After-Thoughts Rant: General Things that Annoy Me

Sometimes I have trouble writing full posts on this blog. This is because I generally want to keep these posts centered on a single-overarching topic to stay on track and to keep everything I say coherent to an extent. However, sometimes writing a full post is hard because there are things I wish to talk about that aren't a big enough deal to warrant its own topic. So, today, I'm going to be discussing a variety of things that I've found on the internet that bother me that aren't big enough to deserve their own post. Here we go.

Uraraka the Prostitute

When it comes to fictional works, Doujinshi are on par with fanfiction in terms of canonicity because that's basically what they are. Though some are consistent enough with the source material that they could in theory be canon, many are basically just what-if stories created by fans of a given product. So it's no surprise that many of these may change the characters they're working with.

Probably one of the biggest out-of-character situations I've seen that's common among Doujinshi writers comes in the form of Ochako Uraraka from My Hero Academia. Uraraka is characterized within My Hero Academia as having goals that are primarily money focused. Although her actual goal is noble and just, the fact is that she is primarily using money as a means to an end. Many doujin writers interpret this as Uraraka becoming a prostitute.

Now, it's no secret that though not every doujinshi involves sex, the majority are hentai to some extent. So when you're writing that kind of story, writers have to create a method of getting the sex to happen as quickly as possible, usually within 3-5 pages. A good writer will create some means of doing so that doesn't contradict motives while also simultaneously fitting into the world they're utilizing. A subpar writer, on the other hand, will screw this up by trying to find a way to retrofit one or two tropes onto the characters.

In relation to Uraraka, many of them tend to think "She wants money therefore prostitute." On a surface level, it makes some sense. Generally, no matter where you come from, the story of a woman brought down in hard times and using her body to get out of it is pretty ubiquitous. For original characters, this can work well enough if you set up the context right. For characters you're using from other sources, however, this can very easily backfire because even if it works on a very surface level, at a core level the concept either aligns with the character or it doesn't.

Granted, for many of those stories, this problem extends to other characters as well. When one particular story turned Class 1-A into the cast of a story called "A Side of My Girlfriend Unknown to Me" I rolled my eyes incredibly hard at the sheer amount of twisting, stretching, and bending of established characters necessary for that story to work.

It bothers me because whenever it's used it's just a transparent attempt to make the sex happen as quickly as possible with a generic trope as a shorthand regardless of how poorly it fits into the world.

Perceived Inconsistent Power Scaling

A few months ago there was this video I saw on Youtube that attempted to gather the range of stats on the character of Shoto Todoroki. During this video, the youtuber makes a bunch of statements that are intended to be based on the assumption that Midoriya punched Todoroki with 100% of One For All during the sports festival.

Initially I thought this was an oversight in the video until I read the comments and found people actually making the claim that "Midoriya's punch to his stomach had to be at 100% because it was never stated that it wasn't." I generally don't like to insult people in these posts because I want to be dignified and try to maintain an air of intelligence. However, this is a level of stupidity I cannot possibly fathom.

Okay, so even ignoring the fact that in a previous episode of that same season All-Might tells Midoriya he can only handle 5% at the moment, in that actual fight we see him fire off 100% with the fingers on his right hand, his left arm, and one of his legs, and every time it shatters those bones, represented in the anime with heavy bruising. So if all those attacks at 100% broke the bones in his body, why would that one punch to Todoroki's stomach not break Midoriya's right arm?

Currently I have yet to see anyone post an explanation for it, but any explanation other than he wasn't using 100% for that punch is just stupid, plain and simple. I want to blame an inability to think logically but I don't think that's the extent of it since the series repeatedly and unsubtley tells us Midoriya's limitations, there's no room for additional guess work because the series flat out tells us what he can and can't do. The only thing I can think is that the people involved weren't paying attention.

DMC4:SE and Comparisons to Ninja Gaiden

I talk to my brother about Devil May Cry a lot and I often bring up the issue of DMC4: Special Edition not adding additional levels or bosses for Dante instead of three additional characters like they obviously go with and every time, I'm met with the same excuse: "That's just too much effort for the developers."

Okay, so ignoring the fact that Devil May Cry is a series that should be held to a higher standard and that that kind of thinking results in games like Metroid: Other M or even the DmC reboot series, this is one area where Ninja Gaiden is unequivocally better than Devil May Cry.

So far, of the Devil May Cry games, only three have extended editions, Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition, Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition, and DmC Definitive Edition and all of them are incredibly bare bones with the introduction of additional characters.

Devil May Cry 3, the first of these, includes Vergil as a secret character after completing the game as Dante. He's a pretty good character overall but apart from the start and end cutscenes, his campaign is just Dante's campaign again. Comparing this to Ninja Gaiden Sigma, the first rerelease to include an additional character, Rachel is playable in Chapter Challenge, which is the equivalent of Vergil but she also gets around 4 dedicated story chapters to herself. Granted, not many would put Rachel on par with Vergil in terms of the quality of her moveset, I certainly wouldn't, but the fact is in terms of overall story and level inclusion, Rachel gets significantly more.

Now technically, DMC4 comes out before DmC, however, DmC Definitive Edition comes out before DMC4: Special Edition so I'll talk about that one first.

