Manga made by Shouichi Taguchi.

Synopsis: An overworked Kouhai and a Jobless Senpai attempt to escape the harsh reality of responsibilities to have some fun even if it leads to debt or more overwork the next day! It's about fun after all~

Source: Seven Seas Entertainment

Art and presentation: The author of the manga makes it very clear early on that this is a way for them to flex their artistic skills and to be honest… it's completely justified and deserving! The way the backgrounds are drawn, so rich in detail and depth, it's so amazing! Author is really talented!

Why you should read it: Having many responsibilities is really taxing isn't it? Don't you wish you could just escape reality and live away from them for a few moments? That's what this manga is about, two girls having fun by escaping reality! It's not bad to run away from them sometimes you know! As long as you do them when you come back.

Score: 4/5! It's your regular slice of life with some romance sprinkled on top that doesn't stray away from what you expect one to be, it's fun overall!

LIFE UPDATES

Life time! It’s all basically Mario about, that’s the heads up for this segment!

But first some context to why everything is Mario about for this segment:

I was playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder recently, and my good friend Miya pointed out that I said I was going to go through all mario games eventually this year and why I was playing through them out of order. My response was basically, “Bruh”. And So I decided to begin my journey through the Mario Games! (That’s really how it began.)

I put Wonder on halt until I play all the others that came before, here’s the list for the games I’m going to play:

22 Games to play! (4 Already beaten!)

This list is not really based on anything official, It’s just my feelings of what ‘Main Line’ Mario games are. Super Mario Bros. X is the only exception there, it’s a fan game I really love so I had to include it in the Mario Journey!

With that introduction out of the way, let’s begin with the Original: Super Pudd Bros!!!!!????

”I’m the original!”

For those who didn’t find it last update, there was a secret hidden in there, where you could download a rom hack made by Miya of Super Mario Bros. that replaced Mario with Pudd!

Now, for my actual experience playing the very first true mario game!

…

I kinda disliked it…

Okay, hear me out before you throw fire at me!

I respect the significance of this game and how impactful it was, but the physics and controls are a little too odd for me to fully enjoy it. I’M SORRY! By no means this game is bad, it’s just that I got spoiled from games nowadays!

Pudd met Miwa!

I have to admit another thing as well dear reader, I used the rewind feature of my emulator because I got hardstuck in 6-4 and didn’t want to see the game over screen again and go back to 1-1… That game is a bit too hard for me! But with the power rewind I managed to get through the game.

My final thoughts are: It’s a fine game by today’s standards, but I’m never playing it again…

I’ll ‘consider’ that request! (He will not play it.)

Now for the next game in the timeline: Super Mario Bros. 2 (JP)!

My thoughts on this one are even worse than the previous one…

Take everything I said for the last one and expand it by 2 times and add harder difficulty on top of it all!

I’m already not the biggest fan of early Mario controls and physics… the b*llshitty level design did not help me like any more, they are either too hard or a bit trolly and I’m not a huge fan of that. That made me use rewind as early as level 3-4!

Overall, I was glad this one was over.

The improved graphics were cool tho!

If you were spoiled by good game feels like and doesn’t like trolly design, you can skip this one and appreciate it from a distance!

Mario and the cult of toads.

Moving further forward we have: Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)!

You know the story why there’s 2 sequels for Mario I assume. But for those who don’t know here’s a very short summary of it: Essentially, Nintendo of America thought SMB. 2 (JP) was too hard for the western audience, so they decided to reskin another game called Doki Doki Panic and put it as the sequel to Super Mario Bros. 2 for the USA region.

That’s the story of how this game came to be, so my thoughts on it?

I think they made the right decision on making a different sequel for the west and, dare I say, this is more fun than the JP version, mainly because of the physics and controls being good. Actually it’s because of the physics and controls being good that I enjoyed this more than JP and actually had fun.

I didn’t know the water from the whales could actually kill you!

I enjoyed the music, the sounds didn't make my ears bleed, the gameplay with the vegetables and throwing was a very fun refresher and the bosses were fun. The only complaint I had was that the levels were a little too long and a bit bs-y, forcing me to pull out the rewind, so I didn’t restart the entire game again on a game over! Despite that, it was still fun and I recommend it!

