majestic

Did you munch on your coffee chewing gums again?

That just kidding was only there because you called out an AMA and then said "nah, I can't answer anything anyway". Thanks for the information, so I'll probably not go check out the manga any time soon. Ah, well...

That's just for anime on Netflix, because the German subs are better - overall, just not always - than the English ones, and Netflix neatly pairs sub settings with language settings. It takes until episode three for noticable changes to happen to Violet. While I really liked the second episode (and the first one), there are a lot of watchers who didn't, and almost dropped the anime - or actually did - because of them. How does the manga compare to the OVA and the TV show, is Miyu noticably different, and would you recommend the source material over the adaptation? How does the artwork compare, and most importantly... The only way you could suck at it was if you were going in the wrong direction. If that's a fan-translation or an official one that did not change the reading direction it's a bit weird to deal with at first.

The German subs on Netflix very clearly state "made of silver" (well, Silber, as it were). The German dub, funnily enough, uses "Adamant" which in German is just an archaic word for diamond or any other really hard but otherwise unspecified substance, unrelated to X-Men's Adamantium. I get why the dub is like that when you're trying to lip sync, but for animation, uhm... yeah, it's not like Violet actually forms her words accurately. Dubbing teams ain't what they used to be, man. Damn shame, damn shame. The actual voice cast is pretty good though. Would be interesting to see what the Blu Ray subtitles have there. They are different from what I've seen in videos about the show. German subs on Netflix generally do a good job of transporting what is meant, as long as they're actually made from the original Japanese. Because sometimes you get subtitles that were hastily slapped together from an English source, and then you end up with the literal meaning of "die Fackel tragen" (carrying the torch) in your subtitles, and you only really know understand what's going on when you realize this is a literal translation of an English idiom. Which for me isn't an issue, in such cases I just switch to the English subs, but eh, that's not entirely the point of having native language subtitles in the first place.

While Violet really does say "adaman" in the Japanese original, she uses it to describe the metal her arms are made of, not to specify the metal they are made of. That is actually "gin", which just means silver. She said her arms are made of hardened silver (literally adamant silver, or adamantine silver - both of which are somewhat clumsy). Silver isn't a terribly sturdy material in itself, but it is mostly safe for medical use, unlike other metals. I mean, fully functioning prostheses in a late 1910s setting aisde*, the fantasyland aspect isn't really meant to be there. If anything, that piece of information conveys that her arms are most likely unfit for actual miltary use, neatly explaining why the setting doesn't have cyborg soldiers and why she was discharged. The joys of translation. Talk about taking the original meaning and turning it upside down. *They are mostly used as metaphor anyway, even though it might not look like that after just the first episode.

Hm, now that's something I haven't seen in a long time. Might read the book perhaps. I wash my hands of it, I shan't be responsible for another fiasco like the last one.

Violet Evergarden: The Movie will come to Netflix eventually. It should have been released a long while ago, but the pandemic delayed the theatric release in Japan. It only just started playing in cinemas in Germany, and in none here. So yay. Well, techincally incorrect, as it does play on and off in a small indie theatre which, next Saturday, will show Perfect Blue. Which sure would be nice to see in a theatre, but it's really remote, and... yeah, not going there alone, nah. Blu Ray coming out in three months, I think.

The episode about the opera singer is what should have gone between 4 and 5, by the way. Did you like it? The 90 minutes movie is already the first step to what I said the movie did wrong: It feels less grounded and more like a soap opera, but was still good. Movie, movie... movie. *cough* That one is only available on a Russian streaming service right now. Yeah. *cough*

It only gets like that occassionally, indeed. I wonder if you'll also think that the Sakura Card arc needs a couple of episodes to establish itself. Maybe I was too harsh on the first few episodes. Then again, maybe not. I wouldn't either. Here's the rub, I'd probably pack two earlier episodes into the top 10 list that maybe don't belong there because they each made me realize something. The first is of course, and I've probably said that a hundred times now, the episode where Sakura and Tomoy clean the house and have a "dangerous", uhm, "battle" with a tree and a bit of rain. The other one is where Sakura accidentially destroys her father's work, because that really sold me on her voice performance. Wait, no, the university episode is probably really top 10 material. Ugh. Top 5 is easy though: 16, 43, 56, 60, 66. Not necessarily in that order.

That reminds me of something older I saw back a ways:

Poor Meiling. Called back to where she came from, a place outside the manga. Did you know that she wasn't in the original material? Nanase Ohkawa created her just for the anime. I'll do my best Kaho impression and pack it in a spoiler. What did you think of the episode overall? I mean... aside from Meiling leaving. I'm kind of curious because that one wold probably make it into a top 10 or so list for me.

