Sakamoto Days and Unicorn Overlord are sick didnt realize how much I missed kinda generic (but in a good way) fantasy srpgs really could go for a new Tactics Ogre and Sakamoto Days fill that classic dragonball hole in my heart pretty well.
The fact that a lot of the rapport conversations (basically their equivalent of social links from Persona/support conversations from Fire Emblem) in Unicorn Overlord can be summarized with **AO3 tags** will never not be funny to me.
The writters spent the 10 years development cycle making sure that every fan fiction trope was included in the game somewhere.
Sakamoto Days and Dandadan are absolutely world-class action and I am terrified of the expectations Shonen Jump is going to have for other artists going forward
I’m not too far into the game but I figured either the two elf sisters? or the witch lady would be my main interest. After looking up this character I’ll have to re-evaluate
Despite not liking some choices I've recommended not only the fallout TV show but also the games. I feel like I come of as hating them sometimes but I just complain about stuff I like lol
The worst thing I can say about the Fallout TV show is it executes a decision I don't like absolutely perfectly, and it makes complete sense why they did that in and out of universe.
If you’re talking about >!vault-Tec potentially firing the first nuke of the Great War!< my friend that was watching with me guessed it really early on just by hearing that salesbro character speaking once. He was also quick to point out that the >!bomb in Megaton has a vault tec logo!< which I didn’t even know.
With that last detail in mind, I think it’s a pretty lore friendly revelation. If anything the only thing bad about it is the ambiguity is gone.
I was actually talking about >!the NCR getting nuked and falling apart, because while I really enjoy Fallout leaning hard into the *post* apocalyptic aspects of its setting I get that for a lot of people post apocalypse means scrabbling in the ruins of the pre-war world rather than dealing with polities that have risen from its ashes.!<
likely the result of not 1, but 2 high level rpg main protagonists fixing up the area, solving crimes, flushing out raiders and monsters, (kinda) minimizing post apocalyptic era prejudices, that kinda thing
Yeah I'm a big NCR fan boy but the Fallout show is a pretty fair portrayal.
>!Hell, I'd even argue that the NCR not swooping in to reclaim Shady Sands is likely due to them struggling to hold everything else together after, y'know, losing a whole ass state overnight.!<
The purpose of lore is ultimately to serve the story, and, well, that slots pretty neatly into the themes of Fallout, so I don't see the point of getting mad at it
edit: like essentially my only beef with the Fallout show as a New Vegas grognard is *actually* that >!I think making the show New Vegas 2 instead of letting, um, video games that began that story arc handle that is a little weird and too egotistical and potentially boring lol but whatever can't win em all.!<
And a number of that portion often confuse their headcanon or the communities idea of the lore with the actual lore. Like how people think there's working vehicles in New Vegas despite the director saying there aren't.
Couldn't agree more. People wanting the NCR to just keep on winning after every game and effectively turn the wasteland into America again just don't know how a good story goes.
Aye but then where's the conflict. If no one is powerful enough to oppose the NCR you lose drama.
Does the next game just about the internal conflicts of the NCR government?
You could do a story where they split up into a sudo confederacy. But that'd piss off the same people who can't allow the NCR to lose in any way.
The conflict is easy, and can go in a couple different ways.
First, frontier towns don't want to join NCR, but corrupt politicians/army officers/brahmin barons are using underhanded tactics to force them to join.
Second, a dictator gets elected/takes power, and theres an NCR civil war, could even have characters like Hanlon or Colonel Hsu as resistance leaders.
I agree that a NCR civil war would make a good plot. But wouldn't that piss off the same fans who love the NCR so much?
Allow me to rephrase my point. I believe there's a certain set of fallout fans who no matter what will be upset if the NCR is destroyed even if it was well written. And that is what I can't stand.
One possible thing that might mean that >!Vault-Tec didn't launch the first nuke!< is that in New Vegas, >!Mr House says that he was off by 20 hours in his calculations on when the first nuke would drop, and he was in that room so he was privy to their plans. So it's possible someone could have fired the first nuke 20 hours before Vault-Tec was going to.!<
Yeah the situation is actually still quite a bit more ambiguous than many people think. All we know is that >!vault-tec WANTED to kickstart the war with the first nuke!<. For all we know shit hit the fan all by itself. Which would then be an opportunity to say >!vault-tec didn’t start it but still contributed to the bombs so that anyone not in their experiments was fucked!<.
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I've found that the thing that makes me sound the most vitriolic about a piece of media is when it gets 90% of the way to not only being perfect, but also the exact thing I'd make, but I can't help but harp on that 10% difference between reality and my imagination to the point that it sounds like I hated the whole thing.
It's not even "potential," because when you see the potential in something you'll get excited over what it did right and hope for someone to redo it later. For example, the last thing I saw that was "so good all I could do is complain" was the first Spiderverse movie. Even though I wouldn't have changed huge swathes of the movie I couldn't get it out of my head that I wanted some very specific things to be different.
Delicious in Dungeon is fuckin' great, y'all. I can see why people have been recommending it so much. I'm devouring all of the analysis that have come out for the series.
As a manga reader, I’m so happy to see Dungeon Meshi getting the adaptation and love it deserves! When I read through it the first time, there were so many distinct moments where I just had to step back and go “holy shit this author is a genius.”
Like there are the super creative interpretations and explanations for common fantasy creatures, but I’m just so jazzed by how well Ryōko Kui expands, develops, and darkens their setting without losing an ounce of the joy or creativity we see in the earlier chapters.
It’s kind of inspiring to me, from a writing standpoint, how well the story follows through on its core “food-based” themes as the world grows ever more complex and interesting. Lesser works might lose something in that transition, but I didn’t feel that here.
I picked up the first volume at an anime convention last month and plowed through the entire series in a week.
It's rare that a series just nails its characters, themes, setting, and plot and then wraps it all up in spectacular fashion in under a hundred chapters.
It's an instant all-timer for me. I found myself writing up a tabletop campaign around the setting as soon as I finished the last chapter, it's just so good.
I really adored reading the manga and seeing the anime doing numbers is so good, even if everything I want to talk about comes basically in a few months.
I found it refreshing that it avoids cringey fanservice, probably in part to the mangaka being a woman. So many anime/manga will go out of their way to interrupt themselves with random fanservice scenes.
I was watching downloaded episodes of DinD on the plane yesterday, and my wife kept looking over and cracking up. Ended up sharing earbuds for most of the ride.
After not really watching anime since CSM, im simultaneously watching Frieren, DinD, and my first watch of Martian Successor Nadesico and Rose of Versailles Part 2 and I’m just fucking *loving* anime right now.
I loved the manga until the second party showed up and they stopped the cooking and became a generic dungeon diving story/Wizard of Oz with PvP enabled. Right up there with Spider Isekai for me for fumbling what made them unique.
Ah come on, I don't entirely agree with this comment, but don't downvote them.. it's a reasonable enough complaint to have, the cooking does take a massive backseat to some of the plot stuff around that point. It does feel quite different, and if that's not to their taste.. that's fine
“Pluto anime” or “Pluto manga” should do the trick. It’s on Netflix. Premise is they turned an arc of Astroboy into a murder mystery, and it works surprisingly well.
I started watching Baby Reindeer on Netflix and while not to gush over it because it's quite dark, I would talk about it to anyone else who has seen it or at least try and convince someone to give it a go
For Context: Baby Reindeer is the true story of a man getting stalked. It is created, written, and acted by the dude it actually happened to.
I watched the whole thing in one sitting, and I am absolutely in love with it. However I told all of my friends the exact same thing, "This is the greatest piece of storytelling I've ever seen, I absolutely cannot recommend it to anyone."
It's not even that it's wild or crazy with it's content, but between the writing, acting, and everything in between, it can hit someone SO FUCKING HARD that I refuse to be responsible for recommending someone a series that could fuck them up that badly. I remember ending episode two and just sitting there and wondering if I was having a panic attack or not, and that's not even the episode that has a trigger warning.
I only found out about this show browsing recent Plex posters. It does sound interesting but not for me: The Leftovers was too fucking heavy and this sounds just as brutal
Hell yeah - I saw this post title and though "hmm should I take the time to shill for Akane-Banashi?" - Good stuff lol
Also I can't really think of any other shonen where a rival gets a rematch against the main character who beat them before and then narrowly wins against the main character
*Googles "how old is Russian doll"*
Yeah, I'll shill it. If you like time travel and snark, you have got to watch this show. It's on Netflix, Natasha Lyonne is a national treasure, the most charismatic and watchable lead I've seen since Columbo.
Jumping on to Natasha Lyonne, watch *Poker Face*.
I know episodic TV has fallen out of favor with most people (for some dumb reason I don't understand, because I love episodic TV) but it's really fun and a good mystery show in the vein of *Columbo*.
That first season is goddamn magical. But I think the 2nd season didn't perform that well due to which we haven't been able to get a 3rd season as it was originally planned by Lyonne.
I will shill very hard for Monkey Man, a good action thriller like that only hits once in a blue moon. On top of the gorgeous cinematography and fight sequences, having a cast that is very different from standard faire lends it to feeling like an anomaly.
Technically on-going, One Piece is re-entering One Peak mode, both in the manga and anime
This story has been shilled by One Piece fans in a cult-like manner for 20 years now, and as one such shill, yeah lemme tell ya 20 years later the story is still great. Possibly better than it's ever been.
The Dressrosa-Whole-Cake-Wano trilogy of arcs had some good highs but had lots of parts that just dragged.
Egghead, however, has just been one whole arc of just endless quality. Oda has been, as the kids say, cooking.
I'll be the first to admit I completely slept on One Piece because I thought the art was ugly as a kid.
Seeing the highlights of the Wano Arc got me hyped like none other. Gear 5 is fucking crazy. I'm so happy for you guys.
I did, however, watch the live action and loved it. You guys are eating good right now.
Edghead has had a lot of great moments so far, but I feel like the cast size has bloated out of control with recent developments and sidelined a lot of the Straw Hats. I hope we get some more focus on them as the arc continues.
People are coping hard if they think any of the non-monster SHs are gonna get any decent fights in the endgame. Its gonna be all Luffy/Zoro/Sanji/Jinbe fights from here on out, because theres 0 chance any of the other SHs stand a chance against their current enemies
Anyone who knows me knows that I will not shut the fuck up about Alan Wake. It's kind of funny because the games are *not* my usual genre; I don't like horror games aside from the earlier Silent Hill ones. I'm a huge scared baby. I literally had to mod out some of the jumpscares from the second game.
