majestic

Miss Dream also has the subtitles Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon live action show with Tuxedo Mullet and Wig!Moon. Pretty good quality all in all. The always ongoing debate about localization vs. more literal translations. On the one hand, it makes for clunkier reading, on the other hand sometimes it's necessary to properly understand character dynamics, however... I'd say a quality localization gets the point across in a meaningful way, regardless. Take Tomoyo for instance, she can call her mother just "mother" in any translation and Sakura call her dad "dad" and that's that, point transported. Dropkick on my Devil! has a moment that's a bit difficult to transport, and the subs almost managed, but not quite. When Medusa is angry at Jashin, she goes into "keigo" mode - i.e. she starts talking to Jashin in very formal and excessively polite Japanese. The subtitles just call that "passive agressive" mode which isn't half a bad idea, but not quite the same. Funny, I don't know a whole lot of Japanese words, but the language seems to have better patterns or easier grammar rules than German, so it's much easier to notice these things than it would be on a German or English show once you get the hang of it. Even without understanding a word. The only thing that's not going to work out all that well is personal pronouns, but those are a totally different case entirely. Plus sometimes it's really better to not know what the characters are talking about, I'd cringe a lot less when listening to Komi Can't Communicate's "Childhood Friend"* Bokukko** if I wouldn't know she's a Bokkuko (it's supposed to be a character of unspecified gender, I guess). Yeah, it wasn't a bad episode (easy to say, are there any bad Sakura episodes outside of Clear Card?), just oddly out of place. Such a first arc setup suddenly showing up near the very end. On the bright side, you're inching ever closer there. Soon it'll be over, and the way is clear for the movie. Clueless, I think, not necessarily dumb. Not entirely inaccurate. Poor Sakura is going to have a very bright moment soon though. Heh. *Literally. Character name is Childhood Friend. Or, well, the Japanese word for it, anyway. **I forgot to mention that for anyone not too in the, uhm, lingo - girl who refers to herself as boku, Japanese "I" for (younger) boys and adolescents. A bokukko is essentially a girl talking like a boy. In Miyu, Yukari Kashima is one of those, for somewhat obvious reasons, and that worked well enough, but Childhood Friend is just cringey.

My wife worries about that, yes. The others, including her sister? No. She should be super-worried right now, but they all think this is a government mandated world wide conspiracy and that there is no pandemic, just a "plandemic" to control people through vaccinations. The nefarious purpose behind the vaccination varies depending on what type of moron they recently listend to and ranges from tracking implants (fun fact, they all have dogs and all of them have tracking chips implanted and not one of them thinks it's odd that they're so large and underneath the skin rather than in their dogs muscle tissue... but hey, never let facts stand in the way of a good conspiracy) to sterilization or outright kill switches so the "high finance" (Nazi code for Jews) can indiscriminately kill people. The most outlandish claim I've heard was that Bill Gates wants to kill all but five million people of the world's elite and then leave Earth to explore the galaxy in their warp capable starship. I wish I would be making this up... and I really wish we would have warp capable starships because that would be totally awesome. The most hilarious part about this all is that they're watching people like Alex Jones spout their stuff in the open when he claims there's this world wide conspiracy that is so powerful that every last damned government on the planet plays along or is fully involved, even those that hate each other, but one guy on YouTube or Telegram has all the knowledge and is allowed to post it freely without repercussions. Meanwhile Anonymous hacktivists are always wearing masks and use artifically generated voices because they're really operating in a grey or downright illegal area and would be taken down if the "gobernmint" / teh man / teh police got a hold of them when they leak damning evidence for wrongdoings that should be hushed up. They watch Julian Assange being blasted by (most likely) wrong accusations, spending years hidden inside an embassy, and an army of fascist shills posting everywhere how he's a danger to freedom (like some even on this forum, you guys know who you are ) while watching Attila Hildmann on Telegram (although he is now wanted and fled to Turkey over "exposing" the Jewish part of the Corona conspiracy on grounds of Germany's rather strict laws when it comes to religious and ethnic incitement and Anonymous killed his Telegram presence). They watch journalists being cut up and partially dissolved in acid or shot on the street. Watch opposition politicians disappear or being killed. See Chinese citizens in "reeducation" camps for not being decent Chinese citizens. Then they watch Russia Today report every possible and suspected cases of vaccination side effects except for Sputnik V because the other mainstream media has "an agenda" and clearly Russia Today hasn't. Alex Jones' only worry in the world is the revenue stream he's missing since YouTube cut him off. He's safe and sound, just like every other vaccination conspiracy nutjob. Safe from companies that are so powerful that they're allowed to infect the entire world for profit or are unscrupulous enough to kill millions - if not billions in cold blood. So what is it, then? Is there no powerful conspiracy that would try to shut him up like Assange, or are they all actually in on it and just looking to obfuscate things further? Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Man, I remember a couple of years ago the usual suspects here on the forum (you get one guess who that was) linked to InfoWars vidoes with severely mistranslated German interviews to try and prove that Germany is going to create and mobilize a European Union army against the bastions of freedom in Eastern Europe, just because someone said the parilament should fight for the freedoms and rights won by past generations if need be. That's all it took, taking "to fight for something" and turning it into potential combat action. You know, I like watching Flat Earther videos. Those guys don't harm anyone by exposing how dumb they are, but these other guys? Where IS that conspiracy that should make them disappear? Guys, a little help here, please MAKE them disappear. Unmarked vans would be fine, you already have some experience with that.

