Isekai Anime That I Recommend

jared315Leave a comment
photo credit: facebook.com

Anime is something that represents all walks of life, from sports players to everyday salarymen, everybody has some representation in this animated world. This connection that people can make to the characters in the anime allows for a deeper viewing experience. One genre of anime known as Isekai follows a normal everyday person as they are transported into fantasy worlds with magic and magical beasts. This list will be my top 3 Isekai anime that I think everybody should watch.

Mushoku Tensei

(Picture not included because WordPress sucks)

This anime follows a shut-in boy to a new world where he is proficient in magic. This visually stunning and comedy-packed show is meant for a viewer that can resonate with the immaturity shown as well as more serious realizations that were made by the characters. This show seems to go deeper into the psychology of the protagonist Rudeus Greyrat than other Isekai’s I have watched. This interesting aspect of the show as well as the complex world and characters that are introduced create a fantastic anime, worthy of my #1 ranking for animes made in 2021.

9.3/10

Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash

The classic Isekai anime usually shows a character or a few characters transported to another world with their newfound talents and special affinities; Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is different. Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash takes a new and unique view on the anime, with the characters facing a world of magic and monsters with a realistic sense of fear and gore. The characters in this show all wake up in a haze and are asked to join the Reverse Army, where they kill monsters and get paid. The strongest people all team up together leaving several weak and fearful men and women to make a lousy team. This team does their best to persevere in such an unforgiving world, and this unique perspective of the Isekai makes it especially intriguing. (Also most definitely not a children’s show due to the gore … and the sexual implications)

8.7/10

The Rising of the Shield Hero

The Rising of the Shield Hero is another excellent anime, falling into a similar category of Isekai as Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash. This show also takes a unique perspective of the Isekai genre where (without giving too much away) the protagonist of the show is scapegoated in a community he was summoned into supposedly as a “Hero.” This show attempts to teach a lesson to the viewer, to never give up, especially in the face of adversity. The main hero of the show has nothing to keep him going, so he relies on the power of spite to fuel himself. This oppressed man wants to prove that he is the strongest and most useful hero to spite those who deceived him into a downfall of public standing. This interesting mindset allows the hero to cut corners in some areas where others that call themselves heroes would have to tread lightly. The Rising of the Shield Hero is an incredibly unique anime that is sure to entertain most viewers.

9/10

Baseball is not my sport?

ojaipizzaLeave a comment

I have discussed this with my friends and feel confident to be on the baseball team. However, after two weeks of practice, my baseball career ends right away. I didn’t practice a lot because I was on a camping trip and then the winter break happened, so I’ve been sitting on the bench for the first couple of games. I started to think about if I should switch my sport to weight lifting instead of sitting on the bench while not practicing for baseball. The game is happening almost every day. I decided to quit baseball because, during the last game, the coach came to me and said: “You will be the pitcher for the next game.” It sounds pretty good, right? The coach is so nice that he is thinking of giving me a chance to play, but do you know it’s impossible for me to be the pitcher. I, as a beginner, can’t even throw a baseball that far or fast and couldn’t catch every ball they throw. Then how do I become a pitcher? Plus, there are only a few practices I will be able to hit and throw. With this short amount of time, it was just impossible for me to be the pitcher. It is kind of him that he gave me hope to push myself more, so I might play in the future. I pretty much enjoy playing baseball and I love it, but I just don’t want to spend the rest of the time sitting on the bench.

Photo Credit: MLB

The Best Thing Ever Made

cannassuerLeave a comment

If you know me personally, you know that as a masochist, FromSoftware(Souls-Like) games are literally my favorite types of games. Bloodborne, Sekiro, Dark Souls 3, and Dark Souls 1 are all four out of my top five games. However, FromSoftware and Bandai Namco just released their newest title, Elden Ring. Which had been in the works since before Sekiro was released in 2019. It is now 2022, three years later, and Elden Ring is finally here. And it’s the best thing I’ve ever played. From minor detail to major detail this game is as close to perfect as anyone can get. (I play this on PC so I am aware of and have experienced the frame stutter when in fights, but they’re already fixing it and it really doesn’t take away from the experience at all).

