Nami Yo Kiite Kure! : Of Radio, Old Man Jokes and Fillers

Hey guys, Wolvenciel here with at last, a full-blown anime review of a show that I'd say most people glanced over despite the cool theme of it. Today I'm going to talk about Nami Yo Kiite Kure! (a.k.a. Wave, Listen to Me!), a show about a girl stumbling herself into the radio industry.

The Gist

This is Minare. She looks cool in this one.

Koda Minare, the protagonist of this anime got very drunk one day and decided to vent at a local hotpot shack. The next day when she's out working, she overheard herself on the radio drunk-rambling about herself and her pathetic love life. That, ladies and gentleman is probably what you'll find in the synopsis of this anime.

The anime starts like this.

But that's not how the anime starts. The anime starts with Minare in the woods, in the middle of the night trying to read listener letters while being confronted by a bear. This is a scenario of a radio drama that was given out to her to act out for her segment.

See. She's acting out a scene during the broadcast.

This might and will confuse the heck out of a lot of you if you're unfamiliar with what radio drama is. Its basically a radio show but with the host (or a number of hosts) acting out a scenario. Kinda like  normal drama but without the moving picture. Just voices and sound effects.

The Pacing

I don't know about you guys but even me, a person who is very familiar with radio dramas and frequently listen to them got a little dumbfounded by the opening section of the anime. It felt a bit awkward and the premise for the radio drama is... if I'm putting it lightly, is a little bit out there. Especially since that bear in the woods scene is literally the first thing happening in the first episode.

This is in episode 8. Yeah.. Too late buddy. Too late.

As if that is not enough awkwardness, you're then hit with a flashback of how she got in that position in the first place. FOR ABOUT 8 EPISODES. YES 8 FLIPPING EPISODES.

So after the bear scenario the anime starts off with Minare's life as she slowly gets into the radio industry. However, this happens at a very slow pace. Most of the things happening in the first half of the anime are basically things that have little to no importance to the anime's overarching plot. 

Schrodinger's debt repayment. This feels like a very old joke. Lol. And yeah. This is why I like people to pay my debt in full.

If you're one of those people who has that 3 episode rule, you'd see almost nothing pertaining to the main plot in those 3 episodes. The show only did start breaking just a little bit on the radio stuff at episode 5. But that's it. Then when you get to episode 8 you're hit with the continuation of the bear radio drama scenario which shows that the 7 episodes you watched just now are all flashbacks.

Yeah even I don't listen to my state's radio channel.

Now I do not mind exposition at all. I love it. So long as it contributes to the plot of the show itself. Random fillers are fine once in a while so that you can really build on your main characters but when you have a 12 episode anime that actually has an interesting theme and a driving plot? It leaves much to be desired. Not to mention the filler is half of the show.

After all those fillers though? The anime is actually enjoyable. I loved it a ton. When they started to get deep into the radio stuff around episode 10 onward, that's when I couldn't stop watching. The anime tells you the technical aspects of the radio industry and a little bit of how this weird radio drama culture started. 

In my honest opinion, if the first half of the anime wasn't about mundane unimportant stuff and actually delving more into Minare as she's learning the ropes and juggling between her current life and her radio gig (as advertised in the goddamned synopsis), it would have added a whole lot more substance to the anime itself and not just leave me longing for more substance in it.

The Minare Problem

Instead of focusing on the radio stuff earlier, the anime decided to focus on Minare as a person. That would have been fine if she wasn't such a wishy-washy, hopeless idiot. I know this is probably just my gripe with it as some people do like a more grounded realistic character that you can visualize existing in the real world but I just can't stand her.

Yeah the thing is she doesn't even try to change.

Minare is very bad at finding love. Most men she likes treat her like crap and her most recent ex-boyfriend is a gold-digger who scammed her of most of her savings. I could excuse having bad luck, definitely. But Minare is someone who doesn't really appreciate people too much. When people are being nice to her she assumes the worst in them and even if she did get hurt a lot, she doesn't seem to mind doing it to others.

I legit said "serves you right" to her here. 

The worst thing about this is that she knows that she's like this and she doesn't really want to change herself for the better. Or maybe she does change in the future but I wouldn't know because the anime didn't really get too far into this because it was busy feeding you with fillers instead.

You know what's her solution? Become a nun. No dumb ass it wouldn't solve your problems

The Mature Tone

This scene was so fast I had to pause a lot to read the whole damn thing

Despite her being like that, the anime does have this "adult" feel to it. A lot of the scenes in the anime are very fast-paced and there are a lot of words being sprayed at you that sometimes even the subtitles have a hard time catching up to the characters talking.

Even the show knows it goes too much into pun jokes.

Then there's also the jokes. Comedy in this anime feels very old. I apologize for my lack of vocabulary here but yeah. Most of the jokes are Japanese puns, slapstick comedy and sarcasm. It doesn't have super exaggerated comedy like Grand Blue or Kakushigoto. If you're a fan of those then you'll definitely enjoy them.

This is her falling for the ex-boyfriend who scammed her again.

