I kinda wonder, how do people discover new music today? There's such a vast expanse of stuff out there and most all of it is hidden in its own corner of the internet. If you know what you're searching for maybe it's easier, but finding completely new stuff that appeals to you seems like an extremely tough endeavor. Are there any good methods /qa/ knows of or is word of mouth the best way still?

What are /qa/'s opinions on avatarfags, namefags, and tripfags? Are they helpful or harmful towards an imageboard, and to what degree for each?

General video games thread since the other one hit the bump limit. What are you playing? What are you looking forward to?

What is your opinion of private trackers and the like? AB recently came back (yay) but people have mixed feelings about such things. It's easy to dismiss criticism as jealous resentment if someone isn't in them, but it's also easy to see that it's not an ideal situation for people that love certain media and want to also share that love with others.
Maybe if AB did die the nyaa admin would get off his butt and actually allow new account creation since they've been temporarily closed for like half a decade now. It's not unusual to see releases and uploads that don't actually belong to the uploader since the person has no account. How much stuff is nyaa missing because it doesn't allow people to actually share them? You can only get post-MoyaiSubs Mewkledreamy Mix subs on twitter right now and I only know that because it was mentioned in one of the 2 uploads on nyaa uploaded by a third party, with the remaining 25 episodes on twitter. Is nyaa considered semi-closed or something?

I think the problem with Japanese media in general is that there's really no middle ground. It's nyaa or nothing. There isn't a "oh, this isn't as great as AB but it has 70% of the content" place, it's either you're in the anime tracker or you're not. I'm not in BBT, but I hear it's closer to the nyaa side of the scale due to certain rules it has among other reasons. I worry that as Japanese media continues to overtake the Western world (even if the mainstream people watch the same 5 shows) the tendrils of corporate rights holders will be as zealous as Disney or Nintendo is, and that will further increase the reliance of private trackers. Not to imply that it doesn't already cause issues on stuff like youtube and the like. Youtube once had lots of full episodes and albums you could watch but they were stricken down by various companies doing the copyright strike thing to wipe out accounts hosting entire libraries. It also has algorithms and AIs to detect and delete stuff that gets uploaded, within minutes. But hey, if you subscribe to one of 15 services you might be able to watch it if it's currently on the service.

Oh yeah, I forgot that I wanted this thread was more about general private tracker stuff. I think they're unfortunately a necessity for most things due to how corporate the internet has become, but I don't think it's necessary for Japanese stuff yet in regards to user safety from lawyers. I think it's kind of sad how people under age 25 or Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

><Anonymous> like say someone starts a thread about mecha it's gonna take two years to reach 200 posts

Let's prove him wrong.
MECHA THREAD!

I was reminded that another year has passed since the last time the /qa/ anime chart was updated, so I thought it was as good a time as ever to bring it back, update it, and improve on it a bit in the process.

The format for deciding on picks this year will be the same as the last with the addition of maybe singling out a specific anime of each year to be the most /qa/ anime of the year. For the current candidates that should be easy since there's only 4 of them, but for this year we'll have to conclude all the seasonal polls first and then afterwards decide.

The polls will be made separately and then linked in the thread with at least 3 days allotted for people to decide on winners, and I'll make a new poll for each season every day, starting with Winter 2021 today. To not make cheating so easy I'll make it so an IP needs at least 3 posts to vote, which shouldn't really be hard for anyone I hope. Also the AOTY polls will probably all be at the end or sometime in-between since they shouldn't be as hard of a decision.

Time for some spring cleaning!

https://www.pcgamer.com/wow-classic-is-getting-official-hardcore-mode-servers/

What does /qa/ think about the idea of hardcore MMOs? Having seen a bit about this in my Youtube recommends, it looks kinda fun and engaing. Classic wow is by no means the hardest, or even that challenging an MMO, but I think that just lends itself very nicely to a hardcore mode. It encourages a bit more social interaction during questing to not die trying to solo along with encouraging better communication during dungeons/raids since nobody wants to lose their character. Also I'm a bit of a fan of hardcore modes myself, so I was wondering if kissu might be interested in giving it a shot once the servers come out?

There's going to be a spontaneous GuPz stream in 1 hour!!!(or maybe two if people want it at 8EST)!!

This the 4th movie in the final GuPz series and lasts for 60minute

@ https://theatre.kissu.moe/kiss/yukkuri !!!!

