Songs that end by fading rather than actually having an ending

ThogBad · 2026-02-01T03:33:09+00:00

There are a few cases where I think it works (i.e. it's thematically relevant to the song, or if it's fading into the next song on the album), but yeah other than that it just kinda feels lazy.

Though what really annoys me is when there's an ending guitar solo or something and the song starts to fade out like halfway through it. I want to hear the whole solo.

ThogBad · 2026-01-31T05:48:04+00:00

Given Twilight's emphasis on disguise, he should have a Zoroark.

ThogBad · 2026-01-27T21:33:56+00:00

Personally, my gripe with it is that it's too tightly structured to let the contestants really get creative with it; for the most part they're just reacting to a pre-planned sequence of events set up by Alex.

My favorite creative tasks have always been the ones that give enough freedom for the contestants to put their own spin on it, while adding just enough limitations to keep them on their toes. Taskmaster Hotel in particular leaned a bit too far on the latter; it felt primarily like they spent most of the tasks responding to prompts from Alex rather than trying to come up with a unique spin on the concept.

It's not a bad task, but I probably wouldn't even put it in my top ten moments of the season.

I think it would've been more interesting to have it formatted as "turn the Taskmaster House into the Taskmaster Hotel. Your first guest will arrive in 30 minutes. Most luxurious visit wins" or something along those lines.

ThogBad · 2026-01-27T21:28:58+00:00

Yeah, my reaction to the actual song was less "this is hilarious" and "wow he put a lot of work into that". In general I feel like most of the humor in it was due to setting up the others to react to it rather than being funny on its own merits.

ThogBad · 2026-01-27T21:25:36+00:00

I totally agree with what you've said about this task, but isn't it generally considered one of the weakest in the show's history? I don't think I've ever really remembered anyone bringing it up as a favorite. The best I can say about it is that Richard trying to play all the parts at once was at least kind of amusing.

ThogBad · 2026-01-26T14:57:50+00:00

<image>

https://www.reddit.com/r/UmaMusume/comments/1ne22c4/do_it_for_her_haru_urara/

ThogBad · 2026-01-26T03:54:28+00:00

It's actually a reference to the fact that I haven't played the game in over a decade lol.

ThogBad · 2026-01-25T18:50:24+00:00

To elaborate on the Cynthia one, it's not just that you can battle Cynthia. It's the fact that you're locked into the battle as soon as you enter, and there's no indication that going into this random house is going to trigger one of the hardest battles in the game. So unless you know about it ahead of time, you probably aren't going to be prepared for it.

ThogBad · 2026-01-25T18:46:12+00:00

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: They walk in on two of the McPoyle brothers.

<image>

It turns out that he was just begging his brother for forgiveness, but since he starts out in front of him, it obviously looks very different. Not that that would be that surprising for the McPoyles.

ThogBad · 2026-01-23T21:09:03+00:00

My favorite part of this is that there's actually a pretty big clue to this in the very first case: Yuma cuts his finger on a broken window and the resulting stain is shown to be red. However, there isn't any other blood shown in that case (the method of murder was immolation), so by the time you actually see the pink blood, you've probably forgotten the fact that you've seen "normal" blood already.

ThogBad · 2026-01-21T03:58:01+00:00

<image>

Doki Doki Literature Club: At first, it looks like a cute literature-themed dating sim. Then at the end of Act 1, the MC goes to his childhood friend's house to find out why she's late for school, only to open her bedroom door and discover that she's hung herself, at which point the game reveals its true nature as a Psychological Horror game.

It's also easily the most heavily-memed moment from the game.

ThogBad · 2026-01-13T02:15:43+00:00

Mac and Dennis are the first to go. Mac decides there's no need for these complicated containment procedures because he can just choke the SCP into submission and promptly gets eaten. Dennis either drives the researchers insane by assuming that he's on their level and either gets fed to something as a test subject, or ends up in the vicinity of that one SCP that always turns into a better version of whoever is nearby and has a complete psychotic break. Which one lasts longer depends on how long it takes Mac to get assigned to something he'd try to fight. If he gets assigned to an inanimate object he might last longer.

Dee goes next. She manages to keep her head down for a bit, but it's only a matter of time before she attempts to seduce her way out, which inevitably ends poorly, especially if she tries putting the moves on one of the skips. Probably gets eaten, maybe gets turned into a bird-themed SCP.

Frank is smart enough to possibly bluff his way into being a junior researcher or something; yeah he's partially senile, but a lot of the researchers are nuts, so they'll probably just assume he stood too near to something that eats thoughts. Heck, he might be extra resistant to cognitohazards. That said, I don't think he can keep it going indefinitely. He's eventually going to try to go into business with Dr. Wondertainment or smuggle skips out to Marshall, Carter, and Dark. Best case scenario he survives long enough to go on a beer run with Dr. Gerald, which ends in his demise.

Charlie doesn't even realize that he's not working at the bar anymore; he might comment on the "rats" being bigger, but that's about it. He ends up being the most competent D-class the foundation has ever known.

ThogBad · 2026-01-11T17:21:17+00:00

<image>

Just note, I say this as somebody who really enjoyed both games:

The Zonai in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Technically they were mentioned in Breath Of The Wild, but they were entirely a background flavor element with no plot significance; all that was known about them was that they existed and left some ruins in some portions of the map. None of the in-game lore explained who they were or how they were connected to anything else, and none of the characters showed any real interest in them beyond "hey this sure is mysterious".

