Well_known_bear's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
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    Been playing Once upon a Katamari. This is the fourth game in the series that I've played, after 1-2 on the PS2 and the one on the PSP, so although this game is basically just more of the same,...

    Been playing Once upon a Katamari.

    This is the fourth game in the series that I've played, after 1-2 on the PS2 and the one on the PSP, so although this game is basically just more of the same, it's been long enough that it feels fresh again to me.

    • The gameplay is basically the same as in the earlier games, with the only new addition being items you can pick up and use. None of these last very long or are particularly powerful, so the experience remains pretty familiar (a good thing in my book). In addition to just rolling stuff up into a monstrous all-consuming blob (my favourite style of stage), there's a decent variety of challenges like only rolling up certain types of items or trying to get your katamari to a specific size by eyeballing it. My only real complaint is that most of the stages have a hard time or size limit, so generally they end just when you've gotten the katamari to the right size to go on a real rampage, but there's probably the ability to unlock free play somewhere in there too if it's like the earlier games.

    • The soundtrack is all new and generally quite good, although it definitely has a bit of a leaning towards pop. I remember the first 2 games having all sorts of odd tracks like a guy just straight up talking about katamaris for 5 minutes or a children's song, and there isn't quite that level of variety here.

    • There's a ton of unlockable outfits, cousins and whatnot, but if you're like me and don't really care about achievements or cosmetics in games, the game is pretty good about letting you just ignore all that too.

    • This is totally on me, but this is the first one I'm playing in Japanese and it turns out that the King of the Cosmos speaks in all katakana, which is a real pain in the ass to read. You can skip all of his long winded talks and just get to the gameplay most of the time, but sometimes he does provide helpful information about your objectives (unfortunately, usually during the mission when you're trying to focus on rolling stuff up).

    Great game for short sessions in the evening when you want to space out.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Kyoto Animation announces next show (20-seiki Denki Mokuroku / Sparks of Tomorrow) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    Airing 2026 Adventure series set in a steampunk Kyoto Trailer
    • Airing 2026
    • Adventure series set in a steampunk Kyoto
    • Trailer
    2 votes

  4. Comment on Third season and movie confirmed for Kusuriya no Hitorigoto (The Apothecary Diaries) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    Season 3 to air in 2 cours in October 2026 and April 2027. Movie to be an original story written by the novel author, releasing December 2026.

    • Season 3 to air in 2 cours in October 2026 and April 2027.

    • Movie to be an original story written by the novel author, releasing December 2026.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    Watched season 1 of Jigokuraku / Hell's Paradise, the adaptation of the Jump manga about a condemned ninja who is sent with nine other criminals and their guards to a mysterious island rumoured to...

    Watched season 1 of Jigokuraku / Hell's Paradise, the adaptation of the Jump manga about a condemned ninja who is sent with nine other criminals and their guards to a mysterious island rumoured to be the afterlife. Each is tasked by the shogunate with finding and retrieving the elixir of immortality in exchange for their freedom.

    • This is very much your standard Jump action / fantasy fighting show, but it also has a fun adventure element. Almost right off the bat, the cast is thrown into this alien world filled with danger and mystery, and it's interesting to see it slowly fleshed out as the characters run into one weird thing after another.

    • The animation is fine, albeit a bit rough by Mappa's standards, with flat colouring, minimal composition and action sequences that occasionally get a bit choppy.

    Not super deep, but fast paced and fun to watch.

    Also finished watching cour 1-2 of To Be Hero X. We're absolutely inundated with superhero anime these days, but I really enjoyed this one!

    • In addition to the show's signature '3D with 2D composition' style, the show actually has a good number of episodes where it's just fully traditional 2D animation. Fortunately, the quality of the 2D animation really picks up, and by the time it's regularly 2D, it looks great.

    • The story is told non-linearly in a series of short but interrelated arcs, each focusing on a different character (usually one introduced in an earlier arc). Each of these arcs has its own premise, but all of them are based around the key theme of the show and how it affects that character.

      I'll reserve judgement on the main story until the series is complete, but the individual arcs are all enjoyable in their own right, with the focus generally kept on the characters as human beings with human-scale drama and motivations rather than dudes beating each other up with super powers or saving the world.

