Miniscule Progress:

I spent another $67 to secure a guaranteed limit break level 1 for unison Karen, as well as a limit break level 4 for base Minori.  As a side benefit I also got hot springs Niina to limit break level 2.  I also restocked on paid quartz whose benefits haven't come to fruition yet.  Unison Karen, as part of my top squad that's meant to beat all the toughest opponents, needed to be stronger than level 0.  The spending was a necessity, sadly.

My light squad did a fine job with the latest score challenge, scoring 1.3 million, about the same score as the critical penetration squad got against the same foe.  But perhaps most impressive right now is squad 31-E, with 5 of the 6 sextuplets now having max level limit breaks, and Niina at 2 out of 4, which isn't bad either.  My original 'top' squad was the sextuplets, from the very beginning of the game they've always outperformed.  It's nice to see them thriving again.  My current priority for protean shards is to give hot springs Isuzu and wedding dress Ichiko their level 3 limit breaks, at which point Squad 31-E will be top of the line.  As will Squad 8, which uses 3 of the sextuplets - base Minori, wedding dress Ichiko and hot springs Isuzu.

No other squad has 5 base SS Memorias at max.  No other squad even has 3 base SS Memorias at max.  Squad 31-E is way out in front.  Maxed out base Memorias are permanent benefits, because they give +10% stats to all memorias of that character, whichever one you use.  They never become obsolete like other memorias do, they're helpful no matter what.

Meanwhile, I beat the last ring questline in Octopath Traveler 0, only for a new enemy to emerge and steal 7 of the 8 rings, then escape into literal Hell.  That's quite the plot twist.  I also got the final sacred weapon and have quite the well equipped party.  I'm far higher level than the plot expects me to be right now, so all the fights are quite easy.  But who knows, maybe the game will last long enough that it will eventually become challenging again.

I rewatched Release that Witch, which is one of the necessary factors for it to make my great anime rankings.  Unfortunately there's still no news on a season 2, which is the other necessary factor.  I swear, these first 8 eps could compete with any first 8 eps of any other series.  If not for Release that Witch being cancelled far too early, it could have ranked so highly.  What a missed opportunity.

I added three new characters to my wonderful hall of fame -- Tetia, the cute and kind fellow apprentice mage in Witch Hat Atelier.  Her long pink hair is wonderful enough right there.  Dragon, Luffy's father in One Piece, who is the heroic leader of a heroic resistance army to a very evil World Government.  (It's only become clear recently how evil the Marines really are.  It's all the more impressive that Dragon was originally a Marine but grew disgusted with how evil they were and formed a resistance movement against it, instead of choosing to stay with the 'winning' side and profit from it.)  Lastly I added a hybrid character as one entry -- Qui-Gon/Darth Maul.  This is because both characters are mirrors of each other -- they both appear and then die in the same movie.  They're both awesome while they last, representing the 'light' and 'dark' side of the same Force.  And they literally fought each other to the death to the song 'Duel of the Fates,' so the song really belongs to both of them.  Two halves of the same whole, they're given Duel of the Fates as their shared theme song.

Obi-Wan now has 'Ben Kenobi's Death/TIE Fighter Attack' as his theme song, which is fitting enough.

Tetia has 'The Town with an Exotic Fragrance' which perfectly fits her cheerful, exciting life.  And Dragon got Omnis Lacrima, a song as epic as his role in One Piece.  1817 characters in all, and I don't think the new ones are any worse than the old.

I watched all the eps of One Piece's Egghead arc that One Pace hasn't covered yet, so I'm all up to date on One Piece.

Kuroha, who wrote the Kitakubu manga, has a new manga out, called Satanica.  It's been good so far, though not as good as Kitakubu.

I've read the first three chapters of Index GT volume 15.  The remaining portions haven't been translated yet, but they should be available soon.  I don't like this new 'heel turn' by Hamazura, so the book has only been mediocre.  Currently Index and Xanth are competing to see who will waste more of my time by never ending, but after coming this far there's no way I'll drop either of them.

The next Xanth book should be out in a few days, so after Index comes Xanth again.

Small Progress:

No new event came out in Heaven Burns Red today, but there were a lot of paid quartz offers I took advantage of, seeing as how I'd accumulated a vast pile of paid quartz in the past.  This netted me a lot of useful limit breaks, like funeral Tsukasa going up to level 2, wedding dress Ichiko to 2.5, vendor Chiroru to 2.5, raccoon Kanata to level 1, light Yuina to 3.5, base Minori to 3.5, etc.  The best acquisition was a brand new suit Bon Ivar.  Unfortunately a new Ichiko SS Memoria has come out, so the total number of missing SS Memorias from my collection stays the same.

