Rankaroid

 RANKAROID'S 2024 FAVOURITES

I'm actually quite bad at keeping track what I've done and seen in a year, but I wanted to talk about the things that have stuck with me and really loved.

(I'll keep things spoiler free in case you ever get interested in any of these things!) 

(Also warning for an image of a real life snail. In case that freaks you out.)

ZERO ESCAPE: ZERO TIME DILEMMA

Starting strong with arguably the worst entry in the Zero Escape trilogy: Zero Time Dilemma. There are many things that give this game a bad reputation, most notably its writing, uncanny 3D models and its insanely stupid plot twist and ending. Despite all of this, I found it to be really good because it was so (unintentionally) funny and stupid.

I really love the promotional art for the game. It's creepy, dark and begs a lot of questions. I really adore how it was painted and the use of the textures to make it look gritty. It's a shame there isn't a lot more art like this for the game, but I assume it was likely due to its weird development.

 If you aren't familiar with the Zero Escape series, it's a mystery puzzle/visual novel game series with 3 games: 999, VLR and ZTD. It was created by Kotaro Uchikoshi, who has since created the AI: the Somnium Files games (which I also quite enjoy).

Frankly I don't actually know much about the development for the game but it's pretty evident that the game definitely went through a rough patch. I think it's most obvious in the visuals of the game, particularly with how the 3D models look and how they move.

 Okay I've never used youtube embeds on here before so sorry if it's jank lol. Anyway, I want you to watch this clip. This is what the entire visual novel section of this game looks like, though it's more accurate to call them cinematics. Previous games were more traditional visual novels with animated sprites. 999 used 2D sprites and VLR used 3D models, but in ZTD they decided to fully animate the cutscenes.

The characters look unnatural not only in their models, but with how stiff they are and how BAD the animations are. I actually personally like the 3D models even though they might look a bit disturbing. The way they're painted is actually quite stylish to me, but the lack of expression makes it look really poor. The worst offender is easily Eric, who has the scariest model in the game

(Pictured: Eric. He looks insane.)

The thing about the visuals for this game is that they're so bad that it makes things so much more entertaining. Even in its most serious moments, this game reads more like a comedy than mystery or horror just because the characters look stupid or they move in comical ways. I don't know if it was intended to be so funny but somehow I feel like it was on purpose. 

This actually wasn't my first watch of the game (I tend to watch playthroughs more than I play games... broke lol) but I had never actually seen the entire game because I didn't bother to when I initially got into Zero Escape. I was trying to remember how this all came about and it turns out that I decided to watch a playthrough after seeing a snail in my bathroom. It had pooped on my wall and I made a joke about it to my friend who has played the ZE games. What does a snail have to do with ZTD? It's a reference to a story they tell a few times ingame.

 (Pictured: the start of my ZTD thoughts.)

As for the actual story of the game, it's not totally bad. I do enjoy the split between the 3 teams in the game and slowly piecing things together, but the biggest glaring issue is the plot twist and overall ending to the game. This game has the stupidest plot twist in a video game, ever, period. If you went into this game completely blind, I guarantee you would not pick up on the "foreshadowing". It actually made rewatching gameplay far more enjoyable with the knowledge of this plot twist because I did pick up on the few times it was foreshadowed and everytime I went "wow... this is so bullshit lol".

Again, no spoilers, but my favourite character is Mira❤. She's the token sexy woman in an Uchikoshi game, but she actually has a lot of depth and she's a character I think about very often. She isn't really fanservice either, surprisingly. 

Even though I'm saying some horrible things about this game, I highly recommend the Zero Escape series. The games go on sale regularly on steam and they're some of my favourites. I can't speak personally on doing the puzzles myself, but from what I have watched I think they're pretty fun. The story is fantastic- it's mysterious but also fun and wacky at times.

 

GAKUEN ALICE

 

 Next is Gakuen Alice, which I read in September. Its anime was actually one of my favourites as a kid but since the anime only had 1 season, I never got to see the ending. The anime actually only covers a small portion of the manga which is a shame because it gets better in the later chapters. Gakuen Alice fundamentally shaped my childhood and I'm super nostalgic for it.

Something that was consistently a problem was that a large portion of the manga is not officially translated, which usually wouldn't be an issue with fan translations, but since it's an old manga the fan translations are extremely poor quality. It's a shame because I think the story is pretty fantastic, but I wasn't able to fully grasp it due to the poor translations. I do appreciate the efforts that people put into translating things, but sometimes a bad translation just doesn't add anything.

Gakuen Alice is an anime about Mikan, a 10-year-old girl who's upset about her best friend Hotaru moving schools, so naturally she chooses to follow her and sneak into the academy. Alice Academy is actually an academy for people with 'Alices', super powers. They range from things like pyrokinesis, to talking to animals to time travelling. No matter how mundane, Alice users are enrolled at the academy to train their powers but also protect them from the public, as Alice users are a minority.

(Pictured: Hotaru and Mikan. Hotaru has the invention Alice, which lets her create about anything she wants. Unfortunately, she only works on things she cares about.)
 