    Impressions for this season's shows

    • Boku no Hero Academia Final Season: Pacing is back on track now that they're no longer trying to tell 5 stories at once. Animation is also excellent even by this series' high standards. I think they've dragged the central conflict out too long for the drama around the main characters to hit as hard as the series' peak moments, but I'm generally satisfied with how they're landing the plane so far.

    • Gachiakuta (cour 2): Pacing is still incredibly slow, but the antagonists are at last being introduced and the plot is finally moving forward. The main character is still a bit of an unlikeable maniac, but that feels about right given his background.

    • Fumetsu no Anata e S3: I was a bit worried by them bring back so many past characters in the first couple of eps, but this week's ep has me convinced that the plot is heading in a good direction. The new characters are interesting and firmly in the driver's seat.

    • 3-nen Z-gumi Ginpachi-sensei: I had to drop this. All the original characters are there with their quirks and voice actors intact, but the context and story which all of that plugged into is just completely stripped away. The result is something that looks the part but doesn't feel it, like a reanimated corpse.

    • One Punch Man S3: Pretty awful. Despite the story really not being deep at all, the first episode has about 8 separate plot threads going at once, with none of them getting more than a couple of minutes of screen time. The animation is somehow even worse than S2, and I'm pretty sure there was one scene where a guy's still image was just mouse dragged across the screen when he was supposed to be walking. It is still absolutely watchable with your brain turned off, though.

    5 votes

  7. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
    Link
    Only following a few shows this season, so I've been checking out some Chinese shows too. They've come a long way in recent years and now feel competitive with a lot of what's coming out of Japan....

    Only following a few shows this season, so I've been checking out some Chinese shows too. They've come a long way in recent years and now feel competitive with a lot of what's coming out of Japan.

    • To Be Hero X / Tu Bian Yingxiong X

      3D animation which often features overlaid 2D effects and occasionally uses full 2D animation in a variety of styles. The plot revolves around superheroes whose powers come from the trust of the public (or their fear, in the case of villains). Basically, they're kind of like gods who become whatever people believe they are, but they have to constantly market themselves in order to keep the public's attention.

      The 3D animation is quite good and the characters come across as very expressive. The quality of the 2D animation is more variable, although some of it (e.g. the OP) is also pretty impressive.

      Apparently this is just the latest series in the Tu Bian Yingxiong franchise, but it doesn't feel like you need to have seen the previous shows to follow the story.

    • Link Click / Shiguang Dailiren

      Time travel thriller / drama about two friends who can enter the pasts of others through their photos.

      Haven't watched too much so far, but the story seems interesting, the animation is smooth and clean and the backgrounds have this colourful, stylised look which I quite like.

    • Daily Life of the Immortal King / Xianwang de Richang Shenghuo

      Your standard shounen action / comedy about a kid who goes to magic school and is secretly the strongest but has to pretend to be weak in order not to destroy the world with his powers. The show would be terrible if it took itself seriously, but fortunately it's quite silly and filled with dumb jokes. The animation starts out a bit janky but picks up towards the end of season 1, and by the start of season 2 it's actually pretty good.

    Other thoughts:

    • I'm guessing this is a censorship thing, but they don't have blood in these shows. Instead, you get stuff like people spurting gold. It's very surreal. (Edit: Having watched some more, this isn't always the case and seems to vary even within the same series!)

    • All of the above shows are directed by the same guy, Li Haoling. I think he does a good job (particularly given how different the tone of each show is), but I guess it also shows how small a pond the anime industry is over there at the moment.

    3 votes

  8. Comment on Frieren manga announces indefinite hiatus in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    There's a bit to unpack here, but my high level thoughts: Weekly serials are a bit of a rare beast nowadays due to how punishing the schedule is, but the big three (Jump, Magazine and Sunday) are...

    There's a bit to unpack here, but my high level thoughts:

    • Weekly serials are a bit of a rare beast nowadays due to how punishing the schedule is, but the big three (Jump, Magazine and Sunday) are still generally seen as the most prestigious and where the 'big hits' are made (leading to fame and riches). Hence, there's a lot of competition to run in these serials, and a lack of popularity can easily lead to getting cut (especially at Jump, the big dog). As a result, I suspect a lot of mangaka put pressure on themselves to put out the best product they can so they can shoot their shot, rather than the magazine editors directly grinding them with demands for X quality in Y time.

