I write about why you should have a greater appreciation for wacky Japanese cartoons and the otaku culture revolving around it.
I also co-host a Black Nerd Empowerment podcast with my friend The TV Guru over at http://swarthynerd.libsyn.com/ and create off-color memes about crap tier anime over at https://www.facebook.com/yukithesnowman/
One should never feel ashamed for enjoying an anime (well, unless it’s some sexualized loli crap, then you should be ashamed and arrested). You shouldn’t feel embarrassed by it – even if it’s a terrible, flawedadaption. You enjoy it regardless. This is how I feel about Studio DEEN’s infamous animation adaption of the visual novel series “Umineko no Naku Koro ni” (When The Seagulls Cry). Despite the disrespect towards the original source material, such as key story elements left out (creating loose ends untied) and animation errors, I hold a small space in my heart for Umineko.
A space I use to make fun of shitty adaptions, but a space nonetheless.
Nigga how?Seriously nigga how?
The Umineko anime is garbage compared to the original visual novel and amazing manga counterparts. I can’t deny that Studio DEEN did a horrible job on it. Even if visual novels are awkward to adapt (I assume it’s hard to animated scenes from a source material that only has a static image, character sprites, and background music) , Studio Deen is known in the anime community for being lazy with their work and creating horrible adaptions (see: their version of the Fate/Zero anime). Umineko isn’t exempt from DEEN’s laziness.
The Umineko VN is heavy with detailed dialogue scenes which were omitted from the anime (which I can assume DEEN was being lazy). Any mention of kid Ange’s sickness preventing her to attend the Ushiromiya annual family meeting by her parents from Episode 1 in the anime? Nope! Did you love how Rosa barbarically jammed an ink pen in the eyes of a Goat Butler and saying her saying her epic line ‘I’ll show you how lukewarm the hell you came from is!’ before blowing it brains out with her gun in the visual novel? Well, DEEN decide to not add that in.
Reflect on how sorrowful you felt for Ange when she revealed her true identity was to her brother Battler, pleading to him to defeat Beatrice and return to Kid Ange to prevent living the lonely, depressing life as her future self as she was dying in the visual novel. Remember man?
Well, It’s in the anime, but DEEN managed to ruin that with one simple frame:
Oh the jokes the fanbase were cracking with this awkward shot. 2009 was an amazing time in the Umineko fan community.
Because of Deen’s hilarious errors , the Umineko fanbase straight up loathe the anime. The very mention of the anime and anyone admitting that they enjoy it will trigger even the most chilliest Umineko fan. You’ll get attacked with great vigor by the diehards. It’s not worth it unless you like creating conflict. Go on the Umineko tag on tumblr or /jp/, say you think Studio DEEN did nothing wrong with the anime, sit back and watch the rage.
Despite the flaws of the anime, I still love it as it’s special to me.
Ange (best Umineko girl) and one reason why I love the series
There’s something about the anime that I can forgive its awfulness. It made me aware of narrative themes in anime such as abuse (sexual, emotional, and physical), the past returning, revenge, and suicide. Umineko (both the visual novel and anime) shows how abuse can be passed down within a family, as we see patriarch figure Kinzo passing down his abusive ways to his children. This results in mother Rosa abusing daughter Maria.
Hell, this gets worse with Eva (suffering from being the sole survival of the massacre of her family in Episode 4) abusing her niece Ange (who too was suffering from losing her love ones). The abuse from her aunt, the impact of losing her family (who was involved in some pretty illegal shit mind you), and being bullied in school drove her to become suicidal. Even with the awfulness of the anime, it made me aware of narrative themes within the story-line which got me hooked into the series.
I do not feel ashamed about my love for the Umineko anime. In fact, I feel given it got me into the original visual novel and the manga (which is a superior adaption compare to the anime), Yea, it’s garbage, but it made me notice themes in anime.
Well, I did say I’ll return to writing about anime soon. I’m always good on my word (okay I’m lying about that part). From seeing blogger Karandi’s post, I figure that I’ll do the 30 Day Anime Callenge as well! I have nothing better to write about for the next 30 days (outside my planned posts) so why not!
Day 1 – “Anime I Want to Watch” (boy where do I start?)
Bubblegum Crisis
Bubblegum Crisis was recommended to me by a friend recently. I’ve heard of this legendary cyberpunk OVA series by studios Youmex, AIC, and Artmix during my early anime viewership days, but I never had any means of watching it up until my adult years. While I’m not super deep into 80s and 90s cyberpunk anime, I do love the a e s t h e t i c visuals of that era (there’s something about cel animation man it’s so beautiful). Four kick ass women mercenaries in exoskeleton suits destroying robots and doing whatever kickass women do in 2032 Japan?
Yes please.
This makes me wanna get stoned, listen to vaporwave, and be a s a d b o y.
Nisemonogatari.
Bakemonogatari was a visual and story masterpiece. Can’t believe I slept on the show for seven years. So glad my homeboy got me hip to this show and it’s characters, including best girl Hanekawa (and second best Hitagi). So why I’ve been sleeping on the second animation adaption? I do not know (okay I know it’s because I’m lazy). But I do know that Akiyuki Shinbo is back as chief director with Nisemonogatari. That’s great! You know why? We get his outlandish directing style that we all know and love from him. Yay Shinboism!
My reaction to this scene is likewise.
I’m going to have some E&J for the infamous Toothbrush scene on standby. I have yet to see the scene in full, but I heard it’s quite…interesting. Cringe-inducing creepy incestuous fanservice interesting. Alcohol is needed for that shit.
The anime adaption of the third volume, Owarimonogatari, is coming soon. I best knock out Nisemonogatari and the moves out as soon as possible before that drops this Summer 2017 season.
Summer 2017 Anime
How to ruin your chance of getting a date.
I’m a shitty anime fan. I’ve been lacking on the recent anime game. I’m screwing myself over with my laziness by not to investing the time on watching new shows. If I’m gonna be about this anime blogger life, that means I best expand on the anime I watch. Here are two shows I’m eyeing from the upcoming season!
Gamers!
Looks promising, but I’m not holding my breath on another light novel anime adaption doing well or at the very least blow me away. I do not know much about studio “Pine Jam”, so that will be something on the field of first impressions. From what I’ve researched, it’s like a group of high schoolers forming a video game club with fellow other gaming otaku. Getting some Genshiken vibes here, but I’m doubtful it’ll go heavy with the gaming nerd culture like the Genshiken manga and anime series.
Hajimete no Gal
I’m going to be completely real here. Up until three minutes into writing this paragraph, I’ve never heard of Hajimete no Gal (First Time Girl) and its My Anime List (MAL) synopsis left much to be desire in explaining what’s up with the show (as most MAL synopsis are). I took it upon myself to researching the upcoming anime by studio NAZ (hey! That sounds like Nas the rapper. That must be a great sign!)
After completing my quick lackluster research, I found that Hajimete no Gal is based off Shonen Ace’s romantic comedy manga of the same name by Meguru Ueno. Main character Junichi is pressured by his homeboys to seek out a girlfriend and lose his virginity to her during his first year of high school. He encounters the alluring gyaru Yukana, who shames him for looking at a porn magazine openly in school. Junichi decides to make it his mission to confess his feelings towards Yukana and get with her.
To his surprise, Yukana is incredibly sexually forward, teasing him about how much he wants to sleep with her by flashing her panties and revealing her cleavage towards the kid. From my first impression off two chapters, the art is amazing and the story is funny enough to catch my attention.
I have high hopes for the adaptation!
There are my anime I want to see soon! With that, the day 1 challenge is completed! Onwards to day 2!
