Backlog

One of the (few) perks of having terrible terrible internet is that I've found myself watching a lot more anime and playing a lot more games in my free time. With decent internet I find myself wasting most of my time just sort of browsing around different sites, so this temporary change of pace is quite nice. Well, not nice, but bearable.

Over the last two weeks I've watched two shows from my backlog: Baccano! and Kaiba. Only two? It doesn't actually seem a lot, but I had a lot of shows from this season to catch up on, and some assignments to complete as well.

I didn't go into Baccano expecting a lot. I'd seen Durarara, by the same author, and thought it was above average but nothing amazing. I remember liking the first half of the series but feeling that it dragged a bit towards the end, and I didn't much care for some of the characters. The first episode of Baccano didn't do much to change my mind, it was very hectic and I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I'm glad I stuck with it though, because as the cast were introduced and the plot was set into motion, I was getting hooked. I liked pretty much all the characters. Isaac and Miria were great, and I also liked Ladd, Claire, Rachel, the various mafia families, I could go on. The English/Italian names were a bit dubious though, with "Jacuzzi Splot" being one of the odder ones.

I'm glad I finally watched it, I thought the show was pretty damn good, and definitely better than Durarara.

No context needed

Kaiba on the other hand was a show I had quite high hopes for: I loved Tatami Galaxy and Mind Game, both also directed by Yuasa. Kaiba certainly had a pretty distinct art style to it - the detail was kept low, and outlines and body shapes were kept fairly loose. The music was very atmospheric starting from the OP, which was pretty good for having English lyrics sung by a non-native speaker. The setting and story itself were both very interesting, with the amnesiac protagonist escaping from his pursuers across multiple worlds and bodies while trying to find out who he is. There were lots of side characters along the way, and I felt really quite attached to some of them even if they might have only been in a single episode.

The last few episodes were a bit hard to follow in parts, and some of the revelations were a bit unexpected. It was a very good show, though I probably preferred Tatami Galaxy (yes I know they're not exactly comparable).


I've also been playing a bit of Master of Orion 2. My laptop isn't very powerful but it can handle DOS games at least. I'm not very good at the game yet, though I'm sure I'd be better if I didn't keep running my colony ship into the Guardian in the very early game. It turns out it's usually best to scout with scouts rather than very expensive non-combat units. My race of rock-eating fish-men-things would live to see another day, thanks to the easy AI very much living up to its name.

I'm also going to finally start on my VN backlog, like I've been meaning to for ages. I have Symphonic Rain and Deardrops installed, and I think I'll start with Symphonic Rain as soon as I'm done with this post.

Oh, and after reading the comments on my last post I downloaded Sakamichi no Apollon and Natsuiro Kiseki. Then completely forgot to transfer them to my external hard drive. If I were an anime girl I'd probably bump myself on the head while sticking my tongue out to the side and making a cute noise right about now.