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Please be advised these posts aren’t spoiler-free.
I’ve been thinking about how to best format this kind of post moving forward – do I want to do a long or concise summary + opinion or strictly opinion? I’ll have to think of something: these posts are not going to get any smaller as I go through more and more content. If I didn’t take light notes throughout the month, I might have nothing to say, and these posts would instead be a listicle. It’s not what I want to do, even if it takes time to write the entry versus the alternative. All I ask is that you bear with me as I figure something out.
Symphogear XV
I’m not a die-hard Blu-ray collector as some of my peers, but I buy the odd release if it’s from a series I really like. Symphogear is one such series. It’s an odd one: you either really like it or really hate it, with no middle ground. After hearing a friend sing its praises for the longest of time, I caved. As per my Crunchyroll watch history, I binged the whole thing in late 2020. Once I discovered that Discotek got the home video rights, I was beside myself. I had to have it. I didn’t get it as they came out but it’d be only a matter of time.
XV starts right after the events of the prior season, AXZ. The deceased leader of the Bavarian Illuminati, Adam, had an interest in the Custodians. He located the resting place of one in Antarctica and S.O.N.G. heads over to investigate. It wouldn’t be a typical exhumation though – by sensing the presence of Symphogear users, the coffin, a turtle-like contraption, broke through the icy lake. And it was battle-ready. After defeating the coffin, S.O.N.G. hands it to the Americans for studying. Inside the coffin lay the corpse of Shem-Ha, the self-proclaimed “God of Earth,” accompanied by her relic, which resembles a vambrace.
It’d be stolen from the Americans by a woman named Vanessa of Noble Red, a remnant group of the Bavarian Illuminati, under orders from Fudo Kazanari, Tsubasa’s grandfather. Not all Kazanaris are in on it – Fudo went rogue, dismayed at the cooperation with the Americans. It went against his beliefs: making Japan the most powerful nation on Earth from the shadows as a sentinel. He’d strike a deal with Noble Red: in exchange for furthering his objectives, he’d provide them shelter and, in the case of Elsa and Millaarc, the means to live.
Failing to tame Shem-Ha’s power, she is reborn through Miku, Hibiki’s closest friend. The rogue Kazanari head apprehended, the spotlight shifts to Shem-Ha – like Finé before her, she wishes to end the Curse of Balal and, through humanity’s mutual understanding, rule all of mankind.
While I was excited back when I first watched XV, this time was different. A six-month gap between when I first started watching the Blu-ray and when I decided to finish it dampened my enthusiasm. I still have a fondness for Symphogear, but what led to that pause, what was happening in my life that I wasn’t in the mood to finish it, I couldn’t say. Burnout, perhaps? At the very least, I was excited to watch the included omakes and I’m thankful that Discotek got those in the package.
One common criticism I hear of XV is the overt sexualization of the transformation sequences, particularly targeting Kirika and Shirabe, the younger members of the group. I think it’s fair to say that Satelight dialed up the fan service for the final entry in the series, and people can have varying opinions on it, but excluding them and not the others is silly to me. At this point in the series’ lifespan, I think it’s fair to say that Satelight isn’t looking for new viewers. XV is not beginner-friendly, and casual watchers won’t sit through four preceding seasons to get the proper context. It’s very much a show for the fans and the tropes it engages on not only are common to a particular anime style, but also many magical girls shows.
Everyone or no-one.
Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II
6 years since her introduction to the anime-watching crowd, the “Pink Devil” returns in the follow-up of the Sword Art Online spin-off centered around Gun Gale Online.
With the battle between LLENN and Pitohui at the end of Squad Jam 2 behind them - and meeting each other in real life - the girls’ friendship deepens. The third iteration of the in-game tournament was announced and Pitohui, sensing LLENN’s hesitation at joining, reminded her of her promise to face off against Team SHINC. She suggests forming a squadron - the two of them, Fukaziroh and M. LPFM was formed, former competitors-now-allies, ready to take on Squad Jam 3.
The map is an island slowly getting flooded as the out of bounds method and has a black rectangle in the middle that’s not called out until later. The weaker teams gang up against the LPFM powerhouse, their flares indicating some degree of coordination. The strategy is devised by a man in the audience - maybe he bet against LPFM? The team hunker down at the trainyard, eliminating most of the competition until the water closes in.