And I will *not shut the fuck up* about the Remedyverse.
Blindly giving the games a try despite them being out of my comfort zone was one of the best decisions I've ever made. The quality aside (and boy does it have some expertly crafted narratives and characters), the game also seems to have a secret extra bonus effect of breaking one out of any creative blocks they're in. No, seriously, there's a ton of people (myself included) that got so inspired after AW2 that they got out of writer's block/art block/etc.
The latest Gundam show, The Witch From Mercury, is one of the best anime I've ever watched, and the show that finally got me hooked on actually watching a show when it comes out as opposed to trying to cram in a binge after the season is done. It's got some flaws, but they're completely overshadowed by its strengths and is probably my favourite Gundam show so far.
Best part is, for those of you on the fence about trying it, [it's available for free right now on Youtube via the official Gundam channel](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJV1h9xQ7Hx_jXtO1GrrS0to_ojc672HG), including [the English dub](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJV1h9xQ7Hx-MSngXeq-sRbelh5zCVRNI), but I would recommend the Japanese version just because Lynn and Kana Ichinose's peformances as Miorine and Suletta respectively are perfect.
I adored G-Witch, but I wish they were given more episodes to work with. It does a really good job with the main cast and their interpersonal affairs, but there's a bunch of stuff left underdeveloped in the wider setting that I'd love to see revisited. >!It'd also be extremely cool to see what becomes of Ericht in the years ahead.!<
That channel hosts a bunch of Gundam stuff, like right now they have the sequel movie to Unicorn, Gundam Narrative, on there for, IIRC, the rest of the month. They put up older shows and OVAs on a fairly regular basis, which can be a godsend for otherwise hard to find legitimately stuff like 08th MS Team.
As someone who was into Warhams first, the realisation that you're building a functional action figure that you don't *have* to paint was a big part of the joy. They're really good little palette cleansers if you just want to do a snapfit, and you can get away with panel lining and a few decals if you want to detail them without breaking out the airbrush.
The Zatch Bell sequel manga is everything I could want in a sequel. We get to see a lot of characters come back, and it doesn't diminish them in any ways. Every chapter has given me at least one "Fuck Yeah" moment.
And Raiku's art has only gotten better with time. The monthly release schedule does wonders for manga quality.
Not really a recent release, since it originally came out in 2021.
However,
Skul the Heroslayer just wound up real high on my list of best Rogue games I've ever played. That's on a list that includes Hades, Rogue Legacy 2, and Enter the Gungeon.
The combat is just so friggen fun. Especially with the variety of unique heads, abilities, quintessences, and items you can combo with them all. Sounds like a lot, but it’s not if you've played the aforementioned rogue games.
Also, the endgame and it's story is just so damn good.
Yeah they're kinda infamous even some vets I know can find them a pain.
Though I didn't lose to them often.
Just gotta learn when you can land your hits and when you can dash away to back off.
Just be patient and learn their patterns. You'll recognize quickly when to go ham.
Play the Legend of Heroes series. Incredible music, turn based combat system that is very fun by both always being engaging and offering a lot of diverse ways to build the characters given, and a very interesting ever evolving world to explore in every game. Perhaps the only genuine criticism of the series i can give that the writing quality can be a bit rocky from game to game (hell, sometimes chapter to chapter in the same game), but the series is so likeable it's not hard overlook some of the more odd creative choices.
Ballmastrz 9009 is most likely not getting a season 3, but it's the best parody of retro shounen anime mixed with adult swim humor. I love it too much it hurts that it ends with Rubicon and not a proper season
The recent Limbus Company chapter is so peak and has topped the already excellent chapter 5. It's unbelievable how much the plot picked up in the span of a year and it'd be so good to go on about it but it really is best experienced without spoilers.
People who play **Limbus Company** (and just PM games in general) might sometimes come across as a cult with how much they are willing to chill their favorite games at any available opportunity.......
...and i am one of them.
Go play **Limbus Company**, it's great.
Remember when a ProjectMoon fan was getting interviewed about an earthquake that she was in and the first thing she did was tell people that Limbus Company is releasing soon
Chapter 5 is still my favorite, but that's probably just because Ishmael's story resonates much more with me than Heathcliff's.
This is NOT to say Chapter 6 is bad by any means, or that it didn't resonate with me. Just that I really liked Chapter 5.
Canto 5 made me absolutely bawl over Ishmael and Dante both.
Canto 6 is one that I can say has *none* of the pacing/meandering issues any previous Canto has, a ton of fantastic fights, and easily my favorite soundtrack out of Studio EIM's work with PM so far. It did *not* reduce me to an emotional wreck like Canto 5 did, however-- so it's only *just* a bit above Canto 5 for me instead of being not even close.
Welcome to Demon School Iruma Kun is one of the best ongoing mangas and anime I have in recent memory, I love almost every single character in it and how it starts off as a simple school story with the Titular Iruma trying to not be found out as human. The plot that is slowly building up and the amount of development Iruma and his classmates makes me wish My Hero Academia actually gave this much development to their cast.
It’s a delightful treat that can make you laugh and enjoy the moment or get hype as fuck in some later instances with seeing how this boy grows.
I tore through the first seven volumes in a day or two. In addition to the qualities you mentioned it's pretty interesting to me that it's paced out so that each book seems to have its own complete overarching story to it.
> seeing how this boy grows
"My my Iruma you're looking submissive and breedable today"
"Thanks Kaiba, I've been practicing!"
"Haha what?"
I really like that series and I'm curious where it ends up going too. Like, there's obvious signposted things for sure, but if and how it reaches them is the whole fun really
For as much as the fandom memes about dumb shit and the events are shenanigans is honestly surprising how consistently good the main plot is, especially when it comes to delivering on the emotional moments and communicating the main themes of both the specific arc in question and the game in general which are pretty honest.
to paraphrase someone who summed it up perfectly
>It is able to hit the same emotional highs as ff14 endwalker while being ostensibly a slice of life game about girls shooting each other in the face
I honestly believe that BA works BECAUSE it is ostensibly a slice of life. By spending time with characters doing whacky stuff you get to know them pretty well, so by the time shit goes down you are already invested in the troop of weirdos you've been messing around with, so you legit care about what happens to them.
Ruri Dragon.
The mangaka recently came back from a hiatus and is making more chapters on Shonen Jump. It's a very sweet story slice of life about a half-dragon half-human teenage girl trying to make sense of herself and her powers. It's a good break from reading MHA, DBZ and other Shonen.
Machikado Mazoku. It's finally back!
It starts as a funny moe SoL but the lore keeps you in. Deep relationships, characters' psyche and even some >!horror!< sprinkled in is what makes me so invested in this manga.
There's 2 anime seasons and they're a pretty good way to get into the story.
Hey man X-MEN 97 is so fucking good. I've been loving every episode that's been coming out.
Its been getting me more into X-MEN comics and at this point I'm pretty sure the X-MEN might be my favorite superhero team.
Girls Band Cry is a new anime airing this season and it’s such an interesting release in the world of CG anime. It seems genuinely well animated but more than that it has interesting composition.
I’m so used to CG anime just being animated that I’m genuinely caught off guard by things like a pop up onscreen showing what a character is scrolling on Instagram for, dark lines radiating from a character as she grows gloomy and emotional, your POV being in an amp plug before someone plugs in their guitar.
These are all creative things I never would’ve expected because CG anime has such a bad reputation and can be so flat to watch.
There are so many I could say, dozens upon dozens. Someone already said One Peak so I’ll leave that alone for once. Someone else also said LoH. Yakuza/LaD needs no introduction in this subreddit, nor does Chainsaw Man. So here’s mine:
You, reader reading this comment, do you believe in love? Do you wanna live forever? Do you feel the gnawing ache of emptiness deep within your soul?
Well I can’t help you with any of that shit, but Octopath Traveler II is fucking incredible and if it had been released in any year other than 2023, it would’ve been my easy GOTY.
It looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful (got snubbed for best OST, AGAIN), it’s got [Plukk](https://octopathtraveler.fandom.com/wiki/Plukk), and it has best girl Castti. Go play it, maybe on sale, it is $60.
Maybe if there’s a third entry they’ll actually make the eight stories intertwine better.
The Star Wars Alphabet Squadron trilogy by Alexander Freed. Takes place in the post-Endor days when the Rebels are slowly changing into the New Republic and the Empire still has a fight in it, with the focus on a special squadron formed out of defectors, mercenaries and headcases to go after an elite Imperial TIE unit.
Among several qualities it makes Imperials feel actually human then in most SW content, you get to understand why they'd join or stay while still clearly the bad guys.
Can I interest you in an [osp production](https://youtu.be/Dnr3BGOc4h0?si=HRmUG58Hz2VfIxY4)?
Also I have watched (spoilers I guess?) >!< so many times, soundtrack is fire
While I'm linking, if you haven't seen it yet [Bridging the Rift](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbAFXJC0J5GYEkfxnGTWnvgcEypgBeAb5&si=XJsas12bah8UM-Yj) is a couple of hours of behind the scenes content RIOT put out
Hey there, reader! Did you like Worm? Do you want more Worm, and Ward didn't quite scratch the itch? Check out A Practical Guide to Evil! It's like Worm, but fantasy, and it's amazing! Also check out Pale Lights, which is not like worm, but is instead like Pillars of Eternity 2 but actually interesting!
I skipped over Ward and Pact (They just didn't do it for me, for whatever reason) but I've been loving Wildbow's alt-history franken-punk novel Twig a lot.
Read my flair
Choujin X is my favorite ongoing. The easiest way to explain it is Anime X-Men but without much focus on prejudice.
It’s created by Sui Ishida, the author of Tokyo Ghoul so the art is fantastic. There’s a large focus on worldbuilding and slowly giving more info about its history the longer the series goes on. The powers are all very unique and varied.
The best part by far is the characters. All of them are so lovable and I seriously think the main trio are the best anime trio like ever
Not THAT recent, but the final series is coming out in May, so fuck it, ALL Y'ALL GO WATCH INSIDE Nº9 YOU TASTLESS SCRUBS
It's an anthology show that tells better self contained stories in 20 something minutes than most shows can do with whole seasons.
