One Of Junji's Ito's Best Titles Comes In The Form Of A Manga One-shot Without Any Supernatural Elements.

One of Junji's Ito's best titles comes in the form of a manga one-shot without any supernatural elements. It is the simple story of a girl who can compel others to commit suicide with her voice alone.

Morimoto isn't a girl who has any reason to kill herself. She recently confessed to her crush who reciprocated her feeling so why then did she take her own life? The answer lies with the mysterious stranger known as Kumagaya

She approached Morimoto one day to express her love of the devil's logic philosophy. Readers are never shown what this philosophy is about besides from it worshipping death. The exclusion of Kumagaya's conversation leads one to hypothesize what on earth she could've said to make Morimoto commit suicide in less than an hour.

Kumagaya proved herself to be a highly dangerous Junji Ito antagonist even without supernatural powers or body horror. She's a grim example of the power that words can have over people.

My Worth

A mediocre man will take all

Of your kindness

Of your passion

Of your beauty

Without returning a fraction of your love.

Only talk to men who become intoxicated by your essence and compliment your being.

Magical Girl Raising Project Volume 1 Review : Dare to be Magical

Magical girls sure have it rough these days. It seems like gory death battles and agonizing despair is all they ever find themselves in. That's what schoolgirl Koyuki Himekawa learns after her favorite app game turns her into a real magical girl.

The concept of magical girls in a death game was something that immediately hooked me because it involved two genres I love. There are not enough dark Mahou shojo stories in the world and it's incredibly rare to have one as a light novel. The greatest strength of mgrp is the fact it's written from multiple perspectives. This allows readers to see how each girl copes with their grim reality and feel suspense as alliances and betrayals are born. Cranberry became my favorite character due to her sadistic lust for battle and expert use of her sound manipulation magic. La Pucelle is a close second due to his heroic bravery.

It would be impossible to talk about the characters without mentioning their stunning designs and creative abilities. Artist Maruino brought out her A game with her eye-catching costume designs. Ripple has a weird ninja/swimsuit fusion going on and Hardgore Alice looks like a gothic doll. Their abilities are also unique compared to the usual superpowers you see in fiction. Weiss' ability to conjure walls anywhere stood out for being surprisingly more useful than you'd expect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel despite already watching the anime twice. The prose is written in a concise style that made reading a brisk experience free of filler. This brisk writing style leads to the story's main weakness of the fights being far too short. The battles often end as soon as they begin while the characters get killed off before readers get to know them. One fight happened entirely offscreen which I found to be sloppy writing. Later novels in the series thankfully rectify this by adding more details and characterization.

I definitely recommend this series for any reader in a battle royale or magical girl.

Verdict- Recommended. Stay magical.

Shojo Tsubaki and Anime Exploitation

The stage is set in the 1920s of Japan. Midori is without parents and selling flowers is her only source of income. Poor and destitute, Midori readily accepts Mr. Arashi's offer to join his circus; completely unaware of the horror to come.

Shojo Tsubaki is a story thoroughly drenched in controversy. You'll hardly find a conversation that doesn't revolve around how disturbing and grotesque it is. It's not unwarranted seeing as how the bulk of the story is about Midori suffering. The girl seriously has it rough: Dead parents, dirt poor, deprived peers, added alliteration. Seriously messed up stuff. Any moment of happiness she finds is quickly eclipsed by another traumatic experience.

This is essentially an exploitation film in anime format. Some will argue that " Shojo Tsubaki is actually super deep and it's a reflection of the darkness of humanity!" And that's where I call bs. You could make that argument about literally every piece of torture porn under the sun. If the purpose was to expose humanity's darkness, the manga shoots itself in the foot by being so voyeuristic about everything. Suehiro Maruo's involvement with the eroguro movement provides the clearest perspective on what this manga was about. He's simply the type of man who loves to combine the macabre with heavy sexual themes.

Midori truly is one of the most pitiable manga heroines out there. She suffers abuse throughout almost every moment of her narrative and the tale ends with her completely alone in the world. It was as if the universe itself conspired to torment her. One positive to come out of this tragedy is Tokuriji Muchisate. He's a despicable rapist like the other circus freaks but his character design is just so striking. It's a simple yet effective take on mummies and the traditional Japanese military uniform.

In essence, Shojo Tsubaki is not a fun read or watch. I usually enjoy the surreal works of Suehiro Maruo but he really dialed the nihilism up to 11 with this one.

