We're more or less half way done with the Spring season now, so I thought I'd do another check in to write about how things are going with the half dozen show's I'm watching. So far, I'd say this was a really solid season - I definitely has some worries going into it, as nothing stood out much, but boy was I wrong. Pretty great all around with nothing being really bad. Well, maybe except for Big Order, and the animation of Phoenix Wright, but you've always got to have the bad to have the good, right?

Also, I stopped watching Space Idols Macross Delta. Hayate was a god damn pain in the ass, and it wasn't a whole lot of fun to watch, so I dropped it. I stand by my sentiments about Hayate being a shit.



Ah, the show that defied all expectations. What looked like a fluffy moe-comedy revealed itself to be a tense, naval combat mystery series. Well, the first half did anyways. It struck a pretty good balance between it's lighthearted fun on the ship and the tense naval combat the girls got into throughout the series' first act. After a few episodes that tipped that balance, it looks like we're back into the thick of it, charting the course towards a resolution or climax of the series. The beginning of the second act was a little choppy to say the least. It's multiple story threads, from the dealings with the school principal, the investigators and the crew of the Harekaze saw episodes jumping back and forth between events that were running at the same time, making for a bit of a jarring, disjointed viewing experience.  Regardless, it looks like it's getting back into the swing of things next week as what's probably the Musashi approaches the Harekaze from out of the fog.

The animation is pretty solid, and the combat animations for the naval battles is pretty good looking. If I had to guess where the end game was, it's probably going to end up as a battle between the Blue Mermaids and the traditional military, as tensions rise between the two organizations.

It's not all smooth sailing for the Harekaze though. With a crew that's literally a class, most of the 20ish characters aren't really explored, mainly there whenever there's a crew gathering or hijinks are happening. It's almost been exclusively the bridge crew that's been explored, with a bit more of the engineering staff. While I realize it's not exactly possible to explore the entirety of the cast, it would have been nice to get some sort of introduction to the cast and their stations.

Also, Captain Akeno can be pretty annoying. I understand that she wants to be able to personally help all of her crew, as she views the boat less as a hierarchy and (definitely) more just as one big family, but she really needs to start learning that she can't keep throwing herself at problems. After a bit of a fall out between her and Mashiro does little to change her ways, though the latest episode does let her grow and tell her side of the story. Akeno's just the kind of character I don't like, so I think I'll always be annoyed with her.

This charming little series is a dangerous one. It's just too good at what it does. Oozing with charm and a very laid-back, relaxing atmosphere, this one can put you right to sleep if you watch it at the wrong time. That's not a bad thing either! It's such a bright and happy series that it's hard not to feel good watching it. It's probably one of the best "healing" anime types I've seen in a good while. It hits that good mix of being slow enough while still being funny and serving up enough "action" to keep it from feeling empty.

The comedy is usually light. Nothing gut busting or absurd, but rather just light chuckles or even just a smile on your face. One of the most endearing features of this series are it's characters. Specifically in how they're depicted. They're really normal. And that's good because they kind of act they way you'd expect them to act. Chinatsu's probably the best example of this, because she's just brimming with energy and curiosity as she explores the new world of witches.

To top it all, the series maintains a real sharp look that rarely ever drops, not that there's a ton of animation needed for this series. Water looks really good in this series, and establishing shots just help get the message across that they're totally out in the country side. Chito's animation is pretty good, capturing the weird little movements cats and pets do.

It's not something for everybody though. As much as I like it, I can definitely see this being too slow for people, especially if they find themselves nodding off to it. Try not to watch it after lunch and you'll probably be fine!



This one probably takes "best comedy", as it's pretty hard to top the absurdity of this one. The gags are generally always funny, and always manage to do something relatively new, despite relying on the same "Sakamoto is perfect at everything" hook. The gags quickly evolve from "Sakamoto is perfect" to "what weird way is Sakamoto going to win?", and believe me, Sakamoto doesn't do anything normally. It's what makes this such a fun show to watch. Everyone is in for a penny, and no one questions anything about Sakamoto's seemingly superhuman abilities.

The series does a really good job of linking all of the segments together to make it feel much more like a single cohernet world. Character from past skits are always around doing their thing, which helps the series from falling into a character of the week vibe.

I mentioned this in my first impressions, but the character designs are really striking. They have a slight touch of realism to the faces that makes a whole lot of difference. This is particularly noticeable when it's done on characters with that tend towards the...less attractive, shall we say?

This would be a tough series to marathon. I feel like the gags do well because they're just that absurd, but after too many jokes they'll wear thing really quick. Plus, there's really only so much crazy you can do before it stops being funny.


Did you enjoy Attack on Titan? Yeah? Well, this one is probably right up your alley too. I feel like it does everything better than Titan did, from just looking better, to sounding better. It gets into the campy "epic music", but has enough of a mix of music to avoid the problem that Titan had with it's overscored music.

