I'm happy to except friend requests. I only ask that you show the courtesy of saying something first (weeding out bots but I also think friend requests shouldn't be so impersonal).
I'm focusing mostly on my video game and manga collection atm. My backlogs are a little out of control.
If a manga is on hold it's usually because I'm only reading it physically and have yet to buy more volumes.
Other things I'm working on: Trails of Cold Steel IV, Batman The Animated Series
Using Japanese names for consistency with database.
*=highly recommended
School/rom/com (and/or):
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu*
Asobi Asobase
Bamboo Blade
Cardcaptor Sakura*
D-Frag!
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun*
Kannagi
Kokoro Connect
Machikado Mazoku
Shokugeki no Souma (S1 and S2)
Yagate Kimi ni Naru*
Slice of Life:
GJ-bu
Gochuumon wa Usagi Desu ka?*
Hanayamata*
Ichigo Mashimaro*
K-on*
Lucky☆Star
Mitsuboshi Colors*
New Game!
Non Non Biyori*
Sansha Sanyou*
Shounen Maid
Slow Start*
Sore ga Seiyuu!
Tanaka-kun wa Itsumo Kedaruge
Yama no Susume
Yuru Yuri
Sports/game:
Baby Steps
Chihayafuru*
Haikyuu!!*
Hikaru no Go*
Initial D
Major*
One Outs
Prince of Tennis
Saki
Yowamushi Pedal
Action/adventure:
D.Gray-man
Digimon Tamers
Dragon Ball
InuYasha
Kill la Kill*
Mushibugyou
One Piece* (go to onepace.net if you want spare yourself from the horrible pacing)
One Punch Man
Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi
World Trigger
Yuu☆Yuu☆Hakusho*
Seinen/serious:
Baccano*
Black Lagoon
Fate/Zero*
Higashi no Eden
Gankutsuou
Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor*
Mnemosyne: Mnemosyne no Musume-tachi
Monster*
Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom*
Psycho-Pass
Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu*
Sci-fi/Fantasy:
Akatsuki no Yona
Garo: Honoo no Kokuin
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu*
Houseki no Kuni
Made in Abyss
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha*
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica*
Senki Zesshou Symphogear*
Shingeki no Bahamut
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann*
Tokyo Ravens
Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru
00 Gundam
Other:
Girls und Panzer
Inferno Cop*
Pripara
Shirobako*
Sora Yori mo Tooi Basho*
The Idolm@ster
Yuri Kuma Arashi
Movies:
Koe no Katachi*
Mononoke Hime
Ookami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki
Perfect Blue*
Sakasama no Patema
Stranger: Mukou Hadan*
10 - Masterpiece. Personal favorite.
9 - Great. Thoroughly enjoyable and sets an example for other works to follow.
8 - Very good. Would re-watch.
7 - Good. A solid show I would recommend without reservation.
6 - Decent. Worth watching despite some small issues.
5 - Satisfactory. Good for passing the time if you have nothing else to do.
4 - Not good. Has issues I can't overlook.
3 - Bad. Unengaging and/or poorly written.
2 - Awful. Can still be enjoyable but for the wrong reasons.
1 - Appalling. Should not be watched for any reason.
Many of my scores are old and my tastes have changed substantially over time, which is why I try to record the dates I watched each show. As such, it's best to not take my scores too seriously. I imagine a lot of what I've seen would get a lower score if I were to watch them again.
Favorite live-action show: The Expanse
Favorite movie: The Shawshank Redemption
Favorite fighting movie: The Raid
Favorite book: The Shadow of the Wind
Favorite book series: The Malazan Book of the Fallen
Watch Fate/Stay Night before Fate/Zero.
HakoMari reads like edgy fan-fiction from a 14-year-old. It markets itself as a serious psychological story but the writing style is mundane and geared more towards a young adult audience; at times it borders on campy. It clearly wants you to take it seriously, but in doing so it fails to be engaging due to its unserious presentation.
OreGairu is boring. I don't care if it's realistic, it's boring.
Demon Slayer's characters are boring and the art style is ugly (color saturation and angularity, namely).
Grand Blue is painfully unfunny.
Zeta Gundam is what happens when characters are TOO flawed.
Saint Seiya is formulaic garbage that puts Fairy Tail's plot armor to shame.
Devilman: Crybaby is all edge, no substance.
Love Live's last couple of episode is some of the most forced melodramatic bullshit in existence.
