glilimith

Oof, that episode was a LOT. The writing, direction, and animation are all on-point, but this is going to be tough to get through. Takopi's upbeat, cartoony reactions to real, serious problems were painful to watch, but I think it's only going to get worse as he learns more and more what kind of suffering exists in this world. I definitely want to keep watching this, but I'm going to need to make emotional space for it, because jeez.

Normally I'm pretty open to the idea that something has dogwhistles. I saw someone post about your blog negatively and was ready to side with you over it, but looking at your actual blogpost, I feel like you're just seeing what you want to see.

To be fair, I'll agree with you on the black-coded villain - that sort of villain design that evokes black people is a staple of the era the anime is trying to emulate and carrying that racism forward into the modern day is not a good look.

Everything else you point out, though, seems like a huge reach. For example, "children are the future" is a pretty common sentiment, and there's a reason references to the fourteen words need to stick to a pretty specific sentence structure to be understood as such. Similarly, the idea that a reference to Amaterasu is code for antisemitism because of the connection to historical to race science ignores the many many other cultural connotations Japanese viewers will have about their country's creation mythology. Would you think the same about a reference in western media to Zeus just because white nationalists always evoke Greek and Roman mythology?

Anime has a lot of problems - racism, sexism, queerphobia, apologia for war crimes, you name it - in the fandoms, in the creative staff, in the works themselves sometimes. But this really isn't the Nazi-coded anime you seem to think it is.

I've heard that recommendation a lot - "play DS1 first because otherwise you won't have the patience to play it later", and TBH all that tells me is to skip 1, play the more recent entries, and then move on to the many, many other games that I keep meaning to play, lol.

Edgeworth's games are very different in structure but SO GOOD. I played the first one when it came out and it instantly became my favorite in the series. I still need to get around to playing the sequel though, lol.

I've bounced off a couple souls games before but I'm now like 150 hours deep into elden ring on a friend's copy, lol, but they only have the base game. I'd like to play the dlc (which is not on sale) eventually so I think it makes sense to get my own copy at some point (I've heard transferring saves is pretty easy on pc)

ETA: I normally don't like hard games but I keep feeling like elden ring is encouraging me to be better rather than trying to defeat me, which is a difference I think a lot of hard games miss

Ugh, I have to decide between the various ace attorney collections, elden ring, and lies of p, because I can't justify buying all of them....

IMO outer wilds has a strong tone of optimism and hope in the face of existential dread, so I think you're probably good on that front. And if you're at all a fan of environmental storytelling and don't hate physics sims, I think you'll like it just fine. If you're super unsure, maybe watch like the first hour (or less if you find your answer early) of someone doing a blind playthrough and see if the manner of storytelling grabs you.

Lots of good answers here, but I'll add some gay to the mix as well:

• Cherry Magic, a story about the need to know others and the vulnerability of being known with a strong emphasis on healthy communication.
• Given (first season ONLY), a story about healing from trauma and letting out difficult emotions via art. The anime very cleanly divides the somewhat fraught manga between the actual cute and wholesome (though often sad) story of the high schoolers in season 1, and the extremely unwholesome and honestly kind of disgusting messy drama of the university-aged bandmates in the movie, so I'd suggest just watching the tv anime and pretending the story is over.
• Sasaki & Miyano - just a cute little fluff anime. light on substance, but so sweet.

I'll also second My Dress-Up Darling* and A Sign of Affection and add My Happy Marriage, Snow White with the Red Hair, and Recovery of an MMO Junkie

*depending on how you define "wholesome". I know some people would require it to be chaste, which dress-up darling is very much not, lol. IMO, the story uses sexuality to inform and develop the characters and their relationship and does so in a very wholesome way.

To elaborate: injesting testosterone is such an inefficient way to obtain it that you'll end up with liver failure long before you see any other effects

Wait, so is this series about how corporal punishment in schools is good and banning it is government overreach? Gross.

Now that the plot is getting rolling it's a little underwhelming, especially since it seems like a suicide squad knockoff. It feels a little like no one except our crew of misfits is really taking this "find Skinner" thing seriously, which seems really strange; it's not like it's a secret, after all. It also seems strange that hapna was so widely available when it can get you high. Even if it isn't chemically addictive and didn't have side effects or overdose risks, you'd still want to keep it pretty well regulated to prevent abuse or like DUIs or whatever, right? And I'm really hoping that they don't end up ignoring Skinner's point about trying to save the planet, since it's really easy for stories to counter "we need to make drastic changes to stop bad things from happening" with "it's wrong to kill people!" - true, but like, also, we should save the planet from climate change.