I climbed the new floors of the clock tower and got Risa and Tama's skill evolutions.  I also got the new high score rewards available there.

I got Risa's reversions up to 5 like my other elite characters.

I beat the new score challenge with a high score of 1.3 million, enough to claim all the loot available there, like usual with my critical penetration squad.

I've also made progress in Octopath Traveler 0.  I've beaten 7 out of the 8 ring questlines.  I've gotten most of the battle tested, forbidden and sacred weapons.  I've fully built out my city of Wishvale.  The best part of this new Octopath game is that it plays a lot like Heaven Burns Red, with a frontline set of characters and a backline that can be exchanged freely.  The backline units can't act or take damage, but they do acquire resources while in the back.  Then when the frontline is exhausted you can take up the slack with the backline and let the frontliners rest and recuperate in a place of safety.  It's the coolest system ever for turn-based combat with large parties.  I thought Heaven Burns Red, which lets you play with 6 characters like this, was a great improvement over the typical 3-man parties of Final Fantasy.  But Octopath one-ups that and lets you play with 8 characters at once.  The versatility of choosing any ability you want between eight different characters is unmatched in any turn-based game ever.

Driselle and Waya:

Driselle is a minor character but a consequential one.  She matters to both Rowen and Elize by giving both of them a new home and family.  She's pretty, kind and brave.  That's good enough for me, especially when the perfect song is waiting for her, 'A Merchant Town Full of Life.'  This fits as her theme song because she's the leader of the city that the song is literally about.  Hubert got a Tales of Graces song, 'Dance of the Unified Water,' because he's a Tales of Graces character.  Itsuki from Haruhi Suzumiya, who used to have Dance, was given Unused Track 05 from Air instead.

Waya is the handsome young Go player in Hikaru no Go who feels like what ordinarily would be the protagonist of the series.  He's friendly and well-liked and good looking and competent at his job.  I gave him the theme song 'The Second Element II' because he got second in the pro exam.

I test drove unison Karen in my critical penetration squad against the latest score challenge and for the first time ever got over 1.8 million.  The highest squad 31-A has ever  scored is 1.75 million.  This is objective proof that unison Karen is the real deal.  This is at level 0 limit break -- everyone in Squad 31-A is at max limit break level 4.  The reward for reaching 1.8 million was a bunch of title badge experience which got Karen, Risa, Inori and Jamie to title badge level 10, unlocking new skill slots for those four.  This one score challenge created more title badge 10 holders than everything I'd done before.

I've finished the original arc of Octopath Traveler 0, avenging the destroyers of my city.  It's a great game.  What impresses me most is how they reuse assets from the first two games, the layouts of all the cities, the music, etc., while still producing an original game with an original plot.  Maybe more games should use this model, in order to lower production costs while still producing an entertaining product.

Futamata Ren'ai read in full:

I'm now fully caught up with the English-translated Ren'ai visual novel series.  The first one I read, Karichaimashita, is still the best, all because of how adorable Hasumi is, but Futamata Ren'ai is the second best of them.  As expected, the individual routes were almost entirely sexual content with very little romance or plot.  I do think Yua's route was a bit more nuanced and positive though.  I grew to like her more during her specific route than I had during the common route.  The most important thing is I finished reading a visual novel I'd recommended to others, which makes me not a hypocrite.

Since the release of Tenpure! was delayed, my next visual novel will be Happiness 2, which has been waiting in my backlog forever.  However, I suspect Octopath Traveler 0 will take up most of my time and Happiness 2 will stay waiting.

The Release that Witch Chinese animation ended at the random number of 8 episodes, well short of the normal 12-ep runs that Japan sticks to.  I added a wish for a second season of it to my wishlist, and now the long wait begins.  If Release that Witch doesn't get a second season, I'll have to remove it from my rankings, because my rankings are for tv-series length anime, not movie-length anime.  But it can stay there for now until another great anime comes along that can reasonably surpass it.  Maybe the summer season will have a nice surprise like Witch Hat Atelier surprised this spring.

