majestic

Yeah, sounds like Stockholm syndrome all right, but... looks like the Sakura effect is in full play, huh? Show will eventually make you like everything, at some point. As of yet unnamed rival girl showed up to steal Nanoha's Clow Card Jewel Seed. I guess from now on the show will deviate a bit from its predecessors. I hope, at least. There's only so much you can take and make it your own before it becomes a bit ridiculous. Still, so far, it's not half bad. At the moment I'm expecting that the two will become friends to either fight off some mysterious something or other that will show up or they'll team up because Nanoha decides to help her with whatever she's doing. Even if she entered the show shooting a kitten with laser beams. Giant 50 foot kitten, but a kitten. What a wonderful choice then. Heh. Actually I haven't seen that many straight magical girl animes. There's Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura and now Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Some animes contained elements, like Utena, were a parody of a much larger genre like Kill la Kill (Ryuko technically is a magical girl, I guess). Then there's Madoka, which is anything but a straight example. Not sure where to put Princess Tutu. Dunno why, but I'd almost recommend that one to you.

I don't think the Viz dub is available for streaming at the momet, but I could be wrong. Hulu has the original with subs though. What are you going to watch, by the way?

Hi Sarex, I'm majestic, and the first game I remember playing was a bootlegged Pitfall on an Atari 2600 clone. Might have been the first one, or one of the other games on the clone. That was Eye of the Beholder 2 for me. No manual, no idea what's going on, not any real clue of English yet. Still, was fun to play. Even more fun to finally find out how to use weapons. Seems silly now, but the idea of right-clicking on the weapon icon under your character didn't so quickly come to mind at the time. I do have a Playstation 4, a friend of mine gave me his old one when he got a Pro. The only thing I've used it for so far is to watch various streaming services on my bedroom TV. Which a Chromecast or something similar would have done without sounding like a vacuum cleaner or producing more heat than my actual heating radiators. Eh, and did anyone catch the first post before it was disappeared by the men in unmarked vans? What was going on with the poster?

I know of a way to freely watch the German dub of Sailor Moon. Just as long as you can deal with some unsavory ads along the way. However I kind of doubt that Amentep is interested in either the Russian mail order brides of the ads, nor the German dub... so I'm kind of out. Nothing overly wrong so far, except Nanoha changing into a pyjama, which was framed as a joke because it embarrassed Yuuno. There's not much that wouldn't be, right? Except I could easily see how that song was at some point made for a CCS intro and rejected. edit: One of Nanoha's friends comes from a filthy rich family and they have a mansion with servants. Yeah. Very original. I wonder if they also own a toy company, or a hospital, or perhaps both?

