majestic

I certainly didn't expect them to be almost completely naked, on the other hand, I keep expecting Myao to be the victim of some fan service, what with her clothing and all, but she never is. Speaking of fanservice, there's that Nanoha movie to finish. And one more for the road. Ugh. I see, thought I'd ask because you seemed to plow through it at record speed. I should probably finish Sailor Moon at some point too. And watch that live action adaptation. That one is at least entertainingly terrible. Well, I don't know if it's terrible yet, but the production values and the actors sure are, and Mamoru has a mullet, so it's starting from a point of zero expectations. On the other hand it's going to have Dark!Mercury which sounds totally awesome (in a derpy way) and both manga fans and fans of the original anime agree that it's nice to watch, so that probably means... something. I'll probably end up hating it, but it means something. Yeah, I'll just switch to spelling Tamako in Hiragana (たまこ) so you won't be able to do that... as easily. The outro song is a bit like the entire anime. I think I like it more than I should, but I'm not sure I really like it. The intro song on the other hand is pretty much outside of my comfort zone and that won't change at all. Curious because the song isn't so much different from K-On!'s, at least structure wise. I don't really like the vocals or the brass instruments though. Anyway, speaking of animes that I like more than I should, for some reason Dera never fails to amuse me.

There's also the whole honor deal, ronin or not. She might not get involved in anyhting willingly, but she does see things through. Can't very well stuff yourself without being able to pay for it just because your retarded martial artist friend stole from a shrine. That was shown to be something so low that not even hardened criminals would consider doing so for a reason. The episode was good, in the end, I just thought I accidentially started the wrong anime when the two guys were dancing naked for Myao, but that's the show being a parody. Can't really call that fanservice with the two retarded wannabe bandits. I mostly avoided your posts about Carried by the Wind (great how I have a typo in the name, I... edited it, but it's in your quote there, forever mocking me) by far and large because I decided early on that I want to watch too. I never thought it would be possible, but the past few episodes clearly made Komi worse than Discovery ever was. Discovery is a hodgepodge of bad writing, terrible direction, bad characters and annoying acting, but it doesn't make me want to stab the characters, myself, my eyes or my ears all the time. I can see that being something like Sailor Moon - the manga being much less problematic than Sailor Moon Crystal. The anime is just an all-out assault on my senses. That reminds me, are you done reading Sailor V? I'll see soon how much of a regular Shiori becomes, but regardless, even without Shiori in it I'm not sure I could recommend it. I was watching the episode, and the realization that the writing in in this anime is good struck me a bit out of the blue because that's not something I thought about in between the way the scene composition and animation wrecks my brain* (not in a bad way though, but it's very distracting). I still don't entirely like the setup, I don't really care for Tamako or any of the other characters that much (which is the anime's biggest issue, because since this is apparently about nothing in the same way K-On! is about, well, nothing, the characters are the most important part), but I had to appreciate the simple elegance of the scene that neatly and without saying a word conveyed so much exposition and a joke by repetition. It also followed from some setup in the first two episodes where Tamako followed her after school routine. *The closing credits of each episode are a really nice example: Not really sure what to make of the song, but that animation is really... uncanny at times. I start spacing out hard watching it for some reason. It kinda gets in the way of watching with subtitles. Hmm. edit: Actually, even that still preview image is uncanny and making my head spin. Baffling.

Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran, episode four. Uhm. What the hell is going on? Meow Myao steals from a temple, gets completely sh*tfaced, has two weirdo bandits who are about as retarded as her strip for her and ends up having to work off the bill. I mean, yeah, that's kinda funny to be honest, but... what... the hell is going on?

Yes, you're right, and you could also keep the territory occupied for decades, investing enough resources and personnel to properly secure everything and help the people. That could work, but there is no guarantee, but who has the patience (or the money) for that in this day and age. More like, you'll be getting another Iraq or Afghanistan. I guess Bush really believed that there's a little American in every Iraqi, just waiting to be released. The sad part is, it really could have gone better, but what was it that Sun Tzu once wrote, the victorious warrior wins first and then goes to war, while the defeated warrior goes to war and seeks to win. Sometimes that really holds true, huh?

