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October 18, 2015

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Amused, Angry, Commentary, Iron-Blooded Orphans, Nothing of Value, TV/Anime

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Iron-Blooded Orphans – Episode 3

"Kudelia" needs to watch Pleasantville.

“Kudelia” needs to watch Pleasantville.

Episode 3 – Glorious Misogyny

  • Daisuki-DOTTO-NETTO!!
    • Double exclamation points are teh bomb.
  • “Eating again? – Or(l)ga
    • Yes, Or(l)ga. Humans tend to fucking eat. Repeatedly.
      • Are you in any way surprised that Augus is eating a lot after a battle in which a Hitler Nintendo NX nearly killed him?
  • Augus’ overcoat in no way flatters his ridiculously ripped physique. It looks like something made for the inhabitants of Planet Moscow. Or something.
  • That was the most boring and inconsequential opening of an anime episode I’ve seen in a while.
    • “Hey, eating again?”
    • “Yep.”
    • “Huh. Okay. Well then.”
    • [cut to opening sequence]
      • You know what this means, children: the budget ran ooooooooooooooooooooooooooout. Hee hee.
  • PSA: despite this opening sequence’s implications, Iron-Blooded Orphans’ gender ratio does not reflect reality.
    • Shocking PSA: there are slightly more women than men in the general population.
      • Very shocking PSA: they are people just as much as men, with their own dreams, fears, aspirations, and worth.
        • Sorry to blow your mind, Japan.
          • (But not really, you misogynist twerps.)
  • Oh ho ho, Biscuit is in charge of food after the crisis. It’s not like he could be a competent engineer or anything. Fat people love food.
    • Ha ha. It’s funny because Japan is still stuck in 1954.
  • Great idea, Biscuit: give a giant boiling pot of food to your twin sisters to carry. They’re only, like, eight years old. The pot probably weighs as much as both of them combined.
    • Are you trying to give them second-degree burns and a horrific childhood memory?
      • World’s Best Brother, AD 23-something: Biscuit.
  • ありがとう、アトラ。皆喜んでいる。” -Biscuit
    • Oh, of course the woman is in charge of food too.
      • Looking past the tired, happy-feely horseshit that Biscuit seems to Chief of Staff for, this scene is clearly implying that women have nothing to contribute to society beyond supporting men.
        • Thanks, Sunrise. Thanks for moving our species forward into the future.
  • And of course, Atra blushes and smiles by squinting her eyes at Biscuit’s tired, useless, patronizing compliment.
    • Hey, Atra: where’s that guy you’re mooning over that doesn’t give two shits about you?
      • Even if he does, he doesn’t show it in any discernible way, so it’s the same thing.
        • Hey, Atra: since all these people are horrible idiots, how about next time you poison all the food and watch them die in painful convulsions? That would make your character both way more interesting and useful.
  • Continuing this show’s brave march into the Land of Misogynia, “Kudelia” naturally wants to help prepare the food, like a good Japanese woman, but like a good token “strong”, “female” “character”, is hilariously inept at it.
    • It also reinforces that she’s rich, even though everyone could tell by the fact that she has a personal factory for supplying her with hairspray, which she requires for sustenance.
      • Yes, “Kudelia” is so spoiled and pampered that she’s completely useless with a ladle, which requires only the most basic amount of hand-eye coordination.
        • She’s acting like it weighs 100 kilograms or something and is a bizarre object crafted by an alien civilization.
          • Someday, somewhere, Sunrise will stop treating its female characters like shit.
  • No, I’m not getting off this soapbox. All the female characters in this series are in this scene, and they are all delicate objects of desire and support for the men. This is sexism at its most sinister and subtle. It’s so bad that a stereotypically butch female pilot character with the personality of a lead bar and a boringly tragic past would be admirable progress for these writers.
    • So no, Sunrise, this scene is no way funny. It’s fucking insulting.
  • “Kudelia” is so useless and ignorant she DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO USE A KNIFE.
    • Excuse me while I go use a knife on some Sunrise writers.
      • Aww, the annoying brat with no distinguishing features gives “Kudelia” cute but absolutely useless advice on culinary preparation techniques.
        • “When cutting vegetables, make cat paws”.
          • DAWWW, KAWAII DESU.
            • Except not. What does that even mean? That doesn’t even make sense as an analogy for cutting vegetables. Have these writers never cut vegetables before either?
              • She’s pressing on that knife like she’s performing CPR. So either these are Martian cucumbers with skin as resilient as granite or that knife is duller than a worn slab of granite.
  • THESE WRITERS ACTUALLY THINK THIS PATRONIZING DISCRIMINATION IS FUNNY AND HEARTWARMING.
  • Enough talking with women, Biscuit. It’s time for MAN WORK.
    • WHICH ONLY MEN CAN DO.
      • And they’ll thoughtfully shield them from such harsh, masculine affairs. Women should be unblemished and pretty for the men when they get home.
  • Meanwhile, the men are down in the dumps and struggling with REAL emotional torments.
  • Lupin IV actually insults Biscuit by telling him to put his butt meat inside his soup.
    • That got odd really fast.
  • “Kudelia” has acquired the Skill [Basic Hand-Eye Coordination]! Her DEX increases by +5!
    • But she still scales worse than all the men.
  • These little brats call her お嬢様 and act like her serving them food is the best thing ever, even though it’s no different from any of the rest of the glop in the kitchen.
    • Remember, children: women support men like good mothers. It’s how it works.
      • *wink*
  • Augus is as personable and likable as ever.
    • He’d make a lead bar dance and sing with his stoic gaze and piercing eyes.
  • “Kudelia” is so incompetent at cutting things she made big vegetables. HMMM. LET’S SEE IF AUGUS TAKES THEM.