It was a dream after all…

The next one is… oh! I love this one! it’s Super Mario Bros. 3!

Out of all the games in this list, SMB. 3 is my absolute favorite of the official Mario games, so can you guess how my experience was? Of course you do, I had a freaking blast playing it!

SMB. 3 is the prime example of how to continue a series making sequels, it improved and surpassed the previous titles with new and unique game mechanics and better overall game feel! Most important of all, Mario controls super well!

Mario Vs King Koopa himself!

90% of the level design is very fair, and even for the levels that are not, the game gives you a lot of tools to just overcome all problems with the inventory system allowing you to store power and tools to use in levels or the map! (Except for the roulette mini-game, that one is ridged and never works!)

I didn’t even need to use rewind for this one believe it or not!

Another thing that made this game a lot of fun for me was RetroAchievements!

I have been playing all these games in Retroarch and having some achievements to go for while replaying these classic games is a very nice and fun goal to add on top of all!

Concluding thoughts are as follows: Amazing game, goddamn masterpiece, recommend it with all my heart!

The curtain calls for all the actors of this play now.

And that’s almost everything for this segment!

I was going to talk about my thoughts after finishing Super Mario RPG Remake, but I discovered there’s a good amount of post-game content to play with, so I’ll do that first and next update I’ll talk about this game!

SONG OF THE DAY

Recently (recently being almost 20 days ago.), the 2nd MORE MORE JUMP! SEKAI ALBUM released, and as a MMJ! connoisseur, I'm here to list all 12 songs from least best to bestest best, the number 1 song being the song of the day!

Here it is:

11. Heart Forecast

10. The Vampire

9. Karakuri Pierrot

8. Shinkai Shoujo

7. Happy Halloween

6. Booo!

5. Kimagure Mercy

4. DarlingDance

3. Torinokocity

2. Shoujo Rei

And now for the 2 songs that I couldn't decide which to pick as the number one so i put both at number 1:

Today's songs of the day are Momentary Trip and Lonely Universe from MORE MORE JUMP!

Two amazing songs with very different moods, I love how I feel when listening to Lonely Universe and love the energy of Momentary Trip!

Momentary Trip

Lonely Universe

And that's all for this month!

It was a very fun month despite the money issues I had!

Onto March!

See you next month traveler!

Have a nice day!

15/02/2024

Helo!

It's mid February not already! These past 10 days felt very normal this time, no wonky fast paced days or days that felt like a month.

This blog update will be mostly focused on one thing, that thing being Honkai: Star Rail, because I haven't done much aside from playing said game. But hey, I made some fun pictures so if you don't really care for that game, at least you can look at the pictures!

So let 's begin!

WEBSITE UPDATES

Not Much to See Here!

There were a few updates to my game shelf, reflecting my current gaming status! I made a few CSS test things for a friend that I also may use myself in the future, but aside from that… not much to see here!

”I'm so good at video games!”

Now for more Phoenix Club Progress!

The artwork for the Science Partners is going very well, I feel very happy seeing my silly characters be given life in this way and the artist behind is doing such a great job!

So instead of hoarding all this excitement for myself, I got permission from Scrimblo to share some WIPs for everyone:

”2nd and 3rd CGs respectively. Artwork by Scrimblo Bimblo, please click their name to visit their lovely website!

For the mainline chapter coming soon(ish), I have made good progress on how I want the chapter to go. The only thing I fear is this being a rather long chapter, but we will see when I get around to writing it next month!

Before ending this segment, I would like to share a fanart:

Soaring Fanart made by Miya!

That's all for the website related changes and updates!

ONE-SHOT OF THE DAY

Sorry!

No One-shot of the day today!

Next one will have one for sure!

LIFE UPDATES

I'm not gonna waste anytime, let's just delve into the paragraphs of:

Penacony, A Beautiful Dream Facade!

“Penacony, Land of the Dreams” is the most recent region expansion for Honkai: Star Rail and I have played pretty much completed 85% of everything it has to offer, so now I shall share some of my thoughts about it… but first, something to set the mood!

Penacony is a luxurious hotel in space, known more as the “Planet of Festivities” for the many parties it holds. But where's the dream part? Do they just hold parties inside the hotel? I mean, it's not the worst place to host a party, but inside a hotel??

