Anime, the eternal Jettokōsutā

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm preeetty sure she's a voice problem. Such a harsh edge to her voice along with this weird undercurrent of breathiness...

Floor is only breathy when she wants to be, did you listen to the Shallow cover, or About Love I Don't Know A Thing (either... are really breathy on purprose)? Not that it really matters. I didn't expect you to like Floor. Hence the question if you hate everything equally.

Spoiler

If you want harsh... hey:

This is time coded to a minute of singing, including some pretty impressive (if nothing else) growling. That cuts out the intro... I mean, yeah, not point in torture, this is purely academic. *cackles like an evil scientist*

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Then I figured out she was from Nightwish, and I was like...oh, yeah, that tracks. Been recommended them like 6 or 7 times by different people throughout the past ten years or so, and I don't think so.

I am a little uncertain why anyone would recommend Nightwish to you. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but... that's as much an auto-no as you can get, even back when Anette was the lead vocalist. I'm pretty sure at this point we can strike classically trained from the list - or at the very least, clasically trained and using that training to sound the part*, which includes operatic and actual opera.

Spoiler

This is the most Un-Nightwish of Nightwish songs:

If you listen to nothing else I've linked now, this is one where I'd be curious of it's hate or neutral.

A dead giveaway is this being performed at a Jazz festival. This is Annette, their second vocalist (Floor is the third). She's jazz vocalist, and I thought she was pretty good - unlike most of the fandumb. The problem was that she was constantly asked to perform songs written for Tarja, the first vocalist, who is not only quite talented, but also a fully trained Lied Soprano - something Annette just couldn't do.

Tarja also has one of the most gorgeous voices I've come across. The has a really dark color while singing soprano, when she wants:

Here's one for Lindsay Ellis... and in case you can actually hear her being breathy (that's noticable once you know what you need to listen for) that is because she's singing while having a flu on this recording - which makes it even more impressive.

 

Spoiler

On an academic note, the difference between operatic and opera:

Operatic...

That's actual opera. And a much younger Floor Jansen, obviously.

Opera sounds like this because it was designed to have the voice carry over the orchestra without electric amplification, and with Italian as language in mind. In other words, it's pretty much impossible to sing an English opera. Not without changing the vowels, at least. Which is very, very audible (hence otherwise simple words like "one" coming out like "wan").

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

but I didn't like any of them, not even Ave Maria which I usually love, .

I absolutely don't like her Ave Maria.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

In case you're at all curious, here are...five of my favorite female vocalists - just female to make it simple. Feel free to hate them immediately, exit out from listening to them, and then feel embarrassed on my behalf, etc., :

I've listened to four of them, the first one doesn't work for me, without any comment. It either disappeared from YouTube just right after you posted it, or it is locked for me in a way that doesn't even tell me. Which is odd for YouTube, they at least have the courtesy to tell me why.

Spoiler

Anyway, out of those, I only know Emiliána Torrini, Jungle Drum was a huge hit a while back. I always say "a while back" when something was 13 years ago, but it feels like yesterday. Here's the * coming in, footnote alert. Emiliána Torrini studied opera. That is definitely something you can hear in her breath control (or rather, in the way you don't hear her breathe while she sings - mostly), but certainly not in the way she performs her own music.

However, while I enjoy her singing, the music she makes is not something I would turn on. I'd not switch the radio off or change stations, but... what's vocalists for you is musical genres for me.

E.g., like when listening to purely self-trained vocalists, regardless of how talented they may otherwise be:

It's fairly easy to hear him gasp for air - and that's a studio recording.

A problem that Sharon den Adel, who I happen to really appreciate (and assuming there's a usable pattern to this, you should not like) also has, particularily when paired with a trained vocalist (this is a video having a decent contrast between trained and untrained voices):

Feel free to not like this song, because I sure don't.

That wraps that up. Please keep in mind that my musical theory knowledge is limited to what we learned in junior high... and yeah, we did have a music teacher who appreciated the finer art of classical music, which meant we also went to concerts on the shool's dime. I have a certain appreciation for the music, but not enough to have really followed up on it.
 

Spoiler

Unless you count liking Therion.

You'll probably not enjoy the song, but the cover art of Lemuria is amazing.  

Lemuria was part of a double album, together with Sirius-B:

Which is still an absolute highlight for me. Therion is pretty varied and often hit and miss, but these two were amazing.

So how long until @ShadySands forces us into the music thread even if he barely posts here?

Edited July 5, 2021 by majestic
Fix a lot of white spaces. Stupid form software, don't you know I care about how my posts look? For crying out loud!

[Malcador]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

You could, if you suspect training and singing style as a part of what it is, try and check out the body of work of Floor Jansen*,

For some reason I read that as "check out the body of Floor Jansen".  Made me wonder where this thread was. Granted talking about Nightwish still makes me wonder that.

[majestic]

6 minutes ago, Malcador said:

For some reason I read that as "check out the body of Floor Jansen".  Made me wonder where this thread was. Granted talking about Nightwish still makes me wonder that.

KP watched Legend of the Overfiend recently, so anything's pretty possible.

[majestic]

Something on topic for a change:

I started the second season of Love Live!, and it begins with Ericchi, otherwise known as Eli or Eri - the blonde girl, who is blonde because she's partly Russian (wow, they really put some thought into why she's blonde, but everyone else has anime hair too and no explanation is given, uhm... so that's not for the blonde hair, but for her severe disposition I guess, yay...) - stepping down as Studen Council president.

That title is given to Honoka.

I'm barely two minutes into the season and it is already dumber than the entirety of the first one. Who thought it would be a good idea to make this universe's Usagi head of the student council?

edit:

Umi and Kotori are on the council as well, and the following scene reinforces that they're probably really intentionally modelled after Usagi, Rei and Ami in early first season Sailor Moon. Just without Kotori being a super genius. Umi just Rei'd Honoka hard, and Kotori was trying to be supportive but was shot down by Umi saying "You're too soft on Usagi Honoka!"

