What have you been watching/reading/playing lately?

[sinnatious]

I was going to make some sort of post about all the rl stuff going on, and will still make that post, but this is not that post.

Instead, I want to talk about manga and anime and video games!

I've been catching up somewhat on my anime and manga. Finally watched Attack on Titan!  It was excellent, to no great surprise given how many people had recommended it to me. Ahhh, but now I'm stuck between waiting for a second season of the anime or catching up with the manga!

Also kinda of detoured on my way there to watching Skip Beat! and reading that manga.  Attack on Titan being good was no shock, but I was genuinely surprised by how good Skip Beat was! Or maybe there'd been a massive deficiency of shoujo in my fiction diet. In any case, it took the most stereotypical of eye-rolling fantasy-fulfilling pop idol shoujo tropes and turned it completely on its head. Kyoko is such a great protagonist, although admittedly in the later volumes of the manga they pushed the wilful naivete factor a little too hard... even if they have justified it quite well in Kyoko's vehement, self-preserving denial.  And perhaps it resonates a little with me too because people so vastly underestimate the motivational power of spite.  :D

In any case, though it has a slightly slow start, once it gets rolling - awesome. All of the acting arcs are surprisingly kick-ass and for all the occasional silliness it has some great depth to it. The greatest thing about it, though, is that I can think of no other manga that better exemplifies the adage that 'the very best revenge is living well'. I kind of want more fanfic of it, this WIP stole my heart because high school reunions.

Also read all that's available of xXxholic Rei. Yes, there is more xXxholic! I was surprised too! I was even more surprised when I started reading it and it appeared to be a massive ret-con of the entire ending of xXxholic.  I can't figure out what's going on! Are these just side stories taking place earlier in the timeline? Yet even that doesn't seem to match up very well, since Doumeki has the egg yet they haven't swapped eyes by now. And there is the occasional panel, the occasional hint that something isn't quite right... is this all some massive delusion that Watanuki is trapped in? A part of me wants to be angry about it but I trust that CLAMP had something cool planned so will bide my time. If it is just more standalones, I'm okay with that too, since xXxholic's standalones were awesome. I should probably also get around to finishing reading Tsubasa Chronicles sometime to get the full story on that end.

ALSO, ALSO, KAGEROU DAYS. Oh man, I heard about the manga and anime for this, and have been following Jin's Kagerou Project (You may be familiar with this song) on and off for a while now, but went on a bender earlier this week when I discovered that Jin had been busy and there were a bunch of new songs! It's all so very cryptic but deliciously tragic, especially once you start putting together all the puzzle pieces. Can't wait for the anime, but here's the manga for anyone interested and a playlist of the subbed songs.

That's about it for anime/manga... as for video games, have settled nicely into Animal Crossing, though I have since also acquired Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers and Fire Emblem: Awakening so it's likely only a matter of weeks before the balance tilts into abandoning it in an new game's favour. Seriously though that game is like Tamagotchi meets the Sims, I get wracked with inexplicable guilt whenever I fail to tend to the town properly. Finally filled up my HHA Showcase though, some of the houses were really cool! Some are astoundingly thorough in their interior design, one neat house had set itself up like an arcade and a nightclub, another like a fully-realised Japanese onsen... then there was one house, completely paid off with full-sized rooms and modified exterior... entirely filled with cyclomattus stags. And nothing but cyclomattus stags. In Every. Single. Room.

If they wanted to creep visitors out, they succeeded.

So that's my pop-culture intake of late. Anyone else want to fangirl/discuss any of these things?!  I am tragically short of people to flail over some of this with lately.

Oh, yes!  One more thing. If you haven't seen it, everyone ought to go see Gravity.  It's a supremely well-made film, and if you're concerned about the horror based on the trailer, it's actually more of an action/suspense flick. It has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, do you know how crazy that is?! It needs to be seen on the big screen. A space movie that isn't sci-fi! Kessler Syndrome, guys, a totally real thing. Reminded me fondly of Planetes.

Comments

[thesundaywriter.livejournal.com]

Skip Beat is lots of fun, though I haven't read it for the past year I was really hooked to it when it first started~

Shingeki no Kyojin is good but does not really do it for me.

