Taking the day off.

Early in the weekend, a friend was in a wreck that totaled her car. Spent the rest of the weekend helping her get places and shop for a new car. It all left little time for thinking about other things or writing.

Code Geass really wanted to be the next Evangelion, didn’t it?

I’ve plowed through most of the series over the course of a couple of weeks. First time I’ve watched it since it originally aired, other than a couple of episodes to try the dub once it became available. I love the show overall, especially the first season. The clumsy parallels to Neon Genesis Evangelion seeded in the first season get really hard to ignore in the second season though. You have the son estranged from his Machiavellian father, rebelling in the ways he is capable (though Lelouch rebelled much bigger, since he is more his father’s son than Shinji is), every new mech design looks more and more like mini-Evas and/or Angels, and the Machiavellian father is working towards Ragnarok. As described, Ragnarok seems more or less identical in concept to Human Instrumentality/Third Impact. The second season works well enough when it focuses on the battles and political maneuverings (much as the first season did), but the few episodes that focus on Lelouch’s father and Ragnarok nearly drag everything down. They seem silly, nonsensical, and just plain out of place. It detracts from everything the show gets right. Fortunately, that subplot gets resolved several episodes before the ending, and the ending to the storylines that matter is actually pretty decent. All in all, I’m enjoying the series nearly as much as I did the first time around, which I don’t say very often. Hell, the dub has even grown on me. I still think the Japanese Lelouch fits far better, but I like the way Johnny Yong Bosch differentiates his Lelouch and Zero voices.

Current Media: January 2014 Edition

Watching

Farscape – It recently popped up on Netflix, and I haven’t watched the show since the original run. Now seemed like as good a time as any to revisit it. Farscape as a whole… isn’t nearly as good as I remember. Don’t get me wrong, the first two seasons are great. Still some of the best science fiction television I’ve ever seen. Season 3, on the other hand, starts out spectacularly awful. I’m at the halfway point now, and it shows no signs of getting any better. The creative team didn’t significantly change between season 2 and 3, and I’ve never heard complaints about new meddling by Sci-Fi, so I’m left kind of flabbergasted at the sudden decline. I hereby retroactively retract my shock at the show’s cancellation.

RahXephon – One of the rare shows I actually like a lot more the second time around. The show’s packed with a lot of musical and other cultural references I didn’t appreciate when it first came out, and it’s just well-plotted, well-written, and well-paced. It also has less fat than any other 26-episode anime series I can think of. It has a lot of the same filler-type events that pop up in other shows (holiday episode, beach episode, etc.), but RahXephon usually makes them further some aspect of the main narrative, such as some change in the relationship between two characters.

Reading

Lucifer – As in the comic series by Mike Carey. It’s an interesting take on Lucifer (based specifically on Gaiman’s Sandman version of the character), and probably my favorite. Lucifer believes strongly in free will, while the structure of Heaven and Earth is based around predestination, which led to his rebellion. But even Lucifer’s rebellion, fall, and rule over Hell were part of the Creator’s plan, which vexes Lucifer to no end. He even refuses to lie despite his “Lord of Lies” title, though he occasionally gives information out in small measures that still lead to someone’s death/damnation. Following from Sandman, he has given up his position of power in Hell to go into a form of retirement. Sympathetic takes on The Devil usually end up stupid somewhere along the way, but so far (I’ve only read the first two of three very large volumes) Carey has done an amazing job. His artists are no slouches either. Lucifer has some of the most gorgeous artwork I’ve ever seen in a comic.

Playing

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – Shortly after talking about it in that “best of 2013” post, I decided to take another crack at the game. Though it pains me to be revealed for the scrub I apparently am, I started over with the difficulty dropped to Easy just to have a chance at beating Senator Armstrong. Then I can New Game+ my way through Normal and sort of redeem myself by beating him on Normal. Fortunately, the game seems to adjust difficulty by altering the amount of damage the enemies and I do to each other, plus the healing items are more potent. Since the enemy AI behaves largely the same, combat remains as satisfying as always despite how quickly the fights end.

Plans for 2014

To be honest, a lot of my plans for 2014 looks suspiciously like things I said I’d get around to in 2013. Between my artist roommate and my occasional involvement with NerdBurger, I’m feeling considerably more motivated this time around, but only time will tell if I can translate that motivation into action.

Weave more chainmail. I did very little weaving over the last year,  and none in the last six or so months. The problem is, I’ve got so many bracelets and such sitting around the house now. I either need to try selling my wares somehow, even if only at cost, or I need a big, time-consuming project. I want to work/practice, but I just can’t justify the creation of any more trinkets that will ultimately remain in my own hands.

Read more. I spend so much time reading new environmental regulations for work (ugh, legalese), especially after I shifted positions at work about two years ago, I’ve fallen out of the habit of reading for pleasure. I’ve kept up with a couple of comic/manga series, but that’s about it. I’ve also read most things Sanderson, but as much as I enjoy his fantasy work (the wait for the next Stormlight Archive book may kill me), most of his material is fairly light. Meticulously crafted magic systems aside. My last read of any substance was China Mieville’s The Scar, and I read it almost two years ago. I blame Monster Hunter International. I bought that one mostly blind because of the positive word of mouth, but I ended up disliking it so much (never finished it; don’t think I even made it 25% of the way) that it put me off taking chances on new things for a long while.

