Bartimaeus

I can't articulate why, but you're so right about thief vs. rogue - I don't think I've ever been or wanted to be a "rogue" if it's an option in anything, but it's literally the complete opposite for "thief" (even if in the case of, say, the BG series, it's purely to serve as the base class before dual-classing into a mage, cleric, or fighter). That's weird that my perception of the two ideas is so radically different. (Also, yes, the questions were very bad...but I answered them unusually: long-distance, a sword, help the creature out, style for armor, and I don't know whom any of those characters are but Ciri seems like the most natural complement...and I got a druid? I had a between chaotic and true neutral thief-mage in mind, and I got a stinking druid instead!).

Well, my prediction would be that it'd be the more decent and less embarrassing version of Love Live! It's more or less lived up to that, . I just finished Devilman Crybaby. I see what majestic meant - this really got very dumb and very obvious in a hurry. Even though the show didn't really appeal to me at all before that, at least from a character and narrative standpoint it felt like it was going somewhere and it was more or less competent. But then Ryou's big press conference happened in like episode 7 and it felt like I was watching the disintegration of the show before my very eyes, and it got worse from there. I probably shoulda called it quits right then and there, but I was already so close to the end of an already very short show - whoops. Well, I was watching it at like 2x or 3x speed and was finishing each episode in like 8-10 minutes instead of 20+, so at least there's that. Probably would've enjoyed K-On more...............

Just think of it as commentary on the state of anime that other shows actually do it for real and subverting it! ...I have no idea if other shows before K-On did the same thing.

At least one of the characters had the logical solution here.

99% certain Pet Shop didn't appear in the OVA. Sorry pal, .

I don't know what this thing is except that he looks like a kinda freaky Kerberos (Cardcaptor) rip-off. Apparently it's something called Kon from Bleach. That's all I needed to find out to find out that I didn't need to find out any more, . Iggy was fine. I mean, he was a little weird himself, but intentionally so in typical bizarre JoJo style, so it's fine. In addition to that, the other thing that puts Madoka another step below for me was the fact that characters (especially Madoka herself) were like...being dictated to be borderline monotone? Combine that with the incredibly phony and artificial-sounding voices they were all using and it was all just very unpleasant and unnatural-sounding. Don't even remember that, to be honest. Just remember a lot of random cuts to what he was doing or expressions he was making smack-dab in the middle of scenes that were jarring in of themselves but even more so because he was being weird or uncomfortable.

Madoka's English is still another step below that, but yes, bordering on unwatchable from just that one English clip. And you can tell it's Viz's Usagi, but the voice direction is just...yeah. Voice direction in anime and especially English dubbing needs some heavy re-thinking... He's about as weird, uncomfortable, and inexplicable as most other characters. Bonus points that he's a stupid animal sidekick pet thing, which I generally have an irrational hatred for. Why not both?

Now that you mention it, there should've been a cloning episode in Sailor Moon... Wait, what? I thought they'd been fine outside of that weird episode with the teacher, . It'd be unfair to Dumbo, plus you don't want to create any unnecessary negative associations if you don't have to.

More Devilman Crybaby. So what I'm going to do is just start skipping the crap that I don't care about or just doesn't work for me. I don't need to see a lot of this to get the general idea. . . . Wow, and just like that, the show's suddenly over! Good times were had by all. I can't believe the thing thinged as much as it did - what a set of truly remarkable developments.

I kind of forgot about Juri. Juri's alright...but she's no crazypants Nanami, . Okay, actually, the shadow play girls is the best character in Utena. To be fair, it was my idea, and while I didn't love the show, I liked the first half of it well enough. The wheels just kind of started to fall after that when they started sacrificing literally just about everything for the weird message it was trying to convey. Skoop da Whoop would be my suggestion. And in the end, that's what matters. Job...okay-ly done, X, . No real comment re: James Bond - I don't really like either the old ones OR the new ones, so I avoid them, . Glad K-On is going a bit better (even with the weirder episode) than Love Live! I did semi-recommend it based off of nothing, after all!

Does not compute: you can't be the worst if you're the only likeable character. There's no rational OR irrational explanation as to why she's the only likeable character, but that's the way it is, .

I like how the attacks are so absurd and out of left field you have to have other characters pull you aside for a moment and explain them.

I thought for sure I was going to get Mari-ed again - I'll take Lord Dio any day of the week over her! If nothing else, her and this show did scar me for life from hearing the words "big brother" one too many times...

