2023 coming to an end

 

    Well, looks like I haven't published anything this whole year. But I really wanted to post at least one thing before 2023 ends. So I guess I will look back on the year in this post and we will see where it gets us.

    Near the end of the last year, I've been moved to the HR department at work because my colleague left on maternity leave. I was thrust into it with very little training but managed to get the hang of it. The only downside to this position is having to use the phone quite a lot and I don't like that. Still, even with that, I write e-mails, or text whenever possible. 

    All in all, the year went past very fast. I spent most of it playing video games and reading fanfics while also watching anime and other things. Whenever possible, I also made art and even got back into oil painting a little. And by that I mean I did two canvas paintings. Other than that, I used mostly just colored pencils or crayons. Sometimes charcoal or pencils. 

Good? Bad? Dark? Light?

So, yesterday (or was it today?) I got the idea to rehash an old post. It talks about the difference between evil and darkness. And I went on a tangent there. One that really took away from the main idea of the post. So, before we get into it, I'll get that tangent out of the way. 

It talked about the elements and how I categorize them. Most people would think that there are four main elements. Well, in my opinion, that's just wrong. I say there are seven. And this way of thinking was heavily influenced by Naruto and even more by Dragon Fable. So, seven elements - Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lightning, Light, and Darkness. Naruto also gave me the idea of secondary elements. And DragonFable gave me the idea of almost anything being an element. Considering they have elements like Void, Silver, ???, Ebil, and many others (Including Bacon). And this classification of elements is a big part of the reason why I don't consider evil the equivalent of Darkness. 

(We are not getting into the topic of Evil and Good being elements too!!! Blame that one on DragonFable!!!)

So, if Darkness is an element, how can it be the equivalent of evil? I mean, you can do as much evil with fire or lightning. I believe that all elements are, at their core, neutral. And it's up to the people who use them to decide if they are used for good or evil. And it's that way with everything. Nothing is, by itself, aligned to either good or bad. It's always the intention behind the use of objects (elements) that decides whether it's good or bad. 

To give a bit more real-world example. A Gun. It's just an object. It is neither good nor bad. Not by itself. But it can be used for both. And that is something that depends on the wielder. It can be used to murder someone. It can also be used to hunt and thus provide food for an otherwise starving family. 

It's not things/objects that are good/bad. It's actions. Most of the actions you do during your day can be classified as either good or bad. I'm not disputing the existence of a neutral action, but I also believe that a true neutral action is rare. 

Good and evil can't simply be classified as going either right or left and neutral straight ahead. There's no way that the paths are that simple. A lot of the time, you won't even know what alignment your actions actually have until much later. And while sometimes, it may seem or indeed even be that simple, again, I don't believe that this is the rule. More often than not, your actions will have ambiguous consequences instead of a clear alignment. 

And as much as we probably all want to do good instead of bad, I also think that this makes the world more interesting. The way it's not always black or white. The line is blurred. Always has been and always will be. 

As they say in stories, you can't have the good without the bad. Just make sure that if you're throwing a neutral into the mix as well, it's not a chaotic one. (Learned that one through D&D)

Well, that's about it. I'm not sure if I managed to stay on topic better this time, but at the same time, I think this is a bit more cohesive than the old post. And if nothing else, it's definitely longer and I consider that one a nice bonus. 

See you in the next post. 

~AnnElfwind

Written on the 24th of June, 2020

Chinese Anime

I'm running out of Japanese anime. I mean, there's still lots to watch, just not the genres I want. So I ventured into the Chinese version of it. It took a while to get used to the language, but let me tell you! It was worth it. I still get somewhat lost in the names because they seem really similar to each other, but I'm glad I tried it. That doesn't mean that every single Chinese anime is good. Far from it actually, but there are some gems there that I'm glad I tried watching. 

There was one that I tried a while ago. At that point, it was really a last resort on my part, because the premise was looking way too interesting. That time, I was still in the mindset of disliking Chinese anime but biting down and dealing with the language for the sake of this single show. It's called Uncharted Walker in English and I'm not even gonna attempt the Chinese name. And now I had to go and check that it's really Chinese. Good news, I'm not talking bullshit. It is Chinese. And based on a Chinese novel or something like that? No, it's based on a Web Comic. Though there was that one comment on Reddit where that person said it was based on a novel? Not sure, but myanimelist says Web Comic so that's what I'm going to believe. 

