Diamond Emblem

As promised in the previous post, here's a fresh batch of letters pertaining to the newest game in the Fire Emblem series, Fire Emblem: Waifu Edition. Read on to learn what that means!

Before I get too much into the nitty-gritty of this game, let me first say that it is great. I haven't finished it yet, (I'd hazard a guess that I'm somewhere around halfway through) but so far I wouldn't hesitate to say that it's my favorite Fire Emblem, and not just because it has the highest Metacritic score. If you have a 3DS, and even a passing interest in tactical RPGs, then I urge you to buy it as soon as you can. In fact, that's an order. Internet court-martial awaits anyone reading this who doesn't buy it. The internet police is on standby. I should also note that, while a good chunk of this post was indeed written before I finished the game, I unsurprisingly got a little carried away, and now indeed have finished. So expect this to take on a rather schizophrenic tone, just in case you did not have the foresight to expect it coming in.

However, before you buy it, you should be warned: This game is hard. On Moh's hardness scale, this game goes all they way up to 11. This game is so hard, I could make an outdated pop culture reference about certain unsavory people wanting to find it. This shit is pretty cray. When they first announced that there would be a “casual mode”, I thought it ridiculous. A mainstay of the Fire Emblem series is that if one of your units falls in battle, they're gone forever, which effectively means that all battles must be won without any casualties. Casual mode disgraced this tradition, allowing players to let their units die willy-nilly, and have them ready for action for the next battle. Now that I've actually played the game, I can see why this option was included. Even with the ability to let a unit fall without crying and restarting, this game could be quite difficult. Perhaps it's my fault for choosing to play in hard mode, but in my defense, the “hard” difficulty is the middle of the three difficulties, making it as much a hard mode as a tall drink from Starbucks is a large drink. If just one person understands where I was going with that comparison, then I'll consider it worth it.

At heart, this game is all about teamwork and companionship. At least, the mechanics are. I haven't finished the story, so it could be about moon monkeys, for all I know. Except I now have finished, and unsurprisingly enough, the power of friendship is quite important. As for the relevance of lunar simians... spoilers. How can mechanics be about teamwork and companionship? Well, the game basically plays like an apology for Radiant Dawn's terrible support system, which did away with support conversations entirely. In Fire Emblem, most characterization for non-vital characters comes from support conversations, which is why all the new characters in Radiant Dawn sucked. Awakening says “Screw that noise”, and makes it so that EVERYONE CAN SUPPORT EVERYONE. This isn't literally true, but it seems that most units are capable of supporting a whole bunch of other units. Marriage is also handled differently in Awakening. As most Fire Emblem vets (experienced players, rather than animal doctors) know, maxed-out supports between units will occasionally manifest as a joined destiny in the part of the credits where it says what happens to each person after the story is done. For opposite gender units, this occasionally results in marriage. In Awakening, any maxed-out support between heterosexual units will culminate in a proposal (barring siblings, as well as cousins, much to the embarrassment of Operation: Incest). As stated before, the number of possible supports is huge, especially in the case of the Avatar, (the player character) who can support any playable unit in the game. And, because the Avatar's gender can be chosen, this means that s/he can marry any of the 30+ units in the game. According to my calculations, The Avatar may have upwards of 300 possible support conversations, a figure so impressive that they made a movie about it. This is made all the more impressive by...

The fact that I am writing a whole two paragraphs about arranging fictional marriages. But the actual reason is the quality of the writing. I've only puppeteered 5 marriages so far, so I don't really have enough data to make generalizations, but all of them were... good? They all had a little story to them, and the proposals were singularly... I'm trying to think of a word that isn't “adorable”, but my extensive knowledge of synonyms is failing me. So, at the risk of having my Y chromosome stricken by the sacred fires of manhood, I will now describe a proposal as “adorable”. Havoc's proposal to Lissa was adorable (Havoc is the name of my Avatar). The only downside to this is the meticulous consideration of gender when deciding which troops to accept or reject, and the fact that I'll likely never have a same-gender support. But I feel that's a small price to pay for the sick glee that comes with holding the love lives of your soldiers in your hands. And now, with the wisdom of age, future-me can clarify that all units can build as much support as they want, as long as they only have one significant other, which means that same-sex support is a-go. I'm sure you're quite relieved.