Komi Can't Communicate, episode 12. Second season coming in April, apparently. Phew. That's one very necessary break.

What does that even mean? Looking back at our own history, we had five hundred years of hereditary monarchy that only ended after aristocratic rule was abolished by law - after said aristocracy caused what was later known as the great seminal catastrophe of the 20th century. The parties quickly created their own armed militias, and before long shots were fired and we were back to a dictatorship. Hello failed state. That was less than a century ago. France had a revolution and before long was ruled by an emperor again. If the people of Kazakhstan want to riot and overthrow their autocratic leadership, then let them. If they want to string up the leeches exploting them, then... give them rope, but otherwise, stay out of it. A society can't mature or establish a democratic culture (assuming that is even what they want) if it's not allowed to make mistakes along the way. Unlike with France a ways back or the more recent second world war, a failed democracy in Kazakhstan is unlikely to cover half the world in conflict, is it? Not surprised that Bruce is in favor of securing natural resources Kazakhstan by force, but you? Mr. Anarchist? Anyway, the point is pretty moot regardless. Russia is going to deal with the issue and that's that. The West will complain a bit, but secretly be all right with. The end. Obviously. You can't force cultural change from the outside. Well, no, that's wrong. You can, but that requires draconian measures and the active eradication of the established culture, and it takes a while (you could, for instance, invade Gaul, put two thirds of the male population to the sword and then gift women, children and their former belongings to your soldiers, and you'll have a very loyal province pretty soon ).

たまこまーけっと, episode 3. I thought Shiori was over the top, but otherwise this episode was good. Like, really good. I might end up liking this after all, but sadly I think it terminated itself as a recommendation for anyone else for the time being.

Yeah, no, that's just wrong. It's not hard to see why (sort of, still requires a bit of knowledge) but... yeah. It's not bad at all. There's nothing that offended me except that nosebleed*, and that was really short. Other than that it really looks a bit like K-On! after applying a LSD-induced color filter. It shows that it was made by the same team, the first two episodes didn't truly grab me. The thing is, K-On! for some reason did, even though the first few episodes were clearly worse than the first few episodes of Tamako Market, and that's... something I can't describe**. I'll know more pretty soon. Not many episodes. It really depends on how much of a drag the Romeo and Juliet subplot is. Sakura and Shaoran earned their silly 26 episode plus a movie romance. I'm not sure this anime can pull that off. If it only takes up a bit of screentime that's fine, if it's like the focus of half of the episodes, then thanks, but no thanks. That's true, but also the reason I "parked" Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles for the time being. It wasn't offensive, but it also didn't really make me interested in watching more. To be honest, that first episode of Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran did pretty much the same thing (it looks a bit better than Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles). Obviously that's not much of an issue once I begin, but yeah, others don't have that particular problem. *Of course there's the art. I mean, we can sit and talk about this for the next ten years, the problem is this was made post 2004 and looks appropriately modern, and no matter how much I complain about it, nothing's going to change. It also has the 16 year old girls looking semi-chibified, just like in K-On!, but the animation quality is fine, and the shot compositions aren't bad. That's pretty much all one can hope for in this day and age. **It's probably the character archetypes. I think I have a thing for Sailor Moonish characters, I mean... Yui is like the worst Usagi, after all. Tamako Market's main character isn't that interesting for me right now. Maybe that'll change.

