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(I don't know what anime this is from, but I think it represents everything well XD)
That Noelle is from the Kiseki gacha that was released this spring. I’m unaware whether it’s Akatsuki’s reused asset or a new drawing. There’s also this Halloween Olivier:
Busybodies don’t need a good reason to make things harder for others unfortunately. I’ll try making a bluesky account some time later. One handle I wanted to use wasn’t available and another one was too long, so I’ll have to think about another one.

As long as you’re happy and don’t regret your choices that is all that matters. But if you do build a family, don’t forget about your friend here :D

Nah, it’s all up to the publisher. If Falcom wanted to commission Judith ASRM, she’d probably do it even if Rias one didn’t exist. Aside from ASRMs, “talking” records also exist. For example, I have some with Kanzaki Ranko.
(A reminder that she’s voiced by Uchida Maaya). They are ~7-30 min audio files where she just talks, although she sounds very different compared to Shizuna despite having the same seiyuu, probably because Ranko is supposed to be 10 years younger and also is a huge chunibyo (after I showed a friend of mine some Shizuna's lines from Kuro, he jokingly called her chunibyo too, but that's not true...). While I’m at it, I’ll send you a few Ranko’s songs if you don’t mind (one of them, Nation Blue, has several idols singing, but it’s a banger so I included it too). It’d be a pain to look for them on Youtube with how things are. If I’m not mistaken, I’ve already shown you the hacking to the gate cover, so I’ll skip it.

I think it could be interesting to take a look at your power scaling list, so go ahead and show it to me please. The problem I see with the mod you mention is that official models likely don’t have anything under the clothes, so the modder would have to make things up. Also, I like the idea of it being a mystery, something you can only wonder about. One thing I would definitely want to have, however, is some kind of convenient model viewer, i.e. a tool that would allow you to use the camera freely and let you select expressions and poses you want. The one in the game is better than nothing, but it is very limited - you can’t even appreciate the model from below. For example, are you aware of how beautiful the soles of Shizuna’s shoes are? (Open the full image to get a better view).
I think you can only notice this either by accident or if you make thousands of screenshots of the same character like me because with in-game model viewer there is no way to see this.

On the topic of mods, however… Well, I wasted 2 entire days trying to make a mod for Kuro I and it yielded almost no results. And by two days I don’t mean “1 hour today and maybe 2 tomorrow”, nah - I spent around 20 hours total on this.
What I wanted is to make Shizuna playable from the start, while removing all other characters from the party. This way it could’ve been a fun way to replay the game again as it would increase the overall challenge since I’d be playing with just one character and I’d be playing with my precious Shizuna all the time - as far as mods go, what more is there for me to ask for? But alas… For what’s it worth, however:
- I managed to make her appear here near Montmart.

- I even added two lines of text when you interact with her and one of them is voiced.

- I was also able to remove Van and Agnes:

- However, I stuck during the very first battle:

- The reason for that is because (I think) the game tries to interact with Van to unlock the usage of crafts and if that script isn’t triggered, monsters are immortal, so the battle can’t be ended.
- Another issue is the fact that in every dialogue the game tries to interact with the characters who are present, so in case with my mod NPCs end up talking to themselves (their dialogue progresses as normal, but there are no Van/Agnes models or text boxes).

So in the end I gave up and tried to at least make her playable normally (so starting with the 1 level, basic equipment, etc.) and even that didn’t work out because the game treats her like a guest character, so you can’t edit her inventory in-game. Basically, I can edit her equipment in the game’s files, but not while I’m playing the game, which defeats the purpose of the mod. So I guess I can add this experience to the ever growing list of things I failed at, as pathetic as it sounds.

The only saving grace here is that editing text is relatively simple, here’s an example:

So at the very least I can do some tweaks when necessary, e.g.:
- Make the dialogue in Japanese and interface in English.
- Change the fonts (while I do think that Kuro’s Japanese fonts are very beautiful, it is even more difficult to read than normal Japanese fonts).
- If I start to play Kai with MTL (or worse…), I’d prefer to at least keep Shizuna’s dialogue and other bits in Japanese. My only concern here is that it’s impossible to change the text for the specific character in one go, I’d have to manually edit many different files, which can spoil things.

That said, for now I want to forget about modding altogether. These two days really tired me out and made me think that getting into coding might not be for me after all lol.

Maybe it’s a good thing Youtube is blocked here, so the chance of randomly getting spoiled by titles and thumbnails is lower lol.
Hmm, do your libraries have non-standard printers? Most normal ones I know can only print basic stuff like A4. What I meant is taking an artwork you really like and printing it on… I’m not sure, 600mm x 1000mm glossy paper or something like this. Then you could put it into some gorgeous picture frame, maybe even add glass over it for preservation purposes, and display it somewhere in your room.

True, the similarities between Rufus/C and Code Geass are noticeable. Well, pretty much anything made by humans is done based on ideas of other humans, so it’s not surprising that certain authors would be inspired by works they love.
Heh, your adoration with Roxy is apparent, so that prediction wasn’t very difficult to make. Okay, let’s try another one. It starts from your profile and leads elsewhere.

The one who lived for over the thousand years,
And comes from the Land of the Rising Sun,
Her most famous personas assemble,
And the truth comes forth from where the 3rd one traveled from,
There, a seventh soul contains a fragment of what is dear to your friend.

Answer:

Director Gotch knows what he’s doing…
How do you feel about the Calvardian version of Mishy, by the way? When I’ve been doing this quest in Kuro II, I really felt for Mishy fans in Calvard who didn’t like how he was localized.

More than anything else, masks cover the eyes, which are the most prominent feature of most characters. Rixia, for example, looks much prettier without the Yin mask. I wonder how Feri will be like when she grows up. I think she’s going to be very different to Fie, especially personality-wise.
For Risette… Kai > Race Queen > Swimsuit > Kuro I > Casual.

Until you pointed it out, I didn’t know there was a relation between Love Live and NISA either… XD
I didn’t expect you’re going to like LL songs this much, but I’m glad you did. Here’s some LL art just because:

I think that nostalgic feeling can be applied to many things, not just first experience with MAL or web in general. For example, when I was a kid, I could get excited about 95% of games I tried, but nowadays I don’t care about 95% of them. Although, it is also possible that many modern games, while more numerous, aren’t that good on their own compared to the older times when every other game was a hit. I don’t know man, Kiseki is the only series I truly care about at this point. There are obviously also some others I like (e.g. Sekiro, Touhou, etc.), but I don’t get thrilled about many other releases. It’s just “whatever, I can have a much better time learning Shizuna’s lines or something like that”. Maybe I’m just getting old.

When you start watching non-seasonal anime, do you try to finish it before getting to another one or not? There were times it took me more than a year to finish certain anime XD. But yeah, logging the dates is great for the list. Some users don’t do it and I wonder how do they even navigate through it.
Did you have to mess with the layout’s code to make it work? Then I guess it was similar to my struggles with Kuro modding lol. But hey, at least you managed to make it work and it does look good, so mission accomplished.

I think celebrating with family is nice, especially if there is no bad blood between its members. When I was younger, there was a much bigger net of family members and relatives around, but nowadays it’s just me and my parents, who haven’t talked to each other for more than a year. I also have a cousin, but he works as a trucker in Europe, so we can’t realistically meet unless this whole thing is over. Oh, and I also have a half-brother, but he hated me since the day I was born so we don't interact with each other. Some weird sense of jealousy towards a younger sibling (he hates his another half-brother who has 0 relation to me just as much), I don’t really get it. It's very different to how sibling relationships are usually portrayed in fiction, especially anime.
But depending on the circumstances I think spending the day alone can also be nice.

Gameplay-wise Touhou is a bullet hell. I can’t remember if I showed you it before, but I’ll link it just in case - the only video I ever uploaded on Youtube was, in fact, my playthrough of my first Extra stage. Story-wise it’s about a shrine maiden and some other girls who have to solve incidents occurring in Gensokyo (game’s setting) caused by yokai and other unique creatures. I think the most awesome thing about Touhou is that mainline games were created by a single person - he made an engine, illustrations, spires, levels, etc. and more than anything - composed great music which became a thing of its own. There was a time I saw a torrent with more than 1 terabyte of fanmade music that was based on Touhou’s creator’s compositions. The fastest way to understand it is to simply try one of the games, you can either buy one of them on Steam for $14.99 (?) or… Well, you know. I think it's best to start from the 6th game, which is Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, but it’s not on Steam.
Yeah, for example one of the Steam achievements in Kuro is to defeat 1000 enemies, which I did during the third chapter. Should’ve made it at least 5000 instead so the players like me who enjoy replaying the game could have something to look forward to ha-ha. Or why is the achievement “reach lvl 3 of law/gray/chaos” instead of lvl 5?

I wonder how often the name “Shizuna” appears throughout our conversation… It’s entirely possible it has reached 1000 times by now. Lol.

With digital stuff things can actually be even worse. Today I’ve read an article about a Dragon Age remaster being almost impossible to make because not many people who still work at its studio know how the old engine even works. Add to it the fact that there also might be a software/hardware incompatibility and then gets even more complicated. So… Not sure where I want to lead this thought, I don’t even care about this series, I just want my favorite things to be safe from getting lost one way or another :(

I didn’t follow the announcement dates, so I don’t know, but if we go by release dates:
Kuro no Kiseki:
PS: September 30, 2021
PC: 27 Jul, 2022
Kuro no Kiseki II:
PS: September 29, 2022
PC: 25 Jan, 2023
So 4-9 months if I’m not mistaking anything. Kai is supposed to be bigger, however, and we don’t know what kind of other issues might be at play. We’d also need to get our hands on a patch somehow. Things would be so much easier if JP text wasn’t cut from the CLE’s version smh.

Apparently, NISA translated Tycoon as generic “Tyrant”. That despite the fact that Taikun is a term that does exist in the English language and in JP it uses the same kanji both in-game and in that wiki article. One might think it’s not that important, but it makes me think - after Beauty’s Blade and Tyrant what else have they “translated”? I’m so glad the last time I had displeasure of playing with their “translation” was Cold Steel IV. That said, even if Falcom does decide to make their own translation, it won’t mean much if they end up hiring the same people who are currently working for NISA. What I would prefer if Japanese games were translated to English by Japanese who know English and aren’t obsessed with changing things. Also, I’m not even sure Falcom is aware that there is a problem with their NISA’s English TL at all.
Yeah, wait for them to discover what happened to Renne before she joined the Society.

Yep, this is all very true, unfortunate and sad. That said, I don’t know what the solution to that problematic cycle would be. I guess not making people so poor would be a start, but beyond that things get complicated. It’s not like you can throw money at the problem and it will be fixed overnight - we’ve already talked about the inefficiency of school curriculums and there is nothing to suggest any other government program would fare better unless there are competent, diligent and honest people maintaining it across the board. So I guess the first step would be to "fix" the culture somehow. With the dog eat dog mentality nothing will ever be improved regardless of the proposed solutions.

Imagine being a parent and receiving an ~$2000.00 invoice because your kid broke something at school, it would suck haha. I don’t remember me or any of my classmates getting extra chores, suspension or expulsions due to our behavior. Even those guys who broke another guy’s leg didn’t get in trouble. All in all, it seems like your schools are more involved in the lives of their students than here. Although honestly, I’m not sure if it’s still true to this day - I’ve graduated long ago, after all, and it’s entirely possible things changed for all the wrong reasons (so instead of maintaining student’s wellbeing, schools bother and monitor them due to indoctrination reasons).
Okay, I checked the movies you listed. Lorax - ❌, Coco - ❌, Titanic - ✔️, The Great Gatsby - ❌, Saving Private Ryan - ✔️, The Lion King - ✔️, Dead Poets Society - ❌. Checkmark - what I’ve seen, cross mark - what I haven’t. I think it would be cool to include some anime in schools, but when I consider it would be in dub, then it doesn’t seem like a good idea anymore…
It’s so weird when people who are probably only good at one thing (e.g. German) get so condescending to the ones they try to teach. Meanwhile, she probably asks her son or a nephew or whatever to help her with any issues she has with her PC, phone, etc. or whenever she needs to move some furniture.
The ironic thing is that I don’t think kids “have it easier” these days. Everyone is poorer, there is more social turmoil, etc. which seems to be a global phenomenon. To be fair, I’m not sure how things are in some of the Asian (as far as I know many Chinese live better nowadays than before), African and South American countries, but that’s the feeling I’m getting from Europe and North America. And at the very least, “back in my day” the internet was freer, there was no war, etc. XD
Well, it was a military class, so the weapon talk was a normal thing. If anything, I’d expect your schools to have a similar class, i.e. gun safety course or something like that, given that you are more likely to have to deal with them than people here.
Oh, being in a choir class seems like a great way to figure out whether you have a talent for singing and develop it. I sometimes wondered whether I’m capable of singing or not, but there is no way to figure it out - I don’t want to bother the neighbors and I don’t think karaoke bars like the ones in Japan exist here; taking lessons is stupidly expensive too, 1 hour costs the same as a daily pay at a full time job, maybe even more than that. But yeah, that teacher of yours is weird. Maybe there was some kind of misunderstanding? If not, then that was a petty and unprofessional thing for her to do.
That Algebra teacher either had a very unique sense of humor or very unique fetishes lol.

I’m really interested to know what will happen with Van and Agnes/Elaine relationship in the future. They both seem to have feelings for him, whereas all the other girls don't seem like it. Between the two, I’m on team Agnes. How about you?

It’s possible that the size of the city plays a role in how safe/unsafe the place is for kids. My town had ~300k people living in it, so while it wasn’t exactly small, it was small enough for even kids to know most of it. Then again, I guess we were lucky things like kidnappings weren’t happening. With so little supervision, criminals could’ve easily done it. That said, even besides delinquents, there were also football hooligans and skinheads around, it’s just that there was no reason for them to bother kids for the most part. Or maybe we were just lucky to not get in trouble with them.
Isn’t it weird how we just talked about the tariffs and now I hear the future administration of your country is planning to increase/add them? Reading the internet, it’s crazy how people across the globe react to what’s been happening there. Just recently my father complained that in the USSR times no one here cared about American politics, and now they influence us even more than our local elections haha, although admittedly in our case it’s not because of tariffs, immigration or anything like that. Well, hopefully nothing major happens, both inside and outside your nation.
To be honest I’m not a fan of buses and public transport in general. Even living in a city where it’s widely available, user-friendly and mostly punctual I’d still prefer to get around by car. At the very least I wouldn’t have to feel like a fish in the barrel and worry about getting some kind of virus from other people. That said, getting stuck in traffic probably sucks too.

Welp, now even the site I used to download videos by posting links there is dead, as well as all other alternatives. So if you want to share some music with me (or something else), you’ll have to upload it somewhere :(. Discord doesn’t allow files bigger than 10mb as far as I remember and it would be too slow with vpn anyway, so maybe google drive would work?
My English wasn’t as good as it is now when I first listened to “Bye Bye Bye”, so I was immune to the earworm :P Actually, understanding songs was probably the hardest part. For some reason, comprehending them is much more difficult than regular speech.
Yep, Nox Arcana is very atmospheric and it explores all kinds of different themes. I used to like listening to them while writing fantasy stuff.
Blutengel lyrics is probably something I would come up with if I were a singer-songwriter lol. Since we’ve already touched the topic of singing, it’s actually one of the things I’d like to do if I had an opportunity to do so - produce a song, but first I’d have to learn singing.

Punching people isn’t the answer. It might make sense if he was an everyday bully in order to make him stop, but when it comes to strangers I think it’s always best to disengage. Even when they’re in the wrong, you never know how they will react and maybe he had a knife or a gun on him, etc. It sucks to be embarrassed and experience injustice, but it’s better than ending up wounded or dead because of something meaningless in the grand scheme of things like this. Man, I hate snow and cold in general. It can be cool (pun not intended) in some places, but here it’s nothing but trouble, not to mention snow here is always colored yellow and brown because of the dog owners.
So I imagine if I entered the bus in the US and nonchalantly took a seat without asking anybody the same way I do it here it would shock the passengers xD.
Wow, what an incident… It’s great that no one was hurt and there was no property damage, but it always sucks to get involved in something bothersome due to the actions of someone else, especially if it’s a total stranger. I wonder what compelled that driver to get behind the wheel while drunk - was he just irresponsible or something happened that made him do this even knowing the risks? Then again, drunk people don’t have good judgment, so it’s probably simply that. To be honest, I’ve drunk just around 10 liters of alcohol in my entire life, so I’m not very well versed in how it affects the mind and the body.
What are the other two incidents?

Yep, I remember your situation with Persona 3, and as for Danganronpa… I think it’s a great series, however, it doesn’t reach deep emotional levels. I had a blast with all three games, but after some years passed by, I didn’t care much about it, e.g. yes I like Monokuma, Celestia, Kyoko etc. and the story is fun, but nothing “left a mark on me” so to speak. Honestly though, even though there are plenty of games I love (mostly those I included in the “favorite media” list when we talked about it before), Kiseki is likely the only thing that has a “special special” place in my heart.

New protagonists and new cast has always been a thing, so maybe they’re Cold Steel only players or something like that. As for my friend, he wasn’t enthusiastic about the “Cold Steel 5” and didn’t like the idea of playing through the reverie corridor. But yeah, I can’t see why somebody would be disappointed with Kuro’s gameplay, it still has (improved) turn based combat which everyone knows and loves AND real time combat which helps to make exploring the levels more fun.

I have no idea… But censorship, regardless of its form, really annoys me. So much for the freedom of expression when even the visual books have to be censored in order to be sold.
Hmm, I don’t remember that scene, maybe I missed it? So all I can do is wonder what kind of things Amane was doing to Kazuki…

The solution for that kind of thing would be to make an extra 18+ setting for those who don’t mind nudity, but want to avoid more explicit stuff. Such a setting for guro already exists, so I don’t see why it can’t for sexual stuff, after all showing nipples isn’t the same as what else you can find with 18+ artworks turned on in the site settings.

People who are sick or tend to get sick take them quite often because blood can show if something is wrong with your body and what medications you should take. ALLEGEDLY. I’m not entirely confident in medical institutions here and the science behind them. I had vaccines against measles and some other things, but never against the flu. When I come to take a blood test I always fear the nurse will infect me with HIV or something else due to their irresponsibility and how the clinics are run.