This anime was really interesting and I am hoping that there will be a season 2 at some point. So far there's not even a peep about it, but I'm not going to give up hope. I would read the comic, but the thing is, I don't really like to read manga-style comics on the internet. By that, I mean the black and white ones. Colored webcomics are okay, even great in some cases. But reading black and white manga makes my eyes hurt. It's not a problem when I have a physical copy of the manga, I do have a few of those, but online... Nope, don't like it.

Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo

Not sure, if I want to post another anime featuring post, but well... Lately, I've been into Kindaichi shounen no jikenbo. And well, since my last post was about Detective Conan and Kindaichi is kinda similar... At least to me, it is, I'm gonna go with it. Like, Kindaichi himself is the equivalent of Conan in Shinichi's body. Kindaichi's friend Nanase is like Ran and their friend Saki is like a mix of Sonoko and the Shounen Tantei Dan - or the Detective Boys if you prefer the English name. Then there's Kenmochi, he's a police officer and he's a lot like Mouri Kogoro, just somewhat smarter and less of an idiot in general. Last but not least when it comes to the protagonists is Akechi Kengo, he's a superintendent and Kenmochi's boss - to put it simply. He's also really smart and somehow, reminds me of both Akai and Zero from DC. A bit more Akai than Zero, but somehow a mix of both. 

Thing is, there are two versions of Kindaichi. One is old, last century thing. that's the one I'm watching now, but before that, I watched the newer one from years 2014 and 2015. The Akechi in the newer one is even smarter. Always several steps ahead of everyone, while in the old version, it seems like Akechi and Kindaichi are more evenly matched. 

Well, that's it for the protagonists, now the antagonists. Even though I would really like it for one of them to be on the other side. I'm talking about the Puppeteer from Hell - Takato Youichi. He's the black org compressed into one person with the added aspect of Magic. The magic reminds me of Kaitou Kid. And that is probably the reason I want him to be on the other side of the law.
Another main villain is the Gentleman Thief. Which, really, just take KID's magic away and change his gender and this is what you'll get. I got nothing against the Kaitou Shinshi (Is that how you spell it?), but the Puppeteer is my favorite bad guy from Kindaichi.

As this is being written is several sessions, I an now at a point in the anime where Kindaichi Fumi, a relative of the MC has made an appearance. And while I said that Saki was a mix of Sonoko and the Shounen Tantei Dan, Fumi is a mix of the Detective Boys and Haibara. She's smart and while she doesn't always arrive to the correct conclusion, she is really useful on some of the cases Kindaichi has to deal with.
I would prefer that the newer version of the anime be longer, but hey, can't have everything. Should be glad that there even is a newer version. If there wasn't, I would have probably never even started watching this... And what a shame that would have been.
This anime is perfect for Detective Conan fans as well as fans of any other detective featuring anime out there. Especially animes that have teenage or younger protagonist detectives in it. Like Detective Academy Q or similar. I think that Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna lovers would like Kindaichi too.

I've seen so many animes that some of them seem to blur together, but I'm sure that there's more detective anime than this. And I'm not talking about Nogami or Matantei Loki Ragnarok, those have way too many supernatural elements. While the DC  pseudo-science is a bit farfetched as well as the addition of the character of Akako, the self-proclaimed witch, it's still a lot more realistic than Nogami or Matantei. Same goes for Kindaichi, for that one has no supernatural elements at all, just a lot of pseudo-science, but the science kinda makes sense when you watch the anime, so there... I guess it always makes sense while watching. You just can't think about it too hard after you're done watching.
Well, maybe it's not really pseudo-science for Kindaichi, just a lot of superstition and well, there might be some pseudo-science, but Conan is lot's more heavy on it. Apotoxin anyone? Still, Kindaichi is a great anime. I just wish that the newer part of it was longer. And that Akechi was super smart in both the old and the new, not just the new. I mean, he¨s smart in the old too, but not super smart. I mentioned at the beginning of this post, that in the newer version, he's like 10 steps ahead of everyone, Kindaichi included, well, that's true. It's just, in the older version, he's lucky if he's two steps ahead... Usually, he's more or less evenly matched with Kindaichi. Too bad there's only so many episodes that include him...
The one saving grace is the movie for the newer version that focuses mainly and mostly on Akechi. His younger version, but still.
Just, you know what? Go watch the anime and make up your own mind about it, okay?
~AnnElfwind

Detective Conan Movie 22 - Zero the Enforcer [2018]

Finally! The 22nd movie came online. The Japanese people need way too long for the anime movies to come out on DVD or Blue Ray. Or on some other media. But that's not the only problem, it came out in October, the problem is, that then we had to wait for worthwhile subs to be added. But, the day before yesterday, it finally happened! It was added to OtakuStream. And I just know that Otaku Stream would not upload it unless the quality of the subs and the whole thing was good. 

