Dance Dance Danseur

Dance Dance Danseur by Studio MAPPA

Man, I’m late to the party, BUT I’ve joined it, so that’s something. I guess? Anyways, the first anime I’ve seen in months, because I’m a sucker for sports stories. The last previous being SK∞, which was more on the “meh” side of things, I had my hopes high for DDD with a more classic sports story approach.

And I kind of started reading the manga a while back, but there wasn’t much scanlated yet, so I stopped somewhere in episode 2 or 3 or so? That was all the content there was and I really REALLY need to check out, if there’s more available now. I binged the entire 11 epsiodes. I wouldn’t say it was a 10/10 by a long shot, but it was very enjoyable and seriously left me wanting more.

The story was kind of predictable and pretty standart, nothing outstanding, but even though Junpei only started with ballet at the age of 13 (I think, it was?), which is way too late, if you want to become good enough to be a pro, it’s not entirely unbelievable, that he’s actually going to make it. It’s not like he’s a total beginner, even though he just started with proper lessons. He’s been involved into the sport since he was a small child and he’s been teaching himself theory and practical dance ever since. Also, he’s been doing marial arts which massively helped him to be athletic and very flexible. He’s got everything you need for ballet that you can’t achieve via hard work, the perfect feet, the aura, the long limbs. He’s crazy talanted and gifted, but even though he’s a prodigy he’s still very likable.

And boy I didn’t thought he would be. It honestly starts out with him being kinda pervy and joining for the cute girl with ulterior motives. It helps the anime very clearly showed us his childhood before all of that, so we know he’s been genuinly loving ballet for a long time. He’s nowhere near perfect, he’s flawed and he struggels, but that makes him so likeable. Ballet comes easy to him, but he still struggles so much, even if he’s doing good and he’s getting applause, he’s still a bad dancer – as to be expected with his level of professional training. He also never parades around that he’s a prodigy. He acknowledges his mistakes and flaws. He knows where he stands and if he doesn’t, his surroundings make sure to tell him. He grows as a character A LOT. He’s a very beautifully handled prodigy type, wonderfully flawed and likable.

I honestly thought it was kind of weird when he and Miyako just became a couple in episode 8. Like… what? It was very clear that Miyako likes Luou, even though Junpei liked her. Also, the moment Junpei noticed she liked Luou, he immediately withdrew and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have made any more moves, if his summerclass mates didn’t set them up. Heads up to you, Junpei. Instead of “fighting for his love” he chose to accept and not interfere, you don’t see that often. I was just really surprised she immediately went along with it, but hormones at that age, I guess? I mean, she clearly liked both of them, just Luou more. She probably would’ve been happy in a relationship with Junpei, but it wouldn’t have lasted. Luou would’ve loomed over their relatonship the entire time and it wouldn’t have worked out. I think it was honestly better to end it as quickly as it happend. What brings me to the next question: why was it even necessary?

The entire relationship thing with Junpei and Miyko was really sudden, super quick and over in a heartbeat. Everything they realized and learned from it, they didn’t need the relationship for. Luou didn’t nessecarily need to see that kiss to become pissed and run to his grandma. It added another layer to his tragic self, also loosing his only friend/love interest, but other than throwing Junpei in a quicky relationship with Miyako that could’ve been done better.

Even more so, after Oikawa Natsuki was introduced. I ain’t gonn lie, but I’m team Natsuki all the way. The two of them kind of clicked immediately. They’re so nicely different, but have so much in common at the same time. I think she really appreciates him looking beyond her stoic face and they share the same love for ballet. Like, exactly the same. They were paired up once for one lesson and ticked off better than Junpei and Miyko did the entire season. I know she’s 2 years younger than him and still a bit too young for a relationship, but they’re not dating yet. They don’t really know each other yet. In, like, 2 years, it’s not going to matter anymore. Junpei, my boy, thats your girl right there. You guys will make each other sparkle and shine when the time is right and I’m all here for it.

Which brings be to the rest of the cast. I really liked the other top dancers in the ballet class. Just like Luou, I thought they were set out to be enemies, but they all became friends, even though they were competing for the same thing. And this is so wonderful! We don’t have a real antagonist for Junpei. If anything, he’s Luous antagonist. Junpei has very good social skills and we see them in action when he manages to befriend all of his fellow competitors. I think this is a very real situation at the summer class, because they’re all in the same boat and they’re all aiming for the same thing, so they have a lot in common. You can absolutely compete against each other, but still be friends. That was surprisingly wholesome.

The one real “bad guy” was the grandma, I guess? But she’s already ancient and has severe Alzheimers, so it’s more like picking up the pieces she left behind, rather than actively fighting her. Luou needed to realize he can start healing the wounds she created and there’s loving people around him, who’ll help him.

Another thing I want to point out is how well this story shows what toxic words can do to a child. And no, I’m not talking about the grandma. She was downright abusing Luou, that’s very much a big fat HELL NO. I’m talking about Junpei’s uncle. He meant it well, but his words caused Junpei to change his entire life in a direction he never wanted to. “You’re the man of the family. You need to protect your mom and sister. You need to be strong and manly.” That’s just so toxic, that poor child didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that advice. He only knew he had to do something, because his uncle said so and because he didn’t know any better, we wanted to become like his male rolemodel – his father. His obsession with being cool, just to look strong, that’s so unhealthy. The good things that came out of it were his really good social skills, but that poor child lived in fear for years and had to hide his passion and danced in secret. All that just because of a single comment by his uncle. Words can do so much damage and these ones sure did.

Overall, I ended up giving DDD 8/10. The animation was so beautiful, the characters were very well done, but the story was lacking. The super quick relationship with Miyko wasn’t sitting well with me at all. Junpei knew that taking the scholarship was the right decision for him, but there Miyako comes and BAM I want to stay with Goudai! Sure, that’s a very hormonal teenager like decision, but it tried to create unessacary suspension. We, the audience, were told very clearly that he has to choose Oikawa, Junpei knew immediately that he had to and there was just no way he was going to throw this opportunity away. That relationship quicky really bothered me on all ends and the rest of the story is your classic prodigy sports story kind of thing, so yeah.

It still deserves it’s 8/10 very much, because even though the story is on the weaker side, it left me wanting for more and for that I’m very mad and very happy at the same time, because now I’ve got to pray the manga is getting regular translations. Besides, I gave SK∞ 7/10 (which, in retrospect, is way too high and I should totally change it to a 5/10) and DDD is a lot better.

Hajime no Ippo current chapters- The tease is killing me

I’ve been reading Hajime no Ippo for over 12 years now. The manga itself is ongoing for 32 years, has over 1300 chapters and and has been animated into 3 anime seasons so far. It’s a beast of a manga, but it’s a great example of a successful long running series.

