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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 11th, 2023

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  • Is there a name for the phenomenon when a company or group has access to all of the metrics for a product or good then makes foolish decisions using that information?

    Right now Arrowhead can deflect all criticism of their actions by saying “we made this decision based on the numbers” while ignoring the fact that metrics aren’t magic numbers blindly meant to be followed, you are supposed to use them to discover underlying reasons for why those numbers exist in the first place.

    This patch is a big L for me and a bad omen for what is to come of this game if the devs are making their decisions like this.




  • I have only seen the first season. I went in knowing as much about the series as you, being aware that it is a popular franchise but knowing nothing else.

    I had my expectations pretty low when I started the first episode. The turning point for me was at the end of the episode when one of the main characters says “Baka, baka” after something completely stupid and ridiculous happens, that’s when my brain went “Oh it is OK to laugh at this, they are just being silly in this show.”

    Then the rest of the season was a goofy ride full of anime harem shenanigans. On a technical level, DAL isn’t really special, though the characters, character designs, absurdity of the setting and the OVA punch above their weight.



  • I liked when Summer said “Space Momma” because that was cute.

    The animation actually looks good but I dislike the character designs and art style. I know they picked an action sequence to show off, but the real meat of R&M has always been the comedy - I wonder how that will translate with a Japanese production team at the helm.

    Weird to think that R&M has been around for 10 years already. Maybe even as recently as 3 years ago I was still really hyped about this show and I would have been more excited, but now I am just sorta like “meh.”





  • I’ve been holding out on JJK season 2 all this time. I finally watched 22 episodes over the last few days and am going to watch episode 23 after I have dinner tonight.

    I’ve enjoyed it a lot despite knowing about the production issues behind the scenes. I guess I am just greedy, but while watching I have just been thinking, “OK, can’t wait til season 3 comes out.”

    Kind of a “whoa dude” moment to realize we have gotten 45 episodes and a movie of top tier animation in just about 3 years. Remember how we all had to wait 3.5 years in between Attack On Titan seasons 1 and 2, and it was just for 12 episodes?



  • Are you familiar with Monster? Both this and Pluto are anime adaptations based on the same author’s work.

    Pluto felt like a distilled version of Monster in the way that it built its mystery up over only 8 episodes rather than 74. The beginning part of Pluto did a good job of evoking that same feeling of tension and fascination that made Monster so enjoyable to me.

    There were times during Pluto where the dialogue felt obnoxiously obvious, clearly providing exposition that the audience didn’t really need. These moments pulled me out of the show a bit. Off the top of my head as one example: in one scene there is an explosion, there is a 0.5-1s pause, then one of the characters says, “It’s an explosion!” Thanks, script writer, much halp, very explain.

    Though even despite those moments, and also even despite its kind of unbelievable concept of robots exploring emotions, Pluto did a good job of pulling me in and I was able to suspend my disbelief for most of the series.

    I liked it more than I disliked it. Would recommend it to any fans of this author or people who are interested in sci-fi murder mysteries.



  • Thanks for the news roundup. I know it probably takes more time than you want and gets fewer votes than it would on Reddit or something, but it is good to see here.

    More recently, Nishii Terumi (former animation director for JJK 0 and Jojo), posted to twitter (stop trying to make X happen) about problems training talent (English article) due to studios focusing on profits rather than talent development.

    Sakuga Blog has been pushing the “anime is dying because the talent is being stretched too thin and/or not being cultivated properly” angle for a long time. At first I thought it was overly alarmist, though maybe we are actually seeing it in real time and we just don’t realize it. After all, it’s not like there will be one day where suddenly every studio in Japan stops producing anime, it will of course be a gradual change.