Kojou Denka no Kateikyoushi and Medalist rewatched:

There are only flashes of brilliance in the first season of Medalist.  The anime really kicks into top gear with season 2.  Medalist wouldn't be great without season 2.  The upcoming movie helps its case too.  What's important is I fulfilled my word by rewatching all anime I deem great, including anime I deemed great just a few days ago.

Kojou Denka is on another level compared to Medalist.  They're both about lolis, but the lolis of Kojou Denka are in love and that makes them superior.  The art and character designs of Kojou Denka are top level.  Almost Unlimited Fafnir level.  The animation is smooth and satisfactory, with very little cg.  It looks like a well-made anime from the past.  And the plot is awesome.  I love how Allen helps girl after girl improve their magic.  The end of the season where he helps Stella fight Tina is magnificent, showing how unbiased he is towards his own protege.  He just wants what's best for everyone.

Kojou Denka could really use some more seasons, so we could learn the mystery of the great spells and why only Allen can communicate with them.  But I have a sinking suspicion we'll never get any, because the show is about lolis in love, which Americans want to ban.  And most anime revenue comes from overseas these days, so Japanese are stuck catering to American taboos.

This means Kojou Denka can be far superior to Medalist ep for ep, and still fall behind Medalist in the rankings as Medalist keeps getting sequels and Kojou doesn't.  *sigh*

The monthly refresh is always meant to be a good time in Heaven Burns Red, but I got surprisingly little out of it.  Santa Misato moved up to limit break level 3.5, one step away from max.  Hot springs Isuzu moved up to limit break level 1.  That might genuinely be it.  I did get everyone's skill levels to max, except for underwater Aina, who still has one skill left to max out.  That's pretty close to a monumental achievement.  I also unlocked all the requirements for everyone's master skills -- except for Carole.  So again, close to an achievement.  The requirements are kind of meaningless though, because you also need 15 of this rare item to unlock a new master skill, and currently I have no way to get that item, so. . .

I did max out the item level of two new mementos -- swimsuit Sumomo and swimsuit Yuina.  I love swimsuit girls so I try to support them as best I can.  ^_^.  No but really these SS Memorias are strong, even from a gameplay viewpoint helping them makes sense.  A maxed out memento, as compared to a normal one, gives +20 to all stats.  That's an enormous boost, probably worth as much as a limit break.  Sumomo and Yuina are already at max limit break, so this makes them over max power.

The winter Olympics have begun, but all that's airing now is curling, which is kinda. . .

I dropped Yuusha Party ni kawaii ko due to the protagonist choosing not to kill, but instead to let go, a murderous madman.  That basically makes the protagonist a murderous madman.  I'm so tired of this 'no killing, even in self defense' mantra that some childish anime go by.  It isn't reflected in any law code in the world or any ethical system, outside of dumb Indian religions.  So why must anime go by such a retarded rule?  Plus the anime looks awful due to having a low budget, so this was just the nail in the coffin.  The poor winter season is down to 23 shows.  ^_^.

I finished my first route in Ren'ai 0 Km, Sakuya's route.  The game is okay, but there's no standout girl I could love.  Sakuya and Misaki are decent, maybe Hana's route is playable, the other two are worthless.  The game was made in 2011 and yet somehow already has a transgender in it.  Talk about trendsetting, but not in a good way.  Of course, Fire Emblem Engage also had a transgender and I love that game.  Happiness! had a transgender and I loved that anime.  If you're good in other fields I can overlook a lot, but the problem is Ren'ai 0 Km isn't good in other fields.  Ren'ai 0 Km basically exists to escort people to the Winter Olympics, it has no other purpose.

Medalist is a great anime:

Medalist likes to troll the audience, like Kimetsu no Yaiba, with bad jokes and bad art.  It did so this episode as well, with a dumb moment where Inori and Tsukasa ate bananas.  But Kimetsu no Yaiba, despite that, is my #6 favorite anime.  It's about time I admit Medalist is one of my favorite anime too, dumb jokes and bad art included.