Unfortunately, the greater the passion, the more stressful some things related to it are. When I saw this announcement my body temperature instantly went up for a few minutes lol. While I’m absolutely delighted at the thought of purchasing it when it releases, I’m equally terrified at the prospects of not being able to get it due to how problematic and difficult the paying/shipping situation is for me. The easiest solution is to go back home and order it from there (surprisingly, Amiami and HLJ are still delivering to a war torn country), but then I'll be forced into the military and die/get maimed. As insane as it sounds, if I fail to get it due to reasons beyond my control, I’ll probably be more frustrated than when my home got hit by bombs.

Was there a specific reason you weren’t a fan of Nadeko before?

Have you heard of Koikatsu? It’s a porn game that has thousands of characters made by modders, some even get paid to make them based on popular characters and in-game you can do various things to them. It’s not exactly what I have in mind, however.
But yeah, it really sucks that we don’t have some kind of useful skill through which we could convey our passions.
I don’t think it’s silly. Most of the people believe in something that was invented by someone else and base their outlook on life on it, be it religious dogmas, scientific theories or in this case fictional stories.
In my opinion, Higurashi is more interesting than Umineko, but the order isn’t super important. My favorites are Beatrice and Kinzo, buuut explaining why could possibly spoil things, so I won’t. With Muv-Luv it’s easier - Meiya is my favorite female character of all VNs and Takeru is one of the best protagonists out there. Want to know some random thing I discovered while learning Japanese? His surname 白銀 (Shirogane) uses the same kanji as Shizuna’s title, e.g. 白銀の剣聖 (Shirogane no Kensei - Divine Blade of Silver), 白銀の姫 (Shirogane no Hime - Silver Princess).

From where I’m standing, it’s unimaginable to get burnt out of something that you absolutely love doing. The only obstacles I see are real-life issues and responsibilities which suck away your time and may prevent you from fully enjoying yourself. Well, it’s pleasurable just to “be” inside the beautiful world of Zemuria, so it’s always interesting what NPCs have to say.
If you have your old save files, you can even see the exact days when you were playing each game. I ended up overwriting some of mine, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to get all of the dates. Did NISA change something about the Geofront TL?
If I were Elise, I’d have feelings for Rean too, so her character totally makes sense haha.

That Claire does look like a refined girl hmm… Maybe Alfin will look like that when she’s older? They have similar eye and hair color. Based on this art, she’s approximately as big as Rixia. Judging on your top-3 hottest girls, you seem to really love them big haha. The nurse seems cute too. What about the other girls from Hundred?

The irony is that Shizuna likes to avoid Kurogane because he bothers her to properly fulfill her duties.
I wonder, will they increase them for Emma and others or not? Only time will tell. I just hope that they won’t do the opposite in some of the future games.
Those three sizes are often very strange. For example, look at this character from the Taimanin series: 1, 2, 3 and it says she’s 87/60/90.

Yeah, Rixia was only 17 in Zero/Ao, same as Class VII in CSI and II; same with Estelle in Sky. So Kuro was the first game that introduced so many “adults”.
Given that Shizuna is 23 in Kuro I and 24 in Kuro II, and we meet her in late Autumn, whereas the second game starts in the late february, she was likely born in Winter. I’d be very embarrassed if it was mentioned somewhere and I somehow missed it. On the other hand I’d be very happy if I shared the same day with her haha. And I think it’s possible to know Aaron’s birthday since it was mentioned he turned 20 after chapter 3 in Kuro I.
Oh, I've actually watched Majo no Tabitabi. Can’t say I’m a fan of Elaina, but I’m not a hater either. What made you feel this way towards her?
You made me check which characters were born on Feb 5: Makoto (Danganronpa), Sasaki Isaburo (Gintama), Emma Verde (Love Live)... And that’s probably all the ones I’m familiar with.

I wonder how people would react if Randy actually tried to hit on Tio… Then again, the gap between Van and Agnes is even bigger.
Do you think making a thread about sharing Kiseki experiences/journey would make sense?

Oh no, not the imperial system… I always get confused when I see feet and inches, but I guess the same might be for you in regards to the metric system. I think I could reach Bergard if I didn’t have scoliosis and if my right leg wasn’t 2 cm shorter than my left lol. Here heights are often measured in hospitals, schools so most people know their parameters. Altina probably got taller since Cold Steel/Hajimari, so that means by now she’d be taller than Towa.

It depends on what theme you want to go with. For example, you could make a Rixia-styled profile layout and those two placeholders would look like this: Good, then. I’ll be awaiting your new glorious profile some time in the future :P

Well… For protagonists we have Rean and for female characters there is Shizuna. It’s a tough world out there for our little Estelle. Lloyd deserves more appreciation.
By tier-lists, do you mean like the one you did for the breast sizes? In that case, no. You can send me the link alongside with your own results and I’ll send you mine in return. I don’t know what I’m going to do with lower tiers though. Just don’t include new Kai characters there.


This is honestly great stuff.


I wonder how many Cold Steel players find this relatable. You know, I can’t remember if I saw the Juna confession in-game or not. I 100% did Laura, Sara and Altina, but not sure about the others. It’s been several years since I played CSIV after all. Regardless, that fanfic went in the direction I didn’t expect with Altina and Juna confessing to each other, although I’ll confess that I didn’t read the entire thing. At least it seemed to be on the wholesome side of things. One thing I thought about while reading it, though, is that writing skills are a bit underrated on the market… Ehh, what I mean is that when someone looks at the artwork, it’s easy to say whether it’s professionally drawn or not regardless of whether you like the art style or not. With writing you’d need to read the whole thing and analyze some bits to give a proper evaluation. And unlike fanart, I doubt there is a huge demand for commissioning stories (or maybe I’m unaware of sites like this existing). Ironically, both are equally endangered by the rise of AI. Actually, I wonder what type of story something like chatGPT will generate if I ask it?

Hmm, Celia looks cute. She appears very young but is a teacher so I suppose comparison to Towa is fair. Poor Yuna, you praised one of her sisters for looks and the other for personality, but nothing about her :P
A shame they skipped a volume, SoL stuff is always welcome in my book.

If Falcom made a series-wide popularity poll that would include both the Japanese and Global players, what place do you think Rixia would end up at? A similar question for other characters.
If we ever get to see a closure on Lloyd’s romance, I think it will only happen near the series’ end. By that point Falcom could possibly add different endings depending on the player’s preferences, but I doubt they’d go for a harem route.
Yeah, Towa is stacked in different place than Rixia XD
That’s why when you made your breast size tier list I told you to put Shizuna a tier higher haha.

Aesthetics-wise I’m not a fan of Schera and Luciola. Even if we just look at Sky’s roster, I think Anelace is a stronger contender. Well, Erebonia is a big country, so it makes sense. Tbh the situation might look a bit different if we went by actual countries instead of arcs since many of the characters appear/live in places where they're not necessarily from. Nahhh, Sky is great. Just not as great as the other arcs :P I’m still amazed at what Kuro did to me. When Cold Steel IV ended I thought I’ll never experience something as inspiring as it, and here we are.

Love triangles suck because:
- The drama is guaranteed.
- Someone is going to lose and/or be annoying.
- It will be dragged out.
In harems it’s at least possible for every participant to end up happy (like in that fanfic you sent me). But still, my preference is the yin and yang situation where both romantic partners love each other equally and are parts of the same whole. I even find things like yandere very appealing romantically even though in real life it could get annoying/scary. I just think it depends on who the yandere is. If it’s someone you’d absolutely adore, then everything would become tolerable.

Hmm, hmm, hmm… Maybe I should watch S2 Frieren on-going too?.. But unlike you, I don’t know what’s it about, so maybe it’s not the best idea…

Does Towa appear in this manga, by the way? Kiseki characters in the database are based on it after all. Speaking of which, I wanted to read it, but I haven’t found it ANYWHERE other than Amazon and I wouldn’t be able to purchase it even if I wanted to.
You can check DB mods here.

Heh, not bad. Which one of these Muv-Luv Kiseki artworks do you like the most?
Yeah, those suits are very intriguing… I doubt they’d be appreciated by the average anime fans here on MAL though.
Looking at your screenshots, I’m really curious how tall Laura really is. Well, she does wear the same swimsuit as Shizuna, so maybe she’s 170 cm too ha-ha.

My first playthrough was 93 hours, I think. I don’t know why the second one is almost 20 hours longer.
Elaine’s disappearance proceeds just as in all other routes unfortunately. You know, technically these routes replaced romantic choices of the past games :D.

The main reason I don’t want to know anything about Kai is spoilers, but feeling jelly because of not being able to play it is a minor reason too I suppose. It’s like being extremely hungry and listening to someone about how tasty their recent meal was.

That part took me two hours on breaking it down and learning but much longer if we consider I’ve added its parts to my Anki deck to repeat them later and also been rereading it from time to time. I’ve progressed a bit further and typed & learned even more of them, currently on 52 lines total, however the “reciting” part got a bit more difficult. Honestly it’s very motivating exploring Shizuna’s personality this way. There are some things which are impossible to convey through translation even if it’s perfectly accurate.

I’m currently on the Sodachi arc. It has a lot of math. I wouldn’t say I’m breezing through Monogatari, however… In the past, I’d be done with the whole series in a couple of days :(
Yeah, Wiz is also much more well endowed haha.

Ehhh, since I don’t interact with the Falcom community at large (I don’t read its reddit sub, 4chan thread, twitter posts, discord channel, etc.) it’s impossible for me to tell what’s overrated or underrated. As someone whose brain looks like this I’d probably name some random dialogue you get to read while clicking on her when you meet her in town, e.g. during the Almata game when she looks around the antique shop - I doubt many people talk about these. To be fair to myself, however, it’s not only extreme bias at play - she genuinely makes every scene she’s a part of super fun or entertaining in some other way.
The one with Ash was great though, the same can be said about the Rean/Ash relationship in general. Sara would be proud of how great of a mentor he became.

Akane got some serious boost this season, that’s for sure. I think Kana currently is the weakest among the main three girls. Whenever I post a new contest, I hope that you will appear soon, but it doesn’t happen :( Maybe it’s due to different time zones? Riho’s great, definitely the best in her anime. I haven’t watched this season of Code Geass, btw, so I don’t know much about Catherine other than the fact that one of the users used to have her on his avatar haha. Was this season good?
Alya and Makeine girls will have another chance when their respective second seasons roll in.

I was under the impression that 3&9 happened around the time Van picked them up, but it’s been so long since I’ve read them that I can’t say for sure.

A little update: I've finished replaying Kuro I.
Despite it being my second playthrough, it took a lot of time to finish (~143 hours according to Steam and ~110 in the game's save file). Fifth and final chapters were waaay longer than I remembered them from two years ago. Below are some things I want to mention.

1. I went with the Ikaruga route again because... Yeah, what else can I choose? However, after finishing the game, I decided to check what other routes have to offer and they are mostly the same; even the scenes such as Judith & Rixia, Zin disapproving the idea of civilians (Agnes and Quarte) participating in Almata's game, Van figuring out Harwood (in Society's route, instead of underground, the same dialogue happened in the bar), etc. However, there is one exception - the fight against Ikaruga midgame is completely different to the fight against Kurogane in the beginning, and I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't seen it before ha-ha. On the flip side, it became the main highlight of this replay for me because it's amazing - one of the best scenes in the entire game.
Some other minor differences I noticed: Bracers don't allow you to kill Almata members, which I think is a very nice little detail; Walter and Lucrezia aren't playable, but both support you at the same time, meaning you have 6 team members in command battle; Elaine does her solo thing even if you side with the Bracers (she leaves the team).

2. A thought occurred to me: imagine if when you go to a movie theater in the game, you'd get to see a whole anime episode about Golden Blood, Requiem for the Wolves, etc? I think that would be a unique experience. Would be very expensive to make, however.

3. I also got curious about this: if you skip talking to NPCs and avoid optional quests, will the time stop for these NPCs or not? The only ones who could move were the ones Van could recognize, after all.

4. The only flaw of this replay is me feeling salty because in a better world I could've been playing Kai instead.

5. I started memorizing Shizuna's JP lines, e.g. these:
I comprehend them completely (or at least I believe I do) and besides reading them, I can also recite them from memory. This here is the scene when she appears near Longlai for the first time.

On another note: I'm done with Monogatari Second Season. Koimonogatari (the one about Hitagi, Kaiki and Nadeko) is definitely my favorite arc in the series so far. Kaiki was surprisingly good. Very slowly, but I'm progressing with your recommendation little by little :D Oh, also wanted to note that Gaen reminds me of Konosuba's Wiz visually.

Well, first things first… Happy Birthday! Have a wonderful time on this special day and whatever you wish for, whatever your soul longs for, I hope you will eventually get! May you be healthy, your wallet be full of money and your relationships with the people you care about remain good!

When I was reading your reply to my venting I ended up tearing up too. You said you don't know what to say and yet ended up saying one of the nicest things someone ever told me. Thank you for your kind words and understanding, I wish I could give you a friendly hug in return to show my appreciation (unless you'd find this gross, in that case I'd refrain). I don't think you deserve things less than me, though. You're a wonderful guy who deserves happiness, so don't sell yourself short.
(Yes, this is a Lloyd plushie).

Welp, discord has been banned already… I can still access it via VPN, but it’s very slow and unreliable and I’m not sure for how long it is going to function anyway. Do you perhaps have Skype? I’ve been using it for ~15 years and technically it’s very dated compared to Discord, but it still works. I also tried installing LINE a few days ago, but I can’t even set my avatar or send any files - it just doesn’t work. Maybe because of my location.

You explain this really well. What is unfortunate is that humans are unlikely to understand this sad fact of life before it's too late even if you try to explain it to them.
Judging by our conversations, I think you are a very attentive person who tries to understand others and is very empathetic, so if you do find someone special, you’d be a wonderful partner; not to mention the fact that you’re very interesting and fun to talk to. And don’t think I’m saying this just to make you feel better about yourself - many people in relationships don’t bother to get to know each other for real (I know many such cases: in my family, among relatives, etc.), whereas you managed to make once a perfect stranger (me) attached to you. Many romantic relationships nowadays start online too and the shyness/awkwardness is so trivial compared to your good qualities. So be more confident in yourself :P
But again, this only matters if you’re interested in pursuing this path. Maybe you’ll end up like me one of these days instead, ha-ha? Whatever it is, I wish you good fortune.

If Mushoku Tensei made ASMR discs of their own, I’m sure they’d be selling like hotcakes. I also listened to a Rias (so Hikasa Yoko) ASMR and it was quite good, but still when you know the seiyuu doesn’t act in the specific character you want to hear, it feels like something is missing (e.g. it can only be Rias here, not Judith).

Ha-ha yeah, Aurelia is damn strong. I wonder how a fight between her and some other OP characters would go, but that again opens the power scale rabbit hole I’d rather not get into.
There are plenty of games I use mods for, but for some reason I’m not very eager to install them for Kiseki.
Oh, if Rixia is at least playable, that’s great! Looks like this game is going to be the best Kiseki game ever. But I’m hesitant to open that spoiler button :(
One of the official posters/scrolls would be the best, but given the limited nature of merch (which I honestly hate, it adds extra stress to an already stressful life) you can take any high resolution image of Rixia and custom print it (you send the printing company a file, and they print it with your specifications, i.e. size, material, etc.). I’m sure your city has such services because even my backward town had it more than a decade ago when I ordered Musou posters for myself.

You might be onto something. It’s entirely possible Falcom went with such a theme for Schera, although the main difference between two stories is that by the time she met Olivier, Schera was already an independent adult.
There is a certain weakness Judith has which I think Bleublanc could exploit. He is very witty and good with words in general, whereas she is a straightforward hothead. I bet he could easily tick her off :D
Hmm, well, we can try it right now with a simple one (no links and everything is on the same page).
“Your treasure lies where gentlemen engage in competition,
Where the late October meets summer days,
Come down on the long stairway and look at the front,
One step down, thirty two down, nineteen up and and ten up”.
Open this spoiler to see the answer: How was this riddle to you?
Tio needs to meet with Elaine and discuss their love for Mishy. He is so lucky to be loved by so many wonderful ladies across Zemuria.
On the topic of GB Judith: Was reminded of this while continuing my Kuro I replay.
I’m not a fan of masks since they hide characters’ faces and even though that outfit is hot, it’s not as classy as her other ones.
Speaking about Feri, during my current replay of Kuro I enjoyed her more than before for some reason. Her interactions with Agnes and Aaron are precious. About her outfits: Kuro I > Her traditional red Dress > Kai.

Unlike Laura, Umi isn’t a fighter, however. Idols aren’t supposed to fight for their lives after all ha-ha.
You know what, maybe try watching the first LL season? If you won’t like it, you can just drop it.
How about this Kotori’s song?

After I found it in my LL folder I tried to sing along to it, but it’s pretty damn hard XD. Here’s the lyrics if you’re interested.
This one is also good (Umi):
I can imagine it being a very fun experience for you when you discovered MAL and it's true there are so much anime we won't be able to watch it all in our whole lifetimes. According to anime.plus I've watched only 3.71% of all anime, for example. By the way, it's pretty cool your list shows how many days it took you to finish individual series after starting them. Also, interesting how color scheme of our lists is similar, although you seem to be using some nice custom layout, whereas I'm using a default one which I changed only slightly.
The fact that I joined on my b-day also means I've been at home celebrating it alone haha (that's how it still goes)... Hmm, how do you usually spend your birthdays?

I've been really into Touhou that year. It's no longer in its golden age, but I wish more people would try playing it, it's super fun. One of the funniest things about these games is that bad actors generally can't get into them because they take a lot of effort to be completed, so the difficulty is like a natural gatekeeper of sorts lol. I actually wish more games were harder since most fans will clear the game despite the challenge (and likely will enjoy it) whereas complainers will probably drop it. Speaking of challenge, Kuro's Steam achievements are pretty lame. You get most of them just by playing the game normally which I think is the opposite of what achievements are supposed to be.

You could probably ask that person why did they stop talking to you to clear things up, but if a lot of time passed since then, then it won't make much sense asking this now. It also depends on whether you're interested in conversing with them again in the first place.

Shizuna and Rean interacting normally:This is the background image from her Kai page... Man, I love that smile of hers and can't wait to see this scene in-game. I totally agree with you, them becoming friends would be fantastic.
The weirdest thing about digital goods is that technically you're not owning what you're buying. And if something like Steam, for example, decides to remove your game or the whole platform goes end of service, you lose all your games. Meanwhile, cracked games can be copied on multiple storage devices and have no DRM. So pirates end up getting a better product than those who buy legally. Honestly, the best thing about Steam is how convenient it is. All your saves are stored in cloud (so you don't need to manually backup them or copy them from one device to another), you can easily install stuff, there are achievements, cards, etc.
Let's pray CLE's Kai will be announced soon and will have JP text.

