August 25th 2024

We’re chilling this week with much ado about nothing. So, I’m going to start off with some nostalgia bait (since that’s what corporations are doing as of late) with regards to the beloved Playstation 2. If my estimates are correct, the vast majority of my visitors are either familiar with or own/owned a Playstation 2. This little documentary is a nice historical perspective on a very beloved console that to some extent, still holds up today with its library of games. Hope you enjoy the very laid back vibe of the video, and of course the hard work put into it from the YouTube channel VideoGameDocs.

More chill vibes with this little mini adventure of Jason Graves visiting a bunch of Goodwills for video games. For those of you not in the know, there was a brief time during the 2010’s to 2020’s (before you know what) where extreme deals could be had for retro gaming enthusiasts the world over. That world has come and gone now, with resellers, scalpers and all forms of profiteering degenerates removing any hope of finding the good stuff. So, it’s an interesting experiment to see what can be found today if one were to look in 2024, and as Jason shows us - it’s not good.

Artist is IllustOgre

Artist of the week is Ogre (known as IllustOgre) giving us a lovely cow maiden lounging on some stairs. Definitely fits the chill weekly motif I hope! Anyway, see you all next week.

August 18th 2024

Starting off this week with a little bit of a deep dive topic and piggybacking off of last week’s discussion on AAA gaming titles at the moment. This clip was provided by Rawrell (at least where I saw it first) and a lot of information is conveyed in a short amount of time. A ton of nuance and details of discussion in the audio blog, but let’s just say you ever went to a fancy restaurant before that claims they have the world’s best “new” pizza? You go there and find out it’s a bowl of jelly and foam with “pizza essence” that makes it taste just like pizza. However, it’s painfully obvious it’s not pizza? That’s this person (the speaker with the hat) and anyone who buys this advice basically.

Official artwork of Otherworld Mercenary Corps (Logan)

FG3000 brining in the heat this week with some good old fashioned Kusoge game. Always remember that a true Kusoge game is one that is jank enough to just barely play, and that you wish it was better. As a matter of fact, I’m still playing the Kusoge Otherworld Mercenary Corps I suggested a few weeks back! And yes, that game has gotten slightly better over time with patches and content updates. But it’s not there yet, and in true Kusoge fashion - we can only hope it patches the jank out and becomes mid-tier. What’s certainly not mid-tier however is the gender bent skin for one of the units in the game above!

Artist of the week is むた (Muta_poo) brining us one of the better waifus Ibuki Dōji from FGO. If you don’t know about FGO, it’s better you don’t learn and just move on with your life. There’s a ton of waifus to be sure, but it’s also a void no soul returns from if you get involved. So, your best bet is to just enjoy the fan art and go about your day!

August 11th 2024

We live in strange times when AA game titles are returning to over-the-top cool aesthetics and tangible gameplay. The AAA industry has been plagued with bloat, “art projects” and utter nonsense in the last 10 years, so I’ve practically written them off at this point. There are a few gems here and there to be sure, but it’s the exception and certainly not the same as it used to be. Mecha Break isn’t going to win any awards, change people’s geopolitical views, and cater to an audience that doesn’t even care about video games. What it will do however is bring you a fun mecha game with (actual) good looking characters. Too much to ask apparently as of late.

Another week another fighting game tournament, this time its VSFIGHTING XII based in the UK. This is one of the big boy tournaments “across the pond” from where I’m at and is a good watch for the weekend since it features a variety of games to look at. You can click on the image above to see the full schedule and bracket with all appropriate links necessary to start watching.

Artist is Lines Sensei

Last week I posted a waifu so normie I started getting convulsions and went semi-unconscious on the floor. To pay for my grievous sins and heresy, I’m posting a short stack monster waifu goblin-kobold hybrid this week to appease the unknown Eldrich gods that keep this website alive. More importantly however, checkout Line Sensei over on Patreon and send them a few bucks because they deserve it! You can also see more of their work (it’s awesome!) over on Newgrounds.