    • HE TOOK THEM.
      • THIS SERIES IS SO RADICAL AND INNOVATIVE.
        • AND “KUDELIA” IS EMBARRASSED TO THE POINT WHERE SHE DEFIES THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.
          • EVEN THOUGH CUTTING SLIGHTLY LARGER VEGETABLE PIECES WOULD IN NO WAY RUIN THE FOOD.
            • SHE’S SO IGNORANT AND SHELTERED SHE DOESN’T REALIZE THAT EITHER.
              • YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. IT’S CUTE.
                • THIS SERIES IS A STEAMING PILE OF FLY-INFESTED EXCREMENT.
  • Augus, of course, treats her warmly and likes her food. In three…two…one…
    • BULLSEYE.
      • HEED THY PROPHET, YE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.
        • I SPEAK THE WORD OF THE LORD.
  • And “Kudelia” blushes in shocked surprise.
    • SUNRISE, I JUST PREDICTED EXACTLY WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN EVERY SCENE OF THE PAST 5 MINUTES.
      • GET. BETTER. WRITERS.
        • ALSO, FOR THE BILLIONTH TIME: “KUDELIA’S” HAIR IS FUCKING RETARDED.
  • And now she’s rubbing her hands in delicate feminine angst.
  • ATRA SEES WHAT’S HAPPENING. SOW THE SEEDS OF TENSION AND JEALOUSY, MY PRETTIES. SOW THE SEEDS OF INTERPERSONAL (and uniquely inter-feminine) CONFLICT.
    • BECAUSE WOMEN EXIST TO FIGHT EACH OTHER OVER THE LOVE OF A MAN.
      • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • Now an insightful, gentle-voiced man will talk with Atra about Mikazuki. In three…two…one…
    • Atra sheepishly says she’s “imposing” on the manager.
      • Which is something only a dutiful Japanese person would say.
        • No one else would even give a shit about the manager in their store a hundred kilometers away.
          • SHE’S SO  JAPANESE IN HER DEFERENCE AND HUMILITY.
            • THE PERFECT WOMAN.
              • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    • Atra, of course, being a woman, has inexplicable insight into Augus’ mental state, even though he has exactly two facial expressions: bleh and MURDER.
      • Side note here: the black guy who’s over six feet tall has the surname of “Yukinojo”.
        • ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES, BEELZEBUB. GET THEE BEHIND ME.
  • Oh, are you wondering why I care so much about their names? Because you should, clueless anime fan.
    • See, there’s a very good reason why all the potential antagonists (half of whom look like devils for some odd reason) have weird-ass foreign names while the Martian children all have Japanese names. It’s a tried and true psychological trick to make the Japanese viewer more inclined to sympathize with them. Tamaki looks like he went to a private school on Long Island, New York, but give him an absurd name like “Tamaki” and the Japanese brain instantly categorizes him as being part of the “IN” camp as opposed to the “OTHER” camp.
      • Tl;dr, racist chauvinism.
  • Atra is about to ask “Yukinojo” a favor because she’s so cute and delicate that she doesn’t have the courage to ask Augus herself.
    • Even though Augus will probably go “Oh, huh” and forget about it two seconds later because he’s a braindead stoic protagonist with no personality or relatable feelings.
      • This is how anime writers developed characters five decades ago, in case you didn’t realize.
        • Cut away from the scene without finding out what said favor is.
          • BRILLIANT!
  • So the coup has begun. WAIT. IS SOMETHING HAPPENING?
    • Lupin IV wakes to realize his…thumbs…have been restrained?
      • His THUMBS?
        • WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT GOING TO DO?
  • How wonderful, they did something slightly clever and spiked the food with sedatives. Something IS happening.
    • Hallelujah.
  • Hey, Or(l)ga: instead of keeping this group of people in a room with a lock, I have a better idea for you.
    • It’s called death.
      • As in make them die.
        • Kill them all.
          • Or at least drop them off somewhere in the hellish Martian landscape and have them fend for themselves or something.
            • Because this is going to come back to bite you in the ass.
  • Lupin IV, like the good little monster antagonist he is, demands something while in a position to make no demands whatsoever.
  • HOLY SHIT.
    • Augus just EXECUTED that guy.
      • Well, you certainly took my advice, Or(l)ga. Kudos.
        • But JESUS CHRIST, that was a LITTLE over-the-top.
          • Augus is also a complete psychopath. It’s confirmed.
  • The Caucasian Devil with the Bucktooth and Sunken Face is still here, somehow.
  • OMG IT’S BLOOD. IF MY BOOTS TOUCH IT I’LL GET COOTIES.
  • NOW AUGUS KILLED THE CAUCASIAN DEVIL.
    • DOING THE LORD’S WORK, AUGUS.
  • OMG IT’S A GUN. IF IT TOUCHES ME I’LL GET RABIES.
  • Of course the craven guy with glasses betrays his comrades.
    • Not that they were worthy of anyone’s loyalty to begin with.
      • But it’s telling you can tell everything about his character design by his squinted face and huge-ass spectacles.
        • NERDS HAVE NO SPINE, BITCHES. That’s what Sunrise believes, anyway.
  • His name is “Dexter Culastor”, and he’s in charge of accounting.
    • Pardon me for just a moment.
      • [loud noise]
        • Sorry, I had to go crack my skull on the wall in my study.
          • I feel so much better now.
            • Yes, that’s good brain damage. Very good. Mmmm. Tangy.
  • Dexter goes “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH??” like a good wussy nerd.
    • And he’s wearing a tie, for some reason.
      • Because all nerd types wear ties.
        • Fuck you, Sunrise.
  • SPEAKING OF WHICH.
  • Eugene barges into Or(l)ga’s office muttering something about severance pay and shit. Dude is drunk off his ass.
    • Dexter is now released and working for them, because these sluts still need accountants to run shit. Bwa ha ha ha ha.
  • Or(l)ga is noble, so he gives these assholes severance pay for leaving.
    • I don’t care.
      • No, I don’t. There are arguments for this and against it, both legitimate.
        • It doesn’t make me like Or(l)ga any more or less.
