Demons Crest is the Anime of the Year:

I had Demons Crest in my rankings well before it started airing, but now that I've seen its first two episodes I'm completely convinced this is the best anime of the year.  Surpassing Mao, Witch Hat Atelier, Sousou no Frieren and Oshi no Ko.  Surpassing the ending of Bleach.  The art style is magnificent, and the animation is as high budget as you'll see anywhere.  It looks so polished it could be a movie.  Also, the anime is true to the source work, and isn't afraid to show the 12 year old girls' skin.  It's a beautiful anime in all ways, shapes and forms.

Demons Crest, by Reki Kawahara, is another take on Sword Art Online.  In both series the game becomes 'real,' you can't logout, and if you die in the game you die in real life.  Both are Virtual Reality Massive Multiple Player Online Role Playing Games.  The differences between the two series are minor -- Demons Crest features younger children as the main cast -- and in Demons Crest the fantasy has interfaced with regular Earth as opposed to being transported to a whole new fictional setting.  I don't consider the differences extreme enough to treat Demons Crest as a separate anime from SAO.  In the same manner, there are so many parallels between Mao and Inuyasha they may as well be the same work.

This means Demons Crest simply bolsters SAO's #5 best anime ranking as opposed to claiming a slot of its own.  But it's still a wonderful and meaningful addition to the whole.  Like how Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave is a huge contribution to Fire Emblem's overall worth.

Speaking of Fire Emblem, I finished Dietrich's route and have started on the last remaining flame lord, Cai.  Cai's route is also really good, fleshing out the story and providing a lot of details the other routes miss.

As for manga, '9999 Nandesukedo?!' has reached its conclusion, adapting the full original novels.  It was never that great a series, but everything that's translated from start to finish is welcome.  For years it looked like the translation had been abandoned, but then it all came out at once.

The election went about as I predicted, except worse.  Who would have imagined Republicans could lose Mississippi in the heart of the South?  It was the worst result for Republicans in a century.  And it all came about due to Trump alienating young voters, who universally revile his slavish attachment to Israel.  This is not a racial divide -- young white men all voted Democrat this election too.  Every young person voted Democrat, while boomers actually voted Republican harder than before.  This is a generational divide.  The stupid boomers took up their ancient grudge with Iran from 1979, while young people who weren't even alive back then thought this was stupid.  Because the election was solely about this Iran war, surprisingly, if J.D. Vance runs in 2028, who always opposed the Iran war, we could still win when it matters.  This watershed election for Democrats followed a watershed election for Republicans, which means the voters are responsive to what people actually do.  If Republicans offer an actually good program to young voters, they'll switch back again.  But never again can we take young voters for granted.  They aren't going to nod along and sacrifice themselves for boomers any longer.  That's the one lesson we can take from this election cycle.  Boomers, and boomer sycophants, out.  Not Juden Raus.  Boomer Raus.

Mari Snap Event Cleared:

The latest mini-event in Heaven Burns Red was a charming date between Adelheid and Mari.  I like both characters so their interactions are always welcome.  More importantly, the new event, along with the monthly refresh, allowed me to recruit the new powerful admiral Ruka.  I immediately used her in the score challenge, which was immune to non-elemental damage (thus my critical penetration squad was invalidated), and scored a respectable 2.1 million.  I had to kick Sumomo out of my ice squad to make room, which is sad, but my ice squad is getting pretty deadly with all these improvements.

Once I acquire enough protean shards I plan on replacing Inori in my critical penetration squad with maou Bon Ivar, but without paying money to the game my protean shard accumulation rate is going to be slower than before, so Inori can rest easy for a while longer.

More excitingly, the countdown to Chapter 5 Part 3 has been announced, so the first real content in a long time for the game is coming soon.

I finished Leda's route in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave, and have started down Dietrich's.  Dietrich's story has been my favorite so far, which is unusual because I usually prefer the female characters.  It just shows how well put together the plot is in this segment.  It also helps that Dietrich is a ridiculously good looking male, which is sort of like a female lead.

I've played Fire Emblem for so long and there's still more than half of the game to go.  Not to mention I bought the expansion pass so that will mean even more playing in the years to come.  This is clearly a great game with tons of content and highly addictive gameplay, as well as dozens of appealing characters to play as.  It's a step down from where Fire Emblem was before, though, because the music and the plot aren't as gripping as before.  I also think the engage bracelets were way more fun and cool than this game's blaze arts.  Fortune's Weave is certainly a powerful contributor to the franchise's overall worth, but not enough to surpass Heaven Burns Red or Final Fantasy, which still lay dearer to my heart.

A new Koujo Denka volume has come out, volume 0, which is a prequel to the main story.  I'll get around to it when I find the time.  Volume 21 is coming out at the end of the month.  So Koujo Denka will continue going strong in the month of November as well.

Since every premier college football team has been upset, we're essentially back where we're started, leaving the rankings the same as before.  It's rather ironic.  The only new kids on the block are UCLA and Utah, still undefeated, who I still can't quite believe are actually good.  Let's see them beat Georgia and then I'll take their records seriously.

Somehow, despite my light posting, my blog hit a new record for views last month, 532,049.  Over half a million views.  That sounds like the big leagues to me.  Odds are this trend won't continue, though, as it had no reason to begin in the first place.  Still, it's a gratifying number.

I Guess Bleach Really is Over:

I half-expected an announcement at the end of the Bleach anime -- the Bleach Hell Arc manga begins.  Then there was the chance that the Shuhei-centered light novels would be adapted.  But neither of those events happened.  The story ended, the anime took a bow, and it was all over.  Bleach is really over, and the anime did a bang-up job from start to finish adapting the Thousand Year Blood War.  That's good enough.  It's nice to have at least one finished artistic masterpiece in the world.

Most of all, the ending where Orihime gets with Ichigo and Rukia gets with Renji isn't changed.  '100 Waifus' wasn't wrong to count the Orihime-Ichigo pairing as one of the best relationships in fiction.

In Heaven Burns Red, I got the Persona 5 guest character Violet into my army.  As a bonus she starts already at limit break level 1.  As another bonus she's the prettiest character from the crossover.  And as an extra bonus I managed to do it with free quartz.  Now that my critical penetration squad is at full strength, I don't feel the need to spend further money on the game.

