majestic

When Miyu was in the parallel reality thing, it was not a model scale city with an oversized Buddha statue, but a regular sized warped looking city with a giant massive Godzilla style Buddha statue. The writers really dropped the ball on this one, or perhaps they struggled with meeting the deadlines, because there's also a lot of freeze frames with sound effects (and one that even repeats). Either way, the result was the first ungood episode, to use some newspeak. Here's to hoping it will stay the only one. The past two episodes also had somewhat uncharacteristic decisions by Miyu. The Shinma that accompanied the writer didn't really do anything, and that his wife died was an accident, and Miyu has often enough by now decided that she can let demons go as long as they're not harmful. Then there's the old guy from the weird episode, he's like the prime candidate for her "Eternal Happiness" kiss of death, instead he's now homeless and still implied to be working on his model city for no reason. Indeed, it's been going a little faster. The past few episodes felt a little less draining. By no means less tragic, but people inexplicably started surviving their ordeals much more often. I'm just imagining how this airs on TV and some random family catches the first two episodes with their kids and then gets treated to war, death, tragedy and destruction. Maybe you should counter that by watching more Cardcaptor Sakura. It gets occassionally sad, but everything will always definitely be all right, just like Sakura told herself in Dream's reality/foreshadowing. Clearly I can't. I can't decide what's worse, the horrible auto-tuned singing, the production quality problems of the song, the lyrics* (provided the translation is accurate) or the fact that this group won the first Love Live! because µ's didn't participate. That can't have been the only entry, right? *The content of the Japanese ones, not how funny the English parts are. The other song on the show by A-RISE has "non-stop my dancing" as English lyrics, which is somehow even worse (but I linked that as example of fanservice a while back). Then there's the fact that some people enjoy this enough to make color-coded music videos showing who's singing. Don't get me wrong, I have seen worse animes than Love Live! and every now and then it was really enjoyable, but... nothing of it is outstandingly good, and it's also not a case of where the sum is greater than its individual parts. I have successfully pretended these films don't exist so far. I feel the cracks in this belief forming already. Sigh.

Currently watching a Vampire Princess Miyu episode that feels about as disjointed as the OVA. Things happen that seem completely unconnected, there's no clear distinction between ongoing plotlines, scenes randomly freeze with zero animation, time passes, sometimes characters talk to each other and everything looks warped and weird, and in the middle of it the girls go shopping for shoes. And now the older guy that the episode's been following doing some job that barely makes sense (sculpting a 500 foot statute in the middle of a construction site that seems to have nothing to do with the ongoing plot but isn't really "real" either because it looks like its in a parallel world). His wife might be the shinma, and he's just imagining things. Maybe. But now he randomly attacked a priest that recognized him and is running through a subway or railway station (or the mall attached, this is really, really, REALLY unclear) and music is playing that sounds like Bonnie Tyler's Holding Out For A Hero*. If it wouldn't look like the regular series and had the characters that weren't in the OVA I'd assume this was cobbled together from unused 80ies OVA footage. How utterly bizarre. Doesn't help that it is the, uhm, probably worst episode so far. Well if the guy's really holding out for a hero he's not really in luck. Miyu won't take the job anytime soon. *That was probably some sort of Miyu opening theme reprise or remix. Not really sure. edit:

