Bartimaeus

If only I had read the manga before watching the show - the show would've looked utterly brilliant in every way in comparison. Or wait, if I had read all of the manga first, that would've required that I liked the manga and how it handled everything, and therefore I would've thought the show did everything wrong. Alternatively, if I had stuck with the manga while not liking it, then I probably would've never tried the show to begin with! What a catch-22, . But yes, some retroactive appreciation... It's tough to balance between character comedy and character drama*, isn't it? So often, shows go too hard one way without enough of the other...and that's assuming they do either well from the get-go. Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Steven Universe...these are the ones that did it right for me by and large. Steven Universe and Sailor Moon have their warts, of course, but they got the key balance that made them work and forgive whatever flaws they had. That's why they're special! (...To me.) Romance isn't the end of the world...um, if it's done right and not completely annoyingly or stupidly or fanservice-ingly... Yeah, I guess that's the problem, isn't it? Not just the attention, but also the time. They let that entire thing wax and wane and fester and heal over five entire seasons. That was some serious planning that not a lot of shows can afford to take a chance on...and well, what happened with Lars and Lapis is literally exactly why. Sigh. I mean, not that I ever loved Lars to begin with, but I had literally just finally truly fallen in love with Lapis with her appearance on the moon after having struggled a bit with her the entire show and then the entire thing just...cosmically farts out of existence. SIGH.

Sure. It just should've been at least somewhat better, . Yes, because Minako wasn't even Minako in the first 41 episodes. So you know, maybe K-On wasn't able to do it, but the opportunity is there, . Enduring horror and trauma together does seem to tend to give individual characters their own moments on top of building greater bonds between them themselves as well as the viewer. However, for both of those, at least for me, the greatest and most memorable of them were in the smaller and more grounded challenges they overcame, not the big bad terrors. The same way Pearl's tragedy is one of the biggest focal points in Steven Universe for me, and that story is actually pretty simple in concept and a bit besides the point in regards to the overall main story. You could take out that entire character arc from the show and while it would be much less rich for it, the show would still ultimately work. I think having a good mix of individual and common challenges and adversaries (and of all kinds, both simple and grounded but also crazy and fantastic when warranted) is probably the best mix for generalized story-telling. At least for me, .

Ghost in the Shell Producer Confirms How Much the 1995 Anime Film Cost to Make Just about three million USD flat in 1995, 5.4 million today. Interesting. Consensus seems to be that the only way it could've been possibly made so cheaply is through borderline slave wages and huge amounts of unpaid overtime (that, and the movie has relatively little motion for much of it which surely helped reduce production costs). Sounds about right.

And the Vikings somehow miss every game-winning kick ever. Good lord, that was a gimme.

You never watched Magic User's Club, so not that, Reservoir Chronicle does not and will not ever exist, and I'm pretty sure Love Live! was merely a fever dream. Why don't you try watching a real man's anime, such as... From the clips you've posted of it, watching that in particular makes *me* feel creepy, even knowing that I hate it. It's a gross and unclean feeling.

Not sure how I feel about Saints getting smacked 0-17 against the Packers Panthers at the half here after whooping the Packers last week. I'll just keep telling myself if it was week one until tomorrow I guess...

Guess I misinterpreted - I was more interpreting it (and the other one) to mean "watch this next" rather than "watch this one with someone else next", . If I ever do try K-On, nobody will know. Nobody... ...I'm really tempted to contradict myself and be like "okay, in unrelated news, episode 1 of K-On, here we go..." right in this exact spot, but sadly, your hopes and dreams have been foiled by my lack of not already having it, . ...I mean, it would take me literally about maybe 60-120 seconds to get it, but that's a lot of time and effort I can't afford right now, . It's a whole lot better than Love Live!'s. Song was...uh, well, it wasn't death, so there you go. Seems like something that's more easily appreciated when you know the characters and their singing, . The thought of this made me laugh. Whoops, can't be having that, that [2009] is still right there. Bad Bartimaeus, bad!