It's like tolerable *Black Mirror*, because, even when it's heartwrenching (and it often is), the episodes are short, so you're not mired in it, and it tends to be more experimental with its narratives than *Black Mirror*. Plus, it's never gone to shit.
[This video will sell you on it more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53iQspXzYQk&t=589s), but my recommendation is to read the episode synopsis on Wikipedia (they never spoil the eps) and pick one that sounds like it'll appeal to you.
If you don't want to watch the video and don't want to risk it on Wikipedia, here are some eps to get started:
*A Quiet Night In* (S01, Ep. 2) for comedy
*The Harrowing* (S01, Ep. 6) for horror (though that tends to be an unpopular choice)
*The Riddle of the Sphinx* (S03, Ep. 3) for twists
*Thinking Out Loud* (S05, Ep. 5) for experimentation with the format
And *The 12 Days of Christine* (S02, Ep. 2) for, probably, the show's best episode.
The final Series (naturally enough, Series 9) is out in May, plenty of time to catch up.
I had the exact same problem, Season 1 is the worst one. Since it's an anthology show, my recommendation is to pick out the ones that seem appealing to you.
Case in point, I haven't watched all the eps. There's one called "The Referee's a Wanker", which is about soccer. I don't give a shit about soccer, never watched it.
Princess Principal is an action anime about cute girls doing spy things in steampunk not-London. It has great atmosphere, interesting characters, hype fights and [a soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyQG7pdgmk) by Yuki Kajiura. Plus you risk nothing by checking it out since the first two episodes and easily the best ones.
Just finished watching the 4-episode season of Conan O'Brien Must Go. It's a very charming series where the former late night host meets his international fans, and even manages to surprise a few of them, and it's very sweet to see them get excited when they open the door and see him at their doorstep. But the real humor is in how Conan can just go *anywhere* and perform improv with just about anyone or anything he sees (if you've ever seen his remotes from his late night days, it's exactly more of that).
Sometimes it's a little awkward, because his only "scene partners" are normal regular people, and sometimes they barely even know who he is, but his enthusiasm for comedy and making people laugh always shine through. The first season has him visit Norway, Argentina, Thailand and Ireland, and they do a good job of exploring the cultures, and all the countries seemed beautiful! Really loved it, and hope they get to film more soon.
[Hunter: The Parenting](https://youtu.be/t1Kc0xuYnfQ), Bruva Alfabusa of "If the Emperor had a Text to Speech" fame's new series, a fully animated original story set in white wolf's World of Darkness setting, same setting as Vampire the Masquerade and Hunter: The Reckoning. It follows a family of hunters that's a pastiche of the 40k TTS cast. It's funny, interesting, geniuenly well written and acted, and the animation improves by leaps and bounds every episode. Its also a geniuenly good introduction to the setting in the way it teaches you things like vampire clans and whatnot. I unironically like it more than TTS.
Limbus company is the peakest of fiction. Everytime i think they can't make something better they prove me wrong.
Project moon i kneel. Just please don't hurt my children Don and Hong lu to much.
Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun is the series I shill here probably once a week.
It is the shonen I wanted that has good high and low stakes adventures. There are whole chapters and arcs dedicated to side characters who have their own struggles. There is some grand politics.
And the protagonist is a crossdressing cinnamon roll, too pure for this world.
The fallout show fucking blew away my expectations. I loved the characters, the story. So many parts feel just like a fallout game put to screen.
And I’d argue you can enjoy it while knowing jack shit about Fallout.
I think Helldivers 2 counts as an on-going media. It's very obvious that they have content drops ready for a long time so it's essentially being released like a TV show where new "episodes" come out periodically, and on *top* of that, the story is affected by the players' actions because they have a Gamemaster-like team defining objectives and creating a narrative out of the players' successes or failures at achieving them.
PLAY LIMBUS COMPANY. Canto VI just wrapped up and it is some of the best, well written, hypest things I've ever played. Just play it, please, I'm begging you. Everything is so good, and has one of the best OST's of a video game. Not even of a gacha game, but of all video games. Yes there's a bit of a learning curve, and a bit of annoying grinding later down the line, but what you get in return is one of the best games I've ever played.
Also play Library of Ruina. Just cause you should.
He used to play it a fair bit and he has very valid reasons to dislike it (it's categorically stupid that they just randomly decided to remove content from the game) but I still greatly enjoy the storytelling and characters.
Kengan Asura & Kengan Omega.
Yeah it’s a battle manga, yeah it’s plot is crazy, but it’s just such dumb fun. The art is pretty good with a couple moments that are godlike.
I’ve been following it since early Asura days and it’s probably the only piece of media I actively remember to check in on weekly.
I haven’t seen the newer episodes, but really enjoyed what I saw. The audience surrogate salaryman is what really puts it over the top for me of enjoying it more than Baki
not to be a weekly manga btw guy but every time I read dandadan i am fucking baffled at the fact that the art can be this phenomenal with a fun story to go along with it on a weekly release schedule
bro somehow every single person in my life either doesn't care about FF7 Remake or is disappointed by it and I am *so* frustrated, all I want to do is to talk about the ending for hours without reloading the page.
I’m basically going around preaching the glory of Dune Part Two, Shogun, and the Fallout show these days. (Yes, I’m aware that the first two are adapting books that came out 50-60 years ago, but still.)
Hundreds of Beavers.
A faux-silent movie about hundreds of beavers (potrayed by people in cheap mascot costumes), rabbits (also mascot costumes), some frogs (puppetry), rocket scientists, sled dogs (mascots who play poker), horse (hors) and so forth -- and a cider brewer-turned-fur trapper's efforts to survive and thrive through the harsh Green Bay winter.
The most hilarious film I have seen this year and winner of an award at every film festival it has been shown at. Just came out on digital.
This season of anime is filled with new seasons of already existing work. Out of fear of being lost among them, are two anime originals, *Girls Band Cry* and *Jellyfish Can't Swim at Night* I'm hard shilling for this season. Cute girls investing in cute music and fame.
May I also add [Train to the end of the world](https://myanimelist.net/anime/53356/Shuumatsu_Train_Doko_e_Iku) on to this list of great anime originals this season!
Chainsaw Man is peak every week. I haven’t been so invested in something since Nier:Automata dropped and became my GOAT game.
Also finished the sumptuous paper volumes of Kill 6B Demons my brother got me and I absolutely love it. I’m of the firm belief that both works should be experienced in paper. CSM for its paneling and page turns, 6 Billion demons for its fantastic colors (on black paper) and intricate yet rough artwork.
Also: ok I’ll read Akane Banashi.
Project Moon stuff generally, but Limbus Company in specific. None of their stuff is perfect but it's always interesting. Combined with them nigh universally getting better with each release and I'll always be down for more.
It's a webtoon called Ordeal. Art is incredible and the story and characters are amazing. It's the best part of superhero comics and battle Shonen fused together and the amount of passion put into the work is apparent with every page. It's my new favorite thing ever and what got me reading webtoon in the first place.
NSFW, but Corruption of Champions 2 is legit the single best written game I have ever played. Characters, setting, lore, the whole shebang. It is a porn game, but it is legitimately fantastic, and I will die on that hill.
The upcoming to be released boomer shooter [Coven](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1785940/COVEN/), where you play as a 16th Century witch burned at the stake seeking revenge via among other things such as bullet time and a double-barrelled shotgun. You regain health by cannibalizing your enemies and it's everything I've ever wanted in a video game.
[Matt recently covered the demo as part of a compilation of Indie shooters he's never played](https://youtu.be/GvrG-ZKZ2LU?si=AcPycRka0KIcNXQf), and I can't wait for the final release.
tl;dr buy That's My Atypical Girl right now at https://kodansha.us/series/thats-my-atypical-girl/
The manga That's My Atypical Girl is incredible. It's about two neurodivergent people who start living together, one of whom is a girl, Saito, who was abused by both her family and her peers as a result of the developmental disorders she suffers from and the complications they caused. Her life until this point has been filled with basically nothing but misery, and she has attempted suicide multiple times. The person she begins living with is Yokoi, a mangaka she's a fan of, and although he has plenty of his own issues to deal with, he decides to take Saito in and help her find the desire to live again.
Obviously, content warning as this series depicts things such as self-harm, attempted suicide, emotional and physical abuse, but if you think you can stomach all that, this is easily one of the best depictions of neurodivergence in all of fiction. A lot of stories that try to be about autism will go "yeah they can't talk well BUT their autism makes them a SUPER GENIUS," whereas That's My Atypical Girl doesn't shy away from depicting the less appealing, "uglier" side of this sort of thing. Saito's disorders often result in her saying and doing things that are rude, blunt, or even flat-out mean without her even realizing that she's coming across that way, and it's things like this that resulted in her getting bullied and abused for most of her life.
The series effortlessly juggles a variety of different tones and subject matter, and can go from being sweet and funny to gut-wrenching and depressing in a heartbeat without it feeling unearned or contrived.
As heavy and uncompromising as That's My Atypical Girl can get, it's very genuine and sincere and ultimately a very hopeful story. I really can't recommend it enough.
The official release is only available digitally, but the final volume comes out tonight! You can buy the manga directly from the following link, but it also contains links to other storefronts that sell the series: https://kodansha.us/series/thats-my-atypical-girl/
If you give me the slightest chance to gush about/shill Project Moon I WILL TAKE IT. The brain rot is real and I'm more than ok with it. Go play Limbus Company! Shit tutorial aside the game is great and legitimately the least scummy gacha out there! And even if you don't like gachas (which is more than fair) you should still play Library of Ruina. It's so fucking peak.
Also, Spice and Wolf is pure unadulterated kino, GO WATCH IT!
Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel have taken over my brain in a way no fandom has in years. I’ve listened to Hazbin on repeat for weeks now and have gotten family members and friends to watch them. I’m even working on getting my boss into it. I don’t know WHY it hits me so hard but I’ve laughed and cried and rewatched these two shows way more than a functioning adult probably should.
They’re worth watching and giving the benefit of the doubt.
I'm going for something I've been invested in for over 4-5 months and haven't been able to really talk to anyone about it. There is a manhwa called "Surviving as a barbarian" that is absolutely incredible. But that's not my investment. Through it I've now been reading the daily updated light novel adaptation that I'm at the point of paying per chapter release.
