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 12th December 2020, 02:29 PM
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#1
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 I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929                 |
 Hi, I just finished putting together a little image for this so armed with only that, I'm posting this as a statement of intent. This thread will cover, whenever I can put together the paragraphs for it over the next month or so, my favourite entertainment experiences in 2020. This will include music and anime for sure, maybe some other types of entertainment if I think of the right things to cover, as well as a look at my vtuber standom because I have too many thoughts in my head about that not to write about it. Things have changed a lot over the past year, and so I am committing to one thing, there will be zero ranks of any kind in this thread. This also helps because it means I'm only going to write about things I have a lot to say about. I will indicate my favourite of each type of entertainment in a low-key way (as it will each time be the last one I write about), but the main purpose of this is to share my love for the good things that I've found myself doing this year See you soon for geeky paragraphs that will be posted for my own personal gratification  , Love, Iz |
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12th December 2020, 02:46 PM
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#2
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Actually, I wasn't going to post anything further tonight, but I just thought of something, so I'll start off with a bonus that kind of covers multiple angles of the sort of thing I've been up to in my free time this year:
This is a downtempo remix by 'Holo Bass' (layer 1), of Amelia Watson, a Vtuber (layer 2), reading Dr Seuss' Fox In Socks (layer 3). Firstly, it bangs. Secondly, the internet is so creative, I can listen to something like this on repeat, and have for at least half an hour straight before, and this was something that was never meant to exist, an internet personality just reading part of the book as part of an attempt at ASMR (apparently that was what the original stream was about), that with the talent of the person who picked this up can end up sounding like a trap rap god to the point you wish that she'd read the entire book to be sampled. |
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12th December 2020, 07:25 PM
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#3
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 Buy yourself a car, and a house in Devon
Joined: 6 May 2016
Posts: 23,892 User: 23,247 
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Well I've had to give that a listen now, it certainly is something! I had to keep listening to the end and I know I'll have it in my head all night now.
(hype for this anyway, although it'll probably only the music section I'll be able to know anything about!) |
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14th December 2020, 08:24 AM
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#4
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
QUOTE(PeteFromLeeds @ Dec 12 2020, 07:25 PM)  Well I've had to give that a listen now, it certainly is something! I had to keep listening to the end and I know I'll have it in my head all night now. (hype for this anyway, although it'll probably only the music section I'll be able to know anything about!) got'em! Excellent, it is really addictive, I love it! I'll be flitting back and forth throughout the topics, whichever I feel easiest to write next. And if there's one way I'm organising this it'll be thematically throughout the year. Music Haohinh - Hoang Mang So in one sentence, this is just a dance track by a underground Vietnamese producer. On its own, it's not something that is especially standout from most other pieces of emotional building hard trance, though it's certainly well put together. The reason I put this one on the list is because after coming across it while looking for Asian music that wasn't J-Pop/K-Pop or dull 50s-esque ballads, I channeled many of the feelings I had at the start of the year, stuck in Asia, nowhere to go, with a virus (so I thought at the time) wrecking lives on this side of the world only - though of course Vietnam did especially well out of COVID-19 all told, even if I had been there rather than China it would have hit with a lockdown all the same. I am the sort of person to think about what's affecting so many others before it all becomes numb, and if I had to pick a song that abetted my initial feelings of terror over the obvious spectre of this year, this would be it. The wistful singing in 'Hoang Mang', so obviously from this part of the world, comes through as though it were a cry for help. Translating the lyrics speaks of a couple distant from each other in the cold winter nights, which isn't miles away from my instincts here, and fits very well for the short time I was playing this. |
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14th December 2020, 09:01 AM
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#5
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Vtubers
