Dragon Quest II defeated at normal difficulty:

There's still some extra dungeon content I could do, but the end credits have rolled and the last boss is dead.  Dragon Quest II 2d-hd was much better than III or I, namely because all four of the characters in the party were real people with personalities and backgrounds.  I like all the characters in my 4-person prince/princess brigade, but Matilda stood out from among them.  Matilda is the final character to join the party, and the youngest member, and she approaches everything with a refreshing directness and honesty that her older compatriots are too embarrassed to mimic.  She gets angry with the villains and trash talks them before every boss fight, it's great.  Plus she is a beautiful blonde princess with a giant ribbon in her hair and a long regal cape, a striking figure.  Her voice actress is also great, with a cute piping energetic voice that is always encouraging her compatriots onwards.

Mostly what I enjoyed about Dragon Quest II was the classic turn-based rpg combat.  I struggled with the later bosses and it took clever tactics each turn to eventually win.  And this is at normal difficulty.  I shudder to think how it would have gone at draconian difficulty.  But the dialogue between the two princes and princesses was also fun.  It's also great that they're all one big family.  Caradok and Matilda are brother and sister to each other.  Perona and 'main character who you name yourself' are cousins to each other and to Caradok and Matilda.  So it's a very loving environment.

I used to think Dragon Quest XI was the only great Dragon Quest game, but DQ II not only is great, but it also elevates 1 and 3, which all connect to 2, to be part of one large great game as well.  Matilda was elevated to my wonderful hall of fame and received the Bjork song New World, because it's as hopeful and adventurous as she is.

Meanwhile, a new event came out in Heaven Burns Red.  I promptly spent $160 getting all the new SS Memorias I wanted.  I finally got my missing light Ichiko and the new swimsuit Miya SS Memorias, but I'm still missing the beachside Niina and swimsuit Satomi Memorias so my collection isn't totally complete.  Still, owning all but two of the SS Memorias in the game is pretty impressive.  I also got limit breaks for lots of other SS Memorias, but most of them fell into the limbo of 2.5 or 3.5, so didn't actually help me much.  The only upgrades that really stand out is wedding dress Ichiko reaching level 4 and admiral Mion reaching level 3.  I now have a record 28 SS Memorias stuck in the limbo of 2.5 or 3.5.

There were also upgrades like lightning Yuina reaching level 3, but thundercat Byakko is level 4 with an eternal daphne and also a blaster, so lightning Yuina is totally useless.  There's lots of problematic overlaps like that.

Now my imp-Yayoi fire squad has all level 4 limit break holders aside from imp Yayoi herself.  I used it at full power and got 1.8 million in the new score challenge.  I also used my critical penetration squad against the same score challenge and got 1.86 million, which is functionally the same.  Imp Yayoi fire is pretty darn good.

Beating the score challenge gave me access to three new accessories called 'relic orbs.'  They give +1,000 dp (your basic shield health points in the game), which is massive.  It's like suddenly getting +20% to health.  And as fate would have it, all three relic orbs were for characters in my critical penetration squad -- Yayoi, Karen and Yingxia -- making the squad even more dominant than before over all my other squads.

There's also a relic orb available for Mion but I don't have enough points to buy it yet.  I'll secure Mion's orb next month.  There's also new master skills available but I haven't gotten enough items or fulfilled the unlocking conditions for them, so that will also be a long-term project.  I'm most excited about Irene getting a master skill because she's in my critical penetration squad.

The new event is about Monaca, who I don't like much, so I haven't actually done it yet, but I'll get around to it shortly.  Yesterday I watched the new Assassination Classroom movie.  It was okay, I suppose, and moved the series into the elite category of top anime that has over 50 episodes of content and reaches its ending.  Tomorrow the first episode of the finale of Bleach airs, so I'm ricocheting from one great work of art to another in a nonstop whirlwind.

