big bad birtha's suggestion box 2: secret passions unveiled

[Chiko]

Rewrite

Okay, so the first episode may have been a massive 48 minutes long and it may have had some points where I was trying to wrap my head around the almost-randomness (explanation below - potential-but-probably-not spoilers)

Spoiler: show

I say almost as occult stuff was mentioned, haven't actually gone through the VN but I do plan on doing so.

The art was really nice, the characters were as I expected based on appearance alone and, all-in-all, the 48 minute ep to start us off didn't even feel that long and I plan on sticking with this one.

Tales of Zestiria the X

The art is amazingly well funded but on a second watch-through it is incredibly lacking in the story department. Okay, I may be being harsh because it was apparently a prologue but I was left entirely clueless as to what was happening apart from "Oh look, an evil-looking thing in the sky which is actually evil". I'd say those who played the game are safe, however, it appears that it will be entirely anime-original and with ufotable behind it, ehhh.

[Doppleganger]

Dang, Rewrite aired already? And 48 minute episode wtf?

[Doppleganger]

Hello, my name is Doppleganger and I'm glad the world is still funny.

My favourite:

Originally Posted by Anime News Network

This Alternate World's Magical Language Looks Just Like Japanese

[lilboocorsola]

Chuuu~

Sweetness and Lightning:

Who wants their daily dose of daddy-daughter cuteness~?

The story revolves around a teacher taking care of his young daughter after his wife's death. It's basically just about him living as a single parent and learning to cook yummy meals together with his kid, and is about every bit as adorable as you'd expect. It's definitely got a Barakamon/Usagi Drop-esque vibe to it - and hopefully will avoid the implications of the latter. XP Although there are some wary waters to tread by adding a high school girl into the mix, I'd like to think she just sees in sensei a father figure from the first episode. The ED does lend me to believe it will be a platonic "gathering people to enjoy good food together" kind of tale. It also sounds really nice, on "High High High" level for me. The OP is pretty cute too. If you're looking for a feel-good family slice-of-life for the summer, this is probably a good choice. <3

As an aside, I also watched the original PW flashback ep, and baby Edgey-poo is an adorable little tsundere. ;~; So many cute kiddies to cuddle this week~

I also sat through the 48-minute intro to Rewrite, although I don't have much to say about it since so far it seems like pretty standard supernatural harem fare. *shrug* Hopefully things will make more sense and the characters get fleshed out as the plot goes on.

[big bad birtha]

I finished some of last season's shows. I haven't started on new shit because no internet for two weeks. I also forgot to look at the offerings this season, so I'm pretty blind on everything. I will check out Planetarian, Rewrite, Orange, Illya, Handa-Kun, and Kono Bijubitsu. There has to be more, but that'll come later!

Onto last season's shows:

Anne Happy
Despite my optimism for this show starting out, this show never met that optimism. From start to finish, the show was just your ho-hum, yuri-bleached, SoL. I was hoping the unlucky theme would be interesting, but sadly it did not. For what it's worth, it didn't feel like a waste of time, but it didn't do anything for me either. Anne Happy deserves a 5.

Boku no Hero Academia
The ending surprised the hell out of me. Onto why later on. For the most part, I enjoyed the show. It's a nice hot-blooded shounen that's not too ridiculous. Later on didn't get too bad with forcing cheese down your throat. Surprising is how best girl (Asui), is actually the most popular. This deserves an 8. As to what surprised me:

Spoiler: show

I was convinced that All Might would die in the last episode. He seemed so much like a character who would die at the end of the first arc.

Flying Witch
This is a strange show. Not much ever happened, but I still enjoyed watching it. This show is one of those shows where you just relax and grin. I'm kind of torn on what to give this. I'd say it deserves a 6.5.

Sakamoto Desu Ga?
I expected this to become stale three episodes into the show, but from start to finish, it has proved to be entertaining. It's not only from stupid-awesome moments. The show had its touching moments too, with Sakamoto helping people with his ridiculous antics. It's just that with the ending, the ridiculous antics pulled the show too far into silly territory to give it the impact it could have had. Despite that, this was still a great show. Sakamoto gets an 8.