Further augmenting the support system is the ability to “pair up” units. Essentially, this allows two units to join together to act as one unit. When asked how it works, the most succinct explanation I could come up with was “It's like rescuing, except instead of taking a stat penalty, you get a stat boost.” If that sounds overpowered, then, well, refer to the third paragraph. You need every advantage you can get. When two units are paired up, the primary unit fights as normal, except with some stat boosts, depending on the stats of the supporting unit, and the support level between them. In addition, the supporting unit will occasionally get in a bonus attack during combat, or block incoming attacks. This can lead to amusing circumstances, like your cleric heroically jumping in to defend your general from an incoming arrow. This can also happen when units are just adjacent to each other, but it's probably more likely if they're paired up. This leads to a number of interesting strategic implications, and is also just pretty neat in general.

It's hard to make a judgment on the story, as I haven't finished it, but it seems pretty good so far. Perhaps the best of any Fire Emblem. I'm not sure if Zero Escape has just destroyed my ability to play games without drawing comparisons to it, (it sure has destroyed my ability to play real life without drawing comparisons to it) but the story seems to share some elements that I cannot specify, at the risk of spoilers. But I mentioned it anyway, because screw you. Yeah, you. Not the rest of the readers: just you. You know what you did.

In some ways, Awakening represents Intelligent Systems' attempt to gather all of the good ideas over the history of Fire Emblem into one place. It borrows the overworld and branching evolution system of Sacred Stones, the Skill system of the Radiant Console games, the universe of Shadow Dragon, the breeding system of some Fire Emblem that no one's ever played, the general goodness of Blazing Sword, and the difficulty of every other Fire Emblem combined. The overworld allows players an opportunity to train their weaker units, while discouraging the rampant grinding that inevitably occurred in Sacred Stones. The overworld map also lets the player complete “paralogues”, which are like sidequests, except with a ridiculous word that sounds exactly like something I'd make up. Not even spell-check believes in it. The skill system is complicated, and not very well explained, so I will graciously attempt to make both heads and tails of it here, so that my readers may have an edge over their jealous peers when playing this game. You're welcome. As your units are trained, certain classes gain certain skills at certain levels. Quite certainly. By using a “Second Seal” to reclass units, one can customize their units to possess whatever skills one desires. I think? The game takes place in the same universe that Marth once inhabited, although far enough in the future that everyone from that era is dead and forgotten. Which is a shame, because I'm sure you were all looking forward to a continuation of Shadow Dragon's deep and engaging story. Breeding is an interesting concept that seems rather well-done, but is off-putting for several reasons, not least of which is that I continue to insist on referring to it as “breeding”. When some characters marry, they have children. This leads to the unfortunate implication that your units have resorted to profane and forbidden magicks that they might create life. Or perhaps something even more unclean.

In Path of Radiance, Intelligent Systems made the dubious decision to separate magic and strength into two different stats that each unit had, while in previous games, a magic unit would have a magic stat, and a lesser unit would have a strength stat. This served to completely ruin magic swords, which now used the pathetic magic stat of most swordsmen, and ruin the ability of some mages to hit twice, as the strength stat replaced constitution in determining a unit's capacity to wield heavy tomes. I guess the strength stat also came in handy if you chose for your sage to wield knives, rather than staves, but I'm kind of hoping that the game just blanked your save if you were stupid enough to do that. But in Awakening, this splitting of offensive stats comes in handy, as there are units capable of using both real weapons and real magic. It also removed the weight of weapons, letting you use steel weapons without fear of missing the opportunity for a double hit. This is as awesome as it is dreadfully impractical.