I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day is a great anime:

Two episodes is enough, I'm convinced this is the anime I've been waiting for.  Somebody had to replace Release that Witch, which is too short for my top anime rankings according to the rules, and so Dying Day stepped up to the plate.  It's the only series in the summer season that can make a reasonable argument that it's one of the top 200 anime of all time.  If not for Dying Day, I would have had to wait for Demons Crest to start airing and used it to replace Release that Witch months from now.  Thankfully now Demons Crest can stay paired with SAO as a single great entry, which makes more sense.

There's nothing better than loli yuri in a dark mahou shoujo setting.  It's like Youjo Senki and Madoka Magica rolled up into one.  Its originality is one of the most exciting aspects of the show.  I've watched a lot of anime but this one keeps taking me by surprise.

To celebrate the new top anime, I added two new wonderful characters to my fictional characters hall of fame, the protagonists of the show, Sheena and Mimi.  Sheena received 'Pagan Poetry' and Mimi received 'Joga', both by Bjork.  The music of Bjork is slightly off-kilter and haunting, and that's the exact mood of this anime.  Also, the lyrics of Pagan Poetry, 'swirling black lilies,' is perfectly in keeping with a dark yuri series (yuri is lily in Japanese.)

This also added to my represented franchises list, getting me up to the 'silver 137,' so I updated that post as well.

As for the World Cup final, Argentina really tried their hardest.  They were well on their way to taking it to a penalty kick shootout, where they prevailed in the previous World Cup, so there's every reason to believe they would have prevailed this time too if it came to that.  Unfortunately, Enzo Fernandez ruined everything for Argentina by first picking up a pointless yellow card by arguing with the referee, then getting an unfortunate second yellow card due to a late challenge, which meant Argentina had to play for far too long a man down.  Argentina's defense and goalie had been like a stone wall throughout the game, but playing a man down on top of everything else all the way through overtime was too much for any team.  Even then, Argentina tried a desperate, valiant effort to equalize after going a goal behind and a man down, giving Spain quite the scare at the end of overtime.

It wasn't meant to be.

The game before the final had quite the different trajectory, with 10 goals scored instead of 1, all in regular time.  That was pretty crazy, but honestly the tension in the final was better.  The riveting entertainment of a close game is better than a goal bonanza.

Only 5% of the world's youth are white, so it's practically impossible for two white teams to meet in the World Cup final after this.  Even if whites are exactly as good, on average, as black players, since there are so many more eligible blacks than whites who can play moving forward, inevitably the World Cup is going to become blacker and blacker every four years.  This won't prove blacks are better athletes than whites, it will just prove what I've been warning about all my life -- that the fertility rate of blacks far exceeds whites, and we are dying out as a race.  We are being replaced by Africans and the World Cup is showing that with its black 'England' vs. black 'France' teams in the third place game.

Since no one heeded my warnings for the past 20 years obviously my warnings came true.  More's the pity, because Lionel Messi showed how beautiful the beautiful game could truly be for the last month and the last decade.  Whatever black stars emerge in the future as they beat other blacks in the black World Cup, none of them will ever be as good as Messi was, so what little interest I had in soccer will only drop from here.

Meanwhile, I defeated Dragon Quest 1 2d-hd.  The last battle was tough, I had to retry it something like 20 times, before I got lucky enough to win using the same strategy as I had the previous ten times.  It always felt like I was close to winning, try after try, so I was determined to just keep trying until I got the lucky dodges I needed.  The key to victory was equipping enough fire-resistant gear that I was immune to the Dragon Lord's fire attacks, while also preserving mana as much as possible by using Muster Strength and Reheal instead of anything extravagant and wasteful like Wild Side.

So far I'm dominating my opponents in Dragon Quest 2 2d-hd, but the game is yet young.  I like that in this game I have a party of nothing but princes and princesses who all have their own distinct strengths and weaknesses.  It's better than Dragon Quest 1 or 3.  Overall I'd say the entire trilogy of DQ 1-3 is deservedly among my top video game rankings.  These remakes have made the franchise much better than before.  Currently Dragon Quest stands in 15th place in my rankings, right ahead of Octopath Traveler which is 16th.  The franchises have a lot in common so it's no surprise.

