Bartimaeus

The creators of Magical Emi clearly knew what the future held for Star Trek, . Yes, you are seeing that correctly - it is a racist-looking Asian caricature of Spock under text that says "Star Trick", which is probably what they should've named Discovery. Episode 7 was all about home ec. Mai is mocked pretty mercilessly by the boys in her family for getting a D in it, while nobody cares that her friend, who is a boy, gets one as well. This enrages Mai right off the bat because it's completely unfair, but it does encourage her to start paying attention to what the other girls of her family, particularly her mother, actually have to do in order to keep the household functioning...and she becomes both disgusted and concerned when she realizes how hard her mom actually has to work while the men know and do little to nothing...or worse. It's all turned around on everyone when her mother falls ill and suddenly it's up to Mai and her father to take care of everything, and we start to learn that oh yeah, it's actually very important for everyone to learn home ec, . Simple premise but it's well-executed, particularly because it allows Mai an opportunity to grow while also not letting the boys get away with putting it all on the girls - verily, I am certifying this as a good shoujo show. I don't know about great yet, but definitely good. It's totally not at all startling to be woken up like this. Yeah, watching episodes weekly is such a different experience from being able to watch episodes at the exact pace you like. Some shows can actually benefit from the weekly pace (particularly shows that have repetitive elements or weak/error-filled plotting that you'd quickly start to notice when watching episodes back to back), while some shows can really hurt because of it (Steven Universe comes to mind as one where it really hurt for those who watched it live...).

I would really want to know the methodology by which these were ranked. In random articles like this, there's usually some kind of angle - some combination of the most famous episodes, the "best" episodes as considered by the fandom, episodes that promote some particularly important themes or ideas, and personal favorites on the part of the author. It's not clear to me what the idea here was, but the results were...mixed to say the least. I'd also like to know if the author watched the series themselves, and if so, did they watch it as an adult or as a child/teen, because IMO that could really affect your perception of the series and what the best episodes were. The main story episodes were by and large not very strong for any of us as adults, but it might be a different story if you watched it when you were younger.

I was thinking about this some more yesterday, and I'm not really sure. I was also thinking about why the scene was there in the first place. Spoilers for second half of the movie, @majestic, since you're still in the process of watching it: P.S. Two more episodes of Emi. If all you're doing with your magical powers is basically doing a job so your family can keep doing theirs, is that really in the spirit of the magical girl genre? No monsters or enemies, no end of the world or even regional crises, not even trying to become stronger...just using your magic and alter-ego to fix small-time personal issues when you can. Mind you, this is not a bad thing - I actually really like it. This seems like a better and more balanced version of Eriko, which was always so deadly serious about everything all the time, and had such a pinpoint focus on music/singing/performing as a central part of Eriko's life. This is much more lighthearted in comparison, but isn't silly or lacking ground by any means...I don't know, it's just been very comfy and enjoyable to watch, really. More shoujo than magical shoujo in my estimation, though. Can't tell if you're talking about the 1979 Anne of Green Gables anime or the 1990 Canadian live action show. One would presume the former given the thread you're mentioning it in, but I can't seem to find any indication that the show was ever actually called that...and you are HoonDing, after all - Emperor of Absurdistan.

Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady leading the MVP race last year say "wot", . One of those first round picks is pick #9 this year...in a year that is thought to have literally zero good QB prospects...and next year's will almost certainly be a pick in the 20s at the earliest. I'm a big believer of draft picks being very valuable, but if you don't have the guy at QB, you're pretty toast in this league, and I really don't think their "haul" should give them any kind of confidence that they can rebuild to being a playoff contender within the next three years. We'll see, I guess.

Maybe I'm crazy, but that seems like a really garbage deal for the Seahawks. You already weren't very good next year, and now you no longer have the guy - enjoy 7-10 purgatory where you will never have a chance at picking a top QB for the next few years. Rodgers went on Twitter and said those terms were made-up but confirmed re-signing; he did not elucidate us yet on what the actual terms were if those aren't it, . Tomorrow's headlines: Rodgers re-signs with the Packers for four years and $201 million, .

