Bartimaeus

I'm having both play side by side right now, and it's so strange how different the voice direction and script is. Just like...Misato, has been screaming and hurling insults left and right at everything and everyone, including Shinji, in the Amazon script (which, according to the subtitles for the Japanese, is more or less accurate) - in the original English script, she's still yelling but it's a more collected and purposeful kind of yelling (instead of, you know, just sounding completely hysterical), and the insults are minimized or gone entirely. It's really weird and I'm not happy that I can't get the best of both worlds right now.

Her voice is literally a big part of what made me want to keep watching the show after a weird and rough first few episodes that didn't really appeal at all to me. Really, I was strongly considering dropping the show...but that voice was like an angelic choir calling to me - had to figure out what was going on with her. And the fact that the other three (Shinji, Asuka, Misato) are all the same makes it all the more weird and inexplicable. Okay, I'm watching the Amazon version now...and the entire script is different? That's really weird, but I guess I'll have to roll with it. Ritsuko was replaced again...but hey, Rei is back, and that's what matters. (e): Yeah, so, like...this script is way worse than the original script. I just can't win...

They changed Rei's English VA. I thought...I thought all four of them were the same. About to have myself a big ol' Shinji scream right now. I can't even... Evangelion has been cancelled until further notice. Amanda Winn-Lee is like...I can't even begin to describe how important her incredibly distinctive and perfect voice is to that character for me. Like literally, I'll probably remember that voice for the rest of my life is how distinctive and special that voice is to me. Well, I can't watch this. Wait a second... I have to get the AMAZON-specific version of this? Gosh dang it. ...Alright, well, guess I have to do that before I can watch any more. At least I have options!

I switched to the Japanese dub for a moment and it's mildly louder, but still pretty darn quiet. The English is like...next-level quiet, though, so that small bit does make a difference.

Why is this movie so ungoshly quiet? My goodness, I'm two minutes in here and I'm going to have to set my volume to literally the absolute max in order to hear anything. ...I could listen to it on headphones I GUESS, but then I heard Angel Attack play and well, that just seems wrong to listen to on headphones. ...Max volume and getting my ears absolutely blown out from whatever comes on after when I inevitability forget it is, I suppose. (e): Also, the movie looks...okay. It makes me sad thinking about how good the original series looks in comparison, though, .

...Uh, is this another Death & Rebirth vs. Death (True) vs. Death (True)^2 issue? Because if so, a big middle finger to Hideaki "George Lucas" Anno for that, .

Yes, I played and beat it years ago. Gameplay was solid, I liked the world and atmosphere stuff...but the writing was very often clumsy at best. May be partly the translation's fault, though, . Miyu:

Miyu stuff: Evangelion: Guess I'll try the first one, 1.0, and get back to you guys on whether I can take a second one, .

Are you ever watching a show or a movie where you're absolutely blindsided by a twist...that was so incredibly obvious and which there were almost literally legion amount of hints throughout the entire thing (so much so that you had actually literally guessed the twist from the very start but then somehow forgot that you guessed it somewhere along the way because you got distracted with other stuff going on) and then you feel like an absolute babbling baboon when you get sucker-punched in the back of the head as it finally happens? That's me with Eriko right now. Boy do I feel like the big dumb for not putting two and two together. Anyways, I'm going to take the advice of Ronaldo now.

One hundred percent true, which is why I would not disagree it's not communicated well enough (especially when it could've been easily by Miyu herself perfectly sensibly in-universe), . Also, yes, my interpretation is indeed informed by having watched the entire show, which I think clears up a few different things in this regard, at least indirectly, . That's really strange - you'd think that would make Japanese entertainment sound kind of unnatural to actual Japanese watchers. I'd definitely think it'd sound unnatural if your typical American film suddenly did the opposite and only used names and no pronouns.

My worry is that since it has come out twenty years later, it will feel very stylistically different from the original show and I won't be able to hack it. That's something I'll probably be able to tell within the first ten minutes of watching whatever the first part is called, though.

