Sword Art Online 1 thru 14

Thoughts;  I was really late to this boat, the anime didn't seem all that interesting to me when it was first aired back in 2012.  Ooo, Wow.  You're stuck in a game.  *eye roll*  After watching part of Log Horizon however, I decided to give this one a shot too... if not just for a comparison.
        The only part I like more about SAO so far is, the fact if you die in game you die IRL as well. It gives it more edge... more need to survive... Not that the main character Kirito really ever has any major OMG moments.  He's extremely over powered in the game... Sure, he was a beta so he knew where to level better than most, but really... for a solo player he is extremely over powered.
       As for Asuna, I like her....her character is cool and she's not so overly powered that it seems unrealistic. Well, before she started getting with Kirito...  after she's turned into a goob kinda.
     The ending was really lame, I wasn't expecting the SAO part of the show to end while they were on the 75th floor.  Of course, I don't think I could stand watching Kirito and Asuna play house for another 10+ episodes either.  Uhg.
    Also, what's with all the Yui love?  Oh goody, Kirito and Asunas love and happiness summoned her there or whatever.. it was like they had a daughter all the sudden.  Oye.  What this show could have been..
I'm not even sure if I want to continue on after 14...
    I want to say the "Final Battle" was epic and all, but it wasn't.  Asuna dies like the flake she becomes and Kirito goes god mod on the guy..  I'll admit I was actually sort of surprised that Heathcliff was really the creator in a game disguise... I guess it really is no fun just watching people play a game.
    For a few years...

Breakdown....


Episode 1 -  Introductions and what's happening, the game has just been fully released with 10,000 units sold. Players are logging in and enjoying the game and such, after some time they start to notice that they can't log out.  A glitch maybe?
      Kirito, our main character and beta player has just met Klein a newbie who came from another game and is waiting for his guild mates from that game to log on in SAO.  Kirito shows him the ropes for a bit, but goes off by himself once Kayaba shows up and tells them what's going on.
     They must clear the game to leave the game, 100 Floors of the tower.  One month goes by, 2,000 people are killed and not even the first floor has been cleared.

Episode 2  -  Kirito meets with other players to go take out the first floor boss, he meets and teams up with Asuna {a pretty girl!} to go into this mission.  There's a bunch of player hate for the beta people because they know more about the game and have been taking the good quests and leveling quicker then the others. Just not helping the lower ranks in general...
     After the boss is defeated, Kirito gets the special last hit item and comes forward as a beta player and brings the hate on himself by admitting to be a "Beater" or a beta cheater.  Asuna and he part, he tells her that she should join a good guild if she finds one..

Episodes 3 -  It's four months in now, players have finally organized enough to form powerful guilds to slowly start clearing the tower.  Kirito joins a low level guild while concealing the fact that he's level 40, he makes some friends and has some fun, but that all comes to an end when they accidentally stumble into a trap room.
     Uber monsters show up and kill most the guild, then the leader type person who wasn't there at the time blames Kirito and kills himself.

Episode 4 - In his wandering, Kirito happens by a Beast Tamer named Sillica. Her familier dragon Pina had just been killed trying to protect her from a monster type and Kirito offers to help her get the item that can rezz her.
          Sillica is cute and small, people tend to keep her around because of this. She's kind of like a mascot and this drives her insane...or makes her angry.  Anyways, on their journey to get this Pneuma Flower they run into a player that she had been partied with earlier.
         Rosalia, a member of the orange player guild known as Titan's Hand shows up with a few of her guild members to take the flower away from Sillica.  Kirito of course steps in and beats their ass.
       Back in town, Sillica revives her pet and Kirito goes back to the front lines.

Episodes 5  & 6 -   Asuna is back!   She's now the Vice Commander of the Knights of Blood Oath guild and one of the people who have been clearing the tower. Anyways, she and Kirito meet up and have a date of sorts...well...not really...they relax some in the grass.
    A mystery is brewing,  while in town a man is somehow killed. Long story short, more people "die" when it's just their armor "breaking" and them teleporting away.  Turns out there's just a bunch of guild drama that Kirito and Asuna stuck their nose into....not their guilds by the way.

Episode 7 -  Enter Lisbeth or "Liz", Asuna's friend and skilled blacksmith. Seems Asuna referred Kirito to her and he shows up wanting a sword better then the one he owned.  She doesn't have the materials to make a better sword then what he has so, the two of them go on a little adventure to get what's needed.  Dragons and a bet of danger later and she has a huge crush on him... only to be squished down when Asuna shows up and she realizes he's the one that Asuna likes.  Tada.