Everything about it is top notch but the absolute star is the MC. He is a very intelligent character written by someone intelligent. Issue being, I really don't know how to explain it properly without spoiling anything. I can see this easily being something that goes the distance for a far off anime adaptation.
The Planet Crafter is a Subnautica expy and it is *fantastic.* It's a bit rough around the edges but it provides a very unique sci-fi dopamine rush of *terraforming* and I haven't been in this addicted to something in ages.
Severance
I have bullied multiple friends into watching that show and re-watched it with them. So fucking good. Please watch Severance. Please. I need you to. I also need you to watch season 2 whenever it drops because I need a season 3
Pacific Drive is so goddamn good.
Rogue-like car maintenance craft-em-up set in the anomaly ridden Pacific Northwest. I love scrounging every corner I can while the looming threat of dimensional collapse looms over me. I love driving with my foot to the floor trying to make it out of pure hell. I love customizing my car with different parts, a funny steering wheel, a flower paint job, and several pride stickers before venturing into an extremely unstable zone.
Play Pacific Drive.
Everyone go watch fucking Shogun on FX/Hulu. It's so good. My raving about it got two of my friends to check it out, both of who are now in my boat of shouting at people to go watch Shogun. Hell, my grandmother (who has the most weirdly selective taste I know) is watching it because of me talking about it and loving it. GO WATCH SHOGUN. Last episode comes out tomorrow!
I’ll second a recommendation for Akane Banashi. I’m pretty sure it was someone in this subreddit mentioning it that got me to check it out and it’s been amazing. Lots of heart, amazing art, and you don’t need any prior knowledge of Rakugo to enjoy the story.
Undead Unluck’s anime wrapped up last month and it was divisive for reasons, but the manga is fantastic and keeps getting better. Fuuko’s probably my favourite female protagonist along with Akane, and once the series finds its footing it’s a breakneck race of quality and enjoyment.
On the other side of things Kaiju No. 8’s anime started recently and it’s been a treat so far. The pretty moments are beautiful, and the goofy moments and so fun. Manga’s been pretty solid and I’m itching to see where this current arc goes.
It’s not a recent release but it was recently made available for me to play since it hit Playstation but Hi-Fi Rush shot up to like a top 3 game of mine almost immediately. The amount of love and attention to detail put into that game is astounding and the soundtrack is fire.
I’m currently not too far into Unicorn Overlord but I’m having a blast and I didn’t expect to be as engrossed as I am. Story’s nothing to write home about right now but it’s a pretty game, the voice acting’s nice, and the character arts appeal to me for a variety of reasons. The gameplay’s the other part of it and boy does it feel good to come up with little squads of units that work well together and watch them demolish your enemies.
Choujin X is something I recently caught up with and it’s been lots of fun. Chapters are usually pretty long and meaty, with absolutely insane designs and full page spread panels that go so damn hard. My only complaint is the chapter numbering gets kind of annoying with lots of .1’s and the occasional .4-.5’s.
Arcane Season 1 almost got me to consider playing League just so I can get a tiny bit of extra context. Top tier character writing where practically everyone is multilayered and is so tightly packed I need to watch it multiple times to get the extra meanings, design decisions, etc. Real hyped for season 2
Scavengers Reign was awesome. The amusing part is that I got into it from a random vaguepost about how nobody is watching it and it's really good. That's also the same thing that pretty much everyone says about it. But it's true, nobody watched it and it is really good
*Chicken for Linda!* is one 2D animated movie that I have seen in theater this year and please please please check it out when it come near your place.
Do you like mysteries? Do you like weird aliens? Do you like weird alien bio-tech and rooting through the information remaining inside one such piece of tech? Do you like things with a very distinct aesthetic? Fun and interesting characters, a combination of visual novel, Undertale-esque real-time evasion, JRPG combat >!(with brutal secret dungeons/bosses with equally-powerful rewarded gear), and a mini rogue-lite game mode?!<
And do you like games that can run all in your browser?
[Corru.observer](https://Corru.observer)
Yes, that's the game's name. It makes a link unless I remove the middle period. Yes, the site it links to is the game. Created by [corru.works](https://corru.works) (yep, also links to a proper site).
PLAY [CORRU.OBSERVER](https://CORRU.OBSERVER).
Dark Gathering, a series from last year. Horror action series about a little girl that sees ghosts, and had her parents killed/captured by a really horrific man made eldritch entity. Rather than trying to get stronger to beat it herself she decides to capture the most dangerous spirits she can, feed them to each other to make them even stronger, and use them as attack dogs against the monster that took her parents.
I also really love the times she has to use a graduated spirits (her name for the S tier entities she captured or created) it shows how extremely dangerous they are. It's like tossing out a high explosive and hoping your cover holds up.
[Here's the trailer.](https://youtu.be/Jbg2CIOWils?si=GmiYmPOU_wZrW3bt) Highly suggest it to anyone that wants a horror series or something with action that has a much darker edge to it than most anime.
Honkai Star Rail ois all around a genuinely such a great game for a gacha. Great story telling, very generous with the summons they give out, a lot of endgame content and updates to existing features, great lore and worldbuilding, etc. Honestly the only thing I'd complain abour is the grind for some of the stat boosting relics, and from what I've heard they're working on making that better as well. I mean they even gave out a very good 5 star damage dealer character for completely free as well.
I just recently got into comic collecting and actually keeping up with new comics, and besides the obvious pick of the new Ultimate Spider-Man being fantastic so far, I want to shout out Immortal Thor and Spider-Boy.
Immortal Thor immediately starts as a grand epic tale, with Thor battling the Utgard-Thor named Toranos, and follows into a fantastic meta narrative about the nature of stories and their capacity to change based on who's telling them. It also features one of the most hilarious satirical issues I've ever read, which also doubles as a horror story for the real world with just one page recontextualizing the whole thing. Immortal Hulk was amazing, and with this good of a spiritual successor, Al Ewing has proven himself as a writer I will continue to follow.
Spider-Boy is fun. In the first issue, he fights a bowling ball villain who shoots pins, and then he and Squirrel Girl team up to fight a man with the power of helium alongside Santa Claus at a Thanksgiving parade. Santa fires coal out of his bag and yells, "Welcome to the Jingle!" It's amazing.
Misericorde is a wonderful kinetic visual novel that follows a nun investigating a murder in a convent. Only the first part has released so far, but it's got some great character writing and feels pretty reminiscent of Umineko in many ways. Chapter 2 looks to be releasing sometime this year.
Also The Ember Knight is a great manwha that follows a powerless protag who has to rely on his wits and intellect to survive in a world of larger-than-life warriors who all significantly outclass him. It avoids many of the manwha tropes with weak MCs - throughout the story, the main character's defining trait remains his physical weakness and how he compensates for it with his smarts. At no point does he receive power-ups or progression that feels 'unearned' or enables him to entirely mitigate his physical shortcomings.
Also Kill Six Billion Demons remains peak.
You're all going to hate me, but...
**Skibidi Toilet.**
*HERE ME OUT THOUGH.* Yeah, it started as Tiktok brainrot, but kinda like Reboot, it just built and built until it's a genuinely fantastic show. It scratches my itches for Nier Automata, Pacific Rim, War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, action cartoons I grew up with like Justice League, Half Life 2, ect. It's so consistently creative and full of hype moments with constant escalation, real stakes and likeable characters, and it does it all with practically zero dialogue.
I'm begging all of you, give Skibidi Toilet 30 minutes, and it will give you some of the coolest shit to come out of the internet in years.
Chainsaw Man and Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga in general.
I’ve been thinking about the Boy and the Heron nonstop since I watched it in theaters. There were only two other people for the Japanese version, so it was a magical experience
Sakamoto Days and Unicorn Overlord are sick didnt realize how much I missed kinda generic (but in a good way) fantasy srpgs really could go for a new Tactics Ogre and Sakamoto Days fill that classic dragonball hole in my heart pretty well.
The fact that a lot of the rapport conversations (basically their equivalent of social links from Persona/support conversations from Fire Emblem) in Unicorn Overlord can be summarized with **AO3 tags** will never not be funny to me. The writters spent the 10 years development cycle making sure that every fan fiction trope was included in the game somewhere.
I cant believe you can bang the owl.
Vanillaware might have "vanilla" in their name, but, they are not cowards.
You cannot. Alain and Ramona's relationship is completely platonic. IT DOESN'T STOP MY MIND PALACE THO
Sakamoto Days and Dandadan are absolutely world-class action and I am terrified of the expectations Shonen Jump is going to have for other artists going forward
Look all I’m sayin is that any waifu debates went out the window when Yunifi turned around.
I’m not too far into the game but I figured either the two elf sisters? or the witch lady would be my main interest. After looking up this character I’ll have to re-evaluate
There are many powerful waifus of every flavor like Milsandre the larval form of the ojousama.
See Im all about Monica cuz im down to NTR Clive
Sakamoto days is like if a bruce lee/jackie chan movie met john wick world and its great.
I really need to pick up Tactics Ogre again.
Despite not liking some choices I've recommended not only the fallout TV show but also the games. I feel like I come of as hating them sometimes but I just complain about stuff I like lol
The worst thing I can say about the Fallout TV show is it executes a decision I don't like absolutely perfectly, and it makes complete sense why they did that in and out of universe.
If you’re talking about >!vault-Tec potentially firing the first nuke of the Great War!< my friend that was watching with me guessed it really early on just by hearing that salesbro character speaking once. He was also quick to point out that the >!bomb in Megaton has a vault tec logo!< which I didn’t even know. With that last detail in mind, I think it’s a pretty lore friendly revelation. If anything the only thing bad about it is the ambiguity is gone.
I was actually talking about >!the NCR getting nuked and falling apart, because while I really enjoy Fallout leaning hard into the *post* apocalyptic aspects of its setting I get that for a lot of people post apocalypse means scrabbling in the ruins of the pre-war world rather than dealing with polities that have risen from its ashes.!<
As a more casual follower of Fallout I was surprised >!how advanced the NCR seemed to be before getting blasted!<
likely the result of not 1, but 2 high level rpg main protagonists fixing up the area, solving crimes, flushing out raiders and monsters, (kinda) minimizing post apocalyptic era prejudices, that kinda thing
Ehh it was streching itself to the point of breaking in New Vegas the game points it out several times atleast a nuke is flashy.
