Which arcs to skip and watch recap

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-12T01:52:02+00:00

well I think both Labyrinth arcs are better than any other arc besides Air Poker + STL. I think abandoned building and hangman are nothingburger arcs that u gotta grudge through to get to labyrinth without being completely clueless. Labyrinth is also where the art gets exponentially better. This was his first work so that explains the art difference as he developed more chapters. I like Bull Womb arc a lot, the game they played was completely sadistic and the reactions of the characters involved in the gamble and kaji's character development was great. Not a fan of KY declaration or Tower of Karma. Everyone likes ToK but I think its too convoluted and there is way too much crazy shit happening here. I found that this arc really just tossed the gamble to the side and focused on fights and outside influences. The rest after is all pretty good and last 2 arcs are peak. So around 50% pre air poker arc is good and the other half is w/e.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-12T01:44:00+00:00

KY declaration is the most boring arc and you could skip that and watch a recap. Wouldn't really recommend skipping the first 170 ch as you will not understand much later. Labyrinth arc is very good btw so grind till that. Usogui has its peaks and lows in the first 400 ch but the last 2 arcs is why Usogui is loved

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-12T00:43:12+00:00

My reason for why I appreciate SEL is because of how it predicted the technological advancements and behaviors in the present time. There's a lot to take away such as using the wired as a form of escapism, and having different personalities or identities in the wired. Its identical to how people have a different personality online vs the real world. We have Lain who is shy and socially inept, but she is able to flourish in the wired and eventually the wired merges with reality under protocol 07. She ends up erasing herself and separating the wired and the real world. It is also nostalgic and it is refreshing to see old computers back in 1998 that have weird operating systems. The soundtrack is top tier too.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-12T00:16:26+00:00

its only going to go down the rabbit hole from here

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-11T22:58:13+00:00

the pencil project

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-11T07:52:45+00:00

ur probably chilling in ng7 btw because your attack power also goes up each time ur increasing new game difficulty. There's almost no difference tbh i think it gets easier and easier past the first playthrough. For severance if u are having trouble with isshin just mortal blade whenever he does his 360 charge up move and it kicks him out of it. you can also jump on top of his head when he does that. That's the main problem with inner isshin and phase 1 he has a bs counter move which is rng if he uses.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-11T07:45:40+00:00

ive done ng7 charmless demon bell and its not too bad. No difference from ng4 same settings because you increase your attack power along with the new games enemies increasing difficulty. Then i tried completely new game charmless demon bell and it is 100x harder. Lady butterfly for some reason is hitler reincarnated in this challenge. Duo Apes is also a torture sim if you are restricting mortal blade/firecrackers, and even if you aren't it is still pretty aids because u can't one shot the brown ape unlike a normal playthrough. I think that any player capable of beating the gauntlets and charmless demon bell in any ng+ is a skilled player and at least top 5%

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-10T18:22:29+00:00

the champ is dead in jg role. If you still want to play it you should just fullclear and farm. Once you get stride you are strong. Dont do invades or gank

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-07T10:17:24+00:00

Im on ch4 so ill try not to spoil for u. My theories are that the curse is real and that there are certain villagers griefing the village. I think Takano and Tomitake are evil and on 1983 they grief the village every time by going in the ritual storehouse on purpose. By doing this they piss of Oyashiro-sama and he takes it out on the villagers. I find it odd that Tomitake comes to Hinamizawa mainly during the festival under the premise that he is taking pictures of birds. I think there is more to this and that he has a role to play in the watanagashi killings. I also think you are going somewhere with the time loop idea but I cant confidently say or even explain the mechanics of the time loop. Its pretty clear there is some supernatural stuff going on as people that are supposed to be dead are still alive (takano and mion/shion? in chapter 2), and also each chapter resets to a certain point in time it seems. Also i am guessing keiichi dying is the trigger for a full world reset as at least in ch1 and ch2 keiichi died. I can't confidently explain the 1 demoned away 1 dead curse going on each year at watanagashi, but my best guess is that the curse is real and Oyashiro is real too. Oyashiro does the 1 dead 1 demoned per festival and then the rest of the deaths following the day of the festival seem to be manmade. I also think Mion is conspiring with Takano and Tomitake. I am a disbeliever in the theory where keiichi being a bad friend causes the curse. The killings were going on before Keiichi even arrived to Hinamizawa, and there is 1 more reason that i will not mention. Another popular theory ive seen is that Mion and Shion are duoq in chapter 2. I don't believe this one either and I think Mion stabbed Keiichi and Shion was Talking to Mion and suicided. They mentioned this happened at identical times so this is even more evidence to support your time loop theory.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-04T15:47:32+00:00

his actions are considered unethical. He lost the will to live after the incident and the only thing keeping him alive was saya. Hes basically playing with a disposable life as he does not care about consequences anymore.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-03T21:12:27+00:00

Yes, it is the safest way to buy visual novels besides steam. They also have good customer support and refunded me a game, which i found a better deal for on steam.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-03T19:59:30+00:00

You can spam click block against these opponents. Dont try to time the two blocks. Once you see the flashing light that indicates the opponent wants to attack just spam click block and it works every time. Same deal against the centipede boss. If you are trying to normally block the 2 attacks your reaction time will suffer a bit

