Bartimaeus

Sailor Stars does some stuff that makes it more fun/interesting in different ways from previous seasons. Big focus on school stuff that arguably should've always been a part of the series (both for allowing many opportunities for silly school shenanigans but also helping keep the series more grounded in the face of more and more ridiculous alien/superpowered stuff); gets rid of Mamoru in exchange for a vastly more fun, interesting, and less weird Seiya; puts the (minor) villains in a bit of a different light, making them both more sympathetic and silly than I think we saw in previous seasons (also Iron Mouse was great and Tin Nyanko was surprisingly good for the short amount of time she's around, though I might be biased because their English VAs are like literally just about perfect for their characters; Lead Crow and Aluminum Siren are...rougher around the edges, but they have their good points too, certainly better than e.g. my favorite metaphorical punching bag, Kaolinite); actually has a really good main story arc...in the first six episodes of the season, the finale not as much but also not any worse than anything in the other three seasons that aren't SuperS (heck, probably still better than the rest, I can't remember e.g. anything of R's ending at all off the top of my head, while I wish I couldn't remember anything from SuperS). It does have its weaker points as we've discussed, but at least it did some of the different things it did well. I already have it, so I might as well, right? With the style of this show in mind and the fact that I most likely wouldn't last more than a minute or two of even the best episode of the entire series, I'm translating statements like these to mean "it was absolute garbage that would've lead to your immediate death if you had seen it", . Yep, that'll do it: Clear Card has been cancelled. It really doesn't help that all of the most popular stuff which dominates popular/ongoing anime discussion is exactly this sort of thing...or worse, . If there are any animes that would appeal to me that have come out...especially post-2010, I'm never going to be able to find them thanks to the absolute deluge of garbage sucking up all the air in the room.

Methinks the East champion is going to have trouble overcoming this Suns team...

I finally have the Italian DVDs for Sailor Stars. A bit late on the draw, but better late than never. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/lwuvg342kpllqdx/qSUjYSLW7M.mp4 ...It's not season 1/2/3 still, but at least it's not the disgusting smeared mess that are the blurays. There are actual lines! Strong and consistent line-work is one of my big things for art styles, and upscales like Sailor Moon's blurays absolutely demolish all of the line-work in an already pretty shaky Sailor Stars. P.S. Once I finish the last handful of episodes of Ranma, I should be back on Sakura, I THINK.

Okay, Bucks, now look at me - look deep into my eyes, directly into my soul, and take heed of my words: please keep playing like a team that isn't completely pants. Thank you. This may surprise you, but you don't have to play like...well, like you don't how to play basketball. It's absolutely wild how different of a team the Bucks look from game to game depending on whether they have their heads screwed-on right on that particular day.

Maybe I'll just watch Sailor Moon Eternal (without having seen the rest of SMC) right before, .

Yeah, for all the alarm this "delta" variant is causing, I was a little surprised that the estimated outright protection is as high as possibly 80% with reduced severity for what does it make it through. That's barely worth being concerned about if you're vaccinated - get the vaccine and keep wearing your masks in crowded in-door places, bozos, .

I'll probably still give it a try at some point anyways, I think. Kon has a style and standard that makes his stuff work so much better for me than your standard anime that I'm willing to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, . May or may not translate to that OVA...only one way to find out. (e): For clarification, apparently he co-wrote the series with Hiroyuki Kitakubo; he did some some additional directing, storyboarding, and animation, but was not like, by any means the main person responsible for any of that. So I guess I'll see what I'll see!

Mockingly said. Basically meant to imply "people who might know these things better than me, but also possibly complete idiots", .

@KP the meanie zucchini I'm sorry, I was very imprecise in how I asked that (even after I edited in the parentheses-ed "stylistically", too!). In terms of art style, I am willing to overlook the art for Kon (although I THINK I like how those characters are drawn a bit better in comparison to the general anime) - what I meant was more to do with writing, characters, themes...that sort of thing. I imagine that even if it is more Kon-ish, that it would still be pretty difficult for me to just pick up out of the blue as a non-Jojo fan?

Home for Windows 10 is like, the free edition. You can't even use Group Policy Editor on Home. You get what you pay for. ...On the other hand, this is undoubtedly just further pushing Windows to eventually drop local accounts outside of specialized business editions (e.g. LTSC) at some point altogether, so I guess I shouldn't be so blase about it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/vaccinated-people-account-for-half-of-new-covid-19-delta-cases-in-israeli-outbreak-11624624326 "Delta" variant outbreak in Israel, readily breaking through current vaccinations such as Pfizer? (e): Reddit scientists seem to be suggesting that while it is breaking through vaccinations at a higher percentage than the other variants, it's still probably ~80% effective against it (also less severe), so at least there's that. If the reddit scientists are to believed, anyways.

Was it good / how does it compare to the rest of Jojo (stylistically)?

Paranoia Agent, the end. Strange, a little inexplicable at times, but very good. I believe that just about concludes watching all of Kon's film works besides the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure OVA (1993-1994) that he made as well as the the very first thing he worked on, which is some live-action horror comedy movie called World Apartment Horror. It's been real, guys.

It does have like 4 seasons and several movies...kiiind of tough to see how such a flimsy concept for a show with already just okay at best execution could NOT go down in flames.

