Greetings, Salutations, and Cake

Heya, hiya! Welcome to AF.

I've been on the internet for over half my life and more forums than I can remember, but introduction threads never get any easier for some reason...

Tell me about it! I always agonize heavily when it comes time to make one of them. The end result is usually pretty good, but the path to that result tends to be a little troublesome, to say the least!

It's the same, for me at least, with profile texts and the like.

Anyways, hi! I'm Spectra, and until someone else joins, I'm your newest member! I randomly typed "anime forum" into google and clicked on the last result on the page because I dropped my mouse at that point and it scrolled down for me. Woops. Hopefully I'll be able to turn an embarrassing mistake into a good thing!

Hullo Spectra!

I think your mistake will end up being a fortunate accident of circumstance! As someone that floated around the internet a great deal looking at a lot of the different forum options for anime communities, I think this one has very easily taken the top prize. The people present, and the posts that are made have done nothing but impress me since I first joined. It may not be as ultra-active as some forums, however I think the quality, pleasant members, and lack of drama more than make up for that.

I'm steadily losing interest in anime and I'd like to do something to change that, so maybe chatting about shows and getting recommendations will help with that! Generally speaking, I am a huge fan of magical girls that aren't Madoka, mecha that aren't Gundam: Reconguista in G, and a little bit of everything else! It's hard to pin down my likes and dislikes, as I'm not really "connected" with the fandom as such...if it looks good, I watch it, haha. I don't really have much knowledge of studios or VAs or any of the rest of the technical stuff.

I think it probably will! and there's nothing wrong with being a bit disconnected from the fandom - outside of my attachment to this forum, and the actual act of watching anime, I don't really tend to be all that linked up with it myself. Which... honestly, I'm quite okay with.

Similarly, I don't have much knowledge of voice actors or studios either, apart from the fact that I've been trained to expect good things from a couple of them.

I am predominantly a gamer though, so I'll probably spend most of my time in that section of the forum, haha. I was also drawn here by the Neptunia banner, because I am a huge fan of most of the games and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Cyberdimension at the end of the year. I play a huge number of JRPGs - Xenoblade Chronicles is my favourite game - and I've been slowly but surely branching out into other genres. Warriors titles are my stress ball, and I'm developing a taste for visual novels. I own everything current gen asides from an Xbone, because...well, it's Xbone. Yeeeaah.

For what it's worth, I'm not particularly active in anime discussion myself, either. Most of my posts end up being in chit-chat, gaming, or forum games. While I do read the anime topics, I rarely have much to add that hasn't already been added.

JRPGs have always been a bit of a love/hate thing for me, personally. I'm not really a fan of very many of them, but the ones I have enjoyed, I bloody well love. Admittedly, I haven't done much in the genre in a long, long time, so most of those games that I'm fond of are classics from the PS1 and SNES eras. I very often enjoy the stories, but find the battles and such to be a bit of a bore. Thankfully, now that I'm married to someone that seems to enjoy playing them more than I do, I can just sit back, relax, and let her take the controller while I nibble on popcorn.

(Appreciating you, @Cy~!)

I'm quite interested in visual novels myself, as well. Have any paarticular favorites?

Not much else worth saying about me, really! I grew up on 90s cartoons, read a lot of fantasy novels, have a soft spot for Power Rangers, know too much about Marvel comics for my own good, know the original Star Wars movies almost line for line, and I could throw out random bits of trivia about myself for several more paragraphs and bore you all silly. I look forward to getting to know some of you better in the future; feel free to drop me a message any time if you want to chat~

Oh my goodness.

I don't think you'll have any trouble fitting in here at all! I hope to see you around, and look forward to interacting with you further!

And feel free to drop more paragraphs on us.

Welcome, Spectra.

I hope you enjoy things here.

Welcome to the forum.

If you have any questions, ask away.

I do hope you enjoy your stay here.

See you around~

Where's my pre-written reply? Someone took it </3

Heya Spectra! Welcome to AF! I'm not even mad about the lack of cake. Thankfully, I'm already fully loaded on chili, hot dogs, and chips. There's ice cream over here too, thank goodness.

I grew up on 90s cartoons, read a lot of fantasy novels, have a soft spot for Power Rangers, know too much about Marvel comics for my own good, know the original Star Wars movies almost line for line, and I could throw out random bits of trivia about myself for several more paragraphs and bore you all silly.

Hahaha, except for the bit about the Power Rangers, this is a good description of myself as well. Which 90s cartoons did you watch?

I swear, if it wasn't for Cy posting so much I'd miss 50% of the posts here.

Hello, by the way, welcome, have a seat and a cookie.

Welcome @Spectra, see you around. Ask if you have questions regarding the forums.

Well, thank you all for the warm welcomes :3

Tell me about it! I always agonize heavily when it comes time to make one of them. The end result is usually pretty good, but the path to that result tends to be a little troublesome, to say the least!

 

It's the same, for me at least, with profile texts and the like.

It all has to be juuuust right, yeah? I'm actually kinda relieved there aren't super extensive customisation options for profiles here...because aaaaaaaargh, I'd be toying with it every month with new themes, and I'd spend hours over the colours. I've not filled out my profile here with basic info yet. That's a task for an afternoon.