Sigh, I wish Falcom would start self-publishing outside Playstation. It's a mystery to me why it is so difficult to hire a team of Japanese who speak English well to make a TL of their own?
NISA's existence makes me wish official English releases didn't exist lol. Fans are making better and faster translations anyway and Japanese PC players wouldn't need to wait for English release to play on PC (facepalm).
True. It wouldn't surprise me if people like that would even complain about the relationship of Estelle and Joshua (even though they're not blood related, technically it's still brother and sister who are lovers). By the way, I can't remember if I told you this or not before, but when Joshua and Estelle wanted to welcome Renne to their family, for some reason I thought they planned to make her their daughter, not sister XD.

The worst thing about that paradigm is that one thing leads to another, e.g. if you take two identical kids, but give one perfect education and opportunities to acquire certain skills, he will do much better in life compared to the other one who had to live in poverty, was bullied, got no chance to develop talents, etc. Even though there are exceptions, generally speaking you can't really build a decent career when you have no idea what you're doing for most of your life.

What kind of "consequences", I wonder? Would the school make parents pay for damaging the smart board or maybe there was some other punishment planned for such a scenario? I can't imagine any Western schools having any sort of corporal punishment.
Do you remember what kind of movies your teachers showed to your class on the smart board?
You made me interested in hearing how that teacher of German made you dislike her so much XD... I don't remember hating any teacher in particular (I didn't like most of them for the indifference and sometimes disdain they showed towards me though), but there was one teacher that annoyed me with the way she was addressing me. Basically she was using a "translated" version of my name which I wasn't comfortable with back then (ironically, I wouldn't care about it nowadays). Well, the grenades weren't real - they just had the same design and weight for practicing throwing. I wanted to show you a photo of mine in the gas mask during one of the lessons (it doesn't show my face and it was long ago anyway so it's probably safe to post online) but I couldn't find it anywhere. It was probably stored on my PC back at home. Oh, I just remembered, a teacher of that class was a bit of a dick towards me - he scolded me because I couldn't march (military step) properly even though it should be damn obvious that my post-surgery feet weren't fit for that kind of task. He was a weird old man. One time he got very angry when one of my classmates said that "desert eagle is the most powerful pistol" and started arguing that some other locally manufactured pistol is stronger XD.

On the topic of swimming...Would you want to learn how to properly swim today? I heard it's very good both for the body and the mind.

Yeah, I don't remember us having classes about the things you've listed. Weird world where kids in one country are being taught military stuff, whereas in the other they learn about their own wellbeing. Clearly the latter is a sign of a healthier society.
Nah, we were totally on our own. I'm not sure how it is now, but back then it was a normal thing. There was one time an older delinquent robbed me an my cousin in the broad daylight (took all our money), but thankfully not much else happened. I think increased safety concerns make sense. Maybe countries with low crime rate like Japan, Singapore and Switzerland don't require them, but most places aren't as safe for adults, let alone kids. The price discrepancy for cars is like Steam regional prices but in reverse. I blame tariffs, VAT and all that other nonsense. All it does is make poor people even poorer. Was your bus yellow, like the one I saw in movies and cartoons too? I think it's really cool you were driving your own car at such an age.
After discussing this with you, I think I can now describe my political views in one sentence: "I want the government to leave me the hell alone" XD. But I guess there is no point in me repeating the same thoughts about taxes, involuntary military draft, draconian laws, etc. I can't add much to this topic, but I'm curious - do you own any guns?
To be honest, I find it hard to imagine that a rich and powerful country like the United States is unable to secure its border from the illegal crossings. And I don't mean it in a sarcastic way - it's just that to an outsider like me it appears like unwillingness of the political elite to solve the issue. One of the weirdest thing about this to me personally is how can the government expect its own citizens to abide by the law when it allows this to happen? But anyway, I agree with your suggestion - making legal immigration easier is the way to go if the country is interested in immigration at all.

I managed to listen to Heat Waves, ARHBO, Bye Bye Bye and Sweet Caroline, the other two didn't load at all - it says "The uploader has not made this video available in your country" so I can't even copy the link to paste it on a site where I download Youtube videos.
Sweet Caroline reminded me of songs of Johnny Cash, whom I used to listen to a lot at some point, but I don't remember his songs that well anymore. I think it was at the same time period when I loved listening to Frank Sinatra (my favorite song of his is "I’ve Got You Under My Skin"; the lyrics are cool btw). With the song of NSYNC I'm already familiar, heard it long time ago, but didn't know who performed it until now :D Among these 4 songs I like it the most.
For my songs, I'll give you one from 3 bands I listened to the most in the past (according to my long dead last.fm). It's been many years ago, but I still like them. I think Blutengel is something young emo girls liked listening to, but I liked the vampire theme this band was going for and their lyrics, even if cheesy, resonated with me at some point :D

What a dick that guy was. Unfortunately, that's just how some people are and sometimes you can't avoid them. Either you remain silent and feel embarrassed about what happened or you escalate and then feel bad because you lost your temper. There is no winning against petty arrogant assholes :( I think you did the right decision to walk instead of taking bus from that point. If it takes the same amount of time or less, you're also getting free cardio, so it's a win-win.
It's interesting that your buses wait for passengers to sit down before starting moving. Here drivers don't give a damn and start moving as soon as doors have closed, sometimes even before that. And no one asks anyone whether it's okay to sit next to them or not. I learned something new today.

Among all the games you've played to date, how many of them have a special place in your heart?

That's strange. Even if we assume Kuro is worse than its predecessors (and it's definitely not), then how would the old players know this before buying and playing it? Was it Hajimari that disappointed them (one of my friends actually dropped it which surprised me)? Or maybe they saw that Rean isn't playable in Kuro and decided not to bother with it? Regardless, I don't think Falcom added him to Kai because of something like this. His re-match with Shizuna was expected and she even says that it's not yet time for him to appear on stage in Kuro I, implying that he will eventually appear later. Man, like I've mentioned before - I'm currently replaying Kuro I and this game is so damn beautiful, it's visuals are peak Falcom and it has the best gameplay this series ever had, so it's crazy how it can be less liked compared to its predecessors. That being said, waiting for Shizuna's appearance was torturous. That's why Kuro II >>> Kuro.

Check this out, it's about Grisaia and Switch releases in general. Unfortunate stuff for the Switch owners.
Yuuji is the type of protagonist the readers will often think "man I wish that were me" just because of how cool he is despite his messed up background :D
I'm currently on Nadeko's arc in the second season. Really liked these visuals: Because the moon and autumn remind me of a certain girl :P

I'm not judging, just curious. I have a tendency of avoiding lewd artworks of the characters I'm emotionally attached too, but it's not because I'm against the idea itself. If it is a graceful and in-character NSFW drawing, that's one thing, but to find something like this you'd have to rummage through many potentially unsavory images which I'd rather not see.

How often do you take a blood test to check your health? For me I think it's like maybe 3-4 times a year? Honestly, I'd rather it was sucked by a vampire girl I love than a soulless syringe and an indifferent nurse :D The last time I did this (around a week ago) the nurse accidently sprinkled antiseptic into my face by the way. I was lucky it didn't reach my eyes. I decided not to cause a scene mostly to avoid her damaging my vein afterwards lol. So much for the "free healthcare". Meanwhile, whenever I went to private clinics, its service was professional and amiable. Why? Because unlike governmental institutions they're interested in satisfying their clients... It's sad that even a topic of vampires ended up reminding me of my dissatisfactions with everyday life.

Shizuna is my reason to live, so it's only fair for me to share my lifeforce, flesh, etc. with her :P I dedicate my entire being to her.

So far I like Shinobu the most among Monogatari girls.


Here's hoping that our friendship will last for as long as we're alive.

If I'm not mistaken, Ryu Ga Gotoku/Yakuza series blew up in popularity after 0 and remakes of earlier games were released, so maybe Kiseki will follow the same pattern... I just wish for it to remain the same series I so dearly cherish even if it does become more popular 😔

I'd love to learn blender, but I'm not sure where to start and I need to learn some other things to get a decent job first. People who make character models, cities, animations, do coding, compose music, draw art etc. for Kiseki are the most blessed people on the planet. Can you imagine being a part of such a magnificent project??

The most amazing thing is, I stumbled upon FC on Steam totally randomly. No one ever told me about the existence of this series before that. If this fateful encounter didn't happen, my life would be totally different. After all, there are many things I "like", but Kiseki is the only true lifelong passion of mine!
Hmm, what if all those 2022 people started reading Muv-Luv because of me?! :D Jokes aside, I'm interested in learning the reasons behind it's popularity boom too. If I'm not mistaken, I've read Umineko and Higurashi in 2021 too, but I don't remember the order. My experience with Umineko was really soured by certain things which I won't bother you with, but despite this I still think it's one of the best visual novels out there (but not as good as Higurashi and my other favorites).

Wow, so you've played most of the games almost back to back! That's the opposite of how it went for me. I'm sure it was hell of a journey! But your speed seem to be similar to mine. Whenever I start a new Kiseki I tend to dedicate all my time to it and play it like 12 hours a day, so even though I play on the highest difficulty from start and visit all NPCs, I finish them really quick. However, because of other things happening in life it's been getting more difficult to play this way. Kuro II was my longest playthrough - 22 days. I finished it on 31st of December, actually. What compelled you to take notes? This seems like a unique approach. And yeah, I didn't know the name of that translation team when I played it, but it was probably guren for me too. Around the time Geofront released their TL officially, I saw some people trash talking guren TL, but to this day I have no idea what their problem was.

That's probably because talking bad about Estelle and Joshua is the easiest way to get destroyed by the community XD. In comparison, Elise doesn't have as many people who would be willing to defend her, especially since her "route" is optional. Story-wise however it would be cool if Rean inherited Schwarzer Barony.

I know of a way to "cure" Kiritsugu from his self-destructive ideals... Just let him read places like Reddit for a few days and he will quickly give up on humanity. Heck, he might even try using the Grail to destroy the world instead of saving it!

Rixia... Obviously! XD. Like I've mentioned before, if I tried being objective, I'd say she's the hottest woman on Zemuria, so I totally get you. Chisato isn't surprising too, given what you've told about her before, however that Claire Harvey is unexpected! I don't think you've ever mentioned her. What's your story with her?
Would you buy glasses case such as this if it was signed with one of your favorite characters?

I'm probably the only one who'd think of adding Kurogane here instead of all the other iconic characters ha-ha. I wonder how Laura will look like in Kuro engine. Fie became much prettier after all. Oh, I wanted to ask you this: how do you feel about Rixia being younger than Shizuna, Van, Elaine and some others? She's only one year older than Fie! Also, I think it's a shame Falcom doesn't disclose the characters birthdays or at least I've never seen anything like that. Do you know something about this or it really doesn't exist?

For all his talk, Randy is in the "one true love" camp too :P. Mirelle is indeed cute and I guess her existence and Randy's attitude towards her makes it reasonable that he doesn't fall for the girls from Lloyd's harem. Like... Can you imagine NOT falling for them if you don't have someone special already?
To be honest, clubs seem to be dead as a concept. There's not much you can do in them which you can't do on forums/comments/blog. So it needs to be really interactive to make people interested in joining and participating. Maybe making "cards" is the way to go, I'm not sure.

My issue with DLC costumes isn't that you need to pay for them, but rather that some of them aren't being sold at all. You can't buy that Renne costume at all, at least not on PC.

Since Rean is handsome it makes sense that his father would too. I wonder how tall Osborne was... He's probably a little shorter than Zin who is 198 cm. I'm 2 cm shorter than Bergard btw, and I wish I had a body like his old man XD. Too bad Kai's page doesn't list characters heights! Would be nice to check how tall Rean, Crow and Altina are. I like it when games have this sort of stats, also birthdays, etc.

Hmm... You can add a little bit about yourself under the welcoming header. For example, write about how you got into anime or something like that. If you had a bunch of blog posts with the stuff you like you could simply list them there as well and they'd fill the space. Did you decide yet what to add instead of placeholder images?
If you're unsure, I can try doing it for you, but obviously some thing are impossible for me to make (e.g. if you decide to add self-introduction). Man, I hope this profile layout creation doesn't bore you and I'm not forcing you to do it x)

Let's see how Crow will behave in Kai! I feel like he's going to be a total badass and I want him to meet Aaron!
Noooo, I don't hate Estelle! But it's true that she doesn't evoke strong feelings in me. I can't explain it well. She's an amazing character and a wonderful protagonist, but even in her own story someone like Olivier shines much more for me. Joshua is great too, but compared to Rean, Van, Lloyd, etc. he doesn't resonate with me the same way.

If you ever find something like this again, please share it with me!

Okay, send it to my discord then (hopefully I'll still be able to open it) or Google Docs (this is better via PM).

38? That's a lot. They'll probably split it into 2 cours, right? Want me to add DandaDan to my ptw? Seirei Gensouki 2 has a cute cover art. Poor protag though, he'll have to face some Kirito allegations because of his appearance and seiyuu ha-ha. Judging by the looks alone, I'd say Asahi is the cutest among Amagami girls, but we'll see. Maybe I should start watching it before it finishes airing? But I still have Monogatari to finish... For Danmachi V I'll definitely wait until it finished airing.

Doredore...
Tio trying to win some points with Lloyd after Rixia stole the show in Hajimari.
Towa after someone called her a little girl because of her looks.
Breathtaking... Shizuna has so many different ways she smiles and each pierces my heart to the very core. Looking at her is like looking at Sun. She burns my very soul. There isn't a single atom in my body left that doesn't have her divine visage engraved on it.
Emma worrying that because of her absence in Kuro she's loosing against Fie and Altina.
Altina showing her growth.
Altina showing her growth boldly.
Altina showing her growth smugly.
Altina after realizing she has a chance to defeat all the other Cold Steel girls.
Altina thinks she might even try taking on the other girls as well and aim for the most popular girl in the series.
Man... I think there is something interesting here. When someone random sees Shizuna, she's just one of the many anime-styled girls out there. To Kiseki fans, she's a character everyone knows and loves (I guess there can be people who don't care or even dislike her, though...). And whenever I see her... You just won't believe the level of elation I experience in that moment. How could something so divinely beautiful even exist in this Universe? On the other hand, this screenshot makes me sad that I'm unable to play the game yet :(.

Oh, you're asking a very difficult question here.
Calvard has Shizuna (1st place), Crossbell has Rixia (2nd place), the end... XD. Okay, I'll try to put more thought into it!
... I wasted 20-30 minutes thinking about this, and I couldn't come up with a decent criteria ha-ha... Liberl is definitely the last: it gets carried by Renne, but she's not enough to outweigh what other teams have to offer. Calvard's main disadvantage is that most of its hot girls aren't playable for the most part, but this issue is solved in Kuro II. Crossbell has some very strong members, but Erebonia has A LOT of awesome ladies. Would it fair to add Arianrhod to the team of Erebonia, Juna to the team of Crossbell and Nadia to the team of Calvard? Aaah, it's too hard. Okay, here's my final answer: Calvard > Erebonia > Crossbell > Liberl. A little bit different to your rankings.

Hmm... I don't think I can give a numerical answer to this question, so I'll answer on the like/neutral/dislike basis.
enemies to lovers - like.
second chance - dislike.
fake dating - dislike.
friends to lovers - neutral.
age gap - neutral.
Angst - dislike (if I understand what it is correctly).
Slowburn - neutral.
love triangle - dislike.
Love at first sight - neutral.
Rivals - like.
If we assume "like" is a high score, "neutral" is average and "dislike" low, then our answers are similar.

I'm looking forward to Frieren's S2 too! Are you going to watch it while it is ongoing or wait until it finishes? I'll take the latter route.

Honestly, I have no idea how it works. I wasn't notified of it or anything like that. But since pictures are definitely mine, I know that it was me who added them lol.
If you really insist on adding something to the DB, I think you can contact one of DB moderators.

P.S. I wanted to send this a little sooner, but it took me awhile to finish and it's already past midnight here, so I might've missed October 17th T_T

ふふ、I've submitted 3 new pics for Shizuna's page here on MAL.

Can’t think of anything new right now, but if the situation with the internet here will ever reach the level of North Korea, I might ask you to share torrent files and some other things with me ha-ha… Hopefully at least MAL won’t be affected, that’s the only place that helps me feel I’m not fully trapped inside this part of the world I desperately want to leave some day.

One thing I can add about familial love is this: I wasn't on very good terms with my grandmother due to differences in personalities and conflicting everyday habits, but after she passed, I’ve been feeling only regret and sorrow. Regret because I realized I should’ve been kinder to her and spent more time with her, and sorrow because I realized she was one of the few people in the whole world who genuinely cared about me. At the end of the day, you can have many friends and enter many relationships, you can even conceive as many children as you want, but you can’t get new parents or grandparents.
I’ve been looking through Chiharu’s art yesterday and felt really sad and pathetic about myself (probably because of my mood hitting a new low), so thank you for saying that about me whining about my artistic impotence.
Most of my friends and even acquaintances of the same age as me aren’t married/in a relationship either… I don’t know if you’re aspiring to get into one, but if you do, I hope you’ll find a wonderful person ^^

The production quality for OnK is off the charts. With characters like Kichijouji Yoriko and Samejima Abiko, OnK’s author probably knows a lot of how the industry works ha-ha.
Really loved that face in the recent episode btw:

Spinoff would be nice, but even simply having more of Wiz in the main story would be an improvement.

Kiseki has a lot of dialogue, I think significantly more than other games, even among JRPGs, so voicing everything would probably cost a lot. However… Sometimes I’m not sure if the money is the issue. ASMR vids have a lot of voice-lines, but they still exist after all. Here’s one from Roxy’s seiyuu, by the way, maybe you’ll find it to your liking:
Man how I wish Falcom would commission a similar stuff for Shizuna and hire Uchida Maaya for that. In these moments I’m painfully reminded that no matter how much I’d work I’d never be able to make things I want to come into existence.

Thankfully for the residents of Psycho-Pass’s Japan, the Sibyl System wasn’t controlled by anyone above it. Unless I’m forgetting something, it’s been some time since I last re-watched it.

