Natsume Yuujinchou Roku

10 years....
6 seasons...
and that ending.

Ok Biases out of the way first.
This is my fav show.
Hands down if i had to pick only one show to watch for the rest of time it would be this one.
I recently went to Japan and i spent an obscene amount of money on merch..... about 90% of that for this show.
There was a cafe that was open for the final week of my trip.... I went with a friend EVERY DAY....
I went to the damn town that this show is loosely set in.
I love this show.
It will be my number 1 anime of the year.
If someone licenses it I will buy it no matter what the price is.
and i will hope it doesn't take 3-4 years for another season even though i know thats probably exactly whats going to happen.

So my opinion on this show is utterly worthless because i love it so damn much.

That being said.

Natsume Yuujinchou is about a young boy who can see spirit, after a chance encounter with a cat he learns of his grandmothers final possession the book of friends. This book holds the name of every Youkai his grandmother defeated and is sought out both by yokai wanting their names back and those wanting to control the names within.

The show is episodic in nature and as far as pacing goes it's pretty chill. Sure there is a surprising amount of blood for what is essentially a shoujo title and some of the questions asked in episodes are genuinely scary but overall this is a heart warming show that will make you feel good about everything.

Until this season where it'll take out your heart, show it to you and then crush it right infront of you.

I mean it's still heartwarming but I don't think i've cried so hard for a show ever before.
It's to the point where i'm convinced i need to build a time machine and slap past me up the back of the head for predicting exactly when the 3 most painful episodes of the season would air.

Now we just get to wait for Natsume Yuujinchou Nana... it'll probably be a few years (the manga needs to get ahead) but much like Go and Roku it'll be worth the wait.

My only hope now is that someone licenses it for North american distribution (i'll even pay the aniplex tax if i have to just let me own this damn show)

Expect more fanart from the show as well... if past experience is anything to go by i tend to need to do something with this show every few months cause it's just so damn good.
Also just for fun....

I have more pictures from Hitoyoshi but.... i figure this is enough for now.
Alright.... Thank you for reading!

Trails in the Sky The 3rd

I want to start this off the same way i started my Trails in the Sky Second Chapter Ramble.

To everyone who had a hand in making this game and allowing an English speaking audience to enjoy it I have one thing to say.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart... Thank you.
I know (while this may not have been as large in scope as second chapter) that this series is a bitch to translate for. I know the sheer amount of text (not even mentioning that damn near every chest says something unique) was an insane task. You persevered and worked extremely hard to get this game out and to that I say Thank you.

Thank you!

I can't say it enough.

Thank you.

I know none of you will ever read this (granted last time i said this BOY was a mistaken)

But seriously, Thank you.

True story: The day I saw the tweet. "A nun and a priest walk into a game" I audible gasped. My family who were nearby at the time wondered who had died. (then i had the joy of explaining it's for a game where i got the look.... you know the one) Still even though the evidence was pretty damning I had some to terms that we were never getting the 3rd and i refused to get my hopes up.

The next day (or shortly after? my memory is not known to be the best) I was streaming some art and in a 5 minute break I checked twitter.
"Trails in the sky the 3rd coming to the west" I heard myself reading that glorious tweet out loud before tears rolled down my face.
I honestly don't know of any other series that could make me cry by announcing a localization (well i can think of a few more now but i'm not going to get greedy)

Alright onto the Spoiler free ramble.

... Now to think of a way to describe this game without spoiling anything....
I know!
A nun and a priest walk into a game : D
...
Alright so this will be short.

We follow two Grailsritters, Kevin Graham and Reis Argent,  as they look into a mysterious artifact that was pull out of the lake.
Soon they find themselves drawn into a new mystery in which they will need to rely on old friends to help solve.

Out of the three games (hell out of the 5 if you count cold steel series) this one is the most unique. Pretty much immediately certain things are added to the combat system that make it far more deadly then ever before.
It's also got a far less powerful protagonist then any of the other games do. Not that Kevin is physically weak by any means but for me his job was making sure no one got hit and if they did that no one stayed hurt for long. Sure Reis makes up for this by easily being one of the most (if not the most) powerful characters in the game... but still it takes a little getting used to.

