majestic

Well... Amazon has that and Vision of Escaflowne, and I went for the historical drama rather than what's also flagged as mech anime. *nods* if I ever find my joy in fiddling with hard- and software setups again, I'll probably get a proper media streaming server for my home. The way it is now there's inertia and... revulsion to overcome. Back when the GTX 970 came out, I figured it would be a decent upgrade and decent value for my setup (a 980 would have been absolute overkill), so I bought one. It took me three months to actually install it, and that was just replacing one card with the other. Anyway, here's a screenshot of what Amazon's streaming: Luckily I ran on a German TV station and am of at least PAL resolution, unlike my friend X over here who looked terrible throughout. I also watched three more episodes of K-On!! and decided to go in release order. The middle of the second season is kind of not entirely there. I don't want to call it boring because the episodes aren't, but they're not as funny as they were in the past, and the more serious character interactions aren't an entirely adequate substitute, at least when it comes to certain characters. In this case it was Azusa in the second of the three episodes. Whenever there's character focus, it works best when it's Mio, Yui or Ritsu. That's partially a problem of the setup, becaues the three have more, well, flaws to work with. Yui is a complete airhead, Mio has her anxiety issues and Ritsu is a mostly unfocused flake. Azusa and Mugi don't have as much to work with, and it shows when the anime tries to focus on them. It was also contrasted by the episode after that, which was pretty good, where the girls can't use their club room at school because the plumbing is being repaired. Spoiler marked because, eh, actual spoilers, I guess. As always, that's complaining about minor things, I guess. Not everything can be Sailor Moon S where everything just worked, except perhaps for the one episode they spent focusing on the history of Neptune and Uranus, which wasn't a bad episode, just not a really interesting one. Like focusing on Mugi or Azusa. I guess... that's really a decent comparison. Heh. Lady ASUKA! *quietly pushes Nadia further down the watchlist*

I kind of did that already, by the way. It's on Amazon Prime Video, at least... here. Quality work as usual when it comes to anime and Amazon, having only the German dub licensed. At least there's no TV station signation at the end. It'll be on my cardio playlist for the next three or four weeks, with its 40 episodes. The video quality is okay. I'm pretty sure the blu ray tansfer would be better, but that would require some licensing effort and perhaps some money from Amazon that they're quite interested in funneling into Prime Video originals that I have no interest in, but always put up ads for. Good job. A few random observations: - I immediately recognized the intro song: - Japanese writers and animators are apparently really obsessed with rose themes when it comes to aristocracy and knights. - 70ies manga, very late 70ies/early 80ies anime adaptation that looks the part (easily noticable with the faces and eyes). - No idea how the Japanese original is, but the German dub is, as usual for the time, pretty good. - Oscar is slapped twice by her father, fights two sword duels and gets into a protracted fist fight with her childhood friend, in the span of only 25 minutes. The grandmother of her childhood friend gets wasted when she hears how Oscar defied the king. Set in 1770 at the time of the arrival of Maria Antonia (Marie Antoinette), archduchess of Austria, at the French court, Lady Oscar, who was raised as a boy by her father, an officer of some reknown in the French army, finds herself nominated to fight a duel for the post of the captain of the guard for Marie Antoinette by her father, which Louis XV accepts. Oscar, of course, isn't happy about that and doesn't even want the job. She intercepts her opponent and fights the duel to see if she can win (and tells the boy that she does so to spare him the humiliation of losing to a girl in front of the entire court), earning the ire of both her father and the king, who isn't all too happy about his subjects defying his orders, but decides to give her the post anyway. Faced with his obstinate daughter still wanting to refuse the post instead of being happy to not be arrested and executed for treason, her father asks her trusted friend and childhood companion André to talk some sense into her, which she overhears... The first episode was really rough around the edges. It serves mostly as a character introduction and gives Oscar some traits that you would expect in the lead character of a shōnen anime. She's confident in her abilities to the point of being arrogant, defies her father and her king, and - as noted above - gets into fist fights. The fist fight leads to a nice bonding moment between her and André though, so it's not a total loss. I'm curious how that'll continue once they arrive at the court for real. I mean, obviously she accepts the post, how else would you have another 39 episodes. Anyway, the first episode was okayish. The opening narration made it clear that this'll span the time to at least the beginning of the French revolution. So far, while the story itself is fictional, the historical frame of reference was accurate.