Well, the real Penacony is located in another place… Inside the Dreamscape. To get to the Dreamscape you must rest inside the tub in your room, allow yourself to relax and dream.

Only then, when you open your eyes again, will you see the real Penacony.

“The Land of the Dreams”

It's flashy, beautiful, capable of captivating anyone who enters the Dreamscape, but don't let the pretty lights consume you, otherwise you might not want to leave this dream… or worse, find the real nightmare right beneath your feet…

During the Trailblaze Mission, the MC enters this fantastical dream and allows himself to step in the spotlight given to him. He meets this girl named Firefly after rescuing her from a misunderstanding with the “security” and she offers to help in showing off Penacony to you as a local!

It's a fun place to stay in, with many things to see and do, the story really lets the player fall for this dream.

I was consumed by this Dreamscape, with the words of the series writer about the story being “Chill, carefree and upbeat” in my mind, I really had nothing to fear and lowered my guard. They do a great job in portraying Firefly as a likable character, and the scene on the rooftop in the secret base was amazing too…

Favorite Hideout.

Little did I know at the time that this dream was not meant to last… or rather, a nightmare was beginning…

Now that I spent a long time writing those paragraphs, time for Full Spoilers thoughts!

Firstly, I would like to address the fact that nothing I thought or theorized about last time actually came true, my theory was a much simpler story than what we got and I am glad for it!

I was really happy we got to see more banter for the Astral Express group, with Himeko and Welt this time, it's always so fun to see them talk to each other! Seeing the new and returning characters was also great, Black Swan was a character I initially dislike for her design, but as the story went on, I started like her, so much that I even pulled for her and broke my curse of losing 50/50 for female 5*s! My DoT teams will be even stronger now!

Enemies won't exist in their turn!

Oh yeah! Let's not forget about SAM!

He appeared in this Trailblaze Mission and he was so freaking cool, perfect voice acting too! The boss fight was awesome and difficult because I brought preservation MC instead of an Abundance character, but I managed to best him with 3 party members down and a Kafka with 15% HP!

Funny enough, he's the only honest character in the story, he says that he's going to beat us up and does just that.

Screenshot from Rubhen925 on youtube! (I was fangirling too hard to take screenshots of my own!)

I actually felt really emotional in the scene with Firefly's final moments, the music that lingered after her disappearance and the photo the MC and her took slowly fading away on the ground was just the cherry on top of a lake's worth of tears… The way she was attacked was also kind of brutal… it all just happened too fast…

But if I'm being honest, I don't think she's truly dead, if gameplay directly translates to story, the boss monster just took her spirit causing a “spiritual death”, so there's still hope to save Firefly!... Maybe…

I also don't think Firefly is SAM like a lot of people do, I think SAM was trying to protect Firefly by locking her in a room to keep her away from the monster and when he saw what happened to her after she broke out of the room, he went on a monster killing rampage trying to hunt the monster that took Firefly away.

That's my theory at least, I'm for sure wrong if my track record is anything to go by!

Oh yeah, the music was on point and amazing as usual, HOYO-MiX never misses when it comes to music!

In regards to the gameplay portion of this the 2.0 patch, exploring Penacony and the Dreamscape was awesome and the puzzles were very mind bending fun! The new enemies and their unique gimmicks were cool too.

I also managed to 100% Pure Fiction again and get 33 stars on MOC with my newly built Dr. Ratio & Black Swan! (Still need to build Guinaifen!)

I'll be saving my jades now, for Aventurine next patch! I need a 5* sustain, and judging from previous units with that role, I believe he will be very powerful!

That thing in the back looks very cool and trippy!

That's almost everything I wanted to talk about Honkai: Star Rail, I can't wait to see what's next for this game!

Now for the next segment… Penacony, a Beautiful Reality…?!

Yup, we are still not done!

There was a recent IRL event somewhat near where I live where you could visit a place themed around Penacony, talk with other fans & cosplayers and grab some goodies!

Despite not being a huge room, it was still a cozy place for the time I stayed there. I didn't talk with anyone though or stayed for long, crowded places are not my thing, so I just grabbed my goodies and left!

But I did take some pictures:

Big Carnaval Themed Pom Pom!

"Welcome to Penacony!"

It was really cool to see these IRL after seeing them in-game!

