#danielvl

Azumanga Daioh is a Japanese slice of life series which is considered to be the start of the whole genre, a genre which is now visible everywhere in Japanese culture. It focuses on the lives of six high school girls throughout their 3 years of high school. That is pretty much the entire plot. Plot is not the focus here. The characters and their weird antics are. Arguably, the main character is Chiyo-chan, a small girl who skipped several grades and got into high school without even entering middle school. She is very noticeably still very young, and easily flustered. She is accompanied by her 5 best friends, Tomo-chan, Yomi-chan, Sakaki-san, Osaka-san and Kagura-san, all with very unique personalities, and most being absolute blockheads. There's also the teachers, Yukari-chan and Nyamo-chan, who are basically parallels of Tomo and Yomi (one very childish and overly energetic and the other reasonable and struggling to keep the other in check). There's also Kimura-sensei, a pedophile who always has his mouth hanging open. The series is very much a comedy series. There is pretty much no plot or drama, just a bunch of jokes and gags. It kickstarted an entire new genre, and has become extremely popular ever since its release.

The very first anime I have ever seen, which brought me into whole anime scene. Code Geass is a mecha anime, which focuses on Lelouch, a young teenager who lives in Area 11, formerly known as Japan, a country controlled and oppressed by Brittania. At some point, Lelouch gains the power of Geass, a power which allows him to mind-cobtrol anybody he makes eye contact with, but only once. He uses this newfound power to start a violent rebellion against Brittania to gain back control of Japan. He has to do this without letting others in on his identity, though, as his best friend, Suzaku, is an officer in the Brittanian empire and is in the same class as him (which he still attends to make sure he isn't suspected). If you've ever seen Death Note, then the story structure will be familiar to you, albeit with much, much more action and robots. A large portion of what's happening is one side trying to outsmart the other, without being outsmarted himself. This anime is considered to be one of the greats, and I will always remember it as my first foray into the world of anime.

Steins;Gate is a Japanese Visual Novel, later adapted into an anime series. It is well known as one of the best pieces of narrative in the Japanese media, right up there with series like NGE. The story is about Okabe, a man who acts like he is a crazed scientist who is going to change the world. He finds a way to send text messages back in time, allowing him to effectively change events in the past by steering certain chracters into different actions. Nobody but Okabe remembers the change after it has happened. He, of course, changes the past a lot, trying to make the world a better place for everyone, but eventually learns that doing so endangers Mayushii, a girl who lives with her, and for whom Okabe cares a lot. This series starts of very slowly, notoriously so even. However, after a while the narrative picks up into an elaborate piece of storytelling. The story, although it involves time travel, a surefire way to create plotholes, is very solid and tells its story in a compelling way. The best thing about the story is the characters; it's what always receives the most praise. Every character is deep, unique and has a ton of personality. These characters is what really makes you watch this series. Seeing their actions unfold is great to watch. This series if still pretty silly: Okabe goes on many silly rants on science, the time travel is using an ordinary microwave and Cern is an evil corporation now. Even with its silliness, it still manages to create one of the most compelling stories in Japanese media, and is therefore definitely worth a watch.

There is a good reason why this game in particular happens to be my favourite of all time. It is nowadays a pretty rare game to have, but I did manage to get a hold of it and never regretted my purchase once. Xenoblade is the story of Shulk, a young Hom who lives on one of 2 enormous titans who have been dead for so long a time that life sprouted on their remains. He lives in Colony 9, a peaceful town at the bottom of the titan (somewhere on the inside of its knee). There, he studies the Monado, a blade which is the only known weapon to be able to harm the force known as the Mechon. Once the Mechon invade Colony 9 and kill Shulk's best friend, he goes off on a grand adventure to take down the Mechon. It may sound a bit weak for a story, but the way it's presented, the twists in the story and the characters playing in it make it one of the best stories I have ever witnessed. It always left me wondering what would happen next and how far the story would go. Gameplaywise it's the same story. Seems kinda bland but is very entertaining. Whenever you enter combat, your character auto-attacks the enemy. These do minimal damage. Your damage come from 8 selected arts, which you use on a cooldown basis. It seems very easy and simple in the beginning, but eventually becomes rather tough and entertaining. The meat of the game lies in its exploration. This game dumps you into an enormous world with enormous areas, that all contain interesting areas for you to explore. It feels great just wandering around, wondering what's all the way over there. There's a simple rule to this game: If you can see it, you can go to it. This is what I love of it. Honestly, this is just my favourite game of all time, for many different reasons, and I hope more people will pick the game up (if they manage to do so for cheaply. This game can go for like €100,-).

After I finished it, I though about how good the series was, and started gushing over it with my friends. However, my true appreciation didn't start until later. After about little while, I noticed I had gotten a significant confidence boost from the series. Just watching Simon find his way with all the motivational speeches gave me a large boost in confidence, which I greatly needed at the time. To be honest, I can't really think of another series that left a bigger direct impact on my personality.