Well played sir, I expected a Mari picture. That's one of the things that was easier back in the day of less information on the internet and regular TV. A TV show was over whenever the station decided it was. Nowdays, I look up a name and see something like 10 spinoffs and such, and yeah, that's really an annoying issue. I lived happily for years without trying Sailor Moon Crystal simply because I didn't know about it, after all. Would I watch Sailor Moon now? Good question. If it came with a glowing recommendation, I guess so. 10 regular episodes, two specials, one OVA and a movie. I'm still debating with myself if I should go in broadcast/release order or chronological. The first special is after episode 21, the movie after 22, the second special after the movie and the OVA goes right where I am now. In this case it probably won't matter. It's not like there are spoilers to be had. There are also a bunch of three minute DVD/BR specials, but I don't have those at the moment. I think I'll just go with release order.

Yeah, it does drag a little in the middle. Don't miss out on the movie though, or you won't see...

Yesterday I hit the first episode in K-On!! that I would consider... weak? Weaker than the rest, at the very least. The writers decided to have a Tsumugi focus episode, and it kind of fell flat. She's the sheltered from real life rich girl character. Mild mannered, polite, well behaved. The polar opposite of Ritsu and Yui, of course, and a fun contrast. Ritsu takes her to an arcade and a thrift candy store, things she'd never go to otherwise, and she's running around with that childlike expression of interest and fun, as if you'd drop a nine year old into a theme park for the first time in their life. Then she asks Ritsu to whack her, because Mio is always doing that to Ritsu when Ritsu says or does something silly and she wants that too. Actually it's been like that the entire time, even in the first season, some episodes ago they went to a hardware and home store and she spent a minute in complete reverie staring at cleaning supplies. She then bought something to polish metal and ran around polishing the faucets at school. Sure Mugi, you do that. That's fine... for like Cardcaptor Sakura, maybe, but not even that. It's slightly ridiculous for a high school senior. There are the little things in between, like her starting the pillow fight on the school trip. Done with an immensely funny, mischievous expression on her face (and Mio is uttely baffled it wasn't Ritsu or Yui). They work, because everyone else is there to make it work. In one episode she was immensely happy to have been told to stand in the hallway by Sawako as punishment for disturbing the class. For a focus episode with only two cast members for the first half of it, no. Although she did manage to get slapped silly by Ritsu at the end when she told her that Ritsu would be really popular if she were a boy (the implication here that them going out would have been a fun date if it hat been one). The ending of the episode was great, and Mugi in general with her attempts to be like a regular girl even though she clearly isn't, is really nice. The writers don't really know what to do with her at times it seems. She's either doing something mature like taking up a low wage part time job in order to connect with the peasants (not her words), or she's falling back into the age category that she looks like, what with the sort-of-chibi look of the show. Eh, rant over. The episode wasn't even bad, and had a few laughs. That's the case for many pre-Sailor Moon magical girl series, or those that came out at roughly the same time. The idea that maho shojo animes (or mangas) could have a more general audience than five to nine year old girls wasn't really there before that, and even for Sailor Moon that ended up being a happy accident. Probably to a good degree because Ikuhara pushed hard to not have it devolve into the Mamoru/Usagi focused lovey dovey romance fest that the manga is, at times. Ah, actually, I've looked at a bunch of these before, roughly at the time when I decided to watch Princess Tutu. Ojamajo Doremi, for instance, I didn't like the art style (well, how surprising, right?) and the idea of going into 250 episodes or so of that wasn't very appealing without knowing if it's actually good. Rayearth is on my list of CLAMP related stuff to try anyway, but that's been slightly re-prioritized by Clear Card. Vision of Escaflowne, eh, I wasn't really sure about that, but it's on Amazon Prime Video. As is Wedding Peach, which really looks like a cheap Sailor Moon knock-off that not even the fans of the Sailor Moon story episodes like. Rose of Versailles was on TV here, as Lady Oscar. I caught an episode or two, but not enough to form an opinion (or to remember much, aside from it being set in France around the time of the French revolution), and it suddenly stopped over licensing issues. I might actually really try that next. I mean, "next" in the sense of sometimes after the backlog's mostly done. Well, let's see. Probably won't get to it anytime soon either. I also still have a couple of Love Live! movies left to, uhm, enjoy. Maybe. I don't know much about TPPG, just that I stumbled across an episode or two while zapping and it wasn't very appealing to me in terms of looks. The German dub's also pretty terrible from what I remember, so turned off it got.

