majestic

Japanese has ten thousand different pronouns and a very simple rule regarding them: Use them as little as possible, ideally not at all. Hence the excessive usage of names, especially to address people. Every time there'd be a "you" or "they" or something similar in English (or any other Germanic language), you'll probably get a name if at all possible in Japanese. When you look at something simple like eating, that would be taberu. Simply saying taberu is a complete sentence in Japanese. That can mean, depending on context, I am/he is/you are/we are eating. It's also a familiar way of speaking, tabemasu is the polite form. If you thought the series was overboard on appeal to emotion drama, then the film is the cherry that tops everything off. I don't think there's a point in trying, but Erica is really only a small part in it. Plus it won't work nearly as well as it does when you're familiar with Violet and what happened to her, but the film was clearly written with the intention to provide enough context for a new watcher to understand what is going on. I'd still say Grave of the Fireflies has more joyful moments in it, and that's... probably saying a lot.

I managed to a get a few things finished over the weekend. First, I closed my rewatch of Violet Evergarden, the movie - with good sound. Honestly that improved the film to a point where I wished I would not have watched it with the original cinema experience. I'm not going to complain about the ending again, or the premise. Both things are what they are, and while I wish that the movie would not exist (at least not in this form), the film itself is nothing short of breathtakingly beautiful in many ways. It's also much, much more melancholic than even the series was. When looking at the film as a standalone project, perhaps that's why it got a schmalzy happy ending like that. Without that, ultimately, the film would have the dour and depressing mood that you will get from watching the end of Grave of the Fireflies and have it from start to finish. While the series has Violet dealing with her grief and repressed guilt in a manner mostly seen through third parties and their own struggles, the series is, while having some very dark moments, still hopeful, and ends on a fanastic high note. Kind of a recommendation for @Gorth, time and budget permitting (Netflix has a free one month trial, anyway). The film on the other hand, has nothing that is hopeful, at least not (spoilers from here on out): The other was I was able to finish Steins;Gate. Steins;Gate has something common with Love Live!, and that probably has something to do with the writer, Jukki Hanada. He is quite capable of writing wonderful and convincing character interactions (like that final episode in K-On!'s first season) - some of them in the latter half of Steins;Gate are really exceptional and simply work, but he's also capable of coming up with the worst sort of fanservice and terrible behaviour. Lampshading it by having other characters call Okarin and Kurisu tsundere doesn't really cut it. Most of the time Okarin is an idiot in a way that makes it completely unrealistic than anyone wants to be his friend, even his dysfunctional group of friends should just leave and never come back, yet they do, all the time. I'm not even going to talk about the storyline or the plot holes, because I don't know much much that comes from the source material. However, there are a lot of them - not very surprisingly, what with this being a time travel story. Often enough, something happens in the story because it has to, not because it makes sense. Still, the tail end of the show was interesting enough for it to not be a total loss after that horrible middle part all but killed my interest for a while. I'll take a long break before beginning Steins;Gate 0. If I never have to hear Feyris go NYAAAAAAAAAAAAN again it'll be too soon. Nyan, nyan.

Most shōnen stuff starts out too much and gets worse. It's really only a starter guide, and you need to be careful with some things. Also for the love of god avoid anything that has lolis in it. While Lolita fashion really means Victorian era doll-dresses (see Violet Evergarden's doll like appearance, for instance), lolis that appear in lolicon anime are... what happens when animators realize that there are no age restrictions in erotic animated content and they feel like making an animated version of Nabokov's Lolita, if you catch my drift. It's super easy to look for one thing and then suddenly have very different things, uhm, in your search history. Anyway, since you mentioned that you're usually preferring original with subtitles, there are a few things that are more important to get a hang of than general terminology, and that's the subtleties of Japanese politness and forms of address and honorifics. It's a minefield that will leave you go what? often enough, but it's also something that sadly most subtitles fail to transport. Especially English subtitles because English by far and large just stopped having the required words for it a while ago. You can perhaps gauge by just how bad that really is when you look at something that happened back in 2008 when the then prime minister of Japan answered a question by a journalist like this: Anata to chigaun desu (I am not like you, by far and large, in the context). This caused a major sh*tstorm in Japan. Why? Anata is a word you'll hear relatively often, and it means "you" - just a you used between peers or by someone in higher (social) standing to someone of lower standing. A politician is essentially the servant of the people, so they have no business thinking of their constituents as equals. You just don't address someone of higher standing with anata. Kind of hilarious when not even Japanese top officials get their words and addresses and honorifics done right. It's ridiculous.

