Reviewing the First Five Hours of Five Tactics RPGs

A personal favorite blog entry of mine is the First Five Hours of Five JRPGs. It has everything I enjoy in writing this blog. It's got a fun premise. I get to try some games I've always wanted to try. And most importantly, it's got a non-committal amount of work, so I don't have to do insane shit like watching the entirety of the original YU-GI-OH or She-Hulk. 

It's high time I do it again with my favorite genre, the tactics RPG. Or they would be my favorite genre if I played a lot of them. Because like the JRPG, they are a massive time commitment. So similar to last time, I will review up to the first five hours and see what works and what doesn't. It doesn't mean they reflect the whole experience. But as they say, first impressions are important. 

Famicom Wars  

Due to a multitude of fuck ups, caused mostly by me, I didn't do a good job keeping track of whether I played five hours. So instead, I stopped after completing the first couple of maps. 

Anyway, I wanted to play an old school tactics RPG. And I wanted to avoid a Fire Emblem title, so this became the obvious choice. I wasn't aware Advance Wars had a series long before the GBA. I guess the naming convention of being named after the console it's on was something this series took to heart. Well it didn't do any favors as I didn't know about any other entries beyond Advance Wars until this blog, but I digress.

Anyway, having played Advance Wars, I was able to intuit most of the game despite having no tutorial. This would be a point against the game's favor. But in fairness, the philosophy behind tutorials for most games of that time were to keep their tutorials in their instruction manual. And to the game's credit, Famicom Wars isn't some overly complex RPG. One look at the credits demonstrates that with some Nintendo legends that helped paved the way to making gaming as mainstream as it is today such as Gunpei Yokoi and Satoru Okada who famously designed the highly innovative Gameboy line. 

ANYWAY, sorry this game has a lot of digressions, Famicom Wars plays almost exactly like Advance Wars just without the luxury of the bells and whistles we take for granted in modern design. Players are tasked with taking over an opponents base or wiping out their entire force. Each turn gives players a budget to spend on units and vehicles which have a chess like quality of strengths and weaknesses that both players have access to. For example, infantry are the weakest units but they are balanced by being able to capture bases which is critical to winning the game. Another example are artillery which are your answer to some of the strongest tanks in the game by being able to deal high damage at a long distance. But in turn, they can't move and attack at the same time and can't retaliate from attacks. And the lack of retaliation is important as Advance Wars does another thing I really like. Your attack and health of units are tied together, so losing any health in combat also weakens the attack of the unit. So even strong units can slowly be chipped down through retaliation if they are in too many combat skirmishes. This is punctuated by fuel and ammo which dwindle through movement and combat and can only be refilled by bases and supply trucks. 

It's a really well designed game whose quirks tickle my brain for how well thought out they are. You can probably tell since I spent such a long time just explaining the mechanics. It's a game that's hard to put down since the strategy uses a different type of long term and lateral thinking. Unlike Fire Emblem, the even playing field of the player and enemy means decisions made early on have more of an impact near the late game. Like chess, it's a game that rewards planning ahead, and any misplay can be understood upon reflection. 

The only problem is that I rather just play Advance Wars. You get the same game but with better visuals, bells, and whistles. I suppose it's a mix blessing that Famicom Wars greatest strength is being a wonderful advertisement for the Switch port. It's at least a better advertisement than what Nintendo is providing. 

Bahamut Lagoon 

Don't you love it when you think you know a lot about games but then hear about this obscure game that has a notable place in gaming history? Boy do I like to feel dumb! 

That's my feeling when I heard about Bahamut Lagoon. Here you have almost a super team of creatives that were almost all very influential in making the Final Fantasy series a household name. Yet, I haven't heard of this game until last year. You could blame the fact that it was only released in Japan. You could blame the fact that it had to follow Chrono Trigger, a game with a even more stacked creative team. You could blame it being released during the twilight years of the Super Famicom with Final Fantasy VII releasing less than a year later. It is likely all of those things, but it still doesn't change the fact that I am irked you fucks haven't been doing a good job keeping the name alive. 

Anyway, this game belongs in a very short list called "RPGs With Really Unique Mechanics Revolving Around Dragons That Tragically Fell Into the Annals of Obscurity." At least it's nice to know Panzer Dragoon Saga and Legend of Dragoon have a new friend.  

In Bahamut Lagoon, you play as a group of rebels that fight yadda yadda yadda. By the way, you have dragons that fight alongside you. 