Yes on the first few accounts, kind of on the last one. Memory is a fickle thing in the academy. People disappear without anyone noticing or remembering, after all. They do remember some of their lives before coming there, though. Utena came because of her memory of the prince. Touga knows he's adopted, along with Nanami, and just refuses to tell her. Miki and Kozue have their family life they remember. Nanami remembers drowning a kitten. All very specific events, though, nothing much about the rest of their lives. Curious. Touga will drop a pretty big hint soon, if he hasn't already. Jury's Akio Ohtori arc duel is probably one of the highlights of the entire show, and a pretty important episode as well, in hindisight...

The more accurate statement would be Princess Tutu is actually good, unlike Revolutionary Girl Utena. The disappointment, in a way, stems from my expectations based on the people involved, and that it is, in the end, a fusion of the Ugly Duckling and Swan Lake, with a gender flip (in Swan Lake it's of course the princess that needs to be saved, not the prince, even though - minor spoiler - at the end there's a princess that is saved too). Unlike Utena, it doesn't drown in thematic exploration. It's there, but in the end, it is a fairy tale. I've said that before after the Sailor Moon SuperS movie, while I like fairly tales, I've seen enough adaptations, read enough and listened to enough recordings as a child. Enough to not need Japanese reinterpretations of them. That's not something that says anything about the quality of the anime. It has a streak of mildly boring filler episodes in the second season that I don't know why they're in there, unless the studio asked for another thirteen episodes. They're not moving the plot along, they're not making any statements, and they're not really used for character development. Or, better put, perhaps not used enough for character development. Ahiru is pretty funny at times, and she's often put in embarrassing situations that are funny, but like I said, it's not really comedic outside of that. That's okay, there's nothing funny about Swan Lake, after all. What it isn't, just in case that hasn't become entirely clear from my previous posts, is a powerhouse of character interactions. What's there is pretty good, all things considered, but it certainly wasn't a focus in developing it. Ahiru and to a certain part Rue (Rue is exactly the sort of tragic figure that I really like, so hey... take that with a grain of salt and some bias) pretty much carry it on their own. I also rarely ever came across a voice actress that was better cast than Nanae Katō. She's perfect as Ahiru. There are voice actors I like more, of course, but she fits the character like a glove. If gloves had voices, and all. Nowhere, if the guy on YouTube is correct, until the ending. But we'll see. I mean, you will. On the other hand, he also thought Rebuild was pretty good, so what does he know, really. I apologize profusely for being offensive. Gomenasai! You're right that PPP looks a good deal better and had much more effort applied to it than Phineas and Ferb. Still not... not my thing, you know. I'll try to appreciate effort more in the future, really. That approach looks better than following the creative team behind Sailor Moon. Well, and Cardcaptor Sakura. That clearly didn't work out. Was Eriko on the list? What is on the list, actually? An adaptation of a yuri shonen manga published in Dengeki Daioh. Yeah, pass. I got interested for a moment, I don't mind the overdramatic dramatic drama after all, and the writer also worked on K-On!. By the way, I think that also explains why Love Live! feels like a carbon copy fanservice'd up version of K-On!. Jukki Hanada worked on K-On! and Love Live!... well, and on Bloom Into You. I almost watched Death Note once, but then I noticed it would be gone from Netflix before I could finish it, and didn't start. I watched the intro on YouTube and it looks like an era typical Madhouse show (and look at that, it really is animated by Madhouse). Really not sure based on what exactly you're getting these recommendations, that doesn't read at all like something that would be interesting to you. Mystery, supernatural thriller, shonen. Yeah... uhm...