Action sequences are cool and flashy, exactly as you'd expect them to be, given this series is basically a bag of director Araki's favourite things. The kabane seem really flimsy, as the fighters seem to be mowing them down a la Dynasty Warriors, and a lot of the kabane seem to just get splattered on the train in various manners. The crew of the Kotetsujou also seem oddly un-bothered to do serious damage to the carriages themselves, with one samurai blowing a gaping hole into the side of one. Also, I don't think you can store blood in a wooden bottle and expect that it stays good?

Episode feel really short because of how fast paced the action is - highly propulsive and always going forward. I'm just glad they're not doing that thing where every episode is a cliff hanger, like Titan was. It feels a lot healthier to watch when every episode doesn't feel like 10 minutes and then "TUNE IN NEXT WEEK!".

If you didn't like Titan, you might want to give this one a shot anyways. It's just different enough to have a really different overall feel, though a lot of the same issues occasionally rear their heads when the series drowns itself in campy drama.

I'll be honest, while it hasn't been bad, the episodes so far have been a little slow in development. The last 7 episodes so far have been setting the characters up, and it's only gotten into developing the relationship between Benio and Rokuro in the latest episode. It hasn't been too empty of action sequences, but the gap in power between "regular" exorcists and the elites like Rokuro, Benio is only getting wider as the regular exorcists, like Rokuro's dorm mates, seemingly become more and more useless.

My opinion hasn't changed from back when I wrote up my First Impressions of the series. It remains a good looking, mostly enjoyable series. Looks like it's starting to rev it's engine and get into the actual story soon, so hopefully I'll have something new to say about it soon.

July 15th. That's when Generations drops. It's a little later than I expected, as I predicted a late June release, though to be honest, the July release wasn't too far off. With Anime Revolution in the first week of August, I think I'll be able to get decent enough to show some moves in multiplayer when the con rolls around. I suspect that Gunner weapons will be a bit of an uncommon sight that early into the game's release, as most people tend to go for the more numerous Blademaster weapons.

Historically, I've played Monster Hunter from new game starting with a weapon want to learn, but end up moving to a weapon I know to make the early game grind easier. For this game, I'm planning to do something I've never done before: start with a Gunner weapon. See, for many Blademasters, we'd play through the game, and it's common to (and recommended to) pick up different weapons to keep things fresh and for tactical advantages. Most of the time, however, we'll pick up a Gunner weapon late in the game, get okay with using it, and really only use it against monsters we know are hard to deal with up close, like Najarala or Chameleos. It's a pocket weapon, one you pull out for specific situaitons.

This time, I'm starting with the Gunner weapon. I can do fine with my Blademaster weapon(s) of choice. I've put so much time into learning the ins and outs of the Charge Blade and Lance that I doubt I'll have much trouble getting back into them. Whatever weapon to choose to stick with from the start is the one you'll (hopefully) learn the best, so I'm hoping to be able to blast my way through the Village quests and be the uncommon gunner in Multiplayer, which I'm hoping to embrace more from the get-go this time around.

I'll run down my thoughts on the weapons and other things about the game closer to the release.

PS It's been a while since I last updated around here. Between preparing for an audition for school, and my laptop breaking down, I haven't had a lot of time. Writing on my iPad is fine, but getting images up is a real pain on that thing, so I just held out until my laptop came back from repairs.


On a side note, I looked up the release date of Monster Hunter Freedom 2, the first Monster Hunter game I played, and was surprised to find that I've been playing Monster Hunter, as a franchise, for almost a decade now. Freedom 2 dropped in February 2007 way back on the PSP, making 2016 the 9th year since then. Since then, I've gone through Freedom Unite (PSP), a little bit of Portable 3rd (PSP), a tiny bit of a Tri (Wii), some 3U (3DS), and a very sizable 600 hours in 4U (3DS). By now, I think my hour count in the franchise is at least 2000 hours across Freedom and Freedom Unite, which both clocked roughly 6-800 hours each, and 4U by themselves.

Just for interest's sake, let's look at the weapons I've used in these games, ordered from most used to occasionally used.

Freedom 2: Longsword, Hammer
Freedom Unite: Longsword, Hammer, Great Sword, Bow
Portable 3rd: Longsword, Sword and Shield, Hammer
Tri: N/A
3 Ultimate: Switch Axe, Great Sword, Sword and Shield
4 Ultimate: Charge Blade, Lance, Sword and Shield, Great Sword, Gunlance, Heavy Bowgun

For the first couple games, Longsword was real strong, and also pretty simple to use, in comparison to the weapon in 4 Ultimate. Hammer was also brutally strong, and remains largely the same to this day.

