Highspeed Etoile

 Sometimes you find an anime series by accident, and this is one such case.

While strolling through my regular viewing service for some series that came out this season, I suddenly bounced upon this one.

I had no idea another racing series was on the horizon, but never the less I sat back and gave it a watch.

In the near future, NEX Race is a new racing series that allows safe racing at over 500 km/hr.  Rin Rindou, who recently gave up her dream of becoming a ballet dancer, became a NEET who accidentally is thrown into this world of next generation racing.  These races are a whole spectacle, where young upcommers try to defeat the undisputed champion that emerged within the 5 years the racing class exists, with only Alice, aka Queen, being able to compete with him.

 

Rin makes her debut, getting through qualifying for her first race.   Forced by the memories of her past, she makes a great impression on her debut to prevent ending up in last place on her debut race.  But when she is lapped, she mistakingly thinks someone is still behind her.  As "King" laps her, she goes all out to overtake him again, As a result she is disqualified though as she didn't know the fundamental rules of clearing away when lapped.

 

Rin is contacted by Alice, who wants to help her out with simulator training and all, but Rin has no idea who she actually is.  Thinking she is a racing fan gamer that beats her on the simulator, she learns some tricks to control her heartrate and focus.  Alice wants to know though how Rin passed the King in the race she got disqualified.  Rin keeps struggling though, but in the park she unknowingly meets King who is looking to visit a vintage toy store, as he ran from a fundraiser event.  They end up at the restaurant her grandma runs, letting him taste her signature dish to his great enjoyment.  They manage to find the kaiju toy, as he confides in her he misses his son due to work.  He knows who she is, then introduces himself causing her to blush as hell for not recognizing him.

Then at last she starts putting on a strong performance, thanks in no small part due to their AI.  She gets in the fight for the podium, ending fifth.  But in her next race, she returned to her regular spot of finishing last.  Together with her friends, she starts training harder and learn more about the personalities and skills of the top drivers in the competition.

Using an unorthodox tactic, Sophia takes the lead as Rin's mechanic predicted a downpour that comes unexpected, and had the rain tires already prepared, giving her a strong advantage to the others that still needed to pits and saving the timeloss of and extra stop.  But Rin, now in second behind Sofia, wants to take the risk of overtaking her.  But she misses her corner and crashes out as Sofia takes the unexpected win.

There is a nice feature about the legendary Toyata 2000GT, as Rin needs to drive it for training.  Her mentors have noticed something with her driving style, and particularly how she uses her left leg.  In the meantime, they are building her a brand new car.  Rin actually knows how to work the sublte old clutch, compared to all her friends only driving the AI assisted cars of the current day.  It turns out she still driving with her heart like in the old days.

Driving her new car, Rin starts putting in better performances, qualifying 4th for the next race.  But something goes wrong at the start as her mechanic has changed the settings, causing the AI to not start the car.  With the King also not in the race as he doesn't like racing in the night, the others smell their chance and Kanata actually challenges the Queen for the win together with Youran.  The Queen is beaten by latter by mere centimetres as Kanata spins of in her last effort to pass them.  

At the next race, on the brandnew Osaka track, everyone is struggling with set-up except King.  She smashes the King's time after he gave some pointers, but is totally demotivated when the AI took over for a part as she faded due to high G forces of missing a turn.  She gets additional training in her favorite racing game as the AI is seemingly on of her friends in there.  She comes to term with "Ami-chan" and why she did what she had to do.

At the new track of Osaka, the final race of the season takes place.  Thanks to King's pointers, she qualifies highly and soon finds herself battling Queen.  She finds herself in the lead, but the King comes up to her, making a pass.  She overtakes him, but then suddenly the power on the circuit fails, bringing all cars to a stop.  This causes her AI to short out, and she needs to drive on on her own when power returns and they restart with a rolling start, which has taken her and King's lead away.

