Bartimaeus

That boy ain't right.

It will be episode 7 + 8 tonight...probably! I'm reliably unreliable about these things, plus my team is playing in the Super Basketbowl tonight as well, so we'll see, . It's happened once or twice already, and those interactions have been very different and really good (e.g. relatively early on when Sakura and Meiling were discussing what kinds of gifts they should give, when Meiling thought for sure Sakura was going to more or less literally kidnap and murder her, ). Although I like Kero, him treating Meiling like garbage all of the time makes natural and pleasant interactions with her difficult and needlessly antagonistic.

That's probably a good way to describe it. Yeah, it was like...the B-movie equivalent of a semi-magical girl semi-parody anime that's surprisingly not half-bad. Nothing groundbreaking by any means, but it was fun and I don't feel completely embarrassed to talk about it, . It's only available on DVD from what I was able to discern. The intro song bit for both parts has more action in it than probably the rest of the entire show combined, weirdly. Really, when I saw this (and similar stuff) in the intro, I figured it was going to be all or at least mostly action, and then it wasn't: I should be watching Utena regularly until I'm finished with it, because I'm not watching it alone which means I actually have to put effort into maintaining a schedule of watching it or risk the wrath of my other party (who is the opposite of me and needs to regularly watch shows at more or less pre-determined times), so prepare to be quickly outpaced unless you immediately drop everything else to binge watch it, . It is a seriously sad state of affairs that Clear Card has disappointed you so much that Love Live continues to be more fun, .

Yeah, I called out her oedipus-except-for-her-brother complex literally the first scene they appeared together because of the weird way she was acting towards him and said that was going to get real uncomfortable...and so far, it's been REAL WEIRD, but I guess not exactly uncomfortable yet even though it really should be. There's a lot of strange thematic stuff going on in this show that I'm just going to ignore and take at face value instead because trying to follow it all is just too difficult. I also watched a two-part OVA from 1989 called Assemble Insert. I expected to watch this for literally about one minute before turning it off (that's usually how experiments in random animes like these go), but it was decently funny, cute, surprisingly not embarrassing or fan service-y, and just overall competent in a goofy 80s anime kind of way, so I watched the entire thing. Basically, the gist is that there's a small-time super-villain group with powerful mech suits called the Demon Seed (named for reasons I was unable to discern, since the name didn't seem to have any obvious meaning related to what they do or even look like) terrorizing Tokyo, and the government has no idea how to deal with them. They don't really do anything except rob places to make money, though, so it's not really the government's highest of priorities to deal with what is basically just a really strong group of undefeatable bandits. A certain branch of basically reject/failure police that the government seemingly just wants to fire are tasked with finding out how to deal with the Demon Seed, and they come up with the crazy idea of finding an idol that will "fight" the Demon Seed publicly - not with the intent of actually defeating them, but just to make it so that the public feels better about the whole thing, since having a cute face be their public protector will necessarily make it so that people will be less upset with the government not being able to fix the actual problem. Typical government stuff, really.

A couple more episodes of Utena. Though the show is not really very much at all like Steven Universe, this show is basically Pearl: The Origins Show - very obviously where so much of her overall design (personality, themes, the way some of her movement is animated, even her music and expressions to a degree) are inspired from. Pretty weird stuff. (e): Another two - Nanami's a riot. Ikuhara's weird surrealism and self-memes are already out in full force...

Well, good luck with that - that's one bridge too many for me to ever cross, . Speaking of Utena, coincidentally watched the first two episodes of that yesterday. Seems pretty solid and interesting, if kind of bizarre and full of symbology I'm probably not ever gonna get. Already noticed a few distinct Steven Universe influences within just those first two episodes too.

I assume the distinction is the race of men - as opposed to elves, dwarves, etc. A little odd that they're not just called "humans", now that I think about it. Perhaps in order to suggest that the other races weren't inhuman?

