Still in the manhwa mines, don’t mind me.

The Antagonist’s Pet

I finished it last week. It’s a really warm story about bonds, love and just being there for each other. I really liked all of the main characters and the general philosophy presented throughout - it was fun, touching and generally a joy to go through. All in all, a really enjoyable read.
One warning though: this series contains multiple scenes of physical and psychological abuse - keep that in mind if it’s something that affects you.

Some random thoughts on the series:

• Double isekai plot did indeed happen, turned out very differently than what I expected.

• Another surprise: the final arc. While the story had its share of more serious topics I didn’t think it would end with political intrigue and everything else that followed. It was good but I’m still going back and forth on how well it fits (or rather, how I feel about it fitting in) with the story.
• There are many flashback chapters throughout the series. They are good and do a lot to flesh out backstories and motivations of all the important characters but man… every time they show up it feels pretty random and out of place. It’s like there just wasn’t a good way to lead into them so they are just cold dropped at times they kinda sorta work.

Not That Villainess! / Mistaken for a Wicked Woman!

Girl from a poor noble family travels to the capital to become a knight, gets mistaken for her “villainess twin sister” she didn’t even know about, shenanigans ensue. Also she has a stupidly rich father she didn’t know about either.

A pretty fun read though I feel like it kinda moves past the initial idea pretty quickly. It’s still there to some extent but it doesn’t feel as relevant. At least MC being headstrong and unwilling to get played with keeps things interesting.

Will have to see how season 2 goes before I can come up with an opinion honestly.

A Handbook for Villainesses

Fake saintess is used to do a lot of bad things, gets tired of the charade and kills herself right before becoming a sacrifice. She wakes up alive, 10 years earlier and wants to repent for everything wrong she did in her past life. She also decides to act like “a bad girl” to make sure no one tries to make her pretend to be a saintess ever again.

Pretty strong concept, fun characters and cute art. It’s a solid read and MC being thought how to act like a baddie is great. I’m not too sure about the recent story developments but I’m willing to wait and see how things play out for now.

Yeah, I’d like to think people would focus on other things now that SKG picked up the pace but he’ll most likely be brought up for a long time regardless on what happens with the campaign in the future - even if just as a punching bag for people to feel superior about.

It’s a jab at the Pirate Software guy, I believe.

I’m still stuck in the villainess mines, it’s just what I crave these days.

• Behold the True Villainess
  Finished it, it was pretty good for the most part. There were a few sections I wasn’t really hot on (spying on the fiance comes to mind) but other than that it managed to keep up a solid quality until the end. Probably won’t stick as one of my favourites though.

• The Villainess’s Bestie
  It’s about a 5 year old maid working in the imperial palace who becomes friends with the empress (the titular villainess). It’s mostly comedy, with some slightly more serious elements thrown in the mix here and there.
  Pretty fun read, unfortunately it went on hiatus in 2023 so there’s only 60 chapters available.

• The Antagonist’s Pet
  Pretty similar premise to the previous series just replace kid maid with young girl from unimportant noble family who’s treated like a favourite pet by ladies of higher status (that’s actually her survival mechanism for this environment). Don’t know how I feel about it yet, “it’s fun enough” is all I can say for now.
  Oh, this one is actually a double isekai (as in, two people were dropped into this fantasy world) which might lead to something interesting down the line.

Other than that The Big Bees got a healthy update recently which is always a blessing. Love me some fat bees.

Confucius joining Hololive wasn’t on my bingo card but hey, they do have an eye for talent.

This definitely sucks but at least it seems like they had a good enough schedule to finish the season before airing. So… not a completely bad news?

Yeah, that tracks - it’s a business organisation first and foremost. And yeah, we definitely do.

I’m back on the villainess train, this time with two titles I found completely at random - both being decent finds too.

• Kill the Villainess

I initially thought it will be a less interesting version of Villains Are Destined to Die, it turned out to be probably the most sombre (without being edgy) villainess themed series I’ve wrote about here so far.
The premise is nothing original: woman is pulled into the body of a villainess from a book and has to die to go back to real world. Guess what? She tried. Multiple times. Before the story even began.
There’s no easy way out and she has to play the part of a bad guy according to the original novel, whether she likes it or not.

It’s a pretty solid choice if you’re in a mood for a less quirky story in this genre.

• Behold the True Villainess

A complete whiplash of emotions when paired with the first one as this is a pure comedy.