Decent chance they got the idea from Crystal if that's a new thing. Scary thought, really.

No, like Gromnir already stated, that's just a lonesome slice of parsnip, the herb is a decorative piece of corn salad and the ketchup you get every time, even when you order the candy without ketchup. Because... yeah, what else would you expect from a guy who greets some of his customers by yelling: "You're fat enough already, I ain't cooking for you."

I was mostly joking, but I wouldn't consider Surströmming to be bad food out of hand. We're eating a lot of fermented stuff here too, just not fish, but when you're opening a new barrel or bag/can of sauerkraut, the smell isn't the most fantastic thing in the world either, but the food itself great. Speaking of Michelin stars, by the way, I'm more partial to the Gault-Millau hats, as that's just a mark of quality for the food, not anything else. Good service and a nice looking restaurant is, well, nice, but really, the best food I often got in totally run-down places, places with the most grumpy of servers (and/or owners) and fantastically tasteless furniture to round it off. The small places the locals go to eat, you know. One of those is in walking distance, guy just recently threw out his lava lamps (no, really). He's also all nice and friendly, really, last time I was there we combined going out to eat with walking our dog, and he come in and he's like: "Who's the idiot on the leash there?" and I was like "What?" and he predictably went: "I'm talking to the dog." Makes decent candy too.

A couple of days ago I thought my water heater got leaky because water dripped down from under it. Turned it and the water off, drained it, went looking for new ones to replace it, all that jazz. Turns out that might have been a bit premature. It's not the heater, considering the ceiling above it is now all wet and drippy. It probably was wet and drippy before, but it now reached a maginutude where it's visible. I'd rather have to buy a new heater and have it installed than having to deal with that again. Nothing like having construction work done at home in November with all the windows and the door open, and my upstairs neighbor is, uhm, difficult to deal with, and that's me being all nice, because she's half a lose marble away from belonging in an isolation ward. It's going to be miserably cold, dirty, dusty, wet and having to deal with insane people. Great, this could not get any better, nor come at a better time, really. Sigh.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Episode 5. This one borrows a trick from a very old playbook. Nanoha and Fate are winning until a masked man shows up and helps the Belkan Knights escape. Not sure why Tuxedo Mask is fighting on the bad guy's side, but he told Chrono that he's doing to right thing. Sure, why not. Hayate isn't just paralyzed, she has some sort of degenerative neuroligical condition. Not sure why interdimensional mages with access to more developed planets would let that be treated on Earth, but hey, maybe Hayate was a normal girl until the Book of Darkness showed up. Hayate doesn't seem to be aware of her friends... occupation, at least, which is pretty odd when they all consider her their leader, master, or whatever. True to form, with much of the episode dedicated to action, it was much less interesting than the two before. Fixed that for you.

Dropkick on my Devil!, Episode 4. This keeps on being an wonderful mix of absurdist moments, fourth wall breaking jokes and absolutely fantastic, if totally dysfunctional, character moments between Medusa and Jashin. Medusa wearing a paper bag when outside also never fails to make me laugh. If there's one thing to complain about so far is that the show doesn't do too much with Pekola and Minos. Yet, maybe, but there are only eight episodes left and Medusa and Jashin have gotten the majority of interactions so far. For the record, this has three and a half stars on Prime Video, while Lady Asuka has a straight five star rating. Also managed to get another Steins;Gate episode in, and... Steins;Gate is also really getting on my nerves with character fates being fixed moments in time and the timelines correcting itself so they die when they're meant to.

