majestic

I watched Devilman Crybaby because LC posted in the streaming thread that it's too trippy for her. So, obviously, I also had no idea what I was getting into. It was a pretty wild ride, but like I said, I felt kind of cheated by the ending. At least Akira didn't find a magical silver crystal and restore the entire Earth with it, so there's that. Not much to go on, being better than Crystal.

Now, onwards to Utena! Honestly, that makes NGE look sane by comparison. Really...

Good enough for me, I figure if I feed my brain enough new stuff I won't have to go back and finish Magic User's Club, because even only a total of 19 episodes seems like a lot after that first one. Poor Erica might be your point of ire as far as character archetypes go, but otaku-level pathetic magical boys accidentially summoning underwear on their face and grinning like idiots is mine. That's not funny and I feel deeply ashamed by being associated with these people. I kind of wish I could excise them from nerd-dom. Shoo, off you go, can you join the incels maybe? The name, yeah, sure. I'm currently watching "X", K-On! is at least a couple more letters. I wonder if that will end up being a net positive. It's less inexplicable than Revolutionary Girl Utena, but the story, setup and episode references borrow heavily from fairly tales I'm familiar with. I wonder how that will work out for you. Regardless, it's easier to digest, and Ahiru is, unlike Utena - or anyone else in the anime - a likeable, if a bit ducky character. Ms. Itoh sometimes overdoes it with putting her in situations where she gets transformed back into a girl and has to scramble for her clothes after she accidentially ducks herself. It's like that narrow alley joke from Sailor Moon, only played a bit too often. I'm not sure that's correct, it's more like The Last Jedi than any of the prequels. At least The Last Jedi left me with the same feeling of being trolled by director. I couldn't even offhandedly tell you which of the two I found worse. Although, I already hated TFA, and most people were happy with that, including the fandumb, so the falling distance for Rebuild coming from End of Evangelion was a lot higher (longer?). Meh.

@Bartimaeus could you run K-On! through your heuristics please, by all acounts that looks to be an "Usagi joins a band" kind of anime. Love Live! without the fanservice, or at least a lot less (there is, of course, the obligatory beach episode in there somwhere). Well, and a band, not an idol group. Same difference insofar as that's not any more interesting as a premise. Can't help how it looks, but eh... I'm a bit past caring right now. It's not like Love Live! was ever pretty to look at, and going over the episode summeries here and there, Love Live! copied K-On! something fierce. Thanks! Watched some more Princess Tutu:

Filthy pinkos.

Heh. I hated the ending of Devilman Crybaby. @KP the meanie zucchini and I talked about that in the past, it's what originally landed me in his signature, that was before we moved our Sailor Moon talks to the anime thread. Well, I was 12 when I watched it. I might find a good deal of flaws in a rewatch, but back then I found it to be pretty good. Except the ending, didn't like that too much. There's a basis for my thoughts. Rebuild* is everything that NGE was, except with all the subtlety and complexity taken out of most of the characters. Only Shinji is as he always was, and Shinji was as much a personification of a part of Anno (technically, in the original, Rei and Asuka were as well - Shinji is his fear of rejection, Asuka his need for validation, and Rei his need for human connection and emotional ties - arguably Misato his need for physical connections, the beauty of the setup being that it works even without viewing any of them as author avatars) as he was an anime otaku stand-in, something Anno probably considered himself to be as well. Before... well, before the death threats over the original NGE ending, and the ridiculous demands, although given the original ending, I can understand some of the anger. Not the death threats. The original NGE ending was a nice thematic ending for the series, but it was a narrative non-starter, obviously - to bring that tired old topic back out, that's a bit like Lost where the characters get a thematic resolution, and absolutely none of the long running plot threads are resolved. That's why Mari is nothing but fanservice, especially in light of the fans DEMANDING her to show up earlier than planned. That's why there are these huge, useless action scenes that were all curiously missing from NGE and End of Evangelion. Sure there was action, but it was always meaningful and carried weight. That nonsense in Rebuild? Yeah, no, and also the reason why the fanservice in the original had meaning beyond Anno apparently really being the type of person who loves looking at butts, while we get Asuka wearing nothing and doing nothing in the character piece of Thrice Upon A Time, tossing around trying to sleep. She really is the jerk off fantasy that Shinji used her for in End of Evangelion. The action is what NGE fans wanted. The fanservice is only that, and Mari, who everyone wanted to show up early, is totally useless, but still gets Shinji. The only thing meant seriously is Shinji's talk to his father, and the anti-universe stuff, as an actual, final ending to Evangelion. That was Anno not being able to help himself, I guess. It culminates with Shinji ending Evangelion by erasing all EVAs, and running off with Mari, who is neither Rei nor Asuka. #notyourship I mean, sure, it could also have been a blatant least effort possible cashgrab, but working on something for that long seems to indicate otherwise. Might as well not be any of that. I mean, I'm fairly certain that my assessment of the original NGE as talked about back when I watched it is pretty correct. It certainly is applicable, even if it wasn't totally intentional. I'm not sure Rebuild really was a trolling attempt. I'd sure like to ask Mr. Anno, but I doubt he'd reply to my questions. Oh, by the way, how far along with Nadia are you? Apparently Anno stepped down as series director around episode 23 and that really went to hell in a handbasket afterwards. *Except the first one, perhaps. He might have still been serious about it with that one. 2.0, nope.

