ShyPie

Can't help but recommend Azumanga Daioh enough, same as some others already have. It is definitely in the top 10 (possibly 5) of my all time favourite anime. Just finished rewatching recently and it is still so funny, simple, cute and charming. The only complaint anyone could have over it is sometimes the animation can be a little lazy/cheap looking, but it's overshadowed by the excellent comedy dialogue and visual cues on display. Another comedy I'd definitely tell you to try is School Rumble; it's a zany, sometimes surreal, rom-com, but not in the traditional sense as it plays with a lot of stereotypes and tropes. It has a couple genuine touching moments too. Angel Beats is a must in my top 10 (re-watched that recently too, actually re-watching all my anime from A to Z, currently on B starting with Baccano!). But back to Angel Beats; it's about a group of high school kids who have died (not a spoiler as they're all aware from the start) and are in a kind of purgatory high school fighting against "God" and an "angel". It's not as action heavy as the premise makes it sound, but does have a little and has plenty of comedy and some major feels (if you don't cry at minimum of 3 episodes of the 13 then you're a heartless robot). One Piece is my favourite series, but at 700+ episodes it's a difficult one to recommend people to get into if they're wanting something with a sense of completion that they can watch over a couple weeks. I would say try the first 10 episodes and if you feel hooked enough to settle in for a long and majorly satisfying ride then stick with it, otherwise it's probably not for you. Same goes for any long running shonen series like Naruto, etc. On the opposite end of the spectrum if you want something with short, cute, funny and sometimes historically informing episodes then give Hetalia a go.

I think eventually Nintendo will become software only, or rather I hope they will. The only reason I, and many others, have bought Nintendo consoles/handhelds over the last few years is purely for the Nintendo title games such as Mario, Pokemon, etc. I'm quite tired out putting out the money for an entire device just so I can play a couple of games, I really just wish they would license their titles out. If they're serious about staying in the console biz then they really need to up their game, they need to put out a system that's got the same measure of power and graphics capability as the other 2 and something that 3rd party companies can easily get versions of their games made for. Any game that's widely available on PS4 and XB1 should also be available on the NX and be the same game, not something hugely changed or scaled back. And they need to just cut out the gimmicks already and get some god damn simple, comfortable controllers.

Yeah, the books get longer so if you're a relatively slow reader (like me) it could take a while. In saying that, the books are so engrossing and enjoyable that you'll find them hard to put down and fly through them like I did. Only book that's a bit of a slog is A Feast For Crows, it contained too many new characters and characters I didn't care about. I like the books better than the show for the detail you get, but the show is something different and amazing in its own right.

Started The Magician at the weekend. Enjoying it so far, bit more going on plot wise in comparison to the last fantasy series I read, which was The Kingkiller Chronicles. I do enjoy those books btw, but a different kind of thing entirely to the likes of Song of Ice & Fire or this book, which seems like a bit half way between those other two series on the scale.

I've recently gotten into playing proper board/card games over the last 6 months. I've played stuff like Munchkin, Legends of Drizzt (D&D with pre-set quests), Pandemic, Sentinels of the Multiverse and a couple others. Recently purchased Gloom and Flux (Batman version) and have taken to watching Youtube videos (Tabletop) of different games getting played so I can see what I'd be interested in playing. Only problem I've found is having enough people to play the games with and on a regular basis. My main friend that I've gotten into this gaming with stays in Finland just now whilst I'm in Glasgow, so we only get to play a few times a year potentially and the other people we've played with are people he knows. None of my other friends I know are into or would even potentially be so I'm at a bit of a loss of when I can play them.

I'm not sure if I truly believe in ghosts or not. I like to believe the romanticized idea of spirits remaining on this world as proof to myself that there is something after death (the thought of nothing terrifies me), but the lack of definitive proof both in a professional sense and on a personal level leaves me doubting it. There are things that happen that seem to escape logical explanation and it would be nice (or not depending on whether it was malevolent or not) that a ghost/spirit was behind it. Are there a different kind of ghosts that exist in our world, though? Possibly ghosts from another world? Perhaps there are "ghosts" of ourselves from alternate timelines/dimensions that sometimes cross into our own and cause these unexplained phenomena of even the smallest things like something being moved form a different place where you left it when no one else was around, because possibly you in another world did move that and something has caused that to resonate into our world. Odd and different sort of sci-fi slant of a theory to it, but who knows.