The best way to get over somebody is to keep working on you, improving yourself daily. The best way you get revenge on somebody who’ve screwed you over is to become massively successful; making them regret what they did to you. Breaking up sucks, trust me. Cutting ties with somebody who wronged you hurts, I know this. You want to – no – you need to do whatever it takes to get your payback. You need to get back at them for their wrongdoing. You need to make them feel the same way, if not worse, than how they made you felt. That’s okay. It’s okay to feel angry and bitter, Emotions are natural. We’re human after all.
The best way to get back at them is to become more successful than them. Become better, smarter, wiser, richer. Do not do anything to harm your target physically, emotionally, or mentally. That’ll only get you in some shit you don’t wanna be in.
I’m saying all this because the other day while I was browsing on Facebook there was word of a revenge porn thread on another website poppin’ up on an convention group I’m a part of. Somebody was requesting nudes to be leaked of female csoaplyers from one of the region (perhaps some creep got mad some cosplaying chick rejected them and wanted to get back at them). Unfortunately, some girls’ nudes were leaked by most likely their bitter ex-boyfriends. Ex-boyfriends still mad about the breakup and seeking revenge by ruining their life through their nudes.
Imma say this real shit: If you so mad at a chick breaking up with you that it inspires you to post their nudes to the public – you’re an insecure little bitch. Same to you ladies out there reading this. if you leak your ex dude’s nudes as well, you’re an insecure little bitch . How low and petty do you have to be to violate a person’s privacy and trust? How much anger, rage, and hatred do you have towards an ex that you wanna ruin their life by posting their most imitate and private pictures that they entrusted you to not sparead aroud, all because you’re mad at them? You’re not a real man or woman. You’re a real sad bitch
Just broken up with somebody? Feeling anger towards them? You need to get over that shit quick. If somebody did you wrong and your enraged? Get over it quick. It’s okay to be angry at them. What you do with that anger may not be okay. Do not let that anger blind and consume you. What do you need to do when you’re mad and angry?
Use that anger as motivation.
In my introduction or whatever, I stated that you should become better and more successful than whomever screwed you. How do you do that you may ask? Well, focus on whatever you love to do and work hard on that. Are you a writer? Then write! Improve your writing skills and direct your attention to any writing projects you have in mind. Hell, write about the person that hurt you if it makes you feel better. Create a story based off the break up! You may help somebody get over their anger!
You’re a hustler and a grinder? Keep on your grind. Keep working on your business and make that money and stack. . Work your ass off so hard and so much on the hustle that you become something due to how much hard work you put in your hustle. It’ll make those who wronged you regert that they did that!
That’s the revenge you want! Their regrets and your success! Posting a person’s nudes ain’t goana make them respect you! That’s only gonna make you catch a revenge porn case. That’ll be 4-7 years of your life gone cuz you’re out here trying to ruin a person’s life. Busting a person’s car window or slashing their tires ain’t gonna make it better. It’ll only gonna force you to lawyer up and pay them along with court fees. It ain’t worth your freedom to get revenge by being petty. It’s worth your time to become more successful and greater than those who screwed you over by working on you, improving day-by-day until you reach your biggest goal, whatever they may be.
In conclusion, the best revenge is massive success. The greatest way to get over somebody is to improve yourself and focusing on yourself. By doing somebody physical or mental harm a payback will only end with your downfall and imprisonment. You must disdain from that person by any means necessary. Ignoring them is revenge. WIninng at life is revenge.
With that said I hope you enjoy this freewrite and I hope I have helped anyone with their problems or a break up or getting back at anyone. I shall be returning to my anime focused writings soon enough ya’ll!
“Rock’s here! You miss it earlier, he was on a rampage nitpicking every little thing. ” My coworker informs me on our regional manager “Rock” was on going off on everyone (sans me given I just arrived).
Oh.
“Damn, that bad huh?” I replied nonchalantly. I wasn’t concern about “Rock” (name changed cuz I’m not trying to get fired yet), or fearing his arrival. I was warned about his visit earlier in the week. The prior warning gave me time to do my mental training and job preparations. Furthermore, I’ve been working both harder and smarter to improve my section and my work ethics (although admittedly I’ve been slacking in some areas).
As fucked up as this sounds, I’m laughing at everyone’s fears (in the inside, of course I would get fired if I did that externally). At this point, we ‘re informed about Rock’s expectations. Yea, it’s annoying that dude is in town, but that we expected it. Adapt or die.
In my time researching (and now owning an actual copy of) the 48 Laws of Power, analyzing the mindset of superiors, being interested on how business are run, and my own desires of being a boss, I figured this out: The only reason why we were trippin’ off Rock’s arrival is because he’s a boss. Bosses make their worker’s “fear” them. It’s how power works (at times).
Yet, given I’m evolving my own mindset of becoming a boss, and knowing that Rock has to answer to ahis own bosses despite being a boss, what is there to fear from him?
As long as we’re doing our shit on the daily, and feeling confident in towards our work ethics, we shouldn’t worried about this dude. And on the flip side, he shouldn’t worried if we’re doing what he expect us to do when he come through. It’s that sense of security; we can put each other’s minds at ease if we perform to our expectations, and beyond.
Hell, I’ve been had this mindset since my second job (working at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s restaurant). When news of the CEO’s arrival, everyone sans a few cooks and I were in fear. We both knew what the CEO expected from us, and given that we respected his position of power, I made sure when dude came to our kitchen, and I had it as clean and neat for him.
Plus, my former bosses informed the GMs on my hard work, so my on the line (guard ya rep no matter what ya’ll). If the CEO would have seen a kitchen a mess, it would not only look bad on me, but my bosses and GMs who told him about my work. I don’t wanna make people look like liars off my bullshit.
I’m not fearful of Rock, but rather respectful of him and his position. As a boss he has to make sure we’re doing our work so he can feel secure about his position. Because trust me, if he let our bullshit slid, that would be on his head with bosses and that wouldn’ be great on our end. Plus I interactived with the dude a few times in the past, he seems like he’s chill if he’s not on boss mode, so there’s that.
I guess I think differently from my fellow coworkers and the average worker.
(I know this is different from my usually writings but I haven’t wrote anything in a while due to my own laziness, and this idea was in my head all day. Plus, I need to sharpen my writing skills).
NOTE:This is the text version of the audio discussion between my friend DJ Killzown and myself on the same topic. The link to the YouTube will be provide below.
A convention is a wonderful place to meet and befriend new people who share your passive for nerd pop culture. You can be yourself without being ridiculed for who you are. However, just like in the real world, you still have to obey the laws of the land, use common sense and logic at conventions. Just because somebody is cosplaying as a sexy Slave Leah outfit doesn’t give you the right to touch her. Somebody has a cool prop you’re admiring? That’s great! Just ask permission to hold and touch it first. You don’t wanna ruin the con experience for yourself or somebody because you’re on some childish crap. Don’t know what not to do at conventions or need a refresher? Well, we’re here to help! Not Taking Care of Your Personal Hygiene
Look, there’s no excuse for not taking care of your hygiene; both in the real world, and at conventions. You need to shower and take care of other hygiene issues before you hit the con floor. Take a damn hot soapy shower. Use deodorant. Brush your teeth. Comb or brush your hair.. Freshener your breath. People are sensitive to body odor. You are being selfish when you do not bathe. Again, there’s no excuse.
Disrespect Personal Boundaries.
People attend conventions to have a good time. They don’t want it ruined by some creep or somebody breaking their props. It should go without saying, but think before you act. Keep your hands to yourself; cosplay is not consent. People have worked hard for months on their costume and props. They don’t want it destroyed by some touchy grabby idiot. Please ask for a picture before you snap one. Don’t become that one creepy photographer that gets talked about within the community.
