My Staple Anime Recommendation

If I'm recommending an anime, which anime to recommend is simple to me now. It's Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. And I think it will be that way for a very very long time.

I think Frieren is a masterpiece. But not only a masterpiece, a lovable masterpiece that I have no qualms* recommending to literally everybody. It has great animation with a clean looking art style that wouldn't deter anyone**. There is next to no nudity/other sexual stuff***. It is just a fun adventure with great characters, and incredible world-building. It's genres are, perhaps, the most universal liked and easy-to-get-into genres: fantasy, action/adventure, and drama, making it extremely approachable. It's just so good. For everyone.

Yes, obviously if I knew the individual whom I'm recommending an anime to better, I might recommend them something more tailored to them; there are several anime I love more than this one, but that's because they fit me more perfectly. I'm not saying this will become your favorite anime. I am saying that I am extremely confident that you will enjoy this anime and won't regret watching it. And that applies to practically everyone. 

Go watch it. You won't regret it. It's just good stuff. It's simply a high quality way to spend some entertainment time.

*Okay, one qualm. There is a particular scene that is disturbing enough/overall the action and violence is probably a bit much for children. But besides that. Zero qualms. Okay plus one more: It's not done yet. So I guess two qualms. If someone really wants the anime to be done already, then I guess they'll have to wait to watch this incredible show.

**Unless you just hate animation as an art style in general. Not sure what to do with that opinion other than say you're missing out on so much goodness.

***If you want to know the most inappropriate things regarding this, here are very minor spoilers of the only two things I remember that would fall under this category. When I say they're the most inappropriate things in this category, I also mean they are the only two things in this category that I can remember. (Note: I, ofc, could have missed some): 1. A could floats by, and a character comments that it looks like a women with big boobs. 2. A spell that can look through clothes is used on a man. The user of the spell thinks 'small'. Nothing is shown, the frame is just of the man, no see-through image or anything.

Chess Phases (but honestly mostly side-note adventures)

So I've been playing a lot of chess over the course of these past few weeks. I've spent, if I remember correctly, a total of 38ish hours on the chess.com chess app over the course of 3 weeks.

It's been a blast, I love chess. It's also incredibly frustrating when I do something super dumb, haha.

I think it's fascinating how I go through these Chess phases. I wrote that a couple months ago. Shortly thereafter I just stopped playing. And this isn't the first time I've done that, haha. It's the second. [Explaining the joke here because I think it's funny [Side note: I think explaining jokes can sometimes be funnier than the joke itself since you get to reflect on the cleverness of the joke]: Typically when people say 'this isn't the first time I've done that' it implies that they've done it time and time again. But that's where the subversion of expectations come in and I say it's only my second time, which I think is quite rather subtly funny.]

I mean, chess is really good. And sometimes I do just get a burst of motivation to compete in a new thing, and chess sometimes becomes that thing. There's soooooo much to learn, which I enjoy doing. [I don't think that sentence makes sense grammatically, but it makes sense anyway. I feel I do that a lot. [Side note: note sure exactly why brackets feel more appropriate than parentheses in these past couple circumstances. I think it may be because I want it to be on a side-note/lower level, but the idea is separate enough from the previous sentence that parentheses don't feel right. I think this is why there's a period between as well. Typically with parentheses you'll often find I don't have a period separating them because the ideas are too connected for the period separation to make sense]]. Not sure why it ebbs and flows so suddenly, though. [I think it's kind of funny/quirky/interesting/fun that when I use so many parentheses (and in this case brackets (whoa, I just used parentheses)) and then I continue the thought as if they were never there presumably causing this tedious need to glance back and figure what on earth I was talking about before the whole side-note adventure.]

My Wonderful Journal

The more I think about it, the more I just love my blog in terms of journaling. Seriously. I just think my blog is just a wonderful place of my thoughts and passions. If you want to know who I am, this is the place to look. And, as such, it is my wonderful journal.

I have over a decade of my thoughts just pooled here. It is fantastic and hilarious to go back and rediscover again and again what __ year-old Alex wrote and thought about. I am thoroughly glad that I have continued to post throughout the years. And I really see no reason to stop.

August 2024: What I've Been Watching (Part 2)

This post is spoiler free for all shows/movies talked about. Feel free to check out part one here.

Steins;Gate + the OVA (which in my mind is practically episode 25)

I adore this anime. 10/10. Seriously a masterpiece. I ranked it my 4th favorite anime in my recent top 10 list, and I decided to rewatch it to see if it truly deserved that ranking. And it does. It is SO good. 

I think a big thing that makes it so wonderful to me personally is it hits perfectly/fuses perfectly probably my favorite genres/themes. It does mystery/suspense perfectly. But it also does pulling-on-my-heart-strings perfectly. And that's pulling-on-my-heart-strings in both happy and sorrowful ways.

Was it worse this watch-through because I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen? Sure. Do I wish Daru made less innuendos? Of course. But, man, I love this anime. 

And this time around, it's sticking with me. I'm continue to think about it. I find myself wanting to listen to music from it (speaking of which, the soundtrack is phenomenal). I think the previous two times I watched it, I may have been more focused on the mystery/suspense; and perhaps because I already knew those things this time around, my focus was more on the pulling-on-my-heart-strings things, but those pulling-on-my-heart-strings things continue to reside in my heart in a wonderful way.

