I’ve just published a different kind of AYN Thor Lite feature, looking at why the lowest-spec Thor makes more sense in 2026 than it might have at launch. Back when this all started, AYN sent me the Thor Pro for review which clearly I loved and reviewed to high heavens, but I thought that with how things are at the moment (current cost-of-living conditions, the RAM crisis making prices skyrocket), the very base model makes more sense than ever. Mostly because the community surrounding the Thor has just grown and grown and grown, the things developers and makers have created are just incredible.

For any who don’t know, the AYN Thor is a dual screen retro gaming handheld, which is first and foremost an amazing way to emulate 3DS games, especially with the cost of original systems rising so much these last few years!

So instead of the whole specs and performance angle, I wanted to look at what has grown up around the hardware, and I was lucky enough to speak to, interview and quote a whole bunch of the people making it happen, some of them friends and some of them just so lovely to want to chat with me:

• Moth (lead developer of Cocoon)
• Nathan (lead developer of iiSU)
• PlayTranslate’s developer
• Camille LaVey (lead developer/creator of Eden)
• MithrilMods (behind amazing magnetic buttons/d-pads/grips on etsy)
• Kitsabble Creations (who created Pokémon-themed decal front skins for the AYN Thors, also on etsy)
• MagiGamer (whose custom-made buttons are the prettiest damn thing ever made)

Plus a few other community creators and accessory makers.

(Jiayu, one of the replacement button creators I chat to in this article, and her work!)

(as is tradition, my cat and my handheld of focus for the article)

I talked to them all about the software ecosystem, dual-screen development, Japanese games and translation, emulation on the Snapdragon 865, custom grips and controls, handmade buttons, skins, and all the other ways people have taken AYN’s hardware and made it their own. My focus for this whole article was how AYN released a near-perfect handheld, but the community around it has now taken it and run with it.

I hope some in here enjoy this, at least to hear from some of the people behind the programs and projects you might know and love :)

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1336543/research-the-whole-reddit-has-become-more-negative-over-time-also-the-longer-the-communi

Honzuki no Gekokujou: Ryoushu no Youjo, episode 18

Related Communities

• !aobanime@bookwyr.me

Alternative Names

Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 4, Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erandeiraremasen 4th Season, 本好きの下剋上 司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません 第4期

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- Info - AniList - Info - Kitsu - Info - MyAnimeList - Info - Official Site (Japanese) - Social - Twitter (Japanese) - Streaming - Crunchyroll

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Artist: Aken | pixiv | danbooru

sent from a disposable whonix qube

Flock Safety privacy changes cut data retention from 30 days to seven and make search audits compulsory, after dozens of police abuse cases.

There is no date of arrival for the motorola yet. I only read beginning of 2027. That could also be delayed. And if it is a phone with underwhelming specs, I wouldn’t want to buy it either. But buying a pixel now means not buying a motorola soon.

PayPal’s Honey browser extension is facing ongoing litigation over allegations that it interfered with affiliate attribution and redirected commissions from content creators. The case has now moved beyond the latest motion-to-dismiss stage. I broke down the alleged affiliate-ID replacement mechanism, Honey’s alleged stand-down behavior, the affiliate-network fallout, and what the June 2026 court ruling actually means.

Sourced from MegaLag’s part 3 update of honey video

During the mid 2010’s, we Mecha fans entered a period I like to call, “The Dark Age of Mecha”. Where shows with giant bipedal robots were harshly overlooked by the next Isekai anime that conquered our attention spans at this point of time. While there were still some great shows like Iron Blooded Orphans, SSSS. Gridman, and even Knights & Magic (When in Rome), there were a handful of Mecha that either flopped hard; Aldnoah.Zero, Macross Delta, and Infinite Staros, or were forgotten as time went on; like Gargantia, Buddy Complex, and Majestic Princes. But there’s one that isn’t talked about as much. One where you don’t see many analysis videos, retrospectives, or straight up reviews about how it’s an unheard gem or getting ripped to shreds. And that anime is 2014’s Captain Earth (not the environmental cartoon I’ve never heard of).

Everytime I mention this anime, people typically go, “huh, what”? And what’s weirder is that, despite After War Gundam X being my 1st anime, Captain Earth was the first one I actually finished. This was the 1st anime I’ve finished in 2015. A couple years later, after watching this anime after a long time, I’m really surprised how much I still like it. Unlike Aldnoah.Zero that I grew to despise as time goes on, I still have a soft spot for this anime after all these years. Granted, I now recognize its faults as an adult after seeing over 200 titles. So let’s take a look at this underrated gem and see its merits and demerits.

• Story:

A teenage boy by the name of Daichi Manatsu goes to Tanegashima for the summer after seeing a news report of a circular shaped rainbow floating over the island. A phenomenon that reminded him of his friend, Teppei Arashi, a boy with powers he met in an abandoned warehouse when he was little. While there he gets a mysterious weapon called a Livlaster that allows him to pilot the towering weapon, The Earth Engine Impacter. With this, he must defend Earth from extraterrestrial beings known as the Planetary Gears. It’s a pretty straight forward plot that goes for the typical villain of the week format. The Planetary Gears try to attack Earth, Daichi has to stop them. It gets a little more complicated when we get more Kill-T-Gang members, when a new faction comes into play, & the lore behind all of these factions gets unveiled.

This anime does have enough down time to learn more about our characters and I do like the summer time stuff. The only problems I can think of are with the villains, but I’ll get to that later. It’s a simple story, but a decent one at least. I can at least vibe out to the summer time stuff.

• Characters:

The one thing I’m surprised no one ever talks about with this anime, is the characters. You may think the reason is because they’re forgettable, and I disagree. They’re just filled with quirks, personality, and depth that I’m surprised that no one even brought this up. Ok, not everyone sticks the landing, but the ones who do really left an impression.

But let’s start with the Globe crew with the main boy Daichi Manatsu. Out of all of the Mecha protagonists who came out this era, Daichi was the one that many forgot about. Which Is a fucking shame since he’s a pretty funny character. He’s a pretty dorky character who gets himself into odd situations and just goes along with it. Like, he’s given a gun, told to pilot a Mecha, and just goes along with it. Of course he’s awkward about it at first, but he still does it anyway. He has enough quirks to make him stand out of the usual blank slate MC trope.

In contrast, we have his buddy Teppei Arashi who’s more quiet and reserved. He’s the more reasonable one with him once being part of the enemy team, and he does care about his friends a lot. So much so that he sacrificed his powers in order to become human. I also did get a kick out of his & Daichi’s bromance, like this game they play which is essentially a dick measuring contest to see who can pull off the best stunts in exchange for a necklace.

Hana Mutou is a pretty docile character who finds comfort in her friends. Makes sense since her whole existence is to wield a gun for people who can’t, so she charises the people who view her as a person instead of a weapon. Speaking of which, I think her relationship with Daichi works just fine. It doesn’t feel forced as I can see why she would fall for Daichi, as he was the 1st person who views as an actual person instead of the weapon her creators view her as. The next character is honestly some I guarantee most of you have seen if you ever had a belly button fetish, Akari Yomatsuri. Ms. Belly Button Forte herself is a little bundle of joy who provides a lot of the show’s comedic moments, like calling out her dad’s relationship with his co-workers or just pushing Daichi’s buttons with her own belly button magic. Despite being the comic relief, she still helps her team in many situations, like helping Daichi in his 1st fight or just straight hacking Australia (that part really got a massive laugh out of me). However, I felt her relationship with Teppei felt a little undercooked since they didn’t really have too much in common. The chemistry was there, I just wish they had more time together, like that time they had to break out his deadbeat dad. But that’s just me.

I think the Midsummer Knights are honestly the best group of characters since they interact like best friends during the summer. They have chemistry with one another and the dynamic is always different depending on the duo present: Daichi x Teppei: bromantic, Hana x Akari: girls night out, Daichi x Akari & Teppei x Hana: brother & sister like dynamic, Daichi x Hana & Teppei x Akari: Highschool sweetheart.

Too bad this chemistry doesn’t really apply to the adult characters. The members at the Tanegashima base aren’t necessarily bad characters, they just don’t have much to do outside of providing exposition. Nishikubo Tsutomu is fine, as he’s a genuinely good guy as he treats both Daichi (his nephew), Teppei, & Hana as they’re his own kids, he has a nice back & forth with his daughter & co-workers, and has quite a few moments of vulnerability like fearing Daichi might go down the same road his father did. But characters like Peter Westvillage & Rita Hino are just sorta there. They’re just his work colleagues and not much else. Sander & Trias aren’t worth talking about as they never serve much relevance to the plot outside of doing their 9-5 when they’re not playing Galaga or something. There’s also the Globe group in space in a station called “Tenkaido”, but there’s only like three. Tsubaki Yomatsu is Tsutomu’s ex-wife & Akari’s mom who works in space. There are some moments where she interacts with her ex-husband and when she acts like a mother towards Hana, but that’s about it. She barely interacts with either Daichi or Teppai and we never really know why she even divorced Tsutomu to begin with. Is it for work reasons? Did they have a fight? They seemed to be on good terms, so probably not. So she doesn’t really have much of a character. Mia & Rena are just Sander & Trias again, but now horny for Teppei, so I won’t even bother. The Globe characters are decent characters, with the Midsummer Knights being the highlight, but some just lack the proper screen time to have their personalities fully flourish.