Jun Maeda is at death's door with throat cancer, and I'm happy the thousands I spent on the game went in some part to pay his medical bills.  But it's over now, he's in hospice with no hope of recovery, so further contributions won't change anything.  Jun Maeda has finished writing and composing the rest of the main story, so it's up to his team to deliver the finished product in the years to come.  Luckily the best game of all time will get an appropriate ending like Bleach has.  51 is quite the early time to go, but Jun Maeda accomplished so much in those 51 years that he can't complain.  It still amounts to a wonderful life, and he'll forever be immortalized by the stories and songs he left behind.  Most people would take that deal if offered at birth.

A thoroughly researched Finnish study shows the Ukraine to Russia casualty ratio is around 10:1.  This is why Russia doesn't seem particularly rushed in how it conducts the war -- it knows how it will end eventually.  Generally speaking, once a country loses 10% of its population in a war it surrenders.  Ukraine can last longer because Europe is paying its bills, but with a 10:1 casualty ratio lasting a bit longer won't matter.  All it means is that Ukraine will find it yet harder to recover after the war.  The longer Russia fights the war now, the less Ukraine will represent a threat to Russia in the future, so they have every reason to keep the war going indefinitely.  Not winning too badly is actually a devious tactic to encourage Ukraine to keep feeding men into the grindery.

I hope to live past age 51, so I can see Russia eventually triumphant.  I'd also like to see the ending to One Piece, Dragon Ball, Xanth, Index, Bakemonogatari, Fate/Kaleid Liner, MIX, Saki, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Oshi no Ko, Berserk, The Red Wheel, Fairy Tail, Sword Art Online, Heaven Burns Red and Final Fantasy 7.  After investing decades of time and thousands of dollars into these franchises I'd like the payout to be commensurate.  Those of us who don't have world famous works of art should at least be allowed to enjoy the world famous works of art of others, and that means living long enough that all those lazy or overly ambitious creators finally cross the finish line.

I Voted straight ticket Republican, but the polls are grim:

The polls say Iran is the least popular war in American history, that Israel is the least popular country in the world, and the economic impact of the Iran war is blamed entirely on Trump and his Republican compatriots.  In the headwind of this foreign policy disaster, domestic policy has been entirely drowned out.

Nobody cares anymore about Trump's successes -- he's reduced affirmative action and LGBT+ identification, cut crime to literally the lowest in American history, increased the real median income to the highest in American history, completely halted illegal immigration, deported millions of criminals, and halved legal immigration.  He's deregulated businesses and allowed the energy sector to thrive.  He's cut prescription drug prices and reduced inflation.  Drug overdoses in America under Trump have gone down 40%, saving tens of thousands of lives a year.  It's such a stellar domestic record, we're so much better off than we were under Biden.  But it doesn't matter, because Trump started the least popular war in US history.

Americans are easily misled, but they're deeply moral.  Every time in the past America went to war, we were told we were fighting in self defense, or defense of another.  Elaborate false flags or deliberate provocations were constructed before every war so that we could point to the other side attacking us first.  This time we openly pulled a 'Pearl Harbor' and bragged about it being a 'Pearl Harbor.'  We started an aggressive war based on vague allegations that Iran might misbehave a dozen years from now, so it's better to destroy them now, which could justify any war anywhere.  Americans didn't buy that ridiculous argument, and they feel deeply revolted that we killed a bunch of school girls for absolutely no valid reason.  Every time Trump doubles down on the Iran war, and even more infuriatingly refuses to apologize for killing those school girls, America renews its resolve to punish the Republican party at the midterms.

It's such a bitter pill to see my country thrown away, losing its soul to anarcho-tyranny, due to a completely voluntary war with Iran which no one, not even Republicans wanted.  In a two party system, you can either vote for the riots occurring in France coming over here, or you can vote for bombing hundreds of innocent little 12 year old girls just going to school.  There is no other party to vote for.  There's no other option.  I voted against the riots, but millions of Americans are going to the polls to vote against mass murder, and I can't criticize them for doing so.  It was such a horrendous, evil, unforgivable act, that maybe America does deserve to burn down as penance for it.  That's essentially what voters are choosing to do, to destroy America, in order to punish America, for being unapologetically evil.

I've been calling America evil for its foreign policy for a long time now, and said the destruction of America is well deserved for a long time (we've killed 30 million people since World War II!  Almost all civilians!), and the polls are now saying most Americans feel the same.  They don't care that under Biden life was awful or that under Trump life is great.  They just want to punish evil, which is us, which is ourselves.  So I guess America is in for a time of chastisement.

That, or all the polls are wrong and Republicans will win. . .and maybe pigs will fly. . .

Meanwhile, I finished the Airi and Masaki routes from Amairo Islenauts.  The personal routes are rarely as good as the common route of any visual novel, but they were still great.  It followed the routine romantic trope -- 'boy gets girl, boy almost loses girl, boy gets girl back' both times.  I also finished Theodora's route in Fire Emblem, and am working on Leda's route next.  I've played Fire Emblem for over 100 hours and barely accomplished anything.  It's fun, but I do feel the game could have been a bit more streamlined.  Not everyone has as much free time as I do.

College football had a legendary weekend with virtually all the top ten teams losing.  That was really fun to watch -- let chaos reign.

And Bleach delivered a satisfying final fight with Ywach, though I still think it could've been better.  (Why didn't Aizen use his bankai?  Where were Ichigo and Uryuu's parents during this crucial moment?) All that's left is the ending episode where everything is wrapped up in a pretty bow.  We're days away from an epic series reaching its rightful conclusion -- something we didn't even get from Naruto because sequels keep being announced.  This is actually the first conclusion we're getting.  (Unless they announce a Bleach sequel next week. . .)  I've been waiting all my life for these shonen jump series to reach their proper ending, it would be nice for it to at least happen once.  Not even the series from the 80's and 90's, Dragon Ball and Rurouni Kenshin, are finished yet.  How long does it take to reach one definitive ending???

