majestic

Ah, a side effect I had not considered. That's true, but I didn't spend a whole lot of effort or time writing the post, to be honest. I could have put up helpful links to read through regarding the debates around what is and isn't fascism as the term moves more and more towards what you've mentioned, i.e. any sort of law and order type of police state or a nation more run by corporate interests than those of its people (often both, for somewhat obvious reasons). In the more expanded sense, we have a good deal more fascists on the board than just him, even though they've been curiously quiet in the past weeks. I could have looked up some of the many articles about Snowden or Assange, and linked those, put in more of a structure, anything really. What I should have done though is differentiate a little in the legal system part of the post before Gromnir swoops in and counter-rants. No, of course the US legal system is better than that of many nations, because by far and large it is functional. It does, however, have a number of downsides, and when you read that someone in Missouri has been wrongfully imprisoned for 42 years and isn't pardonned immediately after realizing that fact because "he's probably guilty of something" and "his pardon is not a priority" then that's just ludicrous and not worth emulating. An anecdote? Perhaps. What's not one is the horrible state the US prisons are in, including the systematic violence, or the fact that no other Western nation has more inmates per capita, which is really not something that is readily explained away by way of saying "the US is different than other places on the planet", which might hold true for gun related violence or th sheer, easily underestimated size of absolutely nothing in between the coasts (re: posts about a first world nation with third world infrastructure), but not for the fact that there are too many people imprisoned over crimes that should not carry any prison sentence in the first place and that the courts seem to get mired in dealing with little things that should be done with a slap on the wrist. I think that's something that could use some reform. It also has a couple of upsides. Class action lawsuits are something that I'd love to see here too. VW, having bought Germany's CDU, was more than just slapped on the wrist for their manipulated exhaust tests in the US, while in Germany and by extension the rest of the EU they got off way too easily - but yeah, that's Germany for you. Where one can get the idea that big oil and the military-industrial complex owns the United States government, the automobile companies certainly own Germany's. Of course, for any of the points, we could argue that somewhere else is worse. Of course, there almost always is a place where things are worse, but that can't be the standard we're holding everything to. "It's worse somewhere else" as the basis for not trying to improve seems like the perfect way for things to deteriorate until the barbarian hordes (not talking about the illegal immigrant issue here) are at the gate and it is too late.

You know, @Gorth, I keep reading your posts about these animes, and I keep finding myself slightly interested, but then I watch the trailers or look at the pictures you post and I'm like "Nah, thanks, I'm good."

I originally just wanted to ignore this, but I can't sleep, so why not. See, at the core of fascism, and that is pretty much the only thing academia can agree on when it comes to defining the word in this day and age (and not even that, in some cases, I guess), you'll find what Adolf Hitler later called the Führerprinzip. The glorious leader and the leader's cult of personality. For you though, that doesn't mean following an actual person, just your glorified image of the United States government, of all things, as this glorious, infallible defender of freedom, virtue and justice in the world. The avatar and your own projections, essentially, that can do no wrong and very much rests above the law and justice it deigns to mete out in the world. The glorious leader that should never be criticised, because everywhere else is worse. That train of thought follows through many of your postings and points of view. Snowden is a traitor, Assange is a terrorist. If someone from Russia and China would leak documents detailing their global espionage programs or human rights violations, or actual war crimes, you'd be at the forefront, leading the vanguard in arguing against them and calling these people heroes. Rightly so, actually. In turn though, when your glorious leader commits war crimes, the one leaking the information is not a hero, but a criminal. So you argue against China violently stopping protests in Hong Kong because China is the enemy, not because you're convinced or believe that protests should not be stopped violently. As long as those protests are at the home front, and heaven forbid, threaten business interests, it suddenly becomes an acceptable train of thought to carpet bomb them with pepper spray, or to send in the police to violently beat miners back to work, because they're hurting the bottom line of stakeholders - and because they shouldn't complain about their lot, miners in China have it worse still. Russia isn't supposed to support Assad in Syria because Assad is a terrible person. True. But so is Mohammed bin Salman, but he's buying sweet, sweet hardware from your glorious leader, so therefore that cooperation can't be bad. Never mind that having enemies chopped up and dissolved in acid, or locking them up without trial, or beheading them is... well, is that actually any better at all than using chemical weaponry on your own population? Saudia Arabia is one of the biggest destablizing factors in the Middle East, a topic you love to comment on, except in your glorious leader given worldview, it's actually Iran who is the biggest threat to stability in the Middle East, not the nation that's bankrolling terrorist groups left and right. The Iranians are simply the enemy from a while back because eh, nobody liked Khomeini (and nobody should), especially not when he leads revolutions agains the puppets of the glorious leader. You look at proof of systemic racism in the United States, and defend it by saying that it's not that bad, after all, it was - maybe still is - way worse in South Africa. As if two wrongs make a right. You look at companies and other nations buying Huawei hardware and argue against it, and when presented with proof - undeniable, hard proof at that, which, remember, does not exist for the opposite claim (although it would be naive to think that there are no backdoors in Huawei hardware, mind) - you default back to "but they wouldn't do the bad things China is going to do with that data", more or less ignoring that Snowden detailed how intelligence agents kept emailing each other with intercepted nude pictures of college students to either make fun of them or whack off to, and tell me, in what way should people of such moral turpitude be trusted to take more care with intelligence they gather than anyone else on the planet? Hint: They shouldn't. Finally, let's go back to how Assange should trust the United States legal system. I do not know how bad the legal system in South Africa is, to be honest, but it must be pretty terrible if you look at the US and see a model legal system for everyone to emulate. I mean, you actually do believe that Assange is going to get a fair trial in the US. Something which not even a UK court was convinced of, and the UK is, these days, in a hilarious inversion of history, nothing but a colony of the United States. Hell, even their current prime minister is a ludicrous little copy of the former Tangerine in Chief of the United States. So, no, you're incredibly biased towards your glorious leader, incapable of seeing the flaws where they are, unable to entertain the idea that there are any. You criticise one course of action only to turn around and cheer exactly the same, just because the glorious leader does it. You try to feign neutrality, but in reality love any and all draconian and autocratic measures you can think of, just as long as they're democratically legitimized, because it would look bad if they weren't. Caesar can do no wrong, after all. When Big Brother decides that Eurasia is now an ally, and Eastasia the enemy, then it was always thus, never any different, because who are we to argue, right? There are five fingers, and we all love Big Brother. We could argue a technicality here and say that actual fascism requires an actual glorious leader as a person, not an idealized symbol of something that either never existed in the first place or is long gone. Perhaps that is the case. If so, then you're not a facist, just a cult member drinking the kool aid. I don't know if that is any better. Probably not. At any rate, that's just semantics. At the end of the day, you're exactly the sort of person who would read Brave New World and wonder why it's a dystopian vision of the future. *sigh* I already regret posting this before the fact. Alas, now that I've spent time on this, what am I to do but press Submit Reply. Perhaps the forum will eat the post. Oh, should I only be so lucky...

It's really too bad that Joseph Hannesschläger died.

How utterly unrealistic.

Did you fight the Demon of Hatred?

Uhm. I've seen the argument that the US is run by the Joos pretty often in neo-nazi circles, but that's certainly new. Am I reading this wrong is or Trump lamenting that a foreign nation no longer runs the US Congress? That seems... odd, to say the least.

She shows up every now and then and is basically only there to dutifully cover the club’s arse whenever Ritsu did a Minako and forgot to properly organize something for the club, and because… it would have been weird for Yui to not have a friend prior to meeting the other girls. She eventually is turned into a BFINO like Naru (BF in name only just in case it wasn’t obvious ;)). It does the next best thing though, but admittedly I ended up liking Mugi’s attempts to be more like regular girls charming. The only downside is that she doesn’t work on her own. There is an episode or two in season two that tries but it ends up being a try and nothing more. Ritsu imagining Yui studying in the same way she would was hilarious and she’ll get Mio-slapped an awful lot. Not gonna lie though, season one keeps being rough at times (especially after Sawako shows up to mentor the club) but thankfully it’s short. The Christmas episode is probably the worst and you could just skip it (in theory), even though it shows that Yui sees more in her sister than just a way to have everything done for her. Just saying this because it looks like you’re giving this more of a chance or trying harder than usual to not hate it. Your reaction to the first three episodes kind of mirrored my own. I don’t know, the voice acting was okayish, except when it wasn’t. If Yui is an Usagi type then Ritsu is a Minako. Sort of. There both is and isn’t a big difference between the two.

Oh dear, oh dear. The second season opens with that chipmunk hyper song and I now everything makes more sense including you finding the voice direction not irksome. Hahaha. I never liked the chipmunk song. It was the first intro I liked. And the rice one that you’re a good deal less likely to see as it was meant to. Ah, well… uhm… So much for the bright side. The bad side is if your reaction to season two was lukewarm then uh… uh… this will not end well, will it? Ok season two opens with the expectation that you know the characters already and all (and ideally like them) and that can’t have made a whole lot of sense. On the other hand you now know it’ll not stay a brain peeler…

When I think back to watching K-On! the only thing I really liked about the first episode was the ending. That Yui will end up joining the club was a forgone conclusion, but they played for her and after that just perfectly timed pause said: “You guys really aren’t good, huh?” and it was really funny. The second episode convinced me that there is some potential in it, and the third has the first real laugh out loud moment. Hmmm. The girls take up a really boring part time job in the second episode, and it has this really funny moment when Mugi goes to haggle with the store clerk who ends up selling her the guitar for half the asking price.

Will be posting from my phone until tomorrow at least so I’ll not bother quoting too much, but let me allay one fear. It’s not too much about the cakes, they’re often just eating cake and drinking tea while talking… instead of practicing their instruments. Well, except when someone steals Yui’s strawberry. Kind of anti-Japanese in a way. They’re lazy and don’t just give their best like they’re supposed to. What else can I say. It leaves most of its issues behind at the end of season one and I thought the rest of the first season was uneven but generally still funny and nice overall. I’m not sure there are any direct panel adaptations because the basis for this was a four panel joke comic, but the not so fun weird jokes in between are probably based on the comics.

Indeed, not necessarily for its content, because that is mostly fine (some exceptions in season one), but the presentation takes some getting used to, from the animation to the semi-chibi style of the characters, and the first season has some rough edges where the showrunners still had manga panels to work with, but more on that as a reply to the actual post. Wee! Fun, random fact: Games of chance have a state monopoly here, which means that only the state is allowed to run casinos or paid, large scale lotteries. Betting on the other hand doesn't fall under that regulation, because it's considered a game of, uhm, skill, because indeed, it's entirely possible to place your bets in a way that will make you win money regardless of the outcome, you just need to find it. That's also the reason why there are private poker tournaments as long as they play Hold 'Em, because that's arguably more about being able to calculate your chances than random chance as a whole. Black Jack, on the other hand, is only played in casinos. Not that I like either, to be honest. I enjoy card games, but it's mostly either Schnapsen or Tarock, and in the case of the latter specifically a locally enjoyed variant that makes for much tighter gameplay. I thought you'd switch the moment Yui says something because that voice direction is just weird, but if adding honorifics in the dub did that, okay, at least the predicted result is fine the same. No, they're all semi-chibi for some reason. I actually ended up liking the first song on repeat listens, but that's the only one. Well, and the silly rice song, but that's more because of the underlying scene than the song itself. It's hard to hate a song out of a soundtrack that's like the culmination of half a season of character growth and preparation, regardless of how much I'm not into the music style (which is I don't know what, exactly, I keep calling that ska because that's what I think ska is, but hell if I know). That'll stick, beause Yui is such an Usagi at times... wait for her to flunk an exam. That's better than I thought the first episode would get, and yeah, it's rough. Yui won't drop paper sheets from now on, and won't be unable to talk, among a few other things (being Sakura and afraid of ghosts and scary things is shifted to Mio). The first season keeps having these randomly extreme moments that I'm assuming come from the manga, they're not entirely gone in the second season but toned down. Episode two has the girls buy a guitar for Yui (or try to, at least), that was... much better, and the third episode has genuinely funny moments when Mio tries to, uhm, prepare Yui for her makeup exam. Outside of the random extreme moments that seemingly don't fit into it, it's more of a matter of presentation than content, by far and large. At least, I think. The show is mostly silly girly stuff. And cake. Lots of cake. Man, Yui eats more than Usagi. Well, no, but eh...

I don't think I'll hate it from what you've posted about it, but let's make a deal, I won't hold that against you, and if you end up not liking K-On! (which I maintain is on the table, regardless of prognostications and that best of video) it's not going to be my fault either. I'm not taking any bets here. I'm weird, not insane. Heh, the things we did at school were pretty fun too. I already posted two essay style posts about it, one of them led Malcador to call me a sociopath, that was when I faked having had my school account hacked because I didn't do my homework, or when we started to acquire passwords by creating fake login screens. Simpler times, to be honest, much more fun. Decidedly more problematic too, so it wasn't all roses, or however that saying goes. You know, sometimes I wonder if the magic is gone from many activities I enjoyed back then because I'm older now, or if that is simply a product of experience. I can't recall the last time I felt about a game the same way I did when looking at games from the nineties. Sure, it's easier to enjoy things when you're younger and more carefree, right, but that can't be all of it. I've tried a bunch of MMORPGs, but none ever were as magical as EverQuest (or Ultima Online, which I played more in my mind than on my screen, what with dial up being unable to handle it by far and large). Me loving Cardcaptor Sakura so much seems to confirm that it's not just nostalgia and being younger. Eh, the hell, I'll stop rambling.

ViVid Strike!, episode two. Huh, I might have to drop this back to regular playback speed. The episode focused on Fuu(ka)'s new work and life schedule, she spends time talking to Einhart and Nove, cleans the gym, works the reception, and at the end the girls convince her to try and make up with Rinne. I guess this will take the form of her beating Rinne, because why wouldn't it, but overall that was actually a nice episode, except for the transformation bits, and Einhart is in the shower for a bit. The girls transformed for the first time, and Fuu doesn't have a techno-mage thingmajig yet, so the others helpfully use their magic to transform her into an adult. It works, except... for her clothes, which promptly disappear. Cue red-faced Fuu running off. The other transformations aren't as bad as the ones from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, but they're still a bit too long. The scene with her running off wasn't meant as fanservice (the other transformations, as always, are... as was Einhart in the shower, although that was thanfully short), it was clearly comedic in nature, except, yeah, as always, ha ha, I laffed. Not. Your milage may vary. Still, there's no reason to recommend watching this, and I don't think it will ever be "worth" watching outside of not being bad (assuming it keeps up being all right and doesn't fall apart). Feels a bit like the first season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which is probably sort-of needed to establish the characters of A's and StrikerS, but is otherwise somewhat unremarkable, but I've commented on that at length. Ah, I see. I've cheated plenty at school, does that count? Looking forward to trying Carried by the Wind.

Yeah, me too, and the rate was like a dollar a minute for calls and 50 cent per text message, and the phones had a single line, characters only display and were large and heavy enough to double as an emergency baton. Good old times.

Huh, reading these last few comments I realized I still have the mobile phone number from '97. Same network provider too (slightly different mobile plan though ). I'm using a first generation iPhone SE (i.e. the miniature version of the iPhone 6S).

Helpful hint: That is merely because it isn't. Terrible line timing is really smoothed over because there's not enough time to notice it. Playback at twice the speed also adds the soap opera high frames per second effect to Discovery, which makes everything look cheap, and that's actually really helpful, because these half CGI, half terrible sound stage sets that look like leftovers from a mid 90ies FMV video game shoot aren't standing out so much any more.

It be Thor's day, and therefore... time to get hit by lightning, and not in the good way. On the bright side, I recently developed a new superpower, and that's helpfully turning playback speed to 2x where I can still get what's going on, but the torture is lessened so much. It's not like there's any artistic vision behind this. If @AlexKurtzman is offended when he reads my post (lmao), hey, you offend me each week, so shoo off. Star Dreck: Whatever, episode something, season one too many. Burnham crying counter now 1:4. Not sure if it was watching at twice the speed, but this one wasn't nearly as terrible as the others in the season. Now, add some proper pacing and a bit more of show, don't tell and you'll actually end up with a watchable episode. Also, come up with something else than a new character that's essentially a McKay expy. This wasn't a great episode by any means, but at least it didn't make me want to pull my hair out. Each season so far had one or two of these, so that continues a trend of a sort.

Not necessarily, but the risk of them jumping the shark is obviously much reduced. Uhm, thanks, I guess. So, Komi-san had another episode today and it was... the epitome of nothing at all. Najimi repeats the joke of sending Komi to buy something, but instead of Stabacks she's sent to Sabwey. Yep. Great job. Someone else stalks Komi for a bit, wow. Then everyone ends up at insane dragon power girl's place and plays whatever they thought was a funny weird name for Super Smash Bros, for some reason that dropped out of my brain the moment the scene was over. The final bit was Komi giving out paper tissues. Which, by the way, I already know how to spell, and... it's ティッシュペーパー. Because loanword. Fun fact, in Katakana you can write sounds that otherwise would not exist in Japanese. ティ for instance reads "ti" which would be "chi", and sometimes that gets used, and sometimes it doesn't. Therefore, the work ticket isn't ティケット but チケット - chiketto. Why? Beats me. Hm. Perhaps I'll just go and ask the guy whose grammar video's I've been watching. He pretty much always replies to comments or messages and seems to know a good deal. Could be that using the "e" column to create new sounds is a concept introduced later than chiketto as loanword.

Yeah, it's a good thing something happened and I don't remember there's a manga I could read to finish the storyline any more. I don't even know if any of the spinoffs are officially available anywhere outside of Japan. The first three seasons are on Amazon, apparently, but not sure about any of the ViVids. I watched it with what I'm pretty sure were fan subs. Why else would the episode names contain hashes to check for subtitle updates on github. I'm amazed someone went through all that trouble for such a pathetic piece of manure anime, but it just shows that even the worst trash has dedicated fans somewhere. Good to know I'm not alone with my opinion, and that means I'll crank up my playback speed to 2x for ViVid Strike! too. It's not like I'm going to lose any precious character moments that way, or if I actually do, I'll just drop it back to regular speed. Just goes to show you how terrible that series really is, if even the fanboys have nothing to say about it. Yikes.

Sometimes the amount of time that passes without me noticing is really, really scary. It feels like yesterday that you posted about taking your license exam and taking up a new job as trucker, and that was three and a half years ago? Scary. Really, really scary.

ViVid Strike!, episode one. Well, this one is a complete spinoff without Nanoha in the title. I guess she's still Vivio's adopted mother, so she'll show up for a cameo, maybe. The good news is, this is much better than ViVid, but there are some bad news too - first, there's a locker room scene, of course, but at least it's only a really short one and everyone's put some underwear on. Phew. You know you're coming from a really bad place when you're happy it doesn't get worse than that. Second, and more importantly, is the story setup. It begins with two orphan girls named Fuu and Rinne being harrassed by a group of bullies. Fuu kicks one of them in the balls and the two receive a nice beating in return, and Fuu vows to become stronger so she can protect Rinne. Flash forward to the present time, a teenage Fuu is all alone, getting into a fist fight with a street gang, until the police shows up, then everyone scrambles. Fuu runs into Einhart who asks her what's wrong, and Fuu attempts to punch her. Surprised by the raw, if unrefined strength in Fuu's punch, Einhart calls the ambulance. At the hospital, Fuu recovers, but is fired from her job over getting into said fistfight with the street gang. Or mob, or whatever. It's not really important. She's now out of a job and a place to stay, again. Rinne was, as we learn later, adopted by a rich family and is now martial arts world champion, running a winning streak for 56 matches, until Vivio beat her just recently. One year prior, Rinne and Fuu ran into each other, and Rinne punched her out, telling her to stay out of her life. She is strong now, and doesn't need anyone else. Nove and Einhart offer Fuu a job at the Nakajima Gym (although it's more like a Dojo, but who am I to argue with the official name). Fuu insists on not doing any martial arts, but Nove has her work as sparring partner for the girls. Fuu is slightly irritated that the younger and smaller girls are supposed to have a sparring fight with her, but oh boy, does she learn the hard way that they're not to be trifled with. Rio, Corona, Vivio and Miura (the only leftover from ViVid, at least for now, a new character that trained with the Belkan Knights, who was going to go up against Vivio before the other series got, uhm, not renewed, cancelled, or whatever happened there) take turns in beating her up. Einhart's plan to rekindle Fuu's inner shounen works perfectly, and after a little time she spars with Vivio again. Vivio still wins handily, but Fuu manages to land a hard blow, and the episode ends. Audio quality and voice direction is very much improved. The animation still has some CGI and the art style simply doesn't look good, but it's an improvement over Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid. Still, I've got to say, even though this doesn't appear to be as much of an assault on my sanity as Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid turned out to be, it's just going to be another martial arts tournament show, and it puts the tired and old violent orphan from the street getting into fights is taken in by a martial arts master trope front and center, and Fuu is a bit of a shounen dolt, even though she's a girl. Of course, StrikerS also began with a shounen dolt setup that got smoothed out by the season being about teamwork and, well, not rushing stupidly headlong into battle, so there's a chance Fuu will have her edges sanded down properly, but that's not going to change the basis of the story. StrikerS was fairly unique with it's half military sci-fi half magical girl setup, and while this one's a magical girl martial arts tournament show, it's really not that different from the thousands of lousy martial arts films and series out there. Still, at least I don't want to gouge my eyes out. Yet. That's not so bad. It's the little things that matter, right?

Uhm, so, I've watched the remaining episodes of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid at 2x speed, the subtitles proved to be readable even going this fast, which means I'm done with the series now. I also found out that of course this season was written, directed and animated by some other team, not the ones that made parts of the first season, A's and StrikerS. That would have been really weird. After episode seven and the mock battle it was straight to the tournament, where the show very helpfully introduced a new set of characters (the finalists of last year's tournament), then proceeded to have some really god-awful shounen-offs between competitors, including a fight between Einhart and Corona, Vivio's white haired friend whose magical power is creating gigantic golems from the ground. Einhart wins, allowing her to proceed to round three or something, or round four, of the tournament. Vivio is seen training for her next match, as are the others, and then it's... Yep. Over. Fin. The end. It just ends. In the middle of the god damned tournament after subjecting me to 12 episodes of badly written, horribly characterized nonsense that spent almost an entire episode on a nude bathing adventure where everyone gets sexually assaulted by a phase walker, a two episode long mock battle and what feels like hours on these terribly directed, badly drawn, sh*ttily animated and sometimes CGI-ridden abominations they called magical attacks. Yeah you morons, perhaps spend less time making mastubatory material for the trashy part of the fanbase and think more about characterization? Increase audio quality a bit, make sure the voice actors don't squeak like toads you've just accidentially ran over with your motorcycle and get your heads out of your arses, then your retarded piece of sh*t series isn't going to be cancelled. I so hope everyone involved in this project (except the poor voice actors who have to live with having this on their resume) got fired and squared away in a Chinese reeducation center, or waterboarded in Guantanamo for crimes against humanity. The manga this was adapted from is currently 102 chapters long, and sadly, there exists an English fan translation that's available to read online, albeit on a sketchy site that doesn't seem to be entirely legitimate, seeing how the ads on it asked me if I want nude pictures of my neighour. I most certainly do not want any of that, and her name isn't Emilia either. Not sure what's going on there. Did I mention this is 102 chapters? The first one has 二十一 pages. 百二 chapters. I... I... This just... it's... that... uhm. It... it... it... corruption detected. Rebooting. Unrecoverable damage to storage and code base. Initialize reset. Stand by. Ready. Reset complete. Pleased to meet you. I'm majestic, and I sometimes watch anime. This thread seems like fun, has anyone here watched Sailor Moon? It's been a while since I've watched it, and I wonder if it'll hold up. I kind of don't want to ruin something for me that was really important to me in the past. What do you think?

Not sure, but there's a nice, cold draft coming from my window right now. Almost windy in here... Devilman Crybaby is a trip even at regular speeds, so yeah, I can imagine that being even weirder. Yes. The way I see it it's best to go straight to cutting out the festering wound, and afterwards it's time for the TV anime version of Magic User's Club, based purely on the presumption that Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle is better than either ViVid Strike! and Magic User's Club. The first two episodes weren't exactly my cup of tea especially with the changed voice actors and so close to finishing Cardcaptor Sakura, but they weren't bad. Best to make sure that's well and truly behind me. That gives the following schedule: Speed through Vivid and Vivid Strike! as fast as possible, watching the two Nanoha movies which at least are a sequel to StrikerS, not a spinoff, and then Mahoutsukai Tai!. Yep. Much fun lies ahead.