The All-white World Cup Final:

It's a dream come true.  The all white Argentina will be playing the 95% white Spain for the World Cup.  England was predominantly white, but it had too many blacks on the team for comfort.  But Argentina put paid to that, and left the world with the purest, whitest, snowiest final ever.

Argentina's run to the final has been a series of magical, miraculous moments.  Outlasting Cape Verde (Cape Verde!!) 3-2.  Coming back from down 2 to Egypt in the last minutes to score three goals and beat them 3-2.  Looking like they would lose to Switzerland until the stupid black Embolo on the Swiss team feigned being tripped when he was never touched (as proven by video replay) and was rewarded with a red card for his efforts.  After which Argentina took care of business and won again.  And now this, coming back from a goal behind to score two goals in the last ten minutes and win the semifinal.  They need to make a movie about this Argentina run.  It is the most incredible story in soccer history.  Obviously I'm cheering for them to win it all and put the cherry on top, but by God, already, they've spun a legend of all legends on the field.

Messi was at the center of this victory as well, with two assists, both goals Argentina scored.  He has been at the center of every victory in this entire run.  He needs to be rewarded the golden ball trophy as well as the golden boot, he's earned them both.  He is the greatest of all time.  Not just the greatest soccer player, just plain the greatest athlete of all time.  He personally dragged Argentina to the World Cup final not once but twice through a series of insurmountable odds.  No one could ever do what he's done.

Watching Messi trying to create opportunities out of nothing, with amazingly accurate lob passes, short wall passes, crosses, or dribbles straight through the defense, is vertiginous.  This simply isn't the way any other team scores.

No one can take this World Cup from me.  The greatest World Cup ever, the all white World Cup of my dreams.  The best teams in the world are both all white.  It's so glorious.  So perfect.  So beautiful.  With the white population of the world descending towards nothing, we'll probably never see this moment again.  It's like watching the elves in Lord of the Rings.  The passing of the great race in full flowering.  Messi will never take the field for Argentina again.  He's too old for 2030.  This is it.  This is our finest hour.

I won't watch The Odyssey in theater, it's too long for comfort for that.  But I do plan on watching it eventually, as I love all things Greek and Roman.  Aside from the DEI casting of peripheral characters, the actual main cast is white -- Penelope, Telemachus and Ulysses.  90% of the time it will feel like I'm in ancient Greece, which is good enough.  I respect Christopher Nolan as a movie maker and I think it's great that he's bringing such a classic to new audiences.  I of course read and loved The Odyssey, the actual Homeric poem, way back in high school.  But most people aren't like me.

I did watch two other movies today, though, Jumanji and Ford vs. Ferrari.  They were both pretty good.  I think they should have titled Ford vs. Ferrari 'Shelby vs. Ford,' though.  After all, the villains of the movie are all Ford corporate honchos, not Enzo Ferrari who's just a worthy rival.  Actually I think Shelby pulling continuous dirty stunts on Ferrari was despicable, and if anything America should be ashamed of itself for how we won that race.  Though I do believe we would have won without cheating, the fact is we cheated and it leaves me with disgust instead of the patriotism the movie was supposed to inspire.  As for Ken Miles, his fate was sealed the moment he tried to make a living driving prototype race cars.  It gets sort of tiresome how men all build their reputations as 'great' at something by taking insane risks instead of anything legitimate.  Women who don't take risks but steadily build out happy families with safe, healthy children are so much more impressive.  Anyone can be lucky enough to win the lottery, that doesn't make you great.  Likewise, risking your life over and over and being the one lucky one who survives all those episodes doesn't make you any better than all the people who died.  And of course Ken Miles ends up dying too, which proves my point.  It was only chance that he lived as long as he did.

Jumanji is kind of interesting because the story is very parallel to Sword Art Online, except written in a completely American way.  Five kids are trapped in a game they must clear to escape, and their real lives are on the line.  They learn to appreciate each other by overcoming obstacles together in the game and take that mutual respect with them back to the real world after they win.  This almost exactly parallels SAO, except SAO is infinitely more serious, tragic and beautiful, while Jumanji plays it all off for laughs.  Watching Jumanji made me really wish SAO's books and anime would continue so I could be experiencing it instead.  Someday.