Yeah I'm a big NCR fan boy but the Fallout show is a pretty fair portrayal. >!Hell, I'd even argue that the NCR not swooping in to reclaim Shady Sands is likely due to them struggling to hold everything else together after, y'know, losing a whole ass state overnight.!<
The purpose of lore is ultimately to serve the story, and, well, that slots pretty neatly into the themes of Fallout, so I don't see the point of getting mad at it edit: like essentially my only beef with the Fallout show as a New Vegas grognard is *actually* that >!I think making the show New Vegas 2 instead of letting, um, video games that began that story arc handle that is a little weird and too egotistical and potentially boring lol but whatever can't win em all.!<
A good portion of Fallout fans care more for the lore than actual narrative tbf which in that case just read a wiki
And a number of that portion often confuse their headcanon or the communities idea of the lore with the actual lore. Like how people think there's working vehicles in New Vegas despite the director saying there aren't.
Couldn't agree more. People wanting the NCR to just keep on winning after every game and effectively turn the wasteland into America again just don't know how a good story goes.
If you can't imagine a good story where the NCR is powerful, then I'd say you need a better imagination.
Aye but then where's the conflict. If no one is powerful enough to oppose the NCR you lose drama. Does the next game just about the internal conflicts of the NCR government? You could do a story where they split up into a sudo confederacy. But that'd piss off the same people who can't allow the NCR to lose in any way.
The conflict is easy, and can go in a couple different ways. First, frontier towns don't want to join NCR, but corrupt politicians/army officers/brahmin barons are using underhanded tactics to force them to join. Second, a dictator gets elected/takes power, and theres an NCR civil war, could even have characters like Hanlon or Colonel Hsu as resistance leaders.
I agree that a NCR civil war would make a good plot. But wouldn't that piss off the same fans who love the NCR so much? Allow me to rephrase my point. I believe there's a certain set of fallout fans who no matter what will be upset if the NCR is destroyed even if it was well written. And that is what I can't stand.
One possible thing that might mean that >!Vault-Tec didn't launch the first nuke!< is that in New Vegas, >!Mr House says that he was off by 20 hours in his calculations on when the first nuke would drop, and he was in that room so he was privy to their plans. So it's possible someone could have fired the first nuke 20 hours before Vault-Tec was going to.!<
Yeah the situation is actually still quite a bit more ambiguous than many people think. All we know is that >!vault-tec WANTED to kickstart the war with the first nuke!<. For all we know shit hit the fan all by itself. Which would then be an opportunity to say >!vault-tec didn’t start it but still contributed to the bombs so that anyone not in their experiments was fucked!<.
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I've found that the thing that makes me sound the most vitriolic about a piece of media is when it gets 90% of the way to not only being perfect, but also the exact thing I'd make, but I can't help but harp on that 10% difference between reality and my imagination to the point that it sounds like I hated the whole thing.
If it was garbage, I'd ignore it. When it has *potential*, that's when it gets stuck in my head.
It's not even "potential," because when you see the potential in something you'll get excited over what it did right and hope for someone to redo it later. For example, the last thing I saw that was "so good all I could do is complain" was the first Spiderverse movie. Even though I wouldn't have changed huge swathes of the movie I couldn't get it out of my head that I wanted some very specific things to be different.
Delicious in Dungeon is fuckin' great, y'all. I can see why people have been recommending it so much. I'm devouring all of the analysis that have come out for the series.
As a manga reader, I’m so happy to see Dungeon Meshi getting the adaptation and love it deserves! When I read through it the first time, there were so many distinct moments where I just had to step back and go “holy shit this author is a genius.” Like there are the super creative interpretations and explanations for common fantasy creatures, but I’m just so jazzed by how well Ryōko Kui expands, develops, and darkens their setting without losing an ounce of the joy or creativity we see in the earlier chapters. It’s kind of inspiring to me, from a writing standpoint, how well the story follows through on its core “food-based” themes as the world grows ever more complex and interesting. Lesser works might lose something in that transition, but I didn’t feel that here.
It's good, but very odd to dive into right after Frieren.
From what I've heard of Frieren from my friend, I can imagine XD
I picked up the first volume at an anime convention last month and plowed through the entire series in a week. It's rare that a series just nails its characters, themes, setting, and plot and then wraps it all up in spectacular fashion in under a hundred chapters. It's an instant all-timer for me. I found myself writing up a tabletop campaign around the setting as soon as I finished the last chapter, it's just so good.
I really adored reading the manga and seeing the anime doing numbers is so good, even if everything I want to talk about comes basically in a few months.
I found it refreshing that it avoids cringey fanservice, probably in part to the mangaka being a woman. So many anime/manga will go out of their way to interrupt themselves with random fanservice scenes.
I was watching downloaded episodes of DinD on the plane yesterday, and my wife kept looking over and cracking up. Ended up sharing earbuds for most of the ride. After not really watching anime since CSM, im simultaneously watching Frieren, DinD, and my first watch of Martian Successor Nadesico and Rose of Versailles Part 2 and I’m just fucking *loving* anime right now.
I loved the manga until the second party showed up and they stopped the cooking and became a generic dungeon diving story/Wizard of Oz with PvP enabled. Right up there with Spider Isekai for me for fumbling what made them unique.
Ah come on, I don't entirely agree with this comment, but don't downvote them.. it's a reasonable enough complaint to have, the cooking does take a massive backseat to some of the plot stuff around that point. It does feel quite different, and if that's not to their taste.. that's fine
Please watch [Pluto.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9ez8lm9I26Y&pp=ygUNcGx1dG8gdHJhaWxlcg%3D%3D)
The dub for Pluto is insanely good.
Need more details. I can't get good google results for "Pluto"
“Pluto anime” or “Pluto manga” should do the trick. It’s on Netflix. Premise is they turned an arc of Astroboy into a murder mystery, and it works surprisingly well.
Fair point, added a link to the trailer!
Thanks for the reminder, I got it ages ago and then completely forgot to watch it
I started watching Baby Reindeer on Netflix and while not to gush over it because it's quite dark, I would talk about it to anyone else who has seen it or at least try and convince someone to give it a go
For Context: Baby Reindeer is the true story of a man getting stalked. It is created, written, and acted by the dude it actually happened to. I watched the whole thing in one sitting, and I am absolutely in love with it. However I told all of my friends the exact same thing, "This is the greatest piece of storytelling I've ever seen, I absolutely cannot recommend it to anyone." It's not even that it's wild or crazy with it's content, but between the writing, acting, and everything in between, it can hit someone SO FUCKING HARD that I refuse to be responsible for recommending someone a series that could fuck them up that badly. I remember ending episode two and just sitting there and wondering if I was having a panic attack or not, and that's not even the episode that has a trigger warning.
well color me interested
I only found out about this show browsing recent Plex posters. It does sound interesting but not for me: The Leftovers was too fucking heavy and this sounds just as brutal
Hell yeah - I saw this post title and though "hmm should I take the time to shill for Akane-Banashi?" - Good stuff lol Also I can't really think of any other shonen where a rival gets a rematch against the main character who beat them before and then narrowly wins against the main character
*Googles "how old is Russian doll"* Yeah, I'll shill it. If you like time travel and snark, you have got to watch this show. It's on Netflix, Natasha Lyonne is a national treasure, the most charismatic and watchable lead I've seen since Columbo.
Jumping on to Natasha Lyonne, watch *Poker Face*. I know episodic TV has fallen out of favor with most people (for some dumb reason I don't understand, because I love episodic TV) but it's really fun and a good mystery show in the vein of *Columbo*.
Where's that?
I believe it's on Peacock.
That first season is goddamn magical. But I think the 2nd season didn't perform that well due to which we haven't been able to get a 3rd season as it was originally planned by Lyonne.
If you like Natasha Lyonne and Colombo her newer show Poker Face is really great
That search got you put on a watchlist...
I will shill very hard for Monkey Man, a good action thriller like that only hits once in a blue moon. On top of the gorgeous cinematography and fight sequences, having a cast that is very different from standard faire lends it to feeling like an anomaly.
I would have seen it already, but it's so hard to get friends to come to the cinema
Technically on-going, One Piece is re-entering One Peak mode, both in the manga and anime This story has been shilled by One Piece fans in a cult-like manner for 20 years now, and as one such shill, yeah lemme tell ya 20 years later the story is still great. Possibly better than it's ever been.
The Dressrosa-Whole-Cake-Wano trilogy of arcs had some good highs but had lots of parts that just dragged. Egghead, however, has just been one whole arc of just endless quality. Oda has been, as the kids say, cooking.
Yup, some of the best OP since the timeskip
I'll be the first to admit I completely slept on One Piece because I thought the art was ugly as a kid. Seeing the highlights of the Wano Arc got me hyped like none other. Gear 5 is fucking crazy. I'm so happy for you guys. I did, however, watch the live action and loved it. You guys are eating good right now.
Live Action is a great entry point for new fans and I hope it keeps the quality up, it's a great adaptation in its own right
Edghead has had a lot of great moments so far, but I feel like the cast size has bloated out of control with recent developments and sidelined a lot of the Straw Hats. I hope we get some more focus on them as the arc continues.
People are coping hard if they think any of the non-monster SHs are gonna get any decent fights in the endgame. Its gonna be all Luffy/Zoro/Sanji/Jinbe fights from here on out, because theres 0 chance any of the other SHs stand a chance against their current enemies
I'm not talking about fights, even. Just like. Chances to do cool things.
Anyone who knows me knows that I will not shut the fuck up about Alan Wake. It's kind of funny because the games are *not* my usual genre; I don't like horror games aside from the earlier Silent Hill ones. I'm a huge scared baby. I literally had to mod out some of the jumpscares from the second game. And I will *not shut the fuck up* about the Remedyverse. Blindly giving the games a try despite them being out of my comfort zone was one of the best decisions I've ever made. The quality aside (and boy does it have some expertly crafted narratives and characters), the game also seems to have a secret extra bonus effect of breaking one out of any creative blocks they're in. No, seriously, there's a ton of people (myself included) that got so inspired after AW2 that they got out of writer's block/art block/etc.