King reclaims his first place, and they have to stop for manual pit stops.  Rin is out first, as her pit crew does an amazing job.  With King on her tail they are getting back towards the front, having only Queen still in front of them on her older tires.  This proves to be a downfall as one of her tires break and she sportingly clears the track for the duel between Rin and the King.  He blocks her at every opportunity to use her revolburst boost, as they pass the line nearly at the same time, Rin beating it with the point of her car's nose!

Yep, this was a bad series, and one that ends up on the bottom of my MAL ratings.  The main character is uncredible, as she seemingly doesn't even know basic rules yet competes at the highest level of the sport.  Other characters are bland or even 'unknown' to the viewers, and the computer animated style just makes it look like a large, to long cutscene from the PS4.  Avoid this for sure!

 

 

The Haul Report 400: let's say it's about 400+ books

 Well well, albeit I didn't upload an episode every week, this means for over 4 years I have been making these Haul Reports for the little blog.

And to kick off this jubileum edition, I have some nice promo material for Warhammer Underworlds that I found through Vinted:

Now to get those warbands painted up so I can put the cards actually onto the table... and hopefully not use to many of those tokens!

Another small parcel that arrived came from AliExpress, as I (finally) ordered that load of 25mm square bases to start building my Wood Elves for The Old World... and then some, like round 100mm to rebase my demon princess of Slaanesh and 50mm squares for various purposes.

 

 

I also obtained "a few" books this period.  My mother-in-law's amateur theatre group was cleaning out their storage, and I had to come and see if there was anything fantasy of scifi that intrested me.  In the end, I already took along about 200 books for me and Noshi, and some for trading, on day 1... resulting in multiple full trunks.

So that is definitly going to be defining my coming weeks of "to do", meaning hobby time needs to be put aside for now and spend off-time on sorting out all the books and which ones to put on my trade page...

On the painting desk 288

 Well, it couldn't last to keep scoring my vows I guess.

Due to circumstances, more of which in a later blogpost in a month or so, I found myself in possession of literally hundreds of used books, and the work they bring.

Add to that the first days of +30 degrees, making it to hot to paint, and the progress stranded to a near stand-still.

 

 

Oh well, let's hope for both cooler weather, and getting through that whole library to sort out!

The halfway mark: the 2024 goals update

 So the year comes to the halfway point, meaning it is time to have a look at some of the goals I've set for myself this year on the hobby front.

And behest any miracles, I can already predict some serious failures coming in for the year.

The smaller Chaos Dwarf side projects, being building a 1000 points Warmaster force as well as a 12 points 15mm HOTT force are going to fall by the wayside.  It's the end of June, and I haven't even started shopping for the models, let alone actually painting something of those goals, so that is going to end up sorely.

The same is happening for the 250 models in 28mm heroic scale for the Chaos Dwarf collection.  Due to being busy painting mostly Underworlds (that goal is going well, with 6 warbands painted so far this year even though I keep adding warbands, raising the target ever higher), my Dawi'Zharr aren't receiving to much attention at the moment.  Only a measly 10 models out of the planned 250 are finished. 

On the other hand, I am going to try and aim to finish the Idoneth, though with the release of the 4th edition of Age of Sigmar next month, the points cost of units will be totally different and the Underworlds warbands will fall out of the lists, so I have no clue how many points I currently have, nor what to paint up for the 2000 points goal, so a better estimation on that front will be for the next update end of september.

So that's the painting part done, how about the other stuff?

 

Well, I can say I am more or less on schedule, perhaps only trailing a bit behind with the backlog anime challenge, having currently viewed 17 out of 85, with a total anime viewing of 28 out of 100 series.  This is mainly due to the fact I have been watching quite some regular series, upping that number to a total of 11 now out of the 20 goal.  The same goes for the movies, now standing at 15 out of 20 after watching some classics recently.

 

 

On the reading front, things however aren't going that well. While I did read a couple of manga, the counter now sits at 8 out of the target 25, but of course the holidays are coming and that is a period I often read a lot.

