Ronald White

I enjoyed sentenced to be a hero, the angels and their need to be praised and needed was a little isekai tropey, that was not well explained. But overall it was a very imaginative anime.

Having grown up on shonen, and always a big fan of them... I found a couple of non-shonen animes to be bangers this spring.

Champignon Witch and Journal with Witch, both have been s-tier animes, right up there with Frieren.

Even though they are not shonen, they are amazing.

The shonen market is swamped, and the reason why is because action scenes are much less expensive then they were 20 + years ago. A heavy action scene of 5 minutes was prohibitively expensive pre-2000, but now you can have 10 minutes long full on wild action scenes- thanks to the help of computer animation, not AI but just better tech. And that has created a problem, gorgeous action scenes ... but after a while they get boring. I start to fast forward >> through a heavy action scene to see if there is any plot narrative behind it all.

Shonens are, less expensive to produce then they were decades ago, but new fans are just being introduced to the high action genre that is popular.

Older anime fans are wondering .... where is the story?

They may not have to repeat action scenes or spamming (there is a word for it- forgot) where you replay transformation scenes, yelled out attack scenes, space battle explosions, etc. But they can still get just as repetitive- over the top beheading of goblins or whatever. Great action scenes, but sometimes the story or narrative gets lost, and with soo many shonens out in the market, few have a good story to back it all up.

I look forward to Daemons of the shadow realm, their work is always engaging with powerful stories.

Try the non-shonens I mentioned above, they are amazing in regards to expanding anime and what stories it can tell.

Agree, letting the dungeon master, player, or drone roll app, take the place of a missing D&D character works just fine.

A DM can or should be easily able to adapt the story to the missing player(s). Since the campaign's story may be dependent on gear and ability ups, it is good to pass loot and skills onto the missing player, that way they do not feel too weak. Or just a tailored gear up, to put them around the rest.

But I will admit that sword world looks great, wish I had this game to play with others 20 yrs ago.

Loved DA I and II personally. While the two were different - they had what was most important a vibrant world, great stories, and combat that wildly fun, and kind of new for the time.

While other games at the time had narrative just as bold as DA II, like Bioshocks, Mass Effects, Fallouts -> DA setting was so enjoyable.

Incredible fight scenes, introducing new characters with god like powers and a huge budget that gives us non stop action for ten minutes or more each episode.... snooze, I started FF >> through some of these shonen -extreme battles just to see, well just to see, what the battle was even for. Or if there was any reason it had towards the narrative.

I mean S-tier animation, but god does it drone on.

I enjoyed meeting the young team with Yugi, spikey black haired guy, and Kugisaki with these three and trying to get to know them. It was really fun seeing their lives intersect.

By season 3 and 4 there must be a few dozen characters .. omg. All of them sharing some trauma bonding, where you get to know them and then they are killed off.

The story has also jumped the ship, as it started ... well it makes Evangelion seem simple.

Sad to say, I hope it wraps up next season.

.... fun article, but like every consumer media, some of them just go down hill rapidly after the first season, book, movie, etc... As talent moves on, accountants want change, or a good idea just runs out really... really fast.

But then you have shows that only get better, like Battlestar Galactica, Seinfeld, Breaking Bad, Succession, and tons more we all know of. Star Trek NG.

I think tv shows should simply get better each season, or lose their audience and go off the air. But, if people are willing to watch these shows -for whatever reason, then more power to them.

I have never seen an episode of Housewives of anywhere, but more power to those that enjoy it.

Well that is a fun take.

I hope that the sw2 is wildly aggressive and does very well. I know I enjoyed some games on the switch, ex Fire Emblems.

But... the og switch has sold around 153 million (2017), sw 2 around 17 million, and the ps5 (2005), 97 million, the ps4 (2013 112 million).

But without a doubt the Sony has had an incredible success at moving software with the highest tie in ratio (software purchased per hardware) of any device.

Then you have Steam, and several other DDPs, steam hand held, and clones.

I just do not see a period of 'dominance' anytime soon. I do hope there will be more competition amongst all the players, big and small.