Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town?

 Is the name of a Winter 2021 Fantasy Anime I haven’t watched.  I recall trying to but didn’t finish even the first episode.

However I can’t stop thinking about the title.  The implication of that title is that ‘Starter Town” is functionally synonymous with being a bustling Urban Metropolis and what I recall of the first episode confirms that.

So it confuses me because these LN based Fantasy Anime are operating on a very Meta level, the title implies that because its audience would expect it to be the norm.

But my general experience with the Fantasy Genre is the opposite, the Hero’s Journey usually starts in the Boonies, from The Hobbit and LOTR starting in The Shire to Luke Skywalker growing up on a farm far from the big city on an outer rim planet to Pokémon starting in Pallet Town (which in the Games and Anime seems smaller then it’s real world inspiration) to even Zelda usually starting Link off in some obscure settlement like Kokori Forest, Outset Island or Ordon Village.

But only one of those fits all the requirements for counting as a JRPG and even it is an edge case. 

In Japan the by far most popular JRPG franchise is Dragon Quest with Dragon Quest III specifically being the main blueprint for what most of these Japanese Gamers would think of as a standard RPG formula.  And indeed that adventure does start in the Castle Town where the King lives.

Even the original Final Fantasy also has the first city you visit be the Royal Capital of a Kingdom.

In the Mairo RPGs Mario’s house seems not to be in any town but located very close to Toad Town where Peach’s Castle is located.  The Thousand Year Door starts in Rogueport, a Mos Eisley style port city.

I also notice in Anime about playing MMORPGs you usually spawn in what seems like an Urban Center so that meeting up with other players can be done conveniently.  

And I think that is why RPGs so often depart from the Tolkien set precedent.  RPGs are a kind of game where the Multiplayer form is the original and the Single Player form came later.  The Quest needs to start in a place where players from diverse backgrounds can believably happen to meet up and form a party.

The association of the Last Dungeon with the Boonies I still don't get though.

It's easy to be mistaken for a Contrarian when you like more stuff then you dislike.

Because unfortunately much of Internet Culture has been built around considering negative opinions far more indisputable then any positive opinion.  We are a society where Good Art can only be Good in Contrast to what is popularly considered Bad.

I like the overwhelming vast majority of any piece of Entertainment media I watched to completion.  And even among those this I didn't finish it's very rare for me to actively dislike any.  And nothing that I do dislike I consider objectively indisputably Bad, there is nothing that I am offended by the existence of people liking it.  That third point has not always been true, younger more immature versions of me have gotten invested in hating things, but that's all in the past.

There are times when there is something popular I don't like as much as others do, and so that contrasted with all the popular to hate on things I love gets taken out of context to present me as a contrarian.  The most recent example may be Frireen, as a few times I'd talked about it can be mistaken for hating it but all that really bothers me is how so much Frieren praise has to be in contrast to all other contemporary Fantasy Anime, I like Frieren and Isekai.  I haven't given Frieren a definitive rating yet because I want too rewatch it first, but I currently expect to give it a 10.

The fact is most really popular things I've seen I like, and if I haven't seen them I don't have an opinion at all.

The closest I come to being a contrarian is sometimes how I rank certain instalment of a saga or seasons of a series may look partially inverted compared to popular opinion.  But that's always in the context of seeing value in even what I rank at the bottom, or if there are some I actively dislike in any even mild capacity it's only 3 tops out of more then 20. 

But even that isn't universal, how I rank the different seasons of the 90s Sailor Moon Anime is pretty conventional actually.

Once I was in the chat for a Trixie The Golden Witch Livestream on Chat and mentioned the fact that I like The Godfather Part III the best of The Godfather movies, and she called me the ultimate contrarian, even more Contrarian then she is.  The Contrarian opinion on The Godfather movies would be say that only Part III was good, I like all three movies, if I have any criticism of anything in the first two movies it's that I don't think Part II works as a cohesive whole all that well, but every single piece of it is great and still to this day very influential on my tastes.

Trixie's opinions on the Pokémon movies are more contrarian then my opinions on The Godfather movies.  Trixie and her Ex are the only people I've ever seen dislike the 3rd Pokémon movie, most Pokémon fans consider it the best of the movies, if the first two do better on mainstream review aggregate websites it's only because they've been seen by more people.  Suede and Linkara liked it the best and they are pretty reflective of general opinion.  And Uniquenameosarus also had a Video Essay praising it.  And I recently discovered Gingy Dave.