Amairo Islenauts is a Masterpiece:

I've rarely laughed so much from a visual novel.  Airi is the most hilarious of the characters, but the fellow teacher Tia is almost as good.  Like usual for Yuzusoft works the art is sublime and full of fan service.  The setting is ingenious:  Suddenly a sky island appeared over Japan with resident animal-eared girls and elves as well as normal humans.  It had a lower level of technology but compensated with some magical artifacts, and the intelligence and conscientiousness of the natives was above ours.  The island is small, around 10,000 people live on it, and they only allow a small number of Japanese to live there or visit as tourists, so that they can maintain their way of life.

Among these small number allowed to emigrate to the sky island is teachers, because the natives need to assimilate to their new host nation.  And that's where our leading male enters, a regular Japanese teacher invited to teach at an all-girls' school in the sky.  Students from Earth can also enter this school if they pass a rigorous entrance exam, and lots of girls across the planet do so for the opportunity to live in such a unique environment.  Among the transfer students is the teacher's own younger cousin Airi, who is arranged to live with him since they're strangers in a strange land together.

They're lodged at an inn that serves both meals downstairs and lodging upstairs, and the daughter of this establishment is Masaki, a wolf-girl with cute animal ears and tail.  She's also a student of our lucky teacher and works as a waitress after school.  As a result, the teacher lives with two beautiful girls at home and then goes to work to teach a gaggle of additional beautiful girls.  It's a dream come true for any man.

The girls in the school like to tease their teacher for all his faux pas, but they all like him.  When they asked if he could arrange for them to go camping he took care of all the details and delivered them a perfect weekend.  When a creepy tourist started filming Masaki he stepped in, manhandled the creep and deleted the pictures, protecting his students like a proper teacher.  His lectures on economics, governance and history are all genuinely delivered within the visual novel and are fascinating in their breadth and depth.  Seeing what a good man he is, all the girls in the class warm to him, and then as visual novels do, it's up to the reader which route to aim for.

I of course chose Airi for my first route.  Airi is a beauty akin to Shizuki, with light purple hair and blue eyes.  She changes her hairstyle constantly -- sometimes it's loose with a lacy white ribbon, sometimes it's up in twintails, sometimes it's gathered together in a side tail -- but it's always fetching.  She's terrible at conversations and often resorts to texting her teacher/cousin to tell him what she meant to say later.  Because she's bad at conversation, every other thing she says is nonsensical, overly dramatic, the opposite of what she feels, or far too revealing.  Half the time she ends the conversation by running away in embarrassment.  It's so absolutely precious and charming, on top of being hilarious.  It reminds me a bit of Sana, who was also a girl who constantly put her foot in her mouth while being a relative who eventually became a lover.  But Airi isn't a clone of Sana or anything, she's a completely distinct girl I've never seen before.

Airi and Masaki both have supreme seiyuu voicing them.  At first Airi's voice was so beautiful I thought it had to be Yukari Tamura's, but it was actually someone else.  But both are industry pros who have been featured in many other Yuzusoft works, as well as Grisaia, Majikoi, etc.

I haven't finished Airi's route, I only started playing the game recently, but it's already obvious this is a great visual novel and Airi, as well as Masaki, are wonderful fictional characters deserving of hall of fame status.  Airi received 'artificer's fancy' as her theme song, and Masaki received 'The Enterprise Goes Into the Sea.' (this completes all the Final Fantasy 3 songs that are rated 4-star or above as part of my wonderful playlist.)

Masaki is one of those innocent and honest types who instantly falls for anyone who is nice to her, never hides her feelings, works hard, plays hard, and is simply a delight to be around.  She's got big breasts and isn't afraid of showing off her nice body in revealing garb, which she says attracts more customers.  Her bright red hair, deep purple eyes and beastkin features make her an exotic beauty.  I'll do her route after Airi's.

The other two girls one can conquer are too eccentric to be good romantic partners, but their beauty can't be denied.  There also seems to be a deeper plot I haven't reached yet, concerning the teacher's traumatic past and the strange appearance of a girl with amnesia who literally warped in from nowhere.  There's plenty more to play.  For now, Amairo Islenauts can take the place of Koikari in my visual novel hall of fame, #19.

It's unfortunate that for whatever reason, the game only plays on my old, half-broken computer.  It means I'm not sure how many other people can enjoy this fantastic game.  But anyone who can play Amairo Islenauts definitely should.  This is way better than Koujo Denka.

Koujo Denka volume 20 read:

This was the last English-translated available volume of the series.  Volume 21 comes out next month, so I'll get to see a bit further into the plot then.  A lot of plot threads were resolved this volume, which made me happy.  Lynne and Caren finally got their reforged weapons which they'd been promised ages ago.  Ellie finally opened up the secret archive which she'd started opening ages ago.  The location of the final altar was discovered which they'd been searching forever for.  Basically the story started moving forward again, mainly because it didn't waste time fighting the apostles but focused on the interactions within the heroes instead.  It was also a blessing that Lydia was incapacitated in a magical coma, so everyone else got to be featured instead of the worst girl in the series.

Lydia looks to be out of the picture for at least the next few volumes as well, so things are really looking up.  The series should at least be ending soon over in Japan, though not for us English readers.

With Koujo Denka out of the way, I can turn my attention to other delayed projects, like Amairo Islenauts.  There is no lack of things to do, but it's satisfying to finish at least one thing out of those many.

With Yingxia powered up to her maximum potential, I took on the score challenge again and did slightly better, getting 2.57 million points.  That's just short of the 2.6 million which would have given me all the loot available for the challenge.  Meanwhile none of my other squads can do anything against the monster.  The game was nice enough to award me light Yuina's 4th limit break and vampire Charlotta's 3rd limit break for free though.  I'm strong enough now that it's going to take a lot to incentivize me to pay anything more for this game, which after all was originally meant to be free-to-play.  If even my full-limit-break-achieved critical penetration squad isn't good enough for this game, then nothing is, so throwing more money at the problem wouldn't work anyway.

In other good news, Zettai Karen Children is back to being translated.  It sure would be nice to get to see the ending of this super-long and super-fun series.