Outside of that I can't say much other then you get a lot of party members and i loved it.

My playtime was 42:03 which i feel is pretty close to how much time First chapter got? This game is shorted then Second chapter for sure but again Second chapter was massive.

One of the things I'll say is that near the end if you enjoy double checking things you are asked. "Was it worth the wait"
Yes.
100% it was worth the wait.
Not a shadow of doubt in my mind... it was worth the wait.
I loved this game, Every moment drew me in and when I'm getting teary eyed at chests being so supportive near the end... I know i was hooked.

Part of me wonders what it would have been like to play this in the order of the series but honestly i don't care. I'm just happy i got to experience it at all since i had given up on ever playing it.

I will say this.
Star door 15 was not nice... I don't think I've cried that hard concerning anything ever.... Falcom (and I guess those that translated it too but this one is mostly on falcom in my mind) That was not ok.... you should feel bad for that.... I know you don't cause you thrive on our suffering but no... bad Falcom, you sit in the corner and think about what you did.
No don't think about how to make it worse!

Now for the part where I get a little greedy.
I would love to have Xseed put out the crossbell games.
I know it probably wont happen.... I'm even ok with it not happening but if i had one hope.... it would be getting to play those games. I just love this series so much and i just wanna throw as much money as possible to whomever brings it over.

However for now I'll just enjoy the fact that i can look at a little more of my kiseki art books without getting spoiled. (well I'm pretty sure a lot of crossbell has been spoiled cause of Cold steel but hey.... gotta keep whatever i can under control.)

But seriously...... Thank you for this.

Alright I think it's time for some Kiseki fanart! right after I finish these project pieces! (which you will find out more about in August!)

Also just in case my Bias wasn't clear enough in all this.... I put aside Persona 5 to play this game... so yeah.... I enjoy Falcom games just a little too much.

Side note: there are a few instances where the text is still in Japanese (at least in my play through, it's probably been patched by now)... both in battles.
one at the end of Schera's door and the other in the final round of the final arena.... neither are story relevant but just thought I'd mention it.

But yeah... This will probably be my number 1 game of the year... at least... don't be surprised if it is come new years.
For now it's back to work and back to chipping away at Persona 5, Fire Emblem Echoes, Xanadu next and all the games that are coming out just around the corner.

And for those who stuck through to this point... i present my fav Chest phrase.

Yeah I'd buy that.

Japan Day 21 - Canada Day 10421

I meant to do this after getting back yesterday but nope... was just too loopy.

The day of the final day was a bit surreal. We were all making sure that two things were accomplish.

1. we were all packed and leaving the place pretty much how i came
2. we ate all the food we couldn't take with us to the airport or Canada.

After accomplishing these two things Keiko stopped by and walked us to the station and bid us a safe flight.
Our flight wasn't till 5ish but we didn't want to risk anythign so we just went to the airport early. I think for most of us 21 days is plenty of time to do what we needed and we all just wanted to get home at this point.

At least the flight home was direct.... thats just about the only kind thing i can say about the flight though.

I have learned that i can deal with my anxiety when playing... the turbulence still sucks but i'm not a mass of tears.
What i can't handle is a asshole behind me digging his knees into the back of my seat for 12 hours... but if it was just that i maybe could have gotten some rest on the plane.
BUT it wasn't just that, douche bag infront of me from the very start of the flight pushed his chair so far back i heard cracking... and every half hour or so he'd try to push it further. I wasn't too worried about the chair actually breaking but it was annoying cause i had the tray down to watch movies on my tablet and it was pretty much poking into be for 12 hours.
but thats not even all of it.
A fligth attendant knew the dumbass behind me so for portions of the trip where there chatted he used my chair as an anchor and had the bonus of being a hand talker.
so yeah no sleep.... but the food headign to japan hadn't been terrible... maybe this would be the high point.
...
ha ha ha.... no.

Sure air plane food is known for being pretty awful but this was bordering inedible.... in fact out of the 3 meals i only ate 1..... and some cookies.