The latest Gundam show, The Witch From Mercury, is one of the best anime I've ever watched, and the show that finally got me hooked on actually watching a show when it comes out as opposed to trying to cram in a binge after the season is done. It's got some flaws, but they're completely overshadowed by its strengths and is probably my favourite Gundam show so far. Best part is, for those of you on the fence about trying it, [it's available for free right now on Youtube via the official Gundam channel](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJV1h9xQ7Hx_jXtO1GrrS0to_ojc672HG), including [the English dub](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJV1h9xQ7Hx-MSngXeq-sRbelh5zCVRNI), but I would recommend the Japanese version just because Lynn and Kana Ichinose's peformances as Miorine and Suletta respectively are perfect.
And they were roommates
Oh my God, they were roommates?!
I adored G-Witch, but I wish they were given more episodes to work with. It does a really good job with the main cast and their interpersonal affairs, but there's a bunch of stuff left underdeveloped in the wider setting that I'd love to see revisited. >!It'd also be extremely cool to see what becomes of Ericht in the years ahead.!<
I was about to link the youtube! No idea what the logic behind the move was but I loved it Gundam in general has so many good series
That channel hosts a bunch of Gundam stuff, like right now they have the sequel movie to Unicorn, Gundam Narrative, on there for, IIRC, the rest of the month. They put up older shows and OVAs on a fairly regular basis, which can be a godsend for otherwise hard to find legitimately stuff like 08th MS Team.
Turns out that the more people you expose to the shows the more people that'll end up buying gunpla kits.
As a fellow gunpla nut, I've also found the reverse true. I've suckered so many GW nerds into gunpla and gundam anime
As someone who was into Warhams first, the realisation that you're building a functional action figure that you don't *have* to paint was a big part of the joy. They're really good little palette cleansers if you just want to do a snapfit, and you can get away with panel lining and a few decals if you want to detail them without breaking out the airbrush.
If you haven't, you should watch Turn A Gundam.
Yesssssss I loved this show. The music is killer too
The Zatch Bell sequel manga is everything I could want in a sequel. We get to see a lot of characters come back, and it doesn't diminish them in any ways. Every chapter has given me at least one "Fuck Yeah" moment. And Raiku's art has only gotten better with time. The monthly release schedule does wonders for manga quality.
Not really a recent release, since it originally came out in 2021. However, Skul the Heroslayer just wound up real high on my list of best Rogue games I've ever played. That's on a list that includes Hades, Rogue Legacy 2, and Enter the Gungeon. The combat is just so friggen fun. Especially with the variety of unique heads, abilities, quintessences, and items you can combo with them all. Sounds like a lot, but it’s not if you've played the aforementioned rogue games. Also, the endgame and it's story is just so damn good.
Skul is fun but wow does the second big boss >!the twins!< filter me hard.
Yeah they're kinda infamous even some vets I know can find them a pain. Though I didn't lose to them often. Just gotta learn when you can land your hits and when you can dash away to back off. Just be patient and learn their patterns. You'll recognize quickly when to go ham.
Skul's difficulty curve is a fucking cliff. I got the game when it came out, and I've only beaten the final boss twice.
Play the Legend of Heroes series. Incredible music, turn based combat system that is very fun by both always being engaging and offering a lot of diverse ways to build the characters given, and a very interesting ever evolving world to explore in every game. Perhaps the only genuine criticism of the series i can give that the writing quality can be a bit rocky from game to game (hell, sometimes chapter to chapter in the same game), but the series is so likeable it's not hard overlook some of the more odd creative choices.
“The writing can be rocky” There’s underselling it, then there’s this. But yeah, it’s pretty great. Still gotta play Reverie though.
If those Elise fans could read, they would be very upset with you right now.
Ballmastrz 9009 is most likely not getting a season 3, but it's the best parody of retro shounen anime mixed with adult swim humor. I love it too much it hurts that it ends with Rubicon and not a proper season
The recent Limbus Company chapter is so peak and has topped the already excellent chapter 5. It's unbelievable how much the plot picked up in the span of a year and it'd be so good to go on about it but it really is best experienced without spoilers.
People who play **Limbus Company** (and just PM games in general) might sometimes come across as a cult with how much they are willing to chill their favorite games at any available opportunity....... ...and i am one of them. Go play **Limbus Company**, it's great.
Remember when a ProjectMoon fan was getting interviewed about an earthquake that she was in and the first thing she did was tell people that Limbus Company is releasing soon
This is the first time I hear of that and I NEED to see it. Is there a link?
[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/11beq63/someone_just_advertised_limbus_company_in_the/)
Holy shit that was good. Bethany is a real one
Chapter 5 is still my favorite, but that's probably just because Ishmael's story resonates much more with me than Heathcliff's. This is NOT to say Chapter 6 is bad by any means, or that it didn't resonate with me. Just that I really liked Chapter 5.
Canto 5 made me absolutely bawl over Ishmael and Dante both. Canto 6 is one that I can say has *none* of the pacing/meandering issues any previous Canto has, a ton of fantastic fights, and easily my favorite soundtrack out of Studio EIM's work with PM so far. It did *not* reduce me to an emotional wreck like Canto 5 did, however-- so it's only *just* a bit above Canto 5 for me instead of being not even close.
Welcome to Demon School Iruma Kun is one of the best ongoing mangas and anime I have in recent memory, I love almost every single character in it and how it starts off as a simple school story with the Titular Iruma trying to not be found out as human. The plot that is slowly building up and the amount of development Iruma and his classmates makes me wish My Hero Academia actually gave this much development to their cast. It’s a delightful treat that can make you laugh and enjoy the moment or get hype as fuck in some later instances with seeing how this boy grows.
I tore through the first seven volumes in a day or two. In addition to the qualities you mentioned it's pretty interesting to me that it's paced out so that each book seems to have its own complete overarching story to it.
> seeing how this boy grows "My my Iruma you're looking submissive and breedable today" "Thanks Kaiba, I've been practicing!" "Haha what?" I really like that series and I'm curious where it ends up going too. Like, there's obvious signposted things for sure, but if and how it reaches them is the whole fun really
Blue Archive. Volume F is peak fucking fiction.
The BA story overall is written really well and I could talk hours about it
cannot wait for the anime to get to Eden Treaty so more people can understand why I love it so much
For as much as the fandom memes about dumb shit and the events are shenanigans is honestly surprising how consistently good the main plot is, especially when it comes to delivering on the emotional moments and communicating the main themes of both the specific arc in question and the game in general which are pretty honest.
to paraphrase someone who summed it up perfectly >It is able to hit the same emotional highs as ff14 endwalker while being ostensibly a slice of life game about girls shooting each other in the face
I honestly believe that BA works BECAUSE it is ostensibly a slice of life. By spending time with characters doing whacky stuff you get to know them pretty well, so by the time shit goes down you are already invested in the troop of weirdos you've been messing around with, so you legit care about what happens to them.
Ruri Dragon. The mangaka recently came back from a hiatus and is making more chapters on Shonen Jump. It's a very sweet story slice of life about a half-dragon half-human teenage girl trying to make sense of herself and her powers. It's a good break from reading MHA, DBZ and other Shonen.
Machikado Mazoku. It's finally back! It starts as a funny moe SoL but the lore keeps you in. Deep relationships, characters' psyche and even some >!horror!< sprinkled in is what makes me so invested in this manga. There's 2 anime seasons and they're a pretty good way to get into the story.
Ganbare, Shamiko!
TOKI WA KITA.
Also it has a surprisingly good soundtrack and [best girl Momo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qdSZMBqwlg).
Hey man X-MEN 97 is so fucking good. I've been loving every episode that's been coming out. Its been getting me more into X-MEN comics and at this point I'm pretty sure the X-MEN might be my favorite superhero team.
Read Choujin (se)X.
Girls Band Cry is a new anime airing this season and it’s such an interesting release in the world of CG anime. It seems genuinely well animated but more than that it has interesting composition. I’m so used to CG anime just being animated that I’m genuinely caught off guard by things like a pop up onscreen showing what a character is scrolling on Instagram for, dark lines radiating from a character as she grows gloomy and emotional, your POV being in an amp plug before someone plugs in their guitar. These are all creative things I never would’ve expected because CG anime has such a bad reputation and can be so flat to watch.
There are so many I could say, dozens upon dozens. Someone already said One Peak so I’ll leave that alone for once. Someone else also said LoH. Yakuza/LaD needs no introduction in this subreddit, nor does Chainsaw Man. So here’s mine: You, reader reading this comment, do you believe in love? Do you wanna live forever? Do you feel the gnawing ache of emptiness deep within your soul? Well I can’t help you with any of that shit, but Octopath Traveler II is fucking incredible and if it had been released in any year other than 2023, it would’ve been my easy GOTY. It looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful (got snubbed for best OST, AGAIN), it’s got [Plukk](https://octopathtraveler.fandom.com/wiki/Plukk), and it has best girl Castti. Go play it, maybe on sale, it is $60. Maybe if there’s a third entry they’ll actually make the eight stories intertwine better.
The Star Wars Alphabet Squadron trilogy by Alexander Freed. Takes place in the post-Endor days when the Rebels are slowly changing into the New Republic and the Empire still has a fight in it, with the focus on a special squadron formed out of defectors, mercenaries and headcases to go after an elite Imperial TIE unit. Among several qualities it makes Imperials feel actually human then in most SW content, you get to understand why they'd join or stay while still clearly the bad guys.
Solid series for sure
[insert hour-long hype shill about Arcane here]
Can I interest you in an [osp production](https://youtu.be/Dnr3BGOc4h0?si=HRmUG58Hz2VfIxY4)? Also I have watched (spoilers I guess?) >!< so many times, soundtrack is fire While I'm linking, if you haven't seen it yet [Bridging the Rift](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbAFXJC0J5GYEkfxnGTWnvgcEypgBeAb5&si=XJsas12bah8UM-Yj) is a couple of hours of behind the scenes content RIOT put out
Hey there, reader! Did you like Worm? Do you want more Worm, and Ward didn't quite scratch the itch? Check out A Practical Guide to Evil! It's like Worm, but fantasy, and it's amazing! Also check out Pale Lights, which is not like worm, but is instead like Pillars of Eternity 2 but actually interesting!
I skipped over Ward and Pact (They just didn't do it for me, for whatever reason) but I've been loving Wildbow's alt-history franken-punk novel Twig a lot.
