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All Media Log Posts | Next Entry
Please be advised these posts aren’t spoiler-free.
After going over friends’ reading logs, I told myself I’d look into making one. As I’m not a routine reader, I never got around to it - but what about a media log? Sure, I can do that. The most difficult thing is starting and, well, that’s what I’m doing.
My intent is to reflect on the media I consume during the month - gaming, anime, manga and the occasional movie. Some of the entries may already be featured in a prior blog, namely live service games, and any time I feature an entry, I either completed it or beat the main objective. My media diet isn’t very wide, however. I need to get better about that. To make up for it, I’m adding a synopsis alongside some thoughts - an inquisitive mind needs to work out their analytic skills!
hi im inquisitve mind
Honkai: Star Rail
There was a re-run for Acheron’s banner, Words of Yore, giving players another chance to pull for either her or her Light Cone. I got the former last month, but was struggling to get the latter. I was running out of time - the banner ended on December 3rd, and Acheron is one of the few characters in the game that needs her cone in order to be an effective damage dealer. I resorted to opening my wallet and buying in-game currency, which I resent, but I had no other choice. It was either that or having a largely useless character.
Since I “lost” the 80 pull 5-star guarantee, I was guaranteed the featured item after another 80 pulls. As I understand it, there are different drop ratios as you progress, until you hit either the 5-star guarantee, sometimes called soft pity, or guaranteed the featured character or item - hard pity. I’m not the best at explaining gacha mechanics but what matters is that I won her Light Cone two days shy of the banner ending. For the remainder of the month, I’d focus on building her, not only to have a fully built Lightning character, but also to replace a character in my current rotation with her.
In the midst of my efforts, version 2.7 “A New Venture on the Eighth Dawn” started in earnest. The main story explores Sunday’s journey of reflection throughout Penacony as another guest inside the dream, tying up loose ends and saying his goodbyes, as he must leave Penacony a fugitive after the events of 2.2 “Then Wake to Weep”. Disguised as an Intellitron and joined by a Pepeshi named Wonweek, the journey itself was not eventful until he ran across Welt of the Astral Express - the faction he antagonized as former Oak Family head. Sunday, relieved he wasn’t found out and baffled at the Express still stationed in Penacony, sought to continue but was stopped by Welt, as he figured out his true identity and confronted him.
Some time later, Sunday says goodbye to his sister Robin in an emotional, solemn way and comes face-to-face with his greatest adversary - himself. Not an uncommon trope in media, but it makes for an exhilarating battle, as the final boss this time is harder than when the Express crew initially fought him. Finally, he seeks to board the Express as a passenger, but that presents a dilemma - do you forgive him for his actions, misguided as they may be, or do you resent him for antagonizing you and the crew? Ultimately, what the player chooses doesn’t matter as he joins regardless of their wishes - the writers want to do something with Sunday and this so-called choice? It’s nothing but an illusion.
Frankly, I’m skeptical of this redemption arc. Too often in recent media, villains have their actions justified in hopes of making the viewer pity and/or understand where they’re coming from to the point in which the nuance gets some viewers to idolize them - it shouldn’t be this way. I’ll admit that Sunday is an excellently written villain, with all the nuances of someone who genuinely believes he’s doing good for the world, and I believe him facing consequences for his actions is the way to go. Yet the fandom, often insufferable, appears to have missed the point of actions and consequences if the online discourse is anything to go by.
As a fellow internet citizen and Honkai: Star Rail fan, I can’t hide my disappointment. It’s unfortunate how oftentimes I find myself in the minority, and it is one of the reasons I dislike the concept of “fandom” as a homogenized label applied to anyone who likes a thing. Fandoms are judged by their worst actors, and I resent being lumped in with them just because we happen to share an interest.
Not that having different opinions on Sunday make those with whom I disagree a “worst actor”, but I wonder if they’re going insane or am I.
Syphon Filter PS1 Trilogy
I must’ve been bored of tolling away at Honkai: Star Rail after completing the main story of 2.7 “A New Venture on the Eighth Dawn” when I picked these up. A PSone game may come out of nowhere, but I’ve been itching to replay the series for some time. I just wasn’t sure when I’d get around to it. Determined to play the series next, I grabbed the ISOs online to emulate either on PC or Xbox until I decided to check if they were available on PS5.
And they were. I vaguely recall news of these games getting ratings for an imminent release some years ago. With this information on hand, the PS5 versions became the preferable choice, as I didn’t had to get into the fiddly settings of emulators if something went wrong. Also, trophy support! I go to the store page to look at the cost, and it was listed as “free”. There must be some mistake - everywhere I looked, it reported them being $10 per entry, and I didn’t had PS+ Premium either. Puzzling, but I grabbed all the available ones - not gonna argue against free!
Then I remembered the cross-buy initiative of some years past. True, I bought all the games on the Playstation TV in 2021 but I didn’t found any evidence of these games being on the list. I was advised that, even if Sony didn’t announced that games supported cross-buy, chances were that it’d be supported as long as it was a “classic” game. Okay? What does Sony deem to be a “classic game”? I was questioning this more than I should, and it was giving me a headache, so I cut my losses.