A rather devious rule is unveiled some time into the tournament: a member of the remaining teams is chosen as a “traitor” seemingly at random. Pitohui proudly declares she’s the chosen one out of LPFM and relishes at the thought of facing LLENN once more before being taken away by an unmanned vehicle towards the center of the map, revealed to be a stranded cruise ship. The remaining teams’ goal is to board the ship claimed by the newly formed BTRY before the water claims them all and be the last team standing. Anticipating this, BTRY cuts off the lifeboats to block the entrances - it bought them some time, but the teams managed to board regardless.
After most of BTRY is wiped out, Pitohui confronts LPFM and reveals she wasn’t the traitor, LLENN is. She was merely a stowaway. Upset at her deceit, provoking the exact reaction Pitohui wishes to see out of LLENN, she readies her gun against the ambush before being saved by Eva of SHINC. The rematch that LLENN didn’t want but Pitohui desperately desired is now underway, following the deaths of Eva and Fuka and M’s decision to step down.
I’ll forego summarizing the latter third of the story, whose ending I found so disappointing as it establishes GGO as a potential rehabilitation system for war veterans. I don’t know where the writer is going with this but I’m skeptical, almost disillusioned at this being the route it’s taking to keep the story fresh. I don’t trust a SAO property to treat this with the nuance it deserves, especially after an oblivious LLENN blurts out “because it’s fun!” to a soldier which she was told was an NPC. And viceversa, as advised by a briefing at the end of an episode.
As much as I enjoy the world of GGO, I’m painfully aware that the stories you can tell within are far limited than what you can do in the main story. If (Reki) Kawahara was writing this, he’ll come up with something to keep it fresh, but instead it’s written by Keiichi Sigsawa, a self-professed gun maniac. It’s an interesting thought exercise, how this story would have the breadth - and access! - the main SAO stories have if it was written by the man who birthed the franchise, but he’s not a gun expert, painfully evident in the Phantom Bullet arc. Even if Sigsawa was consulting on this spin-off, this kind of story could only be written by him. I’m told Kino’s Journey, Sigsawa’s flagship work, is excellent and that perhaps I’m being harsh on the prospects of the further development of this story, but this is how I feel as of writing this. Of course, my feelings can change after I’ve experienced Kino, but as it’s not the case, well…
While full of thrills, the third iteration of Squad Jam didn’t hit the highs of the second. While an overall longer run than SJ2 - 6 episodes versus SJ3’s 8 - it felt shorter, more spread out as if it was trying to meet an episode limit.
Some of the monologues and sequences could’ve been shorter to make it more action-packed. The middle part of the SJ3 arc, the one in which BTRY take over the bridge of the ship, is a slog. There were some incidents I could see coming a mile away - Pitohui killing Elvin & his team, who were stranded on a rooftop, and Elvin. Does the audience really need any further reminder of how merciless she is? Was her motivation truly to whittle BTRY’s numbers so she could have her face-off with LLENN? Or just cause chaos for chaos’s sake? I want to think there’s a method to her madness, but I can’t wrap my head around it at times…
VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action
VA-11 Hall-A is a special game. In a world where games of some repute get bigger and bigger in total disregard to the time of their users, this one can be experienced start to finish in a little over 10 hours. Helps that it’s a superbly written one!
How did I find out about this game? A friend spoke highly of it - just the quirky writing alone would put it right up my alley. At the time it was PC-only, I wasn’t willing to buy it on Steam despite having a machine with modest specs. Then in 2019, it got ports for PS4 and Switch. I got the latter one, as it’s the general recommendation for visual novels. I didn’t expect to fall for it as hard as I did. Immediately after finishing the Switch version, whatever resistance I had to buying it on Steam was done away with. I had to replay it, with achievements this time! As it’s a game set over Christmas, it was the perfect game to replay during the holiday season. It inadvertedly became a tradition: the yearly VA-11 Hall-A replay, rotating platforms in which I had the game for:
2019: Switch & Steam
2020: Game Pass
2021 & 2022: PS4
2023: Steam
2024: PS4
VA-11 Hall-A is a visual novel set on a futuristic timeline taken straight out of cyberpunk. It is the year 2069, our protagonist Julianne Stingray (don’t ever call her Julianne) is a bartender at the eponymous bar. And she may be out of a job soon, as the bar was scheduled to close by the BTC conglomerate, owners of the bar. Alongside her, there’s Dana Zane, the manager, and Gillian, coworker and man of many secrets. Whether it’s amnesia or that he has a past he’d rather forget, his writing deftly crosses the line between the two and it’s left ambiguous enough that it could be either or.