The Planetary Gears on the other hand are a little more divisive. The 1st pair we meet are Amara & Moco (aka sexy team rocket). Amara is just your generic bad guy who views humanity as nothing more than a power source. He’s responsible for the death of Daichi’s father and for that big crystal on the moon, two things that never really become relevant again. I think out of all of the Planetary Gears, he’s easily the weakest one in terms of character. Moco on the other hand is loaded with personality, she’s more energetic and seductive. Between the two, I’ve found myself more invested in her than in Amara. I also do like this subtle trait where she grows to appreciate Earth and finally destroys her own Ego cube.

It’s kinda ironic that the weakest part of the show spawned better characters than the main 2, as the rest of the Planetary Gears are honestly more interesting. They started off as regular people with normal lives, but once they remember that they’re the bad guys they show off a darker side to them. Zin started off as a casino worker who had dreams of becoming a photographer, but then becomes more daring & arrogant as he gambles with people’s lives, including his own. Ai is a pop idol who was pretty insecure, who pretended to be cheerful & lively as a mask for her fans. And then once she awakens, she becomes more playful with her enemies while retaining her love for her fans. Lin is a competitive soul with an obsession with speed (kinda reminds of that TNBA episode with that rocket lady). Her personality remains intact and just becomes more aggressive. Baku’s origin story is a little more complicated & dark as he was taken in for Child trafficking, adopted by a Yakuza boss to protect his daughter, watched them die in a boat explosion, and is forced into an underground ring. His awakening kinda took too long and the “ghost Yakuza” subplot is sorta meaningless since it doesn’t get brought up again. At least his character is pretty neat, as he’s pretty reserved and just wants to protect the girl he loves. He only really rejoins the Gears out of grief after losing her. I honestly think Setsuna is the most interesting as she’s the only sense of reason in the group. She started off as a lively & happy teen who loves to swim & view nature. She’s also the one I feel the most bad for, as she learned the hard way that her caretaker was only using her, giving her trust issues towards other people. She becomes more cold, but still has some form of remorse towards humanity.

As characters, they’re fine and they have enough personality to make them interesting, but not much else. They don’t really parallel the heroes all that much and their motivation is to just destroy Earth. I’ll get more into them as a group, but I just enjoy them as characters. The only characters left to talk about are the people at Macbeth, it’s just a short list. Masaki Kube is just the company owner who’s basically the easily manipulated dad who doesn’t really serve much purpose. His secretary, Hitomi Makini, is basically smug when the kids get in trouble. There’s not a whole lot I can comment on. And their relationship is just meh. Finally, we have Puck the AI. I honestly feel like his inclusion feels out of nowhere as he really does manipulate both Kube & the Planetary Gears and take over his body. That last part he’s just so he can bang every woman in the company. As for his true intentions……I dunno. Take over the world I guess? He never really made his intentions clear as just controlling people for no apparent reason and then tries to destroy Earth by turning into a TG Caption & possessing Hana. He just exists to be an ERJB, you can take him out entirely and nothing will change. I’m not gonna bother with Salty Dog until the world building section, they have little to personality themselves. I’m not gonna bother with the civilians either as they don’t really have much weight on the plot at all.

Saying that these characters are divisive would be an overstatement as there was rarely a character I straight up hated. The only one I hated was Reito Hirosue for forcing those kids to wear torture headphones, manipulating Daichi into fighting in a damaged Mecha, kidnapping Hana twice, and threatening to blow up Tenkaido. But that’s the only one I hated. Everyone else was just meh at worst and really likable at best. The Midsummer Knights were a really likable foursome with real chemistry and even the Planetary Gears had enough quirks to make them interesting. So overall, a very quirky cast of characters.

• World Building:

This is where all the criticisms come from, as the world of Captain Earth is not well defined to say the least. It’s not as confusing as G-Reco or as frustrating as Aldnoah, but it has some holes here & there. For starters it doesn’t really expand on the Japanese island of Tanegashima. Usually anime or any Japanese media promotes certain prefectures in Japan; Okinawa in Yakuza 3, Hokkaido in the recent Hokkaido Gals are Super Adorable anime, Totori in that one episode of Uzaki Chan Wants to Hang Out, etc. Even Ghost of Tsushima promotes Tsushima to a certain extent, and that was a game made in the US. But here, Tanegashima isn’t really promoted as much. The Midsummer Knights spend more time in Tokyo than in Tanegashima. Such a shame too, cuz there aren’t any videos highlighting the attractions on the island, nothing from Abroad in Japan, Only in Japan, Paolo from Tokyo, or those silent channels. Has anyone even gone to Tanegashima? Cuz it could surely use some PR.

But enough on Japanese propaganda, what about the world of Captain Earth itself? Well… that’s a whole can of worms that sorta messes up the anime. Not because these were bad ideas, but how they were presented. For starters, at the start of the anime it was revealed that Amara in his Mecha form made a giant crystal on the moon, as I stated earlier. Apparently, it killed a couple of people and they basically hid it from the public. And how the fuck is that possible, THERE’S A GIANT ASS PINK CRYSTAL ON THE FUCKING MOON. And since the moon can turn by itself, there’s no way no one wouldn’t notice that.

There’s also the finer details like how did the relatives of the dead not know about the accident, something like that isn’t something that’s easy to cover up. And that’s just the start of the anime, what about everything else? Well, to get to that, we have to get into the factions. For Globe, there’s not much to them outside of being a space exploration company that defends Earth from the Planetary Gears. Not much is expanded on them, outside of having some bases on Tanegashima, Australia, and space with Tenkaido. Their bosses, Saltydog, aren’t really the most interesting bunch either. The only part I find interesting is the fact that Tsutomu actually has some beef with them and is exercising his authority as head of Globe. Like banning their torture headphones & straight up cutting ties with them.

But outside of that, they feel like an afterthought compared to the real villains. And their true goals are kinda stupid too. Their goal is to put a select number of people in the Tenkaido, put them in stasis, nuke the earth to kill the Kill-T-Gang, and then release them after the bombardment is over. Yeah, it’s a stupid plan, what can I tell you. What’s worse is that they’re so hellbent on stopping the Midsummer Knights just because they can’t have children running their operations. Again, these guys aren’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

Speaking of the Midsummer Knights, we gotta talk about them guns. The Livlaster are basically just laser guns that function like those G-Cons from AWGX, but they not only serve as keys to the Mechs, they also provide them power as well. They can also function as regular laser guns as well. Daichi’s Livlaster can just shoot a regular laser (& auto aim I guess), Teppei’s can create a shield, & Hana’s can shoot curved beams. I honestly wished there were more gunfights in the anime to see what these guns can really do.

Now onto the real villains of the anime, The Planetary Gears. From what I gather, they’re a group of space vampires that suck a lifeform’s “Orgone Energy” (don’t ask me what that is). In their avatar form, they have a vast assortment of abilities; telepathy through kissing, tracing, telekinesis, and immortality. Honestly, while serving perfectly fine as antagonists, most of their lore is kinda confusing. They can do these random things and have a self-explanatory goal, but there’s barely a moment where we grasp the depth of the lore. It’s also ever explained how the Planetary Gears got a hold of these Avatar forms; did it happen when they interacted with Orgone Energy? Did they pick them randomly like ghosts? You guesses are as good as mine. There’s also the streak of episodes that has them getting the old gang back together, which is many considered the weakest part of the anime since it took too long. The characters were interesting, sure, but wouldn’t it be better if they just got them together in the beginning…

And then the final faction is Macbeth, but all they do is provide the Planetary Gears with their equipment and not much else outside of being exposed for creating designer children. There’s also some nickpicks to the lore that I’m gonna make; like if gambling is illegal in Japan, why is there a casino in Odaiba that’s available to the public. Same thing for that underground ring that Rita somehow knows about. Also, where the fuck did Akari got that stack of dough to bribe that black man. And before I forget, there’s one last piece of lore that was never really explained or expanded upon, and that’s the blue haired child with the flute that gave Daichi, Teppei, & Hana Uzaki the Livlaster. Her backstory was never explained, her goals were never clear, and she was never even given a name. Which is strange, since she’s the backbone of most of the events of the anime. But that’s about it for world building. Some of these ideas don’t sound bad on paper, and if executed differently, it could’ve made the world way more interesting. The real issue is that the anime either barely elaborates on the lore or just leaves out information entirely, kinda like G-Reco. But unlike Tomino’s confusing passion project, there’s at least some info that’ll give you the basics to help you follow along. So overall, world building could use some work. But it’s still better than Aldnoah.Zero’s world building.

 

• Mecha:

Safe to say that the Mecha design definitely slaps here. Accompanied by the greatest combination sequence (that’s probably expensive) and great action that’s helped by the amazing animation, the mecha really did carry this anime. Shigeto Koyama, Masaki Asai, and the underrated king Takayuki Yanasei really cooked with these designs and brought their mad designer skills to the table.