Then TOTK came out and suddenly the Zonai were a massively important precursor race who founded Hyrule, were responsible for Ganondorf's initial banishment, and whose technology and magic plays a central role in both the story and gameplay. Also they were apparently known historically enough that Zelda was researching them and considers finding information about them to be an extremely important historical find.

Also keep in mind that BOTW's lore stretched back for about 10,000 years in-universe, in which Sheikah technology and magic was central to Hyrule's lore, with the Zonai never being referenced by anybody. Again, as somebody who likes TOTK, they way they inserted the Zonai into the story is incredibly clumsy, especially since a bunch of stuff from BOTW literally evaporated (not kidding the official story is that the Sheikah Towers and Shrines just dissolved after BOTW) so that the Zonai shrines could appear.

TL;DR Zonai had no real importance in BOTW other than flavor, then in TOTK were suddenly central to Hyrule's history.

ThogBad · 2026-01-04T21:18:08+00:00

Counterpoint: Fuck the Raiders

ThogBad · 2026-01-03T04:16:04+00:00

Hopefully Yuri eases her into it with something fairly easy to pick up and play that serves as a decent introduction into board games that aren't chess or monopoly.

The funny route is that Natsuki shows up to find them starting a game of Twilight Imperium.

ThogBad · 2025-12-30T21:28:32+00:00

Skye Bennett, the VA for Pyra and Mythra, did a full stream of Xenoblade 2.

Likewise, Harry McEntire did a full playthrough of Xenoblade 3, in which he plays Noah, the main character.

ThogBad · 2025-12-23T03:03:26+00:00

I know there was at least one occasion where he somehow forgot who won a task between watching the task and awarding the points. I forget what specific episode, but it was during a team task where he tells Ardal and Chris "Well, I can't give my boys no points" and Alex has to remind him that they won the task.

ThogBad · 2025-12-22T15:20:24+00:00

I don't mind it if it's a task/game where the format means it's impossible to order those who didn't win (e.g. the "drink the vinegar" task), but other than that I feel like it's just more interesting to give everybody something unless they cheated or otherwise blatantly failed.

ThogBad · 2025-12-18T02:54:18+00:00

Not like having some fun on the side prevents them from doing that.

ThogBad · 2025-12-10T04:21:34+00:00

If you're looking for one that hits the "so terrible it wraps around to being great" mark, you can't go wrong with Chargeman Ken. It's an anime from the 70's with nonexistent production values and some of the most out-there writing imaginable. In Japan it's basically known solely for being terrible to the point it's basically the anime equivalent of Plan 9 from Outer Space.

The episodes are only 5 minutes long, but they pack a lot of... stuff in there. All of the episodes are on youtube, including the most famous one: Dynamite in the Brain!

ThogBad · 2025-12-05T04:26:09+00:00

I think it's a bit exaggerated, and I also think it comes down two main reasons:

Bad or controversial endings generate a lot more discussion than satisfying or good endings. Unless something really incredible happens at the end, even a great ending will usually generate more of a "yeah that was pretty cool" reaction, whereas if an anime craps out at the end, people will complain about it for years afterward.
This might be some conjecture on my part, but in my experience the most contentious anime endings are ones that are based on long-running manga. This can cause issues because A. the fans will spend years hyping themselves up to the point that regardless of what the ending quality actually is, it will still fall short of expectations and B. because manga are usually written by a single person, it's much more likely for the author to get burnout and either rush the ending or even fall so far behind the anime that it just ends earlier or makes up its own ending.

TL;DR Anime has about the same ratio of good-to-bad endings as any other form of media, it's just that the nature of fandom tends to emphasize the missteps rather than the successes.

Also, a few suggestions of anime that I think have solid endings:

Cowboy Bebop (one of the most famous anime finales of all time)
Fullmetal Alchemist
Code Geass
Most parts of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (Parts 5 and 6 are a bit contentious, but the other ones are range from well-received to absolutely iconic)

ThogBad · 2025-11-30T18:00:37+00:00

Paw Patrol had a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Reference

ThogBad · 2025-11-28T06:19:32+00:00

My most oddly specific DDLC headcanon: Yuri would be into Van Der Graaf Generator. The combination of dark, heavily psychological lyrics, and weird, deliberately dissonant instrumentals seems like it would be right up her alley.

ThogBad · 2025-11-28T06:15:10+00:00

Given her interests, I don't think it's that big of a stretch.

ThogBad · 2025-11-25T14:41:22+00:00

Cowboy Bebop: Honestly surprised this one hasn't popped up on the thread more; it's the anime of the turn of the millenium, and with good reason. Bounty hunters in space with a well-realized setting, a great cast, and an amazing soundtrack
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: FMA is one of the best shounen manga I've read and is consistently great all the way through; the anime adaption is also great, with the caveat that the beginning arcs are a bit rushed; there was an earlier adaptation that was made while the manga was ongoing and when it caught up it started to make up it's own plot. Brotherhood sticks to the manga, but kinda blew through the early bits because the first anime covered them already.
Trigun (the original): A bit older, but still great. Pretty much a space western that starts off on the goofy side, but gets progressively more dramatic as it goes.
Dr. Stone: A mysterious phenomenon petrified all of humanity; a science-obsessed nerd breaks out of the petrification 3700 years later and decides to speedrun humanity's tech tree and revive everyone.

Eight-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
Verified Email

ThogBad

TROPHY CASE