August 4th 2024

New update of the month so let’s start off with the most important news first. Gamecoaster, one of the better gacha gaming companies in the past decade (in my opinion) has stated that they’re working on a new project! Details are extremely sparse except for the teaser animation you see above. I made a promise to myself that the next game released by them I’m going to drop some serious funds their way. If you haven’t checked out their previous titles, I HIGHLY recommend you do so. I used to do videos on Dungeon Maker back in the day too, in case you wanted to stroll down memory lane over on the YouTube channel.

Another week another fighting game tournament, this time it’s a big one! The Esports World Cup will be featuring Street Fighter 6 pools to finals starting on August 7th to August 11th. A lot of money to be won, enough to easily change one’s life! So, competition should be much more dramatic than usual. It’s not just pride on the line to say the least.

My boy EmpLemon gracing us with another super in-depth video on random things; this time around it’s the embattled Star Wars series. I know there’s probably 100 video essays on Star Wars released in the last year, but this video is different in that it completely ignores the recent releases in the franchise and focuses on the prequel trilogy.

Artist is あれっくす

Artist of the week is あれっくす. I’ve jokingly said that I’m tired of blonde elven archers being the norm for the vast majority of content out there in the video game / anime world; but they’re famous for a reason! Sometimes you just want plain potato chips, vanilla ice cream, fast food, and conventional stuff you know? See you next week!

July 28th 2024

This week’s update is going to be an upbeat one I promise, even if it at first doesn’t seem like it! There is no way I can type out all of the thoughts and perspectives I have on this particular topic in text form without making it a novel, so I implore you all to listen to the audio blog for the details. But the TLDR is that this is an isolated case with a heavy emphasis on culture shock from a dying generation. It’s good to learn from this person’s experience so that we all may avoid repeating the same mistakes. For full detailed further information on the event, you can read the very long reddit post here. There is light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s more for me and you than those involved.

Due to recent controversy with Nintendo (what’s new right?), I kind of felt it was my obligation to talk about this awesome resource while it’s still around. Now keep in mind I’m a good boy and make sure to follow Squarespace rules. So, I’m not even going to think about linking anything here. That being said, that doesn’t stop you from using keywords in your search engine of choice to find what I’m talking about. So, head on over to Google and use any combination of phrases that contain “retro” “roms” “best” “set” “archive” “internet org” to access this while you can. It’s a wonderfully curated set of games to use with your emulator of choice. Enjoy it!

Artist is Maned Kitsune

Ending this short (but hopefully meaningful) update with some lovely furry Egyptian inspired waifu. Some of my favorite actually! In any case, artist of the week is going to be Maned Kitsune, and you can check out their Pixiv page above by clicking the image. See you in the monthly update and take care of yourself!

July 21st 2024

Starting off this week with a teaser trailer from the original dev team behind Last Origin. From what we can tell in the clip, it seems to be some type of turn based rpg game with a lot of emphasis on fan-service. It also has a bit of fantasy whimsy on the side too. It’s not completely degenerate focused as Last Origin was (which is a shame!) but I’m hoping we can get a little bit of waifu diversity down the road.

Some gacha games feel like they’re in a time warp, and that’s not a good thing. With all the advances in technology alongside growth of mainstream gacha gaming, the above two offerings seem horrendously antiquated. Sure, you can give them a shot if you wish (it’s free to try out anyway), but there’s surely no incentive to stick around let alone give money better spent elsewhere. Just wanted to say it’s interesting to see how far things have progressed in the last couple of years within the entire industry.

Artist is 鍵宮メロ

Since we mentioned Last Origin in the first topic of this week’s update, it’s only fitting we have an associated image with the legendary game. Artist of the week 鍵宮メロ has a lovely summer related bikini picture of Azaz from LO. Don’t forget to put on your sunscreen!

Doing something just a bit different for this weekly update, I’m going to end things off with some words and a few memories. 5 years ago, exact to the date, I wrote a little blog post about the loss of one of my content creators that I followed for quite some time. You can read the short blog here if you want. I want to take a moment to remind folks out there that life can kind of be unpredictable, and maybe just spend a little extra time with those around you that you hold dear. It’s a lot better than arguing with a bunch of strangers over petty stuff, and maybe let you take stock of what you really have versus what you don’t.