Well that does sound kind of interesting, I'll keep it in mind for later, I guess. Already got enough to finish without adding a game to the list. Heh. I actually spent some time looking for the cell phone statistics. I knew it was close to 100% in 2000, just not how close. Although not having any service would have taken some doing too. We had a 99.8% coverage back then, and that included vast stretches of alpine mountains. Always been some kind of test market for mobiles for some reason. At the time all the companies were practically throwing free phones at you just to enter their shops. Stopped a while back after the regulatory agency keeping an eye on the communication services deemed it would not lead to a problematic oligopoly when the fourth largest mobile services provider buys the third largest one, but what do you know, all of a sudden there were three huge ones and a whole bunch of smaller ones, and prices started rising. More wonderful proof of how the invisible hand of the free market manages to make everything better. But yes, smartphones are much worse for storytelling purposes. Another reason why it was a pretty bad idea to move Cardcaptor Sakura to a contemporary setting. Sure Kero gets to do video calls with (uuuh, spoiler, sort of) every now and then, and Sakura regularily chats with Meiling and all that, but... nah, just nah. The only fun thing that came out of that was Tomoyo's insane stalker drone, and maybe Kero's ridiculous suction cup attached GoPro camera. However, nobody manages to even capture a quick picture of Sakura? Yeah, no. For Love Live! that's mostly the feeling that Honoka, Umi and Kotori are really similar to early Sailor Moon Usagi, Rei and Ami. Kind of, it's not a perfect match, but it feels similar. Honoka is a real dummy too, she's not stupid, just really, well, Usagi. It even has an episode where Kotori almost leaves Japan to study abroad but Honoka gets her back. Honoka actually goes to pick her up, and doesn't just send her the new gear (well they don't transform, anyway), but... you know. Honoka pointing to a ceiling fan and calling it "the thing you often see in rich people's homes" could really come straight from Usagi. It's everything else that's in the way of properly enjoying it, and that includes the music, most of the time. Seriously, what... Somehow that song is worse than the animation of the show. Ugh.

No, where would be the point in that, Miyu no longer has a father she can abduct and, uhm, have "fun" with. edit: It's so terribly depressing to be introduced to any new random one-off character in Miyu, because their survival chance is pretty much like zilch. Not quite fully zero, but it's not looking good. And it's worse if they're voiced by Sakura's father. Well, hopefully he just showed up in that one scene and will never come back. edit 2: I guess technically becoming an eternally happy baby beats dying, but not by much, does it?

Quick post for anyone who wondered why the "Western" Shinma and ally/servant of Miyu is called Larva*, because that's a really fun and somewhat obscure cross cultural reference - presuming for a moment that was actually intentional. He wears a traditional Nō theater kamen (mask, also known as nō-men). Larva is latin for specter or ghost (larvae and lemures are similar, spirits of the dead), but neither are demons, let alone Western demons so where does that come from? Well, this is a Central European Larve, German for both the larval stage of instects and, well, masks, derived from Latin larva: They are also called Perchta (pl. Perchten) and are part of many Pre-Christian traditions meant to banish the evil demons and spirits of winter - later also the Christian devil. Could also be a crazy random happenstance. Curious that Penny likes frozen yogurt and Billy has "accidentially" gotten two helpings instead of the "one" he ordered. Yeah, random happenstance. *I think it's fairly obvious that this isn't a reference to the larval stage of many insects. edit: Hey, DEATH PHANTOM voices a random Shinma hunting, old, somewhat corpulent martial / secret arts (?) master in Miyu. edit 2: Oh NOES, it turns out that the old man was already consumed by a demon. Well, that's what you get for sounding like DEATH PHANTOM. That guy was creepy too.

Jesus Christ can we leave Sam Witwicky out of this thread please? Or Indiana Jones' son, depending on which particular trainweck with him you prefer.