Episodes 8 & 9 -  Asuna can cook, really, really well. Kirito brings her a high leveled rabbit type creature to cook and she makes him a meal.   Then the two of them go on a date of sorts, on the 74th floor.  This is only after Kirito beats up her "bodyguard" that objected to her going off with some weirdo... talk about over protective.
         On the 74th floor the two of them find the boss room, this is a big mean boss and the two of them turn tail and run... quickly.  After their retreat they run into the guild "The Army" hunting on the floor and they go to the boss room despite Kirito and Asune warning them against it.
     Oh yea, Klein and his friends are there too.  After realizing the Army was trying to defeat the floor boss the three of them run in to try to save the under leveled guild.  Long story short, things get very bad and Kirito has to show off his new....unique skill.   He's a dual blade, apparently the only one in the game at the moment and the word of this spreads like wildfire. He beats the boss basically by himself... Yey! OP.
    Now, Asuna wants to take a LOA from her guild to party {date} with Kirito more but her guilds leader Heathcliff will have none of that... Unless Kirito can defeat him.

Episode 10-  Kirito fights Heathcliff and looses, amazingly.  Kirito is forced to join the Blood Oath guild or whatever it's called and during his training time or whatever Asuna's bodyguard from the other episode try to kill him and ends up killing one of the other Blood Oath members.    Time to get Boring, Kirito and Asuna leave to live together in a cabin.

Uhg, Die Please.

Episodes 11 and 12 -  Asuna has turned into loving wifey type and Kirito the husband type, then a little girl shows up to be the child type.   Uhg.  The little girl is Yui at first they think she's a really young player, but it turns out she some sort of computer program that has lost it's way or some crap.
       People love her, but she's annoying.   This whole part of the show is annoying and starts the downward spiral that turns this series into crap.

Episodes 13 & 14 -   There's a relatively nice part about an old man fishing and a giant monster fish, then the episodes just start to suck again.
       75th Floor Battle,  Asuna and Kirito are called back to the front line to help with the boss battle. With Heathcliff and other players they defeat the boss... and Kirito realizes something.  Heathcliff is an immortal object just like Yui was... He's not a computer program though... He's the creator of the game Akihiko Kayaba!
       Lots of talking, some fighting, Asuna "dies" and Kirito breaks the game and "kills" Heathcliff.  They have beat the game!  The world is crumbling and players are finally able to "log out".... at least the players that are still alive...
      Since they both kinda died, Asuna and Kirito are the last people out of the game.  They have a little chat and share with each other their real names..  Asuna Yuuki and Kazuto Kirigaya.  Awakening in the real world... Kazuto in the hospital, frail and weak from his years in the game slowly and carefully sets off to find Asuna.


Will I ever go past 14?  Probably. When?  No idea.

Really, this is all I am going to type about this show for now. It's just....No. 

December ~ It Was a Long Month.

Ever year December is pretty bad.  Not only do I buy stuff for people, but there are sales on Anime and Games that are difficult not to take advantage of...

Though, honestly.... I don't think I did very bad on holding back this year... On self spending that is.

Here it goes....



Mushishi The Complete Series S.A.V.E Edition:  This was streaming on Netflix for ages, but I never really watched much of it..a couple episodes. I liked it, it's the type of show I tend to watch and all so I finally decided to just buy it.
      This also marked my first S.A.V.E. Edition of an Anime, I was really surprised when I received it. The case it comes in is really nice as far as what Anime companies have been using recently. Looks like all the normal Mushishi DVDs in one case.  The green bar on the side is of course, Ugly.  That can be changed just by taking the cover off and flipping it over.
    Even with the green side bar, I found this release to be much more impressive then Sentai's BluRay.






Ghost Hunt S.A.V.E. Edition  & Corpse Princess S.A.V.E. Edition:  After having liked the Mushishi's S.A.V.E. release so much. I decided to order these two from the RightStuf sale, at first the order was quite a bit...larger.  Just these two were both OOS at the time so they ended up coming in a second package...  The first package has apparently been lost in the mail.  Uhg.
      Ghost Hunt, I know I love. I've watched it a few times all ready either via Netflix or Fansubs.  Corpse Princess, I've never seen before and honestly have no idea what it's about.  I guess that's my total "blind buy" for the season.

Playstation Plus 1 Year:  I ordered this from Walmart around Black Friday, I needed it anyway and I knew it wouldn't get any cheaper.  Walmart is an odd duck though, they sell the cards online.. one would think they'd just EMail you the code.
     Nope, it came in a bubble mailer.

