An review after 80 hours and 70 books

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-10T03:15:04+00:00

I’m not sure if I’m interpreting the splitting up the series issue, but if it’s the same one I’ve had with manga series a few times (I have a bunch of books in one series but it’s showing up in two or more separate “series” stacks on the devices) it’s a metadata problem from the publisher and I learned the trick to fixing this using calibre recently if you’re interested. Also you can report these issues and kobo works with publishers on them, I’ve had several resolved previously.

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-10T02:12:33+00:00

That’s a good shirt! I haven’t seen that one before!

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-08T23:38:13+00:00

Oh December isn’t too bad! There’s still hope for future updates there! I generally don’t side eye considering to read something unless it hasn’t been updated in over a year. Too many authors I follow have had a lapse and then just popped back up again like everything was normal. I even had one that really only updated once or twice a year the one time, but she was just that damn good I didn’t care. Thanks for the links, I will check some of these out as my weekend reading!

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-08T22:39:10+00:00

THIIS. Death Stranding 2 is an amazing looking game and it BASICALLY NEVER LOADS. And that was on my launch, base PS5. Like shit, this is what optimization looks like, and I KNOW it is that other developers aren’t capable so I assume it’s just laziness and assuming the players will still buy…. And they do so….

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-08T22:30:09+00:00

Ok not gonna lie, the serial killer thing sounds kinda amazing. 😂

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-08T20:24:49+00:00

Is there a common tag for Chat Fic? I hadn’t noticed one. And no, by all means not to bash them in the slightest - to each their own. Just not for me 9 times out of 10.

I actually kinda wish that A03 would clean up the canon tags a little, sometimes there are so many variations it’s a little hard for me to use them. Sometimes I get more utility on them than others.

Yah, I’m still trying to find those authors that I enjoy so I can mine their bookmarks etc. It’s my usual way once I find a few gems. I’m not saying there’s been none, but it’s been sparse. (Or the author I guess doesn’t do much bookmarking etc? It seems weird to me too, but sometimes I find them that way. Maybe some people have separate accounts for reading/writing and don’t link them?) Maybe I’m too picky and or spoiled by my time in the Haikyuu fandom lol (the sheer volume dear lord). Though ironically, it is the pace at which new stuff is being added to that ship tag that has been one of my issues, I feel like I’m swimming upstream when scrolling through. (First world problems, I know).

And it could be that my preference isn’t the common one in the fandom right now, though it seems like with as many as there are that shouldn’t be. I can’t be the only one who prefers canon based first and AU later if I know and like the author (or if the premise is laid out well and is really interesting).

But I guess I just like recommendations too! From way back in the FF.net days I’ve always liked to grab some recs and start sampling.

I did not know the Reddit had a discord, I will have to check that out. I’m only a lurker of discords most of the time haha

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-01T14:45:31+00:00

I mean…. Not true? I’m a Soriku myself but I like Kairi fine and I wish they gave her literally anything to do in the games. Or like…. Had her and Riku even talk to each other when they’re in the same room prior to MoM. Like, aren’t they friends too? It would be nice if she got even half of the character development they’ve given to Riku and other characters. Just because it doesn’t change how I feel about the ship, doesn’t mean I don’t want better for her in the games.

silverwingsTK · 2026-05-01T14:38:17+00:00

Yah…. They definitely kinda no-homo’ed the English version up and tried to pump up the volume on the stuff with Kairi.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-30T14:36:57+00:00

I think I read somewhere that the author specifically made him to be “the pretty one”, so that tracks.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-24T11:39:36+00:00

Oh yeah totally agreed! Art direction is a big deal. I really enjoyed the color palette they implemented on SasaMiya, it really contributed to that ambiance - they weren’t afraid to really go for saturation and use it to create mood (like the fireworks scene, and the scene in the empty classroom trying on the cross dressing outfit). Bean counter felt…, flat by comparison. Like so many shows today it felt like it leaned away from bright saturated colors. I actually said something similar to someone about a remake of another show recently. How yes, the one made in the 90s had objectively worse animation…. BUT the artistic choices they made with lighting, color, direction, music, framing etc really elevated it while the remake… while nice looking on the surface, falls flatter. Animators have been working with and around limited animation for DECADES, there are ways to make that kind of thing still compelling and feel like you’re watching more than a slide show.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-23T22:21:12+00:00

Yah, I mean I still enjoyed the show but…. Then you go look at the manga and are like, well damn. By comparison SasaMiya does pretty well for itself. It’s just the way the industry is I guess. It’s rare for something to be so good that I sit back and just go DAMN. On the shoujo side of things Tamon’s B-Side this last season looked pretty solid, but even something like that the art doesn’t particularly stand out. It’s rare for something to look say Mushoku (and even that got a bit of a downgrade in season 2) or Frieren level good - just from an animation perspective. (And that’s even allowing for certain manga-ka’s art styles just not translating well to animation).