As I said, the dragons are the unique draw as the dragons aren't party members but more NPC allies that act in their own volition. This leads to a balance where the dragons are more bulky and useful than your units but can't be controlled beyond a vague command and call option. In my five hours, I really enjoyed this dynamic. And for 1996, the AI doesn't feel like it's working against you. This could have easily have turned into Hey You Pikachu levels of frustrating, but the AI impressively rides the line of being helpful while maintaining the illusion that these are creatures with their own sense of agency. 

That all being said...I was weirdly bored. 

This could belong on an episode of my Ode to Stories I Never Finished series. It's one of those where I can't quite pinpoint why I dropped it. It reminds me of Wolf's Rain where I technically loved it yet my heart wasn't in it. Maybe it is burn out or the like. Whatever it is, if it wasn't for the five hour minimum, I would have dropped it much sooner. 

If I had a theory, the difficulty is likely the culprit. The game is very easy. I judge the difficulty of a tactics rpg based on how reckless I'm allowed to be, and Bahamut Lagoon basically allowed me to run into the field of battle wildly swinging my sword with my eyes closed. I practically did that for one level to really test how easy the game was, and I still beat the level on my first try. 

I will say what I said for Wolf's Rain. Maybe in another time, I will finish it. But as of right now, it lives in the limbo of the unfinished. Perhaps in a better mood, I will be more absorbed by the game. Who's to say. We're moving on. 

Jeanne D'Arc (2007)

I'll cut right to the point with this one. This may have one of the most uneven difficulty curves I've seen from a game. This was the first game among these I tried, so that means I went in with the most limited frame of mind. That frame of mind is mostly the Fire Emblem franchise. Because of the mechanics from Fire Emblem, I was lulled into a false sense of security. Jeanne D'Arc doesn't have permadeath, unlimited exp through grinding, and a really broken special move which I will touch on a little later. 

So with a lot of tweaks that makes a classic Fire Emblem title a challenge, I thought this would be a cakewalk. But then, every once in a while, the game throws random difficulty spikes that catch you completely off guard. Bosses have ridiculous stats that feel comparable to lunatic difficult bosses in Fire Emblem. The game has a turn limit which can make certain levels pretty stressful. Oh yeah, and the combat preview that tells you how much damage you will deal and take is a fucking lie as modifiers will alter the amount. Enemies will also sometimes act unpredictably. This is a common strategy in Fire Emblem knowing that enemies will act in their best interest. But here, enemies will sometimes act in ways inconsistent to what you expect leading to good or bad luck that never feels earned. 

Now, I don't mind the difficulty. In fact, my favorite level was the last level I played during my five hour trial which was quite challenging especially since I avoided the optional areas to grind and didn't preview the enemy stats and abilities. The problem is that it never consistently stays on that difficulty. One level will force me to a second or third attempt, but the very next level will be nigh impossible to lose to. 

It doesn't help that difficult levels compels you to avoid experimenting with units. I would have loved to use more axe and magic users but they quickly become obsolete. Meanwhile, more powerful units just snowball into extremely broken characters. You thought the Fire Emblem archers were too crappy? Well let me introduce you to Marcel. Jesus Christ, in my first five hours, I already figured out that the archer is the best class in the game. Can poison enemies, attack enemies from a long distance, and can do almost every ability specialized in other classes like healing or stunning enemies. It puts the versatility of the dragon rider and paladins from Fire Emblem to shame. While we were talking about broken, let's talk about the transformations. This highlights how it almost railroads you to certain units. The transformations, available to certain characters, gives the units a crazy stat boosts and special powerful attacks. Again, this wouldn't be a big deal but they also gave the transformation an additional ability called Godspeed where units can move and attack again allowing you move multiple times so long you can kill an enemy each time. This makes these units hoard a lot of experience if you want to use the transformation optimally taking away a vital layer of strategy to dispersing your exp to your units. Either Godspeed should have been severely nerfed or exp should somehow be banked to be shared among your party. 

I made a number of points how Jeanne D'Arc contrasts with Fire Emblem, usually to point out its faults, but I want to be clear that I enjoyed Jeanne D'Arc. The movement options are solid even including an extra dimension that adds to the strategy such as backstabs and attacking from above. The story has the same quality as Fire Emblem in that it's competent but easily skippable. It feels great to manage your resources as is toying with skill gems that adds further depth to the combat. 

I didn't have enough time to toy with the gem fusion, so I can't say much on it. It's fine. It definitely suffers from the Paper Mario recipe problem where you might as well use a walkthrough to find the best gems. But it is a fine system and at least gives an additional use to unused gems rather than just selling them. 