Well it was fun to watch, but it's still stupid. Eri apparently was the one who recommended Honoka. Sure, after sniffing too much glue, or under boob rubbing duress, perhaps.

Doesn't bode too well, does it?

Edited July 5, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

This is time coded to a minute of singing, including some pretty impressive (if nothing else) growling. That cuts out the intro... I mean, yeah, not point in torture, this is purely academic. *cackles like an evil scientist*

I still don't like her voice there, but it's actually less painful than the other stuff I listened to. Unfortunately, the music is even less to my tastes, so it doesn't really matter. Also, genuine growling stuff is always a no-go no matter whom it is, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I am a little uncertain why anyone would recommend Nightwish to you. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but... that's as much an auto-no as you can get, even back when Anette was the lead vocalist. I'm pretty sure at this point we can strike classically trained from the list - or at the very least, clasically trained and using that training to sound the part*, which includes operatic and actual opera.

Not sure, but recommended it many times I have been. Does it say more about me that people somehow think I'd magically like it...or more about the people I associate with that they somehow keep recommending it to me?

1 hour ago, majestic said:

If you listen to nothing else I've linked now, this is one where I'd be curious of it's hate or neutral.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/f8unyoxb5vpspgt/uojLuUtksI.mp4

So here's a little secret of mine...I hate long notes like this. She does it every single note she draws out here in this song and the next, it's unbearable. Up, down, up, down, up, down - clean notes, please! But besides those painful long notes, yes, her voice is much more bearable than the other lady in terms of texture, . Floor Jansen or whatever her face is provides a good contrast here, particularly in the opera video you posted of her - her voice is perhaps more unpleasant, but she can hold those long notes just about perfectly. Drats!

As for the song you missed because of strange YouTube shenanigans (it still works fine for me, and no, I'm not the uploader, : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7sqftq8pp7mop2r/White Light.flac I imagine it will be the one you like the least based on what you've described as preferring in voices...but I could listen to this lady all day.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Jungle Drum

It's a bloody great freaking thing I heard her sing Gollum's Song in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers first, then listened to her latest album at the time (Tookah) second, because if I had accidentally listened to Jungle Drum as her first non-LotR song, I'm not sure I would've listened to a second. I should've known better, of course, because single songs are invariably the worst song of any given album, and Jungle Drum is no exception.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Feel free to not like this song, because I sure don't.

Way ahead of you, pal! Also, I have no clue who is whom (though I'm passingly familiar with Within Temptation, I have no real knowledge of what they actually sound like, especially since it's been years and years since I heard a song from them), but I definitely liked the second lady a lot better, slightly nasally voice and all, .

Spoiler

Not breathily moaning out all of her lyrics is a definite plus. Also, definite no to everything Therion, sorry pal!

 

30 minutes ago, majestic said:

I'm barely two minutes into the season and it is already dumber than the entirety of the first one. Who thought it would be a good idea to make this universe's Usagi head of the student council?

I mean...to be fair, somebody decided on stinking Usagi being queen at some point!

Edited July 5, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

5 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I still don't like her voice there, but it's actually less painful than the other stuff I listened to. Unfortunately, the music is even less to my tastes, so it doesn't really matter. Also, genuine growling stuff is always a no-go no matter whom it is, .

It usually is for me, too. There are very few exceptions, but they exist. I usually dislike all harsh vocals (growls, or mostly untrained grunting, rasping, etc.), it takes exceptional groups to make me like that, like Sirenia, even though they mostly dropped them. Sirenia's Meridian is one of my most favorite pieces, actually, even though it's full of black metal elements, but that's neither here nor there, and you really don't need to check that one out.

However, she does sing the non-growling parts in a much more contemporary, slightly raspy rock voice, as opposed to what she usually does, even in Nightwish. That makes sense, I think, because the lyrics are about internet trolls. I think, at least.

11 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Not sure, but recommended it many times I have been. Does it say more about me that people somehow think I'd magically like it...or more about the people I associate with that they somehow keep recommending it to me?

I can't answer that, but I would never assume you'd actually like Nightwish based on the things you've shared you like. That's most likely driven by a desire that you at least enjoy something they do. Or maybe they just wanted to win the "I found someone you like to listen to" @Bartimaeus special trophy. Coveted indeed, but probably never truly given out.

Do I win if I recommend Talking Heads?

Spoiler

Pretty sure you mentioned liking them before, so that's cheating, but in case you already forgot and I don't misremember, can I get an honorary win here? Hmmm?

 

14 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

As for the song you missed because of strange YouTube shenanigans (it still works fine for me, and no, I'm not the uploader, : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7sqftq8pp7mop2r/White Light.flac I imagine it will be the one you like the least based on what you've described as preferring in voices...but I could listen to this lady all day.

You'd imagine wrong. I don't know about the music, but I like the singing just fine - however, you can't possibly know that or even assume anything like that from what I've been talking about. I do have a soft spot for vocals like these.

It does remind me a little of, say, something like Lunascape, however, Lunascape might just be a tad too breathy. Because that's really audible, like:

So Lunascape is so far removed from my usual preferences that I have no idea how to explain why I like them. I can explain how I know of them, beause they were used as soundtrack for an IMAX film I watched. Like, back when IMAX theatres had actual documentaries and interesting originals, instead of bad films or special effects porn. Like Matrix Revolutions and Avatar.

I'll also address the "secret" revealed later in the post. For effect. Yay!

17 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's a bloody great freaking thing I heard her sing Gollum's Song in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers first, then listened to her latest album at the time (Tookah) second, because if I had accidentally listened to Jungle Drum as her first non-LotR song, I'm not sure I would've listened to a second. I should've known better, of course, because single songs are invariably the worst song of any given album, and Jungle Drum is no exception.

I've seen Lord of the Rings half a dozen times, but I never would have known it was her singing that song if Google had not told me earlier looking for Jungle Drum. Guess I suck, huh? I thought Jungle Drum was okay, but I did not understand its popularity. On the other hand, I barely ever do when it comes to pop songs, and it becomes worse every year (Adele for instance makes me want to stab my eardrums).

