JimFear138 Audio Productions

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast! In this one I go over the retardation with #FireColbert, talk about female genital mutilation with regards to male genital mutilation, and talk about sex robots for a little while. Hope y'all enjoy! MP3 Download of this episode: https://ia800408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/Ep51.mp3 The tweet from the sex robot company:  https://twitter.com/AbyssCreations/status/850079851990077440 Oghma on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Oghma_EM huMAN: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT2dUsMtd08RfaH12O9DCDg Coterie: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnYBk3rcTaYN-LLwopSZjig Social Media Dump iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138Vid.me: https://vid.me/JimFear138Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/jimfear138 Opening Music:Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast! This time I talk about how weird it feels to be shilling for stuff I didn't make, go over an article about a couple Trump supporters who got what they deserved, and discuss Bill Nye The Anti-Science Guy's new Netflix show! Hope y'all enjoy! Archive of article: http://archive.is/9xhKs MP3 Download link of this episode: https://ia600408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/ep50.mp3 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Social Media DumpiTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138Vid.me: https://vid.me/JimFear138Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/jimfear138 Opening Music:Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here So this post is probably gonna piss some people off but so be it. I should get out of the way at the beginning that I have a lot of respect for Dr. Peterson. I enjoy his lectures, I enjoy his appearances on various podcasts, his interviews, and one day I hope to read his books when I'm not slammed wall to wall with work. He's a fascinating figure and an intelligent man, and I feel tremendous sympathy for what he went through with regards to the Canadian legal system and their flawed understanding of basic human rights. That said, I'm not going to agree with everything someone that I like says. Even my friends and I have frequent disagreements. My respect for Dr. Peterson remains, but he is wrong in his characterization of MGTOW. Fair warning folks, this is gonna be long and involved, so pull up a chair, get a drink and a smoke if you're into that kinda thing, and settle in for a long haul. Here's his opinion, so we've got all the context worked out. Apparently this happened early in April, and I have no idea how I missed it since I'm subscribed to several MGTOW YouTubers, and several of them made responses to this statement of Dr. Peterson's. I guess I wasn't on YouTube much the past month, but in the past couple days I've taken up my 40K model painting hobby again and I was going through my YT subscriptions and found out about this via one of the videos I watched, and I watched several responses, including those from Karen Straughan (a prominent MRA), JohntheOther, DrRandomercam, MessengerRising, TurdFlingingMonkey, and Stardusk/Thinking Ape, and I figured that I would throw my own two cents in on this. Those videos from the listed people are a good summation of my feelings on the matter, but I wanted to write this because...well, honestly I just kinda felt like responding to this. I should probably just go ahead and say something that I've never really hidden, yes, I am a man going his own way. The individualistic philosophy appeals to my nature as a hermit as well as informing me of several things about human psychology and biology that I was not previously aware of, and gave me several tools with which to arm myself against the predations of a gynocentric legal system that is set up to bilk me of any monies and productivity I might try to use to better my own situation. It's a philosophy of self-affirmation, and let me know that my worth as a person should not be tied to anyone else's opinion, least of all the opposite sex, and that I shouldn't judge the success of my life based on the standards set on me by other people which I did not agree to and up until a couple years ago didn't realize were 100% voluntary. They let me know the dangers inherent in those standards, and made me aware of the fact that I could just walk away if I wanted to (which nobody had informed me of before), and that is exactly what I did. This is probably going to weave in and out of my actual response to what I'll charitably call Dr. Peterson's arguments against MGTOW and my own personal experience with the philosophy, and maybe get into a few life stories to give you guys an idea of where I'm coming from. Ordinarily I'd keep to what he said, but what he said is vague. It's the old bullshit fire hose attempt that we see so often from SJW's, otherwise known as a gish-gallop, and you can spray a lot of bullshit in two minutes. It takes significantly longer to clean up. Watching this clip of Dr. Peterson, it's clear that he's done minimal research into MGTOW as a concept, philosophy, or movement, for which he is to be commended after a fashion. Most people just get the basic idea and label us all as virgin neckbeard losers whining online about how much we hate women. He's done a bit more research than your average space cowboy, but not enough to really know what he's talking about. So I'll go through his peace verbatim, point by point, and we'll see where this leads us. No pro