With some free quartz and free Golden Week celebration rolls, I got the unison Karen SS Memoria I've been waiting for, rococo Sumomo to limit break level 3, and two more mementos -- hacker Yuki and king Ruka -- to max.  I can't deny hacker Yuki and king Ruka's strength, since they scored higher against the dark element score challenge than my standard dark squad (which supposedly has a much higher rating).  So they deserve at least a little support.  The moment I got unison Karen I gave her an eternal daphne, maxed out her memento, and stuck her in my strongest squad, the critical penetration squad.  She's both a breaker and a blaster, and both her special attacks are critical penetration techniques.  This is the first blaster in the game with the critical penetration skill, she's an absolute necessity to my squad.  Imp Yayoi already made my critical penetration squad insane, but with unison Karen's help the sky is the limits.  Basically, in my experience, every squad needs a healer/defender/admiral (one of those), a blaster, a breaker, an attacker, a buffer and a debuffer.  Whenever you stray from that balanced lineup your damage starts going down and your resilience to the enemy's attacks also starts suffering.  All this time my critical penetration squad lacked a blaster, which is what allowed my plot squad, 31-A, my primary fire squad, to stay as my premier squad.  But now they've got some real competition.  If I got unison Karen and imp Yayoi some limit breaks it wouldn't even be close.

On my critical penetration squad, shrine maiden Risa is my healer/buffer, unison Karen is my blaster/breaker, imp Yayoi is my breaker/buffer/attacker, phantom thief Jamie is my buffer/debuffer/breaker, fox Miya is my buffer/debuffer, and samurai Inori is my pure attacker.  If there's one character I could replace with someone stronger, it would be Inori.  But samurai Inori is stronger than rococo Sumomo, another critical penetration attacker, so for now her job is secure.  It's just that these days a lot of characters can serve as two roles, while Inori is still only serving one.

All the money I spent up until now wasn't in vain.  The money I spent on unison Karen and imp Yayoi have now paid off in a miracle squad.

I now have 2 limit break level 3 Seira SS Memorias and I like them both, so I figured it was about time to promote her to my wonderful hall of fame.  Simultaneously, I like the new Heaven Burns Red song 'This Game Needs Guns,' so I made that Seira's personal theme song.  This gets my wonderful playlist up to 1812.  Seira is beautiful, strong, and I totally sympathize with her favorite hobby of 'shipping' various relationships around the base.  There hasn't been a Seira-specific event yet, but I'm sure it will be great when it happens.

Lunar 2 Remastered beaten:

Apparently there's postgame content but I just looked up the ending cinematic online because I can't be bothered to play this game any longer.  Beating Zophar and bringing world peace is good enough for me.  The trick to defeating Zophar is White Dragon Protect.  Zophar keeps pounding the party with magic attacks every turn, so the only way to limit his damage output is to put a magic-cancel barrier on every character every turn.  Then the healer can keep up with his physical attacks and your party stays alive.  The only way to keep up Dragon Protect on the party every turn for such a long fight is to equip Lemina with it, because she has the highest mana pool, and then give her a constant supply of silver lights which restore her mp to full whenever she's looking tired.  Luckily Zophar's hp is low enough that I still had some silver lights to spare when he croaked.

Zophar has a hand that sucks away at your mana supply, but it can be quickly chopped off with Hiro's triple slash, so that's the first priority in the boss fight.  The second priority is to kill the hand that keeps casting all that devastating magic, but sadly it's only vulnerable to magic attacks, and Lemina, the magic attacker, has to stay busy casting Dragon Protect.  Which meant Hiro had to deal with this hand, too, using super cyclone, an ability that's hardly his forte.

I lost to the boss multiple times before I won, he's not an easy encounter at level 51.  In fact I lost to most of the bosses in the game before I worked out how to win them.  The whole game wasn't forgiving.  The bosses in Lunar 2 all come after long and grueling dungeons that sap away at your mana supply and you never get to restore your mana before boss fights.  The same was true of Zophar, I used 14 star lights (mana potions) just to get my mana back before the boss encounter.  And you can only hold 20 in your inventory.

On another bright note, it turns out Hikaru Midorikawa (the voice of Kyosuke in Little Busters!) is the Japanese voice for the protagonist, Hiro.  The Japanese audio feature of the remaster keeps paying dividends.  I also learned that Noriyuki Iwadare was the composer of Lunar 2, not Isao Mizoguchi like I had long assumed.  Isao was a lowly underling while Iwadare did the real creative work.  It makes sense because the music of Lunar 1 and Lunar 2 is very similar in style and tone.  It turns out it was by the same composer, so of course it sounded similar.  This means Noriyuki gets all the points credit in my music hall of fame for Lunar 1 and 2, suddenly making him my 11th favorite composer of all time with 444 points in all.

