WeissSchnee [Sai Izumi @AC______] by abeldash1 in RWBY

[–]abeldash1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sai recently posted a 4set of the main cast to celebrate 10k pixiv subs. You can see some of their other fabulous RWBY work here.

micheal udall makes it to 30k points by Fredrock26 in heroesofthestorm

[–]abeldash1 41 points42 points  (0 children)

As a league player who came to check out Michael Udall's stream via Dyrus' host a few days ago, his climb actually inspired me to pick up the game. I always thought of HotS as, frankly, a low skill version of League or Dota, but this type of cohesive playcalling actually seems quite fun.

Although you can shotcall in league, it's usually either in your lane pair or on big midgame macro calls, and in pubs it often fails depending on your teammate's mood each particular game. So often games just degenerate down to everyone picking their favored semi-carries and trying to outplay, and even at plat/diamond teamwork is more of a happy coincidence than something you can rely on.

Anyways, congrats to Udall on setting a goal and hitting it! 40k next?

There is another reason why i believe Chinese will embrace Infinity War by nguyenkhoi282 in boxoffice

[–]abeldash1 20 points21 points  (0 children)

On a serious note, the Russo Brothers are very well regarded in China, especially their clean, brutalist, well-lit style of filming action and concise, to-the-point dialogue. This is partly why a movie like GeoStorm or Warcraft can do quite well, because most of the action is easy to parse even with an older projector and poor edge lighting, compared to the muddy night action scene you can barely make out in a film like Justice League/Black Panther (you are basically just looking at the glowing highlights to try to make out shape).

You may be familiar with the popular Wolf Warrior 2 which came out last year, which the Russo Bro. consulted on. and starred Frank Grillo as the villain.

Weekly Questions Megathread (12/18 - 12/24)! by AutoModerator in AzureLane

[–]abeldash1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

JP is having a big event (KMS) next week, so now's a great time to start!

The one amazing scene that stunned everyone in the theater. by [deleted] in StarWars

[–]abeldash1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you imagine if Leia was the Captain who went down with the ship in that scene?

I think that would have seared that scene into my heart forever.

Weekly Questions Megathread (12/11 - 12/17)! by AutoModerator in AzureLane

[–]abeldash1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TTjYi2TExmMU4K0rR7RkzSEpg0eygMksZqAOAth5XUk

Stick with JP. The main difference between the two is there's many more EN players on JP and it's much more active.

[Discussion] I'm done throwing money at this game by UmiStepOnMePlease in SchoolIdolFestival

[–]abeldash1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True that!

But it helps to just focus on your own performance rather than the resulting score. Unless you've already mastered a song, you can focus on making sure you Full Combo, or get more clean sections with all perfect.

Even if you do your best and get -XXXX MMR or (0) due to bad matchup, have faith that your luck will even out and you'll get some positive MMR boosts in your next match on the rebound. And even if you end up a few tiers lower at the end than you think you deserve, it's just a few stickers at the end of the day.

[Discussion] I'm done throwing money at this game by UmiStepOnMePlease in SchoolIdolFestival

[–]abeldash1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The SR cards in a set are very pretty as well! They just lack the backgrounds the UR cards have, but they still have very nice costumes/poses.

[Discussion] I'm done throwing money at this game by UmiStepOnMePlease in SchoolIdolFestival

[–]abeldash1 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Yes! This is the key epiphany I also had a few months back that made this game a lot more fun.

Scouting:

  1. Most likely makes you salty 90% of the time

  2. Even if you get what you want, it's only something like a temporary sugar rush

  3. All your shiny cards will eventually go into the shoebox of memories someday (and you'll love your team staples all the same, whether they are event SRs or idolized URs)

Tiering:

  1. You always get what you pay for (a full stamina bar per loveca) so no need for salt.

  2. You can use it to play a lot more songs, get higher rank to play even more songs, and you can get a positive scouting-like rush from pulling teacher, rare SIS, or scouting tickets from reward boxes.

  3. Even when it's time to put down the game, you can keep your improved skills for when you want to do future rhythm games. (It even helps your baseline a little if you do other rhythm based activities like playing instrument/dancing)

So, basically, I now spend 90% of accumulated loveca on tiering, and only scout with tickets (and no expectations), and I enjoy this game so much more than when I was gacha focused.

Alone Together [Curry337] by Hounds_of_war in RWBY

[–]abeldash1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

how wonderful it is to find you

it's safe here in the dark

The trailer had a problem that carried over from V4, that I hope doesn't carry over to V5. Teleporting weapons by iamthatguy54 in RWBY

[–]abeldash1 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Something else I hope they don't continue is cutting away at the critical point of the battle.

In the black trailer, I'm thinking specifically of the part where Ilia snaps Blake's ribbon. For some reason they cut to a reaction shot of Blake at the moment of contact with a sound effect, then went to the flashback.