But let’s start with the machines from Globe, with the poster boy himself, the Earth Engine. And can I just say that I love the color scheme on this thing. Something about that red, white, & blue with orange parts just makes a patriotic part of my brain so happy. But the design is a good balance of armored defense with its bulky exterior & nimble mobility the amount of thrusters it has. It also has some pretty decent weapons as well. A head cannon that would make the ZZ Gundam blush, 2x arm mounted guns, and 2x chest vulcans. It also uses its fists as melee weapons. Next we got the big blue himself, the Nebula Engine. This one’s a lot more focused on its 2x arm cannons that can shoot massive beams, create 2x energy blades, or create 2x shields that can take a square like shape or an orb to protect its allies. Its design is pretty similar to that of the Earth Engine, it just now has those long antennas. Both engines also used a weapon called the Pasmagnum, which is a rideable gun that has a pretty powerful blast. And finally we got the very red Flare Engine that has 2x cannons that are 3x stronger than regular cannons. It’s such a shame that the Flare only appeared once, as it probably would’ve made for a good unit for the backlines while the boys are handling the front. Speaking of teamwork, each Engine has a small mecha inside of them called “Ordinary”, which are basically like Core blocks from Gundam, but in mecha mode. Design wise, they look okay, but they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to the armaments department. All it has are 2x beam pistols and that’s it. Couldn’t they have beam gauntlets or small back beam cannons? Either way, Globe has some pretty decent designs, well symmetrical and well equipped (for the most part).

The Mecha on the Planetary Gear’s side on the other hand are more on the weird side of things. They’re still pretty well designed, but are just on the more unconventional side of things. The 1st Kill-T-Gang we see in action is Malkin, a hit & run type machine that excels in long range combat and high mobility. It can shoot beams out of its hands & can hack Globe’s unmanned impactors. Despite it’s odd feminine design, I do love it’s role as a high mobility machine with a specialty on ranged combat. The Planetary Gears also have landed based Mechs called Machine Goodfellows. Funny thing, both the subtitles & the wiki calls them “mobile suits”. I mean, the term “Kidou Senshi” has become so synonymous with try that word that it checks out. Whether or not it can go up against a mobile suit, I’ll leave up to you. As for the Machine Goodfellow “Moukouto Usagi”, it’s a pretty decent design. It still resembles Malkin with those wings acting like antennas. And its Submachine gun arms perfectly fit that role of hit & run. Next we got the Amarok, a close range machine made to fit Amara’s aggressive fighting style. He can make some gear style bouncing pads & generate shields. He can also shoot lasers, but that’s only in the 1st opening and not in the actual anime itself. I honestly like the aggressive looking design, making it look more deadly. It’s Machine Goodfellow on the other hand kinda looks a little basic. All it really has is a rifle and that’s about it. It looks fine, it’s like something ripped out of Virtual-On. And before I talk about the other Kill-T-Gangs & Machine Goodfellows, I gotta talk about the Ego Cubes. These are essentially where all of their power is stored and what gives them power. They’re basically like a Core Block, but more powerful. And these things can’t be destroyed until the user themselves willingly does it. Neat idea, since it justifies why they keep appearing. As for the other Mecha, outside of 2 of them, the rest are pretty great.

• Zinbalt just has some cannons, and that’s about it. The Machine Goodfellow, Jingaikyou looks a little better since it has a flight pack, but it still has a generic rifle.
• Aitar is a little better, since it has a stinger like cannon & bits that can perform multiple tasks; it can shoot beams, absorb energy blasts, & trap enemies. It’s honestly a pretty decent design fitting Ai’s idol persona. The Machine Goodfellow, Hebihanabi, is also pretty neat since it’s a chunky machine with big ol’ cannons (cuz bitches love cannons).
• I also really like Liban’s mermaid-like design, as it’s a high-speed machine that can teleport through different areas. The Machine Goodfellow, Ningyohime, is a little lame since it’s an underwater machine that only has like 2x blades. Like really, not a Trident, harpoon gun, or torpedo launchers? (Sigh).
• Bugbear is a whole lot cooler, since it’s a thick muscular machine with a punch that makes Saitama’s punch look like a weak smack. Even its Machine Goodfellow looks cool, with extendable arms & legs, fitting Baku’s boxing style. The last 2 Kill-T-Gangs don’t have Machine Goodfellows themselves.
• Albion was Teppei’s Kill-T-Gang form, and it only really appears 2x. All it really does is create a circular rainbow that produces a blade. While not being all that interesting, I do like that ability being integrated into the Nebula Engine.
• The last Kill-T-Gang is Siren which can only revive Ego Cubes after being destroyed. Fits Setsuna’s character I guess.

So that’s all of the Kill-T-Gangs, but there’s more mechanics to discuss. Like Globe’s unmanned impactors, they just shoot missiles and that’s it. But the Cerberus ones from Salty Dog can teleport & shoot lasers, which is pretty neat though. Salty Dog also got some big unmanned impactors too, with some of them looking like they came from a fucking shooting up game. There’s not a whole lot I can comment on. The final mecha is the mama jamba herself, Robin Goodfellow. And this thing is massive, like Galactis or Unicron huge. Giant arm spears, cross beams, armor as thick as Hana (both Mutou & Uzaki), and some inner defensive measures, this thing screams ERJB (Evil Robot Jeff Bridges).

And that’s all the mecha in Captain Earth, every since of one of them. Say what you want about the anime itself, but these designs are honestly really top tier. While not all of them were winners, the ones that were sure as hell made a nice impression. There’s a reason why the Earth Engine used to be my profile pic. So overall, great designs all around.

• The ending:

The ending was honestly really great, albeit a little bitter sweet. We have Daichi in his Earth Engine busting into Robin Goodfellow with the 1st opening Believer’s High blasting through the background (that opening slaps BTW). He sacrifices every piece of his Impactor to get through the defense systems, only leaving his Earth Ordinary left for him to use. Once he reaches Hana, he saves her true love’s kiss. They then destroy Puck & Robin Goodfellow by crossing the streams. But as they were about to escape, Puck has the last laugh and traps both of them in the explosion. You would think that they would’ve instantly died from that, and I thought that for a while. But then I remember “Entangled Link”, which is what allowed Teppei to survive a Pasmagnum blast when Daichi was forced to shoot at a bunch of space debris, & what allowed Daichi to teleport to Robin Goodfellow. And at the end, we see Daichi & Hana with a damaged Earth Engine Ordinary somewhere. When I was a kid, I thought it was some interpretation of Heaven. But with “Entangled Link” in mind, they might have teleported at the last minute & ended up in some unknown area. But “it’s up for interpretation”, I’m sorry I just have to.

• Verdict:

Tossing nostalgia goggles aside, this anime does admittedly have a handful of problems. The plot is a little too reliant on the villain of the week format, some elements of the world don’t really make sense in the grand scheme of things, and…. That’s it. No joke, those are my only issues with the anime. Everything else ain’t half bad. The characters are really lively, have chemistry with one another, the mechanical designs are pretty good with some great action (even though some scenes use a little work), and the summer aesthetic really does make it feel like a summer anime. So it has a lot going for it. A lot more than Aldnoah.Zero.

Speaking of which, how would I compare those two? Between an anime that I would rather go through again and the anime I don’t even want to think about again? I would pick Captain Earth, Hands Down. I think Aldnoah is the most hateable of the bunch because it tries way too hard to be like other mecha and has boring ass characters that we couldn’t care less about. BTW for everyone in my Aldnoah.Zero saying that I don’t like this anime because “It wasn’t Gundam enough”…you know, there’s like 5 other mecha anime I liked that are nothing like Gundam. So try harder, prove me wrong, gimme a legitimately good reason why Aldnoah.Zero doesn’t suck (and don’t bother bringing up the music).

Captain Earth meanwhile is just more fun to watch and has more likable characters & mecha action that feels smooth. I just can’t really bring myself to hate this anime. It’s kinda like that show/movie you watched as a kid that you really enjoyed, and despite learning about the hate it gets over the years you still love it, flaws and all. That’s basically me with Captain Earth. It’s not a perfect series, but it has some good moments. If only it wasn’t forgotten by time. So overall, decent summer anime to watch with a cold ramune & some ramen.

Aldnoah. Zero is the most disappointing thing since my birth. I’m surprised there’s barely anyone who trashed this anime to death already, but I’m here to perform the task. Because I DO NOT LIKE THIS ANIME, I barely like it ironically. This isn’t a guilty pleasure anime, cuz I don’t feel any pleasure anytime I watch or think about it, only guilt. You have to be gullible to think this anime is good. I know this, because I was gullible. I remember watching this during middle school when I just started to watch anime, and I was pretty invested to some degree. Militaristic Mecha fighting alien Mecha, that concept alone interested my newbie weeb brain. And I love Mecha bro, I’ve loved it way before I began watching anime. And then High School came around and Darling in the Franxx became popular, instantly making this anime obsolete as A-1’s best Mecha (keep in mind: this was way before 86 came out). And once I rewatched Aldnoah, I was like “Jesus Christ, WHAT DID I LIKE ABOUT THIS ANIME”. That’s when I realized I didn’t really liked this anime, that it’s dumb and it’s filled shit I don’t like. Once my generation realized this, there was peace in the Mecha community for a brief time as we were enjoying new Mecha shows. There was no more war, we as a community have moved beyond this anime, we solved the gunpla shortage, everything was at peace. And then Darling in the Franxx ended in a not so good way.