No, not in here, but apparently it was popular enough to spawn several seasons and movies. Baffling, really, because it has a bit of the anime X problem (the manga was apparently popular enough). Except being less over the place in terms of writing quality, style and storytelling. I mean, that sounds as "except everything" and that's not wrong, but at its core Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha feels like one of these shows that only I really like. Except it isn't. Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, Episode 4 Was really good too. It's interesting how much better the show is when it's not all action, but it ends with a fight starting, so I'm guessing episode five is going to be all combat again, but they've cornered one of the Belkan Knights and their familiar in an isolation barrier, so maybe that'll be over quickly. Fate and Nanoha get their upgraded devices, Nanoha is back to full magical power, which begs the question why the bad guys don't simply keep a magical girl around to drain mana from, or don't just keep draining themselves, that would complete the book and nobody would notice their activities. Alas, never let a plot hole stop you, I mean, it's not like Sailor Moon wasn't stupid in the bad guys always attacking Tokyo instead of literally anyplace else without a Guardian or ten. The music contines to feel as if it was taken directly from an older Final Fantasy's combat score. Upgraded devices also means upgraded, longer transformation scenes that feel way too extended now that Fate was added to the protagonists, as she has a full transformation sequence too. They also continue the "tradition" of being a bit overboard with the way they change their clothes. Fate's is really borderline, because I don't see a reason why Bardiche summons her boots on her before the one piece unitard she wears in combat except for one: Extending the time she's nude, and OMG NUDE FATE WITH ONLY BOOTS ON. But... what use is there complaining. Honestly, as long as it's just that, it's... fine. This is fine. It's kind of hilarious, we complained about the length of a full team transformation sequence in Sailor Moon, and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha's take the same time, just with two.

Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's, Episode 3: A very welcome break after the nonstop action of episode two, in this one things quiet down. Everyone's licking their wounds, Nanoha's and Fate's weapons get repaired and there are a whole lot of nice interactions. It was a rather well made but still serious episode, but like it was clear from the very start, this isn't ever going to be a funny or comedic show, and that's fine (for me, anyway). There's some exposition about the tech the enemies in this season are using, and both Raising Heart and Bardiche decide that they want to get mana power packs too. Fate, Lindy and Chrono come to a very personal decision, and they relocate their base next to Nanoha's house, for plot convenience and to save up on having to animate space ships and the Space Cop bureau all the time. I mean, because their ship is moored for maintenance. The Linker Core McGuffin turned out to be a mage's power supply, removing Nanoha's has given her temporary negative levels, but she'll regain her magical ability soon enough. Could have called it a mana drain ability of the Book of Darkness and it would have been a good bit better, I mean, seriously, why call it a Linker Core and present it as a silly McGuffin when you already established mana-levels as a measurement of mage power, just make the book absorb mana. There was also a nice scene with the antagonists and everyone caring for Hayate. Even managed to sneak in a semi-fanservice scene that wasn't totally offensive because it was pretty short, not very explicit and Hayate really would have a hard time getting into a bathtub herself. Actually it wasn't even that fanservice-y. It was mostly like Chibi-Usa and Usagi taking a bath in Sailor Moon and talking to each other. It wasn't necessary to set it like that, strictly speaking, but I already steeled myself for a nother round of nightmarish loli-content when they suddenly told Hayata that it's time for her bath, and while that still could happen, I was pleasantly surprised to find it a really understated scene. Phew. Very strong first hint that the bad guys aren't as bad as they seem. If this keeps up being as honest as it looks, they're probably just looking into a way to heal Hayate, or are otherwise making a deal with some unsavory group to buy healing for Hayate. edit: Let me know if anyone ever plans on watching the anime, then I'll start to spoiler-tag things in my posts.