Whites win the World Cup -- Again:

Spain absolutely schooled France today, 2-0.  It should have been 3-0, because one of their goals was nullified by an off-sides call which was incorrect.  The Spaniard was clearly on-sides.  Oh well.  Even with the affirmative action aid from the referees France was soundly defeated.  For the second World Cup in a row, the nearly all-black France lost to a nearly all-white team.  It doesn't matter who wins the World Cup from here, because all the remaining teams are composed of whites, so whites win no matter what.  Not just white countries, but white players will win the World Cup in 2026, just like they did in 2022, and virtually every other year.

Whenever athletic prowess is put to the test, objectively, whites come out ahead.  The World Cup, the Olympics, and the best quarterbacks in the NFL.  What can I say?  It feels good to be white.

Meanwhile, I rewatched Sousou no Frieren S2.  It was visually spectacular, with plenty of humorous and touching moments.  I love the main cast of Fern, Stark and Frieren.  They have wonderful chemistry.

I also started playing my next video game, Dragon Quest I 2d-hd.  It's better than I expected it would be, with a genuine plot.  The remaster added a lot compared to the original game.  And how can you not love such classic scenes as slaying a dragon to rescue a princess and becoming her beloved?

'I want to love you till your dying day' had an excellent second episode.  At this rate it will replace 'Release that Witch' in my top anime rankings.

Summer 2025 anime worth watching so long as you're also playing Magic: The Gathering:

I've created a new category of anime -- neither bad, mediocre, good or great -- perhaps the best term is 'tolerable.'  Anime that's tolerable to watch so long as you're also playing Magic.  The vast majority of summer anime falls into this category.

'I want to love you till your dying day' is at least a good anime, perhaps the great anime replacement of Release that Witch I was looking for.  I'll have to see some more episodes before I can definitively say it's great, but so far so good.  It's the premier debuting anime this summer that's reached the 'good' threshold.

It features great art, an intriguing unique setting, and a lovable all-cute-young-girl cast.  I have no idea where the story is going but I'm excited to find out.

Futsutsuka na Akujou is a good series, worth watching while actually paying attention.  Both the protagonist and antagonist are humorous, cute girls.  The ancient Chinese setting is lavish and the art is worthy of it.

As for the rest, these shows made the 'tolerable' mark:

Tsuihou Sareta Tensei Juukishi

Otome Kaijuu Caramelise

Uchi no Otouto-domo ga Sumimasen

Tenmaku no Jaadugar

Grow up Show

Oni no Hanayome

Kimi wo Aisuru ki wa nai

Sekai Saikyou no Kouei

Toumei na Yoru ni

Buchigire Reijou

Suterare Seijou

Tai-ari Deshita

Mujikaku Seijou

The Ghost in the Shell

Tefuda ga Oome no Victoria

Sora wa Akai Kawa no Hotori

All Works Maid

Koko wa Ore ni Makasete

Ryoumin 0-nin

Neko to Ryuu

Murabito 999

The Elusive Samurai S2

Ao no Hako manga ends:

Ao no Hako's manga ended on a fitting 250th chapter.  Hina not only won the high school national championship in rhythmic gymnastics, she's now a member of the Japanese national team.  She's following in her father's footsteps and well on her way to being an Olympian.  Taiki made it to nationals as a high school badminton player, but lost to Yusa there, so he rejected a girl who definitively is more accomplished than he was.  What an idiot.

In any case, everyone in the story lived happily ever after.  Except that, like in Kimi ni Todoke and Sakura Trick, Taiki and Chinatsu are in a long-distance relationship at the end.  Chinatsu is going to live in America or something for the next who knows how long, while Taiki stays in Japan.  This works well enough in fiction -- the power of their love transcends all difficulties -- but in the real world this never works.  Two people who live apart will find they have nothing to talk about, because they have nothing in common.  The people they're around are different, their circumstances are different, their activities are different, their time zones are different.  They can't even both be awake at the same time.  What would they have to talk about?  How can they empathize with one another?  How can they give their partner any useful advice, when they're completely unaware of the situation in a far off place full of people they don't know and have never met?  Furthermore, love is continuously fueled by physical intimacy, and a long distance relationship has no fuel.  Eventually both sides will want to be touched and find they can't get that from a phantom on a phone or an email.  Then what?  Obviously they start cheating on each other or dump their useless, nonexistent partner.  In fiction nobody has impure thoughts like these, but in the real world people have real needs.