Ghost the convention Please, support the convention. If you want the convention to flourish, you must buy a badge. Ghosting hurts the convention as they lose money to stay afloat. Every penny counts. If you want better and bigger guests, convention to expand, and an overall better home con, supports the convention. Buy a badge.
Consume drugs/alcohol beyond your limit
Partying is not a secret at the convention scene, so I’m going to say this: please know your limit when consuming drugs or alcohol. Don’t consume drugs or alcohol on the convention grounds. Leave that shit in your room If you smoke trees in an illegal state, spray yourself down or cover the smell with tobacco smoke. Be aware if law enforcement catch your ass with that shit, you’re getting locked up, no tolerance. Do not drink if you’re underage. Do not serve underage people alcohol. . It’s not worth it.
I hope our tips will help you improve the quality of your experience at conventions. We wish you a great and happy convention season!
Please! Check out our audio discussion on the topic on YouTube!
Audio collab between my boy DJ Killzown Jones and myself. With the convention season well into the summer season, DJkillzown and I figure we will be nice and give nice audio guide on NOT to do at cons.
TOPICS INCLUDE:
Cosplay is NOT Consent
Respecting Personal Boundaries
Personal Hygiene
Ghosting Cons
Alcohol/Drugs Consumption
Hotel Partying
Creeping on Women
So this great theory dawned on me while I was shit posting on my Facebook page with Sailor Moon memes: If Hotaru never met Chibi-Usa during the events of the Infinity Arc (doesn’t matter which version), not only would Hotaru would had grew more miserable with her life, it might had spelt doomed for the entire world. One of two things would had happen: Either the world would had been destroyed by Mistress 9 and Pharaoh 90, as none of the Sailor Scouts were powerful enough at the time to stop the Daimons, or Sailor Saturn would had awaken and under Hotaru’s influence, would had been like “ha ha ha fuck my entire life and this world” and destroyed the planet. I mean, would you wanna continue living life if you were Hotaru with absolutely no friends, no mother figure, an abusive father (or an abusive Kaorinite depending on the version of the series) and a degenerating body that’s falling apart?
How Hotaru managed not to hang herself or blow her brains out at this point is beyond my superior analytical mind (I mean Japan has strict gun laws but that’s another story).
. Think about it: Prior to meeting Chibi-Usa, Hotaru had a terrible life. I wouldn’t be shocked if she had a rather pessimistic view on it. I mean, if you saw your own mother burning to death, had your limbs damaged to the point of having them replaced with robotic ones by your sociopath father, have an alien space bitch overlord’s egg inside your body, an uncontrolled split personality, and dealing with being bullied relentlessly at school, you probably have a fucked up view on life as well. Chibi-Usa befriending Hotaru and making Hotaru feel a lot more positive about herself was lowkey the best thing to happen to the Sailor Scouts and the world.
The only positive outcome I see from any of this is in the 90s anime series. Hotaru would probably save the world as Sailor Saturn only to save her father who wasn’t an abusive piece of shit unlike his Crystal and manga counterparts. Other than that, she would had either died as Mistress 9 completed destroyed her body (and would had went on to destroy her literal sprit), or died as an result of ending the world as Sailor Saturn. Sailor Moon was not powerful enough to take out both Mistress 9 and Pharoh 90, as Saturn herself stated in the 90s anime that Moon wans’t that powerful.
I would go more in-depth with my theory but I gotta get ready for work in like 30 minutes of the completion of this writing. Plus I wanna get this out of my head before I forgot about the theory. Also sorry for the bad grammar and spelling errors I gotta get ready to work like now.
Arc System Works’s (ASW) Dragon Ball Fighterz must be successful in order to lay down the path of future anime fighting games based off other anime/manga series. Currently most “fighting games” based off anime series (Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm and Dragon Ball Z Xenoverse) are average, bland, noncompetitive, 3-D arena, smash “X” on the PS4 pad over and over for punches and kicks, 100+ plus characters but only five are actually being used, bullshit tripe that are not and should not get any type of respect from the fighting game community (FGC).
Dragon Ball Fighterz appears to lack the problem mentioned above. Basing this off word-of-mouth and seeing gameplay videos from e3, the Dragon Ball Fighterz play like your traditional 2D anime fighting game with mechanics influenced by Guilty Gear (make sense given ASW are creating the game) such as dusting (ground-to-air comboing) and combo linking (linking from normals to specials to supers to ultras), creating an in-depth and high learning curve. Further more, this leads us to an expansive meta game unlike in Xenoverse. It’s safe to say that Dragon Ball Fighterz will be far more advance, deeper (perhaps superior), and complex compared to Xenoverse 1 and 2.
To be completely honest, it’s what a Dragon Ball fighting game needs: complexity. Yes, it can be and should be simple and easy to pick up for casual and new players, but hard to master for the more advance and competitive player. You know, the same players who are willing to put in 8-12 hours a day, just to master a main and sub character for tournaments and money matches. The ones who are willing to spend an entire day learning each little detailed of the gameplay and characters to dominate the FGC scence. If Dragon Ball Fighterz can do that and receive a highly positive feedback from both Dragon Ball and fighting games fans alike, just imagine what other anime and manga series could benefit from the potential success.
Naruto I would say would have the greatest benefit from Dragon Ball Fighterz success. No more of that arena bullshit like Ultimate Ninja Storm. In fact, what if we could apply the cool accepts of that series and put it on a 2D fighting game with the Naruto brand? One Piece fighting game, but it plays like Blazeblu? And ya already know ya boy loves Sailor Moon. I would love it if Arc System Works did a Sailor Moon anime fighting game with not only just the Sailor Scouts, but their enemies and series villains too!
But we can not have any of those pipe dream fighting games if Dragon Ball Fighterz tank or do not get community support, feedback, or success.
So please, please support Dragon Ball Fighterz when it’s released. Please provide Arc System Works with feedback to help improve the game once the closed beta drops. We must support Dragon Ball Fighterz and ensure it’ll become a success. The future of any other anime/manga based fighting games rest on Dragon Ball Fighterz.
Yesterday during my lunch break at work, I was listening to Grant Cardone’s (American author and CEO) interview on his 2016 book “Be Obsessed or Be Average” (great book I highly recommend if you have giant dreams). During it, he brought up a childhood dream (an obsession even) of on becoming like fictional movie spy James Bond when he grew up (having the hot women, flashy cars, infinite cash flow, etc.). Cardone’s reflection of his childhood dreams and goals reminded myself of my own innocent dream of becoming like Dr. Tomoe; villain of Sailor Moon S.
Yes, that Dr. Tomoe. The crazed cracklin’, evil science experimenting, nutjob ass dude with the clichéd evil badguy laugh. That is the Dr. Tomoe I’m talking about. As a child, I wanted to be like him as a kid (I was a weird kid). Why? Well, here some reasons why!
Going back to a previous post, my very first episode of Sailor Moon had the infamous fake orgasms Twister game with Mimete and the reminding Witches 5. We see Professor Tomoe enjoying (albeit creepily) his all-female staff playing Twister in short shirts, lab coats, and high heels. Tomoe enters the room and the women welcome him warmly. After debriefing Minmete on her next mission, Tomoe continue the game of Twister with the other women, taking pleasure in being surrounded by smart and sexy science lady nerds .
“I wanna be like Dr. Tomoe when I grow up!” I declared! What ten-year-old male doesn’t wanna grow up to have a secret lab filled with sexy science nerds, man?
“He has women in high heels and lab coats playing Twister with him. I want that in life. Also I wonder if he’s fucking all of them behind their backs. I would do that too if I was him.”