I think the key difference is that the girl could not let go of him, and he could not let go of her - their lives were indelibly intertwined, Miyu visited her multiple times and saw this. In contrast to the prostitute, who was just seemingly impersonally using her job as a means to an end and was perfectly willing to immediately drop everything and get out of dodge in order to avoid Miyu - obviously no attachments to any of her clients if she was willing to let go of them that quickly, which is not how the shinma that Miyu typically targets usually operate. The fact that the two of them ended up helping Miyu no doubt had a part in it as well. Mild spoiler: It was actually because I feared his answer would be "I'm not gonna recommend anything to [me]" because of past discussions we've had on recommendations recently, not anything to do with personally you, . Eh indeed. I think the only episode I liked less was the one where the guy gets transmogrified and possessed, and then also subsequently murdered by his girlfriend, and it's not at all a coincidence that that episode also featured a random guy as a protagonist, . And oh boy, does that lady sure love her dolls. Dolls, dolls, dolls!

I wondered about this at the time, and my only theory was that it was specifically because she and the guy were unable to be separated - when Miyu spares (or intends to spare, Reiha overruling her notwithstanding) shinma, it seems to have always been either shinma who kept only to themselves or just to other shinma - perhaps I'm wrong, but I can't remember an instance of her sparing a shinma who was personally involved with any kind of human. It seems as though she wishes shinma to have little to no contact with humans (...and for good reason). If that's the case though, it's not communicated clearly enough through her own words, however. As for the crazy guy, I wonder if it was because she never really properly met or interacted with him basically at all, and so the structure of the episode (which seemed to already be troubled enough) didn't really allow for it. She generally drains those she has spent at least a little time getting to know and whom she takes pity upon. @KP the meanie zucchini Would you recommend those Evangelion movies? ...Hold on, let me rephrase: would you recommend those Evangelion movies to majestic? Yeah, I figure it's just about a 50/50 chance that I ever watch Cardcaptor Sakura again - either it happens or it doesn't, . It's very difficult to know for sure which side of the coin I'll land on, impossible really! (...I'll get to those last two episodes of the arc soon-ish.)

Lmao, yeah, my reaction to that episode was basically "¿que?". I'm not usually in favor of having a different protagonist for an episode, and especially not when it makes for such a weird and inexplicable episode. Didn't Miyu actually meet him relatively early in the strange sub-reality and basically go "huh, this is weird...oh well, see ya later!". Nice job, Miyu. Eight episodes left... Clearly, you can't do make it baby, . (e): Yeah, so one episode later, the originally light-hearted tone of Nadia is officially and permanently over from this point. Don't know what I expected, but thanks, Hideaki Anno.

It's...mostly exploration and world-based puzzles/investigation with a helping of "don't get murdered"? ...I don't know if "world-based puzzles/investigation" is the best descriptor, but it's not usually like...I don't know, Myst-like puzzles where you're trying to figure out arbitrary solutions to arbitrary problems or anything like that, it's more "...so I was exploring and found and did some stuff, this opens up new places to go and things to do and maybe even new interactions with some of the other characters"? I think that's a fair description of it. To be honest, I myself was looking at the Steam store page and thinking "this doesn't...really properly convey what the game is about, not really". Cellphones: I actually meant to write smartphones, not cellphones, RIP me. Yeah, cellphones were obviously around in the 90s, but...cellphones are a lot easier to wave away than smartphones, since all cellphones did back then was make calls and you can just say "lol no service for whatever reason" to fix that problem...or just have your characters be too young to have them, or too rural or poor to have them, or some other kind of arbitrary reason. In contrast to now, where smartphones are so incredibly ubiquitous and advanced with so many different functions and service is available most everywhere except truly remote areas...it's just, yeah, it's different. Hah. Reminds me of trying to get recommendations for stuff based off of me liking (x). Yes, your suggestion of (y) may have (a), (b), (c), (d), and even (e) all in common with (x), but in actuality the way they're stylistically and tonally presented is so completely and utterly different that they may as well be in totally separate genres. Now (z) that I just chanced upon by accident on the other hand, has almost *nothing* in common on the surface with (x)...and yet somehow feels the closest out of anything else I've ever seen! Inherent qualities and different styles of communicating and coding themes, characters, plots, and the world-building play a huge part in how stuff actually comes across...a much bigger part, I'd say, than the fact that two shows share a similar horror setting, or a similar group of superheroes, or a similar coming-of-age theme, or...anything else.

