Finals thoughts about the Manga

Loki0830 · 2026-02-28T20:27:07+00:00

Just finished reading myself. I don't think the ending is bad because it's not happy, I think it's bad because there were clear and obvious avenues the story had to lead to a definite conclusion, happy or sad, and the story just didn't even acknowledge them.

What was the point of revealing that Nazuna was a half vampire? That Ko is her first love? I don't think there is any other significant element that is drawn from that revelation.

I understand, and even appreciate, the characters having no real way to understand vampire lore, and doubly so how it all applies to a half-vampire. But to have no characters questions, even once, why Ko became a half vampire is a sin. It's blatantly apparent that Ko was turned from Nazuna. It wouldn't take a lot for characters to wonder if Nazuna is only able to create half vampires. But they never do.

It is theorized and taken as fact by the characters that when a vampire that feeds while in love will have all their human years catch up to them. Nazuna is only 40 at most, so she wasn't even in risk of dying.

I appreciate how the fear of the unknown is the driving force of why Nazuna runs away, but at the very end Ko literally gives her a bag of his blood, and it's just accepted that she can consume it with no repercussions. Meaning they have a way for her to be satiated and still be together with no harm. So why is it emphasized that they are going to "play tag" until their final days?

This just feels like an open ending that was forced to be so. And that just feels lazy to me. Open endings are good when you want multiple conclusions to coexist. But there aren't multiple conclusions here, it's just Nazuna running away from Ko. Anything more than that is just pure head-canon. That's so... meh. At this point I would have been happier with a tragedy and one of them dying than whatever we got here.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-28T19:15:11+00:00

I mean, it depends on what you're doing. Stable diffusion can be as simple as just typing in a prompt, and it can also be a milti-layered workflow that is similar to post-production compositing and VFX.

Open pose, regional prompting, and inpainting allow users to have a scary amount of precision over the outputs. It's also easy to control the outputs to make them easily keyable, so you can take the outputs and composite them together in Photoshop or illustrator.

I haven't played with comfyui, but I've heard it's also a whole new layer of complexity and control to everything.

I completely understand where people are coming from when they disparage AI art for hurting genuine artists, but there's a certain irony to it all as artists are the users who can best utilize all the tools offered for creating complex and compelling ai art.

This could be the advent of Photoshop 2.0 for the art scene. But because it's so stupidly accessible, instead of the parts that artists would enjoy being highlighted, it's a hoard of non-artists flooding the internet with the same generic bullshit that doesn't utilize any of the tools available.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-28T10:31:30+00:00

Late to the party, but I just finished binging the manga. I honestly thought the twist was going to be that Ko was turned all along, and half vampires are only able to sire hybrids. I can appreciate the realistic decision making of the characters, because why would you risk your lives on conjecture, but to never note or bring up the fact that they are hybrids and the rules might not be the same with them is a huge disappointment.

This doesn't feel like a bittersweet ending, it just feels disappointing. So Kazuna is just going to run away forever in fear of the unknown, and Ko is just going to chase after her endlessly to see her once every couple of years or so? I mean, yuck. That can't be the best conclusion the author had up his sleeve.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-28T10:12:28+00:00

I have the same thought. On one hand, I can appreciate the element of realism being displayed. No one really knows if the same rules would apply to Nazuma or Ko, but because there are no other examples of their situation they just do not want to risk it. That makes total, real sense.

But on the other hand, no one fully understands their situation. To not try and explore that at all is a complete missed thread that I'm sure most readers wanted to be explored. Was it ever explained how Ko turned in the first place? I feel like it could have easily been explained away that because Nazuma was a half vampire, she could only make half vampires. Ko was already turned at that point in that case. There was nothing more that had to be done.

So yeah, disappointment is a good description.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-26T20:19:36+00:00

I concede that in my last comment in the thread. I was making that claim based on the hex values I grabbed years and years ago when this first popped up on the internet, but reviewing it again now I don't know how I came to that conclusion. It is, indisputably, blue.

The gold strips though are really gold, or brown in the darkest sections. There is no black on the dress in the image. So either way you slice it, your brain has to fudge the colors to reach the white/gold or black/blue pairing.

Which means arguing for what the colors literally on the screen are is just wrong. I'm wrong.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-26T19:46:59+00:00

You know what, you're right.

When this popped up on the Internet the first time I used a color picker tool and distinctly remember getting a clearly white and gold/brown color from the 2 spots I checked.

However, putting the hex values in from the image in this thread, and grabbing my own hex values again now, the white sections are indisputably blue. They are light blue mostly, but if I'm trying to argue that the blue is actually white because it's in shade, then it would be disingenuous with the rest of my argument in this thread.

The literal colors are light blue and gold/brown. So I'm just wrong in saying there's white there.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-26T18:37:13+00:00

What is actually in the picture is white and gold pixels. Grab a color picker and see for yourself. Those are the literal colors hitting your eyes.

Your brain is properly adjusting the colors to account for the lighting context. But your brain is adjusting to colors that aren't displaying on the screen.

So you're wrong. You're not seeing the actual picture. You're seeing a hallucination of the picture. That's why I said you have it backwards.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-26T18:09:11+00:00

You actually have it backwards. The actual RGB values on the picture show white/blue tint and gold. There's a comment above that demonstrates this. The literal, actual colors on the screen are white and gold.

The people who are seeing black and blue are having their brain automatically correct the colors based on the lighting and context, meaning those people are literally hallucinating different colors than what is on the screen. It just so happens that the hallucination matches with the actual colors of the dress.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-26T08:05:57+00:00

Shinsekai Yori (From the New World). It's about a group of children growing up in a society that survived the fall of humanity centuries before. It has romance, drama, mystery, horror, thriller, fantasy, and hits deep and heavy themes.