...So would this be a bad time to tell you that those semi-hack fraud CLAMP people made a spin-off series where Sakura and Xiaolang are apparently the main characters in some kind of weird alternative crossover universe or something, called Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle? No, I am not making this up, I accidentally stumbled across it a while ago and my brain nearly broke and I pretended it didn't exist. Because I feel like it might be a bad time to mention this, given your OCD need to complete everything in a series and all. Here's an interesting screenshot I saw from it with zero context because I don't know anything about it:

I still have a bunch of IDE cables in a box somewhere that I'm keeping for who knows what reason...I guess I ought to go through some stuff.

Are you sure?

That one English trailer you linked some time back made the English dub sound pretty awful if I'm remembering correctly - not quite Madoka English dub levels of bad, but still not really tolerable. Let's see... Yeah, no, screw that. Everyone in this seems to have went to that one infamous Academy for Overacting English Anime VAs Who Don't Voice Act Good. Speaking of voice actors/actresses improving or even outright making characters, something else almost as equally important is the voice direction they're given in the first place! The VA for Rei in Sailor Moon is great for her, has a wide range of natural-sounding tones while still possessing a definite consistency that you couldn't ever mistake for anyone else, specific voice mannerisms and little vocal expressions that add to her character, and she sounds like a relatively normal person even with her unique voice which is appropriate given the type of character she's portraying - difficult to ask for more, really. The same lady playing Homura in Madoka sounds one-note and emotionally stunted while having gone to that same aforementioned ill-reputed academy. Part of it is the character she's portraying, part of it is the general voice direction given to everyone (Homura was probably the most pleasant out of everyone in the English dub of that show - Madoka herself was screwdrivers in my ears...and apparently she VA-ed Hotaru in Sailor Moon, which once again tells me that Madoka's issue is a totally a direction problem, and so I am grateful that whoever was handling the VAing in Viz's Sailor Moon knew what the hell they were doing so that I could love so many different VAs in that show, even for smaller characters). Okay, I just watched the first episode, and it was...actually alright and significantly less terrible than I expected! I tried the English at first and it was predictably horrific, so I quickly switched to the Japanese, where I quickly learned that multiple characters speaking at once (or somebody speaking + kanji characters in the background), which has already happened a few times, basically results in entire lines being cut from the subtitles because some lines go by in literally a second or less, and I basically can't even see what's going on visually because of it. The good news is that the ridiculous 3D panning makes me motion sick anyways, so it's not like I really want to see that anyways. ...At least this is an actual show instead of (bad) visual novels disguised as shows like the other two things I tried to watch earlier. Not sure what to think of the "fan service"(?) yet, it's so over-the-top that it feels like a mockery of fan-service that no longer really even feels like fan service. I like that I didn't get smashed with plot/premise crap that probably won't even matter and instead it just jumped straight into what the show's about with barely an introduction - that was a good choice for a show like this.

Giannis continues to do Giannis things (also turned into a free throw god for tonight) and his teammates actually shot well. Bucks continue their trend of playing great at home and like complete doofuses away...

I never felt that negatively about her, but her first impression certainly was not a positive one. But I genuinely believe that you have the right (voice) actor/actress playing the right character, you can somehow make a character that probably shouldn't work be great. Didn't realize Kill la Kill was that short - that makes it a little more appealing to me...buuut I still haven't really seen (or read) anything from it that would make me think I'd actually enjoy watching it, so yeah, probably not, . Glad you were finally able to finish something for the first time in a while, . Why? Just inexplicably let her stay with no explanation if it makes the show better! (e): I tried out She and Her Cat. I made it just about 3 minutes before it cemented that it was another one of those faux dramatic animes where characters just stand around and look wistfully/aimlessly at nothing while soft piano music plays over somebody monologuing. There really needs to be like a subgenre of anime for this sort of thing, because I've run into it a handful of times now and I have exactly zero patience for it. Straight into the garbage with no chance of redemption it goes! Sorry, movie, but sometimes when you know, you just know...and boy, do I know. (e): lmao, and then I tried 5 Centimeters Per Second, and the first five minutes is literally exactly the same except even more extreme. This is me right now with these movies: Why do I even try new things? ...Because sometimes you get a Perfect Blue, Sailor Moon, Sakura, or (first season) Ranma, that's why.

