Wakfu is something you should watch the shit out of.  And I’ll tell you why.

Wakfu is a French cartoon series animated completely  in Flash, except for the two episodes animated in Japan.

And it is the greatest fucking cartoon I’ve ever seen in my goddamn life.  You want to know why it’s great?

I’m not getting all up in spoilers.  You want a reason to watch it?  In the first episode a time mage fights a dragon.  They fight again about halfway through the series.  Oh yes did I mention that the time mage is the villain? Because he is.

And he’s the best goddamn villain I’ve seen in years.  He’s wonderful.  Delightfully mad, brilliant in his schemes, armed with potent powers and a back story that… Well no spoilers.  I dream of writing villains as good as Nox.

The heroes? They’re wonderful.  Each of them.  Most of them fit neatly into the character role, but unlike shows that try to pretend that they’re not doing that they instead embrace it fully, and each one comes out wonderful.  Some of the twists in the character development, well, almost all, are predictable to a student of stories such as myself.  And, yet I was compelled.  I had forgotten that things I saw coming ages ago could be so compelling I didn’t care that I knew they were going to happen.

Yugo, the main character, the kid in the fucking awesome hat you see in that picture stands tall and proud above the rest for the following reason.  He’s the best written child protagonist in recent memory.   And I know, some of you might be like “But FaustianFool, what about Aang”

Aang was good, I’ll give him that, but Yugo is better by a mile for one simple reason that’s compelling enough for me to not need any more.  Yugo doesn’t need to go off and get captured or become useless for the other characters to have a good CMOA, they can have those while he’s there thank you very much.

Honestly I could rant and rave about how great Wakfu is all day long.  I won’t.

It’s great.  Watch it.  No seriously go do that.  The second season starts like this weekend.  You want to find out where? Go ask /rs/.

Or start a thread about it on pretty much any entertainment board on 4chan.  They’ll point you to it because they love Wakfu as much as I do.  Seriously.  I found out about it on /a/ in a best villains thread, watched the whole damn thing.  They talk about it on /tg/ and have mad love for it and I hear /co/ likes it too.

Or google it.  I’m sure there’s a torrent.

Also, ending in a kind of rude image, on the off chance you, for some stupid reason need more, worse reasons to watch Wakfu.

No seriously 4chan loves this. I have found nothing bad said about it.

Why the fuck are you still here? Wakfu’s not going to find itself.

Right-o, after last night’s tremendous windfall in the form of a ton of Visual Novels, great visual novels, grand ones.

Another one by the people who made my favorite things of all time, Yume Miru Kursuri: A Drug that Makes You Dream

First of all, I bet some of you are like “FaustianFool, what the devil is one of these visual novels? Is it one of those new things only possible with new-fangled high-tech sorcery like them ePhones and iBooks and uPants?”

My response would of course be “Old-people read my blog?”

Of course, in all seriousness a visual novel is software.  A visual novel is a piece of software that is essentially a choose your own adventure book.  You know those there Fancy Phoenix Wright games?  That’s a visual novel.  Of course it’s a bit more gameplay heavy than most.

By that I mean that most of them are literally pretty much just a choose your own adventure book.  You keep on truckin’ through the game, hit a dialog option, pick it and keep going.   Now, I know what you’re thinking.  ”Sure the Choose Your Own Adventure Books were rad as all hell, but I mean I remember those plots and characters, and they weren’t the best.”   Visual novels are much better about character depth and plot being unique.

In fact, I bet you already know something based on a visual novel.  Fate/Stay Night, Clannad and Umineko are all examples of things based on such novels.

But nobody ever reads them, aside from me and a few other people as far as I can tell.  It might have something to do with where you find them, for example, I got my first ones from /a/ on 4chan back before it was split into /jp/ and /a/.  After that I was hooked, and couldn’t find them anymore on that most… I don’t even have flowery language to describe it, so let’s go with that place.  I scoured the web, and apparently the only place to get visual novels are 1) 4chan 2)Torrents. 3) And most commonly of all, in the depths of the internet, Hentai forums.

Yes that’s right, I regularly plumb those depths.  If I did not I would have never played the visual novel that I retroactively realized ruined the High-School Romance Genre for me.  Yume Miru Kursuri: A Drug that Makes You Dream.  Specifically the Aeka route.  First of all, the main character mans up  in a way that blows most of the other theoretical High School Womances out of the water.  I legitimately couldn’t play the other routes my first playthrough because I did that one first by accident.  And…  I don’t recommend that.  Because of various things that occur during the route (What you want spoilers fuck you).

But visual novels are great, and more people should check them out.  Oh sure.  A large (Read As: 85%) have sex scenes, some to the point that they’re completely dominated by them (I’m looking at you X-Change games), and these are inevitably really bad.

