majestic

Next up, an episode called Sakura, Rainbows and Grandpa. I can't wait for Clear Card to ruin that too. Well, let's see what it brings...

In a fun coincidence, this next epsiode has Yukito reading from a children's book called Night on the Galactic Railroad. Heh. That's funny on a meta level. Shaoran had a phone call with Wei and his sisters crept up and wanted him to turn on video. That was fun, at least. The rest of this is still so Clear Card. It feels like this Star Trek and Star Wars fan fiction written by Jar Jar Abrams, except it's from the author of the original. Which makes this so much worse. I guess Ms. Okawa was abducted and replaced by shapeshifting reptiloids or eaten by body snatchers at some point between 2001 and 2016.

Right at the start of Clear Card, all of Sakura's old cards became inert. Or rather, completely free of magic. Shaoran on the other hand suddenly had a massive power upgrade, and in this episode now summoned a wind based binding attack that looked suspiciously like Windy. I'm just going to consider this non-canon from now on, because if Shaoran has Sakura's cards, then... honestly, I hope she blasts him back to Hong Kong. Toya keeps on refusing to tell Yukito what he's up to, even though it clearly disturbs him. Let me put this bluntly: F*ck this douchewaffling. You're all worse than Mamoru ever was, and I hate you. And f*ck you too, Clear Card, how can you be this bad? How? Why?

@KP the meanie zucchini I see, that sounds totally awesome. Might be the next thing after Utena, Clear Card and JoJo's is wrapped up. Or maybe I'll finish Love Live! first.

Any tumors that grow into weird JoJo punching stands? To answer your question from a couple of posts ago, yeah, I did get to see the Empress. This just keeps getting weirder.

You know that makes me curious, you devil you. Anyway, what's going on, based on your reaction I'll be expecting something supremely weird. Does it dip into Devilman Crybaby territory?

The apocalypse is coming and going outside, and has done so for the past week. It alternates between being awfully hot (even for summer) and torrential rainfalls that come, last for a minute or two, and then disappear again. Should they at some point start lasting any longer we'll have the same issues that parts of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands have right now.

Look at that, now we're officially the Sailor Moon brigade, huh?

There's also Santiano, who do a, uhm, schlagery old wife sea shanty version of that stuff: I can't listen to any of that because lyrics, but that most likely won't bother you.

You might like this then: Assuming you don't know them already, anyway.

I said that I expect Revolutionary Girl Utena's nature to change now that the Black Rose Saga has started. If you thought this was a weird surrealist fever dream, wait until you get to to episode 14 where it goes into HAMON OVERDRIVE, and adds an extra deep layer of squick on top. Separate spoiler for the squicky part: late edit just to not make more posts by my lonesome: Nanami really is a nutjob. Utena and whoever else is around the shadowplays have started to talk to them when the shadows are doing their, uhm, shadowplay.

We have a rule in place when using services, especially when they necessitate close contact, that you need to have a current PCR test, a certified vaccination or a certificate that you were infected in the past six months and recovered, i.e. when going to the barber shop for instance, or the nail salon... I'm pretty sure Bruce will need that vaccination for his dates with the hookers and strippers, so that kinda makes sense...

Oh, and also, because I forgot, you should perhaps make an exception to your slow enjoyment and get the next episode done soon(tm). It's... a rather important one.

