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.

Amore:

I decided the opening theme to 'I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day,' 'Amore,' was a song worthy of my music hall of fame.  The moment it qualified for that, it automatically became the song most suitable for Sheena, the protagonist of the show, so it also entered my wonderful hall of fame.  I'll have to find a new candidate for 'Pagan Poetry' to get back in.  Speaking of 'I Want to Love You Till Your Dying Day,' I decided to flip its ranking of #121 with Futsutsuka na Akujou, #180, because every week Futsutsuka delivers a better episode.  I can't defy the truth my eyes tells me every week.

Meanwhile, the monthly refresh in Heaven Burns Red got me some nice loot.  Among other things, I got base Hisame to max limit break level 4, base Tama to level 2 and maou Bon Ivar to level 1.  I really have gone 'all in' on Hisame, this was the last powerup she could get and now she has it.  Sadly it still isn't enough to get her a slot in my critical penetration squad.  If anything I would replace samurai Inori with maou Bon Ivar in the future.  Maou Bon Ivar has some amazing abilities, especially once she reaches level 4 limit break, which will probably never happen because it costs too much.  But anyway, she has a higher ceiling than Hisame.

Yesterday's monthly pageview count didn't include the pageviews that arrived during the 31st, so the actual new monthly record was 277,857.  I thought the 80,000 pageviews I got last month was impressive, and this is over three times that.  I don't expect this strange newfound popularity to last, because after all I'm not writing about anything important anymore, but it's fun to see while it lasts.

P.S.:  Okay, I've given 'Pagan Poetry' to Qifrey from Witch Hat Atelier.  He will be my 1840th wonderful character.  Cher from Cluesless will get 'I Still Do' by the Cranberries as my 1839th.

Parchment & Wolf volume 12 read:

The latest Parchment light novel came out recently, so I dug in.  The book is short enough to read in half a day.  The story this time is quite simple -- a bunch of people are doing various things to prepare for the ecumenical council, which includes Col and Myuri planning how they'll live after it's done.  It's all very sweet and wholesome.  Sadly short and sweet stories aren't much grist for the soul.  Hopefully the next volume will have some more serious, eventful moments to talk about.

Recently Zero Hedge had an article about a poll showing that only 35% of women aged 25 or below had a generally favorable opinion of men.  These are the women men most want to date, and they hate our guts.  Pursuing women is a waste of time and energy, as proven yet again.

The same article, or another one, had a poll showing that 23% of younger Americans were LGBT+.  The overwhelming majority of these deviants were women.  Which means yet again there is a huge surplus of men who want to be with women but can't, because women don't want men.

The real solution is a law mandating all women marry by the age of 20, which would match them up with men perforce, but so long as we live in the current social environment, the solution is for men to give up on women and pursue vicarious romances to be found in books, visual novels, video games, anime, manga, etc.  The vicarious romances are free and voluntary and they'll never betray you.  It's such an obviously better deal than real life American women.

Anyone who argues that women would like men more if they behaved better should take a look at South Korea and Japan.  The men behave much better over there -- less likely to do crime, take drugs, sleep around, be homeless, whatever -- but women hate the men there more than they do here.  They're even less likely to get married.  Women's assessment of men has nothing to do with the actual worth of men.  It has to do with the anti-male propaganda in today's climate, and the slanted law code that favors women over men when it comes to education, employment, divorce courts, etc., which leave men with less socioeconomic status than they would normally have if they were allowed to compete evenly with women.  After World War II, when all the men were college educated or well-employed but few of the women were, men easily found young wives to marry and have lots of kids.  Those men were not special or better than Japanese men are today.  The difference is now so many laws have been passed that benefit women that the relative sexual market value has drastically changed.

If we got rid of all the government programs and regulations that keep women employed (like public education and health care and anti-discrimination laws), they would suddenly be very interested in finding a husband.  But it's impossible to do this, either, because women are the majority of voters in universal democracies, another stupid innovation that men suicidally did to themselves.

Since men aren't willing to do anything about the trap they've put themselves in, the alternative is to do nothing.  We're still allowed to do nothing.

While not doing anything in particular to attract more views, this blog reached a new record high of monthly views: 275,589.  So doing nothing really does seem to work.

Happiness 2 read:

I've finished all the routes including the 'grand story' route that unlocks after you complete all the routes.  All that's left is the after stories which are basically sex romps with little story content.  Of course I will get to the after stories eventually, but for now it would be more productive to play Tenpure!!'s actual story content, and Amairo Islenauts' actual story content after Tenpure!!, instead.  Story over sex.