  • Eugene, for some reason, wants to throw these guys out onto the street with no money instead of changing how they treat them.
    • Which is the whole point of taking over due to mistreatment.
      • Deeeerp.
  • Eugene is also objecting to them doing honest, upright jobs that will give them a good reputation.
    • Because reasons.
  • Also, that creepy, crunch-faced Italian guy (I’ll call him Il Duce) with the HITLER MUSTACHE is still around.
    • Apparently nobody in this future has heard of Adolf Hitler.
      • Which would explain why they are so eager to use a Hitler Machine.
        • Huh. I just made this series make a little more sense somehow.
          • Goddamn it.
  • Il Duce even talks with a stupidly retarded accent, just to emphasize he’s a smelly foreigner.
  • Yukinojo is staying and is an old man. Good to know, twats.
    • He looks like he’s 35.
      • “Old”.
  • “Kudelia” waits impatiently for her daily hairspray shipment.
    • The fools know not what forces they toy with.
      • She then absentmindedly and pointlessly picks up a random nut, heedless to any heavy machine traffic going on around her.
  • SPEAKING OF WHICH.
    • Or(l)ga is looking for Mikazuki, because we’re supposed to care.
      • Now he recognizes “Kudelia’s” tragic existence.
  • “Kudelia” gives Mikazuki a compliment in his absence.
    • Or(l)ga will now sternly correct her on how mistaken she is (LIKE A WOMAN) and how Mikazuki is somehow nothing special and just an orphan from the streets or something like that. In three…two…one…
      • BULLSEYE.
  • Japan, you said it again. Tsk tsk.
    • “Alaya-Vijnana System.”
      • 100. Trillion. Yen.
        • Now.
          • You wouldn’t want to make India angry, would you? They outnumber you ten to one.
  • SOMEHOW A SYSTEM BUILT 200 YEARS AGO IS BETTER THAN ONE BUILT TODAY.
    • IT MAKES SENSE.
  • Or(l)ga rightfully asks “Kudelia” if she has any plans or inkling of what she’s going to do next.
    • “Kudelia” calls her father “父” as opposed to “お父様”. She is learning, finally.
      • SHE DOESN’T KNOW. SHE THOUGHT THERE WAS SOMETHING SHE COULD DO.
        • SPOKEN LIKE A JAPANESE FIFTH-GRADER.
  • Now she’s wavering due to the idea that the innocent might suffer or be sacrificed in order to accomplish things.
    • Gee, “Kudelia”. Welcome to history.
      • Here’s a complimentary fruit basket for figuring that one out, you highly-educated rich girl who seems to know jackshit about anything for no logical reason.
        • “Kudelia”, in reality, would be lecturing these morons on geopolitics or how to work the Alaya-Vijnana System or something, but she’s a woman in an anime, so she gets to do exactly nothing.
          • What is with this nut? Is it supposed to be a metaphor or something? It doesn’t mean anything.
  • “Do you think you’re responsible for our comrades’ deaths?” – Or(l)ga
    • Um, hey. Didn’t we already go through discussion this last week?
      • Snore.
  • SHOCKED LOOK OF COMPREHENSION.
    • I’m going to need some more paper for this tropes list I’m assembling.
  • SHIVERING EYES OF POIGNANCY.
    • Fuck it, I’ll just order an entire ream.
  • “I’m just angry at myself.” -“Kudelia”
    • Which is the reaction no actual human being would have in this situation.
      • “Kudelia”, honey, you were caught up in a treacherous situation you knew nothing about and had no control over. Your own father sold you out or something for some reason, right? So why are you angry at yourself? You should be angry at your FATHER for SELLING YOU OUT.
        • And possibly your mother for NOT TELLING YOU ABOUT THIS.
          • BUT NO. “KUDELIA” IS THE ONE AT FAULT, NOT THE ASSHOLES AROUND HER. IT MUST BE SOME FAILURE OF HER CHARACTER. DEFINITELY NOT HER FAMILY. BECAUSE JAPANESE HERD MENTALITY.
            • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    • “Over how powerless I really am.” -“Kudelia”
      • Yeah, that’s what you should be angry about. Definitely not your own family handing you over to vicious murderers and rapists.
        • Fuck you, Sunrise.
  • DEXTER WITH GLASSES KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT MONEY. HOW CONVENIENT.
    • So they have 3 months of solvency left. They could have said that in five seconds. Not two minutes.
  • I’m trying to understand how severance pay and normal maintenance costs are eating into their bottom line so much.
    • The severance pay can’t be that much, considering maybe five guys are leaving. The maintenance costs can’t be that much either, considering they just lost 110 people and only a few machines, which aren’t in great condition anyway. Their costs should actually be way down.
  • Or(l)ga, having found out they have 3 months of solvency, declares they must find work immediately or go bankrupt or something.
    • 3 months = nothing, apparently.
  • “But with our current situation, people will take advantage of us”. – Biscuit
    • You mean how you have a priceless superweapon and just fought off an assault from an elite interplanetary security force?
      • Yeah, what a desperate situation that people will take advantage of.
        • Go shove food in your mouth, Biscuit. It’s where you belong.
  • Il Duce has to be the one to point all of this out, because these people are morons.
    • BUT IL DUCE SUGGESTS SELLING OUT “KUDELIA” FOR MONEY, BECAUSE HIS SUNKEN CAUCASIAN CHEEKS OF DEVILRY DEMAND IT.
      • They are really milking this “despicable foreigner” stereotype.
        • Il Duce even has a noticeable beer belly, because les raisons.
  • EUGENE HAS NO MORAL OBJECTIONS WHATSOEVER TO THIS SUGGESTION.
    • HOORAY, THE ONLY GUY WITH THE NOT-JAPANESE NAME IS AN ASSHOLE.
      • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • Oh boy, someone from Gjallarhorn has come back.
    • I wonder who it is.
  • CRANK CHALLENGES AUGUS TO A DUEL.
    • THIS HAS JUST BECOME AN EPISODE OF YUGIOH.
      • GET OUT YOUR DECK, AUGUS.
        • YOU’D BETTER PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT.
          • (Honestly, a tedious children’s card game would be more interesting than this.)
            • Unless this involves more of Augus executing people like a veteran of Stalingrad.
              • Then it’d be fine.
