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Episode 1 of Hellsing Ultimate. This might be my least favorite thing that I've ever seen in my whole life. I know I've said that about a few different things in this thread over the years, but I genuinely mean it every time. I think I'd rather watch ten more episodes of Dandandan than even one more of Hellsing Ultimate. The Hakkenden (1990) AKA The Legend of the Dog Warriors, I guess? Weird historical series about a cursed family trying to deliver a legendary sword to...uh, someone or another. I watched the whole thing through because it was actually halfway decent for me, but at the same time, I didn't really care that much about the plot proper, and then it ended six episodes in, which seemed to be only about half of the story. You know this is historical because everyone kills themselves for one reason or another. Your dog is accused of biting someone? Kill yourself. Your parents arrange a marriage for you when you already have a boyfriend? Kill yourself. Family gets magic curse from some lady dog-spirit thing? Kill yourself. Accidentally present the wrong sword to your lord? Kill yourself. Killing yourself really is the solution to all life's problems, you just can't go wrong with a little injection of suicide in your life. Now, accidentally murdering your own sister that you were separated from when you were young and whom you've been searching for your whole life right after you finally find her? Welcome to Shrugsville, that's not really that big of a deal, let's get on with the show. Anyways, it's an O.K. OVA but not really recommended, not that anyone here would watch it anyways - I mainly am posting about it because the amount of suicide started to become amusing after a while. I don't know how the Japanese ever survived when it seems like suicide was the first and last resort for every problem or offense, real or imagined. And on a side-note to @majestic, the leading lady pictured above looks suspiciously exactly like all the damsels-in-distress that kept popping up over and over in Carried by the Wind, to the point where I remember being confused if it was actually supposed to be the same girl or not even across multiple different towns and eventually realizing that it wasn't. Well, they always turned out just fine in that show, but this one got butchered, which was unfortunate, because I liked her.

paradox player would recognize that is the flag of kingdom of jerusalem

It was something my sister watched when I was younger (her as well as a few friends of mine's consistently terrible tastes in anime is what originally drove me to believe I absolutely despised anime wholesale for many years), and it happened to be this month's pick for animes to watch by/for a community I'm technically but not really a part of because I'm not on speaking terms with 99.9% of the people who watch anime these days. Though with that said, they've still picked some things that I do like...like Cardcaptor Sakura, where I saw several people complaining that the show didn't follow the manga closely enough, to which my response was "die, pond scum". From what I can see, there's no overlap between animation studios, directors, or the character designers, plus there's ten years in between when they were made, so it is a bit odd that there's so much similarity in the character designs, but maybe you could just chalk it up to Tsukikage Ran deliberately trying to look throwback-ish (there's nothing else released in 2000 or even from a few years before that looks like it, after all). The overall art direction of The Hakkenden is quite a bit darker and grimier overall compared to Tsukikage Ran, but that makes sense, given the totally different tones and one releasing in 1990 vs the other in 2000. Also, The Hakkenden was more experimental with its art style, and actually changed between different art styles for different kinds of scenes. And apparently, I didn't look closely enough, because the series actually has a Wikipedia article which also says that there's apparently a second season (i.e. seven more episodes) that I apparently did not notice. I'm not sure that my heart is really in for another seven episodes given that I think the second half of the show is likely to be more plot drama and action-y than the first half: literally all of the supporting characters that made the first half of the second interesting to me are dead now, which is why I wasn't too upset that the show just suddenly ended what seemed right smack in the middle of the overall plot (which it evidently was).

Thanks, gonna try it when I have upgraded my PC. Speaking of which, found an analysis of Gothic that was uploaded today. Game makers back in the day: "Let's let people forget that they're just playing a damn video game!" Game makers today: "Screw that. If we're lucky, the 2,000 bucks GeForce hardware will do the job we can't."

Ukraine has eliminated in Crimea war criminal, who has ordered a cruise missile attack on Vinnytsia city center, killing 29 civilians (https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/07/14/7358046/). He was also responsible for periodical attacks on Ukrainian cities by cruise missiles launched from Black Sea. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/11/13/7484248/

I wonder what DJT has in mind for MTG? If I had to guess, I'd say Secretary of *COUGH*racial purity*COUGH* Homeland Security.