It took years to beat these two remastered games from the time I bought them.  I always had something better to do, until now.  I finally found some time in my schedule to stroll back down memory lane.  I love the anime style of Lunar 2, it's the same 90's style I was praising in Samurai Spirits.  Studio Gonzo did the animation, a studio that went out of business long ago, but was legendary during its time.

My main complaints with the game are how pointless and repetitive the dialogue with npc's was, and the gameplay.  It's never made clear what your equipment or spells do.  In fact, you aren't even allowed to know the stats of equipment in stores until you buy them.  And there's all sorts of hidden drawbacks to spells that are never included in the tooltip, like that your attack and defense buffs gradually wear off over time.  How much time?  Nobody knows.  It's never made clear how long the buffs last.  How can I plan around spells when I don't even know what they do?  Heaven Burns Red gives detailed descriptions of what every ability does down to 1% changes, with clear descriptions of how many uses they have or how many turns they last.  It's just an infinitely better turn-based combat system.

One ability, Blue Dragon Rise, literally in the tooltip says 'unleash your fighting spirit.'  It doesn't buff any known stat, so nobody knows what it actually does.  And yet it costs 14 mp and a turn to cast.  A buff that nobody knows what it buffs.  A mystery that's lasted 30 years since the game came out and still nobody knows.

Oh well, everyone knows Lunar isn't about gameplay, it's about the anime cut scenes and music.  And those were splendid, just as I remember them being.  Now I can play Octopath Traveler 0 which I'm sure has a much more modern, complicated, yet well-explained combat system.

I also finished Kirame's route, so all the girls I included in my wonderful hall of fame, I've now properly done their content.  I don't endorse things I'm not willing to do myself.  There's only one route left in Futamata Ren'ai, Rui's route, a girl I really don't care for, but I'll do it just to finish the game.

Miko Event Cleared:

I spent around $300 for the new SS Memoria that came out this weekend, and I still didn't get them all.  It's a good thing I'm rich because otherwise Heaven Burns Red would bankrupt me.  I don't have to get every single SS Memoria they ever release, but I at least want all the Squad 31-A memorias, a record I have maintained for years.  These are the plot-related memorias.  I got funeral Tsukasa but I still haven't gotten unison Karen.  Luckily there's still 26 days left to acquire unison Karen, so I'll get it sooner or later.  Unison Karen is so awesome.  You get to play as both Karen and Karrie at the same time, switching modes at will based on the situation on the battlefield.  It isn't just strong, it signifies her spiritual growth that occurred in Chapter 5 Part 2 Act II.  She's finally melded her two personalities into one lethal whole.  I love the new Karen, and her whole story arc.  I just have to own the avatar of that metamorphoses.

While I wait for the rolls to go my way with unison Karen, I did accomplish some other useful things with that whopping $300.  I got base Yotsuha and base Misato to max level 4 limit break.  I got base Hisame to level 3 limit break.  I got swimsuit Mari to max level 4 limit break.  I got wedding dress Seira to level 2.5, sorceress Seira to level 3, motorcycle Mion to level 2, idol Ichigo to level 2, base Ruka to level 1, tuxedo Yuki to level 1, brewfest Adelheid to level 1, and a bunch of memorias to 2.5.  I'm now in the unfortunate position of having 14 2.5's all waiting for their protean shards.  I think I've cleared out all the 3.5's, I got all of them to level 4, but the 2.5's just keep proliferating.  I also got some mementos to max -- now everyone with an eternal daphne also has a max power memento.  And I got an additional eternal daphne and a lumen crystal which can max out a memento in the future.  I think I'll use one of them on unison Karen once I get her, and the other I'm still preserving for the eventual release of admiral Nanami.  I also have a mountain of paid quartz waiting for releases in the future.  I might have to actually waste my paid quartz to get unison Karen, but I'll only do that as a last resort 26 days from now.

I've restored everyone's memories except for Squad 31-B.  I got Risa's and Mari's new skill evolutions.  I got everyone credit for beating Skullfeather first form.  This was the toughest hurdle, because you can't hide in the background against Skullfeather first form, they have to actually beat either the head or tail section themselves.  31-F and 30-G honestly beat their half, after a lot of hard fighting.  For 31-D I mixed the half that hadn't beaten Skullfeather in with Squad 31-A (my strongest squad), so they fought but they had help.  As for my Angel Beats collaboration characters I again mixed them in with Squad 31-A so they could get some much-needed help.  But one way or another everyone now has that title badge achievement.