As ambassador of Glitch City’s safe-ish nightlife, Jill serves drinks to the people who come to the bar in search of nourishment - or just want to get shitfaced, in the game’s one display of “gameplay”. Simplistic, but it works - it’s meant to be an accessory to the story being told. You’ll meet individuals such as Dorothy Haze, Lilim sex worker, Sei Asagiri, a member of the White Knights under the Valkyrie unit, Alma Armas, professional hacker, among others. Have a seat, grab a drink and talk about life at Glitch City, which ranges from the mundane to deep topics like existentialism.
One thing I’ve come to appreciate is how inclusive it is without making a fuss. If straight characters can be depicted without highlighting their sexual preference, why should non-straight characters? I feel this is the right approach, even if I understand the preference of some in our community wanting to be loud and proud. Still, if we want non-straights to be looked at as normal, our media should normalize them. And there’s representation from every corner: Jill’s bisexual, Dana’s pansexual, Mario’s gay, Betty’s a lesbian, one of Alma’s siblings is a trans man, and those are just the ones that can be confirmed. A deeper dive may reveal more characters…or fuzzy theories.
Despite my affinity for the game and its themes, I’m not the best person to judge on whether it nails the cyberpunk element - I’ll leave that for people smarter than me. Any praise I may throw at it will ring hollow and the fact that I replay this yearly should be enough evidence to state how much I like this game. Perhaps in 2025’s replay, I’ll find out something novel that I’ll want to talk about, but I hope the above makes you at least want to check the game out.
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror & Logan’s Shadow
Last month, I played through the original trilogy and the story of how I got them is there. There were two games left: the PSP ones. While I’d be missing the PS2 title, The Omega Strain, it’s not on PlayStation Plus Premium as of writing. I’m aware it has a bad reputation, but wonder how much of it is because Logan isn’t the main character.
I vaguely remember playing through Logan’s Shadow’s tutorial as the swimming tutorial appeared familiar. Despite the fact that I was playing on the Playstation TV and had a second analog stick, the face buttons controlling where I’d look frustrated me to no end. I didn’t complete the tutorial; I stopped there and wouldn’t come back to either Logan’s Shadow or Dark Mirror until this month.
To tackle this in release order, Dark Mirror comes first. The ICPA, an agency Gabriel Logan leads, was tapped to look into the activities of a paramilitary group calling themselves “Red Section.” They took over an oil refinery in Alaska ran by a company called KemSynth. The company has a classified section on Washington’s reports, and didn’t want to treat this business-as-usual. Then again, the IPCA isn’t being told the whole story: a common theme in Syphon Filter games. Throughout the environment, there are references to one “Project Dark Mirror” and how it’ll kill everyone. We’re not told what this is but it’s likely related to the classified section in KemSynth’s files and it’s presumed that Red Section wants this. Gabe eventually reaches a hothouse, and we start seeing hints of Project Dark Mirror being related to plants.
Further into the story, we meet Addison Hargrove, Gabe’s former field partner, while searching for what Project Dark Mirror is exactly. Here is where my issues with the storytelling begin: she came out of nowhere. Where was she when Gabe was labelled a terrorist and throughout the Senate hearings? Not only that, it turns out Addison was his lover and even had a daughter, Blake Hargrove, though he wasn’t aware of her existence as she disappeared when she found out she was pregnant.
This evolves into a worldwide conspiracy in which I’m supposed to be worried about Gabe’s obsession with someone or…something? I couldn’t tell you, honestly. Another trait that’s new to Gabe. There’s some godawful writing going on: for instance, before being thrown off to the rails and hit by an oncoming train, Singularity, Red Section’s boss, tells Gabe “Who do you think supplies all of your arms? Look in the mirror, Logan. See your reflection. Look in the dark mirror!” What a lazy attempt to tie in the game’s name to a metaphor. Despite conspiracies being central to the Syphon Filter series, Garvin is not good at writing subtext! And that “big” reveal of Project Dark Mirror being a nerve gas at the end of the game? I was as dumbfounded as Lian when she stated “that’s what this whole thing is about?” Nerve gas is already deadly, no matter the source. While an explanation was offered – aerosolized Dark Mirror lingers on longer than traditional nerve gas – it wasn’t a satisfactory one. It could’ve been worked into the story earlier and establish what was at stake, but as it didn’t happen, stopping Singularity felt aimless. Addison’s “death” by itself isn’t that powerful a motivator.