Hoshii no Kirby
I enjoyed this show starting out, because Kirby was over-the-top adorable, and the townspeople had nice backstories and personalities. Sadly after a while, I start to realize that all of the development the characters get is just an illusion. None of the episodes ever go anywhere. Sure there's little things added, like Dedede's car changing, and Kirby gaining a few new techniques, but that's it. Kawasaki never improves on his cooking. The townspeople never stop being so gullible. Dedede never learns from his mistakes. After a while it became kind of frustrating. I still enjoyed watching Kirby himself. Hoshii no Kirby gets a 6.

Finally, Sonicomi being Non-H is bullshit.

[big bad birtha]

HELLO BROTHER! YOU READY FOR SOME NEW FUCKING SHOWS?! WHAT YA GONNA DO, WHEN NEW SHOWS RUN WILD ON YOUUUUUUUUUU?!

Amaama to Inazuma
This seems to be somewhat of a combination of Usagi Drop and Barakamon. It has the general setting of Usagi Drop, but with Barakamon's mood and energy. I'm not fully sure what to make of it, but I had fun with the first episode. 'twas full of smiles and glee. I expect to enjoy the rest of this show.

Handa-kun
I guess I should post this in the Barakamon thread, but eh. I have a difficult time believing this show will have much to do with Barakamon at all. I personally think the studio decided to make a show about an idol and stuck some random character in there. I loved the second half of episode 1 though. My lord it was awesome. Handa-kun is similar to Sakamoto, but it's much funnier, and makes much less sense. Like Sakamoto, this show seems like it'll get stale after about 3 episodes. I disliked the first half of this episode though. So obnoxiously meta. Also when animation studios do bits on amateur animators, they always seem so god damn arrogant. Kirby did that shit, when its animation was nothing special.

I'll go ahead and say that if you liked Barakamon, but can't comprehend how something that doesn't make sense can be entertaining, stay away from this show.

Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru!
When I started, I was put off by how Kyoto it looked, but thankfully that subsided. It's fairly entertaining, but nothing outstanding. It was pretty funny, which is always a plus.

Rewrite
There's my Rewrite thread, but eeeeeeeh. I don't feel like bumping my old thread just to talk to myself. This isn't a bad adaptation so far. It made me appreciate Rewrite's music. It's strange how Kagari's character animation is much better than everyone else's. Onto differences, because I know you all are so interested to know that!

Spoiler: show

Probably the biggest difference is Kagari. She doesn't appear that often. Actually she doesn't appear at all until much later on. I guess the animation studio likes Kagari? Actually, Doppel, if you're reading, I have a question. Does it seem obvious that Kagari is the one haunting Kotarou at night? I was never for sure what it was.

Chihaya isn't so....girly? She comes off as much more awkward and dumb in the VN. She isn't so blushy and bashful.

Everything else is mostly faithful.

[Doppleganger]

No, it was not obvious at all, and came across as a surprise.

In fact, wasn't that detail part of that omake section that you only get access to once?

[Doppleganger]

Rance: Hikari no Motomete

I've watched two episodes.

Rance transitioned really well into the anime. It's hilarious. The show is fairly well-animated but my only gripe is it tries to be a serious hentai and Rance at the same time. So the H-scenes are half stereotypical H, and half Rance bullying.

I imagine that because a lot of people watch H because it's "hot" it opted to not go super over the top with the H scenes. That's too bad, the half-hearted approach doesn't satisfy either party.

[Doppleganger]

Rance: Hikari no Motomete

Rating: Outstanding

This bad boy was only four episodes long, but you know what else is that long? Donald Trump's member. It still doesn't compare to Rance's hyper weapon.

Despite being an adaption of the original Rance game, meaning the jokes are literally 27 years old, it's still immensely funny. It makes me wish I was learning about love from Rance in 1992 rather than from Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Life lessons like "Love is driven by your hips" would have been internalized at a young age.

For a short reviews: The episodes follow the game format, I guess. There are two H scenes per episode, the "vanilla" or "boring" one, which comes first, and then the over-the-top slapstick one, which I found great. Between the H scenes are action-combat battles, detective sleuthing and Rance bullying the heck out of Sill, usually in the form of insults, punches, and other miscellaneous abuses.

For most of the series, I feared that copyright, the Stasi, or both were preventing inclusion of "My Glorious Days" in the OVA, but out of nowhere an easter egg got laid when Lia starting singing it. Then it burts onto the scene at the end of the final episode.