  • I AM CRANK ZENT (LOL) OF GJALLARHORN’S FRONT LINE TROOPS, AND I AM SPEAKING TO YOU OVER LOUDSPEAKER VIA MAGIC.
    • (Seriously, where is the microphone? He has no microphone.)
  • Okay, Crank, have you actually thought this through? What is this duel supposed to accomplish?
    • No, seriously.
      • Yukinojo somehow knows the history of things as they were 200 years ago.
        • No, I don’t believe that people settled things in duels before the Calamity War.
          • That’s fucking bullshit. Shut up.
  • Hmmm, I have an idea: shoot this fucker while he’s outside his Mobile Suit.
    • Or decline.
      • Hey, is anyone wondering why this Gjallorhorn asshole is out here by himself without any support? Anyone?
        • How about you just capture him or shoot him or ignore him?
  • “KUDELIA” OFFERS HERSELF UP AS A SACRIFICE.
    • TO YOGG-SARON HIMSELF.
      • IN HER DRESS OF BLOOD AND SACKCLOTH.
        • Jesus Christ, when did you have time to change into that outfit?
          • (Which is still pants-on-head retarded, not to mention it looks like you are ACTUALLY WEARING PANTS ON YOUR SHOULDERS)
  • Golly. I wonder what’s going to happen next.
    • Maybe Augus the Stoic will object and offer to fight Crank for her honor and glory or something.
      • Yaawn. Someone wake me up when Sunrise does something mildly original.
  • “Meaningless battles should be avoided, correct?” -“Kudelia”
    • Uh, except this wouldn’t be a meaningless battle by any stretch of the imagination, you dimwit.
      • Il Duce, like all those of Caucasian, not-Japanese, dishonorable heritage, suggests very cravenly that they let her go and cravenly negotiate for some money in the process.
        • No Japanese person has ever sold another out for money, btw.
          • Ever.
  • “Kudelia” continues to try to solve a problem she clearly does not understand, all out of a misguided desire to assert herself.
    • Fuck you, bitch. I hope you die.
  • “And I do not plan on just dying.” -“Kudelia”
    • Oh yeah, like you’ll have any say in it.
      • What are you going to do? Smack them with your hair?
        • Pbbth. Like they’re going to listen to you after getting YOUR OWN FATHER TO SELL YOU OUT. IT IS PLAIN THEY ARE IN NO WAY INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY, PROBABLY BECAUSE THEY ARE TRYING TO KILL YOU.
  • Or(l)ga’s face says it all:
    • “Holy shit, what am I doing with my life?”
  • Or(l)ga, rationally, doesn’t trust this random prick who just tried to kill them all yesterday.
  • Augus is perfectly fine with piloting the 200-year-old Hitler Youth Club after it ruptured his jugular vein less than 24 hours ago.
    • Wipe them out, Augus. All of them.
  • WHAT METHOD ARE THESE PEOPLE COMMUNICATING WITH?
    • WHAT DEVICES? HOW? WHY DOES THIS THING EVEN HAVE A LOUDSPEAKER?
      • AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
  • This episode is titled “Glorious Demise”. I think we can guess what happens.
    • Or do I have to pull out the Book of Isaiah again?
  • Augus’ physique is perfect somehow.
  • “Alaya-Vijnana System”. Pay up, Sunrise.
    • 100. Trillion. Smackaroos.
  • LOL, “Kudelia” actually throws out the idea of her piloting the Hitler Disco Ball so she could help people.
    • Yeah, that’s the only way you could help people. Not by putting your educated mind to use or something.
      • I hate this stupid, inane, self-deprecating stereotype of a woman so much, let alone the middle-aged men who wrote her.
  • “We were just lucky”. -Or(l)ga
    • Yep, that sums up the whole series. No logic or sense. Just pure coincidence and bad writing.
  • Meanwhile, let’s all stand out here on the battlefield exposed to whatever debris or flotsam that might result from the duel between two towering Machines of Death.
    • STOCK GUNDAM COMBAT SOUND EFFECT FROM FOUR DECADES AGO.
  • Leave it to Augus the Stoic to only ask how the winner of the duel will be decided after starting the duel.
  • “What Coral…No.” -These Incompetent Subbers
    • Here’s a translation for us poor English types: “Coral…no, we just wanted Kudelia’s life at first…”
      • That’s way clearer.
        • Also, listen up, “Kudelia”: these people just want to kill you. Bet you feel smart now.
  • “Children should not be victimized for adult strifes.” -These Incompetent Subbers again
    • Real English: “Children shouldn’t be dragged into the conflicts of adults.”
      • I thought subbers had learned how to translate Japanese after almost three decades of experience.
  • Crank waxes mournful about children suffering unnecessarily while fighting a child unnecessarily.
    • I don’t think you’re really sincere about that, Crank.
  • Augus wants to kill this guy simply because Or(l)ga told him to.
    • ……….
      • Right.
        • Okay. That’s not creepy or twisted.
  • “Mika knows that he has to be strong in order to live.” – Or(l)ga
    • Incoherent philosophical Japanese babble, AWAY!
      • And now they’re going to wax philosophical about risks and strength and blah blah blah blah blah.
        • Tl;dr: gambaru-ing solves all your problems, no matter what they are.
          • So get back to work, salaryman. Your boss needs those projections by 3:00a tomorrow. Stay late if you have to. Sacrifice your happiness for the company. Gambatte.
  • “He’s [Augus] boorish yet honorable.” -Or(l)ga
    • I’d say he’s just boorish, considering his demonstrated penchant for cold-blooded executions.
      • “He’s full of contradictions. But that’s why he’s strong.” -Or(l)ga
        • Some Sunrise writer: “My characters are so three-dimensional and well-rounded! Tee hee hee!”
          • Neither God nor Satan will take the souls of these writers when they die, alone and unmourned.
  • NO. MIKAZUKI IS NOT AMAZING. HE’S THE DULLEST ANIME PROTAGONIST SINCE KIRITO FROM SWORD ART ONLINE.
  • “Will I be able to fight like him?” -“Kudelia”
    • As if that’s a desirable goal for any sane human being.
      • “Kudelia” processes, struggles with, and ultimately abandons the insane idea of having the surgery to pilot the Hitler Hungry Hungry Hippos, all within five minutes of it popping into her head.