So I watched it. BLOWN AWAY! After watching the 21st movie, I was quite disappointed, because movies 18, 19 and 20 were awesome! I mean, 18 is the best, simply because it finally confirms the alive status of one Akai Shuuichi! Simply by making Subaru Okiya open his eyes. So that one is great. Movie 19 is great too because it has Kaitou KID. And Any KID movie is great. And 20 gives us Furuya Rei and Akai Shuuichi out of disguise working together, so also awesome! But then we get some weird love story with Heiji and Kazuha in movie 21 and that's lame... Like, don't misunderstand me, I watched it too and enjoyed it, just not as much as movies 18, 19 and 20. So 22 was a pleasant surprise. 

The main focus is on Zero, aka Furuya Rei who is from the NPA, Japanese Secret Police. Don't ask me to decipher the abbreviations, I didn't do my homework on that, but it's a section of the police force. 

The movie takes place during a time where an unmanned capsule is supposed to come back from the outer space and the main culprit's goal is to use it to blow up the police headquarters, but this comes to play way way later. There is also going to be a summit of the World Leaders of some sort. The who is not important. The important thing is, that the venue is blown up and Zero is caught in it. Then Mouri Kogoro is framed and Conan tries to uncover the truth. At first, he doesn't know that Zero tapped his phone, but when he finds out, he uses it to his advantage. 

And then Conan and Zero have to work together to alter the path of the capsule to avoid it smashing into the location where everyone has evacuated to from the area around the police headquarters. In the process, Zero's car is totaled and he gets injured, but the injury is minor and the car can be replaced. The important thing is, they manage to save the day and they do it by working together. 

However, I was thinking and the one thing I would love to see, is Akai, Zero, KID and Shinichi working together, I mean, that would be awesome and I just know that they would be able to take down any threat. However, it doesn't seem like they will make an episode like that. Or god forbid a movie... Hell, I even kinda hate the whole Ran/Shinichi romance... He's way more suited to be together with Kaitou KID. But again, if I want that, I have to go and read fanfiction.
My fanfic search purposefully excludes any Ran/Shinichi pairing tagged fics. I won't read those. Unless it's a fic that starts with this couple and then follows with Ran!Bashing and then KaiShin.

Okay. I'm gonna go and do something else now. Like rewatch some Conan movies. And wait for the newest SAO Alicization episode. Which has nothing to do with Conan. But hey, SAO fan here. Though I hate Asuna. Nya!

~Bye.

One Piece

Well, I just had to write this. Lately, it seems that One Piece is dragging things out more and more. Yes, the fights took long to begin with, but now it seems ridiculous... At the beginning, a 'boss' fight took around three to four episodes, but now, mainly the Doflamingo fight, it took somewhere around ten of them... If it wasn't for the moments when Sabo was there, I was really tempted to skip them... 

And now, the arc with Big Mam, I'm tempted to just skip and skip... Right now, I just have it as sound in the background and I don't even understand most of it, as it's in Japanese... But I still know more or less what's going on. And I even skipped about all the episodes from after the Doflamingo fight to about episode 789... Now I'm on episode 800. And I'm bored. I used to not be bored with this series... But considering it has over 800 eps and I saw them all, I'm gonna stick with it till the end. I wanna know what the friggin' 'One Piece' is. 

Though, I didn't watch all the eps. I skipped the whole flag stealing arc and then some. Oh, and I used to watch it in English instead of Japanese. However, I then caught up to the latest ep and that was it. Either wait or watch the next 300 or so in Jap. So I did and frankly, I'm not regretting it completely, but with eng dub, it was easier to just listen to it in the background as I did something else, like play a game. Or something along those lines. But now, I can't utilize this to its full potential as I don't know Japanese all that well. I understand it some, but not much...

Oh well, this is just me ranting a bit for ranting's sake. See ya 'round.