Hajime no Ippo follows the life of Makunouichi Ippo, a highschooler who lives with his hardworking single mother and helps her every way he can. He’s a pushover and gets bullied at school, until one day Takamura Mamoru inspires him to try out boxing. He joins the Kamogawa Gym, starts boxing, becomes a pro, becomes the Champion. Classic sports shounen stroy.

Ippo is quite a classic shounen protagonist. He has talent, but is a very very hard worker. He’s not a genius, but very honest and timid. He’s just… very likable. Despite the fact he’s a beast in the rink and makes a living by beating the crap out of other people, he’s a surprisingly average guy. The entire cast of the Kamogawa Gym is pretty likable, with Aoki and Kimura serving as comic relieve most of the time, but they have their shinig moments of awesome, too.

What I really like in Ippo compared to, say Bleach, even though the series is so log and we’ve met so many characters along the way, the story never forgets it’s main cast. You have the core cast, which is basically Ippo and the Kamorawa Gym and then you have the frequent (semi-)important supporting cast, like Ippos girlfriend. After those, there’s the important, but not often present, supporting characters, like Miyata and Sendo who we only get to see every here and there, but they are quite important friends/foes/rivals for Ippo and the story. The rest of the cast pretty much just comes and goes. The story never loses it’s focus from it’s main cast and it’s main character.

I like that Ippo struggles and it was such a bold move to have him quit his active boxing career, but they served a legit reason. A reason that was already questioned in canon by … I think it was Itagaki? Basically, it’s been impried Kumi pushed Ippo into it to have him stop boxing, because she doesn’t like to see him boxing and getting hurt whole doing so. And she was kind of right: he was stuck in a corner with his boxing style and he was receiving too many punches, he was punched too much. However, if he really was punch drunk, was quenstioned in canon.

Also, the story had Ippo searching for “true strenght” pretty much since the very beginning. He saw that in Takamura and wanted to find out himself, what it means to be truly strong. He might have become the undefeated japanese champion and was climbing the world ranks, but he never achieved his ultimate goal. A shounen manga that just stops before the main protagonist achieves his goal doesn’t exist. It’s also very unlikely he achieves his goal through his trainer position, because he already knows people he consideres truly strong, but wanted to experience it himself. He can’t so that as a trainer, so he will have to go back into the active sport to fullfill his goal.

And ever since Ippo quit his active career and started to focus on his new role as a trainer, the teasing about him going back as a active boxer started and it’s getting worse and it’s driving me crazy. In order to achieve his goal, he will have to go back into the rink. That much is clear. He will have to go back and he will have to cross that infamous line and bring out his full potential. There had always been this “line” that Ippo hasn’t been able to cross, because he’s afraid of what he will become if he does so. The line that the real beasts like Takamura and Sendo have crossed.

The way the story is progressing it’s very clear Ippo will make a comeback and I can’t wait for it, but it could take a while longer still. He may go back after Takamuras match, but he might wait until something with Miyata or Sendo happens, for example. The thing is, he’s so damn close. Every single boxer around him, including his former trainers, they all want him to make his comeback. The timeout and the trainer perspective and done him very very good. The day he makes his comeback he’ll be stronger than ever and he’ll be prepared to enter the realm of the beasts such a Takamura. He already crossed that line once, when he punched the student in rage under that bridge.

Just thinking who his opponent for his comeback match might be, is so exciting. They could do it either way: Bring in someone new, some cannonfodder he can absolutely destroy and be done with. Or they can bring someone we already know, a strong opponent from the past and a fight of epic proportions. I think they will probably go with the cannonfodder, build the hype up over a couple of irrelevant matches to raise in the ranks and then fight the real strong dudes. I’m very concinved he will fight Sendo a thrid time and I think it will be right before he fightes the World Champ.

Sendo is very damaged right now and will take some time to heal. Even though he already has the right to challenge Martinez, I think he would go for Ippo first, when he makes a comeback, before he challenges Martinez. I mean, that would work out timewise, if Ippo enters the carnival relatively soon and Sendo definately wants to fight Ippo. I would even go so far as to say, Sendo has more desire to fight (and beat) Ippo than he has to fight the World Champion. Ippo is the only man Sendo ever lost to and I personally think the Ippo vs Sendo matches were the best in the entire manga. Their next and final clash will be nothing short of epic.

That is, however, after Ippo makes his comeback and who knows when that will be. Hopefully soon! I can’t wait.

SK∞

I love me a good sportsmanga or -anime, so when I saw SK∞ happened, I really wanted to watch it and with just 12 episodes it’s a nice bite sized anime.

Going into it, I thought it was going to have Air Gear vibes, because of that street-sports thingy going on, but it ended up being much more like Initial D. Btw, I did not watch Air Gear, only read the manga so I don’t know how much was actuall animated. The manga kind of got weird towards the end, but I have to give it to Air Gear, it has one the coolest crowning moments of awesome in a manga I’ve read, when Ikki was declared Storm King. It wasn’t even a big win or anything, Ikki was in normal boots, it was literally just a declaration, but the build up and how it was done was just so damn epic. I was considering to reread it just for this scene.

The entire structure was much more Initial D-like, though. It’s just instead of cars, they’re skating downhill on skateboards in mostly one on one battles and the main character is a genius.

The animation, being done by studio Bones, looks amazing for the most part. Wider shots look kind of cheap here and there, but overall very nice to look at. Especially the beefs looks really good and paired with an amazing soundtrack, it’s so much fun to watch. The final skate had such great music and visual, even with paper thin characters and storylines, it’s fun to watch.

Here’s the biggest downfall: the story is pretty much non-existent. It’s basically “let’s beat the bad guy, because I want to and skateboarding is fun”. That’s the extent of the story. Honestly, in many sports stories, the story is pretty thin, it’s usually about some sort of tournament they want to win. Yes, there is a tournament in SK∞, but it all boils down to “skating is fun!” This is the message thats drilled into your head: “Skating is fun! And it’s even more fun with friends!” Yes, sure, I would guess everyone is doing their sports of choice, because it’s fun. This message is conveyed to the point where it gets annoying.

Let’s move on to the characters. The first main is Reki and he’s like a skateboarding nerd, he’s decently good at it and teaches Langa. I like that they tried to go a different route with Reki, that he’s not the best and the most talented and the genius – that’s Langa. I still feel like I’m kind of disappointed in Reki. He literally lost every single beef he had in the entire series. He didn’t win even once. He did have his crowning moment of awesome when he managed to keep Adam in check and just barely lost to him. It makes sense that he’s just not good enough to beat Adam, but couldn’t they have given Reki another moment of awesome linked with a win? Since he lost it feels kind of disappointing after all, even if he was awesome. Also, he’s totally Langas waifu and spends half his screentime screaming “Langa!”

His depressive episode was well done, though. That was cool. That showed some real weakness and depth of his character. It’s very understandable he get’s upset when everyone around him is so much better than he is and even the guy he taught how to skate is suddenly pulling away very fast. Kudos for this.