Larry Johnson made a good point today that Russia has now dropped more tons of bombs on Ukraine than America used during WWII, but the U.N. only reports 16k civilian deaths to show for it.  America, meanwhile, killed millions of civilians during WWII.  This shows the level of restraint and precision Russia has been exercising since the start of the war.  It's truly the cleanest, most humanitarian war in history.  On the other hand, it's a little numbing to think Russia has dropped this many bombs on its enemy and still achieved essentially nothing to show for it.  It isn't clear that being this nice actually works in war.  Russia has essentially made no progress on the front since the start of the year.  It now looks like the war could drag on for decades at this rate.  I've lambasted Putin about this lackadaisical pace for years now so there's no point repeating myself -- but really.  More bombs than World War II and they've barely gained any ground since the war began.  Clearly the Russian ministry of war aren't the brightest of bulbs.

Russia might take Dobropilla soon, a moderately sized town northwest of Pokrovsk, but the territory they've lost on the Lyman front more than makes up for that.  There's no way to frame this year as a military success.  Maybe things will be easier in 2027 once the Rosvat satellite system is fully operational.  I guess we'll see soon enough.

The midterms are another subject where it's easiest to wait and see.  The results will be available in a month, so no point predicting them.  I of course plan on voting Republican.  Trump's Iran war was a stupendous error, beyond that, a war crime because it was completely unprovoked and aggressive war is illegal according to the U.N. charter.  But Democrats want to destroy America, not Iran, which is far more pertinent to me as an American.  They want to stack the Senate with a bunch of fake new states, stack the Supreme Court with a bunch of fake new judges, abolish the filibuster, throw out the bill of rights, and take total power.  Then they'll institute their crazed agenda of wealth confiscation, open borders, open prisons, ending all sources of energy which fuel the modern standard of living, LGBT+, DEI, etc.  And due to stacking the Senate and the Supreme Court, it will be impossible to undue any of their changes in any future elections.  It will be the death knell of the country.

Luckily Trump can veto whatever the Democratic majority congress passes for the next two years, but what about in 2028 when Trump is out of office?  Senators have 6 year terms, so a Democratic Senator that wins today will still be there to work alongside a Democratic President two years from now.  We can never allow the Senate and the President to be Democrat simultaneously or they really will stack the Supreme Court, after which law will be creatively reinterpreted to mean whatever they want, and we'll just be their slaves.  So this election right now really does matter.  This is no time to 'punish' Republicans for a dumb war, not when the opposition is out to destroy us.  I'll gladly switch my vote to the Democratic party once they put forward a candidate like Andrew Yang or JFK, but now is not the time.

Fall 2026 Anime First Impressions:

The only great new anime this season is Suikoden.  I'm amazed at the character design, art and animation quality.  The plot and setting is immediately gripping and believable.  The three young heroes who all come from the same village are instantly lovable.  This is one of the most promising first episodes ever, and the series is already planned to run until the story's completion with two cours.  Suikoden has already reached my top anime rankings as #198, kicking out Imouto Sae Ireba Ii to make room.  Nanami, Riliu, and Jowy have already made my wonderful fictional characters list -- with Nanami receiving Steam Beat Roque Island as her theme song, Riliu receiving The Woodlands as his theme song and Jowy The Wildlands.  Conveniently, this includes every last 4-star rated or above Octopath song into my wonderful playlist now.  Octopath music is too good to leave out, like Lunar and Ogre Battle.

As for the rest of the debutantes, here are the ones worth watching so long as I'm also playing Magic:

Saikyou Soubi

Yowaki MAX

Kanata Kara

Psyren

Doumo, Suki na Hito

Nia Liston

Seikai Saikyou Majo

Shinja Zero

* * *

All together, combining debutantes and returning or continuing series, here is what the fall anime scene looks like in quality based on a week to week watching basis:

1.  Suikoden

2.  Ken Tensei S2

3.  Shin Prince of Tennis

4.   Ao no Hako S2

5.  Star Detective Precure

6.  Kantei Skill S3

7.  Aoashi S2

8.  Tensei Dai-seijo

9.  Mahou Shimai LuluttoLilly S2

10.  Chitose and the Ramune Bottle S2

11.  Ranma 1/2 Remake S3

12.  Magic Knight Rayearth Remake

Demons Crest will join this group in November, so not bad.

Persona 5 Event cleared:

I know nothing of the Persona franchise, but the Heaven Burns Red event featuring it was pretty good.  The soundtrack, obviously drawn from Persona, was very catchy.  Violet had a sexy black leotard that went well with her identity as a gymnast aiming for gold.  Ruka made an inspiring speech at the end.

I got a lot of new loot from the event, including a new SS Memoria for Tsukasa, 'femme fatale.'  I got it up to limit break level 2 and gave it an eternal daphne, because this memoria is good at both buffing and debuffing -- it actually overlaps a lot with shrine maiden Megumi's abilities.  I also got a whole new character, Mona, with a level 4 limit break SS Memoria, for free.  It's some sort of mascot character for Persona.

I got dandy Misato to level 3 limit break and base Tsukasa to level 4, which powers up all her other memorias, including the new femme fatale.  I got spanish dress Yuki to limit break level 3.  Most importantly, I used 20 protean shards to forcefully get wedding dress Yingxia to level 4.  Now all my critical penetration squad is at max limit break, which is only reasonable given they're my only powerful squad who I have to rely on for all hard fights.

I fought the latest score challenge boss with my critical penetration squad and got 2.27 million points.  The full rewards stretch until 2.6 million, but I just couldn't do it.  The boss is too strong for me.  But as for my other squads, they couldn't even beat the boss, it was so lopsided.  At least my critical penetration squad got most of the loot available.

One of the new relic orbs that became available was Miya's, so luckily now 4 out of my 6 critical penetration squad members have relic orbs (which give them +1,000 dp, quite a sizable boost.)

Frustratingly, I got a lot of 'dud' SS memorias of characters I'd already maxed out.  These turned into golden crystals which are again duds, because I can't trade them for anything anymore.  I already bought out the store's goods with prior golden crystals.  I hope someday they restock the store so my duds will become useful again.  The more characters I max out the more often this will happen, which means the game has diminishing marginal returns.  The more I play it, the less strong per hour played I get.  I guess that's true of all games, though.

