Bartimaeus

I'm liking the sound of Sailor Stars a lot more already, .

Hope you enjoy it - what did you think of the first episode? Literally all three things you just listed are improved on in S, IMO. Yeah, it's going to be, uh, interesting to try to watch SuperS. I can only really start passing judgement once I've actually started watching it, though. Kind of preparing to be traumatized at this point, really.

Don't know whom that is, but it got a burst of laughter from me, . @majestic Each season has had two intros, so I took a guess and opened up the last episode of S and what do you know, it has your intro. So even the first episode of S has the second intro for you? Whoever put these Italian DVDs together seem to have know what they were doing more than everyone else in every other region, . Also, for kicks, I tested the first and last episode of SuperS - there are two different intros there too, although they're very similar (only a few scenes were changed, similar to S's first and second intros). Yep, I'm always in favor of going with the outcome actually setup by previous events rather than simply "SURPRISE, literally nothing that previously happened had any effect on the outcome and instead we're going with something totally out of left field!". Really, if you're going to do something out of left field, it should be the result of a more unpredictable/lesser known character(s) doing something that changes the situation radically, and not the main characters whose personality and intentions are already known and set (and the main characters should, of course, still react in ways that make sense!). also wth @ the manga thing lol, that sounds so dumb (although admittedly I'm sure there are details to be had...)

Good lord, this show could've used somebody else writing the titles. Not only are they ridiculously long, they spoil waaay too much. This episode had the worst title I've seen yet.

Oh yeah, I can't believe I didn't get all that. What was I thinking?

that's almost verbatim what I was going to say: I had "what the hell was that lol" written up and was searching for something else to say lmao

Depends on what kind of garbage is in it. Lead poisoning won't kill most people, but it'll cause brain damage/underdevelopment and is likely to lead to a much earlier death! The water difference up here is night and day compared to when I lived further down south...the tap water from where I was before was from the Mississippi, and let me tell you, the Mississippi is not even in the same universe as Lake Superior. I also actually prefer drinking hot water (not cold! ...also, note that I say "hot", not warm - warm water is terrible, hot water is great), so being able to just get great hot water from the tap is such a ridiculous convenience that I don't want to give up anytime soon.

I think I've used the phrase "supremely stupid" for the show a few different times in here (particularly early, and then again when KaineParker was contemplating watching), but I only meant it in the best of ways. Yeah, I know exactly what you meant re: dismissing criticism out of hand, I can basically never get behind that either. I've said it before, but I almost always take negatives of stuff a lot more strongly than I do the positives, so it's difficult for me to just brush off issues - I'm just not that kind of person. Even with literally my all-time favorite show, Steven Universe, I have an endless laundry list of different things that I think (and know) that they could've done better. The key is to have enough stuff that I like while minimizing the actually terrible stuff (as opposed to simply not-so-good stuff) that I can forgive and love it. I have not been able to watch any more. Too busy with a few other things at the end of this week, and the little time I've had for watching shows has instead gone to stupid Speed Racer on the insistence of someone that is not me (shockingly, no, I'm not the only person dumb enough to watch this crap - ideally, though, I'd like to finish S before KaineParker does because S is probably the part of the show that I'd be most sensitive to spoilers for...but I fear that I won't). And don't talk to me about music - I'm the type of person that will listen to an industrial or darkwave album and immediately follow it up with something like Studio Ghibli, Weird Al, Disney, or Sailor Moon, then immediately go in reverse. I'm pretty retarded about music, .

I live right up on Lake Superior. We're been in some kind of 'polar vortex system' or some such nonsense (that's what people keep calling it, I have no idea if it's actually accurate) for like a week here, and it's been negative 20 to negative 25 each night...without windchill. Some of the nights, the wind chill has been -40 or worse. I, too, question why I live here...until I remember that housing in my particular area is relatively sane, the summers aren't nearly as bad as the rest of the state thanks to being right on Superior (and I hate summer a lot more than winter, so that's important), and the water is so amazingly good that I dread the day I ever have to go somewhere else (you wouldn't think this is that important, but I cannot understate how nice it is to have pure crystalline tap water that is legitimately better than filtered water most everywhere else). I'm not happy with the cold, but I'll happily take it relative to my other options...so here is where I'll stay while I can, .

