DocHaus

@sombre:

From your linked PTW list:

• Flip Flappers: Kinda whimsical fantasy story with yuri tones.
• Michiko & Hatchin: Story of a badass woman and her daughter(?) on a trek across notBrazil to reunite with their deadbeat father.
• Megalobox: Whether or not you know it's a sci-fi remake of Ashita no Joe, it is an awesome boxing anime.
• Trigun: The classic 90s anime about a technically-pacifist gunman who still somehow leaves a ton of property damage in his wake. There was a remake/prequel (Trigun Stampede) with 3D CGI that had surprisingly good animation but the reception was mixed. Still, check out the og first, see if you like it.

Anime that were good in the past few years imo:

• Dorohedoro: If you're fine with gore and body horror, you will love this one. A fucked up fantasy involving a man with a lizard-head who's resistant to magic and his best friend, a kung-fu gyoza chef. They fight sorcerers who use their neighborhood for experiments.
• Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!: The story of three schoolgirls from very different backgrounds who get together to make their own anime, especially the wonder that two of them go through as they imagine it.
• Akudama Drive: Throws Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner, and Reservoir Dogs into a blender and somehow makes it work really well.
• Odd Taxi: Basically a Coen Brothers movie in anime form, with people who look like animals.
• Vivy Flourite Eyes Song: An original sci-fi anime about a robot idol that has so much better animation and fight scenes than it has any right to have. The soundtrack is great too.
• Sabikui Bisco: An anime done on (literal) mushrooms, set in a post-apocalyptic Japan. Kenjiro Tsuda voices the bad guy super-well. There's also some yaoi undertones if you're into that.
• Birdie Wing: What if Happy Gilmore was a blonde anime lady? A show about golfing that's also secretly a Gundam spinoff.
• Call of the Night (Yofukashi no Uta): a mix of comedy, romance, and vibes featuring the world's dumbest vampire and the insomniac boy who falls in love with her. Also wonderful soundtrack by Japanese hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts (who gave the manga/show its name).
• Akiba Maid War: A show set in 1999 Akihabara about 5 ladies from different backgrounds working at a run-down maid cafe where nothing bad happens at all. Nope. Nothing involving an allegory for yakuza or other crime.
• Bocchi The Rock!: Comedy about an extreme introvert with amazing guitar skills who slowly learns to come out of her shell with her bandmates (references to Asian Kung-Fu Generation). Based on a funny 4-koma but with amazing animation and music that really elevate it.
• Chainsaw Man: It's about a young Man, who turns into a Chainsaw Devil. That's really all you need to know.
• Revenger: Historical fiction written by Gen Urobuchi, about a disgraced samurai looking for revenge, and how his initial act sets off a giant plot involving opium smuggling in 19th century Japan while showing the impact it had on the region.

For the first time ever (for Western audiences), the folks at Studio RGG did a preview of their latest Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku/Like A Dragon titles coming out soon. Because I have some spare time, I thought why not make a post recapping the highlights of the video?

WARNING: this stream spoiled like 80% of the plot of Like A Dragon 8, so you may want to pass the video if you wish to go in blind. I'll try to mark the bigger spoilers in this post where I can, but can't be held accountable if you click anyways.

Like A Dragon Gaiden

Side-story that serves as a prequel to both Yakuza 7 and 8. Kiryu tries to leave his past behind to become a Buddhist monk under the name Joryu, but the temple is owned by the Daidouji clan, who drags him out of (another) retirement to do One Last Job, serving as a bodyguard to someone. Story length will allegedly be similar to The Kaito Files (Lost Judgment expansion).

Features:

• Atlanta rapper JID on the soundtrack.
• Kiryu with two fighting styles: Yakuza (more classic moveset focusing on power) and Agent (uses new gadgets to focus on speed and clearing multiple enemies).
• Minigames centered around a container ship called The Castle, from the classic gambling games to a 12v12 brawl mode.
  • Classic Yakuza characters for the latter mode like Daigo and Goro are pre-order DLC, of course.
• There is reportedly a digital and physical release for Japan. Unknown if that option will exist in other territories.