July 14th 2024

Another week trying to stay positive about anything pop culture related, and it’s getting harder to do so by the minute! Thought I would lighten up the mood a bit sharing a video FG3000 put out last year in regard to gacha game player tendencies. If you’ve ever played even a single gacha game, it’s going to hit HARD. 1:13 in the video clip almost made me fall out of my damn chair, because it reflects a lot of the players I’ve dealt with.

Store source Suruga-ya

One of my regular content creators had somewhat of an interesting take on privacy I read this week that gave me pause. As someone who lives in the United States, it’s a topic that is heavily scrutinized and gets heated very quickly. I have a lot of thoughts about it myself in the audio blog. For everyone else who doesn’t really care, the above picture is a good example of cute robot / mecha waifus I always talk about being under-represented in everything. If you like what you see, you can head over to a store that’s very friendly to international customers, Suruga-ya.

Another week another fighting game tournament, but this time it’s one of the most prestigious ones of the year. EVO has always been considered the cream of the crop in terms of competition around the world for any fighting game out there. And although it’s not going to potentially win you a million dollars in Saudi Arabia (that event is coming in August), it’s still a tournament any real competitive player wants to win.

Artist is kaname aomame

Artist of the week is kaname aomame for his lovely rendition of Catherine Sabthra from Code Geass. I’m literally waiting for a figurine of her to come out, because I’m going to assume merchandising was not too far off her design choice. In any case, see you all next week and enjoy the tournament!

July 7th 2024

Time to start off the week with some nightmare fuel (it’s at the end of the video by the way!) from our friend over at EXkurogane Studio. Not much to say other than the figure industry is really starting to heat up as of late, since China seems to be ramping up on production and becoming a decent player in the market. What was once a predominantly Japanese centric run hobby has definitely been seeing a lot of competition. But of course, not everyone who enters the game is a worthy competitor… in case the thumbnail above didn’t give it away.

Nutaku has some new jank in the works, and it’s called Soul Descent. Chances are, you’re probably playing (or trying out) Zenless Zone Zero instead. Oddly enough, Nutaku decided to release Soul Descent on the very same day ZZZ came out. Coincidence? There’s a good chance whoever worked on the game (Soul Descent) probably wanted to subtly release the same day a much larger game came out. I think they wanted to be spared the embarrassment of the initial turnout. I’ll be frank - the game has AI generated art on top of AI generated gameplay. Check it out if you absolutely need the free horny, but you can get free horny a lot of places on the internet. Just saying.

Another week another fighting game tournament. This time it’s one of the more well known, larger tournaments in Japan called TOPANGA. Specifically, it’s Street Fighter 6 focused and has a lot of well-known talent participating in it. The grand finals are approaching by the end of this week (July 12th - July 14th JST), so check out the YouTube channel stream if you want to see the month-long conclusion of it live.

Artist is Besthetz

4th of July was last week. Still, it’s always fashionable to stick a good old American flag on the skimpiest bikini you can find and put it on your waifu! Doesn’t matter where live either, I’m sure it’ll look good in some form or fashion. You can thank Besthetz for the work and check out more of his stuff on hix pixiv.

June 30th 2024

This week’s update is going to be a very quick one since I have a monthly releasing a day right after! So straight into it, we’re going to start off with a video showcasing an Android tablet conversion into a retro gaming handheld. A few weeks ago, I talked about how dedicated retro gaming handhelds are becoming a thing now. However, the original spirit of having a “cheap and cheerful” device that can bring you some gaming and nostalgia has long passed. It seems the retro gaming hobby is now in the same technological rat race as other modern equipment. As I’ve gotten older, I realized my eyes are definitely not what they use to be, and gaming on a screen smaller than my cell phone is not as comfortable. I’ve been toying around with converting old tablets I have into retro gaming devices, and the results so far are impressive! Once I get things down to a science, I think I’ll have a device that can do everything I want in one place while being much more “eye friendly”. Reminder that my international viewers (outside of the United States) have access to really powerful tablets for under $150, even better than the Aldocube mentioned in the video!