I'm sorry for interrupting this riveting paragraph, but all my posts are written stream-of-consciousness, so it can't be helped. I just learned something so surprising, so amazing, so wonderfully stupid, that I have to type it RIGHT NOW, and I refuse to put it somewhere that makes more sense. Dark Fliers cannot use dark magic. Dark knights cannot use dark magic. Both can use magic, and both have “dark” in their name. Dark knights are a possible evolution of dark mages, yet they can't use dark magic, meaning, as far as I can tell, that your dark mage will immediately forget the forbidden arts as soon as s/he becomes a DARK knight. I have a dark magic tome that is named after a dark flier. But apparently dark fliers can only use dark magic if they're bad guys. To try to comprehend how stupid this is, imagine if Flareon didn't learn Flare Blitz. I think we can all agree that would be unforgivably wrong.

Actually, that kind of turned out to be relevant, as dark knights and dark fliers are the two classes (along with tactician and its evolution) that can use weapons and offensive magic. The problem is that Dark Fliers evolve from Pegasus knights, who are incapable of using magic, and thus have terrible magic stats. The reverse goes for dark knights, who evolve from mages or dark mages, (but not knights, curiously enough) and thus have so little strength that there is no reason to use a sword. The tactician has stats that are pretty well balanced, but that just means that you should use magic, because magic is mo' better. The only way to produce a good mixed sweeper is by breeding one from scratch, but the mechanics involved are even more confusing than those in Pokemon. Are my general and cleric in the same egg group? If I give the mother an everstone, will the offspring retain her nature? What really happens in day-care? All these questions go woefully unanswered.

If you have played Fire Emblem before, and you still aren't convinced that you need to pick up this game, I have 5 words that will fix that problem right up: Anna is a playable unit. That is all.

Because I am too oblivious to realize how sad it is that I apologize all the time, I would like to say I'm sorry that this was more of a review/explanation of Fire Emblem than a post of substantive humor, as is expected of this blog. My excitement over this game has demolished my talents of writing, to be sure, but take heart, for it has marred my other skills as well, and made a lesser man out of me. Indeed, this game has condemned me to a life of poverty, as the damage it has dealt to my scholastic pursuits prove insurmountable, and I will be forced to get one of those jobs that you have to get if you don't have a piece of paper that says good things about you. Probably one outside of the lucrative field of “Having strong opinions about Turn Based Strategy RPGs”.

Oh, and because a gentleman never goes back on his word, I guess I should explain what a “waifu” is. It's a not-actually-Japanese word that means “wife”. It is used by the kind of people who have a real passion for animated women.  

Gaelic? More like Gay-lick, amirite?

Sorry about that, guys. I literally could not resist. My body was taken captive by ancient and primal spirits of crude humor, and I was forced to watch in horror as my very own fingers wrought this disrespectful pun. It absolutely has nothing to do with the fact that I am basically a 5 year old.

Anyway, at the request of one of my friends, I am going to talk about Irish and Gaelic Mythology. This was likely something that s/he (gender obscured for anonymity’s sake, even though the idea of me talking to a girl is laughable at best.) suggested jokingly, but it would seem that s/he underestimated just how desperate I am to write about absolutely anything, and how averse I am to coming up with my own ideas. So to him/her, I ask this: Is this the victory you imagined? Are you satisfied with what you've created? Because, if you are, then perhaps it is only because you have not read on.

So. Irish and Gaelic mythology? Well, honestly, I don't know a damned thing about either one. I couldn't even point to Ireland or Gaeland on a map. Holy crap! You know what literally just occurred to me? (As I am writing this, not as you are reading it) “Ire” comes from the latin root “ira”, which means anger or rage. Someone tell the stereotype committee! Their groundbreaking work in portraying the Irish as angry drunks was right all along! The Romans said so. Now might be as good a time as any to mention that I don't know the difference between “Irish” and “Scottish”. Now, I could say it's because I believe in the greater whole of humanity, and I dislike giving people labels, but in reality, I just don't give one thin shit about who you are or where you came from. Unless you came from the moon or something. Then I'll have my people call your people. Fun thought experiment: If a joke falls flat on a blog that no one reads, does the writer still make a sound when he cries himself to sleep at night? 