  If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Okay, I know what you're thinking. Or at least I can probably roughly approximate what you're thinking. It probably runs something like this: "Jim, you're a total degenerate, & you never shut up about how much you like monster girls. This is obviously some degenerate ecchi shit. Why should I waste my time with this bullshit when I know it's just gonna be some borderline porn like Monster Musume?" Yes, I am a degenerate, and yes, I do love monster girls. Unconditionally. And for less-than-Christian reasons. Here's another part where I get to say "however." However. (I really do love that part, like you guys don't even know) This is not an ecchi (softcore porn) show. And really, that makes me love it even more. Shocking, I know. Actually, back when Monster Musume was airing, a friend and I would talk about how we both thought that the show would be much better served by being a straight-up romance between Kurusu and Miia, with the rest of the girls being friends that they had adventures and hijinks with. I don't even think Miia is best girl and I think that the show would've been better as a romance with her as main squeeze. It would have much more potential to be a more serious affair, and we very likely would've gotten a lot more character development and more interesting subplots out of the show than what we currently get through the manga and anime. Although I will say that I still like it. It's fun, and that's the most important thing to me. Also the gratuitous tiddie, but anyone who watches or reads Monmusu knows what we're all there for, so that can be set aside to talk about it's other merits and detriments. Kukuruyo (who has a wonderful non-ecchi monster girl comic currently running on his site, Monster Girls on Tour) actually brought this up on Twitter in a conversation I and a few other people had recently. The monster girl genre has kind of been tainted by Monmusu blowing up like it did. I mean I'm not gonna lie, to my understanding it was pretty much always this weird fetish for lonely nerds on the internet (coughcough). But thanks to the popularity and visibility of Monmusu, everybody who hears someone like my stupid ass talking about monster girls immediately starts to drift into lewd thoughts. And they're more than justified in that. That really is kind of the long and short of it, barring a couple of shows and manga that happen to feature monster girls, but don't make the sexual aspect the key thing. Kukuruyo recommended Hyper Police, which I've yet to check out (I've been watching Konosuba shaddap), but from the wikipedia article it sounds very interesting and, according to Kukuruyo, it's not some ecchi softcore porn shit. So the genre would be greatly served by some people coming out and using monster girls as a feature in the world, but not making it all about da tiddie. ANYWHO, back to the point of this post. Jesus, I need to work on my bloviating... Interviews with Monster Girls is not an ecchi show. Actually, surprisingly enough, they go to great lengths to NOT put ecchi shit in it. They kinda fail in this in the last episode, but one character is a succubus and they go to the pool, so what are ya gonna do? But the vast majority of this show does not use the monster girls for lewd purposes, for which I commend them. Like I mentioned earlier, we in the monster girl [fandom? community? movement? philosophy? I'm too drunk for this?] need some content creators to come out and use monster girls as a feature in their created universe, but not devolve into complete ecchi degeneracy. This show, I believe, does so admirably. Now you might get conflicting opinions. Not everybody is into slice of life anime. Kukuruyo mentioned that he thought that the show was boring as fuck every time the vampire girl left the scene. I disagree, but Kukuruyo is entitled to his opinion, and taking that point of view into account I can even see where

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Hello everybody, and welcome to another ramblecast! This time I go longer, harder, and more rambley! I really didn't have a plan when I recorded this, but I soldiered on and managed to get 2+ hours out of it, and I hope you all enjoy my disjointed ramblings. I touch on my recent quitting of my job, my plans going forward, how busy I've been, political shit, a new twitter friend I made, and a whole bunch of other shit because god forbid that I actually keep track of what I'm talking about for once in my fucking life. This goes everywhere, and there's no overall point, so I hope y'all are still willing to put up with my pointless ramblings! King of Limbo Podcast: Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj6skTXDugI Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vx0m8E-BvM&t=25s EJ Spurrell: Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlackTrident_ Website: http://ejspurrell.com/ MP3 Download Link of This Episode: https://ia800408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/EP49.mp3 Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Social Media DumpiTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138Vid.me: https://vid.me/JimFear138Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/jimfear138 Opening Music:Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here The review series continues! This time we're taking a look at an honorable mention on the Appendix N list, Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance! The reason I call this an honorable mention is because, while it is not expressly mentioned on the list, it does say "Eyes of the Overworld, Dying Planet, et. al." and this I took to mean that the rest of Jack Vance's work is de facto included in the list. So for the purposes of this review, we're