Bartimaeus

I wouldn't necessarily count on Samurai Champloo to play entirely by historical rules.

"There's bound to be some secrets about that sunflower dude written somewhere in there..." I'm not a hundred percent sure she ever said the sunflower samurai was a dude? But I'm not sure, maybe she did in like the first episode. Anyways, episode 12 was a clip show, but it was a pretty good clip show, since it was told through Fuu's diary and gave her thoughts and reflections on the events that have happened so far, as well as her frustrations with her companions.

Speaking of the next episode...Samurai Champloo, episode 11. It's a Jin episode, but, like...the real Jin, not the not-Jin I was calling Jin before.

Sakura, episode 64. Looks like we got ourselves a skiing episode, folks.

I was looking for evil laughing gifs until I read this. Pfeh. I was promised a disaster, and instead I get this? Guess it'll just have to wait until the next season...

I closed my eyes so I wouldn't be biased by the video itself, since I famously despise all things music videos which can bias me against the song, and the first few seconds I was like "hmm, this doesn't SEEM familiar...". Then she started singing, and I was like "oh yeah, the chipmunk girl". It's not the worst ever by any means, but I certainly don't care for it. Maybe if I fall in love with the show... Did you listen to the intro on every Sakura episode like I have? Maybe you need some more brainwashing...it seems to have worked on me, . I maintain that I can barely understand and practice English - Japanese is wholly out of the question except as it pertains to precisely one person: me.

It's fine. The opening lines are O.K., the middle part of the song immediately after that sucks because it slows to a crawl and the way the lady sings it is weird and it all sounds just kind of uneven and bad, but then the song finally kicks off when the Sakuras merge, and that part's pretty decent. Plus, seeing Sakura in the broken mirror turn towards the camera is pretty cool animation-wise. Yes, the Sailor Stars song is better, but so is the Sakura animation, . In other words, I don't have to worry about you finishing it before me, .

I started reading Sailor V because I've been listening to Sailor Moon music over the last week or so and felt such a...nostalgic longing, I guess you could call it, that I needed *something* to ameliorate it. The breaking point, strangely, was a very silly song I had never heard before called Ai wa Energy (specifically some random choral piano version that's not even remotely in the style of the show!), the words of which I could not but did not need to understand, as it somehow made me a little emotional even without knowing. Don't ask me why that specifically, because I don't know - I don't usually like choral OR piano stuff. It's a special show that I watched all of for the first time just last year that I can feel that way about it. Sounds pretty good to me, but I do tend to enjoy non-movie movies - i.e. movies that just depict life in a simple and grounded manner. Yeah, that's fair, I actually wondered if you bringing that up was was for that. May or may not have helped me take notice...but it surely couldn't have hurt. I'd noticed a few such things somewhat myself, e.g. when I asked why it seems like Sakura almost always calls her brother by the brother term (onee-chan?) instead of his name, or when I asked why it seemed like only Meiling was the only one to ever call Xiaolang by actual his name while Sakura would always say something I couldn't decipher (which you helpfully explained was Li-kun), so who knows, I might've noticed on my own, especially given how she reacted, .

In animation and with sound, I'm a bigger fan of using expressions and tone to signal most of this stuff. In writing, it's admittedly a little more difficult, especially because writing "tone" can be pretty difficult to convey precisely and concisely. And I also think back to that moment between Sakura, Xiaolang, and Meiling when Xiaolang called Sakura just...Sakura instead of her last name, and though I picked up on it immediately even without the subtitles mentioning it, you can see how moments like that wouldn't have their significance noticed for many viewers. ...Actually, I wonder how that was handled in the English dub, now that I think about it. Regardless, I get very tired of seeing those honorifics in writing constantly - it's a weird repetition thing that peeves my pets. I obviously don't have as much of a problem with hearing them, given that I've heard Tomoyo say "Sakura-san" approximately two million times throughout Sakura. ...A tomboy, then? I don't remember Yukari being particularly tomboy-ish... Why wouldn't you just cut out one of the instances?

