Bartimaeus

Well, that was great, .

Well, that was strange but good. Also, I got mixed up on what you said - it's not Sakura, but Tomoyo who has the same voice as her. Phew. Also ignoring that the way she was skipping was just like her...yeah, still kind of creepy.

Episode 25: ...Speaking of the voice actress:

Hmm, I wouldn't put it quite that way, because I've still been thinking on and off about it since I watched it, but I do think it could use a refresher. The soundtrack is super memorable in its weird way, that's for sure... (e): Sakura:

This reminds me that I want to re-watch Memories at some point...it left an impression, but my memories of it are hazier than I'd like, possibly due to the format of three ~40 minute films in one. Sakura:

Nice job! But did you say...Boyhood?

It's suddenly gotten awfully Sailor Moon original English dub up in here.

The January 6th commission was blocked - 54 yays, 35 nays. Scumbag Sinema from Arizona skipped town, along with a number of Republicans. I'd really like to see the filibuster reduced in power - back to the old days of forcing Senators to actually sit up there and talk for 72 hours straight rather than just being able to say "I filibuster" and that being the end of the story. It'd make it so they would actually work to filibuster the important things rather than just filibuster literally everything solely to obstruct anything and everything.

lmao good lord man But yeah, my heart nearly exploded when I read that, I am *way* too into this to be able to keep reading genuine spoilers. You gotta cover stuff in a much more vague way or maybe just mention the funny/sweet bits without enough context, this show is basically sacred to me right now. I almost don't want to watch anymore because of how much I love it. How ridiculous for a silly little anime like this is that?

I read the first line of your spoiler and noped straight out of the spoiler immediately. I don't know who it was about and now I'm greatly afeared to find out - can't do it, pal. I guess you needn't bother to write any more spoilers, since apparently I can't read them from now on. I am *way* too into this anime.

I'm not sure what to expect against the Nets. I guess to lose the series, but boy, the team is just clicking right now in a way that I don't think it had the previous three playoffs. May not be enough, though...

So, um...hot take, but I think the Bucks are probably gonna win this series against the Heat. Sure would feel nice to sweep them. *JINX ENGAGED*

Perhaps the association of ghosts with the dead and her mother? @KP the meanie zucchini Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan, episode 2: Well, like I said, I'm not complaining - kind of accidentally creating a really tense moment and almost sinister moment was strange but still cool, . Kind of makes me want to find out if the people primarily responsible for this made anything else that would interest me... That would be super annoying. ...I mean what you said in the spoiler, but really, everything that you said about the subtitles changing too. Speaking of, I've stuck with the original subtitles I had, which are probably different still from the English ones you have? The fan-subs were okay, but the writing "voice" feels different from the first set and it just didn't click as well. More evidence that the whole subs vs. dubs debate is asinine and it totally and simply depends on what works better for the individual and the quality of what you have for the specific show/movie, .

DEADBOLT. If you like Katana Zero or Hotline Miami, you may very well enjoy this, lot of similarities while offering some different things. Good game, not too long. NOITA. Looked neat, gave it a try, only ended up playing an hour, controls felt too weird and the wand system too annoying for me to bother further, plus I didn't really want to get into a roguelike of any kind if I wasn't a hundred percent sold on the gameplay. Wait! Life Is Beautiful! Played this one a while back, but don't think I ever wrote about it. It's a suicide simulator. Just kidding...kind of - just a little indie story/dialogue-based game where you can either try to prevent people from jumping off a bridge or goad them on. Interesting little game that you have to be in the mood for.

Okay, episode 16, Sakura goes on vacation way out in the countryside. I'm about five minutes in here, and I guess my question is...is Tomoyo going to stalk Sakura so hard that she somehow manages to follow her all the way out to the countryside, or is this going to be the first episode where Tomoyo doesn't appear? Because if it's the latter, I'm not going to watch even one more episode of this hot garbage, . (e): Next episode, the beach day/cave exploration episode, was awesome too. And it totally makes sense that Tomoyo is the calm and rational one about such things, given how she handles her feelings all of the time to begin with. There are so many nice little touches in these episodes that make them so good and satisfying. (e): Why was this so unsettling and tense? You'd think a bomb was about to go off or something from the music and visuals: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7bf8lxi4rffcdd2/aAoPVzCXDO.mp4 Not that I'm complaining, since it made me go to the edge of my seat, but it felt a little out of left-field. And then just a minute or two later, I finally got Meilin's grand introduction. Hoo boy. Well, hopefully I don't find her intolerable.