This anime didn't have a huge budget, especially for the non-hentai bits, but it was entertaining as heck and had cute designs, which made up for the skimped budget at times. I think the overall humour was less than that very first episode of Words Worth but considering this was the first Rance, and the writing only gets better from here on out, I definitely want to see more animated!

All of the CVs were perfectly cast except Sill. I think her voice is a bit high. Her CV previously did Nishizono Mio from Little Busters and I have a soft spot for Mio (and also understand that she's playing up Sill's whiny nature) but her voice is way too artificially pitched for me.

New Rance is awesome. His integration of Rance's mannerisms was more seamless than a pair of Levi's jeans. I wonder if he was a fan of the original game. His embrace of the role reminds me of Dominic Armato who was a fan of The Secret of Monkey Island before he got cast as Guybrush. No offense to Old Rance (Kazuki Yao) but new guy outperformed him. Bigger, badder, harder, longer. Also, hairier!

Would Recommend: Yes

[big bad birtha]

So after bitching about VN releases, several VNs suddenly decide to become translated. Majikoi A-1 and the second Grisaia VN came out. Sadly the Grisaia release is the steam release, so all innuendo and H scenes were removed, so that release was a huge flop. H scenes being removed is okay, but considering how Makina speaks almost solely using dirty language, it butchers how she speaks. A few other interesting looking titles came out as well.

Updates on new shows.

Amaama to Inazuma
Still a ridiculously heartwarming show. Not much else to say. I'm hoping we meet whats-her-name's mother soon (3 episodes isn't enough to remember names!). She seems interesting.

Handa-kun
Still funny. Thankfully we didn't get that obnoxious bit we got in the first half of episode 1, so it was like episode 1, but without all of the bad!

Mob Psycho
Eeeeeehhhhhhhhh. I did not care for the first episode. It looked like a gag manga, but it just isn't funny. It seems most of the focus was on the action, but even that isn't much to gush over.

Prisma Illya 3 illywahslhwhath whatever
My main concern was what they were going to do about Sapphire. It would be shitty to just do away with her character completely. They just changed her VA. She doesn't sound quite right, but that's just because I was familiar with her previous voice. Otherwise, this should be a good season. It seems to take away the thing that annoys me about the Illya show the most! [spoiler]Time with Illya's annoying ass friends.[/b]

Rewrite
Hmmmmm........This just seems so off. Is it because Kotaro's VA is annoying? Is it because we're getting alot more irritating "comedy" grunts? This seems to focus more on clubtime than supernaturaltime. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is up to the viewer I guess. (episode 3 spoilers)

Spoiler: show

Huh? I always thought the girl Kotaro was chasing at night was Shizuru. Atleast that's what it always seemed to me, since he meets her nearby. I guess the animators needed to shove Kagari in there somehow.

We're getting a few bits from Chihaya's route, but I'm not sure how this show is going to do character stories.

Planetarian
They sure did try to make Yumemi look as cute as possible, didn't they? Though I like what they did with her overall. With her talking like that, it gives you a much better idea of how annoying her quirks can be to someone. It's a pretty good adaptation so far. Why the hell couldn't Rewite be done by these guys?!

Also for the first time in a long while, I'm looking forward to Precure episodes. This has been a long time coming.

[Doppleganger]

Going to post some interesting reading I got related to Re:Zero. Not in the R:Z thread though because I've been spamming it and it's not 100% related.

So.

A lot of people are criticizing Subaru as a self-insert MC. Self-inserts are a problem in low quality fiction, but why has rarely been elucidated clearly.

Here is an edited Chanpost which, I feel, strikes at the heart of the matter. I proofed it for clarity, spelling and the punc.

Originally Posted by Chanpost

THE DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC of a self-insert MC is not that the MC experiences things the viewer would like to experience, it is that the MC is engineered to be EASY TO IDENTIFY WITH so the audience can imagine themselves as him.

What this usually means in the context of anime is creating an MC with a meek personality that does not leave a strong impression or is an otaku . The classic example is how a huge number of harem anime and manga in the 00s had a main character with virtually zero personality who never took the initiative so that the otaku audience could imagine themselves as him and insert themselves into him.