Speaking of Mari, I think I've changed my mind on Rebuild. It's an utter failure as a Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot and as a movie series in almost every way, from looking bad, to narrative problems, to character problems and thematic issues. However, I'm pretty sure by now that it's a 10/10 troll attempt, and most fans don't even notice that and rate it highly. Anno sure is laughing at them right now. That takes some dedication to work for 15 years and power through depression only to do a piss take. I was angry at first because it felt like I was being trolled, but I don't think I was. The general fandumb? Oh, yeah.

Shocking, really. Massive spoilers: I'm sorry Eriko but you seem to be a little too dark to watch right after such an edgelord anime. Speaking of X: X might be the most frustrating anime I've ever watched. The episodes switch between being brilliant and over the top edgelording in the blink of an eye. Spoilers from here, but I'm getting the feeling that no one else is going to watch, so feel free to read.

I know, I know. I guess... it's time to try Pretty Cure then!

Okay, so this OVA is recommended for anyone who is interested in what exactly Kill la Kill is making fun of. Oh boy. On the flipside, I'm not going to complain about Nozomi rubbing breasts in Love Live! any more, or about Asuka's "trying to sleep" scene in Thrice Upon A Time because that's harmless. Okay, so what's next?

The Magic User's Club 6 piece OVA begins with a giant CGI bell-shaped spaceship descending into Earth's atmospere being intercepted by a US naval battlegroup with air support. It does not go well for them. It even has fully English dialogue (in the Japanese original audio track). Well... okay. That's... yeah. Not exactly how I expected a magical girl anime to open. Image quality is typical for mid 90ies NTSC transfers. Ah Japan, why did you have to use NTSC. Really. Out of all the systems you could have picked, it was the worst. The worst. Stupid CGI space ship aside, that opening sequence was fairly well animated. Let's see how that continues, and how bad the fanservice really gets. edit: The opening credits have a giant girl with equally giant, jiggly animated (albeit fully clothed) boobs firing lasers from her eyes. Yeah, that will get really bad, I think. edit 2: First piece of music right after the opening credits is generic JRPG jingle #5. I can swear I've heard that before. Numerous times. edit 3: DIO is voicing the most androgynous boy with the most impressive purple mauve mullet ever. Ever woder how I got the job as DIO? Me too! Okay, good thing this is really short. We're 10 minutes in, had the giant boob laser girl from the opening credits, one of the girl's flipping over on her bike landing on a boy's crotch, DIO fondling that boy telling him he's cute and the other boy staring at some breasts. And the other girl from the Magic User's Club is off doing something else while not really wearing all too much. Well then Mr. Sato, you're out too, even if the premise of the show is kind of hilarious so far and everyone is rather likable. And Ms. Itoh, you're... you're a good animator and character designer, but really, that's, erm, seriously... You know its bad when the opening of your anime OVA has more moments like this than the first three episodes of Love Live!, and that was made for an adult male audience.

