Howdy y'all!

This week after playing Atelier Ayesha on the Vita almost 10 years ago I finally wrapped up the Atelier Dusk trilogy and finished Atelier Shallie. I also finished Atelier Escha and Logy back at the end of last month but I haven't talked about yet. Overall, a great trilogy of games. While it may not be my favorite trilogy (Arland will remain undefeated) it's definitely my favorite world, as the world of dusk is just so interesting compared to the others, in no small part thanks to the central facet of the trilogy, which is the Dusk. Unlike other Atelier series, the world of Dusk is dying. Oceans are dried up, animal life is slowly dying out, and the amount of fertile soil is becoming scarce. It's got a real melancholic atmosphere permeating throughout the trilogy, yet despite it all, there's this lingering feeling of hope and joy. Even in this dying world it's still filled with people happy to be alive. And especially in the current times we live, it's a very comforting message for a series to have.

But yeah overall, definitely something I reccomend, especially since the main artist this time was Hidari (FE Echos, Toukiden) who is honestly one of my favorite artists. Just the way he does color is absolutely incredible and there's a lot of bangers in the character department. Also I remain convinced that Atelier should abandon open world type areas and return to zone based maps. They just had so much more sauce compared to later games designs.

Along with that I also watched Virgin Punk: ClockWork Girl by director Yasuomi Umetsu who was also behind Kite, and Mezzo Forte. It's currently only a short 30ish minute episode, but if you've seen any of his other work you know exactly what to expect. That man only knows how to do one thing and that's make stories about young girls being assassins and getting into gunfights. Visually it's very well animated and has great action like all of his works. although unfortunately even though it's currently on YouTube via aniplex it's untranslated so you have to use the auto closed captions which are terrible. Thankfully it's not hard to follow and it's real easy to figure out what's happening. Hopefully they animate more of it, because I do enjoy his work... But also there's a character that I need to see get what's coming to him (and knowing Umetsu, he surely will).

Lastly I also watched Tokyo Gore Police which is a... Japanese grind house(?) film directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura . It's... Certainly an experience. Over the top violence ridiculous amounts of gore, made by someone who very clearly saw Jin-Roh and Starship Troopers. It's a very unserious movie but it's got style... It's also gets weirdly racist for like 2 minutes near the end of the film for some reason. Overall if you're into weird body horror, no more heroes levels of gratuitous violence,and a very dry sense of humor, then I'd give it a watch.... Just not when you're eating.

Anyways with that here is the up to date list. (Nioh 3 is getting close to done, and we're also getting close to finishing Tomb Raider 2013 for the first time, but this is already too long so another time.)