The last scary game I played, or attempted to, was Slender The Arrival. I barely played it, maybe like 10mins worth purely because I couldn't. Just the atmosphere of the whole thing had me freaked and Slender Man does really creep me out in general (there was a guy cosplaying as him at London Comic-con a couple weeks ago, I tried to avoid him). I never even got to do anything or have anything happen in the game and I was just totally "I'm out! not playing this".

It would be cool I think to see a medieval/fantasy line of toys, something a bit like a cross between King Arthur, Conan and He-Man. Of course it would need to have an awesome adventure cartoon to go with it and maybe a more mature style comics line.

Seen Warcraft today. I didn't have high hopes for it because I thought it looked poor and video games have yet to translate well to films at all, plus all the added poor reviews and stuff. So at first I was watching it thinking "it's not that bad" then the last hour or so happened and I was like "that is bad!". A horrible mess of a movie in the end.

I'm gonna just say Star Wars in general. As a kid I loved the original trilogy, but it's not something that really carried with me as I grew up the same way that other films I loved did. I actually just hate how popular Star Wars is and can't for the life of me fathom why it's so popular. They're not terrible movies (prequels aside), they're okay, but I wouldn't think they deserve the universal praise and adoration they continue to get in this day and age. It is astonishing that Avatar was as successful as it was, what's even more amazing is how they actually think people want multiple sequels of this thing. It's been so long since the first one now and it has to be the highest grossing movie with the smallest relative impact on common social culture in history, no one remembers anything about the film other than it had blue cat people and was 3D. No one in the history of life since then has quoted a line from the film, and if anyone could honestly from the top of their head (no Google) give me an actual quote from that film I'd be shocked. I suppose the real tragedy is that James Cameron has essentially wasted the later parts of his career on this garbage when he could be putting his considerable talents to much better use (if they ever went through with an Akira adaptation him or Nolan would be my choices to pull it off).

TMNT: Out Of The Shadows I liked it more than the first 1, which wouldn't be hard, to be fair. But yeah, this was somewhat more bearable. I'm a Turtles fan so was always seeing this regardless of quality but had some decent surprises with it. Despite my total distaste for the new look of the Turtles when the first came out I found myself slightly warming to parts of their design as this film went on, still not a patch on the Henson suits from the original films though. They actually did some character work with the Turtles this film which was great, the middle 3rd of this is actually a decent film. The ending was pretty meh, I think they could've spiced it up a bit more with something like the Turtles, or just one of them (Leo) having to "sacrifice" themselves to close the portal by taking the beacon back through to the other side of the portal and film ends with them seemingly gone and everyone having to accept their lives without them...then after credits scene of Turtles waking up on a strange desolate looking planet asking "where are we?". And teaser title card of "The Turtles will return in TMNT: Dimension X".

Something I've got into this year that I've kinda always wanted to get properly into is board games. Have managed to get playing a few great games (Pandemic, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Munchkin, Legends of Drizzt, Boss Monster) and started watching youtube videos (Tabletop) of different games to try. But my friend that I play with stays in Finland and is only over a few times a year and none of my other friends are into it so don't get to play that often. Ideally would love to have a group of about 4 people I know that could play with regularly.

Been playing a lot of Tropico 5 lately after getting it for free in the PSPlus for May. Lots of fun going through the campaign and thought I was doing quite well until I hit a bump recently that I can't quite over come. Will probably need to go back a bit in my save and plan better for the future or just start the campaign over. Played a bit of Fifa16 for first time in a while today doing some online matches for first time in this year's version. Got promoted but it took me 5 games to get the points needed.

For me personally, they're pretty poor albums. There's a couple good songs on each, but overall they lack the same quality as the rest of their output. I just don't care for Robb's vocal delivery on this track and structurally the music seems a bit of a mess to me, I just don't feel that anything meshes well at all on the track and honestly, it feels like a total throwaway/filler song. If you like it then that's cool, but it's just not for me. No doubt they'll make it a big part of their live performances for the foreseeable years though, which will disappoint me a bit considering their Evening With... was the best time I'd seen them and made me want to see them again very quickly.

I've heard that new Machine Head track and honestly, it is god awful. In my opinion, with one song, they've actually set themselves back about 15 years. Since TTAOE right up until their last album they've been magnificent, totally single handedly leading the way for the old school NWOAHM, they've become a really iconic and anthemic band. But this reminds me of them at their absolute lowest point musically, I only hope that anything else that comes out from them soon sounds nothing like this and that it was just a horrible, one-off mistake.