DmC: Definitive Edition is superior to the original release in pretty much every single capacity except story, where they're about the same. Both releases have Vergil's Downfall but the OG release has it as DLC where Definitive Edition has it as a main inclusion. This one is certainly closer to Rachel than DMC3: SE was since, no matter how much of a downgrade the gameplay is, the fact is Vergil gets his own levels and enemies in DmC even if what we get is still pretty mediocre. However, for this comparison, that doesn't matter because in the time it took this rerelease to come out, Team Ninja had already outdone itself twice in the form of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. Here, I'll only compare the former.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 includes 3 new characters on top of the basic Ryu. Momiji, the middle character in strength and speed who is sort of like a super powered version of Ryu, Rachel, who is the slowest of the three but the most powerful in terms of single strike damage, and Ayane, who is the weakest in melee but absolutely the fastest of the group. Each of these characters was given their own level, their own boss, and their own story context, complete with cutscenes.

Momiji's story is to track down the Tengu brothers who abducted the young ninja in training named Sanji. Rachel is hunting down the last surviving Greater Fiend of Vigoor, due to the fact that he is the only one not killed in either Ninja Gaiden (XBox) or Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. And Ayane is going after the Witch Obaba to get back the Eye of the Dragon Jewel that was stolen and give it to Ryu later on to give him the powered up True Dragon Sword, or Shin Ryuken for anyone who hates English.

This isn't too much but three characters each with a single chapter is better than one character with three chapters. It even divides up the gameplay a bit more as Momiji, Rachel, and Ayane have full movesets where Vergil, even with the Angel-Demon mechanic, still only has light-medium-heavy attacks and that's it.

Moving on to DMC4: SE and comparing it to Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, apart from the many gameplay improvements Razor's Edge made, which DMC4 couldn't be bothered to, Razor's Edge incorporates three characters. Momiji, Ayane, and Kasumi from Dead or Alive. DMC4: SE also includes three characters: Vergil, Lady, and Trish.

This comparison is quite apt, though you could also compare DMC4: SE to Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, since they have the same parallels. Both include three characters, two of whom have been playable in previous entries, and one of whom is a newcomer to the series. For DMC4: SE Lady is the newcomer as Vergil was playable in DMC3: SE and Trish was playable if you got 100% completion on DMC2, though I understand if you never did so.

In Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Momiji and Rachel were both playable in Dragon Sword and Sigma respectively but Ayane was new. In Razor's Edge, Momiji and Ayane both return from the same previous entry, and Kasumi is the newcomer. Granted, Razor's Edge is a slight downgrade from Sigma 2 as Ayane is the only one who gets a story and, to be fair, she does get 3 chapters, where Momiji and Kasumi are only available in chapter challenge and are DLC-only if you got the Wii U version for some reason.

Even so, however, it's still better than DMC4: SE which gives 3 playable characters and all of them have the same levels and enemies as Nero and Dante, meaning there's not even any variety in environments.

Uninformed Assumptions

Okay so this one's gonna be really quick but in a previous post on Action Games I said Bayonetta's pauses incorporate the summoning of giant limbs from her demon. That's not true, those actually show up every time you finish a combo. Just a small correction there. Boy has it been a long time coming.

The Perfect Insider

I heard from a youtuber that this show was going to be good. I watched it and I hated it. For a while I wanted to review or critique it because I wanted to talk about it but unfortunately I don't have enough to say on the topic for a full review. So, here it is.

This show romanticizes murder and psychosis and dresses those things up as a result of pure genius. The characters have a difficult time figuring out who the murderer is when I figured it out half-way through the series, a full six episodes before the twist is actually revealed. Its only real merit is its post-modern art style of animation of abandoning the rule of thirds as a means of instilling panic. I get what they were going for but it ultimately failed to do anything. Even the characters are complete scumbags. One's an asshole, one's a spoiled brat, one's a socially awkward lesbian, one's a psychopath, and none of them are interesting or likeable.

Waifu Wars: Platinum vs. Team Ninja

Generally speaking I like attractive characters with the exaggerated proportions but those types of characters generally have very little in terms of development or character arcs when we're dealing strictly with Action Games. Although these two companies have made many games and the people on these teams may have made even more, generally neither team is particularly good at characterization or story.

Most people who play Platinum Games don't usually play them for their stories but it is telling that the one game in their roster that has a suitable waifu of quality standards was created by and for Yoko Taro. I am of course speaking of 2B from NieR: Automata. Though there are a number of characters who have nice bodies, special mention goes to the Commander, 2B is the one given the most focus. 2B does have a fair bit going for her but due to Square Enix's management right now most of 2B's development comes from external sources, such as short stories, stage plays, and concerts strangely enough.

Of course Platinum going back to former Capcom teams did make God Hand which, fair enough, a majority of the designs are nice and Olivia in particular is all kinds of spankable but God Hand's very generic shounen anime story makes it hard to see depth in any of these characters.

Team Ninja has a bit more going for it in terms of the designs of the Waifu's, with many of them just looking absolutely thick as all hell. Rachel and Honoka in particular have a lot of meat on them. That said though, Ayane is my personal favorite for having an arc in Dead or Alive: Dimensions and DOA5 that resonates with me personally. Of course I do think she could stand to grow a bit more but what's there is ultimately quite nice.

However, Ayane's arc is very difficult to find in a series like Dead or Alive. Of course some characters have developed, Kasumi in particular has matured by the end of DOA5 but most characters in the series generally don't develop. Which is a bit of a shame.

And I suppose that's everything, for now. Have a wonderful day.