Now, the first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they think of “Irish and Gaelic mythology” is the Loch Ness Monster. Now, I'm actually fairly sure that Loch Ness is in Scotland, but as I've previously discussed, I don't care, and I refuse to look it up, or I'll run out of my already sparse repertoire of things to talk about. As we all know, Nessie is a creature that unequivocally does not exist. If you believe that s/he (Is Nessie the friend that prompted this post? Perhaps) does exist, please stop. Your field of “cryptozoology” is the worst thing to happen to the suffix “-ology” since astrology. Or maybe Scientology? On second thought, that joke was in poor taste. Scientology is definitely a legitimate religion, with which I have no qualms. This is an official statement that is in no way being made out of fear of legal prosecution.

Man, I really need to learn to stop trailing off my paragraphs into overly long jokes. But I digress. Like the vast majority of myths, Nessie is indeed mythological. It is a fantasy creature that could never exist, like a sane blogger. As you may know, the Loch Ness Monster is purported to live in Loch Ness, or “Lake Ness”, if you don't have a speech impediment. Stop laughing. Speech impediments are a serious problem, just like the racism necessary to assert that an entire country is incapable of pronouncing a word correctly. According to world-renowned monster expert, J.K. Rowling, The Loch Ness Monster is actually a kelpie. A kelpie, according to her, is a shapeshifting beast that spends most of its time as a horse. But in the water, for some reason. This is because a kelpie is a monster from Irish(?) mythology that looks like a horse, but sometimes turns into a beautiful woman to lure sailors (notoriously gullible when it comes to beautiful women in suspicious places) so they could kill them. The fact that Wikipedia describes the Kelpie, a figure from Irish Mythology, as looking like a horse, then shows a painting of a naked woman, is proof that Wikipedia has a sense of humor. It's the stealthiest bestiality joke ever made. Or was it the Scottish that were notorious for such affairs?

Another figure I vaguely remember from Irish Mythology is Finn McCool, who... killed people, or something? I remember hearing about him from the website "Badass of the Week" , which is about exactly what it says on the tin. Before you click that link, know that the author describes is as containing "an unnecessarily copious amount of profanity". So don't say I didn't warn you. From what I can tell, Finn was more or less like an Irish Kratos, at least as far as defeating the local pantheon's God of War goes. One of my friends describes his story rather admirably here, in a video that he honest-to-God turned in to an English teacher. He fails to mention how the salmon that Finn burns his hand on was a salmon of wisdom or something, which is the science responsible for his smart-knowing. Finn also apparently really hated cartographers, judging by all the geography he caused. He is said to have created the Giant's Causeway and the Isle of Man, making him roughly as strong as a tectonic plate. Also, “McCool” is a pretty cool last name. Like anything else that's Irish, it can be spelled in at least a baker's dozen different ways, but “McCool” is easily the best.

And now, at the suggestion of the same friend I mentioned at the beginning, (The one who takes full responsibility for any complaints you have about this post) I'm going to talk about something called a “bean sidhes”. Despite sounding like a painfully inauthentic new menu item from Taco Bell, this is apparently... a banshee. This is what I'm talking about, Scottland. No one will take you seriously if you keep intentionally spelling things with the intent to obfuscate what it is that you're talking about. Now, as you all know, a Banshee is a Covenant light aircraft that features two rapid-fire plasma cannons as its primary weapon. Its purple paint job and unusual cockpit clearly designate it as an alien aircraft, because humans would never design a vehicle so ridiculous for the purpose of warfare.

Clearly a work of advanced alien technology

I suppose it also bears mentioning that “Banshee” is also the name of a kind of ghost that screams a lot or something. Apparently they shriek when someone is about to die, kind of like how you see a doppelgänger when you're about to die. In fact, I think the concept of doppelgängers might also be Irish/Scottish/Gaelic/Celtic. A quick Google search... denies. Looking back, the umlaut probably should have tipped me off that they were German. This is a great disappointment to me, as I was all ready to link to an article about Doppelgangers. The more I can link to other people's work, the less I have to do myself, which is always the primary goal to which I strive. Anyway, Banshees scream when someone is about to die. But send not to know for whom the banshee keens, it keens for thee.