But you'll miss the Catholic special forces carpet bombing London and Nazi-Vampire-Science-Hybrids! I sincerely don't know why you would try this show in the first place though. Perhaps the only thing more anti-Bartimaeus (besides maybe The Elder Sister-like One, google for 30d6 psychic damage) is going to be Kengan Ashura, which I think is among the worst things I've ever seen. Did you lose a bet?

Tried Dune Spice Wars. Didn't like it.

What/who made you think you would like this? It's a very action focused series, with a cool story that doesn't make much sense on the side.

My very first Shepard looked very much like lady who owned craft beer store on my that time home-work route. Very nice lady, was fun to chat a little while shopping at hers. My one true Shepard forever.

I know this was not a serious question, but the answer is that, while seppuku was seen as a sort of socially idealized response to losing one's face, in reality it was not practiced nearly as much as popcultural depiction would suggest. Especially not when looking at its usual depiction as a way to evade the disgrace of defeat. You're not going to win any wars if all your samurai (or even just the officers) ritually kill themselves after losing a battle, after all. Oh, and the practice was limited to the aristocracy (i.e. samurai). The OVA also seems to be an adaptation (of a sort) of an Edo period novel, so that would track. Was my first reaction to seeing the image. "That looks an awful lot like Tsukikage Ran."

Trump is going to lose the house by appointing all reps lmao. I mean it's going to be a cluster**** of objective evil and dip**** incompetence.

As soon as Trump won, I committed to not reading the news until at least the midterms, and I've made good on of it so far outside of occasionally peaking in this thread. I just don't think it's going to be healthy for me to even glance at headlines, and the very little that's been posted in here sure is proving that. Coincidentally, I set my current avatar on the day that Biden dropped out, and it's proved very appropriate so far. Please pull the wool over my eyes...or put flowers in front of them...or something, I don't know.

Beat the game with the DLC last week. Contemplating a new run but while I like the game more than the Pathfinder games, I don't find it as replayable... He said after beating it 4 times.

^ If a game's main point (to me) is exploration+sandboxy and maybe repeated restarts, static maps are boring over time because you know where everything is. There is nothing to explore/discover since you know the "best POI/weapon" is 10 clicks over that hill. Static maps are fine/great for rpg's, since there's a path and quests you're supposed to follow that require a certain structure (although this means I personally won't replay them more than a few times perhaps), or mission-structured RTS/citybuilding maps where part of the challenge was finding different ways to conquer/build the same limited-size/terrain map, etc. ARPG's like old Diablo's that did that mixture where a dungeon was randomly picked from several possible maze-rearrangements, worked pretty well for that type of game. Which you could eventually memorize all the possible maze configurations, so you knew which one you had as soon as you entered the dungeon, but at least you couldn't predict which one you'd get at any given time. Usually I'd have gotten bored of any 7Days update by now, even with all my mod tweaking.. There just isn't anything else yet I care to purchase to play - or it's all Early Access etc. Sometimes I feel like Steam has become 85% Early Access. >.> I think I've given up on Manor Lords because they put in that food spoilage mechanic and it doesn't appear like they'll remove it or give an option to turn it off. Whenever they add an actual new map I might check it again but eh.

I really love this board. Almost every day, I learn something new. Today, I have learned, that Bethesda has employees, who test their games for bugs. Who would have thought, that this is reality in this Universe

Just for the record Musk is not a particularly successful businessman. He is just, like most multimillionaires, rich enough to be effectively immune to all the stupid crap he has done to his businesses. He is more successful than Trump, but that is such a low bar you'd have to be shorter than the Planck length to limbo under it.

This sounds like painful AI narration:

Asking for a friend... did you ever drop the bread into the fondue? edit: in case the reference is too obscure

lol. I know, that was a joke. On the other hand... given the expected progress of this endeavour, I think it is save to assume that browser engines by then will be able to manage UE5 level stuff.

I remember watching that when I was 7

I wonder if they intentionally wanted old people think of Dr. Sbaitso.

https://www.inverse.com/gaming/bethesda-strike-zenimax-xbox-microsoft

I always play exactly what I am in real life, which is a paranoid schizophrenic goth girl that likes to sneak up behind people and either gnaw off their heads or repeatedly stab them in the back. Sometimes, you just have to stick with what you're best at.