I'm most of the way through volume 19 of Koujo Denka.  It's been nice -- more flirting with Lynne and Stella and less fighting, which is the way I like it.  Unfortunately now it's the weekend which means football takes priority again.  Everything takes longer to finish than I expect.

Koujo Denka volume 18 read:

Only two volumes left to go before I'm all caught up with the English translation of this great fantasy franchise.  Volume 17 was about the hero Alice weakening from some vague illness and passing her status and sword over to Allen, which is a good thing because this series has way too many heroes.  Now Allen has a noble title on par with the duchesses and princesses who all want to marry him, so he no longer has the excuse of being a commoner to turn them down.  The new excuse is that this is no time for romance because they're in the middle of a world war, but eventually that excuse will also disappear once a few more villains are defeated.  I'll certainly be interested to see who he gets with then.

In volume 17 the second apostle was killed, and in volume 18 the prime apostle was killed.  The only real threat left is the Saint, so hopefully the series ends soon.  In volume 18 the long-sidelined pointless character with big breasts and glasses, Felicia, is forced back into the story.  A story about romancing cute little girls doesn't need flabby career women.  But at least the volume served some purpose because there was a full color picture of Stella bathing.  Also Tina got to flirt with Allen a bit back at the old nostalgic greenhouse they first met in, which was nice.

Volume 21 of this series will be translated into English this coming November 20th, so I can seamlessly read volume 20 and then dive right into the next volume without delay.  I picked the right time to get interested in the light novels.  I'm still confused why the anime didn't receive a sequel, though, given how popular the light novels are, with over 1 million sales.  There's plenty of content so it can't be that they're waiting to announce a sequel -- and Allen refuses to romance any girl so it doesn't actually violate any taboos.  My only guess is the first season had poor sales, but that doesn't make sense to me either, since there are obviously plenty of fans worldwide of this series, or the light novel wouldn't have 23 volumes and they wouldn't have all been translated into English by a formal company.

Unfortunately Japan never tells us what their sales figures are per series, so we never find out why they decide not to renew great anime series.  It's an eternal mystery why popular works go unadapted all the time.  At least we have the light novels, which do include beautiful illustrations of all the charming lasses.

The new Heaven Burns Red event appears to be a Persona 5 collaboration.  Not my favorite topic but any new HBR content is always welcome.

The second episode of Ken Tensei had an amazingly well animated, fast-paced sword fight with great musical accompaniment.  The seiyuu for Fran, Ai Kakuma, continues to delight.  Tomorrow Item, the Railgun spinoff, which itself is an Index spinoff, will join the lineup.

Tenpure!! read:

I've completed Myori's route, which means I've completed the full Tenpure!! (or Template! in the English title translation) visual novel.  Myori is a pretty girl and more reasonable and nicer than I expected given how things started with her.  Nevertheless, she doesn't hold a candle to Shio, who's the real purpose of this work of art.  I like how innocent and sincere Sena is, so I'm fine with including her into my fictional character hall of fame, but she doesn't hold a candle to Shio either.  Shio is comparable to Nemu, Da Capo's ace, a much better game than Tenpure!!.  She's far and away the star of this show.

Any work of art which produces two fictional character hall of famers is a great addition to humanity's collective worth.  I said from the beginning to expect good things from Tenpure!! and I was right.  Now I've backed up those words with actions, by following through and reading the full work myself.  But Tenpure!! was worse than Happiness 2, which was worse than Happiness 1.  It can't possibly make my top 25 visual novel hall of fame.  There are many visual novels more worth reading than this one.  It's a shame Kagami Games decided to translate this one into English instead of the many other, better options they could have gone with.  Tenpure!! was not a higher priority translation than, say, Kud Wafter, which to this day still remains Japanese-only.

With this, I've cleared the path to play my last remaining visual novel, Amairo Islenauts.  But playing it would be a real chore since it only works on my old broken computer.  At the very least I won't bother until I've finished reading Koujo Denka.  Yuzusoft visual novels are always so good, though, that I'd hate to ignore Amairo just because it poses a few difficulties.

Koujo Denka, Amairo, Fortune's Weave, Fantasian, the fall anime season, football. . . whirling and whirling. . . at least I finished one of my juggled balls. . .

I Want to Love you Till Your Dying Day manga:

Originally this story was a manga, before the anime adaption.  The anime stops adapting the story with chapter 25 of the manga.  There's now 42 chapters of the manga and still growing, so I spent a wonderful afternoon reading the rest of the available story.  Sheena and Mimi become lovers, they go up a year in school, we learn the cause of the war -- foreign nations want to seize the forbidden, hidden magic spells that Mimi's nation holds but refuses to use because they genuinely think the spells are better off forbidden.  Lots of important moments and character growth.  Like the anime, the art is beautiful.

I also read volume 16 of Koujo Denka.  Four translated volumes left to go.  In volume 16 we have yet another inconclusive fight, with the only difference being Princess Cheryl Wrainwright joining the fight (and the girls who love Allen.).  For such a long series, a lot less happens than in the relatively short 'I Want to Love You.'  I'm not complaining though, every volume is mildly entertaining with lots of cute artwork of the leading ladies, and it's a good way to while away the time.

In Heaven Burns Red, I got classy Isuzu, a brand new (to me) SS Memoria, and got wedding dress Yingxia to limit break level 3.  I also got some other limit breaks of no importance.  The monthly refresh was rewarding, but it's a shame I couldn't get steampunk Irene because that would have directly strengthened my frontline squad, the critical penetration squad.  Oh well, I'm already strong enough to get the max rewards on score challenges.

I've gotten all four main characters in Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave to Chapter 6.  Just to see the basic mechanics of the characters, to see which ones you like, it's necessary to play them all at least this far.  But I should probably concentrate on a single route from here on, because it saves me from having to repeatedly do the same quests and explore the same world map over and over if I can complete at least one route.

The fall anime season has begun.  Two great series, Prince of Tennis and Ken Tensei, have already begun.  There's plenty to like this fall even if all the debutantes suck, so I'm looking forward to this closing chapter of the year.  Especially since the last two episodes of Bleach were delayed into this season.