(a video essay that may explain things better than me, from one of the better AniTubers) So this is my current obsession/warm blanket of happiness and one I really started getting into in the last quarter of 2020, though I started being aware of them in March. This requires a LITTLE bit of explanation: Vtubers, or virtual Youtubers, are streamers and vloggers that do everything a normal person does with internet content, game, talk, sing etc, but stream behind the anonymity of an avatar, that might be animated. If you know me, you’ll know that I consider virtual, animated content to be superior to “real” content for a vast multitude of reasons, many of which I’ll cover in this thread. I have also always been someone who likes watching internet streamers in general, they're very relaxing to listen to and watch if I have dead time to fill, often I end up gravitating to skilled players of games I like, but adding anime aesthetics and wholesome content into the mix made me switch my focus something hard. If you aren’t the sort of person to pay attention to this, you may remember Kizuna Ai from a few years back, marketed as the world’s first Virtual Youtuber. Which she was, but there was just one of her and in all honesty, she wasn't the most interesting, just doing normal Vlog stuff, and eventually some disputes with a replacement for the voice actress proved that fans see the person behind the Vtuber and the avatar itself almost as one and the same. So we’d have to wait a few years before they really took off, and that year was 2020. The company that really did well out of this year was the agency Cover Corp, under their Hololive branch of female vtubers (and associated male branch Holostars), who had been up and coming for a few years before now but absolutely exploded in popularity in 2020, 4 of their streamers have reached 1 million subscribers on YT this year at a point when most were struggling to break 100k at the start of the year, and there are many more coming up behind those four. With many of the Vtubers collabing with each other and supporting each other, by watching one, you end up in a really wholesome, supportive and funny environment, depending on their personality. I have no doubt many other Vtubers are also like this, but with so many Hololive streamers filling all the niches I could want (you could probably run at least 2 24-hour Hololive TV channels at this point), it’s tough to find or even need any more. Rival agency Nijisanji doesn’t seem anywhere near as memeable or popular (and seems to have so many MORE streamers, where Hololive is more selective bringing up the best of the best entertainers), and though I’d love to support a smaller independent Vtuber - apparently the only thing the tech needs is an iPhone X or equivalent and a face scanner (!), I’d need a reason to attract me to them. The community around the Hololive group is for the most part really good, filled with really talented artists and meme-makers that make browsing the official subreddit or associated Twitter tags a great experience. I do feel a little funny about being a fan of one company exclusively, but they are an agency that gives a lot of freedom to their stars, so it’s not the worst it could be and they do seem to be a generally good company (NB: with their explosive growth, they did experience a few controversies this year but seem to be learning from their mistakes, I won’t go into detail here, but the curious can definitely find out what happened pretty easily). The good environment and freedom that Hololive tends to give the girls (and boys in Holostars), they are free to be themselves. The cover that the animated avatar gives to their real identity also gives them a lot more freedom to react in ways that are funny, that on real-life streamers would look very cringe. Exaggerated cries of indignance or fright or happiness really make it fun to watch, and for more mellow moments, shows of kindness and sharing stories removes the barrier, if briefly. That they are a real person but given a public face that isn’t their own just… works. Also a benefit is that they’re not judged on their looks, their day-to-day appearance, or living area. It’s not even that it’s anime, though the aesthetic does help, it’s that it helps give cover to some excellent undiscovered entertainers who perhaps wouldn’t have done nearly as well had they been forced to use their real face for their activities. Put it this way, real streamers still have a place, for those who want really good professional-level video-game playing. If I want the best of a specific game I like I’m going to go there. For entertainment and variety streaming, though, Vtubers are just better. That was quite a lot.... and I'm not done yet, in future posts tagged 'Vtuber', I’ll talk about some of the talents in more detail. I’m going to go into detail on those I’ve watched considerable amounts of and have something to say about, though I’ve managed to catch clips from nearly all of Hololive’s roster at one point or another and do think they’re all very much lovely people well worth anyone’s time, you just have to find the ones that appeal to you the most. It seems like they've captured about half of the anime audience that I follow on Twitter and obviously there is a pretty good 1:1 appeal if you're already a weeb, but most of us just found our way in through seeing an iconic clip of something one of the Vtubers did in one of their games, like I did with some of the ones I'm going to talk about later. And once you're down the rabbit hole*, there is no escape. *HA↗HA↘HA↙HA↖HA↗HA🐰 |
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14th December 2020, 09:07 AM
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#6
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BuzzJack Legend
Pronouns: He/Him
Joined: 18 March 2013 Posts: 34,795 User: 18,473
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vTubers seem very up your alley. Not a bad thing at all. In assuming that the person behind whatever channel they run remain anonymous as well?