Hmm… When trying to get into vents, I think the main difficulty would come from either shoulders or hips, so if well built guys like Lloyd/Randy can fit into them, Rixia should too.
Well, now you made me curious… How did you find it?! XD Kai’s site was updated again and there is still nothing about Rixia, by the way. Hell, I think all true Kiseki fans wouldn’t mind hanging Rixia posters in their own rooms. If only paying for this stuff and delivering it wasn’t such a pain.

It depends on the perspective. I’m more into appreciating “one true love”, whereas some other people might think it’s better to have many various romantic encounters. I think Schera is definitely the one who won in life, she’s pretty much a Cinderella.
Do you think Judith would be able to keep up with Bleublanc or not? He seems to me as a more experienced thief, but underestimating her also doesn’t seem wise. In theory, one could hide something Bleublanc-style on MAL or even the internet in general, e.g. post a fanart or some kind of code in one of the threads and make another person look for it via solving riddles.
Tio’s cat ears are definitely one of her most striking features! And after you mentioned this, I kind of feel bad I’ve been focusing on her thighs instead!
For Judith it’s: Golden Blood > Kuro I > Kai > Grimcats.

Umi is a proper and traditional Japanese girl, very disciplined, reserved, strict, but also very shy and a bit awkward.


Honestly I think she shares many personality qualities and appearance traits with Laura.

Was there a specific reason you decided to join MAL? I thought about it for a bit today, and I can’t remember how I ended up here. The only thing I do know for sure is that I joined on my birthday. After you mentioned your old experience in the comments, I checked some of my conversations and found a screenshot of my desktop from 2016. Remembering those years makes my heart writhe in pain: it was a much simpler time, I was healthier (especially mentally) and I didn’t have to fear for my life or be disappointed by so many things. Kiseki (which I’ve started playing in Spring 2017), is the only good thing that’s been constantly bringing me joy despite my life severely deteriorating on all fronts.
That part about boredom can be true, yeah. There were plenty of times I didn’t get a reply back from other people.

I hope that aside from the awesome fight scenes and serious dialogue between Rean and Shizuna we’ll also get to see some normal slice of life interactions between them. Really hoping there would be mini-games on par with Hajimari too.
Man, I’m so salty I can’t play it today like Japanese console owners. That part about data protection makes me dislike consoles even more, you are purchasing the game and they do everything in their power to make you unable to look through its content. The salt gets even worse when I check limited merch which I can’t reliably get because of where I live.

Sky FC has already been translated, so maybe they don’t need translators for the remake because of that? I don’t know if xseed has any rights to that translation though.
If those people didn’t play the game because of the chibis, there is a high chance they won’t be able to appreciate this series for what it is and will complain about every little thing down the road.

Honestly that grades/motivation paradigm goes waaay beyond school years. When you get into adult life and have to work for a slave wage doing the job you hate just to survive, it's similar to studying things in school just to get better grades without any meaningful reason behind it. It’s no surprise so many people, especially those who tend to think about things, are depressed and/or end up killing themselves. Yet the solution society offers to them is to take pills or suck it up. Hopefully you don’t mind if I vent for a bit.
So when I think about my life in this context, the idea of giving up, laying down and dying sounds very appealing. Despite this, I'm still glad I was born and lived long enough to meet Shizuna - she provides me with a sense of purpose in my otherwise meaningless life.
Although the issues with Kiseki’s localization/release dates and my inability to reliably purchase its merch brings a lot of disappointment and the feeling of powerlessness too.
So going back to getting the good grades - meaningless things have no meaning on their own.

Yeeeah, I checked the prices for smart boards, no way in Hell our school could afford them XD. Just with one you could probably pay salaries of half the school’s staff. Watching movies or anime on them in class is probably like going into a movie theater.
Flashcards is something I use for learning Kanji and Japanese vocab, it seems to be very effective for the most part. But I obviously don’t use paper ones, I use an app called Anki. But if you’re not interested in the language, it wouldn’t be any fun regardless of the method. Those classes of yours sound very uncommon to me, we didn’t have anything like that… The strangest one we had was basic military training. We learned throwing grenades, disassembling and assembling weapons, wearing gas masks and that sort of thing. Did you have something like that?
To my shame, I still can’t swim, even though I was born in a coastal town, but yeah, your PE doesn’t sound very cool… I wonder, what were you doing on mental well-being and sex ed classes? The career planning class also sounds interesting.
Eeeh, our schools were too poor to afford a bus and cars were (and still are) a luxury for the most. Not only are our salaries are miniscule, there are tariffs which make things like cars much more expensive than in other countries. For example, one person from New Jersey said that he bought a car for like $10000, I checked the same model on a local used cars site and the price ranged from $20000 to $40000. So yeah, most kids walked to school themselves. It was like 3 km between the school and my home. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary for a first grader to walk that distance back then, although admittedly it was a safer time.
Yeah, I think I could be a chill and pleasant teacher too, although I’d probably be strict with my grades lol.

The topic of healthcare in U.S. is the one that resurfaces very often in the “America bad” discussions, so I’m glad to hear it’s actually fine there. Here it is free, but useless most of the time - you’re going to wait weeks before you can see a doctor and usually they don’t know anything (you can find better advice by using Google) or refuse to get some tests done on you unless you’re feeling really bad. I honestly abhor the idea of giving any money to the government because even corruption aside, it is never efficient with it.
Regardless of that, hopefully the U.S. will manage to remain true to itself and not succumb to becoming yet another abusive state where the citizenry have no rights and no freedoms. When I look at the European Union, I think it’s not that different to both of my countries when it comes to censoring speech and certain other policies, which is a sad state of affairs.
One other thing I’m curious about is U.S. immigration policy. When I researched legal ways to move there, it seemed like a very difficult process (unless you’re loaded/have a great job/have a family member being a citizen), but if I am to believe what I’m reading on the internet, millions of people cross the border illegally and no one does anything to prevent that. What’s up with that? Maybe I should fly to Mexico and simply go North instead of suffering the bureaucratic hell here where I am XD

Yep, it seems like pirate streaming sites go down all the time. Hopefully nothing like that happens to nya and one other site I frequent. They are real lifesavers for stuff that isn’t easily available and for people who live in poor countries and can’t afford digital goods.
I think societies in general need to place a bigger value on a person's dignity and personal safety. Politicians talk about “protecting” people all the time, but it is their policies that put law-abiding citizens in situations where they might become criminals due to the actions of somebody else. If you’re not allowed to defend yourself, your loved ones and your property - you are definitely not a free man.
People make fun of figure collectors because it’s “safe” to make fun of them. That’s how it usually works, unfortunately.
Interestingly, I mostly stopped listening to K-pop exactly after it blew up in popularity - new songs and music videos seemed too “samey” for me, like they were manufactured on some kind of conveyor belt. Here are some of the bands I liked listening to:


And this song was my most scrobbled track when I was using last.fm XD

My music taste really changed since then, but the funniest thing is that before discovering K-pop I used to be a huge metalhead and my favorite band was this:

Anyway, I feel kind of guilty sending you all these songs considering it takes time to listen to them… How about you send me something you like in response?

Instead of shoes, next time we should meet up and rob a bank or something :>
(For the FBI/CIA agents reading this: this was a joke).

Wow… While I was reading the initial part of that story, I didn’t expect it to turn so dark. I can imagine how upsetting it could’ve been to you and your classmates, and it’s a real pity what happened to that teacher’s son. Your regular teacher wasn’t told anything about that probably due to her colleagues not wanting to bring up a sensitive issue such as this.
Not sure if it’s appropriate to say this given the nature of what you’ve just shared, but still - you have a really good way with words when describing past events, so if you have more stories to share, please keep them coming.

That’s why I don’t like when people want to bring more “realism” in video-games and anime, i.e. I already have enough realism in my life and I don’t want more of it even inside the fictional words I escape to from the depressive reality.

Oh, Silhouette is from the latest part of Shippuden. I wasn’t as invested in Naruto back then so I don’t remember this opening that well.

So does it mean best girl > best guy? Damn, it is difficult to be a man in Zemuria!
All Divine Blades need to meet and fight each other in 1 on 1 battles to see who can earn the most victories.
I’ve seen jokes about Rean coming back to save the series because apparently Kuro didn’t perform really well in sales or something. I don’t know if this is true, I don’t follow sales charts. But if it is true then all the more reason to release the games on different platforms, not just on PS many people try to decouple from.

Damn, it’s too bad you've already been spoiled about some of the scenes!
Yep, you can even see the Grisaia shortcut on that 2016 desktop screenshot I showed above. My favorite Grisaia girl is Yumiko, but if I read it nowadays for the first time, maybe I’d like some other girl more. Yuuji is the man though, one of the better protagonists out there.
I finished playing Berseria (a great game) and like promised, started watching Monogatari. So far Kizumonogatari II and III only (I’ve already seen I). I think I’m enjoying it more than all those years ago.


Maybe I should just make a thread on MT’s subforum about this moral dilemma and see what people think…
Roxy being Roxy: cute.
This was unexpectedly spicy of you! It made me curious: are you the type to look up the lewds of your favorite characters or the one who usually avoids it?

We never got the chance to experience how it feels to have your blood sucked, so who knows - maybe those girls who moan know something we don’t. Lol.
Yeah, I would… A friend of mine asked me something similar yesterday: “what if Shizuna was placed under some kind of cannibalistic curse and had to eat human flesh, whereas you had a regenerative ability, what would happen”. And to me the answer was obvious. But you know, it’s crazy how many of these little thought experiments were popping up lately! Almost like people are testing the depths of my love/craziness.
Loli Shinobu is cute, but I think this version of hers is the prettiest:


The exact day of the second anniversary of our meeting is Oct 4, so it’s actually a little bit less than 2 years. Too bad we can’t do anything special about it :P
But yeah, it seems like Kiseki fans are rarer than the fans of other JRPGs, especially compared to something like Persona.
The main issue is that those scenes are long. You get one/two static CGs with a couple of variations and the scene itself goes on and on, like it is some kind of dragged-out shounen battle.

We should put those models in Blender and conduct more detailed inspections of the girls’ assets. It is important to have correct data!

I started playing Sky FC in Spring 2017, so I played it and SC back to back. Some time after I was done, 3rd was released on Steam, so I played it too. Then I went to work in another country for some time and when I came back home, I saw that Cold Steel I was released and played it in the September of the same year (that’s also when I fell in love with Laura). In 2018 I played CSII (in February) and Ao/Zero either in 2017 or 2018 (I can’t remember if I played it before or after CSII). I played Cold Steel III in March 2020 and Cold Steel IV in April 2021. Hajimari in August/September 2022 and Kuro I in September 2022 (so exactly on the same date it was the 5th anniversary since Cold Steel I). Kuro II in December 2023. Hopefully I’ll get to play Kai in 2025……………. As for Muv-Luv, if I’m not misremembering, I played it in 2021. So I’ve been with Kiseki for longer than with Muv-Luv. Sorry to disappoint I’m not a decade old fan! XD
How about you, do you remember your journey?

Rean and Elise aren’t related so there shouldn’t be much of an issue, the bigger problem for her is that there is a big competition for Rean’s heart out there. Even if you’re wonderful and cute, it’s hard to compete with the likes of Laura, Emma, etc.

I like how ruthless and methodical Kiritsugu was, one of the coolest protagonists out there. However, I can’t agree with his ideals and worldview. Sacrificing your loved ones for the sake of strangers seems like masochistic insanity to me.
Here’s a little quote from the novel:I’d rather sacrifice the whole world for the one I love than the one I love for the sake of the world.

I’ll wait for your top-10 for as long as needed then :P
Yep, that’s what I am… You can try to tempt me with anything and anyone you want, but I won’t be swayed!
I’m proud of our Kiseki girls. Two out of five is a lot.
Ha-ha. Well, harem without the spicy parts is like alcoholic drinks without the alcohol.
I wear glasses all the time too. I can see without them if it’s something directly near me, but if it’s at least 50 cm away it’s all blurry. So we’re glasses brothers.

Getting all the protags together seems like a decent plan, but I’ll go with… Okay, so Shizuna is going to be a protagonist, obviously. Because of this, we can add Kurogane to the mix - he seems like a cool guy, an important link between her and Ikaruga and their interactions are generally nice. Then Rean, because they’re fellow students. Then Yun Ka-fai, because he is their teacher and former leader of Ikaruga. That’s 4/8 all of whom are going to be in Kai… A-a-a-a-a, I want to play it so bad!
Okay, the fifth one is going to be Laura, because I think she could learn a thing or two from Shizuna and Yun Ka-fai, she would fit well in the party of sword maniacs and I honestly think she deserves to get some kind of resolution after not doing much in Cold Steel past the first game. Every party needs some kind of computer specialist, so the 6th slot goes to either Tio or Renne. The 7th slot can go to Rixia because Yin would fit in any party. And the last slot goes to… Maybe Lloyd, Van or even Olivier, depending on what kind of plot it is.

One of my friends (the only one who plays that Cold Steel gacha) has Mirelle in their avatar, he-he… What is your opinion about her?
Technically, I think that club could be used as a place for MAL Kiseki fans to gather and discuss things since the original club is dead anyway, but I somehow doubt many people would be interested in it, especially since it’s been very personalized for one character specifically. Another option is to maybe post some reviews on video-games and other stuff. What do you think?

After you posted that picture, I saw it on Falcom’s site under some kind of special DLC offer and I worry it might end up being exclusive again like some other costumes in the past… Renne’s Kuro II dlc for example. I also wonder what happened to Shizuna/Elaine/Agnes Z-1 outfits (the one where they wear shorts).
But you’re right, she looks very small compared to Rixia. It doesn’t matter though, she’s still the prettiest one 💖

Osborn was also stylish as hell. That hairstyle alone can give other guys in the series a run for their money.

The next one I’m going to play is… KAI KAI KAI KAI KAI KAI… :( Realistically, it might be Zestria, since it’s connected to Berseria I just finished. Or maybe I’ll try to read Clannad in Japanese. Or replay Kuro. Berseria ended up being a very unique case, by the way. Usually when I play jrpg there is a clear favorite (e.g. Olivier in Sky, Rean/Laura in CS, etc.), some characters I really like and some characters who are relatively average (e.g. I like Elliot, but I can’t say I’m his super fan). In Berseria, however, all the main characters were more or less on the same level, I can’t really say I liked one much more than the others.

If you have questions about making a profile layout or want some help, just ask.

Those arts counting days are as great as always and that first screenshot is the kryptonite of the haters ha-ha.

This is a difficult question. I really love dynamics between Van and Agnes (I think I mentioned before that Kuro I prologue might be my favorite because of that), but I’ll probably go with Rean/Crow. Their friendship/rivalry and CSIV's resolution is on par with the relationships of Estelle and Joshua, and individually I like them more. Sorry Estelle, Sorry Joshua, I keep putting others above you two…

These S-craft concept artworks are amazing! Where did you find them? Musse is super fun here, I wonder what she’s doing. Also, this might be the lewdest official artwork of Estelle I’ve seen lol.

I’ll try to check that fanfic later (either this site is also blocked here or the site itself blocks local ips).

Re:Zero S3, Uzumaki, Arifureta S3, Danmachi S5, Kimi wa Meido-sama and Amagami-san Chi no Enmusubi. After this season being so disappointing (I started 19 anime, but dropped 5 and put on-hold 8), I want to cut back on the number of seasonals I’m investing myself in. How about you?

People in government generally don’t care about the consequences their decisions have on the regular people and I’m sure they can get anything they need regardless of its legal status - they can even set their own salaries or participate in insider trading, after all; doesn’t seem like this paradigm of governance is different in other countries. This is not surprising, however, given that despite all that talk about the importance of democracy, people (almost) never get to vote directly for policies and instead are forced to choose their ‘representatives’ who aren’t legally obliged to do what their voters want them to do.
Got the links, thanks as always.

What’s interesting, there are many different types of love, but all are powerful in their own way. The one I think might be the most common one is the familial love of a parent for a child and vice versa, sometimes grandparents and siblings can be included too. A lot of ‘romantic’ relationships or friendships break over time, but family typically stays together even if its members live apart. Love for your own country, aforementioned patriotism, can be a useful tool for society’s prosperity, but at the same time it could be exploited for many nasty things. Platonic love between friends is marvelous too, on the one hand it makes you feel very positive emotions about someone who you are not related to and on the flip side you’d be willing to forgive all the little inconveniences that person might give to you. Or how about the love of God? I think I did mention that I like Johann Sebastian Bach and if we are to believe what is written about him, his masterful music is the result of his devotion to God. As someone who has a personal Goddess who motivates and inspires me, I find that relatable, although I suppose if we lived in a distant past, I’d be branded as a heretic and burned at the stake; not to mention, I don’t have the same level of talent as he did, which pains me because I have no creative tools to convey my feelings in such a beautiful form as music or art. How many forms of love do you think are applicable to the current you? I'm sorry if this came out of nowhere and sounds too pompous XD, sometimes I end up thinking about these things and I'll understand if you don't find such contemplations interesting or worth your time.

Going back to Oshi no Ko, which prompted these thoughts in the first place, what are your thoughts about it now that the theater seems to be over? Did they do a good job at adapting the manga?

It’s indeed a shame there wasn’t more of this in the anime:
Oh, right. Since Oshi no Ko S2 is on-going, its girls (aside Kana) will be eligible to participate again. Too bad Ai didn’t have enough screen time other than to appear as a cameo. And Monogatari girls too, damn.
When I first played Sky, it wasn’t voiced, but I did replace “battle voices” with Japanese ones anyway. Even such a little portion of EN dub was breaking my immersion.

Those movies are very interesting indeed, but I think you need to have very specific tastes or state of mind to enjoy them, so don’t expect too much.
Me on my way to bother my friends with Shizuna-related talk for the 100000th time:You mean the one from 2022? My list of recommendations grows by the minute.

The Sibyl System from Psycho-Pass, at least, is impartial and competent for the most part. In the real world any such system would be controlled by the elite class of people, who tend to be terrible and incompetent.

Rixia has nothing to hide, after all :P Her looks are likely helpful in battle too, given how mesmerized her enemies are going to become in her presence. Ha-ha, yeah, Lloyd knows what he is doing.
That’s an interesting mod… This made me think that maybe the combination of beach scenes and her model is the reason she was missing in Kuro II?
Indeed, given her popularity and beauty, it wouldn’t surprise me if a substantial portion of zemurian people had posters of Rixia on the inner walls of their homes.
Found a funny screenshot in my Kuro I folder: Shizuna with her insane acrobatics… Compared to Rixia, she is very slender and I wonder how her outfit in Kai is going to look on her.
Let’s hope Rixia is going to have a bigger involvement in Kai than she did in Kuro I and Kuro II.
Yep, all ASO members are a little bit abnormal, so Shizuna would fit right in. The only exception is Agnes.