The actual games haven’t aged well, I’m afraid. Given how familiar I am with them, I’d play my way around its limitations and outdated designs, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want this game to had its camera controls tied to the right analog stick. And I get why: games needed to work with the original controller sold in ‘94 and the DUALSHOCK was an afterthought. It’s still bad design.
Like my younger self, I was frustrated at the maze-like levels of Syphon Filters 1 & 3 and aiming for headshots at armored enemies as I needed to be both fast and precise with the sluggish controls, else risk them chomping through my armor or, as of the second entry onwards, aiming for my head. I’m hoping I don’t get the itch to replay this game in a very long time.
On an ending note, Bend Studio’s ex-director? The one who made the dumb comment about “woke reviewers”? He was a key figure in the Syphon Filter series. That was fun to learn, I guess.
Bungo Stray Dogs, Seasons 4 & 5
tiger boy~ <333
Last I watched Bungo Stray Dogs, it was the summer of 2019, which means I likely caught the third season while it was airing. It completely differs from how I watch anime nowadays: on my own terms, after it has completed its run, and the surrounding hype around it dead, my thoughts less influenced by the discussions of week-to-week airing.
I genuinely don’t recall why I put off watching seasons 4 and 5, both released in 2023, for this long. You’d think that, as it’s a series I have an affinity for, I’d watch it faster but a full year and a half passed before I did so. Perhaps related to my above-described anime-watching habits? Maybe I fell out of love for anime, in favor of either games or manga? There might be a story there; I’ll mull it over.
Bungo 4 starts with the genesis of the Armed Detective Agency, making the season structurally similar to Bungo 2. Freshly out of the military, Yukichi Fukuzawa now acts as a bodyguard-for-hire, in which he met Rampo Edogawa during a job. A keen observer but a total brat, lacking in social skills. Watching him easily solve a murder case left Fukuzawa baffled and decided to take him under his wing. Word of the duo spread around, especially after the theater murder case, and the nature of their work changed. Thus, the Armed Detective Agency was born.
Back in the present day, Rampo teams up with Edgar Allan Poe to solve a murder mystery involving an ability user able to suppress evidence. It serves as the lead-up to the next arc, the Hunting Dogs arc - after securing a confession out of our suspect and him turning in to the police, a member of a group called “Decay of the Angel” named Nikolai Gogol appears and foreshadows a bigger ploy, one which frames the Agency in service of their larger goal of eliminating the country.
After a rescue mission turned murder, the Agency is deemed a terrorist organization, all per the Angel’s plan. Given the heinousness of the crime, the Agency’s skill level and the amount of classified information they’re privy to as per their government connections, it would befit that a similarly skilled group from within the military gets tasked with hunting them down - the Hunting Dogs, led by Gen’ichiro Fukuchi. The rest of the season becomes a high-stakes game of cat and mouse as the Agency members are separated, one seemingly dies in a confrontation with one of the Dogs, loyalties tested, and the arrests of both Fukuzawa and Osamu Dazai.
In season 5, all the buildup of the prior season comes to its conclusion, alongside new storylines. Fukuchi proposing a international military force at the United Nations after pinning the Sky Casino terrorist plans on the Agency, his unveiling as the leader of the Angels by Rampo, a vampire outbreak led by the Fifth Angel, Bram Stoker and a death game between Dazai and Fyodor Dostoevsky, to name a few. On news of an ongoing outbreak, the leader of the UN orders the use of the ability weapon “One Order”: the final piece in Fukuchi’s plan. His plan wouldn’t be successful, of course, despite some close calls. And now that I think of all the events in season 5, there’s a lot going on! I resisted enumerating them all!
Like prior seasons, Bungo employs multiple stories told from different points of view, converging on events as seen through the eyes of Atsushi Nakajima, our protagonist. I’m convinced, more so than before, that his role in the story as an outsider and / or out of the loop person continues to be masterfully exploited as a narrative device. Never mind that he’s been in the Agency for some time, his obliviousness to a lot of what’s going on around him works in both a comedic and serious way. It may very well be my bias showing, as I genuinely like him - a character that activates my paternal instinct of wanting to protect him.
My main issue with the show is in how it was marketed. Considering there was no grand conclusion to season 4 - the Sky Casino incident, spanning 3 anime episodes or 8 manga chapters, is too short to be an adequate ending. Perhaps its was chosen because it gave a glimmer of hope that the page’s reality-altering power isn’t as ironclad as mentioned? In any case, I could argue on its pacing issues but that’s not my focus. Given how Bungo 4 ended and 5 began, a thought came to me - the latter is a split-cour of season 4. I believe a similar critique can be levied towards Bungo 2 & 3, but it’s more pronounced here, I feel. It certainly affected how I rated the show on Anilist - had Bungo 4 & 5 been together instead of separate, I would’ve given it a higher score.
It’s scummy - establishing a different season number in an anime brings a set of expectations that I don’t believe Bungo met, not even in a subversive way. I hope Kadokawa realizes that it’s okay to call a show a split-cour and it’d still be as easy to sell as a bona fide new season would.
But I’m not holding my breath.
That’s it from me. See you next month!