Yoshi games are basically like taking most of Yoshi's Island from the SNES, but then stripping everything that's even slightly difficulty from it. I kind of forgot about them because my experience with playing the one on the Wii U about put me in the grave because of how dull it is, but it'd be good for that age group for when they want something less challenging. Seems like ever since the Xbox One came out, all my controllers have started to go bad in a very short time. It's super annoying.

I really need to do some investigation and figure out some like good pre-10-appropriate games for my nieces. If anyone has any good ideas for games around that age range, please let me know, because I don't know crap about Switch games outside of Zelda and Mario (no, really: Cadence of Hyrule, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, Super Mario 3D All Stars, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Super Mario Maker 2, Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening...and Umihara Kawase Fresh - so literally exactly one non-Mario/Zelda game, ).

Cardcaptor Sakura, Episode 38, Sakura's Fun Strawberry Picking Adventure! One thing I've noticed with watching something subbed like this is that it's a bit more work to watch than something dubbed. I didn't have as much of a problem with it in JoJo's because...there's not really all that much dialogue and much of the dialogue that's in it doesn't matter too much, but for a show like Cardcaptor Sakura where my eyes and brain have to be a hundred percent glued to it, it's a bit of a different matter, .

I wonder how realistic it would be for a nation to be able to genocide itself down to 1/8th of its original population...

Final episode:

I have no idea what that says, but also, that is one terrible upscale. One episode left of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

Eh, Giannis has been limping around constantly - still plays better than the rest of his team combined even with that bum knee. Series is not over, but those other guys HAVE to play better. Can't be missing literal open layup after open layup like Jrue Holiday did last night - it's an absolute game-ender. It's like the man completely forgot how to play offense as soon as we got into the playoffs...and I guess it's kind of foolish to expect him to play any better nearly 20 games in.

Sadly, no. He didn't really stick around for too long - they found him in a cage, let him be, went and fought Polnareff, then he came out of nowhere and tried to kill Jotaro, but Polnareff cut him in half and that was that. Not much characterization at all, really. I had something else I came on here to post, but I forgot what. Mush brain.

Both of these games were winnable if the Bucks could just find their groove in making shots, .

I had to go back and check because I legitimately couldn't remember. My initial thought was no, pretty sure the plane just crashes by itself...I remember a monkey, I remember Polnareff being a giant joke, I remember the monkey getting cut in half by Polnareff, but no bugs... But wait, why would it just crash by itself? Maybe there was a bug and I just missed like a second that showed it? Turns out, no, the plane just inexplicably crashed with no explanation, . Also, I guess that monkey was the one majestic mentioned? Didn't do what majestic said he did, but that's the beauty of a cut-down OVA I guess, .

I'm definitely gonna take a long break after finishing the original show before even thinking of starting Clear Card. Have to let the greatness of the original fade at least a little before I jump into its inferior sequel, . Watched a few more of the JoJo prequel; it's thankfully picked up a little because it's actually started to get on with what it wants to show instead of meandering on silly nonsense like the first couple of episodes did. If I could ever learn to only be semi-engaged with a show instead of fully engaged like I always have to be, my tolerance for the bits and pieces of shows that I don't like would probably go way up...but I'm the worst multi-tasker and I completely lose the plot if I look away for more than like a couple of seconds. Polnareff is the least convincing "dramatic" villain I've ever seen in my entire life, and not just because I've already seen the second half of this. The only people he could scare away are MAYBE very small children with his ridiculous hair. (e): fixed terrible grammar

Here's an interesting comment I saw on reddit about the game: https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/ofhg7b/serious_next_day_thread_postgame_discussion_july/h4cvesl/ But yes, the perception of Budenholzer throughout the last few years in the playoffs has definitely been "he makes good adjustments between games, but he's a clueless buffoon during games".