Akazora

Super Smash Bros for Wii U. Pre-ordered means nothing until it arrives!

"You’ve got a nerve!" "I’ve got several. They all function normally." -- from Carry on Cruising

Hey, what a coincidence! Last night where I live, there was an apparent drizzle/flurry mix, which would count as the first snow for this autumn! Too bad it was all gone before morning. Hm, you don't live near me, do you?

I wish I was able to play more than just an hour of Mario Kart 8 today.

Haven't had anything since eggs and waffles this morning and my stomach is aching right now.

Speaking of report cards, I've gotten pretty much straight border-line B+'s in every major subject. This is going to kill my GPA.

"I am a plain, simple man, I have plain, simple feelings and I use plain, simple words. And I simply have to let you know, plainly, that I - That I slainly I pimply want to..." -- Dr. Arthur Binn, Carry on Cruising (1962)

Woah, you have so much free time! I wish I was able to go to the beach just for fun and read a book. It is cold around this time of year though, so I might need to save that for a different day. Had a rather normal day today. Watched a bit more anime than I expected I'd have time for, which is nice.

I wish I could get the hang of drawing hands...

It doesn't have anything to do with the artwork as much as it has to do with terribly animated sequences. Face and body proportions change constantly, people move around awkwardly, and everything looks very unpolished. I don't mind Gosho's art style at all. And from what you've said, I can imagine how you'd think the animation is "well laid out". If you'd watch some of the more recent anime that have aired over the past few years, MK1412 has terrible animation. No effort put into camera angles to draw out emotions and nothing is as cinematic or as humorous as it should be. Even just taking a look at this season's anime, most everything I'm watching had more effort put into the series than MK1412. Magic Kaito's "action" scenes have nothing compared to Fate/stay night's, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso shows raw emotion on faces far better than MK can, and Bahamut Genesis has a setting and atmosphere more unique than MK1412's. Even AgK and SAOII, which I dislike far more than MK1412, have cleaner animation. The only series that looks as bad as MK1412 is Log Horizon. I say this and it may sound like I think MK1412 has the worst art I've ever seen in an anime. This isn't isn't true (that title is saved for another anime). I'll admit that this season is stellar animation-wise, which is why MK1412 seems to be so bad. In actuality, its animation is practically on the same level as summer 2014 anime like Tokyo ESP and Tokyo Ghoul. New anime can definitely have horrendous animation, so I'm not saying MK1412's is unusually bad. It's just bad in a very normal and regular way, if that makes any sense, which is still bad now matter how you cut it. For comparative purposes, here's a link to MK1412's opening, and here's one for the far more artistically directed Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso opening. The Shigatsu opening is linked to a public Facebook video, only because all versions on YouTube have been taken down.

Quote in spoilers to reduce size. DC is rooted in logic, but there are still a lot of crazy and silly aspects like with Conan's gadgets and with APTX 4869's side effect. There is a lot of potential with cloning, as unethical as it may be depending on your stance. Clones can have their organs used to save others, clones of expert assassins or scientists can grow up to keep the Organization self-sustaining, and if you want to delve into the world of science fiction a person could live forever by having his memory transplanted into his clone. If a Vermouth clone were to be made, I wasn't thinking she'd be identical to the real Vermouth and act as a body double of sorts, but rather that clone Vermouth would grow up and be trained into a strong member of the Organization skilled at disguises and acting. The reason why they couldn't just try to make twins would be because the unborn child doesn't have any proof of potential. Vermouth had already demonstrated her immense skill set once she had grown into an adult, and it was only then that it would be logical to start growing a clone of her, from the embryo up of course. This is a quote from an article that pops up when you Google "telomeres": Since "apoptoxin" takes it's root from "apoptosis" could it have been a drug to prevent cell death? Perhaps it's a "toxin" not because it was intended to kill people but because it was intended to "poison cell death", a double negative. From what I can gather about telomeres, there's still a lot we don't know about them. I don't think they've been directly related to physical aging by a scientific study yet, but given the Gosho-verse tends to falsify a few things for the sake of the plot I wouldn't be surprised if telomeres were given that function.