Uh...yeah, pretty much. Yep. There's something about pre-cellphone (i.e. pre-2000s) modern horror that at least mostly tries to be subtle and grounded while also having mild fantastic elements that tickles my senses...and of course, Miyu specifically gets plenty of bonus points for other stuff as well. If you ever have a chance, maybe try the game Yuppie Psycho if it seems like it'd be something up your alley - strange little indie game whose setting and premise has resounded with me for a surprisingly decent amount of time and actually serves as a little bit of a backbone for me liking Miyu so much, at least in that specific regard. I only mention it and the bit about modern horror because I see you also have spent some time thinking of alternative setups and situations, and your concept for a show sounds fantastic. Yeah, I'd totally want that for an entire show, especially if it stayed with the dark and gloomy atmosphere. I said "silly girl stuff" in absolute fondness, obviously, . Yeah, Sailor Moon is special...and no, Cardcaptor Sakura is...I mean, it is very similar, but it's also not at the same time, just like how Miyu is not at all like either of them as well while also basically being a magical girl anime with some very similar mechanisms. They just feel and operate too differently on too many levels...and of course, the character and thematic stuff is *way* different.

...Trick question - it's Sailor Moon, of course, . Crusher Joe (1983). What's up with seemingly so many Japanese productions in the early 80s and before that simply not having good microphones? Kind of surprised at the drop in quality here from the OVA that came out six years later specifically in just this area. I couldn't even tell for sure if the main characters were the same VAs as the OVA until I heard one specific character (an old grizzled pilot dude named Talos) because they all sounded so weird...but I looked it up and all the main characters are literally the same VAs. Such a small but important part of production, and I've seen Japanese animation repeatedly flub it for no apparent reason. You're not even filming real scenes, you could've gotten like literally just one or two proper studio microphones and have your VAs talk directly into them without worrying about breaking or positioning them like live action stuff would. Sailor Moon's Japanese VA-ing in season 1 is like the bare minimum quality for not being a distraction...and even though they had an absolute shoestring budget in season 1, Sailor Moon was still able to do it, so why couldn't the rest of you? ...Meanwhile, Eriko is over here sounding like it was made at the same time as Speed freaking Racer somehow, don't know how they managed to do that, but it's "impressive" that they were able to rewind the clock so much for that, . ...Anyways, the basic premise of this one is actually even more simple than in the OVA, interestingly - the Crushers are asked to do a very easy transport job that must be kept on the down low for political reasons. It's not their normal kind of work, but the pay is really good and the client has their reasons for not going through normal channels. Well, that's the first five minutes or so of a 2+ hour movie, I'm sure you can just imagine the rest, .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ironcat I didn't expect to find much anything written about the publisher...and so I was mildly surprised see that they had a wiki article, and majorly surprised with how remarkably detailed it is with just an absolute clown circus of incompetence and malfeasance. Good lord, no wonder they went out of business, they couldn't do literally anything right. Embezzlement, nepotism, sexism, fraud, failure to pay both employees and clients, mass exodus of employees, unable to keep track of who their clients even were...they even lost the rights to their own freaking name because they didn't properly acquire it from the employee who came up with it and who revoked their use of it when he left in disgruntlement. Absolutely incredible story. I still kind of wanted to read the Miyu manga before I figured out all these problems in doing so - thanks, you nincompoops, now I've learned that I basically can't because you guys couldn't stop...doing whatever it is you were doing.

Guys, I was investigating more Miyu manga. Tell me if you think there's anything weird with these book titles... Episode I - The Shinma Menace Episode II - The Western Shinma Strike Back Episode III - Shinma Wars Episode IV - The Return of Miyu Episode V - The Wrath of Miyu Was not expecting the publisher of the English version of Miyu to just flat-out steal Star Wars titles (...and a Star Trek one as well), but here we are, . I can only assume that Revenge of Miyu wasn't the title of the last one because Revenge of the Sith wasn't out yet. Other likely variations if the publisher (Ironcat) hadn't gone out of business (presumably because of their lazy incompetence) before being able to finish the series: "Miyu: The Motion Picture", "The Search for Miyu", "The Undiscovered Shinma", "A New Miyu", "Attack of the Shinma", and either "The Final Miyu" or "The Final Shinma", . If nothing else, now knowing that the series was never finished in English because the publisher died in the middle of it makes it easier to not want to read all of it, I suppose. Not learning Japanese to be able to read the books that weren't translated, that's for sure, .

