Bartimaeus

Sakura, episode 59, The Swimming Monastery. That's not actually the title of the episode, but there's an end-game series of areas in an old not very good JRPG called Quest 64 that I played as a kid called that where the layout of doors is a nonsensical maze connecting in ways that don't make any sense (and can change), and that's basically this episode. That intro was cancer, but the idea of this did make me laugh.

I need to re-watch Castle in the Sky in Japanese at some point, because it's one of the weakest English dubs for Ghibli, and I remember it kind of impacting the film, particularly the main character. @majestic Can't help but notice that you didn't recommend it to me. How incredibly odd.

Ye gods, this show sounds like death. Why is this even labeled as a shoujo? At least you know the entire show is unlikely to be pure DRAMA ZONE, unlike so much other crap that starts out like that... Courtesy of me listening to Mr. "I'm Always Right"...what a dirty rotten stinking deal that was, . I got nothing. Yeah, I like it better as a companion to TEoE a lot more now, which I didn't really expect. They offer some similar ideas and elements, but also a lot different ones as well. I wonder if someone would take the NGE ending better if they watched TEoE first instead of the other way around. I try not to re-adjust my ratings too much over time, but it does happen - the "newness" of watching something can sometimes make you react more strongly to it (both positively OR negatively) than considering something you watched weeks or even months ago. I usually like to re-consider stuff like a month after I finish watching it in order to really complete and set in stone how I feel about it. Some stuff benefits from that (e.g. Miyu, which still occupies some of my brainspace even now), some stuff can suffer...sometimes severely. NGE really made me reflect upon Nadia and how frustrating that show was even without the horrid filler, and I realized that for a show that did not really have any themes, characters, or ideas that deeply appealed to me, it just had no business being as high as I initially thought of it. It's a show that I will remember...not entirely, but more for the bad times instead of the good, unfortunately.

Here it is, finally...Neon Genesis Evangelion, the original Human Instrumentality:

(Y/N) If you could go back to when you were considering the show, would you tell past you to watch Nanoha?

Yeah, I've got that bookmarked too. I did a whole search through Madhouse's catalogue a while back and picked out the ones I liked the look/sound of.

ACCA Jusan-ku Kansatsu-ka, episode 1: It's like a...seinen political drama, animated by Madhouse. After watching the first episode, I just read the plot of each episode (it's not a long series) and thought "...I guess that sounds alright and well-made enough, but I'm just like...super not into this". Good decision by me, I think. One series out of the way, anyways. I should watch either more Sakura or Champloo instead, methinks. Sure sounds like a whole lot of "serious mode" story stuff all of a sudden.

Galaxy Express 999. The basic premise is that it's set a couple of centuries in the future in an utterly dystopian world ruled by those that have transferred themselves into robot bodies so they can live forever, and the humans who are actually still human are basically the poors. The Galaxy Express 999 is the space train that is said to take its passengers to the promised land, essentially, where they can become robots. The story opens up with a boy and his mother going out in a snowstorm to see the space train depart, for it only visits Earth once a year, but they are caught on the way by android human-hunters that murder his mother for sport. Another very sketchy woman rescues the boy and tells him that she can get him onto the 999...but only if he lets her go with him. Them departing on the 999 is how the episode ends, with promises of wacky adventures on the way to their...but not before the boy grabs a gun and takes a minute to avenge his mother in a hail of gunfire. The first episode was alright, but I'm not entirely sold on this. If I had to guess, this will probably be a little too much...boy action adventure stuff for me, at least until the show finally gets to the intended destination. The 2005 one looks similar-ish, but the 2007 already looks quite bad, and then it gets so much worse from there.

How much are you looking forward to all of the sequel TV series and movies?

It would've also been less distracting if her character wasn't 100% "I am the big emo" after they actually got to Rivendell. Constantly lounging around looking depressed and talking with that dumb breathy voice of hers is not my idea of a good time. That's what really makes it worse, when you see a literal child struggling going through this while you, as an adult, still haven't figured it out... If you make me care about someone or something, and then you also successfully (<- key word here) stab me in the heart with them, then you have undoubtedly created lasting scars on me that I'm not soon to forget. It's precisely why I stuck with NGE even though I had a number of issues with it in on my first run through it - their personal struggles, pains, and tragedies were (are!) everything in that show. Maybe having spent a few too many years suffering from somewhere between mild and severe depression that that kind of emotional turmoil and consequent catharsis is the most wonderful feeling in the world...