 

I think your mistake will end up being a fortunate accident of circumstance! As someone that floated around the internet a great deal looking at a lot of the different forum options for anime communities, I think this one has very easily taken the top prize. The people present, and the posts that are made have done nothing but impress me since I first joined. It may not be as ultra-active as some forums, however I think the quality, pleasant members, and lack of drama more than make up for that.

I actually like smaller forums more, honestly. I'm not the most assertive person, and I find large sites quite intimidating. There's a greater sense of community when you know most people (or can at least approach them, which you also can't do on larger forums usually) and it's...cosy. Yeah, that'd be the word. Plus yeah, less drama is better. Been there, done that, couldn't afford the t-shirt at the time.

I think it probably will! and there's nothing wrong with being a bit disconnected from the fandom - outside of my attachment to this forum, and the actual act of watching anime, I don't really tend to be all that linked up with it myself. Which... honestly, I'm quite okay with.

 

Similarly, I don't have much knowledge of voice actors or studios either, apart from the fact that I've been trained to expect good things from a couple of them.

Better to go in blind when it comes to new shows? I have this problem with a lot of media - I have very high expectations of things that are hyped up, and they never meet my expectations...which is ironic, because I'm easily pleased if I go into something with no expectations. And anime fans tend to be quite aggressive in certain corners of the internet (Tumblr mostly, although there's a bit of this on MAL too) in that if you disagree you're likely to find yourself hanging from a tree with a fire under your feet with an angry mob screaming at you. Just want to enjoy the damn shows and maybe chat about them from time to time!

JRPGs have always been a bit of a love/hate thing for me, personally. I'm not really a fan of very many of them, but the ones I have enjoyed, I bloody well love. Admittedly, I haven't done much in the genre in a long, long time, so most of those games that I'm fond of are classics from the PS1 and SNES eras. I very often enjoy the stories, but find the battles and such to be a bit of a bore. Thankfully, now that I'm married to someone that seems to enjoy playing them more than I do, I can just sit back, relax, and let her take the controller while I nibble on popcorn.

(Appreciating you, @Cy~!)

 

I'm quite interested in visual novels myself, as well. Have any paarticular favorites?

I guess maybe you put slightly more emphasis on gameplay than story when playing something yourself? A good story can often make-or-break JRPGs, and when you've played a really good one - or a lot of them - it becomes quite hard to find ones that are better. Since they're time-consuming, the lack of diversity in gameplay is a bigger deal than, say, FPS, too. I just like losing myself in grinding, so I have a verrrry high tolerance for these things, haha. I will overlook almost anything for a good soundtrack, too.

Hmm...well, I started with Katawa Shoujo and I LOVED Lilly and Rin's stories, but loathed the rest of it, haha. The two Steins;Gate games were pretty good (I actually really liked 0 although it didn't give me the pairing I reaaaallly wanted to happen) and even though I enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls the most, I did enjoy the Danganronpa games...although the Despair Arc of the anime is the only arc of that I enjoyed. Code;Realize was one I was really surprised by. I dunno if Ace Attorney as a series counts (kinda?) but I've been working my way through those too. I have a fair few on my backlog (Norn9, Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness, Hatoful Boyfriend, etc.) to work through yet, and I'm quite excited for Collar x Malice coming out in the summer. Still dabbling kinda, I'm not really a PC gamer so my options are a bit limited...and there is so much junk on Steam. Any recommendations, though? :3

Hahaha, except for the bit about the Power Rangers, this is a good description of myself as well. Which 90s cartoons did you watch?

Ooooh, pretty much everything from Kids WB - I'm still extremely fond of Pinky and the Brain, and Taz has grown on me a lot now that I'm old enough to understand the humour - and the old Disney cartoons (I didn't have access to the Disney Afternoon but I DID get to watch pretty much all of the shows), as well as the 90s Batman, Spiderman, and X-Men series. Oh! And Mummies Alive. That was probably my favourite show. I also caught the tail end of the 80s cartoons that were on in the mornings; Wacky Races, Secret Squirrel, Teenage Mutant Hero/Ninja Turtles (the one with the good theme song, not the early 2000s reboot...although that was good too up to that awful Future season), He-Man (whyyyyyy did they cancel the reboot after 2 seasons?!), Biker Mice From Mars (the less said about the reboot of THAT, the better), Thundercats, etc...these are just the ones off the top of my head and exclude the dubbed anime, haha. Any of those ringing any bells? Did I miss any?

That is by far the best intro I've seen someone make when entering this forum, so you've cleared that hurdle wonderfully. That said, I'm probably the biggest gamer in this forum, and JRPG's are my favorite genre, so we should get along nicely. Welcome to AF. Let's hope your happy accident is a blessing in disguise.

I actually like smaller forums more, honestly. I'm not the most assertive person, and I find large sites quite intimidating. There's a greater sense of community when you know most people (or can at least approach them, which you also can't do on larger forums usually) and it's...cosy. Yeah, that'd be the word. Plus yeah, less drama is better. Been there, done that, couldn't afford the t-shirt at the time.