AND NOW, YOU PEOPLE ARE CALLING AD GOOD? WHEN THE FUCK DID WE GO BACK TO THIS? I’ve seen so many people unironically defend this anime and shit on other anime like Ren-a-Girlfriend, even though it has the same problems, anime with bad writing and worse characters. But people say Aldnoah.Zero is redeemed, because it’s better than Darling in the Franxx. Now 1st of all, Darling in the Franxx ain’t even that bad. I don’t love everything about it, but I can’t legitimately call it a bad anime. I have full respect for Mecha fans who hate Aldnoah and Darling, that’s completely understandable. What hurts me is when people say DitF is bad, and AD isn’t. And before you say “at least it’s a realistic view of the Mecha genre”, I’ll say “WHO THE FUCK SAYS THAT”. Being realistic isn’t enough to be good, and besides, an anime can be unrealistic and be really good. Gurren Lagann has nothing realistic about it and yet it’s the best anime out there, everyone loves it. Aldnoah.Zero is a realistic look between real and super robot, yes. But it’s not done well at all. If you think I’m gonna be praising these 2 short seasons, then I’m sorry, you people don’t know me very well. Maybe we can be friends in another lifetime. Cuz now, imma take this anime down a peg, cuz I hate them and when people don’t agree with me I get uncomfortable.

But before I tear this anime apart, I might as well talk about the stuff I do like. It’s not the worst anime ever so it gotta have some redeeming qualities, right? (*Let’s see*, I like the music a lot). Side note: everything positive I’m gonna say has a huge “but” in the end

• I wanna say both the character and mechanical designs are really good. A-1 Pictures has a lot of anime with good character designs and this anime is no exception. Masako really designed these characters very well. However, none of that matters if we aren’t invested in the characters. Keiji Teraoka worked on Gundam 00 before this, so the designs of the Sleipniers are really good. But that doesn’t apply to the designs of the Martian Kataphrakts. And the 3-D animation doesn’t do it any favors
• The voice acting is not bad. They got A-listers like Christina Vee, Patrick Seitz, Matthew Mercer, and best boy Bryce Papenbrook to voice these characters. But the acting can only get your so far with a poor script
• The start of the 2nd episode and the fight scenes are the only time I don’t feel like I’m in a death like coma. But it start falling apart what I start realizing that I don’t really care about what’s going on
• I do like this arc of Marito dealing with PTSD from the start of war. It’s a good arc that deals with something that not alot of real mecha touched upon. It just sucks that it doesn’t really get resolved. He’s probably one of my only characters I actually liked in this anime, along with Calm and maybe Magbaredge.
• Speaking of Calm, there’s this piece of dialogue I really do like. While watching everyone train in their Kataphrakts, Calm is so eager to become an official pilot. And then Yuuki tells him “You have to remember that this is a war”. It’s a simple and fitting way for her to tell him to be careful what he wishes for, while reminding us of the brutal situation at hand. And that’s the last time I’m gonna say anything positive about the characters, so enjoy it
• But by far, the best thing about this anime is the music. The Hiroyuki Sawano original score is always on point, I just can’t hate it. I want to believe that good ol’ Hiroyuki San saw this anime and went like “alright I gotta fix this somehow”. Sawano just knows how to make epic soundtracks for any Mecha anime.

And that’s it for praise, this anime fails at every single level of storytelling. It just goes downhill from here. However, I’m gonna use a bunch of Mecha anime (mainly Gundam) and even SAO as a comparison (you’ll find out why soon.)

Season 1:

• Plot:

You know how a variety Mecha (or just any anime in general) explains their world in the 1st 2 minutes of the anime? With the OG Gundam it explains what started the One Year War, Sword Art Online showed us a kid entering the Virtual world, Code Geass explains how Britainia took over Japan, etc. It tells us everything we need to know about the world we are about to enter. And how does Aldnoah start? I guy talking about Earth to a blonde lady and then it pans out to a spaceship with no explanation. This sets the tone of the anime, IT’S FUCKING UNINVESTING. It doesn’t give us a reason to get invested in this world or its characters who we just met. We don’t even know what’s going on until later in the episode when we’re given some lazy exposition.

As for the plot itself, I’m gonna be honest, I never knew the plot of the anime. Sure, you can just say “it’s just about people fighting aliens in giant robots’', but I’m pretty sure there’s a better way to explain it. So what I got, is after a planned assassination towards the Princess of the Vers, Asseylum Vers Allusia, the Vers Martian Empire uses this as an excuse to launch a full on tantrum on Earth and our cardboard standees have to fight to survive. Now the 1st question on my mind is, why does Mars want to attack Earth? Well I hope you’re ready to die with that question in mind, because this anime is gonna answer that question for you. None of the Martians ever give a solid reason why they hate humans so much or why they need to conquer Earth. They’re just mindlessly evil, and it’s ok for an anime to have the usual hammy mustache twirling villain, especially in Mecha. But this is an anime that’s trying to be as serious as other real mecha that came before, that had way more compelling villains with understandable motivations. Take Zeon for example from Gundam, they’re going to war with the Earth Federation for independence for the space colonies. They may have done some fucked up shit, but at least you understand their reasoning. But in this anime, there’s no solid reason as to why they’re doing this. Sure, they say that they want Earth’s resources, however none of us ever get a sense of why they need it. We don’t see any other Martians suffering without those resources or even see them hating Earth that much. There’s more that sucks about the Martians, but I’ll save that for later along with how most of the human characters aren’t that good either.

But for now, let’s the concept of Militaristic Mecha forced to fight Super Mecha. It’s a cool concept on paper, but I feel this anime doesn’t pull it off as well as it could’ve. The 1st few minutes of the 2nd episode really did a good job as establishing the Martians as a threat and the fights are strategically well planned out. But the more I think about it, the 1st 2 Kataphraks would have easily been dealt with in another way, and I’ll get to that later. But ya, I found the plot held back by the really poor writing. 

• Characters:

I’m starting off with the main character himself, Inaho Kaisaka. And I have something to say, whenever people call Kirito a boring character, remember that Inaho exists. He only has one facial expression, and it never changes. At least Kirito shows emotions throughout SAO and actually has interests in the series. What does Inaho have that shows he has human emotions? Even when his fucking friend dies RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM, he keeps a straight face during and after his death. If that doesn’t cement how emotionless he is, then I don’t know what will. He doesn’t care about his sister, his friends, hell, it doesn’t even look like he even cares about the war going on. I don’t mind stoic protagonists, I just stated that Kirito is fine, as he still has moments where he cares about the people and the world around him in both the virtual world and real world. But this isn’t the case for Inaho, he just has zero emotions.

And I haven’t even gotten to the rest of the Terrain characters. Outside of Marito and Calm, who would’ve worked as great characters if they were better used in a better anime, the majority of the characters have barely any chemistry with each other. Zero, I mean no chemistry. We don’t care about these characters and we’re supposed to be rooting for them to survive. They only exist to tell us about what’s going on in the war and how powerful the Martians are. They don’t talk about how they feel or how much this war is taking a mental toll on them.

I think that’s why Marito and Calm are the only characters I thought had potential. Marito has experience fighting the Martian and has trauma from it, so it would’ve been interesting if he’s forced to confront his past. As Calm, he’s the only one who shows actual hate towards the Martians and unlike the Martians (who only hate Terrains because they’re told to), he has actual reasons why. His home was destroyed and his best friend was killed by the Martians, so it’s more understandable. So it would’ve been interesting if he found out if the Princess was alive and learns to let go of his hate. I honestly think that Marito and Calm should’ve been the main characters instead of Inaho, and have this mentor and student dynamic where they learn from one another. Magbaredge is another character who I thought would’ve been cool if she was given more to do. She could’ve been like Sumeragi from Gundam 00, where she’s fighting against her past demons, or in this case Marito’s. She reveals that she’s the sister of the soldier that Marito forcibly killed. This could’ve been a really good arc where Magbaredge learns to forgive Marito.

And then we have the Martians, both good and bad. Let’s go with good Martians, Slaine Troyard and Princess Asseylum. With them being the 1st characters to appear 1st in the series, you’ll think that the anime would focus on giving them some interesting traits to make us invested in them. And yet, none have any traits that make them interesting. And I know that people say that Slaine is the only good character, but only because he has an actual motivation to save the princess. Outside of that, all he does is do what his bosses tell him to do while being abused by him. The moment when he helped Inaho fight against one of the Martians, I thought he would’ve joined them to take on the landing castle. But no, he gets shot down, tortured by his abusive boss, gets saved by Sazbone, and joins him for no reason. And he doesn’t get any better as we see in season 2. And trust me, I’ll get to that soon, VERY SOON.

But now let’s move onto the next “good” Martian, Princess Asseylum Vers Allusia. But before that, there’s something I want to say, her loli maid, Eddeolrittuo, is the most annoying character in the anime and doesn’t need to exist. But on to Asseylum, and as a princess character, I think she is probably the worst one I’ve seen so far. She’s so gullible and arrogant, that it’s so unbearable. After seeing Martians more than willing to kill humans and seeing that her OWN PEOPLE wanted her dead, she still thinks that there’s still a chance for people to get along with the people of Earth. To the point where she makes a really dumb decision that leads to the last safe place on Earth to be attacked and destroyed. Also, they forced her in this love triangle between Inaho and Slaine, but not only it doesn’t work, but it also becomes meaningless in season 2 (trust me, season 2 fucks up a lot of shit).

Before I move on, I want to bring up Kudelia from Iron Blooded Orphans for comparison. She starts off similarly to Asseylum in the beginning of the anime, where she thinks that once she gives her speech, everything will be better. But there’s one major difference, Kudelia eventually learns that not only people from Mars are suffering, but also people around space are suffering as well. She finally gets shit done and calls out Gjallarhorn for the shady shit they’ve been doing. If Asseylum had a similar arc, she would’ve been a way better character.