All the Other Steins;Gate Stuff (Steins;Gate 0, the Movie, and the other mini-episode things)

Random thing I want to state because I don't want anyone messing this up: Release order is 100% the best way to watch Steins;Gate for your first time. Also, frankly, you don't even have to bother with all this extra stuff, just watching the originally series is plenty wonderful enough. I enjoyed Steins;Gate 0, the Movie, and the other mini-episode things, but I don't think they're necessary at all to the Steins;Gate experience.

Mini-episode things were cute. Glad they exist and glad I watched them, but not much more to note in the department. 7.5/10

The Movie was good, even great. It was just a little weird watching because there's debates on whether is actually canon, granted, that doesn't mean parts can't be head-canon etc., but I feel like it through-off my emotional attachment to what was happening while I watched it, if that makes sense. But I definitely enjoyed it:) 8/10

Steins;Gate 0. Really really quite good. I think I have a probably with prequels/midquels though? (Steins;Gate 0 takes place between episodes 22 and 23 of Steins;Gate) Some scenes simply did not land with me as much as they perhaps should have simply because I already knew the outcome of it all. I consistently have this problem with prequels, I find. Unless it's a totally detached prequel, that is. But if the main characters are the same in both, I find I struggle getting nearly as emotional invested.

Regardless, it was wonderful to spend more time with these characters that I love. I feel even more attached to the characters overall, which is wonderful. And even with the whole prequel thing, there were still some fantastic moments that still shined through for me. 9/10

Psych Movies 2 and 3:

Finally caught up on the Psych movies, which was great! I forgot the 3rd movie was already out when I went to watch the second, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Both were great! 8.6/10 maybe? I could try to give them different scores, but I don't want to. Think I preferred the 3rd one though?

Lots of laugh out loud moments, as you would hope for from Psych. Overall both are very clean, which I appreciated. Great character moments. Continuations of arcs that were good. Great stuff.

Mission Impossible III:

Eric was watching this, so I decided to watch it with him while playing some Balatro.

Super solid action movie! As, allegedly, all the mission impossible movies are. Felt like the twists and turns were done well. Ending was great. The characters felt realistic.

9/10 maybe

August 2024: What I've Been Watching (Part 1)

This post is spoiler free for all shows/movies talked about.

My Recently Read/Watched/Played Etc. List is currently chock-full of animes I've grinded through over this past month. I thought I would briefly talk about them.

Update Note: After writing a lot about the four things listed below, I've decided to split this post into 2 posts (¿¿maybe 3?? Idk, we'll see). I don't want to saturate this post more than I already have, and I still have a lot to talk about (especially about how much I love Steins;Gate).

Pluto:

Pluto was inspired by/takes after/¿is? Astro Boy. I've only heard of Astro Boy before watching this, so I knew practically nothing heading into this.

The animation is phenomenal. The suspense is great. Super clean anime, which I appreciate. I definitely enjoyed it overall. 

Probably give it a 8.4/10 or somewhere around there. Will say I wasn't too fond of hour long episodes, but it wasn't awful, just a preference I have.

Runtime: 8 episodes, 1 hour each

The Last of Sheila:

Was planning on just talking about the animes I've watched, but I'll talk about the movies too.

The Last of Sheila is an older (1973) mystery whodunit.

Watched this with Eric. I liked it quite a lot! The mystery and reveal were really well done. Good twists, good ending, good stuff. I missed a couple chunks near the beginning, but got the entire second half-ish.

8.3/10 maybe? Granted, ranking movies and tv shows side by side is wonky to me -- it's hard for me to directly compare the mediums, but I'll try regardless by continuing to give things rankings.

Runtime: 2 hours

Dr. Stone:

Dr. Stone is an anime that follows an older teenager who reawakens from his petrification 3700 years after the all the humans on the entire earth mysterious got petrified. He's incredibly smart and knowledgeable and attempts to rebuild civilization with science! 

Part survival, part action, part mystery, part teaching science (most of it only being half-true science as far as I can tell (based on truth, just super simplified is my understanding))

Really enjoyed this one! Lots of fun with enjoyable characters. Am excited for the next season coming out next year. Just a comforting show.

For how much it appears to be targeting children, I wish they had less curse words and a specific character with less revealing clothes. Granted, I wish that regardless, but especially because they seem to be trying to appeal to children with certain 'teaching science' sections.

Thanks for the recommendation Elder Bailey.

8.7/10

Current Runtime: 58 episodes, 20 min each + 1 episode, 1 hour

Kaiju No. 8:

Kaiju No. 8 is just one season in, but it was fantastic. It's a Kaiju world with Kaiju destroying task forces and such. Follows a character that *minor spoilers and such*. Not even sure why I have the previous sentence if I'm not even going to elaborate, haha, but I'm leaving it.

Action is phenomenal. Animation is great. Got surprisingly attached to the characters and their arcs even in the short run time of the first season (12 episodes). Definitely some peak stuff right here. Besides a lot of Kaiju blood, it's super appropriate, which is great.

Seriously great stuff. 9.4/10, could easily go up with future seasons. (Weird/interesting thing: I rated it a 9.4/10 because that feels right, but if someone asked me to rate this a 9 or a 10 with no digit nuance and such, I would give it a 10 even though 9.4 is closer to 9. I think that's interesting.)

Thanks for the recommendation old roommate Joe (which I specify because it's not cousin Joe).

Current Runtime: 12 episodes, 20 min each.