Music in shows like these always make me feel so old in soul. There's no reason that I should love the music of shows like Sailor Moon or Neon Genesis Evangelion and then hear their modern incarnations and think that it's the most boring, fraudulent garbage that has the complete opposite effect of what's intended. Even older stuff like Dragon Ball or Ranma, stuff that was made literally many years before I was even born, their music just...it works for me. Why? I don't know. Just another reason to add on the pile that most modern shows won't appeal to me while older stuff will, I suppose... So the show isn't quite right and doesn't seem to have any intended demographic and keeps shooting itself in the foot, but you liked it anyways, huh? It's janked, but it's your kind of jank! That ending does sound kind of hilarious, especially if people were totally split on their reasons for watching it - I'd much rather make the MORE ACTION people angry than the actual shoujo fans, so I guess it worked out, . I mostly watched the show in English, but I thought her Japanese VA was hilarious from what I heard of her too. ...I don't need to justify Nanami to you, she's absolutely imperfect in every way and that needs no justification! ...One character I wish I had heard more in Japanese was Anthy, who has such a flat and overall strange delivery of her lines in the English that she was immediately...not unlikable per se, but definitely uncomfortable.

No really, Nanami is the best. I mean, she is the absolute worst, but you should've seen my face light up every time she strutted into a scene in her perfectly Nanami way. Here's a character who knows how to ham it up and have some actual fun, unlike everyone else... I need to rewatch NGE (which I'll have the opportunity to do sometime within the next few months most likely), because I recall my initial impression of the ending of NGE and TEoE being actually pretty close to each other, but for completely different reasons. Since then, my opinion of TEoE has only progressively gotten higher, while I can barely remember NGE's ending because of...well, you know. So it'll be interesting to see how/if my opinion changes. #notmyshoujo

Fixed.

First warning sign is that I don't like the name. I don't even know what that name is supposed to be, that's not a real name. You look at other names from decent shows...Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Legendary Idol Eriko, Vampire Princess Miyu, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water...all those are very distinctive and evocative of at least something, even if you may not have a clear idea exactly what at first. What the heck is "K-On!" supposed to be? Sounds like it's some music or idol-based crap... Okay, it was actually music-based, but not idol? Hmm. Well...at a quick glance, it looks like it shares some similarities to Live Laugh Love, but seemingly a less embarrassing, less inexplicable, more grounded and possibly more character-focused (i.e. less idol-y nonsense and action) version of it. Like, the version of this thing that I might watch if I were truly desperate for something lighthearted and silly with music. If it was made twenty years earlier, I might even have genuine interest in it. ...That's what the heuristic say after a few minutes of looking at it, anyways! Good, because I'm going to be tortured with this show sooner or later, . @Nadia: 17. Guess I'll be watching out for that switch and seeing what effect it has... @Evangelion: It's been funny looking at some of the minority "didn't like it" comments re: Rebuild. I've even seen a couple of other people compare it to the Star Wars prequels. Ouch!

Suddenly, I like Asuka a lot more. Eriko's not that dark! ...At least, it doesn't feel that dark, even if a lot of the ideas in concept are. You'll see what I mean if you ever watch it, . One of those movies like Poltergeist where there's some neat ideas and it seems like it should be good in concept, but the execution was so wonky on multiple levels that it ended up being barely passable for me, . If only X had had the forethought to actually be Sailor Moon so I would have the patience for this... Either that, or he was just desperate to make literally anything so that it could be done and over with and he could stop getting bothered about it. He made a giant pile of crap and unfortunately majority of fans loved it. Will they continue to bother him for even more in the future?!