For 3U, Switch Axe was the "new" weapon, and I actually started with Gunlance, but was dissatisfied with it's lack of movement options (and I still am), before "switching" to the Switch Axe, which I used almost exclusively for that game. The axe was also pretty decent underwater, but did anyone actually like the underwater combat? *crickets* I thought so.

4U saw the dawn of the Charge Blade, which was and still is, probably one of the most powerful weapons once you get the hang of it. Swung around with different weapons in the game, but always ended up coming back home to the Charge Blade. Once you get a taste of the power and versatility this thing has, it's hard to go back to anything else. I'm sticking with this one as my Blademaster main in Generations because it's just as fun as it is absolutely frustrating trying to hit the Guard Points on time. It also saw the resurgence of Guard Lancing, giving more tools to make that more viable play style and I loved it. It satisfied my mobility need, my defensive needs and my offensive needs. It scratches a lot of the same itches as the Charge Blade did, but was easier to use. I'd say that the Charge Blade and Lance are probably my "mains", Blademaster wise, of Generations.

Dark Souls has always fascinated me with it's designs. Everything generally looks and feels coherent and well thought out. Things are grotesque, and yet have an air of majesty to them. The art book goes into more detail about the designs of enemies, armour and locations in the game.

Anywho, what better way to celebrate the beautiful designs of Dark Souls, than to faithfully recreate the intricately etched Greatsword of Artorias, one of the major figures in the lore of Dark Souls.

It's not the first "big blade" they've forged, but it might just be the most detailed with numerous embossed and engraved designs across the blade. The gorgeous contrast between the silver edges, and the dark blade makes the designs pop out more prominently. Massive props to Man At Arms Reforged (Baltimore Knife and Sword) for the amazing work on this beast of a blade.

If you want to dive more into the lore of Dark Souls, I recommend looking up Vaati and EpicNameBro (ENB) up on Youtube for their respective takes on the lore. If you're feeling particular free of things to do, MoonlightButterfly has cut together a masive feature length "movie", following the various characters of the game. It's an impressive feat that helps tie all of the game's stories together into a single (albeit very lengthy) package.

I recently wrote up a short list of series airing in the Spring, but there are a few other titles airing this year that I'm really looking forward to. A few of them are guaranteed watches, unless they end up on platforms I can't watch them on, though I'm certain that at least 1 of them is going to make it onto Crunchyroll.

Source

With March approaching it's final days, the Spring season is upon us! This year's bounty is quite varied, ranging from Asterisk Wars to Ushio to Tora 2 (there weren't any series past "U").

Anyways, I've made of a list, separated into "Will Watch / Looking forwards to", and "Check this out maybe". My choices aren't exactly inspired, but they definitely line up with my traditional picks. Who knows? It's always fun when something not on your list ends up surprising.

I'm a little worried, as my "will watch list" is probably not going to end up on Crunchyroll, the service I have a subscription to. My best bet is to hope for stuff to end up on Daisuki.

Edit: I actually planned to talk about Macross Delta, but I highly doubt that there's going to be any legal way of watching it. Harmony Gold has a strangle hold on the "Macross / Robotech" series outside of Japan, making it very difficult for any company to do anything with the series. So thanks for that, Harmony Gold. You haven't done anything with the series in a decade. Let it go already!


Planning to Watch:

• flying witch
• Kumamiko - Girl Meets Bear
• Kiznaiver

Planning to Check Out

• BAKUON!!
• Koutetsujou no Kabaneri (if possible)
• Joker Game
• Sakamoto desu ga. (Haven't you heard? I'm (i Sakamoto)
• Twin Star Exorcists

Welcome back to Salty Huntin', a series where I rant about dumb stuff that's in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. It's a great game, but riles me up so much when the game doesn't do things I want it to, or when monsters have advantages against a majority of the weapon types.

I've raged more fighting this damn Snake than I have almost any other monster.

Q: Are you a Blademaster?
A: Yes
Result: Unless you're using a GL or CB, you'll probably have really shitty time. If you're using either of those two, you'll have a slightly less shitty time.

Source

Source: MH Wiki

Lastly, Najarala is vulnerable to Blast. Very vulnerable. Grab your best Blast weapon and light this sucker up like New Years. Keep the pressure up and watch it's relatively low HP get eaten up by the explosions.

While it's definitely has weaknesses, Najarala effectively makes fighting it with Blademaster weapons an annoying and difficult battle. It almost becomes a battle against the systems of the game itself, rather than the monster. Do yourself a favour and grab a good Bowgun if you need to take a bunch of these down.

Unlike most monsters, Tidal Najarala, the subspecies, actually is completely different. Without going into details, it's actually a little bit more manageable as a Blademaster. Still annoying, but nowhere near as bad as regular Najarala is. It's gimmick is basically pinball.