12 Days of Something VI: A Very Bad Idea

This is always how good ideas start.

Picking up from last year, Aeroblip and I have continued our quest to drink through every good ecchi and/or harem anime that has ever been made. Highlights from this year have included Highschool of the Dead, Prison School and of course Needless. This was just a random show I thought of, but I had to turn to one particular expert on the series to verify how much drinking would be involved.

@KeliraTelian @emperorj you could probably survive 1 through 4. I'd recommend you watch 5 through 15 in a hospital. Specials will kill you

— Avvesione (@Avvesione) June 22, 2016

Challenge accepted. I trust Avvesione’s judgement. I met the guy in Seattle for Sakuracon and he was cool, though we could never decide which school was the real UW.

Needless as an anime is definitely an experience. The ending is kind of anime-original bullshit, but what comes before it is definitely fun. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have exiled people with powers; called Needless; into ghettos. This particular world is run by Simeon Pharmaceuticals. The story is primarily about a boy called Cruz Schild and the several Needless he runs into along his journey to take the fight to Simeon. The first two are Adam Blade and Eve Neuschwanstein (this is intentional) and they only get weirder from there.

An example of Needless‘s aesthetic.

As a drinking experience, there are definitely segments where there is lots and lots of drinking. Mainly when the trio of Setsuna, Mio and Kuchinashi are engaged in any sort of fighting.

A better example of Needless’s aesthetic.

The structure of the series relies heavily on these three as they are the primary opponents Cruz and the gang fight along the way. They pop in and out once the series goes all God-like with the powers though they are never too far out of sight. The series basically ends on a 15 episode battle arc, which is 60% of the series length, just to give you an idea of how oddly-paced Needless is.

Is this not waifu material? At least best girl.

That’s not to say there are no enjoyable parts to Needless when not intoxicated. Solva was definitely my favorite character as far as the transition from innocent girl to full blown sadist who was angry all the time. Just remember, it’s the same voice actress as Chihaya from Idolm@ster. Even Eve making up names for everyone except Adam Blade was enjoyable.

In Needless, you can tell a character’s strength by the size of their popped collars.

As for a recommendation, if you are planning on drinking to fanservice, you probably won’t remember half the series and you will probably be detoxing if you go stupid with the amount of alcohol. If you aren’t, it’s still fun, but after 19 episodes read the manga instead because the anime ending is dumb.

12 Days of Something VI: The Giant Pit of Money

Pictured: A Screenshot from the Money Pit

I made a terrible mistake this year. I purchased The idolm@ster Platinum Stars for the PS4, and I’ve had to take out several payday loans to purchase DLC and I will be unable to continue this blog. Okay, I made up most of that last sentence, but I did indeed buy the game and import it for about the price of a new game these days in the States. If only the DLC was ever not ridiculously priced by Scamco.

Unlike the last game in the series I could remember on console, Platinum Stars dispenses with any sort of time limitations. So if you want to spend hundreds of years in game trying to get your favorite im@s girl up to S-rank, knock yourself out. Everything about this game is designed for grinding from the unrealistic amount of fans that one gets from each live towards a 10 million fan target to get the top rank. The individual songs level up on their own, but it takes 200 plays to get each of those maxed out too.

On that note, it’s not surprising that I’ve had this game for 4 months and I’m still not anywhere close to 100% completing this game. With that in mind, let me give you this piece of advice if you are going to blow actual hard currency on this giant money pit. Just pick one of the girls that isn’t Haruka, max them out and then just say you’ve beaten the game. No one would have a problem with this.

If you were wondering why my post volume suffered a precipitous decline, blame this game.

12 Days of Something IV: Fixing Sad Jozy

Jozy Altidore is something of a mystery player. The American striker plying his trade in the Northeast of England at Sunderland has something of a bad reputation. While no one really calls him Dozy Antiscore, it can’t be debated that he has very rarely troubled the score sheet in the Premier League. It’s never a good sign when you get quotes like this from the manager after a match:

“If Jozy had scored, you would have said it was a great decision to play him. I tried to say him at halftime to look for the net and don’t keep thinking about that, but he needs a goal.”

His defenders on the internet last season were pointing to the World Cup for his breakout and possible move to a different club. Let’s see how that ended:

With the numbers 69 appearances, 2 goals standing out to anyone who looks at his performances in England, he still has his defenders. They say things such as; Sunderland is a club with terrible players, no one will pass him the ball, he needs a manager that will let Jozy be Jozy out there. So through the magic of Football Manager, we are going to give him just what he needs…

The Very Late Winter 2013 Season Preview

The season kicked off with “People from Tokyo say this, people for Osaka say that, aren’t they strange”

I’ll be perfectly honest and admit I’ve done no research on what shows are airing in the winter. In that spirit, I’ll try to preview them anyway based entirely on the title. Most of these shows have the plot in the title now, right?