Hell yeah, sign me up! I'm assuming I have at least a fighting chance at being one of the five million since I took his vaccine very early on and he would presumably want sensible and agreeable people on his starship. Definitely don't want brainless, gun-toting "rebels", anyways. Yeah, but any kind of anti-science position really seems like a leaping point for any number of other insane positions. Today "global warming is a hoax" or "the Earth is flat", tomorrow it's "**** your vaccines" and "give me the horse paste". People are nuts. Hope everything works out.

Lmao, hell of a way to draw Artemis, Ms. Takeuchi. Episode 1 of 16 of Codename: Sailor V down. It was pretty fun! It generally reminded me a lot of the Sailor Moon show, which is good because what I'd read of the actual Sailor Moon manga kind of didn't! There are two translations - an unofficial one by "Miss Dream", and an official one by "Kodansha Comics". I vastly prefer the unofficial one. It all just reads kind of clunky compared to the fan translation, plus it does that thing where you're going to read words like "chan", "sempai", "sama", and "san" about a billion times because those words are going to be included the vast majority of time anytime a character's name is said out-loud, and I just ain't got the patience for it. Sakura, episode 63: @majestic Pretty good but very silly episode - yeah, they probably should've put it earlier into the season. It was a weird fusion of season 1 and season 3 stuff that at least wouldn't have felt as out of place if it at least came earlier. The end of the episode re: Rika drowning and stuff also wasn't the most convincing of action resolutions, . "Sakura still has some left. Oh, the brat has some left too...but though the kid is dumb, he has some good sense. So this one [Sakura's]!" Did Kero just call Sakura dumb? (e): I just did some post combination/reshuffling in order to not triple-post.

Hope everyone (also including ShadySands here) makes it through okay...and if you're vaccinated, then at least you can feel 99.9% confident that you will, . Guess there is a pretty serious worry for the immuno-compromised sister, though... All of my direct family is pro-vaccine; meanwhile, also literally all of my extended family is anti-vaccine. It's made for some...interesting conversations over the past year. No, Grandpa, I am not going to go to discover "the truth" on InfoWars or [insert other hack publication here]...and I wish I were joking about InfoWars specifically here, but no, I am not.

That's good, because the "Serious Mode" action/story bits you'd shown and talked about of the first two seasons reminded me a little too much of the worst over-dramatic "Serious Mode" bits of Sailor Moon, . For me, watching/playing new things is pretty exhausting, even if it's something that's great. If I start to re-watch episodes of e.g. Steven Universe, I can plow through a whole pile of episodes without really feeling it, but two episodes of Sakura or Champloo gets to me. There are times I have greater fortitude and am able to do more, but it's only every so often; that's why I will go through bouts of like watching a new film most every day for like an entire week or more, and then don't watch even a single one for the month after.

Rhetorical questions are a lot easier than...well, that show has gone on for way too long to be able to make any kind of real sense of what's happening no matter how detailed you get with your descriptions, .

I hate 17 games, and I hate 7 post-season teams. 16 and 6 was so much more mathematically pleasing, plus it used to be that two teams got a bye, now the #1 seed has an overwhelming advantage compared to all the other teams when #1 seeds were already representing their conference at too high of a rate...ergh. NFC is very top-heavy this season, although this week did some pretty serious damage to that with the Packers (lmao), Rams, Cowboys, and Saints (double lmao) all losing.

I do believe the Falcons are, shockingly, the seventh seed right now.

...then Harlock... ...then Crusher Joe... Here we see the three necessary stages of turning from ridiculous monster to upstanding young man, . ...Well, Crusher Joe isn't entirely upstanding himself, but he sure looks the part. Although Space Adventure Cobra wouldn't necessarily be my ideal representative for ye olde anime art, it just means you have good sense and taste, . The more pertinent question is how far are you planning to go, methinks, .