Now onto the bad guys, and all you need to know is that they hate Terrains. That’s it, that’s their only personality trait and we don’t learn anything else about them. They are just cartoonishly evil, to the point where we can’t even view them as actual villains. To the point where the Orbital Knights were forgettable, to the point where their mecha are the only memorable thing about them. Count Cruhteo and Lord Saazbaum are the only recurring villains and they aren’t that different, with Cruhteo being a slight but not so good exception. Sure, he tries to help the princess eventually, But that was after he constantly abused Slaine, dropped his landing castle onto Japan, and tortured him for info. So it was not only very rushed, but also some wasted potential. He should’ve been someone who grew to see how immoral Martian’s invasion is and how he grew to see both Terrains & Martians as similar. And then there’s Lord Saazbaum, where they tried and failed to make his motivations understandable. He shows Slaine this PowerPoint of Martians hating Earth, while giving exposition explaining how Earth won’t share their resources. This honestly feels kinda weak, because we don’t see any of the Terrains rejecting them. I also found his other reasoning for hating Earth really dumb. His girlfriend dies while on a mission and now he blames Terrains for it. And want to know how she dies? Because the portal on the moon blows up and the falling debris kills her. If one of the Earth soldiers actually got a shot off of her, then I would’ve bought it. But her death was caused because of the arrogance of the Martians thinking their hot shit. Saazbaum should’ve been mad at the Vers for sending them on this mission. And he doesn’t become any more interesting as the series goes on.

So ya, the cast of characters on both the good and bad side really drags this anime down. They don’t develop at all and don’t have anything interesting about them. If they were given any motivations, arcs, or personalities, we might have cared a little more. But no, these characters are very forgettable. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

• World Building:

With it being a Mecha anime, you’ll think the world building would be interesting, right? Unfortunately, it’s handled pretty poorly. There’s so much shit that doesn’t make any sense. Like the assassination itself. For starters, why didn’t they just plant a bomb under the limo instead of putting a rocket launcher into a public parking lot? That place was very conspicuous and could’ve been easily witnessed by anyone. Also out of the multiple soldiers with guns, none of them bothered intercepting those missiles. And trust me, this is only scratching the surface. Now let’s talk about how the United Forces of Earth (UFE for short) handles the threat. When it comes to the Martian Kataphraks, I understand why they have a hard time dealing with them. They have far more advanced Mecha and have plenty of time for preparation, that I understand. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t counter the missiles while they were in the air. They could’ve prevented severe damage to their communication systems , especially since they already had jets in the air.

Another thing that bugged me was the Aldnoah Drives themselves, since we’re never explained how they work. All we know is that only people with the Vers bloodline, along with the Orbital Knights who swore their devotion to them. But, how exactly does that work? Especially since Slaine’s dad was the one who made them. So why would he make it so only one person and his family can use it? Overall, there’s so much that doesn’t make any sense in the world, to the point where I can’t even get invested. Maybe I’m missing something, feel free to call me out for it (just be civil about it)

• Mecha:

As I said before, the Mecha designs on the Terrain Kataphrakts are pretty good. The Sleipniers and Areions do look practical and militaristic, I can definitely see these 2 being used in real life combat. However, I do wish their load out is a bit better. They do have assault rifles (with a grenade launcher), sniper rifles, a pistol, and knife, which ain’t bad. But it wouldn’t hurt to have a bazooka and a heated melee weapon. It would’ve also been cool if they had different types of Sleipniers and Areions (like a sniper type, cannon type, melee type, etc.). I don’t know, that’s something I’ve always liked about Mecha, they have a variety of Mecha types for multiple situations. Take Gundam’s GMs  for example, they have a variety of types; there’s the GM Sniper, GM Cannon, GM Striker, GM Night Seeker, etc. Each of them are made with a specific role and use specific weapons to achieve their missions. But that’s just a suggestion, I still like their designs.

As for the Martian Kataphraks, I can’t really say the same thing. They look weird, and not in a villainous way. The Electris looks like a Gau (a Zeonic carrier) with arms and legs, the Argyle looks like white fat duke, and the Hellas is a metal octopus. Although I do like the idea of real mecha fighting these super Mecha with Strategic planning, I found that these fights could’ve been easily solved. The Electris may have a barrier that absorbs everything, but if it trips it’ll sink into any surface. The Argyle literally only has one melee weapon, so you could’ve handled it with long ranged attacks. The only ones I thought were cool were the Dioscuria and the Tharsis. They actually do look like a threat and are designed pretty well. The Dioscuria looks like the final boss, with the abilities of the 1st 3 Kataphrakts. But those long fingers are a bit too much. And although the Tharsis looks like it’s gonna help the Terrains, it barely does anything on screen. It only charges Into the fight at the last minute, and that’s it.

There are more of them, but they only appear for one second each and never again until season 2. The mechanical designs (at least on the Terrian’s side) aren’t half bad, but the one thing that kinda ruins it is the 3-D animation. They really do look out of place with the 2-D animation and don’t move that smoothly. A-1 Pictures obviously didn’t realize that Mecha can always be 2-D animated too. So overall, I would like to say the Kataphrakts are the saving grace of the anime, but would honestly be lying. If they were animated better and were designed differently (with the exception of the Sleipniers and Areions), maybe that wouldn’t be the case.

• Vertic: The 1st season was a very rocky start. There was so much holding it back to the point where I think that it would’ve been better if they went back to the ideas board and looked over what they could’ve changed. The right ingredients were there, good Mecha designers, good actors, a great concept on paper, but the series was plagued with bad writing, an uninteresting plot, and characters we don’t care about, this lead to an anime that will only be remembered as a massive disappointment. And it doesn’t get any better. Back when I saw the last episode for the 1st time, I thought a 2nd season would’ve been great. That it could’ve wrapped up everything in a perfect bow. And couldn’t be more wrong in my entire life

Season 2: I think season 2 is probably the worst Mecha anime I’ve seen. There’s so much wrong with this anime, to the point where it makes the last one look worse. There’s barely anything redeemable about it, and I’ll tell you why

• Plot:

It’s literally the same plot as the last season. Martians bad, Earth good, they fight. But one slight difference is that now Slaine is now the leader and Princess Asseylum is now siding with them. Now first of all, those 2 differences are going to be the key difference of why this anime straight up sucks, but I’ll get to that later. But all I can say is that this anime tries nothing new. That’s the best I can put it. Even the 1st few minutes of the anime is a recap of what happened in the last episode. So there’s barely a plot, believe me when I say that this isn’t even the worst of it

• Characters: Now this is where the true rotten meat of this shit show comes. Because MY GOD, these characters take character assassination and under development to the next level.

Now let’s start off with the man himself, Slaine Troyard. And saying his character change from hero to villain came out of nowhere like saying the change from Zeta’s dark tone to ZZ’s goofy tone came out of nowhere. Because his change in personality makes no Goddamn sense. To give you some form of context, in the last episode after Saazbaum shot Asseylum, Slaine then shot him multiple times and then shot Inaho for trying to reach the princess. And after that he took Saazbaum back into space. Let me remind you, he dedicated his life to protecting her and even killed one of the Orbital Knights after one of them revealed he wanted to kill her. So his switch to the dark side is just absurd. And yes, you can make the argument that he did that to save her life with Martian medical equipment, but that doesn’t matter since he goes behind her back towards the end.

Speaking of bitch, let’s talk about the “Princess”. She’s a fake. She’s actually Asseylum’s sister, Lemrina Vers Envers. Now 1st of all, when did Asseylum ever mention that she ever had a sister? Sure she’s her half sister, but she never even mentioned she had any siblings in this damn anime. So what’s her Half sister’s motivations? Well I can’t tell you, because I don’t know. She basically exists to take Asseylum’s place and that’s it. It’s basically like what they did in Gundam SEED Destiny with Meer pretending to be Lacus. But that anime at least gave her some motivation as to why she wants to be Lacus. Here, we barely get anything from Lemrina. All we know is that she barely interacted with her sister when they were little and they have different mothers. She also introduces a plot hole in the story, but I’ll get to that later.

Now let’s talk about Lord Saazbaum, there’s not a lot to talk about. Especially since he gets kicked out of the story 3 episodes in. How, you may ask? Slaine backstabbed him after a battle between him and Inaho. Ok, he really should’ve seen this coming. Especially after shooting the princess right in front of Slaine. Speaking of wasting, the new cast of Martian characters suck. None of them are memorable in the slightest. Half of them exist to give Slaine a hard time while the other either support him or the real princess. I should probably get to her too, right?

Well she’s literally in a coma for half the season. And once she wakes up, she escapes the moon, has a chat with her grandpa, and marries some random dude we barely met or cared about. If you didn’t like her in the last season, you definitely won’t in this season.

