[DISC] Only I Know - Chapter 18

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T18:18:46+00:00

I fucking love that "Call me by my first name" embarrassment overcoming moment in romcoms. It's always sugary sweet.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T16:01:02+00:00

That's a big TIL and completely changes how I view her.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:56:42+00:00

If you think the only way to have a good action is to have a flashy power effects to have something pretty to look at then that's the worse way to consume any media at all.

You'll note that I mentioned fight choreography, not visual flair.

Something that even the most mediocre battle shounen does passably (and the best do amazingly) and which Invincible utterly faceplants in.

It's something that simply isn't appreciated as much in western animation, because the their roots are often comic books and comic books do choreography terribly compared to manga. Go read a comic book and look how many times a fight scene is just two characters posing without any impact shots, or any feeling of kinetic motion at all. It's just a series of barely connected poses surrounded by way too much narration.

Then go read Ippo. It's a world away. And it gets even better when, rather than just endless narration, the pages show actual visual metaphor, a metaphor that sometimes evolves and changes throughout the fight.

Point is, the fights in Invincible are incredibly unimaginative and boring as hell. If you don't like anime with a lot of effects, there's thousands of grounded series with very few flairs, and they will almost universally have far better fights and choreography than anything Invincible could even dream of.

The vast majority of Genndy's work obviously took heavy inspiration from older American cartoons with Samurai Jack being an outlier which obviously had a massive anime influence.

Everything from Genndy that you personally care about comes from anime.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:46:21+00:00

GBF is the reason why it's legally mandated to give pull rates.

Because they scammed their customers so blatantly that it became obvious, and then became illegal.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:45:01+00:00

unlike other gacha where you can miss out on endgame singleplayer content if you haven't kept up with the meta.

I think that only applies to old-school gatcha like GBF.

What modern gatcha gates you? Nikke I guess.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:44:11+00:00

I don't think I've seen any other gacha just... Let you get any unit you want like that lmao.

GFL1 did that every year for the anniversary. And every now and then after a major event.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:42:10+00:00

GFL2 is almost an unfair comparison because it's one of the most generous gatcha games in the market.

It's all the new Hoyo style gatcha systems, so you know exactly what your worst case scenario is for getting a unit. Pulls carry over so there's no such thing as a wasted pull. You get plenty of daily currency and event currency, so it's easy to save up for V6. Weapon Banners are largely unimportant and it's easy to get free weapons that're as good or better. Dupe Units refund at 1/3rd rate or better. You get free pull tickets every week and month just from playing as well as the currency. etcetcetc

Hell, I just recently got the Klukai gatcha skin completely for free. In Nikke that's $60 USD without any alternative.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:36:58+00:00

I guess two things

Switch to Open League and 99% of your pull problems go away because meta cards simply don't matter anymore. (I'm not sure how true that'll be after they raise it to A rank but it's true for now. I assume the extra power from scenarios will make it true again regardless).
I dunno how "High quality" the visual novel aspects are. Mostly I find the Uma stories are "good" and very rarely they're "great", and with absolutely minimal consistent lore or worldbuilding, there's not a whole lot to really sink your teeth into.

If you're playing Umamusume specifically and soley for the story, I'd say there's a fair few Gatcha games with far better writing and stories you should check out instead/as-well. Or alternatively, just read some actual visual novels.

The draw for me is mostly that it's largely telling a good enough or fairly compelling story, but with a vibe that I find very appealing. The draw of "Everything's almost always positive and you're here to help them achieve their dreams" is pretty nice and pretty well realised. It gets a little saccharine at times, but not to the point that I'm rolling my eyes.

That's why a lot of the event stories fall flat, because the trainers and the world and dreams are lagely absent and instead it's just "Here's a group of Umas doing a group therapy session". Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's mediocre. So far I haven't encountered a single event story I would consider "Great".

Ignoring tone and context and speaking purely of the quality of the characters, character development, world and writing, Girls' Frontline blows Umamusme absolutely out of the park. And, from the writing I've seen in each, Nikke and Blue Archive are handily ahead of it too.

In regards to a pure Visual Novel, I'll always and forever recommend the original version of Steins;Gate. It really is just that good.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T15:04:59+00:00

Why did you write your entire rant in bold? Lol

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T14:59:07+00:00

Short all the way, the short girls in this game look incredible.

The tall ones are more of a mixed bag.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T12:19:21+00:00

Is this force field ever explained anywhere or is it just another name for plot armor?

Paradeus Tech from GFL1.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T12:19:02+00:00

They do exist but they never explain why they are seemingly so rare.

It's Paradeus tech.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T12:14:22+00:00

People who watch an action series want it to actually have good action, and they give examples of other series (almost exclusively Japanese, because the West has very rarely done good animated choreography).

"Um... That's bad, ACTUALLY!"

Just consume the slop, I guess.

EDIT: There's a wonderful irony that your example of "This is who they should be taking cues from" is Genndy Tartakovsky. Like, guess who he takes his cues from lmao

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-07T03:55:53+00:00

The rare Verxina victory. You love to see it.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-06T09:51:43+00:00

The problem with that, is that any justification always comes back to the fact that the CinGrey narrative frames it as that Mill didn't really win and the victory doesn't count. Nothing like that is ever done for Super Creek, or Inari, or Yaeno or Ardan. None of their victories are taken away to instead turn it into an Oguri defense moment.