My recent posts aren't important, long or inspiring, but I continue to get new high records in pageviews.  This month saw a dramatic increase to 359,481.  I suspect a lot of people are discovering the lengthy and inspiring posts of the past 20 years and reading them rather than the day-to-day updates I put out now.  Better late than never. ^_^.  I also suspect a lot of AI training is using my website as a resource, but I consider AI trained on my material to be perhaps more important than humans reading my website, so those pageviews are also very welcome.  The future belongs to whoever influences the superintelligent AI of the future today.

Happiness 2 full clear:

I finished the final after story in Happiness 2.  That's one project down, a hundred more to go.  While Happiness 2 is leaving the scene, the new Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave game has entered it.

So far I've only played a bit down the dancer's route, enough to get accustomed to the game and its various mechanics.  For now the story, characters and music aren't nearly as compelling as the previous Fire Emblem entries.  But I've barely touched the surface of all the content this game has to offer, so who knows.  As for the gameplay, it's fun but too easy.  With all the skirmishes and dungeons you can run during free time, you're way overleveled by the time you reach a main mission.  I don't know what they were thinking, rendering their own carefully crafted stages trivial like that.  And now that normal weapon attacks don't cost durability, you can use your best equipment at all times, again making life far too easy.

For some reason the number of units you can deploy per fight is also much lower than Three Houses, so the game isn't as strategic as it used to be.  The graphics are impressive, but I like the character designs from Three Houses better too.  Three Houses is one of the best games ever made, so it's no wonder Fortune's Weave can't match it.  But it's surprising how thoroughly worse this game is to its predecessor.

I can take my time and play Fortune's Weave as well as all the other projects I'm juggling, then I'll probably enjoy it more.  Next up I can finish Tenpure!! and my Koujo Denka light novels.

As for Koujo Denka, I finished volume 15.  Tina and Stella got to hang out with Allen for a little while without Lydia getting in the way, which is always nice.  Nevertheless, he so obviously prefers Lydia that their affection is wasted on him.  No matter how many girls flirt with him, he only treats Lydia tenderly.  It's obvious where this series is going.  More and more powerful characters keep getting introduced, until it reads like Marvel comics, with heroes so numerous they could rival a nation's population.  And no matter how many fights the series has, none of these multitudes of heroes ever die.  It makes the whole story feel like a nonthreatening game on easy mode.

The earlier books, before this endless, repetitive war, had a lot more heart.  Emotional heft.  Oh well, it's earned a slot in my rankings already so it was a fruitful exercise no matter what happens in the remaining volumes.

Index GT 16 read:

Index GT volume 16 was recently fully translated, so I took a break from Koujo Denka to read it instead.  It was an excellent volume, letting Touma enjoy his time with girls at school instead of putting him into combat and a hospital like he usually suffers.  A grounded volume with minor stakes is the mark of a superior author.  If you can get people interested in life without risking the end of the world, then you're on to something.  Sadly near the end of the book a new world menace is unveiled, Reflex, another girl like Index, but the book ends shortly after so it doesn't do much to mar the volume's charm.

I also finished Koujo Denka volume 12.  All the kingdom's enemies other than the church are finally defeated in this volume, but the church remains untouched, so the war continues.  As for the romance Lydia remains the focus of the story, making the romance suck.  If the next 7 volumes travel down this rut Koujo Denka will never surpass Spice & Wolf in my rankings.

Myori's route in Tenpure!! was better than expected because the cute loli ojou-sama Matsuri had a larger role than I expected.  It turns out Myori is Matsuri's older sister.  But the route isn't over yet.  I also need to complete one more after story to finish Happiness 2.  The abundance of projects I'm simultaneously juggling. . .

Ultimate Unison Karen:

Unison Karen has reached limit break level 4.  Since base Karen is also level 4, essentially this means unison Karen is limit break level 5.  She also has a fully upgraded memento, 10 reversions, my highest title rank: 13, and my highest rating of any seraph in my army by far.  Her supporter is the strongest supporter in the game, shrine maiden Risa, which gives +50% to her skill attacks and devastation rate.  With this unison Karen on my side I can't imagine my critical penetration squad losing to anyone.

I also got two new SS Memorias, king Kanata and demon Mari.  They're neat but nothing special.  What I really wanted was steampunk Irene, but she continues to elude me.

A second season of Futsutsuka na Akujou has been announced, so my #121 ranking of it in my top anime rankings, which requires an anime to be of at least 12 episodes in length, has proven prescient.  Thank goodness.

I finished volume 11 of Koujo Denka and have started upon volume 12.  I also finished Rinne's route in Tenpure!!, leaving only Myori's route left to conquer.  This in the midst of a weekend full of exciting football games.  Frankly I'm not getting much sleep these days.

Kanata event cleared:

There's little hope an event in Heaven Burns Red will be good if it's about Kanata and Mion.  But the scenario writers made the best of it by including cool scenes with Isuzu and Irene.  Isuzu and Irene badgered Tenne and commander Saki into revealing the truth, that all the seraphs were actually narby impersonators of dead people.

The problem with this bombshell is narby impersonators are perfect, they maintain the looks, personality and memories of the original.  The only difference is they have heightened combat powers and eternal youth.  It's all upside.  So learning the truth of your nature should only make you feel lucky.

Alongside the event there was a new score challenge, a new astrarium, and lots of loot.  I got a bunch of limit breaks but most of them weren't useful.  The only good thing that came out of all that loot was getting swimsuit Erika to limit break level 3.  I got magicat Tenne to level 4 limit break, but I don't like Tenne so. . .  I'm close to getting unison Karen to level 4 limit break which is actually important, but I'm not quite there yet.

Meanwhile, I've read volumes 8-10 of Koujo Denka no Kateikyoshi and am working on volume 11.  The war continues, and now Allen is spending all his time with Lydia, practically the only girl in the series I don't like.  I have no idea why the author is favoring this least likable girl in the series as his main heroine.  It's a total waste.  You could say it's because Lydia is older than Allen and therefore not a taboo romance, but Stella and Caren are also around his age, and either of them would be infinitely preferable.  So it isn't just the age issue at work here.  The author is simply making bad decisions.

