I finally has internet biatch. Actually threatening to cancel my contract with my ISP actually worked...

There's a really good chance I'll be up for some Civ IV tonight. It'll probably be pretty close to midnight, but if you're still up by then I'll definitely be up for a couple hours of play.

I see you're watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and think quite highly of it already at that. However, I'm quite intimidated about watching this, what with its viewer count at an unimpressive 13,000 members compounded with the fact that I've continuously seen this series described as something that cannot be rushed into. I'd very much like to know if it can easily draw in anyone or if it's just an acquired taste on steroids.

You can set it so that all the players on a team take turns simultaneously and move at the same time until both players click the next turn button. We can be a team and since the CPU takes it's turn almost instantly it leads to some nice game flow. There's also in game chat or steam chat. I can set it all up if you want. I have to reinstall Steam which I'll do tonight and get the game back which shouldn't take all that long. We'll be doing Beyond the Sword if you have it. I like Rise of Mankind, but apparently there's too much data for it to work properly in multiplayer.

Strategizing as a team is huge fun. Last time I did it I felt like I was in one of those war rooms with my buddies planning out political and military strategy.

Oh and the reason I need steam again is because my Vista install died. Luckily most of my games are through Steam and I've got pretty much everything else mirrored on a backup hard drive so installing Windows 7 and getting back up to full usability took like 3 hours tops.

Heh heh....when it comes to card games I mostly play Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! or Marvel TCG. I've never been that huge on the whole poker trend, though I used to occasionally play Hearts or Euchre in High School.

If you want soon we can play a match of Civ against the computer I guess since I find the game flows quicker that way. I'll have to reinstall it and Steam though.

So you felt the same way about the ending of the first episode of Kamisama too eh?

My expectations and mindset over the franchise have reached the point where:

#1. I think they should just drop the mask and give them giant robots to pilot, along with cameos from Super Robot War, and a OP by Jam Project. Because Tsuzuki have been doing the wink wink nudge nudge for a long time already.

or

#2. I watch them go SSJ or Bankai.

Thanks again... anytime I can make someone smile...

hahaha that was pretty good.

Things do seem to be changing over in Japan. I'm definitely not seeing anywhere near the same number of moeblob shows and drama seems to be making a return as well. Decently written drama at that. Also male characters and action seem to be back in force, almost making me feel like anime as I know it is finally making a comeback on the TV series front (just as I was getting ready to write TV anime off forever) as opposed to the weirdly niche almost unrecognizable stuff we've been dealing with for a while.

Only Kyoani doesn't seem to have taken the hint that the all-female cast "slice of life" formula is getting tired. Everyone else really seems light years ahead of them at the moment and as I mentioned in the thread it's going to be really interesting to see how they respond to failure and what they do next. Maybe they'll actually put their animation talents to use again and put out something that isn't just pandering to a niche. Though they'll desperately need writers and directors for that. Honestly I'm not entirely convinced they actually have a real writer on staff at the moment. I could swear they've just been fudging it on account of all of their stuff being pre-written and the author of the source material's tendency to work directly with them compensating for this in shows like Haruhi, Full Metal Panic and the Key stuff which are at the very least functional as narratives.

For the record the other all-female cast "slice of life" show in A-Channel bombed pretty hard too so I think it's safe to say Japan is tired of that stuff. I'd like to think that the likes of Gundam Unicorn helped in reminding everyone that anime can be more than just an ultra niche thing if you just put some effort into what you are producing and I'd also like to think that maybe Madoka Magica also helped remind everyone that it's possible to do more with cute looking characters than to just stick them in the same mundane scenarios over and over again with them occasionally doing wild takes every few minutes.