Forcing myself implies an act of will I don't want to ascribe to my particular brand of needing to finish watching TV shows/movies or finish reading books, but yes, indeed. It's so much easier. It limits exposure and since it can't go any faster, doesn't cause other issues. Would have been smarter not to watch, but hey... I'm not really the best deciderer (or choicerer... heh, randomly hat to think of Will Ferrell as Bush) when it comes to what I watch, right?

First, for me that was the other way around. While the first episode had a redeeming scene that I thought worked perfectly, this just had nothing that really worked for me. Unlike the first episode, which waffled between me disliking it and findig a scene brilliant, this one just did nothing, except cringe at the Bokukko dialogue. Second, the weekly format is a godsend here. When I overload my capacity to decide on entertainment, I more or less get into not watching anything at all. I'm way past that point, and I deliberately moved myself there by starting too much at once. Mostly to avoid watching Lady Asuka. Ugh. Having my watch schedule decided on me means I don't have to worry about getting Komi Can't Communicate done. Now... well, maybe the next episode(s) will be more interesting.

So it's gonna get balls really quickly now.

I don’t remember the episode number but have you seen JoJo’s balls yet?;)

Heh, yeah, I can see how that would be annoying, but totally doesn't matter when you're 12. I guess I'll have to replay it at some point. Sakura talk:

Thanks, I'll try that next time. Switching back and forth did not fix the issue for me. Never thought you could use the bug reporting feature to save mid-combat, that sounds like a hilarious way to cheese some more.

Yeah, dunno, it's been a while since I could check. It got leaky... and, uhm, it's almost 40 years old now, so it's probably time to thank it for its service and find a replacement. One of the two heating coils died a while ago already, so it's been running on half power anyway, so unless it's just something minor like a porous seal I got a good deal of mileage out of it anyway, espeically since I got it for free. *shrug* It's only a "minor" inconvenience since I can just hop over to my neighbors (well, parents) for all my warm water needs, but it's annoying nonetheless.

I like how turn based mode breaks down randomly with the new patch, and switching to real time with pause in the middle of the fight, which is the suggested workaround, kind of messes up your battlefield control when you were in the middle of a fight. Hilarious. Also, eh, that just doesn't break TB mode, but apparently also the active abilities of the Bad HoMM minigame. Or maybe these two issues aren't related, but anyway, one makes a bad mini-game worse, and the other just killed my party in the middle of a fight. Meh. Granted, doing the fight over in RTwP right from the start isn't the worst thing you can do and it works, but just imagine that messing up one of the more idioticly balanced fights out there instead of a random encounter with sneak attacking hidden demons that suddenly act all at once.

They've been releasing older games on the Switch. NES, SNES, now N64 and Sega Genesis. The only downside is it's gated behind their online service, and the catalogues aren't that extensive. The N64 one is fairly new and I did not yet get the chance to try it out, so no idea how the emulation is. NES and SNES go as expected. Also always some things missing due to licencing issues, but I'm really looking forward to play Lylat Wars / Starfox 64 again. Once I get my Switch back. My warm water supply just died, probably for good this time, so new hardware gets put on a back burner for the time being.

Disappointed they didn't go for Umbrella, but they're probably leaving that one to Google Alphabet.

