Watched all the major "old year's conferences" of this new year's. Old Dutch tradition where standup comedians who consider themselves too high-brow for the title of standup do political rants about the past year. Had this on my mind the entire time.

Beat SO2R. Weird game. Feels like you get to break it less than halfway through, and the story gives up on itself in the last third. The stat system is interesting, but it can't quite carry the button mashing meatgrinder that is the real-time combat system. Not a terrible game, but not great.

That sure is a lot of onlyfans bots on this site liking posts lately.

Apparently people in my city intentionally set cars on fire to lure out the firefighters in order to assault them with fireworks bombs. Repeatedly.

Got a text alert to please not call the emergency services number because of the extreme high amount of calls. Never got this alert before. Hope everyone can stay safe.

It's finally time here too, so happy new year!

Double new year's again thanks to time difference

Ordered the manga I'd read in a manga cafe on my final day in Japan online, and it managed to arrive on the final day of the year. Almost poetic.

Not really feeling Star Ocean 2's lategame. The twist is alright, but it feels like the game is dragging on a bit too much far after completely dismantling the stat and combat system. Combat devolved into a chaotic flash light generator past a certain point.

I played maybe less than a handful of games actually released this year, so the only ones I have praise for would be Nightreign and Tetris The Grandmaster 4: Absolute Eye. So if I have to pick a game as GotY, it's TGM4 by a large margin.

Was wondering why podcasts never took off in Japan to the extent they have in the west, and came across multiple articles arguing it's likely due to history of how people engage with TV between cultures. A lot of popular American TV can be "watched" while doing other things, is made around that.

It's still in stock on the site, so I guess it's just because I live far away? Actually bought like, 6 manga alongside this because import costs makes individual deliveries unreasonable. Now only the side stuff is being shipped.

Always have mixed feelings about the corporate side of internet creations existing the way they do now. But at the same time, the amount of times things went wrong with early creators when money started becoming a thing and they didn't know how to work that scale, with that financial pressure...

People always make a big deal out of talent leaving with VTuber groups, but if anything it's exceptional people stick with a group for so long. Putting Your entire entertainment persona under a corporate umbrella you have no ownership of generally doesn't happen online. Especially in the west.

Bit over 30 days left on the Anki deck at the pace I'm going. Might increase it very slightly to get it over with. Looking forward to the more real improvement after, when the information has some proper time to settle and rest. Also definitely need to create more opportunities for output.

Every year my Die Hard tweet gets new traction again, and you know what? I'm glad to have a completely positive viral experience like that. On Twitter of all places!

Thinking about the time I read something to the effect of "If AI really was that valuable and all-knowing, they'd keep it secret from the general public and not let us touch it at all." a lot. If the general population ever gets locked out of AI use, that's when you know things are cooked.

It's been interesting seeing certain communities dive headfirst into AI and just seeing them sort of just... Mentally regress over time as they outsource their thinking to an uncritical hallucinating random text generator.

Yes, I will buy your PPV.

New Record (Don't do this)

Got a decent noise canceling headset. A lot of the calm I feel in most other countries I've been to except NL returned instantly.

Was wondering if the language level went up with the Slayers LNs in the original language. 11 volumes in, 6 years past initial release, the author could afford to use some more difficult language. It's still not particularly harder to read, but there is a bit less furigina, some longer sentences.

Merry Christmas!

Guy in a sidequest gets distracted by the party lightly cheering him on in the background while fighting a dragon and ends up being merged with it. Wants the party to take responsibility, so ends up joining that way. This feels like a Slayers bit. Which, fits considering the era it came out in.

Catching up on a match from a while ago I still wanted to see. TJPW 11/24's Nakajima Shoko vs Harajuku Pomu (as a dinosaur)

Done. Still not great in Japanese. Characterization is much better, story largely makes more sense. Time compression still feels like the writers didn't know what it was themselves. The timeloop also just kind of doesn't work. Ending is a massive overreach and corny.

I barely played videogames this year. store.steampowered.com/replay/76561...

this is also good www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci8d...

This is gonna be stuck in my head every time I have to hear an English dub from now on. It's 100% spot on. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMLX...

Furthest I got with this game. Never cleared it. My disc 1 stopped working when I was near the end of it back in the day. Continued at a friend's place, taking my memory card there. Got to the Garden fight on Disc 2. Left it in my pants pocket one day. That's how my memories got washed away.

Watching Makai Tenshou. All I knew going in was that this was a major inspiration to Fate/stay Night. The movie opens on a character named Shirou being the sole survivor of a massacre. (To make it better, this Shirou is a historical figure who championed Christianity, Shirou Amakusa)

To add to this, Squall is fascinating in Japanese. His speech pattern is different depending on if he's talking as a representative of SeeD, a party member, or his internal dialog.

Japanese media crossover: Character from X is in Y and you get to see unique interactions between characters and different settings not possible in the original work. Corporate, but has fan payoff. Western crossover: Skinning dead media and wearing it on your player character

Learning isn't only something you can learn to do. Learning is also something you can get stronger at as if it's a muscle. Mental stress capacity, amount of information you can absorb in bursts of time, are all something that can increase with consistent work at it.

Big weekend. Took the N1. In Germany. Three hour train ride there went without issue. Had Gyuudon in the nearby Japan Town on arriving. Staff was entirely Japanese, so I could get by without needing to know any German. (What are the odds the Dutch guy doesn't know German, but speaks Japanese?)

Got a 40 inch ultrawide monitor, so watching Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In on it.

Got to eat a full dream combo.

Finished up Slayers vol 10 in Japanese. Watched a few episodes of the anime again last night after that. Picked up so many of the quirks in how Lina Inverse speaks from the novels in the anime production now. Her way of talking is extremely non-standard so it's nice to be more aware of it.

Also I think I didn't post my haul from Japan on here? I held back and didn't bring anything major home. I did get JP copies of FFX and X2. And the Minstrel Song OST. Also new Dirty Pair merch and a fanbook! The various cheki and the Shoko Nakajima autograph are the real winners for me though.

オランダに帰ってきたからずっと機嫌が悪くって、しばらくSNSから消えた方が良いかも

Fascinating with playing FF8 so soon after 7 is noticing how much the body language of the character models has expanded and improved. The game puts it to good use by having the series protag least likely to read it. The space in between what's said and emoted is used very well. Especially in JP.

Played through it a few months ago. Old translation wasn't great and erased most character. The new translation erased all character. No effort has been made. The difference is big enough you should be able to see it without being able to read it. Everyone says the train line different in JP.

Usually not a fan of filters, but this game really needs them. Harsh, clear screens doesn't work for how it was supposed to be seen, with older TVs blurring the picture more. FF8 really was a game made for a second hand consumer CRTs that dropped down the stairs while moving more than once.

Was thinking about how the only bit of FF7 I never understood was why and how Cloud got to Midgar in the state he did. It's convenient for the plot Tifa found him at the station, but it didn't make sense. Realized it's the JENOVA head at Shinra HQ guiding him there, much like the "Sephiroth" there.

It never hit me how absolutely LCARS coded a lot of FF8s terminals are.

Still need to let it sink in that not only did I finally go to Japan. I went there while fully fluent, being able to communicate with everyone, read everything, and got to access and experience things thanks to my language and communication skills alone. Younger me would be awe-struck.

Hit Master with Cammy. So now I'm Master with two characters.

Went to the Halloween event in Ikebukuro

Had time to kill on my last day before my last event, so read Kingdom and Isekai Samurai at a manga cafe.

All you can eat Natto restaurant with a natto vending machine outside