OreImo is a genuinely good show up until the end.
Vtubers are pure cringe.
Filler is better than slow pacing and it's not even close.
People complaining about how anime has gotten worse are exactly the same as everyone else who makes "back in my day" complaints: just because you have nostalgia for the (presumably) good parts doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of crap back then as well.
Amateurs seek out good shows to watch; veterans seek out entertaining shows.
Cold take: all of Japan's problems stem from conservative capitalism and a refusal to embrace immigration.
Stagnation is the death knell of society. Defeatism is self-actualizing, so the only option is to confront the absurdity of life head on. Don't condemn those who fail having dared to try, condemn those who would belittle the attempt itself.
The individual literally cannot exist without the collective. The specialization of labor demands support from all other facets of society so that any individual has the resources to succeed in whatever they pursue. While it is ultimately up to the individual what to choose, it is society that determines what options are available to us. If a person fails to "succeed" by society's standards, then the real failure is society's for not providing the means for it's members to succeed. Legislation that improves people's lives is inherently worth pursuing. Whether or not a group of people have "earned" assistance in whatever form is not a valid question and is merely a cynical deflection by those defending the status quo for personal gain. The consolidation of power, in its many forms, should be excised to the extent possible, for hierarchies are the source of all exploitation and injustice.
In my opinion:
ACII>Origins>IV>Brotherhood>III>Odyssey>Revelations>Syndicate=Rogue>Unity>AC
FFXIII>XIII-2>X>Type-0>XV>LR>VI>X-2>IV>III
Totori>Meruru>L&S>Ayesha=Firis>Ryza 2>Ryza>Lulua=Rorona+>E&L>Shallie>Sophie
Xillia>Berseria>X2>Symphonia>Vesperia>Zestiria>Graces F
I hope you'll forgive the formatting. Copying from a spreadsheet isn't as simple as I'd like.
Score Description
1 Not for me
2 Ok
3 I like it
4 I really like it
5 I love it
PS3 Rating
Assassin's Creed 1: 2
2 :5
Brotherhood :4
Revelations :3
III: 3
Atelier Rorona :3
Totori :5
Meruru :5
Ayesha :4
Escha & Logy: 3
Shallie :2
Final Fantasy X :3
XIII: 5
XIII-2: 4
Lightning Returns :2
Star Ocean: The Last Hope : 4
Tales of Xillia 1 :5
2 :4
Graces f: 1
Uncharted 1: 3
2 :4
3 :4
Burnout Paradise : 4
Naruto Storm 1 :2
2: 2
3: 4
PS4
Atelier Sophie :2
Firis: 4
Lydie & Suelle :5
Lulua: 3
Ryza :4
Ryza 2 :
Sophie 2 :
Ryza 3 :
Assassin's Creed 4 :4
Origins :4
Odyssey :2 Waaaaaaay too damn long
Valhalla:
Final Fantasy Type-0: 4
XV: 3
VII Remake : 4
The Legend of Heroes Cold Steel 1: 4 Goddammit, not another school festival. My biggest complaint about this series is how hard it leans into overused anime tropes.
Cold Steel 2 :4
Cold Steel 3 :5
Cold Steel 4 :
Tales of Zestiria :3
Berseria: 4
Vesperia :2
Arise :
Uncharted 4: 4
Lost Legacy: 3
spyro reignited trilogy : 4
Control: Ultimate Edition : 4
Yakuza 0, Kiwami, K2, 6: 3
Naruto Storm 4: 3
Sword Art Online Re:Hollow Fragments :3
Lost Song: 3
Hollow Realization: 3
Alicization Lycoris :
Neptunia Megadimension: 4
Sister VS Sister:
Just Cause 3 :4
4 :3
SAO vs Accel World :
Nier Automata :4
Replicant :
Genshin Impact: 1 dnf Love the aesthetic, hate the gameplay
Dragon Quest XI: 1 dnf After 20 hours, I got fed up with how painfully unoriginal everything is. Sticks to tradition so much that it doesn't even improve the lackluster plot and characters typical of classic jrpgs, which are the reasons I don't like classic jrpgs.