It's a good way to avoid the pressures of Social Media as well though, very smart. |
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14th December 2020, 09:38 AM
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#7
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
QUOTE(James Frost ☃️ @ Dec 14 2020, 09:07 AM) vTubers seem very up your alley. Not a bad thing at all. In assuming that the person behind whatever channel they run remain anonymous as well? It's a good way to avoid the pressures of Social Media as well though, very smart. Yeah, their real identities are heavily protected and while I've unintentionally been made aware of a few aliases some of them had in previous internet lives (they nearly all had some form of internet presence before this), thankfully it's only aliases and I'm not going to be spreading those either. They talk about general stuff in their real life but have a bit of backstory for the character they're playing so there's like a bit of a happy medium between both - in fact one just did a highly watched "coming out (as a Vtuber)" stream to her mother where there was apparently a list of notes for the mum on what not to say - like real name, precise location etc. Peaked at almost 130,000 people watching because she'd built it up so much. But yes, to this day I don't know what any of them really look like and I hope it stays that way. Most fans are kind and generous but there's always a few who can get really weird so it's for the best. They do post on social media though, at least on Twitter, though that's like an extension of the Vtubing activities. |
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16th December 2020, 09:07 AM
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#8
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Anime
Anohana: The Flower I Saw That Day (2011)  If you aren't aware, while most EoY countdowns only do things that released in 2020, I don't. It's hard to keep up with all the new stuff and if a classic is new to me this year, then I want to talk about it - though for the most part music remains 2020, this is largely for anime and games (if I do any sections on that, I might). And anyone who likes emotional TV needs to know about Anohana. Anohana was a short but very popular anime from the beginning of last decade and it is quite fitting that I'm talking about it nearly 10 years after it aired, as the plot hinges hugely on that length of time. I watched it at the beginning of the year. It follows six friends in high school, three boys, three girls, standard clique size. Only thing is, one of the girls is dead. 10 years ago, when they were a group of close friends as children, she passed away after an accident. The other five are clearly feeling like something is missing from their lives even after all this time but one of them starts to see, or think he sees, a hallucination of Menma, the dead girl. I watched this very quickly, especially for a slice of life, it uses its time well and keeps you engaged on how the ending is going to resolve, the show always keeps you wondering just how supernatural the setting really is (something it shares with plenty of emotional anime, Clannad for one), and of particular note: there's a glorious ending song. "Secret Base ~Kimi ga Kureta Mono~ 10 years after ver" is both exceedingly emotional and one of the most rhythmically pleasing anime songs I've ever heard, that title in itself evokes a whole lot, it's become a emotional favourite for vtubers to cover at karaoke this year, it's an anime song classic. |
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16th December 2020, 09:42 AM
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#9
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Music
Grimes - Delete Forever just gonna warn you all now, this is about as close to popular music as this thread is going to get, bar a few forays into Eurovision, I exist in my own weebcore and power-metal dominated Spotify playlists and I like it here very much. 'Delete Forever' is challenging to be my favourite Grimes song and that is amazing for something so simple, something not particularly abrasive or groundbreaking new areas of pop in the way previous iterations of her work have, and indeed many other songs on the album that this came from. 'Delete Forever' is just instead a song that flows, inexorably from one beat to the next, in a slow march towards oblivion. That it was written about death is so readily apparent, and again, it's great for soundtracking those long nights of isolation when you want to run up against the emo wall hard enough so that you feel MORE things rather than feeling numb. I always think this came out earlier than it did, but I guess I had been anticipating Grimes' album for a long time. She's had quite a year in the spotlight, some criticism which was pretty well deserved, though whenever she's restrained some of her ridiculous boyfriend's more edgy impulses it's clear she's the one who has it more together in the relationship - the video having her sit over a crumbling palace as its empress seems rather symbolic for her 2020. In a rather interesting coincidence, for much of the year, her Twitter profile picture was an anime avatar, from the anime I'm going to talk about next... |
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16th December 2020, 10:29 AM
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#10
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Anime