But yes, singles do usually come in the form of whatever song the recod labels think best for mass appeal. Good if you enjoy that sort of thing, but horrible otherwise. Jungle Drum exploded over here because it was used in a casting show. For, uhm, fashion models. With Heidi Klum. I, ugh. That woman has a voice that can cut steel. She also makes Baby Jesus cry!

28 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Way ahead of you, pal! Also, I have no clue who is whom, but I definitely liked the second lady a lot better, slightly nasally voice and all, .

Sharon is the one breathing audibly, the other one is called Anneke van Giersbergen. Which is a mouthful. Who coincidentally is actually not at all related to Dianne van Giersbergen who is also a vocalist, and was singing for Xandria, which I also kind of like, but they go through vocalists like some people go through underpants, and it's apparently - from what I've gathered from various social media and forum posts - related to the band leader being a complete asshat.

I have no idea what Anneke van Giersbergen did or does otherwise.

41 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Also, definite no to everything Therion, sorry pal!

Ah, a pity. Heh.

41 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I mean...to be fair, somebody decided on stinking Usagi being queen at some point!

That was Princess Naoko, and you know it, but... honestly, Usagi would make a good figurehead queen. Just not a good actual ruler, but that's what Mamoru is there for, hm? At least, for the sake of the planet Tokyo, I sure hope so. On the other hand, going by what I've seen in Crystal, she does call the shots too. Guess you can only hope that she learns something quickly, huh?

The episode had a brilliant moment at the end where everyone spontaneously decides to sing the first ending song at Honoka. Which is really fun because she made that one up on the spot and it never comes up again in the entire anime, so all the other girls can't know about it (well they could, off-screen, maybe). Details, shmetails, it was a really nice moment.

It's still super dumb that she was made head of the student council, but eh, what else can I do than live! with it.

Finally:

48 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

So here's a little secret of mine...I hate long notes like this. She does it every single note she draws out here in this song and the next, it's unbearable. Up, down, up, down, up, down - clean notes, please! But besides those painful long notes, yes, her voice is much more bearable than the other lady in terms of texture, . Floor Jansen or whatever her face is provides a good contrast here, particularly in the opera video you posted of her - her voice is perhaps more unpleasant, but she can hold those long notes just about perfectly. Drats!

 

Mhm. So you really don't like vibrato, at least of the slow variety, because that's the frequency change you can hear when Annette holds a note. Floor does that too, it's something that is depending on the genre, used prominently or ideally not at all. For opera performances, Floor's is pretty much the gold standard. It's consistent in frequency, has a high rate (i.e., it's fast, sometimes to the point of being barely noticable) and varies a little in rate between the beginning and the ending of a note.

It's also a sort of side effect of classical voice training - most untrained voices have barely any, often even no, vibrato. You can actually hear this when Sharon sings, or mostly from Bozo Vreco. He still does long drawn out notes, but the frequency is perfectly stable. It's meant to feel more lively than a perfectly stable note, and changes in frequency like was another way to carry voices over orchestras.

Not entirely sure why Floor's vibrato bothers you less. It's much faster, but still really audible in the operatic performance. It becomes so fast that it's barely noticable in her regular performances, however, I do suspect that you not liking her voice might still be linked to that.

All the examples of vocalists you like are pretty vibrato-free. Might be a starting point in figuring it out. However, that also means pretty much every vocalist I know is out (I already figured that out, anyway). Because, like... uhm. They're almost all classically trained and use that training.

...

We have also definitely reached the very limit of what I know of all that.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Pretty sure you mentioned liking them before, so that's cheating, but in case you already forgot and I don't misremember, can I get an honorary win here? Hmmm?

I love Stop Making Sense, but I'm not nearly as fond of their actual studio albums which sound...very different from that.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I can't answer that, but I would never assume you'd actually like Nightwish based on the things you've shared you like. That's most likely driven by a desire that you at least enjoy something they do. Or maybe they just wanted to win the "I found someone you like to listen to" @Bartimaeus special trophy. Coveted indeed, but probably never truly given out.

Exactly once, to a person who's recommended like a hundred different things to me over my lifespan and has hit on exactly one of them: You'll Never Go to Heaven, . A 1% hit rate ain't so bad, though! ...It's literally infinitely better than all the 0%ers!

Vibrato: Thanks, now I have a way to describe that which I hate. Vibrato delenda est! More evidence for the "I like simpler voices" theory...thanks for the edumacation, I didn't receive basically any in music, so I don't know what the hell anything is unfortunately.

Sharon: Yeah, but...she also sounds like that, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Lunascape

Not only that, but it also kinda misses what I like so much about You'll Never Get to Heaven: it's just this...perfectly consistent mildly low-toned half-whispering kind of singing. Lunascape...doesn't do it for me on multiple levels, . BREAKING NEWS: Bartimaeus continues to be the pickiest bastard about anything and just about literally everything, more at 11!

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I've seen Lord of the Rings half a dozen times, but I never would have known it was her singing that song if Google had not told me earlier looking for Jungle Drum. Guess I suck, huh? I thought Jungle Drum was okay, but I did not understand its popularity. On the other hand, I barely ever do when it comes to pop songs, and it becomes worse every year (Adele for instance makes me want to stab my eardrums).

For, uhm, fashion models. With Heidi Klum. I, ugh. That woman has a voice that can cut steel. She also makes Baby Jesus cry!

Being curious who sang that because I liked it so much is what made me look her up. As for Jungle Drum...Emiliana Torrini says she's horribly embarrassed of her very first album which was mostly random covers, but I like the weird crap she did on there better than Jungle Drum, . Seriously, what the heck is this, Emiliana? ...It's still better than Jungle Drum, .

I'll take your word for it re: Heidi Klum, seeing as I don't think I've ever heard of her and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to. And also, I don't think I've ever heard an Adele song or at least knew I was hearing an Adele song, so I don't know what she sounds like either. I think I've said it before, but I try to avoid absorbing anything which I do not like, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

All the examples of vocalists you like are pretty vibrato-free. Might be a starting point in figuring it out. However, that also means pretty much every vocalist I know is out (I already figured that out, anyway). Because, like... uhm. They're almost all classically trained and use that training.

