Bartimaeus

It's the same scene as we all have. I always assumed it was an artistic thing as well, not them literally getting naked.

(note: apparently this guy is sort of the worst, but that's not my fault)

I knew they would have a totally different style of music, because the particular style that the original Sailor Moon has is from a long-gone era, but it still hurts to hear. I'm the type of person that loves the original highly Japanese and era-specific music in shows like DBZ and hates the faux "cool" electronic-rock crap used for the American re-score. Also, using obvious musical cues too reactively (for "emotional" moments, for "funny" moments, for "action" moments) also usually drives me crazy in shows. The original show does it some as well, but really only obviously for action sequences (that I can think of anyways). That and the hilarious H&M music cue, which the show itself makes makes a self-aware mockery out of several times. Everything you say about Crystal sounds bad, . Steven Universe: That third episode is an odd-ball one, even in terms of animation (...you may have noticed that the art isn't super consistent yet - they experimented some early on). Though, to be fair, there are a number of "odder" episodes in season 1... >Still have no idea where the show is going and how it can possibly have a story arc You and me both...

I'm about to chuck this 5700 XT out the freakin' window, it doesn't work for anything I want to use it for. All the emulators are broken, its fan is ridiculous, and it's unreasonably power hungry. What does this thing sell for on ebay? ...$700-$800? ...Well, maybe I won't chuck it out the window, but maybe I will sell it and buy a GPU that actually has functioning drivers. ...Or wait, no, I'll just keep the money, go back to my GTX 1070 since it's already more than powerful enough for my needs, and then put the money towards something in the future when GPU prices aren't insane.

@majestic Gosh, I hope the new English dubs makes some at least light attempts to make season 4 a little better, . Also, is the only reason you know any of this astrology stuff purely because of Sailor Moon? @KaineParker He really is.

My knowledge of zodiac signs is strictly limited to what I learned about them in The Binding of Isaac years back, which is almost nothing except that they exist, so... @Mamoru:

I guess I would say, for a prospective viewer that's trying to give it a shot but not finding it immediately to their liking from the first handful of episodes (i.e. like was the case for me, where I really didn't initially like it and didn't think there was really a shot in hell of it working for me), is that you should try to stick with it until episode 12 and 13, "Giant Woman" and "So Many Birthdays" respectively. Two episodes VERY different in style and tone, but two of the better ones in season 1 that should give you a good feel what the show is capable of (and is when the show suddenly did a 180 for me and everything started to click). The former is (rightfully) a fan favorite, while the latter is a personal favorite of mine. Even though neither of them are about the main story, if you can't get anything out of those two, the show probably won't be for you.

@KaineParker To be fair, some of the dumbest people on the internet love it, too - like a lot of stuff like this, the fan-base can be...not great at times. However, since the show is now officially over, there's absolutely no need to ever interact with them. Uh, how to describe it... Wow, this is the first time I've ever been asked to do that, and it's kind of difficult. I even just asked the person I watched the entire show with, and we're both kind of scratching our heads to try to figure out just how to accurately encapsulate it without saying too much but also without saying too little. The...basic premise is that it's about a boy who lives with what are effectively his three warrior-guardian aunts, whom he tries to figure out how to fit in and go on adventures with while growing up (and grow up he does indeed - faster than you'd think if you only watched the first few episodes, where he's just a goofball kid). It should be noted that Steven is half-human and half-gem, while his 'aunts' are full gem. Gems are...well, they're not human, let's just say that. (A note for @majestic if you stick with this show: you basically should never look up anything about anyone or anything, because there are some...fairly important world and character spoilers that even I would've been upset to learn.) The show's elements at their most basic are not fundamentally that dissimilar to Sailor Moon's, except unlike Sailor Moon, it does not follow any kind of formula on an episode-by-episode basis and instead allows for a much greater variety of ways of dealing with all sorts of different problems (nothing like the ongoing minor villain-moderate villain-major villain structure here - some episodes are completely about interpersonal problems, some episodes completely about the setting and/or main plot, some episodes about absolute nonsense, and many a bit of all three...and all characters are *characters*, not just paper cutouts with some different dressing meant to fulfill a role, ). The show has a central plot that is critical to both the characters and the setting of the show (if that's important to you, particularly after watching Sailor Moon where it's more or less the opposite). Some episodes are mostly self-contained, some episodes are effectively multi-parters that run directly consecutively with each other for stretches of episodes. Like Sailor Moon, the first season is a little more laid back than the others since it's trying to setup the characters, their relationships, and the setting first and foremost, but there is still stuff going on there. There's an extended intro video for the show that's never in any episode but which gives a pretty good but quick look at and feel for the show and its setup - the only problem is that it contains one major end-of-season 1 spoiler for an important character, which is very annoying to me especially since it's so unnecessary...but which might not mean anything to you since you presumably know nothing about the show. Here it is if you want to watch it - the spoiler is a little beyond the 2 minute mark if you do or don't care. Hopefully this doesn't instantly turn you off to the idea of the show, : https://www.dropbox.com/s/4ic0ppg0h34nsyx/bVa9hMnmuW.mp4?dl=0