Oh ten-year-old me was full of hopes and dreams. Oh Ben. You were so innocent back then! But really, that one definite scene inspired me to work and learn hard, so that one day I could be like that creepy blackface paint like science man on the new anime.
To have the beautiful women working for me and my business. Ten-year-old wanted that. Today? I still want that. Create humanoid monsters from alien eggs to take over the world. Ten year old wanted that shit. Me today? I would get locked up for unethical science experiments and terrorism.
As ten-year-old me continued to watch Sailor Moon S, I was impress by Profressor Tomoe and what he had. I was quickly inspired by the man, with him becoming one of my favorite characters in the series. The business. The school he founded. The money and giant house. And the women.
Kaorinite. Tomoe’s beautiful (and incredibly crazy) lab assistance. I mean, no wonder he hand selected her to be his personal assistance. I mean she’s straight up beautiful, smart as fuck, has big ol nice ass cow tits, and probably has a S-rank blowjob game in bed (hey I’m just saying).
For her character arc in the beginning of the S, to her first death, and finally her second death at the hands of Mistress 9, Kaorinite was by Tomoe side. My dude Tomoe had a fine ass chick by him at nearly all times. She must had been that special because he brought her back to life after her first death at the hands of the Sailor Scouts.
I want a Kaorinite in my life (sans all the crazy homicidal shit and her abusiveness towards children [poor Hotaru]) Like, a fine ass sexy woman by my side when I become a successful person. Introduce her to at a party or an event and everyone starts looking at her. Have their breath taken away from not only her beauty and grace, but her presence and wisdom. Have people hate on me because I have her and she doesn’t not.
Finally, the last factor that made me go “I Wanna Be Like Dr. Tomoe” was his powerful relationship with his daughter, Hotaru.
Despite being incredibly busy with his personal work, Tomoe made time to spend time with Hotaru. It’s clear that they’re close as Hotaru happily introduced Chibi-Usa to him (but that’s for another post). At the final few episodes of the S arc, Professor Tomoe is risking his life to save and protect Hotaru (after she transformed into Mistress 9 See, that’s a real ass father. Taking time off time to take care of daughter. Then we have his willingness to protect her at all costs, by any means.
Granted, personally I don’t want kids anytime soon (or ever), but if I ever had a kid, I would done the same he did with his kid. Take the time from my own shit to be around them. To protect them at all cost.
As a kid I had this innocent, but wild dream to be like a fictional cartoon anime character. I want what he had: beautiful women (the Witches 5 and Kaorinite), the money and own business, the nice mansion, and family. Am I working on that childish dream today as an adult? Yes. It might be taking slower than I want but I know I can get it if I push myself.
Thanks Professor Tomoe! your crazy ass inspired me to become a man like ya.
(Fuck Crystal/Manga Professor Tomoe tho. That nigga’s a piece of shit. Don’t be like him.)
To say that Haruhi Suzumiya (The Melachonholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) is a bit of an attention whore is a grave understatement. Haruhi lusts for attention. She demands notability. She wants all eyes on her like Tupac. To Haruhi, the world should and must revolve around only on her. (of course, she’s God after all, so she’s not. She’s not wrong to think that [despite unaware of her godly reality wrapping powers]). Every day, she makes an effort to be noticed, to have people know her name, and who she is. She doesn’t care if people speak of her in a negative light; it keeps her name circulating. She loves it.
Haruhi doesn’t want to fade in the background. She does not want be average, or one of faceless many in the world. Haruhi’s drive is to become extraordinary and different from the rest of the world. To understand this drive, we must look at her flashback scene from episode 13 of season 1.
‘So I figure I would change myself in middle school. Let the world know that I wasn’t a girl content with sitting around and waiting.’ -Haruhi Suzumiya
As they’re walking home from school, Haruhi tells Kyon the story of her family going a baseball game as a child. Haruhi was amazed at the sight of the overflowing, sold out stadium. She believed that the entire population of Japan came together at the venue to watch baseball. When she asked her dad about the number of people in attendance, he told her around 200,000 people. These people, including herself, only made up very small fraction Japan’s population (around 128 million during the show’s original run in 2006). After returning home from the game, she did the math, breaking down the attendance , compared it to the entire population of Japan, and discovered that it only made one two-thousandth of the population of Japan.
Haruhi was just one of many. A drop in the massive and everlasting ocean.
Realizing this, she no longer felt special. Haruhi was just like everyone else; doing the same shit (brushing her teeth, eating breakfast, going to school, etc.). Life became boring. What’s life when you’re just like everyone else? Maybe in the world, there was somebody amazing, unique, and extraordinary And yet, it wasn’t her.
At this revelation, Haruhi had to stand out from the rest of the world. She to get up and demand change by her own will. To not become content with being average. She had to make her mark in the world by any means. To court attention at all cost.
‘Be obsessed or be average.’
-Grant Cardone, American CEO, Author, and motivation speaker
Later, Haruhi set out to achieve her dream of being noticed and not average. On her first day of high school, she proudly introduces herself and states that she isn’t interested normal humans. Rather, she wants to meet with time travelers, aliens, and espers. This caused a stir in her homeroom, making people think just who the fuck is this childish girl, and why does she still believe in such things at the age of 15?
Throughout the series, Haruhi attempts (and mostly succeed at) various actions to be noticed. She devolved a system to change her hairdo by style (she even went as far to wear a different hair ribbion each day). She stripped down from her school uniform into her gym clothes, not caring if her male peers were watching. She attempted to join every school club, only to dip out from each and forming her own club: The SOS Brigade. She stole the show at her school festival, filling in for a sick guitarist ( revealing that she’s an amazing musician in her own right). All in the name of courting attention. She places herself at the center of it all, regardless of what others may think.
So, remember from this past Monday (6/5/17) when an anonymous 2chan poster leaked information on Dragon Ball Super Eps. 95-98 with full episode titles, summuary, and staff listings? Well, there’s a funny thing about the information. Two of the episodes information was confirmed “fake”. However, the “faker” managed to accurately guess three of the episodes titles and information correctly. Yes. Despite the 2chan leaker bullshiting us on two episodes, somehow, he figured out the titles of the episodes and the summary without flaw. There’s even more to this new mystery!
As of right now there isn’t any information about Frieza betraying Team Universe 7 and joining Team Universe 4. That has yet to be confirmed or deny. Yamcha replacing Frieza and making a come has also not yet been confirmed or deny (even with Toru Furya’s tweet detailing his voice work as Yamcha), and Locca’s Tower tweet confirming that they’re working on a new ending theme for Super. Either way, the “faker” succeeded in great timing with those moves.
Ken Xyro’s Leak and Scan comparisons translation. Notice anything about Eps. 94, 97, and 98 in both sections?
Real shit; I cannot hate on the dude who created the bullshit leaks. This person is obviously well researched with his information on the Toei staff (as he correctly “leaked” Toshio Yoshitaka writing Episode 94) for Super. It’s clear that the guy put forth the effort to study the staff and strategically line up the staff members to each episode’s leak, real or fake.
In any case, here what we know so far.
CONFIRMED:
*Toshio Yoshitaka will be the writer for Dragon Ball Super Ep. 94
*Episode 97’s Leaked Title “Who Will Survive? Tournament of Power Begins!” (Title is slightly different. There’s a kanji that is not used in the official title but that’s it).
*Episode 98’s title undecided.