        • Because now she knows she can fight in another way. Or something.
          • Yay, “Kudelia”. That character arc lasted less than fifteen minutes. Congratulations.
            • Now get back in the kitchen and cook food for the men. You can use your hair as kindling.
  • Notice how none of these retards are the least bit concerned about this pitched battle between two towering Machines of Death happening twenty feet away from them.
    • It’s almost as if they read the script in advance.
      • One also wonders how “Kudelia’s” dress is still immaculate after being exposed to the wrath of the rusty soil of Mars.
  • “I’ve never been victimized for anything. I’m just doing what I can for me and my comrades.” -Mikazuki Augus
    • LOL.
      • Sure, kid.
        • Sure.
          • You know, apart from growing up as an orphan, having a life-threatening surgery forced upon you, being forced to work for assholes, etc.
            • Your entire life is the definition of victimhood, you fucktard.
              • Tl;dr, gambaru-ing solves all your problems. So get back in the kitchen, Japanese housewife. Make that dinner and don’t worry about your own fulfillment.
  • This is the worst Gundam Duel I’ve ever seen.
    • It’s beyond boring. I can’t even dedicate a single neuron to caring about it.
      • At least Gundam Wing had generals in Napoleonic uniforms flying around in blimps and shouting “INTELLIGENT BATTLE!!!!” and other such bombast to keep me interested.
        • This is less fun and exciting than watching Mike Huckabee talk about wholesome Christian methods for paint drying.
  • A weapon the size of a house just crashed into the earth literally two feet away from Or(l)ga.
    • The only thing anyone suffers from that is a mild pattering of Martian dust.
      • Sure, kids.
        • Sure.
  • OH MY GOD. IT’S FINALLY OVER. FREE AT LAST.
  • “Tekkadan.” -These Incompetent Subbers thrice
    • “To call ourselves a rotten name like CGS just irritates me.” -Or(l)ga
      • That’s funny, because I still don’t even know what the fuck “CGS” even means.
        • So why should I give a shit?
  • TETSU NO HANA.
    • See, it’s a Kanji joke. 鉄 (tetsu) is obvious, but you can’t tell by sound what “ka” means. “Kudelia” thinks “tekka” = 鉄火, but Or(l)ga means 鉄花.
      • The Japanese love their puns AND inside jokes. As if this show couldn’t get any worse: now it’s trying to be pretentious.
        • Good luck, dubbers. Good luck trying to make that shit work in English.
  • “The iron flower that never wilts.” – Or(l)ga
    • Um, Or(l)ga. It’s not alive to begin with, so of course it can’t wilt.
      • That’s a fucking stupid name.
  • WHY ARE THESE MACHINES BLEEDING? THEY ARE ACTUALLY BLEEDING RED BLOOD.
    • WHAT THE FUCK.
      • ARE THEY ALIVE?
  • Leave it to Augus, ever the morally upright, to ask what happens if he wins the duel only after he wins it.
  • So, basically, Crank achieved nothing and Augus achieved nothing. NOBODY ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING.
    • YAAAAAAAAAAAY. FILLER.
  • “If I go back with negative results, my actions will reflect poorly on all the troops.” -Crank Zent
    • -And These Incompetent Subbers x4
      • Actual English: “If I go back empty-handed, I’ll have disgraced my comrades yet again.”
        • Reality: “Shit. I’ve already disgraced my comrades by disobeying orders and throwing my life away for no reason. Fuck me.”
  • “But if I can end my life here, I will carry all the responsibility with me…” -Crank Zent
    • ….
      • Go fuck yourself, Crank. Go fuck yourself and your suicidal Japanese obsession with honor or something.
        • Just fucking die, you worthless piece of shit.
  • AUGUS IS A MONSTER.
    • Not only does he execute a man in cold blood the third time this morning, he then erotically SMELLS THE BRACELET ATRA GAVE HIM RIGHT AFTER DOING SO.
      • AS IF HE JUST HAD SEX AND IS NOW BASKING IN THE AFTERGLOW.
        • JESUS. H. CHRIST.
          • WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS SHOW?
  • Il Duce, smiling cravenly, cravenly whines about not being able to cravenly get any money out of the situation.
    • Eugene, being also not-Japanese, agrees for no reason.
  • “Kudelia” asks them to keep escorting her, even though they have no reason to do so.
    • She even promises them money.
      • Except she has absolutely no control over any of her family’s assets.
        • The family that just tried to SELL HER OUT TO BLATANT MURDERERS AND RAPISTS.
  • Conveniently, “Kudelia” has gone from being the innocent, naive daughter of the leader of Mars to the leader of the Mars Independence Movement to a dissident with connections to rich people, all as the writers need her to be.
    • “Kudelia”‘s character is so misogynist she’s meta-submissive.
  • “Nobliss Gordon.” Pbbbbth ha ha ha ha ha.
    • These names. These fucking names.
      • Il Duce, cravenly obsessed with money as he is like all craven Europeans, cravenly knows about this supposedly super rich guy.
  • Augus doesn’t give a shit.
    • DO THESE PEOPLE NOT REALIZE THEY ARE ADORING AND HARBORING A MURDEROUS PSYCHOPATH WHO APPARENTLY GETS OFF ON KILLING PEOPLE?
  • “We Tekkadan will make sure we deliver you to Earth safely.” -These Incompetent Subbers V
    • Having already explained that “Tekkadan” means “Iron Flower,” they use it again for no reason.
      • Actual English: “The Iron Flower will ensure you are delivered to Earth safe and sound.”
        • It’s even fits the deferential, honorific language Or(l)ga is using much better.
  • “よろしくお願いします。” -“Kudelia”
    • Look, a set Japanese phrase. IT’S CUTE.
      • Maybe something will happen now that we’ve gotten these shitty introductory episodes out of the way.
  • AND NOW THEY’RE GOING TO EXPLAIN “TEKKADAN” AGAIN.
    • GOD.
      • EXCEPT THEY MAGICALLY KNOW WHAT IT MEANS VIA MASS TELEPATHY.
  • Eugene has shifted to being a total asshole because puppies.
  • That’s a goddamn cross explosion. I knew it.
    • Maybe this will end the same way The End of Evangelion does: with everyone dying.
      • Whoops, spoilers.
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February 23, 2015

