Around 2010, in my last semester of college. I’d already landed a job, but graduation was closing in and I still had to finish my thesis defense. I’ve actually forgotten the whole process of writing my thesis by now. I just remember that while I was working on it, it got so boring that I started looking for anime to watch online. I was looking for anime and saw some shitpost compilation blowing up on AcFun, so I went and tracked down the source material, and that’s how I found this thing called Toaru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index). Looking back now it’s got plenty to poke fun at, but for me at the time I thought it was a pretty interesting watch. The interesting part is its setting: battles between scientific ESPers and magicians, with the male lead caught right in the middle as a third-party existence. Even more absurd is that this so-called “third party” male protagonist is actually the strongest one of all, and the story unfolds in the most formulaic way possible: some Boss suddenly pops out saying he’s gonna take out the protagonist, the protagonist fires off a bunch of trash talk, kills the Boss in one punch, keeps the guys around as bros, and adds the girls to his harem…… Of course, after finishing A Certain Magical Index, I went ahead and checked out its spin-off too — the famously well-known Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun). Frankly, the story in Railgun is way better than in Index. Most of it has nothing to do with magic — it’s all about espers. The heroine is a fairly strong esper, and she’s constantly running around with her friends solving all sorts of incidents, from espers losing control of their powers to crimes happening in the shadows. Honestly, the reason A Certain Scientific Railgun is the better watch comes down more to its story and character setups just being way cooler.

A package from overseas showed up a few days ago. I was confused — what did I even buy? I haven’t ordered anything from outside Japan recently. Opened it up and it clicked. It was the Dbrand Grip I backed on crowdfunding half a year ago, finally here.

First I bought an iPhone 8, since Suning had a special deal a while back. You had to pay a deposit, but overall it was much cheaper than the Apple official site… After ordering you wait two days to pay, but once paid it arrives the same day — seems to be picked up from Suning’s local Zhengzhou warehouse. Got it in hand and it just feels small. Really small…

Hitotsu Tobashi Renai is an old game, one of Asa Project’s earlier works. Actually, calling it “early” is a stretch—more like early-ish. Hitotsu Tobashi Renai is built around “love one person removed,” and the Chinese patch apparently translated the title as “indirect love,” which honestly fits pretty well. That’s exactly what the game is about. My opinion of Hitotsu Tobashi Renai wasn’t exactly high at first, because I overplayed it. It’s chaotic the whole way through—the “skipped-over characters” are either insufferably nasty or unbearably saintly, and the art style itself doesn’t look remotely serious. Compared to Renai 0 Kilometer, it feels like it goes too far. If you say it’s going the comedy route, then it insists on throwing in some “romance” on the individual routes. If you say it’s going the pure-love route, those enormous exaggerated facial expressions alone make it look like anything but pure love… Awkward, isn’t it…

A while back Slickdeals pushed a deal — Sony’s noise canceling earbuds on eBay for just $69.9… Couldn’t resist. Bought one, and picked up two more for a coworker and Jipiss. In the end it arrived with no customs fee, but it was overweight, so shipping cost 10 extra yuan — which I magnanimously passed on to Jipiss and made him pay.

Lately I’ve been kinda unsatisfied, you know? Getting older, and plain plots just don’t do it for me anymore. Probably I’ve played too many games and seen every story beat there is, so when something completely ordinary happens I just go “meh.” Recently I’ve been hunting for stuff with more “punch,” more “intensity.” Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m not about to awaken some weird fetish. I just mean I want that “protagonist starts weak, beats one strong enemy after another, and finally takes down the boss in a blazing finale” kind of story. Ah, whatever, I just want to read 王道 — the tried-and-true hot-blooded route. Honestly, 王道 stories are everywhere in shonen manga; all those long-running mainstream series are built on that formula. But in the Galgame world this kind of content keeps shrinking. Either it’s half-assed, or they force some bullshit and end up making a mess. Some don’t even try. The last game about piloting fighter jets really disappointed me. I don’t think I’m asking for much — I just want something like Aokana. Is that really so rare? In the end I had to go digging through old games. Then I remembered: way, way back I’d picked up Walkure Romanze and never finished it…

Yes, it’s me again with another filler post. Today it’s two kinds of Mi Home instant noodles and one drink. I actually bought these to pad out an order, and before I knew it I’d padded my way through a hundred yuan. Let’s start with Mi Home’s tomato egg noodles… the reviews online are pretty high.

The game Hitotsu Yane no, Tsubasa no Shita de — literally “Under the Wings of One Roof,” also known as “I Lived With Four Hot Girls and It Was So Great I Forgot How to Jerk Off” — tells the inspirational story of a protagonist who, as a trainee pilot, gets into his grandmother’s flight school through connections, uses his position to live in the same dorm as four hot girls, spends every day flirting and cuddling and never has time to practice flying, then discovers at the final showdown that he’s trash and cheerfully chooses to surrender mid-match.

A girl at work wanted to buy a Xiaomi power strip and dragged me along to hit the free-shipping minimum. I saw this thing, so I threw it in. 9.9 yuan.

Black Domain on Android is an app that kills rogue apps, aiming for “an Android experience just like iOS.” That’s a bit different from Greenify — Greenify feels more academic, while Black Domain is more practical. I paid for both. In the end I went with Black Domain. Black Domain works without root too. You just have to turn on USB debugging and type a command to start one of its processes. Calling it a hassle is fair, and calling it convenient is fair — basically, every time your phone reboots, you have to find a computer to activate it… So the author of Black Domain had an idea: make a “Black Domain Activator.” It’s a collaboration with some gamepad adapter, but using it is fine anyway, and it’s cheap.