Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

Month: December 2018

My Top 8 Anime I Watched In 2018

Most people know I’m an otaku, and this year I actually had some time for anime. While this list will largely be 2018 releases, there will be a few anime that I only watched for the first time in 2018. Also, this is in no particular order.

Like a true anime snob, I watched most of them in sub form, but this time mostly because I was watching late at night after most/all of the family was asleep(and while I tried to get the final one down for the night) so I had the volume barely audible, and needed them. 

The Ancient Magus’ Bride

I’ll call this a 2018 one since it didn’t finish until early 2018 ;p

Y’all probably already know I love anthropomorphic skeletons (and this fact will come up again later in this post ;p ) and I was really intrigued by Elias’ design.

I was really into the way the story took actual myths and worked with them, embracing that many fairy stories are actually dark, eg/ I *knew* those little fairies were trying to trick her. I also enjoyed seeing Titania and Oberon and their interactions and Leanan Sidhe. The way the magic was worked into the real world was quite cool too.

I love unusual male leads for the romantic roles (hence casting a skeleton and a troll  as romantic leads in my own stories) so Elias is my kind of leading man, not to mention broody backstories are such a hit <3

Their romance is so cute and adorkable, but also they themselves as individual characters are so rich, as are the others around them.

If you don’t mind a bit of dark in your romance (a bit? scratch that, fairly sizeable is more accurate) and unconventional male leads then you’ll love this one.

Cells at work

I was LIVING for the vibe between White Blood Cell and Red Blood Cell.

I’ve never found something so educational to also move me. Seriously the number of times I was edge-of-my-seat during this show was surprisingly high, even moreso considering the content. I mean they’re cells – why was I so emotionally involved? Seriously, 2 million blood cells died inside me in the time it takes to put the period on the end of this sentence.

One problem though was I was constantly wanting there to be an opportunity for Red Blood Cell to save White, but thanks to my (limited) knowledge of biology I knew it was never going to happen and it was frustrating to know that but still have the want deep inside.

A slight heads up for those who aren’t a fan of gore, White Blood Cell spends half his screen time covered in blood, typically from slashing his way through various bacteria and germs.

Wotakoi

For serious, this was soooo good. It was my Friday morning treat for when I finished my word count and trust me, the words never flowed faster any other day of the week for those couple of months ;p

A gamer for the male lead and a fujoshi for the female – I was instantly connected to both of them. Every episode had both at least one ‘problem’ for the characters where they dealt with something nerd related that I almost always sympathised with fully, and one romantic moment which left me swooning. Such a good combo. I could watch this show forever, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’ll never get a second season, so I’ll just content myself with the manga.

Also, I definitely fell in love with Hirotaka <3 and that’s when it dawned on me: I have a type. My favourite characters in anime I watch consistently have:

  • glasses
  • dark hair (this is occasionally a missable option eg/ Shiho Kimizuki from ‘Seraph of the End’ and Yuta Sakurai from ‘Recovery of an MMO Junkie’)
  • adorakble

Extra points awarded for broody backstories and hyper-competence at something(especially if that leads to cluelessness in other things enhancing the requirement of adorkable).

Masculinity is not a requirement though, as I also love Mirai Kuriyama from Beyond The Boundary  (glasses + adorkable + broody back story).

See here for a small strip of some of my favourite characters.

 

*character walks on screen wearing glasses/puts on glasses*

me:

Violet Evergarden

Wow, the emotional depth in this one is amazing. The way it handles the effects of war on people, both soldiers and civilians and takes the care to show how not everyone responds and reacts the same too. I can’t even tell you how regularly I cried watching this.

I was fascinated by Violet herself, and wish we got to learn more about what happened to her before the Major came into her life (though maybe that’s covered in the light novels?). And what sort of stone heart wouldn’t be moved my her memories of him? *cue tears again*

Her mechanical arms were also really intriguing to me. I wanted to know so much more about the maker, the designer, whether this sort of prosthetic was common, or insanely expensive or unique to her alone. Some of the questions got a bit of an answer but largely even those answers felt a bit glossed over. Thinking about it all got me excited and gave me a story idea, though, so I’m not complaining.

I also enjoyed the special that came out after the series.

Magical Girl Ore

I do love me some magical girl anime, especially how more recent series are all trying to go in new and exciting directions. But lately the trend has been to darker paths, eg/ Puella Magi Madoka Magica, The Magical Girl Raising Project, and Magical Girl Site, which is all well and good, but I’m delighted to see some out of the box but still light-hearted fun.

It does lean a bit more toward the ridiculous though, with a yakuza for the ‘cute mascot’/guide, enemies with hella buff bodies but cute teddy bear-esque heads and the main two girls’ ‘singing careers’. There’s the trope of course of the lead girl being head over heels for a boy, but that boy, Mohiro, is hilarious oblivious and blase. Also, the magnificent tangled romance of it all, it’s like a romance dodecahedron rather than just a triangle XD

My Hero Academia

Ok sure this has been out a while, but I only just started. Considering my love for super heroes I should have been in on it earlier, I’ll blame the delay on my irritation with never ending series.