PC:
Fate/Stay Night : 4 72 hours, all endings
Muv-Luv : 2 7.2 hours, only played 1 hour of Extra
Muv-Luv Alternative : 4 24.5 hours Great character development but the anime tropes held it back imo
Rewrite : 2 dnf MC is annoying af
Tsukihime :3
Need for Speed Payback: 4
The Crew 2: 3
Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012) : 3
Portal: 3
Antichamber : 4
Bastion: 2
Bioshock 1 :3
2 :3
Infinite: 3
Black Mesa : 3
BlazBlue Calamity Trigger: 1
Brother - A Tale of Two Sons : 1
Chantelise: 1 dnf
DLC Quest : 1
Doki Doki Literature Club: 3
Dust : 2
eden : 1 dnf
Epic Battle Fantasy 4 : 3
Evoland 1 :4
2 :1 dnf
Fairy Fencer F :1 dnf
fault - milestone one : 1 dnf
Final Fantasy III :2 dnf
IV :2 dnf
Half-Life 2 : 3
Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 1: 3
Re;Birth 2 :3
Re;Birth 3 :4
VS Sega Hard Girls :
Just Cause 2 : 3
The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky :4 The school festival was a complete waste of time.
Trails in the Sky SC: 5
Trails in the Sky the 3rd :3 Felt like nothing was of consequence because of the setting.
Trails to Azure :3
Trails to Zero :3 I just really don't like how all the side plots and characters add nothing to the overall story.
Life is Strange :2
Long Live the Queen : 1 dnf
Naruto Storm Revolution : 2
Out There Somewhere : 3
Rogue Legacy : 2 dnf
Recettear : 2 dnf
Sunrider Mask of Arcadius: 2
The Talos Principle :
Undertale : 1 dnf
Valkyria Chronicles : 2 dnf
The Witness :4
Ys: The Oath in Felghana : 2
Chaos;Head : 1
Coμ :
Ever17 -the out of infinity- : 3
Fate/hollow ataraxia : 2
Earth Defense Force 5 : 3
Other:
Pokemon Red/Blue: 3
Gold/Silver :4
Ruby/Sapphire :4
Emerald :5
Fire Red/Leaf Green :4
Diamond/Pear: 3
Heart Gold/Soul Silver: 5
Black/White :3
Pokemon Ranger 1 :3
Shadows of Almia :5
Guardian Signs :4
Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku 2: 5
Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
Tier 1 trophies:
Collect all weapon data
Collect all monster data (including post-game bosses)
Open all treasure chests in a single playthrough (missable)
Complete all 201 quests in a single playthrough (missable)
See all character endings (finnicky)
Complete the Colosseum
Earn 100 victories in class 100 bunny racing (put simply, a boring waste of 10+ hours)
Complete the game on normal, medium, and hard (chaos) difficulties (no stacking, the game is ~50 hours long)
Tier 2:
Defeat the boss of the first post-game dungeon.
Defeat the Ethereal Queen (EQ) at the end of the second post-game dungeon.
Some things you should know about this last dungeon is that it
a) is randomly generated
b) has a over a dozen powerful bosses
c) takes 4-6 hours to get through depending on your luck
d) if you leave you have to start again from the beginning
e) HAS NO SAVE POINTS (this is for ps3 and xbox 360, so no rest mode)
Now, to beat the EQ you need to have your characters at max level (255. You should be around 60-80 when you get to the final story boss) and the best gear possible by using the item customizer to combine a litany of attributes on all your gear for each character (you need a guide for this); the most important equip item is found with a merchant that randomly spawns in this dungeon and will cost you an obscene amount of money which you may not have enough of even this far at the end of the game.
Having spent dozens of hours on the setup, fighting the EQ (with 13,000,000 HP. Your basic attacks do damage in the thousands) requires a careful strategy (ok, so there are a couple. Here's the one I used) which entails your healer staying the hell out of the way on the far side of the rather large battlefield and using items to keep the aggro of her (few things are this terrifying), all the while being careful not to get hit by a one-hit KO blast (yes, even with the gear) which covers HALF OF THE DAMN FIELD. After a nerve-wrecking 10 or so minutes this particular trophy (because xbox players would have gotten the red ring of death in lieu of an achievement) is yours. If you lose, say goodbye to several hours of your life.
Now onto the difficult stuff.
Tier 3:
Create all 321 items in the item creator.
The game does not keep track of which items you created, only the number, so you'll need everything written down to keep track of them. Several items are missable and you will be farming like crazy for all the materials.
Oh, remember the Ethereal Queen? Well, she drops an item you need and you need five of them.