Tomoyo is quite the boss at times. Did you watch the preview at the end of the episode?

I'll see soonish enough. I got some free time on my hands now, after all. Atom Eve is probably the only character I really like, but she comes with the package of being involved in that soap opera grade "love" plot. But who knows, maybe the how will surprise me and not go where I think it will, but if that really turns into another Otis/Maeve situation I'm going to delete my Amazon account (not really, just an empty threat ). That's going to come up a lot. Because really, how could you get close to the first arc of CCS? You can have more appealing themes (but that's subjective), perhaps, characters that are a little older to make the character interactions carry a bit more weight or deal with more mature topics, or give them different backgrounds to explore something else, but in terms of pure writing quality, that's really going to be very tough beast to beat. Heck, the original team tried and failed miserably. Plus the show isn't just well written, but otherwise great overall - I mean, as long as one does like mahou shoujo anime. Which I do, obviously. I get that. I mean, being compared in tone and feel to The Outer Limits remake is something very positive. Maybe not for everyone, but when it comes from me that's pretty good.

I have had that account for a while, but like I said, the verification thing seems to be broken. I contemplated subbing for a bit, but that was before Netflix jacked up the prices and I added Disney+ to keep my Nephew away from my Switch at least part of the time he's here hogging my stuff. I can watch episodes like that, just not sure how many or if there's going to be ads or whatnot.

Yeah, Golden Wind is available on Crunchy Roll without premium access, I've just checked. I'm not sure how well my account there will function, because that verification email never got through, and now I've tried two different email accounts and it still doesn't work. Dunno what's going on. *shrug*

Indeed. I was just told by the wiki that Miyu was also in NGE, as Ritsuko's assisstant. So I guess I'm at 3 of 4 potentially recognizable characters. Not bad when you consider that back in November when I started watching Sailor Moon with subs I couldn't even keep the voices of the five girls apart when they were talking over each other during that ridiculous Sailor Moon S preview episode. My source has both the English and Japanese audio, yes. I'm not sure I want to check it out based on what you just told me. Heh. Even so, just from the OVA and the first episode, Miyu is one of the more interesting anti-heroes I've seen. Or probably the best. That depends a bit on how the TV show's going to work out . Meanwhile, here, Netflix only has Phantom Blood, Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders. I have also watched the first three episodes of Invicible today. The first one I watched back when this premiered on Amazon Prime at the behest of a friend who insisted that I watch it to the end. That episode was 95% forgettable and 5% OH MY GOD, HORY SHIIIIII, WHAT IS HAPPENING?! To be honest if I weren't me and would finish it anyway, I'd only keep watching this because @Bartimaeus (look at the forum software doing that @ thingie well... haha @Bartimaeus look there it works!) said it gets much better. Dear Lord, between the insipid teenage coming-of-age superhero drama*, the Martian Flaxian invasion and that painfully terrible "love triangle" setup between Amber, Mark and Eve, the Demon!Columbo detective and the show lampshading how terrible its one-liners are, I have no idea why anyone would even want to continue watching this. Except to keep listening to the voice cast, which at this point seems to be where all the budget went. Instead of, say, writing an engaging storyline or interesting characters, or ideally both. *Fully realize that this is weird coming from me of all people, but there's something really off-putting about this.

Look at how the very first episode of the Vampire Princess Miyu TV show beings with SERA KAHO jupitering as teacher. Is there any 90ies shoujo anime she hasn't been in? edit: Aaaaaaand the otaku boy is Kensuke from NGE, who was also Madoka's father in Puella Magi Madoka Magica. edit 2: And Larva speaks too, and he does so using the voice of Mr. Undercover Nudist Beach operative from Kill la Kill. Or rather, the other way around, this was first. Anyway...

Pay with your kidney, that might have some consequences later on, but they're much less immediate than losing an arm or a leg.

That looks pretty similar to the DVD source though, with a slightly better resolution. If the DVD really has that oddball resolution and that image is just upscaled for Hulu, then that might explain a thing or two about why it looks like it has the most detaily. Ah, mid 90ies TV, you had so many great things to offer, alas, keeping decent film sources was not one of them. I said the tone of the Vampire Princesse Miyu OVA reminded me of The Outer Limits remake, a connection I made purely on feelings, not on anything objective. Preeeeetty off topic. So how about that Revolutionary Girl Utena rewatch that supposedly makes the entire anime so much better, you up for that?

