majestic

By the way, I'll just shamelessly post the promotional poster hosted on TV Tropes for the third season to make a point about how much this anime looks like a JRPG: Hayate (top center, white hat, largest character on the poster) in particular is a poster boy girl white mage. Robes, white hat, giant staff with a cross on it... ticks off tropes like there's no tomorrow in general. Giant hammer, giant sword, spears, a summoned mini-dragon.

inb4 @Keyrock : Steamworld Dig 2 is absolutely fantastic.

I suppose it's liable to not do that, what with the setting. I also imagine real samurai weren't always smelling like sunflowers. It's really heartwarming to see StrikerS continuing A's excessive use of weird German. One of the characters working for the villain of this season just summoned an "Insektzug" which the subtitles helpfully translated as insect platoon. Technically it is not exactly wrong to just combine insect and plattoon, but since a platoon is more than one insect it should be Insektenzug and even that is... odd, to say the least. Zug is a common military term that's barely ever used outside of the military to talk about a group of soldiers and the word Zug has a whole lot of meanings depending on the context, just as long as something moves or pulls (to pull / ziehen, Zug is essentially the substantive of ziehen, literally also the pull) something it can probably be a Zug - e.g. trains, a chess move would be a Schachzug (Schach = Chess), a draft is a Luftzug, the rifling in a, uhm, rifle, is also a Zug, and so on. Migratory birds are Zugvögel. Moving from one place to the other is an Umzug. Weird use of words is weird, I mean, and that's not even touching the other potential uses for Zug - a mountain range is a Gebirgszug for instance, and a character trait is a Charakterzug. Picking Kompanie (company) isn't the same because a Kompanie is at least two Züge, however... really, like, easier to understand the intention behind it. Insektzug sounds like a bad way to say Ameisenstraße (ant trail), really. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS episode 7 So far it looks like there'll be actual character development. I thought the extra runtime would be dedicated to stupid action and fanservice, but that's only part of it. I thought the first two seasons were okay to likeable, by far and large (except when the first one wasn't). This is currenlty on its way to being actually good. I just hope they don't mess it up.

I don't think wimmin were allowed to be samurai.

Naoko loves telling scary stories because Sakura flips out immediately.

Hoe? Not a whole lot of epsiodes left there, plus the film.

It really looked like transformation sequence censorship until Erio's buffed up attack started to hang the same way. There's definitely something wrong with the files, VLC plays them, but other media players (including MPC-HC) don't bother doing even that much. So far they've been using the extra time of the episodes for a whole lot of conversations. Sure there's some action, and sometimes it's the focus of an episode, but at least for now everything seems well balanced. Even had a shower scene that didn't just exist for fanservice (and arguably those five seconds of Subaru in the shower barely count for anything). A's and StrikerS have a different director from the first season. First season was directed by the same guy who went on to direct Madoka. Uhm... ahem. *cough* Sometimes it pays off to stick with something, I guess (if that sounds like trying to convince myself that it's okay to not be able to drop something, then that's because it is ). Can't say I didn't regret watching the series after the first five episodes (and afterwards I sort of felt filthy for liking it), but so far StrikerS makes up for a whole lot, and with the focus being the newbies and less the established characters, it probably could even serve as a standalone season. A little too early to really tell after 6 of 26 episodes of course. I mean, they could still visit a hot spring back in Japan, but so far they're not even on Earth any more.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Episode 5: Finally has the new and full transformation sequences, and my copy appears to be damaged, because every time one comes up, without fail, the video feed craps out and hangs, curiously enough until the transformation is finished. That's too consistent to be a coincidence. Sigh. Seriously, what's wrong there, now that they're all old enough for this to not be weird I'd like to properly watch my anime tiddies PLEASE! Looks like a botched censorship attempt (while the frame freezes the background remains in motion). No, not a botched censorship attempt, that really is a censored version. It just pseudo-freeze-frames over the nudity parts, except in the opening credits where it's apprently okay because they're color coded like in Sailor Moon. Or who knows, really. It's too selective to be frame damages and it can't be a problem with the calculations either because much faster frames with a lot more changes play smoothely. It's the first real mission for the team. The action reminds me a bit of 80ies sci-fi anime, which isn't too bad. It's not CGI madness, doesn't do super stupidy shaky cam imitations and I continue to be surprised by the amount of detail that went into the dialogue at times. Nanoha and Fate fly off to intercept incoming enemy drones and call back to HQ to have them close the airspace before launching. That's totally not necessary, but it sure adds to the immersion. Subaru is impressed with the performance of her new and improved techno-magic roller blades (that idea is so silly it deserves recognition just for that), and they respond that they were built to make her stronger and faster. Subaru is all nice and says they're a team and work together. So far the first couple of episodes are better than the previous two seasons. Still cautiously optimistic. edit: Nah, that really was a conincidence. The file seems to be corrupt somehow. The episode ends with Caro and Erio defeating a big enemy drone with a defense field with a maneuver they've trained before with Nanoha, and a first glance at the villain. A scientist with half his face in the dark, I wonder where they got that idea from. No mad laugh though. edit 2: The newbie team has a very distinct RPG setup. Subaru is the tank, Tia ranged DPS, Erio melee DPS and Caro is a summoner with some buffs. I wonder when they get a level up.