I think that's all I have to say on Jeanne D'Arc. I think the game would have benefitted from taking more cues from Fire Emblem, but I still had a great time with the game. It's the only game on here that I was compelled to continue playing after the five hours which is the best indicator that Jeanne D'Arc succeeds in what I'm looking for in the first five hours. 

Battle Brothers

For honesty's sake, I only actually played about thirty minutes of this game. That's because the other four and a half hours was spent looking at tutorial videos, making sense of the menus, and lunch. 

This is like Monster Hunter and Dark Souls where it is so inaccessible that I have to rely on outside knowledge to even have a crack at the game. However, unlike those games where they at least tried teaching the player and the learning curve is more an necessary evil of the game. This game is designed such that the community jokes that even the tutorial level takes multiple tries. To refer to my aforementioned reckless test when gauging the difficulty of tactics rpgs, the game is about as forgiving as being an underfunded general and your opponent are the Romans, Mongols, and the Ottoman simultaneously all in their prime. 

It's never a good sign when clicking the tutorial menu redirects you to a Youtube playlist of some boring jackass giving an instructional video. I felt like I was learning Adobe Illustrator or taking a computer class. You have to seriously want to learn the mechanics if you want to take on this mammoth of a game. Because it is one thing if this was like Monster Hunter where the game is pretty simple once you actually learn how the game works, Battle Brothers is one of the most unforgiving games I have ever play. This is Fire Emblem ex-convict cousin. Never has a game has made me feel so unwelcome. 

Now I get it. I can completely get how Battle Brothers can be a very rewarding game. It reminds me of something Bennett Foddy said about difficulty. Where difficult games, like the aforementioned Dark Souls, are almost designed to be beaten despite being difficult. They may convey an ideal route or strategy or give play styles more lenient. All of it at the end of the day is a challenge to be overcome. 

Battle Brothers feels like an untamed animal. It's crazy that this game gives so many tools like special abilities and attacks, but the game still feels like being thrown naked into the wild. This game is a challenge that dares you to overcome it rather than encourages you, and that is the distinction that makes Battle Brothers harder than any tactics game I've play. It couldn't care less if you succeed barring some very robust difficulty options. And even then, these options don't become useful until you first learn the game which I already established is a more Herculean task for a learning curve. 

Battle Brothers epitomizes how important the first five hours are to a game experience. I know I can really love this game. The fact all the Steam reviews I've read on the game have been 50 - 200 hours demonstrates that. But in the context of the first five hours, I feel there needs to be a better way to teach the player than the method Battle Brothers went with. 

As I established, this method of review is a bit unfair. Almost as unfair as this game. But, I can't demonstrate a game with a solid first five hours without contrasting it with a game with a bad first five hours, even if the game is better overall. 

Desta: In-Between Memories (2022)

Like last time, I go from oldest to youngest. So we end this set with Desta: Memories Between. 

First off, the game suffers from the same issues as Atelier Ryza where the title could use some work. Desta: Memories Between doesn't mean anything. This maybe a minor issue, but I wouldn't have even considered touching this game if not for this challenge and my willingness to try something more obscure. And yeah, I had to do some forum digging to come across this as a recommendation. Hopefully, I can try to sell the game to balance that. 

Desta is a sort of hybrid between a tactics RPG, a roguelike, and a character exploration reminiscent of Gone Home and Edith Finch. It reminds me more Hades and Going Under than a traditional tactical RPG as the meat of your consequences leans more from your roguelite choices than from the core gameplay. And like Hades, success is inevitable as most upgrades carry over in future runs. 

But this is a blog about reviewing tactics RPGs, so let's focus first on the tactics gameplay. 

The central appeal is the combat where the player has the defeat enemies through a game of street dodgeball. I guess because the protagonist's dad liked dodgeball. I'll be honest, I had a head cold during that part, so I wasn't paying attention. 

Anyway, players are given the basic mechanics of what you expect. You can pass to allies, ricochet off walls to hit enemies, and given special abilities through the aforementioned roguelike elements. On top of that, enemies are pretty diverse lending to the challenge of the game. 

I thought my experience was simply fine. The story is short, so I was able to complete the main narrative within my five hour time limit. For that reason, I didn't get a chance to really scrutinize the gameplay under higher difficulties which Desta provides through a challenge mode and a higher difficulty variant of the run. Again, it was similar to previous games I've talked about. In this case, Going Under whose base game was extremely easy with it's Imposter Mode as an added difficulty modifier. In my review, I didn't care for Going Under under higher difficulties since the combat couldn't keep up. I wonder if Desta would follow the same path. 