 
 Banana Ninja Minion:  Okay, this was really just a random buy....I saw it at Walmart, just sitting there all cute and stuff.  Decided to give him a good home, before they were all sold out.
     Good thing I did at the time too, went back a couple days later and all the Minions were gone!

Mushishi-                       16.54
RightStuf-                      33.57
Playstation Plus-               29.96
Minion-                          8.00


Total:                           88.07



Network Purchases; Nothing really, I did a free month of Music Unlimited to get 5 Dollars for my virtual wallet.  Other then that, there was no real activity on the Network side of things.


Borderlands 2:  The only "free" game this month worth the trouble, maybe.  With the PS4 being released it made it a bit of a dead month for anything PS3.  Anyways, I haven't downloaded it yet but... I'm sure I will get around to it.

Free Games {The Growing List}

Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One
Darksiders
InFAMOUS 2
Quantum Conundrum
Closure
Joe Danger 2: The Movie
Spec. Ops: The Line
The Cave
MALICIOUS
Labyrinth Legends
Sleeping Dogs
Knytt Underground
Pinball Arcade
Saints Row: The Third
Deus Ex Human Revolution
Uncharted 3
Little Big Planet Karting
Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee HD
Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
Hitman Absolution
ICO
Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection
Galga Legions DX
Shadow of the Colossus
Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen
ibb & obb
Borderlands 2

Silver Spoon

Episodes:    11

How:   CrunchyRoll

Grade:    A

Summary:  {From MAL}  Yugo Hachiken dreams of life separated from his family, so he takes the initiative by enrolling in an agriculture school. He thinks, with his talent in studying, no problems will arise no matter what kind of school he attends. He is proven wrong very quickly. Raised as a city boy, he is forced to uncover the inconvenient truth about agricultural life. Enjoy the story of Hachiken, as he tries to keep up with his new friends, farmers' heirs, who are already accustomed to the harsh world of farming. With no clear goals or understanding of farming life, how will Hachiken survive this new, cruel reality? The story of a sweat, tear, and mud-stained youth begins!



Thoughts:   This was a happy accident, an Anime about Farm life.  Never in a million years would I think I'd enjoy a show about raising farm animals and stuff, but here we are. The show has an excellent mix of drama, comedy and well.... live stock.
    In a way, I kind of wish I went to this type of school when I was in school. haha, waking up at 5 AM would have been a bit irritating at times, but... taking care of the animals looks like a lot of fun and great exercise I'd imagine.
     I spent most the show wondering why Hachiken was even at this High School, but when the older brother shows up and more of his background is established it really started to make sense.
     Glad there's a second season.


Who we have...

Mains.


Yugo Hachiken-  He may be the most lovable main character I've ever seen, the shock he exhibits with some of the ways of agriculture/farming is beyond amusing and sometimes a little sad.  Hachiken only goes to agricultural school because he wants to get away from his parents, his father is a bit of a butt head from what I've seen in the later episodes.  Making it where he doesn't even want to go home over Summer break.
      Since he has a bit of a crush on Aki, he joins the Equestrian Club even though he seems to be scared of horses at first.  Slowly he warms up to them and vise versa.  His relationship with the other students is really quite good, no one seems to dislike him and they really consider him someone they can talk to.
       Throughout the show though, he starts to realize that he has no goal in live.  Most if not all the students at this school are from farm families where they will be helping and eventually taking over for their parents. Hachiken needs to find some sort of passion in life....
     Early in the show, while visiting the pigs he falls in love with the runt of the litter.  Everyone told him not to name any of the baby pigs but... he couldn't help it.  He takes "Pork Bowl" under his wing and is constantly worried about him getting enough food...  in the end he makes sure Pork Bowl reaches an optimal weight to get a good price at market.... tearfully he ends up purchasing Pork Bowl {with the money he made over the Summer at Aki's} and makes food out of him.
     He sends some of the Bacon home to his parents, other parts to Mikage and Komaba's family and the rest is eaten by students and teachers, some for free and some purchased.

Aki Mikage-  The love interest, her family runs a small cow and horse farm specializing in Ban'ei race horses. Being the only child she's set in line to inherit the farm, but she isn't really sure she wants to. Of course, she can't tell her family this.
       She's the reason Hachiken joins the Equestrian Club, she absolutely loves horses and talks quite poetically about them.
      During the Summer break she takes Hachiken home with her to help out on their farm, for the most part he does quite well until he accidentally doesn't secure the hose to the milking machine and they loose quite a bit of milk.
      Her family is quite nice and caring, nothing like what Hachiken is use to and her grandmother may be the most amusing person on the show. Too bad she's not there more..