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Angry, Annoyed, Commentary, Gaming, Miscellaneous

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5 Things Game Developers Apparently Believe (Are Legitimate Excuses For Their Screwups)

(In response to this from Kotaku. The views expressed henceforth are my own.)

Before I joined the military, I worked at Starbucks as a barista. My formerly conservative views and upbringing gave me a pro-military leaning when it came to American men in uniform. Despite this, I didn’t spend all my time spewing vitriol at the big-budget Pentagon on how carelessly they were using our troops. I didn’t have to: they obviously were. Still, they offered a bunch of reasons why people just didn’t understand the realities of war. I didn’t care then or now. It turns out that, despite not knowing much about the real-life military, I still kind of expected them to follow all those inconvenient rules of engagement and Geneva Conventions and to get shit done in a reasonable time frame with as little loss of life and expenditure as possible despite all the unimaginable conditions they endured every day. Funny how that works.

Six or seven-ish years removed, I still expect that of the military, even though I know a little more about what it’s like in uniform as opposed to outside of it, probably because we are responsible for a vast amount of power that can (and has) ruined entire countries. I mean, I guess it’s probably hard for those guys manning our nukes in Montana somewhere to wake up at 0400 or whatever and deal with the most monotonous, horrible job that they hope to God never ever gets exciting, but I still kinda ruthlessly expect them to foster and maintain that sort of discipline each and every day while they’re handling devices that can bring about The End of All Things (complete with Howard Shore score) in the space of a few minutes. How unreasonable of me. The gall.

I say this stuff as a deliberately hyperbolic example, so let’s take it down a notch: I guess it’s pretty hard to build a building, e.g., an apartment complex, a type of facility in which billions of people live. To make matters worse for my spoiled ass, I happen to reside in a developed country with a decent standard of living and the inconvenient expectations that brings about, so I expect the facility to be safe, clean, protect me from the elements, and all the other sort of things I trade a little over one-fourth of my paycheck for. If, in the course of my residence, I spy a hole in the corner of my study, the roof starting to cave in, or simply a lot of bugs of the various types that shouldn’t be there (apart from spiders. I really don’t give a fuck about spiders and oh my god would you stop freaking out over them), I basically have grounds to complain about this, right?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

1. Making games is a thousand times harder than you think (so it’s not our fault if we fail miserably)

I am an atrocious blogger. Check how often I post (and what I post about) if you don’t believe me, but jeez, I’ve gotten a little tired of the game industry coming up with all sorts of variations on this same comic mea culpa, which really just says “fuck you faggots it’s not our fault” in regards to stuff that clearly is. It’s hard to feel empathy for them when, oh, I don’t know, the developers for Assassin’s Creed go on record saying “it’s really hard to make female animation models, so fuck women. They’re not important!” then shit out a game that tried to coast on the same tired formula of their franchise’s last five games, hoping you wouldn’t notice how the rendered dolls behaved and appeared very much like the vanguard of Cthulhu.

Let’s say you want to make a game. The first thing you do is set goals. Over the past twenty-five years or so, one of them has tended to be to fix most of the critical bugs before shipping things. Then you can move onto things like story, gameplay, themes, etc. Done.

Nope.

Nope.

To make a game now, you need to focus on monetization. This is a fancy corporate term for squeezing money from your potential consumers who have stuck with you all these years, all due to a vicious cycle of spiraling costs and development times for much smaller profit margins, one we loudly lament on our Twitter feeds but refuse to do anything about, since the actual people above us tend to sign our paychecks. I can understand that you have families and can’t really be asked to be moral crusaders at the forefront of changing the industry you’re stuck in or wish to remain a part of, but then that probably means shouldn’t throw stones from your glass houses, as eventually some people might a mistake your attempts at catharsis as a legitimate opinion. Again, the gall.

Maybe I should have read the Necronomicon after all.

Maybe I should have read the Necronomicon after all.

And that’s just the most vocal people at the top, you know, the ones with some capital and wiggle room to freely express themselves in a public space once in a while. Since this is their livelihood and career, one that doesn’t tend to allow crossover into other sections of society, the unfortunate lower members of the studio have to shut up and deal with their studio heads’ questionable management methods and objectives and knock out the overwhelming pile of shit in the “To Do” pile on their desks. Granted, I haven’t worked in the game industry, but considering this is how it works in almost every company or organization worth a damn, I’m going to guess it applies to the oh-so-special cadre of persecuted game developers. Then you have to deal with the inherent uncertainty that comes with an industry with little solid ground and studio shutdowns and hoping Metacritic doesn’t tear the kitten you’ve labored on for five years into tiny pieces and, and, and…

I haven’t even mentioned design and code, because I’m giving up trying to follow the general literary format of the original article for no reason. Let’s skip straight to my point:

No one. Fucking. Cares.

This little “explanation” is something nearly everyone in the work force has to deal with. No one outside the military really understands us; as mentioned before, we’re still expected to do our jobs. Nobody outside the finance world understands it; it’s still kinda expected (but not really forced to, thanks to the power of Mammon that people still haven’t figured out is entirely imaginary) to do something productive for society. Nobody outside the video game industry really understands it; you’re still expected to meet a basic level of quality.

You’re not special snowflakes.