Does /qa/ have any favorite cartoons? I've never really stopped to think about this since I always despised /co/ as a board and they never discussed any of the cool European comics I was into. So, as usual, I thought of some stuff off the top of my head and made a 3x3 based on it. I think it's pretty obvious that I was an MTV/Cartoon Network kid if you look at my picks. MTV used to be a pretty cool channel and had a lot of cartoons that were aimed at the teen demographic that is so common in anime/manga. I also watched a lot of dubbed anime on CN back then. Avatar would probably be in this since everyone sucks it off so much and lauds it as the best cartoon ever, but I've never finished. I thought it was kinda boring back then and it did not help that Nickelodeon was already declining in quality during the time it aired.

By the way, did you know that there were two new seasons of Beavis and Butthead released in 2022-2023? I had no idea about this until recently. I might check it out sometime.

(MASSIVE SHINSEKAI YORI SPOILERS AHEAD)

How the fuck is SSY so highly rated????? It's built on nothing but endless retardation.

What other setting have you heard of where randos suddenly getting powers led to humanity's near extinction simply because they felt like it? The entire backstory is built on first-wave rando retardation on top of a thousand years of emperor retardation on top of scientist retardation all to deal with the absolutely irredeemable walking nukes that are cantus users. Sheer stupidity from everyone involved over a near geological timeframe but what's even stupider is its incredibly abysmal take on totalitarianism.

All across the story the kids have to deal with the blatantly sinister actions of their superiors in a way that almost seems to say "hey, maybe surveillance states are bad" (NO SHIT!) but then you learn that ACTUALLY, YOU KNOW, it was all justified and this is the only societal configuration that makes a shred of sense in this world, otherwise everyone would've died by now. The ending is supposed to be hopeful, but they haven't changed SHIT. FUCK ALL. It goes against everything it has built so far with how it's gone so out of its way to set up the world as stupidly grimdark and then ends with absolutely no answer to all the problems it poses. Espers still can't keep each other under full control so you need the queerrats to continue acting as an underclass of assassins, and you NEED them to be an underclass because if they're not they'll logically rise up again like they just did a few years ago, because cantus users are a cancer that'll destroy the earth itself if you don't keep them in check. So they should all commit suicide somehow, jump off a fucking cliff and let the world heal by itself.

It's all fucked up beyond repair, the rats can't undo their genetic modifications, they can't un-fuck-up their queens, the espers can't stop being nukes, but they can't kill each other either due to the feedback loop, and they can't kill the rats because they need them, nor can they undo humanity's annihilation, it's all set up to fail. It's either the status quo of an obligatory surveillance state or oblivion and this surveillance state is consistently portrayed as bad, so what is the anime trying to say? That in this extremely specific and very stupid setting it turns out totalitarianism is good? How does this apply to anything? If Saki genuinely means well, as she's consistently painted as up to Post too long. Click here to view the full text.

Do you have a game or show or anything else that you experienced when you were younger that has left a permanent impression on you? Not just nostalgia, but you feel as though it altered your way of thinking or what it is you desire.
I'm aging myself a bit with this one, but two prominent ones for me are the two Lunar games. They're JRPGs that I first played on the PSX. They originally came out on SegaCD, but it was wisely remastered for a console that more than 5 people had. I did go back and play the SegeaCD versions on emulator back in the day, though. I even had some Lunar avatars that I still have on my drive!

The main themes of the games are adventure and love. At its core the games are very simple both in gameplay and story scope, but its charm is the unmistakable purity of it. I think these two games gave me desire for the fairytale romance that you can only see in fiction, and of course the corny "defeating the bad guy with friendship and love" cliché. It's just so beautiful and pure. If someone were to ask me what paradise is like, I would point to this kind of thing. It is the pure idealization of human emotion.

Someone might have also noticed that the art looks familiar, and that's because the character designer eventually worked on Idolm@ster. Takane in particular really has the face, so she's a bit of a weakness of mine when it comes to 2D idols, even when I don't really partake in that culture.

Of course, the games do have issues. Today I can appreciate the fact that Working Designs went overboard with the localization process and should have been respectful to the source material. The main story is fine, but the random NPCs make jokes and references to pop culture that they really shouldn't.

Which other websites on the World Wide Web does /qa/ use?

Don't think I have ever seen a mascot thread here.

Where do I go to watch seasonal shows with Japanese subtitles? I want to watch YuruCamp S3 but I'm at the point in my ninhongo studies where I feel like if I'm not watching anime with JP subs I'm wasting my time. I'm also not good enough to watch with no visual aid whatsoever.

Every torrent site I've found uses subs for every language except Japanese.