On the other hand I've been plesantly surprised by Free! I thought it was just going to be some shallow pretty boy otome game kind of series but it actually has decent characters and plot, and normally high school + slice of life together is a double negative for me! Another surprisingly entertaining on is Servant x Service, about a bunch of folks working in the health and welfare sector~

I also completed Karneval but was quite boring, only the visuals were shiny, and was rather disappointed as I read the first volume of the manga. I guess it wasn't translated over well.

Currently watching Mirage of Blaze and Psycho Pass =P

Lastly~ watch Chihayafuru~~ *forever plugging it everywhere~~*

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I could imagine if you were following along month-by-month releases the past year or two things would have become a little frustrating with Skip Beat. It feels like it might be winding up to a conclusion though with this latest chapter release.

I tried to get into Free!, did it improve much after the first episode? It seemed like it was decently executed with nice animation, but it wasn't quite enough to hook me into watching the rest.

Heard good things about Psycho Pass, let me know how that goes! I couldn't for the life of me stomach Mirage of Blaze though, watched it about six or seven years ago and only managed to finish it because it was so short. I think it's just reincarnation stories that bother me, I can think of a couple of exceptions (Sailor Moon, Jubei-Chan) but they seem to fall far outside of my taste normally. Then again, that was the OAV version, maybe the TV version is better! I hope you're enjoying it.

Chihayafuru, huh? By the summary sounds like a more eclectic shoujo version of Hikaru no Go, accurate?

[thesundaywriter.livejournal.com]

Haha, I guess so? I actually have never watched HnG so I can't safely say =D

[caterfree10.livejournal.com]

Catch up on the manga with usssssss. 'tis wonderful and possibly even MORE heartbreaking than the anime! 8D //brick'd

And I hadn't realized there was more xxxHolic, is it worth looking for it? I mean, I probably will at some point anyway because CLAMP fangirl, buuuuuut need to know priority order, hehe. x3

Then again, reading much of anything's been taking kind of a backseat since pokemon X and Y came out. I was even in the middle of a Fifth Act reread (new experience! reading on fanfiction app on my iPhone! //brick'd) and... have basically stumbled into my longest time for it, ahahaha. |D;;; goes back to love on her pokemon anyway

[killiara.livejournal.com]

... listen to the podfic version of Fifth Act while playing pokemon?

[caterfree10.livejournal.com]

I AM VERY TEMPTED, NGL. I just, ah, need to add it to my iphone oop. <<;;;; I need to add a lot of music to phone tho heh //lazybones

[killiara.livejournal.com]

Or, set it up to run on your computer, turn off the monitor, turn up the speakers, and relax?

[caterfree10.livejournal.com]

Eh, problem with that is one music player switches my computer to basic mode and the other makes it crawl. XP (I really need a new comp - might be my next monetary goal :V). Hence the need for me to bring my USB charger down one of these days so I can and/remove music and other important audio files such as TFA and some of my ringtones. :Bb

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

Hmm, for xXxholic, if you enjoyed just the client short stories and that aspect for sure, if you were more interested in the over-arching plot maybe wait a little while? It's only some 15 chapters in... Still quite early times, and that monthly update... urgh I've been spoiled by Shonen Jump all these years.

Hahaha, new Pokemon out, everything takes a back seat! Productivity drops worldwide attributed to Nintendo. http://kotaku.com/the-real-reason-nintendo-will-never-make-a-pokemon-mmo-534778160

[caterfree10.livejournal.com]

Hm, might wait a bit to check it out, though I am a sucker for both aspects. We'll see when I can get around it it, ahaha. |D And eheh, I know what you mean weekly vs monthly manga updates. Seems like since the only SJ series I keep up with anymore is Naruto (and the only one I can garner any interest among my friends anymore so //shrug), everything else has been monthly - Attack on Titan, FMA before it ended, Soul Eater, etc, it doesn't seem to stop. x3

And LOL, that is 100% accurate, negl. But y'know, I wonder if there have been productivity drops for real since X and Y's release though. Wonder if anyone's been keeping track of that, ahaha. :>

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

God, I sympathise! Same thing here, I don't follow many manga these days but everything is monthly. Then again, the monthly manga are usually a little meatier in story than the average Shonen Jump updates... how long is that damn war in Naruto going to last?

LOL, well, it can't be too terrible or the Japanese government would make Nintendo release it on a Sunday a la Dragon Quest. Would definitely like to know, though! (Though probably still not as big a difference as closing Reddit or Facebook for a day would make).