I'm a bit confused to be honest, are you offended or did you make a joke, or is this a reference to something I don't get, I mean, Commander Shepard on the Citadel aside since we were talking about Mass Effect 2. I'd take anything as long as it features Usagi and friends written by the same people that came up with their anime characterization. Although that is not a guarantee for a good anime, there's Clear Card as testament to that. Plus it really should not look like Crystal. Ideally... I'm not going to try that just to see if its even a fraction as interesting or fun as Sailor Moon. Nope. Fun fact time though, Toei initially envisioned Sailor Moon to be something like what Pretty Cure became, an endlessly running series with a similar setup but changing casts and storylines per season. An animated Power Rangers with magical girls. Boy am I glad that didn't work out like that. I'm giving that the benefit of the doubt based on the people involved. It's probably going to turn out to be stupid, terrible or stupidly terrible, or maybe about tons of incest because nobody who worked on Sailor Moon walked away with their sanity intact, apparently. It still looks like the most interesting thing Sato has done since Sailor Moon. Eh... I have no excuse besides desperation, and a rotted brain from watching Rebuild. That's what the manga did. Both the movie and the anime had to come up with original endings. CLAMP just stopped with the apocalypse after several early 2000s events. Earthquakes, tsunamis, 9/11. So, yeah, entirely possibly that some things will be left open.

No, that really is one giant head, or a normal sized head on a proportionally too small a body. Sailor Moon in ancient Japan. At the rate this is going, I'd be willing to settle for a Sailor Moon like show set anywhere. The moon, an alien space ship, in a lost world setting with dinsaurs. Anything. Alas, if there is something like it, I don't know where. I guess there's Pretty Cure left to try, but... but... but that's over 800 episodes in like 17 season/series and 14 movies, and looks way too action focused. Once I'm done with Princess Tutu I'm going to give Magic User's Club a try, which was directed by Junichi Sato (Sailor Moon's series director for the first season and the R filler arc) and features character designs by Ikoku Itoh. Mostly because it's short. Really short. 6 piece OVA followed by a 13 episode TV anime. Afterwards... I'm going to go by some other suggestions, I guess. Crusher Joe looked like something that would be totally for me, so that's definitely on the list. Not sure I want to watch Eriko that close after X. A reprieve indeed, alas, not really something that will hold your interest. There are nice moments in there though:

Oh no! Oh my gooooooood! What did I watch?! No wait I already watched that. Heh. Uhm episode 17 of X is a clip show. Asise from that the past few episodes were really good. The cast of course doesn’t get equal screen time but how could it with that many characters. The episodes tend to focus on a few of them each. Kamui has overcome his misgivings and is looking for revenge! No just kidding, it might be almost like shonen but not quite. Kamui wants to redeem the bad guys. It might not be what I wanted and it certainly tries too hard with the dark and edgy at times but I am back to genuinely enjoying this at the moment. But... I also like Bioware games every now and then. And it is also a nice change of pace from the metaphor and symbolism overload I got from Utena, Tutu and Evangelion recently. Just some good old regular end of the world stuff.

I can't tell for sure, I watched most of the episodes with the German subtitles, and they're fairly consistent with Kero calling Meiling Göre and Shaoran Bengel mostly, which is German for brat, in their girl and boy variants respectively. He never uses their names, at least. Göre has a colloquial use when shortened to Gör. That changes the gender of the word to neuter, but it needs to be said that grammatical gender doesn't make any reference to personal gender - in this case it works that way because Gör can be used for both annoying girls and boys. It is, at the end, simply a colloquialism. Here we'd call either a Gfrast, coming from an older German word for chafe that at some point took the meaning of describing something as tedious activity (the result of which is chafing, so that does make sense), i.e. simply a tedious person - not necessarily, but usually, a child. It takes 40 or so episodes for Sharoan to call anyone except Meiling by name, and then it's only "Daidouji" when he's talking to Tomoyo. Spoiler: I get the feeling that you might be right. It's definitely not what I thought it would be, and what for a couple of episodes after the third one it looked like it might become. Kamui really does have an Emo McEdgelord appeal. He's also the poster boy for the shojo appeal in this, I think, because he's so gloomy and pretty. I don't wan to call Kamui the Edward of X, because there's a world of a difference, but this isn't meant to appeal to girls through giving them (teenage) counterparts to strive for or identify with, like Sailor Moon. No, well, maybe Kamui really is a proto-Edward. I've never seen or read any Twilight, but there must be some appeal in the dark, brooding character with a terrible destiny. That doesn't sound like Twilight? Well, you get the idea. I think.