Photo Credit: TechRadar

First of all, this game is absolutely gorgeous. Elden Ring is hands down the most artistically and graphically impressive game I’ve ever played. Sure there are a lot of games with technically better or more realistic graphics but, the care and detail put into making this world is absolutely unparalleled. As an open-world game, I was expecting it to be a little lazy with lots of walking around between one interesting location to the next like most large open-world games. I was wrong. This world is jam-packed with detail, easter eggs, items, side quests, characters, hidden levels, the list goes on. And every single one is great with immense detail, no enemy, no boss, no area feels unfinished. Every nook and cranny is filled with fun things to do. It is the single best open-world game I’ve ever played. And as a souls game, it is easily the best. It brings back my favorite part of Dark Souls one which is semi non-linear progression. Instead of only being able to go to one level and being stuck there if you’re under-leveled or skilled, you have the option to go do something else and explore the lush and lore-rich world that surrounds you.

Photo Credit: IGN

Secondly, Elden Ring takes everything good about the other games and packs them all into one. Weapon arts from DS3? Check. You can even change your weapon art on the fly. Powerstancing from DS2? Check. I am currently power-stancing two greatswords. A separate jump button from Sekiro? Check! 83 bosses??? CHECK. This game is jam-packed with content, it is everything FromSoftware learned from all the time they’ve been making games. And just like the masterpiece that is Bloodborne, it is a completely separate game from Dark Souls in every way. It doesn’t matter that the combat is technically similar, the environment, the feeling of playing Elden Ring, the satisfaction is all just on a different level from their previous games. It is a culmination of all of their previous masterpieces. If there’s any game that defines the spirit and the artistic value of gaming, especially RPGs and Open World games, it’s Elden Ring. I adore this game.

Plus it has the two best NPC’s ever in gaming, Pot man and Wolfman. Buy it right now

Photo Credit: IGN

How are Ideas Made?

jared315Leave a comment

In F block Journalism, we are tasked with writing 1 blog per week, which sounds like it would be no problemo. But it’s not. A lot of work goes into these 1 paragraph idea dumps, but not much of that effort goes into the writing. It’s all in the ideas. I would have to say that 85% of writing a blog is coming up with the idea. That shit is not easy. I mean how can you be expected to come up with an idea out of nothing, that is entertaining or interesting to you, and the reader. It’s a small scope of topics that are interesting and easy to write about without creating a sermon. The blogs are a surprising hurdle to overcome in this class. Boy, is my life hard.

photo credit: Facebook

Poop Maps

udarsh318Leave a comment

It’s march again, and since last year we have been running a poop maps league. Basically, “poop maps” is an app where you log your poops and it keeps track of them, and then of course you can make a group of poopers and it counts all the poops you’ve made since you joined the group. So this marks the second annual poop maps competition.

Last year, I think Adam won the poop maps league, his in-game username is “prunesensei” referring to a very hard dry poop. The usernames themselves are just as funny as the whole poop league competition. Mine’s “thepoojeww” Logan’s is “dunmper_daddy” and of course, there’s “emanuelzagatalogabson”. This year I’m hoping to make it in the top 5. I don’t think winning is gonna be possible this year as Ben has about six poops in one day, and if he keeps that pace up he’s projected to hit 180 poops this month, which is just a crazy number.

Anyway, I’ll keep you all updated as the competition moves forward.

Poop Map - Apps on Google Play
Credit: play.google.com/poopmaps

Journalism Showdown

bartholomulethegreatLeave a comment

Two weeks from now, the Journalism class at my school will be participating in a smash tournament amongst the class. For my blog this week I will be giving a prediction based on how I think the skill of my classmates is in smash.

For those of you readers that don’t know what Super Smash Bros Ultimate is, it is a game that consists of fighters trying to stay on top of a platform. Characters have a bunch of different attacks these include a neutral smash, a side smash, up smash, and a down smash on top of these attacks there are the same directions but with a light attack. Heavy attacks do more damage at the cost that they leave an opening at the end of the attack for the opponent to take advantage of.