Meaning I might even push the others numbers higher as well, with at the moment 2 out of 10 (rule)books read, and 6 out of 50 fanzines read from the backlog.  The numbers are higher then the first quarter, but not by a lot... yet.

One goal I did reach already though, a bit traditionally by the half year mark, is to discover 50 new beers.  With the beerfestival in Antwerp last week, it broke the target and now sits at 54 beers.  For the side challenge of Date a Bullet cards, some have been added, and now I'm at 9 obtained from the 19 missing cards.

So, that is the status of the half year mark, With the new Final Fantasy expansion soon arriving, I will either be playing and not painting, or get a paint cramp from the many cutscenes and get a lot finished.  

Time will tell, and I will tell you in september!

Bierpassie Weekend 22nd of june 2024

 It was that time of the year again, the Bierpassie weekend in the centre of Antwerp on the Groenplaats.

So for the third year in a row, it was time to discover a whole lot of new brews!

And this year, I also booked a hotel in the city, even if it was only 5 kilometres from my front door.  No stress, breakfast, and just some rest and relaxation... or hangover recovery.  While not a heatwave as the past two years (luckily), the weather was cosy and welcome, only with a short shower around 18.30.

And there was great live music with Peper&Zout, who brings dixieland covers of famous pop and rock numbers.

Armed with a list of beers I wanted to try out, and the booklet there, me and Noshi went on the tasting trip.  And a free book as we bought so many beer tokens in one go, though this year we did leave our tasting glasses behind, we already have four.

I will give a short comment about some of the beers we tried, and the occassional picture, as we both alternated drafts and in the end I had tried a total of 13 totally new beers for my Untappd. And already completing my year goal of trying out 50 new beers by the halfway mark.

Palm 8 Horsepower (8%) - Brouwerij Palm: strong blond with a hint of orange, a good drinker to start with.

Mort Subite Juicy Crime of Passion (7.2%) - Brouwerij Alken Maes: you could smell the passion fruit above the glass

 

Paranoia (5.6%) - Brouwerij Huyghe: a real freshner

Floris Cactus (4%) - Brouwerij Huyghe: everyone wanted to try the green beer, it was horrible tasting like cheap lemonade.  For me the worst of the whole day.

Haeseveld Strong Blond (7.9%) - Brouwerij Huyghe: has a banana touch that tasted well

 

Delirium Red (8%) - Brouwerij Huyghe

Floris Framboos (3.6%) - Brouwerij Huyghe: far better then the above cactus beer

Averbode Extra (4.8%) - Brouwerij Huyghe

Hommelbier Fresh Harvest 2024 (7.5%) - Leroy: I love the Hommelbeer, and every year I want to try the new harvest limited edition

 

Cuvee Watou Rouge (8.5%) - Leroy: a strong, cherries and raspberries beer

Liefmans on the Rocks (5%) - Brouwerij Liefmans

Liefmans Kriek Brut (6.8%) - Brouwerij Liefmans

Vrijwit - T'Ij (5.2%) - Duvel Moortgat: this new one was superfresh, for me probably even the best of the day that I drank.

 

Achel Singel (5%) - Brouwerij Achel: a great pilsner like beer with extra hoppy touch, it was launched at the event and I liked it.

Timmermans Lambicus Kriek Black Pepper (4%) - Anthony Martin Group - a special cookie this one, with the fruit and spices duelling in your mouth.

Tipsy Gold (7.5%) - Gebr. Hermans: my silver medal of the day, a lovely touch of honey to a bitter beer.

 

Boscoli (3.5%) - Brouwerij Het Anker: a tasty fruit beer

Tete de Mort Red (8.1%) - Brasserie de Bocq: freshening red beer with a whole lot of fruits in it.

 

Tete de Mort Double IPA (8.4%) - Brasserie de Bocq: antother new beer at the event, and Noshi bought me some nice merchandise from the stand as well.