It's like My Hero Academia before My Hero Academia, but with a younger main cast and no superheroes.

What I really enjoyed about Gakuen Alice was feeling the bond of the characters in the Academy. Alice users are forced to attend the academy until they're adults, so they all live in the confines of the Academy grounds until they're old enough to leave, or if they somehow lose their powers. Alices have different types, one being that your Alice disappears with age. As a result, all of the kids of the academy, of all ages, are very tight knit and all know each other.

It's pretty sad being a student at the academy because you're taken away from your parents, most from extremely young ages, and forced to study there. This is why Hotaru Imai, one of the main characters, had moved schools many times before meeting Mikan because her parents had already lost one child to the academy and didn't want Hotaru to be taken away. Her older brother, Subaru, is already a high school senior by the time Hotaru gets to meet him for the first time. The two have an odd relationship due to not growing up together, but since they're siblings, they get closer by the end of the manga which is really sweet.

(Pictured: The Imai siblings. I found their small tidbits really entertaining.)

It's small things like the Imai siblings that make me really appreciate the relationships in the manga. There are countless characters in Gakuen Alice so I obviously can't cover everything about it, but it's a manga where the relationships are so palpable to me. In true shoujo manga fashion, our protagonist Mikan is a shining beam of sunshine and she makes a lot of friends, even though she's initially outcast for being new to the school. 

When Mikan sneaks into Alice Academy it's revealed that she's actually an Alice herself, but due to the true nature of her powers, it's initially kept under wraps by the teachers. Mikan has the nullification alice which allows her to nullify the powers of other alice users. It doesn't permanently remove their powers, but is proven to be extremely powerful in certain situations.

I absolutely love the power system in Gakuen Alice. There's a lot to cover, but one thing I really like is the Alice stone system. Alice users can make physical manifestations of their powers which are small stones, about the size of a pearl on average. These stones hold a small amount of their power and can manifest their powers. There's a myth about how if two Alices exchange their stones, they'll be together forever, but exchanging Alice stones is actually pretty practical if you get specific kinds. For example, Subaru has the healing Alice, so having his Alice stone would come in handy if you got injured...!

If you're a shoujo manga fan, I highly recommend this manga. It's sweet, cute, but also gets darker as you read further. I know that's something people say about a lot of stories, but I find some things explored in the manga to be really compelling. Of course with most shoujos, there's romance. I was surprised because I really liked the main pairing in the manga, Natsume and Mikan, as a kid but as a somewhat-adult, I actually prefer other pairings for Mikan. I don't take it super seriously though because they're kids lol. But it's just kind of funny how the author manages to write two other romances for the MC and choose the least interesting one.

 

(Pictured: Natsume and Mikan. I don't actually hate Natsume, but I personally think Mikan is better with Hotaru or Ruka-pyon...)

 Now, this is the only spoiler I'll cover in this post but I doubt anyone will care. Hotaru is explicitly in love with Mikan and I was absolutely fucking shocked. I was so shocked to find out that this 2000s manga had an explicitly gay character, no less one who's really young......AND THEY KISS!!!!!!!!!!! The thing about Hotaru and Mikan is that Hotaru seems to dismiss Mikan, but has a huge soft spot for her. Mikan is often silly and stupid as children are and Hotaru often criticizes her, but deep down she's overly protective of Mikan.

 

(Pictured: Hotaru kisses Mikan. Happy new yuri!) 

 

I'll comment only briefly on the ending. I simultaneously love it but don't. It's complicated. It made me cry, but I'm frustrated that it ended the way it did. The thing that matters most is that I enjoyed the majority of the story lol.

 

I wonder if Gakuen Alice will ever get a sequel...? It has an open ending but it also actually has a spin-off manga (Kageki no Kuni no Alice) about one of the characters's sister who attends an Alice music academy. I enjoyed it a lot, especially because I got to see the mangaka's style evolution. Gakuen Alice was serialized from 2002-2013. Kageki no Kuni no Alice was from 2015-17. I believe the mangaka transitioned into digital inking, or maybe her art style just became more polished (or both I reckon) which I found really cool to see. It was a lot shorter but answered only some questions Gakuen Alice left open.

The mangaka releases seasonal holiday illustrations of the main characters and they're always sooo cute. Reminds me of how much I love the manga.

Somehow I wrote this entire section without mentioning Ruka-pyon. He is a sweet boy whose Alice is speaking to animals. Please look at him and be kind. He's my favourite character alongside Hotaru (Hotaru is #1 though).

 

 

(Pictured: Ruka-pyon. I also quite like his romance with Mikan because he's a kind and sweet young man. I feel as though Mikan's relationships with Hotaru and Ruka are sacrificed for the sake of pushing Natsume's romance. This is a really long caption.)

 

 THE WITCH AND THE BEAST

 

I'm now realizing that all 3 of these on the list are technically rewatches or rather rereads. I read TWATB for the first time in 2023 when the anime was announced. I saw a panel of the protagonists and thought it was interesting enough to read. I actually initially didn't enjoy the manga that much, I thought the story was weird and lackluster and yet I thought about it often. Because I think of it so often, I ended up rereading the manga to get a feel for what I liked and disliked. Ended up loving the manga more, somehow.