The ordering of placements will go like this (I’m not going to use their names for privacy I will use their initials)

The list goes from first to last

  • E.H.
  • N.J.
  • A.K.
  • C.C.
  • H.L.
  • Z.D.
  • S.H.
  • B.M.
  • E.S.

Wildcards: Z.Z., C.H., F.A.

E.H. Has the game and plays it a lot, so I trust his skill.

N.J. plays with E.H. a lot and supposedly is very good, so he makes the number two spot.

C.C. recently got the game and had been playing it a lot.

H.L. plays smash on her brother’s switch in preparation for the tourney.

Z.D. hasn’t played a lot of Smash but has a lot of prior game knowledge.

A.K. plays games to my knowledge but I don’t know how much, I just know how good others are.

B.M. plays Madden so he knows how to strategies, so I think he’ll do pretty well.

E.S. doesn’t play games and when she did it was quite disappointing.

F.A. I’ve never seen him play a videogame ever he says he knows how, though, so he’s gonna be a wildcard.

Z.Z. is a bit of a mystery to me because I have no clue of her videogame knowledge, so I put her at the bottom but she is a bit of a wildcard.

C.H. confuses me because I don’t know if he plays videogames, so he’s another wildcard.

Credit: Demon Gaming

Traveling Sucks the Life Out of Me

treefroggyLeave a comment

I’ve been traveling a lot recently, and it’s just reminded me how terrible traveling is for me. I really can’t ever travel healthily. It always ends up with me needing days to recover and feeling completely out of it both mentally and physically.

Mostly I hate flying on planes. The altitude really affects my ears, so I’m popping them for even weeks after I fly sometimes. Not even eating something or chewing gum helps. I have to be wearing the special pressurized earplugs and chewing gum to even feel somewhat okay when the plane takes off or lands.

Besides my ears hurting a ton, I get super swollen from flying. My fingers get too big for my rings to fit on them and my feet swell up so I have to loosen my shoeslaces a ton for them to fit into my shoes. Probably because I don’t drink enough water, but I lose my appetite and feel sick when I eat or drink anything when I fly, so I can’t really force myself to drink. Also, nobody likes going to the bathroom on planes. I avoid it if I can.

photo credit: tibco.com

When I get to my destination, I’m always so exhausted that I can barely even remember the events that happened when I look back on the memory. I get overwhelmed so easily when I travel that I’m on the edge of having a meltdown. It’s not super fun to go through a ton of pain just to forget why I was even there and only remember being agitated.

When I get back home, I need several business days to rest before I really feel like myself again. It takes a long time for my body to readjust to being home, but it takes my mind even longer. I have super realistic dreams every time I sleep, and when I’ve just traveled they’re even worse because I wake up and don’t even know where I am. It’s hard for the fact that I’m home to register in my brain, and I’m still in fight or flight mode from the new environments freaking me out, so I just end up in a terrible mental state for a week or two after traveling for even just two days.

Needless to say, I need a good few months of being strictly at home again. Honestly, that was one part of lockdown that I didn’t mind- I didn’t get to travel anywhere.

Talking About Confidence

ojaipizzaLeave a comment

I’m not a very confident person, but I can say I’m pretty humble. I started to realize that the people around me always show off something they feel so proud of. There is nothing wrong to show others your success, but how they show their success will affect me looking at this person’s personality. I always don’t like the person who always thinks they are so cool or they just think how good they are at some area. I always feel so disgusted. For example, one of my friends from Taiwan he keep doing some gang signs because he watched some people doing it on TikTok. He just keeps doing it even he doesn’t know what that means. He just thinks he is so cool doing that, and keep doing the same thing over and over again. I mean I also do gang signs as a joke with my friends sometimes but I don’t know how he can do that every day. Speaking of being humble, I’m good at swimming and I also do it for my previous school team. At the swim races in Taiwan, I also broke the record, and be the fastest swimmer in the race. However, I never tell others how good I am at swimming or do some actions to get the attention of others just to get respect or admiration. I still respect those people who are overconfident, but I just don’t like it that’s all. What do you think?