It's a long series, so maybe he'll spend future volumes with other girls, but the problem is Lydia is clingy and jealous so she monopolizes all his time.  There's no way to spend time with other girls so long as he tolerates her.  And what are the odds Allen will finally grow a spine and tell Lydia she's a nuisance and he wants to date other women?

Lydia reminds me of how Ginko ruined Ryuuou no Oshigoto.  Of course the series is still elite, but it's never been as good as the first three volumes.  That's true of both series and it's such a waste.

The economy is doing well for most Americans, median household income has reached a new inflation-adjusted high, except for the effects of the Iran war -- higher diesel prices are driving up inflation, which drives up interest rates, making the US debt unservicable.  This one decision by Trump has undone all the progress he's made in all other fields.  Trump without the Iran war would have been such a great presidency.  Too late now.  The aftereffects of the war will drag on for years even if the war ended tomorrow.  The food and fuel shortages are here to stay.

Americans may not be the primary sufferers of these shortages, maybe the fuel will hurt Europe and the food will hurt Africa, but that's no excuse.  We're talking billions of people damaged or outright killed for the sake of a completely pointless, unwinnable war.  It's a blight upon our reputation.

So much to do, so little time:

Through a lucky roll, I got the new cook Charlotta SS Memoria.  I used my delimiter to give hacker Yuki her first limit break, and I gave eternal daphnes to hacker Yuki, king Ruka and swimsuit Erika, empowering my dark squad.  My dark squad got 1.8 million in the earlier score challenge, so they're actually competitive.  My new thunder squad got 2.57 million in the current score challenge, higher than my critical penetration squad got, so they're also impressive.  This got Hisame to title rank 13, and others like Ruka and Charlotta to rank 12.  I used the score challenge points to buy the permanent power upgrade relic orbs for a few characters I'm not currently using.  But maybe someday they'll come in handy.

I've read volumes 4-7 of Koujo Denka no Kateikyoshi and am working on volume 8.  I've already entered this series into my 'good books' hall of fame, kicking out Jim Kjelgaard to make room.  Currently it's ranked below Spice & Wolf, but we'll see how it fares once I've read all the books.  Allen and Caren have impressed me mightily in the volumes I have read, which is why I invited them into my fictional characters hall of fame.

So far the story has taken a violent turn into world war, but luckily the bad guys who instigated the war are much weaker than the good guys (Allen and friends) who are winning the war.  However, there are shadowy forces behind this war which might be stronger than the Kingdom's current foes, so I assume this war is going to continue for many more volumes.  What this war does is allow all our heroes to shine on the battlefield.  While they were fighting each other they didn't look very special, but when facing these weak opponents they start taking out tens of thousands of foes individually.  It turns out they were quite strong in abstract.  There's also lots of sickly sweet romance, except it's all one-sided because Allen has no intention of dating anyone.  But there's still a lot of romance in the air when 7 different girls all love the same guy and are competing for his approval.

In the end romance and war are the most popular topics in stories, so it makes sense why I'd like this story, and why it's such a popular novel series in general.  What's original about this author is his willingness to include young girls into the romance and war, which is why I particularly like this series.  He includes mainstays of popular literature to sneak in the fringe taboos.

I still have endless volumes of Koujo Denka left to read, and now Index GT volume 16 has come out and is being translated.  There's also the 'Another Eden Begins' video game that comes out tomorrow, and the Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave game that comes out on the 21st.  Next month FF Resonance comes out.  And I still haven't finished Happiness 2 or Tenpure!!, and I haven't even started Amairo Islenauts.  I still have to beat Fantasian too.  Obviously I can't do everything, so I'll save some of these projects for next year and try to at least finish some of the stuff I've already begun this year.

To top it all off football season has begun, and that means there are games to watch on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  >.<.  With football occupying half the week, how on Earth am I supposed to get anything done?

And let's not forget that the new fall anime season debuts in October. . .

Kojo Denka no Kateikyoshi light novels 4-20 are available in English:

I've long lamented the lack of an anime sequel to Kojo Denka.  There is a bevy of adorable girls in this series and I like the magical setting.  The manga adaption hasn't reached where the anime adaption ended, so it's useless.  However, the light novels have been translated far beyond the anime.  The anime covers volumes 1-3.  The English translated light novels already reach 20.  I know what I'm going to be doing this month. . .

Speaking of Koujo Denka, this is a good time to induct its protagonist, Allen, into my wonderful hall of fame.  He receives the energetic and resolute 'The Fire-Powered Ship' from FF5 as his theme song.  His doting imouto (non-blood-related wolfkin) Caren also enters my hall of fame with 'The Four Warriors of Dawn' from FF5 as her theme song.  

Before this windfall I was reading Fire Emblem manga.  It's all very good, but none of the manga fully covers the games, so it's also pretty frustrating.  Fortune's Weave is coming soon, so getting hyped with the older Fire Emblem content made sense.

I also discovered that the Release that Witch manhua has been fully translated, it's just that the manhua didn't fully cover the web novel, which is why it ends at such a random point.  Apparently the web novel gets worse and worse over time so we didn't actually miss much.

As for Shikkakumon, the last chapter of the manga came out today, and it fully covers the light novels.  It's an open-ended ending with Matthias and his friends promising to go on more adventurous battles deep into space together.  Not exactly what I'd hoped for from an ending -- Matthias and Lurie never officially get together, and it's unclear whether their homeland is even in peril anymore, or whether they're just fighting for fun at this point.

The startling aspect of this manga is that the anime covers 37% of it in only 12 eps.  Two more seasons would have been enough to fully cover the story.  But I do understand the problem, the remaining story arcs are just 'more of the same,' with no real character growth, so what's the point animating the rest?

Futsutsuka na Akujou is only slated to run for 11 episodes, so it might not qualify for my top anime rankings after all.  If it doesn't get a sequel announcement I'll have to replace it with Demons Crest and make it one of my top ranking movies instead.

Sena route read:

It was embarrassing for Sena from Tenpure!! to be in my wonderful hall of fame when I hadn't even read her route in full.  If I liked her that much, why wasn't I trying to get to know her?  But that hypocrisy is over because now I've finished her story.  She was as charming as ever in the additional content, asking to be Sora's wife and asking to have his babies.  She's very proactive, she was also the first to confess.  It certainly makes life easy for the boy.