time for a tournament, boys girls Reiterating once again that I'm simply not the type for grand story stuff like prophecies, magical heroes, fated destiny, etc.; it takes some reaaally careful planning and good ideas for the grand story stuff to really work for me. But even the basic premise of this and how Sakura became a MAGICAL GIRL is that hey, this deck of magical cards (and mind you it's not the only deck of magical cards in this universe, there are other families out there that have their own) was lost, its guardian is in a weakened state as a result of them being lost, Sakura just happens to have some latent magical ability and seems like a good sort, and so let's see if we can fix it while also trying to live her normal grade-school girl life. That's it: that's the show. I love that sort of simple reasonable happenstance, it only really lends to the show feeling a lot more grounded than you'd ever expect it to be. The show is so good that it has finally gotten me to genuinely like some Japanese voice-acting - that's the most shocking thing of all. Kero, Tomoyo, and now I'm even starting to like Sakura's voice... I am not joking when I say what a feat that is given my long-running dislike for Japanese VA-ing. Will that transfer over to other shows? Well...probably not, especially because the VA-ing in this is fairly naturalistic and low-key sounding by anime standards, I'd say...but still, impressive. Also, while a lot of modern anime may be lacking in that regard for my purposes, a lot of older stuff (i.e. the stuff I'm interested in) isn't, so maybe it will for certain cases.

Uh, wow. That's...a new low. I'm only surprised that they didn't instead code it to be explicitly Republicans only, but that probably would've been illegal someway...

I should note that I am reading your spoilers at a very low level (and not to mention very quickly) to avoid remembering spoilers, which makes it hard to respond to anything you might say in them, because responding to them would necessitate that I go to a higher level of awareness which would increase the likelihood of remembering spoilers. Surprisingly, I am way more concerned about spoilers for this show than I was for Sailor Moon - I'm much more into the overall story and individual episode plots here than I was for Sailor Moon. Sailor Moon has its great main cast and their interactions with each other and the ability to be laugh-out-loud funny and facepalmingly embarrassing (in a good way!), but Sakura has added additional elements of story and episode setups that while simple are genuinely well done in of themselves while still having very good character stuff. Cardcaptor Sakura, episode 14: This show is melting my brain.

Oh. Well, in that case, yes, 100%, . Yeah, the voice cast in general is not fantastic by any means, but Usagi as a grandma is the one that really stands out. My favorites from that cast would probably be S3-S4 Chibi-Usa (...yes, it's a different VA from S2 Chibi-Usa), who legitimately sounds like she could actually be a goofy little girl (...which sort of makes the SuperS stuff even worse, by the way), and probably Makoto. In contrast, S3-S4 Usagi, Mamoru, and maybe Ami are probably the weakest VAs - the former two as the two most central characters really shouldn't sound the way they do.

have you not been watching the dozens of OG dub clips I've been linking over the past year (Real answer is Luna always sounded like that in that dub for whatever reason, while Usagi's voice changed after the first couple of seasons because the season 1 and 2 VA got pregnant and decided she didn't want to do it anymore or something, IDK - somehow, they were unable to find someone better...somehow, I don't know how.) Ah, that must be why I immediately disliked him so much, . P.S. Not gonna watch the Tomoyo song, seems like it'd be too special to spoil pre-emptively! P.P.S. Some good YouTube comments on that video:

Even in the DiC dub, Minako is the best.

As if Mamo and Usako weren't bad enough...but at least they sound like proper nicknames.

Okay, Tomoyo is like borderline...not psychotic exactly, but something like it for Sakura's sake.

So now Tomoyo *and* her mom are both obsessed with Sakura...seems like the problem is genetic. The sight of her daughter grabbing Sakura's hand and leading her away was enough to drive the mom to literal tears. It's kind of messed up that the mom is only making time to see or interact with Tomoyo just because she wants to see Sakura...but I guess it's better than nothing! I love the attention to little details in this show in individual episodes, even if it sometimes makes setups a little predictable. For example, at the bus stop when Sakura gets off the bus, there's a very fancy gated wall to a property you can see right away and continue to notice as Sakura and Kero wander down the street, and I one hundred percent knew that that was going to be Tomoyo's property immediately upon seeing it long before it became clear to our characters. Or Tomoyo keeping Kero's love of cake in mind and taking a piece with her away from the table (without the show making any kind of active note of it but simply showing her demurely walking away with it) to bring to Kero in the next scene. They're little things that can be obvious to adult viewers and telegraph small bits of what will happen, but they help provide a sort of groundedness and sense to a medium that is often lacking enough of it. I wonder: are there animes in non-Japanese that try to tack on the honorifics in a horribly clumsy fashion? I hope so, but the seemingly unequal nature of their relationship would realistically make me fear that exactly what happened with both of their moms could very easily happen again to them and leave Tomoyo broken-hearted...but hopefully that's outside the timeframe of this show, .