Photo Credit: Overconfidence

MeditatingAF

navraj22Leave a comment

Mondays are stressful. I wake up in my comfortable room in my house in LA. I throw all my stuff into a bag, inevitably forgetting something important. This week it was my Xbox. I then jam my various bags of shit into my truck and go straight to school. This week, when I got to school I was blessed to learn I have 3 tests on Friday, and that the 3 English essays I was supposed to be working on were also due Friday. It was also the first day of golf practice. I have blogged on end about the irony in the fact that golf, my leisure activity, doesn’t give me anything but stress.

I made it through the school day and found myself at golf practice, with a deeeeeeeeeep pit of anxiety forming in my gut. I couldn’t focus on playing and left halfway through practice. I had a talk with my friend schmogan (real navraj22 fans will get it) before I left practice about how he has used meditation to feel more in control of his life. When I got home, I was greeted with more stress. I had to entertain my grandparent’s questions they ask every day, “when do you hear from colleges,” “are you warm back there,” “did you have enough to eat.” It’s so annoying. That’s a story for another blog.

Anyways, that night, I did my homework, (none of those things due Friday though), and practiced meditation for the first time. I am using Calm, an app, with a 30-day introductory course. I am on day 4 and it’s going so well. I have been able to manage my stress so much better, and have felt like I am more in control. I got all my English stuff done early in the week and my Friday has been great. I just bombed 2/3 of those tests, but I’m not worried.

Big-up meditation yo.

PC:NPR

My Top 4 “Underrated” Animes

cannassuerLeave a comment

Underrated is probably a gross overstatement. Most of these animes can be found near the top of the MyAnimeList charts, but I still notice that not a lot of the people I know who watch anime have not seen these. And should most definitely see these as they are far better than some of the Sword Art Online’s of the world that preside near the top of MAL charts.

Starting with the only anime that has ever got me to sit through a single one-hour episode, let alone ten of them. Hellsing: Ultimate is an adaptation of an older anime called Hellsing. The show has all the same characters and even has the same start to the plot. However, this anime is a world of difference. First of all, the animation and art style are so nice. Everything about it is so clean and fits the general vibe of the show so well. Not only that, but it has some of my favorite characters in all of anime: Alucard, the first Vampire ever born, and Lady Hellsing, the leader of the organization and the coolest female character ever. She is the hottest and only hot British person ever. Add that to one of the only good Dubs in anime and you’ve got a certified slapper. I’m not gonna tell you how the plot unfolds, but it is a beautifully drawn anime with a great plot and characters. If you’ve seen the original Hellsing and it deterred you from Ultimate I fully encourage you to watch it, it is a completely different level of quality.

Photo Credit: IMBd

Afro Samurai is one of the shorter animes I’ve seen and easily one of my favorites. Even though it isn’t ranked high on my list, it is easily the anime I have re-watched the most and the only anime I’ve ever watched in one sitting. This anime has everything. Compelling storyline and Villains? Check. A great main character and comedic relief? Check. I mean it’s all about one headband but somehow it’s one of the most complex storylines with a great backstory and fight scenes. And it has Samuel L. Jackson. What more do I need to say. If you haven’t seen it yet or are just getting into anime, this is the one to watch.

Photo Credit: Medium

Another is an anime that I rarely ever hear about. It definitely is one of the more peculiar horror animes I’ve seen and honestly has quite an interesting storyline. This kid goes to a middle school in which there is a curse, one that he reactivates on accident. The show basically follows him trying to figure out what the hell is going on or even what the hell he did wrong even though he’s the only one in the class who is morally right. The whole show and the plot are great in my opinion. The art is very nice and it is overall just a clean anime. It doesn’t shoot for more than it’s capable of and it doesn’t suffer from an underdeveloped plot. I would definitely watch this if you have Crunchyroll.

Photo Credit: Anime Filler Guide

Terror In Resonance was a very refreshing anime for me. I had been on a streak of pretty mediocre shows and I had finally stumbled onto this one which I had been continuously told was very good. So I watched it and it still stands as one of my favorite animes ever. Every character fits into the show perfectly. The plot unfolds seamlessly. It is a very dark and very real anime. It actually caused me to think about my life a little after I watched it. Terror In Resonance is a beautiful anime, if you haven’t seen it, you are missing out on the best short-length anime ever made.

Photo Credit: IMBd