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Exactly once, to a person who's recommended like a hundred different things to me over my lifespan and has hit on exactly one of them: You'll Never Go to Heaven, . A 1% hit rate ain't so bad, though! ...It's literally infinitely better than all the 0%ers!

Ah, well, then I still have like 95 tries left. Not that it would do me any good.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Vibrato: Thanks, now I have a way to describe that which I hate. Vibrato delenda est! More evidence for the "I like simpler voices" theory...thanks for the edumacation, I didn't receive basically any in music, so I don't know what the hell anything is unfortunately.

I've already forgotten most things, to be honest, e.g. I can no longer read or write notes for instance. I also never could, and probably never will, hear key changes, or even keys, or guess tones like other people do, not even in relation to each other. I'm as tone deaf as they come, I just know when somethings nice to listen to, and when not, and that's pretty subjective.

I dislike most Jazz, for instance, and that includes Slow Love, Slow. There's only so much of any melodic pattern subversion that I can take before it breaks my brain, and Jazz makes a point of seemingly doing either only that or having three or four separate tracks playing over each other, i.e. a piano, bass, drums and an optional vocalist all performing their own songs at the same time that are vaguely similar to each other, but not enough to form a coherent whole. That really does a number on me (brain trying to find patterns that deliberately aren't there, yay!).

I know, I'm painting a huge and varied genre with very broad strokes here.

It also doesn't help that Jazz has some of the worst fandumb imaginable: A bunch of entitled elitists, most of which probably hate the music anyway but pretend they love it to apepar sophisticated and upper class.

Glad to be of service. Who knows, maybe it will come in handy at some point.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Sharon: Yeah, but...she also sounds like that, .

8 hours ago, majestic said:

Lunascape

Not only that, but it also kinda misses what I like so much about You'll Never Get to Heaven: it's just this...perfectly consistent mildly low-toned half-whispering kind of singing. Lunascape...doesn't do it for me on multiple levels, . BREAKING NEWS: Bartimaeus continues to be the pickiest bastard about anything and just about literally everything, more at 11!

Mmh. 'twas a shot in the dark, anyway.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Being curious who sang that because I liked it so much is what made me look her up. As for Jungle Drum...Emiliana Torrini says she's horribly embarrassed of her very first album which was mostly random covers, but I like the weird crap she did on there better than Jungle Drum, . Seriously, what the heck is this, Emiliana? ...It's still better than Jungle Drum, .

That sure was... something. I think that's about the only thing I can say about it. Not going to repeatedly listen to that.  

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'll take your word for it re: Heidi Klum, seeing as I don't think I've ever heard of her and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to. And also, I don't think I've ever heard an Adele song or at least knew I was hearing an Adele song, so I don't know what she sounds like either. I think I've said it before, but I try to avoid absorbing anything which I do not like, .

I can't avoid it. Watching the news and reading papers is enough for me. Adele I know from the occasional bout of listening to radio when I'm subjected to it. Can't stop being me, so it's all absorbed and sticks for a while. A long while, in most cases.

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, episode 5, Majestic do not read unless you've already watched Stardust Crusaders or whatever this arc is called presuming that the events of this OVA at least roughly carry over to the regular anime:

Spoiler

Grandpa Joe was my favorite character from this OVA, RIP.

No, not that Grandpa Joe! That guy's the worst. The other one!

If freaking Polnareff, who is currently the only one unaccounted for, ends up being the lynch-pin for Joestar Jr. Jr. surviving Dio, that'll really be...um, something. Of course, I'm presuming that Dio will not defeated by the end of this OVA. The focus of this OVA has been getting Joestar Jr. Jr.'s mom to survive, so I presume that's what ends up happening somehow, maybe.

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Episode 6: What a meme of an ending...but it was actually pretty great.

Spoiler

My prediction ended up coming true, of course it was freaking Polnareff...plus some space Jesus nonsense on the part of Jotaro as you might expect. ...Apparently, my mourning of Grandpa Joe ended up being premature, even though he was dead for like forever and had literally all of his blood sucked of his body. Somehow, he still survived. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, everyone.

Lots of absolutely meme-ish stuff in this that was pretty hilarious. Jotaro literally reaching inside of himself to grab his own heart to stop it so Dio couldn't hear it, Polnareff's absolutely pathetic leap that somehow hit Dio (also, out of everyone, Polnareff was literally the last person I expected to survive from like the first minute of watching this show - no doubt intentionally; glad he was able to do a good bit of redeeming how dumb he is by just surviving and helping at critical moments), a few people's heads just getting punched clean off, Dio's DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM matching Jotaro's ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA...

If this OVA continued, I would continue watching. I like the animation a lot better than the main series, and I'm pretty sure I like the writing a lot better as well (though I've only watched a few episodes of the """main""" series), even with a few of the things I still don't care for. Thanks once again, Mr. Kon, .

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Grandpa Joe already survived being shot into space on a giant rock by causing a massive volcano eruption and the subsequent re-entry and crash into the ocean while he was young*, so... that's not as much of a surprise as you might think it is.  He was bit younger back then tho.

*He did all that while fighting Kars, the super being who managed to overcome the weakness of vampires by becoming immune to sunlight, a creature capable of transforming into a bird, launching razor sharp feathers at JoJo which then later turn into piranhas that almost eat him. So yeah, uhm. It's called Bizarre for a reason. xD

Edited July 6, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

9 minutes ago, majestic said:

Grandpa Joe already survived being shot into space on a giant rock by causing a massive volcano eruption and the subsequent re-entry and crash into the ocean while he was young, so... that's not as much of a surprise as you might think it is.  He was bit younger back then tho.

I edited some more stuff in after I realized I should actually describe some of the meme-ish stuff that happened, just in case you want to laugh at that, presuming once again you've already seen this arc.