However the flight itself wasn't too bad... occasional bits of toubulance but nothing like the first flight had.

Getting thrug hthe airport in Canada was easy for me because i managed to do this entire trip on one carry on rolly luggage and my purse. still i waited with my friends for their luggage since i needed to wait for my ride as it was.

Customs was also far less painless then i thought it would be, a lot of "ok now go here" but in the end a pleasant experience overall.

Now that hard part began.

We left japan around 5 pm on the 21st.
We arrived in Canada at 4 pm on the 21st.... and in order to help my sleep schedule go back to normal... i would at least need to stay up till 10. by the up already been up around 24 hours... and anyone who knows me knows i like sleep.

Luckily I had some tea waiting for me when i got in the car (which was the best welcome home present anyone could give me ever) and lots of stories to tell while fighting off the sleep.

I gave my families their souvineers... ate and then the rest gets a little fuzzy... i know i did stay up till about 9:30.... and i woke up at 4.... not the best start but i should be able to get back to normal in a day or two at least.

The best part of coming home was the reaction from my cats,  iwas expecting them to be cold nad distant but they were all over me right away and very tolerant of my constant snuggles.

The plan now that i'm back in Canada is simple.

1. Work on art for the zine, i've got my two mockups done i just need approval.
2. Play all the games.... between Persona 5, trails in the sky the 3rd and fire emblem i have a bti to catch up on.
3. Catch up on 3 weeks of anime, specifically natsume yuujinchou cause 2 of the episodes that aired i have been waiting for years (and what i saw of the fandom reaction was glorious)

So yeah the daily blogs have come to an end but still lots of stuff in the future.
(also i may do a post mortem blog in a few days with pictures to just wrap my thoughts abotu the trip up.... i just need to recover first)

Japan Day 20 - Final full day

All good things must come to an end.

Granted considering getting 7 people to get 3 weeks off is more then a bit of a task I should be thankful we got to stay as long as we did.

The last leg of our trip has been in Tokyo, and we happen to be here for the Sanja Matsuri Which is one of the great Shinto festivals.
We were led by our Air BNB host (who has been amazing this entire time so far) to the central path of the festival. We got to see many people of all ages and sizes carrying "mikoshi" (which are like portable shrines)

I took a lot of pictures so should be fun seeing how those turned out.

After tha we headed to to a store because a haikyuu ichiban kuji stared today..... problem was it sold out in an hour.... so we bought the last natsume yuujinchou ichiban kuji.

After that we decided 30 degrees with 80% humidity was too damn hot and we headed back to the place with the lovely AC.

I'm still feeling pretty sick but it seems to just be a scratchy throat for now.... i think my body will hit me once i'm at home but you know what? I appreciate it waiting.

Colin brought a hand scale so i decided to weight my carry on.
23 lb.
Shit... my max is 22lb... and i don;t want to check anything.

So after rearanging my bag and purse i think i managed to get carry on to 19-21 (cause the hand scale wavered between that) so hopefully that all works out. (I'll check if i have to but i have mugs and i rather not have air canada move those for me.) [and if i have to pay a fee then so be it]

Other then that just enjoying the final evening before a 12 hour flight.

Japan day 19 - Foreboding

Back in tokyo it's time to tie up loose ends.   Since being here last time store have changed and events have updated. Marise and I got ready and headed to Ikebukuro.
Her goal - new Yuyu hakusho items, mine -  persona 5 shop.
We headed out, figured out the subway system since that's what we are currently close to an made our way to the shops.
Only there also happened to be right in the area of the natsume cafe so we had to stop there... in unrelated news we have pulled every keychain and every towel.... impressive? Maybe but also a little sad.
Anyways we made it to the yu yu hakusho cafe and Marise got some more key chains and then we headed to the other side of the station to the persona 5 shop where i finished picking out souvineers for people (i mean blind pulls count at picking out?) as well as a new awesome shirt for myself (Morgan a telling the player to go to sleep) and after all that spending i got to do three lottery draws... and the first one was a 'gold' draw so i wont the grand prize of a big button (like.... 8 inch button?)