Paranoia Agent, episodes 8 and 9. What in the absolute hell is happening in this show? lmao

Hey, I needed a crying Minako, so that's what I got. You remember when I said "maybe you shouldn't watch Crystal because it might ruin the original show for you", but then you said don't worry, that just couldn't happen? I think we overlooked the possibility of you ruining the show for OTHER people as a result of watching Crystal... That's one interpretation, and I think I initially tried to think a similar thing for a while, but at one point, there's a sudden cut straight into Kyoko's crotch when she's in the middle of an emotional episode and that was when I literally said "oh screw you, Madoka" out-loud; I was officially done from that point on. Some of the weirder sudden cuts to different points of view or looking super close up at a character's hands or lap is one thing, but that was my breaking point. I'm sorry, but proper framing (in both a literal camera sense in film/imagery as well as in a less literal more writing/thematic sense) is ultra important in pretty much all entertainment mediums, and Madoka repeatedly failed over and over to my standards. Well, enough whinging about Madoka - like I said before, literally almost absolutely nothing about that show worked for me, it is what it is. And here I felt like the fool for watching just the first one, . More Paranoia Agent: episodes 6 and 7. Thankfully, the bizarre nonsense from episode 5 did not continue. However, I'm starting to have trouble following this show's plot and themes in a coherent fashion, and I noticed that I completely misunderstood a major part of episode 6 for like...a solid fifteen, twenty minutes. I'm starting to get the feeling that I might need to bring out the old fan wiki to figure out what the hell this show was supposed to be about when I've finished it, .

The question most important to me: will there be an LTSC or equivalent version of Windows 11? At this point, I don't think I'll run anything that isn't LTSC on my personal devices due to how ridiculously pushy Microsoft has gotten about stupid crap in the non-LTSC versions. I did hear they're releasing another (final?) LTSC branch of Windows 10 sometime later this year, and it's about time too, since the last one was in late 2018. Hoping they didn't do anything dumb with that...

Sailor...Boob Anus? Why must you hurt me so much? Reminds me of how in Madoka Magica, a character like Mami or Kyoko would be in the middle of talking about something, possibly while they're even outright emotional about something personal, while the camera's either on their face or zoomed out on their entire person, and then suddenly it would shift down or in on to their chest or even a close-up of their crotch while they're still in the middle of talking. If you've ever seen Lindsay Ellis' Transformers video, where she talks about how Megan Fox's character actually having a lot of different stuff (motivations, personal issues, conflicts, etc.) going on and yet the camera and scene framing completely undercutting all of it by focusing solely on her body, I got serious vibes of that while watching Madoka, which felt all the more incongruous when we would also spend a solid five minutes at times just listening to characters stand around and do nothing but cry about their feelings. I can only assume that the phenomenon is much worse and more inexplicable and embarrassing in other explicitly pathetic stuff. If you must have fan service, I would greatly appreciate not being so obvious about it - especially when it serves literally absolutely no purpose at all for the scene. Incredibly random bulls-eye zoom-ins and pan-downs in the middle of characters talking are not exactly what I have in mind - makes Sailor Moon's few sketchier moments look positively dignified in comparison.

I don't know what I expected.

mfw I mention love live one time and majestic immediately watches an episode, thereby guaranteeing that he will the entire series consisting of four seasons and a couple of movies due to his OCD-ness I do believe mistakes have been made

this show sounds really annoying every time you mention something about it paranoia agent episode 5, what in the world is happening to this show, literally everything's gone completely off the rails and I'm not sure that I like it; I can only assume that this is going somewhere It's solid and sweet enough, but probably not as interesting as the stuff you've been watching lately. tbf I have no idea what that show is about, it just seems ludicrously terrible from what little I've seen of how it's presented

Honestly, I wouldn't be too upset with any of the four remaining teams winning. The Clippers are the most "constructed"/non-homegrown team, but they're not exactly a superteam; of the four teams, the Bucks have been the most recent to win it already, which was 50 years ago in 1971. It's a good field of teams left.

Well, that's a downer. I hope she was a lot older than she sounded in Cardcaptor...and nope, she was like 18 when Cardcaptor ran, and just 41 when she passed. People need to stop dying in their 40s! Except Madoka's Japanese voice-acting sucked too, and it was really more Heidi and Sakura that finally did me in in that regard, . Clear Card sure sounds disappointing...yet the fact remains, it is still not Sailor Moon Crystal, and that is a fact worth celebrating indeed!

Millennium Actress (2001) by Satoshi Kon. I was supposed to be watching Paranoia Agent, but somehow this happened instead. This is my second time watching it - the first time, I watched it in English, which even at the time of watching it, I knew was merely okay-ish at best. The main problem with that dub was that contrary to what one might consider to be ideal, the lady voicing the titular character was simply not a good choice (but the other characters were mostly fine). I liked it, but did not love it then, and had some big problems with really investing into a main story that was being let down by a less-than-great voice actress. A couple of years later now and armed with the awesome power of being more okay with Japanese voice-acting when done right...dang. I, uh, don't remember it being quite this engrossing, and it was like I was watching it for the first time again. What an odd hybridization of a serious drama and a bunch of silly comedy happening outside of the drama that works so well. Well, that's all I'll say about that, I gotta watch an episode or two of Paranoia Agent while I can. Why, oh why did Satoshi Kon have to die so young? And his next movie was to about androids with them starring as the main characters (Dreaming Machine)...could've finally been the android-related media that I've always longed for. (e): Oh, also, the animation was a lot prettier than I remember it being, but again, it's been two years since I watched it and was exposed to other...more ungood animation styles.

Lungs started inexplicably hurting yesterday, and I just woke up now with a terrible raspy cough and a headache, and now my lungs feel like agony. If I didn't have the vaccine, I'd probably assume I had covid right now...but hopefully it's something else that'll pass quickly. No fever, so I'm not sure what's going on. Miiight have to go in if I start feeling any worse. I've been meaning to do it for years. What a gosh danged hassle. At the very least, nothing had trouble communicating with protonmail, every re-activation message and "this is your new email address" message seems to have gotten through, so that's promising. Hope all goes well re: weather - I remember that the last Texas freeze wasn't so great.