A new flavour of self-insert MC that has become more popular since them is the cynical highschool student. This is designed to be easy to appeal to for not-very-popular, kind of bitter teenagers who have sour grapes. The cynical highschool student MC ends up surrounded by the attention of beautiful women and affable male friends who, like the harem MC, all want to be his friend and have his company for not very convincing reasons. the audience enjoys seeing cynicism and sarcasm and aloof, unsociable behaviour as "cool".

Wish-fulfillment is closely linked to self-insert MCs but is not exactly the same thing. Self-insert MCs are a means for an emotionally stunted audience to experience wish-fulfilment more because their ability to empathize with characters who are not explicitly similar to them is low.

Furthermore, a show can provide wishfulfillment and suffering. The audience can enjoy imagining gaining the friendship and admiration of several beautiful girls and doing cute chores with them then disengage and enjoy the drama of the MC suffering in a 3rd person way.

Guts only has a few aspects of his character which are relatable.

In most other aspects he is not a character you identify with like "that's so me!" but a role model. Someone whose strong personality leaves a big impression and who is much more impressive in terms of character and otherwise than most living people.

Light Yagami is similar in that way, you aren't meant to look at him and see much of yourself in him.

Pondering "what would I do in their situation" is not what people mean when they call someone a self-insert MC. When people try to ponder that about Guts or Light the answer is probably very different to how Light or Guts actually acted in the story because Light and Guts are impressive, unusual and different from most people. They are characters who leave a big impression.

This quote is pretty spot on. Interactive fiction back in the '90s used "blank slate" characters because the hero was supposed to be YOU. You were meant to 100% self-insert. So for harem animes like To-Love Ru and whatnot, the character was meant to be more or less a blank slate like in hentai. If he was pathetic, it was to create a gravitational envy.

Any guy would want to be a harem king. But the illusion is even stronger if the guy who is the harem king is inferior but similar to you. You think, "he's unworthy, I am more worthy than him without breaking these relationships".

...

That said, I do not think Natsuki Subaru is a self-insert MC. Yes, it's true he's surrounded by beautiful women. Yes it's true he's go a super power of sorts. There are grounds for wish-fulfillment even if all we're getting is suffering porn.

But I don't feel like I relate to him at all. He does not act like how normal people would in his scenario. He leave a powerful impression. Just, it's a negative one.

[Talon87]

Two of my favorite songs are "Kimi ga Shiranai Monogatari" and "Hoshi ga Matataku Konna Yoru Ni". Both are by supercell, both are sung by Yanagi Nagi. Got off my butt five or six years after discovering these songs and decided to finally hunt down more supercell goodness with this woman at the helm.

"... approached her to sing the vocals for Supercell's debut single "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" (2009). Yanagi continued as the vocalist of Supercell until 2011, and in that time provided vocals for two more singles in 2010—"Sayonara Memories" and "Utakata Hanabi / Hoshi ga Matataku Konna Yoru ni"—and Supercell's second studio album Today Is A Beautiful Day (2011)."

... God dammit. You mean to tell me these two songs I adore ... already comprise 66% of her singles with supercell? orz At least there's a non-single CD album for me to discover, but still ... consider me heartbroken. Why oh why did they have to go their separate ways?

[lilboocorsola]

How many can you recognize?

Spoiler: show

(Sorry couldn't get a full image without the staff in the way.)

Some close-ups:

Spoiler: show

My fav:

Spoiler: show

The lil' Midna is so cute. <3 Can't believe there's finally a TP manga... *needs to read*

[Sparkbeat]

Love Live Sunshine Drinking Game: Take a shot every time μ's or one of its members is mentioned, and when something is exactly the same as in the original. Good fucking luck.

[Talon87]

I didn't want to start any additional new shows but Kaisa's a jerk and told me about Orange. Asked me if I like romance dramas. (YES!) Said she had no one else to discuss this one with. Soooo, *sigh*, I checked out the Wikipedia page for it, and ...

I got hooked by the premise. A high school girl receives letters from the future, written by her future self. The letters detail what happened on that same day in history and give the protagonist directions for how and why to change things.

I'm only two episodes in so far. It's been pretty good. A rock solid 7/10 from me. But I'm led to believe that it only gets better (and crazier!?) from here. So we'll see.