Come to think of it, there were dumb jokes and bad art in Rurouni Kenshin too.  Sometimes you just have to roll with it.

Medalist is great because it's about loli figure skaters, which is about as beautiful a combination as one can get.  Their figure skating prowess is only slightly below what you can see in the Olympics despite being pre-teens.  In truth, if young girls were allowed to compete in the Olympics, many of them would be competitive.  There's just a stupid biased regulation against young gymnasts and figure skaters that keeps them out of the competition, with no regard to merit.  This stupid bias, though, doesn't stop us from watching the girls perform in Medalist.  Here they get to strut their stuff and do their best, and we get to watch them, undisturbed by the stupid taboos of the wider world.

The figure skating performances of the lolis in Medalist are some of the finest dances/costumes/performances I've ever seen.  Both in the first and second seasons, the word 'wow' was made for this anime.  The second season's anime opening, where all the prospective novices do a dance together on ice, is incredible.  The gracefulness, the speed, the choreography, it's absolutely beautiful.

Just watching Medalist as a sport would be worthwhile, especially with the Winter Olympics only a few days away, but it also has some great human drama where good people seriously try their best and fret about all the bad things that happen to them, or could happen.  There's always a seesaw of emotion, a whirlwind of people rising and falling from grace, which is typical of figure skating.  The realism of this show permeates everything.  It feels like everything is a vignette of some real figure skater's life.  It feels like every performance has actually occurred before in the real world.  And for some reason, the mangaka of this work is really wise and squeezes in amazing lines of dialogue all over the place.  People say the perfect thing for the situation like it comes naturally to them, when philosophers would have had to sit down and think about it for a week before they could give the same advice.

Medalist has everything.  The art, the animation, the lovable characters (Inori and Hikaru are already in my fictional character hall of fame), the high stakes drama, the learnable lessons, the intense emotion.  If only it didn't have occasional intentionally bad segments it would be limitless.  But again, Kimetsu is at #6 so I can forgive a lot.

For now Medalist can stay at #199.  I kicked out Shuumatsu no Izetta to make room, which had been my intention for some time now.  We'll see how good this second season is, and learn if the upcoming movie is actually canon or not, before rating it higher.

Cold Night, the opening theme to season 2, is extremely catchy.  I added it to my music hall of fame as a 4-star song, and made it Inori's theme song in my wonderful playlist.  Various songs were demoted to make room.

Meanwhile, the Kimi to Idol Precure movie came out, so I watched that too, and it's also great.  It's a nice addendum to the anime as a whole, with a lot of songs, which you'd expect from 'idol Precure.'  As a result, for a brief moment, the total length of great anime in the world is exactly 10,700 standardized 24 minute episodes.  Soon enough anime will breach the 11k barrier.

There's also good news for Isekai Nonbiri Nouka.  Season 2 starts airing this spring, not long from now.

I oppose the coming wars with Cuba and Iran:

It's ridiculous how many wars I have to oppose these days.  This is the second time I've had to oppose a war with Iran in less than a year.  I thought Trump had cleverly decided to only fake a war with Iran before withdrawing, but now he's deployed a new fleet near Iran and promised to bomb them if they don't permanently renounce nuclear enrichment -- a right every nation in the world has under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.  So basically Trump is demanding that Iran admit to the world that it isn't a real country and doesn't have real rights, but is a vassal which must answer to its betters.  Of course, Trump's demands won't end there.  If they give in on nuclear enrichment, he'll also demand they renounce the right to conventional missiles, the right to fund or arm or train foreign proxies like Hezbollah/Hamas/Houthis, and even the right to run their own government how they please.  He'll either demand a democratic puppet be put in hand-picked by the USA, or carve the nation of Iran into ten or so different ethno-states which will never again pose a threat to Israel.  No doubt he'll also demand a giant reparations bill from Iran for all the American soldiers they've killed in the past 50 years and for the 444 day hostage crisis of our embassy.  The point is Trump will never stop making demands of a weak person, because bullies never stop bullying weak people.  It's too fun and profitable to stop, so he won't stop.  Nothing stops a bully except a greater force.  This is basic psychology.