Spoiler

 

That's good to know - don't know basically anything about the main plot of this show, so I have no idea how long characters generally survive for (a few people had seemingly permanently died by this point already), so I genuinely thought he was a goner after...seeing him literally get eviscerated, stop breathing, and die. Silly me, .

There was an ongoing plot about Jotaro's mom being very sick because of...vague reasons to do with Dio, and the OVA never showed the result of that. Seems odd to not have mentioned ANYTHING about it to finish the OVA off.

 

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

I also just managed to beat Absolute Radiance - currently only in the Hall of Gods, not as part of the pantheon - for the first time. It's 00:45, and that was, while great, pretty bad. I'm perfectly sure I'm not going to get much sleep now. Stupid adrenaline rush.

Spoiler

Really stupid boss too. Two masks of damage per hit, overlapping attacks that can cause situations where you can play perfectly but still get hit, and funny hitbox and visibility issues with one of the more annoying attacks she has. It's not undoable, but it does feel unfair at times, which is a pretty stark contrast to all the other bosses in the game where when you get hit, you definitely made a mistake. Except Zote. Screw that guy.

 

[majestic]

2 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I edited some more stuff in after I realized I should actually describe some of the meme-ish stuff that happened, just in case you want to laugh at that, presuming once again you've already seen this arc.

I'm in the middle of it, but the setup of the entire show is such that spoilers barely matter. The anime adaptation has 46 episodes. I guess the OVA left out the Playboy reading ape that oggles a young woman taking a shower on a ship that's a figment of his imagination (well, his stand, actually)?

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

 

That's good to know - don't know basically anything about the main plot of this show, so I have no idea how long characters generally survive for (a few people had seemingly permanently died by this point already), so I genuinely thought he was a goner after...seeing him literally get eviscerated, stop breathing, and die. Silly me, .

There was an ongoing plot about Jotaro's mom being very sick because of...vague reasons to do with Dio, and the OVA never showed the result of that. Seems odd to not have mentioned ANYTHING about it to finish the OVA off.

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

Grandpa Joe's daughter falling ill is the entire reason for the adventure. They go hunt down DIO because his curse makes them all have stands, even HORRY. Erm, Holly, sorry, and she can't deal with it. Presumably killing DIO will save her, but I'm not there yet.

The first Joestar, Jonathan, died in the first season. Grandpa Joe survived kind of unexpectedly, I mean, they even held a funeral after his re-entry event. Makes sense, not even gym gods who defeat gay idol gods like they're no business would survive that.

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

30 minutes ago, majestic said:

I also just managed to beat Absolute Radiance - currently only in the Hall of Gods, not as part of the pantheon - for the first time. It's 00:45, and that was, while great, pretty bad. I'm perfectly sure I'm not going to get much sleep now. Stupid adrenaline rush.

  Hide contents

Really stupid boss too. Two masks of damage per hit, overlapping attacks that can cause situations where you can play perfectly but still get hit, and funny hitbox and visibility issues with one of the more annoying attacks she has. It's not undoable, but it does feel unfair at times, which is a pretty stark contrast to all the other bosses in the game where when you get hit, you definitely made a mistake. Except Zote. Screw that guy.

 

I actually haven't played Hollow Knight, so I have no idea what you're describing. Well, actually, I started it, but I only played for like an hour before the hideously annoying NPC inane voice babbling combined with too complex maps drove me insane and right off of the game. I'm bad at handling too-large Metroidvania games - my ideal Metroidvania game is more like 5 hours, 10 at absolute most...not the 30 or 40 of Hollow Knight. For longer, somewhat difficult games, Dark Souls is more my speed.

Glad to hear you beat them, though...whomever they are! I know the combined feeling of both satisfaction as well as annoyance from other games after finally taking care of a ridiculous boss that just wouldn't go down, .

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

I'm in the middle of it, but the setup of the entire show is such that spoilers barely matter. The anime adaptation has 46 episodes. I guess the OVA left out the Playboy reading ape that oggles a young woman taking a shower on a ship that's a figment of his imagination (well, his stand, actually)?

Uh...yes, that was left out. ...Glad I was finally able to enjoy JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in SOME fashion because of this OVA, .

Spoiler

 

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

Grandpa Joe's daughter falling ill is the entire reason for the adventure. They go hunt down DIO because his curse makes them all have stands, even HORRY. Erm, Holly, sorry, and she can't deal with it. Presumably killing DIO will save her, but I'm not there yet.

The first Joestar, Jonathan, died in the first season. Grandpa Joe survived kind of unexpectedly, I mean, they even held a funeral after his re-entry event. Makes sense, not even gym gods who defeat gay idol gods like they're no business would survive that.

Yeah, I did get that that was the cause of why they were determined to confront Dio even at the complete cost of their own lives, but the OVA did not really...explain how or why, nor did it really explain that he was the cause of their Stands existing at all...at least that I can remember. Thanks, .

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

58 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

If this OVA continued, I would continue watching.

My wish has been granted...but it goes in reverse: apparently, there's a prequel OVA series by the same studio with mostly the same people that came out later that presumably helps...explain things? Ironically, it's slightly longer than the series I just watched...guess I'll watch that at some point! @KP the meanie zucchini If you've seen both, do you know whether it's better to start with the prequel series or this original Stardust Crusaders arc series? I know someone who wants to watch this because I watched it, but I'm not sure which one to tell them to watch first now that I know that the prequel series exists.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

35 minutes ago, majestic said:

I guess the OVA left out the Playboy reading ape that oggles a young woman taking a shower on a ship that's a figment of his imagination (well, his stand, actually)?

There's a prequel OVA released a decade later, and Forever is in that OVA. He gets sliced in half by Silver Chariot instead of beaten to death by Star Platinum.

@Bartimaeus

No peeking Majestic!

An oil tanker for you!

Originally this was a steamroller, with DIO announcing his final move as "ROADA ROLLADA!!!!! MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA".

[majestic]

3 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I actually haven't played Hollow Knight, so I have no idea what you're describing. Well, actually, I started it, but I only played for like an hour before the hideously annoying NPC inane voice babbling combined with too complex maps drove me insane and right off of the game.