Another week, another major fighting game tournament. This time it’s CEO 2024 (the above video is a recap of last year) and is happening live by the time you get this update. You can visit the website for complete details on the schedule and event as a whole. Naturally VODs of the event will be archived automatically, so you can watch it whenever at your leisure.

Artist is SHINYA

I may not play Genshin Impact, but I do appreciate the effort on behalf of folks keeping things cultured. Shinya & Lewd Lad are such heroes fighting the good fight if you want your game to be spicier than standard, and especially if your experience has been censored to hell and back. Feel free to visit the above links to Shinya’s personal page or the Patreon link to access the mods. I recently got back into playing some older games (like Oblivion) and remembered how modding made such a difference in my enjoyment of them. Out of curiosity I wanted to see if similar scenes were active in modern titles, and behold they are as you can clearly see.

Artist is Complextree

Artist of the week is Complextree brining to life a lewd SCP-1471-A. Yeah, I doubt I’m going to get a gacha game anytime soon filled with these lovely type of meta monster waifus, but one can only dream right? In any case, see you all next week and don’t forget the monthly dropping right after this one!

June 23 2024

This week is going to be covering (and re-covering) a topic that should be talked about on occasion. It’s the psychology of current generation gacha games and recognizing patterns if you know what to look for. My boy Pseychie just released a video that talks about this very topic. It’s a good watch and I recommend my normies take a look at it as well, in case you needed more affirmation (or confirmation) not to play gacha games. I may like the poison, but you don’t have too.

Always remember the golden rule when it comes to degeneracy. What got you into the game in the first place, and why should you keep coming back? Developers can always tweak the mechanics of the game to their liking. But they can’t take away the “theme” of the game outside of retroactive censorship. More importantly, be happy with what you have than being frustrated with what you do not. I would imagine when you eat at a restaurant, you don’t order everything off the menu. You pick and choose what you want to have. It would be strange to assume you would be angry that you aren’t able to order the entire menu. And even if you couldn’t get a “limited” item being offered at the time, that doesn’t take away what you usually would order - if that makes sense.

Artist is Pineapple Studio (No homepage)

I know a lot of folks still play Nikke out there, so I thought I would mention a rather nice Anis figure is in the works from Pineapple Studios. You can check out the figure above at a store called OrzGK, but keep in mind I’m not affiliated with them, and the figure can be purchased elsewhere if you like. Instead of giving your money to predatory gacha gaming companies, how about giving them to predatory figure resellers? At least you have something with you physically for the rest of your life, and a game’s end of service will never affect your waifu smiling back at you.

Artist is Nasaca

Closing off with artist of the week Nasaca. A still very active artist doing work for Nikke as well as used to do work for Destiny Child. If you like a lot of the waifus in either game, you probably then liked something Nasaca drew. You can visit his Pixiv page above but it’s a bit sparse due to him being active (his Artstation is livelier). Whenever artists have “live” contracts with companies, they’re discouraged from working on personal projects until the contract ends. In any case see you next week!

June 16th 2024

I don’t know how I find certain things on the internet, but I’m glad when I do come across something that is right up my alley. The preview video you see above is for an upcoming game called Crawling Lab. Basically it’s a survival rogue like with lewd android enemies. Kind of reminds me of an awesome game a few years back that launched without a lot of publicity but was equally unique called Haydee. In any case, Crawling Lab launches on June 16th on Steam if you want to give this indie game a shot.

The video above has nothing to do with the Final Kombat tournament that wrapped up this past weekend. However, I just wanted to let you know that it existed by the time this update goes live so you can check out the vods (or stream if you’re early). Nothing against the more modern MK games, but it’s my personal opinion that the franchise peaked at MK9 where it balanced the old carefree campiness of the series with modern sensibilities. And as you can tell from the video footage above, I REALLY miss the old design of characters for obvious reasons. RIP good looking Mileena.

Out of nowhere there appears to be news on an apparent FF9 remake (allegedly). I have a very unusual relationship with FF9 due to the fact that I absolutely hated the game when it launched. However, I actually liked it quite a bit years later when I played the Steam version. So, hearing about a possible full-blown remake is quite exciting to me, especially since I have no real heavy emotional attachment to the game and is interested in what they do with it. I know FF7’s remake is controversial since they took so many liberties with the story and characters. At least with FF9 in my case, they could completely change things like they did in FF7R and I’d be completely fine with it.