In other wonderful hall of fame news, I added Robin Hood back in, represented by a new theme song, 'Fight it Out!,' which is much more fitting than his previous one.  Robin Hood isn't really a historical figure, no more so than Rhett Butler from Gone With the Wind, at least.  There was no reason for me to be so harsh on him.

I also gave Mikuru a new theme song, 'Warren Report,' which is a much more sonorous song than her previous 'Hare Hare Yukai.'  Hare was demoted to a 2-star song and thus ineligible to be in my wonderful hall of fame.  This demotion also means my music is back to 5 balanced tiers of 1100 songs a piece, like it should be.  The new 'Amore' song was given a 5-star rating, and every other tier demoted one song to keep things balanced, with 'Heaven's Door' from Front Mission Gun Hazard being kicked out entirely.

'Fight it Out!' and 'Warren Report' were the last two 4-star songs from Tactics Ogre, and Ogre Battle in general, that didn't have a fictional character attached to them.  Now this wonderful repository of music is fully mobilized.

The first full weekend of college football was super fun, with close games between ranked teams for three days in a row (Oregon vs. Boise State, Ole Miss vs. Louisville, and SMU vs. Florida State).  Georgia Tech vs. Colorado on Thursday was also close and fun.  It doesn't get much better than that.  I enjoyed the World Cup, but football is the one true spectator sport.

Tomorrow it will be the NFL's turn to dazzle.

Minori Event Cleared:

Heaven Burns Red released a new event and score challenge, this time with Minori as the focus character.  The event itself was a tearjerker, about how Minori as a child tried to send a letter to her dead mother's grave in a faraway town by attaching it to a balloon, only for people across space and time to slowly get it physically to her grave, where she found it as an adult.

I moderately like Minori, she is in my fictional character hall of fame, and this was a moderately good event.  Most of the bar scenes were dumb, but the one where Ichiko insisted all five of her little sisters marry her and that she would make all of them happy was hilarious.

The score challenge was tough this time.  Two enemies, who continuously sap your sp with their attacks, and both of them have an e-shield that only takes chink damage from light or dark element attacks.  My light and dark squads are hopelessly too weak to handle bosses like these, but that was okay because my critical penetration squad has an answer for this too:  Unison Karen has a special ability, when she's in psycho-killer mode, all of her attacks count as successful chinks of e-shields.  So I used Yingxia's ability to give extra multihits to psyscho-mode Karen and she would break the enemy for me.  From there cute-mode Karen would get their devastation rate up and imp Yayoi would finish them off.

It also helped that fox Miya's radiant arrow happened to be a light attack, so she worked with Karen to break the opponents while lowering their defense and giving everyone extra sp.  It was the same for Inori, her base exclusive ability is a dark attack, so she also came in handy when it came to breaking the opponent's e-shields.  The versatility of my critical penetration squad is not to be underestimated.  At first I could beat the boss but not get the score I needed for the full rewards, 2,200,000, but I used the loot from my initial victory to get unison Karen to limit break level 3, and then used that new power to push me over the top, and fully won after a few more tries.  Unison Karen level 3 is amazing.  Someday I'll get her to level 4 and be even more amazing.

I got the last nordstrom crystal I needed and completed all the enhancements for all my characters.  That sure took a while.

It goes to show that all the money I've spent is just barely letting me keep up with these score challenges, though.  I can never relax on my laurels, I'm only ever barely strong enough.

I rewatched Witch Hat Atelier, which now makes it officially qualified for my top anime rankings.  It's definitely a great series, with amazing art and animation, and a fully fleshed out setting.  I came away from it liking Qifrey, Coco's sensei, more than before, so I added him to my wonderful hall of fame.  That gets me to 1840 characters in all.

Now the only great anime I haven't rewatched is the anime that's still currently airing.  I'm fulfilling my promise as closely as possible.

SAO Progressive volume 9 read:

The latest volume of SAO Progressive came out in English recently, so I plopped down $9 to buy it for my Kindle and dug in.  Every SAO novel is a delight.  Reki Kawahara is by far the best light novelist in Japan.  Unfortunately, he's still a liberal, so one of the subthemes of this novel was about a gay dark elf and how sad it was that the fantasy society around him didn't support his lifestyle.  But that was a minor tangent, the main topic of the story was more adorable moments between Kirito and Asuna, the best heterosexual relationship in fiction.  Kirito and Asuna took a bath together, slept together, and Kirito announced he wouldn't want to outlive Asuna, which left her spluttering in embarrassment.  That's a lot of 'progression' for a couple that isn't even a couple yet.

There was no progress up the Aincrad castle, they actually went down some floors, and then the story ended abruptly in the middle of a cliffhanger.  At the rate Reki writes these books we'll die of old age before Kirito reaches the 20th floor.  Oh well, I'll take what I can get.

The real question is why Yen Press hasn't translated the 29th volume of the mainline SAO yet.  That's what I really want to read.

If Reki Kawahara could ever finish SAO and Demons Crest, and then it was fully animated, it could be the #1 anime of all time.  Unfortunately we all know none of those things will actually happen.  Instead we get these dribs and drabs.

Meanwhile, I finished Shio's route in Tenpure!! and moved on to Sena's.  Sena's very beautiful, with long pink hair and bright blue eyes.  But she's no match for Shio even on Sena's route.  As Shio is Sora's imouto, she's constantly interacting with him even when Sena is the official girlfriend, and I'm always more attracted to Shio than Sena.  It actually reminds me how the best scenes in every route of Tenshin Ranman were Sana's scenes, regardless of which girl you were dating.  Sana was also a brocon imouto no matter which route you chose, so the resemblance is to be expected.  Neither Shio nor Sana are blood-related, but in Shio's case she only recently moved in with Sora due to their parents' marriage, whereas Sana grew up with her onii-san, so there is a slight variation there.

Tenpure!! has a lot of erotic content and not much plot once you get onto a specific girl's route, so like the after stories of Happiness 2 my interest in the work has degraded.  Not vanished, but it does mean I have to leaven it out with other things -- such as SAO Progressive or Parchment & Wolf.