Jman

Something else I’m noticing is just how big the world is looking now and how not ready Ryo is for Lan Di. Ryo never beat up tigers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60763494 No word if Fox News is hiring as Russian state TV is hit with a massive wave of resignations.

IIRC it’s because of Russia using temporary stopgaps to increase the price. The problem is those stopgaps are just that…temporary.

As of right now it’s $280.37. If she waits a week it might be half that.

At least Shenmue is placing.

Pam and Tommy 1-4. Pretty good telling of the incident, but still, fuck Barb Wire for taking away advertising time from the MST3K movie.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/halo-review-1235111130/ https://youtu.be/LukyMYp2noo

https://twitter.com/meduza_en/status/1503462352280240132?s=21 The problem with fascist is there’s always plenty more drinking the Kool-Aid. All these protests don’t mean jack to Putin at the end of the day when he has the bombs.

Musk has been watching too much TV.

People think Oscar nominations are bad for animation, check out this nonsense - In a world where Arcane exists, it wasn't even nominated. Neither was Invincible, which is especially insulting considering what was. Fuck, no Castlevania? Big Mouth, Q-Force (the gay parody of spy shows that had the same level of gay jokes as Will and Grace), Bob's Burgers, and The Great North, AKA the usual Fox vomit.

Random thoughts - Welcome to Hong Kong Ryo. Watch out for pickpockets and wandering supporting characters. Yeah, he got his shit boosted at the start of the second game as well. You had to pawn off your gatcha toys and get a part time job to get money, everything from lifting stuff at a store to good old underground fight rings. Ah, the days before online booking and AirBNB. You got out kung-fued by an old dude at the park. Do you really think you can beat Lan Di? Suzuki's pacing for this series really works better for a passive medium like an anime than it did for a game. Look, your average Yakuza game has long cutscenes too, but they are also stuffed to the absolute freaking brim with gameplay, interactive elements, and other things that make the experience feel far more rewarding than Shenmue did. Which is part of why I'm so amazed with how the anime has taken the games' writing and refined it. Some of the dialogue remains stilted, which I think is trying to convey that Ryo is still learning Cantonese. It works when he's talking to people for whom Japanese isn't their first language. Joy is a pretty fun character so far, but the visual similarities to Nami are going to be rather...distracting. Honestly the old guy's Tai Chi speech just makes me want to watch Man of Tai Chi again. "The only way this backpack is worth any money is if a $3,000 hooker is wearing it!" Ok, jujutsu is the name for practically dozens of fighting arts, and considering that Yu Suzuki put in a lot of the moves Akira used in Virtua Fighter into it, it incorporates a fair amount of kung fu influence as well. So the name passes the smell test. Not to mention, this was before the popularity of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was a thing. And the master was the woman the whole time. Also there seems to be a recurring theme of people telling Ryo that pursuing revenge is pointless, but he charges forward anyway. The show continues to be pretty good even as we go into the Shenmue games I admittedly never played. Given the length of the series, I doubt we hit Shenmue III, but considering Shenmue III was a gigantic waste of time for everyone involved, maybe if this gets another season the writers can work their magic on that too, as well as the scripts for any hypothetical sequels, since no one is funding another Yu Suzuki Kickstarter. Or maybe Suzuki just makes that OutRun anime he said he wanted to do during the NYCC panel for Shenmue. (He said the idea was for couples to be in a Cannonball Run style race).

This is apparently a revenge strike over Israel killing IRGC officers. Also, interestingly enough, there were no casualties.

The plot of Shenmue II kicks off in earnest as Ryo lands in Hong Kong, only to be immediately assailed by thugs. Can the anime keep telling the story as well as it did for the first game?

Disappointed mother shaming him in front of the school, erm, country. That has to hurt.

“I don’t know him!”

Speaking of, parts of the big Russian convoy seem to be taking significant damage -

Unfortunately, with Oda having a fair degree of veto power on this, I don't think characters can be completely excised. So you're dealing with a bad hand. Recast, put the work in to look like Alvida is supposed to post Devil Fruit, or end up canceled like Bebop where it's a punchline for just about everyone and everyone involved becomes a pariah in Hollywood except the script coordinator who's a child of a Netflix VP. Gotta pick one.

He’s bluffing hard and I think Ukrainians are pissed off enough at the damage to call him. This might have worked had he not gone with the old Soviet rules of “bomb them all and let God sort them out.”

The pronouns I don't give a shit about, and it's considered polite these days. That's fine. Fucking up Alivda's arc the same way Bebop fucked up...everyone, that's where the show needs to die in a fire. Even if the days of Robert DeNiro losing AND gaining tons of weight to play Jake LaMotta are long gone. Either put her on the diet Marvel uses to give sitcom actors abs or recast her for post Smooth Smooth fruit Alvida.

And this is why I fully expect that shift over. Hell, Dodge, king of the gas guzzling muscle car, is switching to electric cars with the same styling as their muscle series. All we need now are EV 18 wheelers and the transformation is complete. I mean, I want a Challenger; but at this rate waiting till 2024 is probably the smarter option.

So we’re fucked in other words. LEARN YOU FUCKING IDIOTS! I’m just sick of feeling inevitable resignation to the complete and total mutilation of any property that these morons adapt.

More casting news - Either the lady playing Alvida is getting recast or is going on one HELL of a diet routine. At least if they don’t want to Bebop this.

At this point mass adoption of EV’s is probably going to be a thing. If they could pass some tax credits at state levels it would help immensely. Seriously, if you have stock in EV producing companies, hold onto it. The stock prices will go through the roof in the next month or two.

The alteration of events seems to continue to be working in the show's favor, most notably, giving Mark and Goro's arc more of a direct hand in the resolution of the first game's story. The 70 man battle lacks the mini-bosses, but it does make up for it with a rather fast pace and a clear sense of stakes to replace the stakes having a controller would give you. Funny thing, Ryo quits with dignity in the show. In the game, he got fired because of all the random fights he got into. Marriage? Aren't you still a minor?! This isn't Kentucky, it's Japan! Nozomi and Ryo clearly can't spit it out, and unlike the game, it's portrayed as an inherent tragedy. Man, this fight with Chai was way easier than the game's. Also - Next - Finding one person in Hong Kong is the definition of "needle in a haystack."

This was the climax of the first game, but not the last fight.