LadyCrimson

Watched the anime series Hakuōki Shinsengumi Kitan (22 episodes) which is based on a visual novel which is a (Japan) historical-fantasy based on the Shinsengumi group during the final years of Edo period. First half was average to pretty good, then I basically cried through the 2nd half. And that's with me already knowing the story/route from the visual novel (which also had me sniffling in 4 chr. routes). The combat-bros, the end-of-an-era woes, THE FEELS. The VA's are mostly excellent. The female protagonist/narrator-eye is kind of annoying in that not-uncommon indecisive/in distress trope but not as annoying as many so I can overlook it. ...also, I recognized one of the game/anime chr VA's from Bleach. ...realized Attack of Titans has a 3rd season going, need to fire that up next.

Sorry to hear that. Not the same details in my life of course, but I do know that mixed/unsure feeling with family loss. For me it's always such a strange sensation. I usually eat more chocolate in response.

Bought a simple/casual game (on sale) because it looked like an easy way to pass some time today. Took over an hour to download the game (since I idiotically didn't take note of size of d/l before buying). Am now no longer in the frame of mind to fire it up and actually play it. ....such is my gaming life (and attention span) in the digital era.

Bleach was in a slow decline after the Soul Society arc and went to free fall after Aizen was From what I can tell, in terms of the anime, that doesn't occur until season 22, and there are only 26 seasons? I think it goes into decline well before that. The main issue I have is there are way too many characters being constantly introduced for long stretches and then largely disappearing only to appear again later when convenient for a fight or exposition, then disappear again. It's chr. whiplash and I don't care about any of them. By season 7 or 8 I'm only in it for the Quincy kid, Aizen/his plot, and the guy who owns the shop (in the striped clothes). Some of the others are fun as combat side chrs tho. Stop yapping, start fighting.

Binged the 1st 3 seasons of "Bleach" (subbed) via Netflix. Mostly because I saw the live-actor movie (also on Netflix), which was very corny in some spots but did make me interested in the anime again. I'd heard of the series and even watched one episode years ago but I forgot about it. Those 3 seasons were all right. After 1st season, I kept FFWDing through a lot of the slapstick, unnecessarily prolonged action sequences and side chr. diversions, mostly interested in the main story/villain arcs. Didn't like the pattern of starting a major battle then leaving it, sometimes taking 2-3 episodes to go back to/finish it after sidetracking. There's plenty to diss about the series but initially it's still worth at least skimming through. Sadly, all the other seasons are on Hulu, which I don't like to watch/use much. All I want is to hop-skip through rest of the Aizen arc but I'm not sure I'll have the patience to FFWD through 20+ seasons for it. Season 4 and 5 were apparently not even manga based, so I completely skipped those. Anyway ... first 3 seasons were 65% fun and 35% boring. I liked Slayers much better overall (including its slapstick) but Bleach does have some good action and a few character/arc standouts. A lot of it is rather "meh" tho.

Tried to watch "Kidding" on Showtime. I should say first that I'm not a huge fan of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (it was ok, but I wasn't in love with it). The premise of the show - Mr Rogers-like has a bleak mid-life crisis or some such - could be interesting/funny, but Kidding is so bleak and the chrs. rather unlikable/non-sympathetic (acting is fine) that it's kind of hard to get into the show. I like dark and tragi-comic/satire but it's another show where I hardly even chuckled. It's not just that it's not funny - it's not even interesting. Two episodes in, I turned it off. I guess I don't have the patience anymore for shows that don't at least give me a feeling of "I want to know more" within an hour or two.

Telltale - I tried Walking Dead Season 1 and didn't get very far. I could sorta see why it would appeal to some but at the time it wasn't for me. I think they likely tried to expand too fast, too far once they got some fame and then didn't expand their style enough to keep interest up. Happens.