That's true, but the action is generally the weakest and least interesting part of the show anyways (not that it's usually BAD or anything, mind you), so I don't care *that* much. I'm at the point where I fully believe Sakura - everything is going to be okay, . Yeah, it's definitely next level stuff to be testing, . And I totally get "no idea what's going on". If you ain't met the characters in question yet, then it can be really difficult to have any kind of grasp over what's happening to them or what they're doing, even if someone spends many, many posts explaining exactly that... I've had a lot of "who the heck is that again" for characters you've mentioned many times but which don't stink in my brain because I haven't seen them, . Nadia and Princess Tutu are kind of separate from other shows like e.g. Sakura, Devil Lady, etc., because they aren't really watched in the same "time slot"/manner as a result of watching them with someone else, . So really, you should be asking me to stop watching Devil Lady instead...but man, I'm intrigued and am just trying to really figure out whether I actually like this show or not. I THINK I do, but I'm still not a hundred percent sure, . If nothing else, it's pretty short... lmao I'm sure I must come across the same way. Action really needs to be appropriately used for me to at least get (or even like) it, and some shows/movies totally do it right for me and others numb my brain. It's especially bad for me when it's in something long, something highly dramatic/serious, and yet I just don't care. If it's something stupid and silly like "80s" trash or such, it can be a totally different experience even if the action is dumb. It just depends.

You know, I was always under the impression that Steins;Gate was massively lengthy, but I just looked and there's the original 24 episodes season and then another 23 episode sequel (or was it prequel?) season as well as a movie. That's not that crazy. And then I looked at the "games", "books", and "music" section and then I go "ah, that's why I thought it was so humongous". Japan has a real problem with basically just making endless shovelware of every kind in every possible medium for flagship franchises.

Episode 3 of Devil Lady...still feeling vaguely Miyu-ish. Big spoiler post that explains the episode incoming mainly for majestic's benefit, . Devil Lady has weird...and bad intro music. The best way I can relate it is if you took the second version of the "we're gonna duel" music from Utena (the darker, heavier version of it) but made it generic and then stuck some random silly and ultra-generic j-pop song at the end of it for like 30 seconds. It doesn't make sense...or sound good at all. Still not sure what I think of this show. I think I rather like the character stuff, but I'm not as big into some of the action (although the part here with specifically Kazumi was admittedly pretty good if a bit much - don't really ever want to hear anybody scream quite like she did anytime soon again). Hey @majestic, maybe this would be a good test for "is there a show Bartimaeus thinks is [good or at least half-decently enjoyable] but doesn't appeal to majestic", . @HoonDing wat

No, see, it's okay because X (the movie) has a [1996] next to it, which means it's fine to try the show that came out a few years later too. Whereas K-On has a big scary [2009] instead, and boy, what can you really do about it? I have to be honest, it didn't really leave enough of an impression (except that yes, Kamui is...not ideal) for me to say that much about it. If I was going to really talk about it, I should've done so immediately after watching it. I was mostly just...disengaged from all of it, which is, well, very bad. My immediate thought was "hey, they stole that from Sailor Moon!" and then the next one was "that's okay". End train of thought, . To me, it feels more like the very early part of the first arc where that stuff *was* more extreme, before the cast got a little bigger (once again, RIP Meiling) and we had more story stuff to focus on that necessitated toning stuff down a little. I'm not bothered by it, but it does feel a little odd. The solution? Bring back Meiling, . Good idea @ CCS, . But maybe once the director changes in Lady Asuka, you'll get the Nadia effect instead... ...Speaking of Nadia, have made literally zero progress in it since I last talked about it. Been watching NGE instead, and I gotta tell ya, a lot more enjoyable than those Anno-less Nadia episodes. Will get back to it eventually, though...

I was just making sure that I didn't get him confused with any other undesirable, . I actually watched the first couple of episodes of X a week or two back, but I didn't have the heart to tell you it just wasn't for me and I don't think I could continue it. ...But since we're on the topic again, I guess I can now, Wings: Looked and seemed fine to me. Why, should I have made more note of them? They really took it to a new level in that episode. Poor Chiharu, . Somehow, in that sense, it almost feels like Sakura is a bit of a Usagi after all...even though Usagi was literally the exact opposite in this specific regard with HER MAMO. I'm not sure if that makes sense, .

Lmao, uh, yeah, it hasn't been like that so far. There's been a little murder, but not much. I'll, uh, keep you guys updated.