Langa is a little bit too perfect for my liking, they could’ve given him more flaws. Since he’s a very experienced snowboarder I guess it makes sense he catches up skaeboarding very fast, they kinda overdid it a little bit, though. And he’s always nice and understanding, never said a mean word, yada yada. He was unable to properly deal with the situation when Reki was depressed, but it’s not like he royally screwed up or something, he just didn’t know what to do and tried to reach out to Reki, which was fine tbh. They could’ve make him miss his father a little more and his mother is really cheerfull for a fresh widow. I wouldve liked to see more anger and more sadness within him. He’s too much “good guy”, too one dimensional.

The main antagonist is Adam, who’s quite frankly batshit insane. When “S” was founded, he was a teenager, but now he’s an adult who’s messing around with mostly underage teenagers. Pretty much all of his “techniques” are extreamely dangerous and are meant to injure other skaters. He assaults teenagers to the point of attempted murder. He crashed his skateboard into Cherry’s face, while Cherry was going top speed downhill right into it. I’m pretty sure under non-anime-circumstances, that would’ve killed Cherry. He tried to do the same to Reki. He crashed Reki into walls and tried to straight up beat him up. What he’s doing is screaming “Oh my God!” on so many levels, I don’t understand how the adults present, who actually know who he is, can just watch and let it happen without bringing him to justice.

Yeah, I get it, he has every reason to be messed up, but that doesn’t make it okay to act like that. Because he was abused as a child, doesn’t make it okay to abuse underage teenagers. This man needs to be locked away and needs professional help very urgently.

The few adults in this anime are not exactly very responsible. I thought they would look out for the kids, but instead they’re okay watching them getting killed (Cherry and Joe) or injure them themselves (Adam and Shadow). Reki was more responsible than any adult in the series. At least he stood up for Mika when Adam was verbally attacking Mika to the point of psychological abuse. The rest of the cast is very trope-y. I liked they picked up Rekis promise towards Mika to not leave him alone, when Reki was depressed and pushing everyone away. Mika had every right to be pissed at Reki for breaking his promise. Honestly, if Mika would’ve been left alone, he probably would’ve turned into another Adam somewhere down the line. Just by being a friend, Reki saved Mika. Also, that cat suit? Adorable. Cute angry kitten. No as smol as Yuri Plisetsky, but still pretty cute.

And then… there’s the fujioshi-bait. This anime is nowhere near as straight up gay as Yuri on Ice, but I’ve already mentioned Reki was basically Langas waifu. At the finale of the last beef when Reki was waiting for Langa at the finish line? And how Langa threw himself at Reki? Yeah, sure, you guys are “just friends”. Then there was the whole thing when skateboarding wasn’t fun without Reki and his heart wouldn’t go dokidoki without Reki when he was skateboarding and then his mom thought Langa was talking about a girl he liked, but it was actually Reki… they definately didn’t say it straight out and in the beach filler epsiode they made Reki interested in a girl, but the bait is out there. It’s deifnately out there.

Overall it was a fun watch. I don’t expect a very deep story or deep characters from a sports anime, even though it’s very much appreciated. They tried a couple of interesting approaches with Reki, which was nice, but they very much overdid Adams violence. I guess what bugged me the most was the repetitive “skateboarding is fun!”-theme and Adams overly violent behavior towards underage teenagers. They could’ve made him the villain just fine without attempted murder and yes, it was very satisfying when Adam was laughted at, becasue he tripped. he deserved it, he actually deserved so much more. Like, I don’t know, a one way trip into a closed facility.

I did rate it with a 7/10, despite it’s flaws. Mainly because it was still overall a pretty fun watch and the visuals and music was very outstanding. It’s kind of a guilty pleasure. On a scale of 1-10 it deserves more of a 5-ish, but the enjoyable parts where very much cool to watch.

Writing Bleach Fanfiction and Hitsugayas Strenght

I admit I have this love-hate relationship with Bleach. I loved it when it came out, but at one point it kind of overstayed it’s welcome, it got messy and threw all logic put of the window. I was glad when it was finally over, but every once in a while I go back and read or write some Bleach fanfiction, because I love shipping Bleach characters.

We’re getting close to the 5 year mark since the manga was ended and yes, I’m still salty over the endgame pairings. IchixRuki was a lot better developed and written than anything about or with Orihime, including her relationship with Ichigo. Also, the way the main characters ended up, just made no sense at all, because it was quite literally what none of them wanted.

Therefore, let’s dive into the wonderful world of fanfiction. The Bleach fandom quite literally pairs up everyone with each other, but I prefer stuff that makes sense. I’m open to some more experimental stuff, I mean, I can totally see the appeal of GrimmjawxIchigo, even though I don’t ship them myself. Ichigo belongs to Rukia, IchixRuki is sacred. By accident I rediscovered a delicious Omegaverse AU modern time IchixRuki, that I’ve read before and totally threw me back into Bleach fanfictions. Hot sex scenes, oblivious Rukia and overprotective Ichigo are just my thing.

Usually, Omegaverse is used in BL pairings in order to make babies and mpreg possible, it does work very nicely in heterosexual pairings, too. I’ve started reading a nice still unfinished Omegaverse IchixRuki with Omega!Ichigo and Alpha!Rukia, where their characters aren’t completely destroyed. Yas.

My personal favorite pairings are IchixRuki, of course. IchixRuki is life, IchixRuki is love. They’re my absolute favorite Bleach ship, they sail themselves no problem. That one time when Ichigo went ice skating with Rukia before he lost his ability to see shinigami and ghosts/spirits? That was the closest damn thing to an actual date we saw in canon. His world has literally faded away when we saw her. In canon, Ichigo never expressed any romantic interest in anyone, but his relationship with Rukia was the best developed point blanc. She made the most sense for him, she suited him best, they kicked the very best out of each other. I do find it quite hard to write about them, because I have trouble with their bickering sounding okay. I have a 20k words long IchixRuki fanfiction in the making, though. And yes, I may bash the idea of Ichigo having children with Orihime two or three times in that fanfiction, at least once from Ichigo himself.

My second favorite ship, which is my favorite to write fanfiction about is HitsuxHina. This is the childhoodfriends-gone-lovers ship in this series that I prefer. Honestly, like many others, I adore Hitsugaya, he’s such a cute angry cinnamonroll. He’s basically a child in this world full with crazy and strong people and behaves more mature than most of them. He’s awesome. And Hinamori is cute and together they’re even cuter. The way he opens up when he’s with her, actually smiles and wants to protect her from everything, it’s just too cute. I think in canon he just wants to protect her, because she’s his childhood friend, but his entire behavior towards her can be interpreted as a crush so damn easily, they sail themselves, too. I’ve written all sorts of stuff about them and since Hinamori has this tragic psychological abuse thing going on, you can make their stories center around her healing process or go further, say she’s fine and make it more spicy and fun. They give so much material to write about. Also, personally I love aging up Hitsugaya. He was a cute little brat, he’s a handsome teen, but he’s a banger as an adult. Momo… you’re in for a real treat. I have a 15k+ unfinsihed lemony fanfiction in the works about them post story aged up into adulthood. I would like to write an Omegaverse fanfiction about them with Alpha!Hitsu and Omega!Hina, where it starts out with Hinamori in a realtionship with Beta!Kira (I’m not very kind to Kira, he’s often her boyfriend until Mr Ice Prince comes around and steals Momo away in my stories), because she’s afraid of alphas, but Hitsugaya starts courting her anyways, pining over her and all that good stuff. Honestly, I just want to write Hitsugaya being nervous about his inner alpha wanting to provide for “his” omega aka Momo by making sure she properly eats and brings her bentos every day to work under the very amused eye of Shinji. Also, him blowing off steam in alpha-fights with Ichigo? Heck yeah.