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Remembering what was Lost: My Dragalia Lost Experience

My time with Dragalia Lost wasn't as long as I wished it could be. I knew about the game since its launch, but my low quality phone at the time made it almost impossible to play. It felt like a tragedy since the concept of forging bonds with dragons pulled me in like everyone else. It wasn't until the fall of last year I played the game consistently after upgrading my phone. For a while, it seemed like I found my daily routine. I'd login every day for daily challenges, linger on the main menu to hear my units chat it up, fall in love with adventurer stories, and bob my head to epic boss music. All was going well until news of the end of service struck the community.

To say we were all shocked is a huge understatement. An important part of our lives was about to join the graveyard of forever lost video games. With news of Dl's impending doom, I was forced to reflect on my experience with the title and came to a surprising conclusion: Dragalia Lost is easily one of my favourite games of all time.

I don't usually talk about video games on this blog, but Dragalia Lost holds a special place in my heart for being the most fun I've had with a mobile game. It hit all of that boxes that other gacha games struggle to keep up with.

It's impossible to talk about DL Without mentioning Daoko. Whether players are chilling on the home screen, slaying a deadly boss or summoning beloved units, Daoko's pop vocals are bound to be heard. Even some of the instrumental tracks are remixes of her other songs. Her songs fit the game perfectly as they invoke the feeling of a light-hearted and fun-filled adventure. The pop score helps DL stand out from other games which usually use European orchestral music. It gives the game an oddly fitting contemporary atmosphere. Ryusei Toshi and CRASHER remain iconic tunes that gets players into the thrill of a good ol' boss battle.

While on the topic of the sound department, the English voice acting deserves special mention. Ocean Productions was in charge of the voices and that makes DL an incredibly rare case of a Canadian dubbed anime game. Each voice was a breath of fresh air that fit the characters like a glove. Special mention goes to Brian Drummond as Zhu Baije, Tabitha St Germain as Althemia, Richard Ian cox as Ranzal, and Mark Oliver as Hawk.

My only complaint is that the English audio lacks fully voiced dialogue. That could've gone a long way to making the game more immersive.

Pokemon TCG artist Naoki Saito brought his A game with the art design. Most of the characters have highly rememberable designs done in a vibrant pop art style. Character portraits were always a delight to look at due to how much they popped out on the screen. Each adventurer has a unique appearance highly distinct from each other and full of personality. The fun expressive style really added to the Saturday morning cartoon feel of the game. The user interface also has a nice sleek look to it that made navigating menus anything but a chore. While the chibi graphics can seem overly minimalistic at first, that simplicity prevents the game from feeling dated and instead gave it everlasting appeal.

It may seem disingenuous to review a game without mentioning gameplay but there's not much I can say in that department. DL's isometric action RPG style made it stand out from other games on the market even with its very limited attack system. It wasn't the most immersive combat system I've experienced, but it always kept me back for more and never left me bored.

The implementation of skip tickets and auto-loop was a godsend for grinding and made it overall stress-free. I didn't have to waste hours of time just to upgrade a single character. Just hit the auto button and step away from the phone for a while. Seriously, more games need to follow this method instead of making maxing out units so tiresome. The Co-op raid battles also deserve special mention since it was so fun seeing strangers come together to beat a particularly arduous boss. There were several times I relied on Co-op to clear stages because the difficulty is no joke at times. This was especially true for the MARVELOUS final boss Xenos which can easily last half an hour. Now that's how you go out with a bang.

Last but certainly not least is the story. It starts off simple enough with Euden performing his princely duty of forming a dragonpact; the main draw of the game. Then the game added layers of complexity with Zethia's dark doppelganger and the King's sudden evil disposition. The carefree prince now has to save his kingdom from his treacherous family with an even greater threat looming in the background. The beginning of rbe story was a bit slow at first, but there were enough plot twists and burning questions to keep me fully invested. I so was not prepared for the time travel shenanigans and social commentary on classism/privilege the mid-game story brought.

And that's only what the main campaign brings to the table. Dragalia has several event stories that heavily build on the robust lore and characterization players love so much. Certain events like Faith Forsaken, Fractured Futures and Advent of the Origin even serve as epilogues to plot points made in the main story. I will admit that there were FAR too many beach themed events for my liking. This game had great slice-of-life moments but it'll be too soon if I ever see another beach adventure in a mobile game.

Finally, it would be irremissible of me not to mention the vocabularian localization provided by 8-4. Character dialogue is stuffed to the gills with personality and colloquialisms you wouldn't expect from this game at first glance. It's guaranteed you learned a few new vocab words after playing the game. Seriously, some of these characters talk like they eat thesaurus' for breakfast. That's when they're too busy spouting meme worthy dialogue at least.

Dragalia may be lost, but I'll never forget the incredible memories I made along the way.