majestic

Yeah, plus there's a lot going on that I'm always leaving out because otherwise I'd have to spend two hours recounting every episode. I'm going to reduce that some further. I'm hoping - probably against all reason - that the extra episodes in StrikerS will slow down the pace of the show, not just double up the action stuff. I'm going to regret asking, is he talking about legal age characters that look like minors, or something else?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carniolan_sausage#Variations_and_preparation I guess. Absolutely fantastic way to burn your lips, by the way. Melted cheese is a lot better at transferring heat to your skin than, say, meat.

Shifty looks and a rhetorical question? Tsk. I already know the other seasons will at least look terrible, but that I can live with assuming they're at least as "good" (that's relative) as the first two. Pretty much, yeah, although StrikerS has more sci-fi elements than your typical JRPG, at least so far. JRPGs if they show high tech is usually more like steampunk magic high tech. This is... actually just really high tech stuff. Daru would love the bathhouse scene.

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: StrikerS, episode 2. So far this is more like a spin off series where the original main characters act as mentors, instructors and superior officers to what looks like two four new main characters. The interweb told me this will go even further with the subsequent seasons (called Vivid) to a point where almost none of the original characters are in the show, but that's sort of far off. So far the third season continues the pattern of A's of having one action packed episode followed by a less action packed one. The first episode had the two newbies on a training course for a promotion from "C" to "B" rank, just in case it was unclear: We're still in an animated JRPG. Hayata wants to form a elite team with Fate and Nanoha, and is trying to recruit the newbies (Teanna, or Tia for short and Subaru). Nanoha, now combat instructor, kindly informs them that they, while finishing the training course on time and with excellent combat results, failed the examination due to their reckless behaviour. Now isn't that something else. They're assigned a special safety training course and a new date for a reexamination. A flashback to a rescue effort four years ago serves to explain why Hayate wants to form an elite response unit and finally gives out something we've all been waiting for: Fanservice (beyond Subaru's fighting "armor" consisting of a crop top and hot pants, that is)! At least they're all 19 now. Well, it was worse already in the first season, so this is a welcome change... no, really. This happens directly after the three spent an evening trying to rescue trapped civilians from a fire at the aiport, or space port, on the home planet of the Space Cops. I'm not sure if that's meant to show that they were exhausted and fell asleep, in that case they're entirely too clean, or if that was meant as food for a whole bunch of shippers... sigh. Yeah, I'm going with the former in my mind, and just imagine they're all still sweaty and grimy instead of the latter. Why else would they still wear shirts. The newbies are 15, or thereabouts, except the two other newbies that'll complete the new main cast, by the looks of it. Those are good deal younger. I wonder, really, is there no age limit for joining the miliatry? Well, who knows, maybe they're part of some miltary academy. The introduction of the two younger newbies has them fall over each other, a bit like Rei and Shinji in Rei's appartment, just with more clothes on (and in public). Their names are Erio and Caro, although I'm not really sure if those are supposed to be their first or last names. The boy introduces himself as Erio Mondial in that order, but Erio seems like the first name, but it's entirely not Japanese to go with the first name first... erm, whatever. I mean they're aliens, so... like. Whatever, really. Caro has a pet baby dragon. I don't think the Space Cops have an elite dragon force, but hey, maybe. Fate ominously asks Nanoha if everything is all right with her, and the episode ends with showing the Belkan Knights fighting some rising threat. The pieces are on the board, and I'm curious what's going on, I like new newbies so far and it's all... not so bad for something that moved from an Earth based Magical Girl series with super advanced technology to outer space sci-fi action with schlocky elements.

That is a question that is much harder to answer than you might think. No, I don't think any of the characters compare to Sailor Moon's (at least it's 90ies version) or Cardaptor Sakura's. That is in part because the focus after the first three episodes of the first season shifts towards rivalries between Nanoha and Fate, and in the second season between Fate and Nanoha on the one hand, and the Belkan Knights on the other. There's not enough runtime for both a focus on character development and storyline, which makes any side characters that aren't Space Cops disappear harder than Naru and Umino in Sailor Moon S, and outside of an episode and a half of Fate and Nanoha going to school together in the second season, there's not a lot of screentime dedicated to it. What is there I enjoyed, but there's always the caveat that this is really, really serious. There are some lighthearted moments, but they're far and in between. Season one tried with the character moments. Nanoha's parents have some nice moments, as do her brother and sister. There's the Alisa and Nanoha are fighting over Nanoha keeping secrets from them subplot that's just petering out after Suzuka confronts Alisa about it. For season two it was mostly having a rather unique set of villains (in terms of what villains usually are, not in terms of character tropes present), until it went full JRPG weirdness at the end. The voice acting is fine, although Nanoha's narration in the second season is really borderline forced melancholic, at least in its original Japanese. It fits the dialogue she's reading, but there's no way a nine year old actually says things like that. Which is the other thing that's a bit strange, the characters waffle around between age appropriate and way too mature for how old they are, well, something commonly found in JRPGs. All of that probably still tells you nothing at all. I also kind of lied when I said that there's nothing this has going to recommend it over other magical girl shows. It is fairly unique in one thing - it is serious, has more action than most (roughly on par with what is there in the Sailor Stars filler* arc, I'd guess, more in A's though) but it's still played as straight as they come. If that doesn't turn you off, then give it a spin. There's a chance you'll at least semi-not-hate the first three episodes of the first season and you'll see quickly enough if you can enjoy what there is even with the mood being what it is. Whether or not that's enough to make you interested in Nanoha as a character or the actual storyline is another thing. Other serious magical girl animes are usually subversions, but this isn't. The transformation scenes are too graphic, really, and I've said all there is to say about episode five. I definitely would not recommend to delay watching the rest of Sakura for it, or even skipping K-On!, because that has a much higher chance of actually appealing to you your alter ego. There's als a more condensed movie of the first series that I haven't watched yet. There's enough superflous material in the first season to see how that could be a decent idea, but I'm also afraid that the character development suffers and that it's just be a condensed action packed piece (I'll obviously watch it at some point). As far as being fond of someone goes, I really like Fate, but that feels like she was written for me to like her. *It's perhaps really a bit like this. It feels a lot like the Sailor Moon Sailor Stars filler arc. Except with characters you care less about beacuse they didn't get nearly as much development, and some really JRPG-ish tropes like suddenly appearing Space Cops in a space battle cruiser. edit: Wikipedia sure wasn't lying about the team action stuff in StrikerS, the opening is balls to the walls action when it's not showing nude girls (whatever, this is going to be the last time mentioning it unless it gets really, really bad again) and geez, a girl in hot pants with roller blades dodging laser blasts from drones and hitting them with her power first, and another girl with a... laser gun. What? Huh? What. When did this stop being a magical girl anime and became sci-fi action schlock?

That's cool, at least that means I'll finish it in an appropriate timeframe. I'm almost done with Stardust Crusaders, only DIO left.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: Finale This fully turns into an animated, non-interactive JRPG by the end. Fate reappears after pushing through her perfect dream world and she and Nanoha fight the Book of Darkness long enough for Hayate to reboot its operating system. She decouples the defense program and the Belkan Knight programs from the system, restoring them and summoning the final boss fight, a properly JRPG looking something that's like a cross between a tentacle hentai monster and an angel from NGE, just with less intricate art. This looks a bit like Pharao 90, doesn't it? By the way Fate, Cloud called, he wants his sword back... Hello, I'm the secret boss of Final Atelier: Fantasy Trails in the Fire Sky XXI: DARKNESS RISING. Unlike most JRPG final bosses, the fight is over relatively quickly, if you can even call it such. I'm not sure if they ran out of time for a "suspenseful" action sequence or if the writers realized that they don't have the time to waste on an entire episode of fighting this thing, so they just proceed to blast it out of existence with the most ludicrous attacks imaginable, then teleport its remains into space where the Space Cop battle cruiser is using its Sivar phase-transit main cannon (actually in universe it's called Arc-en-Ciel, but it is what it is ) to obliterate the protection program. Once that is done the final episode of the season begins, with the now rebooted Tome of the Night Sky, redubbed Reinforce by Hayate turns out to be a total bummer because JRPGs always end on a bittersweet note. She says that the protection software is already rebooting and there's only one thing to be done to stop it for good: Destroy the Tome of the Night Sky once and for all, leading to a protracted and teary goodby between characters that literally just met each other half a day ago. With Alisa/Arisa and Suzuka having seen Fate and Nanoha fight, they decide to come clean and the episode quietly fades into an epilogue where they're properly confused and shocked looking as Fate and Nanoha recount the events of the last two seasons, Nanoha's family reacting in an equal manner to having actual aliens sitting at home (good thing they decide to not have Yunno around, that would be really awkward to explain). The episode fast forwards six years to now ninth graders Hayate, Nanoha, Fate, Alisa and Suzuka going off to school. Captain Mercury quit her job and joined Nanoha's family after adopting Fate, Chrono is now captain of the Space Cop battlecruiser, there are small hints at a romance between Nanoha and Yuuno (I bet that got a whole lof of Fate x Nanoha shipper's knickers in a bunch). Fate is a junior enforcer with the Space Cops, Nanoha a combat instructor and Hayate and her Knights are still on probation and community service. Overall, I was positively surprised by the second season. It still has the silly fanservice (and there's a scene where the tentacle monster Book of Darkness wraps its tentacles around Fate) but it doesn't suddenly vector off into lolicon territory. Still, it has not much going for it to really recommend it. If you have seen at least one other magical girl anime series and played any JRPG before you don't really need to see this. Props to the writers for being able to actually fool me with their Tuxedo Mask. Never expected that to not be Chrono's father. In all fairness though, what's actually going on is pretty much an asspull without really any prior setup. The third season has 26 episodes, and according to wikipedia... is going to be a bit more action with more team based battles and less character rivalry. Now isn't that great. Yeah... and twice as long to boot. Yay... everything is awesome... Everything is awesome!

Yeah, my breakthrough colleague's vaccination was a bit more than six months ago too. Hope everything turns out fine for you guys. Can't say I'm looking forward to getting a booster shot, but perhaps I can switch to the Comirnaty instead of Spikevax, unless the latter has a smaller dosage in its booster shots than its regular ones. Assuming the booster shot causes at least as strong a reaction as the second shot (if not worse), then... ugh. Speaking of reactions, my cousin's wife has Crohn's disease and didn't get vaccinated until recently, because her doctors cautioned against it. The government recently introduced a new sort-of lockdown for the unvaccinated, and that includes only being allowed to go to work either vaccinated or with a negative PCR test. Her boss apparently doesn't want to deal with the hassle of having to check test results every three days so he told her she can either get vaccinated or fired. First shot knocked her out cold for a week. Honestly, would have probably been better to refuse and let the lawyer's handle that, there's no way firing her over not being able to get vaccinated based on her health status would stick. It's not like she's an anti-vaxx dweeb.

Well, isn't that fun. An hour ago a text message woke me up (it is 07:00 right now). Colleague from work says he's positive. Yay. Luckily we stocked a whole bunch of rapid COVID-19 tests and it came out negative, since my last contact with him was both extended and on Wednesday I figure I'm somewhat safe, but I'll just isolate myself for the time being. Looks like the vaccine actually did its job, who would have thought? Man, really... and I thought I'd get through this crap without having to jab a swab up my nose, which very predictably lead to "some" unpleasantness. It's my usual dirty rotten luck too, having a total of two colleages I come in contact with regularily and one of them gets a breakthrough infection.

I idly browsed through the Steins;Gate wikipedia page. It sort of told me that critics think I am wrong: As usual, the first half, criticised for it's slower pace, apparently, is what I liked the most (overall, not single scenes, the best ones were near the end, before everything went back to being super fast paced time travel madness), at least until Okarin became intolerable, and even Mayuri started being, well, odd. I mean, odder than usual with her cosplay stuff. Anyway, so for no particular reason at all, I ended up watching: Steins;Gate: The Movie − Load Region of Déjà Vu Yeah, so that is the actual title of the film. It picks up one year after the series ends, and it begins with everyone being terrible as per the series. Kurisu comes back to Japan after being a year in the US, Okarin pretends to not care but secretly plans a welcome back party for Kurisu, Kurisu complains that he didn't bother to write her even once in that year but then doesn't care and goes straight back to blushing whenever she interacts with him causing the others to call her a tsundere... again... been there, done that. Daru calls people B-tards and realfags and plays hentai games, Mayuri is her usual, loveable if a bit slow self, and I was already dreaming up a post where I endlessly complained about the film being just as awful a continuation as the Love Live! movie was (same writer, after all). Then the plot kicks in, and it is even flimsier than that of the original series and makes even less sense. Basically, warning, real spoilers in that tag: Then something magical happens. Everyone in the film suddenly starts acting like real people, except for the parts where Feyris is around. She's as annoying as usual, and nyans up the place really hard, but she has like five minutes of screentime and it barely matters. With the characters suddenly behaving normally, the interactions start being great, the dialogue is fine and it really is a neat film, in the end. It ends, of course, with them being as stupid as they ever were, but I can let that slide, it's just the final scene of the film and a minute or so long. The film is, by far and large, what the series is when it focuses on Kurisu and Okabe behaving like actual people, talking to each other, and accepting each other's quirks. If you're like me and thought Kurisu sewing the hole in Okabe's lab coat and them just talking to each other was one of the highlights of the series, then... definite recommendation. Very much worth watching.

Some are worse than others. I'm pretty sure there are posts where I wrote Fujikata instead of Fujitaka when talking about Sakura's father. Yuzuriha from X was a huge issue too, and even though I've rewatched 20 episodes of Attack No. 1 I still can't remember half of the team's names, but they don't really matter anyway, it is mostly about Kozue, Midori, Mr. Hongo and Tsutomu... *shrug* Binge watching shorter series is also rather bad for character name retention unless the series was particularily memorable for some reason. Madoka's character names weren't an issue, and neither were Violet Evergarden's (but those weren't Japanese). Blood-C on the other hand, yikes. Saya, Fumito, Nene and Nono (the twins) and that's about it. The others? Yeah, nah. It's kind of odd, I can find 5 year old posts based on sentences I remember verbatim, but I can't for my life remember EmoMcEdgelordface's name right now. Gotta look that up. Shinichirō. Yeah, okay, now I'm not even sure anyone used that name. *shrug* No, not with Tomoyo. Toya and Yukito address each other without honorifics, I think (not 100% certain). I also don't remember if Toya ever calls Sakura by name instead of, well, just saying kaiju. Odd. Does he? Crystal is so bad it hurts. I'm not sure what's worse, Crystal or Clear Card. Hm. Why do all my favorite franchises go down in flames like that?

Story of my life with any changes. I empathize. Swimming lessons were always a sore spot for me for various reasons. I can swim, but I'm not good at it. Don't really like the beach as such, but it's sort of hard to swim (or just jump in an enjoy the water) in the sea without getting to a beach of a sort, huh?

Oh, no, I really like Dead Scream. I really like Pluto, even... or especially Crystal's version. Hey Toei, here's an idea: I'd totally watch a Sailor Pluto spinoff. I just thought of all the colorful attacks in Sailor Moon and Dead Scream didn't come up at all. Ms. Book of Darkness as Nanoha calls her could easily cast DEAD SCREAM without it being weird, that's all. Although she'd probably use TODESSCHREI, or since that would be a decent translation, probably something like TOTER SCHREI (literal translation of DEAD SCREAM). Some more Sakura talk:

Look over there, it's a three-headed monkey... yeah, right, I actually really did not think of Pluto's attack. In my defense, she uses that what, three times in all the episodes she's in? In the manga she also uses DARK DOME CLOSE, but nothing beats Saturn's DEATH REBORN REVOLUTION.

But... none of the JoJo gym gods wears glasses.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Episode 11: The beginning of this drives home the difference between other magical girl shows (except subversions like Puella Magi Madoka Magica). Fate, who has been absorbed by the Book of Darkness, has a dream where her every wish was granted - a happy family, a loving mother, a good life. While other shows put the protagonists into terrible situations to make them fight to keep the good life they have (particularily true for Sakura, but also for Sailor Moon, even with some of the girls' problems), this just gives Fate everything she wants, and she has to try and break through the illusion to go back to having a miserable past, no family and one situation of having to fight just to survive after the other. Meanwhile, Nanoha deploys Raising Heart in Excelion Mode. It... really just adds fins to Raising Heart's Glaive-like appearance, making it look more like a spear. Talk about underwhelming. The Book of Darkness copies one of Fate's attacks and enhances it by adding "Genocide" as extension. PHOTON LANCER GENOCIDE. Whoever came up with that magic system wasn't entirely right in the head, and if you think Sailor Moon's called attacks are ridiculous, this one's worse... Sailor Moon's attacks were at least colorful and ridiculous, here you get emo stuff like SCHWARZE WIRKUNG (translated as Black Impact). Oy, Fate now has rid herself of the dream, and activates Bardiche's variant of the Excelion Mode - Zander form. Which turns it into one giant anime style two handed sword with a laser blade. Yeah, if this wasn't based on a short visual novel, it could just come out of any JRPG, but at least it delivered, unlike Nanoha's spear.

That's certainly true for the act of adapting the source material, but while animation has its own set of logistical challenges, I was also thinking of actor casting, contract management, budgetary concerns, logicists, set design, location scouting, all that stuff. Animation itslef is created, by far and large, by readily exploited office workers. Live action sets, even ridiculously cheap ones, have a lot more moving parts that need to function, and the more intricate the setting of your comic/managa is to adapt, the more the live action version would suffer from increased difficulty with these issues than giving your animators and artists more time to draw, more or less. Unless you do your entire live action film in front of a greenscreen, in which case you end with the Star Wars prequels. I also pretty much agree, there's no magical recipe to make everyone happy, and as far as the unicorns go, what really is there? Harry Potter and Fellowship of the Ring, and the former is a case where having an adaptational writing pass improved the source material. Hey, like with Sailor Moon. And Lord of the Rings sort of ends being an adaptational unicorn with The Two Towers and doesn't really make up with Return of the King. Although, what do I really know, I'm one of them weirdos who enjoyed the Silmarillion and like it more than Lord of the Rings. Don't give them any ideas, now I'm afraid some magic will turn Nanoha into a super hot 20 year old trying to seduce her father in a scene that's crappily graphic and even more sexualized than BRACK RADY ever was. Ugh.

Well, the Book of Darkness is complete and transforms Hotaru into Mistress 9 Hayate into Sailor Saturn, who immediately proceeds to bring about The Silence, just with a book, not a glaive. I'm more emo than Hotaru ever was, and that's quite a mean feat, huh? She, uhm, also absorbs Fate into the book. That went to hell in a hanbasket really quickly. Guess it's time for Nanoha to activate the Super Pursuit mode of her magical device. I mean, Excelion mode, I think, is what they called it. Plus a nice warning to not ever try to use it because Raising Heart's frame isn't build to withstand the unleashed power. Arisa and Suzuka were trapped with Fate and Nanoha, so they kind of find out that they're magical girls. Assuming Fate isn't entirely dead at this point, that'll make for a fun final wrap up character episode. I'm kind of hoping A's will have one, it was more or less the highlight of last season.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, episode 10: Uhm, wow.

Indeed, and I would heartily recommend Dark Matter as a live action sci-fi show that goes balls to the wall with these tropes. I would, if it had not been cancelled. It was totally awesome in the way they played everything straight. That's just most writers writing uninteresting things, female, male or otherwise, and you won't get any argument from me. 50 Shades of Grey was writen by a woman, for women, after all. It was widely successful for a reason I won't ever be able to fathom. Part of what I liked about Sailor Moon so much is that the character concerns are easily relatable. Not for all, but like someone once said, there's a Guardian for everyone. I guess people will eventually get bored of me talking about it, but even though it's almost thirty years old it does so many thing so much better than even the "wokest" of current entertainment that it's beginning to be slightly ridiculous, and it never stops being relatable in certain ways, even though its characters are teenagers and the target audience were girls roughly the same age. Every now and then something that's so wildely successful deserved to be it. Not that it's without issues, the storyline is... eh, enough about that now. I found more sucess in finding interesting interactions and relationships - in anime, at least - in shoujo anime. Shoujo specifically, because josei looks like it's an insane mess that puts most seinen to shame, but that's only a general rule of thumb. For every CCS or Sailor Moon, there's also a, uhm, X or Rose of Versailles. I liked X, but that's me liking bastard hybrids that should never have seen the light of day. Remakes make a certain amount of sense when something in any given medium changed in a significant manner that would allow expansion of core concepts. I think that's also partially why some 80ies and earlier remakes are really good, especially for earlier sci-fi and horror works. The The Fly remake with Jeff Golblum beats the original, but a lot improved in the time in between. Technology got a lot better, budgets were different, acting changed - but such improvements in films have been minute in the past thirty or so years, except CGI, which is a tool that in theory is a great addition, and in practice almost always terrible. Not counting 3D here because that's been showing up every 20 years only to fade away eventually. Sure, polarized filter glasses 3D beats out the red/blue filter from the past, but even that is a slightly improved version of a 60ies technology, and I don't see shutter tech improving to the point where it's not annoying to use, so current 3D tech is the best it'll be, and yeah, that can go take a hike. Sure, Avatar showed what would be possible if used properly, but Avatar wasn't a great movie, it was a great three hour tech demo that took ages to make, just not really feasible. On medium switches: "Travel distance" matters a good deal, as I've mentioned before, just in a different context - like why Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card feels so much worse than it probably is from a more objective point of view. Going from manga to animation is much less of a step than from animation to live action. Arguably, it's also a larger step to go from comic to live action adaptation, but it's a gap that got smaller in recent years, mostly due to CGI. As much as I prefer practical effects, for superhero comic adaptations it was a way to make them happen in a better manner than in the past, albeit at the loss of grounding an already silly medium in a more realistic context - what happens at its worst is seen in Avengers: Endgame, one of the movies everyone I know loved but I didn't like. Particularily not when compared to the first part, which was not only much better but also really good, and ranks very high on my list of Marvel films. It's like Mike and Jay said in their Half in the Bag, Infinity War is better than it has any right to be. I just did, so feel free to agree. I don't find that determination difficult to make at all. I won't, however, touch the subject of book adaptations. The biggest criticism I often hear is that the adaptation doesn't look like what the reader imagined, which is a complete non-factor for me. I wish it wasn't, but there's nothing to be done about that. I often annoy people when I do that while talking about films and actors. I don't even do that on purpose, but I tend to call Malcom McDowell just Admiral Tolwyn and Mark Hamill is Colonel Blair, which is kind of funny, seeing how often I've seen Star Wars (and at the very least I watched Star Wars movies with Mark Hamill more often than I played Wing Commander 3 to 5 by a factor of a hundred). It's not the first role, just my favorite one, I guess. Depends a bit on the mood, there are times when Malcom McDowell is His Divine Shadow. Heh. Never is Alex for me though (in spite of it probably being his best film). I don't think I could come up with a single transition from animation to live action that I really liked. I mean, not counting Masters of the Universe, because that film was, is and always will be absolutely fantastic, but... I don't think that counts, objectively speaking. Or am I missing something obvious? There are the terrible Transformer movies, the terrible new Disney live action films, there are the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles dumpster fires, uhm, that epic Fullmetal Alchemist film... yeah. It wasn't for me either. When I saw it, I did not go in blind because I already knew how it would end. That probably proved to be a slight detriment to the film experience, but not the the overall atmosphere of the film. Well, sort of, yeah. Now imagine Takahata made children's TV earlier in his carreer.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's: Ah, now isn't that interesting, everyone's befriended Hayate and they show up to give he a Christmas present. With the entire Belkan Knight gang present in her room. That'll stir up a hornet's nest or two. Last episode had a strong hint at Tuxedo Mask really being Chrono's father, someone who was familiar with Space Cop technology and their security codes hacked into their network to cover up their activities by taking down surveillance capabilities. It's really too bad none of these characters have seen enough anime to recognize that. The Book of the Night Sky, as the Book of Darkness was called before software corruption turned it to evil (uhm, yeah), is almost complete. So far this season is better than the first. It's pretty good even. Still nothing that would be a must watch, but I like it, in spite of all the shortcomings. Anyway, Suzuka and Arisa have of course no idea what Nanoha and Fate are up to when they're not at school, and are giving Hayate her presents. The scene is great, there's this agressive basic mood between the Belkan Knights and Nanoha and Fate, the background music is brooding and moody while Arisa, Suzuka and Hayata talking all happily about their presents. Vita looks like she's going to strangle Nanoha. edit: Umh, two Tuxedo Masks show up, bind everyone and proceed to absorb the Linker Cores of the Belkan Knights. Odd, I thought that would not work like that. Also, two? Eh, well... that's a little harder to reconcile with the idea that he's Chrono's father. edit 2: Oh, it's not absorbing their Linker Cores, it's absorbing them entirely. Woops. Bye guys, I doubt Hayate will be every happy with this turn of event. edit 3: Ah, so Tuxedo Mask can fake appearances. Perhaps he's Chrono's father after all, assuming he got absorbed into the book at some point. Hmm...

I'm down there too for not liking From Dusk 'Til Dawn, so the company isn't half-bad, I'd say. It's not an issue of gender in my case, but it appears as such because what I like in characters is not very readily found in male protagonists - and also usually not in female protagonists of shounen animes. They're more often than not just the same character stereotype just with breasts and a more shapely butt for pathetic incels/outakus to be happy about when looking at them, which is why I usually - well, almost always - despise fanservice that has no point but being fanservice, in spite of being generally very relaxed about nudity or any other sort of sexual content except humor based on the concept of anything sexuality related being embarassing (mostly films that were made primarily to torture me, like American Pie or There's Something About Mary). I also mentioned it before, I'm also a lot less picky about cast "choices" in anime than in live action films. While I loved Cardcaptor Sakura, I would certainly not watch a live action version. I don't like most stuff, actually, this thread just makes me look a lot less picky than I am (and there's the contrast to @Bartimaeus who is a good deal pickier), and... it's still more than picky enough. I think I've complained enough about the new Evangelion films and Steins;Gate. I'm in the funny position of having seen a ton of anime, but almost nothing of what an anime watcher in this day and age would consider a classic (for better or worse). That leads to really fun conversations at times, mention to someone you like anime and they often immediately presume that means DBZ, Naruto, Bleach, Pokemon or any other suchs things I never bothered with. *shrug* Most cartoons on TV in my childhood were animes, and most of those that weren't were at least animated in Japan, just written by European writers. There were American cartoons too - some, at least - but I almost universally hated them. At that age I had no idea what came from where, of course.

Is 2019 scarier than the 2009 of K-On!, or does that make no difference?

That's something that is or was keeping me from trying. There's nothing inherently appealing for me about Edo-era Japan and hip hop culture, much less a fusion of both (and there is a very, very high chance I'll despise the music to the point where it will be a detriment to the enjoyment of the show). However, since the last anime that was universally liked like this was Sailor Moon* - and technically Steven Universe, if we want to call it anime, I guess anime inspired is better - I am quite willing to look past initial misgivings. At 26 episodes it's also not the longest series I could potentially end up not liking but watching. I'd still like to lock up that dolt who recommended Lady Asuka to you. Seriously. Ugh. I think two years of waterboarding in Guantanamo would be fine. I always have a hard time defining a starting point, since I grew up with anime on TV. The children's books adaptations that ran on TV were all fantastic, but they're not that interesting when you're an adult and looking for a bit more than they are, and even if I would try to rewatch them, I'd be incapable of separating them from my nostalgia. I'm quite certain that Dog of Flanders for instance would still hold some appeal (it was, if my memory serves, relatively critical and still relevant in showing the contrast between the rich and the poor, particularily later in the art contest), but ultimately, it has an even younger target audience than Cardcaptor Sakura. It's something parents can watch with their children without being driven insane because they treat their audience in an age appropriate manner but without assuming they're utterly stupid, but probably not much more than that. Other anime of that time and target audience are most likely similar, e.g. Anne of Green Gables, Heidi (which @Bartimaeus watched not that long ago, at least partially) or even animes like Calimero. If we go beyond that I "started" with Attack No. 1 and Sailor Moon (and the Robin Hood anime, but that I could not follow through, TV schedules being what they were), both of which turned out** to be watershed moments in anime history that transcended genres, created new ideas and had very lasting effects on the entire industry, and are often ranked amongst the best/most influential animes of all time - whether you loved them or hated them or didn't care at all for either sports anime or magical girls, they too were a pretty tough act to follow. Attack No. 1 grew a bit old, or, let's say, doesn't hold up as well when viewed through modern eyes, but Sailor Moon pretty much did. *Not entirely true because Madoka and Violet Evergarden were also pretty much universally enjoyed, but it says something, uhm, more when you an KP agree on something than it does when it's either KP and me or just me and you. **Well, when I watched Attack No. 1 it already was a watershed moment in anime history, Sailor Moon actually really turned into one before my very eyes, so to speak.