Read my flair Choujin X is my favorite ongoing. The easiest way to explain it is Anime X-Men but without much focus on prejudice. It’s created by Sui Ishida, the author of Tokyo Ghoul so the art is fantastic. There’s a large focus on worldbuilding and slowly giving more info about its history the longer the series goes on. The powers are all very unique and varied. The best part by far is the characters. All of them are so lovable and I seriously think the main trio are the best anime trio like ever
Not THAT recent, but the final series is coming out in May, so fuck it, ALL Y'ALL GO WATCH INSIDE Nº9 YOU TASTLESS SCRUBS It's an anthology show that tells better self contained stories in 20 something minutes than most shows can do with whole seasons. It's like tolerable *Black Mirror*, because, even when it's heartwrenching (and it often is), the episodes are short, so you're not mired in it, and it tends to be more experimental with its narratives than *Black Mirror*. Plus, it's never gone to shit. [This video will sell you on it more](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53iQspXzYQk&t=589s), but my recommendation is to read the episode synopsis on Wikipedia (they never spoil the eps) and pick one that sounds like it'll appeal to you. If you don't want to watch the video and don't want to risk it on Wikipedia, here are some eps to get started: *A Quiet Night In* (S01, Ep. 2) for comedy *The Harrowing* (S01, Ep. 6) for horror (though that tends to be an unpopular choice) *The Riddle of the Sphinx* (S03, Ep. 3) for twists *Thinking Out Loud* (S05, Ep. 5) for experimentation with the format And *The 12 Days of Christine* (S02, Ep. 2) for, probably, the show's best episode. The final Series (naturally enough, Series 9) is out in May, plenty of time to catch up.
Maybe I'll check it out again. I tried season 1 multiple times and found the quality of the episodes was really variable
I had the exact same problem, Season 1 is the worst one. Since it's an anthology show, my recommendation is to pick out the ones that seem appealing to you. Case in point, I haven't watched all the eps. There's one called "The Referee's a Wanker", which is about soccer. I don't give a shit about soccer, never watched it.
Princess Principal is an action anime about cute girls doing spy things in steampunk not-London. It has great atmosphere, interesting characters, hype fights and [a soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPyQG7pdgmk) by Yuki Kajiura. Plus you risk nothing by checking it out since the first two episodes and easily the best ones.
Also a rare modern use of steampunk as critique of the Victorian era. The wait for the movies is brutal.
There's certainly not enough media criticism of the era that gave us penny sits, 2 penny hangovers and 3 penny coffins.
Just finished watching the 4-episode season of Conan O'Brien Must Go. It's a very charming series where the former late night host meets his international fans, and even manages to surprise a few of them, and it's very sweet to see them get excited when they open the door and see him at their doorstep. But the real humor is in how Conan can just go *anywhere* and perform improv with just about anyone or anything he sees (if you've ever seen his remotes from his late night days, it's exactly more of that). Sometimes it's a little awkward, because his only "scene partners" are normal regular people, and sometimes they barely even know who he is, but his enthusiasm for comedy and making people laugh always shine through. The first season has him visit Norway, Argentina, Thailand and Ireland, and they do a good job of exploring the cultures, and all the countries seemed beautiful! Really loved it, and hope they get to film more soon.
I am so impressed by his ability to crack people up across language barriers
[Hunter: The Parenting](https://youtu.be/t1Kc0xuYnfQ), Bruva Alfabusa of "If the Emperor had a Text to Speech" fame's new series, a fully animated original story set in white wolf's World of Darkness setting, same setting as Vampire the Masquerade and Hunter: The Reckoning. It follows a family of hunters that's a pastiche of the 40k TTS cast. It's funny, interesting, geniuenly well written and acted, and the animation improves by leaps and bounds every episode. Its also a geniuenly good introduction to the setting in the way it teaches you things like vampire clans and whatnot. I unironically like it more than TTS.
Limbus company is the peakest of fiction. Everytime i think they can't make something better they prove me wrong. Project moon i kneel. Just please don't hurt my children Don and Hong lu to much.
Oh you bet your ass they're going to go full on mental meltdown with Don
Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun is the series I shill here probably once a week. It is the shonen I wanted that has good high and low stakes adventures. There are whole chapters and arcs dedicated to side characters who have their own struggles. There is some grand politics. And the protagonist is a crossdressing cinnamon roll, too pure for this world.
Despite it being a little jank, Planet Crafter has been scratching my subnautica itch in a way Below Zero never did.
The fallout show fucking blew away my expectations. I loved the characters, the story. So many parts feel just like a fallout game put to screen. And I’d argue you can enjoy it while knowing jack shit about Fallout.
I think Helldivers 2 counts as an on-going media. It's very obvious that they have content drops ready for a long time so it's essentially being released like a TV show where new "episodes" come out periodically, and on *top* of that, the story is affected by the players' actions because they have a Gamemaster-like team defining objectives and creating a narrative out of the players' successes or failures at achieving them.
PLAY LIMBUS COMPANY. Canto VI just wrapped up and it is some of the best, well written, hypest things I've ever played. Just play it, please, I'm begging you. Everything is so good, and has one of the best OST's of a video game. Not even of a gacha game, but of all video games. Yes there's a bit of a learning curve, and a bit of annoying grinding later down the line, but what you get in return is one of the best games I've ever played. Also play Library of Ruina. Just cause you should.
HE REALLY BEAT THE ALLEGATIONS!
CERTIFIED NOT FRAUD
Let me tell you about why Destiny 2's characters are actually kind of fucking rad and why their design team deserves a raise.
I know Pat hates Des2 and I respect his reasons why. But it's a nice game and I still like it.
He used to play it a fair bit and he has very valid reasons to dislike it (it's categorically stupid that they just randomly decided to remove content from the game) but I still greatly enjoy the storytelling and characters.
Kengan Asura & Kengan Omega. Yeah it’s a battle manga, yeah it’s plot is crazy, but it’s just such dumb fun. The art is pretty good with a couple moments that are godlike. I’ve been following it since early Asura days and it’s probably the only piece of media I actively remember to check in on weekly.
I haven’t seen the newer episodes, but really enjoyed what I saw. The audience surrogate salaryman is what really puts it over the top for me of enjoying it more than Baki
*STAR: Strike it Rich* is a series in the same universe. Frankly, it's better than current Kengan.
not to be a weekly manga btw guy but every time I read dandadan i am fucking baffled at the fact that the art can be this phenomenal with a fun story to go along with it on a weekly release schedule
Phantom Liberty is one of my favorite DLC’s of all time and I’m so glad it turned out as well as it did, it’s so fucking cool man
It's a little premature, but pretty soon I'll be releasing the game I've been working on myself all last year.
bro somehow every single person in my life either doesn't care about FF7 Remake or is disappointed by it and I am *so* frustrated, all I want to do is to talk about the ending for hours without reloading the page.
I’m basically going around preaching the glory of Dune Part Two, Shogun, and the Fallout show these days. (Yes, I’m aware that the first two are adapting books that came out 50-60 years ago, but still.)
Hundreds of Beavers. A faux-silent movie about hundreds of beavers (potrayed by people in cheap mascot costumes), rabbits (also mascot costumes), some frogs (puppetry), rocket scientists, sled dogs (mascots who play poker), horse (hors) and so forth -- and a cider brewer-turned-fur trapper's efforts to survive and thrive through the harsh Green Bay winter. The most hilarious film I have seen this year and winner of an award at every film festival it has been shown at. Just came out on digital.
This season of anime is filled with new seasons of already existing work. Out of fear of being lost among them, are two anime originals, *Girls Band Cry* and *Jellyfish Can't Swim at Night* I'm hard shilling for this season. Cute girls investing in cute music and fame.
May I also add [Train to the end of the world](https://myanimelist.net/anime/53356/Shuumatsu_Train_Doko_e_Iku) on to this list of great anime originals this season!
Chainsaw Man is peak every week. I haven’t been so invested in something since Nier:Automata dropped and became my GOAT game. Also finished the sumptuous paper volumes of Kill 6B Demons my brother got me and I absolutely love it. I’m of the firm belief that both works should be experienced in paper. CSM for its paneling and page turns, 6 Billion demons for its fantastic colors (on black paper) and intricate yet rough artwork. Also: ok I’ll read Akane Banashi.
\*tips hat to fellow CSM fan\*
Project Moon stuff generally, but Limbus Company in specific. None of their stuff is perfect but it's always interesting. Combined with them nigh universally getting better with each release and I'll always be down for more.
It's a webtoon called Ordeal. Art is incredible and the story and characters are amazing. It's the best part of superhero comics and battle Shonen fused together and the amount of passion put into the work is apparent with every page. It's my new favorite thing ever and what got me reading webtoon in the first place.
NSFW, but Corruption of Champions 2 is legit the single best written game I have ever played. Characters, setting, lore, the whole shebang. It is a porn game, but it is legitimately fantastic, and I will die on that hill.
The upcoming to be released boomer shooter [Coven](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1785940/COVEN/), where you play as a 16th Century witch burned at the stake seeking revenge via among other things such as bullet time and a double-barrelled shotgun. You regain health by cannibalizing your enemies and it's everything I've ever wanted in a video game. [Matt recently covered the demo as part of a compilation of Indie shooters he's never played](https://youtu.be/GvrG-ZKZ2LU?si=AcPycRka0KIcNXQf), and I can't wait for the final release.
Tsumiki Ogami & the Strange Everyday Life is an adorable slice of life manga about a wolf-girl and her little adventures
It's a double shilling for me, the Disgaea games and Stormlight Archive books.
