Tekken: Bloodline (Season 1 - Netflix)

Where people are super durable.

This (currently) six episode animated series centers around Jin Kazama and the Tekken game franchise. As it's a fighting game, the plot here is predictably only a little more than "main character is too weak and has to go train and fight a bunch of people" which is fine. The animations are actually very fluid and I'm guessing most of the moves used actually follow what is in the game.

The slow speech is a nuisance though. "You must... fight... to win... honor... for... your... heritage." If you imagined that was a dying man giving his final words, surprise! That's pretty much how one of the main characters speaks ALL THE TIME. The others aren't much better. I'm not sure if this was something lost in translation (I watched in English) but it was a poor way to extend an episode run time.

The only thing more irritating than that is the disconnect between the character models and the background. For some reason all the characters have the same "there's a giant floating pyramid or cube above them, just off camera" light effect regardless of where they are. A shady forest. Dark tunnel. Night time. Mountain top. Volcano. All the same. I'm still going to watch season 2 if it ever is made though! :P

Today I Smiled: The Sword of Reddit

While I was supremely negative about reddit before thanks to games hosting official conversations there rather than their own forums, it has really grown on me as a place for news, shocks and entertainment. There are some really odd channels too... did you know about the great Emu War? I do highly recommend the two sentence horror channel for any writers though.

For those more inclined for visuals there are some cool instagram sites floating about, and for the more stalkerish you can even keep those stories you find. Someone's even made money selling other people's photos (Richard Prince and his "New Portraits" gallery)!

For those interested in medieval combat here are some nice HEMA clips I've found. The more "modern day" version looks so out of place in comparison. Speaking of out of place, what the heck is Geralt doing in Soul Calibur, or Negan in Tekken, or Franky Zapata flying across the English Channel on a hoverboard? Ok, that last one is kinda cool.

I'm going to wrap this up with some music courtesy of our bardic guildmate Lyv with her songs "Priestess Priestess" and "Little wings can do Grand Things"!