@Amentep I think that's the second time in a row you've ended this thread right after one of my mega-posts... How is @majestic supposed to see and respond to all of my Sakura nonsense in a sensible manner when it's all in the previous thread?! Having watched Devilman 1 (1987) and Devilman 2 (1990), I felt compelled to try out...not an episode of the original Deviman (because that's so old that I think it would be more of a...Speed Racer-esque meme watch PROBABLY), but instead an episode of Devil Lady (1998, 26 episodes). I got just about 10 minutes into an episode and I couldn't help but think "man, the atmosphere of this show almost seems...kind of a little familiar somehow - it's dark but not too dark and it feels kind of slow and restrained so far". Pause: who made this? Lead writer is one "Chiaki J. Konaka" who was apparently also the lead writer on Serial Experiments Lain, but not much else significant that I recognize. Okay, weird, whatever. So who's the director? Hirano Toshiki? Huh, for some reason, that name seems ever so slightly familiar. Let's see, he directed...Iczer One? Alright, nope, I'm out, Devil Lady is officially cancelled and DELETED. He also directed CLAMP's Magic Knight Rayearth, so I guess that's probably trash too - ah well. Hey, wait a second... UNDELETE, UNDELETE! Well, the episode ended up doing a bit of a turn tonally and atmospherically right after I unpaused because Fem!Asuka (no, really, there's a blond-haired lady named "Lan Asuka" that is spurring events of the show on) trapped our protagonist, Jun, in a warehouse with another demon that forced her to (unconsciously) transform after being almost killed and it became a bit more action-y. Well...I gotta try a second episode to see where this goes, right? The biggest shame so far with this show is that its music is not done by Kenji Kawai, who did the music for not just Miyu but also Devilman 1 and 2 (these were all some of his earliest works!), and I think the show suffers for it (really, I'm imagining this show with Miyu's music and I can't help but think what an improvement it would be).

I assume that's code for X's protagonist? You're the one that watched it and made the rest of us indirectly experience it with you. For your grave sins, you must face the music, . You know, now that you mention it, being the commander of the guard tasked with protecting Marie Antoinette at age 14 doesn't seem quite right to me... K-On: Sounds like a job well done by the show, methinks, . Sakura stuff:

In terms of at least character design/stylization, it's like halfway through that very late 90s, early 2000s mass re-stylization that was happening around that time that I generally think makes everything from around that period look like garbage, but it's like...just before the critical point where it would actually bother me, which makes sense because it's 1998 instead of...you know, 2002 or something. Probably helps a lot that it's in some pretty quality HD. Anyways, through one episode so far, and I'm pretty sure I can jive with it. Another one of those cases where I'm glad the show doesn't look quite like the posters, because I think the posters look stylistically much worse than the actual show does (a la Sakura). Not, uh, not the kind of poster I'd ideally want to provide the first look at a show, personally, . No kidding. Keep it simple, stupids. That must be why she pains me so right off the bat, . It'll never be as obnoxious and hateable as a more modern shonen show, of course, just because the entire style of the show may as well occur in a completely different medium compared to something modern, but still. To me, it basically felt like the equivalent of...Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0, where it's super fast-paced and lacks the stuff that made the original show enjoyable in any way, it's SORT OF re-telling the same story but also adding some new things that mostly don't work and are just kind of annoying, and really, it just felt like an insult to my intelligence after having suffered through the original show. I would have preferred to not have seen it and that is about as bad of a way to cap off a series as you can get, .

I remember there being an episode(s) where she loses her empath powers for a bit and her just coming across as being the most painfully unlikable and un-self-aware person possible. I think that was when I consciously realized that she never seemed to serve any purpose or made good use of her abilities anyhow while constantly coming across as a totally clueless yet patronizing counselor, and so I don't think my opinion of her ever really recovered from that point on. Probably the main character I least like in TNG, .