And, for the big finale, I'm going to talk about Cat Sith. Because the Irish are downright masters of deception, it pains me to report that these are not feline masters of the Dark Side of The Force. They are basically a race of fairy people, but they are also cats. Like all fairies, they are humanoids with wings, and they can do magical things, like cast spells and fly. What differentiates them from other fairies is their cat ears, which are totally kawaii. Some myths purport them to have a verbal tic that causes them to sporadically insert “nya” into their conversation, as well as refer to themselves as “neko”. And, because this section is purposely engineered to make my friend regret suggesting this to me, I'll say this: some rumors suggest that Cat Sith play a role in the plot of Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. I cannot say what they do, nor can I respond to any accusations that this is obviously just a joke. Or is it?!

A wistful guess of what could have been

So, to the reader that provoked this desecration of a once-proud heritage, I ask once again: Was it worth it? Do you now regret what you have inflicted on this world? Let me know in the comments! You know who you are.

A Few of my Favorite Things: Music

Note: This is the longest entry of the “Favorite Things” lists, or indeed, any of my posts. It clocks in at a daunting 2603 words. If you have difficulty comprehending how many words that is, try reading the word “flatulence”. Then, read that word 2602 more times. You now have a good idea of what it’s like to read this post. I’m probably not doing myself any favors by discouraging readers from reading further, but I feel like this is the gentlemanly thing to do.

Music is a funny thing. Like the Spotify ads say, most people like to share their taste in music. Perhaps more than any other medium of entertainment, people seem almost compelled to share songs and artists they like with their friends. There’s a problem with this, however: no one cares. If you’ve ever recommended music to someone, then there’s a very good chance that, unless they requested it from you in the first place, they couldn’t be buggered. I’ve seen many songs in my Facebook news feed, and I’ve listened to almost none of them. I’ve posted a few myself, and know with some certainty that almost no one listened to them. In this way, music is kind of like wedgies: Everyone wants to give them, but no one particularly cares to get them (With a few special exceptions).

With that in mind, I’ll be starting this list, safe in the knowledge that no one will bother to listen. Which is something of a shame, because, unlike most of the things I’ve written lists about so far, music is something that is fairly important to me. Despite this, I can’t seem to be buggered to ever find music to listen to, so I just listen to the music that I hear when I’m doing other things I enjoy. That’s right: about 90% of my music collection comes from soundtracks, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I am basically a hipster. Sorry for not telling you sooner.

Because music is such a tricky, ephemeral thing, I will be making no attempt to put this list in any kind of order. Trying to rank music is like trying to play Mario Party without getting angry: Basically impossible. In a similar vein, this list will be wholly inconsistent. As you may have noticed, the name of this list is “Music”, rather than “Songs”, or “Artists”, or “Soundtracks”. That is because it will probably include all of those things, which is just another reason that I will be making no attempt to list them in ascending or descending order. In addition, despite the fact that this whole list thing is supposed to be about the best stuff of 2012, I will am barely even attempting to include music that’s actually from 2012, because I don’t know much that is. This will be more of my personal list of music that I discovered in 2012, because the world exists only in my mind, and you cannot prove otherwise. And because 2012 was the year I became a weeaboo, I suggest you buckle up, buttercup, because there’s a good chance this will devolve into me talking about anime.

Song: Kyoumu Densen (Another opening theme)

Well, that didn’t take long. I figured that I would list this song first, as it holds a special place in my heart as the opening the first anime I watched, “Another”. Because this list is meant to be about music, and not the various ways in which I was affected by scenes of gruesome death, that’s all I’ll say about the anime.

“Kyoumu Densen” translates to “Nightmare Contagion”, which means that I think we’re off to a pretty good start. It takes some doing to get a song title that sounds more ominous than that. In addition, Wikipedia lists the genre of “ALI PROJECT”, the band(?) that composed the song, as “Neoclassical Darkwave”. Despite having only heard three or so songs under this category, I maintain that it is my very favorite musical genre, just because of how ridiculous the name is.

Song: Virtue’s Last Reward

Well, it just wouldn’t be a real Havoc Mantis post if I didn’t find some way to shoehorn in the “Zero Escape” series. “Virtue’s Last Reward” had a pretty decent soundtrack, but it was mostly good at setting the scene, rather than being the kind of music you listen to in your off-time. The main theme, aptly named “Virtue’s Last Reward” is not like that. Like most great themes, the contents of the song accurately reflect the contents of the source material. For example, both the song and the game are super good. I hope you get used to me describing songs as “super good”, because when it comes to music I like, I usually don’t really have much else to say.