Iran has already revealed itself to be a weak nation, they allowed America to bomb them without reprisal.  So there's no point for them to bluff that they'll retaliate 'for real' this time.  Their threats are empty.  They revealed themselves to be complete pussies less than a year ago.  It's also pointless for Iran to give in to Trump's demands, because he'll just keep making more demands until there's nothing left to give.  In which case it's better to die with dignity -- at least make America take your country and don't just give it away like a pussy.  Learn from Afghanistan, Yemen and Vietnam.  Since the very first of Trump's demands is unreasonable and without merit -- where does America get off thinking it can decide other people's nuclear power intentions? -- there's no point ceding anything.

The most heroic thing Iran can do at this point is martyr themselves on the altar of international law.  Make it clear that America is a rogue aggressor nation that the whole world must unite behind, by never giving in and making America kill them all.  The same way Gaza beat Israel by exposing the genocidal nature of the Israelis and not surrendering no matter how bad things got.  It sucks to be an Iranian, but they've already cornered themselves with the decisions they made before now.  Their decision to not forcefully punch back against Israel and America last year, their decision to enrich uranium without turning it into nuclear warheads, their decision to be an Islamic theocracy instead of a democracy, their decision to not make a military defense alliance with Russia, their decision to storm the US embassy and take our diplomats hostage, their decision to fund proxy armies abroad in order to have a say in the geopolitics of the entire Middle East region instead of minding their own business, etc., etc.  At the end of this decision tree there are no good decisions left.  I'm 95% certain Trump will start bombing them at this point, because he'd be a fool not to.  Everything points to the fact that Iran is weak and can easily be subdued.  Why not bomb them?  It's like they're begging to be bombed.  Do predators see juicy prey nearby and choose not to bite?  At this point I don't even blame America.  If you make yourself this defenseless while also antagonizing powerful enemies, what do you expect?  Life isn't this forgiving world of sundrops and rainbows.  It's an eternal struggle, red in tooth and claw.  Everything born in this world is born hungry, with the wish to devour those around them and replicate themselves, taking up the newly opened space their killing created.  If you make yourself a meal don't whine when somebody eats you.

Nevertheless, I am against bombing Iran, because I don't like the principle, the precedent, that strong people can go around terrorizing and slaughtering weak people who have never done anything to them.  This precedent will have grave consequences for many more innocent people in the future.  It won't just be the evil and foolish Iranians who suffer from this precedent, it will be the rest of human history.

For the same reason, I have no love for Cuba.  Cuba's communists were terrible people who killed and imprisoned one of the largest populations per capita in history to attain power.  They're ruthless dictators who have made life miserable on their tiny isolated island for almost a century.  Cuba would be much better off if America pulled off a regime change operation like it's clear they're about to do.  But I still don't want America to do it.  Because I don't want strong nations to be willy-nilly changing out the governments of weak nations who have never done anything to them.  The precedent that sets will lead to infinite bloodshed, chaos and war in the future.  If every strong nation on Earth can go around replacing any government that offends them anywhere on Earth, where does that leave the majority of mankind?  Eventually the whole world would have to belong to a single sovereign, or the wars would never end as governments are toppled back and forth forever.  A single ruler of the world would be a disaster, because that would mean no progress of political philosophy could ever occur again.  Without competition humanity would sink into stagnation, like how Egypt never went anywhere under the Pharaohs.  Or feudal Japan.  Only by having dozens of different nations side-by-side do governments have any incentive to be efficient or beneficial to their denizens.  If there is no escape, no alternative, if all the government needs is to completely oppress its people and they'll be untouchable -- like North Korea does to its people -- then the result you'll get is North Korea.  It wouldn't even take long.  The moment the world ruler realized he could do it, he would, because what incentive is there not to?  Why wouldn't an elite class want to perpetuate their power and privilege for the rest of human history?  Who cares what this would cost humanity as a whole?