Devil May Cry HD Collection (1, 2, 3) Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition ...they were on Steam-sale ($30 total) and I'm bored. Per usual not sure if I'll get through any of them but I thought I'd at least try. Too much combat combo/scoring concept may annoy me. Can I win if all I get are "D's"? I guess I was also thinking about DMC5, so this would give me 5-6 months to get around to at least minimally trying the older ones to see if I'd be interested in the new one at all. I mean, the combat visuals of 4 and 5 look great but not sure if I'd like the series much outside of that so this is my way of figuring that out I suppose. Maybe I should've just stuck with DMC4-SE as the tryout...

Oh? That has me half tempted to get it, per usual. Although ... TR games probably aren't something I'd get really into taking screenshots of over and over like Borderlands, XV, FO:NV etc. Not enough pretty boys repeatability. I was actually thinking about this game this morning. Just because of the scenery. Hm.

I am completely and hopelessly addicted to these: Only 60ish calories each, too. But they're like crack, I can't stop eating them (well, a few a day anyway). I've been buying them constantly from AmazonFresh. They are soooo good.

I was soooo bored over last weekend that I tried some of the free "visual novels" on Steam. From the description/reviews most of these sound like glorified dating sims where you pick one out of 3-5 chrs. to romance throughout the story. There may or may not be an actual plot worth reading inside that sexy-romance arc. Most of such seem to be utter trash where I could barely get through one of the available chr. routes before turning it off as I snorted with laughter, but a couple were above grade/pretty good: Lake of Voices - largely a moody horror tale, almost zero romance, although you do have influence/route paths for different endings with some of those being almost romantic (really really subtle). Not a very long game per route but some of the influence paths were difficult to discover and most of the endings were dark and not very "happy" at all. If you can figure out the Guide's "bad" ending path, that one was great. Although, I like dark and twisted endings, so... Cinderella Phenomenon Falls into the "otome" visual novel category, but in the fairy-tale romance style vs. anything "sexy." A very fracture fairy tale. I liked this one because each chr. route was almost entirely different (once past Chapt 2 or 3 anyway) from the other. The basic story-problem was the same but the viewpoint and events change quite a bit each time. The "fairy-tale curse" the female protagonist and other characters are under were great twists on commonly known fairy tales (largely Grimm fairy tales I think?). The one based on Beauty and the Beast actually almost made me sniffle. Comes with good and bad endings and the bad endings are either bittersweet/somber or outright dark/sad. For the price of "free" those two are worth an experimental gander. Of the other freebies I tried, even if they weren't "sexy romance" stories, they were either terribly written/translated and/or just plain boring, although I did appreciate the artstyle in some. An actual 400+ page paper novel is 10000x better ... and some of the more highly rated visual novels on Steam were $30-$40. No thanks. Maybe during a 75% off sale. Edit: btw, I read too fast apparently. I had to always put the "text speed" at highest, which means all text in the box shows up at once, and I was hitting spacebar every second or two, except the occasional long paragraph. That makes most of these visual novels very short, for me. Like, an entire route in 30 minutes or less.

I still "desperately" need a new game to obsess over (vs. maybe only checking it for 4-10 hours then never touching it again) but I feel like I only like a new game once every 2-3 years now, and it's only been 18 months. Drat. Back to reading more manga's. That Noblesse one I was reading, it was pretty awesome for about 350-400 chapters but after that it became almost nothing but battle panels and hardly any plot outside of good guys vs. ever increasing difficulty bad guys. Literally pages and pages in a row of "Boom!" "How can they be so strong?" "Pow!" "How did they survive that blow?" which I became really bored of paging through. I'll check out new chapters once in a while see if it improves again but likely the authors just ran out of steam and are just dragging it out. Still, it was entertaining/fun for a long while so no regrets.

LMAO right back. Who the heck is "crying"? You seem to be under the impression my lighthearted post was trying to dispute your "facts". I don't give a poop about anything like that and I certainly don't care about convincing you of anything in that regard. Why would I bother. There's hot Asian actors in the world. That's all I said - not sure where I said anything about who finds what sexiest. And regarding my not wanting Hollywood touching Gong Yoo - since there's often the issue of language and heavy accent barrier re: many actual overseas Asian stars trying to "make it" in Hollywood, I probably don't have to worry too much there. But keep it up, dude. You're as entertaining as ever.