~AnnElfwind

Devil May Cry

As I mentioned Dante in the previous post, it got me thinking about actually introducing you to one of my favourite animes. The Devil May Cry anime. Why? Well... It has Dante! I mean, sexy half demon demon hunter... What do you want more? Oh, I know! For him to be real! xD But alas, we can't have that so we have to do with just the anime and the video games.

I will not be going into the video games in this post, I'll leave that for later. This is about the anime only.

So, Dante is a demon hunter in Capulet (I think...) city. He owns the shop Devil May Cry and for money, he goes and defeats demons that swarm the earth. Then, there is Morrison, his agent who hands him jobs.

Also, Dante is always short on money, because, his friend Lady, yes, that is what she's called, always takes it from him. Well, he does owe her a huge amount... And then, there's Trish. She's a demon modeled after Dante's mother. And she can control electricity to some extent. Honestly, I don't know the full range of her powers.

Okay, so about the storyline.

It starts with Dante having to deliver a young girl – Patty Lowel – to some mansion in order for her to recieve her inheritance or something. He tries to refuse, but in the end, he does it.

They travel and are attacked by several demons. In the end, it is shown that this Patty is not the one the inheritance is for and she was only used as decoy.

Patty then starts hanging around Dante's shop and some of the scenes are quite funny.

The plotline then continues with some missions, in the second, Lady is introduced and few episodes later, it's Trish.

In total, there are twelve episodes and my favourite si ninth and sixth. The sixth episode has great music! I mean, the Rock Queen Elena Huston's song is beautiful! Then, the ninth episode has POKER! Seriously, POKER! And that says it all! I like poker very much. And the version used in the anime, it's interesting. Won't go into it, though. That would take too much time, just go and watch the episode. It's great! I promise!

Then, the last two episodes or so, there is the hell and underworld and the reason for Patty being there is finally uncovered. I again, won't go into it. This time, because I just don't remember it well enough. That part is boring anyway. I suggest you skip the last episodes. Well... probably not the first time, but if you watch it more than once, I don't think the last episodes are interesting enough.

Other than that, the anime is great! I've read some reviews saying that it's no good and so on and so forth, but still... It's DANTE!

Sure, the games are so much more interesting than the anime, and the plotline is thicker and more thought out, but still, the anime is good. I wouldn't say it is the best out there, that would be pushing it, but is certainly isn't bad.

See ya.

P.S: The pictures are from the games. Just so you can drool over them, hot sexy demons!

Sword Art Online

An anime, to which I came back after a while. Still, the best episode is the one but last. I can't help it, I like how he kicks that moron's butt. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The whole idea of this anime, is that there is this new online RPG style game. And, people are trapped in it without any means to log out. The only way to get out is to beat the game, and, technically the creator - Kayaba Akihiko. The main hero's name is Kirigaya Kazuto, but his in-game name is Kirito. He was one of the beta testers of the game. And mostly knows what he's doing. 

 The anime starts out mild, but gets pretty intense. Especially the first part. In the end, they find a bit of a different way to win - by defeating the one, that didi all of it. And not necessarily on the final floor of the game. Kirito figures out that Kayaba is Heathcliff - the leader of one of the greatest guilds in the game. The fact he figures it out, is really just a fluke, but he does and fights with him, in the end winning. And thus ending the game. 

 That's not the end, though. Kirito's friend - Asuna - is still trapped in virtual reality. How? Let's just say that there's this sleazy guy that has the hots for her and took a leaf out of Kayaba's book. Thus trapping some of the people from SAO in a different game. And so Kirito sets on a quest to free her. And the rest of people that are still trapped. 

 And now we're getting to the best part. The one but last episode of the second season of this anime. The best part is when Kirito... But.... I just can't tell you! It would take all the fun away! Just go watch it. I'll even be nice enough to give you a link to it. Okay? 

 Here it is.

Okay. This is it. This is all and if you watch the anime, tell me what you think about it? I think it's pretty good. :) 

See ya.

One Piece

This is currently one of my favourite animes. It has over 600 episodes and is still ongoing. At first, I was watching it with english dubbing. Then, I got to the point that there were no more dubbed episodes, yet. So I was wondering whether I should continue watching with eng. subtitles, or if I should wait. In the end, I got tired of waiting and started watching with subs. I did skip a few episodes. The part with the missing flags, I've got no idea what that's about. I also did skip parts of the battle with Moria.