Courtesy of it being a fan translation, I guess - on the other hand, Squeenix' go-to translator Ted Woolsey is a bit (in)famous for his... uhm, work, too. I was a bit surprised when I talked about older JRPG titles with Americans for the first time. Never realized how different the translations were in certain parts. Secret of Mana was affected too, especially regarding the sprite and its gender (and ultimate fate in the game). I mean to replay the Sould Blazer series at some point, although I'm uncertain how well Illusion of Gaia will hold up to my nostalgic memories. Because I really doubt I would enjoy wasting my time leaving and entering a screen fifty times until one of the red gem spawn finally proccs. That was one big "What the hell, game?" moment even back then, because I had to look into the guide that came with the game to find the last one, only to realize I missed it almost right at the start, and that there's no way back. There's obscure secrets, and then there's total nonsense, and really, anyone who tells me they found that one without a guide is lying (or hacked the game files, which really is the same thing, only more sophisticated ). That's like SWTOR's Imperial/Republican Fleet Station datacron. When nobody found it, Bioware just released a video guide. *shrug* Secret of Mana is... I tried to replay it on the SNES Mini. I remember playing the game for a long, long time when it first came out and absolutely enjoying it, then we swapped some games at school, school sort of ended, everyone lost track of each other and with it I lost track of my copy of Secret of Mana. Instead I have a Breath of Fire II cartridge here. It certainly didn't hold up to my nostalgia, especially all the spell and weapon grinding. The story wasn't as interesting as I thought it was, but hey, when you're 12 the game was really great. Funny, if you had asked me back then if I got a better deal out of the trade I would have said no, but nowadays I'm not so sure any more. I recently played Bravely Default 2 on the Switch, and it also had random encounters that you could see on the map and simply walk around, with a level range. If you were way overlevelled they'd actively run away. I like that designed, and it was one of the things that bothered be about World of Warcraft when I first tried it. In EQ2, when you were overlevelled, grey mobs just avoided you, and in order to aggro them you'd really have to attack first or get so close it counts as attack anyway. In WoW on the other hand, everything keeps attack you as long as it is an aggressive mob. Even if you're a hundred levels higher. Baffling, and highly annoying. Bravely Default also has a semi-interesting turn based combat concept where you can front-load your turns by using up your future turns, most of the time that's enough to clear trash in one go, and it makes for fun boss battles. Or it would have, if by the end of the game it wouldn't revolve around getting your turn, abusing the Phantom class to spend magic points to set procc chances to 100% and throw a stun grenade at the enemies. That makes them unable to act for serveral turns, and everything stun immune you just burst down before it becomes problematic (Swordmaster/Freelancer can burst down anything in one go, really... except the very final boss and two or three endgame encounters). I mean, the game was probably designed with adjusting your skillset, classes and gear based on the enemies you fight, and that probably works too, but why bother? Chrono Trigger is fairly unique because you can't grind at all, unless I'm thinking of another game here. There's simply fixed amount of encounters on the map, and nothing random at all. Why? I mean, even 12 year old me saw that coming from ten miles away, but other than that... Yeah, they are. There's no sugarcoating this, the way Nintendo goes after anything they think violates their copyright is insane. Still, they're the only worthwhile first party developer for me. I know a lot of people that say that Nintendo just releases the same games over and over, but it's fairly clear they don't actually play them. There more difference in gameplay between Mario series than there is between 99% of the shovelware shooters on the market, for instance. Eh, on topic, uhmm... ahh... I watched the third episode of Dropkick on my Devil!, which was still pretty good, but less funny than the others. There's some examination of Medsa's and Jashin's friendship...love...thing. Not sure. Jashin calls Medusa her personal ATM, and Medusa is constantly giving Jashin money.