Now let’s go to Terrains characters, they’re not as bad as the Martians, but they aren’t much better either. Inaho Kaizuka is as much of a machine as he was in season 1, especially with him becoming a Cyborg with his robotic eye. And although I keep complaining about Inaho being boring, I honestly thought this could’ve been a good way to show his descent into him giving into the war. Let me explain, if he started the series with some form of human emotion and progressively show less and less emotions, this could’ve easily been a great example of the war taking his humanity away. But I digress, let’s get back to another problem with Inaho, his rivalry with Slaine Troyard. This is probably the worst rivalry I’ve seen in any anime I’ve seen for one reason, there’s not a connection to make them rivals. They barely interacted with each other in season 1 outside of them teaming up with each other to fight a Kataphrak and when Slaine shot Inaho. The only thing they have in common is that they’re from Earth and they like Asseylum, which isn’t enough to make an investing rivalry. Let’s talk about Lelouch and Suzaku’s rivalry really quickly. Both were once friends and now they’re fighting each for similar reasons. Lelouch is fighting his family & people for revenge while Suzaku is fighting his people for peace within both the Japanese and Britainians. Both have different and conflicting goals, but are fighting in a similar situation from one another. It’s called a juxtaposition, which a rivalry heavily depends on. Without this, Inaho and Slaine’s rivalry feels very weak and uninteresting. Since neither of them have conflicting goals that we agree with, differing personalities that we find appealing, or tragedies we can sympathize with.

As for the other characters on the Terrain side, they’re just as boring and forgettable as the last season. They barely do anything significant enough to affect the plot. Not even Calm has anything to do. However, I do like how Marito gets more involved in the fights and even manages to score some kills on some Martians. But I find his relationship with Magbaredge kinda weird. Like, last season, it was revealed that she’s the sister of the man Marito killed. And Now they’re cool with each other? When did they work things out, especially since Magbaredge never brought up her brother in the whole season. These 2 should’ve had an arc where they worked out this drama and maybe have some form of romance, especially since Magbaredge always uses the line, “you know why you have trouble finding a date”. Or maybe not, I don’t know. Moving on to another character who’s not used poorly, Rayet. Like the last season, she’s supposed to be a Martian who works with the Terrains, and yet it doesn’t work well. Especially in this season with her hating herself for being a Martian, and we’re supposed to care. And it really doesn’t work. And it’s not just her, basically everyone else on the Terrain side has nothing to do.

So overall, the characters on both sides are either unchanged for worse, bastardized, or forgotten about. So both the plot and characters sucks shit, and I haven’t gotten to the worst part.

• World building (Plot Holes):

For being the second season, you expect them to at least expand on the world. And it does…… And make a lot of plot holes in the meantime. If you thought the plot holes were bad in season 1, it has nothing on season 2. So let’s start with the most glaring plot hole, how both Inaho and Asseylum survive getting shot in the head. Believe when I say, this makes Kira Yamato’s survival in a FUCKING NUKE look more realistic than this. I may be a mad man for saying that, but I’ll stand by it. But that’s not the worst of it, the next worst plot hole is that both sides have a military base on the moon. WHEN THE FUCK DID THEY HAVE MOON BASES? Both sides could’ve used the extra resources during the war. And sure you may say, “they could’ve built it during the 16 months between season 1 & 2”. I don’t need to be an engineer to tell you that 16 months isn’t nearly enough to build a space station on the broken moon. Especially with the situation both of them are in.

And oh wait there’s more, apparently there’s another thing that doesn’t make any sense. You wanna know how Lemira passes herself off as Asseylum you may ask? By shapeshifting herself as her sister herself. Now this is writing 101, but how the fuck can they do that? Is it like Aldnoah, and it’s an ability that only the royal bloodline? Can all Martians do it too? This is something that was also presented in season 1, but I thought that Princess Asseylum only had this ability. But once I saw Lemira turn into Asseylum and Asseylum turning into her, that’s when I began to ask questions. Like was killing the Princess even necessary if you have someone who can disguise as her and make the Martians think the Terrains tried to hurt? Or is attacking Earth even necessary when you disguise yourself and invade it secretly via Marvel’s Secret Invasion? But that’s all the plot holes I wanted to point out, the rest of the world building ain’t worth remembering.

• Mecha:

I will say this, Mecha designs are pretty good (if you ignore the CGI animation). I do like the new variants of the Sleipniers and Areions for space, but I would’ve liked it if it had a booster instead of grappling hooks. However, with the amount of debris in space it makes a bit of sense. I also like the Martian Kataphrakts here a lot more than season 1, since they’re better designed, more of an actual threat, and made the fight scenes more creative.

However, I find it weird that the other Martians use these octopus looking fighter ships instead of mass produced Kataphraks. That’s another thing I never understood, you have a handful of powerful Mecha and yet never attempted to make a Kataphrak easy to use by regular Martians. There’s that cloning Kataphrak, but that is not really the same.

And the final battle between Inaho’s Sleipnier and Slaine’s Tharsis was probably the best fight scene in the whole series. If I just shut my brain off and pretend it’s a short Mecha film, it’s actually pretty good. However I like this fight until the ending, when I’m reminded that this is a bad anime. Because Inaho tries to save Slaine when they try to re-enter the atmosphere, and the anime cuts the whole thing with Inaho just straight up arresting Slaine. Ok, that’s my opinion on the Mecha designs and fights, now let’s shit on the ending.

• Vertic: Before I end this massive tangent of this anime, let’s talk about how the ending is. And let’s just say, it makes Darling in Franxx’s ending look like a masterpiece. So after Slaine gets arrested, the war just ends, Earth has an Aldnoah Drive, our side characters go back to their usual lives, and Asseylum marries a guy who we know nothing about. And the cherry on top of this shit show, Inaho literally just visited Slanie just to say that he just saved him because Asseylum told him to. A reminder that Inaho never developed as a character. Ya, from lazy writing to really poor characters, season 2 is the worst Mecha anime I’ve seen.

Finally thoughts: I think the worst thing about this anime (as you can probably tell from this review) is that it tries to be like a variety of mecha anime without understanding why they’re good. It tries to be like the original Gundam series with the villains but not giving them compelling motivations, It tries to be like Gundam 00 with the real mecha vs super mecha fight but not balancing both sides, and it tries to be like Gundam SEED & Code Geass with the princess & rival thing but not making their princess likable or giving the rivals compelling character traits. It fails at everything that made the aforementioned Mecha special. Did no one on the writing team ever think that any of this would be better if they tweaked it a bit and wrote it in a more compelling way. At this point I just doubt that anyone on the development team actually gave a shit. So the anime is over now and I feel dead inside. It baffles me that people watch this anime and think it’s good, because I’m not kidding when I say I hope I go the rest of my life without ever watching this anime again. I hate it. I would rather watch Sword Art Online (an anime that actually gets better over time despite it’s faults) over this garbage any day of the fucking week. If you think that I’m a contrarian for saying that, then fine. Because outside of the music and the Mecha fight scenes, this anime falls flat in every single way in writing in the most noticeable way possible, which is why I don’t like it. If you actually like this anime and think I’m dumb for say all of this, feel free to argue you’re piece in a civilized way.

I’ve tried to find Japanese horror games from the PS2 era that has this same feel, but I can’t :(

Some quick facts:

The VAs for Siren were British, so every Japanese person had a posh accent and didn’t pronounce Japanese words so well

Siren 2’s main setting, Yamijima Island, was inspired by an actual Japanese Island, Hashima island. The Island was an industrial hub for coal mining and was known for forced labor involving Korean and Chinese slaves.

Both games used facial scans from multiple angles to create the uncanny, and horrifying, expressions of the various protagonists and enemies

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/50669045

Well this is beyond absurd.

Full title: Plaintiff busted trying to use AI prompt injection to win court case, hides text instruction in filing — demands AI model reviewing the text should side with him, rumbled because of strange white spaces in text

cross-posted from: thelemmy.club/post/54200687

I usually don’t watch anime to follow trends, as whenever I watch a show, it’s either because of aligning interests or just simple curiosity. That last part is usually a coin toss, but it’s often not that bad. At worst, I’ll go “not my thing, but I get why people might like it” (like Berserk or Nagatoro). But with Rent-a-Girlfriend, IT.WASN’T.EVEN.THAT. If you’ve been on the internet for long enough, you’ll be very aware of this show’s infamous reputation. At best, it’s just another show to make the usual waifu merch. At worst, it’s loaded with the worst writing along with the worst characters. The former is something I can probably tolerate, but the latter is the foundation of how much I’ll tolerate a show. But this show just made my blood boil with how unlikeable the characters. To put it simply, I didn’t enjoy my time with this show. That’s the lightest TL;DR I’ll give you since, boy oh BOY did I not enjoy my time with this show. It wasn’t “so bad it’s good”, IT WAS JUST BAD. From the MC being the definition of unlikeable to horribly written contrivances with the plot, the stuff I liked about it is so far between. I’m not sure how cookie cutter my opinions will be on the show, but I’ll say this right now, this show is unlike anything I’ve seen, and not in a good way. Before I get into this show, I want to make something clear. I have nothing against the people who like this show, you do you. I’m also not going deep into the real-life logistics of actually renting a girlfriend (yes, you can rent a girlfriend IRL in Japan), since that’s kind of a touchy subject. That, and I’m not willing to go through some random Japan glazing vlog like I used to in the past. Otherwise, here’s my full thoughts on Rent-A-Girlfriend

• Plot: So here’s how the story goes, a young college student has recently broken up with his 1st girlfriend. To cope, he hires a girl to pretend to be his girlfriend and to have company. However, some circumstances force them to keep this charade up for a while, leading to a multitude of shenanigans and some misunderstandings.