What I said in the spoiler was more directed at the dummies concerned with the anime needing to always stay 100% true to the manga, not you, . As if the overall plot and the 'world-building' of the series were some sacred texts that could never be touched. Also, what an utterly classic mistake by Crystal to have a character act "romantic" by being a weirdo creeper that would just get a restraining order filed against them - especially by a main character you're supposed to like. Heeey, and you didn't immediately dislike the show like I did (probably?). Actually, it's funny that you specifically bring up the food thing, because when I initially watched the show, I also watched just the first two episodes and was like "what, are they just going to always be talking about food and eating constantly? is this a weird food cartoon? count me out, thanks". ...Ended up not watching anymore for like 6 months, and begrudgingly came back at the constant badgering of a friend - it turns out, no, no they're not.

Episode 28:

@KaineParker How short we talkin' here? More and more these days, I'm a big fan of short things. This animation style still makes my brain melt to look at, but hey, if it's only a few hours, maybe I could take it. @majesticSo one of the things I've heard multiple times about Crystal (spoilered just in case someone...I guess InsaneCommander right now is as painfully dumb as I was when I was watching the first season) . And then...the animation. Yikes. I saw some side-by-side comparisons of each characters' introductions - do not want. And now you throw in general writing problems...and then you think, well, the original show had some writing problems, but they're clearly mostly forgivable ones by and large (outside of S4)...is Crystal going to make them better, or is it going to follow the trends of everything else and just make it even worse? Episode 27 of S:

Yeah, I kind of got the feeling that the anime elevated the series in some ways. I'd be more interested in reading Codename: Sailor V since there shouldn't be any overlap, so less to compare. Plus...well, you know, it's Minako, although I would *presume* she's not quite as crazy as the protagonist in her own original story compared to being one of four deuteragonists. Sailor Moon Crystal just sounds totally not for me from everything I've heard (although the animation style looks more acceptable by the time you get to...oh, just the post-season 3 movie). I'll wait to hear what you say, but I'm not expecting too much.

Man, screw Cartoon Network, .

Today I learned that Usagi was designed after Mickey Mouse.

Ami is her Japanese & new English dub name, so that's perfectly fine to use if that's what it is (but if they used Serena for your dub, then it's probably Amy too - no-one will be confused if you say that). (e: ninja-ed literally as I hit post)

...Hold on a moment. Serena? ...Are you watching the original English dub? If so, wow! ...But wait, Ami would be Amy, so maybe you're just using that name ironically?

Heidi, Girl of the Alps: I watched the first episode of this, and I liked it a lot. Seems sort of like a proto-Totoro in terms of style and potentially themes with some changed elements (nothing fantastical, presumably...and no sister, but I'm perfectly good with these changed elements). Japanese only, but they have a very naturalistic way of speaking (even though the audio quality is indeed sadly bad like everything from this era), so I don't mind it at all. Sailor Moon S Episode 26:

