vanguard333

Easily one of the best fight scenes in the entire series, and that's saying a lot, as there are a ton of incredible fights in the show and even the later, worse seasons still got the action right. The animation and music are fantastic, the heroes' distinct abilities are used creatively, and I love that moment where all the vampires' eyes suddenly turn in fear to the heroes. It's not my personal favourite fight in the series (that would either be the fight against Dracula or the Trevor vs Alucard fight), but it's really good.

I must say, it felt a bit weird to be quoted in a topic I had never seen before. I remember suggesting that the next Fire Emblem be a person rather than an object, and that it would be a twist that it's a person. I didn't completely predict Engage, as part of my suggestion was that everyone in the game would think the Fire Emblem is an object rather than a person before the reveal, and that doesn't happen in Engage. That also wasn't the first time I suggested that; I actually created a topic a year before that one asking people what they would like to see the next Fire Emblem be, and I suggested having it be a person rather than an object.

I've never played the game, so I can't say if there's an in-game reason, but there is a historical precedent for choosing to destroy a recaptured castle rather than occupy it: The War of Scottish Independence. A core part of England's main strategy for conquering places like Wales and Scotland was to build large stone castles basically everywhere they went; this is the reason Wales has the greatest density of castles in all of Europe: most of those castles were built by England as part of its conquest of Wales. The main weakness of this strategy is that building a castle, especially in enemy territory, takes time. King Robert the Bruce knew he could not maintain or hold onto most of the castles that he took from the English armies, so he usually destroyed them instead.

Ah; that makes sense. I must've simply missed or forgotten that part. Thanks. Yeah; it was definitely a warning to not go against corporate again. I guess time will tell what, if anything, the CEO of Treeman will do about Rock doing stuff like this, given that Cyan's arc showed him investigating the place where his son was killed. Of course, we probably won't see anything until next season, given that Lin Ling's arc is chronologically last. Apparently, according to an episode list I quickly found, Ghostblade's arc is going to be two episodes again, then the Johnnies will get three episodes, "????" will get one episode, Dragon Boy will get two episodes, Ahu will get one episode, and, lastly, X will get one episode, in that order. Ahu's episode being next-to-last does mean there's a chance that Ahu will get enough screentime before his arc to compensate, but given the Johnnies already appeared in Queen's arc, I'm surprised that they're getting three episodes. UPDATE: Today's episode of To Be Hero X: the first episode of the Ghostblade arc, was really interesting.

True; E-Soul being dead inside was probably the intention, and you're right that Ghostblade leaving Rock on hold is framed as something he hasn't done before, so them being unwell is probably feature-not-bug in Rock's eyes. I had no idea that Smile was part of Mighty Glory; when was that shown/stated? Incidentally, episode 14 elaborating on Rock's style made me think back to episode 4 and have a bit of a theory regarding its ending (episode 4 spoilers): The current CEO of FOMO being the son of the former CEO would not surprise me either, and it is interesting to not have every CEO be a middle-aged guy in a business suit and have one that stands out while still being reminiscent of some real-life CEOs. Him sitting on a ball in episode 4 in a giant office full of odd objects like a giant replica of a retro game controller and a slide while handling business calls and looking at footage of the Lin Ling vs God Eye fight reminds of stories of various real-life CEOs that are like that (of course, those CEOs are usually tech bros; that does right now at least seem to be where the FOMO CEO differs). I agree; DOS does seem to be the only one concerned about the workplace health of its heroes, and it was cool to see Queen, Lucky Cyan and the Johnnies being friends; in a setting where heroes being cutthroat and competitive towards each other is the expectation and the norm, it is cool to see three heroes support each other. I especially liked how, because Queen is a workaholic, her boss sent Lucky Cyan with her for her vacation specifically so that Cyan could make sure Queen actually spends it vacationing. As for your reply about the reveal:

Thanks for the warning; now I know what to avoid online to avoid spoilers. I haven't yet watched the last episode of the Loli arc; I will do so later today. I forgot to mention earlier: season 2 of Apothecary Diaries finished on Friday. It was a very good storyline that neatly wrapped up most of the plot threads that were established in season 1 and was a fitting conclusion for a lot of characters' stories. I'm looking forward to seeing season 3 and seeing how it differs from the first two seasons because of how much the status quo has been destroyed and multiple characters have now left the story. One thing I do find a little funny is that season 1's final episode had an elaborate scene of Maomao dancing near a ledge while thinking of her parents, and now season 2's second-to-last episode had an elaborate scene of another female main character dancing near a ledge while thinking of her parents; I wonder if this will be a once-per-season thing or if the pattern will end with season 2. One thing that I learned is that the anime has been adapting the light novels at a rate of two volumes per season and the light novels are currently somewhere around volume 16 or so; the anime is in no danger of catching up to its source material anytime soon. UPDATE: I have now watched the last episode of the Loli arc of To Be Hero X. This is definitely a short arc like the Queen arc and, sadly, Loli only had one brief cameo in the Queen arc before this, so we really don't get much time with her character. The time we do get is interesting and well-utilized, but it is easily overshadowed by the big reveals in this arc (spoilers ahead): Also, I like how it really isn't just one hero company; it's a group of hero companies who each have different approaches when it comes to their heroes: Mighty Glory (E-Soul, Ghostblade, Dragon Boy) relies on long-term control of their heroes, an approach that is evidently backfiring on them given their heroes' mental health: new E-Soul is an empty shell, Ghostblade (based on his PVs) is a middle-aged assassin who has never understood laughter or tears and realized he is mentally unwell when someone heavily implied to have been his wife died and he was incapable of expressing sorrow, and Dragon Boy (based on his PVs) is a fan of the villain that the old E-Soul fought in his PV. Treeman (Lin Ling) carefully controls the media surrounding their heroes rather than the heroes themselves (though they do also control the heroes, just through scripts rather than manipulation). DOS (Lucky Cyan, Queen, The Johnnies) seems to just take people already on the road to being heroes and equips them to rise through the ranks. FOMO puts everything about its heroes on its own social media; even things other companies would believe would risk causing chaos. Ghostblade's arc should be next. That should be interesting, given the heavy implication in the Loli arc that Loli's coworker is his daughter.

Yeah, it was a fun ride. I'm looking forward to season 2. Given that it looks like Knuckleduster will be gone for a while, I think it makes sense to let the fight against Queen Bee be just his fight; it's his personal arc and he never let Koichi or Pop-Step into this part of his mission. As for the steel punk guy, I'm pretty sure the idea behind his character was that he was only ever a thug because everyone around him thought he looked like a thug and assumed he was a thug and he internalized that. If it had been explored better, it could've been an interesting compare-and-contrast with the student with the brainwashing quirk from the main series, who spent his childhood surrounded by people who assumed he'd be a villain after hearing of his quirk, but instead resolved to become a hero. I agree, Koichi's a neat character. I look forward to seeing his powers develop more. The voice acting does make it obvious that it's All for One. I already knew it was the case, but it really just makes me think, "Did this really have to have All for One be behind it all? Not everything has to be because of All for One!" The tournament being every two years would make sense, but, unless the timeline I found is incorrect (in which case I would need to watch episodes 11 and 12 again to double-check), Queen's loss to X happens only one year before her fight with Bowa that causes her to miss the next tournament. Given that the PV I mentioned had Ahu not yet have the bowler hat (as it receives the hat from X near the end of the video), it's possible that the PV takes place two years before Lin Ling's arc. I suppose that will be cleared up when we learn more about Ahu. I didn't notice the seven rotting hands in that part of the opening; I was always focused on the statue of X having the top half of the head missing and wondering what that is supposed to symbolize. Yeah, I would not be surprised if the dog falls out of the top 10 in season 2. Speaking of which, apparently, from what I've read online (so take it with a grain of salt), season 2 will be about the next tournament. That will be interesting; I hope we see a fight between Lin Ling and E-Soul, both because of how episode 4 ended and because the two characters are such strong foils. UPDATE: Black Clover's return has been officially announced! I can't wait! I am definitely looking forward to finally seeing the rest of the Spade Kingdom arc be animated!