Do a poll of men or women and ask them how important physical intimacy is to a relationship.  I guarantee you the answer for both sexes is 'vital.'  So that puts a fork in 'long-distance relationships' right there.

Chinatsu and Taiki are so far apart they can never visit each other.  They're permanently separated for years.  It's absurd.  It would never work.  Every romance story insists on this long distance ending -- Kimi ni Todoke and Sakura Trick are equally to blame -- but at least in those stories the long distance didn't cross entire oceans.  This is the worst ending of them all.

The problem is the same in all three manga.  All three manga are about high school romances.  In the real world high school romances are pointless, because everyone breaks up when they go to separate colleges or get jobs in separate cities.  But nobody wants the ending of a high school romance manga to be 'and then they broke up so that they could meet new nearby people in their college.'  But the authors also don't have the courage to buck modern sensibilities and say "and then the girl decided not to go to college and not to get a job, but to move wherever Taiki went and live with him as his young wife and the mother of his children."  That would be an actual high school romance gone right, with a bright future.  But I don't know if it's even legal for a manga-ka to write that these days.  Would a publisher even publish such a heretical ending?  Of course all girls must strive to reach their highest education level and highest possible income.  Love is great and all, but it doesn't trump cold hard cash.  Everybody knows that, right?

So we have a manga that caters to the emptiness in people's hearts, that craves romance, but when push comes to shove it can't say "romance is actually worth forgoing a job."  It can't say "romance is worth forgoing an education."  And it can't say, "their romance was actually weak so they broke up and pursued money instead."  So again and again, we get this fantasy compromise of long-distance relationships.  This is why all published works, with their constant oversight and censorship, are so hopelessly inferior to '100 Waifus.'  Only I'm allowed to say anything that bucks modern sensibilities, so I'm the only one saying anything at all.

Meanwhile, I finished Xenoblade X.  I played the game very thoroughly, completing almost every mission, getting all six spears to weaken the last boss with, surveying almost all of Mira, etc.  It took me over 170 hours.  Maybe 180 hours?  Anyway, too many hours.  The game takes way too long.  Sheesh.  I like the main cast and the beautiful setting.  The plot is okay.  It's a great game, I just wonder if they couldn't have sped things along a bit.  170 hours is a sizable portion of my entire life.  >.<.

Of course, I've played Heaven Burns Red far longer than that, but Heaven is divine so of course that's okay.

I still have a shelf full of unplayed video games I can now switch to, so finishing Xenoblade X means I'll now be more entertained than before, not less.  I can now start an all new exciting adventure and meet all new people, instead of flogging the same tired horse for endless additional hours.

I broke the 2,200,000 barrier:

A terrifying new score challenge appeared in Heaven Burns Red, a monster with a higher rating than had ever appeared before, and a beam that insta-kills the whole party on the first turn.  At first I tried to fight it conventionally with my critical penetration squad but of course it didn't work.

Then I tried my imp Yayoi fire-squad, relying on the invincibility of Adelheid's dodge and Seira's guard break, and indeed it worked, but not well enough to get me 2 million points.  There was still a skill guide and SS-guaranteed recruitment scrip at 2 million and 2.2 million points that I couldn't loot with this squad.

So next I tried moving Adelheid, with her free dodge mechanic, over to my critical penetration squad.  At first I took out Inori to make room and after several tries I did make it to 2 million points.  But what I really wanted wasn't the skill guide, it was the recruitment scrip at 2.2 million.  So I thought I'd try taking out my healer and going all-out offense next time, with Inori back in.  Several fights in a row my characters were broken due to my lack of a healer, and it was looking grim.  But I learned a perfect balance of offense and defense, where if I used Miya's enfeeblement technique at the right time, and the boss attacked Miya that turn, I could focus on offense without being broken.  That got me to 2,197,000.  3,000 short of the loot.