Hanazawa Kana rockin' her Tsunemori Akane voice from Psycho-Pass. <3

[Talon87]

Just finished Episode 03 of Orange. I'm intrigued to see how the author plans to resolve the unmodified future. Will it cease to exist after some point? Will it continue to exist, but the people there will find a happy ending of their own? Will it continue to exist and remain tragic? We'll see. But the one thing that's clear is, we're not done glimpsing into the unmodified future just because Naho's made a couple o' changes here or there. Show seems to be being set up to show us the main story (Modified Naho's high school life) as well as a second story (Unmodified Naho's adult life).

One thing I forgot to mention last time: the manga's done. Five volumes, twenty-two chapters. So that's nice. It's nice to know that we're gonna get closure, and soon, rather than a years-long wait or no closure at all.

[lilboocorsola]

>romance drama over family cuteness

I see how it is. =3=

Tbf Orange is something I've seen floating around and was mildly curious from the manga style, but assumed it was a stereotypical Shoujo. The premise does sound intriguing, but I doubt I'll be picking it up. Already following a few shows from this season, which is more than I've been planning to.

[Sparkbeat]

I'll probably start Orange somewhat soon considering I need to watch something besides Love Live Sunshine, since it's more of a guilty pleasure than anything else. I also want to watch ReLife at some point, but it just got released as a whole, so I'll binge it at some point xd

Other than that, I don't really know what to watch this season. Mob Psycho's been getting hyped and looks funny enough, but it doesn't really seem like my thing. A couple shows look interesting like Rewrite, but none of them so much that I know I want to watch them. Handa-kun is something I'll watch at some point, but right now I'm going through Sakamoto Desu Ga when I feel like watching comedy, so I'm going to wait to watch Handa-kun once I'm done with that.

[big bad birtha]

Same here. I started watching it for a few minutes, but it seemed so generic shoujo that I stopped. Maybe I should have given it more of a chance.

I guess I can blabber about more shows.

Amaama to Inazuma
Hmmm....this show seems similar to Yakitate Japan in a way. How? The food reactions! It's just instead of flipping the fuck out in a hyperactive manner, the person eating the food just cries. Actually this show is starting to bug me. I'm hoping they do more than make food and give lessons on them. I watched episode 4 of this and a similar episode of Good Eats (kids eating bitter food), and I felt like Good Eats was more fulfilling.

Handa-kun
I love this show. Nothing else to say.

Rewrite
I read into this, and it seems this anime is going to go into a anime only route. Episode 4 went over stuff that wasn't anime only (for the most part). Onto comparisons! (episode 4 spoilers)

Spoiler: show

Kotarou never tried to get the club to try to find Esaka. He went to find Esaka himself without telling the others.

Shizuru wasn't in Esaka's shop when Kotarou found it. Actually Shizuru's presence kind of took away from a nice bonding scene with Esaka. He's a cool hombre. Esaka's sudden outbursts didn't carry over well. Also Esaka was nowhere near as willing to show Kotarou images of creatures. Actually he originally outright denied them.

So we're going to skim over Shizuru's route, eh? I'm not sure how to feel about Shizuru having a superpower revealed to Kotarou this early. There's a scene later on that this revelation actually kind of kills.

I don't remember enough about Shizuru's route to give comparisons. Well I guess the anime just took out all of the bad scenes of Shizuru's trainwreck of a route! I like that they included Shizuru's ED at the end of the episode. I really like that song.

So we're doing Lucia's route next? Well this scene showed my favorite thing about Chihaya. She opposes Lucia, and that's just swell. I give a thumbs up to anyone who opposes her! That Love Hina shit doesn't belong in a Key title.

If this anime skips YO-SHI-NO, I'm going to despair.

[Talon87]

Just watched Episode 04 of Orange. The story continues to be good.

Spoiler: show

I feel bad for Suwa, though. He clearly loves Naho, yet he loses in both timelines. In the original timeline, he married her and even has a child with her, but ten years later she's still in love with Kakeru. In the modified timeline, he gives her the advice she needs to become an item with Kakeru, knowing full well that he's ensuring he won't wind up with her.

Hanazawa Kana as Naho is just so hrnnnnngh.

[Talon87]

Just watched Episode 05 of Orange. Caught up. Out of episodes to watch. Urgh.

Spoiler: show

I love that the author, who I underestimated, has shown me up with her demonstrated knowledge of and understanding of competing theories of time travel.

This episode establishes that we're dealing with the budding parallel universes theory which stipulates that while you can send information back to the past, you can't alter your own past -- you can only alter your alternate self's future.