 

The Witch and the Beast is about Ashaf, a mysterious mage, and Guideau, his rowdy companion. They work for the Order of Magical Resonance, going around and doing magic-related jobs. Guideau has an obsession with witches because her true form is actually that of a powerful beast that is contained in the coffin on Ashaf's back and she seeks revenge on the witch who cursed her.

 

Witches are a powerful race of magic users and they all originate from the same 17 witches. Their lineages are exclusive and their descendants inherit their powers. Each witch has their own power such as necromancy or natural disasters.

 

(Pictured: Ashaf and Guideau. They tend to go through different clothes and Guideau has different hairstyles throughout the story. It's a very stylish manga!) 

 

(Pictured: Guideau's true form emerging from the coffin.)

 

(*Guideau's true form is canonically genderless, but the story uses she/her and for simplicity I will also use she/her.)

The manga got adapted into an anime at the start of 2024, but I'm afraid I'm not the biggest fan of it. The animation iis kinda ugly, especially during the action scenes. I know animation isn't easy, but I found it to be a rather lacking adaptation sadly. I think that the art in the manga is some of the most beautiful I've seen and I really adore the art style, so it's a bit sad that it wasn't given complete justice. I do like the voice casting though, especially Guideau's english voice. It's deep and rather handsome which I didn't expect in the slightest...!

 

Kousuke Satake's art is really beautiful. Their use of hatching is really impressive and their linework is extremely sleek. I don't actually know what their gender is, I've been assuming man but IDK. Regardless, I think that reading the manga just for the visuals is totally worth it. It's clear that Satake has a thing for delicate beautiful ladies, not that it's a bad thing, but just an observation. They also seem to be influenced heavily by fashion since Guideau's always so stylish.

My love for this manga is somewhat similar to Gakuen Alice where I really love the powers, specifically the witches. I think it's cool that there are different witch families with their own powers and that they're not necessarily good or bad. Some witches may act alone and some form alliances for better or worse. Some witches even work directly with the Order that Ashaf and Guideau work for. I like that the witches are (almost) always women, too. When they use their powers, a mark manifests on their face, an 'ultoma', which is unique for every witch. What defines a witch is that she's incredibly powerful. Even the 'weakest' witch has devastating powers.

(Pictured: Helga, she's the Dauntless witch whose power is manifesting swords.)

I've spoken a lot on the witches but not on the protags! Ashaf and Guideau are a really cool duo- Ashaf being the cool and mysterious fellow and Guideau not really listening to anything he says. Ashaf has to keep Guideau in control very often, but you slowly watch Guideau soften over the course of the manga. Guideau is selfish and impulsive and very violent and truly embodies "speaking with your fists". She's not actually a huamn, but a 'beast' cursed into the vessel of a beautiful young woman, which is why she's so unmannered.

 

(Pictured: Guideau and Ashaf in the anime. So beautiful.. I blushed. I think Ashaf is quite hadnsome even though he doesn't have eyebrows, or rather just really really thin ones. Still not sure.)

There's a lingering theme of love and romance in the manga because Guideau's curse can only be lifted by 2 things:

1. True love's kiss
2. A witch's change of heart (unfortunately not likely in Guideau's case)

There is technically a third, but it's temporary: kissing a witch on the lips. This is how Guideau is able to tap into her original powers in the story as she encounters different witches. Unfortunately, kissing a witch is a one-time use, so it's only used in emergencies. 

Ashaf wishes to teach Guideau what true love is in hopes of lifting her curse. It's proven difficult with how unpredictable and unruly she is, but she's slowly easing into the concept. After all, she's a beast and love is a completely foreign concept to her.

(Pictured: what does it mean.jpg)

Sadly I don't love everything about the manga. The worldbuilding feels a little bit lacking in places, making the story feel a bit empty almost? (I'm not very good at articulating myself.) The action scenes are rather difficult to follow in my opinion, which is sad because I think they're extremely well drawn just on a technical level. Despite this, I still love the manga and it occupies my mind on an almost-daily basis.

Extra unfortunately, the manga has been on indefinite hiatus for over a year now due to the mangaka's poor health. It hurts to see how common it is for mangaka to be in poor health, but I truly wish Satake-sensei the best. I hope that one day we can see the end of the manga, hopefully not rushed either. When the anime was airing last year, Satake released some new illustrations which seems like a good sign!

I totally recommend this manga if you want something to read! I recommend the manga over the anime, but watching the anime is fun because you get to hear their voices and see them move. Plus, the ending song is sung by Yoshino Nanjo AKA Krile's Japanese voice actress!!!!!!

And with that, I conclude this blog post! There are a few more other things I could mention, but these are the most major things I loved last year. Honorable mentions include Himitsu~Top Secret, 1000xResist and Sorry we're closed (which I still have to finish the other routes of..!!!!)

 

Thank you for reading! And Happy new year!