What's the actual gameplay like? I've looked at the Steam store page now, and the GOG store page, and I still have no idea. Not sure if I want to look up a gameplay video, so I'll just ask. The ubiquity of cellphones (although that has started very much pre-2000, but we're talking a good deal of differences between our part of Europe and the US in that regard, in 2000 we were already at a cell phone market penetration of almost 90% - currently sits at a comfortable 200%) certainly had an effect on storytelling for some genres, and horror is one particularily affected by it. I know that the recent resurgence of films and TV shows set in the 80ies is a understandable occurance of the 30 year cycle, but I wonder if that's not also because it's one of the easier ways to still have a somewhat contemporary setting and free yourself of the storytelling problems you get when quite frankly everyone and their dog can take pictures and videos on the fly with a small device in their pockets, or call someone when you get lost in the woods, or are being followed by something weird. I wonder if that would have more than a target audience of two people though. Or who knows, maybe there is something like that out there. Like the truth! I mean, not that it fits entirely, but the X-Files is also something that worked for me purely on the strength of its characters and the atmosphere. At least until they moved filming to LA, after wich everything started looking like it was filmed in LA, rather than in Stargate City. Sigh. Ah, never mind. Of course, I wouldn't have taken it in any other way. The irony here is that Love Live! has more parts of what made Sailor Moon so great for me than most suggestions when you go look for "shows like Sailor Moon" online, but it comes with ridiculous fanservice moments, bad animation and, well, a casting show storyline that has most Sailor Moon season arcs beat in being completely uninteresting. Because in which universe does Pricess Tutu fit that bill. I really enjoy Princess Tutu, don't get me wrong, but Ahiru's interactions are, except for a few episodes here and there, purely limited to the fairy tale being told. It's really good in what it does, but other than that she's transforming into a magical ballet dancer, this has nothing in common with Sailor Moon. It's like being told to watch Star Wars when asking for something similar to Star Trek*. Sure, technically both have space ships. The end. Cardcaptor Sakura is, well, incredibly great, superbly written and more than occassionally brilliant, and it keeps the magical girl stuff limited to an understated sort of happenstance for Sakura, but at the same time, there's a limit to what you can do with characters of that age, and the writers were very aware of that limitation and acted within it. It does make it all the more endearing, but it kicks it far out of the way of being an actual "Sailor Moon like" in terms of character interactions and themes. I mean, when not talking about Usagi and Chibi-Usa in SuperS. Because compared to those two, Sakura is a wellspring of maturity and reason. Sheesh. *Pre-2009, really. It's no wonder Star Trek 2009 landed Jar Jar Abrams the job to direct Star Wars.

They finish the job with no problems and then spend the rest of the film on a vacation planet with the money they earned? To be perfectly honest I've been thinking about that too. Somehow there's nothing else that comes close. I mean, at least when it comes to the, heh, silly girly stuff. Attack No. 1 has too much focus on volleyball and it does feel a tad, uhm, dated (certainly because it is), Princess Tutu and Revolutionary Girl Utena turned out to be something completely else, and while I loved Cardcaptor Sakura (not counting the fan-made abomination* that came out recently), there's a world of a difference between them. Miyu stuff: *I've decided to pretend that Clear Card is fanfiction. For sanity's sake.

Vampire Princess Miyu continues to be The Outer Limits: Animated. Guy survives his run-in with a Shinma only to be stabbed by his girlfriend. I guess I know what I'll be rewatching next. Heh.

You could try looking for fan translations and hope the quality holds up. If I remember correctly any given Japanese student is supposed to know about 1900 (outdated info from the early 90ies, I just checked) 2200 kanji with multiple readings by the end of high school. As much as I find the efficiency of reading like that admirable, that's nothing short of insane to grind through for Japanese as a foreign language. Oh, and that's just the regularily used kanji, not obscure ones. They're organized by the Japanese ministry for education in list literally called regular use kanji, i.e. what you need to achieve fluency in reading. It also doesn't help that these pictograms all look like they were cooked up by ancient Chinese scholars on an opium binge. Before you accuse me of racism, dear reader, I'd suggest you learn to take a joke, but also, here's an example: Look at this, for instance: 南 this means "south" (in Japanese and Chinese, by the way). Look at the pictogram, take five minutes, and attempt to guess why this represents south. Done? Vampire Princess Miyu 2009: This is not your daddy's Miyu (wow that tagline is really awful combined with the name of a 14/15 year old girl) Vampire Princess Miyu: Into Darkness Vampire Princess Miyu: Beyond (These would actually work) And of course the new ones: Vampire Princess Miyu: The Darkness Awakens Vampire Princess Miyu: The Last Shinma Vampire Princess Miyu: Rise of Vampires Heh.