*Locca’s Tower working on a new ending theme
*Toru Furuya’s tweet
DENIED:
*Episode 96’s Leaked Title “Emergency AGAIN! HE Is The Last Warrior”
*Episode 95’s leaked title “Goku and Frieza Unite – The Secret Trap of Universe 4″ (NOTE: Frieza still slaughter the assassins)
UNSURE:
*Yamcha’s return. Furuya may be recording lines for the new Dragon Ball Fighters video game as Yamcha.
*Frieza’s betrayal.
MISC:
*Toshio Yoshitaka states that 2chan leaks are fake, however, the fandom is split on his comment. He could be trying to be secretive about the Tournament of Power information, or doesn’t want to risk losing his job.
*Toei Animation have been known to create fake spoilers and leaks to confuse the fandom
*Toei Animation may be keeping things under wrap to avoid spread of information.
DBS Eps. 95-98 Japanese TV Guide summaries scan
CONCLUSION:
I honestly can not hate on the fake leaks. Dude is incredibly smart and played the entire fandom, including longtime respected members who actively debunk fake leaks. It’s possible that Toei might be creating fake leaks to build hype, but we do not know just yet These fake leaks are now more advance as we got people naming staff and creating legit sounding episode titles and summaries, so be careful if you see a leak. In all honestly, this makes things exciting by the day.
Anyways, I’m out! Just wanted to update you guys on what’s going on with the Super leaks! Thanks for reading I’m going to bed. I got work in the morning.
The other day, I was browsing through a Touhou fangroup on Facebook when I came across an topic: ZUN’s networth, and how much money he makes off his games and other products. We threw in our (not so educated) guesses out, ranging from being completely broke due to his alcoholism love for beer, really broke from snorting cocaine off the asses of Sanae cosplayers at Comiket, to being incredibly well off from the games, his day job (network programmer), and having some passive income (apparently he invested in a brewery in Japan [yay sin investments] and SONY is giving him passive income for the PS4 Touhou games, but neither statement has not yet been confirmed).
Somebody brought up an article with statements from ZUN . Zun states that even if he wasn’t making money off to make Touhou games, he would still make them regardless, as he is passionate about game design.
To ZUN, that’s a shot glass.
(ZUN reminds me of another doujinshi game designer and writer, Ryukishi07 [When They Cry series creator], another dude who loves making games just for the joy for it, but that’s for another freewrite)
ZUN spreads the lore of Gensokyo (the fictional land of Touhou), not for the love of money, but for the love of his fans and his passion of storytelling. ZUN finds fulfillment from his craft, his art. Naturally, everyone in the topic started to respect him more than ever (ZUN seems like a very cool and chill guy). This got me thinking a bit; am I doing this writing thing for fame and money, or am I doing this because I love writing and I want to share my views to the world?
Or to go a little deeper; is there a greater sense of fulfillment by working on my passion so I can spread my words to the world? Do I want to influence others and have them think about anime and otaku culture on a deeepr level? Or am I doing this for my own pride and ego?
Maybe one day I’ll find the answer. Maybe one day I’ll become just like ZUN and keep pushing out my writings because I find it fun and I want others to be happy and find joy from it. Thanks ZUN, not only for your hard work, but also inspiring me to work on my passion for the joy of it!
The second opening theme song of Dragon Ball Super, performed by Kiyoshi Hikawa (signed with Nippon Columbia). Debuted in Dragon Ball Super on Episode 77, the start of the Universe Survival Arc.
Kiyoshi Hikawa
‘Get excited! To space, let’s go!
The latest obsession! Join the flow?
I’ll hold in my hand’
Too anime for me to analyze
‘I wanna laugh like a crazy!
I’m used to bein’ confused!’
When you’re so used to going through the same bullshit day in and day out, not receiving any results that makes you happy, you can only just simply laugh as if you’re insane. Besides, you’re used to dealing with confusion (may it be from general life bullshit or what not). It’s second nature, why not laugh about it? ‘I can’t get no satisfaction’
Goku in his Super Saiyan God form. A form in which he was ultimately unsatisfied with (which lead to Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, or Super Saiyan Blue).
This is Goku to a tee. He is consistent with is training for self improvement and he is always seeking new, stronger warriors as he’s not satisfied with his current state of power. His drive to become stronger and combat against people as strong or stronger than himself is one of the catalyze of the Tournament of Power.
In the real world, this can be applied to anyone with drive and passion. People who reach their personal best want more in life, thus feeling unsatisfied. This create a desire to push themselves to a new heights, to explore new things to curb the thirst as to speak.
(This is my favorite line of the song, as it describes my nature of wanting more in life)
‘(woo-hoo) Boredom
(woo-hoo) Becomes a stone
Before it gets too heavy and falls (Let’s fly high)’
Stones are heavy. Stone can drag you, slowing down your process or your entire life. Bored people, people who aren’t doing anything with their lives, are dragged down by it. When people apply their dreams, drive, passion, and thoughts into action, they do not allow any stones to drag them down. In fact they refuse to be dragged down.
In short, be obsessed with your passions, or be average and boring.
‘(woo-hoo) Let’s spread
(woo-hoo) Our wings of excitement’
Open your wings and soar high. Let others know about your excitement and influence them. ‘Let’s go to the next world’
Goku achieving Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan
Go to the next level in life. Do you want to stay in the same place as always No? Then go do something about it!
‘The door of possibilities is still locked
Oh well, I’ll break through the wall again’
Opportunities. Advancements. Desires. At times, they’re locked behind a closed doors, blocking your path to achieve greatness. Sometimes, you have to force your way to gain what you want in life, may it be breaking down walls or destroying road blocks. Those who are used to facing roadblocks and locked doors in life just tend to say “screw it” and destroy the barriers as usual.
‘Now! Shoot past the limit! Shout “It’s piece of cake”!
The Invinclbe Me is waiting there’
Again, Goku to a tee. As Beerus stated in the “Battle of the Gods” movie, Goku is a fighting genius. A title Goku truly earned has he has shot past his personal limits with his Super Saiyan forms, discovering new forms of Super Saiyan overtime.
In the real world, those who push themselves will always go past their limits, achieving new heights no matter what.
Tupac said it best; “Real niggas do what they wanna do, bitch niggas do what they can do.”
‘Dragon Ball Super!’
It’s the name of the fucking anime it’s not deep at all. ‘Even Zen-Oh Sama will be blown away!’
It’s not that deep. Lord Zen-Oh is a kid who can be impressed very easily. Granted, he was super excited from watching the exhibition fights earlier in the arc. Perhaps he will be blown away by the tournament.
Before I begin I want to say two things:
1. These leaks have yet to be confirmed until we have scans from the official Japanese TV Guide (usually provied by Herms98 over at Twitter). Take these leaks with a grain of salt. However, Toru Furuya (voice actor of Yamcha) posted a tweet that may confirmed the truth of these leaks.
2. You assume the risk of being spoil if these leaks are legit. If you do not want to take that risk, turn back now. You have been warned. With that said, let’s go!
Today has been a wild news day for the Dragon Ball community. Recent leaks from 2channel have surfaced containing major spoilers for Dragon Ball Super episodes 95-98. Let me say that (these spoilers are some straight up game changers for the Tournament of Power of the Universe Survival Arc (assuming if they’re real of course) . Freiza betraying Universe 7 and joining Universe 4? Universe 11 recruiting warriors from different universes to target Universe 7? If you fall off the arena, not only you will die, your existence will be erased as well?!
Man, this is crazy! Let’s break down the episode spoilers and I shall give my opinions on each!
