majestic

There's a little spider in one of the corners of our office. It's probably been there over Christmas. It's a really tiny one, regardless, all of these eight legged creatures from Satan's little shop of horrors are creepy, no matter the size, but for the time being it earned a little respite before it's going to be displaced by either myself or, more likely, the cleaning personnel that'll show up at the end of the day. Spider webs sure are impressive constructs, a fly like twenty times the size of the spider got caught in it (no idea where a fly comes from at the end of December to be honest, but that's some bad luck, surviving the winter until now only to be caught in a web) and it's been struggling, trying to get out for a while now. In vain. The spider, meanwhile, is just sitting at the edge of the web waiting for the thrashing to die down. It's a pity the spider isn't going to get much out of the catch, but eh, there's still some time, and maybe the cleaners won't be removing the web just yet.

Wrapping things up, or not, part XIX: Watched 20 more minutes of Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. At this rate, it'll four more watch "sessions" until I'm done, but it's hard to take this in more than series-sized chunks. I did get a slight kick out of being able to read part of the names on the duty roster for the day care Cherry works at, and I've spent a whole lot of time trying fo figure out what ショッピングモール ("shoppingumōru") is supposed to be - well, shopping was easy enough, but to get from mōru to mall is a bit of a stretch for poor old me. Transliteration by syllable approximation is super confusing. I got to the part where Cherry has to read his haiku in front of the old people, then I went all Mace Windu on it: Except it was well past midnight and no Yarael Poof in sight to get any pizza. The most frustrating thing about this film is, I mean, aside from getting sore eyes from looking at it, is that it simply doesn't work for me even though by all means it should. Cherry's friends are super annoying, for instance, as is Yuki's family, and that video call, dear god. "Japan" dude als causes the worst sort of Daru flashbacks, even though he's more harmless and less hentai (in the original meaning, i.e. perverted). Nope. Spending more effort on things than I should, part XXI: Finished another rewatch of Akira, as we talked about that recently. I've seen the film three times now, the last two times in an effort to appreciate it beyond being impressed by the sheer effort that went into making it, and no, I just can't. It tries to do too many things at once (and I absolutely don't like dsytopian or post-apocalyptic biker gangs, so this starts out from a very bad place for me), is thematically all over the place to a point where some people write entire essays - real essays, that is, not just overly long streams of consciousness on the Obsidian forums - about what it could mean. In a way that makes it a bit like 2001: A Space Odyssey which is another film I... yeah, never mind. That's about the thing, it's hybrid between Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey and any sci-fi film warning about the dangers of genetic engineering/technology/weapons (any and all work here, which just adds to the film feeling thematically all over the place). While I like Blade Runner more than most posters here (not just visually), it also falls a bit short here and there and is more saved by the impressive mood Ridley Scott sets and the performances in the film than by its actual content. There's too much too unpack to properly talk about it. The characters are all pretty much intentionally unlikeable, so I won't hold that against the film. It's part cyberpunk/dystopian social commentary that isn't followed through, it's partially techno-critical which is doesn't follow through, and it continues on to try to be philosophical with "the potential in each of us" where at the end in a scene that curiously resembles the Birth of the Starchild in 2001, not so much by mirroring the visuals, but by doing something similar, albeit much more jarring and with a whole lot of body horror). It is all over the place and way too unfocused. That might be because of the source material, however, allegedly this movie began with a script over 700 pages long. As a comparison, a typical feature film script is anywhere between 90 and 125 pages long, although this isn't entirely comparable between live action and animation, it really just shows how much they compressed - or tried to - into a two hour animated film. You could take any of the themes present and make a decent, focused film out of it. Or you could just throw everything but the kitchen sink at it and come out with a mess. Needless to say that this film was a major influence on anime and even filmmaking as a whole, and as such it has a historic impact that cannot be denied. It's an origin point and it is easy to look at it today and ascribe problems with the story to it being to ubiquitous or crude compared to the more focused and modern offerings it spawned. That is partially true, but not quite. The film was a mess of themes back when it released, and it still is that today. It's not bad by any means, but it's also not exactly enjoyable, and I don't think I'll watch it again. I'm not ever going to like this.