But can Bleublanc steal someone’s heart? This is something he’d need to do in order to defeat Olivier in their debate on beauty. It’s interesting how both him and Judith are phantom thieves, but they are very different. Both are very passionate, though, it’s just that where Judith pursues justice, he pursues beauty.
If we lived in the same city I think it would be super fun to try solving Bleublanc’s puzzles together. Imagine meeting every other day, racking our brains, visiting different parts of town, etc. I’d love this.
Would you agree that the most striking feature of Tio’s outfits is her stocking or not? Even though she’s more on the cute side, she does look hot in her CSIII look too.
Oh, man, Agnes looks great in everything. I probably like her the most in her school uniform, but it lacks the uniqueness of her other two outfits… I can’t choose XD. But I say that she’s definitely one of the most fashionable girls in the series. What do you think, though?

Love Live! School Idol Project is an obvious choice: it is very popular and has a lot of entries, but I think it is kind of lackluster overall. I like its music, but the story/character interactions aren’t that impressive and after all these years there is only one character I like from it - Umi Sonoda. The only other thing I can think of is Symphogear, but I’m not sure that you will enjoy it either.

I did notice that you have a lot of profile comments, so that’s the history behind them… This is unfortunate, but thanks to this I can have you all for myself here ha-ha… Yeah, sorry if this sounds weird - this is exactly the “it makes me feel like I did something wrong” type of situation you’ve mentioned - I do find it very relatable. Cultural differences, language barrier, personality traits, different opinions and various other variables combined with lengthy conversations can lead to misunderstandings. After reading your story, I feel bad for taking a really long time to reply to you at the end of the previous year and at the start of the current one. It could probably appear like I was one of the “ghosters” too :( But I was simply busier than usual, which can unfortunately happen again.

It’s definitely a time-consuming process; for example, searching for images, making portraits and writing bbcode for that character list took me around 5 hours total. But like I’ve mentioned before - if it’s for you I don’t mind it, so don’t hesitate to ask me anything like that again.

I have a feeling (and preference) that she will interact with Rean’s team the most, so ASO might not meet her dark side. As for the killing part, Falcom almost never kills characters beloved by their fans, but precedents exist, e.g. Loewe.
This works for me then, too! It would be really awkward to discuss things if one of us played the game much earlier than the other one :D
The main issue with MTL is that the CLE version doesn’t have Japanese script, and translating from Korean or Chinese (which were first translated from Japanese) would yield bad results. I wonder why it’s difficult to rip the script from the console’s version… Still, I hope that unlike Kuro, CLE’s Kai is going to have Japanese text.

I have mixed feelings about the announced remake to be honest. On the one hand, experiencing a beloved story in 3D graphics sounds like a great time, but on the other:
- All my attention is directed at Kai; I’m much more interested in seeing the continuation of the story.
- Since Falcom has resources to make another game, I’d rather they released multilanguage/multiplatform Kai day one, preferably with decent people handling the translation.
- Since sky FC is the start of the whole journey, its old graphics were a nice gatekeeper. As egoistic as it sounds, I don’t want even more haters/busybodies to get involved with the series.

I think one of the main causes for education being inefficient is that kids are never told a decent reason why they need to learn these things in the first place. ‘Getting good grades’ is meaningless in itself because grades aren’t converted into anything worthwhile and the whole process of getting them is boring to most. Like in my case, I pretty much learned English to play video-games which weren’t available in my language (that, and I wanted to play without translation). So there was both motivation and an interesting method of learning. But what about school? ‘Learn English to get good grades’. Not very inspiring, is it?

Let’s look at your report cards.
Oh, so they were printed. I feel like my school was so technologically behind yours, ha-ha. Not only they were giving students laptops, in my school everything was written by hand, even by the teachers!
Hmm, all those shortened descriptions are a bit confusing to read. Looks like ‘Spanish heritage’, ‘ENL 9-10’ and ‘German I’ all were language lessons with ENL standing for English, but I’m not sure what ‘I’ in German or 9-10 in ENL means. ‘Heritage’ part is also interesting, was it something more than just language lessons? Looks like you were doing well in it as well as physical education on another pic. Those courses in the ‘vocational’ category are also very mysterious to me. I guess the third one was about consulting for the future education/job? I have zero ideas about the two others, though. Can you tell me more? I’m curious what ‘Health’ was about too.
You know, if I found something like this randomly on the internet, I wouldn’t bother to look at it, but since these are about my friend, this is all very interesting, so thank you for sharing! I wish I could show you something like this too.
If you were a teacher, how do you think you would act with your students?

I don’t mind sharing my thoughts on the U.S., I just hope you won't be upset with what I’m going to say.
So first, given historical context I think it is a great country. When it got independence from the British Empire and its constitution came into being, it became a country without royalty and aristocracy where common people were granted a lot of personal, political and economic freedoms and were treated like equals before the law - I think for that era and for such a big country it was unprecedented. People of non-european descent were treated worse, but in the grand scheme of things, accomplishments of the American revolutionaries played a great role in expanding and protecting human rights; not to mention the overall quality of living. Just look at the Russian Empire where serfdom existed up until 1861-1866 - Russians (alongside Ukrainians and some other ethnicities) were treated like slaves in their own country. You couldn’t move, you could be sold, you could be abused by your owners, and even as far as 1887 (after the serfdom was abolished) the government tried to deny commoners education. This is a hundred years after American Colonies rebelled against Britain. Fast forward to the present - people of the United States, regardless of their background, still have much more freedom before the law and the country itself has been relatively stable for much of its history, something I’m very envious of because where I live something terrible happens all the time.
On the negative side of things, I’m not a fan of its foreign policy - it meddles in the affairs of other countries too much (even my current life predicament is partially caused by it) and I could at least rationally accept it if it was to ensure a better quality of life for its people, but from my understanding it’s not the case in the slightest. I also don’t appreciate its culturally imperialistic tendencies, i.e. when the U.S. government or its corporations try to force other countries to behave a certain way. The easiest example that I think is close to the both of us is this “modern audiences”/”inclusivity” shtick that is being pushed onto Japanese video-games developers and anime studios. I think it’s crazy that when it comes to this particular case, even censorship of the Chinese Communist Party is preferable to what American interests try to push. When it comes to people, it annoys me a bit when I see Americans call the U.S. a third world country, because I think those who say it should try to live in a real third world country for a few years, maybe then they’ll start appreciating what they have XD.
What else can I add? Hmm. Well, it relates to our previous topic about personal freedoms and privacy, so I’ll say that in my opinion the 1st & 2nd amendments you guys have there are brilliant and it saddens me a bit to see so many people not appreciating them and being too willing to give up them. Without weapons and freedom of speech, all other freedoms are only there for as long as people in power allow you to have them. I often hear about ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ as an argument against free speech, but who gets to decide what is hateful and what is misinformation? Controlling speech is a common trait of autocratic and even totalitarian states. In certain countries you have to worry about what you say all the time and in the era of the internet when almost everything is recorded, it’s super dystopian stuff. If anything, I think big platforms such as YouTube and Twitter should fall under the 1st amendment and be unable to arbitrarily censor what is being posted there unless it’s a clear violation of law (threats of violence, drug trade, etc.).
So here it is, some of my superficial opinions on your country.

All you have to do to start playing Granblue is open this in the browser: https://game.granbluefantasy.jp/ but I don’t remember when the English text was added to it. It’s a gacha and you’re already dedicated not to get involved with them, so it’s better not to :P
What you’re telling about site blocking reminds me of how things are often with pirate sites - that once they get popular enough, they are taken down, just by copyrighters instead of the teachers. They should’ve protected those passwords better, though. Someone wasn’t doing their job seriously.
Honestly, that was a minor incident. Something like this has always been happening at my school and fights were commonplace. With girls however it was kind of annoying. Guys won’t physically bully those who they think might get violent in response, but most guys (me included) were taught that we’re not supposed to hit girls, and girls knew it and abused this. For example, one time the typical bullies persuaded the most bullied guy in the class to bug me (there was no teacher in class and he was pestering me), so I beat him in response, and one of the bullies who set him up hit me with a metal chair in the back. When I shockingly turned around and saw her I was stumped. If it was a guy I’d get into a fight, but it was a girl and I was taught that I’m not supposed to hit girls, so what to do? It was a circus. This paradigm got worse later in life when I realized that if you get assaulted and harm the attackers while defending yourself you can get time behind bars, so you either let attackers harm you or you will be prosecuted. This is yet another reason why I respect U.S. laws when it comes to personal freedoms, because as far as I know you can even shoot your attackers and you won’t get in trouble for that, which in my opinion is fair.
Mostly ‘safe’ anime, though. Figure collectors are still ridiculed by many, for example.
That mp3 player looked something like this, not the exact model however, I don’t remember how mine was called. I think if that girl didn’t steal it from me I’d probably still be using it even though many years have passed. My Sony Vaio laptop I bought in ~2011 still works, after all. I wonder what kind of music I have stored back then… I think it was mostly K-pop songs at that time.

Woah, this is a very peculiar situation you got yourself into with those shoes. What are the odds of someone losing his phone at the same time as you decided to do this? I can only imagine how stressful it might’ve been, especially considering the number of people there and the time-limited nature of the whole predicament. But in the end, it was probably for the best that you managed to return them without anyone noticing. Footwear isn’t something you can hide (since you’d be wearing them or there is no meaning in having them) and a sense of guilt could’ve creeped on later. It’s probably not something you’re telling just to anybody, so I appreciate you having trust in me. I’m very interested in hearing about your next story (the one related to world lit class), and if you want you can send me this portion of the message privately to ensure that no one else will read it.

I’ve seen some people mention that the name Moana might be copyrighted by Disney, but I don’t think you can copyright a generic name such as this since it’s not even the title of the game.

Like many other things in life, I think she’d react to our world with a sense of curiosity and adventure. You know, I’m not a fan of traveling, but if it was with her then I’d enjoy every second.
Most fictional worlds follow some kind of logic and rules, whereas the real world has no rules at all, definitely no justice, emotionally we are still cavemen who life in medieval feudal societies but have godlike technologies.

Was it Blue Bird or some other opening? To me this one is the most memorable from Naruto.

Shizuna above Rean? That’s a bit unexpected, but my ranking is exactly the same, although regardless of the outcome of their battle, they won’t change. Rean can get stronger, but he’ll never overcome the fact that the most beautiful girl wields the most beautiful weapon in the most beautiful way!
Can’t argue about the power levels being incomprehensible for the most part, but in defense of Arios, he was conflicted and wasn’t operating at his best.
You can probably add Fie to the list of universally liked girls too. Elaine and Risette? I wonder why them specifically compared to other Kuro characters.
As for the guys, I can definitely agree with Olivier, Van and Randy, but there are plenty of Rean haters so he probably doesn’t count. I’m curious, is it just the English speaking part of the internet has an issue with him, or there are many Japanese players who don’t like him too?

Then, can you give Shiki a try (https://myanimelist.net/anime/7724/Shiki)? Its art style is on the uglier side and its first few episodes can appear super boring, but I think it’s one of the best anime (my personal top-6) and when it comes to the vampire theme it’s THE best one. However, if you decide to watch it and end up not enjoying yourself, don’t force yourself to finish it just because I recommended it ^^
I’m actually a fan of Grisaia VN, so I don’t think I’ll watch its anime adaptation. And as for OnK & Frieren I think it would be best for me to wait for their respective anime. Hmm, I think I’ll go with Monogatari for now. I need to complete the Blue Archive story prior to this, though.

Man, imagine what those people would say about me, considering if I was in place of Rudeus and Shizuna in place of Roxy, the one who’d be getting cut off would be Sylphie or the one who’d be in her place (even though it pains me to imagine, Laura a fitting substitute I guess). I do understand it would be immoral to do, however, like I’ve mentioned in that question about Oshi no Ko’s Akane, for Shizuna I’d be willing to do anything. But really, depending on one’s emotion, there is no easy solution that fits all. Even Rudeus, if he cut off Roxy, could’ve started regretting that choice later on and this could potentially damage his relationship with Sylphie too.

In case you decide to watch LotGH, I think you should go for the original series instead of the remake. I haven’t watched the latter, but from what I’ve seen it looks much less charming.
Understandable! I think being a vampire could be, in theory, very romantic, but I agree - sucking someone’s blood is kinda gross, unless it’s someone you really like. I wouldn’t mind to suck you know who’s blood unless it leaves permanent damage or have my blood sucked by her.
Did you have Shinobu in mind when you mentioned loli vampire? :P

Sort of like Kiseki, yeah. Just be sure to play the mask of deception before the mask of truth.
Was the one you’ve seen Sansei Muramasa (the hot dark elf)? I’ve been seeing her art/figures looong before I played the VN myself. Don’t type that name in the search bar though, it might give you spoilers.
I see, fair enough!

Well… We’ve already been talking to each other for 2 years, so even if you don’t read Muv-Luv this year, there is plenty of time ahead, so I’ll be waiting (unless something bad happens…) for the time you get familiar with it. This actually made me remember that during our first encounter I’ve already been bothering you with my obsessive ramblings about Shizuna XD
About the sex scenes, they’re not that great tbh. Personally, I prefer when they are relatively short like in Rance our Utawarerumono.

Okay, let’s take a look… I bet you had a great time thoroughly looking at their models and artworks, he-he.
Hmm, I think I’d put Vita, Musse and Sharon a tier lower and Shizuna a tier higher. Maybe Lucrezia a tier higher too, as well as Nadia. Otherwise it seems to look good, but I’m mostly basing this on my memory, so if I take a look at the models again, my opinion might change.

I wish there was some kind of incident in the game where Vita and Emma compete against each other for their feminine charms.
Yeah, if we consider ALL characters that there are, then to me it looks like this: Shizuna > Other Kiseki characters i like > my other favorites from other games/vns/anime. Meiya from Muv-Luv is the only exception who can compete against Kiseki girls, but obviously not against Shizuna.
Elise got treated even worse than OG Class VII members, so hopefully Falcom will make something meaningful for her down the road.

Speaking of Fate/Zero, what’s your opinion on Kiritsugu? I don’t remember if I asked this before.

If you think he was a shitty person, then I won’t say it’s a shame you’ve cut contact with him, sometimes it’s for the best.
As for us, I’ll try to live up to your expectations :) As always, thank you for your words and I suppose by now it’s obvious that the feeling is mutual.

Today a friend of mine told me that his kanji handwriting is bad, then he showed it to me and it was a million times better than mine, so I’m not convinced your handwriting is worse than mine yet!

I often end up liking blue-haired girls, e.g. Laura (the most important example), Meiya (that’s basically Laura, but with actual screen time and place in the story), Gijou Mitsumi (she’s also similar to both Laura and Meiya lol…), Sonoda Umi, Esdeath, aforementioned Kurumi, Masamune and some others, so I wanted to display that particular tendency of mine.

I noticed that when it comes to “hotness” it’s a bit hard to be unbiased in relation to the characters whose personalities you like, i.e. if you already like a girl, you might see her as more attractive compared to others even if “objectively” she checks less boxes for you. Do you think so too or not? And I wonder how your top-10 would actually look like!
My ideal harem with 5 slots? Let’s see… Man, I'm sorry to disappoint! XD No harem for me, only Shizuna.
I don’t mind taking a look at your harem, though.
If I’m not misremembering something, that’s just a scene from the anime. Did it pique your interest? And yeah, I’ve seen some artwork from the light novels, it IS straight up hentai.
Interesting, I wear glasses too (since 2021, I think), but from the aesthetic side of things I’m not a fan of them.

No resets pls. No breaking out of simulation too. 🥺
What would your ideal cast look like? Among the characters who already exist. Let’s limit it to 8.

Lloyd’s harem is of a very high quality indeed. And even though Randy complains about this all the time, it doesn't look like he’s interested in having his own.
Nah, it’s unlikely. I like Estelle, but the competition is just that fierce.
Oohh, so that’s how it is… Poor Azure Diva ended in your crosshairs because of me. To be honest, I can see some girls (e.g. Nadia, Elie) overcoming her in my rankings at some point.
Lloyd should be careful. His heart might burn out at this rate.
I wouldn’t mind meeting someone who has Angelica as their number one. Probably a very unique person… Unless it’s some annoying tourist who placed her at the top for some superficial reasons.

I don’t think I’ll play Tales of Graces any time soon. I’ll probably become gray before I finish Berseria.

The logic is probably the usual “it sounds stupid, we know better, so we’ll change it”.

I think bracers can do some normal, non-dangerous work too, like saving a kitten from a tree, finding lost items, etc. While doing this, you could also receive training from someone like Elaine and eventually feel confident enough to take more difficult jobs, like fighting the monsters.
I don’t think I could keep up with Ikaruga tasks with my current health, but when it comes to Shizuna I'm at least confident in my will.
My initial plan was to use this club as an extended blog since it is much more convenient, so other than you I haven’t invited anyone else yet. There are some things I can think of to do to make it more interesting and interactive, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time/others would be interested in it.

Would you like to have a Friereren jrpg? I think it could work really well.
Oy yeah, Shizuna is supposed to get Rixia’s outfit as DLC. Rixia is in big trouble.
It’s amazing how both of them are the same person.

KeA’s motivation is indeed very unique and if it wasn’t for her, there would be no SSS… But I’d go with Giliath Osborne. In a way, he is similar to KeA, because his desire to protect his son was his main drive; and not many people can outwit and outperform Ouroboros, especially in such a brazen manner ha-ha. I don’t think there is any other imposing figure of such caliber in the series. Even someone like McBurn can’t compete.

The person who made that scenes sorter contacted me a few months ago and we’ve been keeping in touch since then, so I’m aware of this site ha-ha. Here’s what I got:Looks like we have only two overlaps in our top-10, although to be honest I need to replay these games again to refresh my memory, it’s been some time since my last replay.

My guess is that the woman Shizuna calls Kaede is probably some kind of servant who has been looking after Shizuna since she was young. One of the possible victims of that attack on Ikaruga we've seen in the opening :(

I’m still salty I wasn’t able to get Tio’s figure…

I created a backloggd account some time ago, but I haven filled it with games yet (I don’t like its UI and all those different editions of the same games are a bit confusing). But just in case I followed you anyway. Looking at your list, I played… ~26 of those games.