[caterfree10.livejournal.com]

At the very least, all the good shit nowadays is monthly. Better stories but longer waits. Oh well. Gives people plenty of time to read/write fic, I suppose. uvu and more time before it get Jossed for others, ahaha

lol, this is very true. Though I'm kind of surprised they didn't do that this gen with how hyped up it was (and damn did it deliver *loves on her babies*). Ah well, so long as everything's running smoothly, I guess no one can complain too much. xD

[killiara.livejournal.com]

Soul Hackers... I have the game, but it's a bit further down on my playlist. I want to finish Devil Survivor: Overclocked first, as it's by the same company and roughly in the same multiverse. And then Devil Survivor 2, SMT 4, I eventually need to go back and finish Strange Journey, Fire Emblem... oh yes and Persona 3 Portable... too much Atlus?

And I am right there with you on Animal Crossing.

Though what is currently eating my head is POKEMON X because oh my god I've seen pokemon from every generation, and I'm not even up to my second badge yet.

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

Enjoy it while you can! Atlus's parent company went bankrupt and they've since been bought by Sega Sammy. Quite the awesome list you have there though! :D

<3 Animal Crossing is so addictive, isn't it? Heh, but even it cannot stand up to Pokemon. I've been hearing amazing things about X and Y, tempted to play even though I haven't touched Pokemon since Gen 1. (But... so many other games still unplayed!)

[killiara.livejournal.com]

Well, right now until January... 15th I want to say, you can download a Torchic via wireless in Pokemon x/y. You're also given a gen 1 starter not to many towns in, and the starter for this game at the very beginning. So if you're careful and resist the impulse of OMG FIRE STARTER IS A FENNIC FOX, you can have a 'starter' of all three types.

Ug, and I know about Atlus. Part of me is hopeful, the rest of me remembers what happened with Sonic the Hedgehog. I've also beaten Persona 4 Golden once, deliberately getting a bad end, cause it's my headcanon that the bad end loops around to the beginning and at the start of New Game Plus is a VERY CONFUSED PROTAGONIST who now has to Do It Right Dammit. ... I will admit this is my headcanon for all Atlus games that involve a New Game Plus.

This is also why I'm doing Persona 3 Portable with male protagonist first, because I figure the gender flip to female and new game plus will be EPIC MINDSCREW, even if we the audience don't get to see it.

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

I'll keep that in mind! I doubt I'll get around to it though because I'm trying not to spend too much money at the moment, and I got my last couple of games purely through trading.

Sad, right? But Sega is a very large machine and the left hand has absolutely no idea what the right hand is up to most of the time, so Atlus's fate will likely be dependent on which arm and which studios deal with their properties. If they end up having anything to do with Sega America we're probably doomed. Sega Sammy will likely do nothing other than leverage the IPs for Pachinko branding which is crass but ultimately harmless to the games themselves. If it falls under Sega Japan, which is the most likely... anyone's guess. They do everything from the sublime Valkyria Chronicles to the most awful Sonic cash-ins ever. Fingers crossed for them.

Ahahaha that's a good approach to New Game Plus! 10/10 would read fanfic of that.

[swifty-chan.livejournal.com]

After you get your second badge, things would speed up, trust me! There seems to be an overly long gap between first and second badge. It's like they're throwing all tutorials and fancy shmancy stuff at you before allowing you to proceed. 'XD

*looks at post date* Oh never mind. You might have beat the game already. 'oTL

[peangallery.livejournal.com]

I remember reading Skip Beat up until the arc where Kyoto(?) was cosplaying as an American as Rei(?)'s sister, so they can be in-character for the movie, then I stopped. How far is the story now?

Though game-wise I just bought Guild Wars 2 last Sunday, it's a really neat MMO, though I suck at it. And I kind of knew I would suck at it when I bought it, but couldn't resist after watching this YouTube video about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax-_06Acj8Y

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

It's waaaay further now. Heaps has happened since then. It actually might be on the road to wrapping up? Though hard to tell, because for a while there it was doing that annoying shoujo manga thing of stretching things out to the point of ridiculousness. But there's definitely been a lot of progression!

Neat, Guild Wars! I've always steered clear of MMOs mostly because I have a ridiculously addictive personality and it seems dangerous, but that does sound pretty good.