Devilman Crybaby, episode 1: Has a sweet EBM* intro song, at least. Less sure about what I saw in the intro, but at least the song is dope. *...Is EBM still even a thing, or has it been shuffled into some other kind of genre by now? Defaulted to playing the Japanese audio with no subtitles. Bold choice, Netflix. Look at that, I can tell that the English voice direction inexplicably sucks and sounds completely unnatural just like about every other post-2000s anime within about 10 seconds of listening to this. It's a danged good thing Viz didn't screw up their English dub for Sailor Moon or I never woulda watched Sailor Moon and this thread would've never been resurrected. Never trust a man with two first names, even if one of them is a girl's. Asuka and Akira... "The chirping birds were getting on my nerves." ...And then suddenly he turns into the sewer dragon from Dark Souls. ...Yeah, this might be difficult for you all to believe, but this just doesn't really seem like my type of show for some reason. I don't know if it's the two teenage male main characters, the explicit sexuality, the graphic violence, the art style, the setting, the modernity of everything, the premise feeling like completely ungrounded nonsense (especially in regards to what possible kind of reasons Asuka could ever have for causing this situation to happen), the fact that not even a single element of this should should really appeal to me on any level...but I kinda just felt like it was all slightly out of my comfort zone. I don't know, maybe another episode will prove me wrong! Devilman Crybaby, episode 2: Intro song's still good, at least. If these wannabe gangsters don't eat it, I'm gonna be so mad. ...Aw man, that was so unsatisfying in how they handled that, . Just a cut-away and then they're instantly done. Yeah, I don't know, not really working for me. At least it's not making me irrationally angry like Violet Evergarden (or Rebuild of Evangelion) did, just kind of...doing way too much I don't particularly like or can be appealed to with, really.

I do believe I warned you, . My heuristic process for selecting what I will or will not give a chance never fails me! Except for the rare occasion that it does...but that's rare! Stand by Me vibes in a large way, but with a very angry and dysfunctional anime club instead of...uh, whatever Stand by Me had that this didn't to make this comparison work, .

There are the few times Usagi uses her transformation pen... How about a Sailor Moon show where they're not actually Sailor Guardians but just undercover secret agents working against supervillains? Usagi would make the perfect secret agent...very discrete, very intimidating, very coordinated, . Nope, that ain't happening, . Yeah, from the screenshots I quickly glanced at, I think it's going to earn that "ecchi" tag pretty easily... It could also just do the Miyu thing and leave a major plot and character point forever unresolved. Would that be better?

That was dope. Makes me want a Sailor Moon set in a more ancient Japan, . ...The lady in the preview image for some reason looks like she has a giant head to me, though - can't tell if I'm crazy, if it's just weird perspective, or...maybe she actually just has a giant head. Even zoomed out here, her head looks giant! @KP the meanie zucchini Does Devilman Crybaby have any relation to the Devilman TV show from the 70s or the two Devilman OVAs from the 80s? Greatly welcome indeed.

So basically, you don't recommend the show at all to majestic, . Now that I think about it more, I think you're right...or you are/were right? Because I think now, later into the series, it's usually "kid" for Xiaolang and "missy" for Meiling. But it was definitely "brat" for Meiling for a while, while I'm struggling to remember if "brat" was ever actually used for Xiaolang...if it was, it was probably early and before Meiling arrived. @X: I kinda get the feeling that this show wouldn't really work for me from everything you've described it. Too many characters, complete flat-line of a male main character, totally boring end of the world plot that there's too much of a focus on, mediocre or worse music, only tenuously shoujo to begin with... Eh, .

My knowledge of Siege of Dragonspear is unfortunately borderline nil - Beamdog's fanfic being tacked onto BG1/BG2 is bad enough, but an entire game of it...is not really my cup of tea. However, I would agree with your explanation: most likely, Siege of Dragonspear (or Enhanced Edition Trilogy if that's what you're using, @rjshae) took the specific creatures that were in your original BG1 campaign and simply "teleported" them over for them to join your party without doing any experience/level evaluation...and since these are all characters that were not originally in your party and thus are whatever they were when you initially met them in BG1, yeah, they're all very low-leveled. It's not how I would've done it (I would've checked that they're currently IN your party at the end of BG1...), but I don't really see any other explanation as to why you would get such inexplicably low-leveled party members. I would simply open up the console and use... ...where "x" equals whatever your main character's XP is while selecting all of them.

The implication here is that it was her dad's most cared for person, and that Sakura and Toya just got caught in the crossfire? I think? Lmao...but no, it's not really even either of those - I just took the name of an actual Evangelion book and inserted "Sakura Suzahara" more or less randomly. "Evangelion Shin Gekijouban Jozen Kiroku Zenshuu Visual Story-ban Settei Shiryou-ban"...this is apparently a real book title. My version actually took a few of those out, but hey, maybe the extra ones actually make it make sense. Also, I thought "shin" meant "new", not "heart", but what do I know: just about nothing, really. Kero always calls Meiling (RIP) "Missy" and Xiaolang "brat", but that seems fine to me. Yukitoad...not as sure about, . Yeah...and it helps that it earned it by this point, . @Anno: Man, he really is pretty much George Lucas at this point.