A new badge for my backpack! 2 of 6 slots filled! (Possibly 8 slots!)

That concludes all the Honkai: Star Rail thoughts and happenings in the past 10 days!

Let's move on to something rather unique now: Interloping Like an Interloper!

You may or may not know this but, I'm a huge fan of horror web series! And I've been a somewhat big Valve fan since pretty much the first time I opened Team Fortress 2!

So imagine my excitement when I heard about this series being about the Source Engine (The game engine for a lot of Valve games) and actually having a unique take on the concept!

The series about an Anomidae's Investigation about a strange command he discovered while playing Half-Life 2:

get s.interlope.pull:27015

This is already strange, but what's even more baffling is: The command is able to generate Demos!

What are Demos? Well, basically they are recordings done by players that are played in Engine!

But somehow, this command is capable of generating Demos all by itself with no player input! Some of these Demos are even very strange!

But why is this command capable of doing that?

…

:)

That you will have to figure out yourself by watching the series in this playlist right here!

So, now for my interloping experience, in the most recent episode we (the community) got a huge batch of demos made by this command to explore and take it apart! Me and my friend spent 3 hours looking through each and every single Demo that we could and… ended up not finding much because our knowledge of the Source Engine was very barebones…

but it was still amazing and baffling to see and question how some of these things were made with the Demo system! It's such a fascinating series to me and I can't wait to see more of it! You should see it and also be hyped about it too!

Now for the final topic!

Super Mario RPG Remake is My Favorite Remake!

Super Mario RPG is basically my childhood, a game really special to me, so imagine my reaction when I learned that game is going to get a remake. I was a little worried! The game had so much charm and fun, which I feared that would be lost if the company remaking it didn't care that much about the property.

Luckily that wasn't the case at all, in fact, I dare say that this remake has even more charm than the original! It's almost everything I asked for and more!

Title Screen looks so good!

We have greatly improved graphics, cute cutscenes and an even more fun battle system!

This guy is even goofier!

The only thing I wished for was a harder difficulty setting, the original wasn't the hardest RPG out there and the remake made it a bit easier. So I made the decision to never use any items during battle, that's my self imposed challenge for my playthrough!

Anyways, I have been enjoying this remake a lot both from nostalgia and actual fun, I absolutely recommend it!

Even with 15+ years of gaming experience, I still suck at this mini-game.

I've been playing a few other games but nothing is too not worthy to talk about today.

So that concludes this segment!

SONG OF THE DAY

The song of the day is a traumatic beautiful song called If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking from Hoyo-MiX!! A long that will forever make me and many sad for a long time! I'm listening to it right now as of writing this blog!

Hoyoverse really is a music company that happens to make video games.

You can click here to see the playlist with all the songs recommended in this segment during this year!

And that's everything for today!

I'll be taking my time with my gaming experiences, so expect a big delay before I begin playing Persona 3 Reload or Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth!

See you next time traveler!

Have a nice day!

05/02/2024

What's up!

Right now there's a white roof above me!

I know, I know, bad joke… It just feels kinda off to say what's up in a blog context, for me at least.

Anyways, it's time to update the blog, this one will contain misadventures with my new pc and some other silly things you might find fun!

Let 's begin!

WEBSITE UPDATES

Many Minor Changes and Updates were done around the website in the past few days!

Firstly, although it may be considered a big change, the place you are reading this right now has received a slight revamp!

I decided to improve the readability of the blog a bit and made some tools to help me make the blogs slightly faster and less mind boggling!

Enjoy the improved blog from today and onward! (Previous blog updates will not have these changes due to the sheer amount of work I would need to do to fix the things that would break!)

Secondly, the guestbook was updated a bit with correct color theming and now has a pudding at the top! I also responded to all the signs too, thanks to everyone who signs it, it's always a great time to read and respond to them!

”The book looks good now!”

Thirdly, the game shelf was updated with my current gaming status and the BTD 6 random loadout generator was updated with the latest update (I was almost 2 months behind that) and some rewording around the website.

Oh, new images to the R.M.I.H.! Almost forgot about that.

Unrelated fanart of Miwa with twintails for twintail day. Click on the doodle to go to the OC owner website!

Now for the Phoenix Club Updates segment!