I guess Minare being a hopeless idiot can also be entertaining to some people. I'm not one of them though. I guess I like to root for my main characters.

The Verdict

Should you watch the show though? If by some godly chance the anime does get a second season, then absolutely. Due to the anime being very empty a lot of plot lines that are just starting are left hanging by the end of it all. If it does actually get a second season they could further expand on the radio stuff and all those plot hanging around. As of now, I doubt it.

If you free time and you're interested in the anime, sure. Give it a watch. Otherwise, skip. I have no idea why the comment section of Kissanime kept saying this is gold and underrated. You guys suck.

Wolvenciel, signing off.

This is how I felt when people actually read my reviews and comment on them. Sobs.

**P/S** I am also not a fan of the V.A. . Maybe because she voices Minare really well to be this annoying woman. Okay maybe I just don't like Minare. I don't know. I'm confused.

Kakushigoto : Fatherly Love Always Gets Me

Phew. Here we go. Hello peeps. Wolvenciel here. Yes I'm still here. I think even the blogmaster would be surprised I'm still here. Anyways, I'm gonna talk about this warm-hearted feels-good gag anime I found a few days back, Kakushigoto (Hidden Things).

So What's He Hiding

This anime is a very slice of life kind of gag anime about a manga artist trying to hide the fact that he draws manga for a living from his little daughter. You shouldn't really be ashamed of what you do for a living but... this guy draws a dirty joke gag manga called "Balls of Fury" so I do kind of get him.

Yes, as he said, it's not like he's drawing One Piece or Anpanman.

It's even harder for him as he's a single parent too. So he goes out to work in a businessman suit and changes into his sloppy manga artist shirt in a nearby tailor shop. It's very over the top and dramatic the way he tries to hide what he's doing to his daughter.

He is very good-looking though I'll tell you that. And people often mistake his intentions too.

 So What Are My Thoughts?

I approached the anime thinking it to be this super lighthearted kind of story with just Kakushi and Hime going about their lives but I was proven wrong when it started off with the premise that the anime is the past. I don't hate it though. Gives me the sense that there's something else the story is hiding and revealing to me slowly as the story goes by.

Yes he didn't wanna reveal his name because he's afraid his name would be all over the local papers saving a cat from drowning.

Their daily lives are also very interesting as its not just straight up gags. The show does a really good job of showing how this father struggles to keep his precious daughter happy and oblivious to what he's doing most of the time. It also presents the side of Hime who is very attached to her father and the anime shows it in a very subtle way too.

She drops these lines and sometimes a little frown here and there ever so slightly. It's cute.

The opening and ending soundtrack of the anime is great too. It really does give you the whole "flashback" feel to it and as my little brother say, has a little hint of sadness in it.

There are also these stupid references of popular manga of the time.

Expect this much gag from the show. Yes. This much. In case you didn't get it, the dog is clearly a Mutt. There's no way in hell its a Chihuahua.

I Also Kept Some Stuff Secret


I'll admit, there are a few things I skipped over in terms of what I think of the show but I'll sum it up in a sentence. Its not just a simple gag show and it got me real good. I definitely recommend you guys checking it out. It's good fun and it definitely isn't shallow either. It's a must watch especially for those looking to scratch that slice of life itch.

So if you're still here, do give me recommendations of what I should review next and definitely tell me what I'm lacking right now as well. I'll always appreciate the feedback. I'll try to make Saturday my upload day as well. For consistency.

Wolvenciel, signing off.

Video Game Rant: Screw You Activision

Hey there guys. So today I'm going to rant. I... should probably provide some pictures as well I guess. Probably. We'll see.

As the title suggest I'll be talking about this stupid company called Activision (and their associates of course) because I recently played the new Call of Duty Modern Warfare and by the gods was I pissed.

The game itself was nice. I actually liked it. The graphics was great and they added a lot of little touches to make the game feel more realistic and mechanical. You could peek out corners now (yes I know it sounds dumb and they're probably just copying those battle royal games but still, its long overdue) and you can slide now so that's cool. The interface is also simplified as much as possible to provide players with as much immersion to the whole ambience and the atmosphere of the story.


STUPID DAY 1 PATCH

That's all well and good but the one thing I got so pissed at is the fact that I played it on the PS4. Yeah yeah you shouldn't play FPS on console. Sod off. So I got a physical copy and when I inserted the disc in lo and behold, an 80GB "update". I know a lot of games nowadays tend to do this but it gets worse and worse every single release. These day 1 patches are getting really obnoxious ya know.

I have limited internet so I said to myself,"Oh well. No online functions I guess. I'll just play the campaign first. This isn't really a problem". Boy was I wrong. Despite having the physical copy of the game, the only thing I could access was 1v1 bot match. At this point I realized I was sold an incomplete game and the only thing they gave me in the disc was a "means to kill the time while I wait for the 80GB patch to download".

So download the patch I did and after a few hours I got to play the campaign. Here you peeps might say,"But that's normal. Most games have day 1 patches anyway these days". Well screw you too. I think developers nowadays are taking advantage of the fact that they can update the game via online and just release incomplete products full of bugs because everyone thinks its the "norm" nowadays.