Interspecies Reviewers (2020) yabai ヤバい- adj. a Japanese word traditionally meaning 'dangerous' or 'risky', according to language sites is currently being used by younger Japanese people as a stand-in for basically anything (think 'bad' or 'wicked' from a couple of decades ago), very commonly used in the vtuber scene and so in front of me with its traditional meaning. I'm using it because the feeling that talking about Interspecies Reviewers in a positive sense on a public forum gives me can be summed up as very, very, yabai. And implicates my hobby of anime into being sus yet again. However, I want to do it because if I did not, I would be betraying the reason that I like it. And we mentioned it in the anime thread at the start of the year and nothing happened. But for content reasons for the site, no pictures or links to its theme songs, though if you look them up, the opening theme of the show ('Ikouzo Paradise') is a dead ringer for a 'YMCA' ripoff and the ending theme goes crazy nightcore. The rather problematic premise for Interspecies Reviewers is that in a medieval fantasy world where all kinds of humans and fantasy species live alongside one another, prostitutes are commonplace, but with so many different species with different magical abilities, the average punter won't know what they're getting. Three adventurers, a standard human, an elf and an angel who "has both" team up and start writing reviews of the places they visit, the end result being that each episode of the show basically details what having sex with weird fantasy creatures is like. It's not a hentai, I wouldn't be talking about it if it was, but it skirts the line really close. In fact, it was so close that there was a fun controversy where loads of distributors picked it up on the basis of the first episode being raunchy but not too out of the ordinary, only to drop it when even censored versions became too yabai for them. I like it because it's genuinely really funny (I've seen a few raunchy anime comedies, often known as 'ecchi', or 'H'. They're not normally this funny) and comes from a place in society that feels free to talk about sex as a open part of life rather than something that should be hushed up. Certainly it's great to have a comedy show that revels in sex as much as some shows revel in violence. I'm being very careful in posting this but I lean heavily towards the opinion that it's better and healthier when it is more freely talked about, and that includes having very explicit comedies that shine a more positive light on sex work than the stories you normally hear. It's still very het-coded what with most of the punters being male and most of the sex workers being female (Japan is still a little behind the West in that regard) and quite objectifying, but hints like the angel Crim just being a normal intersex person, or for example, the gender swap episode where unlike the other mains who stick to their previous sexualities, they used the opportunity to instead explore and find a very satisfying experience and a genuine care for the girl that they're with, shows an appreciation for a wide audience. The thought exercises that go into making really believable fantasy races with often quite differing and certainly not all titillating experiences is really good and this fits with my opinions on most things which would make puritans turn off and say "disgusting" without being able to articulate why -that is the sort of thing I want to challenge people with - why should exploring ideas beyond the norm, sexual or otherwise, be degeneracy? also yes, this is where that Grimes Twitter avatar originated from, though the character it depicts is a side character who only appears in one episode and isn't involved in any sex scenes, I guess Grimes just wanted to rep this show... for months... to her nearly 1 million followers... 
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17th December 2020, 07:51 AM
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#11
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Music
Pulses - Louisiana Purchase CW: math rock, screamo, male voices this is complete nonsense - the lyrics are very... they manage to fit 'Xbox', 'Playstation' and 'Nintendo' at different places in this song - but it is insanely fun, and songs named after otherwise obscure historical happenings are very welcome whenever they appear where I don't expect them to (i.e. outside of Sabaton's discography). Like with most of the hard metal I love, the total ALIVE feeling that this song gives me when it's playing is what makes it. No stop, no chill, just throwing every element of a modern song into a hard metal band, and a very memorable chorus line that they used for their album title, this is well worth listening to if you feel like you're needing a 2020 band yelling something at you to wake you up while ignoring ALL the rules of how to make good music it's so excellent |
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17th December 2020, 07:40 PM
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#12
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Buy yourself a car, and a house in Devon
Joined: 6 May 2016
Posts: 23,892 User: 23,247
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Giving Louisiana Purchase a listen now, it's... very shouty isn't it! You talk about the lyrics but unfortunately I can't understand a word they're saying
 On the other hand, I've had 'Pop On Rocks' going round in my head on-and-off for the past five days now. Very infectious. |
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18th December 2020, 09:40 AM
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#13
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Vtubers
(activate simp mode: we shall be discussing personalities) Hololive Japan (JP) Most vtubers are Japanese. It's where it started. As should be expected, the Japanese branch is the largest in Hololive, and there are far too many for me to talk about. There’s 5 official generations and 2 more semi-generations (the non-generational Vtubers from the very start and those who joined from outside, known as ‘Gen 0’, and a generation 2.5, known as ‘Hololive Gamers’, created when the agency was transitioning from a more idol-based singing focus to a gaming focus). I haven’t watched huge amounts from many of these, only clips and highlights. There's far too many for me to talk about, I could talk about the English-speaking sweary dragon Yakuza Coco, or her roommate Kanata the angel who used an Powerpoint for her debut stream and has never lived the name PPTenshi (Powerpoint Angel) down, or horny pirate captain "forever-17-but-has-shared-stories-from-her-time-as-an-office-worker" Marine, or many many others but I’ll focus here on three that I’ve watched more than most of the others and so know more a bit more than the base memes for: Inugami Korone, Shirakami Fubuki and Shishiro Botan. (every