Well, it is from Gainax after all. Sure thing! Does that all pertain to the ending or are there some general things too? If so ask away. Some general observations regarding Miyu: I really like the flute theme, and that she sometimes shows up playing the flute. Reminds me a bit of Robin Hood's leaf music. In the same vein, the understated fight scenes with Larva are pretty good too. The intro/opening credits are really great too. The animation is okayish. It fits the show, but it's sometimes a little choppy and often makes use of stills. There are moments I find myself wishing that they'd spent less time on the backgrounds and more time animating these scenes too, but hey, there barely is any animated stock footage (reused backgrounds), so it evens out, kind of. Style is... a mixed bag, really. I like how Miyu looks, but Chisato sometimes looks like a bug-eyed alien thing. Yukari looks like some character I know but don't know where from. That's such a bizarre feeling. It's more than her looks, the expressions, way of speaking, it screams familiarity at me, and I have no idea why. The art and animation is best when it's trying to be moody and brooding, i.e. when (sucessfully) invoking a sense of dread and misfortune to come. The school scenes, not so much, not sure. You're right, the 80ies OVA looked much better overall. I still like it. I see you've found a particularily lighthearted alternative to keep you occupied in between the heavy hitters.

You've got to stay positive, at least it didn't end with this sort of inexplicable shift. On the other hand, it still might. Miyu: edit: Miyu just gave me a hearty laugh saying that everyone's moving in with her at the graveyard. Probably not meant to be funny after two murder/suicides in a row, but it still was hilarious.

The latter. I had his YouTube videos pop up every now and then in my recommendations because I sometimes make the mistake of watching a YouTube video, not knowing who the author is, because it has a title like "Star Trek Picard is bad", and I think it might be something interesting, and then it ends up being a 30 minute diatrabe on how it's awful because every authority figure is female, culture wars, libruhl agenda, and the second season is going to suck because they will ruin Q because Q is an all powerful WHITE MALE and we can't have that. Yeah, no. Star Trek Picard was bad because Kurtzman and Goldsman are both hacks. Funny how that also ruined Discovery. Bad writing is bad, whether it virtue signals or not, but these people are actually convinced old Star Trek was great because old white men were allowed to be written in authority positions. It's like they've never actually seen an episode of Star Trek. Or they watch Code of Honor on repeat. Joestar, his crotch magnetic. The beer thing is more of a joke on her getting cancelled on Twatter a while back, and most - if not all - industrially produced beer is bad, Corona is no exception there. I like the occassional good beer here and there, but that's always purely for the taste and no more than a pint or two an evening (well, our version of a pint, you know, half a liter). I'm not much into alcohol, and I was mildly drunk like once in the past 15 years (and that not very long ago, even - like three or so years maybe?). Recreational drugs in general don't do much for me, and that's most likely for the best. The last thing I need is something addictive that would help me unwind, what with my obsessive tendencies and family history. edit: Can recommend watching Lindsay Ellis' videos though. She's a professional version of what we do here in the thread, except with a lot less anime and much more Disney.

Whelp. First episode of Princess Tutu's second season was a bit of a letdown. It was a decent setup episode for what seems to be the arc of the second season, but coming directly from that high of the ending of the first one, it just felt off. Off-topic talk for @Bartimaeus And one more episode of Vampire Princess Miyu. I kind of wish the anime wouldn't use girls from her class as victims. It just reinforces that feeling that her friends are all in for tragedy by association.

Finished the first season of Princess Tutu. That was indeed bittersweet, even though not at all what I expected to happen. Well, there's still 13 episodes for it all to completely go to hell. So far Princess Tutu is not at all what I expected, but it is really, really good. There's one absolutely inexplicable thing though. I have no idea what Neko-sensei's deal is. I wonder if that will be explained in the second season, along with why there are antropomorphized animals in the first place. If not, then I wonder what the point was, if any. Seems odd to have them show up all the time, even in minor roles, for no apparent reason. On the other hand, perhaps even Princess Tutu needs a stopwatch, and if that sentence makes no sense to you, then perahps you should watch Revolutioanry Girl Utena too.

But isn't that like the third or fourth entry in the NGE reboot movie series?

Yeah. MAJOR Utena vibes right from the start. It doesn't thelp that it quite literally (in a truer sense of the word than usual, even!) begins with the same opening narration as the first Utena episode. Then there's a prince and the general look and feel of the story narration part of the anime, the setting, the surreal look and feel of the backgrounds, everything is so Utena. Except for the character models, these are rather distinct. Ahiru in particular really looks very signature Ikuko Itoh. Kind of. I'm kind of close to finishing the first season, by the way. Yes, it's only called Star Trek, which is why it is often named Star Trek 2009 or Star Trek '09 to distinguish it from the actual Star Trek, although at this point I don't know what that is any more. The Mr. Plinkett Review on it was really disappointing. What do I watch Mr. Plinkett for when he suddenly starts being positive about something. Geez. And positive about that dreck, no less.