Ichiro Komaba-  The quiet, childhood friend of Aki.  They grew up on farms not far from each other and are quite close, this is a bit of a hot button of jealousy for Hachiken.
        Komaba helps his mother and younger, twin sisters run their small Dairy Farm when at home.  His father passed away several years ago and it's really very difficult for his mother to get by.  Komaba's hope is to become a pro-baseball player and improve the family farm.  Will this happen? I hope so.  It's looking pretty good in the first season seeing he is just a freshman and is all ready starting pitcher on the schools team.

Others....


Tamako Inada-  I love this girl, she's amusing and extremely driven.   She's also one of the only "fat" girls I've ever seen in an Anime, she's skinny for a few episodes after Summer break citing the sweating from the heat, but after the summer festival she's back at her Egg Shaped Weight!
      She too is a first year student in the dairy farming program,  she's actually rather scary obsessive about the bottom line.  Specializing in accounting and micro transactions, it's seen while Hachiken is visiting her family's mega farm that she's bent on taking over the business even before her parents want to relinquish it. Saying her parents aren't running it optimally...

Shingo Hachiken-  Yugo's older brother and once "golden child" to his parents, he was what Yugo can possibly never be.  Shingo was accepted to the University of Tokyo, the most prestigious University in all Japan...  Once accepted however he decided that was enough for him.   It made his fathers dream of having a child accepted there come true and....now he wanted to follow his own dream.  Becoming a Chef!
     It seems he has a superb since of taste, but he can't cook worth a damn.  Wandering about he finds Yugo on his parents behest {maybe?} while he's working at the Mikage farm.  Trying to be nice he nearly kills Mikage's family with his cooking and then again the students at the school during the Summer festival.
     He and Yugo don't really get along or at least it's sort of one sided, Yugo hates him and he tries to be a friendly older brother.

Pork Bowl-   Hachiken's Pig, he was the runt of the litter and was always pushed aside during meals... even when he was a baby pig he was forced to take the last teat.  He accepted his sad way of life,but Hachiken never could and always attempted to get him to fight for more food... and failed.
       In the end, he ended up a happy, fat piggy.....and then bacon and other pork  products for the school.  Poor Pork Bowl.






The End;  It wasn't really an end, there's a second season soon which is really good since it really leaves you wanting more.  Komaba gets to start in the baseball game even though he's a first year, Mikage actually admits to not being completely certain about wanting to inherit the family farm; at least the way it is now and Hachiken...well...he's still Hachiken.
    I'll miss poor little Pork Bowl, I bet he made some tasty bacon....Oh that sounds demented.  I'm really not sure if I could raise a pig just to slaughter and eat it.  At least they didn't show the slaughtering process of Pork Bowl.

Log Horizon 1-12

Thoughts;  Another stuck in a game show. I've never actually watched any of the other shows that have this premise, but I know there are a couple out there.  With that said, I don't really have much or anything to compare this to...
       With these twelve episodes I do like what I've seen, it's a little slow, but it really does show the MMO feel.  Of course, when the characters die in the game they just get the normal game punishment of being warped back to their city of origin.  That is sort of boring.  Who cares if you die if there's no real world consequences and really... up to this point.. I'm not even sure what the real world has to do with the game in general.
        Why are all these people stuck in this game?  Are they really stuck there or is this just some strange, after images of themselves playing the game.  Okay, the latter of that would be a little hard to believe
      The whole NPC Vs Player idea that seems to be brewing somehow does seem interesting though.


Who we have...

Mains.

Shiroe-  Class; Enchanter ~  Subclass; Scribe  ~ The head brain of the show, everything that has been accomplished up to this point has been pretty much thanks to him. He's quite the nice guy and it seems this has gotten the best of him in the past, with people coming to him and using him for his knowledge just so they don't have to do it themselves.  This has soured him for guilds in general...
      Before the expansion pack that somehow locked every one's real life selves in the game, Shiroe had been playing the game for years and pretty much knew everything about it.  After the expansion though, his knowledge is still great but then there's the new content that had been added. Oh, also of course the fact no one can log out.
     He's made quite a name for himself in the game through out the years of playing, being a "member" of the Debauchery Tea Party a group of people that just hung out together to do stuff.  Most of them in different guilds or no guilds at all.  Shiroe was the Strategist of the group... and one hell of a strategist at that.


