Chapel Orahamm's Blog, page 35

Manga Cafe Monday: Dr. Stone

I realize the first season of the anime for Dr. Stone came out a while back. That was where I started. Once a week, each week on its release date just eating this thing up. Wren and I had watched this youtube series of “how to make everything”. It was…mediocre at best? If that is an okay way of describing that youtube series. I realize it was geared to show how a regular person would go about making everyday things all the way from scratch, but some of the errors in the trial and error were just cringy.

That’s not what this about though. This has the same vein, but oh it’s brilliant. The art is interesting in it’s mild stylization. There are no intrusive computer graphics that break the story. The script is paced.

This could have become a dark anime easily. It steps into dark aspects of murder in regards to the destruction of the petrified remains of humans. It crosses over the divide of morality and forces the reader to question what is better for humans – to pursue science to better people at the potential destruction of nature, to escape the corporate greed, to “go back to the good old days.” Who benefits, who loses by going back. By the world going back to “nature.”

I love this give and take. The painting of a grey picture that people try to ink as black and white. Emotions are balanced with the storyline progressions. Arcs are introduced in ways of acquisitions and manipulation of resources. It’s an interesting format for teaching people some of the base principles of science without it being overwhelmingly childish. It crosses age divides and levels of scientific knowledge.

At the same time, it looks at those who aren’t “scientists” and shows how they too contribute to the betterment of society. That people who aren’t “professionals” can be scientists. Can ask questions and find answers if they’re brave enough to try.

For the most part, the anime keeps up with the manga. There are some deviations for the sake of formatting and expediency, but the core of the story remains intact.

This is one of those brilliant pieces that has been worked over and over by a team and it shows. Its not raw talent. It gives you those little emotions you need to feel connected with each of the characters without throwing you off liking the design or blubbering in big sobbing heaps at the end of reading section.

It is brilliant. At face value, it’s a curious peak of interest, what a child can grasp of “oh, that’s how a rocker piston works in steam production and sulfuric acid is dangerous”.

Once you peel it back to the bones, it’s a blatant question of what humanity would be if we changed. “If the world ended, if there weren’t as many people. Who would you want to remake the world with? Who should survive?” It asks all those hypothetical dark questions and runs with them.

What happens to a sonar tech if there are no subs? What about reporters, what do they know to make them valuable? Corporate greed as a resurgence?

What do we miss? Technology, clothing, dehydrated junk food? Creature comforts we’ve come to accept as commonplace.

I love documentaries like Life After People, Seconds From Disaster, and Extreme Weather. I like seeing what the world does regardless of people. How man bows to nature. How they learn to work in harmony with it. How, when they try to tame it, everything goes out of whack. Nature is a rubberband pulled tight. It will snap back into place, whether humans survive it doing that or not.

This is what this manga is. Something light for the young and naive reader, and something that edges the darkness for those who understand the depth in it.

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Anime Cinema Friday: Akame ga Kill

I remember I watched the first three or four episodes of this when it was first coming out and lost interest. So, I’m trying this one again. It get’s good reviews from quite a lot of people. It’s bloody and dark, full of assassins and political intrigue. At least, that’s how it’s sold.

The art is consistent. The soundtrack is, in my opinion, really good if you’ve got a set of headphones in. It’s not revolutionary, but at least the monsters and the equipment aren’t bad computer graphics.

The MC is…an egotistical idiot – you know the type, the ones who “come from the countryside, know nothing of the city, think it will fix all their problems, and they are the schitz because they can swing a sword better than the other villagers.” Enter, cringy interactions and me begging for the character to be a little less oblivious and a lot more cautious and maybe less embarrassing.

I guess, if you’re dealing with an anime full of assassins and questionable situations where you’re supposed to go “but killing is bad!” they have to give the characters a bit of redemption. Even if that’s full of ambition, humor, and letchery to “lighten the mood.”

It’s an assassins version of Robin Hood. A group has come together in order to save the capital and the people from the oppression of the prime minister pulling the strings behind a powerless child emperor. Because these assassins are casting jugdement on those profiting from the exploitation of the citizens, there’s a bounty out on them. The MC, initially going to the capital to become the next best thing, ends up joining up with the assassins because of moral leanings toward vigilantly justice. Shiny swords, wires, guns, and gundams ensue. Everybody has reasons for wanting to be part of “Night Raid”. Some will talk, some won’t. For the most part, its the tiny background stories thrown into the arc to help explain the different characters and make their actions appear forgivable. Give the viewer a sense of comradery. An “if I was in this situation, would I also do that?” scenario.