I got one on my first run through that cathedral and used it for all of NG1...only "solid" damage, but it had unusual length and a fantastic moveset; eventually switched to the Great Scythe when I needed more damage on NG+. ...Man, now I want to replay DS1. The only Souls game I've used a huge sword in is DS2, and it was the smallest huge sword I could find because I hate huge swords...but DS2 kept making me feel like I had to use one to have good enough damage. I won't do it again!

Manna was the star of the show for me, for sure - how can you not love such a mean-mugging masterclass like that? Even when she was trying to be polite, she was still mean-mugging...that takes dedication and skill that truly few have. Alright, do you look up their names every time you have to say them? I literally just finished watching this and...seriously, I just read your message where you listed them, and I still can't remember their names right now. Those are really difficult to remember names, and I don't usually have too much issue with Japanese names.

The meanest of mugs: "I've never seen [this child] take to a stranger so quickly before." Uh, right - there were literally about fifteen other mean mugs like these I could've also posted, . I appreciate a good mean mug, and this little girl is a professional mean mugger. Gainax sure knew how to make some impressive looking stuff before the 2000s - not that these screenshots really show it off in any way. It's less the aesthetic and more that they make complex shots from creative angles with impressive amounts of detail and motion. Well, why spend all that thought, time, and money when you could just...not?

From what I recall reading, it was about a six year "tussle" between Ukraine and Crimea for them to completely come to an agreement with each other on how things should work administratively between the two of them, with Crimea getting special status and treatment that no other areas of Ukraine got...but I did not see any mention of occupation or invasion or anything like that. That doesn't mean nothing happened or was threatened, but it wasn't mentioned. I don't disagree that it certainly makes some sense for Crimea to belong to Russia and not Ukraine, but I don't think it was really up to "the West" to just deliver Crimea unto Russia, or be okay with Russia just suddenly seizing it after it'd been a part of Ukraine for about twenty years (and mind you, the rest of Europe didn't even really react *that* much to Russia doing exactly that - this new situation with the rest of Ukraine is a whole other thing). It seems like a pretty shaky foundation to lay "it's the West's fault" upon...Numbers' appeal to empathy seems much stronger to me.

Visions of Pure Bladestone from Demon's Souls and Balder's Side Sword from Dark Souls 1... Very low random percentage drops are so annoying. Well, you've just convinced me that I'll only ever play this game offline, because if I want a random item drop, there is no way I'm going to farm it a hundred times when I could just Cheat Engine it in in seconds, so thanks.

@Gorth Do you have any half-decent article or author that supports your version of events? Wikipedia certainly doesn't seem to, but I'm certainly amenable to better sources - I know how politicized Wikipedia can get, and this is certainly a hot button issue right now. Wikipedia says Khrushchev inexplicably transferred the Crimean province from the Russian state to the Ukrainian state in 1954; given how tight all the Soviet states were bound together then, it did not really make much practical difference at at the time. Fast forward to 1991, the year that the Soviet Union collapsed: in January 1991, the Soviet Union held a referendum in just Crimea that asked whether Crimea should be made its own republic - they overwhelmingly answered yes, and in February of the same year, Crimea was consequently made into an "autonomous republic". What exactly that means is not clear to me, and Wikipedia doesn't seem to explain - at this point, is Crimea its own state separate from Ukraine and everyone else, are they simply given special administrative status but still within the Ukrainian state, or are they now in the Russian state? I would guess it is the first or second option, but it is not a hundred percent clear. September: the Crimean parliament votes to be a "sovereign constituent" of Ukraine; December: Ukraine would hold a referendum on independence from the Soviet Union - it had 84% turnout, with 92% approval. Notably, Crimea was included in this vote (which certainly suggests they're still a part of the Ukrainian state at this point), and had the lowest turnout as well as by far the lowest "yes" percentage...but still a a majority at 54% yes. The Soviet Union as a whole would officially dissolve later that month. That's the "official" Wikipedia story as best as I can tell. You said Soviet leadership transferred Crimea to Russia shortly before the Soviet Unions' dissolution; ignoring the issues of authority (imperium when a state is stable and at the apex of its power is, I think most people would agree, a very different subject compared to moments before its collapse), did this actually happen? Did Ukraine actually invade Crimea at some point following the dissolution of the Soviet Union? Crimea seemed to have declared itself a part of Ukraine, and Russia also seems to have agreed in 1997 that Crimea was part of Ukraine. Give me more concrete deets, please.