So next I gave Inori the concentration orb skill, which slightly increases critical damage, and tried again.  With all the stars aligned and that little extra damage adding to my 'maximum damage in a single turn' score, I boosted my score to 2,214,000.  I bested the best the game could throw at me, just barely.

This is why I spend thousands of dollars to get stronger in the game, because even with all that money I'm just barely keeping up with their expectations.  I dread to think how weak I would've been against this boss if I'd only played the game for free.

The characters who got high scores on the score challenge got new title badge ranks as well.  My critical penetration squad is at rank 12 or 11, with Yingxia at 10 since I had to take her out to fit in Adelheid, who is also rank 12 now.  The other members of my imp Yayoi fire squad are all at least rank 10.  A lot of title badge growth, because this is the highest score on a score challenge I've ever managed with either squad.

Meanwhile, a wonderful new recruitment campaign became available, with swimsuit Erika being available to roll on 100 times for free.  For free!  Of course with that many rolls I got the new, absolutely beautiful, swimsuit Erika.  There was also a paid quartz campaign with swimsuit Erika being one of the prizes, but after using all my paid quartz I never got another copy of her which would have given me a limit break.  So instead I used my long-saved-up rainbow protean shards to limit break her to level 1.  Soon I'll have enough rainbow shards to get her to level 2.  Why am I eager to power up swimsuit Erika?  Other than swimsuits are fun to look at while fighting, she has an amazing ability that pumps up everyone's morale, and gets stronger with higher morale.  Since she's a dark element SS Memoria, she fits in perfectly with swimsuit Kozue and doctor Seika, who also increase morale and get stronger with higher morale so long as they're dark element.  I now have a synergistic morale squad that has all the pieces needed to be super strong.  The only problem is their limit break levels are still really low, but all good things come with time.

Swimsuit Erika lowers the opponent's dark defense and defense, then creates a dark element field that permanently improves the damage of all dark attacks by 80%, then attacks the enemy directly for decent damage, all for the low price of 8sp.  I can feel the darkness flowing through me.

I also got white-dress Muua, another brand new SS Memoria.  Her exclusive ability isn't that good, but her unexclusive abilities look nice, so I'll be using them on her other versions.

Other than the new Niina and Ichiko SS Memorias I own every SS in the game.  I also got some nice limit breaks, and some inconsequential ones, namely wedding dress Seira to level 4, wedding dress Iroha to level 1, idol Ichigo to 2.5, magician Isuzu to 2.5, a bunch of memento upgrade items (which I used on base Isuzu and swimsuit Erika, but I still have tons more with no current use), swimsuit Tama to level 2, kimono Tama to 2.5, ninja Adelheid to 3, and cute Chie to level 3.

My imp Yayoi fire squad is my second strongest squad right now, and wedding dress Seira is in that squad, so this will yield quality results.  I also gave Yayoi, my strongest seraph, 5 reversions so she could have an additional skill slot and +4 to stats.  Min-maxing is the ideal in every rpg.

Unfortunately my computer, which is only 3 years old, is making a death rattle sound that gets louder by the day, so I decided this time I wouldn't be cheap like last time, but buy the absolute best computer I could find, with the idea that ultimately it would save me money by not dying so quickly.  This new computer, around $2k in price, should be the perfect gaming machine that can run Heaven Burns Red, World of Warcraft, Heroes of Might and Magic Olden Era, and anything else at absolute max graphics with no framerate drop and no noise.  It had better be.

There's no point spending thousands of dollars collecting SS Memorias if I don't have a powerful computer to play the game with, that can actually play the game the way it was meant to be played.  The two basically necessitate each other.  As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Trump seems to have changed his mind yet again, and now he wants to win the Ukraine and Iran wars.  Even though it was just proven to him that this was impossible, he's such a doddering old senile retard that he's forgotten the lessons he learned last month.  So now we can expect the worldwide depression and famine people were predicting if the Iran war became serious after all.  Thanks, Trump.