    • More and more, mangaka are choosing not to participate in that grind. With online electronic distribution being a thing now, there are plenty of smaller competitors to the big weekly serials. Monthly magazines are producing their own share of hits now (e.g. Jump+ with Spy X Family and Chainsaw Man) and also host some big names who want to gear down (e.g. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is monthly now). Some mangaka are even selling directly to the customer (Blackjack ni Yoroshiku attempted something like that, IIRC, and plenty more just make and sell adult content through DLsite - I believe even a couple of former weekly Jump mangaka!)

      Even back in the olden days, though, I think people realised that the weekly grind was kind of BS. Mizuki Shigeru once famously said that the reason that he outlived his famous contemporaries like Tezuka (who often ran like a dozen serials at once) was that he just got adequate sleep, and the dude was no stranger to hardship - he became a mangaka after losing his arm in the war!

    11 votes

  9. Comment on Frieren manga announces indefinite hiatus in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
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    This got me curious to check who currently actually serialises weekly in Sunday. I just want to point out how insane it is that Takahashi Rumiko, a 68 year old lady who is a millionaire many times...

    This got me curious to check who currently actually serialises weekly in Sunday.

    I just want to point out how insane it is that Takahashi Rumiko, a 68 year old lady who is a millionaire many times over, is still doing a weekly.

    8 votes

  10. Comment on Financial collapse? in ~finance

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    John Bogle (founder of Vanguard)'s Little Book of Common Sense Investing is also a good, short and simple read which makes a similar recommendation. Tune out the FUD and invest broadly and for the...

    John Bogle (founder of Vanguard)'s Little Book of Common Sense Investing is also a good, short and simple read which makes a similar recommendation.

    Tune out the FUD and invest broadly and for the long term.

    18 votes

  11. Comment on Chainsaw Man movie releases in North America on October 24, with early screenings on October 22 for some Crunchyroll membership tiers in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
    Link
    It's interesting that this strategy of: building the following via the TV series; and then making the actual profit by putting the rest of the story into movie(s), has now become the de facto...

    It's interesting that this strategy of:

    1. building the following via the TV series; and

    2. then making the actual profit by putting the rest of the story into movie(s),

    has now become the de facto standard among the high end studios (Ufotable, Mappa, Kyoto Animation, etc).

    The economics are what they are, so I don't begrudge anyone for doing this. Some thoughts off the top of my head, though:

    • This is a pretty substantial shift away from what franchise movies tended to be in the past - i.e. stories that stood on their own with distinct ideas. I'm thinking in particular of classics like the Patlabor movies which had a totally different tone from the TV series. Are we now going to see a lot fewer of these?

    • Are some stories just better suited to episodic storytelling? Is pacing sacrificed by having to adhere to movie format and running length? I'm inclined to think this is true at least to some extent for shows like Demon Slayer, especially given how it has to be chopped up into separate movies that come out like a year apart.

    • In the past, step 2 in the above strategy was to make the profit via goods (particularly videos / DVDs). Have we now seen a decline in that to the point where it's no longer sustainable, at least for high budget animation? How much has the shift to streaming contributed to that?

    4 votes

  12. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    Final Fantasy VII Remake Not an actual remake. The need to stretch what was originally around 15% of the original story into its own full story with a proper arc, along with its outright...

    Final Fantasy VII Remake

    Not an actual remake.

    • The need to stretch what was originally around 15% of the original story into its own full story with a proper arc, along with its outright abridgement in many places, leads to it feeling like a totally different narrative.

    • For better or worse, the characters don't feel like their original selves. Cloud in particular has gone from merely aloof to some kind of alien who has no idea how to interact with other human beings.

    • The combat system feels like it's unsure what it wants to be. The player is asked to play as if it's an action game, but you constantly need to menu to use skills and items and give orders to party members. Attacking feels weirdly floaty with no weight to any hits, and sometimes you'll just be attacking thin air for a while (FF1 style?) after killing an enemy because the targeting won't switch to the next one. Simply repositioning yourself in a fight so you can actually hit the enemies feels like a chore, with the default movement being a slow walk. Enemies can sometimes just walk away while you're preparing to do a special move and you'll just whiff instead of tracking them. Blocking seems to work even if you're being hit from behind. It all just feels jankier than the high production values would suggest.

    Despite all of that, it's not a bad game and I'm enjoying it for what it is.

    • The visuals are on point and faithful to the original designs. Having facial animation in particular adds a lot.

