![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
What I've Seen Recently: Late November-Early December, 2022
hewwo. ever since i fell and broke my knee i've had time to Consume things (because i've been laid up) so let me tell you what i've Consumed!
manga and anime
i recently watched a short 4 episode OVA for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
colors_tcg's advent calendar event called C-Danchi (Housing Complex C) and i was pleasantly surprised by it. it was a collaboration between adult swim and production IG with character designs by yoshitoshi abe (haibane renmei, serial experiments lain) of all people. i guess they wanted to put together something short and sweet for halloween... anyway, the main character design was very cute and i liked that most of the rest of the cast was in their 50s and up. that's pretty unusual for anime. it does need a big CW for racism, xenophobia, and islamophobia though; a large part of the main conflict for the first three episodes centers around cultural differences between the japanese residents and the middle eastern residents who more into the complex.
i also liked the combination of traditional great old ones, cthulhu-inspired mythos and japanese shintoism/traditional japanese gods. the merging of traditional japanese funeral rights with lovecraftian "ooga booga booga outer space bad" was interesting and not a combination i've seen before outside of i guess haiyore! nyaruko-san but that's played for comedy and this is played straight lol. also, (CW spousal abuse) the villains each having their own motivations for doing things as opposed to moving as one cohesive unit as all evil anime villain families do was a pleasant surprise. the father was a true believer in the not-cthulhu-god, the mother was afraid of her husband's wrath more than she was afraid of the god, and the daughter was just a straight cowardly yangire; they really ran the gamut of motivations in that scenario, it was a nice mix that added Drama to the finale!
i wasn't really a fan of how the series was structured and paced though, but i guess that's to be expected with a OVA that seems to have been thrown together in a relative flash lol. the scares are really heavily favored to the last few episodes, and some of the exposition dumps are just that -- complete dumps. they even do the whole "HERE IS MY LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING ON" eleventh hour word vomits, that was dumb. and i think the middle eastern resident part of the plot really could've been handled better. after all (CW RACISM also spoilers) one major middle eastern character runs away in episode 3, the other major one survives but he's a walking stereotype all his own (big! strong! don't talk good but have a heart of gold!), and the rest are just kinda there to get yelled at/sniped at by the racists and i'm pretty sure they all die when kimi erases the complex. not an amazing look. still i thought it was a kinda interesting little original horror story and it's only like an hour and a half total without OPs/EDs so it might be worth a watch.
total CWs i can think of: racism, islamophobia, xenophobia, spousal abuse, guro/gore (the last couple episodes are quite gory, i guess because it aired in america instead of japan first? our censoring standards are different after all), animal death. i think there were a couple jump scares too but i can't really remember.
--
video games
i bought (and subsequently got all the achievements for) the DLC of glass masquerade recently. there's not a whole lot to say about this game story wise or mechanic wise, it's just a simple jigsaw puzzle game with a stained glass and country theme. i really liked it, the shapes of the puzzles and the pieces are interesting and engaging and i like the thematic connection of all the puzzles. i would happily recommend this.
i bring this up because i've been playing the sequel, glass masquerade 2: illusions and i'm not as charmed by it as i am with the first game. they added a hard mode which is... passable, but the shapes of the pieces make a lot less sense within each puzzle these days. a lot of the UI changes i find annoying too -- the preview images have been moved down to the bottom half of the screen and they just take up too much of the map. speaking of idrg why we need a map? it's themed around illusions, not countries... not to mention the thematic elements this time don't really seem to match each other. the puzzles are way too busy to me, unlike the first game where there were set groups of colors that drew your eye in. also the music is a lot more Dark and Spoopy but it sticks out as more repetitive then charming. idk i'll still play the DLC probably because i love jigsaws but i'm not rushing to finish or recommend this one.
i also beat unpacking recently. i follow a shitton of vtubers and everyone and their mom has played this but i avoided them all so i could go in blind and i liked it! i was very happy to see the main couple ended up being wlw :>, the art and art direction is really quite charming and cute. it was very soothing (and at times oddly stressful) to put a room together the way i would organize it... mostly. i do have some nitpicks: it was really annoying that you... sometimes?? couldn't stack stuff on top of other stuff like wtf these are perfectly good cookie sheets they can TAKE a frying pan. also i agree with other users that there wasn't nearly enough levels for the price i bought it at. add more characters moving we can encounter and POV hop to or something. mainly because i feel like it ended too soon... i want to unpack more!