When it comes to the Pokémon movies the closest thing I have to a contrarian opinion is that I rank 2000 near the bottom, there are only two theatrical movies I rank below it (Lucario and Jiirachi) and one TV Movie I rank as the absolute least, the Mirage one.  However I have enough Nostalgic fondness for 2000 that the gap between it and those below it is pretty significant.  Mostly my issue with it is just it being overdone, I never needed a Pokémon movie to be that epic, so it's a similar issue to the most recent Detective Conan films, which I still very much enjoy.

Septimal Anniversaries of Fall 2017 Anime

 Well it’s the Final Season of this 2017 Septimal Anniversary series.  

For continuing shows there was of course the second cour of Fate/Apocrypha which I still love.

Animegataris I remember fondly, it's been awhile since we’ve had a fully Meta Anime like that.

The second season of Yuki Yuna Is A Hero and the TV Anime version of Washio Sumi were both great..

Code:Realize - Guardian of Rebirth was a show I watched for its Shadowmen relevance but hasn’t stuck with me much, wouldn’t say anything was Bad about it though.

And that’s actually it for stuff I watched to completion at the time.  At least two other shows I started back then but didn’t complete till later.

A Sister’s All You Need I’ve actually become more fond of over time, though I still wish the “little brother” character was Trans Feminine instead of what they actually went with.

Kino’s Journey The Beautiful World. I found this show a perfectly adequate reboot but I definitely prefer the Aesthetic of the classic version even though I have never properly watched it.

Two shows I watched later are King’s Game which I do not recommend, and Dies Irae which I can’t particularly recommend either but at least that one I don't regret watching.

Two shows I’ve dropped from this season are ShoBitch and Recovery of an MMO Junkie.  What the appeal of the latter was supposed to be is done better by the 2016 show And you thought there is never a girl online? Aka Netoge, as well as 2023’s My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999.

One of the Gundam The Origin OVAs came out this season, I still have mixed feelings on that series.

For movies we got the first Heaven’s Feel film and the first Girls und Panzer Das Finale film which are both great.  As well as Gundam Thunderbolt Bandit Flower which I didn’t like.  I did love December Sky which is from 2016 but was probably 2017 when I first watched it. 

And for Specials 2017 ended with Fate/Grand Order: Moonlight/Lostroom which is weird and I’m not sure what’s going on in it since I don’t play Grand Order.  It’s certainly well animated with neat moments.

Halloween Anime recs for 2024

I feel conflicted about doing one of these this year, I don’t want to do a big Halloween Anime Recommendation post every single year.  But last year I chose a framing device doomed to not age well.  

A bunch of stuff left Hulu at the end of August 2024 one of them was Blood-C leaving that entire franchise now with no legal streaming option.

Fortunately I didn’t list anything only on Funimation, but the way Crunchyroll and HIDIVE have been I have no idea what is and isn’t still on them.  And even RetroCrush and Tubi keep changing.

I should follow up on the one show that was still in progress last year, Zom100. Its first season ended strong, I still highly recommend it and hope we get more.

There is a new Horror Anime this season, by the time I publish this at least one episode of Uzumaki should have aired.  I personally won’t be watching it though, I watched Thought Slime’s video on the Manga once (I’m pretty sure it was on the ScardyCats channel) and it’s neat and all but not the kind of Horror I’m into.  But I do hope this Anime will be one the Manga fans can enjoy.  It sounds like it will be airing on Adult Swim meaning for streaming it should also be on its streaming App and maybe also Max.

I’ll probably rewatch Housing Complex C again this October, I considered it an instant Halloween classic in 2022 and it held up on rewatch in October of 2023.  But they say the third time you watch something is when you really know what you think of it.  I’m assuming it will still be on both Max and Adult Swim.

My number one is still the 2006 Studio Deen Higurashi Anime, but it’s not streaming anywhere, only the very frustrating Gou.

That’s all I really have to say for this post, check out my past Halloween tagged posts for more the Halloween seasonal Anime I recommend, just be prepared that where it’s watchable may have changed.

Update October 9th: I wound having a lot to deal with this month, so I may not even find the time to watch any of what I was intending to watch this month.

Pokémon XY and Z

Is currently the era of Pokémon in the awkward place of being too old by Current but to recent to be Retro.

For my personally the Diamond and Pearl generation is the last one I feel any Nostalgia for, and them being still the last Gen to get remade I could cite to back me up on that, but I tell the Fandom in general sees Black and White as classic already, it's games were after all on the same Console as the the Diamond and Pearl games.

Sun and Moon for the Anime definitely began the era of the original format being largely abandoned and the movies being their separate continuity. I personally essentially stopped caring about the Mainline Anime because I couldn't stand the new Art style.

This is reflected in XYZ now being the most recent era not easily accessible on legal streaming sites since it's been taken off Hulu and about to leave Prime in 10 days.  Their Games are not the most recent Games not playable on the Switch however.