Moving onto Logan’s Shadow, the ICPA is tapped to investigate why Somali pirates targeted the USS Mt. St. Helens. Gabe pushes back on the assignment in disbelief that he’d be dealing with a pirate case, although he has a theory: the Somalis want the contents of Hold Five aboard the St. Helens. Robert Cordell gets Gabe to agree by showing him who was leading the Somali pirates: Ghassan al-Bitar, a Syrian he and a team was tasked with capturing. Failing to secure the contents of Hold Five, his pilot’s dead and unable to get Cordell to call off the missile strike on the ship, Gabe somehow survives. Back home, Cordell framed Gabe’s agency for the loss of the device and made it look as if Lian’s defected with a Chinese man, later revealed to be her husband, Shen Rei, when she was thought to be on Cyprus on leave.
They were captured by Spetsnaz in Azerbaijan. There, Gabe meets Trinidad, a Chinese secret agent, who’s looking for them. With the Americans, Russians, Chinese and the British after Shen, he doesn’t know who to trust. But why does every superpower want Shen? He’s the creator of a device codenamed X-Z-2, a self-sustaining energy mass that would aid third world countries with no power source. Instead, Beijing wanted to weaponize this technology, which Shen disagreed with and led to his defection. After Bitar’s death and our story has a resolution, Trinidad ambushes the ICPA at their make-up base, either under instructions from Beijing or to tie up loose ends. Gabe kills Trinidad, saving Lian, but not before receiving fatal wounds.
I’m unsure why she came back after Shen committed suicide right in front of her, and it’s not explicitly stated why. When investigating this particular point, I came across the fact that the game’s writer was tired of Syphon Filter and wanted to move on. He killed the main character to drive home the point, despite theories on the fandom to the contrary. He must be regretting “killing” Aramov so many times. Maybe it’s just me, but I found Logan’s Shadow story hard to follow, given the numerous parties involved, each with their own agenda. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I don’t recall the Syphon Filter conspiracy being this complex, having this many parties involved…even looking up summaries of the overall plot to help jog my memory, I still found hard to keep track of all of it. Nevertheless, I strongly feel that, had Dark Mirror been more like Logan’s Shadow, I would’ve enjoyed it more.
On the gameplay side, Dark Mirror’s level design was poorly constructed and so dreadfully boring that by the hothouse level – Act 2, Episode 3 – I felt I’ve experienced enough to the point I was considering dropping the game. And don’t get me started on the cover system. When you pushed the left analog stick towards a wall, or anything that was at least four feet tall, you’d snap into cover. In my experience, it barely worked when you needed to. Often, Gabe just standing there while getting shot at - I can see this being a pain in harder difficulties, for sure. I would’ve vastly preferred a dedicated cover button, even if it’s hard to make one work given the PSP has less buttons than a standard gamepad.
Another point against these games is the lock-on system. Now, the Syphon Filter lock-on mechanic has never been spectacular, but it’s markedly worse here. Have two enemies side by side? Want to focus on one over the other? Too bad, the game’s logic will always give priority to the enemy closest to you if they’re apart by even one foot. You’re better off free aiming to the enemy you want to focus fire on. My expectation is that the game is able to tell when I’m pressing the lock-on button repeatedly in short succession, and that action means I want to lock-on to different enemies within my view. And sometimes the system doesn’t let you lock on to enemies in cover, which is perhaps this system’s savior, yet it doesn’t save it from being another mediocre cover shooter. A funny occurring of relying mostly on free aim, particularly with armored enemies, is that I can aim at their extremities to ignore the armor and, by extension, the increased damage I’d need to dole out. I’ll still want to go for headshots if I’m sneaking, but when I’m in a firefight? Aim below the waist.