I do like other pairings, like ShunsuixNanao, but that one got quite a blow by the fact that Shunsui is Nanaos bio uncle. Their relationship is awesome, they pretty much behave like a married couple anyways and they’re a lot of fun to play around with. They’re adults, wirte some lemony stuff, no problem. I love them … and than the entire family connection thing happend and it took my fun wout of this ship. I still kind of ship them and I think Nanao has a legit canon crush on Shunsui, if only he wasn’t her damn uncle.

Ishida deserves someone, too. Ishida can have Orihime, their interests and personalities match so much better anyway, And Renji can have Byakuya, I don’t mind.

So, the other thing is, due to going back to writing about Bleach, I reread some parts of the manga, watched some anime clips and stuff. I ended up watching an amv about the chase scene from Diamond Dust Rebellion where Kira and Hisagi are trying to capture a severly wounded Hitsugaya and fail very much so. I know it’s a movie and therefore not canon, but I’ve always really liked that scene, because it puts Hitsugayas strenght as a Captain in better perspective than the normal storyline does. He’s severly injured and completely destorys two Vice-Captains. Whoever had the bright idea of sending two Vice-Captains to capture a captain is bonkers anyways, but it helps to show how strong Hitsugaya is compared to “normal” Shinigami.

Hitsugaya is that boy genius. Shunsui said he would be stronger than him in a 100 years and Ichimaru said he’s a genius that only ever shows up once in a 100 years, he wields the strongest ice type zanpaktou, he’s the youngest Captain of all time. He’s a grumpy cute little dude, but he’s damn strong and his potential is acknowledged in canon. As a Captain who often fights at the front lines alongside the core cast memers he get’s himself into some very dangerous situations and is paired with some very very strong enemies and doesn’t always win. In the main supporting cast, he sometimes looks like one of the weaker guys even, but he’s actually a LOT stronger than Rukia and Renji from the main cast.

Honestly, at the very end of the manga when he shows his perfected Bankai where he literally needs to age himself up (however that works, but at that point Bleach had no logic left anyway so whatever) in order to manage it, he’s frightenly strong. Rukia has an ice type Zanpaktou as well and she’s strong, her Bankai is strong. Hyrourinmaru is on an entire different level, tough. I like that the story remembers Hitsugaya has this insabely strong Zanpaktou and is supposed to be special, by showing his potential as an adult with access to his Bankai’s true power, which is insane. He gains the power to freeze everything at will and he doesn’t even need to do anything for that. He flicks his finger and flashfreezes everything. Try to get close enough to him to hurt him, good luck and if you manage to and you touch him? You’re frozen. You can’t touch him. He freezes freaking fire. And when he freezes someone, their abilities are rendered useless. Why in the world, didn’t he fight Yhwach? Freeze him, render his ability useless, shatter him in a million pieces or just keep him in that block of ice for all eternity for all I care, but wouldn’t that have worked to much better than using Ichigo with his brute force?

Granted, aside from Hitsugaya himself, nobody knew he could even do that and he never used it in battle before, but instead of sending Rukia and Renji for sentimental reasons, even though they can’t do shit about Yhwach instead of sending adult!Hitsugaya true Bankai from, who could actually make a difference, is just mindblowingly stupid. Plot convenience for main characters, though.

As much as Bleach did some very stupid things, every once in a while there was that comedy that I loved in the beginning and for example in that particular scene when Renji and Rukia face adult!Hitsugaya Bankai and they assume he’s his own older brother and he just goes along with it, was hilarious. Byakuyas comment about Hitsugaya not even bothering to explain himself was the icing on the cake. Yeah, those two idiots won’t even get it anyways, why bother? I loved that.

Trying to watch Skate-Leading☆Stars…

So, I kind of saw that “new” teaser-trailer-thing for the Yuri on Ice movie (that is thankfully still a thing!) with a couple of seconds of young Viktor at the Olympics, but it’s a couple of seconds of Viktor Nikiforov therefore it’s amazing, because Viktor is still best boy. Thank you very much.

Anyways, since I’m still waiting for my precious gay babies to return, I thought I should watch another sports anime, because I really like sports manga/anime and I haven’t watched anime in a while, so why not? I’ve read over 1300 chapters of Hajime no Ippo and every single sports manga Adachi Mitsuru ever wrote. I really like my sports manga/anime.

Apparently, thanks to Yuri on Ice Skate-Leading☆Stars was born. Well, I love figure skating, so yay, but any anime with a star in the middle of it’s title worries me. So I’ve watched 3 episodes and I’m done. It’s basically Yuri on Ice Boyband edition, just less offically gay and written about 10 times worse. I mean, I get it, it’s not targeted towards me, I’m “too old” for the intended demographic, but it could have been good.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:

The Good: The animation is nice and the actual figure skating is looking pretty good with some nice shots. The idea of a figure skating team event is nice, too. It doesn’t really make much of a difference, because they could’ve just done the same story with the normal men’s singles figure skating event. I guess it was some kind of excuse to add more bishounen to the story. I like the general idea, but it’s not beneficial for the story at all to use a made up version of an existing sport instead of just using that sport.

The introduction of an artifical scoring system is AMAZING. We all know artistic sports with judges are very prone to questionale results here and there. The women’s single gold medal scandal at the 2014 Olympics for example and many fans are convinced Yuzuru Hanyu is getting downscored quite a lot, too. Anyways, for an anime to tackle this problem and intruduce a fair objective rating system is surprisingly good.