It’s not a bad ploy. It tends to be a major theme in hero arcs for young adult fiction. Everybody and their mother is some lost prince or assassin or ex-military. I’ve played this trope in practically every one of my books in some way or another.

I can see where it gained its popularity for a few years after release and why it has staying power. The anime was released back in 2014. The manga had a run date between 2010 and 2016. For a lot of people watching world events, the thematics in this story were and are relatable today. The upper 1% profiting off the back of those with not enough in the cupboard to eat every day. The needless wars over materials that don’t concern the main population.

It’s a dystopic universe in a fantasy setting that comes off as cliche, but it’s also within the parameter of something that is relatable for the market audience and a statement by the author about the world they are living in and the frustration with how it is running. I’d take this type of cliche tropic work over soap opera drama because I can understand where the author is coming from. They are looking at the outside world and trying to summarize their feelings and wishes into a method that can reach other people.

It’s not bad for those things. It’s not necessarily revolutionary for the topic it handles, the action sequences, or the tension build. The animation is clean. The story line proceeds at a relatively decent pace. I have a hard time really calling this a dark anime though.

It’s good. It’s something I’d say people can catch on to easily enough when it comes to character motivation and world building. It does need a couple warnings of view discretion is advised for gore and violence. Overall, it’s in the category of, it’s on a list, but it doesn’t make my list of “hey, give me an anime suggestion.” Probably because I would assume most people have already seen it, but also, it’s just formulaic. Maybe that’s just me though.

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Mobile Game Review: Legend of the Phoenix

Gave this one a swing and a miss. It mimics Love Nikki with a bit more of a storyline. The voice over is static at best, in so far as the actors sound pained to be doing the voice acting. Some of them have poor inflection, which almost sounds like auto voice reading.

The graphics are relatively pretty and bright visually. The detail is intricate, but with intricacy for delicacy comes compression rate. Also, really small font. Maybe this would play better on a tablet over a phone.

The system is quite rail based. It plows through the “battle sequences” where there is some dialogue, but it flashes on the screen so quickly you can’t see what is happening. As long as the story is on mute, the dialogue is not bad, and that can clue you in on a lot. You have some choices you can make and effectively as long as you make the right choice for how this story is supposed to progress, your character progresses rapidly through the issues.

If not for the dialogue, the background music is relaxing. It is another version of a grinding game. It has a multitude of tasks which helps its robustness. However, it entails just enough details in it to make it intimidating on first glance. It’s not as bad as needing to maintain a separate website account to keep track of everything in your wardrobe and have a processor tell you what you need to wear to win your combats – looking at you Love Nikki.

There are quite a few tabs to navigate through and lucky draws. It seems, as long as you cycle through the tabs and make sure to do the duties in seemingly excess, you won’t falter horribly with the game. It is a casual role play system and meant to be relaxing after all.

It’s not a game I think I’ll keep around longer than I needed to write the review, but I’ll give the designers credit where it’s due. It’s got a bit of interest and the art is nice. Not like I could do it. It’s just a little much for what it is.

Lovestory Manga Wednesday: Hare-Kon

True, I opened up this manga because I saw a rather lewd one-off page from the manga and it peaked my interest. Well, it peaked something. Anywhosals.

This particular manga is set up as a romance. At least, it claims to be a romance. Maybe it’s just me and my perspective. I’m not against polyamory or poly marriages. My usually opinion on the matter though goes something like this: “Everyone in a room together.” Harem anime drive me a bit crazy because the guy or the girl always has to choose one and then there’s a bunch of jealousy and other drama. Why the jealousy and the choosing?

So, maybe I am not the market audience for this manga. I read through several volumes, hoping against hope that the relationships would improve. They did not. The art was good, but really, any of the “titillating” scenes made me feel gross and like a voyeur to a lot of coercion and gaslighting.

The guy’s a creep. All three of the women have issues. It comes off with low character development. They’re acting out their scenes like a cut budget soap opera. The only redeeming thing about the whole situation is if you literally cut out the steamy panels and white out the speech bubbles, it might serve some purpose.

Otherwise, the main female lead goes through trials, hardships, and in general plays off as the poor third wife that is bound to the relationship for money troubles. The forced “growing a backbone” phase of the character development is lukewarm and inevitable. This must be one of those types of story where it’s not the character driving the story but the story driving the character, and there isn’t much of a story. It’s a bunch of drama and cringey “romance” scenes. Sure, the main guy can be hot, but it’s very power dynamic by a guy living in his mother’s basement vibes. This guy just fits a body type that one might go “but it’s forgiveable for the eyecandy.” No. No it is not.