For me, the only thing I felt at the end of Sailor Stars in the rewatch was this incredible sense of emptiness. That was decidedly different from the first time, however, mostly because of the different circumstances. I randomly fired up the Heart Locket version of Moonlight Densetsu (which is where a lot of nostalgia is attached to for me - thanks a bunch for changing the theme song, TV station!). That was a really bad idea. Miyu: Yes, that's the one. Mike called Star Trek 2009 his guilty pleasure, which is "fine" (it isn't), Independence Day is mine and I completely disagree with his assessment of the film, and to be honest, it feels less fraudulent to enjoy something that's stupid but was never smart entertainment before, and it's exacerbated by the fact that he passionately hates Star Trek: First Contact, which was about as much a stupid action movie as Star Trek 2009 was. No, scratch that. Compared to the feast of inanity that 2009 was, Star Trek: First Contact is highly intelligent action entertainment. Star Dreck: Beyond, on the other hand, is... just wrong, on every level, and like with 2009, it's the beginning that soured everything for me. You know, when you say that Violet Evergarden lost you with that emotional moment that fell flat for you, I totally get that. My mind immediately rejected Star Trek 2009 based on the opening narration, and Star Trek: Beyond based on this horribly dumb comedic intro with the little aliens rolling at Kirk. Dear God, what the hell was that? Take that and get out of here, and please make sure that nobody involved in making this works in film business like ever again. In case you're wondering, Into Darkness wasn't any better, why would you hide the Enterprise under water? It's not going to be visible from any sort of geostationary orbit, and the chance that someone sees you rising from the sea is so much higher... the hell is wrong with your sense of perspective, Jar Jar Abrams? And where are the people who should be telling you "That's a stupid idea, Jar Jar. Go back to making a motion to give Palpatine dictatorial powers."? For that matter, what the hell Leonard Nimoy, should you not have read the script and went: "Screw you, I'm not taking part in this pile of crap!" like you did for Star Trek: Generations? What, did old age diminish your sense of integrity, or was the paycheck not big enough for Generations? Not that we could ask him now, anyway, but... ...holy crap that became a rant. Sorry. Or should I say sumimasen, at this point? Eh, but that still doesn't account for why and how the others liked Star Trek Beyond. Even if you would divorce it from being Star Trek, it would still be a horrible mess of a film. Less of mess than Into Darkness was, perhaps, but a mess still. That's not what I meant. I don't want to have to finish everything I start either (who in their right mind would). It all eventually comes back, I can keep myself busy for a bit by starting new things, but that invariably leads to issues down the road. There are shows that I would like to try, but just can't - like Supernatural. That looks like something that I could like and was directed, produced and written by people whose work I generally enjoy (like John Shiban and Kim Manners), but 327 with a 45 minute runtime episodes in 15 seasons? Are you kidding me? Or, ideally, it wouldn't just cover entertainment and give me the necessary drive to, I don't know, maybe put more effort into working. I was quite happily abandoning my studies after all, and I feel no need to go back and finish. Yet there's still John Milton's Paradise Lost sitting half-read on my Kindle, for me that's merely bible fan fiction disguised as poetic pseudo-intellectual wankery, and I hate every second I spend on it, but I'll get through it. Eventually. Sigh. Looks like I'll be adding Nadia to the list then.

Very quick post before I go and complete my morning ritual the usual things I do after getting up, then I'll reply some more. To use the words of a poster* who once had half a forum eating out of "her" hands by pretending to be a pretty anime nerd girl: PLEASE EXTRAPOLATE? So, I guess the question is, why is this on the backburner instead of the abandoned pile? *While "Ms. Goldenbell", otherwise also known as "Rei Ayanami" elsewere, was a fun concept and had me equal parts laughing at the ridiculous posters who didn't even notice that the blonde women "she" posted as pictures of her weren't even featuring same anime cosplayer girl in each, and feeling shame by mere association with the posters who just immediately made her the center of attention, he also registered on other forums with other people's poster names, including mine, and copy/pasted our posts (sometimes with slight alterations) there. Which was decidedly less fun.

