Gotta be found family movies, particularly if the parental figure didn’t want the responsibility in the first place or if they’re clueless, gruff, and/or emotionally not prepared for a child.

So movies like Logan, Ice Age, Wild Robot, Up, or Despicable Me and shows like The Last of Us, The Mandalorian, Game of Thrones (Arya and the Hound), and The Witcher.

I was trying to think of more found family mother shows and movies and honestly couldn’t think of more. Most of the ones involving women that I could find are of friend groups or there was no hesitation to pretty much adopt the child.

I’ve got 2 groups of 2 friends each that I keep in touch with every 2-3 months. Well, one friend lives about a 8 hour car ride away so I only see her actually about once a year. We always have to plan at least 2 weeks if not a month in advance for meet ups but we still all make the effort.

I think that’s the hardest part is finding people who are worth the effort and are willing to make the effort in return. What I find works for my friends who are pretty different from each other is to find shared interests and do that. One group likes trying new places to eat and going shopping (a lot of times are H-Mart and Daiso). The other likes to watch movies and the review them together.

I did not know that about the artist. To each his own but maybe don’t put weird fetish stuff into regular anime.

You haven’t heard of the songs or the anime? Almost all of them are pretty main stream.

I forgot how much the animation for Spy X Family improved in season 2 for the opening and ending. They’re super beautiful

Just every opening and ending theme

Some of my personal favorite openings:

• Elfen Lied: the anime itself was kind of ok but the opening and first like 10 minutes are so memorable. Been decades since I’ve seen it so maybe the plot is better than what I remember. Doesn’t change the fact that this opening is hauntingly beautiful
• One Punch Man: such a good hype up song. The song makes you feel like you can do anything
• Pokémon (Kanto League): another great hype up song though I think a large part of it is how nostalgic it makes me since it was my first anime

And Endings:

• Inuyasha (Every Heart by BoA): like Pokémon, I think a good reason I like this song so much is the nostalgia. But even taking that out, the ending is a great example of jpop from the early 2000s. Fun fact, the singer is actually a kpop star and has also released this song in English and Korean. Growing up only hearing the Japanese version, it’s super weird to hear it in any other language especially from the same voice.
• Jujutsu Kaisen Season 1: the chill hip hop vibes and cool animation are such a fun way to palate cleanse all the gore and seriousness of each episode
• Asobi Asobase: everything about this ending is great. The psychotic visuals, the cute anime girl vocals, the heavy metal backdrop. What makes it even better is just how much it contrasts with the show’s opening. Many of the comments for both videos point out this hilarious disparity.

I guess 2 TB is also relatively small. However, considering that OP only mentioned one specific game their child wanted to play, I think it’s not an unreasonable amount of storage.

If their kid also wants to do things like download/edit movies, graphic arts, or other storage heavy activities then of course they could go for a larger storage. It all depends on their needs and budget.

Option 1 will work for a while. The only thing you will need for the near-ish future is larger storage. Games nowadays take up so much space and 1 TB won’t last long. Would recommend buying a 2-3TB HDD while you’re at Microcenter. They may even be able to install it for you

True but Bluetooth controllers aren’t so expensive now and many work well with emulators. If you have an Xbox or PS4 or PS5, you could pair those controllers as well.

Does Galavant count?

I’m pretty surprised. I am always trying to recommend anime to my friends to get them into it. But I can see how some fans are jerks. Like they forgot what it was like to be newbies.

I tried to list shows that were not only finished, but also relatively short so that they’re not intimidating to start. Hope you find one you like! I didn’t include any shoujo (girl targeted) anime because I forgot and don’t really watch many. Only one I’ve seen is Ouran Host Club which is actually pretty good so I’ll add it to my list.

Yay, I’m glad you enjoyed it! My brother and I watched it on a whim around Christmas and we both really liked it.

Personally, I prefer anime shows to movies since they’re allowed more time to develop plot and characters. If you’ve ever played any Japanese games you’d know how convoluted the stories can be.

Based on your list of movies, you seem to like a good mix of comedies and tragedy/drama. Below are some shows I think you may like:

• One Punch Man (comedy/action): Saitama is the world’s strongest man and can defeat enemies with a single punch. This causes him to feel ennui with life.
• Erased (mystery/thriller): time travel murder mystery. Don’t want to say too much more. It’s really short (12 episodes) so it should be easy to finish quickly
• Death Note (mystery/thriller): another murder mystery with supernatural elements, this time involving what’s know as the the titular Death Note which can kill anyone who’s name is written inside. This and Fullmetal (below) are pretty much always recommended starter anime.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (fantasy/adventure): Alchemist Brothers Edward and Alphonse travel the world looking for the Philosopher’s Stone in order to fix an alchemy disaster that left Alphonse’s soul trapped in armor. Make sure you watch Brotherhood first. There are two series of this franchise and the regular Fullmetal Alchemist does not follow the source manga all the way through since it caught up at a certain point.
• Hunter x Hunter (action/adventure): Gon hopes to become a powerful Hunter so he can find his father who left him as a child. Best story of all shonen (boy targeted) manga/anime imo. Only bad thing is that it was dropped before they could complete the series (from where the Manga continued). But the ending it has is also still satisfying.
• Asobi Asobase (slice of life comedy): follows three odd high school friends as they try to find ways past time. Absolutely ridiculous show with no plot, just a lot of really funny situations the girls get themselves into. One of my favorites is a punishment game where loser has to be slapped on the butt.
• Ouran High School Host Club: Haruhi is a working class student who enrolls in a high school for wealthy elites on scholarship. On her first day, she accidentally breaks an expensive vase at the famous all-male host club and now has to work there to pay them back. Only problem is, she’s a girl. Hilarity and hijinks ensue.

