Bartimaeus

Yeah, not really sure how I feel about one little girl *watermelon squash sound*-ing another little girl's head. ...Actually, you know, now that I really think about it, probably not a great fit for a magical girl anime. It's probably a better idea to let me get back to it and watch a few more episodes before trying it out anyways...just to make sure it's not secretly terrible past the first episode.

Dennou Coil AKA Cyber Coil AKA A Circle of Children. In attempting to eliminate another show that I thought would obviously be bad, it seems like I found another good one, although I certainly wouldn't have guessed it from the premise. Stupid Madhouse, making me watch all these shows by having them be good. Wikipedia premise: Like I said, doesn't exactly seem like something I'd be interested in from the premise...not really into augmented or alternative reality stuff. But the first episode was about trying to save the main character's and her sister's dog from being eaten by some kind of glitchy void space that's made a habit of eating up all their city's pets, and I don't know, it just worked really well. Slight Paranoia Agent vibes, although I'd actually probably put this first episode ahead of anything in Paranoia Agent - I liked the characters in this way more right off the bat, and this seems like it's not going to be as thematically burdensome like Paranoia Agent was. I'm not going to watch anymore for the time being, but it's being added to the list of stuff I definitely want to watch later along with Serial Experiments Lain. Also have to get to Cowboy Bebop, Angel Layer, Princess Tutu...and some others. At least I've managed to clear out some of the crud. Slightly over halfway through Future Boy Conan. It's more or less exactly what I expected it to be, and that's O.K., but it continues to not be particularly interesting or engaging to me. Guess that happens when you have late 70s-style characters that are pretty basic and uninteresting. That uh...looks like a scene. Thank goodness that show is only 12 episodes long, .

Yeah, I saw this in my list of watched movies as well, but it didn't feel quite right to call it a movie in the first place, and never mind even remotely consider it for possible best films of 2021.

I watched only three movies released in 2021, and they are Censor, Pig, and the Summer of Soul. Guess I have to give it to Nicholas Cage's Pig, which was a genuinely fairly good anti-revenge film.

I was trying to figure out how the heck I even came across this in the first place...until I remembered that I deliberately went out of my way to bookmark literally anything Madhouse that was made like pre-2005 that looked even the tiniest bit interesting to me (and this is also how I watched that other one, A-Girl...along with a number of others on the list (e): oh yeah, Ran as well!). Unfortunately, so much of their work was not very well preserved...I'm incredibly thankful that Sakura was. Yes, it would be an impossible situation for you. As far as I can see, there's no subtitles of any kind available...English, Japanese, or otherwise. I'm very not happy about it.

Azuki-chan (1995). So...what's worse than discontentedly not being able to find anything great? Finding something that seems great in terrible quality that only the short 30-minute movie of was ever fan-translated. This was pretty bizarre - it was as if I were watching a bit of an alternative universe Cardcaptor Sakura. The aesthetic is way different (and not as pretty...although the more I watched it, the more I liked it because it was used quite effectively...Madhouse animation, these guys were very good at what they did back in the day), but otherwise everything about the show feels like it came from season 1 of Sakura minus the magical girl part of the show (which I think is fine to not have, really) - character stylization, voice direction, tone, dialogue and writing...it was surprisingly kind of great, even for such a short little piece of it. Now I'm the big mad because I really want to check out the rest of it (117 episode show!). I feel like I've been scammed. P.S. Don't watch Mason Ikkoku, it stinks just as you might expect - the two episodes I gutted out were much more insulting in most every way than the two episodes of Kimagure Orange Road. I'm hopeful that I'll eventually find at least one or two 80s anime shows that I actually genuinely like...love the animation of that era, but the actual shows seem to have an alarming tendency to be...not very good.

The placement thing makes sense...but I watched the episodes spaced out much more than you did, so maybe that's why it's something I didn't notice. Maybe some sort of promotional thing, then. I wouldn't go that far... I had a hell of a time trying to quote your post in my previous post, particularly trying to get your quotes inside the spoilers. I was getting the big mad trying to make it work. bbcode mode died such a tragically ignominious and needless death.