I wanted to like this one. I read a lot of yaoi and a lot of yuri and figured it was due time I went and spent some time really reading some hetero romance and you know what, give me back my yaoi and my yuri. This hetero thing sucks balls. I’m pansexual, so I figured I could go back to reading hetero like I did back in high school and college. *Shakes head vehemently*. Boy, was I wrong.

I remember reading somewhere, tumblr or twitter or somewhere once, when a section of the lgbtq+ community was getting all riled about ‘women’ writing ‘gay’ romance. Yes, I’m putting quotes on those. At me all you want. Make assumptions on who is writing the books and what their orientation is all you want, they do not owe you their coming out of the closet story.

This tangent about something I read, let’s come back to that though rather than listen to me rant. The comment went something like this: “the reason we like reading gay and lesbian romance is because the power dynamic is obliterated. A CEO and a waiter who are both the same sex have the same power dynamic. You don’t have to deal with sexism and fetishism, so you can actually escape into the romance. Control doesn’t have to be shaded with the nuances of real world situations that women face in a hetero-romance novel that always interrupts the storyline.” Sexism coming to the male CEO taking advantage of the female secretary (could she lose her job, health insurance, and livelyhood if she refused?), or a woman being “bossy” and the guy being “submissive” (does she border on being a villain and he has a sick fetish?). Yeah, that’s how it freaking comes off. That or the damsel in distress situation. Let me just sigh over that irritating situation. Or the woman who has to be couragous and strong and show that she’s powerful, but in the end the guy is still essential for her to save herself and for her to save him. I can go ONNNN about these tropes at length with a melodramatic flare for irritation, but you get the freaking point.

I wanted desperately to find a good romance with an even power dynamic and great art. This has the great art, but lacks an even power dynamic and by the end of it, I just felt really green around the gills. This is in my never again, do not recommend category.

Hence why I say, this particular story is most likely not marketed to me. I could see some women enjoying this. I can probably see more men enjoying it if the story was placed in the guy’s persepctive.

Verdict? I’m not reading it again. You have at it if you’re curious about it, but I’m backing out.

Video Game Review Tuesday: Animal Crossing (3DS)

I picked up this game the same time I picked up my used 3ds and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for my birthday pack in 2018. I’ve put in probably a good 40 hours of play time in on it since then. Which, isn’t a lot now that I look at the amount of time since purchase versus the amount of time since play.

I don’t have anyone else to play with on it. There’s probably some aspect in the game play I’m missing out on because of that aspect. I haven’t been able to fill in on certain insects, fish, and other elements most likely for this reason.

Really, I got bored of it around the 32 hour mark because it was getting super repetitive. The only interesting thing I found about it and the reason I would get it out on random occassions was learning that it did a day and night mode and when the seasons would change, so would some of the catch elements.

I picked it up way back in 2018 because Animal Crossing tried to make a mobile game, which I think flopped, but I liked the really short amount of play I had on that.

If the need for friends to gather all the drops is what drives the game mechanic, I can understand now while there were bands of people forming up in the Twitter community when the Switch game dropped recently. It would have to.

I still don’t understand turnips. I know there was some talk of how the turnip market had influenced a generation section when the Gamestop/AMC Robinhood fiasco went down this past winter. In 40 hours of game play, I never did run into a turnip, so, talk about confused.

It’s cute. The 3d aspect renders okay, and if you really need something mindless to do for a bit with a touch of success feeling thrown in, this can handle that, but I wouldn’t suggest thinking this is going to be the number one competitive game out there. It’s not designed to be. It’s a low weight game with manageable elements for casual gaming by newbs. Me being that newb.

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Manga Cafe Monday: Tensai Shitara Slime Datta Ken

I will start this out by admitting, I watched the anime first. I watched it as each episode came out and badly wanted to throw something at the tv every time an episode ending because OMG cliffhangers! This is a completely binge-able anime that I will do up a review on in the near future.

When Wren and I went to Japan for cherry blossom festival in 2019, I had to deep dive Akihabara. We came back with a few neat things, one being That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime Light Novel vol 1 all in Japanese, and a statue of Rimuru. I’ve seen several on the internet with the same pose, but they have wings. I got the one without the wings. To say the least of it, my ability to read Japanese is pretty dodgy and the light novel is kanji heavy, so…yeah, it’s more a decoration than an actual enjoyable read.

Hence, I’m reading the translated manga. Would I read the translated light novel? Oh hell yes if I could find it! Currently though, I have access to the translated manga, so that’s what we’re going to be discussing.