It was at this point that i started to worry... i could feel a tickle in my throat.
So close to the end i can get sick yet.

I ignore it, we head back home and search out lunch. There's a soba place around the corner and we went in there. Even though it was a hot as hell day we got hot Soba and you know what? Worth it.

After that amazing meal we headed back to the place to simply relax.
Only when you read more you can feel it more... the awful tickle in the back of my throat getting worse and worse. It's getting harder to think and i just want to sleep.

Hopefully i last the next 2 days, that's all i ask... i can be sick back in Canada.

Eventually the guys return but then we headed out again, this time for dinner. Marise has been hunting for sushi with no luck an tonight was no exception.. tomorrow hopefully or it'll be a sushi breakfast before the flight.

As i prep to sleep i just hope that this cold leaves me alone... just for a little longer. At least all my shopping is done (cause i am almost out of money.... i have enough to get me thought the next two days but not much more then that)

Alright... final full day in tokyo tomorrow, wish me luck!

Japan Day 18 - Back to the beggining

6 hours is a long time to spend on a train so unfortunately i don't have much to say about this day... just that we headed back from Fukuoka all the way to Tokyo, and in that time i finished one of the books i brought (luckily i still have a few because yay Kindle)

I will talk about the check in experience because it was different.

We have been using air bnb and so far everything has just been self check in.
This time the owner of the place actually came to pick us up from the station. She showed us around the area, taught us how to use everything in her house and even left us surprising amount of free treats.

Also even though the beds are close together there is plenty of breathing room on the main floor
It's sad that the trip is coming to an end but at least my health seems to have held out through the trip (though my back and heel have started to protest)

Tomorrow i hope to take a short trip to ikebukuro but overall just going to  enjoy the last few days in japan.

Japan Day 17 - Pilgramige 2.0

From day one i knew i wanted to go to Hitoyoshi because that's where Natsume Yuujinchou was loosely based on.

The other place i wanted to go was Karatsu since it's where Yuri on Ice Loosely takes place for the first few episodes. It's also a seaside town and no matter what would be pretty to go to. 

However i miscalculated. 

Yesterday was considered a free day so Marise and I took it easy and just went to the aquarium... Apparently today we were all supposed to go to Hiroshima. 

Thing is HIroshima is pretty far from where we are AND i really did want to go to Karatsu and I had kinda planned to do that today. Marise and I discussed it and said even though we did want to go to HIroshima, better to go to Karatsu because who knows when we can come back to Japan. 

So once again we broke off from the group and i'm really happy we did. 

The trip was simple but odd. As a foreigner in Japan i can have something called a JR pass, essentially i pay a lot of money but i get to ride all JR and some shinkansens for free. This doesn't apply to subway/trams/local lines/busses. 

So to get from here to Karatsu we had to take the subway.... but about halfway through the trip the subway turns into a JR train.

Essentially we had to pay 3 bucks then the remaining 7 was free. This was super easy heading there.... (heading back was an adventure but more on that later.

We arrive in Karatsu and it's sunny and stunning. Not a lot of foot traffic but still we had a few locations we knew we wanted to try to get to (the bridge and the castle mainly.) 

So we headed that way, both were right beside each other which was nice and even though it was up a lot of stairs it wasn't like Inari and the view of the water from the top was super pretty. 

We also checked out the bridge which was... well a bridge nothing too special there. 

Then we looked for a place to eat. 

"The reviews on this place are good and it says it likes yuri on ice fan" 

So we headed over and oh boy... it wasn't kidding. 

First question. "Anime ga suki?" (Do you like anime?)

"Hai" I replied and got a clap from the chef. 

"Yuri on Ice suki?"

"Hai" i replied again and then... then the merch came out. We were literally surrounded by plus toys, mugs, posters, gold rings (given to the chef by kubo but i'll get to that) given place mats of the three in hot springs or in a car shopping... it was a little nuts. 

Then we looked at the menu and the first thing i spot is a 100 dollar steak. 