I guess it sucks more for people who don't have complete access to fast and stable network connection. Like me.


BAD SPACE OPTIMIZATION

After two days of binge-playing the campaign on normal (yeah I'm an FPS casual I play these games for funsies) I finished it and it was time for me to Coop Special Ops with my housemate. When I clicked it, it said that the special ops was a DLC. Fine. No surprises there. The main game was a friggin DLC why wouldn't the side content be.

As I went to the PSN Store to download it, the system tells me I had insufficient space. So I deleted a few of my old games and got a total of 80GB+ of free space in my PS4 and the system tells me I'm still short of space. Curious, I decided to check how big the damn game was. Its 134GB in size.

A game. That I have a physical copy of. TAKES MORE SPACE THAN A GAME I FULLY DOWNLOADED ON THE STORE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME INFINITY WARD?

Maybe I'm the stupid one for thinking this. Maybe it is quite hard to actually reduce the size of the files so that its not so taxing to keep in the hard drive. I don't know.

They're also planning to add more maps and modes and also a Battle Royal (as with the trends I guess) into the game so I'm pretty sure the game's gonna grow in size as time goes by. Sure I only have a measly 500GB PS4 and I could just upgrade if I so wanted but still. Do I really have to? For a game that not only screws me over not once but twice?


SO YEAH, SCREW YOU ACTIVISION

I guess that's it. Again, don't get me wrong. The game looks beautiful as hell and I loved the gun customization and the little details they added. It's definitely a cool game but I really can't say what they're doing is justified still. I don't know. Maybe its just me. Who cares. I'm just ranting.

See you guys next week. Wolvenciel, signing off.

Slay The Spire – For That TCG/Rogue-like Itch of Yours

Hey there people. As always, popping on and off like zits on your face, Wolvenciel here with a game showcase this time around. Now some of you might have heard of Slay The Spire as its been in alpha for quite some time but it was only properly released late last year. So I’m gonna jump right to it.

A Good Blend of Cards and Deaths

Now as the title suggests, yes this is a roguelike card game. Slay The Spire lets you choose a base deck at the start of the game and as you climb up the Spire you’ll fight enemies and these enemies will give you more cards to add to your decks. Some stronger enemies and treasures along the way will also give you useful and/or detrimental passives to help with climbing up.

The first base deck unlocked for you is the Ironclad. You'll get the other two as you play the game.

Its basically a draft match one after another.

And yes as all rogue-like games are, this one also has its own bonfire for you recuperate.

Climbing Up

The Spire itself is random-generated but the cards you get will all follow your base deck’s color (unless its a colorless card) so you wouldn’t have to worry about the deck being too much of an abomination as you add more cards to it because most of the choices have a semblance of synergy to one another.

Say if you chose a red deck, you'll always get red cards to add to the deck.

You can also choose what route you would want to take as you climb. These rooms range from you bog-standard monsters that add common cards to your decks to even random text-based choices that could totally alter your decks for you. So each climb would be very different from one another.

Each stage has its own sets of enemies and encounters and you choose your routes via the map

The fact that its random also means sometimes you’ll get lots of crazy stuff that enhances your deck and make you a spire-slaying god and boy does it feel good when that happens.

An example of a crazy enough deck that happened from me stacking relics on top of more relics.

The Spire will have three levels each time you climb and after you finish all three levels with all three base decks the game unlocks a new challenge for you.

When you beat the stage boss, the game lets you choose a rare card to be added to your deck.

And of course, a rare relic which are mostly core to your play through.

The End Game

The title of the game is pretty self-explanatory. Slay the goddamn spire. Each time you climb and reach the end you’ll deal an amount of damage to the Spire’s heart and each time you climb with a deck you’ll unlock more cards and relics for the decks themselves.

Some examples of the relics you can unlock.

Although if you happened to finish the climb with all three decks, you’ll unlock the Spire’s keys. On all your runs afterwards you’ll have chances to collect these keys and fight the main boss one on one. If you do get to that point, I wish you luck.

You'll also gain access to shops to spend your hard earned cash. You can buy cards, relics and even remove cards.

No I have not beaten the main boss of the game yet and I don’t know if I ever will. It… was quite the shocker for me. If any of you readers did beat it, do tell me in the comments below.

My Thoughts On It


I’m a fan of card games so Slay The Spire really just made me fall head over heels for it. One fact that just made me fall in love with it is the core mechanics of the game. This game lets you see the enemies intents and you can decide how to react to that. It never hides any of the monsters’ special abilities from you. The game expects you to look at the problems presented to you and find a solution for it via the deck that you built and the hand that you have drawn.

Ironclad uses a ramp style deck which focuses on buffing you up and hitting the enemy with big cards

I’ve been playing the game for quite some time and still haven’t managed to beat the main boss so you can already surmise I’m not that good a card game player. Maybe you guys can do better yeah?

One of the bosses on the third level. Got lucky with a loop deck. But yeah. Even this deck wouldn't be able to beat the Extra Boss. Good luck with that.

See you guys next time. Wolvenciel, signing off.