efaardvark

"S'Mores" cookies and tea... girl scout cookie season here.

If you just watched the first 2 episodes of the 3-episode "prequel", "Hoshi Matsu Hito" (aka "Those Awaiting a Star"), then yeah, I'd give it another try. The background episodes in the prequel (and even the first episode of the main show as well) are kind of downers, but it's been different & getting better from there as Chise settles into a new home and comes into her own powers. Kind of slow in places so if you're into action then it might not be your thing. I'm ok with the more laid-back pacing tho, and I'm liking the artwork too.

Hmmm... not offhand. I'd have to reach a bit for the older Ah! My Goddess!, but that's getting more into harem which may not be what you're after. If you're into the supernatural aspect then I'll also say I really like what I've seen so far of Ancient Magus' Bride. Also (re: Blue Exorcist) maybe Strike The Blood? Similar vibe, though I have to admit I didn't finish BE. Good luck!

If you liked that then you might want to check out Kamisama Hajimemashita It's a bit different but kind of in the same vein.

Off the top of my head it would have to be Clannad. The first season isn't that bad. It is just a somewhat odd - and boring, tbh - HS hatsukoi story. In fact, I dropped the first season when it first aired and then had to come back to it after seeing the end of the second. (Now though.. just remembering that first line, "kono machi wa kirai da", makes me want to go watch it all again.) Even After Story takes a while to get started. But then it gets serious! Like wife-and-kids, life-and-death serious. Poor Tomoya.. first Nagisa (OMG!), then Ushio too just as he's getting his act together again! I wanted to yell at the writers to stop jerking him around. Even the side arcs are basically built on sad. Especially Misae's, or Fuuko's. Quite the roller-coaster. So much sad. Not all, fortunately, but I don't want to give anything away for anyone who hasn't seen it. (Note though, I strongly recommend the Japanese-audio version. The English voicing/dub kind of messed up Nagisa's character and significantly changed the tone of the whole story. IMHO, YMMV, etc.) Honorable mentions to AnoHana and Shigatsu Kimi no Uso.

It's there. Usually I find it mildly cringeworthy. Occasionally it achieves amusing or annoying status. Most animes could easily do without it. Very rarely does it add anything significant to a story. When I do come across it I generally just ignore it. I tend to not care for the types of animes that are the worst offenders anyway (harem/romance).

53, male.. been enjoying anime basically my whole life. Hyakujuu-Ou GoLion (known as Voltron here in the States), Kaze no Tani no NausicaÄ (aka NausicaÄ of the Valley of the Wind), Uchuu Senkan Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato), and Mach GoGoGo (Speed Racer) are some of the anime titles I grew up with. I'm also a big (book) reader as well as anime watcher and in both media I tend to like "hard" sf themes best. Planetes and Ghost in the Shell are two of my favorites from recent years. Then again I'm presently enjoying Ancient Magus' Bride too. I'm a believer in the Three Episode Rule and my tastes are pretty eclectic. My preferences may have changed over the years, but "anime" is like "books" or "movies". A different medium is all. The variety of stories means there's something for everyone, everywhere, everywhen.

Oh no! I started bingeing Ancient Magus' Bride. I was going to just watch the fist half/season but it was too good and I didn't (couldn't) stop! Now up to ep15 (the latest on Crunchy) and I have to wait a week. And then another week after that. And then another. And another. Nine more weeks! Aaarrrgtpft! I hate it when this happens!

Just about to start this one myself...

iPhone 5S. (It was the cheapest smartphone my cell company was offering when my old phone broke.)

I saw Hyouka mentioned above.. liked that one. Last episode was a bit off, but overall it was fun. Wish I could find it streaming somewhere again. Not sure what exactly is considered "mystery" here so I'll just mention that I also liked Shinrei Tantei Yakumo (the end theme, Missing You is a favorite of mine ever since). Higashi no Eden (East of Eden). Another was more horror - nothing like starting off with an umbrella through the throat - but I liked that, and Tasogare Otome x Amnesia too while I'm at it. How about Suzumiya Haruhi (esp. "The Disappearance of ..." - almost made up for the "endless eight" arc.. almost)? Or even Mushishi? Sorry, not into Detective Conan.