The Bad: The team event of Skate Leading is fiction, but it’s based off a real sport and the elements they’re showing are based off real elements, but I don’t like how they’re handling it. Pretty much in the first episode, they’re breaking all rules what’s humanly possible in figure skating. I just really don’t like when these boundaries are broken too much in stories with real existing sports, which is my main complain with Kuroko no Basket for example that borderlines on superpowers. The main Maeshima hasn’t been on the ice for years, he stopped still in Gradeschool and started again in Highschool, that’s at least 4 years not in skates. Children can do amazing stuff and it’s very beneficial to be small and light, if you want to spin fast, which is the main reason why so many top female gymnasts are so insanely young. I’m pretty sure gradeschoolers don’t jump quads, though. Maeshima, off the ice for at least 4 years, comes back and lands a perfect quad Flip. That is absolutely insane. If quads by themselves aren’t hard enough, a quad Flip is a harder one on top of that. In episode 2, he attempts a quint, a freakting quint. By the comments of the bystanders he actually managed 5 rotations and by going by his own comments, he only fell, because the ice was overused and his blade got stuck. If landing a quad flip with 0 practice after 4 years off the ice since Gradeschool is not insane, a quint is. The Axel has 1/2 extra rotation, which is the reason why a quad Axel has not been successfully landed during competition yet. The 4 + 1/2 rotations a quad Axel requires are considered the holy grail of jumps right now. Trying for a quint with another half rotation more, is absolutely nuts.

The Ugly: Yes, it get’s worse. The figure skating could have been done better from a technical standpoint, why not stick to what’s possible? What really makes it trash is the absolutely horrible writing. The story is super flat. Revenge and that’s it. Revenge for what? For a silly comment from a cocky child? It honestly dones’t even feel worth all the hassle. It looks like Maeshima is overreacting so much. Then there’s the characters and talking about Maeshima, he’s so unlikable I don’t even want to root for him. He’s cocky, he overestimates himself, he behaves like a 5-year-old, he changed his mind from “I’ll never figure skate again” to “let’s do this!” in 5 seconds flat, he mistreats his teammates and is overall all around an absolute ass. I didn’t even know you can mess up a main character this bad.

The main “antagonist” Shinozaki is pretty much an ass, too. Didn’t anyone feel the need to teach this kid some manners and respect for other people? No? Because that would explain why he’s so rude towards everyone around him. He beat Maeshima by 0.3 points in this Gradeschool competition. That’s super close, it’s not like he had a huge lead or anything… and he tells Maeshima to quit figure skating, because he’ll never be able to beat him? Like… hello? Maeshima could have won that day. Shinozaki just spits on every single person who’s below him in skill, which apparently is everyone since he’s never been beaten, but Maeshima is pretty damn close and he treats Maeshima like a cockroach. Well, that’s one way to get rid of your rivals, I guess. And that’s all there’s is to him.

The other characters are pretty much the same: one after another one dimensional caricatures of stereotypes as Fujioshi fanbait. The cutie, glasses-kun, the genius, etc. and they all have color coded hair, too! Isn’t that nice? They really are like a boyband… or the cast of a reverse harem. Are there even females in this anime? Like, do they even exist?

It’s absolute trash and not even the guilty pleasure or enjoyable kind. It’s just straight trash.

I finally finished reading Kimi ni Todoke

I went through my Mangalist on MyAnimeList and saw I was only 12 chapters away from finishing Kimi ni Todoke. Therefore, I proudly announce I’ve finished Kimi ni Todoke 11 years after I started it. Finally.

Honestly, it’s such a good shoujo manga. Sure, it has it’s flaws, Shota is just way too much of a good guy, even if the manga-ka tried to give him some flaws like being impatient and somewhat jelous, but overall he’s the prime example of a pure good boy. So much so, that he’s kind of boring.

Sawako is the silent type that’s misunderstood, Ayane is the mature type that’s hard to approach and Chizuru is the wierd goofball. We’re swimming in tropes, ladies and gentleman. Nevertheless, the entire manga is incredibly cute. Sawako is adorable without being a babe, she’s honestly just average in looks, thank god. Her efforts seem to make sense and her acomplishments feel like she actually worked hard for them.

So, the main pairings are Sawako x Shota, Chizuru x Ryuu and I guess there was the thing with Ayane and their teacher Pin. To be fair, thanks to Shota boring me to death, the more interesting pairings were the others and my pesonal favorite had always been Chizuru x Ryuu. Thoese two are just gold and I was just so damn happy when they got together. If they didn’t work out, that would’ve ranked the manga down.

Ayane and Pin are, of course, very cringy and as teacher and underage student a very touchy subject, that was handled very well. I guess Pin had a soft spot for Ayane, but as silly as he was, he knew there was no chance he would try and get the both of them in troube by actually trying anything with Ayane. As silly as he often was, he ended up being very responsible in that matter and I was very glad that happend. I still can’t get over the endgame of Usagi Drop…that was just… urg…

On the other hand, I think Pin and Ayane somehow would work in the future. Of course Pin completely shut her down, saying even in 10 years he probably wouldn’t like her. He could have said that, so she doesn’t chase after him for the next 10 years. He was the teaching professional, that was expected to be of him, but I honestly think those two might’ve been quite interesting in 10 years. Migth still end up quite cringy, though.

That brings me to what I’m missing a little bit. A lot of stories have an outlook into the future at the very end and Kimi ni Todoko doesn’t have that. It just… ends. We see Shota and Sawako reuniting after god knows how long and that’s it. Especially since we’ve had some sorta-proposals from Ryuu and Shota, it would’ve been nice to take a look into their future together. Maybe a wedding or some kids, something to rap it up.

As it turned out, though, it has a sequel. And that explains why we’re not seeing all too much from the future. It will probably happen somewhere there. I don’t really want to read the sequel, to be totally honest. At times Kimi ni Todoke felt tedious, the chapters always felt too long and too uneventful. Of course monthly manga have longer chapters, but sometimes I found myself wondering why I’m still reading the same chapter and it felt like work to read this.

I enjoyed it overall. In the last couple of chapters, I found myself smiling, laughting, enjoying the atmosphere was once again reminded why I’ve kept up with it for so long, but it was kind of boring from time to time and it does have a lot of tropes. It’s still a good read, I gave it a 9/10 intitially, but I went down to 8/10 overall.

Just the other day I caught up with REAL by the amazing Takehiko Inoue. That’s a 10/10. I’ve been very much back into Fullmetal Alchemist recently and that’s also a 10 /10. When I compare Kimi no Todoke to those, a 9/10 just feels too close. It lacks depth in storytelling and in characterization. I know it’s shoujo and the other two are seinen and shounen (that get’s gory, brutal, depressing and philosophical enough to scratch on being a seinen sometimes), but a shoujo can have great characters, too. That’s no excuse.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m complaining on a very high level. I’m just nitpicking why I didn’t feel it deserves a higher score. Maybe one day I will read the sequel, but it’s the kind of sequel I feel is unnecessary, so I’m not very excited about it. They even got Sawako and Shotas first time sleeping together out of the way, which totally surprised me, they should’ve just married them off and be done with it. When a story is done, it’s often better to just leave it done.

(Btw, I only awarded 4 manga a 10/10 so far. The already mentioned Fullmetal Alchemist and REAL and then also Vagabond (another work by Takehiko Inoue) and Trigun Maximum. Trigun Maximum is kind of like the Fullmetal Alchemist manga to the 2003 anime adaptation, except barely anyone knows it. It’s a different ending and left me absolutely speechless. It features possibly the greatest death scene in any manga. Trigun is great, but Trigun Maximum is on a whole different level.)