ViVid Strike! OVA ("Episode 5.5") Fuuka wins a martial arts sparring fight against Corona by TKO (this seems to work like in boxing). Fuu is overjoyed and is sent to take a shower by Einhart, who promptly afterwards organizes a real sparring match against Rio and Corona where they are not limited to purely martial art style fighting, but can utilize their full range of powers. They handily beat Fuu without breaking a sweat. Fuu once more resolves to become BETTERER STRONGERER and TOUGHERER to take on Rinne. I don't know why this was made. While this holds true for the entire series, I guess, this OVA in particular was a whole bunch of nothing that wasn't in the earlier episodes already. Well, no, that's not entirely true. We get shower fanservice scene, some transformation sequences and two supremely boring sparring fights, and a whole lot of shounen stuff. Onwards to the next OVA, Episode 5.75... edit: Which ended up being the complete opposite of 5.5 and 15 minutes of pure character interactions. Now, if these characters were actually interesting, it would have been a nice episode, as it is, the best I can say is that it wasn't a bad episode by any means, and at least there was a reason to create this OVA to fill in a gap or two. Rinne has this super shounen moment where she wants to fight an under 19 world championship contender to show off how her pover level is OVER NINE THOUSAND and tries to provoke her and she pats Rinne on the head and is like nope, I'm good. This watching episodes at double playback speed is working out pretty well.

Sure sounded like it, at least. Indeed. The comments you found were pretty much spot on. There's just absolutely no reason for anyone to watch this other than some compulsion to finish it. It really is just a waste of time, and nothing highlights it more than one main character asking the other what the point of it all is, and the other character replying: "I'll worry about that afterwards." Yeah. That just about sums it up. It's less offensive than Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, but that's not hard to do. Guess that makes ViVid Strike! the Joe Biden of anime. Nothing special, but at least not as offensive as Trump... what a mark of quality.

ViVid Strike!, epsiode five. Spoilered more for brevity and organization than anything else. Yeah, it's ridiculous. Huh, can you create a wolf pet and just slap the horse model on it? that sounds like an easier fix than fiddling with stats.

Horses are like bad, better use a wolf or a dog or maybe a boar, depending on what you can get with your class and want your pet to do.

Time for the weekly Discovery post. This episode is, for some reason, 15 minutes shorter than the others. Halleluja, thanks for an early Christmas gift there, CBS. Helfpul reminder: Burnham crying counter is currently 1:4. I'm thinking about dropping it, because where's the fun in keeping track of a meme that no longer happens. Burnham crying counter unchanged.

Komi can’t comm… no, Komi can’t anime. This gets stranger every time, and not in the good „the hell is this“ way like JoJo‘s. More like in the „these people all need to be sent to the loony bin“ way. 凄くなかったです。

I guess the all survived being squished to bits too, because I don't see Rinne becoming the #1 contender for the world championship after that if the three girls are about as dead as they would appear to be after having their heads broken, smashed into a locker or having their nose pushed into their brains by way of knee. Like... uhm. Yeah. I guess I'll see soonish, assuming the anime comments on it at all. Would be hilarious if Rinne's rich adopted parents would just buy their way out of this. Then we'd suddenly do social commentary too.

Preface: It's good to be back on the Claw. Toiling in the fields and working the forge sure was back-breaking. Speaking of Cowboy Bepop... that will be an interesting reaction. Except for the early CGI work here and there it looks absolutely fantastic, the shot compositions and the framing are brilliant, the voice acting is great (at least in the original), but a list like that isn't complete without a but, huh? But! Not sure how that'll work for you from a character point of view. Spike's (main lead) going to be a really though sell, me thinks. Cyber Coil looks... uhm. Yeah, maybe once I'm through the backlog of terrible. The sound effects were something else too. It was surreal. You have this magical girl show, it's the fifth season, and it moves from non-visceral and at times downright silly action scenes to something that would not be out of place in a van Damme martial arts vehicle (say, Kickboxer), complete with splattering blood and crunching bone sound effects in an instant. Prior to the kicks Rinne casually breaks the arm of another girl. Look at YouTube actually having the scene, albeit in ungood quality (not that it matters for this show). "We do martial arts for fun and competitions" to "Alex kills a woman with her giant **** sculpture" in A Clockwork Orange in a matter of seconds. StrikerS could have used some of that down to earth visceral feel of that scene in its action and it would have been appropriate there. In ViVid Strike!? Nope, totally out of the blue and feels completely disconnected. Then there are the other things that make no sense, from Rinne recovering that easily from being beaten unconscious the day prior, or actually being beaten senseless if she just can... never mind. That's not worth analyzing in detail, and it would just annoy me. edit: That ending of the scene where she steps on one of the girls lying on the floor made me burst out in laugther, what with the stock sounds and all. That's terrible, but really, that stock sound...

Yeah, he just said he'll text you soon. The ol' guy has a lot on his plate, you know...

Not 100% sure, but I can't remember watching any 2021 film. Huh. if 2020 films with a theatrical release in 2021 count then it's... Violet Evergarden. If not, then I got nothing. As I say this I realize that I was wrong, and that there really is a 2021 movie that I watched: Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time and that was a seizure inducing piece of trash that made me write a gigantic rant on just how terrible it is, so that certainly doesn't count as answer to the question even if it's the only one and takes "best" and "worst" film of 2021 I've seen by default.