'Oh no we made a mistake' I thought to myself. 'Why is such a fancy place embracing anime so much? Just cause it's set here' 

Eventually i did notice some more reasonably priced options (i mean still cost a lot but it was 100% worth it) and we ordered and waited. 

Now there was nothing english in this place, and my japanese isn't the best, i can get by but just barely.

So as we wait for him to cook our order in front of us more merch appears... we notice a yuri on ice room where the show is just constantly being marathoned. He walks by and his chef coat gets more and more Yurio merch. 

He shows us his phone and it's got a agape yurio background. 

The store's music is all yuri on Ice on loop. 

It was interesting to say the least. Eventually a japanese customer who spoke very good english came in and helped me translate some of the chefs stories. 

Apparently he is one of kubo's friends (more on this later) and he really loved the show and took full advantage of the fact that it was set in the town he worked. 

We ate our meal, it was (for lack of a more appropriate term) fucking amazing. Worth every penny. And then as we got up to get ready to pay the chef stops us. "Ochoa ii?" (Is free tea good/would you like some green tea) I reply that it's good and then he gets us to pick mugs... i picked Victor and Marise got Yurio and then he took us to the yuri on ice room and handed us a notebook. He asked us to write a note and enjoy our tea. 

So we did and then just as we were getting ready to leave once again he stops us and asks us if we are rushing to the next place. Well no this whole trip was about no more rushing and just doing our own thing. So he brought us to the side of his store and told us the story of why he embraces the anime as much as he does.

Again my japanese is not the best but the gist i got was that He always loved anime but it was considered odd to like something that was seen as being for children. 

I'm going to side step for a second because when i heard him say this my heart broke. It's hard to explain but anime is everywhere here. It just feels like another aspect of the culture, not everyone likes it but i didn't think it would be odd if someone did like it as an adult. But here was this amazing chef who had a complex about the fact he liked shows like Madoka magica. 

Anyways he continued on his story about how he became a chef and eventually gained a Michelin star. (Which having eaten at his restaurant i can understand cause the food was amazing) I'm not sure if he met kubo before or after this but she apparently came to eat at his store and noticed that he liked anime. They discussed it for a while and after hearing how he felt about his passion she cried and gave him a hug. Eventually the two became close friends. She would come and discuss themes of the show (fate, love, bonds) and even though he wasn't part of it in any way he felt a deep connection. 

He was invited to cator one of the events for the show and had a group photo on his twitter with the production team. I'm not sure when but Kubo even gave him a replica of the golden ring that the main characters had. (She apparently proposed and everything) and with her help he decided that he could embrace his passion of being a chef and an anime fan and just have fun with it. And that he's seen more people from all over the world thanks to this then he may have simply being a Michelin star chef in a tiny seaside town. He was great full to the show for helping him accomplish this and hopes to continue being a fan of all things anime for many years to come. 

After this we were able to pay but then the customer who spoke English really well came and showed us to the station were we could fill out a survey and get a map with all the show locations. 

We ended up also seeing all the aspects of the station and yuutopia thanks to this map (we could have gone to the beach but it was already starting to get late. 

ANow for the way back... we started JR but halfway through he had to rush off the train, go through the ticket booth. Pay the 3 bucks and rush back on the train. The goal was simple... get back on the same train we left or wait the 13 minute for the next one. 

Miraculously we managed it and it was quite the adrenaline rush. 

After that we just grabbed some mcdonalds (cause it was cheap and we had spent enough on food today) and i grabbed another natsume cafe item because dammit i don't have a problem i swear. 

As much as i did want to see Hiroshima... I'm really glad we did this because i had an amazing day and i felt closer to the people here then i ever had before. I can always come back and see it next time. 

Tomorrow is the massive trip back to Tokyo for the final few days. 

My family is tying to convince me to stay but between my JR pass ending soon and my lack of accommodations (not to mention missing my bed, my cats, my computer and oddly toilet paper that is more then 0 ply) I really just want to head back to canada and sleep for a day.... or two... we'll see when the time comes. 

Also fun fact.... even though. I have nearly taken 1000 pictures my camera STILL says i have 9999 shots left.... well at least i never had to swap the cards?