Drifting Dragons and Castlevania: Nocturne

A pair of animes with great art.

Drifting Dragons (Season 1)

In a world where dragons are just wild animals people have taken to dirigible "draking" (whaling) ships to hunt them. This one season story follows the crew of one such vessel and their trials not only against their prey, but also against the ship's budget and occasionally each other. There's also a lot of focus given to the butchering of said dragons followed by strangely specific cooking and eating sequences that involve dragon parts that have convinced me the dragons there taste great most of the time! The series starts of slow and gives almost all the crew on the draking ship some screen time and by the end it was getting some good emotional payoffs. That said I am not sure how some of these people haven't died a few times over already but I guess it's just not that sort of anime. Recommended if you don't mind a slow burn with very little thinking.

Castlevania: Nocturne (Season 1)

Set hundreds of years after the first series this one continues with the excellent art style and action pieces of its predecessor while introducing a new band of heroes to face off against more vampires and creatures of darkness. Getting used to the new protagonist might take some time, especially since his will and power levels fluctuate wildly over the course of the series and the main villain seems super bland when they appear because of the "they are in the background, so lets develop all the lieutenants instead" approach. 

Lastly wokeness seems to really be the theme inserted here with a true rainbow cast of characters and nary a weak female with a speaking role in sight. Alas, with all those powers combined that leaves this first season in a pretty weak state. Hopefully season two can bring out the big guns and focus more on a good plot rather than real life politics. (Spoiler: season two is much better)

Decluttering Day 9: Four broken umbrellas.

Castlevania (TV Series)

Because a whip is the best weapon against vampires.

Based on the video game series this four season adult animated series primarily follows the adventures of Trevor Belmont against the regular Castlevania nemesis: Dracula. The art style and animation is very good, with epic fight scenes being the highlight and the voice cast does a great job with the well written lines (warning: lots of swearing).

I really like the art style.

If anything it's the plot that is the weakest element here, mainly noticeable in the latter seasons where things just happen for no / poorly explained reasons. I was often wondering out loud why characters forget to use previously used skills or suddenly skill up mid fight. I guess I have to settle for "they needed to fill their rage/musou bar first". That said it is still a very good series and one I can easily recommend. I give it four morning stars out of five, and I would definitely watch it again.

Today I Smiled: Reconnected

For those of you wondering why I missed a few days of posts, it was due to annoying internet issues. As of today though, that should (hopefully) all be fixed and I can get back into the swing of things! :)

My Dark Souls story is taking a break - but don't worry I'm sure there's more to come with that next DLC in March... haha. In the meantime here's some stuff to make you smile - like Russian Soldiers marching to Barbie Girl, or Ragnar (from Vikings) being naughty, how people can make "fake news" with a web cam, or perhaps my favorite of this lot made for John Wick fans... Dog Wick!

As usual I also have some music links for you - starting with Brian Mcknight's Back at One (Piano and Voice only), the entire Wizardry Online BGM Piano Suite, and a Castlevania Medley guitar duet (played -very- cleanly)! There's also a Castlevania 3 Medley by the same duo if you liked that.

That's it for now - I'll leave you with a question, and that is - why would a burger joint need an Ad that hits you in the feels? No idea. But I sure would like some Jollibee right now. :P