Artist is Cinderone

Artist of the week is Cinderone for drawing all types of waifus. Monster, human, and others. So check out their Patreon to support them as well as the Pixiv page above for more samples. Catch you all next week!

June 9th 2024

Another week, another fighting game tournament. However, a friendly reminder that Dreamhack Summer 2024 actually is quite a large event, and there are many different games there for you to watch. So even though I am specifically recommending you check out the FGC events, that also means you can just ignore me and look at other stuff. Competitive CS2 tournaments use to be a guilty hobby of mine AGES AGO, but once in a while I do randomly watch a major just to catch up on some college nostalgia.

Artist is AI Waifu Life

This is going to be a DeJa'Vu "paint by numbers” update as there isn’t much other news to report. We’ll start off the degeneracy with AI generated MILFS and an entire fanbase dedicated to them via Reddit. Bonus points to this community as it's starting to churn out “burgirls” that I’m consistently using in my YouTube community posts. It’s been a running gag I’ve been doing for some time now ever since my community strikes went live.

There is a little bit of a shakeup right now in the anime figure collecting world. A recent company calling themselves Bear Panda has / is starting to release some extremely affordable anime figures. They’re large, and they look (at first glance) pretty good. Keep in mind that figures in this price range always use to be in the realm of bootlegs or knock offs. Bear Panda is trying to make an entire new series of original figures that actually are in-line with most mainstream manufacturers. Time will tell if they can pull it off, but I have to say it’s good news for all of us if they do succeed. AmiAmi (well respected Japanese store) has this figure for about $64 (US) dollars right now. Pretty insane for a 17.5-inch-tall figure. Keep in mind AmiAmi charges quite a bit for shipping, so expect the figure to cost $140 ($64 base + $76 shipping) total to the US if you’re interested. If you rather have her from a US source, you can get her later from BigBadToyStore once they ger her in stock (probably August).

Bringing this extremely cultured update to a close, we have a lovely artist who draws IP level artwork on a regular basis. We’ll call them “slow740” for the sake of easiness, but if you want to check out their extensive Pixiv page, feel free to click the link above for the rest of the work.

June 2nd 2024

Let’s make this update a little fun by talking about my adventures in testing various gacha games. Recently there has been an influx of really blatant false advertising. I hate to admit that even as seasoned and experienced as I am around the block, I still get catfished by certain games thinking they’ll be something that they’re not. In a more recent embarrassing case, I tried out a game called Sword Chronicles Awaken which is the opposite of what I was expecting. Let’s just say the waifus used in the advertising were the exception to the rule. If you like big burly men hugging other bigger burlier men; this may be the game for you! Honestly if you really just want husbandos, I highly suggest you just play Tokyo Debunker instead. At least that game doesn’t have to lie to you about what it’s about and you get what is advertised on the tin.

A few weeks ago, I said I would be trying out Snowbreak: Containment Zone as a game since I never actually played it during launch. After I’ve had some time with the Steam version of it, I have to say it’s not completely my cup of tea. It on paper checks all the right boxes (gun game, waifus, easily moded), but it kind of lacks a feeling of cohesion if that makes any sense. Still, I’m happy the developers have recouped their initial losses (apparently) and is now thriving. More rambling in the audio porition.

What is 100% legitimate however is another fighting game tournament courtesy of DreamHack Dallas 2024 this weekend. By the time you’re reading this it will have already started and be on finals day. But that doesn’t mean you can’t rewatch the vods in full and still enjoy the content. Like I said before, there’s a certain degree of quality of life when you can skip pass all the filler whenever you want.

Artist is Noaqin

Artist is Noaqin

In an alternate lovely universe, there would be gacha games completely focused on big burly goblin waifus who have their way with you if you displease them or perform poorly. Unfortunately, we live on Earth where I’m catfished to play games that turn into crypto miners. I’m also reminded I should be thankful that I have a mobile phone. None the less, let us all thank Noaqin for making the fantasy at least partially true by giving us the lovely green lass you see above. I usually don’t double up on any single artist, but I need to wash the existence of Sword Chronicles Awaken out of my mind. And the doctor recommended MOAR green waifus. See you all next week!