Well, my Frankenstein system is more or less complete. Borrowed 32 GB (out of 64) from a different PC until I see RAM I like at a half-decent price, and I've got an "old" 5700 XT that I received for free sometime back but couldn't use due to its power draw (noting once again that I barely use my GPU, so I may end up going back to my GTX 1060 if I have too many driver problems, especially since a number of cutting-edge emulators, including for the PS3/Wii U/Switch, reportedly play poorly with AMD cards due to said drivers issues, and that's more important to me than anything else). As for my motherboard, I ended up going with a solid but unspectacular choice in the MSI X470 Gaming Max Plus. No bells and whistles, but I wasn't looking for any - just decent VRM/power phase design and all the standard features, and strangely, this board punches a bit above its weight, having tested for better VRM design than many boards literally twice what I paid for it. Didn't go for watercooling (I never overclock and the thought of running liquid in my system is skeevy to me), but the FUMA 2 I got tests just as well as some significantly pricier options and is even quieter. System is up and running but nothing's formatted yet and it likely won't be for a while because a migration is going to be very difficult. I have not yet decided whether I'll use Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 10 LTSC. Windows 7 is my preferred option, but man is it getting lean in the years - and it'll take a bit of tinkering to get it to work with the 5000 series CPU. Windows 10 LTSC...is a compromise, but one I've been using for some time with my laptop, I'm not sure if I'm ready to fully jump over yet for my main desktop, though...I wish there was an even further modded version of Windows 10 than LTSC that stripped out some of remaining annoyances and problems to make it a little more hands-off Windows 7-style...perhaps I should do some investigation, since there are certain to be others who feel the same way. Complete specifications for now: Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Blackout PSU: SuperFlower Leadex III Gold 750 W MB: MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800x Cooler: Scythe FUMA 2 RAM: 32 GB something or another (temporary) G.Skill 32 GB 3600 GPU: Asus Radeon XT 5700 SSD: TBD, want a 2 TB TLC+DRAM drive, saw one I almost bought yesterday for a great price, but hidden in the details was the fact that it was QLC - no deal!

There's definitely a lot of subjectivity involved. I should note that a lot of my problems with anime (outside of voice-work) are more directed towards more "modern" anime (i.e. 1990s and especially 2000s or later). When I look at like lists of "best 1980s animes" or earlier, there's stuff that looks a lot more stylistically acceptable and interesting to me...and then I remember that I just can't listen to Japanese voice-acting (it doesn't help that it seems everything past a certain point seemingly has between bad and abysmal audio recording quality on top of everything else...hell, even Sailor Moon itself doesn't have very good voice recording quality for its Japanese dub, and it's, what, mid-90s?) and go "welp, guess I don't have to worry about that!". It's a shame, but oh well. Sadly, I've never seen an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so I only have the very limited context of remembering that everyone hated the ending (which was something like...it was all a dream, IIRC?). My favorite sitcom is probably Seinfeld (though I haven't seen all of it) but that's less about the written jokes/plots and more about the specific delivery from the actors who are charming and brilliant and make for bizarrely likable characters even though they're all terrible and borderline sociopaths. I can definitely see watching a show like that as long as you continue to like the characters and their interactions, though - the rest is just gravy at that point...unless the show is spectacularly screwing up in some other way, anyways. I tend to drop shows almost the moment I feel that I've gotten what I can out of them - no issue cutting a show off if I feel like I'm not going to enjoy it anymore here. Given my mildly obsessive compulsive personality, I am very thankful I don't have to worry about that, .

That's literally what I had been envisioning. Indeed, I'd love to, at some point, just turn around and absolutely dunk on my viewers and make them hear what I really think about them live on-air, and just go down the list of disgusting hypocrisies and lies that "we" had been espousing up until then. Predictably, a big chunk of them would no doubt just say I was brainwashed or blackmailed by the "deep state" or some garbage and go on pretending that pre-reveal and post-reveal me are two totally separate people. Some psychos would no doubt concoct some plans to kill me...and yeah, thinking about that, I'd more likely be an absolute coward and just say I was retiring for """health reasons""" at some point and then very quietly try to make amends. Ugh. There are certain things I can live with being on my conscience, but realistically knowing that my words undoubtedly fueled a not insignificant amount of hatred and harm towards some very vulnerable people who are just trying to make it in life same as the rest of us, maybe even indirectly leading to some early deaths...not something I'd want to live with. (e): Also, I am a huge believer in deplatforming sources of hatred and division. When you give a voice to people's insecurities, failures, fears, prejudices, etc., a much-too-large section of the people to whom your words apply to are emboldened and become even more radicalized on those ideas, as a "strong" voice has given them "legitimacy" and publicly said out-loud the things that most people used to only think or mention privately. It is a real thing that I have seen happen to way too many people over the last decade (and I am certain it is something that has happened throughout all of history), and I want absolutely no part of it. (e): On the other hand, if I was some scumbag millionaire, I could afford to have a drug habit (you guys ever notice how poor people usually have drug "addictions" while rich people instead have drug "habits"?) to "help" with both my chronic pain and depression. Presumably, my public stance would also be against both drugs and mental illness as a whole, so bonus points for being a hypocrite. Then I could just eventually OD and will everything to charitable causes. Now that's a plan! But back to the topic at hand, I fundamentally believe that you are personally responsible for the things you broadcast out to the world, particularly if you do it under your own name/platform. So I understand why people are glad he's gone. Some of us have a little more tact, sense, and/or empathy than others, though - I don't wish he was dead insomuch as I wish he had been a better person that would've made it easier to wish he was still alive...but that is the more rational part of my brain talking, and it's the same kind of wish I would extend to other historical monsters.