going to treat it like it's on the list. Yes, it's science fiction. Yes, Gygax's intention with the rules of D&D was a sort of fantasy world based loosely on medieval Europe. No, it doesn't precisely fit in with the rest of the list. But with a list as diverse as to have H. P. Lovecraft sitting next to Fritz Leiber sitting next to Micheal Moorcock sitting next to Tolkien, I figure that a little bit of fudging based on the "et al." is well within the acceptable spirit of the rules. That, and part of this book directly influenced a Mazes & Perils campaign that I'm going to be DM'ing, so I figure that helps it make the cut. At least in my estimation. Now as I get the vast majority of my reading done through audiobooks, I'll start this out by going over the audio version of this particular story, available on Audible. The narrator, Elijah Alexander, does a serviceable job. Usually I judge a narrator on a few points, these being actual voice, performance, whether or not the narrator attempts to put on different voices for different characters, and flubbed lines (although that's more the fault of the editor than the actor, but it's one of those things that sticks in your mind). Mr. Alexander's voice is perfect for this type of story. He sounds like a 1950's radio drama narrator, and as such is able to give this story a certain feel that few narrators would be able to bring to the table. His performance is acceptable. He isn't that proficient with putting on voices, apart from Anacho, but he enunciates properly and there was no part in this book that I was confused about the words of the text. Also the editors did their damned job on this audiobook, and there were no flubbed lines anywhere that I'm able to remember.  It's not an amazing, groundbreaking performance, but it's perfectly serviceable and fits the story very well. As to the story itself, well frankly I don't really know what to do with this. Like Nethereal, it has several elements of fantasy, science fiction, and horror in it. This is one of those Appendix N stories that just said, "lol fuck genre, this is COOL,"  and ran with it like a kid with scissors. It is also actually four novels in one anthology. City of the Chasch, Servants of the Wankh, The Dirdir, and The Pnume, are the names of the individual novels, but the story flows together so seamlessly that, if you threw them all together with no divisions between the novels, you'd never be able to tell them apart. It really does feel as though Vance wrote them all at once then almost arbitrarily decided to cut it up into four different books. The basic plot is simple enough. Adam Reith is an astronaut sent to a faraway planet with a team of researchers to investigate mysterious radio signals that emanated from it at one time, but stopped as mysteriously as they began. The way the beginning of this plot plays out should tell you all you need to know about the books that follow it. In the prologue of City of the Chasch, the team is introduced, Reith's job as a scout (which we will come back to later) is described, Reith and Waunder (another scout) are sent to the planet, and a missile strikes the mothership, killing everybody except the two scouts. And as if that wasn't enough, in the first three pages of the first chapter hostile natives chop off Waunder's head while he's unconscious right in front of Reith's eyes! Yeah, it's that kind of book. While Reith quickly finds himself alone on the planet

Photoshop by Christopher Warren, based on this image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2007-04-07_-_London_-_Flashmob_-_Fleshmob_-_Zombie_Walk_-_Zombies_(4889850244).jpg If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here So I've been reading around on the blogs of a couple of my friends, and JD Cowan, Bradford Walker, and Brian Niemeier have really got me thinking, and I think this needs to be said. Well, honestly it probably doesn't need to be said, but I'm gonna say it anyway! Willfully and knowingly stating the gob-smackingly obvious has never stopped me before, why let it now? In their posts (Bradford's is here, Brian's is here, read Bradford's first because Brian builds on it) they talk about Star Wars and how it's basically gone to shit. They have several theories about why, and like I said they got me thinking. But this post is about what we can do about it. Now most of you already know the solution I'm going to give, but there might be some out there that don't, so allow me to be that guy and just go ahead and state the bafflingly obvious for everybody. These companies and franchises are shells of their former selves. They are no longer producing material of any quality (except maybe Marvel's movies and tv shows, but I'm so bored and turned off by the practices of their comics division that I can't even get excited about the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie), they're derivative, their heroes have all become bad xeroxes of Watchmen, and they're not doing anything new or fresh that really resonates with people. JD Cowan explains in this very good post on his blog, Wastelandandsky. It's a long one, but my god is it good. You should all go read it. These companies are not what they once were, as I and others have said. They have been infected by several illnesses, and much like our beloved genres of SFF, it's slowly killing them. Much like in a zombie movie, wherein someone will be bitten, turn, then bite their idiot family member who doesn't get that they're not who they were anymore, these companies are trying to bring their industries and genres down with them. It's time we stopped being sentimental. It's time to put them down. Metaphorically and