Agreed on every count here. The nuclear issue is also, it seems to me, what is causing other countries to align themselves with the "bigs" in the first place - if every country had nukes, there would probably be exactly one war between two developing nations who irrationally let their hatred of each other reach an apocalyptic level before the the rest of the world realized that there won't ever be anything but civil wars ever again. With no nukes, you have to become a "protectorate" of someone to some degree or risk being eventually caught in someone else's crosshair. It's a system that pretty much results in the entrenched powers that be staying exactly as they are to their own benefit. I'm by no means a fan of the idea, but this is the way it has always been - the players, the sides they take, and the weapons they use have all changed over time, but it's always been the same fundamental process, and I don't see any reason to believe it'll ever change, not even if we conquered the stars. I don't want it, not at all, especially given the greater issues the world at large faces*...but it seems to be human nature. And the point about Germany and France is an important one...and yet I can't help but think of the very issue you raised - it only happened because of a greater perceived threat. The pessimist in me tells me it's the same as it ever was...the same as it will ever be. *Seriously, before we even start talking about nukes, it seems all but certain that the climate crisis is ruining or going to put to ruin the majority of developing nations before it ever even meaningfully impacts most of the "developed" world, and the most anyone can do is make vague goals two to three decades off from current year. As if the developing world didn't have enough disadvantages compared to the developed world...a future problem for future leaders, huh? I think it's difficult for a lot of us, including myself, because we try to weigh a country's right to self-determination vs. perceived threats vs. national interests - or at least I do. So while I get it from Russia's perspective, I really feel it even more pressingly from everyone around them - if I were a citizen of one of those former Soviet bloc countries, who do not have nukes or a guaranteed nuclear ally...OF COURSE I would want to be in NATO - how could I not want that? Yeah, in the 2000s, it didn't look like Russia or anyone else in the neighborhood was going to be threatening anyone else anytime soon, but the future is a very uncertain place, and being in NATO gives you self-determination that you wouldn't otherwise be guaranteed, particularly when you sit right next to a former superpower that's now simply a weakened regional power. And now that Russia has actually attacked Ukraine, and specifically made threats to Finland and Sweden for even thinking of joining NATO and exercising self-determination...well, I'd feeling pretty justified in being a country like Lithuania for having already taken the opportunity when it presented itself, that's for sure. But you're not wrong about Russia's perspective: the U.S. wouldn't allow a similar situation to transpire - we literally did not in the case of Cuba, we were ready to effectively end the world over it. I don't know how to feel or what to do about it. It's an unresolvable quagmire for me, because my answer will completely depend on whose perspective I'm considering it from at that particular moment. Someone else besides me, probably someone much more unempathetic and jingoistic, will somehow have to work out these issues against similarly entrenched minds on the opposite side in some fashion - I would be much too weak for figuring these things out. Heh, we have a number of political issues that get the same kind of treatment from politicians here in the U.S., and people wonder the same exact two thoughts about them when they happen over and over - corruption...or inexplicable political infeasibility? The end result is the same.

Sure...but even in the 60s, don't think Cuba would've changed much, either - after all, how would Cuba having nuclear strike capability on the U.S. materially change the U.S. having nuclear strike capability on the Soviet Union from Turkey or Italy? They're totally separate locations with no bearing on the other...it was really just an equalling out of MAD. Nevertheless, the world nearly ended from this precise issue.