I actually have a friend from HS who was/is a voice actor. I kind of knew anime existed before that, and I'd even watched a bit, but I got more interested and started actively seeking it out after hearing her talk about the work she was doing. Back then it was a bit difficult to find a lot of anime over here in the US - occasional Westernized versions of stuff like Nausicaä or Voltron on network TV was about it - but following some of the work she's done over the years was motivation to dig a bit deeper or pay more attention than I might otherwise. I'd usually look to see what came out every season, and look in the credits to see if she'd had a part in a new title. That sort of thing. Kind of kept me motivated and interested back before the 'Net or streaming services when I might have otherwise gone astray due to lack of material.

For some reason I never got into the pokemon phenom, either in anime or gaming. I've owned a lot of games on the GB and DS (and variants) over the years - Tetris, metroid, final fantasy, harvest moon (farmville before farmville), the settlers, boulder dash, quite a few pinball .. but I just never got around to pokemon for some reason. Even the latest pokemon go craze didn't/doesn't tempt me. No hate or anything, just.. not interested.

My first game was .. Pong! Seriously. It was on some dedicated console that I think we got from Sears or something way (way, way, way) back in the 70s. (Hmmm. should I be admitting that? ) We're talking ancient technology here.. I think they'd just invented electrons the year or so before. (jk) I don't really know how to rate it. It was extremely fun, but it was also unique. There was nothing to compare it to. At the time the other entertainment options were basically 1) watch one of the 3 network TV stations, 2) read a book, 3) go outside and play, 4) play a board game like Monopoly or scrabble, or 5) play a game of cards. For me, my favorite activity has always been reading. Pong was a close second back then, though by today's standards it wasn't that exciting. Several years later my dad bought an Apple ][ and my brothers and I typed in a bunch of text games (in BASIC) from magazines like Byte. There really wasn't anything like a game market back then. You either learned to program and wrote your own (I did), you knew someone who could program and got them to do it for you (I wasn't that lucky), or you typed them in from books or hobby magazines. I remember games like Star Trek, and Colossal Cave Adventure (and being eaten by a grue). There was even a text version of Oregon Trail. Couldn't for the life of me tell you which one was first. To tell you the truth, I was more interested in the programming. It's certainly what got me started down that path. A little later, maybe a year or two, Space Invaders hit the arcades. That was what really got me into gaming on computers, and in a lot of ways that was my first computer game. Certainly it was my first computer game as we play them today on consoles or PCs. Rate it 9/10 at the time, though maybe 6/10 of all the games I've ever played. Space Invaders, Space Wars, Lunar Lander, Asteroids, Galaxian, Defender.. My friends and I dropped sooo many quarters on those games down at the arcade! I think the first "real" commercial computer game I played on my home computer was something called Akalabeth on the Apple ][. It was a (very) primitive 3d dungeon exploration game written by Richard Garriot, a.k.a. Lord British, and a precursor to the Ultima series on various platforms. I'd give it a 4/10. It kinda sucked. Wire-frame 3d, slow, low-res. Home computers were not good for games back then. I didn't play my first actual home console game until I was in high school. My friend got an Atari 2600 a couple years after it came out & we played one of the bundled games to death. I think it was called simply Combat. Tons of fun though. Almost as good as the arcades. 6/10. I didn't get my very own gaming computer until Nintendo's (original, B&W) Game Boy handheld came out. Of course the first game I played on that was Tetris. Can you say "obsession"? I carried that game everywhere for years. I even have a version of it for my old 3DS that I still play from time to time.

I'm pretty much the same way. While I'll watch pretty much anything at least enough to apply the 3 episode rule, the list of ones I've watched (or wanted to watch) enough times to justify buying for my own collection is fairly small. I've been watching anime since the 80s but there's only about a dozen titles on my shelf. Maybe another 2 or 3 on streaming sites that I'd buy if they disappeared or I lost access for some reason.

Outlaw Star was one I also looked forward to every episode. Haven't watched it since though. Might have to look that one up and give it another go. Thinking of doing the same with Trigun.

I'm looking forward to this one too. I just watched the first episode on Crunchy & I liked what I saw of that. One worry is that it started quick & keeping that pace AND keeping it good might be a challenge. I binge-watch so I probably won't come back to it until after the end, but it is definitely on my list.

Didn't care for a lot of 90s anime. Inuyasha, Dragon Ball, Gundam, Sailor Moon, Pokemon. Not my thing. Crest of the Stars was popular, but I was lukewarm on it. Lain was good. Also The Big O, Ah! My Goddess!, Trigun, Blue Gender, FLCL. I'd have to look at dates. Seemed like the early naught-ies brought a bunch of good anime - Haibane Renmei, Last Exile, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes - but I'm having trouble remembering anything interesting before that. Nothing that makes me want to go watch it again anyway.