Yeah, I've always liked that AMD hasn't deliberately and totally ruined their lower-end chipsets like Intel usually has, and as a result, OEMs actually make some solid motherboards (with even some pretty good VRM components/configurations) for the lower-end chipsets. Thanks for the advice - some of these were ones I'd already seen mentioned as good and sensible options elsewhere, so it's only reinforcing. I'm usually particular to Gigabyte and MSI boards (although from what I'm vaguely recalling, MSI has been kind of scummy for a few reasons lately), and have only had numerous troubles with ASUS boards...but we'll see what I end up with.

Yeah, it should be noted that when I've said "Sailor Moon [the show] is really dumb", it's not to mean that the show was unintelligently made, it's more that, uh...even with all of the show's/manga's shortcomings (most of which are a result of following its formula way too heavily when there really was no need for it ever do so, since it's clearly written more than well enough that it could have eschewed its formula plenty of times without any issue...) and the fact that it was primarily made for young teen girls, it's really more that *I'm* so dumb that I still find it so good. Even more amazing since it was only just barely produced and only on the absolute shoestringiest of budgets to begin with - there's no reason for it to be as funny, lovable, and well-made as it is. The shortcomings are there, but they got the most important bits right...well...up until SuperS anyways, . I'd actually already heard the Sailor Stars theme since I'm a complete data hoarder and have all the music collections for each season/movie (plus that giant 10 CD box set of just instrumentals from all 5 seasons and the movies). Not that I've listened to each track yet, but I did a small amount of perusing in advance to make sure that I liked the music well enough that I'd want each one, and the Sailor Stars theme was one I happened to hear. I don't like it as much as the original theme, but with that said...it's a lot more restrained and at least half-decent compared to some of the other jpop music I've happened to hear that was made for this show, so at least there's that, . And then I hear the German version and...suddenly I'm a lot more thankful for the jpop song, .

Thanks. It should prove highly useful when I get to SuperS. In spite of its name, season 4 doesn't seem particularly super, much less super^2 (given that the S for season 3 already stood for super...). Maybe they were actually trying to divide and get super^0? All of these things bother me! I was tired of the fighting-over-Mamoru thing like halfway through R, never mind a bad rehash of it! And I'm a complete child - of course I have empathy for fictional characters, particularly if they're cartoon characters I love. If Donald Trump, a man I thoroughly and utterly despise and 99% wish was dead, can somehow garner empathetic responses from me, I don't see why fictional characters shouldn't, . And of course, ignoring character development or just straight up writing characters as if they're alien or alternative universe versions of themselves is always horrible. So yeah, SuperS should be a great time. Japanese is really difficult to translate outside of the direct loan words it took from English after World War II. I'm reminded of this every stinking time I have to try to translate a music album from Japanese into English when it has no official English translation...like, say, for this nearly 300 track music box set: https://wikimoon.org/index.php/Memorial_Music_Box It might be easier to just learn Japanese so I can keep it in its original text than to keep doing this...but uh, probably not actually.

The next gen is always the best gen anyways!

Yeah, I have literally no idea what I'm going to do about motherboards yet - haven't looked at or paid any attention at all what's been going on in this arena for a long while. @Keyrock I also hate heat, so it makes sense from that perspective too. $100 sense? ...Eh, but what's done is done, I've wanted a Ryzen for years now. AMD just emailed me and send my order was confirmed and can no longer be cancelled. RIP the 5900x dream, but I almost purchased a 5600X several times over the past few months, so at least I get that sweet 8/16 configuration.

I bought a 5800X directly from the AMD website this morning. We'll see if it actually ships. I'll have to actually buy a motherboard and RAM if it does...I already have a case and PSU. Don't particularly love spending this much on a CPU, but as I use my CPU way more than my GPU (and my builds tend to last for ~5 years), it it did make sense to get it. Honestly, Intel CPUs make a lot more sense in terms of price/performance right now...the i7-10700k is 95% of the CPU for $100 less, but I figure I'd probably mostly make up the difference in electricity bills over the next five years, . Will be replacing an i7-4700k. Not looking forward to buying 32 GB of DDR4, but alas, 32 GB is the minimum for me these days.

