Summer Anime Preview:

The summer season is as desolate as the spring season, or more, depending on whether Summer Pockets continues into summer or not.  There's only a few series even worth checking out --

City, Tate no Yuusha S4, A Couple of Cuckoos S2, Jidou Hanbaiki S2 and 9-Nine.

This fall is almost as desolate.  There's only Spy x Family S3 and Hero Academy Final to look forward to.  Basically anime went on vacation this year.  But that's okay, I have so many visual novels and video games to play that it doesn't matter.  It's also given me the chance to rewatch all the old great anime that I hadn't rewatched yet.

I beat Chapter 10 of Phantom Brave Lost Hero, putting me officially 2/3 of the way through the endless game.  I have a lot of complaints with the gameplay.  The way to power up is this extremely boring 'title' and 'fusion' process that ain't nobody got time for.  Each fight is actually a puzzle, not a fight, because the goal is to match your confinements and movements to where the pretty rainbow lines go, instead of taking out the enemy.  The pretty rainbow lines give wild enhancements to yourself or the enemy, making them more important than everything you've done to build up your own strength.  And these stupid rainbows cover the whole screen, making the whole world look ridiculous.  It's the exact opposite of FF Tactics' gritty atmosphere.

The plot is also bad.  I have zero empathy for the troubles of phantoms, because I'm not a phantom.  The whole story is about the travails of various phantoms and all the problems they face after death -- but I'm a human and I haven't died yet.  I feel nothing for any of them or any of their concerns.  They're all outlandish and silly since I don't even believe in ghosts, so none of these situations could ever actually emerge.  I get that a story titled Phantom Brave is about phantoms, but it turns out that's just a dumb idea to base a plot around.

I just want the game to end so I can move on to another game, but the game is endless.  It's so freaking long.  For good games that's a feature, but for bad games it's a curse.  I guess it isn't surprising to be cursed by a ghost. . .

Given how frustrating Phantom Brave Lost Hero is, I can no longer endorse it as one of the premier 300 works of art in history within '100 Waifus.'  I'm demoting Phantom Brave and Marona down to the 'silver 60,' and replacing her in '100 Waifus' with Riddle Joker and Nanami.  Nanami is one of the most fantastic fictional heroines ever and eminently deserves the spot.  I also took the opportunity to replace Cana, the drunkard in Fairy Tail, with Frey, the brave warrior in Dead Rock.  I had long ago realized Cana wasn't really deserving of praise, but I kept her in '100 Waifus' because of her relationship with Lucy.  But Frey also has a relationship with Lucy -- they're both the love interests of the male lead of their respective Hiro Mashima manga.  Also Lucy already gave birth to Yakuto so it makes sense that she would have Frey too.  That's an important sibling-sibling bond.

'100 Waifus' is much improved by having great girls like Nanami and Frey in it and by not having bad franchises or characters like Phantom Brave and Cana weighing it down.  Since I already had a new Honoka section edited in, this edit doesn't change anything, it still occurred before my 50th reading session so I'm still safe.

Now that Hisame has reached limit break level 3 I was able to up my score challenge boss high score to 317,000+, which bagged me a new skill guide bonus item.  It's still a far cry from the maximum score of 500k though.  I wonder when I'll ever get that strong.