Yeah, sure, not saying that should be changed or anything, it's just odd, who translated that if all it takes is a wee bit of learning to realize that's wrong? The entire set of interactions between Myao, Ran and the baby could just as well have been Usagi, Rei and a baby. It's even the same pee joke. But yeah, of course, outside of a few moments they're not entirely interchangeable, and Usagi is probably not that... challenged, but yeah. I can also begin to see why you liked the show after that episode. Not entirely sure what made you watch past the first or second one though. Heh. It's realy hard to describe what the hell Tamako Market is, or isn't. It's like K-On! with shop owners instead of band members, and it isn't. It looks like K-On! at time, but doesn't. It's... about a talking bird looking for a princess and Tamako's sort-of-maybe romance with her neighbor. In between they go to school or do silly things, and there's the talking bird. It's... a talking bird eating so much rice cake he can't fly properly no more. I'm honestly unsure what to think about it, or how to describe it. It's certainly something. There's something about Tamoko's story in one of the item descriptions, and Sarevok buries her in Kara-Tur at the end of the game. She's Yoshimo's sister, according to some never fully implemented game files, and there's some dialogue for Yoshimo in Hell at the end of Baldur's Gate 2, so it's not unreasonable to deduce that BioWare at least planned to make it possible for Yoshimo to survive or be resurrected and for his quest to go somewhere. Why that was abandoned is something else. Either BioWare realized they can't properly import the state of Tamoko from BG1 or they ran out of time. Anyways... it's Tamoko, not Tamako. Sorry to burst that bubble. Heh. Get it? Because bubbly... never mind, I'll show myself out.

Double post time! Tamako Market, episode two. This anime is so retarded I randomly burst out into laughter at an incredibly silly scene. I don't think I'm going to like this as much as K-On!, or even really start truly enjoying it beyond just thinking its okay (although, to be fair, I also thought that after the first couple of K-On! episodes, but K-On! got a second season that far surpassed what I thought the show could do, and this has only one and a movie, so yeah, not much chance at an improved second season), but at least it's not Magic User's Club or anything, right? Colorful, dumb and... occasionally hilarious. Hmm, the end of the episode there... (spoilers): All in all this isn't bad, it's just... kinda overly, uhm, bubbly and dumb and... bubbly. Sometimes the scenes are so mesmerizingly bubbly and colorful and bubbly and all that I forget to read the subtitles, or I read them and don't actually get what they mean. At least the anime doesn't burn your eyes out, unlike Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop or that scene in the Nanoha movie I'm doing my darndest to pretend doesn't exist.

Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran, episode three. Probably not the best episode to watch when you're feeling blue already. Somehow this is a whole lot more violent than I thought it would be. Not that I mind, I just won't be watching an episode of this series expecting it to cheer me up again. Myao keeps being great. She's an awful lot like Usagi. I mean, not really, but then... somehow, yeah. Follow up to yesterday's language nerding:

Fake news made to make Trump supporters look bad, but what else would you expect from Fake News Network.

I doubt everyone was good at it, but it really explains why learning the correct stroke order can be helpful. That way you can make an educated guess what a kanji was supposed to be if it's not written properly - unless it's the wrong on, of course. If anyone ever wondered why being a scribe was a full time job in the days of yore, look no further. A Japanese (or Chinese, for that matter) scholar can probably spend their entire lifetime doing nothing else and still not know all of the characters. *totally drunk* You look like my acquaintance! No idea why they're all in the past tense. Guess because the show plays in the past, must be the late Edo period. The caste system was abolished during the Meiji restoration, so for Ran to be a ronin/roshi it must still be the Edo period, but if people are aware of electricty it can only be sometime in the 19th century. Yes, back to overthinking a silly samurai show that's mostly about poking fun at the genre. The dialogue indicates as much too, people are using kisama to address Ran, which stopped being polite a very long time ago, and is an insult nowadays (and pretty much only used on TV). All in all probably not the best show to watch and try to decipher the modern language with. That said, it's entirely possible that the titles of the episodes are also written in antiquated Japanese with slightly different grammar. I have no idea. Stuff like that is probably intelligible for Japanese natives in the same way that reading Göthe in the original 18th/19th century German is for me. It's not exactly the, uhm, smoothest experience, but it's fine (lots of antiquated words, spellings are similar in pronunciation but different, and printed in Fraktur). The typeset is usually the biggest hurdle. Taking a quick look at it should tell you why.