 

 

Filou Olympic Games 2024 (8.5%) - Brouwerij Vanhonsebrouck: specially made for the olympic year

 

Kasteel Rubus Framboise (7%) - Brouwerij Vanhonsebrouck: it remains one of the better fruit beers on the Belgian market.

Tarot Noir (8%) - Brouwerij Lindemans: Made on the basis of forest berries, this is a very juicy, good beer.

Amd so that are all the beers we have been trying and tasting, as well as meeting old reliables.  We also met a group of dutchmen for some nice chatting and around 22.00hrs we returned direction hotel, though with a stop at the restaurant / bar of a friend of ours for a little nightcap.

Next year, the event will be taking place in a new, modernised Tradefare building in Antwerp, and to be honest, I'm not sold on the idea of having it inside.  Surely it can provide cover from rain, but I fear as we always had sunny weather this period it would be to hot inside.

Rebel Moon 2 - The Scargiver

 Well, I wasn't to much of a fan of the first movie, feeling it to big a Star wars (which it was intended to be) on a budget.

But never the less, we sat down for part 2, with expectations that could only get bettered...

The story begins with Kora and the surviving warriors settling on Veldt, believing she had killed Admiral Noble in the events of the previous movie.  But Aris, the soldier that turned sides, informs the Dreadnought will arrive in five days.  They join the farmers to get the grain ready as well as building up the defences and training them to resist the coming invasion.

As Kora and Gunnar give in to their feelings towards each other, she tells him of her role in the assassination of young princess Issa, and how her adopted father Balisarius then tried to frame her for it all.  When the dreadnought arrives, they learn Noble survived and they start landing troops on Veldt.  He has send forces to capture the women and children, but these are protected by Nemesis who gives her life to keep them safe.  Kora wants to surrender to Noble to keep the village safe, but Gunnar, realising it is a rouse, gives the signal for the villagers to attack.

Titus and Tarak lead the villagers in stopping the first wave, but soon more troops appear, only stopping them with the help of "Jimmy".  Kora and Gunnar fly to the Dreadnought and infiltrate it, intend on destroying it.  They place explosives, destroying the massive vessel before it can wipe out the village, but in their retreat they encounter Noble who shoots Gunnar.  Kora duels with him, but as she is about to be overpowered the wounded Gunnar intervenes, and as they trap Noble in a hatch before striking him down, they make their escape.

On the planet the villagers celebrate as they see the Dreadnought crashing to the surface, but Gunnar succumbs to his injuries, dying in Kora's arms.  During the funeral, Titus reveals to Kora that Issa is still alive and hiding, and the assembled group declares to find her and reinstall her on the throne, desposing of Balisarius.

Okay, so this movie was one big battle basically, with some nice action scenes (the "lightsaber" combat between Nemesis and the elite troops was awesome) but I stil ain't to sold on the execution of the whole franchise.  The story is good (it would have been a far better Star Wars indeed then Mary-Sue Rey's rubbish) but it shows that it is made with a far smaller budget.  

Yet, I will watch the finale when it comes out eventually, as this one has redeemed my liking to it more then the first part had smashed up.  Though that finale is rumoured to become a two part movie.

White Dwarf issue 500

 Last month, I bought the celebratory issue of White Dwarf, my first issue in a very, VERY long time.

The reason?  Not per se because of collectable value or such.

No, because they also released a special model of the White Dwarf, and his rules for Underworlds (he can be used in any Age of Sigmar setting game system) and cards came with this magazine.

But of course, I took a flick and a read through it as well.

To be honest, I don't think I'll be buying the magazine often anymore, as I lost all intrest in the 40k setting years ago.  This of course means half the magazine is ruled out for intrest, but if the articles look fun, I might pick up a copy left or right still though.

But for now, unless it has something Underworlds related with cards included, the magazine isn't to high on my shopping priorities, it will depend when AoS 4 comes out if I'll pick up some issues for all the new material by then.

On the Painting Desk 287

 So, another very busy week passed by, and did we score the goals we had set ourselves in the previous episode?