Whisper of the Heart is depressing in an unexpected way - at least it was for me. It's a film driven by the protagonist's desperation to find out who she is in the world, and what exactly she should be doing to give her life meaning while the rest of her peers still have that child's mindset of simply living in the moment and just skirting by...and the film does it in such a perfect way that it makes you really feel like you are literally her - but as an adult version that still hasn't figured it out, and probably never will. What a sickening feeling it is when she's able to work her butt off and find some - not all of, but some - of her own personal meaning and some concrete goals to go fulfill, while you the viewer are still listlessly wandering around in the metaphorical dark sometimes questioning why you're even alive to begin with. ...At least, that was my experience with Whisper of the Heart. But unlike you, I've seen it twice, and I loved it even more than the first time I watched it, . Perfect Blue is at the top of my list for films that I loved but don't really want to watch again, at least not for a very long while...especially because you can't ever really re-create the circumstances in which I watched it to begin with.

If his post had had a question mark, we could've known for sure ?

Yeah, I would've preferred that Arwyn got cut out entirely rather than let her have Glorfindel's part. Not that I particularly like Glorfindel or anything, but Arwyn is the worst character in the entire movie series.

You're playing an Amazon, right? Although the Arcane Sanctuary stays the same size, most other areas get so absurdly over-sized in nightmare and hell, I can't even imagine walking through the entire game on those difficulties as a non-sorceress without teleport - I'm not sure if I've ever done it, to be honest.

Konomi Can't Speak, episode 1. ...What can I say? I guess I just want to get shows I know I'll hate out of the way as quickly as possible before I have you rubes telling me I should watch it because it's so great. Hitting me with the DRAMA MODE SOFT PIANO MUSIC within literally the first 30 seconds. This is one of the very few shows where I might actually like the exaggerated emotions style (which I usually despise) more than the regular style: Maybe because it almost looks 80s anime-ish, like Ranma kind of. If all the characters looked like this all the time, I would almost be tempted to keep watching for the novelty. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I got about 5 and a half minutes in and that was all she wrote. Bye! Now I will read majestic's post. The first 30 seconds seemed to imply something between her and cats, that maybe she likes or identifies with them; it's probably there for a reason but not spelled out quite yet. Beyond that, I ain't got much to say, it clearly wasn't going to work for me, the direction on every level was...you know, very not me, .

Is there any fandom that's not eminently hateable? Honestly, the only fandoms I don't already hate are the ones I'm not aware of.

Sorry for getting you confused with Lexx! ...However, I got through somewhere between 30 and 60 seconds in each of those songs, and I think I liked most of what I've heard in Samurai Champloo more than literally anything you just linked there, so maybe I'm not that sorry after all, . ...The final Bleach song was real close, except for the fact that they used a vocalist that set off my misophonia - her voice is nails on chalkboard, . All the anime music I like is, as always, pre-2000s - I'm just an old soul in regards to all things Japanese, I guess. Heck, I've even come across some albums from some old shows/movies that I've never watched and never will (either because they look really bad or simply don't appeal to me and/or both in some cases) but I like the music, . NAZI CENSORSHIP!

The consensus I read seemed to imply that the Braves were the only even semi-likeable team left after the Brewers got eliminated...but I don't know anything about baseball, so don't @ me.

Completely unrelated to the anime thread: Why does Chrome have such gosh-awful image-scaling? The image: Downscaled on Firefox: Downscaled on Chrome: What the hell, Chrome?