that's all for now, see you later!
manga and anime
i recently watched a short 4 episode OVA for
colors_tcg's advent calendar event called C-Danchi (Housing Complex C) and i was pleasantly surprised by it. it was a collaboration between adult swim and production IG with character designs by yoshitoshi abe (haibane renmei, serial experiments lain) of all people. i guess they wanted to put together something short and sweet for halloween... anyway, the main character design was very cute and i liked that most of the rest of the cast was in their 50s and up. that's pretty unusual for anime. it does need a big CW for racism, xenophobia, and islamophobia though; a large part of the main conflict for the first three episodes centers around cultural differences between the japanese residents and the middle eastern residents who more into the complex.i also liked the combination of traditional great old ones, cthulhu-inspired mythos and japanese shintoism/traditional japanese gods. the merging of traditional japanese funeral rights with lovecraftian "ooga booga booga outer space bad" was interesting and not a combination i've seen before outside of i guess haiyore! nyaruko-san but that's played for comedy and this is played straight lol. also, (CW spousal abuse) the villains each having their own motivations for doing things as opposed to moving as one cohesive unit as all evil anime villain families do was a pleasant surprise. the father was a true believer in the not-cthulhu-god, the mother was afraid of her husband's wrath more than she was afraid of the god, and the daughter was just a straight cowardly yangire; they really ran the gamut of motivations in that scenario, it was a nice mix that added Drama to the finale!
i wasn't really a fan of how the series was structured and paced though, but i guess that's to be expected with a OVA that seems to have been thrown together in a relative flash lol. the scares are really heavily favored to the last few episodes, and some of the exposition dumps are just that -- complete dumps. they even do the whole "HERE IS MY LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT THAT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING THAT'S GOING ON" eleventh hour word vomits, that was dumb. and i think the middle eastern resident part of the plot really could've been handled better. after all (CW RACISM also spoilers) one major middle eastern character runs away in episode 3, the other major one survives but he's a walking stereotype all his own (big! strong! don't talk good but have a heart of gold!), and the rest are just kinda there to get yelled at/sniped at by the racists and i'm pretty sure they all die when kimi erases the complex. not an amazing look. still i thought it was a kinda interesting little original horror story and it's only like an hour and a half total without OPs/EDs so it might be worth a watch.
total CWs i can think of: racism, islamophobia, xenophobia, spousal abuse, guro/gore (the last couple episodes are quite gory, i guess because it aired in america instead of japan first? our censoring standards are different after all), animal death. i think there were a couple jump scares too but i can't really remember.
--
video games
i bought (and subsequently got all the achievements for) the DLC of glass masquerade recently. there's not a whole lot to say about this game story wise or mechanic wise, it's just a simple jigsaw puzzle game with a stained glass and country theme. i really liked it, the shapes of the puzzles and the pieces are interesting and engaging and i like the thematic connection of all the puzzles. i would happily recommend this.
i bring this up because i've been playing the sequel, glass masquerade 2: illusions and i'm not as charmed by it as i am with the first game. they added a hard mode which is... passable, but the shapes of the pieces make a lot less sense within each puzzle these days. a lot of the UI changes i find annoying too -- the preview images have been moved down to the bottom half of the screen and they just take up too much of the map. speaking of idrg why we need a map? it's themed around illusions, not countries... not to mention the thematic elements this time don't really seem to match each other. the puzzles are way too busy to me, unlike the first game where there were set groups of colors that drew your eye in. also the music is a lot more Dark and Spoopy but it sticks out as more repetitive then charming. idk i'll still play the DLC probably because i love jigsaws but i'm not rushing to finish or recommend this one.
i also beat unpacking recently. i follow a shitton of vtubers and everyone and their mom has played this but i avoided them all so i could go in blind and i liked it! i was very happy to see the main couple ended up being wlw :>, the art and art direction is really quite charming and cute. it was very soothing (and at times oddly stressful) to put a room together the way i would organize it... mostly. i do have some nitpicks: it was really annoying that you... sometimes?? couldn't stack stuff on top of other stuff like wtf these are perfectly good cookie sheets they can TAKE a frying pan. also i agree with other users that there wasn't nearly enough levels for the price i bought it at. add more characters moving we can encounter and POV hop to or something. mainly because i feel like it ended too soon... i want to unpack more!
that's all for now, see you later!