I do like in the 'grand story' route you get to hook up with Mizuki, so my decision to include 'Shizuki/Mizuki' in my wonderful hall of fame is all the more justified.  Now Mizuki is as important a character as Shizuki.  There were hints Mizuki also liked her onii-chan in the other routes but it was never clear to what extent until now.  It turns out Mizuki and her onii-chan, Kazuki, are actually star-crossed lovers who shared a similar bond in a past life that they can now remember.  It reminds me of Ricca in Da Capo 3.

Anyway, I enjoyed Happiness 2 from start to finish, which is why it earned two slots in my wonderful hall of fame.  Tenpure!! has also earned two slots, with Shio and Sena already represented, so I expect similar or better from Tenpure!! now that I can concentrate on it.

On top of that, the college football season is underway, and the NFL regular season starts in two weeks.  Fall is going to be busy.

In Heaven Burns Red, I secured swimsuit Satomi for free, which is nice, because she's quite pretty in a swimsuit, unlike her base form.

Bleach returned to sanity as it's revealed that Ywach can manipulate which worldline becomes the future, allowing him to completely negate the worldline where Orihime sacrifices herself to defeat him.  She's been returned to the battlefield safe and sound.

Manga's Fading Star:

Out of the 29 still ongoing manga in my hall of fame, what exactly is going on with them?  How much value is still being generated?

3.  Saki:  Like usual this manga is released in a slow and sporadic manner, but it's covering the climactic ending of the nationals tournament, so every chapter is excellent.  Shinohayu and Toki, the spinoffs, are also very good, but they also come out in a slow and sporadic manner.

4.  Fairy Tail:  100 Year Quest comes out in a slow and sporadic manner, but every new chapter is perfect.  Verdure Wendy is one of the most beautiful manga panels of all time.  There's supposed to be some new chapters drawn by Hiro Mashima floating around but I haven't seen them.

8.  100 Girlfriends:  Due to maternity leave, this manga has become slow and sporadic as well.  The quality of the new girlfriends is pretty random so it's hard to say how good this manga is from day to day.

9.  Sousou no Frieren:  This manga is almost always on hiatus.  It's currently on hiatus.  The chapters are nice when they do actually arrive.

11.  Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha:  There's currently a manga prequel of Gun Blaze Vengeance which should be ending soon.  It doesn't add much of value.

15.  Berserk:  The actual author is dead, and the people who inherited the story are currently on hiatus.  The chapters that do come out are always welcome.

18.  Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun:  Nobody's translating this anymore.

21.  Shadows House:  Shadows House seems to be approaching its dramatic conclusion.  It's become more combat than mystery oriented and thus lost a lot of its charm.

23.  History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi:  Kenichi has made an explosive comeback and is currently one of the highlights of my week.  Unfortunately the release schedule of this work is also sporadic.

25.  Futari Ecchi:  Nobody's translating this anymore.

26.  Rurouni Kenshin:  This manga is always on hiatus.

30.  Railgun:  The main story is finished.  All that's left is the Item and Mental Out spinoffs, which should be ending soon, except that they don't release very often which drags things out.

31.  Mao:  This manga is reliably good, as expected of Rumiko Takahashi, and usually comes out every week, which is better than all its competition.

36.  Mix:  Mitsuru Adachi is a God of manga, but he's getting old, and that means Mix chapters only come out slowly.  Hopefully Mix ends before he does.

47.  Dead Rock:  This is an excellent manga by Hiro Mashima, but it's currently on hiatus.

49.  K-On!:  The Shuffle spinoff is still ongoing, but it isn't much good and isn't being translated.

51.  Chihayafuru:  Some sequel spinoff is still ongoing but it isn't translated.

52.  Major:  Neither Major nor Major 2nd is fully translated, but occasional chapters are released.  It's pretty frustrating.

53.  Joukamachi no Dandelion:  The translated releases of this series are sporadic, but good when they happen.

58.  Yuru Yuri:  Another series with a sporadic release schedule.  Most of its chapters are cute and funny but the formula has gotten a little stale by now.

60.  Yume ka Utsutsuka:  The translation is far behind the original and will stay that way for many years.

63.  Hunter x Hunter:  This manga is currently, briefly, releasing new chapters again.  But as expected no plot progress has occurred, so inevitably it will go back on hiatus with nothing really having happened.

70.  Release that Witch:  Nobody's translating this anymore.

71.  Shikkakumon:  The original work comes out in a slow and sporadic fashion.  The spinoff seems to no longer be translated.

74.  Goblin Slayer Year 1:  This manga is excellent, but the translated releases are slow and sporadic.

As you can see, only a handful of great manga is coming out in a timely fashion and being translated into English.  I feel like there was an era where manga was a pillar of my life, with Bleach, Fairy Tail, One Piece and Naruto all coming out weekly.  The only weekly manga coming out these days is Cuckoo no Iinazuke, which is slated to end soon.  This is a crumbling pillar.

