Maaaaaay is Gone

Sorry for not posting at all recently, there simply hasn't been anything to write about. I'm taking each day as it passes and I find it harder to write about anything significant. There were and still are things that obscure the path ahead of me and what's in store, and I don't think I'll be fully content until the end of summer school rolls around (aaaaaaand I forgot that I haven't confirmed anything about summer school to you yet).

However I did get my braces (hell, have I even told you about getting braces yet...?) tightened today and I have to say that the pain has finally arrived. It hurts to put even the slightest pressure on any of my teeth and I have to say that this feels pretty bad. Oh well. Only uphill (or is it downhill?) from here, right?

Anyhoo, thanks for tuning in for the second post of May, wow. Keep twiddling your thumbs until the next post.

Hi

Hi there! I have returned from the incredibly deep hole that I dug myself into (partly to keep cool from the recent onslaught of heat and partly to hide myself in the shame resulting from the AP exams).

It's been a pretty rough afternoon/evening for me. I came back from two ultimate games in Coquitlam and felt pretty down. All in all, it has been an absolutely terrible last few hours for me, but hopefully the long weekend will remedy that.

That's about it. Haven't typed up a post in a while so I figured it would be nice to let anybody still reading this god awful blog know that I'm (unfortunately) still here. Alrighty, that's all from me. Until next time.

AP Exams (2016 Ed.)

Over the course of the last 6 days I have been cramming information from my handy dandy Barron's AP Psychology study guide and wondering how I'll fare this coming Monday. I plan to spend the rest of tonight doing practice tests and patching up any holes in my knowledge and then spending tomorrow on AP Chemistry topics that I haven't formally been taught.

This is my third year doing AP exams and I have to say that (surprisingly) I feel rather comfortable heading into this. I do somewhat regret my decision to retake the AP Chemistry exam, seeing as I have neglected to spend much time on that, but in return I hope to at least score well on the AP Psychology one.

My ultimate goal for this year is to score 4 on both the AP Chemistry and AP Psychology exams, and to finish the school year off with a mid 90 in the class. Last year it would have been devastating to receive anything short of a 4 on the AP Biology exam (thankfully I did get just that), however as a result I definitely want to get 4s again. I'm really banking on my previous experience taking the exam and my improved performance in chemistry this year for the AP Chemistry exam, and hopefully my studying for the AP Psychology exam will work out to my favour.

That should be all I have to say about the matter, so I will leave you with that and head off to do some more practice tests. Thank you for reading, and goodbye my cherished reader.

Spring 2016 First Impressions

- WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS -

Like the recent winter season, I have decided to hold back on the amount of anime that I watch (especially with exams haunting me every night) and have taken a more conservative approach to watching. While there aren't a plethora of entries right now, there's a good chance this list will expand by the end of the season. But for now, I hope that you'll find a little bit of amusement from this meager offering: my first impressions on the Spring 2016 season.

MyAnimeList
Spring 2016 Final Thoughts

This Season:
Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2
Mayoiga
Re:Zero
Sakamoto desu ga?

Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2 (15/25)

I Rate: 8.0/10.0
One Sentence: We start off the final half of this season with Koro Sensei beginning the story of his life, and how he came to be the entity he is now.

I'll keep the entry for this one short, seeing as it was a mere week and a half ago that I wrote about Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2 up to episode 14. I'm glad to see that the background of Koro Sensei is finally being explained relatively early on, as that spells out an exciting and action packed final arc. With the ending of the first season I'm confident in Lerche's ability to close out this one. Looking forward to how this one will end, as it's been a great ride the whole time.

Best Girl: with Ritsu's nonexistent screen time and Kaede's little arc, I felt it would be fitting to crown a new best girl: the slightly more relevant Nakamura


Mayoiga (4/12)

I Rate: 7.0/10.0
One Sentence: An interesting and promising premise about a group of people looking to start a new life off the grid is spoiled by a lack of direction and poorly written characters

From the very beginning of Mayoiga the viewer is introduced to what seems to be an endless stream of characters. By the end of this introduction I was dazed and completely lost, but maybe that's because I wasn't paying enough attention, or I expected half of them to die off by the end of the first episode. I felt a lot of Danganropa vibes from the anime (not that I've watched Danganropa, but I have a gist of what goes on), but was sorely disappointed from the lack of... well, deaths.

The anime starts off with a huge variety of characters riding a bus on a dark and stormy night, and it's hinted that they're all from some sort of online forum, through the way that everybody is addressed by a handle. Eventually it's revealed that all of them are seeking to start a new life, discontent with their current ones, and are heading to the mysterious and undiscovered village of Nanakimura. The largest problem with Mayoiga is the pacing. We're a third of the way into the season, and very little has happened. So far the group has arrived at the village, lost a member, and split up (into those who stay and those who want to leave). To be fair, episode four ended off on a more exciting note with a few cliffhangers, but if this pacing is kept up, then we can be sure to expect a cruddy ending, a rushed ending, a second cour, or any combination of the three.

As I mentioned in the mini-introduction, there are a lot of characters who are present in Mayoiga. If we do a thorough count of them, we have 31 characters in total, who have the semblance of being important. We can make the assumption that they are important through the fact that they each have their little card in the opening theme (and ending, however it seems that all the characters are being spread out through the season). The excessively large amount of characters leads to a decrease in quality and the slowing down of the plot. More characters means that there is more fighting for screen time, and it also means that characters are much harder to relate to and have a harder time growing.

The best parts of the show are the opening and ending themes, both which are beautiful in their own right and send goosebumps up your spine. Additionally the animation/artwork that accompanies them are great and fit the tone. There are a lot of amazing theme songs coming out this season, but I do have to say that the Mayoiga opening is my favourite so far.