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, episode three. I'd warn of any spoilers, but nothing that happens is worth the effort (in a way). We're still doing setup and Yuuno is explaining his stuff to Nanoha, and Nanoha talks about Earth stuff to Yuuno. It's not the worst setup for a bit of exposition here and there. Nanoha has a full transformation sequence again. I guess that's go-to runtime padding. Just to make you you guys understand just how much padding that really is, that sequence takes one minute and twelve seconds (roughly twenty of those she spends in various states of undress, first only in underwear, then topless, then fully nude, then she goes back to fully clothed). The juxtaposition between her usual outfits, the transformation and her battle costume is baffling, because that's the least revealing battle costume of any magical girl ever. Tomoyo puts Sakura into much worse on a regular basis. I guess I keep mentioning it because it's sort of baffling. The school uniform has a long skirt, her normal streetwear is a shorter skirt, but nothing near as skimpy as the ones in other shows. It really is just... that transformation. Here, take a look. The first 1:12 of this video. The others I haven't looked at because while it's unlikely to contain spoilers, I'm not sure I want to know what's coming before it happens. If I wasn't entirely clear, not really safe for work: Just don't watch this in front of spouses, fiancées, your boss or on any work computer. Really. Since that really does a number on my brain trying to figure out what the point of the transformation sequence in this state is compared to the rest of the anime (so far, at least), tell me guys, am I... making a mountian out of a molehill here? I could be, because after Love Live! and certain parts of Steins;Gate I've become a bit paranoid. Yuuno has a moment where he proves himself better than a certain winged unicorn from Sailor Moon when he suggests Nanoha to not sleep in her clothes but at least put on a pyjama, which she absent mindedly (magic is really tiring, right Sakura Nanoha?) starts to do with him in the room. He just turns around and doesn't peek, and Nanoha is decidedly less nude than during her transformation, which Mr. Ferret has no issues being around, so make of that what you will. The enemy of the episode turns out to be a group of trees, it just causes a lot more harm than the one in Cardcaptor Sakura. Nanoha blames herself because she saw someone with a Clow Card Jewel Seed and thought she just imagined things, until it got activated and caused a whole lot of ruckus. I'm unsure, this is the first time a Jewel Seed caused enough damage for everyone to really notice, I hope this doesn't go uncommented in the next episode. I also hope it doesn't get the Sailor Moon Crystal treatment where Usagi's father is watching the news about a giant tick monster attack in Tokyo and deals with the news as if that stuff happens there every day. The first roughly two thirds are spent on her spending a sunday going to her father's soccer game, hanging out with her friends and playin with Juuno. All in all this is... surprisingly nice. It's still extremely derivative, doesn't do anything special, but even with that transformation sequence it's less offensive than some of the other stuff I've watched recently. Storywise we're doing the neurotic plot structure thing for the time being. Capture Seal Clow Card a Jewel Seed per episode, and occasionally seal one off screen. While it's too early to tell, so far doesn't come close to the writing quality of Carcaptor Sakura (well, what does) or the strength and likeability of Sailor Moon's characters (well, again, what does). So far, it's all right. It is much better than Sailor Moon Crystal, but that's not an achievement. Licking live car batteries is more fun than watching Sailor Moon Crystal. Not as good as either CCS or Sailor Moon. Better than Utena, but that's barely comparable at this point. Still expecting it all go to hell soon. That transformation can't be ALL of what's to come, can it? edit: This one is more for @Bartimaeus than anyone else, because he's the only one in here who watched enough Cardcaptor Sakura, but just so you know what I mean when I say this feels derivative: Does this image remind you of something?

Indeed, when you find the time, do a pre-screening, I'll remain sceptical until then.

Well, what doesn't make anyone want to rewatch Sailor Moon exceped two things: Thinking that it won't hold up to nostalgia (it so readily does!) and SuperS, and you can just skip the entire season without missing anything, really, unless you're weird in you head like I am... It's a good thing that the second episode didn't have the full transformation, because I think that's the longest one I've seen so far. Just went on forever, plus there's only so much naked nine year old on my screen I can take before it begins to change from a regular genre convetion to being just creepy weird, and it really toes that line a bit too much. I'd link a YT video, but there's only the movie transformation. Or one of the movie transformations. None from the original series. They're either really into copyright strikes or YT killed them all for the nudity. Yeah, no idea either. I'll say this for Nanoha: While everything is familiar, two things do set it apart from the shows it so readily takes from. First, the magic is really more like hyper advanced alien technology (as is the talking ferret) which now that I think about it some more, as per Arthur C. Clarke, doesn't make any difference at all, and second, the first two episodes didn't have the comedic focus of either Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. Nanoha spends most of the time talking to her friends, being in school or interacting with Yuuno, the action was shortish and unremarkable so far (not necessarily a bad thing), but it's more serious in tone. Not to say it's dark or melancholy like Miyu. Far from it. It was occasionally funny so far, but unless something major changes, it looks like it wasn't primarily made to be funny. We'll see how that turns out. I'm off for work now, where a whole bunch of issues wait to be resolved, and some people need to be prodded into doing their jobs by making them think I appreciate their input and consider feedback from them worthwhile. Ugh. What did I get into IT for when I still have to play the diplomat?

This thread wins the gaming forum. Won't get any better than that, I think.

First episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. So yes, not all must be how it seems. The devil is in the transformation sequence, where Nanoha is as nude as any of the Sailor Guardians were, or Princess Tutu is, except not nearly as stylized as the former, but not nearly as detailed as the latter. It does magically undress her, so that's... borderline dealbreakerish, even if it doesn't do anything differently than other Magical Girl shows. Nanoha looks a bit like a hybrid Sailor Moon / Cardcaptor Sakura. Her magical girl costume looks like a Cardcaptor Sakuraish version of Sailor Moon, except with a long skirt. Has a staff/glaive with a gem in the middle (currently looks more like a crescent moon than the image). Really... honestly, if there's one negative thing I would have to name for now, besides the transformation sequence, is that there's nothing original about it. Like... nothing. Looks a lot like a hybrid step between Sakura and Madoka. Some uncanny looking animation, but it's looking a bit better in motion than the stills do when you google it. edit: Nanoha's older brother catches her sneaking back into the house after a midnight adventure sealing magic a monster into a card jewel seed. You know show, if you keep doing this I'm going to have to compare you to CCS, and that comparison you will undoubtedly not come out ahead of. edit 2: Ferret-thing is called Yuuno and probably the origin for Madoka's telepathic communication with Kyubey. edit 3: The second episode thankfully opted to skip the transformation sequence. And the overly ridiculous transformation incantation.

He posted right before the transformation sequence. Although, in all fairness, Princess Tutu's was more, let's say, detailed. This one is a good deal longer though.

Well, before the hurt boy or girl turned into a ferret, he/she was bleeding, so it's going to have more violence, I expect. Not really any gore. One very minor upskirt so far (20 minutes into the first episode). Definitely nothing really ecchi, but that would be supremely weird with a nine year old magical girl. But who knows, it's the first episode. It might devolve into complete nonsense in an episode or two. Princess Jellyfish. Heh. I really would like to watch that first Ranma season, but how am I going to escape the bad later?

Ten minutes in this feels awfully familiar. No, I haven't seen the show in the past at all, but it feels like watching a Sailor Moon / Cardcaptor Sakura hybrid that at the same time looks an awful lot like the template for the opening of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Beat for beat. Except it's Nanoha's mother that does the cooking, and there's an older brother and an older sister. At least Nanoha got up in time, on her own, but not before struggling with her mobile phone's alarm clock for a bit. Still plenty of time for a lot of stupid to happen, of course, but so far this isn't as bad as I feared it would be. Except for the magical girl that turned into a ferret right at the start. She was trying to capture a monster with a pokeball. Eh, something jewel. Nope, she said seal, like... Sakura's card sealing. Complete with magical circle. Not an original thought in this yet, but that's fine for an opening. edit: Severely hurt ferret is calling to Nanoha telepathically to come and save it. Uhm... wow. If this keeps up I have to re-evaluate the point of origin for Madoka a bit. edit 2: Ferret-thing keeps using boku as pronoun, might be a boy, not a magical girl.

Here, aptly named YouTube called "Mother's Basement": The only redeeming thing he has is that he has a fairly positive video on Sailor Moon. Although I'm not entirely certain of that. Could be some other guy. It's hard not to see it that way, isn't it? Josei really looks by far and large to be cringey romance at best, and utterly horrible niche entertainment at worst. The show you got recommended a while back sounds like the worst thing ever, a crossdresser hiding in a building full of unemployed men-hating women. It's not that... far fetched to see it as vis a vis shounen which is cringey action at best and utterly horrible niche entertainment at worst. That's also of course not entirely accurate, there's shounen anime I liked, e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist (not really a recommendation for you there, Edward is way too much of a typical shounen protagonist - but you might have ruled it out already anyway), but in general, that seems to hold true. FMA was pretty good in spite of having Edward, and his brother helped a good deal in making him bearable. That's the magical girl pet sidekick of the show. I think. Not sure. No, of course it can't possibly be worth it... for me, and apparently there were a lot new episode since the last time I checked the count. There it was "only" like 800 and 25 movies or something, and they're probably all going to stick to some sort of neurotic, never changing setup, or at worst, all be as interesting as Sailor Moon R's story episodes. I mentioned that because the ending took me so hard out of it that it killed my appreciation for Saya as a character, and it's not even really her fault. After the first couple of episodes I said I could watch her skip around town singing all day, and I mean that. The ending? Yeah, no. Otherwise I agree. I wish I could watch Nu Trek and just go "well that's fun, a bit stupid but fun!" when there's some pew pew and space machine Cthulhu reapers from dark space that want to liberate artifical life forms from the yoke of organics. Really. I just can't. I also can't not watch it. Which... yeah. Anyway, wish me luck. I decided to make my earlier post a lie and not begin to wrap other stuff up. Time for Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, episode 1. No matter what, probably still beats Steins;Live!