Vinland Saga (spoilers)

Hey, so life kinda happend for me and I didn’t really invest much time to anime and manga anymore. I’m currently trying to catch up with a couple of series, I’ve been following for a long time that I’ve enjoyed very much and one of them is Vinland Saga.

It’s a little bit mindblowing to me it even got through an anime adaptation already when I still remember very vividly when it used to be an insider’s tip, a secret recommendation nobody knew. When I started following this manga, it had 6 or 8 chapters published, we’re now at a 178 and the weak whiny boy Thorfinn turned into one fine man with a wife. It’s been about 15 years in real life and about 20 for Thorfinn.

By now I think it’s safe to say Vinland Saga is a very long running series, but unlike other long manga that barely move forward with the main story, Vinland Saga is pretty much exclusively moving forward with it’s main story at a reasonable pace. There’s manga like Detective Conan with a “case of the week” system and that’s okay, I actually still read it for even longer than Vinland Saga, but this structure allows the manga to stretch out the story a lot. And then there’s manga like Skip Beat, which is just painfully slow. I really like the stroytelling in manga such as Vinland Saga and Fullmetal Alchemist.

When the anime was announced I was thinking about watching it, but haven’t done so far. I guess it sounds kind of weird, but the action scenes are very dynamic in the manga and sometimes in anime they use a lot of stillframes in action scenes. I’ve seen high profile anime with huge budges and overall very well done action scenes where some scenes just didn’t have the same impact as the mangaversion. The example I’m thinking of right now is Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. I wholeheartedly believe this is the best shounen anime ever made, but the manga is still better… or let’s say, is able to convey certain scenes besser. There’s the scene when Olivier Mira Armstrong strikes down General Raven and the mangaversion looks more dynamic and serves more of a punch.

So, back to Vinland Saga. There’s a lot of fight scenes and wars going on where a lot of people are engaged. I was afraid I was going to be disappointed by how they could have handled those, because this is one of my favorite manga and I’m very critical when it comes to these (case in point Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood). Also, Vinland Saga is very very very gory. It’s bloodred.

I caught up with the manga from chapter 147 to 178 and if there’s one thing I can definately say is, that I was hoping to see Thorfinns bio babies so much it hurt, but it makes very much sense he doesn’t have any children with Gudrid yet. For once, they only married in Iceland recently and Thorfinn is not the type of guy to engage in sexual activity lightheartedly. Secondly, they’ve been sailing all the time and being pregnant on such a ship in this era doesn’t sound very fun, which is probably a reason why we don’t see her pregnant half a year after the wedding.

Another reason might be Thorfinns regrets. He’s still plagued by horrible nightmares and seriously suffers under the crimes he commited. He looks kind of okay-ish most of the time, but sufffers massively under his past, he just tries to hide it from other people. He didn’t even tell his wife, he believes he’s not worthy of the happiness of their marrige.

I guess Karli is their canon child by this point, he openly refers to them as his parents and Thorfinn introduced themselves as such. They raised him during their travels, so they know how hard it is to keep an infant alive on the sea in a little boat. It’s kinda cute they took him in and just adopted him instead of doing the “easy thing” and give him to someone else to look after. He’s such a smart little boy, too.

I really liked Gudrids insecurity when she compared herself to Hild and was even afraid she might be in love with her husband. She thinks she doesn’t have any worthy or special talent that helps them on their quest, but fails to realize the impact she can have on Thorfinn as his moral support. It would really help, if he would open up more to her, though. She tries to comfort him, but can only do so much without knowing the entire depth of Thorfinns terrors.

And can we just talk about Thorkells daughter for a second? Because she’s pure gold. They never straight out said her father is Thorkell, but the family ties are undeniable. Also, I love the fact they actually managed to add an LBGTQ+ character into this manga and I love to see the respect she’s given by Thorfinn and his friends and family. They immediately treated her as a woman, used the right name, the right pronoun and welcomed her with open arms.

Knowing Throfinn he’s about to encounter a lot more hardships and I honestly believe he deserves his fairytale happy ending. Vinland by itself will be quite a challenge once set foot on, but they aren’t even there yet and they’ve got quite a few troublemakers on board. It’s so infuriating to see Thorfinn not being taken seriously by random dudes. He’s quite short, even more so compared to his father and uncle, but he’s one of the most capable fighters in the enitre manga. It’s actually quite funny the real monsters respect him for his skills and activly try to sseek him out to fight with him… and a couple of random dudes don’t take him serious at all, because they don’t have the slightest clue about Thorfinns abilities on the battlefield.

I’m looking forward to more chapters. The manga has not let me down so far and I’m very curious if he can actually do it and live the rest of his life in peace.

Quick update

So… It’s been a while.

I moved, got my own place now, one of my guinea-pigs got severly ill and had to be humanely euthanized eventually. I got a dwarf hamster and a new castrated male g-pig 3 weeks ago as company for my two girls, one of which was diagnosed with a tumor in her uterus and it’s inoperable and doesn’t look very friendly, so who knows how long she’ll still be alive. And we just had a damn hot summer, a very long very hot summer. It was bad.

Now, what happened manga-wise in this time? We got a whole bunch of new 10 Dance chapters, which I very much approve of. Those two are just too sexy for my own good, even though the past chapters have been lacking spices a little bit. It does seem as if both of them are comming to terms with it and it starts developing into something you could call a relationship of some sorts, which is great. We got kisses. Kisses are good. Shinya in beast mode is even better. Someone seriously doesn’t want 3rd place, he’s out for the crown and I can’t wait to see him kill this competition.

What else? Skip Beat had a tiny bit of progress for once, I was just hoping for a little bit more on the romance front, specifically between Ren and Kyoko. At least Kyoko got the part, but I can’t get over the fact that we still don’t know what Ren got her for white’s day and Kyoko is actually very very much despressed, because she still believes she’s only one who didn’t get anything and that’s freaking cruel. And now there’s the love triangle thingy with these other two actresses… yeah, as if. It’s been established ages ago that Ren is in love with Kyoko and vice versa, but why not add some more drama so we can stretch it out more? Great idea, right? Right? RIGHT?

Ballroom e Youkoso has successfully finished it’s anime run and successfully avoided publishing a single new chapter. Unfortunately this seems to be due to the heath problems of the manga-ka, which was also the reason for the previous rather long hiatus of this manga. I’m honestly concerned about her, it seems to be bad… Let’s hope she makes a full recovery. I mean, it’s unfortunate for the manga, but her health comes first. I do approve of the the very strong TataraxChii vibes in the last episodes of the anime. Chii-chan is best girl and Tatara better keeps her, because sure as hell he won’t find a better one.