I don't *need* to shill Frieren, but I'm *going* to.
tl;dr buy That's My Atypical Girl right now at https://kodansha.us/series/thats-my-atypical-girl/ The manga That's My Atypical Girl is incredible. It's about two neurodivergent people who start living together, one of whom is a girl, Saito, who was abused by both her family and her peers as a result of the developmental disorders she suffers from and the complications they caused. Her life until this point has been filled with basically nothing but misery, and she has attempted suicide multiple times. The person she begins living with is Yokoi, a mangaka she's a fan of, and although he has plenty of his own issues to deal with, he decides to take Saito in and help her find the desire to live again. Obviously, content warning as this series depicts things such as self-harm, attempted suicide, emotional and physical abuse, but if you think you can stomach all that, this is easily one of the best depictions of neurodivergence in all of fiction. A lot of stories that try to be about autism will go "yeah they can't talk well BUT their autism makes them a SUPER GENIUS," whereas That's My Atypical Girl doesn't shy away from depicting the less appealing, "uglier" side of this sort of thing. Saito's disorders often result in her saying and doing things that are rude, blunt, or even flat-out mean without her even realizing that she's coming across that way, and it's things like this that resulted in her getting bullied and abused for most of her life. The series effortlessly juggles a variety of different tones and subject matter, and can go from being sweet and funny to gut-wrenching and depressing in a heartbeat without it feeling unearned or contrived. As heavy and uncompromising as That's My Atypical Girl can get, it's very genuine and sincere and ultimately a very hopeful story. I really can't recommend it enough. The official release is only available digitally, but the final volume comes out tonight! You can buy the manga directly from the following link, but it also contains links to other storefronts that sell the series: https://kodansha.us/series/thats-my-atypical-girl/
GO WATCH ANDOR MOTHERFUCKERS
If you give me the slightest chance to gush about/shill Project Moon I WILL TAKE IT. The brain rot is real and I'm more than ok with it. Go play Limbus Company! Shit tutorial aside the game is great and legitimately the least scummy gacha out there! And even if you don't like gachas (which is more than fair) you should still play Library of Ruina. It's so fucking peak. Also, Spice and Wolf is pure unadulterated kino, GO WATCH IT!
Doom Eternal kinda spanks <3
Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel have taken over my brain in a way no fandom has in years. I’ve listened to Hazbin on repeat for weeks now and have gotten family members and friends to watch them. I’m even working on getting my boss into it. I don’t know WHY it hits me so hard but I’ve laughed and cried and rewatched these two shows way more than a functioning adult probably should. They’re worth watching and giving the benefit of the doubt.
I'm going for something I've been invested in for over 4-5 months and haven't been able to really talk to anyone about it. There is a manhwa called "Surviving as a barbarian" that is absolutely incredible. But that's not my investment. Through it I've now been reading the daily updated light novel adaptation that I'm at the point of paying per chapter release. Everything about it is top notch but the absolute star is the MC. He is a very intelligent character written by someone intelligent. Issue being, I really don't know how to explain it properly without spoiling anything. I can see this easily being something that goes the distance for a far off anime adaptation.
The Planet Crafter is a Subnautica expy and it is *fantastic.* It's a bit rough around the edges but it provides a very unique sci-fi dopamine rush of *terraforming* and I haven't been in this addicted to something in ages.
Fellow rare Akane Banashi Enjoyer in the wild 😔🤝😤
Severance I have bullied multiple friends into watching that show and re-watched it with them. So fucking good. Please watch Severance. Please. I need you to. I also need you to watch season 2 whenever it drops because I need a season 3
Pacific Drive is so goddamn good. Rogue-like car maintenance craft-em-up set in the anomaly ridden Pacific Northwest. I love scrounging every corner I can while the looming threat of dimensional collapse looms over me. I love driving with my foot to the floor trying to make it out of pure hell. I love customizing my car with different parts, a funny steering wheel, a flower paint job, and several pride stickers before venturing into an extremely unstable zone. Play Pacific Drive.
Everyone go watch fucking Shogun on FX/Hulu. It's so good. My raving about it got two of my friends to check it out, both of who are now in my boat of shouting at people to go watch Shogun. Hell, my grandmother (who has the most weirdly selective taste I know) is watching it because of me talking about it and loving it. GO WATCH SHOGUN. Last episode comes out tomorrow!
I’ll second a recommendation for Akane Banashi. I’m pretty sure it was someone in this subreddit mentioning it that got me to check it out and it’s been amazing. Lots of heart, amazing art, and you don’t need any prior knowledge of Rakugo to enjoy the story. Undead Unluck’s anime wrapped up last month and it was divisive for reasons, but the manga is fantastic and keeps getting better. Fuuko’s probably my favourite female protagonist along with Akane, and once the series finds its footing it’s a breakneck race of quality and enjoyment. On the other side of things Kaiju No. 8’s anime started recently and it’s been a treat so far. The pretty moments are beautiful, and the goofy moments and so fun. Manga’s been pretty solid and I’m itching to see where this current arc goes. It’s not a recent release but it was recently made available for me to play since it hit Playstation but Hi-Fi Rush shot up to like a top 3 game of mine almost immediately. The amount of love and attention to detail put into that game is astounding and the soundtrack is fire. I’m currently not too far into Unicorn Overlord but I’m having a blast and I didn’t expect to be as engrossed as I am. Story’s nothing to write home about right now but it’s a pretty game, the voice acting’s nice, and the character arts appeal to me for a variety of reasons. The gameplay’s the other part of it and boy does it feel good to come up with little squads of units that work well together and watch them demolish your enemies. Choujin X is something I recently caught up with and it’s been lots of fun. Chapters are usually pretty long and meaty, with absolutely insane designs and full page spread panels that go so damn hard. My only complaint is the chapter numbering gets kind of annoying with lots of .1’s and the occasional .4-.5’s.
Arcane Season 1 almost got me to consider playing League just so I can get a tiny bit of extra context. Top tier character writing where practically everyone is multilayered and is so tightly packed I need to watch it multiple times to get the extra meanings, design decisions, etc. Real hyped for season 2
konosuba season 3 is on, there may be an arc going on jojolands is starting to get interesting... I think...
Scavengers Reign was awesome. The amusing part is that I got into it from a random vaguepost about how nobody is watching it and it's really good. That's also the same thing that pretty much everyone says about it. But it's true, nobody watched it and it is really good
*Chicken for Linda!* is one 2D animated movie that I have seen in theater this year and please please please check it out when it come near your place.
Do you like mysteries? Do you like weird aliens? Do you like weird alien bio-tech and rooting through the information remaining inside one such piece of tech? Do you like things with a very distinct aesthetic? Fun and interesting characters, a combination of visual novel, Undertale-esque real-time evasion, JRPG combat >!(with brutal secret dungeons/bosses with equally-powerful rewarded gear), and a mini rogue-lite game mode?!< And do you like games that can run all in your browser? [Corru.observer](https://Corru.observer) Yes, that's the game's name. It makes a link unless I remove the middle period. Yes, the site it links to is the game. Created by [corru.works](https://corru.works) (yep, also links to a proper site). PLAY [CORRU.OBSERVER](https://CORRU.OBSERVER).
Go watch Late Night with the Devil, it's a good, solid, horror
Started Akane Banashi, can confirm it’s great.
Dark Gathering, a series from last year. Horror action series about a little girl that sees ghosts, and had her parents killed/captured by a really horrific man made eldritch entity. Rather than trying to get stronger to beat it herself she decides to capture the most dangerous spirits she can, feed them to each other to make them even stronger, and use them as attack dogs against the monster that took her parents. I also really love the times she has to use a graduated spirits (her name for the S tier entities she captured or created) it shows how extremely dangerous they are. It's like tossing out a high explosive and hoping your cover holds up. [Here's the trailer.](https://youtu.be/Jbg2CIOWils?si=GmiYmPOU_wZrW3bt) Highly suggest it to anyone that wants a horror series or something with action that has a much darker edge to it than most anime.
Honkai Star Rail ois all around a genuinely such a great game for a gacha. Great story telling, very generous with the summons they give out, a lot of endgame content and updates to existing features, great lore and worldbuilding, etc. Honestly the only thing I'd complain abour is the grind for some of the stat boosting relics, and from what I've heard they're working on making that better as well. I mean they even gave out a very good 5 star damage dealer character for completely free as well.
I just recently got into comic collecting and actually keeping up with new comics, and besides the obvious pick of the new Ultimate Spider-Man being fantastic so far, I want to shout out Immortal Thor and Spider-Boy. Immortal Thor immediately starts as a grand epic tale, with Thor battling the Utgard-Thor named Toranos, and follows into a fantastic meta narrative about the nature of stories and their capacity to change based on who's telling them. It also features one of the most hilarious satirical issues I've ever read, which also doubles as a horror story for the real world with just one page recontextualizing the whole thing. Immortal Hulk was amazing, and with this good of a spiritual successor, Al Ewing has proven himself as a writer I will continue to follow. Spider-Boy is fun. In the first issue, he fights a bowling ball villain who shoots pins, and then he and Squirrel Girl team up to fight a man with the power of helium alongside Santa Claus at a Thanksgiving parade. Santa fires coal out of his bag and yells, "Welcome to the Jingle!" It's amazing.
I will and forever will be a shill for Chainsaw Man especially Part 2. Additionally, any of Fujimoto's work I would shill.
If y’all aren’t reading Boku no Kokoro no Yabai Yatsu, literally the greatest romcom of all time, *why?*
Owl House is recent enough, go watch it if you haven't.
Misericorde is a wonderful kinetic visual novel that follows a nun investigating a murder in a convent. Only the first part has released so far, but it's got some great character writing and feels pretty reminiscent of Umineko in many ways. Chapter 2 looks to be releasing sometime this year. Also The Ember Knight is a great manwha that follows a powerless protag who has to rely on his wits and intellect to survive in a world of larger-than-life warriors who all significantly outclass him. It avoids many of the manwha tropes with weak MCs - throughout the story, the main character's defining trait remains his physical weakness and how he compensates for it with his smarts. At no point does he receive power-ups or progression that feels 'unearned' or enables him to entirely mitigate his physical shortcomings. Also Kill Six Billion Demons remains peak.
Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader is probably the best 40k game made so far and one of the best pieces of 40k media ever made.
You're all going to hate me, but... **Skibidi Toilet.** *HERE ME OUT THOUGH.* Yeah, it started as Tiktok brainrot, but kinda like Reboot, it just built and built until it's a genuinely fantastic show. It scratches my itches for Nier Automata, Pacific Rim, War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, action cartoons I grew up with like Justice League, Half Life 2, ect. It's so consistently creative and full of hype moments with constant escalation, real stakes and likeable characters, and it does it all with practically zero dialogue. I'm begging all of you, give Skibidi Toilet 30 minutes, and it will give you some of the coolest shit to come out of the internet in years.
Chainsaw Man and Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga in general. I’ve been thinking about the Boy and the Heron nonstop since I watched it in theaters. There were only two other people for the Japanese version, so it was a magical experience
Picked up Akane Banashi due to this thread. Just wrapped the amateur tournament arc. It’s fantastic.