Here’s an example of how a bbcode of that second profile would look like if you decide to go this route:
Don’t forget to switch to the ‘classic’ about me in profile preferences. If you have troubles, I can try doing the whole thing for you, but you’ll need to tell me what you want to write/display there.

If what I made for you ends up being useful to you then I'll be happy :D

I'm in the process of composing a reply to the main message, so it'll come later; about the profile layout, I think the most important part is to conceptualize what kind of information you want to convey through it. In my case, I:
- had a bunch of blog posts I wanted to link to the main page.
- wanted a wide image of Shizuna to sit on top of the layout.
- didn't have any other info I wanted to display.
So I ended up making those buttons and inserted a simple but clear image of Shizuna (later replaced for the current gif).

This user, for example, has tons of links and tons of info (likes, dislikes, etc.), so there is plenty of stuff to fill the profile with.

Profile layout like this is something I don't think I'd be able to make and it requires a lot of skill and effort, but personally I don't like it very much because I find it to be difficult to read and it's not interactable.

So yeah, first you should think of what you want to display there.

I've sent you 2 files via Discord:
- First is the txt file, you should copy what is written inside of it to a new blog post. Then it should look like this:
(It's longer than in the picture, 57 characters total).
If you click on the images, it'll open character's page on MAL.
- The second one is the psd file with the portrait template I've made. You can use it to add new characters or edit already existing ones. However, you can still ask me to do it for you and I'll happily do it.

Hopefully it looks decent enough for you. Also, I've used a new hosting site for the images, but I hope they work.

*Heavy breathing*


How I wish I could play it the same day it releases in Japan :(

By the way, I'm not sure if you log in to Discord, so just in case I'll mention that I've sent you there a cleaner version of that "top media" picture some time ago.

Probably because of a few videos which break local laws and Youtube refusing to take them down. The videos in question don’t even constitute a 0.001% of all videos on that platform, so it’s a terrible and unjust decision for anyone who uses the internet on a regular basis (why can't they just block "illegal" videos directly?). As for movie and tv websites, you can share them just in case, but for now I can still torrent what I need.
I can see where Akane is coming from… If it was for Shizuna, I’d do anything for her too. But in regards to Oshi no Ko as a whole, I like the Aqua x Ruby ship more, mostly because of their fateful encounter in the previous life, them reincarnating together and having a lot of shared experiences. Although I suppose the very idea of this couple is disgusting to many.

Okay, got it, if I’m going to watch Spice and Wolf, I’ll go with the remake. But only because you recommended it to me!
The last one for me is Megumin, not Darkness :P Darkness is great, but I just like Wiz and Aqua more. Wiz doesn’t appear as much, but I find her personality to be cute and wholesome, and her looks are more appealing to me.
Byakuya is weak-willed, clumsy and melancholic, the type “you want to protect”. What are your ideas so far? Or is this a secret?
So we’ll go to the original Sky times… These games probably weren’t voiced up until later exactly because it was too costly.

When it comes to movies I actually prefer old black and white movies to modern ones. Not because of technical reasons, but rather the stories tend to engage me more. I think this trend started when I watched Yojimbo in 2010. And the most memorable movie among the ones I saw is Yukoku. It’s only 30 minutes long, but gives an interesting insight on the mindset of people of Japan of the past and lets you think about curious moral dilemmas. Ironically, however, even though it's one of the main themes of the movie, I'm not patriotic at all.
But among the ones you mentioned, I like Dark Knight. I’m not a fan of DC or Marvel superheroes, but this movie was fantastic. Heath Ledger is a legend.

Hopefully some things get fixed before all of this leads to a boiling point when everything just collapses. But realistically it feels like we’ll just end up in a terrible dystopia where something like what was in Psycho-Pass will look like a paradise in comparison.

Rixia doesn’t just have an ample chest, but possibly the widest hips and softest butt. What is also soft is her facial features and the eyes. Do you remember we talked about a beauty pageant in regards to the Thors students? Well, if something like this happened but wasn’t limited to just one military academy, but rather all of Zemuria, Rixia would probably win.
HOWEVER… To my eye Shizuna is still more beautiful!
The lack of Rixia and her seiyuu in Kuro II was indeed very strange. Hopefully they will appear in Kai.
Shizuna’s participation in Kuro II was so random ha-ha, but I’m super glad it happened. Well, she’s a bit mischievous and is very energetic, so maybe Van simply didn’t want to have all that chaos around him, but come on, that’s Shizuna we’re talking about - how can you not want to have her around?

What I like about Bleublanc is that he steals stuff not out of greed, but rather to have fun and out of his pursuit of true beauty. But you’re right, his quests aren’t easy. Imagine if he stole one of your figurines and made you search for it across your city via all those difficult puzzles XD.
I like Tio’s CS3 look slightly more than her Zero/Ao look. How about you?

Yeah, man, better stay away from the gacha games, you’ll find more joy by spending time on single-player games or by reading/watching something to your liking. As for idols… You can try watching this some time. I think it’s the best idol anime to date, however, I’m not sure that you will like it, so only give it a go if you don’t have anything else to watch.
I actually wanted to ask you the question in reserve - what do you think are my tastes, but I guess since all my brain cells are thinking of Shizuna, there’s not much point in this lol. I’m not even exaggerating, a few days ago a friend of mine offered to draw me a picture and I had to make some screenshots of Shizuna from all sides, so I launched Kuro II and noticed I’m having more fun playing with her model rather than even playing Berseria which I consider to be a very interesting game.

Let me promise you this: if I take too long to reply to you, it means I’m either too overwhelmed by things which are happening in real life or I’m dead. And to the people who ghosted you: it's their loss. Meeting you is one of the best things that happened to me on MAL :P
Here’s what I made based on the favorite media list you showed me before:
https://i.ibb.co/bvjZN2h/Mindnight-Favorite-Media.png
I think it turned out okay, but like I’ve said before, it’s fine for you to say you don’t like it. In that case I’ll try to think of something else.
Some of the things I want to point out, though:
- I decided to go with the images of one or in some cases two characters instead of the whole covers because the later would look too small and wouldn’t look good.
- I used official art and for the most part I tried to focus on the characters you like; if you have other pictures you’d prefer to display instead - I can replace them.
- I can try adding the names of the series there (like Kiseki, Ys, Mushoku Tensei, etc.) if you want; it probably won’t look as clean, but might be more informative.
For the characters image, can you give me a full list of the ones you want me to add?

Maybe Falcom struck some kind of deal with Sony at some point or something like that.

Between her usual playfulness, amiability and eagerness for challenge this is going to be a completely new side of her. Man, I’m going to be so disappointed if she’s not going to be playable until the late game. But I suppose it could be even worse, for example if Falcom decided to kill her off the same way Van team killed Almata members.
Can you mod your game on Sony Playstation, by the way? Or do you mean you’ll wait for the PC release to use the MTL patch? Yeah, I’m right there with you - this is the first time I’ve been following Falcom’s news about the game, especially so closely, but once the game is out I’m going to cut myself from everything related to possible spoilers.

How would you feel about Sky and Zero/Ao remakes on Kuro engine? I have kinda mixed feelings about it. On the one hand it would be cool (and more Rixia’s glory, he-he), but on the other hand original games are already godlike and it would be better to experience new stories anyway.

Here’s the thing: every school (I think) teaches history and geography, but do most adult people know it? I think the majority won’t be able to find even the prominent countries on the map. Meanwhile, stuff like the cooking you’ve mentioned would be invaluable to just anyone and would be useful through life, probably wouldn't be forgotten either. Or at the very least teach people about how the taxes and voting works, but I guess that’s not very convenient for those who create curriculums ha-ha.
That’s fine, I’ll wait!
To be fair, the consequences for adults due to the monitoring part usually are much harsher than for kids, so it makes sense that you didn’t care about it very much. I think the U.S. is one of the better countries when it comes to the freedom of speech and privacy (correct me if I’m wrong), but in many countries your whole life can be easily ruined depending on what you say/do online.
Those games look fun and they probably were more interesting than listening to what the teacher says ha-ha. I think in theory you could even play something like Granblue Fantasy - this gacha, even though it’s one of the most notorious ones, plays from the web browser, so you don't need to install it. As for the blocking part, I suppose the school simply didn’t know about their existence?
Man, I can’t imagine laptops surviving my class. For example, one time, when I was away, someone took my schoolbag and hung it on the window’s handle. Before I reached it, it fell to the ground from the 3rd floor. I think something as delicate as a laptop would’ve been ruined because of that. Btw, because of that I ended up physically attacking the guy who was laughing at what happened the most, but some years later a girl confessed to me that she was the one who did it lol. Also, recently I remembered one other weird incident - one of my classmates poured Kerosene on his back and lit it with a lighter. Because of it he ended up in the hospital with burns.
The acceptance of anime has certainly increased over the years... I probably wouldn't dare to drive itasha here, however.
Did you ever discover what was on that USB drive? Well, at least you used it for a good purpose instead of disposing of it. But yeah, these sorts of misunderstandings can be troublesome to deal with. I think I might be a similar type of person, so I understand how it was for you. You reminded me of a time when I gave my mp3 player (instead of a usb drive) to a girl to share some files with me, and she never gave it back to me. I wonder if she still has it.
Let’s hear about the shoes next, then!

It’s like in Berseria, an NPC called Moana was changed to Kamoana. Why? Probably because of the associations with the word “Moan”, which is so stupid.

In regards to the reverse isekai, you know, as much as I’d love for Shizuna to one day appear in my life, I wonder if that would be cruel… Zemuria seems like a much better place than Earth, after all.

Shizuna MC, Renne MC… Kiseki has so many amazing characters, the potential is endless.

You can try listening to Naruto OST sometime, I think it’s quite good and conveys the atmosphere of the anime really well.

On the matter of Cassius, how would you rank Divine Blades? Or was this something we already talked about?
After reading your thoughts and thinking about it more deeply, Altina might be the only competitor to Renne when it comes to popularity among the girls. Who else is there to compete with the both of them? Maybe Estelle, but I somehow doubt her past glory can help with that.

Better yet - imagine if Tio said that and Elie heard it. Lloyd would be sooo in trouble.

Giving your grandson a harem - what a wonderful present from a grandmother, ha-ha.
I think I'll try watching the second season when it finishes airing. Hmm, is there an anime you'd want me to watch or manga to read more than anything else, by the way? Wait, that probably sounds weird, so here's some context: some time ago I exchanged recommendations with someone, and that person recommended me this manga. I really enjoyed it (I think it's one of the better Fate stories), so I thought I might as well ask you for a "priority recommendation" too. Basically something I'll watch or read ahead of other things. Like for example if you tell me "go watch Monogatari", I'll try to prioritize it. I can give you a reciprocal recommendation too, but only if you want.

Those who judge fiction based on social media posts/youtube videos/news articles/etc. are the worst. These people need to find something they'll come to love instead of hating on something that doesn't concern them.
Good thing Sylphie doesn't have an insufferable personality like the ones her haters have.

That's what interesting about this situation! If you take me, you and Rudy, we all have different thoughts on how we would've acted. And that's precisely because all the people are different it's silly to expect everyone to act and feel the same way.

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu is about war, politics, philosophy, ambition, ideologies, relationships, life in general; many consider it to be "boring", but I was very impressed by it. It's actually very quotable lol.
Would you want to become a vampire yourself?
Yeah, Utawarerumono is the first story and the second story (sequel) consists of two games: Mask of Deception and Mask of Truth. However, the second story can be read first and a friend of mine, who is a big fan, think it's a better way to start the series (because apparently some people end up dropping the first game without ever reaching the second and the third).
I can see the resemblance to Gintoki too, but Saeba Ryo (CH's protagonist) even used the bulletin board as a way to find new jobs the same way Van does, so I think he's a more likely source of inspiration (that said, Gintoki has 73811 favorites on MAL, whereas Ryo only 1556, so it's not surprising not many people know about him).
I'll note just in case that Utawarerumono is big on gameplay, but Muramasa isn't.
For some reason I expected you'd have games at the top too :P

Nice! Definitely share your thoughts about these VNs after you finish reading them. For Muv-Luv, just keep in mind that you need to read in this order Extra > Unlimited > Alternative. As for sex scenes, it's a shame they tend to be deleted since they portray how the characters act from a different angle, but the VNs are great even without them.

Maybe Agnes asked Renne to hack my PC to remove Elaine from the list who is her main competitor for Van’s heart, and Millium simply ended up as collateral damage…
A chest size tier list?.. Well, I'll gladly take a look once you finish, but I think it might be a difficult task ha-ha.
Vita tries to seduce you and forget about Emma: Probably in vain, though. Even for me, she's ~number nine, and there's a huge difference to those who are higher. Like... Shizuna is number one, she is like the whole universe. Then there are Laura and Rixia, they are like the Sun or other stars. Then there are Tio, Agnes and Renne, they are like planets. And then it's Altina, Sara, Vita, Elie and Nadia, they are like moons. This probably sounds strange, but I think it conveys the difference quite well lol. Btw lately I've been considering putting Rixia on the second place instead of Laura which is kinda sad.
Tio wants to spend the time with Lloyd, but instead he's having fun with Elie, so she's silently mad.

CSIV ending is the best ending I've seen. Falcom set a very high bar for themselves! You're correct, meeting Shizuna for the first time was breathtaking and then around a week after that I met her in Kuro (I played both games back to back) which changed my life, so that event is quite important. But that's not the only good thing about it, even simply reading about Rean's family was nice and I think this might be the best official artwork of Elise:

I've been reading Fate/Zero LN lately and even though I think its anime adaptation is one of the best anime out there, even it misses a lot of inner thoughts and world building.

I used to have a close friend with whom I talked on Skype via voice almost every day for several years. We also played a lot of games together, League of Legends being the most frequent one. It was an intimate and fun connection, but one day we ended up having an argument because of something silly, and because of that little thing we eventually stopped talking to each other. I think it's been 9 years since then and I used to regret about it, so yeah... I wouldn't want something like this to happen again.

I can't imagine someone having worse handwriting than me but okay XD In regards to the rest, the feeling is mutual!

People wanted a new female protagonist for a long time, here's a perfect candidate for that...
Similar to how Rean was when he defended Elise when they were kids? I can imagine that.

I think there was a time I tried adding only blue haired characters to the list on my profile and Kurumi was one of them. Also, I tried making a list of "top-1 girls" from each anime I've seen, but I didn't like how it ended up looking so I removed it from my profile. Here it is by the way: As you can see, Kurumi is there.

Chisato is indeed very attractive. Actually, she's one of all-time favorites of my other friend, so you're not alone in your evaluation of hers. As for Kurumi: Do you think your opinion would change if you watched the anime? Something tells me it might stay the same. Looking at Chisato made me curious, do you like glasses?

I wonder if the next arc that will probably start after Kai is going to feature a new set of characters or focus on the old ones. I think that the latter would be preferable, and that would allow Van to interact with SSS or simply give more involvement to the characters who we already love.

If I could, I'd place Shizuna in every category... But can't really call her "the most attractive male" or "the best protagonist" after all.
Lloyd - nice. I think he's probably the least popular, so it's great you like him so much.
SSS can't stop winning.
Man, I feel like such a traitor not nominating Estelle for anything, even though my love for Kiseki started from Sky FC.
I actually thought of saying Anton too, but I'm not sure I'm not forgetting someone I could like more.
Rixia's Yin outfit is very striking and her casual clothes are cute too. Rean is just very stylish in general. And Shizuna, well, it's needless to add anything lol.
Randy is a good choice! One of the few who can compete with Oliver.
Fair.
People who hate Lloyd are strange. Is Vita popular in the community? And agree with Toval, but unfortunately Falcom kind of made him disappear.
All divine blades' crafts are beyond cool.
Rising... Suuuuuun.
Lol. But I'm glad you've named Swin and Nadia too.
Hard to argue with that pick, but only excluding his CSIII model ha-ha.
My man really likes "dynamic duos" :D
Wow, Renne tries to compete against divine blades!
Understandable choices.
Again, no surprise here. I wonder if there is anyone who has Angelica as their number 1 character?

At the very least Berseria is playable. With NISA's TL I'd be getting a stroke every few lines of text.

- Shizuna, my Goddess, my Love, please smile, those beautiful eyes of yours are the prettiest when they are full of life.
- Very stylish.
- I recently discovered that NISA calls Grimcats a Grimcat (without the “s” at the end) and it just sounds so weird to me.

Hmm...
Ouroboros - their enforces tend to have a lot of freedom and lead interesting lives, so seems like a decent choice (being a grunt like Gilbert doesn't sound very appealing, however).
Bracer Guild - great choice all around; you can do interesting jobs, help people, travel to all sorts of places, team up with wonderful people.
Dominion - something in between Ouroboros and Bracer Guild.
Military - naaah...
Stahlritter - I think you need to adore Arianrhod or at the very least her ideals to be a part of it, which isn't applicable to me.
Jaegers - aside from Ikaruga, only Red Constellation seems like an interesting organization to be in.
But I'll go with Ikaruga because this way I could interact with Shizuna the most; also I think they're the most stylish organization.

It's a bit awkward to ask you this, but can you join my club? The one where I posted my thread about Shizuna. Someone told me that for the "Character Relations" thing to work, there needs to be at least two people in the club, so that's not something I can fix alone. It's fine if you don't want though, I won't be offended or anything.

This might be problematic. Youtube videos are no longer accessible from this place (the site itself does load though, albeit slowly), so there is not much point in Revanced unfortunately. Currently, in order to watch Youtube videos I have to download them from a third party site and open them locally. Even the videos on other sites (like Falcom’s) don’t open for me normally because they too upload their content on Youtube first and then insert them where needed. I’m so tired of this, sigh.
What is your opinion on Akane’s statement in the latest episode? The one where she said she’s willing to help Aqua commit a murder.

So I take it you decided to go with the remake? I’ve been thinking that if I start watching Spice and Wolf, I’ll likely go for the original. But you can try to change my mind :P
Wiz > Aqua > Darkness > Megumin. This is almost the opposite if your ranks, ouch. Megumin is cute and entertaining, but doesn’t really excite me in some way.
You ended up being lucky in a strange way, but it probably “balanced out” in the Seiyuu contest since all your top picks ended up being in the top-3 and you weren't able to nominate one of them.
For the next season I’m planning to go with Byakuya:

She probably doesn’t have a chance at winning but so far I like her the most this season.
Kiseki has so many characters Japan might not have enough seiyuu to voice them all at some point XD

That’s a difficult question, since I don’t watch movies often, and when I do, they are usually Japanese… Hmm, among the ones I have watched in the last couple of years, the one I liked the most is probably Modern Times. But other than that, I think I can only name those which I loved as a kid, just the usual stuff - Terminator, Predator, Star Wars, etc. Oh, I also think Breaking Bad was really great, but it’s a TV series, not a movie.