Think Dear Evan Hansen, but with a degenerate college student instead. You’ve seen this type of story before, a simple lie leads to a road of unfortunate events that forces our leads into a position they set up for themselves. And I’ve never liked those stories one bit. Mainly because of the amount of contrivances the force into the story, and this anime’s no different. This show is loaded with contrivances out of the wazoo. Like how both Kazuya & Chizuru’s grandmothers just so happened to be staying at the same hospital. Or how Chizuru just so happened to be attending Kazuma’s college, while also living in the same apartment complex. Look, any story will always have some form of contrivances. That’s just an unavoidable fact in storytelling. But the way this anime handles it is just so bad. Like, even if I dispense my level of disbelief, the amount of coincidences in this show is too specific to even buy into it. So the storytelling sucks, and I haven’t even gotten to the characters.

• Characters: I’m not joking when I say that this show has arguably one of the worst characters in any anime I’ve seen in my life. There’s so much wrong with them, that I don’t even know where to begin. Like I said in the beginning, characters in a show are a make it or break it kind of scenario. And these characters broke any form of enjoyment I could’ve possibly have in this show.

Kazuya Kinoshita is easily the worst main character in any anime I’ve ever seen. Every problem in this anime happened because of his bad decision making. Like, why did he bring Chizuru to the hospital instead of cancelling the date. That stupid decision led them to the situation of the plot. And I wouldn’t mind it, if the story goes out its way to make him part of a cautionary tale. But the anime wants us to relate to him and feel bad for him. Which again, wouldn’t be an issue, but the problem is that he’s so annoying to follow. He’s such a pathetic wimp that I can’t even feel bad for him. When he broke up with his ex, Mami (who I’ll get to shortly), he “pleasures” himself towards her photos. If you want us to feel bad for the MC and root for him, showing us him beating off his old flame IS A TERRIBLE WAY TO DO IT. And he just acts uncomfortably awkward whenever he’s on screen, where I just want him to shut up. The only times I thought he was decent, was when he actually helped Chizuru when she fell overboard. That was a decent moment. Overwise, he just sucks as a character. Some may say “would you prefer a MC who’s vanilla”. YA I WOULD PREFER A VANILLA MC. I would rather have the most vanilla piece of toast, over this asshole anytime of the fucking week.

And some of you may go, “aren’t the girls of the show supposed to be the main selling point”? Maybe you’re right, but then I’ll have to complain that these are the worst girls in any anime. There’s only 2 girls I can somewhat tolerate, and that’s me putting it lightly. Starting with Chizuru Ichinose, I can at least see what she does in this anime is “understandable”. Like, she took the job as a rental girlfriend because she wanted to be an actress, she doesn’t want her college friends or family to know about her job, and she’s trying to keep it by following the policies. I wouldn’t call her a bad character as I would with Kazuya and the rest of the characters, as there’s a reason why she has this charismatic mask hiding her stern demeanor. My issue is that she, like the rest of the characters, doesn’t really have a character arc. She does grow to care about Kazuya, sure, but she never really develops as a person. Where she learns to show her true self more often or to loosen up a little. Otherwise, she’s not the kind of girl I would like to follow along with. But she’s at least tolerable to say the least. Her chemistry with Kazuya suck though, but I’ll talk about that later.

If I had to pick the only character I actually like, it would easily be Sumi Sakurasawa. She may have only shown up for one episode, but I think she was the most interesting, as she was a shy girl who wanted to be better as a Rental Girlfriend. That’s a really interesting character that would’ve been nice to see.

Otherwise, the other 2 girls completely sucked ass. Ruka Sarashina was really annoying, as she tried butting in at the worst times and took Kazuya from Chizuru through blackmail. And her reasoning is because…her heartbeat gets heightened when she’s near Kazuya. Why didn’t she take on an exciting hobby instead? And her being a rival rental GF never plays into the plot, as the anime never acknowledges it beyond that one time. Having a rival rental GF would’ve been interesting honestly, as it could’ve added some drama, but this anime wasn’t brave enough to do so. However, the worst character in the show is easily Mami Nanami. I’ve heard so many warnings about her, but nothing could’ve prepared me for how unlikeable she was in the show. When she learned that Kazuya was dating again, she didn’t hesitate to steal him from Chizuru. It gets worse once she learns that Chizuru is a Rental Girlfriend, she tries to blackmail her. This honestly could’ve been interesting if she had an established motive or backstory, but she doesn’t. Instead, she comes off as CW’s Iris West, where she didn’t want to date the MC but also didn’t want the MC to be with another girl. I don’t need to tell you why that’s annoying.

I think the worst thing about all of these girls is that they have no chemistry with Kazuya in any way, shape or form. Chizuru is only pretending to date him because of the situation their grandmas put them in. Otherwise, none of them have anything to latch onto with him. Mami is his literal Ex, so moments with him are cringe AF. Ruka is a nuisance more often than not & the fact that she’s only with him to “increase her heart rate” make their relationship more fake than the literal Rental Girlfriend.

I’ll say other harems at least has you understand why the girls like the MC. In Monster Musume, Kimihito Kurusu at least helped the girls in that show; Miia with a place to stay, bought Papi ice cream, help Centora catch a robber, & saved Mero from falling in front of a pole. Kurusu may be a blank slate, but at least he does the work to earn the girls respect. “You can’t compare Rent-A-Girlfriend to Monster Musume, that’s a real harem”. IDK what defense people will come up with, but since I know it’ll happen, compare Rent-A-Girlfriend to Sword Art Online (technically not a harem, but hear me out). In that show, Kirito may have only fallen for Asuna as they both connected throughout the series, but he help Silica revive her pet, Lisbeth open up more, reconnected with his sister Suguha after 2 years of isolation, and help Asada through he PTSD. But I hope you get my point, Rent-a-Girlfried is just bad at being a harem with how the girls interact with the MC. If a show is failing at being the genre it was conceived as, that show IS NOT LOOKING AT A GOOD REVIEW. No way in hell.

• Conclusion:

While watching this show, I was screaming in agony at the screen at every decision made by the characters. But once the show ended, I sat there in dead silence, wondering what the hell I just watched. I could’ve dropped this show any time I wanted, but I was determined to finish it. And I did it, I finished the 1st season of RENT A FUCKING GIRLFRIEND. So I have every right to state the obvious. This is one of the worst shows I’ve ever seen in my life.

No, I take that back, Rent-A-Girlfriend IS THE WORST SHOW I’VE EVER SEEN. What does practically every show have in common; from your Batman: The Animated Series to your Sword Art Onlines of the world, your Toradoras to your Regular Shows? Stories that progress with characters developing while facing new challenges (like new antagonists or personal conflicts). The story of Rent-A-Girlfriend has no progression whatsoever. Any potential drama introduced immediately gets forgotten, and characters end how they started. I have never seen, let alone discussed such a nothing show on my time on the internet.

This is a new low that I must criticize all media by at this point. I don’t usually give number scores to the shows I talk about, as my opinions may differ from one person to another, so I look at anime at certain tiers; S-tiers being on the top, followed up by A-tier,B-tier, C-tier, D-tier, and E-tier.

• An S-tier anime are all time favorites of mine, shows I can watch till the moon turns blue. Any issue I have is minor at absolute best, as I love the show that much (Ex: Gundam 00 & Gundam Unicorn)
• An A-tier show is a show that is amazing and perfectly earns my praise, has a few flaws that prevent it from being my all time favorite (Ex: Psycho Pass & Girls Und Panzer)
• A B-Tier show is a just a really good show. May be rough around the edges, but are still fun to watch (Ex: SAO & Uzaki chan).
• A C-Tier show is a show that has quite a few issues and is divisive, but I still enjoy it (Build Divers and Captain Earth).
• A D-Tier show is a show that I have a lot of personal issues with and have a hard time watching, but is still beloved by the fandom in some form (Witch from Mercury and Nagatoro).
• And E-Tier show is just a straight up bad show, as any redeeming qualities are so minimal, that it’s just straight up bad (Aldnoah.Zero & Twilight Axis).

Rent-A-Girlfriend, now becoming the worst thing I’ve ever watch, leads me to form a new tier; THE F-TIER. This is for the lowest of the low, your Boku no Picos, your Mars of Destruction. Anime that is so unwatchable, that defines comprehension. And that’s how I would describe RAS, a mindless slog that wastes your time with false promises & little to no hope of things improve. I don’t care how the other seasons are, if I hated this season alone, what do you think the other seasons can do to change my opinion? I hate this show, and has now earned the crown of my most hated anime of all time, even beating out Macross Delta. It is THAT BAD.

Reinstall the os and forgot to install zram and I paid for it

I’ve been using Linux for decades, I’ve worked as a software engineer/architect/sre for around a decade, but networking has always been my biggest gap in knowledge.

I have a local server, I have caddy spun up, a glinet router running their version of openwrt, and I have a domain name purchased through porkbun.

I am looking to setup “local.domain.com” to point to my local server, ideally without exposing it publicly, and enable devices on my home network to be able to access it from that url. Id also like to be able to access containers running on that server by something like “searxng.local.domain.com” or “local.domain.com/searxng” aka without using the port suffix. Id also like to enable https.

I have read so many guides that have fragments of what I need, but nothing that ties enough together to get it working. And with all the options around different domain registers, let’s encrypt, reverse proxies, etc, im struggling just a bit.

Are their any guides (prefer text over YouTube, but beggars cant be choosers) that people recommend that encompass the whole process, instead of just pieces? Id like to understand it instead of just fumble through it.

This feels like bad design

Smart pet-feeder company Petlibro suffered an outage on Tuesday, giving users a harsh reminder of the risks of relying on smart devices.