May 26th 2024

The following two weekly updates are going to be on the brief side since I also have a monthly update dropping soon back-to-back. That doesn’t mean the content is going to be on the thin side however, and I hope you agree with a flashback video from EmpLemon on the value of “useless” items. Since a lot of my refugees from YouTube are gacha gamers themselves, the video is going to hit particularly hard. For my normies that only visit the site, it’s probably going to hit even harder ironically later on (18:02) in the video. I go into a lengthy philosophical perspective in the audio blog should you choose to indulge me.

I’ve had my website for several years at this point. I find it ironic that I can buy an incredibly detailed and well-made vtuber commercial license off the shelf from Etsy, while commissioning an artist for a single picture commercial license is near impossible. I think EmpLemon’s video that I linked earlier is a testament on how “worth” is so subjective in the world that it sometimes makes things hard to grasp at a logical level. I go into detail on this in the audio blog but making a “mascot” character for my website was quoted in the thousands (!!!) of dollars from various artists I’ve had the (displeasure) of reaching out to. They’re not all bad (artists) by any stretch of the imagination, but some of them won’t work with certain themes or motifs either on principal. All in all, it’s crazy to say the least.

Artist source from Otherworld Mercenary Corps

Oddly enough the kusoge game from a couple of weeks back I talked about; I’m still playing! It’s actively being developed and still not really worth spending that much on, but I’m surprised I’ve hanged on for a bit longer than usual. A lot of updates have happened since, and if you need another game to play on the side - I do recommend it in that context. Click the link below the image to head to the store page.

Artist is Fyk0

Closing out the update with a lovely commission piece for a vtuber Milla Noire from Fyk0. Thought I would link it since I went down the rabbit hole on all related subjects this update. Hope you have a nice rest of the week and see you for the monthly!

May 19th 2024

Let’s get the elephant out of the room first for this week’s update. Wuthering Waves will be released on May 23, 2024 globally on multiple platforms. Since this is one of the largest gacha game releases for the year, you can expect a ton of content creators out there making daily videos on the game; some focusing on advice while others on impressions. Don’t forget to pre-register on the official site here for some bonus rewards.

Going from one end of the spectrum to the other, we have a completely indie title going early access on May 24th, 2024 on Steam the same week. Fans of the Etrian Odyssey series will probably find a lot to like here, but since information about the game is sparse; you might want to wait a few days to see what the general feedback for the game is like. I’m only mentioning the game this week since I felt 3D traditional dungeon crawlers are a rare breed, and I feel they could use any exposure (no matter how little) to help spread the word.

If you weren’t busy enough playing a bunch of new interesting titles, you then have a major FGC tournament in the form of Combo Breaker dropping this weekend. An excellent companion to have running in the background as you’ll probably be grinding away in your new game of choice. A lot more information about the event can be found on the official site here.

We’re closing off the weekly update with muscle mommy chocolate furry waifu (because I can), courtesy of the talented Ipalpua. Hope you enjoy all the new games and the tournament!

May 12th 2024

Artist is Oleg Bulakh

I’m honoring one of the art world’s G.O.A.T this week, paying tribute to the late H.R. Giger who passed away 10 years exact to the date. The reason why Giger was such an important figure to pop culture art is because he established the basis of the “biomechanical” style that would influence countless (and I meant countless) future artists small and large throughout the entire world. Any horror / sci-fi movie you’ve seen since you were born has had some type of rooted influence in its design from something Giger created decades ago. In turn, those influences also inspired comics, manga and video games. For me of course, Giger was the grandfather of the “sexy horror” concept that eventually would turn into the modern-day monster girl. A bucket list goal of mine is to eventually make a pilgrimage to the H.R. Giger museum one day when visiting Switzerland for the first time. The lovely xenomorph you see above is drawn old school style by the artist Oleg Bulakh. A fitting tribute to a legend.