I rewatched just a little bit of the last episode in Japanese, and TBH, she doesn't sound that much more shrill to me than...I don't know, the five main characters? She does have more of a...simpering tone to how she talks compared to the others, which I hate, but I hate Japanese voice-acting in general, so I'm probably not the best person to ask here, . My problems with anime are not really to do with character types/tropes, per se (although if badly used such as they are in many animes, that's sure to be an annoyance as well). It's more stylistic and sensibility problems. It starts with the way characters express: horribly high-pitched screaming/squealing/simpering/whining female characters, overly dramatic/angsty male characters, absolutely horrific weird mouth sounds that characters make constantly that make them seem like aliens to me, bizarre/over-the-top character expressions (though I've kind of gotten more used to this one over time), etc. And then the clothing and hair styles...and on top of that, I just don't care for typical anime art styles - by and large, they're very ugly to me. So yeah, pretty much almost literally everything about anime offends me from a character design standpoint. And for me, characters are the beginning and the end of most shows - other things can be important to a specific show as well, but if I can't like the cast to some degree in some kind of way, there's absolutely no hope for the show. That's not to say characters need to be lovable - it totally depends on the kind of show it is, different kind of characters of course fulfill different kinds of roles. But I'll almost definitely never be able to watch even Sailor Moon in Japanese - it's just too offensive to my ears and the type of Japanese voices used in their VA industry simply don't gel with the kinds of characters that I think the main cast are, and character voices are such a critical part of how I perceive characters. I recently switched to Japanese during one of The Professor's bits just to see - and he was instantly a much different (and less enjoyable) character to me with his Japanese voice. And then you throw in bad/overused writing tropes and inconsistencies and too fantastical/artificial settings and ridiculous/convoluted plots - everything falls down like a house of cards all too quickly for me to be able to enjoy anime by and large. Whatever it is that my sensibilities for watching shows are, they're simply not attuned for anime, and they probably won't ever be. Sailor Moon is lucky in that I actually didn't mind the general art style of the overall show to start with (now, I think it's actually pretty nice but also very unique - I simply haven't seen stuff like it elsewhere) and also it hasn't fallen prey to...well, pretty much literally any of my problems with anime. In fact, I feel it has at times outright made a self-aware mockery of some of them. But yeah, characters have stayed grounded and pretty well consistent, the English dub pretty well perfectly uses different types of voices that fit/have become their characters, the general setting is adequate, the story plots are...well, the main plot lines are what they are, but the smaller character plotlines are simple, sensible, and grounded for the most part, etc. Sailor Moon just does things right that I don't see the vast majority of other animes doing - at least, not at a glance. Also, funny that you should bring up yandere, since part of the reason my 'first' anime show that I tried was My Hero Academia, where I read about some of the characters in advance (instead of, you know, actually watching a clip or two of the show that would help demonstrate how the show functions in practice which would've immediately revealed that the show was unwatchable trash - a mistake I will not make again). One of the characters I specifically loved the sound/design of was a lady named Himiko Toga, which is apparently like the villain embodiment of yandere (she's a literal vampire doppelganger that drains the blood of the people she loves/admires, and then uses their blood to actually become them). That was about one of the coolest cartoon villain ideas I'd ever heard of that I thought you could have a lot of fun with - too bad the show was unwatchable, .