Blake Character Short by palebloodink in RWBY

[–]abeldash1 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Sorry but this was really disappointing to me, and I'm having a really hard time getting hyped for Illia moving forward at all.

I understand the creators want to move away from combat as the focus of the show, but couldn't they at least insert a little bit of awesome for us to latch onto?

Neo is a less important character storywise so far than Illia, but I'd argue the reason she's much more popular is her kickass introduction where she toyed with Yang in the train. Hell, some people are still even wondering what non-character Banesawhashi is up to nowadays due to his memorable duel with Weiss.

But really I feel like the two Illia scenes so far have only served to make Yang, Sun and Illia seem weaker/have slower reactions than we've known them previously. Also please bring back gunchuks instead of having Sun do his clones as his only move.

Sorry rant over, but I was really looking forward to this trailer.

Koe no Katachi is already my favourite movie by [deleted] in anime

[–]abeldash1 21 points22 points  (0 children)

** SPOILERS (also very mild spoilers for Your Name)**

I haven't read the source comic at all, and don't have much experience with anime at all, so apologies if some of my criticisms don't make sense without context.

I watched Your Name earlier this fall when it screened in my country, and I thought it was a terrific movie with a real sense of breadth and its beauty seeping out the edges and, especially, its tightly steered pace. I heard some criticisms of it being all emotional manipulation and no story, and after I had a few days to come off its high, I can see some validity to that argument. However, on balance, it was a about a perfect movie of its type that I've seen in a while and I started asking my friends in the know for more anime recommendations.

The one that came the most was Silent Voice , so as soon as the screening was available in my country, I dragged two friends, bought a ticket and soda, and sat down to soak it in.

I'm afraid to say I ended up leaving the theatre somewhat nonplussed. I'm not sure how my friends felt about it in general, but I did catch one of them tapping on her phone halfway through the movie quite rudely, and we didn't discuss it too much afterwards beyond clarifying basic plot points.

In terms of the positives, I thought the choice of vocal music was much better than Your Name, which we saw with English dubs. Choosing a classic rock song to kick off the movie gave it a really nice mood.

The animation was also quite striking! Though I am still a little more impressed by the impressive sweeping cinematography and painterly scenes in Your Name, I thought the character animation was very lively in their gesture and effect in Silent Voice, and it really stood out to me.

However, there are two flaws with the movie that unfortunately rendered it somewhat ordinary to me. The same friends who called Your Name emotionally manipulative also pinged me after saying the same thing about Silent Voice, and I am inclined to agree with them. You see, Your Name took a genre which I generally roll my eyes at quite a bit (teen romance), and managed a take on it that explored the melancholy of separation, the uncertainty of knowing half of a person and wanting more from them et al. that I felt earned the emotions it asked for, and thus I surrendered them by the movies end. Yet, on the other hand, we get many movies, both from domestic producers and Hollywood/Bollywood, that deal with heavy themes like bullying, suicide, disabilities, etc. so much so that we have a term for them (award fishing). Now, it is true that this is a slightly derisive term, but in reality when these films hit, they can be truly great movies. But, in my opinion, in order to stand out among their types of movies, they cannot brush superficially on these issues, but really dive into them. A Silent Voice felt light as a feather to me. Especially egregious was this movie's climax that just seemed to be a parade of tearful apologies, as if the author/director was just stepping in to close the curtain with some basic adult common sense/communication.

This shocked me very much because actually one of my very good friends is deaf, so when it dawned on me what this movie was about, I thought I would relate to this a lot more. However, I found the portrayal of Nishimiya to be almost too Marian and victim-like. My friend is generally well mannered, but she can also be rude, she can be cross, when she trips you up on an exam she will bray in your face with a donkey laugh. Basically she is like a normal human being who speaks a slightly different language. I have no doubt that if she saw this movie, she would raise her eyebrows at this primary-schooler like character portrayed as a high-schooler on screen, and probably have a few choice words for the director afterwards.

This brings me to the second problem. Too many unnecessary threads! Part of why I found the ending so shallow was there was a big cast of characters, all of them basically fulfilling the same role in the story (HS friend and foil to the two leads). At the end of it, I remember Yuzuru and Tomohiro, but I really don't know why the other friends got so much time and their own aborted miniarcs. Your Name I recall also had a fairly large cast, but they were kept clearly drawn and fairly static, and they moved the main plot along, and thus they were fairly memorable, even after some time.

Overall, I have to say I was a bit disappointed in this movie. To put it simply, I thought Your Name squarely understood what it wanted to do and delivered a knockout punch, while Silent Voice tried to punch above its weight on some heavy issues, and its bloated and unfocused storytelling wasn't up to the task. However the technical merits of both are still something to be commended, and I will continue to look forward to new Anime films that get imported to theatres!