My expectations for a new Matrix movie are tempered by the abject failures that Reloaded and Revolutions were, and how wonderful Jupiter Ascending turned out to be. At this point, the Wachowskis' track record puts them in the same league as David S. Goyer, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

The Paramount+ channel for some reason really doesn't want me to watch their trailers. I really don't want to watch their new Star Trek either, so that's fair, but it's still odd. Why region block trailers, or did I find my way onto some black list by complaining too much on the Obsidian forum?

That kind of... sucks. Apparently, it'll also get really racist soon. Or has, already, I don't know when those episodes happen. I just know that from a Rebuild review I watched. Watched two more episodes of K-On!! that I now wish I hadn't seen. Not because they were bad. They girls have summer holidays, visit a music festival, go to a public pool and a summer festival and generally have fun. Which is really depressing to see. Where can I sign up to have two or three months of summer vacation again? Instead I'm looking forward to *best Warcraft peon voice* work, work. Which tomorrow will once again bring me joy in form of this fun little project that feels like banging my head against a wall. Never thought I'd be the one to say that, but TGIF, really. K-On!! continues to be pretty strong. It's not as well written as Cardcaptor Sakura is, mostly because this season really is only having a faint overall storyline (more of a hint and half a theme, actually) insofar as the junior member is worrying about how life will go on without the seniors once they've graduated, but otherwise it's going from one episode to the next, which leaves a lot of room for fun stuff to happen, but sort of puts a damper on an overall development of something. For all its other flaws, that wasn't one in the first season. They always had their school festival to work towards, and obstalcles to overcome along the way. Unlike in Sailor Moon, where most of the filler only had a cursory relation to the mostly useless overall story arc of the season (although there really are people who watched Sailor Moon for the story bits, I have no idea why people would do this, but there are those who did, and they make videos and podcasts on it, what a world we're living in...) and it still worked simply because the characters, including some of the villains - especially in Sailor Moon S, or Nephrite in the first season - were strong enough, K-On!(!)'s girls are, while fun, not quite there. There sure are times when a red line connecting the episodes would help move the characters along a bit. That's me doing what we call jammern auf hohem Niveau (lit. "whinging on a high level"), being unreasonably picky and complaining because something that's really good could be a bit better yet. I mean, maybe there's a magical anime* out there that combines the strength of Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura into something unimaginably perfect with none of either's flaws - of which the one's of Cardcaptor Sakura are more academic and thematic for me than actual flaws, mind - but that's probably only a theoretical possibility. Like being able to quantum tunnel through a wall. It's not impossible, just near enough to make no difference on any given timeframe that is not infinite. *I'd also take a TV show or western animation, as long as it doesn't look like the Power Puff Girls or Phineas and Ferb.

You're sick and should look for help.

Finished Princess Tutu now. Most of the planned tragedy of the ending was averted, however... The final handful of episodes were much like reading a fairy tale, a lot of narration by both Fakir and Drosselmeyer, which wasn't bad because it fit the setting and intent. A little useless tension added at the end with no explanation for one of the Jawas, but thankfully they otherwise more or less stopped being in the series until the very end. Some unsettling scenes were there too. Took a book out of Disney's page, huh? Wait, no, that's the other way around... All in all, it was okay. More than that, I guess, there were parts of this, especially both season endings, that were absolutely wonderful. Still... even though there are lighthearted moments and Ahiru is a riot every now and then, it's not really a fun adventure or a silly romp. Much better paced than Utena, even if the second season occasionally feels like running on a treadmill in the middle. Pretty good music, overall, provided one likes classical music. As expected, it has a whole lot of classical compositions, from ballet music to waltzes. Pretty much recommended if one likes fairy tales with a twang of tragedy. The anime called its ending happy, but it's not entirely.