[peangallery.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I steered cleared of MMO because I know I suck at hand-eye coordination, so on solo games I could never get through without using cheats, and I can't do that on multi-player games. But this game is really neat on a lot of places. The graphic's awesome, the combat's neat, plus, what bought me in was the whole, pay once and you don't ever have to worry about it. And even though I do suck and die a lot, nice thing is there's no death penalty like exp lost, which is what drives me off most games 'cus I end up dying a lot.

[dokuganria.livejournal.com]

Did you actually enjoy the Titans thing? So many people have, seriously, what did I miss? I couldn't get into it no matter what I tried - and I swear I tried. Hard. Kept forcing myself to watch until the uneven pace and the over-drama I couldn't bring myself to care about and the overloaded characters became too much for me.

...I think that was around episode eleven? Hahah.

I've had Skip beat on the backburner for a while - ever since I mistook it for Sket dance. Good to know it's worth watching =D

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

I liked it! It did take me a few episodes to really get into it though, and I can also see how it might not be everyone's thing. A little surprised it's as popular as it is, actually.

Yeah, did a similar thing to Skip Beat until one day I randomly committed to it. Took a couple of episodes to get going but it wound up being a lot of fun, recommended!

[tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed Titans! I find the anime to be more enjoyable than the manga (which only updates once a month). There were a few tweaks in the anime vs the manga but I think the tweaks improved the pacing quite a lot. I just want to flail a lot about Attack on Titan but the problem is figuring out where to start.

Seconding the swimming anime Free! recommendation. I went into it fully expecting lots and lots of fanservice, but it's actually a pretty good anime and makes me want to go swimming again. A couple of things make me go facepalm but it's otherwise a really enjoyable anime, and helped me through a hard time. It's after about the first three episodes that it really starts buckling down on plot, though it still has its ridiculous moments. I think it's best to watch it when you want something silly and cheerful otherwise you won't enjoy it (kind of like how, if you wanted to watch something upbeat, it would be hard to enjoy Attack on Titan).

I think there was mention of Psycho Pass? I did a quick review of it when I finished, but tl;dr, it's a pretty good anime in terms of animation, concept, plot, and characterisation (for certain characters), but because of certain triggering (for me) content, I found parts of it hard to stomach. If you can stomach content along the likes of uhhh NCIS or Criminal Minds (though I don't know if you watch these), then I would recommend Psycho Pass.

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that monthly update thing is what's holding me back a little from picking up the manga where the anime left off. But I'm also super-impatient for a second season! There are so many mysteries that need to be solved!

Ah, righteo, that's good to know about Free! I will persevere. :) Ta for the advice.

Hrm, I'm not huge on the gory/scary stuff... can stomach it usually, but it's a bit of a turn off. I'll probably get around to it at some point, but might put that one further down the list then.

[tenshinoakuma.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I know this is a bit delayed, but if you do watch the rest of Free! and end up enjoying it, I really recommend reading the light novel, High Speed! (http://sayasamax3.tumblr.com/post/56013645417/high-speed-translations-and-summaries) (i'm reading the sunnyskies translation). The reason being that High Speed! (which is what lead to the creation of Free!) is set when the cast were kids, and gives a lot of context to the stuff you see in the anime, and is a hugely interesting read if you enjoyed Free!

[ratzels.livejournal.com]

I have been completely and utterly sucked into the weird and wonderful world that is Welcome to Night Vale (http://commonplacebooks.com/welcome-to-night-vale/). (Transcripts available here (http://cecilspeaks.tumblr.com/tagged/wtnv-transcript/chrono), among other places.) It's funny because it's true. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=061MpC5q1NM)

I did have the chance to finally play Journey the other day, though, so that's awesome and I now fully appreciate your cosplay. XD

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

How eclectic! But sounds interesting, how on earth did you get into that?

Oh yessss, Journey! Isn't it marvellous? *__* Just hearing about it makes me want to play it again. Such a beautiful game.

[ratzels.livejournal.com]

Peer pressure (http://www.buzzfeed.com/sedem/the-42-stages-of-welcome-to-night-vale-addiction-cjrb). By the time the third person on my Facebook feed started talking about it, I gave up. Podcasts are not my thing, so I started with the transcripts. After three or four of them I decided I had to hear the voice that went with it, and I was caught up within a week. I have multiple headcanons that clash horribly and I don't mind it a bit. I fear for and love and despair of fictional characters in equal measure. Welcome to Night Vale.

