There's a caveat though, it's only in 720p. I think I'll hold out for a 1080p release. What's the use of a low definition blu ray?
Meanwhile, I finished Ghost Writer in the Sky and have returned to Baccano. I've reached episode 30 of Macross 7, and it really is getting bad now, just like I remember. And I'm to song 292 out of 683 in my grand music melee.
The Grand Music Melee has had its fair share of trouble. I've discovered seven additional FF songs that are the exact same as some other song on my list just with a different title and time length. Now my FF to 'other' ratio isn't balanced at all. FF has eight fewer songs than 'misc.', and who knows how many more of these stupid repeats I'll find from here on. I thought I'd successfully weeded these mistakes out during the previous contest, but I guess that was naive. This time for sure, though, I won't let any doppelgangers through.
There's also the traditional problem of two songs being bad early on, and then two songs who are great going up against each other after. I've had to constantly put my thumb on the brackets and delete songs that 'won' in order to help out songs that 'lost,' for the sake of greater musical quality.
This doesn't render the 1 on 1 system completely obsolete. It's important to give me razor sharp focus on each song when I'm comparing them directly against each other like this. There are also a lot of competitions that are decided fairly without any issue. It just means that a true grand melee would be too heartless, when the goal isn't a fight, but the ultimate music list, which is what I definitely see shaping up before my very eyes as this contest moves along.
Once I run out of FF songs compared to 'misc.' songs, I'll drop the head to head aspect and just put in the best remaining songs that haven't gotten in yet from either list. So long as I keep the list to 683 entries, I've kept the 50% death rate that a head-to-head competition implies, and that's good enough. (Hopefully I can keep that execution rate up.)
There's only 1 chapter left of Hayate no Gotoku before it ends. The series is nearly 15 years old, yet nothing is permanent in this world. The #4 manga of all time, the highest ranked manga to have an ending, is reaching its perfect conclusion -- not too quickly, not too slowly, but capturing everything that needed to be said and saying it all perfectly.
Akame ga Kill!, the #3 manga, doesn't look like it will be ending anytime soon. Not only is Zero going strong, but there's even hints that a sequel manga might be in the works.
Saki, the #2 manga, proceeds in a very deliberate manner. There's a million spinoffs that don't look to be ending anytime soon as well.
Fairy Tail, the #1 manga, will probably end in a couple months. All of its spinoffs have already ended, but they haven't been translated yet, so to us English speakers, until everything is fully translated, Fairy Tail will never technically end. But for Japan at least this will be a twelve year saga finally coming to a close.
Fairy Tail's latest chapters have been mesmerizing. Zeref has become an even more personable character than before, an incredible arch-villain worthy of the #1 story of all time. Whenever Mavis and Zeref interact the story just starts throwing off sparks it's so brilliant.
I dearly hope the Fairy Tail anime resumes, but you'd think they would have done so already given that there's no way the tv could catch up with the manga before the manga ends at this point. It also doesn't make much sense to resume the anime after the manga is already over, because then the anime can't possibly help out the manga sales anymore. Mashima said a 'new project' was in the works, but maybe that plan has been scrapped, because there just doesn't seem to be any movement in that direction and time is running out.
If Fairy Tail really did get animated all the way to the ending, it would be the #1 anime of all time as well as the #1 manga. It has the length of Naruto, One Piece and Dragon Ball but without any of the problems.
Even so, Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball right now are shows with proper endings, extreme length, and very high quality arcs sprinkled throughout. Keeping them out of the top 10, or even the top 5, is like resisting the pull of gravity. Every week they come out with more episodes, solidifying their cases yet further, and it doesn't look like this will stop for any of the three anytime soon.
Is 2017 just the year of everything good coming to an end? Is this the end of the world or something? Well, not if Suka Suka has anything to say about it. An all new series by an all new author that can hang with the best, debuting just now in 2017. It's probably even better than Youjo Senki.
Eromanga Sensei was a known quantity, I knew it would propel 2017 to greatness, but Suka Suka came out of total left field. So long as there's shows like this still appearing out of nowhere every season, the future has nothing to fear. We can make up the giant holes Hayate and Fairy Tail leave behind. So these stories can rest in peace, knowing that dragging them out any further wouldn't help anyone, with the knowledge that they've done their part and now it's time to pass the baton.
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