Oh, and I did skip Ace's death. That was cruel! He was one of my favourite characters!

Moving on. The plotline is quite simple – Luffy, he wants to be the King of the Pirates. So he stes out on the sea and searches for a crew. First, Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro get's roped into joining. Thus becoming the first mate. Then, Luffy decides that a girl named Nami will be the navigator. And practically forces her to join. The next on the list is Usopp who they happen across by chance. He's a great sniper and has a good aim. He joins too.

And then, Luffy wants a cook. So they go to Baratie, a restaurant, where he ropes Sanji to join. And after spending some time at the restaurant, he does.

Next part would be defeating one of the shichibukai – Arlong. And after that, Nami joins the crew for real, having finally saved her village.

And so to the Grand Line they go. The Grand Line is the place where at the end, or so it seems, the One Piece is. And the only one, who conquered it all, was the former Pirate King Gol D. Roger.

On the grand line, many dangers are waiting for the Straw Hat Pirates. But also new friends and crewmates. One of them is the doctor Choper, who is in fact a raindeer who ate the human human devil fruit. Then Nico Robin, a former enemy joins them. Her being interested in ponyglyphs that have some secret message about some weapon or something like that.

Another member, who joins is a shipwright whose name is Franky. He wears speedo and likes to say the word super. Also, he's a cyborg.

And the last crew member, for now, is Brook. He's a living skeleton. And a musician. And has weird laugh. Not as weird as a girl named Perona, so that's good.

Then there are the Devil fruits. Those who eat them, gain unnatural abilities, but lose the ability to swim. Luffy ate one – the gum gum fruit, thus he's a rubber man. Others on the Straw Hat crew, who ate a devil fruit are Robin, the hana hana fruit, gaining the ability to reproduce parts of her body, such as arms and legs. Even eyes. Then Choper, like I mentioned before. And Brook. I think the one he ate was teh revival revival fruit or something like that.

Other prominent characters of this series are Ace, the brother of Luffy, who dies during the battle at Marineford. Then Sengoku, one of the leaders of the Marines, the shichibukai, also known as the seven warlords of the sea. And those are Dracul Mihawk, Boa Hanckoc, Doflamengo, Moria, Bartholomew Kuma, and some more.

Former warlords (shichibukai) are Crocodile, Jimbei and some more whose names I just don't remember. And the wikia doesn't make much sense.

Oh, and then there are the admirals, or whatever, Aokiji, Akainu and Kizaru. Mighty strong, but can probably be beaten with Haki, which is an ability, that allowes people to fight on higher level. Even against logia type devil fruits.

Oh, and we cannot forget the Akagami no Shanks. Or readhair Shanks. Former mentor of Luffy, now one of the four yonko (emperors). Rulers of the New world, which is the second part of the grand line. 

Okay, enough with the details. And more about what I think about it. Well... Frankly, some of the adventures are boring. Like... the part with the stolen flags... I didn't like that. Also, I just hated when Ace died, but I learned to live with that.

Other than that, I really like the show and even more, I like the fact that it's so long. Many people would probably like it better if it had the usual 24 episodes, like most anime do, but I like the longer ones. The longer, the better. I hate it, when it only has a few episodes and it's the end... So kudos to One Piece. Still, I would like to know what exactly the One Piece is! I couldn't find any hints. So, if you have a theory, share it!

See ya.

A certain scientific railgun

Just yesterday I went and searched for a certain anime in english. I don't remember what the original anime I wanted to watch was, but I decided that I will browse the page the anime was on and found a different anime that interested me. I admit it is a bit different from what I usually watch. The difference is that the main characters are all girls. Yes, there is a semi important male character, but that's about it. And usually I watch only anime with main characters being males.

 Surprisingly, the anime is good! Not your typical school girl anime, but a mix of school, action and mystery all in one. Throw in some super powers, or ESP, as they call it, and you have a really great anime. Oh, and the name is A certain scientific railgun. To be honest, I was a bit surprised as to what actually is the railgun, as it is not a real gun, but it was not a bad surprise.

 If you're a fan of anime, I recommend this one. :) It's really good and the fact that it is with english dubbing is another plus. Not that I don't like the original japanese, with eng subtitles, it's just, if it is in dub, I can for example draw while I'm watching. Or something. It's just that I don't like doing just one thing.

 Oh well...
See ya.