It's episode 14 (out of 24) of X and the teams are complete. I had a good laugh at everyone being really surprised when Emo McEdgelord said thank you to Hinoto. If nothing else, that was a necessary break from the atmosphere of this show. Actually episode 14 was legimitately good, assuming the watcher doesn't dislike the Biowarian Fate of the World (tm) plot that features a weird combination of technology and the occult and makes Tokyo the city that's holding the world together. Not that it makes much sense how modern skyscraper buildings are shields against the apocalypse. They probably replaced the older shields. *shrug* Point in case, they've just sealed the Sacred Sword (tm) in a techno-magical sealing device that shoots laser beams in the form of a pentagram into the sky, an action that with a nice dose of destinied irony causes the remaining angels* to gather too. Because they noticed the giant laser beams shooting into the sky. Arashi was exasperated by Yuzuriha's Jean's exuberance when seeing the sealing thingie, she said it looks like a mech-launchpad. Yeah, you know, it's easy to see how this is an early CLAMP work. The elmenets are there, it seems all somewhat well plotted out (if a bit overdramatic) and for whatever that's worth, the anime is pretty good in evoking the sort of opressive, gloomy atmosphere they were going for. It's positively saturnine (haha, what a joke, get it? Positively saturnine! ). Karen (the prostitute) also showed up to introduce herself to the others, and says that she already knows Seiichirō, the editor, from work. Someone's going "wait a minute, does that mean..." until he's shut up and Seiichirō is like: "Uhm, no, I was doing research for a client, for a book..." Sure Seiichirō. Sure! The soundtrack isn't really that good. It's not in the way or annoying, but it feels like I've heard the music before, and it is pretty generic when it tries to be gloomy or inspiring. Functional, I'd say. That's not even damning with faint praise. Like with Utena, it reminds me a bit of the Lexx soundtrack at times. Could be some variation of stock music. Overall, I'm still mildly positive towards this, as a whole. It would be more positive-erly (lol ) without the plot point in episode 12 that really felt forced, but what's done is done. *Not sure if that is the actual English translation, it is for the fansubs at least. The Dragons of the Heavens are called seals, the Dragons of the Earth angels. I guess that's because the name's shorter and less of a mouthful, but I don't know. The official German translation for the angels is messenger. Which kind of makes sense, with angels originally being God's messengers.

I don't really know, to be honest. She certainly was at some point, but you'd think that change after she's been dead for a while. Although, I guess, it's just a visual representation. Her entire family's feelings will be wiped out anyway. Configuration Document edition makes a bit more sense being at the end there. Also, you're not wrong with the shin part. Shin also means new, should have looked that up before posting (see, it's not like I know what I'm talking about... I mean, erm, you know... *runs*) - atarashii is "new" too and apparently the more common way to say new. It's not like I know much beyond random words. Have you ever tried looking at Japanese conjugation? That'll make your brain melt, and I'm saying that, being intimately familiar with German conjugation. Whether or not that title makes sense in Japanese is something else, but since it's an official one I guess it does. It's probably a complete collection of something, why else would it be called complete works visual story edition. Yeah, no, it's bunny whenever he does that. Maybe some creative license, because it's originally brat for Meiling and "kid" for Shaoran, I think. It's been a while, but toad seems oddly negative for Yukito. That it did, also, besides, how else would she solve that. It's Sakura. Compared to her Usagi is a regular vicious murderdeathkill character. I mean, 90ies anime Sailor Moon. Crystal and Manga Usagi would straight up obliterate you for looking at her friends the wrong way and not bat an eyelash. Like in the Black Moon arc where she tries out her newly found power and just blasts one of the Specter Sisters out of existence and is like "Woha, not bad!" afterwards. Kinda weird. Not that long ago I would have said "It can't get any worse!" but apparently it always can. There's no such thing as rock bottom.

And now imagine any other anime, TV show, movie or what have you trying to pull off an ending like that. We'd all be here ripping that a new one, instead of grinning like idiots. "I want to be friends, not like masters and stuff!" Indeed Sakura, not like stuff. Heh. Yukito's name gets some malign treatment in all of the subtitles apparently. Kero every now and then calls him Yuki-Usagi which means snowbunny. Sometimes the subtitles then read "Is the snowhare around?" or "Did you see the snow bunny?" - good job translators. I have no idea where toad could come from. edit: Oh, right, and Yue and Jadeite!Kero conly come out when they're needed. No need to worry about that. Well, I do like Yue though. At least he doesn't change voice actors in the transformation. How can you have Kero go from sounding like Ami to talking like Jadeite, holy hell, did you guys not watch Sailor Moon before picking the voice cast? Evangelion manga talk:

Sometimes complaining helps. Princess Tutu went and suddenly turned away from a victim of the week setup to finding another heart shard for Mytho, the episode was much better than the ones before, and there's some bit of meta fun at the end when: Ahiru also had a really racist and ableist moment. The drama club is preparing for a play, and a snake wants to go and do some shopping in town, and she's like: "If you want I can go, I'll be much faster." and the snake is like: "Yeah, that would be awesome, thanks!" What's that supposed to be Ahiru, do you think you're better than the snake just because you've got legs? I still have no idea why some characters are animals, or what Neko-sensei's deal is. I'm beginning to fear that'll never really be revealed.

