Category: Games

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Heading toward spring with a hope that things are getting better

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A behind-the-back shot of Rin Shima looking toward a lake and a mountain in Laid-Back Camp season 2.

The last twelve months have been difficult for everyone – social disorder; worldwide illness, and deaths from COVID-19 and its variants; remote interactions failing to be complete substitutes for in-person interactions; and a contentious U.S. election cycle.

I’m hopeful that current coronavirus vaccine distributions and more competently managed public health initiatives will lead to a modified return to regular life. I’m not eager to go back into a movie theater anytime soon but I would consider attending a convention this summer/fall if the risk of attending has been significantly reduced by then. Large anime conventions are being rightfully cautious: FanimeCon recently announced it will be all virtual this year after last year’s cancellation, Anime Expo will not hold a physical show this year, and Crunchyroll Expo will go virtual for the second straight year. So it might be a stretch to think there will be a quick resurgence of in-person conventions.

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Mid-November update: Cromartie & Code Geass; Extra Life stream next weekend

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Takashi, Freddie, Shinjirou, and Takeshi in Cromartie High School

Hi there! It’s been a number of months since my last update. Too busy with law school courses.

I watched Cromartie High School and the first season of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion with my regular classics anime watchgroup. Cromartie was hilarious and silly as a delinquent slice-of-life comedy, though I would’ve liked its episodes to be longer than 12 minutes.

While we were watching Code Geass, I started to make sense of some things I recall online communities and bloggers talked about when the show was first airing more than a decade ago. Things like the agony of Orange (aka Jeremiah), Cheese-kun and the frequent appearances of pizza, Nina’s obsession with Princess Euphemia, and “JIBUN WO” from the anime’s first opening theme.

Beachcomber from a Duracell commercial.

I plan to participate in this year’s Extra Life charity fundraiser by streaming myself playing video games in a marathon during the weekend of November 23 & 24. (Here’s my Twitch channel.) I’ll be raising money to support UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals as part of the Giant Bomb team. I’m thinking of going through my backlog of PC/Steam games and also play some older-generation sports games. I don’t think I’ll be able to do a full 24-hour marathon, but I’ll try to go for at least 12 hours.