You've taken the words that I often use to describe the differences right out of my mouth, to be honest! (y)

Better to go in blind when it comes to new shows? I have this problem with a lot of media - I have very high expectations of things that are hyped up, and they never meet my expectations...which is ironic, because I'm easily pleased if I go into something with no expectations. And anime fans tend to be quite aggressive in certain corners of the internet (Tumblr mostly, although there's a bit of this on MAL too) in that if you disagree you're likely to find yourself hanging from a tree with a fire under your feet with an angry mob screaming at you. Just want to enjoy the damn shows and maybe chat about them from time to time!

Rabid fans of just about anything can be a fairly frightful thing to have to deal with, and something that I'm very happy doesn't seem to be much of a thing here - I mean, we all love anime, sure, but for the most part everyone is reasonable enough to not try and execute people who don't like their favorite show. Having dealt with that a lot in the past, I'm honestly very happy to be completely and utterly away from it.

I guess maybe you put slightly more emphasis on gameplay than story when playing something yourself? A good story can often make-or-break JRPGs, and when you've played a really good one - or a lot of them - it becomes quite hard to find ones that are better. Since they're time-consuming, the lack of diversity in gameplay is a bigger deal than, say, FPS, too. I just like losing myself in grinding, so I have a verrrry high tolerance for these things, haha. I will overlook almost anything for a good soundtrack, too.

I think that's about right, yeah - heck, I actually own an old PS1 Gameshark that I bouht back in the day to make JRPGs more accessible to myself, by cutting the grind out. Thankfully it's less an issue if I'm not the one actually playing, since I can just zone out and glance at my phone or whatever while Cy~ is slogging her way through the grind.

With that said, one exception to my general dislike of grinding would be ... the Disgaea series, for whatever reason. I bloody love grinding my way through them for hours on end.

Hmm...well, I started with Katawa Shoujo and I LOVED Lilly and Rin's stories, but loathed the rest of it, haha. The two Steins;Gate games were pretty good (I actually really liked 0 although it didn't give me the pairing I reaaaallly wanted to happen) and even though I enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls the most, I did enjoy the Danganronpa games...although the Despair Arc of the anime is the only arc of that I enjoyed. Code;Realize was one I was really surprised by. I dunno if Ace Attorney as a series counts (kinda?) but I've been working my way through those too. I have a fair few on my backlog (Norn9, Psycho Pass: Mandatory Happiness, Hatoful Boyfriend, etc.) to work through yet, and I'm quite excited for Collar x Malice coming out in the summer. Still dabbling kinda, I'm not really a PC gamer so my options are a bit limited...and there is so much junk on Steam. Any recommendations, though? :3

Very nice! I'd love to give both Steins;Gate games a try at some point - I watched the anime a few times with several different people, and enjoyed the heck out of it each time through... and I still need to finish the first Danganronpa game at some point. I gave Hatoful Boyfriend a try with Cy~, but we didn't really care much for it to be honest.

The amount of junk on Steam is... a tiny bit exasperating, to say the least - but, with that said, there are some things on it that I'd recommend...

First and foremost, I think Aviary Attorney deserves a shout-out. It's basically a bird-version of Ace Attorney, set in 1840s France, with utterly stunning artwork, and stories that I think - and this might be heresy - put the actual Ace Attorney games to shame. I mean... look at this.

Beyond that, for visual novels on Steam, the only things that immediately spring to mind would be Planetarian and Clannad, though neither are particularly obscure or unknown.

That was a spectacular introduction!

A very warm welcome from me to Anime Forums. I think you'll love talking to the people here, as you've seen in this thread already there a lot of people with similar interests who are equally as passionate as you are.

You've come to the right place to get back into anime, you'll get plenty of what you need here to hook you up with anime you'll be interested in, I'm certain.

Best of luck, and have fun posting!

hiya Spectra and welcome

sorry ill keep my hello short but

I do hope you enjoy it here and have heaps of fun yes we are a small group and at times it can be a little quiet around the threads but on the main its good

so feel free to come in side post some posts be it questions , thoughts , things you want to share or just in the forum games section

so come on in an ill see you inside the fun house

Ooooh, pretty much everything from Kids WB - I'm still extremely fond of Pinky and the Brain, and Taz has grown on me a lot now that I'm old enough to understand the humour - and the old Disney cartoons (I didn't have access to the Disney Afternoon but I DID get to watch pretty much all of the shows), as well as the 90s Batman, Spiderman, and X-Men series. Oh! And Mummies Alive. That was probably my favourite show. I also caught the tail end of the 80s cartoons that were on in the mornings; Wacky Races, Secret Squirrel, Teenage Mutant Hero/Ninja Turtles (the one with the good theme song, not the early 2000s reboot...although that was good too up to that awful Future season), He-Man (whyyyyyy did they cancel the reboot after 2 seasons?!), Biker Mice From Mars (the less said about the reboot of THAT, the better), Thundercats, etc...these are just the ones off the top of my head and exclude the dubbed anime, haha. Any of those ringing any bells? Did I miss any?

Pinky and the Brain ~ id be Pinky snarff