Just finished watching MMO Junkie. I quite enjoyed it, though perhaps for some of the wrong reasons. For one thing - and without giving anything away - I have suspicions that the Heart Of Gold’s infinite improbability drive was somehow involved in generating the plot. For another, I just finished (re)watching Kotoura-san a week or so ago, so the whole “Morimori-chan” thing had me cracking up, over and above anything MMO's writers intended. (This was used as a gag in Kotoura-san as well, so it was still fresh in my mind and easily triggered. “Morimori” means something like energetic or enthusiastic in Japanese, but it can also mean “bulging”, as in muscles or “heartily”, as in eating. All of which for me just added something to the humor.) Especially the dream sequence in ep11, pt2 had me ROFL! And wait.. did Morioka and Sakurai share a dream there at the end?! I mean, she's the one that fell asleep at the keyboard, but we also later see him starting awake in front of his keyboard thinking he's wearing the cursed armor, right?

My old laptop can't handle the games I play on my desktop these days and I'm thinking about putting a Switch next to the old WiiU. Otherwise.. yeah.

I wish I had time for this kind of thing. I used to be a big online gamer too, back in the day. I even ran my own circlemud server for a while when I was in school. ("MUDs" were multi-user dungeons.. the text-based precursor to today's MMORPGs. If you've ever played Zork or Adventure, it's like that, only with other players online, and with much better combat and leveling systems.) I enjoyed it then, and of course the "new" graphical games like ESO, WoW, etc. are awesome compared to that. Unfortunately they take more time than I can really give them to play well. The level grind is a killer for me. I guess I could go for one of the pay-to-play games out there and/or buy a high-level character & equipment, but where's the fun in that?

FWIW, I've been playing way too much Kerbal Space Program lately. It is one of those games where I sit down to play and the next thing I know it is 8 hours later and I need sleep. If you have a PC and like space exploration then you might want to give it a shot.

Just kind of randomly started re-watching Kotoura-san this evening. OMG! I'd forgotten how depressing & sad the first episode is!

I don't game as much as I like - that whole life & priorities thing - but I definitely like playing games. Lately I've been kind of fixated on a kind of space sim or sandbox called Kerbal Space Program. It's a hoot if you're into physics or space exploration, and works great on Linux (Ubuntu 17.10). The only thing I don't like is that it is based on Unity and so doesn't use all the cores on my old FX-8370. My CPU is running at 4.0Ghz though so it isn't really an issue. I did manage to grab a 8G RX480 GFX board before the miners bid up the prices last year too, which also helps. The system also has 32GB of RAM because I sometimes run a few VMs when I'm working. I like your Ryzen system. I'm considering doing that for my next build. That or maybe even a threadripper system. I want to get into some more GPU/CPU intensive stuff - modeling for 3d printing and VR mainly - so I'm looking for more processing power & maybe abump on the GPU as well. What I've got should still be good for a while yet however, and threadripper still had some issues under linux last I checked. I'll probably reevaluate things towards the middle of next year & maybe decide which direction to go then.

I'm pretty picky about my science fiction. I mean, I don't get militant or anything, and I'll read/watch most anything for the entertainment of it, but I consider pop-scifi like Star Wars or Star Trek fantasy. Ok, but definitely not as interesting as the good stuff. I have a background/profession in physics, space exploration, and programming so the "harder" the science is the better as far as I'm concerned. I'm talking a 5 or 6 on the hardness scale before I consider it "real" science fiction. Like I said, anything's fine for the entertainment, but to really pique my interest and get my imagination engaged it has to be solid enough that even with my background I can actually picture it happening in our real universe. I love stuff like Planetes or Ghost in the Shell. My favorite SF authors are mostly scientist- or engineer-writers like Asimov, Clarke, Niven, etc. I'd much rather see stories about the socioeconomics of humans colonizing all those thousands of (dwarf) planets out in our own Kuiper belt and Oort cloud with O'Neil habitats, thorium power, and sub-light trade than something Federation-like with magical tech like FTL/warp drives, time travel, and matter teleporters. I'd be more impressed with Gandalf if he were actually a cyborg with his own nanite cloud and built-in wireless. That said, sometimes there's not that much actual difference in the setting or plot. (Consider Sword Art Online vs Log Horizons for instance.) It's all good, but I definitely prefer stories that pay more than lip-service to the "science" part of "science fiction".