That's what you get for not proofreading lectures.

I'll not put the following into spoilers because that makes posting this harder than it already is. There's a plot point spoiler for the episode, but really, it doesn't matter one iota. Yeah, it's not the prettiest writing for sure. It works, after a fashion, but it's a good showcase of why people insist that learners should also learn how to properly write Japanese by hand in order to be able to read less than perfect writing later on. Well, that's a bridge I'll certainly never will cross, but that's neither here nor there. Even though I have no real idea what I'm doing half of the time and cobbling everything together with my one month old limited understanding of a "somewhat" (warning, "minor" understatement) complex language, I think that we can dismiss the English episode title, given the content of the episode being primarily about watered down sake. As for whether the episode title card has a mistake or Wikipedia's list is wrong, that's something much harder to determine, also because there's a case to be made for either of the titles. That is, however, assuming that the Japanese "shimiru" is working in the same way the English verb "to soak" is, and that's something I honestly do not know, and I really have no feeling for the language yet so I can't even make a guess. I don't know if you would need the passive form, so what's on the Wikipedia page may also just as well mean "there were tears in the sake"*, which we could probably throw out entirely, huh? After watching the episode I'm leaning towards the title card being correct and the episode title being "The sake was (soaked) in tears" primarily because the -te ita form of a verb is used for the past progressive (not only, but it's the most common use, the other is to indicate an action in the past that is still relevant in the present, but the situation has been resolved, so that no longer applies, and I'm horribly overthinking this, am I not?) and an object soaking in something is doing something passively and over a longer time by definition, if not by form. What I do know, however, is that the episode was funny and Meow Myao made me laugh once or twice. *Figuratively, not literally, but if the tears are the subject, they're actively soaking the sake, hence there were tears in the sake. Which isn't... wrong, either.

Carried by the Wind: Tsukikage Ran, episode 2. Something's wrong with my copy, the subtitles turn themselves off after the introduction and I have to switch them back on. Ah, well. I've actually looked at the Japanese Wikipedia page for a spell because I can't for the life of me read those title cards. I mean, parts of them, but yikes. There are no spoilers in this spoiler tag, just an image to make the post better organized. I've spent more than the runtime of the episode trying to figure this out. I'm actually pretty close to joining that Discord for the Japanese grammar channel just to ask. I'll post some more when I've actually watched the episode. Maybe the context of what's happening on the screen will help. Heh.

Just paid the annual road tax. At least I no longer have to attach an ugly sticker to my windshield. Progress, right?

I originally had some Dino Merlin lined up (something like Deset mlađa), or thought about Enes Begović (say, Samo jednom se zivi perhaps) but I wanted something more obviously similar to the first enka ballad I originally used and that was pretty much the only thing I found on short notice. Then I switched the Japanese song out, and yeah, it ended up being a mess. Never mind. The thing is, anyway, you can take any of the more popular Enka hits on YouTube and if you don't speak either Japanese or Serbo-Croatian you're not really going to notice much of a difference our could tell which is which, as long as you can't pick out the more traditional instruments.

Time for something... else. 風まかせ月影蘭, episode 1. Speaking of the intro, Japanese enka music has an eery amount of similarities with modernized "traditional" Central European and Balkan music. I guess some things are really universal. Compare... To, say... Yeah. Excuse me while I go find something to stop the bleeding of my eardrums.