Is the title inclusive of combinations? For example, if you were, say, an utterly heretical Christian agnostic that also happens to simultaneously be a fatalistic heathen at the same time? Asking for a friend... Merry Christmas and happy other such holidays, people.

Sometimes spoilers are just a nice way of keeping different trains of information separate from one another. But just for that, I'm going to write a script real quick that will recursively spoiler the rest of my reply and let it run for an hour. Oh, really? I almost actually included it the first time around when I was making the list, but then I sat and pondered it for a minute and was like "well...when I really think about it, nothing too special happened in it I suppose, it was just...a really nice, cute, and comfy episode with our four main characters doing something utterly mundane". For some reason, though, that's exactly what I love... If I had a criticism to make, the trapped room/Lock wasn't really the most interesting implementation of a card, .

Blue Sonnet (1989). Five episode OVA about a girl with psychokinetic powers that are just awakening as the show starts while a C.I.A. hypno-programmed robot assassin (codename Blue Sonnet) has been assigned the task of eliminating her - the show was labelled as an "action shoujo", alright? But this was clearly an error, because I watched the entire first episode, and it was obvious that it should've simply been labelled as "trash" instead. Sometimes I think I'm ludicrously biased in favor of older stuff, but then I watch something like this where it's immediately and obviously just plain old bad, and I realize I'm only ridiculously biased instead of ludicrously, and that makes all the difference in the world. Right, K-On episode 4. What the hell, a beach episode already?

With the Buccaneers losing tonight, it is now quite a different story. Cowboys would be the number one seed if all of the Cardinals, Packers, Cowboys, and Buccaneers finished with the same amount of win-losses (due to the Cowboys' superior conference record), so it's not nearly as unlikely as it might appear. However, that's assuming that the Cowboys don't lose to the Cardinals...or anyone else. I think I like the Packers' chance of securing the #1 seed best, though, particularly since we're now effectively two games ahead of the Buccaneers and Cardinals. Famous last words, though. MVP race: I think it's between Rodgers and Brady at this point, and I have no idea what MVP voters are going to value more - efficiency king with very good but not great volume stats (Rodgers), or volume king with merely good efficiency (Brady). If the Packers cruise to the #1 seed while Rodgers continues to throw 3 TDs a game, maybe he wins, I don't know.

IIRC, two of your losses are to the AFC, so if the Packers and Buccaneers dropped one more game while you guys ran the table, you'd be the #1 seed, AFAIK. But I would guess that the Buccaneers finish with 3 losses.

Adaptations are usually wildly different from the source material anyways, never mind changing mediums. ...Though I do agree that if you disliked the series, I probably wouldn't go out of my way to check out an adaptation for it.

The fact that they were seriously pursuing this idea to the point of announcing has me pretty much convinced development of this game is all but doomed even with that specific point being reversed. Into the trash it goes.

It's a subtle change from season 2 to season 1, but you're right, it's terrible. It's amazing how just a small shift in direction can be the difference between "I guess this is tolerable" and "I guess this isn't tolerable", . Episode 2: "Do you have your heart set on this one?" Mugi, she literally just saw it for the first time two seconds ago. Don't let her pouting convince you... Okay, good, they decided to get temp jobs instead of just having Mugi money-roll everything like I thought was going to happen. That would've been dumb. Who/what the heck is Nadoka? It seems like she's supposed to be Yui's best friend, but she just keeps feeling patronizing and horribly out of place every time she appears to say something. Episode 3: Does the Japanese voice actress for Yui...not know how to laugh? And Ritsu is basically Kero - sounds like him, acts a lot like him...and I even thought this before she wandered off to play video games, Well, that was definitely the best-ish episode so far. The first two episodes had me all "this isn't working", but the third episode was more "this is okay-ish I guess maybe". Progress!