It seemingly does as Desta's vanilla run is about as easy as Going Under's base game. You have three forms of powering up: your special ability, a perk, and your allies. Two of which can be permanently kept if leveled up. And like Going Under, you can find a dominant strategy very quick. With how limited resources are such as how many times you can move/attack, and how generally weak your characters are, your chimp brain won't take long to realize that anything that does extra damage or gives you an extra move is worth way more than anything else. In fairness, this may not be as worthwhile under harder difficulties, but I was able to dominate the base game through this method. Same applies to allies. Which one sounds better? A guy who can move a few spaces farther or a lady that can grant allies an extra move PLUS a defense shield PLUS already has a good movement range? 

To me roguelikes are about choices, and I wasn't presented with many interesting choices. The big choice the game presents at the beginning of every run tries that, but it doesn't feel enough. Desta offers two choices during the base game. It can respawn you to the beginning of the chapter you died on, or it can take you to the beginning with one extra power up. I want to like this dilemma for reasons I will get into. But the choice doesn't scratch my itch like it should. An example to compare this to is Slay the Spire Neow mechanic which presents a similar choice. In Slay the Spire, the choice is more interesting due to how vastly connected Neow is connected to other systems. I wouldn't even list them all without consulting the wiki, but the way Neow lets you alter your cards, max health, relics, etc. are more meaningful. Even the simple decision to have Neow restricting you to two of the same choices if you don't beat the first boss of your previous run adds a layer of strategy. It makes Desta's choice comparatively barebones for how binary it is. Do you want to play the game longer and get a single power up, or do you want to save that time sans the power up? 

Now in Desta's defense, this choice does have an additional purpose of letting you grind out your player character, allies, and items. Allies specifically get an additional support conversation that develop the character's relationship and backstory. The writing is really strong which gave the decision a more intrinsic quality. The story as a whole is really solid abliet very straightforward. But intrinsic satisfaction can only go so far in a roguelike, and I wish the game presented more interesting choices.

But there are RPGs I certainly disliked more, a few I reviewed through this very challenge. So while my experience is merely decent, I don't want this to reflect poorly on Desta. I recommend it. Get it at a discount and have a good time. 

 

My Favorite Shows of 2023

Author's Note: Sorry this came out late. COVID do be like that. 


Let's put 2023 to rest with my favorite shows of the year. And before I start, an addendum to my usual rules of must have finished at least a season, got to be things I haven't seen, blah blah blah. I noticed a lot of returning shows from previous lists. And frankly, I don't have much to say on them. So to save room for other shows that I am more interested in talking about, I will be excluding them unless their new season brings something new to the table. That said, if I didn't have this rule, know that How to With John Wilson Season 2, Invincible Season 2, Abbott Elementary Season 2, Spy x Family Season 2, and I Think You Should Leave Season 3 were all fantastic. I would gladly include them if I could. 

But with that said, I should get started. And despite previously saying I didn't watch that many shows this year, I still manage to have ten entries even with excluding the shows I just mentioned. So let's begin with....

10. Scavenger's Reign 

Let's start with the Western animated sweet heart of 2023 with Scavenger's Reign. I'm leaving it at number ten as it started to lose me around the second half. It doesn't necessarily nosedive, but I got the same feeling I got with Attack on Titan and AMC's Walking Dead where it started to lose its unique vision in favor of playing to tropes. 

But when it was being unique, it made for some great television. You got striking visuals, complex characters, and just overall pure creativity on display. I think that alone makes the whole thing worthy of watching and a refreshing site in the world of Western animation. I always champion adult Western shows that aren't Family Guy or under the guise of children's media. 

So while Tartakovsky unfortunately didn't make this list this year, it is great others in the industry are willing to go in his stead. 

9. Mashle: Magic and Muscles

I hate to disappoint those that hate anime, but a lot of the list this year is going to be weeb shit. In fact, this is the most dominate anime has been on one of my best of television list. 

Anyway, Mashle is a joy. Granted, this anime appeals more to my superficial side. I love magical schools, generic shonen world building, and ESPECIALLY characters helplessly autistic but hilariously immune to the sad dangers of reality. 