Vtuber name, even the English ones, I will use Japanese name order, family name first, as that's what their channels are called) Shirakami Fubuki  Fubuki is the face of Hololive. A fox girl, though often confused for a cat, from the 1st official generation, she is essentially the moral centre of the entire group (if parts of these section sound like I'm describing a huge girlband it's because in a way I am), always supporting her fellow members in ways ranging from setting up test streams after Youtube goes down in order that a hyped comeback stream goes smoothly, to providing live commentary on the lateness of two of her junior members when they overslept for a collaboration stream in order to deflect away negative attention, to shitposting short videos on her own channel as above (Scatman is often mentioned as a highlight). She's also such a fangirl of the company she works for that she's the only one to actually be part of TWO generations, she also joined the 'Gamers' group when it was announced as generation 2.5. She's incredibly active on Twitter, will always drop into important streams for other members to help boost them up, and basically does everything she can to ensure the success of this new market form and if there's anything I want to convey in this writeup, it is that I have the greatest respect for the dedication and leadership that this fox girl is able to provide. She is apparently always working hard behind the scenes, will come up with new plans on a whim if anything looks to be going wrong and through all the controversies that have threatened the young company, has managed to be a genius of PR in quelling negative feeling and making sure whatever the situation is is resolved as well as possible (and you have to be a strong person to take all of that on) - one of the reasons I'm okay with fanboying this single company so much is her assurances that she wouldn't be working there if she didn't enjoy it, and I'm inclined to believe her, her walking would pretty much destroy them. She's a leader you want to have as a leader, never talking themselves up, always helping those under her, and I don't know if the Vtuber scene would be the same without her. This extends to watching her live as well, if she does speak English you'll know that every one of her viewers is her 'good friend', regardless you'll find a cute and fluffy environment that really puts you off guard with her cuteness. She carries herself so well. final word, glasses: Glasses are really versatile. First, you can have glasses-wearing girls take them off and suddenly become beautiful, or have girls wearing glasses flashing those cute grins, or have girls stealing the protagonist's glasses and putting them on like, "Haha, got your glasses!" That's just way too cute! Also, boys with glasses! I really like when their glasses have that suspicious looking gleam, and it's amazing how it can look really cool or just be a joke. I really like how it can fulfill all those abstract needs. Being able to switch up the styles and colors of glasses based on your mood is a lot of fun too! It's actually so much fun! You have those half rim glasses, or the thick frame glasses, everything! It's like you're enjoying all these kinds of glasses at a buffet. I really want Luna to try some on or Marine to try some on to replace her eyepatch. We really need glasses to become a thing in hololive and start selling them for HoloComi. Don't. You. Think. We. Really. Need. To. Officially. Give. Everyone. Glasses? Inugami Korone  Another member of the 2.5 generation of 'Hololive Gamers', Inugami Korone is a dog girl, who is very close with her genmate Okayu the cat girl. But outside of the group, Korone seems like she's the Hololive member who first REALLY broke into western consciousness, her love for retro games, long plays of popular AAA games like Assassin's Creed and Doom Eternal and her unique adorableness that looks great when juxtaposed against these violent games seem to have done her well. She's received more attention, like official Twitter posts from developers and dev account hanging out in stream chat than any other of the talents as far as I can tell. Part of it seems to be her willingness to reach out to the international audience by speaking English, the latter of those two videos is from one of her 'English only' Super Mario/Mario Kart streams which are probably the best place to start for an English viewer and one of those was one of the first Hololive streams I ended up watching all of the way through. It might have had that 'have confidence' moment, but it also had her asking what the English name for a 'pipe' was, and when she got an answer from chat, spent the next five minutes calling it a 'peepeh' as chat fell into the trap of not accounting for Japanese pronunciation. there's also a very popular twitter account called @KoroneNoises which has a surprising amount of variety of the unusual noises she makes at times during her streams. She has the energy of a loveable dog and whatever she's doing, it's always a fun time. side note: this applies to most of the Japanese girls who try to speak English for their overseas viewers but as an ESL teacher it's at least mildly useful to see in my off-time how people with a limited grasp of English know the words they do and which words they don't - just as spending time in their Japanese streams helps improve my Japanese vocabulary through osmosis. Hololive's done a lot to break down the language barriers this year. Shishiro Botan  sneaky lion I've included Botan, a member of the newest 5th generation of Japanese talents, because while the over-the-top ones are fun, sometimes you just need someone who is going to give you a calm, expert gamer experience (as well as starting streams with a cute 'la lion' refrain). She built her own PC, she always comes across as very calm and mature, and based on a completely inaccurate general knowledge quiz given by one of the other girls to Japanese Vtubers on a regular basis she came top on intelligence not only out of all of Hololive, but across all of the Japanese Vtubers who had taken the test. Also her laugh is to die for, that sort of quiet giggle that makes your day