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Yeah, I absolutely loved Death Billiards. The entire heaven/hell twist, the game setup, the bar, the elevators and everything. Shit was audiovisually appealing as well and there were a lot of neat little things like with how the young man's flashback went backwards contrary to the old man's, indicating he hasn't really lived a fulfilled life. On that note, I'm pretty sure it's because off that that the old man probably offered up his spot when he spoke to Decim.
So imagine how overjoyed I was when that got a TV series! Which turned out to be a legitimately good semi-episodic series doing rather interesting things with its premise. Too bad it's bound to be a commercial fiasco but nonetheless, Tachikawa's one of the few people to look out for. It's rare to see someone who's not only good at directing but at writing as well. I think he even wrote every single episode of Death Parade. He's good at openings, too!

(Random trivia: Watanabe storyboarded the ending after Tachikawa essentially co-directed Zankyou no Terror. Maybe we'll get to see more of that duo in the future?)

I'm not even following Kekkai Sensen anymore. The episodic execution is just flat-out incompetent and it's nowhere near as stylish and well-animated as I hoped it'd be despite Rie Matsumoto + BONES. The show's kind of a mess. It reminds me a bit of Space Dandy except that was waaaay better (and was a non-homogenous product as opposed to Rie's heavy involvement). I gave up on DanMachi very, very soon. It looks somewhat decent but that's already where I'm running out with complements. Light novels still are the pits although Overlord might fix that a bit next season.

Regarding Terra Formars: It'd be really interesting to hear what Hamasaki thinks of it. His twitter account is relatively "neutral" contrary to other people working in the industry who get really passionate about their works and keep releasing new art. With Hamasaki, it's essentially all TEXHNOLYZE. Well, he does mention Shigurui in his bio as well so it looks like he knows as well which works one should be the most fond of!

Still, it's a bit saddening to see people dismiss everything post-Shigurui by Hamasaki. Granted, he's past his directional prime and his newer shows don't really fit him that well but the flak TF seems to receive is kind of ridiculous.

I'm having a lot of fun with Dark Souls these days actually, already got 45 hours clocked although I do have my fair share of beef with the game, mostly with how a warp option isn't available early in and even later on, it's nowhere near as good as it should be. Travelling back over and over again can be a great hassle. Also, it always takes at least a minute to reach a boss from the most nearby bonfire. A redo option would have been great. I guess such comfortable measures would ruin the immersion somewhat but painstakingly treading the waters with a trial and error approach as far as bosses are concerned, only to get hindered at that over and over again is kind of a dick move. Could be worse though. Could be Demon's Souls. I'm usually not the guy to bug out on what's essentially the last boss but it always took five minutes to reach fake king Allant and given he's insanely hard, really, that's where I threw in the towel.

That said, there are some areas I enjoyed and others not so much. I guess Blighttown is a rather interesting location with how the upper part is all vertical and the bottom horizontal but the swamp was kind of bland, particularly compared to Demon's Soul's rendition. Which, on that note, was utterly disgusting. Sen's Fortress, meanwhile, seems to be hated by everyone yet I found it to be very enjoyable. It's a bit of a spike in difficulty one has to get used to but it very much managed to sum up what Dark Souls is all about: Trial and error, pattern memorization, learning by doing, experience, etc. pp.. The mixture of traps and tough snake warriors was really great. One wrong step and well... it's an incredibly unforgiving area.

On the other hand, we have Anor Londo and that's a nice-looking place but it's kind of bland. The map gives you a lot of trouble despite how small it is yet it takes ages to get from the first bonfire to the second one. I liked the castle from within a whole lot more however, that had a lot of rooms to explore. Ornstein and Smough though? Fuck those guys. That's kind of where the "Hard but never unfair! For real! :^)" credo kicked the bucket. Doing those two at once very much comes along with battle conditions so flexible where unfair situations would always come to be. I recall getting up from a hit and BAM - got hit by both of them at the same time. Losing all health within 7 seconds without being able to do anything is hardly the apex of gaming. Luckily, after a lot of levelling, upgrading the Silver Knight Sword and Pyromancy as well as buying a Great Chaos Fire Ball additionally to my regular one, that fight was a piece of cake.

I also enjoyed the Painting's World a lot, that reminded me of DeS. Even the intended anti-climax at the end.

How's Dark Souls II btw? I've heard it's a rather typical example of "It's good but disappointing" and very much misinterpreted what the franchise's strengths actually adhere to, particularly with ham-handed attempts at creating difficulty through methods like throwings lots and lots of enemies at you. At least there's proper warping apparently. I've also seen a few areas on YouTube and some of them looked stunningly beautiful. And the DLC content is supposed to be absolutely fantastic? Now that does sound intriguing.

Oh yeah, glad I caught wind of the new Konaka anime. The PV looked absolutely fantastic, a shame barely anyone knows about it (heck, not even I did up until recently) and I've already seen people being pessimistic over Pierrot/a newbie directing. It's a good thing though we're getting three mystery novels in quick succession btw, next season has a Rampo Edogawa one by lolkishi and the one after that a more recent thing with a Kenji Kawai OST and Asano Inio character designs. Certainly the most promising noitaminA projects in quite a while.

Arslan being a thing is kinda cool. Production problems aside, it might be the only good show in this travesty of a season. I had some hopes for OreMono too but while it's decent, it sure loves to pull a few questionable stunts here and there.

Hamasaki helping out is all the better! I'm not sure if he's settled with LIDEN or not although I really hope he hasn't. I don't think we'll ever get to see a Hamasaki/10 show from his side of things again but if anything, I'd like him to work on MADHOUSE/MAPPA stuff again, even though the latter has been disappointing me in terms of output lately.

And yeah, TF was a really horrible production mess. The amount of animation directors involved was mind-boggling. The Russia episode was particularly unsightly but there was also that very, very bizarre moment in the last episode with Marcos running towards a bunch of Terraformars approaching him and the entire thing was sped up and I don't even. The TRIGGER episode was the only one that had some actual animation actually. Well, that and the OVAs.

(I'd still appreciate a sequel very much. The China arc is too good to be ignored. Everything about the volume with Rome infiltrating was nerve-wrecking and Liu is my favorite character, with Aleksander ranking second)

On another note, you should watch Death Billiards before Death Parade, otherwise, things would be incredibly anticlimactic. I'm still extremely overjoyed it got a TV series, that was on my wish list! Tachikawa's also incredibly good at directing, particularly as far as facial expressions/body language is concerned. There are some quite subtle approaches to things and I really like that. Funnily, he's worked on three episodes of Shigurui before and a Steins;Gate one, so hey, Hamasaki connections! This was pretty fucking great.

Oh yeah, I've also recently finished Demon's Souls and started playing Dark Souls now, apparently you like that one. I'm currently getting REKT by the Capra Demon.

Please watch Death Billiards and, conclusively, Death Parade.

You won't be able to graduate otherwise.

This is serious.

Rest in peace, Aryan Goddess Mugisephone. It was a valiant effort.