That says a lot about the studio if that list is "nothing too crazy" compared to other stuff. Sounds interesting, let's see how big of a nosedive the show really takes, but 39 episodes aren't that long. Sure sounds better than Utena. So the main character is Anno himself, again? Is that true for all the other characters too?

Go back a couple of pages and look up the George Carlin quote he posted, it's exactly the same, just with more visuals.

So did any other stuff show up? Like, I don't know, giant naked depictions of mythological figures? Any Liliths, Adams, Eves or something? My milage would vary, but it can't.

Well... That's pretty neat as far as depictions of eldritch horrors go. Simple, yet really effective. Much like the rest of the animation in Princess Tutu.

I will, I will. I'm quite looking forward to seeing DIO in action, I'm expecting great things here. edit: Just haven't really been in the mood for JoJo's, 's hard to explain properly. Well, but school has started, so I can have the TV back, that should help. Obligatory Princess Tutu picture: Somehow Princess Tutu does everything better than Revolutionary Girl Utena. That's the demonic Raven, by the way, just in case the imagery is too obscure.

I watched the first couple of minutes of Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. If I weren't me, I'd probably never go back, no matter how much I might end up liking the story, or the characters, because watching the film isn't just like: But more like: And then: Plus some very serious uncanny valley flashes in the attempt to give the animation depth, especially in the opening shots. Yikes. It burns my precious, it burnsssssss. Nasty elven rope animation. That said, I'll now make an effort to finish Princess Tutu to cross an item off my list and free up some space. I'd much rather contnue K-On!! at this point, which should not be seen as a comment on Princess Tutu's quality (even if the second season isn't as good as the first), but it's much more what I would like to watch right now, based on my mood and frame of mind. On the other hand, I'm halfway through K-On!! and I kind of don't want it to end so quickly.

Joke of the century, good sir, you win at the internet. Bigly.

I'm getting the feeling that Princess Tutu's Jawas are up to no good: Utini! I was wrong, by the way, random one-off character from the last episode showed up in this one too. He accidentially runs into Rue, it's possible that the two start bonding over being the sad rejects in this story. That would be something.

The strange thing about this is that Revolutionary Girl Utena was made by a good deal of people who worked on Sailor Moon, and the original NGE. The same people that directed and wrote Sailor Moon S, and large parts of Stars. It's baffling how weak the characters in Utena are considering that it was made by people who know how to write characters. But hey, I've complained about that before.

I've edited the post above like a hundred times, pls reload this page!

No, it happened. Mikage/Nemuro just left the academy, that's all. People who leave the academy slowly fade from the memories of everyone still inside. Like Wakaba's friend the Onion Knight. And some blue haired random guy from the upcoming arc who used to be Juri's mentor. Nemuro just left a long time ago, which is why he never rebuilt the original Seminar into the Memorial Hall. That was what the funny flashbacks were for. To show that Boy!Anthy died a long time ago, Tokiko is older than Nemuro by a good deal of years even though they should be of the same age, and all that stuff. Don't worry, the show's going to double and triple down on the metaphysical before its over, and the movie just ups it. edit: The real question here is, who or what is Tokiko? Because she defies everything in the setting and show, coming and going willy nilly as she pleases. I'm really not sure about that one, to be honest.

I'm keeping these things as vague as possible anyway. I have to admit, I don't really know where this is going, but so far the first season (the first 13 episodes) was a good deal better. This one took a page out of Sailor Moon to come up with something five episodes before the end of the season (and show, in Tutu's case). It's not entirely out of the blue, there were hints and bits and pieces that Fakir is... Good job, scriptwriters. If the only function a new character serves it a late-season plot point reveal, then maybe you need to put some revisions in. The setup was there, but the way the reveal went was pretty unsatisfying. Who knows, maybe there's some secret energy being behind the Raven. Like CHAOS or PHARAO 90! Just as long as it isn't DEATH PHANTOM. But... but... I like fun random trash. Heh.