The Apothecary Diaries, Volume 11
Previously on Apothecary Diaries, Xing was caught in a lie. A perfume that could be used to make a miscarriage inducing drug was found in a shed she visited often, and only because Maomao was asked to look after a sick servant who resided there. Xing admitted to being jealous of Lihua, that she felt entitled to the consort position she had and, when the gig was up, she was about to throw one of these perfumes at Lihua, pregnant at the time, to induce this miscarriage. The attempt failed and, rather than have her cousin face the death penalty, Lihua banished her from the rear palace.
This volume shortly picks up after the visit of the Emperor and Jinshi to the Shrine of Choosing, a place used to determine whether the ruler and consort had a right to rule. The way this was determined is by choosing the correct colored door until you get to the top of the building, but it wasn’t a simple guessing game – the ones who could choose the proper door to go were legitimate heirs of the Queen Mother. The heirs, much like their mother, were colorblind and with Maomao’s ingenuity, she led the duo through the maze-like building all the way to the end. While she isn’t colorblind, she has heard stories about the condition from her adoptive father.
Jinshi had a bad dream involving his mother and grandparents, and this is when the reader is made aware that the current Emperor isn’t his father, but his sibling. How is this relevant to the story, I don’t know yet. It’s possible that the relevance is discussed in a later release – at the moment of writing, there are 2 additional volumes that I haven’t picked up yet.
Maomao is on assignment at Gyokuyo’s quarters when the Empress Dowager, mother of the current Emperor, visits the rear palace. Having caught wind of Maomao’s reputation as a shrewd investigator, she tasks her with finding out if she “cast” a curse on the late Emperor, her husband. It’s said she resented him and wished him dead, night after night. When he died, he was enshrined in the mausoleum for a year before his tomb was ready. A year is enough time for most flesh to decompose and rot, however the late Emperor looked as if he died yesterday. The Empress even thought his corpse was swapped, but that wasn’t the case.
It’s thought he became a shut-in after the late Empress, his mother, passed in his living quarters at the inner court, as if trying to cling to her memories. Staying over at Jinshi’s quarters for the night, Maomao and Suiren, his assistant, go over Jinshi’s childhood toys. One of those is an orpiment mineral – Maomao quickly pointed out it was toxic and asked if it was taken from him right away. Child Jinshi must’ve gone to the inner court somehow, now she only needs to figure out how is the stone related to the location.
The late Emperor took up painting as a hobby, and it’s suggested that the creative pursuit is looked down upon for someone in such a position. Orpiment minerals were commonly used in artworks during the era, as it was one of the few clear, bright yellow pigments available. As the mineral contains arsenic, itself commonly used as a rot and decay retardant, it is plausible the late Emperor’s prolonged exposure to the chemical might have caused this outcome of his body not decaying as expected. On the other hand, it might have also caused his death.
It’s heavily implied that the reason why the late emperor was a pedophile was because of the trauma caused by his mother and, by extension, all adult women. Using the current empress as the conveyor of the message, the story doesn’t excuse him of that either. He was largely thought a useless man, an emperor in name only, with many of the decisions made by the late Empress. Perhaps she entertained his hobby as a means of saying thanks?
This volume is very monologue-heavy. As an adaptation of a light novel, I shouldn’t be surprised when this gets verbose, but there were multiple characters this time around – the usual Maomao, and in some chapters, Jinshi and the empress. I was momentarily confused whose monologue I was reading, and given how dense Apothecary already is, I’d appreciate some clarity without resorting to interpreting the subtext. I haven’t started season 2 of the anime, where I suspect this arc would be on, but necessary context I didn’t picked up in the manga I’d pick up here.
This cliffhanger is frustrating. Some context: back when Maomao and Suiren were going over Jinshi’s childhood toys, there was a mention that any toy Jinshi took a liking to, it’d be taken away. A reminder that he was not allowed to live a normal child’s life. Why that is, I don’t know yet. It explains his psyche of being far too attached to things or people, i.e. Maomao, as if he was afraid of losing them. I seem to recall him, in tears, telling her not to leave him before she went back to the pleasure district. In any case, what does the empress mean by hiding Maomao from him? Like, what does that translate to? And I get that this is meant to keep my interest, to buy the next volume, and it’s frustratingly successful!
That’s it from me. See you next month!