Helpful context for others here, particularly non-Americans, is remembering that Cuba exists, which the U.S. has been embargoing for the last 60 years or so, and whom we attempted to regime change multiple times as well as conducted what was essentially a campaign of terrorist attacks against it...among other unsavory activities*. U.S. leadership was willing to go to nuclear war in order to prevent Cuba from hosting Soviet missiles - only by secretly reducing their own stock of missiles in Europe did the Soviet Union relent and allow us to still be sitting here today. So you might be able to see why NATO expanding literally to the border of Russia might concern them, especially given that there are five U.S. nuclear bases already in Europe in other NATO countries - Russia may be a pretty pathetic rump state of the much grander Soviet Union, but they're still a strong regional nuclear power seeing all of their interests slip away to the Western bloc...a Western bloc that also largely acts like it owns the world and that everything it does makes it the "good guys" and everyone else the "bad guys". The difference I have with Numbers, though, is that I'm really not exactly sure...you know, like, what should have been done instead - how should these things have worked out that would've been better? He mentions expanding NATO as being the critical provoking issue, but if you do not have the concrete backing of a nuclear power, then IMO it is only a matter of time until you are in someone's target sights sooner or later...exactly as we are currently seeing with Ukraine, which did not have any iron-clad guarantees from anyone about anything, which is exactly why Russia felt pretty secure in invading it. Though things may have looked peaceful back in the 2000s, that is no reason to believe it will be true in the future - a lot can change in just ten years, and this alliance has held and guaranteed the sovereignty of many of its members for much longer than that, so it makes perfect sense that vulnerable countries would join NATO while they could...particularly given that there is no future where the U.S. looks to actually permanently "occupy" or annex any European countries, which is not necessarily the case when you have a directly neighboring regional power like Russia who already seems to kind of look at you like they own you. And if you're a regional power and literally just about all of your neighbors are flocking to different "foreign interests" instead of you, well...what're you doing wrong that your rivals aren't? Invading one of those neighbors certainly isn't going to encourage anyone else to cozy up to you when they could pick a less expansionist alternative instead, . However, while it may make sense for the countries that wish to join, Numbers' specific argument was against the U.S. allowing (and/or encouraging) them to join in the first place. That I am less sure about. Did NATO see Russia as its primary "threat" before 2014? Was Ukraine joining NATO even a realistic possibility? I guess it doesn't really matter to Russia - they were clearly slipping away after a suspicious change of regime and there was a distinct possibility that they could apply and get in suddenly before Russia could do anything about it, which was too strong of a risk to bear when they could put a pre-emptive end to it, consequences be damned. NATO's continued existence after the end(?) of the Cold War is a matter of discussion in of itself - personally, I have been pretty but not absolutely pro-NATO because I think it encourages peace and cooperation among its members, and if you are at peace with your neighbors, you are also likely to be at peace abroad by and large...and a powerful bloc of similarly aligned countries also has a sort of strong-arming effect on nearby non-aligned nations that might otherwise be more aggressive than they're being. It doesn't always work out like this, though, especially with consideration to the U.S., which, while it has generally been a good stabilizer in Europe (the issue of Kosovo notwithstanding, particularly given how completely screwed that entire situation was on all sides), has essentially been an ultra-aggressive wishy-washy/rogue military hyperpower with a legion of known and secret interests/goals throughout most of the rest of the world. Really, the idea that the U.S. somehow has cleaner hands than Russia is a joke - the only way you could ever possibly see it that way is if you have a completely Anglo/European-centric view where the rest of the world doesn't matter. Anyways, we tend to think of the future as somehow inherently being more peaceful than the present and certainly the past, but I don't think that's true at all...so something like NATO or the EU that tries to tie a bloc of directly neighboring nations together as natural allies with shared interests for the foreseeable future is always going to be a good idea to me - whether it's in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Americas, peace is good to me. *I really wish the U.S. had gotten over the whole "Communist" thing at some point in the 50s-60s and earnestly tried to have amiable relations with nations we didn't need to be fighting - specifically with Cuba and Vietnam. Unfortunately, I don't think it was until the 80s that we finally consciously realized that peaceful co-existences and even alliances with such countries were actually possible, by which time it was way too late.