That's... not getting any better, and all the of the bosses you haven't seen do that too. Worse even, for some of them, their sounds are the only proper tells you get for what they're about to do, so you can't even play with sound off.

Luckily the game has a compass you can get after a bit of playing and various quick travel options, so the game world becomes managable.

5 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm bad at handling too-large Metroidvania games - my ideal Metroidvania game is more like 5 hours, 10 at absolute most...not the 30 or 40 of Hollow Knight. For longer, somewhat difficult games, Dark Souls is more my speed.

 

Spoiler

 

If the game were any larger than it is right now, then I'd dislike that too. It might seem like a huge "duh" moment, but the world isn't as large as it appears to be once you get a bit of an overview. Finished my current run at 100% completion in a bit more than 20 hours, just barely too long to actually miss the achievement - but without taking care to go through things quickly.

Comes with a caveat, I already spent 200 hours playing the game on my Switch, although finishing the base game only took me 25 or so hours. The rest I spent futilely grinding bosses for the boss rush DLC (called Godhome), never getting anywhere. I played Godhome for 10 hours on my current PC save now, and I'm almost through. Two challenge runs left, and the final pantheon. I wish I knew if that was because the Switch version is limited to 30 frames per second, or I'm too stupid to deal with using the controller, but KB+M feels ten times more responsive, and all the times I get hit on the Switch version where I could swear I was out of range don't hit me on PC. I'd be calling this a bad port... if it weren't for a lot of players who have no problems with their Switch version.

Unlike Celeste, which I died 10000 times in. That definitely has performance problems on the Switch.

I've only played the first Dark Souls, in which I was a little disappointed from not living up to all the hype (for me, at least, in all areas, difficulty, "story" and storytelling). Sekiro on the other hand was pretty great, even though I accidentially played in hard mode, with a damaged controller and on a 5:4 screen that made enemy tells and the warning kanji barely readable because of massive letterboxing.

19 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Glad to hear you beat them, though...whoever they are! I know the combined feeling of both satisfaction as well as annoyance from other games after finally taking care of a ridiculous boss that just wouldn't go down, .

A specially upgraded version of the final secret boss from the base game.

YouTube videos always make things seem easy, but here goes nothing. Final boss spoilers, obviously.

Regular version!

This is the beefier beefed up version. Radiant difficulty means bosses always one-shot you. Yeah, that's a bit... ridiculous.

 

Spoilered the post. Kinda the wrong forum and thread for this.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

9 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

If you've seen both, do you know whether it's better to start with the prequel series or this original Stardust Crusaders arc series?

Prequel, the original OVA drops in with no background and some helps make as much sense as you can out of a show like JoJo.

3 minutes ago, majestic said:

Spoilered the post. Kinda the wrong forum and thread for this.

Tag me in, I've been in a funk about games and really need something to take my mind off life right now.

[majestic]

1 minute ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Tag me in, I've been in a funk about games and really need something to take my mind off life right now.

If you like Metroidvanias, then Hollow Knight is pretty much the best value on the market. It's dirt cheap and has loads of content. It's a bit on the bigger side, if you really search everything and try everything you'll easily be spending the 30 to 40 hours on it that @Bartimaeus mentioned. That's before venturing into the Godhome DLC.

Not going to lie, it also has some exceedingly difficult boss fights, but all of them are optional. It's also pretty and has great music. The... aforementioned NPC sound and voice effects do take some getting used to.

If you're in the mood for long ass game videos, take a peek at this one:

[Bartimaeus]

19 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Prequel, the original OVA drops in with no background and some helps make as much sense as you can out of a show like JoJo.

Tag me in, I've been in a funk about games and really need something to take my mind off life right now.

I would imagine so - thanks!

24 minutes ago, majestic said:

That's... not getting any better, and all the of the bosses you haven't seen do that too. Worse even, for some of them, their sounds are the only proper tells you get for what they're about to do, so you can't even play with sound off.

Luckily the game has a compass you can get after a bit of playing and various quick travel options, so the game world becomes managable.

Thanks, guess I really will never play this game, because the voice direction in that game is absolute cancer and I can't listen to that crap. Plus, garbanzo beans SonicMage had a Hollow Knight avatar for forever, so I already associate terrible, terrible things with Hollow Knight anyways on top of my other problems with the game.

24 minutes ago, majestic said:

If the game were any larger than it is right now, then I'd dislike that too. It might seem like a huge "duh" moment, but the world isn't as large as it appears to be once you get a bit of an overview. Finished my current run at 100% completion in a bit more than 20 hours, just barely too long to actually miss the achievement - but without taking care to go through things quickly.

Comes with a caveat, I already spent 200 hours playing the game on my Switch, although finishing the base game only took me 25 or so hours. The rest I spent futilely grinding bosses for the boss rush DLC (called Godhome), never getting anywhere. I played Godhome for 10 hours on my current PC save now, and I'm almost through. Two challenge runs left, and the final pantheon. I wish I knew if that was because the Switch version is limited to 30 frames per second, or I'm too stupid to deal with using the controller, but KB+M feels ten times more responsive, and all the times I get hit on the Switch version where I could swear I was out of range don't hit me on PC. I'd be calling this a bad port... if it weren't for a lot of players who have no problems with their Switch version.

Unlike Celeste, which I died 10000 times in. That definitely has performance problems on the Switch.

...Celeste had performance issues on the Switch? Celeste? Think I'll keep playing stuff on my PC, thanks. I didn't think Celeste was tooooo bad, but there were some levels I had close to a hundred deaths on which I guess is a lot, but doesn't feel like it due to how fast-paced everything is.

24 minutes ago, majestic said:

I've only played the first Dark Souls, in which I was a little disappointed from not living up to all the hype (for me, at least, in all areas, difficulty, "story" and storytelling). Sekiro on the other hand was pretty great, even though I accidentially played in hard mode, with a damaged controller and on a 5:4 screen that made enemy tells and the warning kanji barely readable because of massive letterboxing.