Work in the CGs of Science Partners is being worked on! I recently gave the artist all the concept art and resources needed, now it's time to let the artist cook!

Hey, you can check out the concept art too:

I know, I'm really good at art!

Now, time for The Future!

As said in the beginning of the year, the next chapter is a mainline series chapter and I have great plans for it! To be more specific, I know exactly the story arc I want to tell in the next 4 chapters! I feel like it's a compelling story, so I can't wait for you to read it!

Still need some time to iron out the details however, so expect the chapter to be worked on next month.

Before ending this segment, here's Oshare's design:

Artwork made by Miya.

That's all for the website changes!

ONE-SHOT OF THE DAY

Ao no Hako

Blue Box

One-shot made by Kouji Miura.

(Same person that made Parasol Doumei!)

Synopsis: Taiki, a member of the volleyball team, comes in early to the gym everyday, always trying to beat the person he admires the most, but never doing so.

(Altered Synopsis from: Anilist)

Art and presentation: Like I said last time for Parasol Doumei, this author nails the cute art style once again. This time around, there weren't many big emotional moments, but all scenes and characters were drawn with such care and diligence. It's all so charming!

Why you should read it: It's an adorable love story! The dialogue between the characters feels smooth and flows like butter. The comedy is so on point that it might get a good laugh from you too! And of course, the romance is very good too, who doesn't like a good romance story?

Score: 5/5! Make sure to read the One-shot and then follow the manga about it! I'm going to do that myself!

LIFE UPDATES

So, recently Soaring Sky aired its last episode of the show and now that the series has concluded, time to share some of my thoughts about it!

But first, an proper introduction to this show:

The anime is about Sora, an enthusiastic girl with dreams of becoming a hero! But while trying to save the Baby Princess Elle from the Undergu Empire, she finds herself teleported to a whole new world! There she meets friends and attempts to bring Elle back to her original world while being attacked by the Empire every step of the way!

That should be a spoiler free introduction to the show, so let's start with the thoughts!

I'm gonna start with the complaints first cause I have very few of those.

The first thing I think this show missed a bit was with the villain group. They all have great and fun personalities, but the show rarely shows them bouncing off each other, and the moments they do show that… It's consistently one of the funniest moments of the anime. Just a couple more scenes with the inside of the Empire would've been so cool!

The second complaint is… well, the show's pacing slows down a lot during the second half. This is mostly because of the villain that takes over for the second half, he's rather… boring. He's the stoic but powerful type of villain, but the problem I had with is… he's only interesting at the last 10 episodes of the show, the rest he just:

Appears -> engages the protagonists in a fight -> loses -> says a short sentence (optional) -> leaves.

That's why the second half felt so slow, because the main threat was so boring until the last 10 episodes.

This villain was very fun though.

Now that the complaints are done, let's talk about what the show does best!

The characters and their motivations are simply fantastic in this anime. They all have unique personalities and quirks that makes them all so loveable with noble goals!

But the show is truly at its best exploring and challenging Sora's will to become a hero. Seeing her struggle with “How to Become a Hero” and faltering but her newly found friends bringing her back up and making her path clearer was something so touching to see.

And even on the villain side this show is great, Battamonda started off as this somewhat annoying and bratty villain, running away from the Undergu Empire after being defeated constantly and being “worthless”, his interactions with Mashiro and his final decision on what decides “worth”… the episode where he makes that final decision… made me want to scream and cheer for him while crying, it was such a cathartic moment that I'll never forget.

Another great thing about this show is that it has one of the best written baby characters I have seen to date!

Seeing Elle grow through the season, learning to walk, talk and even being taught some important lessons was something so wholesome and endearing.

It's an amazing show that you should go watch right now! 10/10!!!

This was my first Precure show I ever watched, and I'll continue to check out the ones that come next if it continues to be this good and unique!

I'll miss this group of characters…

Next up on the list of things that happened is: New Pc, New Life!

That's right, my new PC is finally here and in use!

It's much bigger than my previous one, and also brighter… It's like a massive colorful light box! I had a few troubles in getting everything around the PC working though, I had to buy a new cable and adaptor for my second monitor and Windows 11 is still a little alien to me.

Anyways, with this new, much more powerful tech I can finally max out graphics settings and be ready for the two games that will consume my life: Persona 3 Reload and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth!