I...wait, what? The actual episode 1 of K-On!: Well, uh wow, that was a real brain-peeler. At least the intro video + song is a lot better than K-On 2's. "It's a club that plays lighthearted music." You know, that makes more sense - for some reason, I was interpreting it as the energy type of light. And I guess Mugi doesn't like fries. What a monster. Dear lord, Usagi Yui is a truly advanced level of brainless in this. Hopefully, uh, the second episode isn't...the apocalypse.

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I may not have listened to the English long enough - it straight up just sounded like Usagi to me. The other characters I was definitely less keen on (even Viz!Rei as...character I don't know the name of yet, ), but hearing Usagi was nice. Honorifics, on the other hand...as I said before, reading them is bad enough - hearing them combined with English is an immediate termination, even if I really wanted to hear more Usagi. That seems like a good assumption - I'd already noticed a few moments that seemed really off-kilter for no real reason, like they'd just been randomly inserted and didn't fit. Panel for panel comic/manga -> cartoon/anime adaptations are not really...uh, workable for me. You say to the guy that literally stopped watching Steven Universe after the first four episodes because they were inexplicably all about food... I'm more of a cribbage guy, but I'd certainly try those out, .

K-On, episode 1. The jam session to introduce the show was pretty nice. My dub was set to English and hearing Usagi as the main character was a bit of a jolt, but I then remembered that majestic actually mentioned this being the case at some point. I'm not sure which I prefer in this first scene so far - I'm leaning English for the moment, but I'll keep switching. Oh...oh no, they just said "-senpai" in the English, guess I have to do the Japanese, because that is just nasty and unacceptable. Oh gosh, this intro song is...uh, an experience. The song is bad enough, but the video is about seizure-worthy. The 3D animation that's in this already looks real bad. Also, is it just me, or do all the characters have tiny little babby hands? Funnily, even though I'm listening to the Japanese, I can still mentally hear Viz!Usagi doing Yui(?)'s lines through the subtitles here anytime she talks. It's...actually kind of weird. I...uh, don't know about this, this seems kinda...er, bad-ish, but you did say the first episode is pretty rough, so I'll try to bear with it. Plus, even though it is rough, it's not...making me want to peel my brain yet exactly, at least. Well, it kind of is, but not so many layers that I would forget who I am, ya know? ...I'm going to have to start calling bad shows "brain-peelers" from now on.

That's pretty fair, especially given that you've maintained there's a strong possibility I'll dislike it this entire time. ...Plus, it's way easier for me to accept this deal knowing I'll only watch probably like 2 episodes at worst if I hate it right off the bat versus you having to watch all thirteen episodes of Ran, . Just have to balance the odds right, like an actual sportsbook. Give me those 1:100* odds that it'll implode at some point! *Bet $100, get $101 back if you're right, . I remember this one... Almost nothing is new...but sometimes things can feel new if it's the first thing of that type that you've played/watched and if it specifically appeals to you (or forcefully makes itself appeal to you, if you watched/played it during a formative period of your life). There's not likely to be a Souls-type ARPG that'll ever compare to the first time I played Dark Souls; there's not likely to be a MOTHER-esque JRPG that'll ever compare to the first time I played Undertale; I'm not likely to find many more shoujo animes that deeply and personally appeal to me on most every level like Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura do (particularly because the industry is literally not making anything that could even possibly hope to compare in even a few critical areas, never mind all of them...and there's only so many candidates to check out that came out during the correct era). So on and so forth, . Time passes and industries and their trends, conventions, and even goals all change while we mostly stay the same...and heck, while we mostly stay the same, it's not as though we would want to be inundated with the same exact thing over and over anyways. Inevitably, we're all left behind for some reason or another at some point and it's up to each of us to find new/different types of things to enjoy. Birth (1984). Wikipedia summary: I'd listened to the soundtrack before I watched the film, and liked the soundtrack enough to give it a try. Nope, it's sort of basically kind of a bad and dumber Nausicaa with way too much action. I tried like ten other things today, and this was the highlight of them because I actually made it like 30 minutes into it (the longest out of anything because most other things were immediately and obviously bad - to be fair, this was also the one I most wanted to be decent out of what I tried) before finally admitting defeat. Don't watch anything I tried today, folks. What did I try today? I don't remember and it doesn't matter.