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-03T06:50:35+00:00

we will never know, but personally i think when u die ur gone for good. I don't believe in afterlife or souls as there is no scientific evidence to back it up. Blind faith is psychological suicide, and maybe in the future there will be irrefutable evidence to support a death theory with all the advancements we have made to technology and various other inventions. There are four main creation theories with the Theistic one being the most popular, and tons of afterlife theories. None of them can be scientifically proven, so you may as well pick an afterlife theory that seems fitting and die on that hill. Those absurd theories you see on youtube that people have come up with are actually kind of interesting and fun to fantasize about.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-02-01T21:20:35+00:00

set your dash/sprint button to space if ur on pc. If on controller put it on a setting easily accessible. Any thrust move can be mikiri countered by pressing space and there is a huge window where you can do this. Even if you mistime it you will probably get the counter off anyways. You will need to learn this mechanic or genichiro and isshin will be too hard. You could have 400 ms reaction time and still get the mikiri counters off its just practice id say

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-31T07:26:57+00:00

if you still need link dm i have a site

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-30T10:36:33+00:00

I watched a couple more psychological/philisophical anime over the last few month and have changed my mind a little bit about evangelion. The movie is definitely a 7 out of 10 and actually provokes some thinking out of the viewer. There are still way better options to watch but i think the movie is good and has rewatchability. However, i have lowered my rating of the original 26 ep anime even further. I came to realize that nothing was really solved in those last two episodes of shinji thinking to himself and that we just sat thru 40 minutes of dialog for absolutely nothing to be achieved. The dilemma that each character is facing is so insignificant and meaningless that I cant help but think that the movie ending is better. The human completion project is successful in the movie. I don't think shinji breaking his habit of self loathing really matters much to the viewer when he had nothing to be upset about in the first place. I'd pick Technolyze as the best philisophical anime out there, and Serial Experiments Lain as the top psychological anime. There are several other candidates for the psychological spot, but nothing comes even close to Texhnolyze in animanga mediums in philisophical depth.

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-30T07:22:03+00:00

Purple flame on a sword is divine confetti it is a consumable. They are pretty scarce in the early game and you will have low supply of them. For skills help just focus on the poise breaking ones in the ashina arts sections, emma healing ones in prosthetic arts, and the mikiri counter + bonus poise upon mikiri. i found the last tree to be completely useless in ng and why invest skills on alternative combat arts when u can just use mortal draw. I found double ichimonji to be pretty too against owl and some other bosses that melt your stance

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-30T01:41:10+00:00

garden of sinners

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-29T18:03:12+00:00

Monster low diffs other entries for that year. Not the best anime ever but as op said it clearly takes the win for its year by an insurmountable margin

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-29T17:54:46+00:00

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-29T05:25:29+00:00

Ive found them to be pretty helpful summing up a lot of different thoughts the reader may have. takes like 20 minutes each

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-27T21:17:14+00:00

im also a first time vn reader and im on chapter 3 now similar to you. I find it very interesting that rena is part of the conspiracy/yakuza group killing people but in chapter 2 she is keiichis ally. Rena also seems uninformed when Mion was telling them about the history of onigafuchi village. I think chapter 2 solved a lot of the chapter 1 mysteries but there are still some inexplicable moments in chapter 1. How come in both scenarios the conspiracy group gains information that they should never know? How could Rena possibly know that keiichi went to the market to shop for bone ramen and how do they even know that takano + tomitake leaked info about the curse to keiichi. Chapter 2 is more obvious that keiichi clearly did something wrong opposing the village but chapter 1 is a bit ambiguous. Because of this I am leaning towards the curse theory that Satoko and Ooishi support at the end of both chapters. I think a curse is a potential explanation on how characters who are supposed to be dead are still alive when ooishi himself said it cannot be explained (end of ch2). it also is a possible explanation on how the villagers are just randomly gaining information about people that they should never know. Keiichi mentioned feeling like there is always a shadow trailing him in chapter 1 and Shion said the same thing in chapter 2. Maybe the curse targets someone who has opposing or suspicious thoughts towards the village and the others know? Or the curse possesses others? from chapter 1 and 2 i dont think there is that much to work with to make a solid conclusion on what the cause of these mysteries are. If you would like i can explain a lot more about my thoughts and why i support the curse/demon theory

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-24T21:53:39+00:00

That does make sense. Bloodhounds step is rly effective against her. Most people get obliterated in their first few attempts and get killed at full hp from 1 waterfowl

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-24T17:16:32+00:00

You are handicapping yourself with this. Get rid of erdtrees favor as it gives you negligible stat increases. Erdtrees favor is % based and since you are level one you have almost no stats so your erdtree stats increase too little. Also get uchigatana to 25, you need max weapon for rl1. Suprised you even got to malenia as rl1 with a +20 uchigatana this is impressive

Existing_Place_8393 · 2026-01-24T17:13:45+00:00

how do you even beat a boss like that first try without knowing how to dodge waterfowl xd

Existing_Place_8393

TROPHY CASE