I'll only play them after finishing Honkai: Star Rail 2.0 story quest, organization first!

Also, expect much higher quality screenshots from now on!

Big box of lights that make my room very bright!

Talking About Star Rail, I got some silly story predictions that probably will not come true! But it's fun to think about!

Okay so, I got this clear picture in mind of what may happen during the Astral Express stay in Penacony, it goes as follow:

We are all gonna have fun in the lands of dreams, meet some of the cool characters and all that good stuff! After a long and busy day, the crew will go to the hotel with the dream things to rest there for the next day.

Here's where things get interesting though, everyone is going to sleep well and dream, but the Trailblazer will notice that he can't wake up! He's trapped in his own dream!

Through some complicated process, he will break through this dream reality and return to the real world and at this moment he's going to find out why this trap was placed…

This is the moment where the Ever-Flame Mansion will make their intentions known, they are going to direct a Stellaron to hit Penacony while most of the powerful people are trapped in the dream world!

From the hotel, the Trailblazer will just see a far away star slowly sink down from the skies and throw everything into chaos and destruction. From here, The Trailblazer will have to figure out a way to wake up the crew and stop the Stellaron, while the Ever-Flame Mansion members attack the powerful individuals in Penacony.

That's my prediction! Do I think this will come true? Nope! I was awfully wrong before about Hoyoverse stories, so I expect this to be wrong as well. But hey, it's still fun to dream~~

I’m ready to take off!

With that out of the way, time to delve into a machine gun of games I have been playing recently!

Back to Escape the Backrooms!

There was a new update to this game, and a friend of mine tried many times and set dates to gather the squad to play the new update. But each time, something unexpected happened that would cause the gaming session to be postponed. I thought it was quite funny how it failed many times, but we eventually played it!

It was fine for me, the game was well put together and the graphics are very good, I'm just having Backrooms fatigue, that's all.

I recommend it if you can gather a group of friends to play it.

This was quite spooky, but also funny because the thing started spinning afterwards.

Next game!

Another game I have been playing with a friend is Modded Terraria: Fargo's Mod!

Terraria already has big crafting trees and stuff, but what if you could make these trees 100x bigger and more complex!

Look at the size of this outdated crafting tree! (Image by u/-hamburgler- on reddit click on the image to go to their post.)

Look, I know that sounds bad, but collecting items, using them to create these new modded accessories that are the combination of the item's effects, eventually upgrading them, combining them with others and all that stuff, makes for a very satisfying experience! Better yet, you can test this newly found power against the much together new bosses and revamped vanilla bosses that are borderline bullet hell fights!

Very fun and addictive, if you like Terraria, you're gonna love this mod!

Here's some flashy colors during the Twins fight.

Next, next!

I finally Completed a Run of Undermine!

It has finally happened! This little roguelike was a lot of fun, although being a little too grindy and runs taking a bit too long to complete, it was fun!

Runs during the late game do get a little hectic and there's a lot of flashing and attention grabbing moments that can lead to some enemies hitting you, but The Binding of Isaac trained me to hyperfocus on my character and dodge!

I probably won't be playing it again, but I still recommend it!

This is where it all began!

And now, for the final game:

Making Steampunk Batman in Infinite Craft!

I saw this game on Twitter, from the honestly unhinged tweets of people making absurd things on this game, so I had to check it out!

At first I thought these were memes and fake screenshots made for fun about the game, after all, how can you make Peter Griffin by just combining Earth, Water, Fire or Wind to make something new. But as time went on, it became clear that this game was truly unique and unhinged, and I found myself lost combining many different things and creating crazy things for hours! I even got my friends addicted to it!

You can also play this right now, just click here!

It's a very fun game to spend time on and making things, it reminded me of the Doodle God games, if anyone remembers that series.

Check out the cool things I made during hours of creating!

And that's all for this lengthy segment!

I can't wait to play Persona 3 Reload and explore Penacony!

SONG OF THE DAY

The song of the day is White Night from Hoyo-MiX!, an unbelievably good song!

So good that I just jammed out and didn't even watch the 2.0 trailer the first time I saw it, the jams were just too good!

And that's all for this blog update.

Expect a lot of Persona 3 Reload & Star Rail brainrot for this month!

See you next time traveler!

Have a nice day!