I started watching it a bit less than a week ago. It's very interesting: the mixed animation is really cool, the setting is fascinating, and the fact that it's an international co-production between BiliBili and Aniplex is interesting to me; the first ever anime I ever watched was a Canadian-Japanese co-production called Spider Riders. E-Soul's arc is definitely a very interesting story arc; it did a good job showing the darker side of the corporate-controlled trust system and was a good contrast to Lin Ling's arc. I liked the tragedy that, ultimately, both new E-Soul and old E-Soul lost the fight; old E-Soul lost in the literal sense while new E-Soul lost who he is, and the only winner was the CEO (and, speaking of the CEO, casting Aizen's voice actor as the CEO in the Japanese dub was a brilliant casting decision). The best description I heard for the story arc is, "Yang Cheng has a Batman backstory, tried to be The Flash, and ultimately became Darth Vader." For me, the thing that made new E-Soul less compelling as a tragic character was that he often went beyond being easily manipulated and would go out of his way to make things worse for himself, which I guess is part of the tragedy, but it was still grating to watch him repeatedly push away people who were trying to trust and support him to the point where it felt like him having zero trust value before becoming new E-Soul was largely self-inflicted. I have seen the E-Soul PV; I was thinking throughout the E-Soul arc that one thing I wanted to see more of was old E-Soul's perspective beyond not caring about the new E-Soul, and the E-Soul PV provided that and more. I get what you mean about Queen's arc being too short; I didn't mind because of how much Queen was part of the Lucky Cyan arc, but I can see how it's too short. I feel sorry for Ahu, as his arc will only have one episode (as will the X arc, but his episode is the last episode and he's getting a lot of gradual buildup). Bowa is definitely not one of the stronger antagonists, but I did think she was interesting as a compare-and-contrast with Queen: both zealously reaching for the top spot, both experiencing their first real defeat when they both lose to the current X in the same tournament, and both being relentlessly mocked by the public for it despite the fact that X beat everyone, with the main difference being that Queen ultimately accepted the defeat with humility and had people around her to help her recover, while Bowa festered in denial and resentment and became corrupted by Fear as a result. I'm largely placid toward idol singer story arcs, but I did like Lucky Cyan's story of escaping the cult that was built around her due to her luck power, the reveal of the origin of her luck powers was really interesting, and I like that at least one hero got to have a loved one that survives their arc and continues to be part of their life. For characters, it would probably be Lin Ling > Queen > Lucky Cyan > Yang Cheng For story arcs, it would probably be Lin Ling = Yang Cheng > Lucky Cyan = Queen, but it's more difficult for me to compare the story arcs than it is for me to compare the characters. That's fair. The main thing that got me to look at the timeline was wanting to understand how long the current X has been X. The original X PV said he had been X for two years, but Queen's loss against X happens four years before the Lin Ling arc.

Thinking back on the film, the villain was less "aiming for Scottish Independence (though there is a bit of that)" and more, "Aiming for revenge against England and the British Empire". The short version is that the villain assembles a group of historical-domain characters from across Europe as minions with the promise that they will "reshape the world", but he really is just using them to bring about the downfall of British Empire in specific. Said minions include Rasputin (which is funny as, historically, Rasputin was strongly against Russia getting involved in the war as he came from a poor background and knew exactly who would suffer most from the war), Erik Jan Hanussen, Mata Hari, Vladimir Lenin, and the Black Hand: the Serbian group that killed Franz Ferdinand. The movie itself is alright; it's not as good as the first Kingsman movie, but I prefer it over the sequel. It's definitely a film carried by its main protagonist.

To clarify; I was saying that the son dying and the dad being the protagonist was something I liked about the film; I was saying that, while I have problems with the film, the dad being the true protagonist was not a problem; I think it was one of the movie's strengths. I have now edited that statement to be a lot more clear. Funny enough, when watching the film for the first time, I immediately remembered that line from the first film about the organization being founded by aristocrats that lost their sons in WW1 and realized the son was almost-certainly doomed. Yeah, I really didn't like the villain either. A Scottish National triggering WW1 doesn't really make much sense given that Scotland was part of the British Empire and suffered just as much as the rest of Britain did from the war. I've seen some people suggest that an Irish Republican would've made a lot more sense since WW1 occurred during something called Ireland's revolutionary period (I'm not an expert on 20th Century Irish History; I'm double-checking this stuff on Wikipedia while I'm typing), and Irish Republicans apparently did try to take advantage of the war to wage an armed rebellion in Dublin.

It usually depends on what I'm already currently playing around that time. I usually don't have much time in the week for playing games because of university. If the game I'm currently playing is one that I feel I can play in small amounts without losing track of time, then I'll just play that. Last year, I did play the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake specifically because I could play it for just a few minutes at a time during one of my semesters. I also revisited Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker and got the DLC for it for similar reasons if I remember correctly. So, I guess I sometimes gravitate toward puzzle-platformers like those when I'm feeling particularly pressed for time.