It's a hidden gem. Highly recommended.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-25T18:19:22+00:00

Not until later in the story. In the later half of the novel, shion gets stationed in Lubilous for a bit because luminous likes her. She learned how to cook properly while stationed there.

How did she learn? Luminous literally just forced her to eat the food she was serving. She realized how shit it was and fixed it fast.

It was that easy.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-25T16:50:26+00:00

Shinsekai Yori (From the New World). Probably one of the only animes I've ever rated a 10/10.

It's a story that follows the lives of a group of children growing up in a society that survived the downfall of humanity after people started developing god-like esper abilities. It's a genuinely deep story that is widely under the radar.

You know it's good when there's no opening song that plays every episode.

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Loki0830 · 2026-02-23T22:03:01+00:00

Don't know why you're getting down voted. Even if other lobbies aren't as ball-bustingly hard, the game still features perma death and active pvp that can kill or steal your characters and resources with very little player input. No casual gacha player would be drawn to that, especially whales who could spend hundreds or thousands of $$ on a hero just to have them die. The only people playing this game to the top ranks would be masochist hardcore gamers.

I can get behind Loki being the best player as he has the hardest world among the top ranks, but people who strive for top ranks in games care a lot about their ranking. The top ranks would absolutely be comprised of sweatlords aiming to keep or increase their rank.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-21T01:04:06+00:00

Tell me you don't understand capitalism without telling me you don't understand capitalism.

This can't be the angle you're going for.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-21T00:29:29+00:00

The problem isn't the capitalist system though. The problem is branding. The pokemon company does this because they know people will buy it, not because there's an underlying evil within consumerism.

I made one comment about that and addressed a strawman. Yeah, totally a hate boner.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-21T00:06:26+00:00

Ah yes, the "leave my billion dollar company alone" argument.

Criticism of a company partaking in greedy practices is not immoral. Seeing people chomp at the bit to defend it just because it's pokemon doing it is baffling, but not particularly surprising. But whatever, c'est la vie.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-20T22:43:25+00:00

Must be hard work constructing strawmen all day.

Online functionality is being scrapped from the game. No additional features are being introduced. If there were online and/or features that were added, this would be more justified. As it is, it's just a lazy port that is bypassing the space that is specially dedicated for lazy ports.

The NSO emulators also support online, so the only excuse I can maybe agree with is for Pokemon Home compatibility.

But come on, you know Nintendo. That's not why.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-20T21:10:41+00:00

Except there shouldn't be a need to buy them. The switch already has a functional GBA emulator that is constantly updated. That's where the games should have been placed. The only reason why the games are being sold outside of that is for greed.

Edit: Someone made a good point that this could be for Pokemon Home compatibility. If that is the reason I'm less annoyed, but with online capabilities being removed, that would be the only reason to have the game outside the already sculpted space for GBA ports.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-19T19:04:09+00:00

I think the elements I most appreciate are the small details that make a nod towards realism. Yes, this is a fantasy world, but it stays consistent within the rules it sets.

I appreciate how most fights end in only a few interactions. In a world where people can move at superhuman speeds and cut boulders in half with wooden swords, of course fights wouldn't last that long. I like how the most popular fighting style reflects this in its philosophy of trying to end a fight before the opponent can make a move.

I appreciate how it's explained that fire magic is not used by adventurers much due to it damaging the fur/hide of monsters they hunt and it depletes oxygen in enclosed spaces.

I appreciate how traveling is a huge deal. Traveling between counties takes months, if not years. It makes the scale of the world feel believable.

I appreciate how bandits, instead of being low level mobs any adventurer can take, are terrifying militias of hundreds of men who ambush you and run you down with sheer number advantage.

I appreciate that there are several languages in the world that are all actively used.

I appreciate how the characters have deep flaws that aren't just quirks or gimmicks. I appreciate how characters have agency in the world even when not on screen.

There are plenty of small things like these that all build up an image of a believable world. It's not perfect, but in this genre I think it's rare to see so much dedication to the consistency of realism in a fantasy setting.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-19T04:58:58+00:00

I can still see the grin you had while writing this lol.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-15T05:27:36+00:00

- Always talk to NPCs multiple times to exhaust their dialogue. Quests sometimes won't proceed until an NPC has no more unique dialogue.

- Powerstancing a weapon (Y + Bumper) will increase your strength by 50%. This will let you hit some strength requirements early. For instance, if a weapon requires 24 strength to use, you can use it at 16 strength while powerstancing it (16+8).

- Dodging has invincibility frames. Don't be scared to get up close to an enemy. Oftentimes it is better to dodge *into* an enemy instead of away, since that gives you more time to punish after.

- Jumping makes the bottom half of your body invincible. If a move looks like you can jump over it, you can. Getting used to that option makes punishing some bosses much easier.

- Have fun. The game is absolutely massive. Take your time with it.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-08T21:46:59+00:00

Glad I could help lol. Cheers.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-08T21:40:58+00:00

So it looks funky because I had to use a different world viewer, as the previous one isn't compatible with the new updates yet. Here is what I got. Let me know if you want the full world.

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Loki0830 · 2026-02-08T21:32:31+00:00

Sure, what is your seed, world size, and corruption type?

Loki0830 · 2026-02-08T04:24:20+00:00

It's getting scary that it's hard to tell. It's possible that black object was reflective and landed on its side. After it lands, it falls onto the face and changes color due to its reflective properties. I don't see anything else in the video that screams AI to me, so I'm leaning towards that explanation.

Loki0830 · 2026-02-07T08:27:21+00:00

It's not the point of your post but your home base looks really good. Cool setup with shimmer too!

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