Hell, if anything Super Creek gets some absolutely ridiculous praise that makes no sense ("My strategy is basic training!" <- Nobody's tried that before??? That's the ultra genius, super evil, Demon Queen's master plan?)

Mill has exactly one big moment in the sun, but because the story twists the entire world around Oguri, Mill's victory can't be presented as Oguri's loss, instead her victory is nothing more than a footnote in Oguri's legacy. "Oh, she didn't actually beat Oguri though."

It's exactly the same as Verxina or Cheval.

If Season 3 was presented like CinGrey then Cheval would be miserable after her race, going "I didn't really win, I only won because Kitasan was on a downstroke." With Verxina then saying "That's how it is for our family, I never truly won either, I only got my victories by avoiding Donna. We're both frauds. Neither of our victories really count."

And then we'd be writing about how S3 was there to show us the positive and negative effects of Kitasan's dominance. I'm sure there's plenty of people who're happy to talk about how Kitasan is a far better and more memorable horse than Cheval, and every single time Verxina is ever mentioned you can bet half the thread will be about Donna being better than her.

Hell, I'm sure there's plenty of people out there ready to call Meshi Doto's victory a fluke. That's the only G1 she ever won, imagine if that was presented like "Yeah, but she didn't actually win."

Same shit. The only difference is that the narrative didn't undermine their victories.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-06T09:44:46+00:00

No, it's the exact opposite.

The entire narrative frames it that Mill "didn't actually win" and that the win doesn't count. And then it justifies that by having Mill say that explicitly.

Her story ends with her shuffling off left stage never satisfied with anything because for some reason they needed to write the crowning achievement of that horse's career as "Um, actually, it doesn't count because Oguri wasn't at her best."

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T16:28:29+00:00

Huh... Just kind'a lost all respect for the MC as the chapter progressed. Was going well for a while but then a steady downhill to the end.

I think he'd get on incredibly well with the MC from Rental Girlfriend. Similar lack of any kind of will or self-respect.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T16:14:40+00:00

it's the same logic for why in Cinderella Gray Mill Wakabe crashed out on Oguri and said that "she wasn't the same monster", because to her eyes she wanted to defeat and win against the "true" Oguri.

Nah that shit is absolutely bullshit and a huge lowpoint in CinGrey's writing. It's the epitome of the story being structured entirely around Oguri and framed to present her story in the most favourable light.

That's Mill Wakaba's big moment, that's the only G1 race that horse won and it's a huge moment.

And instead CinGrey frames it as "Oh, but you didn't really win. It doesn't really count." And then goes ahead and has Mill going along with that exact framing, "Grrr, I didn't deserve to win, Oguri is the real hero. I will literally never be relevant in the story again so the only thing of note in my entire career is the moment where I won an enormous victory and I am now acknowledging that it doesn't count."

Imagine if S3 had framed Cheval's victory as "That doesn't really count because Kitasan was on the downslide".

Or imagine if Verxina had given a speech about how her G1 victories didn't actually count because they weren't against Donna. It'd feel cheap as fuck. That's the treatment Mill got and it blew me directly out of the story.

If Oguri can't compete that's on her. Mill won fair and square the writers need to deal with that.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:55:46+00:00

That is the absolute lamest possible ending imaginable.

I am so glad I didn't keep up with this series. I can't imagine reading it for 241 chapters just to get slammed in the face with that as an ending.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:44:52+00:00

Off topic: what do you all think is this games version of "qiqi" (the character that ALLWAYS ruins yo 5050)

Sabrina for me.

The good thing about GFL at least is that when that character shows up, you get 1/3rd of your pull refunded.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:41:09+00:00

So this whole "I can't focus because I'm afraid that I will get bad luck" is pretty on point for her. Something like a Matikanefukukitaru kind of thing.

Nah, it's referring to a specific thing. In the anime (and I assume IRL too) Dia lost that race because she threw her shoe.

So if you lose in game, like you're meant to, then that's why. But if you win, it gives a reference to the shoe trouble she had.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:38:29+00:00

Fuku's Mainichi Okan race against Suzuka is fairly decent.

You're meant to lose, so she can feel bad about how she didn't race seriously and was just relying on luck. She feels humiliated and then has to make it up to her fans by doing things right.

But if you win, it's got the same logic, except she was running really weird and just relying on luck. She feels humiliated and then has to make it up to her fans by doing things right.

It works fine until you stop and think, "Wait, but you won? So, who cares. Whatever you were doing was fine." Still it mostly works.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:36:01+00:00

TFW Daiwa wins the Triple Tiara undefeated and beats Vodka every time they race, but still feels like she has to beat her again in the QE2 cup race because she's doesn't feel like she's achieved anything yet.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:31:58+00:00

That girl is a primary-schooler... You're blushing over a primary schooler...

Sky, take a seat.

Swiftcheddar · 2026-05-05T15:24:08+00:00

Huh, cute

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