So what you're saying is that Prince Loki is going to fall madly in love with Luffy.
Best posts made by Kitsune Inferno
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RE: Official Egghead Thread
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RE: Chapter 1110: Starfall
Shonen Jump sits on chapters for about three to four weeks before publishing them. With that in mind, it suggests that the break is likely in response to Toriyama's passing, and anything Oda does in commemoration will likely come in 1112.
There's a whole subforum for you to baselessly complain about the live action. Doing it here is just in poor taste.
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RE: Season 1 General Discussion
If they spent three multi year production cycles on Wano I would probably die.
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Interviews with Cast and Crew Discussion
Starting a thread up for discussing cast and crew interviews with publications or content creators, especially now that the WGA strike is over and SAG-AFTRA is hopefully not too far behind.
Coming in hot is this excellent deep dive interview Matt Owens did with Deadline, talking about season 1, season 2, Jamie Lee Curtis, "Help me!", why nobody dies in One Piece, and the way they show has been resonating with fans and newcomers alike.
https://deadline.com/2023/10/one-piece-showrunner-matt-owens-season-2-interview-jamie-lee-curtis-1235563095/Expect more interviews in the coming days, especially if the strike ends and our Straw Hats can start doing press.
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RE: Competitive Social Games Planning and Information Thread
Now that the forum is back, I've been thinking a lot about how to possibly revitalize the CSG, especially nowadays with new technologies that make running these games a lot less of a chore than they were way back when, namely Discord. A lot of structure would be lost, but there'd be room for some new ideas that haven't been possible.
I'm not necessarily saying I'm ready to break my promise and host again (and I'm not saying I'm not......), but I want to try and gauge interest, if people are even interested in getting back into this chaotic world lol.
Ideas I've had to address issues that have come up in the past:
- Speed Games (entire game played out over a night or a weekend.
- Weekend-Only Games (games that only advance on Fri-Sat-Sun, one elimination per weekend [barring twists])
- Asynchronous Games (similar to the weekend-only, where the game is stretched out in order to allow for people to compete in challenges and cast votes at their own pace
- Games where the Host Gives Up Halfway Through, But There's a Contingency Plan in Place, Like Say, an Automated Process for handling day changes and stuff. (self-explanatory)
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RE: Season 2 (and Beyond?) Speculation Thread (Spoilers)
@Gizmo one of the things I like about Smoker/Tashigi is the kind of grey area they wind up in when they end Alabasta. While Garp certainly falls into that grey area, I think Garp has always been there. Smoker transitioning from his "all pirates are scum" mentality in Loguetown to the version of him that lets Luffy go at the end of Alabasta would be a fun arc to explore that's sliiiightly different than Garp and Koby's complicated relationships with Luffy.
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RE: Final Fantasy XVI
Can't say I've ever gotten much challenging gameplay out of the series myself if I'm being honest with myself. Even the best of the games have rather trivial combat systems when you break them down like that. You could make a similar argument for Final Fantasy V: it's entirely possible AND practical to beat the entire game using nothing but the Wind Crystal jobs. The occasional new weapon might tempt you to try a Dragoon or something, but most bosses can be taken out with Level 2 Black Magic pretty handily, Warriors can equip almost anything, and White Mages never go out of style, so why bother with the other 20 or something jobs?
I do think that FF16 shoots itself in the foot a bit with its equipment selection which is basically a whole lot of junk. There are the accessories that make different skills do increased damage but they're so pointless and so plentiful that they just clog your inventory, while there is literally no difference between weapons other than stats (why are you throwing three new weapons at me, craftsman? Two of them are literally pointless) and the one time I got a sword with different attack and stagger damage, there was no equal and opposite sword to make the choice interesting.
I still enjoy the combat, but I'm not as skilled a player as you seem to be (I struggle a bit with the dodge mechanics so I keep the Focus Ring on for safety and I just gave up entirely on Torgal mechanics for this playthrough). It would be fair to say that the game is easy and definitely balanced toward players who aren't good at action games (like me!) and I think it would be fair to have wanted the option of a more difficult experience out the gate instead of restricting it to new game plus.