Let’s Play videos. For real this time. I will admit, I have no real excuse for the foot-dragging at this point. The podcast has gotten me comfortable with putting my voice out there, and I’ve already replaced/upgraded recording equipment and editing software as better tech has come along. I just need to stop worrying about how terrible I’ll sound (everyone’s bad at the commentary in their early videos), and start recording and uploading. I will admit recent developments in YouTube land have given me pause, but I’ve never had any plans to attempt to monetize my videos, so the issues so strongly affecting some of the people I follow should only lightly affect me if at all.

Listen to more music. Much like with books, I’ve tended to play it safe and listen to the same old things over and over again for a good year or so now. Which isn’t so bad, given the size and variety of my mp3 collection. I used to love trying new music though, and I need to get back to it. I haven’t even done a great job of keeping up with new material from my favorite/safe bands.

Best of 2013 – Part 2

Best Homage To 1970’s Mecha Anime – Pacific Rim – Giant, lumbering mechs with loads of hidden weapons fighting giant monsters that look like something out of the highest points of the Godzilla franchise. What’s not to like?

Best TV Show Set In The Blade Runner Universe – Almost Human – Well, not exactly the Blade Runner universe, but the series seems to draw from it heavily, right down to the umbrellas seen in a recent episode. Karl Urban and the actor playing Dorian have pretty good chemistry onscreen, and it keeps the show entertaining even through the occasional low point. Most of the best scenes involve just the two of them talking in the car.

Best Reboot That Actually Managed To Stay True To The Original – Evil Dead – It’s not even full reboot, since a couple of bits imply the events of the original movies still happened at some point in the past. Either way, the new Evil Dead draws on the best aspects of the first two movies while managing to be scarier than either. I also appreciate the curve the makers of the new movie throw with respect to the survivor/star of the new Evil Dead. I had it wrong until close to the end the end.

Best Show With Sidekicks Who Deserve Their Own Spinoff – Castle – I won’t claim Castle is a great series, but it has likeable characters with a solid if predictable formula making for a reliable level of entertainment week after week. Six seasons in, and I’m not sick of the formula yet. Plus Ryan and Esposito could totally anchor a buddy cop-style show. I probably watch for those two more than I do for the two leads at this point.

Best Long Overdue Second Season Of An Anime Series – A Certain Scientific Railgun S – I mean, the first season started back in late 2009. It took over three years for them to realize people would be interested in a second season? Whatever caused the delay, I’m glad a second season finally got made. While the first season happens prior to the events of A Certain Magical Index (the property it spun off from), the new season mainly delves more deeply into the Railgun clones/Level 6 Shift project from the first season of the main series. Misaka did a lot in an attempt to disrupt the project we never got to see in A Certain Magical Index. I’ve been hoping I’d eventually get to see the larger role she played in bringing the project down (even though Toma ultimately defeated Accelerator and put the punctuation mark on it) get the animated treatment.

Best of 2013 – Part 1

What better way to start the New Year than with a “favorite/best of” kind of post. Not strictly video games, though most of them will probably be video games. All of the first half, at a minimum.

Best Game I’ll Never Finish Because Fuck That Final Boss – Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance – I enjoy the hell out of Revengeance, but I will probably never beat the final boss. The last fight asks way too much of me in terms of both dodging ability and precision with the Blade Mode, and it comes immediately after another (and better designed, if you ask me) boss fight drains the resources I could otherwise use to brute-force my way to the end. I have played everything up to the last battle countless times though.

Best Game of 2012 I Still Played A Bunch In 2013 – Dishonored – Being a mystical assassin has yet to get old, even ignoring the DLC. Which didn’t really hold my attention for long. I enjoy exploring the large mission areas to find new paths, and I still have yet to try all the powers.

Best Game I Nonetheless Felt Somehow Let Down By – Tomb Raider – I can’t deny the reboot is a very well-crafted experience, and I like the new Lara’s origin story. But if I wanted an Uncharted clone, I’d play Uncharted, even if Tomb Raider outshines Uncharted in a lot of areas. I like the Tomb Raider series for the puzzles and sense of exploration, not gunplay and scripted action sequences. I’ve made two or three separate attempts to tough it out, but I usually give up around the third time I hit an area full of waist-high cover.

Best Open World Pirate Simulator – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – As much as I love Ezio, his story dragged on for at least a game and a half too long. Assassin’s Creed III was just a disappointment all around. I expected to dislike Black Flag out of the gate, but Ubisoft managed to surprise me. They downplayed the modern-day story no one ever cared about, brought in another lovable rogue without just making a carbon copy of Ezio, and combined the choicest bits of gameplay from the Ezio Trilogy (expansive cities to run around) and III (sailing/ship-to-ship combat).

Best Games Whose Appeal I Still Cannot Explain – Papers, Please – You’d think I’d get bored playing what amounts to a solid representation of the thankless tedium I experience most days in my job as a government employee. The constantly changing requirements and the story, such as it is, manages to keep stringing me along though.

ETA

The long silence will end on January 11. I’ve had a lot of little things to take care off over the holidays. Many of which I either didn’t expect or thought I could put off a while longer.