That's... not wrong. I mean, it's perfectly true. At no point in the run of the 90ies Sailor Moon anime could you realistically think that it will end badly for any of the Sailor Senshi, except for Pluto whose time travel related punishment just gets glossed over when she just comes back. As silly as that sounds, with the way Crystal goes, you have more tension - if you wouldn't know what will happen and that everything will be all right, of course - because it's much serious and more focused. Even more so than the manga, because it really drops most of the lighhearted stuff that's already not very present in the source material. Of course Crystal is terrible from start to finish. I'll have take two helpings of formula please, thank you very much. CCS is even worse because right from the start everything about the show tells you it's going to be okay, even before Sakura literally tells herself that. Indeed. However, that might not be just because it's shoujo, look at X, that tried something different. It failed on almost every level, even I can see that when looking at it objectively. It is perhaps a function of its time, they're all 90ies shoujo animes after all, including Miyu, which also sticks to the same formula and just inverses it by making it the very rare exception for any of the random characters to actually survive. It's the primary reason I was able to take a shot in the dark: Part of the issue with Sailor Moon is of course that the episodes that do break the mold are usually the less interesting story episodes. Most others are concentrated in S, but still resolved in two parters at the maximum. There's something that I think I need to say though: If something is good but repetitive it takes a very, very long time to bother me. In SuperS, it really bothered me, but everyting about that season was wrong. Aside from that, repetition gives me a feeling of familiarity, and a sense of loss once it is over. That's just me though. I mean, it bothers me when a picture no longer hangs where it always was. Part of the formulaic nature was probably so the shows appeal to their target demographics, that we enjoy them ended up not entirely being an abberation, because both Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura had (and still have) adult fandoms, but an abberation of intent nonetheless. It's something I thought of while watching the end of Blood-C. I watched the first half rather quickly, and the second half increasingly slower. *shrug* Still pretty bingey, all in all, but for all its faults, it was more entertaining than Steins;Gate which sort of lost me along the way. Wildely different setup and premise too, not just because one is a mecha anime deconstruction and the others are magical girl shows. The intention for Sailor Moon was to have something like Pretty Cure turned out to be - a magical girl version of Super Sentai / Power Rangers. Something you can tune in when you feel like it, with ever changing casts in between seasons. Cardcaptor Sakura sometimes feels as if it was made specifically to ride on the success and popularity of Sailor Moon. Doesn't really matter though - it is great, after all. I keep bringing Pretty Cure up. I'm honestly curious how that is, and it could be possible that the discontinuity between seasons means that I could just watch one and stop. Or two, because the first series is two seasons. On the other hand, if that doesn't work, then I'm going to waste a lot of time. It's also part of the reason why I'm kind of loathe to try Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. On the one hand, it supposedly contains critical elements that make it sound appealing, but it also appears to be utterly full of a nerd's worst dreams about magical girls come true - a magica girl seinen* show. Dear God... 13 episodes wouldn't be so bad, but there's half a ton of spin-offs and movies waiting. So did I. How did we get to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha? Yes, absolutely. The absolutely worst thing that you could do is an episode like Minako and Makoto fighting in SuperS. Hey guys, we need to wrap that up in the rest of the episode. Ideas? Hey, let's just have them make up for reason at all. They're fighting for no reason at all too. "Okay, great!" It's not that the girls shouldn't have a fight. Realistically, any group of friends will be at odds sometimes. Take a couple of episodes. Make Miyu be caught on camera, or something. Sakura got found out by Tomoyo though, but ultimately, that's about the only really surprising thing the show pulled off, and that was right after the start of the show. Indeed, there really should be a happy medium. I wonder if it exists. Human Instrumentality... yeah. I once saw a video that argued instrumentality is just Gendoh's version of sex, and that's because Shinji ultimately rejects it. Because he can't get a boner outside of staring at Asuka's helpless bewbies, or... something. I'll just leave you with that happy thought. Have fun with it! *I'm approaching a point where I'm more likely to watch something marked as seinen than shounen. The ecchi elements, if present, are similar, if not entirely the same, but at least seinen anime has a chance of not having an infantile storyline to accompany them. Every now and then I'm wondering if I shouldn venture off the beaten path and try something josei, but then I go through lists and read titles like My Lesbain Experience With Loneliness and I'm like "nope, I'm out of here" and just leave it at that. Just because something is written by women for adult women doesn't mean its necessarily less ridiculous than seinen. Just look at 50 Shades of Grey. Or rather, just don't.