Yeah, in some ways, this show is darker in a more real sense than something like Miyu, when you really stop and look past the surface and then think about everything that's happened... I wouldn't be against Eriko turning into a bloodsucking vampire queen TBH. Mostly related to stuff that hasn't happened yet, I think. Animation/art: Yeah, I preferred the general style of the original OVA. It's a similar case with the two JoJo's OVAs, where the original show had the better style, but the later show had waaay better fidelity and generally just looked "better"...and yet not exactly. Almost everyone in the show has this weird sort of...almost weird plastic-like quality to them (Chisato more than everyone else IMO), besides MAYBE Reiha, who instead has more of a...porcelain doll-like appearance. Even Miyu herself is affected at times. It's definitely weird. I still like it a lot more than most 2000s styles, so I'm thankful for that at least, that it wasn't a limiting factor to my enjoyment...but it could've definitely been better. (e): Also, I really like the soundtrack of the show in general. The general sound design of the show isn't quite as good IMO as the OVA, but specifically the soundtrack is better.

The end of the fourth episode seemed to promise to go back to normal...for now. However, those two episodes absolutely seemed like harbingers of things to come at some point later in the show. As for Miyu... All I'll concretely say is that what happens both comes out of nowhere but also somehow makes a kind of sense and fits when you think about it, or at least I thought it did for me. Well, except for a couple of small details that I'm going to have to eventually ask you about when you get to it because maybe you could explain them to me better, especially what with you understanding Japanese-y things better than me, . Watched a few more episodes of Eriko - read ahead if you dare. I recorded this for @KP the meanie zucchini: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/s3y4g4o9lnhnbwd/k3xy3T5AJ0.mp4 Trust me, you don't want to know the context. Well...maybe you do.

Episodes 3 and 4 of Nadia. Uh, feeling a little bit of a tone shift here from wacky adventure to...something else? I actually joked after watching the first episode that this would probably somehow turn into some kind of secret war show or something else weird, knowing Hideaki Anno...but it was a joke, because the first two episodes in no way conveyed that. Same here re: writing. I put on and listened to the whole thing because she's great, but the state of her authorship is probably the least interesting subject she has for me, especially because she tends to treat it more seriously (understandably) than other subjects. Non-spoiler spoilers:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking... Would have to watch the first however or so many before even being able to watch that one, and it's not like Evangelion is a light watch. Maybe KP has already been keeping up, though? From what I was able to tell, it at least seemed like the characters would likely be more fun than Utena's...and also not, um, "BIG BROTHER!!"-ing it up and such, which should help a lot. Also, I forgot to reply to what you said about Star Wars regarding the prequels and sequels when I meant to. The prequels may be disasters on just about every single level from a technical, casting, storytelling, and character level...but at least they aren't completely exhausting and numbing while having absolutely zero creative pulse, .

Because it wasn't bad, it was just...well, am simply not ready for something like that yet. Maybe after completing another show or two. Needs more time after having gone through Utena, in other words - that's all. Just going to spoiler the rest of this since literally all of it only concerns what majestic wrote above. I'd be very shocked if you (...or most anyone else in the mood for what seems like a wacky, fun, heartfelt adventure story) didn't at least like it based off of what I've seen in the first two episodes here.

Episode 1 of Princess Tutu. ...Uh, that's being put on the backburner for now. Not abandoned, definitely going to it out again at some point, but the backburner for the time being. Looks like you don't have to worry about me getting ahead of you on that for the time being, @majestic, . Episodes 1+2 of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water. Ugh. Unfortunately, this is an instant recommendation for feeling like something between a Ghibli movie and kind of something almost Looney Toons-esque in a way, which may not sound good but is surprisingly great so far, especially with the incredible art style and animation and good dialogue/characters. (...Using some of the same stock sound effects for stuff that literally Spongebob uses, on the other hand, has been inducing a little bit of a Dr. Phil seizure at times.) I didn't realize it before starting to watch it, but apparently Nadia, the titular character, is actually supposed to be black/African, and there's already been some light racist elements making direct reference of that fact (never mind that she's an orphan who was forced into the circus). This seems...a little less Gainax-y than other stuff I've seen, but I guess we'll see what happens. Had the option between an English and Japanese dub, did a lot of switching between them, but it seems as though I have been fully assimilated because I can't help but shake the feeling the Japanese is significantly better even though the English is fine, . A big heap of thanks to Sakura for teaching me how to appreciate Japanese VAing - very cool.