Canadian DVD source: Amazon Video: I'm not entirely certain why the Canadian DVD source has such a noticably reduced resolution*, but it is much brighter. There's some noticable jagginess around the edges of the props in the Amazon source, which is really weird. So yeah, the Prime Video image looks like it has the proper resolution and is otherwise not as washed out, but something's gone wrong in the encoding. The text for the credits also has noticable encoding artifacts. Good job, Amazon. Geez. I even tried looking for my PAL DVD boxed set, however I think that one's in the basement with my other DVDs. Stupid limited physical space. *

That'll be done in 4 minutes from now (guessing the host is speed limited). I'll check after lunch. But unless it's made from the Canadian source the DVD set is based on, it should be a good deal better regardless.

That might be related to the new cookies the forum sets. Because that really has only started to come up in the past few days. I only noticed because my phone's browser is set to private mode, and if I don't accept all the cookies the embedded content is just a blank square (sometimes it reads "you must accept our cookies to view the content"), but I'm not sure if that isn't just coded to work for us Euro-Peons. But that's not what I meant, I'm region locked out of the video. YT tells me that I'm not allowed to see it based on my area, and I really can't be arsed to fake my location for some trailer on YouTube. Cookies maybe. You need to accept the social media tracking cookies to have the embedded content appear. if uBlock throws them out by default than that might be the cause. That's also something that is relatively new, or at least I think so, because I haven't seen that at all on my phone until a couple of days ago.

26 episodes seems like a good deal more time to get things across or maybe explore characters a bit more. I'm expecting something good here. The '95 Outer Limits, while mostly sci-fi and less fantasy or horror, has a certain melancholic and sometimes downright dark tone. There are so many episodes that explore human nature (even positive ones), and it often ends in tragedy. What feels like a long time ago, when the TV Tropes Wiki was still a place that was more fun than serious and tropes still had meme-ish names, which, incidentially, was what brought me to read much of it, the current "Cruel Twist Ending" page was still called "Outer Limits Twist" (and Creator's Pet was called "The Wesley"). First season has an episode called Quality of Mercy which not only is a bottle episode featuring only two actors and a guy in a costume, but one of the finest moments of the show (if not actually the best episode it has). It's, uh, also relatively indicative of the budget the show had, which apparently was a couple of shoestrings and some chewing gum, and most of it probably went to the actors. So don't expect great production values, but it did feature a lot of fun "guest" stars and young actors one recognizes today. I mean, as much as an anthology show with always changing cast can have guest stars. There's an episode with Mark Hamill, and one with Leonard Nimoy, and a bunch of others. Just a tangent. It has nothing to do with Miyu, just the general feel of the OVA. Some of the episodes are misses, but that's to be expected, it did run for seven seasons. Some are remakes from older Outer Limits or Twilight Zone episodes, but usually with a darker twist to them. The only problem is availibility. There's nothing better than a DVD set scanned from a censored Canadian TV source (not much of value was lost, anyway, to be honest, unless you're really into Alyssa Milano's breats... *shrug*), but the image quality isn't great. Actually... yeah, isn't great is perhaps the wrong way to put it. It's not VHS-transfer level bad, but it really does show that it was made from a Never The Same Colours TV source. At least for now. We did have a season one boxed DVD set region 2 release that was pretty good in quality, but the sales were so poor that they never followed up with the other seasons. However, I just checked, and the remaining seasons will actually be released starting October 1st, 2021. Nice. Maybe. Because that is a completely new release, not a follow up to the first boxed set from 2008. Not sure if that means that the quality is going to be better, but I'm pretty sure I'll buy that just to have it. Still only DVD, but I doubt that there'll be anything better than a DVD release, and ideally the new DVDs were made from a decent source - or at least the PAL version of the original source, where we could end up with an Italian Sailor Moon style quality difference to the current Canadian boxed set. Whee, what a long assed post. The nature of the show makes it of course possible to just check out Quality of Mercy. There's no storyline, except for some end-of-season arc welding clip show episodes that I found highly entertaining.

Done with the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA. That was pretty good. The third part was a little disjointed again, the fourth mostly a flashback into Miyu's tragic backstory. Himiko would probably have been happier if she had not chased Miyu around. I'm expecting good things of the TV show now. edit: In terms of tone and feelings evoked this made me want to rewatch Outer Limits, the 1995 version. As an anthology show, it does have its ups and downs of course, but man, some of these episodes were pure gold.

You missed the part where he talks to his **** as a 14 year old because his **** wants to watch Sailor Moon and he doesn't, but **** of course wins out. That's when I turned that off. Yep I turned something off without finishing it.