DS3 is much more unforgiving than DS1 - DS3 pretty much assumes you've played the previous games in terms of building up skills and problem-solving. Enemies are faster, track you (in terms of rotation and and attack precision) way better, and their move-sets are way more complex with way harsher conditional combos. I would not want to start with DS3 - if I enjoyed the gameplay of DS2, I would almost say it's a wiser idea to start with that one...but that game is so senseless and/or annoying in its design to me, so I just can't. Unfortunately, IMO the ideal game to start with is DeS, which is a Playstation exclusive, but whose design of having five different "worlds" you can go to right off the bat (each of their own individual progression and different kinds of challenges - both of which are helpful in case you get stuck on any one world). Pretty annoying that two of the best Souls games aren't available on PC - albeit only legally in the case of Demon's Souls, and unfortunately at all in the case of Bloodborne.

Lmao - I got past those archers on my first try on my first playthrough and didn't think much of them...and then proceeded to die like 30 times in a row on my second playthrough. There are definitely cheap moments that you could not reasonably foresee every so often...but most of them are not nearly so bad as that.

To me, gameplay-wise, they're basically if you took the combat of a 3D Zelda game and made it a little more intricate and customizable on top of making it an actual challenge (which the 3D Zelda games are...decidedly not). I really don't think Souls games are as "unforgivably hard" as many people make them out to be - Dark Souls 1 in particular, which is the one I played first, I did not have much trouble with the majority of bosses on the first playthrough, with many being defeated on literally the first try. If you don't have much experience with 3D action RPGs, I could see it being too difficult to start off with. I love Demon's Souls, Dark Souls 1, and Bloodborne, but I don't care so much about the rest - especially Dark Souls 2, which I think is pretty much just a giant heap of garbage (though it is apparently many people's favorite Souls game...how, I could not possibly begin to guess).

I like it just because it doesn't waste my time. The "tutorial" was them writing a few messages for basic controls on the ground...that the player can choose to read or choose to ignore. 99% of dialogue is the player choosing to talk to NPCs. Trying to make sense of anything is up to the player and their ability (and desire to) interpret details. In a way, it's kind of a "have your cake and eat it too" style, because if you want to just play some damn video games, you can totally do that - if nothing else, Souls games are definitely the kind of game where you can just start up a new game and jump right into it without many annoyances or obstacles artificially getting in your way...but you can also engage with it to try to figure out the world to a degree. It's such a different kind of style from the more ham-fisted "PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU NOTICE EVERYTHING WE MADE AND WROTE" approach that is endemic to so much modern (triple A) gaming. It's not always appropriate for every type of game (and it's certainly not always what I want!), but I think it works for Souls. ...Now for the SonicMages of the world who say that it's all so totally deep and unique, that's a different discussion entirely that I won't engage with because of how patently absurd it is.

Yes, because they by and large do not bother with traditional or direct storytelling, and what little there is of the latter is so incredibly basic that you'd be forgiven for not having it even register as being part of "the story". Instead, you get lots of passive storytelling for all sorts of different elements of the game where you have to try to connect little details and sometimes make assumptions if you want to try to weave together micro-narratives - why an item is found in a certain location, what's the deal with this NPC, how did this area get destroyed in this particular manner, etc. It's an especially appropriate type of storytelling for stuff that doesn't really matter because it doesn't waste your time on unimportant nothings when you don't want it to...but FromSoftware applies it to a lot of stuff that would matter in other games, so I get why it isn't for everyone. I do think it serves heavily action-based games pretty well when they're trying to have more of a low-key and less in-your-face approach, especially with consideration to how terribly obnoxious more 'cinematic' action games in recent years have become (e.g. the Horizon games). The main 'plot' may still ultimately culminate in the bog-standard "you are the hero...because you were able to do what everyone else couldn't", but the style and framing of how you get there is very different.