True. It also feels like things have been getting progressively worse especially in the last ~5 years, like the wealth and rights are being siphoned off the average person.

I honestly can’t even begin to comprehend what is happening in the mind of someone who’d get offended by Rixia’s beauty. It’s like witnessing a beautiful flower garden and instead of appreciating its existence wishing for it all to wither. Well, to do a mod you need to first develop some skills and then to put time and effort into doing what you want. If you love something, you can spend a lot of time on doing it, but if you’re motivated by hatred? Doesn’t seem likely. Regardless, these people are most likely attention-seekers so it’s best to avoid them.
And yes, I think Kuro might have the most beautiful character models ever made. Other games might have more detailed ones, or have better physics, but in terms of sheer beauty? Nothing else comes to mind.
Rixia was in the Kuro’s II finale, but didn’t even say a word. Such a shame. And I agree on Shizuna - after that introduction in Hajimari I expected her to have a more prominent role. Well… Despite her being a relatively minor character in Kuro I, she still managed to completely mesmerize me, so I guess I can’t really complain. Especially considering that she joined us in the second game (I’m still salty she’s absent on the end game’s photo though… Also, in retrospect I’m kind of annoyed that Van often brushes her off lol, like that time when she expressed desire to join ASO and he instantly said no).

I think the idea was exactly like that when the Thors Military Academy allowed commoners to join: to differentiate between them and the aristocracy, that’s why the undesirable newcomers got the worst uniforms possible. Thankfully, Class VII was Olivier’s project and his sense of beauty can be rivaled only by Bleublanc (speaking of whom, he’s one of my favorite enforcers and he’d definitely be in my top-10 favorite male characters in the series).
There was an official art you once sent to me (the winter meeting of Class VII in a restaurant), I liked what Laura wore there too.
In SC Estelle tried to be less tomboyish and it worked, ha-ha.
If I’m not misremembering, Tita’s outfits didn’t change much in the Sky trilogy, so I’ll go with her CS3 look (branch campus uniform). That being said, her Sky outfit is much more iconic.

Hmm… I think you might lean more into the “sexy” territory, rather than “cute”; also more into girls with a mature look. Additionally, you don’t seem to enjoy the idol theme as much ha-ha. On the one hand, it's a shame you haven't played these games, because I'd love to know who'd you end up liking, on the other hand it's better that you don't, because they're not really worth the time.

Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s the opposite actually - as I’ve already mentioned some time ago, I consider you to be a dear friend and making something for you would be of great pleasure to me and this is unfortunately the only thing I can offer. So please, let me do this - just explain what exactly you want to have made and where you plan to display it (MAL's profile bio and blog have different limits for width for example). And, well, if what I’ll end up making doesn’t end up to your liking due to my lack of skills, don’t be afraid to tell me that. I’ll try to fix the issues or at the very least apologize for failing to meet your expectations.

The saddest part is that Falcom used to be PC oriented up until CSI release, I think? Japanese PC players probably feel betrayed by that.

What I understand from the OP, someone (Ouroboros? President Gramheart? New enemies?) is going to destroy Ikaruga and Shizuna is going to try to enact revenge and that will put her at odds with Rean for some reason (maybe he’ll just try to bring a fellow disciple back to reason). I hope at least Kurogane won’t die, he is a very likable guy and I don’t want Shizuna to lose a loyal ally and possibly a close friend. And yeah, all this doesn’t seem like stuff that would happen in the beginning of the game, but I still hope it doesn’t mean she will end up on the bench for most of the game.
All that aside, I don’t think I’ve ever been this thrilled and uneasy about an upcoming game, especially since there are many variables that make me worried, e.g. my own uncertain life situation. When will the game be released on PC? Will it have an English fan translation like Kuro I, Kuro II and Hajimari? If not, will I be able to play it with a VN OCR and my limited knowledge of Japanese? The idea of waiting several years for NISA’s release and then playing with their bastardized script makes me feel sick.

Speaking of Rufina, I think I need to replay 3rd at some point. I think I’ve forgotten a lot of stuff that happened in it.

I honestly can’t name a single subject that I learned thanks to school education. History? Geography? English? Handling computers? Literature? Writing? List goes on and on and everything I know was pretty much self-taught via my other personal interests. And people have to spend a decade of their lives going to school… I’d rather get some kind of profession that would’ve helped me put bread on the table than learn assorted bits of unrelated knowledge I’m likely going to forget anyway. Then again, I’m speaking from my experience only, maybe in your country or let’s say Japan things are more efficient.
If you find your report cards then sure, show them to me. We didn’t have them, so it would be interesting to check them out.
Oh, so you were given laptops for personal use, that’s kind of cool. The “monitoring” part sounds unpleasant as hell, though. The very idea of someone looking through what I’m doing creeps me out. Do you remember what kind of games you were playing in class? But yeah, when you have access to the internet at hand, paying attention to what the teacher says doesn’t sound plausible. Well, as they say, “no point in crying over spilled milk”, so you did exactly that XD.
I bet that student was watching ecchi or even normal anime, hard to imagine someone would have the balls to watch hentai in that environment. Then again, anything is possible… Do you know if the teachers discovered this in the end? I wonder what they would say to that student.
Yeah, let me hear that usb drive-related story of yours!

You know, when I was updating my Sorter, I visited all the Falcom official sites and noticed that some of the names were mistranslated even as far as Sky FC. For example, the Capua family - Keer was translated as Kyle, and Doln as Don. Probably for the same reason as Rion was made into Leon. They basically just think that “hey this sounds like a weird name, let’s rename them”.

Compared to the average fantasy setting, Earth is a hellish place, so getting isekaid here doesn’t sound very inspiring or romantic.

Shizuna might not be as big as Rixia, but she still packs some serious firepower ha-ha...
I wonder if at some point Renne will become one of the main characters as she’s been in the supportive role most of the time.

Shippuden aside, to me Naruto was a wonderful journey, but I watched it when I was ~13 and I’m not sure an adult will get the same experience.

Power scaling is something I prefer not to think too hard about. Btw you reminded me of something.
Cassius:
- Doesn’t take up a sword to help his daughter.
- Takes up a sword to examine whether Rean is fit to have a title of the Divine Blade.
:D
Who do you think is more popular, though, Altina or Tio? I think Altina wins this duel too, and after Kai it’s going to be a landslide victory.

“Lloyd-sama, Tio was a bad girl, please punish me!”

Surprisingly enough, the character I was most impressed with in Megami no Café Terrace was Hayato's grandmother. She seemed like a really wise, kind and pleasant woman. Also reminded me of my late grandma a bit :(
Among the main girls I liked Riho the most though. Hmm… It’s probably like this: Riho > Shiragiku > Akane > Ouka > Ami. That’s before watching the second season.
We need to hire Abiko for Falcom’s position that deals with overseas distribution of their games.
Sure, I’ll try to continue watching Monogatari some time.

Roxy is a true hero. The one who guards the gates from all the nasty people. Tbh I hate this modern trend of "saying bad things to get a reaction" as well as shallow virtue signaling. It makes much of public discourse fake and meaningless.
Personally, I’d call Sylphie wise, kind and understanding. In a way, these people are proving that MT is great - because it explores themes which are worth talking about as opposed to something like “perfect protagonist does perfect things and beats evil villains”.

A few days ago I conducted a thought experiment in relation to the Rudy-Roxy-Sylphie situation. As I’ve mentioned before, I think it was the best outcome for all involved and it’s up to them now to nourish a happy family life. However, when I tried putting myself into the same situation, I realized there are some issues. If I imagine one of the two girls is Shizuna, then I simply can’t imagine myself not giving 100% of my love and attention to just her. Moreover, if she was in Sylphie’s position then the cheating/2nd wife situation wouldn’t happen in the first place, but if she was in Roxy’s position then I’d end up being a huge dick lol… That is to say, this is a very intriguing topic. How do you think you would act (in the place of Roxy and Sylphie you can imagine whoever you want)?

Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu has been my favorite anime since 2011 and I don’t think anything else will ever top it. Not only it is objectively great, there is also a great sense of nostalgia tied to it.
I mentioned Dracula mostly because it was the book that made me interested in literature many years ago and the vampire theme entices me greatly. One day I want to re-read it in English, although given all the experience I’ve accumulated over the years, I’m not sure if I’m going to like it as much as before.
I’m not sure if you’re going to like the first Utawarerumono game, but I’m confident to say you are going to love the second and the third (it's going to be embarrassing for me if you end up hating them after me saying this ha-ha)
Not sure how to describe City Hunter. It’s like if Crow moved to 80s Japan, opened an agency like Van (as a matter of fact, I think Van might've been inspired by CH's protagonist in some ways) and started chasing skirts while being his usual cheery self.
Muramasa is very melancholic and brutal in nature and deals with various moral questions; it is set in an alternative-time Japan, where specific warriors are able to wield a Tsurugi - an armor made out of a living soul, they are capable of flight and many other things; they are pretty much like Kiseki’s divine knights. The protagonist reminds me of pre-Hajimari Rean.
To me the hierarchy goes like this: video-game > visual novel > anime > novel. I think video-games are capable of conveying the whole story, the characters and the world the best, whereas a visual novel is like any other novel but with music, voice acting, character sprites and CGs.

I think DDLC, Zero Escape and Danganronpa are valid as VNs. Not sure about Ace Attorney. When I started reading it and realized localization changed all the names I dropped it immediately. I hope the versions you’ve bought/plan on buying don’t have cut content. You’re not missing out much if it’s only H-scenes that are missing though.

Right? I can see that too. With her it seems like even something trivial might get very interesting.

It’s kind of sad that all this happened without me knowing… For the longest time I thought I made it and no one outside of my friends used it ha-ha. Well, as you already know, I updated it but right now the list became so big it takes a lot of time to finish a single run, so maybe I ruined the whole thing in the process and it's better to revert the changes? At the very least I like the new design more. As for Elaine and Millium, I’ve checked the site’s files and noticed that I DID try to add them the last time, but for some reason they weren’t displaying; probably an error in the code.
Rixa vs Emma: the battle of giants… Add Elie to the mix and the world will explode.
As for Vita, there are a couple of points I can make:
- Her role as Misty. When she worked on Abend Time, It was very atmospheric and uplifting; if I were Rean, I’d be tuning up to it every evening too.
- Don’t burn me at the stake, but I think she’s prettier than Emma.
Tio when she is not ranked number one:
Imagine how she’s going to look when she’s older though.

Oh, those are good scenes. Both are centered around Lloyd, which suits your favorite here on MAL. That second one was such a perfect addition to the postgame. My favorite would be either CSIV’s ending or Rean’s trip to Longlai.

I think the difference between a VN and its anime adaptation can be explained this way: when you watch the adaptation you get to see only the forepart, whereas in VN you get to see the same thing from all the different angles and understand better why the things that happen actually happen.

Thank you again. I did fear that this might freak you out and you’d stop messaging me, so I’m very relieved it’s not the case. I don’t care if I’m ridiculed by random people, but to lose a friend would be devastating.

Unless I can comfortably read Kiseki in Japanese without relying on any external help I won’t feel like I did anything meaningful tbh, but thanks for the compliments :D. When I first started learning it was for a more broader cause but now this is pretty much the main reason I continue struggling through it. I think you’d be perfectly capable of learning writing kanji too, maybe even more so than I. And at the very least, I think composing huge replies to me here certainly requires a lot of patience (again, I appreciate it), so you should be good to go.

Learning about Ikaruga would be great. Maybe even visiting where they are located. Man, imagine if Falcom made her the protagonist just for this one game.
Child Shizuna CG would be a deadly weapon.

Shinmai: Kurumi > Yuki > Maria > Mio > Chisato > Zest. How about you?

- If I played beach volleyball against Rixia, I’d lose so bad; even if she didn’t have her superhuman abilities, I wouldn’t be able to watch the ball at all.
- This is what Van is going to miss if he canonically ends up with Elaine.
- Very nice. Sometimes it feels like Ao/Zero has both the most official artworks as well as fanart.

Rixia to Kuro I and II as a main party member. I think she deserves it. If this doesn’t count then… Maybe Oliver to Zero/Ao? I think he would fit in any party. But Van would definitely find common ground with SSS!

Best protagonist: Rean
Best main party: SSS
Best bracer: Arios (Sorry Sara…)
Best NPC: can’t tell without doing some serious recollection.
Best outfit: (despite some of the flaws we’ve previously discussed, I'd still call it the best)
Funniest character: Olivier
Best backstory: Rean (I think some people are completely forgetting his insane background)
Most overhated/overrated/underrated: I have no idea to be honest.
Best S-craft:
Perfect fitting voice: pretty much all the characters?..
Most dynamic duo: Swin and Nadia
Most attractive male: Rean (Arios is a close second, but he’s quite old)
Most attractive female:
Coolest weapon/style:
Most headpattable:
Worst character: objectively none; according to personal feelings - Angelica.
Best character:
This was surprisingly more fun than I thought it’s going to be, although I suppose as always my replies are rather boring and predictable. Can’t wait to see your list in response!

I’ve been playing Tales of Berseria recently. It’s a game I wanted to play as far as 2018:
But my laptop couldn’t run it and I sort of forgot about it even after getting a new PC. Seems like a very good game with great characters and unique combat system. The most alluring point, however, is that its protagonist, Velvet, is voiced by Satou Rina, and is very likeable in general. Due to some things I’ve played like maybe 30-40 hours of the story only so far though. Translation is mediocre by the way. It's definitely better than what NISA makes, but the sub still says the things which the characters aren't saying. Like for example there was a scene where the protagonist learned how difficult it is to decipher the old text they needed to progress further and she said "yakkai ne" which is basically just her expressing that this is troublesome, but in the sub she said something like "thank you dead ancient people", which adds unnecessary info as well as sarcasm which weren't present in the original.

Update (new OP spoilers):Two things:
What I think is implied happening here is heavy and it is sad seeing her in this state.
It makes me think that my pessimistic theory I've told you about in the previous message is even more likely to be true now. Or maybe I'm just overthinking things.

Wow, that’s a lot of apps, thanks. I think I need to get a better phone before I can use some of them though. I bought mine more than 5 years ago, so it’s quite dated. Interestingly, it still works really well, same as my 2010 laptop, and both are Sony-made. As much as I hate this company’s modern policies, they make good hardware. Or at least used to.
Yes, I agree. Moreover, you can probably watch Oshi no Ko first episode in a movie theater and get a full “movie experience”.
You’d get more stamina over time, but yeah, it doesn’t seem feasible otherwise unless you have some sort of mentor figure with whom you’d live a year or two to understand how to survive on your own.

Holo is indeed very popular, but I still haven’t watched either the original anime or its remake, so I have no idea what kind of character she is. Megumin, on the other hand, is my least liked KonoSuba girl :P I don’t hate her or anything like that, but Wiz, Aqua and Darkness are just much more to my liking.
What’s interesting with Kikoru is that your nominee ended up getting a higher place than if you were able to nominate your actual favorite girls like Roxy or Kurumi.
As long as people enjoy the contests and I have access to the internet I’ll continue making them. Who would you nominate for the best seiyuu if you were first to post? And yes, Judith made me appreciate Hikasa Youko more.
Our nominees ended up kind of low in the end, but it is what it is.

My strongest memory with Keanu Reeves is the Speed (1994) movie which I saw when I was a kid. I also watched Point Break (1991), a movie with him as the protagonist, for the first time this year, but I ended up rooting for the antagonist there ha-ha.

Unfortunately, that’s how things are and it doesn’t seem like there is a way to fix this. Regardless of country, it seems like society rarely talks about these issues and is more focused on relatively unimportant things.

Rixia should become the poster girl of the series and be present everywhere, so that fake fans would be more likely to stay away from it lol.
I’d like to see her in the Moon Princess outfit too. Hopefully there will be more of her in Kai. Actually, I’ve been thinking recently, that while I don’t dislike Feri and Quatre, I’d rather Shizuna, Rixia and Fie had more involvement in Kuro 1.

It would be very inconvenient to wear white all the time, but I guess nobles have servants so they wouldn’t be too overburdened by it. And yes, green doesn’t look good, I wouldn’t want to wear that one.
CSII Laura and CSII Emma are a very good combination. A knight and a witch. Overall though I think in CSIII her outfit got a little less feminine compared to previous ones.
Estelle… SC > CS4 > FC.

Some gacha stories are better than the others, but in general, they are worse compared to proper single-player games. And it doesn’t look like they even need to have a good story in the first place, as they are very successful and praised to hell and back even without it. Here’s high resolution pics for my number one characters from each gacha I’ve played for a decent amount of time (in case you’re interested in getting a better view of their designs):
Blue Archive
KanColle
Epic Seven
The Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls Starlight Stage
The Idolmaster: Million Live! Theater Days
The Idolmaster: Shiny Colors
Granblue Fantasy
Honkai Impact 3rd
Genshin Impact
Honkai Star RailBy the time I stopped playing there was another character I liked as much, but I don’t really want to think about who I like more.

Fate Grand Order
Love Live School Idol Festival
Brave Nine/Brown Dust
Girls’ Frontline
Azur Lane
NikkeI’ll probably replace her with that Black Ark Ranger that I showed you before if they’ll ever make her playable though.

If you don’t mind, you can spend a few minutes on rating them so that I’d get a better understanding of your tastes and preferences XD

How about using photoshop? If you have some ideas, I can make something for you. Just be aware that I’m not a professional so what you see on my profile/blogs is probably the best I can do.

I just wish PC players wouldn’t need to wait for NISA to play the game in Japanese. You know that even Japanese players need to wait for their release if they want to play on PC? That’s insane.

To be honest, I’m getting a bit pessimistic about Shizuna’s participation in Kai. I feel like this is what is going to happen: Rean will meet her in the second half of the game and regardless of the outcome of their rematch she will join everyone for some kind of “final dungeon” and that’s it. So pretty much like it was in Kuro 1. Still nothing about her on the entire Kai’s site aside from that new craft animation and her meeting Rean. Hopefully I’m wrong though. And I still have a glimmer of hope there will be something romantic with her preferably from Rean’s side.