Now that seems entirely reasonable. I grew up on RPGs like that... feels like a lifetime ago. Things like the Gold Box games and Bard's Tale, and Eye of the Beholder. Couldn't go anywhere for any reasonable stretch of time in these without being attacked. Quest 64 is from a time where combat was no longer all that RPGs could really do, so I don't know what their excuse was. Heh. On the other hand I survived Mystic Quest on the SNES, so how bad can Quest 64 really be. All of my consoles are still in working order*, but the only one I play with is my Switch. No, that's a lie, I had a Switch, but in a hilarious and completely unexpected twist, now that my nephew doesn't hog it all the time any more, my mother started playing Pikmin 3, for like hours a day. I guess I should just give up and get myself a new one. She sure needs the practice for her fingers and fine motor skills more than I need the money it would cost to buy a new one. If you could find any in this day and age. 'S ridiculous, really. I won't immediately launch into it anyway. I already know I can't stand the music, and the setting isn't my idea of fun either. At least, not any more. Seems like a show I would have immediately tried 25 years ago though. Tomoyo and Sakura are both fairly static. That is and isn't a good thing at the same time. Sakura will get some kind of development soonish, but that's... I don't want to say minor, but really, up until that point, she was largely herself as she was in the first episode. It isn't a good thing because we as adults sit here and have our favorites perhaps replaced by other characters, although that didn't really happen for me, but Meiling came really close to managing (dunno, Sakura just won me over with that episode where she trashes her father's laptop, and that never really went away - really funny too because in real life I usually don't like the always happy motor mouth type... way too draining to interact with). On the other hand, anchoring Sakura (and by extension, Tomoyo, I guess) and allowing every other character to progress around them was, I think, a deliberate way and a part of the sort of "static" Cardcaptor Sakura formula, largely for the benefit of the actual target demographic to find something familiar in each episode but still retain the ability for change and changes around them without running the risk of losing them. I hope that sentence makes sense, it took an extreme amount of brainage to make it go (to borrow from one of Raithe's jokes that he posted). I'm so tired lately. Sigh. I'd recommend looking into the past, to be honest, more than into the present. SNES era had some of the best games I had the pleasure of playing, but I'm not sure how well they work going back to them, instead of having nostalgia help to sand the rough edges down a little. Even in long standing JRPG series, although that's one to make myself unpopular whever I mention it, but the best Final Fantasy is clearlyVI. Terranigma is more of an action adventure / RPG hybrid, and was never released in North America, but it's really good. Then there's Secret of Mana which was pretty good too, but as @Bartimaeus might be able to corroborate, isn't really as good as its, uhm, reputation. Depends on how much jank and old schoolness you can really take. A Link To The Past would be the best Legend of Zelda entry if it weren't for Ocarina of Time too. *Doesn't equal ready to use, because that would require spending some effort that far exceeds simply emulating them, which I don't feel bad at all about precisely because I still have all the original parts and games. The only reason I played with my SNES Mini for as long as I did was precisely the ease of use. Plug in, works. No need for mods, adaptors, cables, whatnot. Thanks, but no thanks.

I know, it's... one of these things I'm sure will end up being a disappointment. Like Young Merlin on the SNES. When I first read about the game it was titled a new Zelda, it came from Westwood which was back then a studio you could just buy games from without waiting for reviews and then... I never got a cartridge, just, like, never showed up in stores here. I tried the game much later on my SNES Mini and boy oh boy, was that ever NOT a new Zelda. Or an old one, nowadays. In fact, it was nothing. Except boring. I'm perfectly certain Quest 64 will end up being the same. I also plan on going back to Lost Kingdoms on the GameCube and finish that at some point, although all I can remember from the game is that it was a drag, and something with cards. 2002 wasn't really a good time for me, I was doing my stint in the army. Ugh. Sounds more and more like something I should watch... Now you've made Tomoyo sad, and she turned into her caricature from Clear Card. Tsk. Aren't you ashamed good sir? Well? You know, my first reaction when Meiling showed up in the episode was: "Oh no, this isn't going to end well..." and hey, guess that one was coming for a long time. Hum. No need to reflect further, this is definite top 3 material all right, if not the best episode in the series. Higher highs and lower lows, right?

I always wanted to play Quest 64, but never found a cartridge. There are also a bunch of GameCube games I'd like to replay or even finish. Sakura talk: It was even told in such a non-chalant manner. She just came back to Jashin's place wearing that. I'm finding the show supremely entertaining at the moment, but I do wonder if that's enough to make 12 episodes work (never mind a spinoff). Seems a bit tenuous.