The manga and the anime pair up rather well. The panels for the cave are fascinating the the aspect of representing a pitch black space as actually black space with white outlining, whereas the anime does provide color. I could see where the animation team could have taken some real liberties with artistic stylization, but they didn’t. I watched Soul by Disney a couple weeks ago and there was this section in it where the main character drops through the levels of the quasi-state and there’s a bit of just black & white chromatic art that could have been epic in this anime for this one little area. I’m going off topic though and looking at how the anime could have deviated. I can only imagine the publisher rubbing their temples when they got these manuscript back for approval going “you know how expensive it is going to be for that much ink?”

Proceeding from the cave into the depths of the manuscript’s content, the art style keeps up with the storyline. The pacing has been ironed out. Arcs are to be expected. They however are not belaboured in their length. Enough to provide context for why situations occur, but not so short as to be random disturbances to the function of the main arc.

There is a bit of fan service here and there. Rimuru is written in with a bit of lewdness that comes in with a time and place rather than a constant, and it is never pressed to an extreme. The character pushes for morals and tries to hold themself to those morals more so than some other manga I have read.

Though the beginning of the story opened on the character being a virgin and there’s a bit of revealing clothing here and there, romance itself is not discussed with any length. It’s a subplot of a subplot of a subplot, if at all. More like a couple tangential characters might find themselves in a romantic relationship, but it’s not the focus. This is really a trade-routes relationship development game book with some nice intense combat thrown in for dynamic flavor.

I have to wonder at the stack in character development. The story itself does well in catching potential plot holes and filling them in a timely manner. Rimuru however is an overall nice guy character. They’re easy to accept and let yourself get swept up in the story itself. Thinking heavily though on if they develop in the story, it takes time for them to move out of just another salaryman character deposited in an isekai world and into a fully-rounded character who has substantially integrated into the world. Once the world evolves enough to catch up with who they was as a human, true changes can start occurring.

It’s an interesting idea, slow character development. This type of medium allows for that. Regular one to three book sets don’t have that type of room. Characters have to change rapidly to show their growth. Manga and manwa though can take time to massage out changes in a person’s morals. Their ability to shuffle through the greys between the whites and blacks of a story are part of the enduring quality of medium. In reality, people take a long time to shift some of their perceptions, to arrive at conclusions they otherwise might have opposed if they had to consider a predicament presented to them in three days rather than three years of time span.

This manga has that type of endearing quality to it. Dynamic action, a fast pace, but time still for the character to incrementally evolve into something more than just an over powered slime.

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A Reading of Dust Motes

So. I did a thing. A thing I’m not completely comfortable doing, but I did it anyways.

I did an audiobook reading of my short story Dust Motes from Achten Tan: Land of Dust and Bone. I also have the story Scattering in the anthology. Due to it’s more explicit nature, I think everyone is in favour of it not getting it’s own reading.

The idea is for Dust Motes to be used for a podcast series by Skullgate Media, which is awesome. They’re doing something called Sounds from the Year Between.

Anways, I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to listen to it before it gets remastered and made to sound like I didn’t completely suck at my first go at audio recording me reading one of my pieces.

The link will take you over to my BandLab where I’ve got a pair of other musical scores I made a long time ago for when I was writing Fyskar, just as a heads up.

Click here to listen to Dust Motes.

Anime Cinema Friday: Accel World

This is in the bracket of ‘would recommend’. It isn’t exactly cute in the way Ouran Highschool Host Club is. It’s also not gruesome in a Deadman Wonderland sort of way. I’d say it boarders on a split in art style and thematics between Konosuba and Sword Art Online, without, you know, eight seasons or whatever SAO is currently sitting at.

This one acknowledges the gaming system, but it doesn’t trap people in the alternative world like Overlord and Log Horizon. The Gundam type fighting suits are not poorly rendered. OMG you can get me going on irritation when studios decide to put in 3d rendered Blender construction into “traditional” anime and it doesn’t integrate well. Violet Evergarden and Black Clover deal with that type of integration well, but considering something like Alice to Zorouku and I’m just going to cringe.

Off that tangent, the intensity level for this thing is probably in a mild 3-4. Enough drama to keep you interested. Doesn’t have the robust staying power that some other dynamic anime does, but it slips into the category of a newer anime fan coming to you asking for a list of things to recommend and this one tends to get thrown on the list. The story line is paced okay. Some scenes are dragged out and some are a bit too short. It could have been tightened up, but I think it was allowed to progress the way it did to fit the timeframe the producers needed.

Overall, you won’t be wasting your time watching it. If you have actual important things to do though, it’s an easy one to put down and go do the things needing being done without you chomping at the bit to get back and find out what happens next.