2. Games look like complete ass for 90% of their production (which is why we never explain anything)

You know what I love about Blizzard (that company that makes WoW and some other games whose names I can’t really remember right now…weird…)? Apart from their generally consistent output of solid iteration on established franchises, they’ve become masters at pretending to be really earnest people whose fans don’t empathize with, yet refusing all the while to elucidate and build a culture of transparency of how decisions are made in their meeting rooms. They’ll make long Blue Posts on their forums once in a while about how “we really try hard and care and blah blah blah” while making absurdly clueless decisions about problems in their own games, ones that their vigilant raiders were screaming at them for weeks to fix. Eventually, after a thousand and one mistakes, you stop believing they’re sincere. What’s baffling is that they (and almost all other game studios) insist on adhering to some unspoken Biblical Commandment that internal decisions and priorities are sworn to greater secrecy than CIA black ops, as if revealing their whole methodology–one uniquely tailored to their own institutional culture–will ruin everything. I don’t know why. To go back to my own experience, how the military works is not exactly mystifying. In fact, it’s one of the better understood ways of living in human civilization, since shitty stuff happening to you for inscrutable reasons beyond your control continues to remain literary gold. To be sure, the military doesn’t want you to know the precise details of what it’s up to right now unless you actually need to know, but that’s somewhat reasonable. Not for the video game industry, though. Imagine what would happen if they were transparent. They might get…embarrassed.

SILLY.KOTAKU-RANT-3

Exhibit A.

The above poorly generated meme refers to the brief scandal in World of Warcraft known as Candlegate, in which Ion Hazzikostas (a cool guy that I met very briefly while my face was painted and stuffing itself with a mistakenly large pizza) declared, to the best of his knowledge in that minute, that they wouldn’t be nerfing an in-game item (yon Candle) even though it was clearly overpowered and causing some serious issues. Twenty four hours later, a hotfix was implemented to nerf the Candle. Oops. Egg on face. Hazzikostas was working off the information on the top of his head, but it still reflected a telling sign of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing, if not more. Suffice it to say, attempts at transparency in a corporate structure at odds with the very idea tend not to go very well.

Obviously, it’s not hard to imagine why this aversion to transparency endures. Video game developers are people, and much of what happens in those studios undoubtedly arises less from holistic creative aspirations–or even EA-style shenanigans–and more from the gritwork that we love to watch Frank Underwood spin: politics, self-interest, and ruthless pragmatism. You don’t really want to admit even the possibility that Casey Hudson ruined the Mass Effect franchise for the sake of his own ego or whatever (an unverified and unverifiable rumor, but to quote Mordin Solus: “theory fits evidence”), so you keep your mouth shut. You don’t want to try to put your foot down against Activision’s goal to release another soulless Call of Duty clone to keep the money coming in, so you keep your mouth shut. In a close-knitted industry where much of your resume involves your reputation, burning bridges safely is an opportunity most members will never run into.

The problem is that this sort of mentality actively instills among your fans a very skeptical, hostile, and altogether unforgiving culture towards you. It’s not like your feeble PR antics actually fool any significant number of people. They just communicate that our concerns and desires ultimately have no say: you’re the corporation, we’re the consumer, and we should learn our place. So if corporations want to continue avoiding transparency like the Black Death, they need to accept some amount of unbridled and at times ridiculous levels of criticism from us in return. It’s not like our concerns mean much to you. Why should your concerns mean much to us?

3. When the devs use the word “excited”, they’re not blowing smoke up your ass (except when they are, so good luck trying to tell the difference)

Really? No, really? This is a point? “The devs have feelings too”? You know, I generally assumed someone involved in such a nascent thing as the video game industry would have some kind of passion for it. How else would you get anyone to even start the damn thing? I also assume they’re working under a number of constraints that force them to do stuff they would rather not do, like oversell a talking point that a manager wrote for them. It’s not as if every other human being has ever had to do this.

This is how demeaning this article gets, since apparently everyone who criticizes a game is a Metacritic trollwhore who just wants to shit on game developers’ hopes and dreams and see their families starve. It’s like the author, now a game developer himself, hasn’t considered that most gamers are reasonable, intelligent people who work just as hard as they do (or harder) and would like to see some consistent return for shelling out their hard earned cash on an entertainment medium they enjoy and have dedicated significant portions of their own limited mortal passion and attention to. Let’s be fair: there are some idiots on the Internet who haven’t really thought through the logistics and realities of making a video game, but let’s be fair: those are few and far between. Most of us hating on you for demanding that we pay $60 for The Order: 1886 have some legitimate grievances with a pattern from your industry, a pattern that is no longer explained away as a fluke or variance. It’s become a damnable habit, and you’re just catching on to how we’re catching on. Uh oh.

4. Game devs actually read a lot of critical writing on their work (but don’t actually have to care)

All right, I do believe this point a little more than the others, if only because I watched the Dragon Age team fall on their swords repeatedly to appease the idiots who thought Dragon Age 2 was the Beast and False Prophet all tied up into one baby-eating package. On the flip side, who gives a flying fuck? Consumer criticism, by definition, is ex post facto, i.e., after the transaction is completed. From the standpoint of the law, the video game consumer has very little wherewithal or standing with which to resolve their buyer’s remorse (those massive EULAs have consequences). Keep in mind: we’re not talking about buying some rip-off toy from a mall vendor because we fell for their cheap sales pitches. We’re talking about $50-60 purchases that you, the developers, spend literally years building hype for. You promise us a tremendous amount of shit in the hopes we’ll buy it, much of which borders on blatant deceit. To our credit and often folly, we tend to follow through, because we care about games and tend to have active interest in experiencing this pastime of ours. To claim you empathize with our anger after you have managed to get us to hand over our money that we cannot get back from you is a little rich. At best.

No, it’s as rich as escargot, assholes. There is an implicit contract between the game developer and the gamer: you give us good shit, we buy it from you. If you don’t give us good shit, we at least have a right to complain loudly, as that’s the only thing we can do. No amount of bitching, Reddit-level quality or otherwise, will get a court to listen to us and force you to fork over those greenbacks. You’ve won. The only thing you have to do, as far as we can tell, is move onto the next game. You’ll repeat the cycle. Again, I’m more than willing to entertain the idea that game developers don’t always (or often) have a choice in what they can accomplish during a game’s development cycle, but examples of developers truly listening to feedback and making serious changes–changes they often don’t even have the corporate leverage to effect–are few and far between. Again, Dragon Age is really the only example that comes to mind off the top of my head. Not all of what they changed was good anyway. In the end, those people who hated Dragon Age 2 lost out on their money and time, even though I disagreed with them and spewed vitriol at them myself. Sure, maybe some of their reactions might prove a bit immature in the grand of scheme of things, but yours has no weight whatsoever.