Ideally, the world would be composed of as many nations as there are people with differing utopian ideals.  There would be a nation for every single vision out there.  For every community of believers, there should be a nation that represents their beliefs.  This is the Greatest Vision I wrote a book about.  Within this Greatest Vision would be a nation I could live in that completely agrees with my beliefs.  I don't need this nation to rule everyone everywhere, I just need to be able to live my life in peace and security among my neighbors who agree with me.  I will happily forfeit my right to interfere with the domestic life of other nations if they agree not to interfere with mine.  If Cuba chooses to misrule itself, that's Cuba's problem, not mine.  So long as Cuba leaves me alone, I'm happy to leave them alone.  And so on for every nation on this fair Earth.

Eventually my nation would out-compete the world by delivering a better standard of living to its believers than everybody else on Earth, because my beliefs are right and theirs are wrong.  At that point we would easily have an economy big enough to settle the stars, and then whatever happens on Earth becomes insignificant in scale compared to the coming galactic history.  There is no reason to fight anyone.  If you believe in your beliefs, all you have to do is live them and you would win by default.  Why not allow such a peaceful competition for everyone?  This is the obvious path forward that everyone could get behind.

I'm opposed to foreign adventures not because of their short-term consequences but their long-term consequences.  A world of eternal war would quickly end in nuclear fire.  A world of a single world sovereign who got there by force/fraud instead of his beliefs working naturally because they are true will lead to eternal slavery and darkness for 99% of the population.  The only world with a good future timeline is the one where borders are respected, sovereignty is respected, and everyone agrees not to interfere with anyone else.  This means Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Greenland, Palestine, Canada, Panama, Russia, Columbia, Mexico, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, North Korea, everybody, anybody, I'm against it all.  No foreign intervention anywhere.  I have no idea which country Trump will threaten next, sanction next, or tariff next, so I'll just say I'm opposed to doing that to any nation or region which wishes to become a nation on Earth.  I'm opposed to whatever Trump next says.  I don't even care what he's saying today, I'm sure it's something bad and I oppose it.

Meanwhile, the mangaka of History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi has announced the story's continuation starting this March.  I always complained this series didn't have a satisfactory ending.  I marked the work as incomplete in my manga hall of fame all this time, and now the author agrees with me.  The story will continue where it left off and actually defeat the villains of the story which so far are still completely fine and completely intent on destroying the world.  It's great news that a story that should have been so much better will now become so much better.  Kenichi was already great as an incomplete work.  With a proper conclusion there's no telling how good it could become.  I'm eagerly awaiting its resumption.

The mangaka of Couple of Cuckoos, on the other hand, is saying the manga will end soon.  I'm not sure if it will end this year, because it takes a long time to draw even a few chapters of manga, but I'm looking forward to this ending too.  This is a rare romance manga that managed to keep the plot moving, to keep feeling like every chapter actually mattered, while still being long.  It will be especially pleasing to read a satisfactory ending to a story that never got old before it finished.  (Unlike, say, Vinland Saga or Akatsuki no Yona, where one could only be thankful it was finally over.)

Ren'ai 0 Km available in English:

At last, Ren'ai 0 Km is out and downloadable.  The release was delayed from last November, but now we can all dig in.  This is a good time because there's still 4 days before the Olympics and there aren't any new events in Heaven Burns Red.  What looked like an empty portion of the calendar is now full.