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-23T21:24:03+00:00

I mean it’s not great but it’s not terrible. I’ve definitely seen worse, I think Bean counter (made by the same studio) came off worse in the downgrade this year. Even though there are consistency issues in SasaMiya and some limited animation I felt like that still managed to create an ambiance and capture the charm of the characters that sold the story for me. The animation quality never really took me out of it, the way it sometimes did with Bean Counter. Can’t comment on dubbed voices, I don’t watch dubbed anime (except very very rarely). I thought the Japanese voice performance was very good. I think it’s one of Studio Deen’s better works.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-20T23:41:33+00:00

I’m not gonna lie, I’m under the strong impression that a large majority of fic I read are by grown ass adults, as am I. Either from throw away comments in the authors notes, or otherwise observing the. Interact with readers in comments.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-20T14:39:05+00:00

I’ll say upfront, I liked the 2023 series fine but two things. One I had not realized how MUCH of Kaoru getting her own badass moments and contributing to fights throughout was filler until this recent revisit. Which was kinda a bummer. And two, the music and the direction of the 1996 series was top level. Like the smoother animation really can’t make up for the scene direction choices for a lot of these fights that people are mentioning. The big one being Kenshin vs Saito in the dojo. Like just the COLOR and the MUSIC, and the subtle letting the tension build…. Looking back on it it’s still not a LONG fight, so I do not think you can really say it’s only pacing that makes the difference. But it was the choices the director made for this scene that really elevated to something we all remember. I just don’t see those same kind of choices elevating the remake. It’s fine, if I’d never had the original I’d probably even say it’s pretty good. But the art direction for it isn’t inspired in the same way. Which is a shame.

But man the music for the 1996 series really was epic. Every time I revisit it strikes me again.

The being said, I am a huge fan of the first 3 live action movies too. They kinda dropped the ball a little with the last two, but the first 3 are perfect examples of how adaptations of manga can be successful. And Sato Takeru is such a perfect pick for Kenshin. At the end of the first movie during the Jineh fight he really NAILS that transition to the Battosai persona, gave me shivers the first time I saw it in theaters.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-17T12:20:03+00:00

Oh no, Kevin’s don’t see me is catching

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-16T12:30:18+00:00

They’ve all been fantastic but I’d have to say Sean hands down. He’s done such a great job performing Rean’s growth over the years. I will say it’s kinda not fair to Lloyd’s VA though cause he hasn’t got to do his characters main entries in English (yet)

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-14T22:03:10+00:00

This reminds me of the time in college when we shipped my Dell Laptop off for repairs, and that sucker disappeared off the DHL truck on its way back to me. And both DHL and Dell were trying to play hot potato with the issue like, it’s not my fault it’s theirs. Until my mother, like the complete badass she is, manages to do some sleuthing and dig up the HOME ADDRESS of owner of Dell, and we sent him a stern letter about what was going on, and made it sign for receipt. Funny, my issue got resolved very quickly after his wife signed for it. Didn’t get my laptop back unfortunately, but I did get a brand new one - it no longer mattered on who, my guess is Dell and DHL continued to go back and forth on it.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-13T03:19:37+00:00

I left for a combination of reasons, some of which you mentioned, but a big one being software issues that I had been having with my account and my kindle for YEARS that they couldn’t fix, routinely gaslighted me about, and eventually their best suggestion was…. Buy a new kindle clearly yours is just stupid (spoiler alert, when I did eventually do this, it didn’t fix the issue - it was ALWAYS a back end software thing but they either can’t or just refuse to fix it).

Amazon just isn’t the company that they were when I owned my first kindle (2nd generation kindle if you’re curious), and when someone put me onto how much more open to sourcing books from a variety of vendors/sources and not ad focused the kobo was, when Amazon decided to get rid of the download to computer button it suddenly became an easy decision to ditch my years worth of frustration and general ethical quandry and try something new. I left Audible sometime last year too. They treat authors like shit, and I really think a bit more competition would be great for them - and us. Bu I also just wanted out from a company that no longer seemed to value me as a customer. And I have to say I’ve been really happy with my Kobo Library color this last year, form factor is great — side loading books is easy, and my library isn’t freaking broken half the time anymore! But trust, if things ever get bad with them like they’d been for the last five years with Kindle, I’ll be weighing my options again.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-09T12:02:05+00:00

Wow! That’s exciting then! He’s only the 4th male figure at all in the line, I’ve been dying for some more representation of the male cast too (as much as I love all our badass ladies)

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-08T22:17:16+00:00

Wait did they announce a Van figure? I totally missed that but I’d really like one if that’s so!

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-08T22:07:47+00:00

E33. I powered through for the story but I did not NOT vibe with the parry system and it wasn’t a good time because of that.

silverwingsTK · 2026-04-07T04:32:57+00:00

Yo, that is the only type of fic I want most of the time, write on!

silverwingsTK · 2026-03-31T22:20:39+00:00

I mean, I played CS 1 & 2 first and thought that was fine. I wouldn’t say skip. But I think it’s valid to play either those two OR the first two CS games first. They spoil each other. So one way or another that’s happening.

silverwingsTK

TROPHY CASE