That's right, you need to defeat the Ethereal Queen FIVE times. By the way, after defeating her the first time her health increases to 26,000,000 and beating her a second time raises it to 39,000,000 HP (this is on normal, I regretfully did this on the next difficulty up at 50.7 million HP); each battle takes about 30 minutes at this point. As a consolation, the dungeon is endless and she appears more often after the first encounter (initially floor 20 then every even number floor afterwards), but you're likely to run low on items by the second battle and you lose all progress if you die.
Tier 4:
Congratulations, after about 300 hours you have finally reached the halfway point.
.
.
.
And this is where I gave up, because this was the fun part and what’s left is mind-numbingly boring.
What is left, you may ask, that could be so tedious? Oh, just a simple task of obtaining all battle trophies for each character. How many of those are there? Only 100 for each character. And how many characters are there? Nine.
There are 9 playable characters. That’s 900 mundane tasks you have to complete in battle which more often than not involve grinding.
True, more than half of these will have been acquired passively by this point and they carry over separate playthroughs, but progress for each does not carry over. Examples are as follows:
First, we have some fun ones such as deal 99,999 damage without a weapon, jump a total of 8,848 meters, win a battle in exactly two minutes, deal exactly 65,536 damage, use taunt on the Ethereal Queen ten times (R.I.P.), and, my personal favorite, deal at least 90,000 points of overkill damage.
Next, we have the trophies where you have to defeat each character’s “shadow.” These are difficult bosses that appear at specific points of the game and each character needs to land the finishing blow on his or her copy. Several of these are a good way into the second post-game dungeon and if the wrong character lands the final hit you have to restart from the beginning of the dungeon and spend several hours to try again. Also, one of two characters leaves your party permanently mid-game, so you need to do two separate playthroughs for post-game content, which will take several dozen hours after completing the story to get your party ready for the boss you couldn’t get in the other playthrough.
Now comes the hardest part. Several characters need to land the finishing blow on specific enemies within a time limit. The big one is having Lymle land the final blow to the Ethereal Queen within ten minutes. This is a pretty tight constraint, but you may be thinking the developers chose a good character to do this with.
Well, about that.
She is a decent healer at the start of the game but quickly becomes replaceable, and her attack power is mediocre compared to everyone else (i.e. she sucks). Fortunately, you can switch out reserve characters mid-battle, so you can fight the EQ as usual with your normal lineup until her health is low enough.
To summarize, you have to get the EQ’s health down really low without killing her (in her first form), make all of your characters stop moving so they don't accidentally get the kill and pray things don’t fall to shit, swap out a character with Lymle and attack like crazy, and all of this needs to be within 10 very stressful minutes. Screw up and you’ll have to spend ~6 hours for another chance for this tiny window of opportunity. Good luck.
If you’ve reached this point, congratulations, you have achieved more than most gamers and have likely lost several years off your life due to all of the stress this gave you. All that is left now is a peaceful homestretch.
Did I say peaceful? I meant soul-crushingly dull.
How bad could it be, you ask? Well, two specific characters need to land the finishing blow on 30,000 enemies, that’s 60,000 total. I played through the game and defeated the EQ five times and all the enemies between controlling just one character and I was only at about 8,000 for that character.
That’s 180+ hours for this particular playthrough and only 27% done with one character.
Focusing just on this in the best spot, it’s gonna take up to 100 hours of mindless grinding to complete.
I think that speaks for itself.
For the masochists that have completed all of this, you have my eternal respect and pity.
“Discipline is the greatest weapon against the self-righteous. We must measure the virtue of our own controlled response when answering the atrocities of fanatics. And yet, let it not be claimed, in our own oratory of piety, that we are without our own fanatics; for the self-righteous breed wherever tradition holds, and most often when there exists the perception that tradition is under assault. Fanatics can be created as easily in an environment of moral decay (whether real or imagined) as in an environment of legitimate inequity or under the banner of a common cause.
Discipline is as much facing the enemy within as the enemy before you; for without critical judgment, the weapon you wield delivers - and let us not be coy here - naught but murder. And its first victim is the moral probity of your cause.” ― Steven Erikson, The Bonehunters
I came here to comment on the wonderful bookshelf with manga books that you posted in the forum. Looking at the pictures, I can see that it is very organized and well cared for, and I would love to build a bookshelf like this myself.
All Comments (13) Comments
Thanks for showing us your beautiful bookshelf!
That's so awesome! I'm hoping for some cool recommendations from you :)
Happy New Year!! Hope it's a good one for you!
That's good though, I also heard the manga was really good so I'm excited for that.