I beat the latest score challenge with over 1.3 million points, enough to get all the available loot in the challenge.  The score challenge was weak to dark, but my dark squad only got 1.2 million.  It was my critical penetration squad that got over 1.3 million.  Critical Penetration is such a broken ability it's better than exploiting elemental weaknesses.  I'm trying to integrate funeral Tsukasa into my ice squad, but as of now all I've done is weaken my ice squad by replacing a max limit break admiral with a level 0 limit break newbie.  But I think eventually funeral Tsukasa could surpass admiral Aoi.  Her buffs to ice damage are tremendous.  At least I did squeeze in swimsuit Mari into one of my three fire squads.  It would be ridiculous if I got swimsuit Mari up to max limit break, an eternal daphne and max memento level and then couldn't even use her.

Despite all the limit break increases, I've managed to keep all my unit levels maxed out.  I'm also slowly chipping away at the memoria levels.  Unfortunately the new recruits mean my skill levels aren't maxed out anymore.

As for the event itself, I've never much liked Miko Tenne.  She did have a good backstory.  It turns out she had a brain tumor which was causing her to lose her memories, and she started working in pharmacology (which she playfully calls alchemy) to cure herself.  Unfortunately she ends up killing herself with an imperfect treatment, but that leads to her second life as a seraph where she's back to full health.  Now she's using her medicinal knowledge for treating memory loss on Yayoi, who has a similar problem (due to head trauma, not brain cancer).  But a good backstory doesn't change her annoying personality and subpar looks.  The new song that came with the event is also good, titled 'This Game Needs Guns.'  It isn't super amazing, so I rated it 3-star in my hall of fame. I guess I'd rate this event 3-star too -- worthy of note but not special.  The potion mixing is fun, but it takes forever to gather the ingredients, and each time you restart the event your ingredient count goes back to zero, so it's really frustrating.

The reason I bought Lunar Remastered is I wanted the authentic Japanese audio option.  Now that's paid off because Megumi Hayashibara (the seiyuu of Ranma girl-type) is the real voice behind Lemina, the blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty and scion of magic capital Vane.  Now it makes a lot more sense that I promoted her to my wonderful fictional characters -- of course she's wonderful with Megumi as her voice.  Once I beat Lunar 2 I can play Octopath Traveler 0.

I've beaten Miyako's and Yua's routes in Futamata Ren'ai.  They both did a great job validating their entry into my wonderful list too.  I'm most of the way through Kirame's route and she's validated her place in my wonderful hall of fame too.

Rimi:

The 1,811th wonderful character in my hall of fame is Rimi from History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi.  Rimi is a minor character, the same as Renka, who only appears in a small section of the manga.  However, there's a big difference between a minor character and an inconsequential character.  Renka is an inconsequential character, if she were taken out of the manga no one would notice.  She never mattered to anyone else in the series and she never changed the flow of events in the plot.  Rimi appeared on the scene like a supernova and became Miu's biggest rival, Ryuuto's lover, and Kensei's prized disciple.  She caused Ryuuto and Kenichi to fight Kensei, severing Ryuuto's ties with his master, and she taught Miu how to master her dou ki, an important powerup for her.

Every scene with Rimi in it was lovely.  She has the best character design in the series (a very long series with a lot of characters).  Her gothic lolita black dress is popping.  But she's constantly cosplaying in other outfits with the delightful reason that 'she thought [whichever man she's addressing] would enjoy it.'  And of course we, the reader, do enjoy every last cosplay.  She looks great in everything.  Her golden shoes used as training weights make for a delightful joke as Miu's greed always comes to the forefront around them.  Her open and all-powerful love for Ryuuto is the best among all the girls in the series.  That she keeps a blog of her own with delightful pictures of herself posing for the camera makes her an idol on top of everything else.  And her fights with Miu are the best fights in the series.  Her dedication to beating Miu and stopping at nothing to do so is on par with any heroics Kenichi showed in his fights.

Because Rimi was a minor character I'd forgotten all about her until I reread the manga, but I won't forget her again because she was a consequential character.  Because Rimi was a fast and intense warrior who awakened her latent potential through severe training, she receives the fast-paced and intense theme song 'Awakening' from Final Fantasy 11.

Nothing else of consequence has happened recently.  I finished Tales of Xillia Remastered -- it's so buggy that the game crashes against the last bosses and the arena bosses, making the game a pain instead of a pleasure, but you can get around the game crashes by setting the difficulty to 'easy' and beating the bosses instantly, before the bug occurs.  It's totally unacceptable that a game with such large bugs is on the market being sold as a finished product, especially since it's been a year since it was released, but at least I got the Japanese audio features I was listening for.

Trump's would-be assassin is a typical Democrat reciting the typical Democrat talking points.  I'm sure most Democrats consider him a hero who unfortunately failed.  But Trump can't really complain if he's assassinated because he himself ordered the assassination of Khamenei (along with the gratuitous murder of his granddaughter and other innocents in the vicinity) (alongside the massacre of 168 innocent schoolgirls and the massacre of over 100 unarmed sailors on a diplomatic trip to India).  Live by the sword, die by the sword.  My complaint is in a different trajectory, that the security was barely sufficient to stop one determined gunman from rushing the front door.  What if it had been five?  Why wasn't everyone checked for weapons at the entrance to the hotel and stopped right there?  It's absurd that lone gunmen can get that close to the President without any resistance.  Yet again the Secret Service totally made a buffoon of itself.  I am sick of the deep state intentionally not doing their job and making it so easy for these 'lone gunmen' to try their luck one after the next.  Everyone in the Secret Service should be fired and replaced by actual bodyguards who honestly want Trump to live.

In a recent Tucker Carlson interview, an ex-CIA guy admitted they supported Afghanistan's heroin cultivation because the drugs mostly went to Russia and Iran, harming the people of those countries.  This was considered a 'win' because they were our enemies.  Note this was done in 2001-forward, long before Russia 'brutally and unprovokedly invaded Crimea' or Georgia or any other imagined crimes.  Proving America has a blind hatred and genocidal intent towards Russia that has nothing to do with Russia's behavior.  Proving every conflict Russia gets into, from Chechnya forward, was in fact a shadow-campaign proxy war of America on Russia, and that America has always been the aggressor.  It's like we just can't accept winning the Cold War and want to punish Russia more.  Now we're supporting jihadis in Mali because this will destroy a Russia-friendly government.  Nevermind the chaos and carnage that will come to Malian citizens if jihadis take power.  All that matters is hurting Russia.  The reason we bombed Serbia under Clinton also takes on a new tint when you look at matters this way.  Were we really concerned for the poor Muslim minorities in Yugoslavia, or were we just destroying a historic ally of Russia with a throwaway excuse?

It now appears that America never stopped waging war on Russia, it immediately started plotting how to hurt it further the moment the USSR disbanded.  Why else would it expand NATO when the USSR no longer posed a threat to Europe?  Why did it support the Chechen terrorists and the Kosovar terrorists who were ethnically cleansing Serbs out of Kosovo?  Why did it convince Georgia to make a suicidal attack on Russian peacekeepers?  Why did it overthrow Ukraine's admitted-by-Wikipedia freely and fairly elected government in a coup when new elections were scheduled later that year?  It's famous how we stirred up Jihadis in Afghanistan to lure Russia into an unwinnable war there, but now it appears that didn't stop with the Cold War, we just kept on doing it all the way to the current war in Ukraine.  What is this inveterate vendetta about?  Russia has traditionally been an ally of America.  The only exception is the USSR, when Russians weren't even in control of their government (Stalin was Georgian, Kruschev was Ukrainian, as was Breznevh).  But even then, in the most important war, the USSR was our indispensable ally in WWII.  So whence does this hatred of Russia come?

I got all my seraphs in Heaven Burns Red to their max unit level.  But there's still a long slog of getting their memoria levels to max.  I suspect by the time I could manage that the level cap will have grown again, making the goal ever-elusive.  I also maxed out everyone's skill levels.  And I got base Risa's exclusive skill to introjection level.  It feels like a hollow victory when I failed to recruit the two new SS Memorias and lost my claim of owning every SS Memoria in the game, but I guess I'll take what I can get.

Witch Hat Atelier continues to impress, proving my rating of it as a great anime true.  Every episode is a visual spectacle, and the apprentices have all the virtues you could ask for -- courage, compassion, creativity and cognition.  I already knew Mao would be great from reading the manga so the Mao anime being great comes as no surprise.  But my eye of judgment when it comes to instantaneously recognizing great art remains unfailing.

There isn't much going on this upcoming May, the release of the Tenpure!! visual novel has been delayed, so I'll have to finally work on my video game backlog.  But this June it'll be back to sports via the World Cup.  Then in July there will be a new anime season featuring the conclusion of Bleach, and with August we're right back to football season.  When it comes to entertainment value, I have no complaints with 2026.  And in 2027 we'll probably see the conclusion to the epic FF7 Remake trilogy, one of the capstones of my entire life.  If so, I won't have any complaints with that year either. . .