There's no way in hell I'm going to even try that. I thought that was clear with the spoiler, or let's put this another way, I'll certainly try Toradora! before Edens Zero, and even that's really unlikely. Watched some more of X, do you guys remember when I said Emo McEdgelord was at least not a whiny brat about it? Oh, he just had a Shinji moment. Unlike Shinji he didn't say much during it, because he was just lying around being catatonic before one of the other characters had a telepathic heart to heart showing him (in an admittedly nice sequence where Emo McEdgelord reverted back to a small boy in the telepathic dreamspace to escape from his life) that he's not the only one suffering from tragedy and pain, and that he can't do anything about it without facing it. Wait, actually, no, the episode depicting that wasn't bad, it just had the problem of being the result of some setup that didn't work for me. Well, it's the first real misstep after half the series' run, so that's okay, assuming it recovers. Spoilers: By the way, @KP the meanie zucchini the spoiler contains part of the reason why the writer of the manga said it was inspired by DEBIRUMAN. I'm also being a bit unfair here. I already knew it was coming from the film, and probably expected it to be handled better in the series, and it was - slightly. Just not nearly as much as I hoped. The film skipping the Shinji moment actually worked out much better, huh. Well, at least it's only the middle two parter. It's just going to be more tragedy and death from now on, but at least it'll be properly set up tragedy and death. I think.

I was confused for a moment when looking that up, then I realized I mixed the titles up with Toradora! which is a repeat Netflix suggestion to me that I've avoided getting into based purely on it having been published by Dengeki Daioh. Netflix can tell me that it's 95% likely to be interesting to me all they want, and tag it as slice of life comedy until they're blue in the face, but Dengeki Daioh has covers like this: Yeah, I think I'll pass. Who knows, maybe I'm missing out on something lighthearted and silly that's only borderline offensive and occasionally fun like Love Live!, but there's a difference between taking a leap or making a shot in the dark, as it were, and walking into a minefield with eyes open and "Danger: Mines!" signs all over the place. Speaking of Netflix suggestions, this greeted me today after logging in: Because I'm feeling super adventurous right now, I'll let you guys vote on whether or not I should hit that play button. Small spoiler about the vote:

I don't blame you for that, I mean just look the main character. Not going to lie, Kamui doesn't just look the part, but at least he's not a whiny brat about it. He just has no interest in this prophecy business and wants to be left alone so far. He does care about Kotori, in his own way, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to the basketball game I mentioned after her asking for it. I'm having a hard time describing the series. The character's looks are much milder compared to the movie (especially Kanoe), except for the prostitute, she looks the same. And yeah, she really is a prostitute, and a devout catholic, quite a contradictory character. In the short time she was on screen so far, at least. I'm kind of expecting a focus episode with her and a background in an abusive family, because that's a) it would fit thematically into the anime and b) would fit perfectly for a character like that. The best way to describe it, I guess, is like... yeah, no idea. It really features some common shonen anime elements (Ashari summons a freaking katana from her hands to fight) except its populated with shojo characters and their interactions. For the first two or three episodes, I was wondering how that manga was printed in a shojo magazine, but then it gradually became clearer. Aaaaaaaaaaand I know that says preciously little, but I really cannot place it. Hell, I couldn't even begin to guess if you'd like it or just drop it like hot coals, or something in between. If you do end up trying, the only thing I can say is wait until the first two or three episode are over (unless you instantly dislike it). I'm guessing the manga changed after that because it becomes a bit different afterwards (much less action, more character interactions) and the adaptational team just took everything as it was. But that's just a guess. Miyu is much more understated and focused on only a handful of characters. X on the other hand, is much larger in scope, both in terms of storyline (it is about armageddon, after all) and in terms and amount of characters. Where Miyu herself exudes a certain sadness and melancholy, in X, the melancholy spans across the overarching setup. You don't have episodes with individual victims running across a stray demon that most often end in tragedy, the tragic elements are still there, but in the form of characters knowing what is to come, and what will be asked of them. Where Miyu is juxtaposed with her friends who have a normal social life and she's sort of tagging along for it, without ever truly being a part of it, some of the characters in X have regular lives (there's an editor, Kanoe is a secretary, the prostitute is, well, yeah, and one of the Dragons of the Earth works at a civil registry office), it's much more about them facing their destiny than it is about them living unaware of what's going on. If you want, it's probably the difference between an Obsidian and a Bioware game, if both had characters written for teenage girls. However, that's with only being halfway through X. I haven't looked up anything by CLAMP other than Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, but that doesn't sound too promising.

