Re: Pokémon Legends Arceus

Can We Talk About Pokémon Legends: Arceus' Shockingly Dark Tone For A Second
https://kotaku.com/pokemon-legends-arceus-alpha-pokemon-tone-nintendo-swit-1848478468

Another lady, meanwhile, says she’s heard that there’s no seasoning quite like starvation, and while she says it with a chuckle, I don’t think she’s 100% joking. Certainly not when your private quarters happen to have a sign near your bed to the effect of, “life is hardship but you have to suck it up.” And sure enough, there’s a different old lady who, upon meeting, immediately scolds you and says that the town won’t be feeding any freeloading strangers like you. Lady, I just fell out of the rift in the sky and I have no idea what’s going on but Christ, OK.

I've been reading a bunch of interesting essays about this game, but I still don't think it's for me, at least not right now. I might come back to it in March or April, when I'll hopefully have more time to spend with video games that don't immediately deliver the sort of narrative-driven experience I'm craving at the moment.

ODDTAXI

I finished watching ODDTAXI last night. Because I'm not super into crime drama, it was never going to be one of those anime that fucking changed me holy fuck, but it's still a solid 9/10 show with interesting art and excellent writing and voice acting.

About halfway through, around Episode 7, you start to get a sense of why everyone looks like an animal. I don't want to spoil it, except to say that there are no actual elements of fantasy or science fiction. The twist is something that could only be done with animation, and it's brilliant.

I think the closest comparable show is probably the first season of Durarara, which also has an urban ensemble cast who all turn out to be connected at the end. In addition, both shows are oddly heartwarming despite being filled with child trafficking and murder.

All of the ODDTAXI characters appear as human during the final episode, and it's really cool. I think getting to see what nonhuman characters look like as human might be one of my favorite visual tropes. The story game Mutazione handles this in an interesting and memorable way too. If I had to be honest, I think this is one of the appeals of Ganon for me as well, that he's secretly human (and also attractive). Fingers crossed that Breath of the Wild 2 does as good of a job with its villain-monster's human form as a one-season anime about a middle-aged taxi driver.

One Day I Will Stop Being Lazy and Read Ovid Already

I like it when nonhuman characters turn out to be human, but I should also say that I like when nonhuman characters are just flat-out nonhuman. Interspecies romance has always been and probably will always continue to be my thing.

Ever since the beginning of last year my phone background has been set to a photo of a sculpture of Theseus and the Minotaur. I don't even need to tell you which one, because they're all Like That. Later on this year it is fully my intention to do studies of these sculptures, thereby alienating everyone I know on social media.

Idk, I'm not into furries or anthro or whatever, and this isn't about queer politics. I just think it's neat.