And if you don’t want to dedicate less time, here are some more good movie recommendations:

• A Silent Voice: moving film about the redemption of a former school bully to a deaf girl. It’s definitely an emotional roller coaster
• Grave of the Fireflies: I put this in my original list but did not specify that it was an anime movie. Only watch if you want to feel some intense emotions
• Spirited Away: there’s a reason this is the first anime movie to with an Oscar. It’s about a young girl who somehow becomes trapped in a magical fantasy world and has to find her parents and a way back home. Only reason I didn’t include it was cause I actually liked Tokyo Godfathers more. However, it’s definitely one of my favorite Ghibli films for sure.
• Your Name: supernatural movie in which a completely unrelated teenage boy and girl swap bodies. They have to figure out why this happens and how to fix it.

I’m glad you had fun watching it and thanks for the update! It’s my favorite Mel Brooks movie but can be jarring compared to how PC movies have become. But it is good that you realized all the slurs were coming from characters you’re not supposed to like.

I would respectfully disagree. Spoilers ahead for a 16 year old movie.

I think while the rest of the movie has some fantasy elements and requires some suspension of disbelief, it’s ultimately about Carl’s personal growth and being able to figuratively and literally let go of his wife’s death.

Also, when Ellie died, it was like Carl’s social life died with her. By the end of the film, Carl becomes a part of the community instead of angry and isolated. In the at way, it’s also about a found family with him becoming a father figure to Russell and taking in Dug.

The Room

One of these is not like the other

My thought process for this was asking myself what movie I’d recommend to people who have little to no experience or interest in specific genres. Tried to pick a wide range of movies

Comedies (my favorite genre)

• Kung Fu Hustle (probably favorite movie of all time): fun comedy action movie involving gangsters and a poor neighborhood. Think classic Hong Kong kung fu meets super hero movie. Haven’t met anyone who didn’t like the film
• Airplane: insanely funny movie with nonstop jokes. One of the best movies for comedy because you’ve got all types of jokes (puns, visual humor, recurring jokes etc)
• Blazing Saddles: revovles around a small western town through the perspective of a former slave turned sheriff. Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little have such great chemistry
• The Naked Gun trilogy: if you liked Airplane you’ll love the Naked Gun. Has a lot of ridiculously silly lines told with a straight face.

Action

• LOTR trilogy: I feel like this needs no explanation.
• Star Wars original trilogy: no hate to the prequels (and a lot of hate to the sequels) but nothing quite hits like the OG Star Wars trilogy
• The Mummy: fun, interesting plot, charming characters just the quintissential 90s action movie. Also a great first movie for many people’s bi-awakening 👀
• Police Story (trilogy, but mainly 3): it’s been a while since I’ve seen this trilogy but I distinctly remember really liking the third one because it features both Jackie Chan and Michel Yeoh as equal badasses. If you’ve never seen Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong films, this franchise is a great start.

Animation

• Spiderman Into The Spiderverse: beautifully animated movie that does an amazing job of capturing the feel comics in both style and vibes. Definitely way better than the sequel, in my opinion.
• Tokyo Godfathers: touching anime movie about 3 homeless people who ind a baby on Christmas. Don’t want to spoil any more than that but it has a good balance of comedy and drama and unlike other anime movies I’ve seen, completes the story so well that you’re not wanting more
• Up: my personal favorite Pixar movie and the first 20 min are a master class of short story telling. Was debating between this an Wall E but I think Up has a better story

Horror

Admittedly my least favorite genre. These movies are closer to thrillers than they are horror

• Train to Busan: zombie outbreak on a train. Premise is simple enough but the storytelling and characters are so well written that you get too attached and actually get anxiety when things are happening. It’s a movie with an ending that stays with you
• The Silence of the Lambs: there’s a reason Hannibal Lector is the most memorable part of this movie despite having only 16 minutes of screen time

Movies to watch only once

These are movies that will make you feel such intense emotions (usually sadness but not necessarily) that I would only watch once. No descriptions to avoid spoilers

• Grave of the Fireflies
• Schindler’s List
• Old Boy

As much as I love Kung Pao, I would replace it with Airplane because Kung Pao is just so dumb and divisive. I know people who love that movie and I know people who absolutely hated it. You have to be a certain age (under 12 imo) to really appreciate it.

Airplane however, is timeless regardless of how old you are when you first watch it.

The leaning tower of cheeza in A Goofy Movie looks so tasty. Not quite so in real life

I checked them and GoHarddrive but they usually only have enterprise hard drives and like I said in my post, those would be too loud to sit right next to me.