Song: Ave Maria

Most of the songs here, while not being from 2012, are at least pretty recent. Within the past couple of years, at least. Well, that is not the case of Ave Maria. You see, the song was first transcribed in the year 1853, making it even older than your mom. (Way to keep it hip with the kids, Havoc) It was actually played earlier than that. And to make it even more impressively old, it was actually built on top of a song that Bach (His friends called him “JS”) published in 1722 by the catchy name “Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846”, like a clichéhorror movie on top of an ancient Indian burial ground. 

So, why am I including such an old song, if this list is supposed to be about 2012? Well, if you accidentally clicked the link at the beginning of this entry, then you already know the answer. It was in an anime soundtrack, obviously. When my Music Theory teacher played the Bach Prelude as an example of chords or whatever in class, and asked if anyone recognized it, it took all of my awkwardness to prevent me from saying that I recognized it from a cartoon about magical girls. 

Artist: Caravan Palace

And this is where I get to the hard part. Because Caravan Palace is not a soundtrack, I am forced to actually talk about the music, and talking about music is not something that I am qualified to do. So this entry will probably contain copious amounts of beating, and most of it will occur around the bush. 

Caravan Palace is an “Electro-Swing” band from France, because while I may occasionally listen to non-soundtrack music, it absolutely cannot be from America, because that would be letting The Man win. If I had to describe “Electro-Swing”, I’d say it’s kind of like a cross between jazz and dubstep, except I’m not entirely sure what either of those things are, so your mileage may vary. Of all their songs, “Brotherswing” is probably my favorite, which is why I linked it. Caravan Palace was recommended to me by a friend, and it remains one of the only examples of successful music sharing that I have ever observed. They are one of the few entries on this list with English lyrics, though only occasionally does that happen. They seem to be studied disciples of the “Random Word” school of band naming.

Song: Gangnam style

And now, I’ll discuss what is likely the only song on this list that you recognize. Because you do recognize it. There’s no reason to lie. Everyone knows this song. There are more people who know this song than there are who know Jon Lajoie, and he is very super famous. More people know this song than there are who know how to eat. Its music video was the first, and so far only, video to hit one billion views on the Youtube. That’s 10^9. That’s more than one view for every 8 people on Earth, and it doesn’t include all the times it’s been viewed on places other than Youtube. Gangnam style was, without a doubt, the most popular song of 2012, and probably one of the most famous songs of all time.

So, why was it so popular? Well, there’s the fact that it was a pretty great song, but quality often has little to do with a song’s popularity, so that alone isn’t enough. Most scholars on the subject agree that the song was propelled to fame by the music video. Specifically, how ridiculous it was

The “horse-dance” also played a large part in Gangnam Style’s meteoric rise to fame, because it’s as easy to do as it is nonsensical. Some K-pop fans claim that this song really brought their genre to the mainstream, but I’m sorry to report that it didn’t. The vast majority of people who saw it considered it a one-off thing, and never investigated any further. I mention this because I enjoy crushing the dreams of K-pop fans, if only because they are a sub-set of the human population.

NOTE: The song that I linked to is not the original Gangnam style. But I’m sure that you didn’t need me to tell you that.

Song: Lilium

Now, it’s time to get back into the swing of things with more soundtrack music. If, for whatever reason, you decide to not follow my link, but Google this song up for yourself, be warned: This is the opening theme for an anime, and that opening has naked female bodies in it.

Is this song great because it has Latin in it, or is Latin in it because it is great? I couldn’t tell you, but I can say with great certainty that Latin vocals are positively correlated with song quality. For another example of this property in effect, listen to the Super Smash Brothers Brawl Main Theme. As we all know, two data points are more than enough to constitute a trend.