I guess if I had to applaud one thing about Mashle. I appreciate the attitude this show exudes when it comes to how it treats corrupt individuals with little regard to the marginalized. For example, normally when a villain is in a position of power, there is a sense of helplessness or the characters have to struggle to overcome their influence. In Mashle, the main protagonist just beats the shit out of them and suffers no consequences for his actions. 

It's unrealistic, but I don't mind. It's cathartic to see a total intolerance to bullshit modern societies have to suffer through. They're not even given the dignity of the realism of a strong grip of societal rules. They are humiliated and pummeled by the the dopiest autistic put on screen. It's great. 

It's not mind blowingly good, but I got a lot out of it. If anything I said appealed to your tastes, give it a watch. 

8. Chainsaw Man

I feel I am always one step behind when it comes to the hot shows in the anime world. It took me years to get around to Full Metal Alchemist. I have yet to see Jujitsu Kaisen. And, a show I planned on watching last year got pushed to now. 

Chainsaw Man is about what you expect from a great shonen anime. Great world building with clearly defined rules. The stakes provide genuine tension with no easy Dragon Ball mcguffin to fix everything. The action is...I mean Jesus have you seen this show? It's fucking badass. 

This show takes a lot of cues from Tarantino, and it has a lot of his qualities. That nice blend of being juvenile but finely crafted. It takes high art while not being afraid to immerse in the societal taboos of titty flesh, ultra violence, and schlocky high concepts. 

7. Average Trey's Playthrough of Super Doot Sunshine

Let's plays are an underrated art form. Maybe because they don't get a superficial award show, but I feel people don't praise a good let's play when they come around. 

It's a common trope on these lists that I like to highlight play throughs of intense challenge runs, kaizo hacks, and sometimes both at the same time. It's one thing to excel at a hard game. It's another to do it while providing engaging commentary. 

Average Trey's got me hooked this year with their play through of Super Doot Sunshine, colloquially known as Kaizo Mario Sunshine. And bloody hell, it earns its Kaizo moniker. 

Super Doot Sunshine was designed for speedrunners and Sunshine experts. The things it asks of the player is a lot for any pro Sunshine player and pure insanity for a casual such as myself. 

AverageTrey is one of my favorite gaming Youtubers. He is a casually entertaining man which is refreshing in a genre littered with folk constantly flexing their improv muscle. Sometimes it's nice to hear a naturally funny guy chilling at a game. 

6. Barry (Season 4)

In the genre of white people committing crimes, there is a high standard for having a good ending. Breaking Bad for example is one of best finales of all time, so I wondered if Barry could match it. And yes, Im implying there is going to be spoilers for this season. 

Barry attempts to give an ending that's messy. Not everything is tied up nicely. Most if not all the characters end up worse than before. And by worse, I mean they are either dead, in prison, or their fate unknown. The ending can be best described as a hit and run. 

But I think it works. It may not be the ending you want for these characters, but you can't deny it is the ending they deserve. I also like the commentary the show has that becomes more apparent as the season goes on. Here we have Barry who operates under the mentality that your moral standing is good if you go in with nothing but good intentions. And that alone should redeem you from any wrong doings, past, present, or future. And here we see his victim mentality becoming less and less justifiable. The last conversation between Sally and Barry felt like the perfect final blow to Barry's delusions. The man who tried to deal cards he didn't have. It's tragic, but it's not like Barry didn't help matters. 

So yeah, go watch Barry, and let's get into the juicy Top 5!

5. Love is War 

Here is my predictable wholesome anime entry. 

Love is War is great, but it doesn't really show you it's great until a handful of episodes in. It kind of has a slow start. But after those first few episodes, Love is War becomes one of the more unique anime I've watched. 

This show reminded me that writing teenagers is hard. I mainly think of this when watching Western teen comedies, but it applies to anime as well. Teenagers are hard to write because they are simultaneously admirable but also quite annoying with their naivety. And the difficulty is maintaining a balance of that. You don't want them to be too admirable because you are basically putting an adult personality into a teenage body, but you don't want to make them too naive and inexperienced to make them obnoxious. 

Love is War is the first anime that made appreciate how well written the teenagers are. Everyone is comically out of their depth. In particular, the main female lead has a hilarious contrast as she is well composed and cunning at school but a complete blubbering teenage school girl when she is alone. I love it as the show completely gets away from being annoying as their obnoxious factors are made to get you to sympathized with the characters. 

The premise is that the two leads are in love with each other. However, none of them want to profess their feelings as a form of pride. They can't be seen as the loser being vulnerable to the one they like. It's an admittedly simple premise, but over time that premise shows an emotional depth. Going back to the female lead, we learn more about her that recontextualizes why she doesn't want to profess her feelings, and she in turn has more dimension than we thought. 