Episode 95 (Airdate: 6/10/17)
Members of Universe 9 decide to take a nice and fun little universe studies field trip to Universe 7 meet their favorite people in the whole wide universe: Goku and Frieza. No, not so they can get their autographs or anything cool like that. They wanna kill them both before the tournament begins. If you remember from episode 93 of Super, Universe 4’s God of Destruction Quitela hired spies to scout Universe 7’s warriors and discovered that Goku recruited Frieza for the Tournament. Surprised that Universe 7 have went as far as inviting dead warriors within their rank, Quitela starts plotting with Sidra (God of Destruction of Universe 9) to assassinate Frieza. Frieza and Goku, for the very first time, must join forces to take out the assassins of Universe 9. They decide to waste no time, as they have little of it before the tournament.
Do not get too content with Frieza and Goku being buddy-buddy for long.
Episode 96 (Airdate: 6/17/17)
Ya really thought this man would work with a Saiyan!
Oh no. Oh my. Frieza doesn’t wanna work with Universe 7 after all. He betrays them, linking up with Universe 4 instead. Man that’s so fucked up. I can’t believe that this man Frieza would backstab Goku like that. Are you surprise as much as I am? Well, I dunno how Quitela managed to get Frieza on his side, but he got him. Maybe Frieza is playing mindgames with both Universe 4 and 7, killing members off of Universe 7 first, and then betray Universe 4 and will kill them off as well just for his own personal and selfish gain.
Welp congrats Frieza, you played yourself! Say goodbye to the deal of you coming back to life with the Earth Dragon Balls (as if he could had use them to come back to life again). Beerus might just reward him with a stupid prize (Hakai) for playing stupid games. Well, Goku boy is short a member, again. Universe 7 enters the Tournament of Power with just nine warriors. But wait! Who is the 10th member entering at this 11th hour!?. Who is “He”?
$200 says this “He”. Screenshot this post.
Well, there aren’t any information within the spoilers about who’s the new 10th member, but some rather interesting “meta” information have came out on Twitter within the last 24 hours or so of this writing. There are talks in the Dragon Ball community of Yamcha being the possible 10th member of Universe 7th. How do we know this? Well, let’s check out this tweet by Yamcha’s voice actor, the legendary seiyu Toru Furuya.
Seriously the 10th member is Yamcha just screenshot this post.
“I was tired talking a lot with Yamcha.” (Gotta love Google Translate) Hmm. And he can’t go into further details about what he was talking about. That’s rather suspect, isn’t it? Yamcha has been featured in a few episodes of the Universe Survival arc, waiting for Goku to recruit him (poor fellow) but perhaps he’ll finally have his chance to prove his worth with Frieza’s betrayal and leaving Universe 7 one member short. I for one can’t wait to see Yamcha shine! Plus, I figure Toei needs to sell some Yamcha figures and toys because there’s a fan demand and market so why not!
Enough about Yamcha, let’s move forward to the next episode, and my lord, the Grand Priest’s new information is grim, scary, and depressing.
Episode 97 (Airdate: 6/24/17)
There’s something about his smile and the camera’s angle…
Finally! After 20 episodes, the Tournament of Power kicks off with this episode (I’m gonna have some beers and trees on standby for this one). The warriors of the eight universes gather at the World of Void to combat for their survival! Before doing so, The Grand Priest drops some dire news: whoever falls off the arena will not only die, but their existence will be erased on the spot! That’s it. Game over man. You’re gone for good! Yea, I mean this is Dragon Ball, nobody (good) stay dead forever. It’s pretty obvious the victor will use the Super Dragon Balls to revive all the universes that were erased, but this is some pretty grim shit.
Now that I think about it, the “no killing allowed” rule make sense. In the world of Dragon Ball, if you die, your spirit will either go to the Other World or Hell depending on if you were evil or good in your life. You will still exist unless you either die again in the afterlife or if a God of Destruction erase your existence.
Ghosts can get it too.
So let’s imagine if a warrior in the tournament was killed by say Frieza. Their spirit would enter either the Other World or Hell, and tell the rest of the dead folks some shit like “Hey, so I was just killed in a fucked up tournament in which if our universe loses, we all being erased. Let’s go to this World of Void and revolt against the Onmi King and his priests! Also Son Goku of Universe 7 caused this to happen so let’s kill his love ones!”
You know how chaotic things would be if word of a tournament of this nature got out to the other universes? Pretty great insurance policy the Grand Priest installed by banning killing. Eh, I’m just hopefully speculating at this point. Let’s move on to the last episode leak.
Episode 98 (Airdate: 7/1/2017)
The warriors are divided into two groups: Those who’ve joined forces with Universe 11 to take out Universe 7 , and the rest who do not wish. Universe 11 were going around recruiting fighters from outside their own ranks to link up and take out Universe 7’s warriors. Goku, being the asshole he is, is just sitting back enjoying his own allies being targeted by Universe 11 and their new temporary teammates. This is interesting and we had clues that this might happened. First off, let’s check out a screenshot of second opening of Dragon Ball Super.
Kale if you were taken in by Universe 11 against your will please blink twice
It’s possible that the woman in the background next to Jiren is new best girl Kale of Universe 6. I can only assume and speculate that Universe 11 managed to recruit Kale to join the assault on Universe 7. Now, this is interesting to say the least. Universe 6 and 7 are counterparts. Warriors such as Cabba and Hit hold Universe 7 in high regrades. To see Kale on Universe 11 side to attack Universe 7 will create conflict within Universe 6.
Also, remember that Universe 11 pride themselves as being warriors of justice, yearning to rid the universe of any and all evil by any means necessary. Let’s take this one step further by examining some lyrics Dragon Ball Super’s 7th ending theme “An Evil Angel and A Righteous Devil”:
‘”For all that is righteous, destroy this evil!”
They say, “The whole world is waiting for you!”
“’For all that is righteous, fight this evil!”
They’ll say “You’re our hero! You’re the one!”
As stated earlier, Universe 11 prides themselves to their oath to destroy all evil and defend righteousness. I can imagine members of that universe sweet talking somebody like Kale to use her powers for justice to attack Universe 7, the evil doers. Plus, as fucked up as this sound, it’s probably easy to convince like Kale (who has self-esteem issues) to join forces with a group like Universe 11 to give them some confidence in themselves.. Just tell them “Hey, Goku and his team are evil and we’re the good guy. They’re the reason why we’re in this situation!” Some fucked up game of politics if you ask me.
I really hope these leaks are true because if so, this makes the Tournament of Power and the Universe Survival Arc in general interesting as all hell. Frieza betraying Universe 7 and joining Universe 4, Yamcha may make a comeback, Universe 11 recruiting warriors of other universes to attack Universe 7, and the rule of not only dying, but being erased if you lose?
Okay, so I lied about taking a break from drinking. I took another shot of Viniq because I’m an alcoholic and it’s delicious. But mostly because of the fact that I’m an alcoholic. Okay, now I gotta prep and get somewhat sober for the Umineko/Higurashi meet. I checked my phone for the time. 5:20PM. Good. Just forty minutes until I have to meet up with the cosplayers. That’s more than enough time to get ready which is great, given an old friend just messaged me on Facebook.
“Hey Ben! We drinking at the Red Bar! Wanna join us?”
Tyler is an old online and ACEN friend of mine. I’ve known him since maybe around 2010 on the old Anime Central’s forums and /cgl/ (the cosplay and gothic lolita board of 4chan), way before the ACEN’s Facebook groups grew and became the shitholes that they are today. He invited me to the Red Bar, one of the Hyatt’s overpriced bar and grill restaurant (great food though).
“They’ve food down there? My dumbass started drinking on an empty stomach. I need some food badly.” I replied.
“Yea, they got a great menu. We’ll still be here by the time you get here.”
“Alright bet!” Food sounds great along with old friends and I already know I need the food for extra drinking. Well, time to make my way to the Red Bar.