    • It seems that a lot of people don't like the side quests since they kill the pacing of the story, which yeah, they do. I don't think the side quests themselves are too bad, though. They're short, usually let you warp to the quest giver as soon as you're done, and you can even get a little bonus story segment for doing them. If the alternative is just grinding 30 mobs so I can afford the equipment upgrades on offer, I'll take the side quests.

      Chadley's side quests do seem a bit grindy though, so I'm not going to go too far out of my way to do those.

    • The seamless transition between field and combat is a welcome change. I wish they'd just limit the battle result pop-ups to just loot and level ups, though. As it is, there's too much info to parse in the quick time that it scrolls by (some of which is utterly useless info like "enemy X defeated" - yeah, I already know!), so it's easy to miss stuff.

    • The game runs pretty decently on my PC (albeit with the occasional crash), which you can never take for granted when it comes to AAA PC ports.

    5 votes

  13. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    spoilersIIRC, it's only been directly referenced once so far by the antagonist, around when they leave the board game. Given this new arc seems to tie directly to the antagonist's scheme,...

    Re:your second spoiler, I didn't realize that was an actual thing, tbh I never really thought to think that it meant anything. Now I'm curious to find out more too!

    spoilersIIRC, it's only been directly referenced once so far by the antagonist, around when they leave the board game. Given this new arc seems to tie directly to the antagonist's scheme, hopefully they'll explain more!

  14. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    I think one of the only things I don't like about the current state of the series is spoilersthe constantly growing Scooby Doo gang of kids with super powers. There's nothing wrong with any...

    I think one of the only things I don't like about the current state of the series is

    spoilersthe constantly growing Scooby Doo gang of kids with super powers. There's nothing wrong with any individual character or their story arc, but it's getting to the point where there are too many characters for any of them to get more than token lines (in which they're generally just caricatures of themselves - Jiji acting goofy, Sakata acting like a dork, etc), let alone further character development. It really felt to me like this reached a breaking point in the latest volume, with all the school scenes featuring the whole gang just being chaos.

    Otherwise thought the new volume was great. Hope they start revealing more about

    spoilersthe Dandadan

    in this arc!

    1 vote

  15. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    Finished watching Seirei no Moribito after seeing it recommended here months ago. Man, the maturity of the writing in this show just made me reflect on how starved we are these days for proper...

    Finished watching Seirei no Moribito after seeing it recommended here months ago.

    • Man, the maturity of the writing in this show just made me reflect on how starved we are these days for proper fantasy anime. No one has levels, cheat skills or classes in this show. No one shouts out absurd move names when fighting. There's no hero out to fight the demon lord. No one is getting unjustly kicked out of the party, reincarnated in another world or putting together a harem. It's just a story about people who happen to live in a world with fantasy elements, and some of the best parts of it (like Balsa's backstory) have nothing to do with fantasy at all.

    • I definitely get the comparison to Avatar, although it has a lot less flashy action and a lot more somber politics / drama. Some of the plot elements actually made me think more of Lord of the Rings - particularly the burden of the guardian and that moment near the end where the fantasy part of the plot is resolved.

    Great show overall.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    Just wanted to add that this show has a soundtrack by Kanno Yoko that is as excellent as you'd expect. Also love both the OP with Steve Conte (who also sang a bunch of the songs in Cowboy Bebop)...

    Just wanted to add that this show has a soundtrack by Kanno Yoko that is as excellent as you'd expect. Also love both the OP with Steve Conte (who also sang a bunch of the songs in Cowboy Bebop) and the slow, moody ED.

    I also watched this show when it was originally airing and again a couple of years ago. Man, I appreciate what they were going for - I thought the idea of freely switching between the wolf / human portrayals was really clever and constantly invites the viewer to recontextualise what they're seeing in their own minds. The plot device of traveling to paradise (and what paradise even is) is also compelling. The execution is where it falls over for me. The pacing of the show is just glacial and the story gets pretty abstract towards the end. I'm sure it can all be unpacked if people really go through the show and put the pieces and worldbuilding together from all the hints, but it's definitely not spoonfed to the viewer and if you're just watching it casually on the couch, the "payoff" is not one that is easily processed.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Devil May Fly - WIP fighter jet parry in ~games

    Well_known_bear
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    Looks great. Also, this video has made me realise that the barrel roll in Star Fox is really just a generous parry.

    Looks great.