The Exp. Share definitely shocked me when I first used and everyone started gaining exp. at once and leveling up. It's actually not that bad, since it's not a hold item anymore. It's a Key Item and there's an option to turn it off. Of course, that means the only way to EV train a really low leveled Pokemon is via the old fashioned way of switching in a stronger fully EV trained Pokemon or just emptying out your party and turning on the Exp. Share. And you don't use Master Balls either? That's crazy, I thought we had exhausted all of our similarities! I used to use Master Balls a lot when I was a kid, but I very quickly stopped once I learned of shinies. I'm only comfortable using a Master Ball on a legendary Pokemon I know I really want to EV train, so I soft reset for nature and IVs which requires a Master Ball. And even then I don't do that very often. If it's just catching to catch it, I find normal Pokeballs look the most attractive. All these fancy colors and types (especially in HGSS) make things look and feel unbalanced. Geez, maybe I also have OCD tendencies, because mismatched Pokeballs really drive me crazy, haha. When I RNGed my shiny Groudon, I even used only Pokeballs. I'll admit it was crazy hard to catch, and it always ended up running out of PP and Struggling itself to death. It was actually really frustrating because I had to RNG the Groudon over and over again. It killed itself about five times before I finally caught it. It was so daunting, I don't know how I'll muster up the courage to take down a shiny Rayquaza with a Pokeball. Battle Tower is really tough, but in Pearl it's the only facility available. There's no Battle Frontier like in Platinum and HGSS unfortunately, so the only thing I have to break up the monotony is double battles, which aren't any more interesting. Losing the 64 win streak was already pretty heartbreaking, and I can't imagine losing anything more. It will most likely happen though, so I'm steeling my emotions for when it happens. And yes, my LeafGreen was given to me by a friend who had gotten it from China. Apart from the obviously counterfeit grey cartridge and double-save glitch, it honestly worked really well. It didn't really matter, since I got my hands on a legit FireRed and ran through that quickly to explore the rest of the Sevii Islands post-game. I'd use Pokemon Showdown more, but I've just been so busy! I have found myself watching my brother play with it though, and it does look really good.

Here it is! The person says credit isn't necessary. The original base picture used was a November/December calendar page from either 2009 or 2010, I can't remember which year. I've been trying to track it down, but to no avail.

The Fate series is so complicated and it's something that takes a bit of research to understand. I'll try to keep it as simple as possible: Fate/stay night was a visual novel originally released in 2004. It's considered one of the best visual novels ever created, though the 2006 adaptation by DEEN left much to be desired. Fate/Zero, released from '06-'07 as a light novel, is a prequel to F/sn and received an anime adaptation from '11-'12 by ufotable. This anime was very well received and is one of my favorites of all time. Now ufotable is adapting F/sn as the series currently airing, which is directed and executed much better than DEEN's version and feels more like Fate/Zero. This is the bare minimum you need to know going into this series if you so choose, and I've left out all the extra spin-offs and the fact that F/sn has three routes with three different plots and endings (it was originally a visual novel after all). So, should you watch Fate/Zero or Fate/stay night first? There are strong arguments for both sides, but in my opinion I recommend you watch Fate/Zero and then the current Fate/stay night. No matter which side you're on though, everyone agrees the 2006 F/sn adaptation was terrible and should be avoided at all costs. The synopsis doesn't really intrigue me, but I've definitely heard its name thrown around in other discussions.

“All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.” -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

...... Oh my gosh, I just checked his profile page and you're right. Kids are being exposed to the Internet so early nowadays. I was a bit of a late-comer myself, so I don't really know how to feel about this.

Has anyone brought up the possibility of human cloning? Cloning is still a touchy subject of debate even today and it was definitely even more controversial back when DC was initially serialized. Since many attempts at cloning have been stifled by the produced clones dying prematurely, due inherited short telomeres from the original organism, could one of the drugs created by the Organization have been made to elongate damaged telomeres? If this were the case, an aging prodigy at the piano could have his telomeres elongated and then have that "young" DNA used to make a clone who lives to a ripe old age. Perhaps Vermouth, being skilled at acting and the art of disguise, has already had her telomeres elongated which is why she doesn't look as old as she should be and Vermouth ver. 2.0 is growing up as we speak!

Gin wasn't affected because he shot himself in the shoulder to stay awake. He would have succumbed to the effects of the drug otherwise, though it is interesting to note his body didn't initially react in as dramatic or sudden a way as most people struck with the tranquilizer dart usually do. If I recall, didn't he just take a knee?