Serial Experiments Lain (1998). This mixed look of mild confusion, skepticism, discomfort, and maybe exhaustion was basically me the whole time... ...because I'm not sure I get it and I don't really understand what's going on yet. However... ...I'm trusting what this other lady said, because the show does seem...interesting? I'm not a hundred percent sure. It's only 13 episodes long. First episode was very slow and understated but also surreal and off-putting (intentionally). The art and animation is neat...and weird. A show trying to have scenes like the ones in this show (blending "normal reality" and surrealism) would look cheap and awful in anything but animation. Meanwhile, I'm the opposite - without the movie, the show would be sitting at more like a 6, but the movie was like...a 4/10 at best and dragged the overall rating down to a 5.5 for me, . Alright, Rose of Versailles time. Man, this dad is already making me think a little too much of Eriko's uncle... Low-key a little terrifying. Yeah, this intro with its visuals and the mention roses and stuff is giving me some flashbacks to Utena. "All were blissfully unaware that in 20 years, the French Revolution would take place." Whoa, spoiler alert, narrator lady! Man, one thing I really wish anime would never, ever do again is half-draw lips. Full lips? Fine by me. Just a line? Also cool. This half-there crap? Always looks just terrible to me. If you think any character's face (male, female, animal, monster, it does not matter) looks better like this... ...vs just a simple and solid line (and there are more options than this but this is as simple and quick as you can get)... ...then you're completely out of your danged mind as far as I'm concerned, . Okay, back to Lady Asuka. Oh, her father just threw her down a flight of stairs for expressing her own opinion - Eriko's uncle clone confirmed. Except that unlike Eriko, the framing of this show so far doesn't seem to suggest her father is really supposed to be a villain...but maybe that's because her father won't be around long enough for it to matter? And we're already having dumb pride fights in the first episode between Lady Asuka and the other guy. Fighting for pride has to be one of my least favorite conventions in any character - can't help but instantly read the character in question as a dimwit. Slappo. Uh, wait, why is Lady Asuka being charged with treason? Are duels really treason-worthy, especially if they don't even end up with anyone getting killed or even crippled? Whatever. "If you say not to wear it, rebellious Asuka will surely do the opposite?!" Yeah, I don't know, I probably woulda thought you were dumb enough to fall for that...LMAO, he absolutely decked her right in the face...AND AGAIN! ...And again. I guess that's what she needed to work out her problems. Uh, yeah, I don't know, this isn't terrible by any means, but it's probably not for me, .

Helps when your characters have earned their keep over time. You know, as opposed to immediately drilling into my forehead and attempting to perform a lobotomy on me in the very first episode, . Hey, speaking of both lobotomies and characters earning their keep, where the hell is Meiling? Yeah, I really don't know. Maybe there was some early video game I played with a jump scare piano or something, . One of the earliest games I played was Ocarina of Time and the thing that scared me the most in that game were the...not the wallmasters, but simply the shadow appearing and sound that played as the wallmasters were spawning to fall down from the ceiling. Gave me intense anxiety as a kid - once they were down, no big deal, but the lead-up to it was killer. How long did it take you to make that graph? Anyways, that bleed-through area totally exists, even if we haven't yet found an example of it - that's more a function of me not trying out enough things you didn't care for or things in general than anything else. Heck, you could probably just about put Utena under there already, right? @Sarex It would probably help if there was even a small possibility of me liking the characters...alas, .

Cardcaptor Sakura stuff: Can't tell if joking... Does the show's tone and style change greatly from the original's?

Keep in mind that there's a sequel series that's just as long as the original, and it's literally called "Clannad: After Story"...not to mention a movie! Don't do it! You have so much to live for! How much do you think I'd like Lady Asuka (the show, not the character)? City Hunter (1987). I don't really know why I'm trying this, this doesn't really seem to be for me either, but at least it looks nice, especially in HD. Gotta keep trying stuff to figure out what you do and don't like even when it's outside of your interests, after all - there's a reason I just gave Clannad the smallest of chances, after all. There was a very sweet lady that was just introduced like two minutes into the first episode that was waiting for her friend to arrive while out on the street, and a guy rolled up in his car asking for directions and she immediately responded and graciously started giving him detailed directions...and he shot her in the middle of it before driving off. Her friend arrives and she collapses right then...and that's all she wrote: dead. Absolutely brutal, especially for someone I immediately had a positive impression of. Feels bad, man.

Don't know if anyone else caught it, but as a huge hater of MNF and ESPN in general...Peyton Manning and Eli Manning doing the Raiders-Ravens game was actually a lot of fun and a totally different atmosphere from standard commentary. Seeing them getting frustrated with some of the boneheaded decision-making towards the end of the game was especially entertaining. Aaron Rodgers appearing on the Pat McAfee show tomorrow should be entertaining.

Doesn't constantly telling all your voters that the elections are fraudulent just make them that less likely to bother voting in the first place? Didn't that literally play into why we currently have two Democratic senators from Georgia right now?

Okay, but only for the sake of once and for all fully cementing that there is zero point in me trying to ever adhere by what is "popular" or "important" to the general anime-watching crowd because we will never value the same things, . Unlike K-On, I am 99.9% certain that I will despise this on almost every possible level*, but who knows, maybe we'll get a case like Kill la Kill where I don't but instead it's just not for me - even that would surprise me, though. (e): Here we go, episode 1 of Clannad: