5480:

Every single Pretty Cure opening theme has wormed its way into my heart and reached my music hall of fame.  Something no other anime series can say, even series I deeply admire like Fairy Tail, Naruto, One Piece or Bleach.  I don't know the genius behind the Pretty Cure anime, but somehow they pick amazing musicians and composers and singers every time and, miraculously, have a 100% success rate.  Even the Huggto and Kira Kira seasons which weren't great to watch still had great opening themes.  So it isn't a surprise that I eventually gave in and included Tropical Rouge's op and ed themes as well.  It was really just a matter of time.

'Viva! Spark! Tropical-Rouge! PreCure' is by Machico and 'Tropica I N G' is by Chihaya Yoshitake, both Pretty Cure singer veterans who are as expected keeping the flame alive.  This puts my music hall of fame to a nice round 5480.  I guess 5500 would be even rounder, maybe I'll reach there by the end of the year?

If there's anything I've noticed it's that the number of great things in this world is always increasing but never decreases.  Music, anime, manga, video games -- once made they never disappear.  Artistic legacies last forever.  The wealth of mankind is forever piling up.

This is also true of Battle Athletes.  The new season is a blast from the past, it feels like the previous oav's only ended yesterday, even though they're 24 years old now.  It felt like we had never left the world and it's as exciting and beautiful as ever.  If there was any doubt yes, this is a great addition to an already great anime.  Battle Athletes would be in trouble if it stayed only an old oav series, I've been cutting series like that from my rankings -- Bastard!, Shamanic Princess, Gunbuster, etc.  But with this influx of new content it's safe from any such evil eye, likely forever.  Now that we have a decent length show with modern graphical capacities, I'm excited to see the new heights to which this show can soar.

Edens Zero aired for the first time in high resolution in Japan, but we may be in a pinch.  It's not airing in the USA until this fall, so if there are going to be any subtitles, it will have to be by the fansub community all on its own with no help from ripped commercial releases.  Sometimes the fansub community comes through like they did with Pretty Cure, and sometimes they don't -- like how we still lack a Grisaia ova 3 translation or an Omoi, Omoware translation.  People have busy lives and I can't blame them if they don't want to be helpful to others, but I've been looking forward to Edens Zero for so long now.  I'd hate to have to wait another six months now that it's already begun.  All we can do is hope and pray.

We're still waiting on the debut of Fumetsu no Anata e, Osananajimi ga Zettai ni Makenai, and Cestvs.  Then the spring season will be officially underway and I can publish the third and final first impression post.

I rewatched the Shirobako movie and it's as bad as ever.  The only praise I can give it is that the girls are cute.  (The men sure aren't, they're all incredibly fat.)

Non Non Biyori Nonstop is longer and thus harder to rewatch.  I thought the latest season was quite weak -- it kept introducing new characters I cared nothing about even as the story was wrapping up.  Is that really the time to introduce new people?  But oh well, with steady effort the rewatch will be completed soon enough.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a horrid game.  Its gameplay and graphics is even worse than Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition.  There are only two saving graces to this game -- the amazing soundtrack I already knew about and already have in my music hall of fame, and the beautiful girls (Homura/Hikari and Nia).  Nia's still as great as ever and a worthy addition to my fictional character hall of fame, but it's a struggle playing such an unfun game.  Everything is three times as hard as it should be, like finding where the hell to go on the map, or gathering enough materials to unlock a new skill.  Everything is insanely time consuming and the payoff is almost nil.

The combat is possibly even worse than the first game, which was already awful.  And the plot is pathetically simple -- 'an evil terrorist organization seeks to wipe out humanity and kidnap your girlfriend, what are you going to do about it?'  Well, hmm, I guess I'll fight them, then.  Seeing as how I have absolutely no other choice and I'd be an idiot not to. . .

Someday I'll finish this stupid game and then I can try out Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default II.

P.S.: Oops, back down to 5479.  'Hoshi wo sora ni' was too lame on the 119th listen-through.  So much for my round number. . .