I think we've had this discussion before, but yeah, FromSoftware is pretty good at passive storytelling and world-building - not plot or traditional storytelling, of which they largely make no attempt to really even do outside of Sekiro (...and even that pales in comparison to most other games in terms of directness and quantity). DeS, DS1, and BB all drew me in from a world perspective - the rest were somewhere between "eh" and "nothing". I have not tried Elden Ring yet, and I probably won't for some time to come...open world trash, .

Gosh dangit, majestic. I actually briefly considered not using that as my image for it because I also noticed the dress flying up, but I decided I didn't care because it's just a silly stylistic thing and was otherwise a pretty solid art piece for the show...well, besides the TERRIBLE "Blu-Ray Vol. 1" text, which is admittedly pretty shameful with how little effort was put into it - presumably, this was originally an older concept art that they ended up using for the BDs many years later. ...I also now notice that it looks like the frog is staring right at her... Wicked City (and Nanoha) was a mistake.

So...what's the recommendation for Bartimaeus, particularly given that I already liked Samurai Champloo? Also, agreed on length - 26 episodes is pretty much the perfect length for a serious story to be told while also giving it enough room to live and breathe. ...I had this part of the post sitting as a draft in here for a couple of days because I meant to reply at some point, if you're wondering about the delayed response here. And now, something entirely different, except for the fact that it is coincidentally also 26 episodes long: Bosco Adventure...something perhaps up @Amentep's alley, especially as it is from the 80s although it looks and feels more like the 70s. The evil "Hoodman" and his minions have captured the elfin princess, Princess Apricot, on her way to her home of Fountainland, a realm that contains the legendary Fountain of Life, so that they can steal and use the fountain (somehow?) themselves. The princess tries to make her escape from the flying ship that she is being held in, but the best she is able to do is send a message out for help...to anyone and anything nearby. I've only seen the first episode, so the exact workings of everything are not yet clear to me, but that's the gist of it. Now, this is where I expected it do the whole Princess Zelda thing where, like...you have a hero get the message and go on a long quest to come and rescue the princess and make everything right, but, uh, well, it didn't go quite how I expected for two reasons. One, the "heroes" that got the message are basically three Winnie the Pooh-styled animals (i.e. well-meaning but simple gentlefolk - a frog, an otter, and a turtle!); two: they hatched a harebrained but ultimately successful rescue plan that, combined with the princess' own initiative, actually lead to her escaping by the end of the first episode - they then swore to try to help her get to her back to her home. So instead of Princess Zelda, what I really got was Wizard of Oz, or so it would seem...and I can't complain - I honestly like this a lot more than Future Boy Conan for a few different reasons right off the bat. Genuinely didn't think this was gonna be up my alley at all (and only barely decided to try it it in the first place), especially seeing as I don't really care for either fantasy or classic adventure, but it was surprisingly nice and enjoyable. Although this is more classic fantasy than anime fantasy, and I do certainly appreciate that more than the sorry displays I always see when I come across anime fantasy shows, which usually make my eyes roll up into my skull. I immediately like the cast and style of dialogue more than I ever liked Conan's, so that's also a good sign. However, first episodes can be deceiving...for better or for worse. In other news, I have way too many shows I have identified as "have to watch further" after having seen an episode or more. This one will be shelved for now - Emi and Ririka are my focus for the time being.

Oh man, I am so totally going to hate this film if even its fans can't defend it. I am just not the type to overlook something like that.

I can only hope you missed something that made...something about that make sense, because I already have enough issues with male protagonists as it is before you start doing crap like that.

I sometimes wish "made for TV" edits of movies that removed pointless sex scenes and such were in circulation. I'd check that out for Wicked City, because I really do like the aesthetic. ...So, uh, Wings of Honneamise is bad? That's a Gainax title I have on the "check out" list...