Why yes we did, and then some!

So let's have a look at the status of the paint desk, and talk about the goals for next week:

Let's see if it will remain as succesfull as the past two episodes!

Make My Day

 Next on my backlog challenge list: Make My Day, a science-fiction horror series created for Netflix.

Counting 8 episodes, this is set on the prison planet Coldfoot, and unfortunatly features heavy CGI drawing, something I'm not a fan off, especially as this looks like a video game cutscene and not a proper anime.

On the prison planet, humans are forced to mine Sig, a mineral that improves quality back on Earth as it can be used for a lot of things.  Criminals are brought there under the false pretence of cohabitation with the regular civilisations, but this is a lie as they are oppressed by their overseers.  

But one day something goes wrong in "The Cauldron" as the mine is called, and the guards are send in to battle what is causing the trouble in there.  Jim, one of the new guards, sees strangely mutilated corpses on their way there, as they go look for survivors in what is said to have been only a cave-in.  They discover the cave-in opened paths into a whole system, and set out to look.  They come across a sort of hatchery, before something drags Jim off.  He finds the remnants of the previous team, as well as a survivor... and the monsters awakened by the mining efforts.

The sluglike creatures dispatch quickly of the rescuers, as they are immune to gunfire, the bullets absorbed in their slimy bodies.  The few survivors escape the mine, but the slugs are coming out as well, causing a grave danger to all planet inhabitants as they are seemingly immortal.

 

 

Realising they must evacuate, the prison is being assaulted by the beasts, resulting in a huge massacre under both the guards and the prisoners.  As the situation gets desperate, Jim must choose between his life or that of all the others, and picks the former, but hesitating the captain flies off, escaping with a small flyer before blowing up the launch bay.  He reunites with the convict he saved earlier, Walter, as they deduct the beasts are after the Sig ore.  

Together they look for a way to escape, but Jim wants to return to the mine to try and kill the beasts before they kill everything on the planet.  Fleeing the surface, they find the situation the same everywhere, including his family who had waited for him in vain.  He finds Marnie though, pregnant, and as more troops arrive including his captain they try to flee and get a ship off planet.  Walker manages to pick them up with other survivors, but they don't know where to go.

They learn the creatures where discovered about a month ago by the survey team, which reached the same conclusions as Jim about the beasts.  Considered a hero when arriving in dr Hadson's research lab, Jim is ambushed by captain Bark in the toilets.  Beaten and locked up, he is let out by others and saves dr Hadson from one of the beasts.  He makes his way to the city command to warn them from the upcoming danger, learning what Walter's crimes are as he asks for his parole in return.

Finding Walter beat up in jail, but set free, they meet the initial scientist, Boyd, who wrote about the beasts upon their discovery.  They form a plan to retrieve the hurt doctor and Marnie, then make it to the shuttle.  But arriving there, they learn Hadson has betrayed them, as there was no spot on the shuttle for them in the first place.  But just at that moment, Marnie's water breaks.  While the baby brings a brief moment of relief, 

A piece of an orbital tanker comes crashing down, the Swarm being brought on board for study, but as they learn from Bark this went hideously wrong.  Now the only place left they can go is the mass-driver of the Sig refinery.  Even though Hadson's assistant tries to betray them once again, they overcome the odds.  As the Swarm swoops over the refinery in search of the Sig stored there, they escape with a shuttle through the mass-driver, stored in a container.  Walter names the baby Kou as a thanks for them redeeming him, as giant beasts burst from the surface the moment they are about to launch, giving them an escape window and leaving the planet behind.

Well, unfortunatly this series didn't have much going for it.  The story is far from unique, but the fact the sacrifices are telegraphed from miles away and the betrayal's are done by minor side characters, it doesn't really deliver a punch at those moments.  And as I said before, the rather horrible CGI doesn't offer any redeeming factors either.  Oh, and the "horror" factor is totally absent by the way...