ViVid Strike! Episode four. Well, that was fun. Almost entirely a flashback explaining why Rinne is all ME WILL CRUSH YOU, CRUSH YOU TO GOO. It ends with a ridiculous power fantasy scene. Yeah, not sure how I feel about that one. I'm kinda conflicted here.

I think Beyond still wins out over Into Darkness. It's even dumberer-er than Into Darkness, but at least it has a plot structure and makes sense for the most part, instead of being a random collection of cool scenes that were strung together with a tenous plot thread worked in as an afterthought. Or something. Still, could be worse. It could have Kurtzman, Orci and Goyer writing together. Now that would be a dream collaboration, huh?

Unicorn of War might be wrong about everything, but at least he's capable of arguing his point. It was my subversive commie friends. Also, eh, I doubt our counter terrorism unit would knock. That's not elite enough. edit: I also think these posts aren't going to age well, because I'm thiiiiiiiis close to switching everything back. Sigh.

ViVid Strike! Episode three. Well, today there's finally some time to get back to watching stuff. The episode opens with a helpful training sequence from Rinne showing us how utterly badass she's gotten, only to be followed by a shower scene. The animators working on this really, really like their shower scenes for some reason. There's one thing I haven't mentioned yet. In spite of this looking better than Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, it's not looking good, and the animations are incredibly barebones most of the time, unless they want to show some really cool and awesome martial arts stuff, the characters slide across the screen more than they walk. It's... not choppy, like the Love Live! movie was where it looked like the animators ran out of time and just strung key frames together in an attempt to finish the film in time, no, that's just deliberately low effort, or possibly just low budget. Yeah, understandable, who would want to bankroll this after that first ViVid disaster. On the other hand, it seems they really wasted all the effort on showing a random one-off character's transformation sequence, a girl just there to be beaten to a pulp by Rinne, as a semi-final to something or another where everyone is off to because Rinne invited them to watch. Good choice. Those fighting costumes are terrible too, and there's some more transformation sequence anime boob inflation. As nice as the second episode was, this is just not good, or interesting. It's not offensively bad or anything, but we're back to having absolutely no reason to watch this, let alone at regular playback speed. Episode ends with a major shounen-off between Rinne and Fuu after they meet each other and talk for a bit. It pulls out all the usual tropes for martial arts boys, really, doesn't matter that it's girls talking to each other. "I was weak, no more. I WILL CRUSH YOU ALL." Yeah, sure Rinne. If this goes like all martial arts shows or movies you won't. Some credit goes to Fuu who tries to reason with her first, but still goes all "Challenge accepted!" on Rinne. Yeah. Fine. Next episode will be back to 2x playback speed. Second episode was probably a fluke.

Nah, why... wait, someone's knocking. Gotta get the door.

Would you like to know more? Yikes, looks like the jig is up, folks.

Yeah, Madhouse used to make quite good-looking shows. Azuki-chan looks interesting, but yeah, there's really nothing in terms of subtitles, and no German dub either that I could try. Guess that's as goood a motivation as any to continue with the Japanese learning thing, but the way how it is going right now I'm more likely to be able to read the language at some point than listen and understand. Geez. In the interest of not making my brain explode I'll skip the 30 minute movie for the time being and just take your word for it.

Not since 1945...

The forum software inexplicably dropped the spoiler wrapping for your part of the quote, and I cannot for the life of me edit it back in. The WYSIWIG editor simply doesn't work. Maybe I got banned in the meantime, who knows?

If you do that you'll probably terminate the forum software for good. I'm struggling with her pretty much any time...she does or says anything, really. The other three I can kind of get behind in that they're sort of like sticking Usagi, Kero, and Tomoyo in a school club together, but she doesn't fit a mould of any character that I already like and in fact does just the opposite. Unfortunately, in addition to her character being...tough for me, the show is also insisting on placing undue negative attention on her in a number of other ways that aren't really her fault but are nevertheless unpleasant. But, anyway, you're further along now than I thought you'd get. Must be doing something right, at least. Who knows, if you actually get to season two, you might like the episode that focuses on Ritsu and Mugi spending time together, which I didn't really think worked out. *shrug* Something was off about that episode for me. Maybe it was the placement, or the fact that it once again did the "Hey, Toya and Yukito are here for no reason!" joke again. The episode was fine, really, it just felt... well, off. Kind of out of place for season two, and like a leftover script from season one.

Huh, so how did I miss this? Not sure. Interesting because that was one of my least favorite episodes in the entire first arc, next to the one with Shot and the ice skating one. Still says a lot about the overall quality of the arc when one of the episodes you liked the least ends up in a top episode list of someone else...

Yum yum...