Naotsugu-  Class; Guardian ~ Subclass; ?? ~  He hadn't played the game in a couple years and had just come back for the expansion pack.  What a time to come back, even though he's stuck in the game he is quite the cheerful fella'.  A self admitted pervert, an open pervert as he says he's always saying things that has Akatsuki kicking or abusing him in some manner.
       He and Shiroe and friends, meet up and start traveling together from the get go.


Akatsuki- Class: Assassin ~ Subclass; Tracker ~   Before the expansion and change, Akatsuki was a male assassin who just never spoke on voice chat.  After, she's stuck in a male body for a while before Shiroe gives her a potion to change herself back into a female to match that of her real life self.
       Normally, she liked to play the game alone.  Though after Shiroe was nice enough to give her the potion to change her appearance she accepts him as her "Master" and joins his group.  She really seems to get a long well with Shiroe, but she and Naotsugu's open pervert mind set don't really bode well.
     She's quite the talented Tracker and Assassin.


Nyanta- Class: Swashbuckler ~ Subclass; Chef ~  He certainly doesn't look like his real life self, a cat man! He even talks with the Nyan in it. A very calm gentleman I assume he's probably older then most the other players in the real world.
       That fact doesn't hurt his in game fighting though, at level 90 in both his jobs he's quite the formidable opponent.  He shows up a little later then the other three, when the other three take a job to go find a friends guild mate in another part of the country Nyanta is the one who has been aiding her.


Up Until Now..

    You'd expect people to sort of freak out in situations like these, but really... there's been very little freaking out in this.  The main Trio meet up and get the feel of things in Akiba, then soon after they meet with another one of Shiroe's friends the Guild Master for the Crescent Moon Alliance, Maryele.
     One of her guild mates{Serara} is trapped in another town within the game, Maryele was going to rescue Serara herself but Shiroe and company volunteered to go instead. Since the warp gates weren't working it is a bit of a walk.  Through a dungeon, forest, mountains the normal for any video game. Of course, no matter how close to the other town they are if they die, they rezz back in Akiba.  Which makes for an interesting trek..
    Getting to Susukino wasn't that difficult, but once there they are met by a crazy, PKing guild that has taken over the in game city.  This is where they meet up with Nyanta, he's been taking care of Serara and she's developed a bit of a crush on the cat man.  After fighting the guild leader {I forgot his name, whoops} and a few of his henchmen the group sets back off to Akiba.
     On the way home they discover that even though most the food tastes terrible, if a person with a high enough Chef level cooks the food from the environment the food actually tastes amazing.  Nyanta is that Chef!
     Back in Akiba..... There's a party... Shiroe decides to finally make his own guild and calls it "Log Horizon".  Nyanta, Naotsugu and Akatsuki join his guild and all is good.  Sort of.  There's a naughty guild in Akiba that needs to be dealt with!
    The Hamelin guild has recruited the newbie players and are forcing them to make then hand over their Exp Pots, that characters under a certain level get once per day.  In turn they sell these Exp Pots to other guilds and there's a lot of leveling going on.  Two of these newbs are Twins that Shiroe actually knows from a while back...
     Log Horizon and the CMA set out to save these newbs, but first they must make some money!  How? Selling good of course. The Sub Class Chefs start to raise their levels while the other plays hunt and gather the items needed to cook.  After a little time goes by they open food stands and the shocked players happily hand over their money for the yummy food.
    Shiroe has other plans in mind, not just the food.... what to do with the money!  Buy a building.  The group call together the leaders of the highest combat guilds and the highest business venturing guilds to meet at the guild hall.  Shiroe leading the meeting he turns out to be a bit evil....
    The plan is for all the guilds to come together and bring order to the chaos in Akiba, if they don't agree to this...  they can't use the guild hall! Shiroe bought the Guild Halls building for 5 Mil or so...  Of course the other leaders are kind of angry, but there's squat that they can do about it so... an Alliance was made.  Well, besides with the one leader who left early... which I can't remember the guilds name or leader. Oh well.
     During the meeting the other members of Log Horizon and the CMA are rescuing the newbies kept by Hamelin.  With Shiroe owning the Guild Hall he pretty much boots the entire guild out once they are killed and sent to the Cathedral Rezz spot.
     The Twins, Minori and Touya join Log Horizon and begin to train.

New Problem?

     The NPCs or the people of the land as they call them in this game have become, irritated with...suspicious of the adventurers.  They seem to be planning something, but no one is quite for sure what or if.  Then they are invited to the NPC's Kings Castle!  There they meet the people and get to play with the Princess.. Well, Not quite play but.. Yea.   I'll get more into this stuff once I watch the rest of the show.

That's it, For now....