Love is War is also very funny. I gut laughed a number of times which is a pretty good number for a comedy such as this. Not School Rumble level where I was gut laughing every episode which is what keeps this show from reaching the renowned Top 4. It's no School Rumble. It's no Komi Can't Communicate. It's no Kawai Complex. It's a shame Love is War had to work in a competitive genre. With how well written the teenagers are, maybe it would have been best if Love is War became a Western teenage comedy where the competition is less fierce. 

4. Dark Gathering

When it comes to supernatural horror in anime, my only experience before Dark Gathering was through the show Ghost Stories. A show so mediocre that when it came time to dub it, the localization team made the decision to change the dialogue to be littered with dated pop culture references and funny uses of curse words. Point being that supernatural horror was something I didn't think was good in anime. 

I watched Dark Gathering on a whim and was happy to learn that anime can in fact do supernatural horror very well. 

Dark Gathering is not the type of show where I say it does everything right. The characters and humor are a bit simple. The plot is nothing I haven't seen before. I am not putting this show on here for being the pinnacle of television. Rather, it is on here because it does one particularly thing oh so well, and that is the visuals. There are some striking depictions of ghosts and how they operate making for some of the most interesting encounters I've seen from an anime. It's kind of like a No Game No Life where the selling point is to see what creative thing they'll show next. It makes you forgive the passable story because every episode does something cool that leaves an impression on me. 

This is the scariest anime I seen this year...well second scariest...

3. Made in Abyss

This is one of those shows that I am hesitant to talk about because it's one of those shows you should go in completely blind. 

And chances are, you heard people tell you the same thing while covering their mouth to hide their snickering. 

But don't let the snickering sway you. This is a fantastic show that's thoughtfully done. There isn't a moment in the show that feels in the service of schlock or fan service. It has the Berserk quality where the atmosphere, themes, and characters are fully rich and realized. And like Berserk, it's not afraid to be horribly violent to the point of being upsetting. 

I can't wait for season 3 where I imagine I will have more to say on Made in Abyss. 

2. 1984

I read a lot of books. Well actually, I read a handful of books...4 and a half to be precise. Yeah, my new year's resolution to read more books didn't exactly panned out as I hoped, but I am doing better! And out of all the ones I read, finally reading and finishing 1984 was a highlight of my year.

It helped thanks in part to Steve Parker. A YouTuber who does well produced audio versions of famous books. I highly recommend even if you already read 1984 to give it a listen. It totally adds to the atmosphere and drama of the story. 

Anyway, I don't have much to say on 1984. I think the only thing I can add is how fresh it felt despite knowing everything about it. I knew all the beats, most of the themes, etc. Yet, that only skims the surface of this story. What I didn't expect was how enlightening it still was. It felt like I was discovering a forbidden truth. That I am breaking a rule just by reading it. There is something to be said about this story when I still took something new from this book despite the countless adaptations and inspired works that followed. I feel if you haven't read 1984 and merely seen those it inspired alla Brazil and Half Life 2. I would still recommend reading this book. 

I'm not much of a reader and only attempted to seriously get into it more this year. As difficult as it was to get a book open and take time to actually read, 1984 proved that I am capable of finding books as a rewarding medium. It might take more effort than some. But hey, if I can beat Malenia from Elden Ring, I can look at a bunch of pages of ink and drawings. 

1. Mob Psycho 100 (Season 3)

If this year taught me anything, it is that I severely lack self-discipline. Take this show for example, I was anticipating this show for the longest time after binging through the first two seasons. So when the third season came out, I waited. And for 2023, I would watch one episode a month to savor it for as long as I can. 

Turns out, I would only last for a few months before I decided to just wolf down the rest of the season in a couple of days. Oh well. I guess this should show that I shouldn't try heroin. 

Anyway, it was no surprise Mob Psycho would take the top spot. It is one of my favorite shows of all time, and this season closes out the show beautifully. I'm serious that a show with the premise as generic as a teenage psychic is up there with some of the best pieces of art humanity has made. I imagine as some people were proud of being alive during the creation of the Mona Lisa, I feel the same way about Mob Psycho. It perfectly reflects a society burden by the self and the validation of others. How the biggest threat to ourselves is losing control. 

I love this show. Regardless of your opinions on anime, this show is an important one and should be required watching for anyone who can access it.