Packers got demolished even worse against the Buccaneers last regular season, and the Packers QB still won MVP. Good times.

I love the imagery of Nausicaa, and the themes are good. The plot and dialogue...are alright, I guess. Always felt like it was a film that had some...odd scene timing that makes a lot of scenes feel a bit unnatural, plus some general pacing and character issues/deficiencies that you don't really find in other classic Ghibli films. Strangely, I like it a lot more than Laputa, but I think Laputa is probably the better-constructed film.

Yeah, my QB decided not to show up today too, it happens. Something about horse paste being better than vaccines, I guess. (e): Er...wow, you weren't kidding, .

I gots too much other stuff to watch to spend my time on mediocre magical girl animes! ...I mean, unless it's a really good mediocre magical girl anime, that is! Tell me...the characters, how do you feel about them? Are you particularly fond of anyone, does a single character even compare to Sakura or Sailor Moon characters?

That was the idea, yes. And you're right, it's not just Guard Dog, either - I have seen and personally heard that old "they're the same" line what feels like literally a thousand times over the past ~5 years, a rallying cry for that "ah, **** it" attitude that is so dangerously prevalent in this country. I won't lie, I think Democrats are by and large incompetent at best or self-serving status quo maintainers at worst who either lack the ability or will to actually meaningfully accomplish anything half-decent for anyone, and that really sucks for the literal tens of millions of people in this country that are stuck in terrible dead-end situations without the time, energy, resources, and/or opportunity to realistically be able to make any positive changes, while the majority of our politicians just yuck it up. I don't want to support almost nothing changing, but that's the awful choice I find myself desperately clinging to in the face of the alternative that we have seen. And if you really think filling up every single government position with the most cartoonishly incompetent and awful people for each job is still perfectly well and good after the absolute circus that we were forced to endure where almost every institution, tradition, and value that we as people were supposed to hold dear was brutally violated over a period of four years capped off by our president provoking an illegal takeover of our capitol while simultaneously filling up both our courts and the Pentagon with hacks all in a increasingly pathetic attempt to cling to power...ay, karamba - I don't even know what to say to you. Did he need to have actually succeeded for people to have finally noticed that things are not just "same old politics"? No, I will not - cannot - see both sides as "being the same" until at least the worst of that rot is cut off, crushed, and finally burned for what it is. When and if that happens, I will be more content to let that old "they're the same" line slide. Rome wasn't built in a day...but it also didn't fall in a day, either - these things take their toll.

Unless something big directly changes or happens in our ever so small personal universes, nothing is really worth worrying about. Both sides are the same. There's nothing you can do about any of it, so why worry? Both sides are the same. Just kick back, relax, and enjoy the fireworks - it's not like any of this matters! Both sides are the same. Only worry about yourself and your own. Both sides are the same. Do and say anything no matter how reprehensible it may be as long as it's legal and they're paying you for it - it's not as though you have any personal responsibility for your actions. Both sides are the same. They are all corrupt anyways, why support or believe in anyone or anything at all? Both sides are the same. I'll fight, maim, and possibly kill anyone who infringes on me. Both sides are the same. The entire country was going to collapse sooner or later anyways. Both sides are the same. How in the world did things get so bad, where did we go so wrong? Both sides are the same. They are all the same! Both sides are the same. Well, what they did may have direct consequences for you, but it doesn't really matter to me, so... Both sides are the same. Both sides are the same. Both sides are the same.

Lmao, whoops, I SORT OF knew that. I say "sort of" because I did know Nadeshiko was Sakura's mom, but I had no idea what Tomoyo's mom's name was. As has been proved numerous times now, I am the bad with names...especially Japanese ones. Well, if someone's said Tomoyo's name without the "-chan" or some other honorific before now, it was probably a long while ago and I didn't notice. Silly Japanese. I mean, sure, but I'd also watch...you know, Sailor Moon, if it were good. I think it's the "if it were good" that's the problem here, .