Daiya no Ace Act II finally has Sawamura actually looking like he might become the ace. Finally. Have we ever seen so much praise for him in-universe? I don’t know. However, since Furuya is now back, it’s going to be a little bit more rocky, but I still have my hopes up. Especially since this is pretty much his last chance to be the ace in a battery with Miyuki, who’s the reason he came to Seido to begin with. I stand by my word it completely defies the purpose if Sawamura becomes ace after Miyuki left. There’s no point if Sawamura doesn’t become the ace in a battery with Miyuki. It has to be Miyuki. I know I’m a bit of a Miyuki-fangirl and Okumura is an interesting catcher… he ain’t no Miyuki, though. And before anyone asks: yes, I may or may not have read quite a few too many Misawa fanfictions. I highly recommend anything by Kittebasu on Ao3.

Otoyomegatari is going very strong, as expected, even though I’m missing Amir and Karluk, but I’m keeping my hopes up they’ll be back. I think it’s quite cute Mr Smith has found love and a wonderful soon-to-be-bride. I can’t believe this manga has been running for 10 years now, that’s crazy. I’ve been following it for such a long time now, I remember it was still fairly new when I started. Mori Kaoru is one of the best out there in my opinion.

I’m very much disappointed there hasn’t been anything new Yuri on Ice, because I miss my cute gay babies so much. Now that the hype has slowed down a lot, the anime has seen a lot more negative backlack. Well, yes of course there’s more than enough fanservice and yes there’s fujioshi bait, but there’s still a damn great romance story in there that sets a great example in how homosexual relashionships should be treated: normal. And the sports ain’t too bad either. Besides… sexy Victor is sexy. I know Yuri with his hair styled back in sexy mode is nothing to look away from, but Victor is just Victor. And talking about Victor, the announced movie (set to air 2019…), seems to be about him judging by the announcement teaser, which is definately needed. The TV-show went deep into Yuri, but he haven’t really seen that much background on Victor. I just hope it’s not entirely set in the past and we get to see some present stuff, too… namely some Victuuri cuteness.

There’s much more to talk about, but it’s getting late and I still need to feed the guinea-pigs, so we’ll end it here.

Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan – Hokkaido-hen (spoilers)

One question: HOW in the world didn’t I know there’s an actual sequel to Rurouni Kenshin? Not a side story, not a one-chapter-special, but an actual sequel? 18 years after Kenshin was wrapped up, there’s a sequel?

Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Romantan was the very first manga I was seriously obsessed about. I don’t remember my first manga, it was something I borrowed from my older bother. The first manga I ever owned was Ghost in the Shell. If that’s not a great starting point I don’t know what. The first manga I ever seriously started fangirling about was Kenshin and let’s be honest: it’s a damn great shounen manga with some very strong and memorable character developments and amazing fights, it still stands as one of my favorite shounen.

Yes, I know, my favorite shounen is Fullmetal Alchemist, because that manga is nothing but outstanding, but Kenshin still holds his own. Some of my other favorite shounen are Slam Dunk, Rough, Gunnm and Trigun. Yeah… I’m loving the classics and among all of them Kenshin will always have a special place in my heart.

Now, how do I feel about the sequel? A part of me is super excited and another part of me not happy at all. Of course more Kenshin is good, but on the other ahnd the manga was finished and I mean completely finished. It had an ultimate ending point, it wrapped everything up and left the reader with an actual ending. FMA did the same, it’s just finished. Open endings or vague endings or soemthing else, but I don’t feel like it’s necessary to open up a book again and force some more pages into it, when it was already closed.

On the other hand, I can’t deny I’m incredibly excited about the sequel. That was until I read Nobuhiro Watsuki was arrested, because he violated the laws regarding child pornography. Oh dear. No denying, that’s bad. I mean, really REALLY bad. This is so bad I’m surprised Kenshin Hokkaido will actually continue to be published after the hiatus. Does this change my view on Kenshin as a whole? Definately not, because the manga by itself is still as good as it was before.

After having read the first 3 chapters of the Hokkaido sequel, I think they’re pretty well done, but there’s continuity problems, like Kenshin’s hair back to being super long and how he gets his blade back kind of destroys the moment in the prequel when he gives it away. I mean, he basically gave it away only to get it back 6 monthes later, because Yashiro decides it’s not for him and it will take him too long to master. I know they needed a reason to give Kenshin back his sword, because Kenshin and his sword belong together, but it just makes giving it away in the first place so pointless.

Another thing I really disliked was the implied soon death of Kenshin. I know this is nothing new as it has been implied numerous times in the prequel that Kenshin has a shortened life span due to his swordsmanship and stuff. And we also know the manga can be very very tragic to it’s characters so I wouldn’t even be surprised if the intended ending of the Hokkaido sequel involves Kenshin’s death. Just because I know all of that doesn’t mean I’m emotionally capable of accepting Kenshin’s death. I just really don’t want him to die. He’s a character who’s seen so much and who’s been through so much, he just deserves his happy ending and he deserves it to be as long as possible. Taking Kenshins Happy Ending from him by killing him is just too cruel. I’m okay with him living in peace together with Kaoru and their child and everything being roses and cute flying angels around him. I’m not okay with him dying.

I’m still traumatized my the ending of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (seriously, how can you be so cruel to a character?), I can’t take a cruel ending for Kenshin, he doesn’t deserve it. Even though he himself probably doesn’t see his death that way.

Also, yeah, I see why Yahiko is not joining them on their journey and it seems like he’s building his own life and this is great, but I just can’t imagine a Kenshin manga without Yahiko. He was part of the key cast. And talking about the key cast: HELL YES Sano is back, man! I was so waiting for him to appear. Can’t wait to see him.

Last but not least, when Kenshin and Yahiko were wondering how Kaoru knew Kenshin’s stamnia was going down, even though she never crossed blades with him, that was pure comedic gold. I mean, think about it. Think about how his wife could know about his stamnia without fighting him.

To wrap it up: will I follow the Hokkaido sequel? Probably. Will I enjoy it as much as the original? Most definately not. Was it necessary to produce a sequel 18 years after the original ended? I honestly don’t think so, but it’s Kenshin, so I take what I can get.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild GOTY

Yay. Zelda won GOTY at the Game Awards 2017! *claps* yay :3

*this is probably going to be very pro Zelda, so be prepared*

I’m happy. I haven’t played all the games nominated, but I’m happy. The general consent seems to be: thank god PUBG didn’t win. Zelda? Fine with me, it’s not PUBG. I’m actually very glad a lot of people feel this way, because it just feels wrong to even nominate a game that hasn’t even seen a full release yet and is basically still in testing phase.

In general the reception of Zelda as Game of the Year seems to be quite good.

Then there’s the Horizon-fans complaining Horizon didn’t win anything and I’ve seen some individuals from different fan bases saying Zelda just won because it’s Zelda and everything Zelda is just being praised and loved because fans blindly love Zelda.

First of all: I don’t own a PS4. Therefore, I didn’t play Horizon. What I know about this game is, that it’s very good and therefore I think it’s sad it didn’t win anything. It probably deserved to win at least something.