when you notice it. As noted, she's a lion girl with a penchant for FPS and PC games, her recent project in Minecraft on the shared Hololive server has been to build a giant sniper rifle aiming directly at the big Gundam/NGE figures that other girls have built of themselves. She's a threat in the Among Us collabs, I've seen the other girls kill her off early to ensure she doesn't figure them out for example (one of which led to her talking to Korone for the first time in ghost chat, which seems like it started off a cool friendship between two of my faves, Korone being socially quite quiet in big collabs like that which Botan can help with) Her design, which looks quite like Adidas tracksuit, has attracted Russian attention (to the amusement of anyone able to google the 'gopnik' stereotype) and as you'd want, she's apparently starting to learn Russian, she may open up a new frontier for Hololive yet. It's early days for Botan, but then it's early days for Hololive as a whole. She debuted only back in August along with the rest of her generation and yet she's already emerged as a leader figure and 'dad' for that generation, and with the moments she's already created for both her genmates and her senpais, she'll very likely go far as another supportive member like Fubuki that I can't help but love. As an example of her skill (half of Hololive's skill is creating entertaining moments out of nothing) and how the extended Hololive universe works so well together, she was a vital player in the much hyped Pekora x Moona (both to be talked about later) Minecraft collaboration, spying on them from the sides and helping break the ice when they both noticed the stalking lion in the shadows trying to spy the cute moments. |
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18th December 2020, 09:41 AM
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#14
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
QUOTE(PeteFromLeeds @ Dec 17 2020, 07:40 PM) Giving Louisiana Purchase a listen now, it's... very shouty isn't it! You talk about the lyrics but unfortunately I can't understand a word they're saying On the other hand, I've had 'Pop On Rocks' going round in my head on-and-off for the past five days now. Very infectious. I tend to talk about the lyrics all the time whether I can understand them or not - though I can here, having listened to that song many times now. 'Speak it in to existence' is a great lyric. *.* |
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19th December 2020, 06:04 AM
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#15
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Game
Baba Is You (2019)  just fresh from watching a Botan (above) stream where she annihilated this game in a manner that makes me very jealous, we come to the perfect game to start off my 2020 gaming ruminations. Not because I played it first, but because of where it fits into my year. See, at the start of January, I was travelling around China, visiting people in other areas of the country, and one stop was my stepbrother, who also teaches out here. We rarely see each other, but we exchanged a fair few recommendations of things to play and watch (and due to what... happened, I blew through all of those in a manner quite unlike me), and one thing, that I tried out on his Switch and was quite taken with, was this game, Baba Is You. It's a great game for learning how programming languages are amazingly literal, as the game is a puzzle game that encourages you and requires you to 'break the game' by switching programming statements around to get your player character (by default a white blob called 'Baba') to whatever object on the screen is the 'win' condition. Basic is 'baba is you' and 'flag is win' but it won't remain that way by the end, especially in later levels where 'And' and 'Or' statements show up. It's a really unique and great puzzle game that I have genuinely struggled with and is well worth giving a go to try and test your lateral thinking skills. |
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19th December 2020, 09:29 AM
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#16
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Music
Anamanaguchi - Miku (feat. Hatsune Miku) (2016)/ [USA] (2019) I am making this the major exception to my music rule of not doing older songs because I listened to this a lot during 2020 and it's very relevant to 2020. It's a unique song as it can act essentially as a theme song for the elusive character that is Hatsune Miku, and she sings most of it, making playful assertions to her eventual dominance of human society as leader of the ferocious race of anime girls, 'hiding in your Wifi'. It has a glorious instrumental hook line that I don't think I will ever get tired of. And I did start listening to it a lot this year because of that lyric "20/20... looking in the rear-view", yes, she's mentioning the infamous year, and a good backward interpretation is that she's saying that there is a future beyond it, and we will survive. To the future where she steps on us. I've been a fan of Anamanaguchi ever since Seven sent "Prom Night" to BJSC many years ago, and with their release of album '[USA]' late last year I started fully loving them again, playing much of that album (particularly the wonderful 'Lorem Ipsum') on repeat, so the first half of my year was very much Anamanaguchi-sounding, with wonderful synthy hooklines and computerised sounds, as ever they're a very fun band that demands repeat listens. None of their songs quite topped "Miku", but they all gave it a good try. |
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22nd December 2020, 12:49 PM
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#17
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Anime