However, some, some are really fantastic.  I mean seriously.  I wouldn’t be writing this if they weren’t.  So yeah.  Visual Novels.  Check ‘em out.

Also: I’m back.  Bitches.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  ”Oh FaustianFool, I know what Manly Tears are, they happen in fiction all the time.  I mean just the other day I was reading Manly Men Digest -”

This is when I interrupt you, you fucking whore  (Note: If you are a member of “The Ladies” reading this I don’t actually think you’re a whore), because seriously goddamn you never let me get started before flyin’ off into some tangent that’s not about this at all.

First of all, I mean Real Life Manly Tears.  Like when somebody awesome dies doing something awesome (Maes Hughes for example), and you find your eyes leaking a warm fluid.  This fluid is not tears, it is liquid honor.  There’s usually only one manly tear.

Now I know what you’re thinking “FaustianFool, I am a woman, can my female body produce these “Manly Tears”?”

WHY WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO I MEAN GODDAMN SERIOUSLY JESUS FUCK.

Oh wait.  I meant yes.  Sorry lol.  You see “Manly Tears”  are produced by the Honor Gland which produces “Honor Fluid”.  Manly Tears happen when the Honor Gland overproduces Honor Fluid and it leaks out your eyes.  This is Science Fact.  Women do scientifically have a smaller Honor Gland, however the cells in the gland produce an amount of Honor Fluid equal to their larger counterparts.

Allright guys it’s New Years.  You know what that means.  We have to burn the world down and start from scratch.  All joking aside, the amount of posting I wanted to do on this( A lot), and the amount I actually did(almost none) are two very, very different amounts.

So then on with the show, and I hope we can all be mature and skip the jokes about not keeping New Years resolutions.

I do hereby resolve to Post More, starting with, as soon as I have a spare hour, my review of Avatar (Summary’s right here: Decent, fun fight scene, great animation, terrible writing)

This is the debut album of a new article type (Things Are Completely Awful, in case you missed it) which is essentially when I do a Things Are Overrated on something I don’t trust myself to do a fair and balanced coverage of it.

This post covers Eva, and what I don’t like about it (Which is actually quite a bit when you get right down to it), in case you have not guessed.  And like I said, there’s a lot to dislike.  So put your ass in that chair right there, listen up, and listen good.

Let’s start with the characters.  I’m going to assume you know “The Score” on who’s who (For those of you not in the know, here’s the rundown- Shinji- Has father issues.  Listens to his MP3 player, and is unmotivated. Rei-Has less emotions that Nagato (Of Haruhi fame)- And yes she does actually have them (Read the books people), and Asuka- Pretty much a bitch who’s crazy as fuck).  Do you like those concepts?  Did you see the beginning and like those characters? Did you find them compelling? I hope you did, because they never change.  Ever.  Oh sure, Asuka flips the fuck out, but they never change which is my primary concern.  Don’t get me wrong, character development is not a huge big must, (I mean technically when we first meet Shiki Tohno from Tsukihime, he’s already fully developed, but we get to see what made him that way, in addition, Tohno Developed is really a very interesting person), but it’s a huge plus, and it’s a must when your characters are boring as fuck. I mean seriously, I spent a brief stint over at Wikipedia to get the title shot, I ended up on the character bit (Which was really just a link to the character’s page which we all know is a series of links to the profiles), but the one-line summary of Shinji is that he is, and I quote “characterized by a lack of energy and emotion”  which don’t get me wrong is fine for a character, but if the main character lacks traits that drive him to perform actions, and then proceeds to never develop more traits, then that’s pretty poor writing.

It’s time for part two (2) of this post where I address the plot.  Or lack there of.  Seriously, like they seriously grabbed a bible, tossed in random fucking words that sound cool at random locations.  And beyond that I don’t know how the flying fuck they came up with that shit.  There’s a frillion and ten plot threads, and none of them resolve.  Ever.  A plot shouldn’t need a movie and books (plural, that’s right) to explain it, unless it was specifically planned to span several books and a movie, which Eva was not (seriously, it was made to fail to exploit a tax loophole, and when it succeeded a bunch of execs were sent to jail for tax fraud).  I’m not sure where else to go with this, because the plot is just so much nonsense that me just telling you that it’s just complete and utter fucking insane bullshit is replaceable with a plot summary, because it’s accurate.  And before anyone hits me up by telling me that I’m not grasping the Deep Symbological Meaning behind this, I could give two shits about it, not only because I don’t care about Symbolism, but also because It’s So Deep is not an excuse to not make sure your plot make any sense at all.  And one more thing, before you accuse me of not being able to follow the plot, my favorite film ever (The Fifth Kara no Kyoukai OVA Spiral Paradox/Paradox Spiral) is achronological within, not only the set of OVA’s, but the film is achronological within the film itself.  I have a pretty good grasp of plot structure.  I cannot make heads or tails of Eva.