Second: the assumption that Nintendo fans just blindly love everything Zelda because of the name is just plain wrong. We’ve seen in the past several times where Zelda was met with huge criticism or downright hate, because it didn’t deliver what fans wanted.The Zelda franchise is one of the highest acclaimed franchises in video game history and has produced top-tier games of outstanding quality for over 30 years now most notably in its main series on home consoles. Therefore, expectations for any new Zelda release are astronomical high and what happens if these expectations are not fully met, we’ve recently seen in Wind Waker and Skyward Sword in particular. There’s always hardcore fans defending everything, that’s normal, but I believe there’s a fair share of fans who are very critical towards Zelda, because they are very spoiled by the average quality of the franchise.

Wind Waker was met with a storm of rage due to its cartoony graphics. It took fans years to come to terms with it and appreciate the outstanding game behind it. When it was initially released? Oh boy, that was a riot, because everyone expected realistic graphics that Nintendo didn’t deliver. The game itself wasn’t even bad. Sure, it’s not perfect: travel can be boring over longer distances and the triforce quest was just way too long, both issues got fixed in the HD version. Other than that, the game was truly awesome. It was the art direction alone, that made fans hate on this game. And hate they did.

Other example: Skyward Sword. And it was, once again, primarily one feature, that made fans collectively hate this game. Fans. Not media. I believe this game was actually rated a bit too high by the general media, but is rated way too low by fans – even today. The feature in question is… motion control. Contrary to what many people try to make other’s believe: it works fine. I’ve played it and barely had issues with it at all. I’m not trying to defend a bad game, I’m trying to be honest and I can honestly say: the motion control worked great for me. Many gamers hated it for the fact alone that is was mandatory and you couldn’t play the game with a classic controller. The other problem with this game is that it’s not the game fans were asking for. Around the time when Skyward Sword was released, fans have been asking for an open world Zelda for quite a while already and got a very linear playing-it-save type of Zelda with lot’s of handholding, which disappointed fans even further.

I personally believe Skyward Sword was a fantastic game and a very solid Zelda with some nice boss fights, enjoyable worlds, great dungeons and interesting items (I love the beetle). Just like I think Mario 3D World is a fantastic game and a very solid Mario. Both games were met with lukewarm receptions by gamers -Skyward Sword more negative than 3D World- simply because they weren’t the type of games fans wanted.

Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey both are the games fans have been asking for a long time and were both met with euphoria from fans – so much, I believe fans tend to be more forgiving to these games, because they’re both basically 100% fanservice. This is Nintendo listening to their fans and giving them exactly what they wanted and people are responding accordingly.

And both games are fantastic! So much, they both got nominated for GOTY at the Game Awards, which I believe was very well deserved. I’ve been a long time Zelda-fan, but I’ve been playing Mario platformer even longer. I’ve been playing Mario for 20+ years across 7 generations of home consoles and their handheld counterparts. Both franchises have been a huge part of my gaming life and I hope to be as fair as possible, even though I personally just prefer 2D or 2+1/2 D platformer over 3D collect-A-thons, because I love tight 2D platforming the most – which is the reason why I prefer Donkey Kong Country over Mario, btw. I usually try to appreciate the good in games, even if they’re personally not to my liking. I know there’s a lot of people who’d be so mad at me for saying this, but at one point, I got bored by Mario Odyssey.

Mario Odyssey is a consistently great game and getting all moons is one hell of a hard  quest. While I thought most moons during the regular playthrough are too easy to get, there’s some real challenges, if you try to collect them all. The game doesn’t really has any low points, it has a very high average quality without any real dips downwards, but also without many spikes upwards. My one and only big moment in this game was the festival in New Donk City. That was plain awesome, no question and New Donk City by itself was the most enjoyable part for me due to all the vertical platforming involved. I also loved the pipes that sent you to these very hard platforming sections post game. There’s nothing better than finally clearing these mini-levels after 20+ tries, there’s finally some actual sense of accomplishment involved, like… I earned that moon. Oh, and while we’re at it, I applaud to the game for calling them moons in mushroom kingdom, even though they’re clearly stars.

However, in a way, Mario Odyssey was playing it kind of save. At least compared to Zelda. Mario Odyssey was basically Mario 64 2.0, it was the Mario 64 successor fans wanted ever since. Since the first time I was able to get my hands on na demo, I’ve been saying: guys, this game does not reinvent the wheel, it’ very much Mario like we know and love, nothing more and nothing less. After playing this game, I still believe the very same about it. This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy or appreciate the new features, like the 8bit segments in the stages or the capture feature that basically replaces power ups. Mario Odyssey is an outstanding game, it just doesn’t dare to go one step further.

A step Zelda dared to take. Just like Odyssey, Breath of the Wild is still very much Zelda, but with the formula we’ve come to know for such a long time removed for the most part. There’s still hearts to collect, the Master Sword to find and the Princess to rescue, but they turned it from a linear formulated experience to a free open world game. By going back to the very first Zelda and take inspiration from modern open world games, Nintendo nailed their very first try at making an open world game out of one of their most well-known and beloved franchises. And like I said: fans are critical about Zelda. If this didn’t work out, the backlash would’ve been huge. But it worked out.

Once again this game has a very high average quality with more drips downwards than Odyssey, but also with more spikes upwards. For all the weaker parts of the game, there are others done so phenomenally well, they overshine the bad ones. In terms of game design, even though I didn’t play every game this year obviously, but the game design in BotW is insanely good. The physics engine, the game mechanics, the freedom and the lack of handholding it all turns this game into a truly great experience.

BotW dared to be more daring, but was executed so well, the flaws of this game are simply being forgiven. I hope Nintendo can work on the remaining flaws of BotW and make the successor even greater, because I believe BotW might have just managed to do what the original Legend of Zelda and Ocarina of Time did before: change the way we look at games. Especially the world as one huge living interactive being  has not been done quite like this before with so many possibilities given to the player due to a phenomenal physics engine and something very simple like the ability to climb everything. Whatever you think should be possible, is possible and that opens up a whole new dimension of gameplay. This goes beyond a fish fleeing from you or arrows flying in a naturalistic curve and being collectible even under water.

BotW pushed the genre forwards, a genre it just entered. It also pushed the franchise forwards and gave it a much-needed overhaul. I don’t think Nintendo will entirely drop the classic Zelda formula, but it would be nice to see different kinds of Zelda coexisting alongside each other.

I hope the successor to this game has better item management. Going through all the pages of food and gear and weapons to whatever you’re searching for at the moment was annoying. I would also love to see traditional dungeons back. I liked the approach of huge 3D puzzles, but 4 traditional dungeons would’ve been more to my liking. And for the love of god, maybe one day we’ll have a Zelda with an actual great story and characters? Maybe? I’m supporting the weapon durability aspect, btw.

And we definitely need more Sidon.

Damn, this post got way longer than I anticipated…