What a terrible day for anime. Probably would've been better off being bored to death with Lady Asuka. Uh...kind of. Let me...oh, yes, I suppose you're right. I was having trouble remembering for a bit, probably because I watched most of the show between 2x and 3x speed and so I couldn't really afford to pay much attention to anything besides the dialogue. Yes, framing does indeed matter, as I have faithfully intoned many times in this very thread...and while the framing of Devilman Crybaby may have mostly justified itself, Nanoha sounds like it couldn't possibly ever do so in a million years, especially given you've already mentioned the transformation scenes as being...sketchy at best. I'm not ever going to enjoy an anime released after 2000, am I? ...Episode 1 of Samurai Champloo (2004): Episode 2:

Yeah, nah, I'm just gonna take your word for it. I think that's the strongest warning for something you've given, and I've already refused to click other things that didn't get that much, so it must be pretty freaking bad. And it appears my recommendation has been a FAILURE. Thanks for nothing, Nanoha.

...So the complete opposite of Cardcaptor Sakura, then. In that case, abort, abort - go back to stealing from CCS and SM!

@majestic Sakura was also a unique circumstance, because it's literally the show that made it so I could listen to Japanese voice-acting at all, . But yes, you are correct...mostly. Only mostly because I hadn't actually properly looked into it and was just going off of the few videos (including of the really bad English dub) and gifs/images you posted - when I was greeted with this on Netflix, I instantly changed my mind and knew I had to at least try it: It's weird how seeing a frame like this can be an instant "yep, I gotta try that", but that's the way I go, .

I think the other two aquatic levels are Rusty Bucket Bay and...Jolly Roger's Lagoon is the second game, so not that...oh, the beach one. Treasure Trove Cove, I had to look it up, though the name seems obvious in retrospect. I tried to go back and play it...two or three years ago now? I got through act 1 of the OC and I literally felt like I was going to stop existing if I kept playing. I thought maybe the second act, Port Saiid, would be better, but then it was just a bunch of wilderness areas that all looked the same and...I closed the game intending to continue at some point, but I could never muster up the willpower to do so. The story and general writing, characters, gameplay, aesthetic, controls, voice-acting...everything's pretty lacking, to say the least, at best. I had some fond but also some not so fond memories as well... I remember there being some succubus that's magically imprisoned that you can decide to kill or free in order to progress through an area, and if you decide to free her, she... Well, this isn't P:ST, she "betrays" you after freeing her in the most painfully obvious and stupid manner possible. I didn't get to that part in my attempt to replay the game, so I only have ancient memories of it, but even as a kid, I remember that being incredibly stupid writing, especially given that she dies in like two hits. That stupid freaking kobold. Stupid Aribeth. I didn't know this until the last few years (in fact, I think learning this is what inspired me to try to re-play the game), but you can apparently save Aribeth if you're one of the talky classes like a rogue or bard...and then she's executed by Lord Nasher right after anyways, lmao. Who the hell were the main villains of the OC? All I remember is...mage lizardmen? Why do I remember lizardmen? Is that even real? Endless tunnels and and combat going ever-deeper in some sort of pit that wouldn't ever end in Shadows of Undrentide. Saving and reloading over and over for randomized high-end gear in certain containers... Having to fight three dragons at once at some point, but dragons aren't as scary in NWN as they were in BG, like not even close? Probably other stuff I can't remember right now...I have a number of ancient memories of that game. Usually, if you've done everything else, the finales of stat-based games are pretty lame anyways, since they have to allow for a wide range of character power to be able to complete them. I wasn't able to get very far in SoZ, it felt too strange and kind of unfocused to me - like everyone else, I liked MotB a lot more.

Clanker's Cavern. IIRC, you can enter him through...oh, yeah, that's right, you have to swim down to the very bottom of the entire cavern and rotate the gigantic key in the padlock around a few times before he's able to rise to the top first, THEN you can enter through either his teeth or his blowhole...and maybe even his gills? Or maybe you can only exit through his gills? ...Do whales even have gills? They can't, they're mammals... I didn't play NWN until after Baldur's Gate, and boy, was THAT a rude awakening. Ye gods, even back then, that was a difficult transition to make - game controlled, looked, and sounded like garbage. Some fun fan-made online modules, though - I was friends with someone with DM privileges on some big, fairly populated LotR one, and I remember that being a heck of a lot of fun. I think my first NWN character in the OC (which I actually did finish as well as Shadows of Undrentide but not Hordes of the Underdark) was actually an extremely boring fighter that I prestige class-ed into an equally boring Weapon Master (...well, once Shadows of Undrentide came out anyways). Better than playing a freaking bard at least, I suppose...