I was looking forward to Ren'ai 0 Km based on the art, the studio behind it (Asa Project), and the plot summary.  Obviously I haven't played it until now, so I can't vouch for its quality.  I can only vouch for its potential.  From what I've played so far, it has the same annoying bug as Da Capo -- you can't use the mouse wheel to scroll down and continue the next line of conversation, you have to actually click the mouse button to get to the next sentence.  This doesn't sound that annoying in abstract, but trust me, the amount of effort it takes to click the mouse every single sentence gets burdensome really quickly.  Remember, visual novels can be as long as War and Peace.  That's a lot of mouse clicks.  To avoid having to click the mouse all the time, I set it to auto, but this comes with its own troubles.  The auto pace is too slow when it comes to spoken lines, but too fast when it comes to unspoken lines.  Finding an auto pace that is slow enough to read the unspoken lines without feeling rushed means inevitably boredly waiting for the spoken lines to finally move on.  There is no golden mean.

The music is uninspiring so I immediately turned it off in favor of my own wonderful playlist.  There's virtually no game whose music can compete with my wonderful playlist, though, so I forgive it on this front.

So long as the plot is good and the characters are likable, I'll put up with all these nuisances.  Obviously Da Capo was still worth playing with this bug.  But I can only notice the problems early, the virtues, if they exist, will only become clear days from now.

Meanwhile, I finished my rewatch of Cinderella Gray season 2.  The season was too short, it barely covered anything.  They should really make a sequel and cover the exciting moments to come in the rest of the manga.  But it was nice while it lasted.  Only three series remain to be rewatched:  Koujo Denka no Kateikyoushi, Who Made me a Princess? and Spy x Family S3.

Obviously when it comes to ICE vs. Antifa protestors, I support ICE.  Ron Unz and Andrew Anglin are anti-ICE for some dumb conspiratorial reason that they believe ICE is here to steal our civil liberties rather than enforce the law, but that's stupid.  They're enforcing the law, and all law-abiding Americans should be cheering them on.  Law-abiding Americans have nothing to fear from ICE, everybody ICE has hurt brought it upon themselves by first confronting ICE.

Either we're a nation of laws or we aren't.  Either we enforce the laws on the books against illegal immigration or we have de facto open borders, and billions of the poorest and most criminal populations of the world will come streaming in to prey on us and take over our country.  There is no middle ground on this issue.  If you don't support ICE then you support the complete annihilation of our country and becoming the eternal slaves to whoever decides to show up at our doorsteps and become our conquerors.  Obviously there are more foreigners on Earth than native-born Americans, so just by democratic vote they will take our country over without having to fire a shot.  Talk about the most effortless conquest in history.

Furthermore, either we have a federal government or we don't.  If localities like cities or states are allowed to nullify federal law, ban federal officials from their areas, or put federal workers on trial for violating their own 'state' or 'local' law, then we don't have a country.  We have fifty countries, or hundreds of countries, all at war with each other, a complete anarchy and pure chaos.  The federal government must not bow down to the completely outrageous, illegal, and insubordinate demands of any lower government body.  We are the supreme law of the land.  This has been established by hundreds of prior Supreme Court rulings.  We don't answer to anybody, they answer to us.  We are the federal government, the true government, and they are lesser beings who exist to carry out our orders and wishes.  That's it.  ICE enforcement must continue in Minneapolis not because illegals are such a dire threat there, but because we must make a point to never bow down to local government officials and never give in to pressure from our own subordinates.  It would be like the nobility taking orders from the peasantry, or illiterates instructing priests on what the Bible says.  This is a totally unacceptable inversion of power relationships.  Supine, servile behavior will immediately lead to the disgrace and discreditation of the current government, after which it won't stand much longer.  Like the Tsarist government in 1917, any sign of weakness only led to further contempt and further demands against the government, which quickly lead to its complete erasure.  This sort of effrontery must be nipped in the bud to preserve the government's prestige, which is necessary to preserve obedience to the government.  There is no alternative or compromise.