I hit the Red Bar up. I spot Tyler and his crew sitting around a tall, smooth white glass table. They had already finished eating and drinking, but stuck around for my food to arrive and eat. The server gives me a menu and I look over it, trying to search for any foods with meat.
“Ben, you like pineapples and hamburgers?” Tyler asked.
“Yep, separate. Never had the two combined. What’s up?” I questioned him. What weird food entrée you’re trying to convince me to eat? Ya white people be eating some weird shit.
“Try the Tsunami Burger. It sounds weird, but trust me, it’s great. It’s a little sloppy though.”
“Hmm, it does sounds good. I’ll take it!”
I placed my order. As we waited, we reminisced on our wild days of /cgl/ and the ACEN message boards. One topic that was brought up was whiny old ass, entitled ass nerdy crybabies who blamed the rave for the parties and bad things happening. They would spend hours from the precious day to bitch about how ACEN focused more on the raves and parties, than the actual anime related content. Each rant ended with the following:
“I’M NEVER COMING BACK TO ANOTHER ACEN AGAIN!”
“IF ACEN KEEP THEIR FOCUS ON THE PARTIES THEN I WILL GO TO ANIME MIDWEST INSTEAD!”
“Can I get a 420 hook up for next ACEN?”
“Who was that cute guy I blew at the rave you had such a huge dick I need it inside me again”
I tend to reply with a smartass remark such as “So we’re seeing ya next ACEN?” or “Nobody cares. You’re coming back next time.” I tend to get blocked bythe butthurt nerds as an result.
As we finished the story, my Tsunami Burger arrived. As a proud, card carrying member of the FatAss Hamburger Eaters Society of America (FAMESOA for short), this burger gets my personal rank of “Top Tier Burger”. Visually, the burger has a vivid aesthetic as supported by the chopped bright yellow Pineapples, flashy green from the green peppers, teriyaki paints the buns coast-to-coast, which overlaps the veggies and fruits toppings.
The sweetness from the pineapples and the light spice from the peppers work in synergy to provide a salty and sweet flavor from each bit- fuck this burger the buns are falling apart too much sauce and water based veggies and fruits. 0/10 this burger is banned from FAMESOA. I do not recommend it to any other members.
Seriously, it was a great burger but again, tomatoes, pineapples, and teriyaki sauce weakens beard, thus creating a finger food mess.
Fuck, its 6:00. Gotta head out! I paid for my food and bid farewell to Tyler and his crew, and head to the smoker’s area, which the Higurashi/Umineko photoshot was taking place.
Wow. Fuck, there’s only six When They Cry (WTC) cosplayers this year (Beatrice, Battler, Willard, Tohya, [Umineko], Rena, and Mion [Higurashi] cosplayers) compared to years past (I think there was about 15-20 WTC cosplayers in 2015 when Ryukishi07 was a guest). The fandom is dying in the ACEN community. It’s disheartening to see a cosplay group I’ve supported for about 5 years fading away. Maybe I should had brought my Goat-Kun cosplay with me this year despite years of damage on it. Oh Well.
Beatrice, Battler, Willard, Mion, Rena, and Tohya (Umineko and Higurashi)ISIS beheading video screenshot
Sniff, sniff, sniff. No. That’s not me crying at the eventually death of the Higurashi/Umineko cosplay community. I’m sniffing some good kush. Normally, I’ll be okay with people smoking tress, but around an area where there are photoshoots going on? You know ,there are young kids and non weed smokers around my dude? Come on now! At least wait until after sunset when all the straight edge baby nerds are gone. If you gotta smoke, at least get a vape so you won’t have that loud smell carrying over or go to the woods by the Hyatt.
Goddammit you fucking stupid idiots are ruining this shit for everyone else.
After the photoshoot (which was literally 10 minutes), we spent the reminding 50 minutes talking about the When They Cry series, Touhou, and general otaku shit that I forgotten over the course of a week due to alcoholism. Tohya, the leader of the WTC cosplay group, brought up the Umineko fighting game “Golden Fantasia”, and my face lit up. I have the game on my laptop, and I haven’t play against a human opponent in years. Chance time!
(If you do not know about Golden Fantasia, imagine Marvel Vs. Capcom 1 meets Guilty Gear, but with Umineko no Naku Koro ni characters throw into the mix. It’s a fun but obscured anime fighting game, but with a very small community. It is getting an official English release soon, and I hope it’ll revive the community.)
Golden Fantasia CROSS box artLucifer performing her Meta Super “Seven Sisters of Purgatory”
Seriously, I want more people cosplaying from Umineko at ACEN next year. If you’re an Umineko or Higurashi cosplayer reading, please cosplay as a character from the series next year. I won’t though ha ha ha!
Tohya and I headed back to my room. Upon arrival, he was impressed by the alcohol I had laying around the room.
“Are you planning to make a bunch of screwdrivers tonight?” I had some vodkas and a giant bottle of orange juice on the table of my room.
“Nah, just have them around for a friend’s party tomorrow. Although having some Screwdrivers don’t sound too bad right now!” I laugh while setting up my laptop and the game. God I got a problem with alcohol.
Alright! Game is booted and we’re ready to roll! I gave him a fair warning that I wasn’t going to go easy on me, in which he replied he won’t do the same for me. I like that! The respect between two fighting game players that understand you must play at your full best. We chose our characters, me with the sibling team Battler and Ange, and him with the “Oh you piece of fucking shit you’re making me hate you” team of Dlanor and Ronove.
So, Dlnaor and Ronove. Fuck them. In Golden Fantasia’s meta, the combination of these two gives the player a pure defense heavy team, as they’re consider to have the best defense in the game, and it doesn’t help that their already large health stack up with one another. Yay.
And then we have their godddamn synergy of their fucking skills. Jesus. Dlanor’s skill is “Armor Boost”, which does what it says on the tin. It increases her and her ally’s defense by 50%. Ronove’s skill is Counter Boost, which increase damage from counter hits. Dlanor has great poking counter tools, and Ronove, who’s already a fucking walking brick wall can do stupid bullshit by having Dlanor’s Armor Boost on him. It’s annoying.
So if you ever play this game I hope you enjoy fucking fighting a loli tank with a sword and a butler tank with a sexy mustache. Because I did not for the first match.
Dlanor of Golden Fantasia. Overpowered loli tank of the game.
We’re playing, getting into the fight. Tohya’s jamming to Jay Z’s “Dead Presidents 2”, which I “modded” into the game’s music soundtrack (I just simply replaced the audio track of Ange’s stage). During our first match of the game, I combo into Battler’s grope special from his bread-and-button combo. Tohya’s friend Battler (the Battler cosplayer who I also invited) made a funny in-fandom joke.
“Why is Battler trying to grope Dlanor? There’s nothing there! Also, I wonder what happens if he tried to grope Ange, his sister, with that move?”
I replied “Well, I’m pretty Ange would enjoy being groped by her own brother. She has a pretty heavy brother complex.” We all laughed because it’s the truth.
(One of her in-game endings has her stepping and grinding her shoe on Battler’s head, demanding that he calls her “Mistress Ange” each time she spanks him. See, that would be incredibly hot if it wasn’t her brother. Maybe if the sub was either her friend Lucifer or best friend Mammon, then it’d be totally hot).
And this is why she’s my Umineko waifu
We went on for a few more matches, and talked about how deep and fun the game is. He also shared my hopes that MangaGamer’s English release will bring back interest to the series to the West, as we are passionate about the Umineko series and want the community to strive once more.