Suwaaaaaaaa. ;~; This story is doing a solid job of showing just how much love triangles suck IRL. A mainstay of romantic fiction, man if they don't suck in reality. It really hurts to be a Suwa. It also really hurts to be a Naho (with respect to what she's doing to Suwa). And it also hurts to be a Kakeru (ditto). This episode does a great job of showing that. None of the three wants to hurt anyone. All three want everyone to be happy. But it just can't happen when a man loves a woman who 1) loves another and 2) wants to be friends.

Ueda-senpai and her posse of bitches. Damn, high school girls, you scary. O_o;

[lilboocorsola]

I'm not sure how to feel about Handa-kun anymore.

It's almost Watamote level of uncomfortable/depressing at times. Poor Handa thinks he's unpopular, and it's all ________'s fault.

Also the levity of suicide as a punchline really doesn't sit well with me, especially due to recent events. It's the same reason I won't watch Bungou Stray Dogs since there's a character who seems obsessed with it.

[Doppleganger]

EMERGENCY AMAGI BRILLIANT PARK SPOILERS:

Spoiler: show

Sento wins

Seems to be a trend in recent stories, i.e. Re:Zero and now, apparently, Konosuba. After literally 50 years of nobody winning bowls, three champs emerge in such a short time.

It's overwhelming.

[Talon87]

ANN published an advertisement for the live-action Rurouni Kenshin films, written and sponsored by Funimation. But it's hard to take the article seriously.

It starts right out the gate claiming that Kenshin is "one of the greatest historical adventures ever told." Umm ... no? It's historical fiction. Let alone that you're hyping it up a bit too much with the whole "GREATEST ADVENTURE EVER TOLD" angle.

It gets worse though once you realize that whoever wrote this has as much grasp of Japanese history as an eager high school student who has learned all he knows from period anime like Kenshin. "Bakumastsu"? "Bakamatsu"? It's Bakumatsu, morons. And it isn't "the Bakumatsu conflict," as the writer keeps calling it -- "Bakumatsu", or literally "the end (matsu) of the Bakufu (baku)", Bakufu being the shogun government, refers to the tail-end years of the Edo period and can be thought of either as a micro-era within an era (existing inside of Edo and outside of Meiji) or else as a teeny tiny interstitial era (existing in between Edo and Meiji). It's the name for a time period, not for a conflict. And he can't even spell it right ...

[Doppleganger]

I can understand why they'd try to hype Kenshin to that respect, because Kenshin was pretty huge back when it aired. The manga was turbo-rushed to the printing press when the anime exploded on the TV scene and it ended up one of the best selling manga Viz ever had.

Kenshin also caused a mass case of surrealism which I will admit being an unfortunate part of. That is, because people were so unfamiliar with the history, much of what was depicted in Kenshin was seen as historically accurate. That includes the superhuman feats. While it's obvious to me now what is clearly fantastical, unfamiliarity with Japanese martial arts made me wonder if things like "a man so light he could glide over buildings via hanglider" were actually true.

Juuuuust enough believability to make you buy into the whole lie. That said, it offends me ANN has sold out so much on blatant advertising...it's being paid off for actual advertising.

...

This week has been a major one for GIGA SPOILERS! Numerous series have had bombs falling from the sky, so let's recap the explosive excitement!

Warning! These boxes will RUIN THE SERIES FOR YOU!

OPEN AT YOUR OWN RISK

Amagi Brilliant Park

Spoiler: show

Sento and Kanie are a couple.

http://i.imgur.com/vdHMLmy.png
http://i.imgur.com/b6gZ6KB.jpg

Shingeki no Kyojin

Spoiler: show

Erwin dies. Armin consumes Berthold and becomes the new Colossal Titan:

https://mangahelpers.com/forum/threa...aries.3005172/

Konosuba

(UNCONFIRMED)

...

That last one, I'm not 100% sure it's real. I saw a colour spread but no proof yet. So I'm not revealing it.

Still. What an exciting month. Manga is usually tons of stuff not happening, then things happening. For years, most series never had satisfying resolutions, because they were geared toward living for eternity, and so ended inconclusively. This next generation of writers have really decided to grant the finality that the previous never dared, and it's a very satisfying release. The planets and cosmos just happened to align for August.