Sure it could be done. You'd probably need to lower the bar of expected quality a little, because Cardcaptor Sakura level of everything seemingly forming a perfect fit with only a few outliers that aren't great but still good is something that is hard enough to strive for without going for a troll-level subversion. You can do that naturally if your audience grows up with the material, i.e. like in Harry Potter that arguably went from children's to young adult entertainment over its runtime (to blatant cash grabs, but that's neither here nor there). The actual problem, indeed, like you said - who would sign off on that premise if you came up with a, say two or three season setup (48 to 72 episodes, give or take), that starts out as a cute and fluffy story but becomes increasingly dark and terrifying - not necessarily violent - with an incredible twist at the end. Not that there aren't shows like that in a certain way. Dog of Flanders starts out as a show about a nice boy who rescues a dog from a violent owner and his grandfather, and it becomes increasingly bleak, but that's not dark fantasy. It's just life as a penniless peasant, and more of a children's show, even with the bleakness (it was adapted from a children's book, after all). Rest spoilered for Gorth's sake. Yeah, even Cardcaptor Sakura has a couple of moments where you're thinking: "Wouldn't it be great if the characters were just a little older so we could add some more... mature drama moments to everything?", or at least I was. As always, that's complaining on a very, very high level here. Still, there's always something, yeah. Sailor Moon could do with better story episodes, Steven Universe could have been even better without studio interference, K-On! with more focus in the second season and less source material adaptation in the first. X was only a rewrite (well, perhaps more than one rewrite, but still) away from being legitimately good, not just a show with no target audience that I like because sometimes flaws end up being endearing for me. To be honest I'm kind of surprised that the general idea never came up. Not Miyu-specific, but assuming for a moment vampires or any other mythical creature would be real, the world as it is now would be increasingly problematic to stay hidden in. Sure there have been things like Blade or Underworld, but they don't exactly deal with that - nor are they character focused shojo anime. Instead of handwaving it away, wouldn't it be nice to have a show like that? Miyu would just have been a great vehicle for that because the setup was already there. All it would have taken was less of a focus on episodic demon action and more character interactions. Well, and maybe less demonic chickens at the end. Oh, right, Blood-C, Episode 12. There's a Nine Inch Nails song title that's the appropriate for the last two episodes: It is even on the very appropriately titled "things falling apart" remix album. Everything just implodes, in a way I've only seen in Devilman Crybaby so far. 11 is a major exposition dump and 12 just... I'm really hoping the movie brings this to some sort of satisfying close, because that was, yeah, lackluster.

It felt really out of place, in Love Live! you expected nothing else, but here it's just really random. Everyone's been pretty creepy to Saya all the time, but not quite like that. Yeah, however, as far as these go, it's only the the extent of the twist that's ludicrous, the rest is fairly nicely set up in a way that's subtle at first but increasingly noticable. It just flies completely off the handle at the end, something Gorth mentioned, I think. It's one of the better actiony anime I've watched, which doesn't count for much. I don't really have watched many of those. It is also a fairly nice showcase in how you need to do a bit more with your characters to make a twist like that worthwhile, and Perfect Blue showed that you can do that in a feature length film. Not that I don't like Saya, but everyone else could have done with a bit more... well, everything. Anyway, after Blood-C it's probably Blood-C movie time and then more wrap up. I really need to clear up a few things before picking up something else. Oh no, wrapping up things includes Magic User's Club. Maybe if I stuff Pretty Cure into my brain, that will fall out? What do you think? 800 episodes of something I'm not very likely to enjoy?