Grim Garten looks really cool, btw, reminds me of Hajimari.

I’ll be cynical and say that school isn’t made as a place where you gain knowledge, but rather it’s an extension of the kindergarten where kids are sent while their parents are working. At the very least, from what I remember its educational system is hugely inefficient. What you’re describing about group projects adds to this theory as well - all kids are different and need different approach to learn, you can't just put together 30 random people and expect one curriculum to fit them all.
So I assume you were doing presentations on the school PCs, not at home? Even still, you could’ve probably sneakily inserted your own USB drive and copied it if you really wanted to.
I suppose strict security in schools is a must nowadays, nothing that can be done about it.
Sounds about how I imagine it would be. Even when going normally to school lots of students aren’t motivated, in online meetings it’s even worse.

Nooo, I don’t want that Eren.jpg
I hope the series is going to end normally without digging its own grave and putting a dagger inside the back of every fan that stayed with it over long years.
“Rion sounds stupid, let’s change it to Leon” - I’m sure this was their thought process.

“Reverse isekai” is the saddest thing I can imagine here. Especially if the moral of the story would be something like “they all gained wonderful experiences and grew as people, now they can go back to Earth to their normal lives”.

Looks like Agnes can’t stop winning. She's a very refined young lady after all.
This is still the best, however (let me just take off those shorts or put them on fully).
Well, Liberl crew didn’t get as much of involvement in recent games, so that’s probably why. Maybe they’ll appear in the later games, but I somehow doubt there will be a beach-related intermission for them. Also, I recently realized that I was glad beach time in Kuro II happened not on the Mishelam.

Yeah, Boruto definitely looks like a cash grab project. Some stories are better left alone when they have ended, although to be honest later parts of Shippuden weren’t good either.

I think Tio is better at finding creative solutions and she’s overall more open-minded, but Altina’s intelligence division background gives her an edge in this type of situation so she’d likely win. So I suppose we have the opposite expectations of that duel :P

Yeah, if Tio Plato acted like this even for a second, she’d die from embarrassment.

Wow, looks like we watch completely different seasonals, only Oshi no Ko aligns. I actually liked Megami no Café Terrace S1 a lot, but so far haven’t decided to pick it up again. As for Oshi no Ko, I wish more authors in real life were like Samejima Abiko, “these characters wouldn’t ever say these things” is what those heinous localizers should understand and respect as well.
Maybe I’ll continue watching Monogatari too at some point. So far I only watched Bakemonogatari, Nisemonogatari, Nekomonogatari and Kizumonogatari I.

Well, to be honest, if I didn’t like MT, I wouldn’t even watch it, especially not this many seasons. This is always going to be a mystery to me, why the haters continue so eagerly watching what they supposedly hate so much. It is some kind of mental perversion - maybe they do like it, but were conditioned to not allow themselves to admit it or something.
The reason MT’s harem is better than most is because it’s an actual harem, in other series harem doesn’t even exist since MC isn’t in a relationship with any of the girls. By the way, Sylphiette is still the least popular girl among the three, poor girl couldn’t increase her numbers even after such a great performance this season D:

Hmm, singling out 16 across everything is going to be difficult… Even though I was the one who asked this in the first place :D
Okay…

The absolute most important, nothing comes close: Kiseki

Others, in no particular order:
Muv-Luv (Visual Novel)
Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu (Anime)
Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa (Visual Novel)
Valkyria Chronicles (Video Game)
Sekiro (Video Game)
Touhou Project (Video Game)
Utawarerumono (Visual Novel)
City Hunter (Anime)
Rance (Visal Novel)
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (Visual Novel)
MUSICUS! (Visual Novel)
Dracula (1897 novel)
The iDOLM@STER (Media Franchise)
G-senjou no Maou (Visual Novel)

Other candidates: MT (still not finished), Ys (haven’t played all the games yet, but sasuga Falcom).

So it looks like we have only one thing in common in our lists :D You seem to lean heavily into light novel/manga territory and I’m into visual novels.

Ha-ha, a good time indeed. I finished reading it 13 days ago and it was really impressive. I even wrote a huge review on it, but sadly it’s not in English. The most important thing, however, is that it has a good English translation. Even though it’s not perfect, I never was triggered by anything even once, and English text is actually very pleasant to read through. Man, why can't Kiseki have the same level of official translation?
Here some more screenshots of the main heroine:




Hey, sitting near Elie and Rixia at the same time is cheating!
But yes, I’d obviously pick seat number 8. I feel like Shizuna made me into some kind of one trick pony, but I can’t help it. Anything Shizuna-related is an instant win for me.

1. Judith looks very mischievous here… I wonder what she is planning. By the way, I don’t remember if I told you, but there was a time long before I played Kuro, I found Nina fanart on Pixiv and initially thought it was Laura.
2. Alisa tries to earn some points with Rean because the competition is getting fierce.
3. Risette having a bad day.

Waaaait, there is no Elaine? How did I forget to add them there and why did no one before you mention it to me? I’ll need to fix this. Maybe add some other characters too. Who do you think I should add? I’ve been thinking about McBurn and some other NPCs.
But huh, Lapis the last, Joerg Rosenberg would be so disappointed ha-ha. Laura 25th rip. But it’s good seeing Emma so appreciated. She doesn’t often end in top-10 in this sort of thing. I don’t think my “beauty list” would look much different to my normal list, though. Shizuna is a clear winner in both, but I suppose I could put Rixia above Laura under such conditions. Well you know what, I also did the sorter again, and here’s my true results:


Hmm… Both links show me the same results:
1. Estelle continues the Dream with Joshua (SC)
2. "I have an Obligation to be Happy" (Reverie)
3. "That I... Had what I wanted this whole time" (Reverie)
Is this yours or average results?

My experience with Fate is as follows:
First I watched Fate/Zero in 2012 and since then it’s been solid on my favorite anime list (currently on 8th place overall and Irisviel is one of the three female anime characters I like the most, although obviously I don't count visual novels and video games, the competition there is severe; the other two are Minna from Strike Witches and Sagiri from Jigokuraku).
A few years later I read Fate/stay night. I've greatly enjoyed it too, but in retrospect it’s not as amazing as other visual novels.
Then I tried to watch Deen’s adaptation of the first route, didn’t like it and dropped it during the first episode.

I also played Fate Grand Order for some time, watched Ufotable anime adaptation (it has nice animation and gorgeous fights, but the visual novel is superior anyway). Played some other minor games and watched other fate-related anime too.

Hey man, don’t die on me! I unironically need you in my life. Really though, my best wishes to you, get well soon.

As for me, I’m not a paragon of health either, especially in regards to mental health. Believe it or not, but my obsession with Shizuna is the only thing that helps me to not think about terrible things all the time.

Damn, it does look good, but all I feel is jealousy lol.

Another thing to note I suppose is that I started writing kanji by hand. I used to learn them digitally and never bothered to try writing them on paper (mostly because my handwriting sucks even when I write normally), but a few weeks ago I decided to try it after all. The main reason is that it helps memorize more difficult kanji because they’re usually composite. Currently, I can write 83 kanji from my head and it’s sort of a relaxing process. It would be much slower if I didn't know hundreds of them beforehand though, so all I had to do wat to learn the stroke order.
I even try to write sentences sometimes, but it’s even harder and as you can see my handwriting is really bad:But I fed it to OCR and it recognized everything correctly, so at least it’s not all hopeless.

Woah...This is it!

Yes, keep the apps coming please.
I think Oshi no Ko portrayed those “bad adaptations” really well. Technically they were live action adaptations, not anime adaptations, but the meaning is the same for both.
Things like work, bureaucracy, overarching surveillance and unfair laws make me sometimes wish I lived in the wilderness (like taiga (it has nothing to do with Toradora xD) for example), but I’d probably die very soon if I tried it considering I have neither survival skills nor a good immune system since I lived in the city all my life. That and it would be hard to give up many things which make life convenient and fulfilling (video-games and anime are the easiest examples).

Ha-ha, to be honest I’ve been considering nominating Roxy too (my candidates were her, Tinasha and Fenrys), but I thought it would be really nice if you managed to nominate her yourself since even though I like her as well, I think you love her much more. Sadly, it didn’t happen. Well, Kikoru is a fine girl too. Kaijuu 8-gou ended up being more interesting than I expected it to be.
Also, it is kind of ironic that my Tinasha ended up loosing to Roxy.

I don’t dislike Keanu Reeves (interestingly he’s one of the few non-Japanese actors I know by name), but I don’t see why I should get more interested in the game because of him. To be honest, I don’t like when real life celebrities appear in video-games in general. Have you heard of the game called Death Stranding? Looking at the main character who is a copy of a real actor was enough for me to instantly lose any interest in that game.
Kikokugai starts as a revenge story about a guy whose sister has been brutally killed and whose mind was cut into five pieces and then put inside five androids. Can’t say much else without diving into the spoiler-territory.

Here (I mean both my home country and the one where I live right now) people are taxed to hell only for the elites to spend that money on new yachts and other luxurious property, so it’s pretty much the same type of people like those evil dentists who just happened to end up in the positions of power. And then they expect us to die in the trenches for them while their kids live abroad in safety. Real life often is darker than fiction.

I remember when I first launched Cold Steel II it lagged like hell because my laptop was rather outdated (I was surprised CSI worked fine on it prior to it), but thankfully I got a new PC later and the problem was resolved.
I feel like that Rixia picture, if used against all the haters, would have the same effect as garlic on vampires.

True, red is a big factor as to why those uniforms look so cool and memorable. Other Thors uniforms aren’t as good - green for the commoners and white for the nobility looked a bit plain in comparison; what branch campus students got is better, but still not as good.
Altina is definitely much prettier than Millum, but we don't know how the latter will turn out once she’s older.
For Laura it’s very straightforward: CS1 Uniform > CS2 > CS1 Casual > CS3. Her default look in CS1 was what made me fall in love with her in the first place, so it’s hard to compete with that; her boots are also my favorite footwear in the entire series. The one from CS3 is the worst because she switched to wearing shorts and that ponytail holder is worse than the hair bow she used to wear before. That said, all her outfits suit her incredibly well and really emphasize her elegance, valor and noble background. I wonder what you think of her outfits.

The problem with gacha games is that they essentially advertise and sell you these characters, but there’s usually not much going on with them compared to single-player games. You can check this blog post of mine where I visualized my favorite characters from almost all gacha games I’ve played, but there is not a single one with whom I feel the same level of connection as with Kiseki characters for example.
I think those companies have some sort of agreement with console companies (i.e. Sony pays you to be exclusive on its platform) or maybe they want to sell their game several times to the same customers (e.g. you first buy it on console and later on on PC which is usually a superior version performance-wise).

Such people usually complain about goody two shoes protagonists because they’re “overused”, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. I think you should see how the character acts within his or her own story, not compare them to your other experiences.

I’m 100% sure Rean got stronger, the only question is how much.
Add romance, add romance, add romance XD… Honestly, I think it would be pretty cool to have a team like this: Rean, Shizuna, Altina, Fie, Crow. You could even call it “Ashen Chevalier and the white haired beauties”

Yeah, to me school wasn’t synonymous with things like carefree childhood or stressful exams, all in all it was more akin to jail where you are forced to spend time with people you didn’t want to be around and teachers were like wardens. And my situation at home wasn’t much better too XD. Because of that I neither enjoyed my youth nor thought of important things like the future career. Maybe that's why I get very emotional when I witness happy relationships between friends/family members and wholesome romances in games/anime.
If I remember correctly, our education system was switching from 11 grades overall to 12 and they made everyone in our grade skip 4th grade so that we would graduate after 11 grades like was planned when we enrolled instead of the newly introduced 12.
I don’t remember ever doing presentations (tbh we rarely used electronics for classes), but what you’re describing about your school life sounds like something that could fit in a wholesome slice of life anime.
Well, that’s a shame. And school isn’t exactly a place you can visit after graduating to casually appreciate all the new things that were added. I wonder how the “school online” was, though. Hard for me to imagine most students would pay attention in class under such conditions.

The worst part is that while we can ignore trolls and tourists discussion-wise, if they invade the official channels they’ll affect the product itself. I’ve seen some examples of the official Kuro English TL and instantly wished that I didn’t. ^ This is me when I see what they’re doing with Kiseki’s dialogues.
Some might say it’s stupid to get so heated over a game, but it’s really dispiriting to see something you love and cherish getting vandalized by people who seem to hate both the fans and the original script they’re willingly changing.
Also, about Rion you mentioned: I made this screenshot from the official Falcom site, but apparently some clown at Nisa thinks he knows better how characters should be named.

Many people definitely hated Osborne, so I can see them feeling relieved after he was gone. Hmm, many are probably blaming him for that weird short war, reparations to Calvard and everything else too.
I don’t mind these type of stories and plot twists in general, but Kiseki has better world-building than anything else I’ve ever seen, so everything being devolved into simulation would ruin that. The events that took place during Hajimari make this worrisome theory seem more believable, however.

Ugly? Wow, that’s harsh XD… But yeah, it doesn’t look good. I guess Noelle’s tastes are too tomboyish.
Agnes > Risette > Lucrezia > Judith > Elaine > Shizuna (man this ranking looks so weird out of context). But if Shizuna takes her shorts off (or wears them properly or if we compare just the top) I’d place her swimsuit at the top just because her top is really cool with that flowery design. Agnes is pretty much Emma-tier here.

Let’s wait and see. Imagine, though, if instead of animating new stuff studios start to focus on remakes and cashcrabby sequels (i.e. using IP’s name to make new stuff made by entirely different people). That would be sad.
That’s interesting, where did you get that info? Wow… I just checked Boruto’s page and among my MAL friends most of those who started watching it dropped it and gave it a low score. Tbh I never bothered to watch it myself so I don’t know much about it.
Hmm… I think to do the skipping part one needs to be aware about the endless night arc in advance, so I’m not sure how many people would do it.
That Banana game is something else… Apparently, you get tradable Steam items and some people are/were willing to pay more than a thousand USD for some of them.

Yes yes yes, she looks like a goddess. Just looking at her makes me think the world isn’t such a bad place after all.
Have you ever wanted to practice fencing, kendo or something like that? There was a time I was very interested in kyudou, but as with many other things, it required considerable investment, so I never got to it.

Well, Shizuna doesn’t exist in this game, so I have to focus on the second best girl ha-ha. Gameplay-wise she’s a tank, so it helps to have a solid unit on the front line too.

You mean this one?
Looks like we’re going to space for real.
Btw look at him being so stylish and all:
Looks like Elaine is going to have a new character art, but Nadia and Swin won't. This is a bit concerning.

Hmm, speaking about Tio and fights, who do you think would win - her or Altina?

Just make him play the games and become a fan, then he’ll draw the characters out of his own volition for free. Foolproof tactic here!
Would you like MT to have similar illustrations or no?

Man, I even ended up missing Tio :( Money is really tight right now, if Shizuna's fig is released soon I'd have to sell a kidney, although I doubt there is high demand for one from an old guy like me. Hopefully you'll get Estelle.

With how large and spread out throughout the years Kiseki games are, while being parts of the same whole, it's no wonder it became an important part of our lives. I think that even after it ends, it will live on inside our hearts.

Can you imagine if Kiseki's Tio acted like Arifureta's Tio?.. Man, that would be so surreal especially if we imagine Lloyd in the place of Hajime.

Oh, I actually don't like this concept very much, although in case of Solo Leveling it was OK since at least it serves a purpose there. Irl it would be certainly helpful, however.

This is really hard. Well, Rean is definitely the best-written one, there's no competition. Then... Mm... Probably Van. Then Lloyd, then Kevin, then Estelle, then C.

My experience with this season is as follows:
Oshi no Ko
First season was amazing, so I have high expectations for this one as well.
Roshidere
Mainly got interested in this because of the main girl's design, she looks very cute. The first episode ended up being very good, it's fun, it's interesting, it has some very aesthetically pleasing scenes. Got a bit annoyed by Russian speakers who complain about Uesaka Sumire's Russian accent, though. They should feel appreciative a Japanese actress tries to learn the language. Kinda funny when they try to persuade me it's bad without knowing it's my native language as well since the discussion is in English.
Fairy Tail: 100-nen Quest
Unexpected sequel, but a welcome one.
Shikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan
Got interested in it because of the dance meme.

But ended up dropping it just after one episode because I didn't find anything funny or endearing in it.
Gimai Seikatsu
Stepsister and stepbrother get to know each other... That's pretty much all that happened during the first episode. They just talk.
Giji Harem
The first episode was nice, the girl is very charming and short stories anime presents are cute.
2.5-jigen no Ririsa
An anime girl cosplaying an anime girl. Good so far.
Maougun Saikyou no Majutsushi wa Ningen datta
Doesn't look very promising, but I'll keep watching for now.
Maougun Saikyou no Majutsushi wa Ningen datta
Arifureta 2.0
Shoushimin Series
Not sure what to think about this one yet.
Ore wa Subete wo "Parry" suru: Gyaku Kanchigai no Sekai Saikyou wa Boukensha ni Naritai
Watchable, but not exactly interesting.
Senpai wa Otokonoko
Looks boring and gag style scenes are terrible, so I don't think I'll be watching more than 1 or 2 episodes more of this unless something really interesting happens.
Nige Jouzu no Wakagimi
If the rest is going to be the same as the first episode this is going to end up as one of my favorites this season.
Boku no Tsuma wa Kanjou ga Nai
OK overall, but I don't like the protagonist much.

There are some others but they haven't started airing yet. What about you?

Looks like our perception of MT is quite similar. But yes, it's actually very educational from the perspective of how preconceptions affect our critical thinking. I mean, people will see Rudeus and his happy wives and still think it's somehow immoral and that they need to break up because... Reasons.
I can only wish I had a father like Paul... And I think that says a lot about him as a character.
Now that I think about it, Roxy's extra cuteness this season is easy to explain. She just fell in love... That's it.
Hmm... You know, I can't answer for sure. I think I saw somewhere that he ends up marrying all the three main girls, but I didn't really focus on that thought while watching.

Imagine working for Studio Bind. They're making real classics. If they complete it, I think even 100 years latter people will be watching it and loosing their minds over how great it is. How does your top media list looks like, btw?

Cute art as always.

Also, check this CG from the visual novel I’m reading… Does she remind you of somebody? (a soft nsfw warning)