like a star, like a firefly

So the next Gundam series I ended up picking to watch next after IBO and Witch turned out to be... the original!

That said, it was a close call between that and Reconguista in G... to the point where, after 16 episodes of the original, I wound up taking a break from that in order to watch G-Reco instead! Now I've just finished G-Reco.

It's definitely not going to be my new favourite Gundam; the pacing and scripting are both pretty messy, the emotional moments don't really land like they should, and I think it could've done with a tighter cast and fewer factions considering it's about half the length of most Gundam shows. Still, I did have some fun with it and always liked how colourful the whole thing is, so I certainly don't regret watching it all and giving it an honest try.

I also wouldn't mind trying to write some manner of fic for it if I get any ideas for that, even if mostly because there's only two fics for it on AO3 right now! ^^;

Next I'll be going back to the original series and finishing that up; after that, if this Gundam kick continues I might stick with UC stuff for the time being and slowly chip away at Zeta then ZZ, since by that point I might have a bunch of current anime on my plate from the Autumn 2023 season.

Finished Gundam Witch from Mercury! (Did so almost a week ago now, actually!) I enjoyed it a lot, even if it might've done with even one more cour to help flesh out certain plot points and characters.

I'd put it in second place below Iron-Blooded Orphans, but I can't really rank the Gundam shows I've watched more than that because the only one I've seen any part of in the last decade is 00's first season! Wing, the movie trilogy version of the original, Seed and Seed Destiny were all a longass time ago for me, as is 00 S2. ^^;

While I won't be jumping into another Gundam show right away, I do have a few to pick between in terms of which one I want to watch next:

*Original Mobile Suit Gundam TV series. This would be my first time watching it in this form, and seeing it would let me follow it up with other things from the UC timeline; I've heard particularly good things about Zeta.

*Reconguista in G. I saw the first few eps of this back when it was originally airing, but don't remember much about them besides liking the oldschool-flavoured art style and the cheerful ED. Would be the easiest one out of this batch to watch in terms of episode count, being as it's only two cours, but I've heard the story can be tricky to follow. I'd also like to check if it fully stands alone as another AU Gundam, or if it expects any particular level of familiarity with UC going in.

*Wing. One of my firsts in multiple ways; as I've said before, this would be very interesting to revisit.

*G Gundam. This would be completely new territory for me. Most of what I know about it is that it's one of the most atypical Gundam series and that it's amazingly ridiculous.

I'm open to any recs as to which of the above to go for next!

It's several years late compared to when it was originally airing, but I've just finally finished watching Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans after having recently started over with it from the beginning.

I loved what I got to see of it before (not sure what made me flake away from it a third of the way into the second season; guess I was having issues watching the simulcast on Daisuki at the time) and I love it now after having finally seen the whole thing. Right now I'd consider it my favourite Gundam out of the ones I've watched, though since I'll be watching the second cour of Witch from Mercury soon after this, I'll wait to see if the standings change.

That said, it's occured to me that it's been a long time since I saw any of the other Gundam shows I saw. I might like to rewatch Wing and/or the original eventually (the latter being in TV format this time, after I watched the movie trilogy version of it before). Wing might be particularly interesting to revisit, considering that a) it was my first Gundam, b) it was among the earlier anime I started watching in general, and c) it was my very first online fandom.

I've also been thinking a bit of 00 again; in particular, I kind of wonder if my feelings about its second season might've been less salty if I'd watched it a few episodes at a time in quick succession, as opposed to watching each episode as it aired each week. On the other hand, I wonder if I'd still feel salty about how it turned out anyway, as I remember a good bit of my salt over 00 S2 was related to how it took key aspects I liked about S1 and tossed them out of the window near the end; in contrast, the things I loved about IBO's first season were still present in its second, so I still unabashedly love it even if there were a couple of things I was iffy about and I recall other people throwing salt around over it back when it was airing.

For now, I just wanna get some IBO icons and be emotional about it, and I'll start Witch's second cour before too long.

Trailer for the last wave of Engage DLC!

Intriguing stuff, and I like the look of the new twins. :3 It's coming way sooner than I expected, too, on 5th April -- just two weeks away! Part of me finds it a bit concerning that all the game's DLC is getting belted out so fast; on the other hand, Engage had supposedly been finished for over a year before release and only got delayed this much due to the pandemic messing things up everywhere, so it makes sense that they're able to release the DLC this quickly after the base game.