If you hate it, it's not my fault. I don't know why it wouldn't be my fault, but it won't be. What are my betting odds for this? I'd like to place money on it. Absolutely! Weird, since those parts were specifically and masterfully crafted for you to laugh at. How strange! You weren't sure before now?

Learning to cheat [editor's note: not applicable to personal relationships] is an important skill for life in general...but especially for getting past these TERRIBLE SHOWS more quickly! Carried by the Wind: Samurai Ran, episode 11...the episode in which Ran, a samurai, basically says and proves that all the trappings of samurai and their pride and honor are all stupid. Episode 12, the episode in which Myao accidentally becomes a wanted criminal as a result of trying to help out some people who were getting murdered for their dishware...and also learns to use her "womanly wiles" to get out of deadly situations in which she can't solve with her claws...er, fists. Final episode 13...the episode which is the final episode of a too short show, . I don't know what Ran is eating on the right there, but it sure looks like unappetizing mucky filth. Myao calls it "lees" and basically says it's about as close to garbage as you can buy, but a quick Google search didn't turn up anything relevant. Wait, no, apparently I just needed to add "Japanese" to my search. Of course it's a byproduct of sake, why wouldn't it be? Surprisingly enjoyable and good show - these two dolts were great. Now that I've watched the silly and fun samurai show, I can finally get back to the dark and depressing but also still fun samurai show, Samurai Hairdo.

This doesn't seem like good writing, . Watching at too fast of a speed really helps smooth over some of the rough spots of a show, I find...there's so much less time to notice how bad something is because your brain is simply trying to keep up with what's happening and being said. Issues of terrible writing, pacing, scene construction, line timing, annoying characters, pointless garbage, etc., are much more difficult to take offense to when there's no time to contemplate any of it.

It's unfortunate that Nanoha became the anime equivalent of shovelware after StrikerS, but I guess that's the way it goes. Stick around long enough and get so far away from what made the show decent in the first place and/or straight up become clearly not meant to be seen by humans... One season shows/franchises are clearly the superior format, . I'm proud of you. (e): A-Girl / Alternative Girl (1993). 30 minute silent film-esque short about a girl getting verbally and physically abused by her current terrible boyfriend, having her home semi-burned down and meeting a different and much nicer boy as a happenstance result of said fire, figuring out that she has value and isn't dumb like she previously thought, starting to fall in love with said boy...and then figuring out that he already has another girlfriend and is a bit of a faithless womanizer. It's a little bit of a dissonant ending though, because he ends up choosing her instead, which in of itself feels like an odd way to end it after establishing that he's pretty unloyal...but what's more, it ends with the protagonist's sister asking if he actually broke up with his other girlfriend, and what if he cheats on YOU in the future? And yet, the happy music plays on...I'm not sure what to take away from that. I was dissatisfied with how it was ending, but throwing that in right in literally the final scene was an interesting choice to kind of counter that and surprise me. Unusual format, music with sound effects throughout the entire thing but almost no voiced dialogue - just title cards when necessary, like old silent films. Good at conveying feelings via visuals and music without feeling slow or overbearing. I guess I liked it alright, all in all.

I think we all ought to be thankful, no matter how bad getting to it was, . Let me do a quick prognostication on whether or not StrikerV will make majestic gouge at least one eye out. Unfortunately, I am unable to prognosticate, due to the fact that no-one bothered to tag this show, upload screenshots, or probably even watch it at all to begin with. You will have to find out for yourself whether it will make you gouge your eyes out. I did find these two comments from posters on it: USER 1: "I can't recommend this. There is just nothing good about it." USER 2: "It's better than Nanoha ViVid, at least..." I found these comments in the exact place where I expected to find people only saying positive things about it. I then checked ViVid to compare: nobody said a single thing at all, .