Blood-C, Episode 11: Called the first and the last two points after episodes 3 and 4, I think, the other one just before the reveal - a bit too lazy to check now. After that fiasco of the real identity of the agent in Steins;Gate, I got to say that was a very welcome win for me. I guess it's time for everyone to... Assuming this anime tries to make any point at all at the end, it'll maybe be: The random boob grab from the trailer is in episode 11. What's up with that? I'm almost beginning to think I've complained too much about Nozomi's random boob attacks in Love Live!, but given the ridiculous prevalence of this in other series, is that actually like a thing in Japan? edit: In terms of plot structure and pacing, episode 11 was an utter failure. For me, it was still fun to see, but that's me...

Blood-C, E10: Anyway, some of the monster designs are really neat.

More Blood-C: Thankfully at least, Saya starts thinking about how things don't add up. To be entirely truthful, that's how it looked in my mind. In the show you "only" see her slashing the character stuck inside a web inside the shadow creature thing, an explosion of blood and a lot of chunked human afterwards, but the association came up immediately. Just finished episode nine.

There's no such thing as good food in the Nordics... the further North you get in Europe, the worse the food becomes.

It's not and it's not. It is quite good in what it is and does, assuming everything that happens has a proper reason that will come out at some point, i.e. the Elder Bairns always toying with Saya until she just murders them (not that they don't deserve it, they almost always make sure to always kill some humans to justify ending their existence), instead of going in for the kill right from the start. That's my biggest worry right now, that's it's just the... katana vs. Cthulhu swordfight version of villain's exposition. I am currently giving it the benefit of the doubt simply because Nanase Ohkawa has co-written the series, and if nothing else, she really knows how to set things up and reap a payoff later. The one thing that sets it apart from usual shounen animes in the same vein is that Saya is a nice character whose agency in the whole situation is somewhat limited, if it exists at all, and she has no interest in growing more powerful beyond trying harder because she wants* to save as many people as possible. The story so far is apparently about: Things and people regularily die in best splatter manner. *That want might be brainwashing. If I had to guess right now: In a way the setup makes it unique, a bit like X, which has different themes, but a similar action-driven setup populated by more likeable characters than usual in that type of anime. X has more attempts at character drama though (and twice as many episodes, so yeah), that just feels incidental in Blood-C. They could have done much more with the setup, people keep disappearing in a very small town, after all. Attempts are there, but it's never entirely... the focus. So it waffles around a bit between character driven moments and over the top action with copious amounts of gore. Neither here nor there, which it does share with X. Also had a pretty Pegasus/Artemis moment: Maybe not animation, but live action TV shows pretty much always had "Next week on <Series Name>" previews. They're often also on the DVDs and Blu Rays. edit: One more thing about Blood-C:

More Blood-C: Saykura defeats General Grievous. If this were live action - and eh, I think there actually are live action adaptations - Jay would be permanently amused by the splatter stuff going on. Right, one thing I forgot:

Uhm:

Blood-C has one big advantage: It's interesting enough to keep me occupied and therefore not needing to go back to Steins;Gate and Lady Asuka. It does have a disadvantage: It's not going to last very long. The episodes are showing signs of... let's say, degradation (Saykura's interactions become somewhat repetivite, and there's more AAAAAAAACSHUN than before), plus there's a whole bunch of things that all move along the expected paths. Still beats Steins;Gate since it doesn't make me cringe and except for Saykura sitting on Emo McEdgelordface for a moment after falling off a tree nothing too fanservicey or ha-ha "funny" (i.e. jokes that don't work) happend yet, outside of the intro sequence. Handily beats Lady Asuka because Saykura's shonen mode isn't permanent, and she's thankfully really silent while it is on. Which brings me to the other part that's weird, the monsters are all utterly stupid even if they appear to be highly intelligent and capable of speech, or there is some reason for them always toying with Saykura to the point where she goes full evil enraged shonen mode and just straight up murder death kills them. Because they always, ALWAYS just don't kill her in spite of having plenty of opportunities to do so. Also... The intro song is pretty good too. The English parts make me think that the singer is French. Obviously can't really tell if the Japanese has a noticable accent or not. His French is certainly better than his English, at least.

Saturday evening maintenance duty. Made the best of it and just worked the entire day, funny how much you can get done without constant interruption.