That said, I'm not done with the story (only about 75% of the way through but most of the table's been cleared sans a couple of villains), so I can speak to that a little. The overarching story is okay, to a point, I will agree with Greg at most points that it's undercooked. By far the most intriguing plot point (Dion Lesage is the MVP of the entire game thus far nobody come for him) comes to a head around the 64% mark and immediately ends with the biggest one-two punch of "reveals" that suck the majority of the air (or heh, aether) out of the story.
I wouldn't say it's "not-very-good" but rather that it's "flawed but engaging". By standards of the series, I'd still rank it closer to the top despite its flaws, but not nearly as strong as FF6 or FF9, certainly not FF Tactics. But where it shines for me is with Clive, who is still in the running as my favorite protagonist in the series, and I personally feel really engaged by the supporting cast. I don't mean the other dominants the game marketed as major characters (which sans Clive, Cid, Dion, and maaaaybe Jill has been an utter letdown) but the supporting characters that run the hub. It can come across as filler at times when you want to get to the next Eikon fight, and there's an egregious stretch around the 70 percent mark where you URGENTLY HAVE SOMEWHERE TO BE but the game throws a bunch of sidequests at you WHEN YOU HAVE SOMEWHERE YOU REALLY NEED TO BE RIGHT NOW. There's a good lull in the story right after this, why couldn't they pop then?
I'll weigh in on this aspect more when I finish the game and have some time to separate my thoughts, but there's a found family vibe that I resonate with to the hub and some of the surrounding villages. Like, there's a LOT that needs unpacking there considering the really boneheaded approach to diversity all things considered, but I resonate with the story a bit more strongly from an LGBTQIA+ perspective (to be clear--that's 100% my "interpretation" based on personal takeaways, does not seem to be writer-developer intended at all) as well as a sort of generational/family trauma story.
That latter read is precisely why 64% makes me so mad, but I'll dive deeper when I have the opportunity to digest the whole game and unpack the fallout from wasting the game's BEST antagonist.
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RE: Season 1 General Discussion
@shadyagent The hell kind of take is "fans are ruining creator's life by consuming creator's content"? There's a debate to be had on how shitty the mangaka lifestyle can be with very valid concerns, but framing them the way you are is concern trolling at best and wildly overstating Oda's role on the production of the show.
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RE: Season 1 General Discussion
@Cockycent I think Zoro vs. Baroque Works is too good (and filmable) of a set piece to cut Whisky Peak. Ditto Luffy vs. Zoro and Robin's introduction.
Latest posts made by Kitsune Inferno
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RE: Season 2 (and Beyond?) Speculation Thread (Spoilers)
@Cockycent There's also a lot of misinformation out there too. I think someone shared something in this thread about increased episode counts that hasn't been corroborated by any major sources. It seems like a quote taken out of context.
It is a shame that Deadline and Variety and THR are so slow behind the fans, but Deadline's article also comes with the nugget that they are aiming for a 2025 premiere (and not as some fans have predicted, early 2026).
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RE: Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts 2: Grindelwald Boogaloo
Apparently, J. K. Rowling never realized the Nazi parallels in her own writing, and according to one amusing Twitter response, appeared to believe that she "invented eugenics".
It is so hilariously full-circle watching this franchise burn.
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RE: Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
@MugiMikey It's an assumption on my part, I have no idea if Japan does it differently (I always learned to do audio first, then animate later), but it certainly doesn't FEEL like 1071 was done animation-first.
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RE: Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
On the subject of the dub itself:
Colleen and David really knocked it out of the park! Luci also nailed Nami's scene with Kaido. Loved that.
Something I noticed while watching this is that 1071 was MUCH easier to follow in the dub than I found it to be in the original. I think a big part of this might be the unique advantage that the dub voices over the original voices -- they get to record against the finished animation and not the other way around. Looking at Chansard's work, it seems obvious to me that he's animating against lines that have already been recorded, and that's likely what's going on when Mayumi Tanaka's Luffy is making random Gear 5 sounds -- they don't seem to perfectly match the actual action of the scene, unlike Colleen's very deliberate inflection and sounds, or how Kaido's voice while getting thrown around by Luffy sounds timed to the scene rather than the other way around.