I can't make up the difference with light novels, because they have also stopped being translated into English, and aren't coming out as often even in Japan.  SAO novels are being written at a crawl.

The amount of great anime coming out per year is on a continuously decreasing parabola, so I can't rely on it either.

But I can still stay busy thanks to visual novels and video games.  They seem to be releasing at a rapid pace, such that I can't keep up.  So long as I still have these two artistic categories working for me it will all work out.

As for visual novels, I finished Shizuki's route in Happiness 2.  Shizuki is exceptionally beautiful, with light purple twintails and deep purple eyes, her breasts are the perfect size, large enough to notice but not imposing, and she has the voice of Mai Kadowaki, the same as Illyasviel.  Like Illya she's an imouto who's in love with her onii-chan, which is how all imoutos should be.  Throughout the route she kept making bad decisions, which left me torn about whether she qualifies as a wonderful fictional character.  But I solved the dilemma by adding in her twin sister Mizuki to the equation.  Since Shizuki and Mizuki are almost always together, it's fair enough to treat them as one character, like I do Nakururu and Rimururu.  Shizuki/Mizuki is a worthwhile entrant to my hall of fame.  Mizuki is pretty and cheerful and nice and has a good sense of humor, so she puts Shizuki over the top.  I gave Shizuki/Mizuki the theme song ANGELUS, which is the final 4-star rated Inuyasha song in my hall of fame that hadn't yet been assigned a character.  ANGELUS has both a peppy and a combative element to its music, which perfectly fits Mizuki and Shizuki respectively.

Sakura, Saku read:

I found a website that hosted the fully translated Sakura, Saku manga and finally got to read the ending.  This is one of my hall of fame manga so it's a pretty big deal to see it to fruition.  The last few chapters were simple and sweet.  Since everyone in the story was a good person, all that was needed to erase the drama was some honest communication.

Io Sakisaka's latest manga is Yume ka, Utsutsuka.  But it's no longer being translated because it's been licensed.  I'm okay with Io making a little more money by selling her works outside of Japan, but it means it will take years before the 'official' version catches up with the 'unofficial' version, so essentially we as fans just lose out on a product we could have had by now.

Yume ka, Utsutsuka is also in my manga hall of fame, so the long wait for this manga simply replaces the previous long wait for Sakura, Saku.

I finished the Akatsuki no Yona epilogue, which now officially ends the series, a year after the series already ended.  It was excellent, as expected of my 6th favorite manga.

I also finished some more manga that were hosted on the same site that I couldn't find anywhere else --  Saikyou no Tsue, I Will Survive Using Potions and Tensei Kyuuketsuki Ohirune Shitai.  These series were more about the art quality than the plot quality, but it's nice to finish anything no matter how trivial.

More importantly, I caught up on Demons Crest, 100 Girlfriends and a few other series that other manga hosting websites weren't updating but this site was.  I wonder if the Demons Crest anime will get to the material I'm now reading in the manga. . . it's all so awesome, I hope it does.

It's nice to see Orihime fight valiantly against Ywach, but I won't accept any change to the manga canon, where Ichigo lives happily ever after with Orihime, marries her and has a son named Kazui.  '100 Waifus' is based off of that canon ending.  That is the true ending of Bleach, whatever this anime does next.  They can kill Orihime off in the anime if they want, it means nothing to me, because I know the real ending already, and that doesn't happen.  The anime is so bad about Orihime they don't even get her eye color right -- her eyes are gray, not brown.  How can you mess something that simple up?

There are dozens of valuable manga that aren't being translated at all anymore, which is a crying shame.  Zettai Karen Children is a huge loss to the English speaking world.  Other notable losses are Release that Witch (so now we're doubly screwed, with no anime or manga), Futari Ecchi, Kenja no Mago, Tales of Crestoria, Tales of Eternia, Tales of Destiny 2, Hyakuren Haou and Sore ga Seiyuu.  I wouldn't even need to buy Tales of Eternia Remastered if someone had translated the manga in full.  I would have been perfectly happy to experience the story in that manner instead.

At least I'm able to make progress in Heaven Burns Red.  I got all six thunderbolt rings to max level, which powers up my critical penetration and thunder squads.  My thunder squad promptly got a new high score in the score challenge via leveraging the new rings, which gave new title ranks to my squad members.  Sumomo reached the pivotal rank 10 which gave her a new skill slot, which she can actually use effectively.  My ice squad also got some title rank upgrades fighting the latest score challenge, but nothing as notable.  I got feral Chie to limit break level 2, which helps out my light squad.