Serial Experiments Lain (1998)  I finished this one rather recently and it's ironic that it took me so long to watch this given how much I've referenced this in past EOYs as a generic reference to a dark and cloudy experimental anime from around the turn of the century. Because Serial Experiments Lain is far more than that, in fact it's probably one of the most prescient anime, no, TV series, ever made in the predictions it made about the future of the internet at a time when the web was in its infancy and no one dreamed that so much communication would one day be done on that there gosh darned phone. It is one of those anime that uses the opportunity of its medium to go really abstract with backgrounds and setting. The gist is that a shy and reclusive 14-year old girl called Lain gets pulled into "The Wired", and manages to become more of a presence in her online world than her offline world, though mysteries and powerful shady groups begin to approach her as she starts to straddle the line between the real world and the virtual world. She becomes someone completely different in the Wired, a legendary figure to an extent. I definitely didn't get all I'm ever going to get from Serial Experiments Lain on a first watch, it's good but has a very obscured story told in an unstructured manner, but an analysis watch would really pick up the full meaning of it. Were I a media analyst I'd love to tackle this one further. Suffice to say as far as this EOY goes, it highlights how technology can be a valuable escape for some people, to be someone they could not be with their physical body, and can also be a great burden on them, to the point where you question your sense of self. How much of what you do online is really you? What is left tethered to reality when you become so absorbed in the very rewarding atmosphere of an online world? How well these questions have held up, especially this year, is so interesting to look through. The Cranberries-esque style opening (in English as well) is also gorgeous: |
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25th December 2020, 06:59 AM
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#18
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Music
Victoria - Tears Getting Sober, Diodato - Fai Rumore, BEN & TAN - Yes I want here to highlight my three favourite songs from the Eurovision that never was to be, had it gone ahead I would have become an unreasonable stan of these in May threads, cried if any of them didn't get the success they deserved and, given how predictions looked pretty positive for all three, probably celebrated when they achieved a high finish. While certain other songs from the cancelled 2020 lineup briefly sounded good for a short time, it's only these three that have stuck with me for the whole year. For 'YES' it was the excitement of a Danish entry that wasn't deathly dull along with a good, old-fashioned, charming duet that kept me coming back to it. For all I often say I want edgy music, it's often the sweetest things that have me loving them the most and in 'Yes' I detected some vibes of Naviband, some others of that pop-opera duet from Malta in 2004, just two singers having a fun time on stage. For 'Fai Rumore', the beauty of a heartfelt Italian ballad was amplified when Italy was locked down with the first big wave of European Covid and there were people singing it from their balconies, it carried the feeling of an anguished nation. For a brief moment there was the feeling that it would just be China, Italy and Iran getting hit hard by COVID, even if that looks hopelessly optimistic now, and the narrative of Diodato making it to Rotterdam against those odds would have made for a powerful moment. For 'Tears Getting Sober', it was love from first listen. It has all the best parts of modern popular music with none of the worst parts, a singer who sounds emotional behind a slick production that demands repeat listens. I'll give it one thing, it's almost certainly better in the studio version that it would have been as a live performance but I only say that because the studio version is unreasonably lush. Thankfully I have confidence that Victoria can pull out another great song, she's made a lot out of her appeal to the Eurovision fandom, constantly doing live concerts, and her 2021 song release is my most anticipated of the upcoming Eurovision season. It helps that 'Tears Getting Sober' is such a powerfully sad song. In another universe, this would have been the alt-pop entry it was cool to like at this year's Eurovision, the Billie Eilish, the Disney-fied beauty of a pop song that wins the hearts of so many - as it was, it was the entry I was most heartbroken for when news of the cancellation broke. At the last few Eurovisions, I didn't have a song that I poured that much emotion into, not since 'My Friend' can I really say I was SEVERELY emotionally invested in one, though the emotional investment has surely been made stronger by the circumstances: for 2020, 'Tears Getting Sober' is my favourite that didn't get a chance to go in front of Europe. |
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25th December 2020, 10:54 AM
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#19
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Anime
A pair of shows that got a mixed reaction, I appreciated them for what they are but they weren't perfect (and yet I'm talking about them and I'm not talking about 10 other anime I watched this year go figure - because I decided I had nothing special to say about those): Sing "Yesterday" For Me (2020)  Every year I watch a variety of seasonal anime that I had not heard about prior to their airing, watch them weekly for a while, and very likely if I hadn't caught them while they were airing, I'd have never gotten around to watching them, though I chip away at various shows from the past that would fit this description every now and then. Sing "Yesterday" To Me is one of those, with its attraction of note being a pretty simple and nice portrayal of a love triangle, and the character pictured, Haru, who is an instant draw with everything she does, even if she is basically a manic pixie dream girl here to bring light into the life of the rather by-the-book protagonist. I like romance, slice-of-life anime for relaxation purposes, the portrayal of daily life for a group of mostly normal people, going out to bars, escaping drudgery, advancing in their careers and life situations and for the most part this anime does that very well for 11 out of its 12 episodes. Lots of people didn't like its ending and I can see where they