This one is also an isekai story but here the soft and timid noble girl gets taken over by someone who doesn’t let herself get pushed around by anyone. She bails from a temple she was sent to, stirs trouble, gets people addicted to modernised (well, properly spiced) cuisine and spreads real world slang among the nobles (often misrepresenting what it actually means).

It’s silly, it’s light-hearted and it’s full of pretty good jokes (visual or otherwise).

It’s a group representing the biggest publishers in the industry, used as a front to pretend they’re able to self-regulate when it comes to consumer laws vs business wants. So no, not a governing body but more of a cartel or lobbying group, I guess? One with A LOT of money on the line and enough lobbying power to push against things like the Stop Killing Games campaign the moment they feel threatened.

Either way it’s pure speculation considering something truly massive would have to happen for Steam to even get to this point.

I might be reading too much into this but I think they’re going for an anthology feel with the show and if there’s ever Cyberpunk Edgerunners 3 it would once again focus on yet another group of characters. That’s just how I interpreted Sztybor’s words though.

I think that to some extent this comes down to a simple fact that for many people, like yourself, Edgerunners was their first into the world of anime - depending on one’s media literacy and experience this might sway their opinion one way or another. Besides, that’s not just a problem with Edgerunners, you could say the same about folks for whom Cyberpunk 2077 was their first experience with cyberpunk as a genre.

While not perfect, it’s a solid show overall and if it serves as a gateway deeper into the rabbit hole then I’d say it’s worth the praise.

He did say something similar years ago if I recall correctly but we never got any details and it was so long ago it’s hard to guess whether that’s still the plan. Reassurance or update on that wouldn’t be unwelcome, that’s for sure.

Here are the board members of this organisation in case someone is curious about their relevancy/neutrality on the matter:

• Hester Woodliffe – Chair (Warner Bros. Games)
• Canon Pence (Epic Games)
• Kerry Hopkins (Electronic Arts)
• Ian Mattingly (Activision)
• Klemens Kundratitz (Embracer)
• Qumar Jamil (Microsoft)
• Clemens Mayer-Wegelin (Nintendo of Europe)
• Cinnamon Rogers (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Matt Spencer (Take 2)
• Alain Corre (Ubisoft)
• Alberto Gonzalez-Lorca (Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Karine Parker (Square Enix)
• Mark Maslowicz (Level Infinite)
• Felix Falk (game)
• Nicolas Vignolles (SELL)
• David Verbruggen (VGFB)
• Nick Poole (UKIE)

You know, the people who “ensured that the voice of a responsible games ecosystem is heard and understood” (direct quote from their website).

Writer was pretty clear about David’s fate in the article and mentioned wanting to tell more stories with “many interesting characters”. Besides, season 2 is described as a standalone story so more than likely.

Fresh update video from Ross about the campaign.

TL;DW:

• There’s a chance many of the signatures for the EU petition aren’t real. Keep signing to build up a safety margin. Official suggestions are: 10% more minimum, 20% pretty OK, up to 40% more for an actual safety net.
• Some countries had problems with signing using the digital ID system - suggests to use the manual method (instructions on the campaign page) or try again later.
• Someone not related with the campaign released a SKG crypto. Don’t touch it, obviously.
• Ross heard about people harassing Pirate Software, asks to stop.
• He’s got a lot of messages to reply to, prioritises ones important to the campaign for now.
• UK petition cleared 100k signatures. Number is most likely more reliable than the EU one.
• Link about contacting UK MP’s for those who want to do more than just sign a petition.

That’s actually one of the most annoying parts about the whole thing. SKG campaign has been running for what, a year now? Barely anyone with an audience cared enough to even look into it, let alone spread the news. Now that things came close to failing suddenly everyone thinks it’s an important topic and scrambled to make videos/posts/whatever. I’d like to give them the benefit of the doubt but I just don’t have that in me any more…
We could’ve been in so much better place with awareness, petitions and general sentiment if people in the industry actually cared about these things from the start.

Better late than never, I guess. I just hope there’s enough time to push through the EU petition as well.

After Ross announced the campaign is dead a bunch of YouTubers (and media, I think?) picked up the topic and started spreading the word far and wide. This is the result.

Noted and added to the pile, much obliged!

I’m a bit torn on this since with Melissa I always felt more like she’s beating some sense into unruly children rather than manipulating them. Still a great series though!