Okay, enough of that heart felt sappy side of me and my weeaboo longing for my favorite fanbase to be revived. You guys are here to read about my tales of debauchery and I promise to deliver! As Tohya and I were finishing up some final matches, my boy “Bucket Wave” (fake named inspired by his love for vaporwave and bucket hats) came through with his giant Bluetooth speaker, lights, trees, and Whiskey!
Yea, it’s turn up party time! It’s Friday night of ACEN and we’re getting fucked up.
Fair warning: The following is straight up pure debauchery. Some debauchery I may have forgotten over the course of the aftermath of ACEN. To remember some things from the ACEN weekend, the following paragraphs were written with me under the influence of alcohol pre-editing. Took some shots of the reminder Martell I had and some UV Blue mixed with sprite while watching Otaku no Video (it’s a great OVA). Hopefully it’ll give me drunken recall.
You’ve been warned.
Alright, so drunken memory recall did not work. It only made me drunk. Fuck it, here’s what I can recall from Friday night up until I had passed out around 5 in the morning the following Saturday (which was more of an exciting day).
Bucket Wave and I took some shots of whiskey, waiting for my boys “Bowser”, “KW”, and “Yakuza” (he’s not an actual Yakuza, he’s a fan of the Sega video game series) to come up and pre-game with us. I owed Bowser some money for a blunt, Yakuza is an old internet friend of mines from the Persona group “Shin Megami Tensei Network” (who apparently members of said group were helping co-hosting the Persona orgy at ACEN) and I promised JW I’ll drink with him and do shots to help get us right for the night.
Yakuza fanboy and myself
Following the whiskey and Hennessy shots (provided by Yakuza), Bucket Wave suggested we do some dabs off his wax pen. Usually, dabs get me incredibly fucked up. Like you ever seen the Truth Commercial with the girl “Sara” straight up melting into the couch, stoned the fuck outta her mind? Yeah, that’s me off dabs.
Oh well, it’s Friday night of ACEN, and we’re getting fucked up at 9:00PM. I plan to be fucked up throughout the night. You think I’m just gonna end with 3 shots of Hennessy, 3 shots of Whiskey, an alpha version of my Sailor Saturn cocktail, and hits of dabs? Nah fuck that! We’re about to head to the smoker’s circle and smoke some blunts too!
The Smoker Circle is already bumping. Nigga, there are half naked ravers and cosplayers walking about and shaking their asses and doing cool tricks with the raver sticks (I don’t know nor care about what they’re actually call), some young college-aged nerds doing keg stands (how the fuck did these white boys manager to sneak in a keg I dunno), s a d b o y s sippin’ lean and listening to vaporwave, crazy cosplayers snorting Special K, and us smart niggas smoking trees and drinking alcohol because we are good noodles.
Fuck that lame ass rave. The Smoker’s Circle is where it at.
My crew settled at the little cut inside the stone pillar (the cut that has the door that leads into the maintenance center of the Hyatt) and sparked up a blunt. Maybe two blunts? I can’t remember, I should have made notes as I went along. Just know the kush was making me feel good along with whatever else I had in my system. I get a message from my boy “Flash” asking if I was still pregaming and if I wanna kick it with “Bgod” (actual nickname) their crew. Of course I’m down.
So, here’s a funny story about Flash and I. Around pre ACEN 2015 (or 2014, can’t remember), me and Flash had an online beef. I was doing my usual shitposting and trolling on the groups when I had went after Flash. Flash got mad and wanted to meet up to fight in Chicago, so I could back up my “internet tough guy” talk in real life. I was like “Alright. I ain’t from Chicago, but meet up in ACEN wit that shit nigga”.
ACEN 2014 or 2015 came about. I’m at my boy’s party smoking a Black and Mild on the balconey. I spot a group of young cats breaking down trees, upset they forgot to grab a rillo (White Owls, Game, Zig-Zag, etc.) beforehand. Me being the utter asshole I am, I gave them my last Black and Mild so they didn’t have to walk 20 minutes to the Moblie station for a rillo.
As I gave a random guy form the group a rillo he asks “Are you Ben Snow?”
“Yes.” I replied back.
“I’m Flash. The guy who wants to fight you. I didn’t know you were actually nice and chill in real life! Sorry about that whole shit, it just that people love to run their mouths online around Chicago and not back it up in real life.”
This dude wasn’t an internet tough guy as I originally thought. The dude was well built as well as looking like he can legit fight physically. We talked about nerdy shit for about an hour and clicked well, and ended our online beef right there. Back to the present, I’m up in their place smoking one of my blunts with his crew, just chilling and talking about our own ACEN plans and trying to find more parties to kick it. As we are trying to figure out our next move, something told me to check my phone.
‘Room 10xx. Throwing a crazy party like last year.’
“Ayy, ‘Sid’ is throwing a party at his suite again this year. Let’s hit that up!” I suggested to everyone. So Sid and his legendary parties he hosts at ACEN. Oh man, holy hell! For the past five years I’ve known Sid and attending his parties, they always are so lit and wild. There’s a 90% chance that it’ll get shut down by the police, hotel staff, and convention security because of noise complaints. And I don’t mean his next door neighbors bitching. I mean, the entire floor in which he host his parties tend to rant and bitch about the noise levels. When you go to this man’s parties, it’s standing room only. Good luck trying to find space to sit down and chill, because you won’t.
Well, time to go to one of the ACEN’s masters of lit parties.
As always, Sid’s party is packed and wild. Even with him having a two story vast suite, the room is jammed with people. Music and voices are sounding thunderous, dominating all other noises. Do not try to speak over the music, you’ll lose. That’s how lit Sid’s party can be.
While chatting with people I know who’re already at the party, Sid comes up to me and we reunite for another night of alcoholic and drug fuled madness. He jokingly tells me that he was hosting one of the many ACEN origies on the top floor, and that I should join in. I laughed, and headed up there with Bucket.
There were people on the top floor, but no fucking. One very small (perverted) part of me was low-key hoping there was an orgy going down. However, I’m socially awkward and shy around people I do not know, so I wouldn’t get any action regardless.
Poor me I blame society and Christianity for making me like this. Especially Christianity
I’m on the top floor, talking to Bucket, drinking beers and what now when our friend came up to us. They’re clearly distressed, upset, and scared. Something happened. Something that pretty much made me want to fight. Somebody who I thought was a friend did something to another friend of ours ( I won’t go into details because I don’t wanna stir up drama).
I was furious. How could somebody who I called a “friend” for years could do this to another friend? Nah, nah, nah, fuck this nigga, I’m killing him in front of all these people for what he did. How could you do that to a friend man? Before I lost wheatver sense I had left, I decided to leave the party. Alcohol+my temper+that bullshit = me being arrested for murder. Somebody in our crew suggested to go to one last party. Good. Because I can’t be here any longer.
My boy heard word about a VIP suite party going on in the Hyatt. A VIP suite party must be banging as hell. I mean, it has the word “VIP” in it, so it must be a great party. Let’s head there! We get to the room, and it’s mostly dead. I can’t really be too upset, it’s almost 3:30 in the morning, and most, if not all parties were wrapping up. There were a few stragglers partying about but nothing major really. Eh, nothing is really going on here, the alcohol and weed is getting to me, and I’m tired as all hell. I’m gonna head back to my room and past out.
I get near my room, and outside of it I see my friend “Goro” either getting in or out of his cosplay (Goro from Persona 5), I dun care, I just wanna past out (and finish this part of the story). I get in our room and crash on the bed.
“4:00am? Fuck, I’ve been out that long huh? Fuck it, I’ll get up the morning and go to a few panels or something.”
Oh, Ben. You’re cute.
Stay tune for Night 2! Wait, night 2? You mean Day 2 right Ben?
Yuki The Snowman 