Petlibro makes pet feeders that connect to Wi-Fi and, for setup with Petlibro’s mobile companion app, Bluetooth. Users can set the feeders to automatically dispense food at scheduled times, which is handy for pet care when the owner is out of the home.

In a statement to The Verge, Petlibro CEO York Wu said this week’s outage was “related to how the Petlibro app communicates with devices through its online servers.”

Some user reports have also conflicted with Petlibro’s claims about offline functionality. As The Verge pointed out, various users online claimed that during the outage, their devices did not perform any scheduled feedings, performed some feedings but not others, or performed feedings late (examples here, here, here, here, and here).

After its cloud storage provider went defunct, a PBS affiliate decided to sue a data center provider to regain access to 50TB of TV shows, videos, and other data dating back 70 years.

As reported this week by Current, a trade newspaper covering public broadcasting, St. Louis affiliate Nine PBS filed a lawsuit against Iron Mountain Data Centers on July 28, seeking access to the data. In the litigation filed in Denver District Court, Nine PBS says that its cloud storage provider, Open Source Storage (OSS), used one of Iron Mountain’s Denver data centers to store the channel’s data. However, OSS is being unresponsive, and Nine PBS says Iron Mountain has refused to release its data.

The data in question includes the station’s coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, East St. Louis’ history, The Great Flood of 1993, and over 11,000 files, The Denver Post reported in July. The lawsuit claims that “most” of the data is “unique and irreplaceable,” according to the Post.

Last month, a judge blocked Iron Mountain from deleting or modifying the data.

In a hearing on Wednesday, a judge ruled that Iron Mountain must hand over any physical devices holding the data, Current reported today. The judge also said that Nine PBS must find a third party, such as a former OSS worker, who can help retrieve the data within 30 days and without sharing or corrupting data belonging to other OSS clients.

Nine PBS is already communicating with a former OSS employee “who is willing to help,” the report said. If complications arise, such as from the data being encrypted, another hearing will be scheduled. Nine PBS and Iron Mountain must provide updates by September 14.

A grand strategy RTS in the style of Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation. The game features strategic zoom, a streaming economy, and a sense of scale that’s hard to match. The game is set on the outside of a Dyson sphere, and includes map-altering events like freezing and thawing of oceans, and dropping orbital mirrors to destroy the underlying terrrain.

They’re well into development now and have released a playable demo as part of their Kickstarter campaign, so if this sounds up your alley go play the demo on Steam, and if you like what you see then consider backing the project on Kickstarter to help continue development! There are a few days left to unlock the last few stretch goals!

Personally I’ve been waiting for a game like this since Forged Alliance came out in like 2011. I’ve had a lot of fun with the survival mode in the demo in particular.

Google enabled A.I. features for K-12 schools that have allowed student access to Gemini. Until this week, Google automatically enabled Gemini in Classroom only for students 18 or older.

(This isn’t about co-op with 4 friends games like PEAK or RV There Yet, Borderlands or Magicka)

Stage 1 - purely individualistic games

In many games - COD comes to mind - you can just bust into a room and solo everyone. That’s individualistic gameplay, where other players are merely pedestrians in a saga where you are the main character.

Stage 2 - shallow teamwork

Then there’s games that have " teamwork " that boils down to pressing E to heal or revive someone - Battlefield or the tank/healer duo in MMOs. The only reason you’re interacting with another player is because there is no alternative. If an ammo guy doesn’t drop the ammo box for you - you run out of bullets, can’t shoot and die as a result.

Left 4 Dead, Borderlands, Deep Rock Galactic or Helldivers (?) come to mind. The teamwork happens in a sterile game loop.

Stage 3 - deep teamwork

Then there are games where you technically can go at it alone, but due to the way the game is structured it’s perhaps not the wisest choice. I notice that those games have a little more natural voice chat usage than in the current quiet zeitgeist. Also your opponents might be a pre-organized group of friends more often, since it’s easier to coordinate playing than with randoms.

Examples of deep teamwork games

Rematch

Rematch is an online football (the European one) game. Instead of the usual FIFA-style bird’s eye view, you control just a single player on the field from a third person perspective. It’s also much more arcade-y. It has 1v1, 3v3 and 5v5 matches.

In this game yeah you could theoretically try to dribble past every defender like a main character prime Messi, but this is the exact type of person people complain about on the game’s forums - “WHY DON’T THEY JUST PASS THE BALL”. When I pass the ball, I think how do I pass it so it’s most comfortable for the receiver - how long do I hold the pass button to get it just right? Pretty rarely people will actually use the built-in voice chat feature and it’s pretty satisfying (when they’re not thrash talking) since you’re actually working with another human.

Holdfast (ship mode)

This is like Sea of Thieves but the round takes like 20 minutes. Two factions’ ships spawn on a map. A bunch of randoms form a team each ship. There’s a captain, gunners and repairmen. People larp and use voice chat a lot.

In the normal game mode some clans do the whole napoleonic wars thing and form up lines to shoot muskets. There’s an Officer role that can point where a line should form and people standing inside that “line blueprint” laid down by them get a boost to fire rate as an incentive to work together.

Foxhole

Foxhole is a 3D isometric(?) third person perspective shooter. There’s a persistent war between two factions that normally lasts ~20 real life days. When you spawn, you can equip rifles, ammo, uniforms but also materials to repair and construct bases etc. All of those items are made by players. There’s a player that gathers the resources, then the same person could refine them into actual e.g. rifles, and then there’s another player who will take the rifle crates from the backlines to the frontline base. It’s a bit like EVE Online due to the player-based economy and persistence, just that Foxhole wars actually end.

This game has the absolute highest percentage of players using voice chat I’ve seen in a game. Foxhole’s intro screen you see on every launch tells you “you are a cog in a machine”. It’s deliberately janky and set up so you can’t be individualistic:

• medics can’t heal themselves - either find another medic or voice chat to a player, tell him you’ll drop your medkit and if he can heal you
• if you’re bleeding you can patch yourself up, but it’s 10x less resource efficient than if another medic does it to you
• some demolition items come in two parts - the explosive and the detonator. You need to have another player who will help you carry the other one
• artillery requires a gunner, a loader and sometimes a spotter. A gunner can go at it alone but it’s annoyingly slow
• veteran players often stand at spawn and rally other (random) players to join them. This is often a “sticky rush” where a blob of players grabs a few anti tank granades and sprints at a tank to kill it (yes you die, but a tank is much more valuable than your worthless life). It’s possible to do a solo sticky rush, but it’s rarely effective

There’s lots of big clans, but it’s OK to play solo. The devs also have a similar game - Anvil Empires - set in a medieval setting. This is an “MMOFPS” like Planetside 2. There aren’t many of those because shooters require good latency, and the “massive” part of “MMO” works agains that.

Summary

Any other games like this? I fear that those games are “one of a kind”, because there’s no real alternative to Foxhole or Rematch.
In today’s individualistic world, what other games are there?

• Space Station 13 fits the bill pretty well, despite no voice chat. Barotrauma is similar, maybe
• I guess someone will recommend the milsim shooters like Squad, Squad 44, Arma (Reforger) though I fear it’s not as deep or organic (i.e. you need to be in a clan).
• MOBAs like Dota 2 can come to mind but I feel it lacks depth in that aspect - the teamwork is diluted down to the skills your hero has.
• “Over The Top WWI” has a nice trench engineering aspect but I refunded it because the godmode Battlefront-style call-ins were too annoying (and individualistic to the “god"), plus you die too fast to make a friend.
• There’s a game called Eco, it’s similar to Minecraft but each player has a profession and I think the players “need eachother” to fulfil each other’s needs
• Planetside 2 was great back in the day but it’s too COD-like - why have a medic if you can just self-heal all the time?
• Star Wars Galaxies also seemed like it used to have a real player economy - it’s still alive on private servers but feels dated.
• I like how Arc Raiders has a social component (the “don’t shoot"). Rust and Sub Rosa similarly. But it’s not really it.

Firefox says it will keep supporting uBlock Origin even as Microsoft Edge and other Chromium browsers phase it out under Manifest V3.

cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/50670224

Source: whitehouse.gov/…/expanding-capabilities-to-combat…

(spoiler warning)

I feel really stupid for having to ask this after seeing the Gurren Lagann recap movies, but what exactly is this “Spiral Power” that the show starts referring to in its second half? Throughout the whole anime, the main character Simone’s favourite weapon is a drill, so in a literal sense, he’s physically using the power of a spiral to fight.

But as the show goes on, it’s revealed that humans are “spiral beings”, meaning they’re capable of using spiral power, among other spiral beings in the multiverse. Drills can shoot lasers as part of their spiral power, creatures that hang out with spiral beings can withhold spiral power of their own, and the main antagonists fear that the use of spiral power will lead to the destruction of the universe??

Was there an explanation to this that I totally missed or something? Is spiral power still something that comes primarily from Simone’s drill? Is it more of a Dragonball-style energy wave that you’re not supposed to think too hard about? Does it refer to the spiralling power upgrades that the characters go through, and it’s meant to be a metaphor for humanity’s ability to self-improve? Does it not really matter in an anime that’s more about the character’s ability to break through anything with sheer testosterone and willpower? Is it all meant to be left up to interpretation? I swear, I’ve seen this anime twice and now the recap movies too, and I STILL have no idea what it’s about!

I see no potential for misuse here, no siree

cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/69345860