I remember the episode of SpongeBob where those animations of Squidward came from. It was a fun episode.

I did not think I would be playing a new game anytime soon; I don't have a Switch 2 and don't intend to get one for some time, and I have a decent-sized Switch 1 backlog. However, one game that released recently grabbed my attention: Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, which released for both the Switch and the Switch 2, so I went out and I bought the Switch 2 version of the game and started playing it once I got home. That's not a typo. I went out and bought the Switch 2 version when I don't have a Switch 2. There's a reason: I learned online that, for this game, not only is the Switch 2 physical version a genuine physical version and not a "game key card", but, for the North American version at least (I don't know if this is the case for other localizations of the game), the Switch 2 physical version contains the Switch version of the game and the upgrade pack in the cartridge and is compatible with the Switch; in other words, for this specific version of this specific game, one can buy the Switch 2 version, put it in the Switch, and it will run the Switch version of the game. I will admit that, even though I knew this before buying the game and even double-checked the Q&A section of Marvelous USA's website (Marvelous is the company that makes the game) to confirm it, I was still a little nervous about putting a Switch 2 cartridge in my Switch. Thankfully, it did indeed work perfectly, running the Switch version of the game as if I had bought the Switch version. When I eventually get a Switch 2, I will play the game on the Switch 2. As for the game itself, I've never played a Rune Factory game before but I've been interested in the series for a while. As I understand, the games are basically half-farming/village-management sim, half-JRPG. A couple times, I considered getting the definitive version of Rune Factory 4 on the Switch, but I never did. Then this game released, everything I saw of it learned interesting, and I learned from a spoiler-free review that the player character can eventually fly through the sky on a dragon in gameplay, and at that point, I knew I wanted to get the game. I'm only about ten minutes into the game and still well-within the tutorial, so I really can't say much about how the game plays. The art direction is quite nice. I do think it's a bit odd that, in the options, there's a setting to have it that the melee weapon automatically aims in the direction of the nearest enemy and it's on by default; I turned it off. UPDATE: I've completed most of the tutorial. I see no point in having auto-aim with the melee weapons by default, as the game includes a lock-on. However, there is one thing that this game is missing: gyro aim for the ranged weapons. The moment I was given a bow, the game started a quick tutorial where I was supposed to aim at and hit a target with the bow, and it was harder than it should've been because of how imprecise control-stick only aiming is. Other than that, I am enjoying the game so far. The characters and the village are charming, the combat is alright, and the interplay between adventuring and revitalizing the village is fun so far. UPDATE: To keep this from getting too long, I'll sort my thoughts into different spoiler tags (no actual spoilers; I'm far too early in the game). Time Management: Combat:

One trope that's a pet peeve of mine that I was recently reminded of: Fatal Family Photo. This trope refers to how, usually but not always in a war story, it's the character with loved ones back home that gets killed off. This one can be done well; one beloved character that dies in season 1 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is technically an example of this trope, as he's the first main character death and he's always holding a photo of his family. But his death works because we not only had several episodes of him being a main character, giving the audience time to get to know him as a character and find him endearing, but his death isn't just impactful because he had a family; his death is impactful because he's a main character, he uncovered the main conspiracy, and his death haunts all of the main cast while sending one particular main character on a revenge quest that spans the entire series. The fact that he had a family is not the sole or even the main reason why his death has the emotional impact that it does. Most of the time however, the trope is used as a lazy shortcut to make the character endearing for about five minutes before they're immediately killed off and the audience is supposed to find it sad just because the character supposedly had loved ones back home waiting for them. It's just used as a cheap shortcut for tying to get some emotional impact out of the death of a minor character. The show that made me remember why I dislike this trope was season 3 of Attack on Titan. There are a lot of character deaths in this show, some are very well executed; others, not so much. I recently watched season 3 for the first time, and there is one character that is killed off for emotional impact in one of the later episodes. This is a character that was first introduced in season 1, but has been a relevant character for maybe two episodes before their death scene, so the audience hasn't really had the time to really feel anything for this character, and any emotional impact to be wrung from his death scene is extremely redundant because it's also the death scene of a much more important character and the culmination of that major character's journey. That's fair. I'd probably have to rewatch the series to remember if I found any of those other examples annoying. I am also a younger brother.

The clip didn't show what her time was.