Artist is Transformation_AI

Artist is PG18

So funny thing about monster girls if you will indulge me. Not surprisingly, my love of them is not shared by most folks in the world. Some might call it a fetish, while others might call it just straight out weird. But there’s no denying it’s gotten a lot more popular as of late. As a matter of fact, monster girls were one of the first things created in mass when AI art started getting popular due to people’s morbid curiosity of how the algorithm would handle awkward requests. I’m definitely glad to see more of them coming into the world, and if you want to see some awesome examples of them, please visit the monster girl reddit for all your scary inspired horny.

I’m going to spread the love here a bit with doing two community things. The first one is a video from FG3000 above, since it appears the man is back bringing all the excitement gacha games rightfully deserve. All content creators bring something to the table, and FG3000 for sure brings in the positive energy. The second thing is answering (in-depth) a comment our friend NoidsEdstrom had made in last week’s video regarding intellectual property. It’s a long listen, so if you’re interested in the subject - feel free to check it out at the end of the audio blog for this week.

May 5th 2024

Hope everyone’s doing all right for the start of the month; it’s been a weird one for me! Going in-line with my news update for May I highly encourage everyone to take a walk outside once in a while and experience the great outdoors, even if it only means going to public events. For example, the LA County fair is live in my neck of the woods, and I plan on attending one of the days while it’s open. As for gaming stuff, I’m finally going to be trying out Snowbreak: Containment Zone after hearing it has been having an uptick of interest (fanservice) as of late. You can check out a thorough review of it above if you haven’t played it yourself yet.

Artist is SAIPACo

Just wanted to say happy Cinco de Mayo for anyone who celebrates it out there! Being a southern California practically all my life, this holiday is practically adopted by everyone I’ve grown up with even if we’re not ethnically Mexican. It’s very similar to how also a lot of folks celebrate Lunar new year just for the heck of it. Fun fact, when I googled for a Mexican anime waifu, the only one I could find was Nadie from 'El Cazador de la Bruja'.

This particular video hit a bit different than usual for me, because a lot of the games mentioned I actually still play / had played up until the EOS notification. Last Origin hits even deeper as that game has been on life support for a while now, looking like it’s finally going to be shut down in the near future. Friendly reminder to enjoy the stuff while it lasts, because you’ll never know when it decides to go away. And as I’ve said so many times previously, it’s better to enjoy the moments up until closure rather than fixate on when or why should it eventually happen.

We lost a lot of horny at the start of the month, so let’s bring back some of it via the artist of the week Yihui (Yee-Hway). Leave any questions or comments down below and I’ll address them (possibly) in the next update. Take care!

April 28th 2024

It’s strange times for me when a game like Stellar Blade is considered mainstream! I’m not complaining about it much, other than the fact that it’s currently a PS5 exclusive. So, PC bros like me are going to have to wait a while before I see what all hype is about, and hopefully by then I’ll get some DLC tacked onto the game for “free”. It appears Sony might have strong armed Shift Up to censoring the game post-launch, which is highly unacceptable per my many previous rants about retroactive changes versus conceptual changes. For those who need a refresher, retroactive censorship means you censor something that already has been released to the public. Conceptual censorship is when something is in a non-released state which is then altered upon release. I’m ok with the latter, but not the former by any means. Details in the audio portion if you’re interested.

I’m doing something fun this week. Let’s look at a few bonified Kusoge games. First one is called Soul Ark Teleport. Those of you who have been around gacha for any amount of time in the last 5 years; the name might sound familiar. That’s because Soul Ark (as an IP) has been shut down and revived multiple times only to shut down again soon after. And like a strange zombie phoenix, it keeps reviving in a new (but different) state of existence. And that’s the thing with this franchise… it’s uniquely enjoyable for what it is whenever it comes back. You’ll never hear folks really complain about the game (whenever it returns) other than it eventually shutting down. So, I wanted to share with all of you its current zombie state and invite you to download and play it as a complete F2P time waster.