Soundtrack: Cowboy Bebop

If you know anything about anime, then you probably know something about Cowboy Bebop. And if you know anything about Cowboy Bebop, you probably know that its soundtrack is masterclass. It might be my favorite soundtrack of all time, its throne contested only by Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and a mystery challenger that you’ll learn about soon. I’m getting pretty tired of writing this post, so I’ll just say “It’s super good”, and leave it at that.

Song: Parity Jam

“Parity Jam” is a mash-up of the Space Jam song (you know the one) and “Parity”, a song from Katawa Shoujo, a “game” that I will likely vehemently deny having ever played if you bring it up to me in real life. In mathematics, “parity” refers to whether a number is even or odd. So the parity of the number “9” is odd. This mathematical definition is relevant to the song for reasons that don’t exist. Now, I could have chosen the original “Parity” for this song, or even just talked about the soundtrack, because it was pretty outstanding. But I didn’t, because this song is an exemplary specimen of mashing up. There’s another mashup of a different KS song that’s pretty good, but I’d prefer not to post it, in honor of MLK day. It’s called “Daylight Like it’s Hot”, if you’re interested.

(Just in case my MLK joke was too subtle, the song contains words that some would find offensive. Words that begin with an N. N-words, if you will. But you didn’t hear it from me.)

Soundtrack: Nichijou

There is no reason for me to include this on the list. This soundtrack is not from 2012; the anime premiered in 2011. I didn’t even first hear it in 2012. I only watched a few episodes before this year. So why am I including it? Because I think I might be in love with this soundtrack, which is more than I can say of any person I’ve ever met. Particularly with the opening theme, the song I linked to. I want to shout the greatness of this soundtrack from the rooftops, but the jury has ruled that I keep it on this blog, instead. The craziest part is that half of what I’m calling the soundtrack never even appears in the show. (I’m assuming. I, um, haven’t actually finished it yet) The totally-reputable source from which I downloaded it included a bunch of “character songs” which, as far as I can tell, are songs sung by characters. And they’re stupid-fantastic. The fact that this song has only about 20,000 views, while many songs that don’t even align with my musical tastes have far more, is a grievous transgression against my soul.

Hyadain, if you’re out there reading this, contact me, and I will find some way to pay you for this. Shut up and take my money. I’m being so sincere right now.

Artist: Kirby Krackle

WARNING: The name “Kirby Krackle” is NOT a reference to Nintendo’s more-hardcore-in-America video game character. It is a reference to Jack Kirby, a comic-book illustrator who was good at drawing dots. Like, good enough at drawing dots to have a technique named after him. So I guess he was as good at drawing dots as Bigby was at having hands.

Unfortunately, I did not have the above warning when I first found Kirby Krackle. You see, I was once the kind of person who had hopes. And one of those hopes was that I could find video game music on Spotify. Now you understand why I am no longer the kind of person who has hopes. Anyway, I typed “Kirby” into the search bar, and found “Kirby Krackle”. One song in particular, “Up, Up, Down, Down”, caught my eye with its video game referencing. I loved video games, and I loved referencing, so I decided to check it out. I was kind of curious as to why more of their songs were about comics than video games, but by the time I learned the awful truth, I liked their songs enough that it didn’t really matter. So remember kids: even if your relationship is predicated on lies, it can survive if you’re good enough at singing. Metaphors are easy.

Conclusion:

As you can see, I am the kind of person that likes music, but only if I can use it to feel superior to other people. I could probably go on and on about the opening to every anime I’ve ever watched, but this post has already gotten far too long, even by my terrible standards, so I’ll have to play myself offstage pretty soon. However, before that happens, I’d just like to point out that I thought Gun’s and Roses was a good enough song that I forgave their egregious apostrophe error. If you know me, you know that that’s a big deal.

I’ve burnt up all my memories of 2012 for my lists so far, so it’s likely that this will be the last “Favorite Things” list. However, there’s always the possibility that I’ll find a few spare memories under the couch cushions, so another entry is not entirely out of the question.

Also, if you click all the links, and listen to all the songs, you’re eligible to receive a special prize! To claim your gift, just edit every Wikipedia page to say “Two milkmen go comedy”. Once every page has been vandalized modified, you’ll find your major award in the mail within 3-14 business days.