Just as well I bought the DLC and got started on it when I did, then! I cleared Tiki's map last night, and I'm thinking of alternating between the divine paralogues and the regular Emblem paralogues I've got for the time being; in fact, I might wait til this last DLC wave drops before I even think of progressing the main story again!

What does it say about me when I see the teasers leading up to the next wave of Engage DLC dropping and giggle at Robin actually having feet?

... probably just that I'm easily amused by silly things, to be fair. Still, I can never forget how everyone in Awakening had pegs for legs due to the devs underestimating the 3DS's capabilities at the time. ^^; (I also still haven't forgotten people going "OMG they have feet!" when Fates was first announced!)

I haven't bought the DLC yet, but will probably do so pretty soon. This third wave is probably the least relevant to my interests, though, unless there's other things and/or free updates along with it that haven't been announced yet.

My computer died last week.

It was nine years old, so it was inevitably going to happen at some point (especially what with it being Windows 8.1, which I hear stopped getting security updates at the end of last month) but it still went downhill more suddenly than I was expecting. Fortunately I have not lost my stuff -- I got it all backed up on to my external drive in time -- but the computer itself is unusable now.

I'm on a basic laptop right now, which is at least enough to do the essentials on; I don't know when I'll be able to get another decent computer, but I'm pretty sure it won't be anytime particularly soon. There's some things I miss already, like being able to make more icons, but I'll just have to do without them for the time being.

I was at least able to watch last week's Nintendo Direct live, though! Off the top of my head: the new Rain Code trailer was expected but very welcome all the same, more stuff on Engage DLC was cool (plus the free update adding Recreation was a godsend), DecaPolice looked interesting, and remasters for both Baten Kaitos games were a nifty surprise.

Not all bad news, then! Still some bad news -- right now I'm worried my car might be on its way out too -- but at least there's a bit of silver lining on all these clouds.

The good thing about Engage having a photo mode is that when characters I ship don't stand close enough together in their support conversations or other actual interactions to make decent icons out of them, I still have the ability to more-or-less make my own food.

The "food" here (this specific icon [or more accurately the version of it I had at the time of making this post; the lighting on the character models was a bit weird-looking]) might not be the best, but hey, it's something.

Got Fire Emblem Engage!

First impressions will come later as I've only just beaten Chapter 2's map so far, but for now I'll just say that the OP song is shounen as heck and kind of charming for it.

Picked girl!Alear, by the way.

Turn rewind mechanics like Mila's Turnwheel and Divine Pulse are a quality-of-life feature that 100% deserve to be a part of modern Fire Emblem games.

Ever spent a long time on a single map, only for something to go horribly wrong right at the end? I hated having to start the entire map over from scratch when that happened while playing the older games, especially when it rendered the long time I'd already spent on it totally wasted. Having turn rewind in such circumstances helps save that time, and really, nowadays players shouldn't be forced to restart from scratch just because one thing went wrong near the end of an otherwise well-enough-played map; things don't have to be the same now as they were 20+ years ago.

Moreover, I think people who are completely against turn rewind don't have much empathy for players who, y'know, have lives outside of playing games and therefore don't necessarily have tons of free time to bash their heads over and over on one map in one game. That's why I've believed for a good while now that Casual mode also very much has a right to exist in this series, and I say that as someone who still plays on Classic!

I can understand people thinking Three Houses gives a tad too many uses of Divine Pulse, but that's the only concession I'll make. Turn rewind is a good thing, I'm glad it's confirmed to be coming back in Engage, and I hope it stays in every new FE game going forward.

And to anyone who is violently allergic to it being a thing: don't bloody use it then! It's optional, for crying out loud!

Guess who now has the entire legendary quartet in Pokémon Violet? \o/

Just managed to find and catch a shiny Greavard, by pure chance! (I need to get or make a Greavard icon, actually. It's so cute, and I always feel charmed whenever I see one pop out of the ground.)

I've only gotten a very small handful of shinies across the entire series, so it always feels even better when the shiny is of a Pokémon I like. :3

Another Engage trailer! I saw the Japanese version yesterday, but the English version just dropped today.

I figured we'd get a gameplay-oriented trailer next, but I didn't expect one so soon after last week's story trailer!

Pokémon Violet GET! \o/

I've literally just started playing, and I've spent most of my first couple of hours wandering around and catching a bunch of Pokémon before the first Centre, but I'm having fun already. :3

I chose Fuecoco as my starter, by the way.