Second Kusoge game is called Otherworld Mercenary Corps. The video speaks for itself; a completely self-play idle game. As with most “dodgy” game IP’s; I highly recommend you play the game on emulator and using a guest account if possible. We never know what’s going on behind the scenes anymore with certain games and software nowadays, but at least this game is officially on the Google Play store which provides (some) layer of security. Don’t bother joining the Discord for either game, there’s nothing useful there. More nuance in the audio portion of the update.

Artist is Simmsy

Artist of the week is Simmsy and his lovely goblin waifu with a (seemingly) southern drawl. Monthly update coming soon on Wednesday so be sure to check that out. Hope you’re all well wherever you are in the world, and take care as always.

April 21st 2024

EvoJapan is here! The tournament launches at the end of the week, and you can visit the official YouTube channel for VODs if you miss out on the live events. Make sure to adjust your schedule accordingly if you want to watch the event live, as it is in JST. For example, I’m located in California and the time difference is 16 hours ahead, which means things kick off Friday night on 04/26/2024 for me. The Savvytime site can do the conversion for your easily, and you may want to bookmark it in case you need it again for other events happening in the world.

A fantastic little mini-documentary on Domo-kun by Jack the Artisan is the highlight recommendation of the week. It’s a cozy 1 hour plus deep dive into a pop-culture mascot most of us Gen-X boomers are familiar with, and Millennials grew up along. There’s not much else to say than watch the video on a lazy afternoon and learn some “true nerd” history.

My weekly reminder right now that anime figures are quite affordable if you happen to be dealing in a favorable exchange rate against the yen. Although prices have gone up over time as a whole, comparatively it’s still cheaper in context with inflation. In other words, if you can afford something that is reasonable, that means someone else (living in Japan) might find the price barely tolerable. A 30,800 JPY MSRP for this figure means it’s approximately $200 for someone in the United States. If you live in California and work at a fast-food restaurant right now, that’s literally 2 days’ worth of work at $20 minimum wage. Back when I was in college working minimum wage ($7), I would have to eat half a paycheck to buy something like this. Spicy cultural commentary is in the audio blog as always!

Artist is Fumio

In honor of EvoJapan and the FGC, we end off the weekly update with some lovely Hsien-Ko from Darkstalkers courtesy of Fumio! Hope you all enjoy the tournament and see you next week.

April 14th 2024

Hope everyone is having a good April so far. Weather’s been clearing up in my neighborhood and I hope your area hasn’t gone underwater yet via snow or rain! As someone politely pointed out, I’m an unfortunate citizen paying California prices for Seattle weather as of late. In any case, the Fallout TV series recently launched, and I thought it relevant to briefly talk about it. I don’t consider myself a fan of many franchises (Fallout is not on the list), but that’s because I feel being a fan of something means you accept the good and the bad of it. So, with a rather level head I jumped into the Fallout TV series not expecting anything and left pleasantly surprised how good it was. I can recommend it as a good show if you just like sci-fi post-apocalyptic stuff and roll with the punches. Devils in the details and slight spoilers in the audio blog, so be forewarned! (Skip to 9:13 in the audio blog if you want to avoid)

Continuing my tradition of suggesting spooky Halloween stuff early in the year for no reason, our good friend Wendigoon dropped a recent video talking about the works of Junji Ito. If you’re a fan of anime / manga stuff in general, there’s a chance you’ve come across something strange and disturbing. There’s a higher chance it was a direct copy of or reference to something Junji Ito produced. Similar to works of H.R. Giger that would forever influence monster / alien designs in pop culture, Junji would be the influence of all the extremely strange stuff down the road for Japan in pop culture. It’s a long video and worth a watch if you need to go down a rabbit hole you probably didn’t know existed.

Another video from Stix for gacha gaming news, and as I’ve said before - he’s really good at it. I like tier list videos not for the ranking aspect (subjectivity is extreme in them), but for the fact that they let you know what is out there on the market currently. So take this video with a huge grain of salt in terms of what is good or bad, but appreciate the fact that it’s an excellent source of information on what you can play right now.

Artist is ZinFyu

Artist of the week is ZinFyu for all your Pokémon turned waifu designs! As always comments and questions welcome in the comments below, and I’ll see you next week.