Andrew Anglin, Ron Unz and the like say there are better ways to deport illegals than the methods ICE are using, but they ignore the fact that these 'better' ways would require Congress to act, which is impossible because of the Senate filibuster rule.  We can't pass a new law saying it's illegal to hire illegals, or rent to them, or give them welfare, etc., because the Democrats won't go along with that.  If we try to reinterpret current laws to achieve the same effect, some federal judge appointed by the Democrats will immediately nix it with an injunction, so that won't work either.  The only thing we can do is personally, one by one, grab illegals off the street and deport them, because that's the only enforcement judges and Congress currently allow.  The hope is that by making visible raids on some illegals, the rest will get the hint and self-deport, which is what's already happening.  Over two million illegals have self-deported since Trump came in office.  The strategy is working, if Republicans wouldn't stupidly get in its way and sabotage their own President who is trying his best.  All we have to do is have faith and stay the course, show up and support Republicans in the midterms, and the illegal immigration problem will slowly go away.  Instead the alt-right, which should be the most favorable towards ICE, is stabbing them in the back and nitpicking every little thing they do.  It's infuriating.  Like a spoiled child who finally gets what he wants and throws a tantrum anyway, suddenly declaring he wants something else.  Haven't we been fighting against mass immigration all this time?  And now that somebody actually agrees with you and tries to do something about it, now you declare that they aren't doing it right so you're still going to throw a hissy fit?  It's no wonder everybody ignores the alt-right constituency.  There's no profit in serving them because they don't show any gratitude or loyalty in return.  Complete amateurs at game theory and simple politeness, they deserve to be thrown into the dustbin of history.

Wolf and Parchment volume 11 read:

This is one of the best volumes of Wolf & Parchment.  There's no mysteries, riddles or puzzles to solve.  It's a straightforward story about how Col had to maintain his moral rectitude in the face of endless temptations to take the easy way out.  As proper of a priest, he rejected all the Devil's temptations and stuck to a clear concept of right and wrong.  This led to a better result than all the 'easy' ways, proving that people who claim to be pragmatic are more often just shortsighted.

I feel like this is what the series should be about.  It should highlight the heroic nature of priests who don't compromise their faith, and highlight all the times it would be advantageous to do so, showing the sacrifice priests make.  It actually reminds me of Octopath Traveler, which did a really good job of showing what priests are good for, not just power-wise, but psychologically.

I also like that Col constantly thinks to himself that the reason he can be brave and not give in to threats is because Myuri is always there to defend him, something his assailants generally don't know about.  He never bows to pressure because he's never as pressured as it seems.  The mutual love between Myuri and Col is always the best part of the series.

I also watched the new Chou Kaguya-hime movie.  It was okay, but there are better stories that cover virtually everything that Kaguya tries to relate.  Limelight Lemonade Jam, SAO, Summer Wars, Tonikaku Kawaii, many other shows came to mind while watching Kaguya-hime.  I would have preferred something a little more original.  It still counts as yet another good winter anime though, the season keeps getting better and better.

All my Seraphs are millionaires:

In Heaven Burns Red, the score challenge gives your characters a chance to defeat powerful bosses for various rewards, with a 'black trophy' being the ultimate award at 1 million points.  In addition, title badges track your highest score challenge score, and if it reaches 1 million you get the maximum amount of title badge experience possible from that field.  Title badge experience is necessary for the improved stats and eventual new skill slot (if you can reach the max title badge experience level of 10, which none of my seraphs have done.)  It's also necessary for master skills.  A common prerequisite for master skill unlocks is that your seraph at least be title badge level 5.  In other words, I had a strong incentive to get all of my characters, even my weakest ones, to a score challenge score of 1 million.

Originally I just wanted to get squad 31-E, the sextuplets, to 1 million, because they had scored 941k and were so close to succeeding.  I tried switching out Minori, the weakest link in the squad, for admiral Aoi to see if that could propel me to 1 million.  The answer was nope.  So next I tried using diva Ruka and yep, I got to 1 million.  Then I switched in Minori, taking out Yotsuha, so that Minori could also reach 1 million.  It still worked.  Diva Ruka was so powerful she could escort anyone to 1 million.  So I thought to myself, why not actually escort everyone to 1 million?