Dear Nvidia - was this sort of feature really required to add into Ansel? ...well, ok, it's briefly and childishly amusing. But still.

There are plenty of hot Asian males. Just not usually, apparently, in Hollywood casting. Bring Gong Yoo over here, among many others. As a female, I wouldn't complain at all. Although imo Hollywood would do actors like Gong Yoo no favors. So on the other hand ... leave your grubby hands off of them, Hollywood.

Didn't like the most recent Castle Rock episode much. It's not that it wasn't well made, I just didn't like the plot turn I guess. Felt like kind of a let down with all the good build up. Maybe they'll twist it again a bit in the final episode tho.

That sounds rather ominous. Hope everything's all right?

I can't believe it's freaking Sept. already, when it was mid-winter and I was still waiting for PC FFXV just a few days ago. Today I paid bills, ate lunch, caught up on my currently-watching Kdrama weekly episodes, and am about to ... uh ... hm. I wonder how hubby would react if he came home to find I'd bought and mounted a (cheaper-side) 70" 4k tv to the wall behind my pc-desk (for gaming, ofc)? 43" is nice and all but bigger, I need bigger. When is 8k coming?

Watched the 7 available (out of 10?) episodes of Castle Rock, on Hulu. To me it definitely has that Stephen King sort of "real world"+surreal vibe to it and it's fun with all the Castle Rock story references/easter eggs. Although maybe a little too much references occur. It's a bit of a slow set-up but by the end of Ep. 3 I was hooked in well enough. Good to excellent cast. Episode 7 was too oddball for me tho. I mean, nice mind-bender concept but not enough to fill a whole hour with so it felt too stretched I guess. Some might really like that episode tho. Not sure how much non-King fans would like it but it's pretty decent.

Started reading a manga called Noblesse. Most manga I've tried reading (not tons, mind) were ok but don't engage me fully, if that makes sense. But I love this one. Maybe it's because it's all in color, or perhaps because characters, races, organizations feel a bit more fleshed out over time vs. others ones I've tried. The characters/action and humor are my thing too I guess (the constant joke about main chr. and ramen is hilarious). I'm about halfway through the currently 500+ parts and it's still consistent quality throughout. Tried watching the two short animated tv thingies that were made for it, but they were so truncated I didn't like them too much. Anyway, that's how I'm spending my weekend. Good stuff. Edit: any other manga's that might be similar to this one?

Probably because more people care about fps and gameplay then they do "ultra realistic" lighting/shadow effects or whatever. There's also a certain point where many consider game-graphic capability "good enough" - for looks, for immersion, for function. It's not that they can't admire more graphical advances, but that they don't care about paying for it or having so much industry/financial focus be put on it vs. actual gameplay/stories and so on. Also, this.

--All online shopping is convenient but does nothing to get ones butt off the couch if don't have to go anywhere. --bought another mp3 player with a clip for hiking etc --if I listen to a music video posted on this forum I can loop it, unlike using the stupid YT app on this phone. Who knew. --I sill refuse to make a googleplay/store account. --the weather doesn't feel like CA summer lately, cloudy mornings, good for walks tho. --almost 50. Maybe my apathy is midlife crisis. At least I still don't have any crows feet.

That's pretty much my take on it. I've seen that Metro demo video and was not impressed by some kind of vast improvement on "realism." I'd much rather they work on gpu's (and pc hardware in general) that can handle mega quality textures everywhere (vs. some being muddy, some great). Like in that Metro video there was a beautiful patch of wavy grass and lying in that was a zombie with muddy clothing textures. Way to ruin the look. Anyway...ray tracing could enhance some stuff but it all depends on what and how game dev's implement it I'd imagine. Even today, some games overdo bloom and similar (and won't let you turn it off) while others use it more pleasantly.

Cindy has a new twin sister who is not confined to the garage or that certain outfit. Mods are fun. On the complete and total flip side: Hahahahahaha.