You're telling me that, of all people? The nerve. The gall! Okay, I'm out of ideas on how to make this a ridiculous theatrical speech, sorry, plus it's already 02:30, so yeah... Yeah, understandable, happened to me whenever Star Trek Discovery tried to get emotional. There's a character death in the second season that is pretty much on the level of what you experienced with that emotional outburst of Erica. She was such a non-character and everyone on the crew was really, really sad about her dying that I just sat there and started laughing, because hey, before you ask us to feel something for a cast member, perhaps make sure we're at least sort of invested. Still finished watching all of it, of course. Funny, out of all the terrible things I've watched because I had no choice (well, not really, at least), Star Trek Beyond was the one I came closest to actually giving up. For a brief moment, right at the beginning of the film, I considered walking out of the theater - and it ends up being considered the best of the Nu Trek films. Even the Hack Frauds kind of liked it, which was the most baffling bit about it. "I am happy it is over" doesn't sound so great. Bad acid trip, then?

If I can ever convince myself to do that I'll let you know. I've also watched some more Vampire Princess Miyu, but it's going really slowly. I find watching the anime to be quite emotionally draining. I love it to bits, but watching more than one or two episodes in a row is pretty demanding. Plus I need to keep my Princess Tutu game up.

(not actual spoilers) You'll be missing a lot more drama then. A lot. Episode 2 is harmless... really. That was meant as a joke, not as a complaint. Funny that you would mention albums, I really don't have that problem with music. I do have a need to keep my record collection complete, so even if an artist moves away frrom making music I like, the records are still going to be on my shelf, but I'll not listen to them, like, ever. Books, movies and TV shows? Yes, yes. Here's a fun example I like to bring up. Theatre of Tragedy! Whose YT-Links for some reason refuse to embed themselves. Stupid forum software (oh, look, it works in editing). They went from making music like this - spoilered because album artwork NSFW: To... this: So while I still have ['mju:zik] and Assembly, I never really listened to them. In fact, I turned off ['mju:zik] almost the moment I pressed play. Yep. I mean, what the hell, how can you go from making gothic metal to 80ies inspired electro pop in an album? The hell is wrong with you people, at least have the decency to change your band name.

Princess Tutu... humm... Man, I hope this will not be the bummer it shapes up to be. It also really doubled down on the metaphors, but it's still a lot easier to digest than Utena was, at least from my point of view, but that's... because of the different focus. As much as I know what Buddhism is about, I have only a cursory knowledge of its forms and goals, not any actual education. Fairy tales on the other hand, yeah, well, I grew up with them. @Bartimaeus good luck with watching that, I guess.

Well, there's the dandere, the reserved, quiet and shy one, but all the -dere archetypes are about the ways how these characters show affection, and I'm not entirely certain that works for Erica. There's the term meganekko, but that just means girl with glasses and applies to Erica all the same as it does to, say, Himemiya. She's just a regular shrinking violet (heh, violet), which isn't an anime-specific archetype, and tries to help Violet because she, just like herself, isn't truly cut out for the job, as evidenced by her one client who ends up extremely unhappy with her work. Violet doesn't understand that at all, which is why she openly wonders why she's contradicting herself. Erica is the very first character on the show that Violet helps in a way, by (accidentially) helping her break out of her shell and barge into the conversation, something she had to work up an appreciable amount of courage to do. Iris on the other hand is just really salty about getting a completely unqualified nepotism hire colleague when they don't have enough work for them all and most of the requests to go Cattleya while she's essentially just relegated to doing menial tasks ("Iris, can you please go and prepare the envelopes?"). Also, fun fact, not an actual spoiler: You'll be getting a letter from my lawyer soon, it's time we settle on royalties if you keep using my trademarked OCD like that.