financially speaking, of course. As RagingGoldenEagle said on twitter: One simple line that Marvel seems to have completely forgotten! pic.twitter.com/M83bJ3RIOe— RagingGoldenEagle (@RageGoldenEagle) April 16, 2017 And he's right. These companies have completely forgotten this. They have lost their commitment to JUSTICE and as such their fate is beyond sealed. They've lost their once iron clad knowledge of what audiences are really after, and because of this sales numbers are declining. So they've already consigned themselves to slow death. The Marvel Vice President of Sales is so stupid that he actually thinks that "diversity" is killing comics, and that people just want more white men in their comic books. People don't care about "diversity", he is right about that. People love "diverse" characters like Luke Cage, Storm, Black Panther, and all the rest of them. For some people out there these are some of their favorite heroes. The problem is that they're taking beloved characters and racebending them to make them more diverse in hopes that the name (like Iron Man or Ms. Marvel) will keep enough readers interested, and that the story will hold their interest. Well, the issue is that people can see through this, and they're not having it anymore. You guys screwed the pooch so fucking hard with FemThor that everybody knows what you're trying to do, and we're done having this political agenda shoved down our throats when all we want is a comic to read to escape from our everyday lives. We don't want to see your writers lampooning Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson, we don't want your speeches about how "women superheroes are oppressed because they're women", and we damn sure don't want you fucking with our beloved characters! This is as clear as I c

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Well it's finally happened. I warned you all. I prophesied that the day would come when we would finally have books available from DimensionBucket Media. Now that time has arrived, and woe be unto the doubters among you. Anyway, serious crap aside, YES WE DO FINALLY HAVE BOOKS AVAILABLE! As you can see by the graphic above, we bring you six volumes of some of the best fantasy, horror, and science fiction that you've ever laid eyes on. Some of them are originals, some of them are from old masters, all of them are guaranteed to please and titillate. I'll go down the list and give you a description of each, from top left to bottom right, as well as links where you can find these great books on Amazon without having to do any of that pesky searching. NOTE: If you cannot see the links, you probably have adblock turned on. If you whitelist my blog you'll be able to see them. First up we have Darkest of Dreams. This is an anthology of original short stories by the DimensionBucket Media crew, featuring three stories each by myself, Christopher Warren (aka DimensionBucket), Connor Goff (aka Noughtshayde), and William Harmar (aka GentlemanWalrus). It features everything from horror, to science fiction, to fantasy, and sometimes blends these genres as well! You can get the book here: Next up we have A Man Upstairs, by Christopher Warren. A collection of small stories for small hours. "A Man Upstairs" features an array of uncanny personal accounts–anecdotes of ordinary people in unordinary lives. Keep a light on, an ear to the wall, and listen closely. Just beware: what you hear, will not be pleasant. You can get the book here: We also have available Crack'd, by Connor Goff. Geoffrey saw the man with a piece of paper, then it all went to hell. Reality isn't quite what it used to be, not after what happened. Now it's coming for him–finding every opportunity to tear his reality apart. Bit by bit. Person by person. Conner Goff presents a novelette of strange and unsettling implications. You won’t be safe. Not under the covers, and certainly not with the lights on. You can find the book here: Our next book we are very happy to bring to you, as it is this author's first coughcough "professionally" published work, Hell's Five Minute Tales of Horror by Hell Richards! This collection of microfiction is sure to give you a ton of great quick scares! You can find the book here: Next up we have Dimension of Cobwebs, by various authors! These are tales written by grandmasters of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, but are some that you might not know so well. All of these authors have their famous stories, but they also wrote a lot more than just those, and we're doing our part here at DimensionBucket Media to bring these back into the public consciousness by compiling them into an anthology that any fan of classic weird tales is sure to love! You can find that book here: Next up, we have a book that I'm personally very happy to be bringing to you all, The Phoenix on the Sword, by Robert E. Howard! For too long has Conan been remembered by that movie from the 80's starring the former governor of California! It's time to get back to the original stories, and to do that, we're bringing the first published Conan story back into the eye of a public that has been starved for actual heroism and adventure! With cover art by the incomparable Kukuruyo, we hope that you all will join us in remembering why Conan was so popular, and in paying tribute to one of the men without whom things like the Pulp Revolution would not be possible. You can find that book here: We're very excited to be bringing these books to everybody, and we hope that you'll check them all out! Now, at this point I should tell you that all of these books are only available in paperback for the moment. DimensionBucket Media is going to be at Stokercon this year with a dealer's table, and we needed to have actual print books fo