That’s what it is. It doesn’t have an intense cliff-hanger complex! Oh, now I get it. That’s why it’s in the 3-4 intensity scale category for me. Huh. Interesting.

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Mobile Game Review: Love Nikki

Alright, I’ll admit, I’ve played this game before. I don’t remember right off hand how far I got, but probably ten chapters into the game I realized I needed a help website that laid out what outfits to pair for best results. Does that take away from the thing? Sort of. I say that because full sets don’t actually get you as far as you might think. They look much better. Designing a full outfit for looks is awesome, but you can get docked points for your personal aesthetic. I remember ending up with some ludicrous outfit with wings and a heavy winter scarf and a shiny black dress that got me a better point score, but Nikki looked like she’d fallen out of a wardrobe paired between a reindeer keeper and a queen.

I got frustrated with that aesthetic failing after a while and found some of the event stages to be stressful because I couldn’t complete a set without dropping money in the game. Again, this is where I provide the caveat that I know the artists, game designers, and people maintaining the servers need to eat too. So, yes, they need their ways of making money. I just found certain aspects frustrating.

I’m hoping, by giving the game another try, mainly going into this starting out with an outfit guide for best points, and knowing I’m evaluating the game on aesthetics, storyline, and playability outside of the immortal money grab that is these types of mobile games that I will have a better outlook on the game overall.

With that said, the game just finished downloading for my phone and I think I found the website I needed for initial navigation in clothing choices. Let’s see what the updates have been like since the last time I was on here back in I think 2018 or 2019?

We have a King Sayet upon introduction, opening on a funeral service for him, and 3 legacies – the way they chose to deal with distribution of materials – fashion contests. Well…okay?

Hello Nikki and Miraland.

The opening is a tutorial really on how to navigate the dressing stage and then you go around town.

Went and got into https://ln.nikkis.info/ and started establishing my wardrobe. I had over 900 pieces in my last deck…jeez. I wiped the whole thing and started back at the beginning and now have to go through and manually input each of the items, but this will make this game easier in the long run.

Sadly, the Accessory tab for the website tends to get bogged down, so when possible, if you can figure out what the item is, like a hat, or jewelry, or a skin, go through those tabs rather than just the general accessory tab.

After finishing the first chapter in this all over again, I remembered why I eventually deleted it off my phone several years back. The story line plays out in a contrived manner. The costume sets make you anxious to get more, more, more, and there are numerous reward tasks that pop up as those little dopamine release bubbles to make you play more. If you start out with an inventory that generates winning combinations for outfits it gets easier to play, but that means keeping an updated inventory of outfits, which, if you don’t have it hooked to the account (because some of us left facebook in the dust) the game can turn into a real time sink.

I would honestly say, the game would be fun, if the clothing combinations were actually pretty. However, they tend to be outragious monstrosities that a clown would be embarrassed to parade out in.

Give it a go if you have that ‘oh there’s a shiny, oh there’s a shiny, oh there’s a shiny, must collect them all and win everything’ personality. It can satisfy that itch. The number of tasks that add up and the time limits on some outfit acquisitions can just rack up anxiety though for some of us.

Lovestory Manga Wednesday: Ten Count

Clears throat. Has a moment of going red in the cheeks and warm along the ear tips.

Shall we begin?

First and foremost, this is a boys love / yaoi manga series with explicit content not designed for people under the age of 18. The text deals with a therapist and a patient and a series of events designed to help the patient master their compulsive behaviors. Quite a few events could be triggering to some audiences. Caution is advised.

With that disclaimer out of the way…

Hello little ball of smutty gloriousness. This ticks all the boxes for eyecandy reading. Anatomical proportions, good background, decent linework that doesn’t come off as hurried or over-labored.

I rather liked this story. True, quite a few scenes are tropey set ups, and if you aren’t into reading this type of work, it could be construed easily as an unbalanced predatory power dynamic. It is not something that should be used as a methodology for enacting in one’s own life.

Stepping into the story as purely a fantasy set up though, the characters have enough depth to justify all of the risque content. The story progresses with the characters both growing emotionally together and as their own individual selves. The overarching arc is addressed with a minimum of loose ends left to pick up, if at all, if you even care.

Look, usually people who pick this kind of stuff up aren’t looking for the romantic storyline to be deeply developmental. They’re looking for that short term dopamine release that comes with a little bit of love and a lot of…well… *ehem*.

And yes. I’ve read this twice already…so, would I suggest it?

Only if I knew the person I was talking to would not have a triggering problem with the unbalanced power dynamic and invasion of space and coercion thinly veneered as a series of therapy session. If you’re good knowing that, this is a nice bit of tasty.

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