This poor topic was pinned and yet abandoned for years (not like I was helping much). I think it's time for a bit of a spruce up. Since this is an "seasonal anime" discussion, we should limit talk to only anime airing this season. That would mean fall of 2014, which is early October to late December. This is and should be a very simple concept, but for your reference, this is a neat little chart that compiles all the anime of this season: Anime Fall 2014 I've already talked a bit about this season's anime in another thread, but I'll expand on my opinions. I'll also list the anime I'm watching in order of how much I like them: 1. Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works - This is an absolute masterpiece. Cinematic visuals and action scenes, intriguing plot, and amazing character designs. This is the adaptation of the Fate/saty night visual novel, and it's shaping up to be even better than Fate/Zero which came out a few years ago. UBW is the best anime this season, hands down. It's also the best anime of this year, and it's one of the best anime I've ever seen in my life. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. 2. Parasyte - A very solid adaptation of an old manga. If F/sn didn't exist, I'd be pretty hyped about this show. The art is clean, as is to be expected of Madhouse, and though it does deviate from the original source material it's still a very good series. It also features a cast of very famous and recognizable seiyuus, which is a plus. The OST uses dubstep, which is a bizarre choice, but I don't dislike it. People will be talking about this for a while, so check it out to see what all the clamor is about. 3. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso - I'll admit it now, this anime is not or everyone. You'll enjoy it much more if you have a musical background as this anime revolves around music. The beautiful graphics and intense performance sequences cannot be enjoyed to the fullest without musical knowledge, but if you're a fan of dramatic love polygons there's still much to be gained from this. I'm not the biggest fan of the characters, but they're growing on me. 4. Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis - A rule of cool anime, this show is nothing like an anime. It has a ton of western influences and very very little of the usual Japanese high school humor, which is not a bad thing. Given the mature atmosphere and medieval setting, this is a seinen show that not many people will talk about, but it's a fun watch regardless. It's made by the same production studio as the one that made Zankyou no Terror from this past summer, so if anything the visuals are very well done. 5. Log Horizon Season 2 - This is only a shadow of what the first season was. DEEN studios is not doing a very good job with the visuals and the anime can be boring at times. If you've see the first season, you might as well watch the second, but if you've never gotten into Log Horizon you're not really missing much from the second season at least. This is an anime best enjoyed with MMO knowledge. If you've never played an MMO before, or had to Google those letters to know what I'm talking about, save yourself the time and don't watch this anime. 6. Magic Kaito 1412 - I'm sorry to say that MK1412 is the worst anime I'm watching this season, barring leftovers from this summer. The art is not very good at all (A-1 has their hands full with Shigatsu wa Kimi to Uso and SAOII I can imagine) and very few of the episodes of new experiences. I'm only watching it for Akako, who isn't even the Akako I liked from the manga or television specials. 7. Akame ga Kill - A much talked about show that doesn't sit very well with me. It started off great in the summer but has dragged on into the fall and I'm getting tired of the pretentious grittiness contrasted with the flat humor. The characters are forgettable shounen cutouts and the action makes SAO look like it has god-tier art. If you haven't started it yet, good, make sure it stays that way. Not something I'd recommend to anyone. 8. Sword Art Online II - This is hands down the worst anime I'm watching right now, though I'll admit much better than Mahouka and Tokyo ESP from this summer. Predictable plot, no sense of urgency, OP main character with a harem +1 XY chromosome set, and sporadic action that I neither look forward to nor enjoy. Also, the anime is the home of one of my least favorite characters in anime, Asuna, and whenever I hear her speak my endorphin levels hit rock bottom. And that is my opinion on the anime of this season! Feel free to agree or disagree with what I have said; these are just our opinions after all. However, remember that this is a chat/discussion thread, so more than just "I'm watching [insert anime here]! [insert emoticon here]" would be appreciated.

"We're here to burgle your turts!" - Greg, Over the Garden Wall ^This was a fun little miniseries. Anyone who likes stories similar to The Little Prince ought to check this out.

This topic started off making no sense, and now it's drifted into something that still doesn't really have much of a focus. Interesting play on words, barring the spelling and the hashtag. So you think Messi is perfect? But also nobody? But he is somebody, and that's an undeniable fact unless you want to get sucked into a dark hole of psychology. Are you treating this like some kind of contradiction? Opposing facts and opinions coexist all the time: they aren't the same thing. It would be a logical fallacy to compare apples and oranges like this. Take this person and do what? Try to convince others he or she is perfect? Nothing is perfect. Just because people have given a name to a concept does not mean it exists. "Perfection" is as much a myth as spontaneous generation or the Hollow Earth hypothesis. It is like the limit of a function as x approaches 0: you will never reach it. So I don't really see a need to name someone I think is perfect. Unless your goal from the start was to ignite a philosophical debate, in which case I'd be happy to contribute.

"Emanuelle" by Pierre Bachelet

You'd be really feeling it!

Oh hang on, that's one of my friend's birthdays! Found out remembered a friend's birthday is coming up.

Ah, that one was pretty good. Definitely an interesting watch.