    Also, this video has made me realise that the barrel roll in Star Fox is really just a generous parry.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    Finished up Silksong. spoilersI was a bit mixed on Act 3. The story is interesting and definitely the highlight, but the other content wasn't particularly compelling other than the return to and...

    Finished up Silksong.

    spoilersI was a bit mixed on Act 3. The story is interesting and definitely the highlight, but the other content wasn't particularly compelling other than the return to and escape from the Abyss.

    • Other than the plant boss, the extra bosses felt pretty uninspired, and having to fight waves of mobs before some of them even show up is just obnoxious. I thought the first two Lace fights were some of the best in the game as pure one-on-one sword duels, but having to do it a third time while she spams AOE attacks and you often can't even see her windup because she's overlapping with them and everything is the same colour... bleh.

    • There's very little to explore. All of the newly accessible areas are essentially just linear corridors with maybe one branch. The main map is also largely unchanged without any cool 'upside down castle' twist.

    I guess they didn't want to lock anything super substantial in an optional chapter, which is fair enough.

    Won't say too much about the difficulty as I think that's already been discussed to death, but there's so much good stuff in this game that's totally independent of the difficulty (art, music, atmosphere, exploration - all great!) that it feels like a misstep not to just throw in some sliders and let everyone enjoy it at whatever difficulty they like.

    Also finished PARANORMASIGHT.

    • The introduction set me up to expect horror / death game / social deduction, but there's actually barely any of that in the main story. It's more of a police procedural with supernatural elements where the characters methodically investigate and solve a bunch of interrelated mysteries, along with a few puzzles which require thinking outside the box.

    • Despite being short, the story is pretty complex with a ton of characters and mysteries. The game has a notes feature which is pretty good for keeping track of what's what, but a fair bit of important info is only conveyed through the notes, so you really have to read them each time they're updated in order to fully grasp what's happening.

    Still decent overall, but pretty different from what I was expecting.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on What game is your personal "Silksong"? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I came to the game through the DE and I'm in the camp that dislikes the epilogue. The original story has this somewhat hard sci-fi vibe, with a pretty 'real robot' approach to the mechs (e.g. they...

    I came to the game through the DE and I'm in the camp that dislikes the epilogue.

    • The original story has this somewhat hard sci-fi vibe, with a pretty 'real robot' approach to the mechs (e.g. they constantly get trashed and need repair; they have to go to a huge amount of effort to get them to fly, etc) and a general absence of magic / supernatural elements in favour of gritty tech often cobbled from scraps - I thought this was great and tied in perfectly with the theme of rebuilding humanity!

    • Then you have the post-credits scene that overturns all of the story in the main game. All of the drama and sacrifices made by the good guys - was it all meaningless? Find out in the sequel! OK, it's a big cheque to write, but I can accept it if they actually cash it.

    • The problem with the epilogue is that in my view, it doesn't!

    SpoilersThe answer is that all the souls were stored in the dimensional cloud! Also, there's a multiverse!

    I appreciate that there was only so much they could do with the scope they were given, but it just feels so unsatisfying! I can't imagine that this is what the original vision for the story was because it feels so out of tune with the bulk of the main game (particularly the build up to the big bad antagonists who you don't even see in the main game).

    Also, I couldn't stand Al, but that might just be me :P He's built up so much in the main story as this legend and he just turns out to be a pretty uninteresting guy with an annoying catch phrase.

    The actual main game is great, though. Even the extra area in the epilogue is fun.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I'm actually not that far in either due to Silksong, but the story seems interesting so far. Once you get past the intro, the game lets you play different routes from each character's point of...

    I'm actually not that far in either due to Silksong, but the story seems interesting so far.

    Once you get past the intro, the game lets you play different routes from each character's point of view using the usual VN flowchart interface, so there are a lot of 'aha, he's the guy they mentioned in that other route!' and 'oh, so that's why this person did that' moments as you see things from a different perspective. I kind of dig it.

    Howlongtobeat says it's only around 10 hours long, so it sounds like it's decently paced as well. That certainly lines up with my experience so far with the individual routes being pretty short.

    Gameplay-wise, it's pretty much your standard VN. The camera stuff is neat (and it's already gotten me with the jump scares), but really the bulk of it is just reading - especially the copious volume of notes that give the background about the characters, folklore and setting. I'm interested in all of that (particularly love the Showa-retro Japan setting) but I can imagine it being a bit much for someone who isn't.

    2 votes