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the podcast! This week we get to talk to Brian Niemeier, reigning Dragon of Horror and author of The Soul Cycle Series! We talk a lot about his books, but also delve into more obscure topics like anime, horror movies, and even take a crack at talking theology for a while! It's a wild ride, and was a ton of fun! Hope y'all enjoy! MP3 Download of this episode: https://ia600408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/ep48.mp3 Brian's books: Nethereal: https://www.amazon.com/Nethereal-Soul-Cycle-Book-1-ebook/dp/B00ZBDOHKU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492376079&sr=8-1&keywords=nethereal Souldancer: https://www.amazon.com/Souldancer-Soul-Cycle-Book-2-ebook/dp/B01BM1SX3Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492376106&sr=8-1&keywords=souldancer The Secret Kings: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Kings-Soul-Cycle/dp/1541210573/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1492376135&sr=8-1&keywords=the+secret+kings Brian's website & social media: KAIROS: http://www.brianniemeier.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BrianNiemeier Gab: https://gab.ai/BrianNiemeier Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:107%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Social Media DumpiTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138 Opening Music:Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Closing Music:Kings of Tara by Kevin Macleod: http://www.incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500071&Search=SearchKings of Tara Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Okay so I know that title is a bit click-baitey, and why in the hell would I be comparing what you see pictured above to THIS Well, read on, and you shall discover the answers you seek. Or not. We'll see how this goes. Now I can already hear you saying, "Jim, why would I EVER take an anime recommendation from you? Aren't you that total and complete degenerate who likes Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou and literally never shuts the fuck up about how much you like monster girls? Isn't your taste in anime completely tarnished by levels of degeneracy that shouldn't even be possible?" To which I would respond, "That's fair. And true." Here's where I get to say "however." HOWEVER (man I love that part) This anime is, shockingly enough, not about monster girls. It doesn't even feature them a little bit. So you're 100% safe from my degeneracy so far as this show goes. In future recommendations you might not be so lucky. Count your blessings. Also, this is more of a recommendation than a review. I know precious little about the history of anime, how tropes developed, how the art style developed, or even what was popular in what time period beyond what they played on Adult Swim and Toonami back when I was a kid. I'm just a fan. So I am in no wise qualified to actually review an anime in regards to its merits compared to the rest of the stuff in the genre. But, I do know what I like, and I figure if my half-assed rambling can get a few more people to watch this show, I'll have done my good deed for the month and can go back to calling politicians, journalists, and random famous people cunts on Twitter with a clean conscience. I just want to make it clear that I'm speaking from near-total ignorance of the history of the overall genre I'm talking about, and will be evaluating this show on its own merits rather than how it fits into the general anime zeitgeist. Just so we're all on the same page about how ignorant I am, here. I also make no promises to keep this spoiler-free. Frankly, to talk about why I love this show so much properly I'm gonna have to get into some plot points, but this is one of those shows where, to quote Gerald from Hey! Arnold: Anyway, back to the topic at hand and my frivolous use of horrible WWI battles as a means of comparison to the trauma a bunch of Japanese high school students go through. This anime can be summed up in this sentence that I stole from my friend Newbluud (who also sat me down and forced me to undergo the meat grinder warfare that is this show): Omniscient demon fucks with high school students. That's pretty much the overall premise. Okay, so to summarize in a hopefully more coherent fashion: The show starts off with five friends, three girls and two boys, and establishes the fact that they created a club together because they didn't really fit into any of the clubs that actually existed. So they created the Student Cultural Research Club because god forbid any of these misfits and social defects actually try to fit in for once in their lives. Basically the club is an excuse for them to hang out with each other, eat snacks, and talk shit. They also publish a newsletter, but that kinda gets lost in the scrum of the general rush of the plot, and to be honest it's no great loss. The club itself is pretty boring, but the people who make up the club are insanely interesting. Which is why they attract the attention of this...entity, I suppose, named Heartseed. If you watch the subbed version, it might alternate between "Heartseed" and "Balloon Vine." I haven't done the research, but given my limited knowledge of the Japanese language I have to assume that "Balloon Vine" is the literal translation, while "Heartseed" is actually what it's meant to be called, given the general theme of the show as expressed in the title. For the uninitiated, "kokoro" is the Japanese word for "heart," and can also be used as a plural. So the title of t