Bartimaeus

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".

Ah, right, I always forget that anime very often directly follows the manga down to just about the last detail, presumably because that's exactly what fans of the manga want...but it ignores that they're completely different mediums where certain conventions and such are not necessarily going to work or make sense in another, particularly if you haven't already spent years getting used to that style...or already read the manga yourself. Guess I'll just deal for the time being - it's only 5 more half hour episodes, after all, and then I can be content, knowing that I saw all of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure that there ever was. ...Yes, that there ever was, . Artorias is one of my favorite bosses, because while his move-set is difficult to master, literally all of his attacks are actually incredibly consistent, predictable, and fair. Kalameet, in contrast, is decidedly less so, and has weird move-set quirks that made him extremely frustrating at level 1. My criteria for favorite bosses is probably somewhat different from most people's after having done that SL1 NG7 run, . I was kind of joking, but also maybe kind of not? There's probably a reason that all of his writing and dialogue always seem to perfectly flow and make sense to me where so many others do not. Clear Card: Maybe eventually you'll be able to recommend Clear Card to me? ...Eventually? (e): Nope, literally contradicted like one second later.

It's not illegal to skim or skip, you know! A lot of the time we're just rambling on about sweet irrelevant nothings anyways, . DARK SOULS TALK: By the way, majestic, did you ever watch the Tomoyo's Video Diary shorts? There are three of them, about five minutes long each. Watched the first two episodes of the JoJo's prequel OVA. Feels like a gigantic drop-off from the first series, even though it's helping give me background on what was going on in the original - writing has been a lot more humorless and needlessly over-dramatic thus far (also weird stuff like...Jotaro being at school - apparently he's seventeen years old even though he looks like an insane giant compared to everyone else and his style of clothing looks completely out of place?). Video fidelity is significantly better and yet the animation is sadly worse (and I do mean the animation - lots of cheap-looking effects and scenes), which I guess I should've expected given this being made in 2000 compared to the original's 1993. And I don't know if this happens in the normal anime as well, but there's this really weird thing the show does where something will happen, and then a character, possibly even characters to really drive it home, will take an excruciating amount of time to just stoically stand around and explain everything that just occurred, that we literally just saw, in elaborate and exact detail. Over-explaining happened in the original OVA as well, but it was faster-paced and less often compared to what I've seen in these two episodes thus far. This seems to be a re-occurring problem in more modern animes that I've experienced at least some of - it's as if shows are assuming that you're like semi-retarded and can't follow what's happening through watching normally. For the love of god, anime...show, don't tell. Important story stuff that the viewer may not be able to figure out from just watching that they should probably know, okay, fair enough; a play-by-play of everything we literally just saw seconds ago, not so much. I can only assume this is because Satoshi Kon wasn't involved in and didn't co-write the prequel series - undoubtedly, he helped keep the script of the original OVA tighter, .

Bucks are constantly absolute trash in game 1s, so this should be positively apocalyptic for the Suns if they somehow manage to lose this one at home.

I would imagine so - thanks! Thanks, guess I really will never play this game, because the voice direction in that game is absolute cancer and I can't listen to that crap. Plus, garbanzo beans SonicMage had a Hollow Knight avatar for forever, so I already associate terrible, terrible things with Hollow Knight anyways on top of my other problems with the game. ...Celeste had performance issues on the Switch? Celeste? Think I'll keep playing stuff on my PC, thanks. I didn't think Celeste was tooooo bad, but there were some levels I had close to a hundred deaths on which I guess is a lot, but doesn't feel like it due to how fast-paced everything is. I liked the setting and more passive storytelling of Dark Souls, but I never got into it like all the other turbonerds did, and I did not care at all about any of that for the second or third game which were significantly less charming (and also I straight up despise the second game for the weird, awful gameplay changes it made anyways). And the first game is really not super difficult - I beat most bosses on my first or second try the first time through, and I hadn't played Demon's Souls to warm me up to the gameplay style or anything either. When I replayed the game with a level 1 character on the highest difficulty (NG7) where even the slightest breeze would instantly kill you, things were a little different, though. The attack designs of that boss sort of reminds me of some stuff from Undertale. Not sure if you've ever played that, but you definitely should if you haven't. The absolute worst fandom, of course - as always - but at this point I think we've conclusively proven you should generally not judge anything by their terrible fanbases, .