s been officially released in English to date (in spite of the official US release being several years behind the Japanese release – which has since ended). When I learned that author Kenjiro Hata’s latest manga, Tonikawa, was getting an anime adaptation, that show quickly ended up on the list of shows on my watchlist for that season, and I was not disappointed.
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A Touch of Zen: Film Review
A Touch of Zen is the third King Hu film I’ve watched so far, and the second of his films after he left Hong Kong and Shaw Brothers for Taiwan. The first, Dragon Inn, kept some of the framework of the Wuxia Western while using Taiwan’s more diverse scenery for great visual effect. A Touch of Zen, on the other hand, leans more heavily into the Wuxia side.
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Making Apes: the Artists Who Changed Film: Film Review
While I’m a fan of science fiction film, and science fiction in general, I have a big gaping hole in my fandom, in the form of the Planet of the Apes movies.
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GBP – Azure Bonds #9: Pit of Moander
I’ve talked a bit in this series about encounter design. The Pit of Moander works well for it’s lack of encounter design. Or, rather, a designed lack of encounters – specifically random encounters.
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GBP – Azure Bonds #8: Yulash
After completing Yulash and reaching the entrance to the Pit of Moander (see next blog post), I got to thinking about how to deal with this game’s money problem – in terms of the whole encumbered by cash issue. Aside from not giving cash encumbrance values, that is. And I thought of this based on Yulash, the Pit, and where we’re going to be going to next – Zhentil Keep.
Continue readingKnightfall begins, with Batman taking on Mad Hatter, Amygdala, and Zsasz.
Continue readingTime for another rematch with the Vampire Lord.
Continue readingWe make a quick run to stock back up on Transfer Potions.
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The Astro-Zombies: Film Review
The Astro-Zombies is, basically, 2-3 movies mashed together badly. They’re not mashed together in the editing room, like with the Godfrey Ho Ninja films, but in the screenwriting process.
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Detective Comics #670 Recap
We have a timely issue of the Knightfall saga.
Continue readingWe have a very close call before falling back to town resurrect our party and level up our members.
Continue readingWe get teleported to another area of the dungeon and continue our exploration.
Continue readingThis year has been nuts, and so it’s time to kick back and enjoy a nice hot, minty beverage.
Continue readingWe continue to explore the West Wing of level B8.
Continue readingWe decide to pace ourselves and explore, and very nearly lose another party member again.
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NextGen #13: January 1996
Once again, I’ve fallen back behind where we are in Nintendo Power Retrospectives, with my recaps in NextGen, so it’s time to play some very slow catchup.
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Batman Shadow of the Bat #23 Recap
We’re coming to the end of the next installment of The Search.
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Batman Shadow of the Bat #22 Recap
In the UK, Bruce is on the trail of Dr. Kinsolving, and his pursuit is going from London to the countryside.
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