are coming from, but it doesn't invalidate that I had a good time with the other 11 episodes. However, mainly I want to write about this to complain about the false advertising in the title, nowhere in this anime does anyone sing or even mention The Beatles' song "Yesterday", and it's not like there's any other song with that title that's famous enough to warrant it. Japan Sinks 2020 (2020)  Now this one was interesting largely for the reaction to it. It's from acclaimed anime director Masaaki Yuasa, who is wonderful, he directed Devilman Crybaby which was a HIGHLIGHT of 2018, and he directed another anime also to come on this list. The moment it came out on Netflix, Japan Sinks 2020 was met with a mixed reaction. It was originally supposed to be released to coincide with the Olympics in Tokyo and is based on an 80s disaster novel where, unsurprisingly, Japan sinks after being hit by a massive earthquake that starts the islands slowly being submerged beneath the ocean. For days there were people debating about whether it was one of the most masterful things ever or a hackneyed mess. It seems to have settled on the latter and while it is true that the plot is basically a whistle stop tour of disaster movie tropes with some rather ridiculous scenes as a collective of random characters, who for the most part have little interesting about them, flit in and out of the story with very little buildup, often dying with very little fanfare as well, it was also rather entertaining. The addition of certain characters like a GoPro wielding Youtuber (most interesting character by a long way) and at least a few characters who can lay down some rap beats (it's a Yuasa anime, got to have some freestyle rap showing up at some point) and a generally positive message of sticking together made it enjoyable to watch to the end easily enough. at its base level it is very generic disaster movie though |
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26th December 2020, 06:01 AM
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#20
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I'm a paragon so don't perceive me
Joined: 3 February 2011
Posts: 37,420 User: 12,929 |
Vtubers
Holostars (aka. Hololive Male) Because it's overlapping with the anime community, and not the K-Pop community (yet) or the more general gaming community who haven't figured out that these are just normal streamers in a more wholesome guise (yet), there's a rather large gender discrepancy between the success of female vtubers and male vtubers as things stand, even though male streamers are generally far more popular than female streamers. For various reasons (remnants of idol culture, illusion of a virtual girlfriend, aggressive lesbian shipping) the more popular female Vtubers rarely do collaborations with their male partners, though the ones who've been around longer and have less f***s to give, like Fubuki above, or those in the Indonesian branch have done a few. Now I haven't watched all that many streams from the Holostars, but those I have watched, I've really enjoyed. The most popular is Yukoku Roberu, an endlessly cheery "bartender" who once got asked 'Are you winning, son?', enthusiastically replied "Yes, I'm everyone's winning son," and subsequently became everyone's winning son. And it's important to remember that while most of the Holostars have between 50k-100k subscribers and that looks small compared to their female counterparts who are pushing 1 million, most of the female lot were in the same position the males are in now back in January 2020. It would only take a few more breakout moments like Roberu's 'winning son', or his 'cafeteria in my soul' defense as shown above, to break them into the same level of success as the girls. The main one I'm going to talk about is one who stands out from the rest though, one whose model is slightly older: Aruran (aka. Arurandeisu, aka. Pizza Dad)  (Aruran discovers DILF) A silver fox among the rest of the Hololive cast, Aruran is great for relaxing streams on his own merit and would be in the vast roster of great talents I respect but don't talk about if it weren't for his regular language streams. A couple of months ago, he figured out that a great way to reach out to the increasing foreign audience brought in by Hololive English and improve cross-cultural communication between English and Japanese viewers was to host regular exchange streams, normally talking about English slang or Japanese slang for the audience that isn't familiar with it, but also looking at photos of foreign places or food and that sort of cultural exchange is the sort of thing I live for. Some of his comments have hinted that he might have been a university lecturer in a past life (he's shown evolutionary theory on stream before) or at least someone with a natural curiosity for education about the world's cultures, and someone like that is always cool to be virtually spending time with. His English isn't yet fluent but it's very easy to understand what he's meaning - on par with many of the Chinese people I work with on a daily basis and these streams are teaching him as well. Many Japanese vtubers have been doing English-only streams lately but Aruran does them so regularly and is such a fun friendly fatherly presence in most other respects (and also surprisingly up on memes) that he, along with Roberu, are my hopes that they'll get greater recognition soon for doing so, especially because from all accounts, compared to the far more successful female talents, they sometimes struggle on the irregularity that is a youtuber's earnings (e.g. Aruran once revealed he used a cardboard box as a desk and slept in a sleeping bag and his chat started a 'Make Papa Rich Fund' in response, fortunately he did update everyone on his buying of a proper bed and desk, though speaking from experience as someone who has lived alone in a place with few furnishings, particularly in Asia, it might have been more about a lack of necessity after moving to a new place than true financial hardship, though it's certainly true that compared to the girls that the male earnings are probably more average). |
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