In other words, game developers score no brownie points by claiming “we have passion too.” In the context of the basic video game transaction, they have the upper hand. For them, passion is a luxury. We, as video game players, only buy video games we have passion and interest in to begin with. That is literally the only thing making us willing to fork over several hours’ wages for something like this. When a flagship franchise for a next-gen console barely has enough content to match the real-world number of hours the average worker might have slaved away to buy it, you lose all standing for pity with us.

5. If you think something sucks, that’s not really news to the dev team (so suck it up anyway)

Oh. This again. I get to be enlightened by how game developers have limited resources and have to establish priorities. Yawn. I already explained that we, as normal people, understand this. Going back to Item #2, however, due to the gaming industry’s crippling allergy to transparency, we never get to know why those choices were made. Why do game developers insist on belittling us with stories about how “we have to make hard decisions” while never explaining what the calculus of those decisions is? You think we care if we don’t have any substantive details? Answer: we don’t. Here Anthony Burch waxes rueful about how his team had to choose between the bulk content of Borderland’s 2 and the ending. I dunno, that seems like a pretty big strawman to me, to say nothing of how it speaks to how out of touch he seems to have become with the average gamer. Very few people bought Borderlands 2 for the quality of the story, an element it barely even had. The entire game is sold up on reckless mayhem combined with some silly antics and quality voice acting to provide a transparent excuse for carnage. We want the guns, the classes, and the mindless violence. Claptrap is not Fall-From-Grace. He’s a mascot that produces cheap laughs. Sacrificing the ending of a game that did not prioritize literary quality from the outset is not a sacrifice. It’s called structure. We don’t expect Call of Duty to have an amazing story either. Or Blizzard games post Frozen Throne. Even claiming to value story is a reputation that a gaming company tends to have to earn.

Let’s go back to my favorite dead horse: Mass Effect 3. Explain to me the priorities of that game. It was the end of the trilogy, the closer to two previous games that had constructed a memorable array of characters in a rich and inviting universe we all loved. I’d hazard to say the story of that game should have taken priority over everything else, assuming all that talk about passion wasn’t pure flatulation. Instead, it seems pretty clear said story was low on the priority list. Forget about the nightmare that was the ending for a moment: Mass Effect 3’s story was the weakest of the three games regardless. There was a very noticeable shift in the actions of the characters and how the stories were told in the first place. All the piles of hype about how the story would have branching endings and radical outcomes based on what you’d done before turned out to be ashen night. But what did seem to have the priority of the developers? Oh, the gameplay. I should note that Mass Effect 2 had solved that issue already. Despite the outrage over thermal clips, the gameplay was tight and crisp. What other major iteration was needed? Apparently lots, because the gameplay was the best in the franchise, revamped and sparkled up for all to revel in. Even significant amounts of development time were dedicated to building a feature into a singleplayer RPG that nobody had ever asked for: multiplayer. I bet the months and resources appropriated to that could have been spent on giving us a final boss, or, maybe, a credible concluding scenario that fit the overall tone and themes of the franchise. Oh, but I just remembered Item #4, so here’s a little clarity for you: nobody remembers Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer. Everyone does remember the ending. Those last three minutes ruined the entire Mass Effect franchise and permanently scarred and besmirched the Pixar-like reputation of Bioware as a studio. I certainly hope that the studio discussed priorities after that fiasco.

It never gets old.

It never gets old.

You see, there are priorities, and there are basics. Assassin’s Creed didn’t get that right. Watch Dogs didn’t get that right. More and more games seem to be following in those footsteps. But beyond all that, merely having a list of priorities does not mean those priorities are well-conceived. It’s perfectly possible to ruin a game with the wrong set of priorities. What we’re a little miffed about these days is that you keep making the same mistakes. You keep throwing out games that nobody could believe were ready for release, yet you adopt the corporate line the moment shit hits the fan. A few months later, you rant about how nobody understands you. But we do: you are a normal person, in a normal job, in a normal industry, and we still expect you to do that job. Just like the military, stress and logistics are no excuse for massacring a village. The complexity of building a plumbing system doesn’t make the consumer a whiny brat for suing you when that shoddily built system ruins their month. But in the video game industry, we don’t have any recourse. You take our money and that’s that, often by outright lying to us. So we get to bitch in return and call you names on this giant bathroom wall.

Until you put your money where your mouth is, we’ll keep opening ours. It’s the only option we have, after all. How’s that for constraints?

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November 2, 2014

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Angry, Confused, Nothing of Value, Sword Art Online, TV/Anime

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Sword Art Online II – 17

*snore*SILLY.WHY2

 

Oh, huh? Did something happen?

….

What. The. Fuck?

That was it?

That was fucking it?

That arc lasted, like, what, three episodes? And they made an opening sequence just for that? This anime isn’t even trying anymore. This episode was both tedious filler and incredibly boring. Thrym went down like this was LFR mode or something. Freyja transformed into Thor for…some reason. And then the quest was over. Kirito Sue the Magnificent pulled Excalibur out of the pedestal, still not bothering to explain why some old English legend is playing a huge part in a scenario based entirely around Nordic mythology, and woo hoo everything went back to normal Idontgiveafuckville.

Jesus Christ, what are they going to do for the next seven episodes? Hopefully it’ll be a romantic comedy in which Asuna goes and cheats on Kirito with some glorious hunk of a man. Or woman. Or something. I dunno. Just give me a reason to watch this tripe that isn’t masochism. I said I’d watch this through to the end and I will, but goddamn it if A1 isn’t trying to make it as arduous as possible.