Normally had I written a Things are Overrated I’d tell you what to watch that’s better, but you can watch pretty much anything that’s not Evangelion and enjoy it more.

That’s right bitches, I’m back, and here to stay, Hopefully at least.

Anyway, the first part of this three-part covers Problem Sleuth, one of the MSpaint Adventures, a series of “Choose Your Own Adventure Games”, which usually have one choice. Problem Sleuth is a ridiculous tale (Starring the titular Problem Sleuth) as he tries to escape his office. He finds allies in Ace Dick, Pickle Inspector, Hysterical Dame and Nervous Broad (though he has very little interaction with Dame and Broad, they play a huge role), and a foe in Mobster Kingpin.  This tale goes off in a ridiculous direction fairly quickly, between the electrical windows that act as a gateway to a world of imagination, keys (and hairpins) that are guns.  The finale is also very satisfactory, but the comic itself is very long (and it’s very good).

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=4

Bamf! You guys know full well I love the Dresden Files (I have the hugest hardon for Jim Butcher books, I’m not ashamed, I love those).  So let’s cover the basics.  Main character- Harry Dresden, Wizard Private Eye.  The guy’s a broke as fuck private eye who’s primarily employed by the police (Who don’t trust him at first).  It’s a really solid series of books, and things go, and I love all the books to death.

So, now I’m recommending a game.  It’s Shadow of the Colossus.  Shadow of the Colossus is a straightforward, simple, and fantastic game.  I’m not really sure what else to say about it.  It’s a very good, very simple, and very straight forward game, and it’s a whole lot of fun.

Once, I said that should I die I would do a Lightning Sharks Action News Special Report on the afterlife. And seeing as on Thursday I spent a small amount of time as both a corpse and a gentleman on Friday, I can post that rant.

Okay, I didn’t actually die while I was a corpse, I was just disguised as a member of the living dead (Which quite good fun, in case you were wondering). In any case on that Thursday I went to view a film by the name of Zombieland.

Zombieland is quite the film in case you were wondering. I would have been willing to pay actual money to attend that show (I did get in for free that day on account of I was dressed as a Zombie(The First Person to make the “And Then John Was A Zombie” reference dies horribly, just an FYI)). I would have actually paid money last night as well but my Bank Card is AWOL.

In any case, the film is quite comedic, (Also entertaining). I know how the movie looks, either like it could be at worst pretty decent, or absolutely god awful. It did not take the second route, I can tell you that much. There are scores of scenes of good, ole’ fashioned zombie killin’ fun, to intersperse the various comedic scenes of characters wandering a post apocalyptic wasteland. Also, Bill Murray shows up (Note: Pay attention to which scene of Ghostbusters is shown) and a Twinkie is a major plot device.

Now it’s time for the report on Operation Hilarity Ensues Phase One was a resounding success. Phase one was of course “John Shows Up As a group of people go see Zombie Land with a pocket full of Twinkies”. It went much better than I had initially planned (I got a free slice of pizza! And a sweet new pizza place)

I’ll give you double next week.

Two, the title page for Zetman, is for some reason not posting, but you can look at it here http://angryfreak.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/zetman_cover_01.jpg

Anyway, Zetman is a Seinin about a transforming hero (No really), and a boy who wants to be a superhero when he grows up. In this universe there exist beings known as “Players” who just freaking love killing people. And I know I’m being vague about the plot this time around, but it’s because I think it’s really good and you should read it yourself.

http://www.onemanga.com/Zetman/1/01/

Today’s manga is Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro.  I don’t know the exact translation, but basically it’s about a demonic detective (Like literally, Neuro is a demon what eats mysteries).  It’s different from most detective shows because while you can try to figure out the killer, you’ll probably be wrong because the clues aren’t found until Neuro does some ridiculous demon power to solve the case.

What is different, however is the characters.  They’re all very unique and memorable, and the series especially shines when Neuro faces off against any of the three main villians (Electronic Person HAL, Kaitou X, and Sicks).

In addition, while the main character at first seems like a useless addition to the team who only exists to cover up for the fact that legally speaking Neuro does not exist, she goes through some character development and becomes an actually legitimately useful person.

All in all Neuro is a pretty ridiculous series (I like it because I do in fact like things that are ridiculous), and it’s a good bit of fun.

http://www.onemanga.com/Majin_Tantei_Nougami_Neuro/1/000/