Oh, I also watched another episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. The Space Cops have apparently taken a page out of the Terran Confederation's playbook and install ability limiters in their mages (and their techno-magical devices) that can be removed in cases of emergency. Nanoha explains that to the newbies as necessary to prevent rivalries between mages and to establish a clear hierarchy, but let's be real, that's just management speak for being able to stay in control in case a powerful unit goes rogue or attempts a coup. Yeah, that's totally not going to become a major plot point later. edit: I'm sort of appreciating the thought that went into expanding the show's universe there, and it makes sense from the command's point of view, they agreed to give the three strongest (presumably) mages in the entire Space Cop force their own spec ops team to do as they see fit, so some manner of a fallback option isn't a bad idea, even if Nanoha is like the nicest girl ever, both Hayate and Fate are former antagonists. Alas, when they told the newbies that once they've gotten some combat experience they'll unlock the next power setting on their devices, one of the characters couldn't help themselves and told them they should think of this a levelling up togetherm killing immersion a bit.

I really don't like it. The first and the third opening I actually always listened to. Those were nice. I'd still say that's a bit of a bigger if than you seem to think. But we'll see eventually. I don't think it'll be going anywhere in my case. I mean picking up bits and pieces through listening is one thing, actually learning the language would be quite another, never mind reading or writing. I've toyed with the idea of picking up a third language, but that's a whole lot of effort for comparatively little gain, and pretty much none for Japanese. I'd be better off learning a Slavic language, that would at least have some practical use. Not counting getting weeb street cred as worthwhile reason. There isn't even a Japanese restaurant anywhere near me. Forgot to reply to that part. I don't think there's an English subbed version of Indien, otherwise I'd be curious what you'd think about it. Nope. Not going to do that, sorry Sakura opening #3.

The opening itself is nice indeed. The song though, nope. Although, yeah, it's not nearly as bad as the second opening of K-On!. That's like the worst ever. I linked that before, but why not post a reminder... I also have PGSM to watch once I get back to things Sailor Moon. You should be good even if you stop reading for a longer while. I find your lack of enthusiasm for Japanese grammar disturbing! *starts force choking random people* That's what I get for not stopping myself typing up a storm. Took me a while to write that, even double checked for spelling mistakes.

That's region locked, but since the title says Kurisu laughs I can imagine what it is. The movie has a sequence where...