What I'm more looking for is just a simple "hey, this episode isn't good - but this one is!". They don't need write-ups, just a simple "actually good, ok I guess, this was bad, good lord don't watch this one" rating system would do. It helps manage expectations and make it so that I'm not going in blind and constantly being annoyed and frustrated by switching between good and bad - I'll be much more likely to find the bad bits amusing instead of incredibly frustrating if I know in advance that the episode'll be bad. ...Although some of this sounds so bad that I may less find it amusing and more that I'll just be ready to skip portions if it gets to be too much. @KaineParker Each of the four main characters that are not Usagi get a bit of attention in S, thankfully. R didn't really have a lot of room for character stuff that wasn't to do with Chibi-Usa.

I loved that Minako-Chibiusa nurse episode. I think that was the episode that finally clued me in that Minako was officially my favorite...which has only gotten repeatedly confirmed and even further strengthened over and over again since then. Speaking of...spoilers for the Minako episode I just watched:

Yeah, I guess I should've been thinking of the author of Sailor Moon herself, not the show writers. Though I don't usually care too much about 100% adherence to source material as long as there's at least reasonable explanation for changes (and it doesn't end up a colossal failure). Some things work better in written form than on the screen and vice versa. However, I know there's a history of shows aping their source material more or less literally scene for scene in Japan... S has done pretty much everything better. Some great character episodes, a likable and funny main villain, a better marriage of plot vs. nonsense than either season 1 or 2 (season 1 was more heavy on nonsense, season 2 more heavy on plot - this feels like it's more successfully in between the two), more ridiculous minions, and going to some new places for funnies. Oh yeah, and Mamoru has been a lot better compared to how he was in season 2 (and has actually had some really good moments, even if he's still not being used all that much - that's okay with me, as long as he's used well when he does show up). You were correct when you called it the best season.

...So, uh, when do you get out on the streets to demand they re-open the nuclear power plants? 500 euros for your monthly power bill is insane - unless there's something you're not telling us, like you're running a bitcoin farm or something.

I don't know the significance of that word, and since it's HoonDing saying it, I'm afraid to look it up.

It would've been interesting and a good idea to have at least one of the girls be poor, I think. This show has attempted to display common problems faced by girls growing up, and it's a simple reality that a huge percentage of the world (something most people try to never really think about that everyone could always use a reminder of so they better consider people outside of their bubble) do grow up and live in poverty - even in Japan, where the poverty rate is apparently 16% right now. Ami probably would've made the most most logical choice out of the five, I think - her intelligence and dedication to both her job and schoolwork would've made a good contrast to her poor upbringing, and made clear that even if you're disadvantaged relative to your 'more equal' peers, you can still do better than them and also make friends and be important outside of your station in life. (Well, that's the IDEAL world we live in, anyways...) Additionally, she's so severe and restrained as it is that it would not have made that much of a difference for her anyways. Rei also would've made a good choice in addition to that, given her more traditional lifestyle compared to the others and yet still having plenty of ambitions outside of that and actually working on some of them throughout the series - that and her personality would've just *dared* others to ever question or make fun of her on it. Hell, it could've been used as a primary reason for her being aggressive about life in general. Usagi and Minako would've made the worst choices for being poor, given their lack of desire to accomplish basically anything, . Some interesting things could've been done with that, but I guess the writers already had more than they could handle! (e): 3000 edits later, I more or less have my complete thoughts on this finished (e): nope, had more

I mean, it was only the first two episodes. I guess I shouldn't be so quick to judge - it could eventually get better than Sailor Moon. You know, at some point during its exactly one season of airing.

Alternatively, you can share them anonymously like the rest of us plebeians. But of course, if share you them anonymously, nobody knows who you are and you have no platform...but it does allow you to rant and rave to your heart's content and not get fired from your job for being a contemptible laughingstock. Pros and cons, really.