Well, I said I won't make long bit by bit posts about Nanoha any more, what with the length of the third season, so just a quick update of a minor thing: Hayate just gave a speech to her new staff in the new Riot Force 6. Not only are the cooks and the service crew present, she addresses them too. Maybe it's too early to get my hopes up, but so far this all looks somewhat well planned out, at least. The music is still leftovers from a cancelled JRPG. The most striking difference, aside from the "new" main cast, is that the anime feels a lot more... not light hearted, but not as god damned serious as the first two seasons were. Might still change, but so far a rather unexpectedly strong beginning. Hm. edit: Episode ends with Fate apparently sharing either a room at the base with Nanoha or else they're living together. The Nanoha wiki says they'll adopt a child at some point, so that's not just for show. Yeah, here's to hoping that doesn't get too fanserviced down the line. Why do I hear Daru talking about Yuri Fields right now?

When it rains it pours, my wife was with her family for a birthday party yesterday and what do you know, her sh*t for brains anti-vaxxer brother tested positive today and probably infected the entire sh*t for brains anti-vaxxer family in the process... most likely including her older sister who not that long ago had a rather extensive and hefty chemo therapy plus surgery (breast cancer). My wife should be fine, having had an infection earlier this year that went by without symtpoms before the vaccines were available outside of high risk groups - assuming she even tests positive and has a reinfection, but she's quarantined for now. To make matters worse he's too dumb to fill out the online preparation form for the contact tracing and too dumb to copy the link. He managed to make a screencap of his phone with only half the link showing, so I can't help him either (not that I want to, but whatever). FML

Yes. And it gets even more yes later on.

Woops. Seeing how the same happens with Way of the Househusband, I'm assuming that is related to the animation style. Not sure, might be something else. It also wasn't just STANDO POWAH, it's not like I was any quicker with Phantom Blood and Battle Tendency. It's a pity @InsaneCommander is so busy, I think he'd be the most likely candidate to enjoy Nanoha too, based on some of the other stuff he's watched and liked. Minus that loli-scene. Well... okay. You're missing out on metal space Cthulhu and an absolutely stupid Mass Effect / Star Treck crossover with Picard. It's almost worth watching for that nonsense alone. It needs to be seen to be believed, but giving CBS money for that? Nope. Do not approve. Yes, Macross, and it turned into one giant franchise with several different spinoffs, the most recent one from 2016. It was on TV when I was very little, but that's... yeah, about all I remember. Although I don't know which part that was.

No, it's... it's not bad, but unlike the other OVA, I don't think it adds anything to Violet's journey. If you're already struggling with the time commitment, then by all means postpone the 90 minute OVA in favor of the better new movie. Yeah, I get that. I watched two full seasons of Nanoha in the same timespan as three episodes of JoJo's, and JoJo's is definitely the more entertaining show. I just can't watch more than a couple of episodes a week for some reason. It's the same with Way of the Househusband. It's hilarious, the episodes are short, but I'm still not done in spite of really enjoying it. It's not like you'd have any compulsion to finish watching the train wreck. But you could still get Picard, that should be on Amazon Prime for you too, being paid by Amazon. Right?

Funny that there are moments when Netflix has films here that you don't. Licencing really is a mess. edit: If you're pressed for time, then the Violet Evergarden OVA "film" (which is more like two interconnected 45 minute episodes) is... let's say skippable. It's nice, but if you don't see it then you won't really miss much. Except an explanation how poser dude Bendict gets his bitching golden motorcycle that he suddenly rocks in the movie.

Exactly why the movie is so much better once the moron introduction is over.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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