I am somewhat curious why your mod was showing for a second.

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Another is not a good anime.

I saw that on the front page and I was just baffled because I couldn't find the mod post.

I have powers. Spooky powers!

Edit: By which I mean I'm logged into my mod account and just changing the owner of the post from that to my civvy account.

Wouldn't it be easier to just pick one or the other?

Probably. But this way I can post in civvy while abusing the powers of a mod. Best of both worlds really.

But you are no longer posting as a civilian, and furthermore people have to assume you are posting as a mod now even when the post is "from" your civilian account.

That's kinda the point though. Everyone who deals with me knows who I am so there is little point hiding it. I change the posts to keep up that friendly face - but it means I can see reports as they come in and deal with them quicker.

Since this is getting a little of topic though... hmm... what have I watched recently?

I watched Space Dandy. That was pretty fun. I laughed far more then I probably should have.
I also marathoned the first two seasons of Digimon in preparation for watching Digimon Adventure Tri.

That's pretty much my only anime experience for a while.

I need to maybe watch an anime fairly soon, I think. I'm feeling like I'm missing something in my day-to-day. I'll probably put Duckula on pause and probably finish watching any of the like five anime I never finished watching.

I've seen:

• The first episode of Baccano!
• like 3 or four episodes of Big O (from the second season)
• 1 or 2 episodes of Boogiepop Phantom
• probably a dozen episodes of Fairy Tail
• The first episode (by air date) of Haruhi
• 6 out of 8 episodes of Hellsing Ultimate
• about 4 episodes of Kill la Kill
• an unknown handful of episodes of Mai-Hime (AKA My-Hime)
• up to episode 24 of Mushi-Shi
• maybe two episodes of Queen's Blade*
• five episodes of Rock Lee and His Ninja Pals
• most of Wolf's Rain (I think like 20 out of 24 episodes)

Those are kind of my "top priority" since I hate that I haven't finished them.


*This would not fill my "need to watch anime" gap, but we're all allowed a little titillation now and then, right?

I would recommend finishing Kill la Kill. That one seems up your ally since you liked Excel Saga.

Interestingly enough I had already meant to watch the show because of how it blew up while it was airing, and then a friend of the meat had me watch a few episodes with him. This was a couple of weeks before the finale aired I think, which changed his opinion of the show. (I don't put much stock in his opinions though.)

Choose Baccano!.

The dividing lines are actually blurry between horror and thriller (as it is with almost everything), but I consider Saw one (watched 1 to 4), horror. My criteria is when the emphasis is death, horror, and thriller, when the emphasis is suspense.

A pure thriller, Gone Girl, a spectacular movie by the way, one of the best I saw in years. Clearly a 10. Saw one is a very good horror too, it deserves a 9.

Horror movies are scary.

I would actually use the opposite criteria. If the emphasis is on death, I would more likely call it a thriller. I think horror needs more suspense and mystery to be proper horror otherwise the word is meaningless because, as Mown says, horror movies are supposed to be scary. Death on its own isn't scary. The first Resident Evil movie has a lot of emphasis on death, but it's nowhere near being a horror.

Modern horror is, or at least seems to be, the idea that a movie should be as gory and disgusting with as many jump scares as possible and creepy music for the hell of it.

I differentiate between what the Triple-A Market wants people to believe certain genres mean and what actually makes certain genres. I agree with you that the Marketing industry will take any movie or show that has gore, jump scares, and usually supernatural/paranormal elements to it, and call it "horror". Anymore I have a hard time recognizing horror outside of video games, though, largely because there are so few legitimate horror movies or shows anymore.

Which reminds me, I need to watch Twin Peaks one day.

Video games are by far worse than movies when it comes to good horror.

True, but I can identify when a game is trying to make me feel disempowered instead of empowered. Like, despite the hate FNAF gets for its jump-scares, I still think it delivers more on the horror than Dead Space, which gives you a gun to shoot at your troubles. Of course, I haven't played either game, so maybe those aren't good reference points.

I know Metroid Fusion would scare the crap out of me at parts because for 84% of the game, your only options for dealing with the SA-X was to run and/or hide, because it was impossible to kill or even damage. Another 15% of the game, after you'd gotten the ice missiles, you had the option of freezing the thing... for about 1.5 seconds... with a hard limit to the ammo of said freezing... which still didn't damage it. So what happened was it forced you into situations where you had to freeze it while you ran away from it in increasingly open areas with barriers of exit, meaning you had less ability to hide and you had to juggle running with opening your path. The last 1% of the game is where it's one of the final bosses and is still hella difficult to defeat. I'm not calling Metroid Fusion a horror game, but making a point about disempowering the player.

Nightmare most annoying boss ever.

FNAF and Dead Space both aren't scary (to me), but I would classify Dead Space as scarier (at least the first 2). Both are about as equally good at building atmosphere, but FNAF is literally all jump scares as far as "scary" goes.

It's hard for me to draw any actual comparisons and examples, since I have never really played a horror game that I'm aware of. I have watched a number of playthroughs of them, mind you, but that's not exactly the same.

Like, I think Slender: The Arrival is pretty successful at the horror aspect (at least until you start to realize how "gamey" the game behaves and start breaking it). Then there's Outlast, which drops you into an insane asylum (or rather, the comic book version of an insane asylum) with nothing but a camera.

Like, really, I think building the atmosphere is paramount. Ratchet up the tension until you literally start jumping at shadows. Using the uncanny valley is perfect for that, which is one reason I think FNAF works as horror (even if it's "light" horror): the animatronics' overall aesthetic and their manner of movement sits perfectly within that uncanny valley.

I've heard Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni referred to as horror, but I'm not entirely sure myself. I think that maybe the first arc was an okay horror with all the mystery and the freakout that led to the murders, but after that (and especially once the twin got introduced), it kind of turned more into torture/gore porn. Ever since we got on the horror tangent, though, I've been thinking about Monster and what I would have classified that as had I been able to stick with it.