I have a persona Fondness for this Generation.  I basically skipped Black and White when it was current so it was my first time watching current Pokémon with something resembling my current mindset towards media in general.  Also my first time watching a spot Brock series and I still think it's supporting cast dynamic works better then what little I've seen of the Best Wishes Anime.  And I think the Mega Evolution Specials are some of the most underrated Pokémon Anime content, I still get a kick out of how Lysander reminds me of Alexander Luther Jr of 90s DC Comics.

I did and still do have mixed feelings about Mega Evolution as a concept.  I think I'm glad it didn't become a permanent stable of the franchise, but how heavily it was being pushed in all Media at the time makes it awkward for the company to keep around now that this prominent feature isn't in the current Games.

Update October 9th 2024: Turns out this Gen of the Anime is currently on a Free App called Happy Kids, it's not as easy to navigate as Tubi is though.

Death is NOT Good Actually

I have in the last decade become a huge Anime fan, now most of the Entertainment media I’m particularly into is Anime or Anime related.  And in my praise of the many things I love about Anime I sometimes go a little too far in making Anime sound morally superior to Western Media.

There are some common moral themes in a lot of Anime I don’t like.  And chief among them is one I noticed being a thing when I watched Manmode’s video on Darling in The FranXX.  Now I am also a bit of an apologist for that show, the common criticisms of it I don’t agree with.  But Manmode correctly observed that one of the morals in this show’s worldbuilding was that Humanity would lose what makes us “Human” if we actually stopped dying.  He also sees this as a common theme in many Trigger/Gainax style shows with it even being awkwardly shoehorned into SSSS.Gridman in one scene in the last episode.

And even beyond those two studios it comes up a lot, though often just in making one villain's individual refusal to accept their own death a root cause of much of their villainy.  And yeah no one disagrees that Zouken Matou in Fate/Stay Night Heaven’s Feel II: Lost Butterfly saying that he would gladly kill everyone else on earth if it would prevent himself from Dying is very Evil. 

But this broader philosophical notion that Humankind needs Mortality to motivate itself isn’t limited to Japanese media of course, it's a theme in the “Christian” world building of Tolkien and Lewis as well, The Elves view Mortality as a Gift that they are envious of..  I put Christian in Quotes there not to deny that those two were Christians, they were, but this aspect of their worldview is AntiChristian, it is the very heart of Paganism going all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh.

What separates the New Testament 1 Corinthians 15 Gospel of The Resurrection from the many “dying and rising gods” that Mythiscists obsess over is that for Paul the Resurrection is NOT mere Symbolism, it is other things that are made mere symbols of The Resurrection.  The Gospel is the promise that Death is Temporary, that one day it will not exist any longer.

And the reason I’m still a Young Earth Creationist even though I have no interest in telling anyone they are required to be one to be a “True Christian” is because tied into that is a Belief that Death was not originally a natural part of Life, it’s existence is a consequence of Adam’s Sin, it is a Curse that the Last Adam is liberating us from.

Returning to Anime this is why I am glad there is a counter example.  The Black Moon saga of Sailor Moon (as it was in the Manga and second cour of Sailor Moon Crystal but not the 90s Anime which removed this element of the plot) involves a future where Death has ceased and everyone is now immortal, and the people who think that is a bad thing for exactly the reason Trigger thinks it would be are the villains, and the narrative has no sympathy for their perspective at all, not even the slightest nominal consideration that maybe they have a point.  The reason why this is one of the awkwardly worst Arcs of the 90s Anime is that it tried to make these villains more sympathetic while dropping their motivation.  But in Crystal I love it, I love finally seeing an Anime say FU to this popular Pagan idea.

HIDIVE is really Frustrating

 I’ve tolerated a lot of BS from HIDIVE I wouldn’t if it weren’t still the Cheapest Paid Streaming Service.  If CR was suddenly dropping one of the main shows I count on having this often I would have stopped paying them over a year ago.

There was a time on this BLog when I was HIDIVE’s biggest Evangelist.  Part of why was them having the best Horror Anime line up to recommend ever October.  But now Higurashi is gone and the two Zombie Anime aren’t consistent.

What has inspired my most recent frustration however is Princess Principal now being off the site.  HIDIVE Dubbing that show after it was trapped in AmazonStrike Jail was a blessing I was very grateful for.

Another show I loved using HIDIVE to watch that was removed and never came back was Angelic Layer.  I also miss the TV Anime version of Penguindrum.

So even with how Cheap HIDIVE is I’m at my limit, if something like this happens again I'm likely to just cancel my subscription.