I liked the setting and more passive storytelling of Dark Souls, but I never got into it like all the other turbonerds did, and I did not care at all about any of that for the second or third game which were significantly less charming (and also I straight up despise the second game for the weird, awful gameplay changes it made anyways). And the first game is really not super difficult - I beat most bosses on my first or second try the first time through, and I hadn't played Demon's Souls to warm me up to the gameplay style or anything either. When I replayed the game with a level 1 character on the highest difficulty (NG7) where even the slightest breeze would instantly kill you, things were a little different, though.

The attack designs of that boss sort of reminds me of some stuff from Undertale. Not sure if you've ever played that, but you definitely should if you haven't. The absolute worst fandom, of course - as always - but at this point I think we've conclusively proven you should generally not judge anything by their terrible fanbases, .

Edited July 6, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

7 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Thanks, guess I really will never play this game, because the voice direction in that game is absolute cancer and I can't listen to that crap. Plus, garbanzo beans SonicMage had a Hollow Knight avatar for forever, so I already associate terrible, terrible things with Hollow Knight anyways on top of my other problems with the game.

He was always going about how great he was at Hollow Knight too. Ugh.

9 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

...Celeste had performance issues on the Switch? Celeste? Think I'll keep playing stuff on my PC, thanks. I didn't think Celeste was tooooo bad, but there were some levels I had close to a hundred deaths on which I guess is a lot, but doesn't feel like it due to how fast-paced everything is.

Yes, really. I also mean the death count. My save has roughly 10000 deaths (main contributer here was one of the C sides at 3000 deaths, huh), although many of them did come from trying to play Celeste with the Joy Cons before switching to the Pro controller. It also repeatedly crashed on me.

It might have gotten a patch or two, but it definitely had a rough start. I tried to google a bit now, but it seems there's no more mention of it. The game apparently also runs at 60 fps on the Switch. That leaves controller problems, dock problems or perhaps my Switch has an issue with overheating, maybe?

It seems more and more likely that it's a hardware issue, because Hollow Knight's port supposedly also performs great, and it doesn't for me. I also don't think I got much better at the game while not playing it at all in the past two years before buying it on GOG. Well, maybe if that new Switch turns out to be a decent upgrade, maybe...

18 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I liked the setting and more passive storytelling of Dark Souls, but I never got into it like all the other turbonerds did, and I did not care at all about any of that for the second or third game which were significantly less charming (and also I straight up despise the second game for the weird, awful gameplay changes it made anyways).

That's kind of the thing, I read around a bit, and the game was supposed to have this amazing story told in an amazing way. What I got was a "You're the CHOSEN ONE, but kek, twist, you undead bro!" story and some obscure lore hidden in item descriptions and architecture. Sure, guys, really, what?

19 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

And the first game is really not super difficult - I beat most bosses on my first or second try the first time through, and I hadn't played Demon's Souls to warm me up to the gameplay style or anything either. When I replayed the game with a level 1 character on the highest difficulty (NG7) where even the slightest breeze would instantly kill you, things were a little different, though.

One thing the game did was once again prove that I always have issues on enemies or bosses that everyone else seems to think are easy.

Guess which boss I spent the MOST tries on. I'll give you a slight spoiler to help, I beat Ornstein & Smough on my first attempt, and Gwyn on my second.

Spoiler

If you guessed Gaping Dragon, then you win. I died more to that boss than to all other bosses combined. Apparently that thing is easy, but uhm, what? Guess I did that wrong. I even summoned the NPC to help and died.

I even made the game harder on myself by starting with one build, then being too stupid to realize how that actually works and switchting to something that turned out not working out properly at all in the middle of the run.

Initially, expecting the game to be super hard, I started with a caster character because they were supposedly the easy mode. I guess they are, if you figure out that buying multiples of the same spell allows you to equip more of them. Which I didn't. Then I went for the faster casting soft cap for Pyromancy, which was supposedly also super powerful, and ended up not having enough casts to do anything with it.

Again, because I never re-bought spells. Why would I. I already have them!

Yeah, not my finest hour. So my 45 DEX really low health character with more INT than he needs and the health of a paper towel began wading into melee with Priscilla's Dagger from the DLC, hoping to fix the issues with the bleeding effect - turns out that works like arse most of the time, or at least when it was supposed to matter.

Finished the game with an Iaito +15. Less bleed amount, but much more oomph. I guess the dagger is maybe better in PVP, but I played offline.

Kalameet was a bit of a pain in the butt. Fun fight though.

No desire to do Level 1 NG7 runs.

32 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

The attack designs of that boss sort of reminds me of some stuff from Undertale. Not sure if you've ever played that, but you definitely should if you haven't. The absolute worst fandom, of course - as always - but at this point I think we've conclusively proven you should generally not judge anything by their terrible fanbases, .

I played an hour or two of Undertale, but I never really go into it. It's one of the games I still want to revisit later.

[Lexx]

I can never read this thread, because you people keep writing novellas in here and who the heck has the time to read all that. And it reminds me of just how awful this forum design is. The old theme was so much easier to read than whatever someone thought this is supposed to be here.

 

That being said, I currently watch Rascal does not dream of bunny girl senapi on Netflix and it's cringe as hell. I can't watch more than one episode per day or else I'm done for. However, the intro song is kinda catchy.
 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 7, 2021 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

10 hours ago, Lexx said:

I can never read this thread, because you people keep writing novellas in here and who the heck has the time to read all that.

It's not illegal to skim or skip, you know! A lot of the time we're just rambling on about sweet irrelevant nothings anyways, .

DARK SOULS TALK:

Spoiler

 

15 hours ago, majestic said:

That's kind of the thing, I read around a bit, and the game was supposed to have this amazing story told in an amazing way. What I got was a "You're the CHOSEN ONE, but kek, twist, you undead bro!" story and some obscure lore hidden in item descriptions and architecture. Sure, guys, really, what?

If you guessed Gaping Dragon, then you win. I died more to that boss than to all other bosses combined. Apparently that thing is easy, but uhm, what? Guess I did that wrong. I even summoned the NPC to help and died.