I binged the whole three seasons in four or five days. The kids were into it too and it was school holidays – that’s my excuse ;p

Something I really love though is how so many of the quirks are highly unusual and how quite a few have downsides and repercussions – something I love putting on my own super powered characters (read Short Circuit if you’re not sure what I’m talking about). It really makes me want to get back to writing in that world.

You can probably predict based on what I said about Wotakoi who my favourite character is (no prizes, cos it’s too obvious).

My one issue with the series though is even at the end of the third season they were still regularly putting the character names and their quirk up on screen for characters who had been primary characters from the start. I’m serious, yes, I freaking know who Todoroki and Ochaco are and what their freaking quirks are because I’ve been watching them for the last 60 something episodes.

Skull-face Book seller Honda-san

Obviously with my passion for anthropomorphised skeletons as characters I was 100% in for this show from the start, but add on how true to life the retail worker experience is between not just types of stores(Honda-san’s books store as compared to my video game store) but even in different COUNTRIES and I was impressed.

Honda-san sells comics, so there are lots of references and hilarious otaku characters, including fujoshi, in the show. All his fellow employees wear various monster ‘masks’ and are named for their masks, but as the character base expands they start to be almost anything sometimes, even a publisher asking ‘can i have a koala head’.

It’s also really fun to look at how book-selling works in Japan. I love learning about differences in industries like that, and would love to know as much about the Australian bookseller retail market as I’ve learned from Honda-san.

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

I’m also enjoying a lot of the LitRPG style anime, like ‘That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime’. This goes back far though, to Konosuba, Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, and Log Horizon (no prizes for guessing who my fave is in that either).

The opening episode is awesome both in watching him sacrifice himself, but also how every thought he makes as he passes factors into his ‘reincarnation’.

It’s so fun to watch him rolling around as a slime and solving problems. Since it’s still coming out while I’m writing this, obviously there’s much more fun to come, and I’m definitely looking forward to it.

 

You’ve probably noticed I’m a bit all over the shop genre-wise, but to be honest that’s part of what I love about anime, so so so many sub genres for me to sink my teeth into and try out 😀

Were there any stand out series for you this year? Anything you’re hanging out to watch next year?

My Favourite Games In 2018

Games were the great escape for me this year. You get a lot of satisfaction out of gaming, and an unfinished game (at least for me) causes no pain, unlike unfinished books and (far, far worse) unfinished manuscripts. When I struggled with some personal life issues I did a lot more gaming this year. Not the best coping strategy, but fun at least.

So, my reviews:

Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom

Should be no surprise. I already wrote my review earlier in the year, here, and though that was written while I was still early on in the game, it all still holds true after having completed it: a cute , fun game, good story, but not totally gripping.

Octopath Traveler

I said last year this was one of the ones I was looking forward to and I was not disappointed. The many intertwined storylines is great fun, but can be a tiny bit frustrating when you only have so many people in your party at once but want to follow all the storylines, but don’t want to have to level all eight characters all at once. Also, the game didn’t make it easy for me to learn how to switch party members (I had to Google it ;p ) and your main character is locked in that spot until you finish their whole storyline. Lucky I took my time and chose who I thought would be my favourite character (and he totally is plus suits my gameplay style perfectly).

The art style harkens back to older days in the character and monster sprites, but the backgrounds are so lush, it’s an interesting contrast. I’m always a fan of traditional turn based combat(as you can probably tell by the fact the vast majority of games I play are) and I liked the boost mode and how you could carefully play the long game with some bosses by saving it up and them smashing them utterly. Also, secondary jobs always make me smile.

I’m not fully finished yet, but the story lines are all wonderful, and well intertwined, as to be expected of SqaureEnix when they’re at the top of their game (pun intended ;p ).

The World Ends With You

Oh the nostalgia. I played this back when it first came out on DS and it was awesome then and is still awesome. The graphics, THE SOUNDTRACK (damn if I’m not still singing some of the songs even now months later)(not to mention I bought some of the soundtracks back when I was in Japan ;p that’s my collection right there), and the story. Oh man, such a good story. Now as an older person I can read the other characters a bit better, and characters I though were shallow are much deeper now. Still not into the tin pin slammer mini game though. Bleh.

The controls were extremely awkward when the Switch was in TV mode, and were still a bit tough even in tablet mode since instead of using the touch screen for Neku and the buttons for his partner it’s all controlled on the touch screen(the downside of it being a port from the mobile game version, not the original DS). This meant that sometimes I couldn’t activate my psych or get my partner to drop in as I’d planned, but I was still usually able to come out of battles with As or at least Bs so not too bad. Also the rest of it is so good a few awkward moments with the controls is far from a game killer.

Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee

I thought this would be one of my top picks, but the continuation of using the mobile game Pokemon Go’s catching method is far too random and annoying for me. I mean my team are all significantly higher levels than the pokemon to be caught, I’m using a freaking ultra ball and razzberry, I got an ‘excellent’ throw when the circle was super teeny tiny, and still no capture? FU game mechanics, FU. I significantly prefer taking my time to whittle down health with a battle , throw an ailment like sleep or paralyze on it then catch it with a basic level pokeball. However, catching now nets noticeably more exp than fighting other trainers, especially if you’re clever and stack bonuses. The story is nothing new either, basically just a Yellow port.

I do enjoy the graphics style though, and I love that I can actually see the pokemon so I can run to or away from them. Ultimately though, I’m watching for the 2019 core game. Just please let it use normal capture methods. I don’t want to feel like I’m going to throw my precious Switch across the room in a rage quit.

Atelier Lydie and Suelle

While Lydie and Sue are both suitably cute, alchemy is still fun, and the new method of jumping into dungeons is clever and cool there’s one big issue with this installment in one of my all-time favourite series: They took away the time limit completely (or at least some 35+ hours in and still not even a whiff of a real time limit).

Removing the time limit, means there’s no sense of urgency for me, so I’m left with no feeling like I have to rush to finish the game IRL. This has led to the fact I still haven’t finished it. It released in April here, and I got it immediately. Since getting it I’ve completed, Etrian Odyssey V, Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 Portable, The World Ends With You, a full replay of Fantasy Life and its DLC(God leveled most jobs), and played some of Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee, Persona Q, most of Octopath Travelers(not to mention all the little time wasters and Otome games on my phone). So clearly, I need my time limits back ;p

The Persona series (in general)

OK, none of the Persona games are 2018 releases (except the dancing games ;p ) but I went a little Persona mad this year so thought it shoud be included. I played Persona 4 Golden, Persona 3 Portable, and some Persona Q and Persona 5. It all started when I thought I needed to get around to playing P4g before my Vita died from neglect on the shelf. Of course the high I felt after completing it lead me to get P3p so I could finally play the female MC route (date all the boys!!), and then the high from completing THAT lead me to start Persona Q. The fact this was all during the time when I was struggling with a lot of other stuff and feeling like I was ‘getting nowhere’ I got a lot of satisfaction out of these games.

Etrian Odyssey V

Like with Final Fantasy XV last year, Etrian Odyssey V officially came out in November last year, but of course I didn’t get around to it until this year. I really loved the ability to not just change skin, hair and eye colour, but to even have two different eye colours. Guess how many of my team had heterochromia ;p

Etrian Odyssey games are always tough. You never know when your whole party will get hit with a bind or ailment you can’t shake and suddenly you can’t attack that round and your healer is bound and bam, next thing you know, you’re dead. But that toughness is part of the fun. However, I rarely complete Etrian Odyssey games for this precise reason. This rarely hurts, because the storyline is not a major selling point for most of these games, so I never felt bad. But I finished this one! OMG. And when I got to the end I got the storyline that was so weak earlier in the game. Still not the strongest story line, but cool none-the-less. Plus, the sheer satisfaction of beating the final boss of a game where you can easily die repeatedly in the first dungeon; soooooooo satisfying.

 

All up I think I earned my title of ‘Gamer mum’ quite thoroughly this year ;p (I’m a little too old to be a ‘gamer girl’ IMO

Titles I’m looking forward to in 2019:

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince: oooooh, pretty, and I just love the fairy tale concept. I am keen to see how the story pans out(no spoilers please if you’ve already played it in Japanese).

Atelier Lulua: well duh.

Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists: a city builder in the Atelier world? Shut up and take my money.

Etrian Odyssey Nexus: another, well duh

The Princess Guide: looks like it could be good fun, but has a chance of going south if the writers do things too obviously. We’ll see, I’m willing to try for the potential alone.

Ragnarok Eternal Love: Ragnarok Online was my first MMO, sooooo many memories, I can’t wait to see what the mobile game is going to serve me.

Was there anything you particularly loved in 2018, or and 2019 releases you’re dying to play?

 

My Retirement

No, not from writing (it’s been a tough last four months but far from how bad it would need to be to make me do that!). I’m retiring from being president of my writers group.

I’ve been the president of Vision Writers for the last four years. It’s been a wonderful time, and the group has had several changes I’ve had the privilige (and sometimes the challenge ;p ) to undertake.

We’ve had so many new members join over my time, and a surprisingly large amount of them to stay on. An anthology was collected too (the ebook Darkest Depths can be bought from most ebook retailers, the print is a limited edition run however.)

It’s been a good time, but a combination of my own time becoming more scarce (and therefore me worrying I can’t devote the time the group deserves) and a desire for others to step up has made me decide now is the time to step down.

I’m remaining a member of the group – you’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming from them ;p  – just now, only a member.

At the Christmas party on Sunday, the last group event in which I was still president, I was given a beautiful hard cover version of The Blade Itself. Best of all it’s filled with many of the members well-wishes. I usually mock when people say they feel ‘blessed’ (thanks to the ridiculously overused hashtag), but this is one case where I do feel it.

I’m sad to leave the position, but I’m also excited to keep going and see how, in 2019, it will be different.

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