One of the Nier: Automata developers bragged about 2B having 300K polygons just for her butt alone. For some reason, I was reminded of this piece of trivia. Not sure why!
Black Torch Ep. 3
Geez, our first boss fight is against Ornstein and Smough? Isn’t that a little unfair? Plus, these games are full of artificial difficulty. This fight would be much easier if the camera wasn’t so bad.
Unfortunately, it keeps panning down to my character’s ass! How am I supposed to defeat the boss!
What can I say? It’s a little distracting.
Ugh, they even had to include a cutscene midfight, so you always have to watch it when you reach the second phase!
What a generic sob story too! Ah well, I’ll just summon an NPC to help.
Oh wow, I won just like that!
No wonder people frown on using the Mimic Tear! Whoa, what’s with all these cutscenes immediately after beating the boss! Who does this director think he is, Kojima?!
They even had to introduce a rival character! I hope this “Gary” doesn’t get in my way too much!
Jokes aside, Jiro’s stupidity is starting to get ridiculous. Rago will be spewing standard-issue exposition. Nothing complicated. Just “hey, we’re entering the spectral realm, which is where spirits like the mononoke reside!” And yet, this is enough to get us stupid ass Marvel-tier writing. “Durr, you’ve lost me, but I’m guessing that’s bad!”
Daemons of the Shadow Realm Ep. 15
Yuru goes off to think, but he ends up spilling his guts to man’s best friend. Sometimes, you don’t need someone to offer up solutions; you just want a sympathetic ear — even if that ear belongs to a pug. Have you guys seen pictures of what they used to look like? Man, those poor, miserable animals.
Once Yuru rejoins the group, Danji is already gone. The latter is one half of a Daemon pair, so he desires to save his sister. Those alien-looking Daemons are easily starstruck, so they offer a helping hand. Can any of these three even fight, though? I dunno, this sounds like a bad idea.
When Yuru returns home, he and Hana do Dera dirty, especially Hana. Dera waited for her before eating, but she certainly didn’t wait for him! Yuru then gets a photo of his parents that Asa had promised. That brocon had to go and sneak in a few unwanted extras, though. But onto more serious matters, Yuru finally learns about Ivan’s message. They then try hatching a plan to lure the guy out with the help of Jin’s men.
You would thus expect us to jump right into the action, but no, we waste a few seconds with the elder Kagemori brother. Asa is helping out with one of his manga, but she’s got too much Yuru on the brain. Meanwhile, we get tidbits of lore about Hikaru, one of the bodyguards, etc. I feel like this is extraneous information. This whole scene is extraneous; it’s padding to delay the inevitable clash between Yuru and Ivan.
Finally, we return to the main story, but it isn’t long before Yuru is snatched away by a Daemon. The worst part is how nobody could detect it before it struck. So Yuru comes face to face with Asuma and that shady uncle. Asuma then threateningly asks if Yuru would like to die. The funny thing is, I don’t think this will happen for a long, long time. I think Yuru forming a contract with Seal will be a dangling plot thread that the mangaka will only pull out when they can’t delay the story any further.
Speaking of forming a contract with Seal, the rest of the gang — Dera, Left, and Right — are stuck facing Ivan without any help. After all, the killer had already taken out Jin’s faceless goons. Welp, ain’t much help there. More importantly, however, Ivan’s real target is Left, because her supposed presence alone might prevent Seal from forming said contract. So… if anyone tries to kill Yuru now, there’s a good chance he would just die. See? That previous scene with Asuma isn’t much of a cliffhanger. After all, he’s working with Ivan, right? So they have to coordinate this. He can’t touch a hair on Yuru until something is done about Left. I don’t expect Left or the rest of the gang to beat Ivan without Yuru, but I also don’t expect Left to go anywhere either.
In any case, Left accepts the challenge. I’m left wondering how Yuru will get out of his current predicament and back to his allies…
Tomb Raider King Ep. 2
You can already feel the show trying to hedge. What do I mean? Well, Joo-Heon gets his next relic through Dominance with a capital D. The disembodied narrator tells us that you can either use Affinity to control a relic through trust, or you can coerce them through Dominance. With a second chance to do things over, Joo-Heon is no longer Mr. Nice Guy… or so the anime would like you to think. Shortly after acquiring his second relic, he gains the title “Abuser of Relics.” We then cut to an agent who works for the Republic of Bent — c’mon, that’s the best fake country you can come up with? — and he’s been warned that Joo-Heon is none other than “the one who will devour the world.” Oooooh, we have a bad guy on our hands! Except not. They tried the same shit in Solo Leveling, too. All this build-up about how Jin-Woo was losing his humanity, and how he no longer had any qualms about murdering people. You know what all that ultimately amounted to? Jack shit. So I don’t believe for a second that Joo-Heon will be any different. Plus, like I said, they’re already hedging. After stealing his first relic — a gold dagger — he could’ve killed the thugs in the alleyway. But instead, he slashes their stomachs, leaving behind a bleeding but non-critical wound. Nobody even heads to the hospital.
Oh yeah, I guess the version I’m watching has been localized for Japanese audiences. As a result, it’s not Joo-Heon. It’s Ryoga. Yeah, I’m going to stick with his original name.