You're being too generous when you say the movie has a structure, I think. It really is a horrible mess. It starts with a weird sequence that makes no sense until you get some context later, then proceeds to a massive exposition dump that ends with Kotori and Fuma being abducted by Kanoe (I keep wanting to write canoe) through some unexplained teleportation shenanigans that keep showing up in the film whenever its convenient for the plot to have characters teleported around and then smoothly continues with even more exposition, just from the other party's point of view, and it then follows up to proceed directly to the endgame without introducing the characters beyond "hey, here we are, here are our names, good luck, try not forgetting them all while we start battling in 3 2 1 NOW." Did you find something watchable without a red tinge? I'm halfway through the series by now, and it has - obviously - a lot more time to breathe. Both sides are still gathering their members. Some exposition is of course still there, but it flows more naturally from actual dialogue between the characters, or often through showing flashbacks to the character's past. Kamui still has certain things explained to him, of course, but that's partially his role as fish out of the water character. Hinoto telling him about her dream isn't that different from Obi-Wan explaining the Jedi or the force to Luke. I'm not sure what else is going to happen, if they're really giving every character a focus episode that'll end up being 80% of the entire show's runtime, so I think that's out, but it already got bonus points for actually spending time giving the Dragons of the Earth actual backstories and showing them (at least for Satsuki so far). The series was made after Cardcaptor Sakura, but the manga wasn't, and it looks like CLAMP learned something in making it, it's one of their earlier works. There are definitely too many characters, and they're looking a good deal too similar, even in the adaptation. So far they're all fairly distinct in characterization, so that part is at least pretty well done. Pacing, while much better than the film, continues to be a bit uneven, the early episodes having too much action, perhaps. The last two felt like the show's not moving towards anything, even though they were really solid, which would be fine for the beginning, but not really for being at the halfway point of an anime that's apparently much more story driven than say Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. Don't get me wrong, I really like watching Yuzuriha (that is so hard to type for some reason - that's the 14 year old girl with the dog spirit) buying ice cream, making acquaintences and talking to people, and I'd take that over any silly action scene any time of the day, but there are only 24 episodes, and there are 17 characters involved in this, plus some more minor ones. Some parts are going to feel rushed sooner or later. Now, with all what I've written so far, and having essentially binged half the show and the film in what amounts to roughly half a day so far, it's... sadly not the Cardcaptor Sakura for a more mature audience I initially hoped it would be. It also so far didn't exactly live up to the promise of the sixth episode, which was pretty much a very nice mix of character interactions and just a tiny bit of action in the right dose to spice it up a little. There's a certain air of tragedy hanging over it all, but I'm not sure if that's really present in the series or just something that carried over from the film. I'd say drop the film, unless you've watched it by now and give the series a chance instead with the time dropping the film frees up, you don't have any problems with stopping something you don't enjoy anyway, what's the worst that could happen, you waste an hour or two. To paraphrase Star Wars, this isn't the shojo I've (we've, I guess) been looking for, but I still like it well enough, luckily, so I don't consider it time wasted. Between Clear Card, Tusbasa: Reservoir Chronicle and X, it really looks like Cardcaptor Sakura was a once in a lifetime creation by CLAMP. As for the wild goose chase, well, guess I'm going to go and look for other birds in the meantime. By that I mean ducks, because there's also Princess Tutu to finish, where the second season, which I'm also halfway through by now, continues to be a little less interesting than the first season. I think trying new things is on definite hiatus until I've worked off my backlog. Funny, the vacation's almost over, and I wanted to spend the time getting my backlog done, and look what happened. Well, no, I finished Miyu and I'm almost done with Tutu. There the issue is primarily that it started having trouble with the episodic setup for the season. In the first season it was finding Mytho's heart shards, which explored emotional concepts that worked because Ahiru is a duck and Mytho a prince without a heart, at the moment the show is kind of having common drama and fairy tale plots as the focus point for each episode while structuring the story elements around a one-off character per episode that gets to be the victim of the week. It's still very well done for what it is, but it lacks... hell, no idea how to articulate that properly, the special something that made the first season enjoyable for me.

Yes.