To do this I took my strongest squad, the plot squad, the fire squad, the 31-A squad, and took out Tama to make room for apprentices.  Then I had the 5 other squad members beat the score challenge boss on their own, including the all important diva Ruka who acted as healer, buffer, attacker and Sp point accelerator.  Ruka's ability is so powerful and all-inclusive that it turned out Tama wasn't even necessary.  The one seraph from the weak squads that was there just to get 1 million points on the score challenge never deployed to the front line so was never at risk.  Sometimes the 'apprentice' seraph did have a useful ability, though, like one that lowered the opponent's defense or fire resistance, in which case I did use them, resulting in ridiculous high scores like 1.5 million and once 1.75 million.  Almost twice the max score!  At that moment Yuki actually did over 100 million damage in a single attack.  She made even samurai Inori look weak.

This gets me one step closer to truly beating the game.  Now that I've beaten the score challenge section all that's left is the anachrony section.  Well, that and getting everyone's master skills, skill evolutions, levels and max skill levels. . .

Meanwhile, I finished my rewatch of Boku no Hero Academia Final and Kimi to Idol Precure.  Two more long great franchises I can say I've fully conquered, proving they're deserving to be in my rankings.  Now there are only 4 great anime series that aren't currently airing that I haven't rewatched in full.  I'm within striking distance of fulfilling my oath on this front as well.

Clair Obscur Expedition 33 beaten at normal difficulty:

Maelle is beautiful and Jennifer English embodies her with a perfect voice performance.  She carries herself with a fencer's grace and has a lively ponytail.  Her red hair and blue eyes are striking.  She's also way stronger than my other characters, running amok with special abilities no one else can attain.  I should go ahead and formally induct her into my fictional character hall of fame.  She'll receive Le ali del principio (from Baten Kaitos II) as her wonderful theme song due to it being French like her.

Clair Obscur can also enter my video game hall of fame, because it's at least better than Phantom Brave.  Phantom Brave Lost Hero was such a chore to play, but Clair Obscur was fun.  Not perfect, but fun from start to finish.  I especially like how satisfying it was to build up my perfect 'pictos + luminas' ability combinations and how great it felt when I successfully parried or dodged all of an opponent's attacks.

The gameplay was addictive, both on and off the battlefield.  The environment was gorgeous and extremely creative.  The fact that anything goes because it's a 'fictional, created world' let all sorts of crazy things happen, like random objects floating in the sky without any support, or it looking like it's underwater despite there being no water.  My biggest complaint is with the plot.  In the end life and death aren't real in this world, people can be unmade and then regenerated freely, so the entire dispute starts feeling phony and pointless.  It's actually quite sensible that you can side with either side of the dispute at the end of the game, because there's no moral weight to one side or the other.  I guess some people like complicated situations like that and think the game is improved by it, but from my point of view I just struggled to become stronger for 50 hours in order to settle a quarrel between siblings.  Oh well.

I still have a dozen other games to play -- Xenoblade Chronicles X, Lunar 2 Remastered, Sea of Stars, Fantasian, Octopath Traveler 0, etc., etc.  I plan to play plenty of video games this year, with Clair Obscur only the beginning.  I'd like to at least play more games than I acquire, so the backlog will actually shrink this year.

There isn't much time for gaming, though.  A new Parchment and Wolf book is coming out soon, as well as the visual novel Ren'ai 0 Km.  Then there's the winter Olympics.

Dead Account is dropped on account of it being a Jujutsu Kaisen ripoff.  I already dropped Jujutsu Kaisen so watching a ripoff of a show I've already dropped doesn't make much sense.  The winter anime season is still 25 series in all, though, thanks to Prism Rondo.  Kimi to Idol Precure ended today but that's okay, because Star Detective Precure begins next week.  I'll be very interested to see whether it too becomes a great season of Precure, or is relegated to the 'good' level like Delicious Smile Precure.  Of course, the first ep won't be enough to determine things one way or the other, but it will certainly provide a good hint.