That's the power of love! Or well, energy in this case, anyway, but I understand. Sometimes when I'm working from home I'll just set YouTube to randomly play music videos I accessed with my account, and sometimes it gives me a bunch of Sailor Moon songs, like the Sailor Star song, and I'm feeling all nostalgic, then it flicks to the Star Locket version of the original theme song or worse, so the sad violin version of Sailor Stars and I'm... pretty much hit by a deep longing to rewatch the series. It's not that often that I rewatch something and find it even better than the first time around. Particularily Sailor Stars as a whole, I remember liking the season, sure, but not it being this good. Certainly not being better than R, which it actually is, in spite of how the art looks... Reading the Sailor V manga seems like a good idea, but I'll just finish the Sailor Moon manga first to get that out of my mind. It's been open for quite a while now and it's starting to bug me a bit. Gotta stop now before I turn this into a yuuuuuge rambling post. So how much do you like that terrible third Cardcaptor Sakura opening by now? Yeah, because back when I started watching Cardcaptor Sakura all I got from listening to the Japanese original was a bit like Pinky's POV: Yeah, truth be told, I think that would have been hard to miss. I did miss Sharoan not calling her by her name until the elevator episode and I went to check the Wiki because it was really strange hearing him yell Sakura, so I helpfully passed that observation and bit of information along. Just in case. It sounds like oneechan for an English speaker, but it's actually oniichan. Oneechan is for older sisters. These terms plus Sakura using Shaoran's last name with -kun are some of the more intricate things to glean from Japanese honorifics and forms of address/politeness. 's funny what you pick up here and there over time. Speaking of that Sailor Star song, it's often thought of being called Makenai. Makenai means don't be defeated (literally) and in context of the song better translates to don't give up. By now I know that the shūshikei (an inflection category, this one is sort of like a base form) of makenai is makeru (to lose), and that it's a so called ichidandōshi, or one level verb (ichi is Japanese for one, and "dan" is level, which yes, is exactly that word from all the martial arts stuff, dōshi means verb). To build the polite way of saying makeru you turn into into makemasu and to negate that it's... yes, exactly makemasen. The meireikei (imperative) would be makero. Works like that for all ichidandōshi, which end in -iru or -eru. Like taberu - to eat. Tabemasu, tabemasen, tabenai, tabero... except when it looks like an ichidandōshi but isn't one, like kaeru. Kaeru is a godandōshi (five level verb), and that has different rules. Kaerimasu and kaeranai. Yeah. Bonus credit question, what's with the verb in the thread title then? That's part of what I meant with Japanese being really formulaic, there are very regular patterns that become noticable even without speaking a lick of it. Sure, there are exceptions... suru and kuru. Suru is somewhat important because it means to do, and the polite form for it is shimasu, which you'll hear really often when people ask others to please do something (onegai shimasu) and serves as indicator for the past tense in the form of sh1ta. Desh1ta means something did not happen in the past (mean word filter ftl...). Kuru (come) has its own set of rules (kimasu, konai, etc.). So for some reason I'm halfway through understanding the way Japanese verbs are conjugated, but I know a sum total of fifteen of them, maybe a bit more, but it's really interesting to realize when people are being polite, casual or give out commands.

All the best Shady, hope everything ends up being fine. Wait, what? I came in contact with a breakthrough infection at work, have so far done 3 antigen tests every day since Sunday that all came back negative (PCR result still pending). I like my colleagues, but not enough to call them family. My wife got exposed to the virus through her family. For the second time now. We're currently staying at separate aparments, you know, isolation and stuff...

Yeah, uhm... so... That's all I got, lol. Sure, that was noticable well enough in Dropkick on my Devil! too, but it's a bit more meaningful when you get the cultural background. Although that's true for an awful lot of entertainment, really. When I made that list of my favorite movies, there are two that would probably not work for anyone not familiar with local customs and habits. The road movie "Indien" is about two inspectors driving through the countryside visiting restorants for health, safety and trade regulation inspections. They do play the part, are pedantic, quite frankly ****, one of them is even jaded enough to let violations slip as long as he gets some extra food and wine (much to the dismay of the younger and still not so jaded colleague he's travelling with). They start out hating each other's guts but become fast friends by the end. It's an absolutely brilliant film with fantastic performances all around, and probably either boring or at least not funny at all for non-natives (and maybe not even for all of those). Probably as well as with the subtitles that constantly inserted Sakura's and Tomoyo's names when Shaoran talked to them, while in reality all he ever said to them was "you" (omae) or Daidouji at best (after Tomoyo starts helping him with his, uhm, not very well working attempts to approach Sakura). Assuming you start dubbing without knowing the entire show's run or without being told that this is going to be significant by the writer of the show, you'd probably need to come up with some other way or accept that it won't make nearly as much of an impact. I mean, hell, it might not have made for you if we hadn't talked about it earlier (what with Sakura calling Shaoran Li-kun all the time) based on the subtitles simply always stating Sakura instead of you. That moment was the whole reason for me making an long-ass post about it a while back. It would probably still have worked based on Meiling's reaction and body language, but not as well. It's not that often a single uttered name and a look to accompany it hits you like a sledgehammer. Once I'm done with my backlog I'll just rewatch Cardcaptor Sakura. No, but she was fairly tall and more, say... nay, let's turn that around, much less meek than Japanese girls should be.

Like so many things, that depends on the individual, but in general, yes, while the chance to catch Covid-19 rises a good deal after six months (for some earlier, for others later, obviously) protection against severe cases remains more stable. At least for the vector and mRNA vaccinations, not sure how well the Chinese vaccine works after a while. Still not a bad idea to get a booster shot after six months if you're part of a (high) risk group. Ever since dropping off my sample today I've been feeling gradually worse. Mild headache, some pain in the shoulder - things that are easily explained by having slept in an awkward position and not having slept enough, both of which happened to me tonight. Still... can't fully prevent my mind from going places right now. I've been on and off imagining a sore throat ever since I heard my colleague tested positive. Silly brain, really.

Miss Dream also has the subtitles Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon live action show with Tuxedo Mullet and Wig!Moon. Pretty good quality all in all. The always ongoing debate about localization vs. more literal translations. On the one hand, it makes for clunkier reading, on the other hand sometimes it's necessary to properly understand character dynamics, however... I'd say a quality localization gets the point across in a meaningful way, regardless. Take Tomoyo for instance, she can call her mother just "mother" in any translation and Sakura call her dad "dad" and that's that, point transported. Dropkick on my Devil! has a moment that's a bit difficult to transport, and the subs almost managed, but not quite. When Medusa is angry at Jashin, she goes into "keigo" mode - i.e. she starts talking to Jashin in very formal and excessively polite Japanese. The subtitles just call that "passive agressive" mode which isn't half a bad idea, but not quite the same. Funny, I don't know a whole lot of Japanese words, but the language seems to have better patterns or easier grammar rules than German, so it's much easier to notice these things than it would be on a German or English show once you get the hang of it. Even without understanding a word. The only thing that's not going to work out all that well is personal pronouns, but those are a totally different case entirely. Plus sometimes it's really better to not know what the characters are talking about, I'd cringe a lot less when listening to Komi Can't Communicate's "Childhood Friend"* Bokukko** if I wouldn't know she's a Bokkuko (it's supposed to be a character of unspecified gender, I guess). Yeah, it wasn't a bad episode (easy to say, are there any bad Sakura episodes outside of Clear Card?), just oddly out of place. Such a first arc setup suddenly showing up near the very end. On the bright side, you're inching ever closer there. Soon it'll be over, and the way is clear for the movie. Clueless, I think, not necessarily dumb. Not entirely inaccurate. Poor Sakura is going to have a very bright moment soon though. Heh. *Literally. Character name is Childhood Friend. Or, well, the Japanese word for it, anyway. **I forgot to mention that for anyone not too in the, uhm, lingo - girl who refers to herself as boku, Japanese "I" for (younger) boys and adolescents. A bokukko is essentially a girl talking like a boy. In Miyu, Yukari Kashima is one of those, for somewhat obvious reasons, and that worked well enough, but Childhood Friend is just cringey.

My wife worries about that, yes. The others, including her sister? No. She should be super-worried right now, but they all think this is a government mandated world wide conspiracy and that there is no pandemic, just a "plandemic" to control people through vaccinations. The nefarious purpose behind the vaccination varies depending on what type of moron they recently listend to and ranges from tracking implants (fun fact, they all have dogs and all of them have tracking chips implanted and not one of them thinks it's odd that they're so large and underneath the skin rather than in their dogs muscle tissue... but hey, never let facts stand in the way of a good conspiracy) to sterilization or outright kill switches so the "high finance" (Nazi code for Jews) can indiscriminately kill people. The most outlandish claim I've heard was that Bill Gates wants to kill all but five million people of the world's elite and then leave Earth to explore the galaxy in their warp capable starship. I wish I would be making this up... and I really wish we would have warp capable starships because that would be totally awesome. The most hilarious part about this all is that they're watching people like Alex Jones spout their stuff in the open when he claims there's this world wide conspiracy that is so powerful that every last damned government on the planet plays along or is fully involved, even those that hate each other, but one guy on YouTube or Telegram has all the knowledge and is allowed to post it freely without repercussions. Meanwhile Anonymous hacktivists are always wearing masks and use artifically generated voices because they're really operating in a grey or downright illegal area and would be taken down if the "gobernmint" / teh man / teh police got a hold of them when they leak damning evidence for wrongdoings that should be hushed up. They watch Julian Assange being blasted by (most likely) wrong accusations, spending years hidden inside an embassy, and an army of fascist shills posting everywhere how he's a danger to freedom (like some even on this forum, you guys know who you are ) while watching Attila Hildmann on Telegram (although he is now wanted and fled to Turkey over "exposing" the Jewish part of the Corona conspiracy on grounds of Germany's rather strict laws when it comes to religious and ethnic incitement and Anonymous killed his Telegram presence). They watch journalists being cut up and partially dissolved in acid or shot on the street. Watch opposition politicians disappear or being killed. See Chinese citizens in "reeducation" camps for not being decent Chinese citizens. Then they watch Russia Today report every possible and suspected cases of vaccination side effects except for Sputnik V because the other mainstream media has "an agenda" and clearly Russia Today hasn't. Alex Jones' only worry in the world is the revenue stream he's missing since YouTube cut him off. He's safe and sound, just like every other vaccination conspiracy nutjob. Safe from companies that are so powerful that they're allowed to infect the entire world for profit or are unscrupulous enough to kill millions - if not billions in cold blood. So what is it, then? Is there no powerful conspiracy that would try to shut him up like Assange, or are they all actually in on it and just looking to obfuscate things further? Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Man, I remember a couple of years ago the usual suspects here on the forum (you get one guess who that was) linked to InfoWars vidoes with severely mistranslated German interviews to try and prove that Germany is going to create and mobilize a European Union army against the bastions of freedom in Eastern Europe, just because someone said the parilament should fight for the freedoms and rights won by past generations if need be. That's all it took, taking "to fight for something" and turning it into potential combat action. You know, I like watching Flat Earther videos. Those guys don't harm anyone by exposing how dumb they are, but these other guys? Where IS that conspiracy that should make them disappear? Guys, a little help here, please MAKE them disappear. Unmarked vans would be fine, you already have some experience with that.