Oh boy. Based purely on grammatical rules, the extra commas in the first part (the ones marked orange) are not stricly necessary, but help illustrate the point of the sentence by putting an added focus on the reason you're trying to present, i.e. your lack of orthographic and grammatical preciseness isn't related to a lack of knowledge or inability, but an intrinsic disdain for the medium it is presented in, making it not worth the effort in your mind. Contractions always contain an apostrophe where letters are left out, it is don't, not dont. In English orthography there never is a space in front of any punctuation marks. That's pretty much the case for any European language except for French, which for some godforsaken reason puts a space before an exclamation or question mark. Probably because it's from France. The French like to claim it is more pleasant to read which is, to borrow a term from their hereditary enemy, bollocks. The English name of 孔夫子, Confucius (taken from Latin), doesn't have that superflous 's' in there. If you must use slashes to separate independent items in a list, then at least use regular ones. Periods are used to end sentences, an emoji is most certainly not a sufficient substitute.

You funny Gorthfuscious ! Surly you not suggesting their is a difference between there, their and they're ?

I'll let you know tomorrow, I'm not going back to that fount of madness before I had a good night's sleep. So far the film's been seizure inducing in different ways than Rebuild, but the scenes were shorter. Might be that this one takes the cake, but there's only one Hayate and three enemy vehicles, so the chance that it'll be a bad as the opening of Rebuild: The Dark Zone is very small indeed. On the other hand the movie also already had a Nanoha and Fate transformation sequence, and Rebuild, for all its fanservicy flaws, never stooped that low. Fate might wield a bardiche in combat, but she really got the short end of the stick when it comes to the fanservice.

Okay, I think I'm done for today. Forgive me the double post, but Hayate has just been intercepted. I mean, luckily intercepted because she was on her way to a bath house where Fate and Nanoha were waiting for her, but now a large truck and a construction vehicle crashed in front of the car she was riding in, then there was an explosion and... and... and... and... Yeah, now the construction vehicles are reforming into semi-CGI transformer style combat vehicles with gatling guns. I feel like the unnamed seeker of the mirror in Manilla Road's Cage of Mirrors: On the crest of eternity, a bell for every day That I've lived in silent search of the mirrored cage [...] The cage appears before my eyes, I feel I'm in a dream To the other side of Hell I cast my spell and scream I summon Lucifer and his warriors I... I found the cage of mirrors [...] Take me back the way I came, I don't want to see The evil that awaits my name, I live in agony I would send back Lucifer and his warriors But I'm trapped in a cage of mirrors I feel more and more like Corypheus had a point here. "To correct this blighted world" indeed.

I'm just going to leave this here: "This must be that Woodstock place Mom and Dad always talk about." I'd give you guys a warning to put on sunglasses and put this in spoiler tags, but that would ruin the experience.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Reflection The intro for this film is eight minutes long. It shows a family of four on a dying world, with the parents trying to save the planet. It then flash fowards ten years, the project has failed and the father of the two girls is dying of an unspecified disease that is at the core of whatever the planet itself is also dying from. Cue soft piano music (tm) and the younger sister resolves to do something about it and is seen using a dimensional transporter with another character called Iris who probably shouldn't even be there to go... somewhere (it ends up being Earth). I'm pretty sure the two are going to look for something ancient and dangerous, making this the fourth out of four times someone's been looking for dangerous old artifacts or has some dangerous old artifact that will cause interdimensional devastation when left alone. I don't think I'll be able to finish this film in one sitting, and while the animation is looking better than ViVid's or ViVid Strike!'s, it's still not great. edit: The thingmabob is called the ETERNAL CRYSTAL, Iris is some sort of magical device Kyrie has, and they already know that they'll eventually run afoul of the DEFENDERS OF THE URF and that Princess Serenity isn't going to give out the MAGICAL SILVER CRYSTAL without a fight... wait a moment, I'm mixing things up here. So, anyway, ETERNAL CRYSTAL. Yay... edit 2: Oh no, this isn't a sequel to StrikerS, this is playing between A's and StrikerS. Hayate, Fate and Nanoha are currently in fifth grade of elementary school. I kind of got used to the naked girls being at least 14 or 15 years old, and now we're moving from creepy to excessively creepy. Sure, movie might yet surprise me by having no underage nudity, but seriously, that wold be a first, huh?