No, the protagonist's story is basically a complete non-story outside of how it vaguely ties into the setting lore, most of which is immediately thrown out in the second game because the creator of the first game was too busy making Bloodborne to bother help out with the story of the game and so some hack fraud that didn't know what they were doing just made up random crap that doesn't fit in with the first and third games, .

Don't think I've ever died to Gaping Dragon even once, even on my SL1 NG7 character - definitely would not have been my first guess.

15 hours ago, majestic said:

I even made the game harder on myself by starting with one build, then being too stupid to realize how that actually works and switchting to something that turned out not working out properly at all in the middle of the run.

Initially, expecting the game to be super hard, I started with a caster character because they were supposedly the easy mode. I guess they are, if you figure out that buying multiples of the same spell allows you to equip more of them. Which I didn't. Then I went for the faster casting soft cap for Pyromancy, which was supposedly also super powerful, and ended up not having enough casts to do anything with it.

Again, because I never re-bought spells. Why would I. I already have them!

Yeah, not my finest hour. So my 45 DEX really low health character with more INT than he needs and the health of a paper towel began wading into melee with Priscilla's Dagger from the DLC, hoping to fix the issues with the bleeding effect - turns out that works like arse most of the time, or at least when it was supposed to matter.

Ha, that's what you get for trying to play easy mode...poorly, I might add! Casting speed doesn't matter for the most part in PvE since it's relatively trivial to time casts in ways that don't give enemies opportunities to even hit you...outside of a very few particularly fast bosses where it would be particularly helpful (e.g. the DLC bosses, all of which are a bit faster and have more difficult movesets than any of the non-DLC bosses).

 

By the way, majestic, did you ever watch the Tomoyo's Video Diary shorts? There are three of them, about five minutes long each.

Watched the first two episodes of the JoJo's prequel OVA. Feels like a gigantic drop-off from the first series, even though it's helping give me background on what was going on in the original - writing has been a lot more humorless and needlessly over-dramatic thus far (also weird stuff like...Jotaro being at school - apparently he's seventeen years old even though he looks like an insane giant compared to everyone else and his style of clothing looks completely out of place?). Video fidelity is significantly better and yet the animation is sadly worse (and I do mean the animation - lots of cheap-looking effects and scenes), which I guess I should've expected given this being made in 2000 compared to the original's 1993.

And I don't know if this happens in the normal anime as well, but there's this really weird thing the show does where something will happen, and then a character, possibly even characters to really drive it home, will take an excruciating amount of time to just stoically stand around and explain everything that just occurred, that we literally just saw, in elaborate and exact detail. Over-explaining happened in the original OVA as well, but it was faster-paced and less often compared to what I've seen in these two episodes thus far. This seems to be a re-occurring problem in more modern animes that I've experienced at least some of - it's as if shows are assuming that you're like semi-retarded and can't follow what's happening through watching normally. For the love of god, anime...show, don't tell. Important story stuff that the viewer may not be able to figure out from just watching that they should probably know, okay, fair enough; a play-by-play of everything we literally just saw seconds ago, not so much.

I can only assume this is because Satoshi Kon wasn't involved in and didn't co-write the prequel series - undoubtedly, he helped keep the script of the original OVA tighter, .

Edited July 7, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

DS TALK:
 

Spoiler

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

No, the protagonist's story is basically a complete non-story outside of how it vaguely ties into the setting lore, most of which is immediately thrown out in the second game because the creator of the first game was too busy making Bloodborne to bother help out with the story of the game and so some hack fraud that didn't know what they were doing just made up random crap that doesn't fit in with the first and third games, .

Don't think I've ever died to Gaping Dragon even once, even on my SL1 NG7 character - definitely would not have been my first guess.

It's another instance of the fandumb making things worse. Or my fault for buying into the story hype, because going by forum posts and reviews, I thought I'd get something like, uhm, PS:T atop of good gameplay. Yeah, turns out that didn't happen.

Nope, thing wrecked me all right. I only played Dark Souls once, but I  suspect I'd panic and die immediately if I retried.

7 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Ha, that's what you get for trying to play easy mode...poorly, I might add! Casting speed doesn't matter for the most part in PvE since it's relatively trivial to time casts in ways that don't give enemies opportunities to even hit you...outside of a very few particularly fast bosses where it would be particularly helpful (e.g. the DLC bosses, all of which are a bit faster and have more difficult movesets than any of the non-DLC bosses).

I had less trouble against any of the DLC bosses than against some of the earlier ones, but that's probably on account of learning the gameplay better in the meantime. Not knowing what I was doing was most likely a part of the problems I had against Gaping Dragon and also Moonlight Butterfly. I often read Kalameet is the most difficult boss in the game, but if I had to nominate one that isn't a meme unless I'm playing against them, then it was probably Artorias.

There was something about his moveset and the fact that my health was still in almost one-shot territory at the time that made him annoying to deal with.

I think I missed one of the optional ones, I never went to the Ash Lake.

 

 

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

By the way, majestic, did you ever watch the Tomoyo's Video Diary shorts? There are three of them, about five minutes long each.

No, only the 10 minute Kero special, but that comes with the second movie and should only be watched after the anime. I guess I'll try to get them at some point.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

And I don't know if this happens in the normal anime as well, [...]

Yes. Character regularily stop dead in their tracks to either announce what they're going to do or talk about what they just did, in fights, and the accompanying Japanese is hilariously dramatic and over the top in this uniquely JoJoish way. It's a huge part of the charm of the anime, it's also usually when the anime looks like barely animated manga panels on purpose. Never having read any of the mangas, I assume that's how they were written (why else would the OVA be like that too).

I kow I massively complained about the same thing happening in Crystal, but here it's funny and charming. Well, Crystal also had the bad sense to fully animate everything and still have the character narrate stuff because everyone involved were hack frauds. Except the voice actors, not their fault.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I can only assume this is because Satoshi Kon wasn't involved in and didn't co-write the prequel series - undoubtedly, he helped keep the script of the original OVA tighter, .

Probably.