Well, I said I won't make long bit by bit posts about Nanoha any more, what with the length of the third season, so just a quick update of a minor thing: Hayate just gave a speech to her new staff in the new Riot Force 6. Not only are the cooks and the service crew present, she addresses them too. Maybe it's too early to get my hopes up, but so far this all looks somewhat well planned out, at least. The music is still leftovers from a cancelled JRPG. The most striking difference, aside from the "new" main cast, is that the anime feels a lot more... not light hearted, but not as god damned serious as the first two seasons were. Might still change, but so far a rather unexpectedly strong beginning. Hm. edit: Episode ends with Fate apparently sharing either a room at the base with Nanoha or else they're living together. The Nanoha wiki says they'll adopt a child at some point, so that's not just for show. Yeah, here's to hoping that doesn't get too fanserviced down the line. Why do I hear Daru talking about Yuri Fields right now?

When it rains it pours, my wife was with her family for a birthday party yesterday and what do you know, her sh*t for brains anti-vaxxer brother tested positive today and probably infected the entire sh*t for brains anti-vaxxer family in the process... most likely including her older sister who not that long ago had a rather extensive and hefty chemo therapy plus surgery (breast cancer). My wife should be fine, having had an infection earlier this year that went by without symtpoms before the vaccines were available outside of high risk groups - assuming she even tests positive and has a reinfection, but she's quarantined for now. To make matters worse he's too dumb to fill out the online preparation form for the contact tracing and too dumb to copy the link. He managed to make a screencap of his phone with only half the link showing, so I can't help him either (not that I want to, but whatever). FML

Yes. And it gets even more yes later on.

Woops. Seeing how the same happens with Way of the Househusband, I'm assuming that is related to the animation style. Not sure, might be something else. It also wasn't just STANDO POWAH, it's not like I was any quicker with Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency. It's a pity @InsaneCommander is so busy, I think he'd be the most likely candidate to enjoy Nanoha too, based on some of the other stuff he's watched and liked. Minus that loli-scene. Well... okay. You're missing out on metal space Cthulhu and an absolutely stupid Mass Effect / Star Treck crossover with Picard. It's almost worth watching for that nonsense alone. It needs to be seen to be believed, but giving CBS money for that? Nope. Do not approve. Yes, Macross, and it turned into one giant franchise with several different spinoffs, the most recent one from 2016. It was on TV when I was very little, but that's... yeah, about all I remember. Although I don't know which part that was.

No, it's... it's not bad, but unlike the other OVA, I don't think it adds anything to Violet's journey. If you're already struggling with the time commitment, then by all means postpone the 90 minute OVA in favor of the better new movie. Yeah, I get that. I watched two full seasons of Nanoha in the same timespan as three episodes of JoJo's, and JoJo's is definitely the more entertaining show. I just can't watch more than a couple of episodes a week for some reason. It's the same with Way of the Househusband. It's hilarious, the episodes are short, but I'm still not done in spite of really enjoying it. It's not like you'd have any compulsion to finish watching the train wreck. But you could still get Picard, that should be on Amazon Prime for you too, being paid by Amazon. Right?

Funny that there are moments when Netflix has films here that you don't. Licencing really is a mess. edit: If you're pressed for time, then the Violet Evergarden OVA "film" (which is more like two interconnected 45 minute episodes) is... let's say skippable. It's nice, but if you don't see it then you won't really miss much. Except an explanation how poser dude Bendict gets his bitching golden motorcycle that he suddenly rocks in the movie.

Exactly why the movie is so much better once the moron introduction is over.