To end this first impressions off, Mayoiga is not showing any signs of getting any better, and unless something huge happens in the next episode (or really pushing it, the episode after that, the halfway point of its season) I can't see the anime being anything more than sub-par. It's a shame, since I genuinely enjoyed the setting of Mayoiga, so I'll just keep putting the opening on repeat until my ears bleed.

Best Girl: tsundere Maimai can be cute at times


Re:Zero (4/25)

I Rate: 8.2/10.0
One Sentence: At first seems like a good and much longer KonoSuba lookalike, but has a much more sinister and dark undertone to it.

Even though I haven't watched enough series from this season, Re:Zero seems like it's already clinched the spot of the best anime for this season, and for good reason. There's great usage of undertones in Re:Zero, as the lighthearted and comedic nature of the anime lures the viewer into a sense of false security, and then leaves you grabbing air as you fall off a cliff(hanger).

The anime is about Subaru, a shut-in who finds himself in a completely different world, akin to that of a fantasy MMORPG. He runs into trouble and is rescued by a cool beauty (who he later learns is named Emilia). Subaru decides to help Emilia look for an insignia that was stolen from her, and in the process the two of them are killed in a secluded loot house. After some confusion he discovers that when he dies he respawns at a checkpoint, but also goes back in time, erasing everything he has done. If you watched Re:Zero's first episode and stopped halfway, then you'll definitely think that it's another KonoSuba. But the show takes the stereotypical premise and adds a little twist to it, making it exciting and uncharted territory.

So far all the characters are easy to like, and our dynamic duo of Subaru and Emilia will see some amazing development over the 25 episode span of Re:Zero. None of the other characters have gotten any substantial amount of screen time, but there's some interesting stuff going on with Felt, as the last time we saw her she was knocked out and taken by Reinhard. I'm looking forward to where that goes and how it ties it with the main story we're seeing right now, but that'll come with time.

There are some more fantastic contributions from Re:Zero to the growing pool of excellent anime themes we have this season. Both the opening and ending are great (although I'm slightly more partial to the ending), and I thought that the little scene with the opening was pretty poignant to the anime. Some amazing stuff with the sound department coming from this show, and I'm thoroughly pleased with what it brings to the overall quality.

It would be an understatement to say that I'm excited for what Re:Zero has to bring to the spring and summer seasons this year. I'm glad that White Fox has 25 episodes to craft the anime into something brilliant, and needless to say I will watching every episode upon release. Re:Zero gets a big thumbs up from me.

Best Girl: definitely Emilia (Felt hasn't had enough screen time anyways)


Sakamoto desu ga? (2/13)

I Rate: 7.6/10.0
One Sentence: Loads of laughs and smiles from an anime that revolves around the stylish, cool, and perfect Sakamoto-kun as he goes through his day.

Sakamoto desu ga? is a wacky anime about Sakamoto-kun, a first year student in high school who has stolen the hearts and attention of everybody from day one. There isn't much else to say about the anime. Each episode has around two mini-stories (surrounding Sakamoto-kun of course) and there isn't much of a coherent story from what the mini-stories have provided so far.

For the characters, there's the god perfect Sakamoto-kun, who is absolutely ridiculous in every aspect but a likable character nonetheless. Two other characters, Sera and Aina, were each featured in their own mini-story, but have not made another substantial appearance. Sakamoto-kun will most likely be the only character of significance and the others will just be there to push the story along.

There's an upbeat and absolutely fitting opening for Sakamoto desu ga? with a surprisingly soft and gentle ending theme. There isn't anything else that I can really think of when it comes to the soundtrack.

If you're looking for a bit of a quirkier anime, then Sakamoto desu ga? might just be the fix that you need. Granted, it won't cater to the comedic styles of every individual, but it might do just the thing for you.

Best Girl: pretty much the only girl we've seen so far is Aina, so she gets it automatically

The Unintentional Hiatus

For the past month (give a few days) I was gradually building up the parts in what is now a published Winter 2016 Final Thoughts anime post and I have to say, it took a surprising amount out of me. There was never a solid half hour session of me sitting down and giving it my all, but instead sneaking in the paragraph or two between queue times for League of Legends or during lunch. It was an interesting feeling, to not exhaust myself by writing for two hours, but as we can all see from the unintentional hiatus, not the best method of writing a long post.

Updates updates updates. After reading the latest post before the anime post, I realize that I never made the announcement here. During the spring break I had braces done, or well, the top brackets done. Maybe the thought slipped my mind or I was unconsciously trying to stash it away, but it happened. It's fitting that I tell you this now because this Saturday I'll be going in to get the bottom brackets in. The braces aren't particularly flattering and they've made the previously simple task of eating a chore, but I hope that things will get better as time passes (i.e. I won't feel pain when I eat).

Stopped trying to climb after a huge losing streak in League of Legends. I've been sitting at Gold II since and haven't been spending nearly as much time on the game as I used to, so I have deteriorated in the mechanical aspect (bittersweet).

Our school ultimate team has played a few games now and we're getting into the grove of things, but far from being any good. I think I have a decent grasp and overhead of the game, but now I need to focus on my personal skills (especially my atrocious flick). I would like to become a handler sometime between now and next year, however there's a lot I need to learn before getting even close to that.

AP exams are creeping up on me (holy there's already less than a month) and I need to start studying for my exams. This year I've made the choice to take the chemistry and psychology exam, so we'll see how that turns out in a matter of a few weeks.

I think that about does it for most of what has been happening in my life. Somewhere along this year I need to go out and get my L, but for now the single thing that I'll be fueling my efforts into are the AP exams. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to post soon.