I think I'm finally losing interest in FEH (which, considering we're at 1.5 years, that's pretty good on their part!). Logging in to get the daily orbs and a couple of TT runs, but that's about it. Things are feeling a little stale for me, I think. My units aren't good enough/I don't have the patience for the new difficulty levels -- I can barely do a handful of the existing Infernal maps. Guess I'll see what new content comes out soon (Book 3?).

trying to play through Diablo 2 without succumbing to "but is my build 1337 enough?!?!" syndrome

has so far been met with mixed results

I like the ones from Dark Cloud 2 because you can just stand behind them before opening them, then wail away on them until they die.

That seems so odd to me, that someone with as much experience as Tomino would head that kind of mismanagement...though he does mention approaching it like an "older style" of show so maybe the culture in production has just changed a lot since he last directed? I mean, Gainer was in like 2003, 12 years is a lot but not one where I think the situation would change that much- though the guy is like 80 years old.

Also them changing course to wrap up the show in a plot-wise satisfactory way really explains why I felt the themes got really muddled by the end- if you focus too much on just solving the plot, you risk dropping the greater themes your work was aiming for.

I think a lot of people got caught up by the exterior, the action scenes. But the people I'd most want to see it probably didn't. That's the guys in the Cabinet, the nuclear energy guys. And I don't expect them to.

I think this is why I have this strange soft spot for this show. I definitely got the impression that the show really wanted to be about something and a lot of the dialogue danced around these themes. The unique religious and political situation alone in Recoguista offered a lot of story potential to me.

I guess at the end of the day I'll find a weird experimental trainwreck more intriguing than another generic but competently-made entry, something that Gundam often gets.

The Trap Box boss from Dragon Quest 8. It's guarding the venus tear, a treasure Yangus had previously failed to retrieve before the events of the game.