Journey is absolutely gorgeous, and just a hair depressing. The reward for the journey is...another journey? It's Groundhog Day and existential dread in one. Pretty impressive for only a couple of hours!

[ladyazurith.livejournal.com]

I've been kind of interested in Attack on Titan mostly because I see it *everywhere* I don't have much time to get into new things though. Especially right at the moment as my three year old decided to jump down the stairs and break her foot :).

The only thing new I've been doing is reading the Cold Fire Trilogy, and I would recommend it even though I'm only half way through it. Its a great read if you haven't done so already.

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

Attack on Titan is probably a bit overhyped, but it has some original ideas and is well-executed. Worth checking out but your mileage may vary.

Also, ouch! Hope your little one recovers quickly.

Thanks for the rec! My recommended reading list is getting tragically long, though *sobs*. My reading time always seems to get sunk into fanfiction...

[ladyazurith.livejournal.com]

I probably eventually will, just down the road, that seems to be how things usually go for me ><

And she's doing better actually goes to get the cast off today. We've all been waiting for it lol.

I know that feeling XD, I read/write far to much of it myself.

[swifty-chan.livejournal.com]

I used to watch SnK, but the pacing seemed to have gotten so slow that I stopped somewhere in the middle of the female Titan's appearance. >.>'' Considering that the season has ended, I guess I can just marathon it now~

Oh yes, Skip Beat! is awesome!

Huh, didn't know there's more xxxHolic. Might give it a try. I quite like that manga, but it became so... so... angsty. D:'

I FEEL YOU ABOUT ANIMAL CROSSING. If you don't want your flowers to wither and die, you could easy set up the Beautiful town ordinance. You won't have to water the plants! I have friends who usually come onto ACNL for about 15 minutes to check on their villagers and make sure none of them are moving before switching to other games. Oh yeah, wacky house designs. I once saw a house with Pokemon design... Though the main theme of the house is the rival Hugh from Pokemon BW2. One room actually contains 3 beds side-by-side with Hugh's sprite on it, and the wallpaper is also nothing but Hugh. It was kinda freaky. o_o'

FE:A is a good game. You won't disappoint~ *eagers to come up with FE:A prompts during Christmas prompts*

Soul Hackers is pretty decent, though I stopped halfway for ACNL and SMT4. I highly recommend SMT4 if you haven't got it already, but I also recommend finishing Soul Hackers before coz it'd be really hard going back to the game after SMT4. 'xD


I've recently completed Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies. The final case culprit is pretty unexpected, and of all the final cases in PW series, never have I felt FEARFUL when it was revealed. Especially when a certain person delivered that Wham Line on the person's identity. ZOMG! Dx

Been playing Pokemon Y, but this has slowed due to my assignments. I'm surprised, though. I was worried the game would changed too drastically, and that it would be so darn hard to move and adjust camera angle, but nope! It's just like any old Pokemon game, the camera view is pretty much fixed and will auto-adjust at some areas. The Pokemon battle animations are amazing, and Pokemon Amie is probably every Pokemon fans' dream come true. XD

Anime-wise, I've been watching Log Horizon. Everyone's been saying how it looks like SAO or .hack due to the premise, but the story is more than that. After all, what sort of anime would have the hero play tactician/support role? XDD It also seems to focus more on the guild politics and socioeconomics side of the game. I read the light novel and it has great potential! I highly recommend it~

Uh. Sorry for the long read. I guess I needed to fangirl too, wahaha... /o/

[sinnatious.livejournal.com]

xXxholic became angsty? XD I thought it was rather dark and angsty from the start! Some of those wishes were downright depressing. Although perhaps Yuuko's moments of levity lightened things up enough that when she no longer there as a distraction...

Aha, yeah, I may have to switch to a Beautiful Town ordinance! I've been keeping it on a Night Owl ordinance because that was mostly when I was playing and it was frustrating when all the stores kept closing... but when I start winding down that's definitely a good idea.

Heh, I haven't started playing FE:A yet, hold off on your prompts! That's great to hear though, looking forward to that one. Just got my mitts on the new Phoenix Wright too (no spoilers!), but I haven't started yet because I'm keeping it to play on the long plane rides coming up. After reading your comment now I'm REALLY excited.

Cheers for the recommend! I have things to watch coming out of my ears, but next time I'm restless and want something new I'll check that out. Certainly sounds interesting.

LOL, it's fine! This is a post for fangirling, after all. \o/