Like A Dragon 8

Main story returning to Ichiban, the MC from the last game. He has left his criminal past behind to become a normal sarariman in Tokyo. But after something involving a vTuber and his (faked?) history surfaces, he gets fired from that job. Thankfully, his ex-Yakuza buddies are there to give him a flight to Hawaii, where his long-lost real mother, Akane, supposedly lives now. So Ichiban jets off to Honolulu, but shortly after landing, gets mugged at gunpoint and/or drugged by a woman posing as Akane's maid, and then wakes up naked on a beach in Honolulu. He gets arrested for exposure, manages to break out before being taken to jail, and gets his handcuffs removed thanks to Kiryu, who's also come to Honolulu on a mission.

Turns out Akane is important somehow to various criminal gangs in the area, including the Japanese Daidouji clan (who Kiryu now works for), an unnamed Chinese group (Snake Flower Triad, maybe?), and the local Barracudas run by Dwight (played by Danny Trejo himself). So Ichiban and Kiryu team up to take them down. Also, Kiryu has cancer, so he wants to do one last job before the series finally kills him off for good. Older Goro Majima and Saiga Taejima appear here too for some reason, though it's unknown what role they play in Kiryu's story.

Features:

• Most of Ichiban's party from the previous game will return, except Eri. Among the new party members are Seonhee (the Korean boss from the last game, apparently incorrectly localized as Seong-hui there), Tomizawa (a thief who holds up Ichiban at the start of his trip), and Chitose (Akane's maid who is not quite what she seems).
• There will be dynamic weather and day/night cycle while exploring Honolulu, instead of sticking with either day or night as the plot demands.
• Ichiban can ride a segway, a bus, and a surfboard in different parts of Honolulu.
• The main character can be moved around in combat before launching their attack/skill, unlike the previous game where the positioning was wherever the AI felt like it.
• By taking different themed tours of Hawaii, Ichiban and his party can learn different Jobs (as Hello Work and the US unemployment system won't help Ichiban here).
  • New Jobs include Samurai, Desparado, Geo/Pyro-Dancer, Housekeeper, Action Star, Sujimancer. Linebacker [DLC], Tennis Ace [DLC]
• Poundmates has a mix of new and old summonable characters, including what appears to be Gary Buster Holmes twin sister?
• The Personality (social link) system makes another appearance.
• Nugget might be here too.
• Can-collecting minigame replaced with Crazy Eats, or UberEats done in Crazy Taxi style on a bicycle.
• Sujimon Battles: notPokemon using the enemies you've collected (beaten up) in the game.
• Miss Match: hit the correct buttons to chat with ladies on notTinder and romance them. There's also a strip club minigame, not sure if they're the same.
• Sega Arcade in Honolulu now has Sega Bass Fishing and SpikeOut.
• Most of the classic minigames return, including karaoke, mahjong, darts, Virtua Fighter (3?), golf, shogi, crane game, and more.

Alias

Dan Heng: "Dan Feng" and "Imbibitor Lunae"

DELETE: Amazing Seasun and put it as an Alias under Seasun Games.

Alias

Trailblazer --> both "Caelus" and "Stelle"

Guns Girl --> Houkai Gakuen 2

Zombiegal Kawaii --> Houkai Gakuen

Rename

Guns Girl --> Guns GirlZ

@shindig: Yeah the game with the blue penguins called Prinnies that go "dood!" Also some shenanigans about the various Overlords of Hell and mountains of grinding to do in the game. I don't remember much else off hand.

I didn't know there was a 6th out already, let alone a 7th Disgaea.

This news blows because Rumbleverse was the best Battle Royale game I played and could actually win multiple times. Sadly, trying to break into a supersaturated market and exclusively with a publisher that already stumbled into THE Battle Royale game that's standing atop the market wasn't going to pan out. I'm just mad that this game flopped within half a year instead of getting a little more time before the plug was pulled. Maybe the producers look at other Live Service games and think it's a failure if it doesn't make billions of dollars in a month, that would explain a lot of recent decisions by Square Enix and Embracer.

Skies of Arcadia was later ripped off by Granblue Fantasy, no I will not explain further.

Alias

Marian -> Modernia

miHoYo -> HoYoverse