I know dubbing has its own set of challenges, especially against Chansard's mouth animation fidelity, but holy cow did they put in the effort to make sure it sounds as good as it looks.
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RE: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
@access-timeco Glad you enjoyed FF9! I recently did a replay of it, and came away with a few surprisingly different observations than you did.
Dagger's a pretty solid character in my book, her arc as a princess who wants to be kidnapped isn't totally unique, but it does twist a handful of tropes on their head. Her journey to becoming "Dagger" is endearing at times, though her spontaneity and naivete does cause more than a few problems that could have otherwise been avoided (the sleeping weed, for one). She is admittedly hampered by a few boneheaded ludonarrative choices that lessen her impact as a character. Her whole thing is that she's a summoner, but that's not really something you can exploit until the game opens up in the third quarter of the game...
Which is when the infamous "Dagger can't concentrate" sequence begins, largely robbing her of any usefulness until the latter half of Disc 3. By that time, you've already got a solid squad of 4 figured out and Eiko will have already replaced Dagger in most parties.
I personally love Dagger's Trance however, it's the most exploitable one in the game by far, you just need to be late game to use it effectively.
In my latest playthrough, I actually struggled a bit at times in the game. I admittedly tried to keep grinding to a relative minimum, but as you say, the systems are addicting and encourage grinding.
Yet, FF9 feels harder to me than most other FFs. I hit quite a few points in the game where I lost control of a battle I wasn't expecting to lose control of, mainly because I didn't prepare properly for an unforgiving status effect or I struggled through the portions of the game where you don't have a dedicated healer (like late disc 1). I'm not complaining, I actually enjoyed the struggle, it was a nice change of pace from how relatively simple it is to break most Final Fantasy games.
FF9 has pre-rendered backgrounds and shares that distinction with FF7 and FF8, as well as indoor areas in FF10, though I think FF9's have a hand drawn quality to them where the others are more literally modeled scenes baked into a flat image.
Re, Freya and the four fiends -- as generally packed with content FF9 is, there was some stuff that hit the cutting room floor, such as the other three fiend bosses and all four respective temples. I think the plan was for each group to be playable and have their own puzzle dungeon to get through, but this was cut for time/pacing. I've always suspected that Freya and Amarant's character development went out the door with that content. Otherwise, yeah, Freya's arc basically ends mid-disc 2 and she's just along for the ride from there.
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RE: Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
That would be horrible lol.
I'm ultimately just saying it's weird that we're speculating all these things that they COULD do to correct a "mistake" when it's far more likely they're just ending the "season" (which is still a fairly arbitrary delineation) at 1085 and adding 1086-1088 to the next season. It feels like the only other person who sort of suggested that is @Zephray and everyone else is basically saying it's a mistake, or pushing back against the notion when it's what makes the most logical sense, at least to me.
And I get that it doesn't help, as @Sano pointed out, that there's a random Momonosuke recap at the end of the trio that ties the episodes more to Wano than to Egghead.
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RE: Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
@Blake-Bakes-Cakes but doesnt the latest release only include up to 1073? If that was truly the case, Id expect this set to run through 1074 or even 1075 and the final batch going up to 1088. 12 in this batch and 15 in the next feels nonsensical and more in line with a Crunchyroll that is aiming to end the season on 1085.
it honestly feels like despite everything now being under one umbrella, there are two Crunchyrolls making different decisions about the sub and the dub and maybe they're not aligned on this.
It just doesn't make sense to me that they end the season with 13 > 12 > 15 episodes when 13 > 13 > 14 or 13 > 14 > 13 was right there.
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RE: Funimation DVD Discussion IV (Please Check First Post for FAQ)
Re: 1086-1088 being Wano or Egghead-- perhaps the best way to characterize them is Post-Wano? Point being they adapt chapters (1058-1060) that are classified as Egghead/the start of the final saga by Oda, and 1060 is split across 1088 and 1089.
Funimation has never really adhered to the original Japanese season classifications and I highly doubt they'll start now.
Either way, it's not likely we get 17 episodes (15 + 2 recaps) in one drop, so Occam's Razor and such.