Cardcaptor Sakura is definitely better made than Sailor Moon. You could argue that it's better made than most other TV shows ever created, both animated and live action. There are only a handful of episodes that don't measure up, and even they are good - not great, but still good, like the one where she was debating leaving the dash card with the one-off track & field character. Actually that might just have been the lowest point in the show in the entire run (let's not count Clear Card). Sailor Moon's average episode quality is certainly lower, also brought down by confusing and unplanned story arc episodes where the writers had to work hard to make sense of the source material. Cardcaptor Sakura, on the other hand, was by far and large (51 out of the initial 70 episodes) written by the same writer that wrote the manga. CLAMP are four people, and Nanase Ōkawa is their writer. Which in part makes the fall of Clear Card all the more baffling, and also the reason why I'm willing to give xxxHolic the benefit of the doubt. I'll just let that disappoint me. There's obviously a but coming (or "demo" as Sakura would say in the original ), and I've posted that before, Sailor Moon has a slightly different target demographic and could do (and did) different things with their episodes when it comes to character interactions. There are three brief moments when they're almost equal, the aforementioned episodes 43, 60 and 66. For 43 you get the distinct impression that both Sakura and Meiling have a five minute age up, but you'll see that when you get to it. Then there's 54, but it stands a little apart, because it's a sequel to episode 16 and might just be the best episode in the show. Or at least, it's Sakura at her very best. Yes, absolutely. To be honest I already loved Cardcaptor Sakura after the first few episodes, however, the one after which I was sure that the writers struck gold was the one where she uses the Shadow card to capture Silence at the museum. As simple as the contept is, it was pretty stunning to see it combined like that. There's also the ingenious way that the running gags are never used enough to become annoying, but frequently enough to be ever funnier. Toya showing up everywhere Sakura goes for instance. True. Cardcaptor Sakura - the original - is, to use the otherwise hackneyed phrase, quite frankly poetry in motion. It's fairly simplistic, but so was Sailor Moon (I'd say Sailor Moon has more sophisticated backgrounds), but it works perfectly when animated. It's a simple beauty, and something that's so completely lost with Clear Card. It also fits perfeclty with the voice acting and the sound design and soundtrack. Especially for Tomoyo and Sakura, but also true for everyone else. Heh. To think that you initially didn't want to watch it at all because the original English dub was so terribad. If Netflix* never does anything else, giving you the CCS recommendation in addition to the constant posting about it by me has done at least that. Wish I could take the credit for finding the show, but that goes to this particularily supernerdy anime nerd: Time coded to his recommendations, the part before that is quite frankly him getting misty eyed about Sailor Moon. Understandable, but unnecessary. I wonder what you'll say to the direction certain character interactions go somewhat soon. How much you will like the second movie massively depends on that. I did, and I stand by that. The premise is different, which isn't bad, because I think the original concept has run its course at the time it ended, but the seemless and easy way it integrated into Sakura's world is also gone with it. That's fine, mostly. Tomoyo gets to do certain things, so that might just keep you from re-evaluating. She starts the second arc as a bit of a flanderization, but once the arc finds its footing she's just great. Not really a spoiler but for effect: Not really spoilery question but potentially maybe (not bad even): *Technically we could potentially mention that forcing yourself through Madoka on Japanese made switching from English to Japanese MAYBE easier on CCS. Still grasphing at straws here. Do you get the impression that I feel terrible about this fiasko?

Your Name is something I debated watching with myself on and off, I'll take that as the most glowing recommendation considering it's from 2016. No, I'm sure it's fine that you like the schoolyard bully who slaps everyone, lusts after her brother and drowns kittens in her spare time. Fine. This is... fine. Not sure "sick in the head" is a proper distinction in Revolutionary Girl Utena. Which one of them doesn't have more than a handful of lose screws? Drawing a blank, the most normal one is Wakabe, and she's a little nutty just as well.

The thought of using those face buttons and the D-pad makes my hands hurt. I don't even want to imagine what they'd do to yours. Is there some secret, unholy alliance between Microsoft and Nintendo where they both decided to make sure that they'll have the only comfortably shaped controllers on the planet? True to form, Microsoft also made theirs so they break after half a year. I'm through my third XBox One controller by now, it's ridiculous. As bad as the JoyCons on the Switch are (for precision, actually, I find them quite nice to use, but it's impossible to play games that require precise inputs with them), the Pro controller is a real beast, it takes any punishment my nephew dishes out and keeps trucking on, and has ridiculous batterly life to boot. Which barely matters to me because when I use it it's hooked up to the dock and to use the cable for inputs (if you ever get a Switch, there's an option for that in the system menu, it really pays off in terms of input lag). Screw wireless input devices.

Hoe? Anyway, leave it to Kunihiko Ikuhara to have the [(not so) bright idea | balls] (pick at your leisure) to make the 13th episode, and the end of the first arc, a clip show interspersed with narration by a both a mysterious stranger and someone else who suspiciously looks like Utena's prince. Shadowplay still has UFOs and the shadows in space suits with distorted voices. It also was right at the start of the episode. If that means anything, I have no idea what. Maybe the end of one arc and the beginning of another? Fun fact: That was definitely the best clip show since the new Outer Limits arc welding ones. Actually, in spite of being mostly a clip show, this was pretty good.

For the same reason Utena has surfing elephants in the exploding curry episode. ^^

Ikuhara once said, when he was asked, that the scenes with the stopwatch reveal something fundamental about the nature of the anime's universe. In other words, they're totally not relevant and just there for fun, and the best explanation I've seen so far is that they're actually just number puns. In one of the episodes, Nanami has the watch and stops it at 7:73, or - when read out aloud in Janapese - na-na-mi.

That certainly looks interesting. The Scorpio story reminds me a bit too much of Japanese style societal pressure to just accept your fate and do the right thing. Not sure when I will get around to watching it for the time being. Too much to do already, plus work's a pretty bitch right now, stupid server thread keeps having exceptions for no reasons, so now we went for a full recompile on a running system, that's fun... (don't try this at home, dear readers, that only works if you have several layers to compile ) Speaking of Utena, do you have any idea yet what Miki and his stopwatch is supposed to mean (I don't, unless... maybe...)? I got a few fun takeaways from that. First, the name "SuperS" was conceived of before Sailor Moon S came up, because how else could the movie introduce Haruka and Michiru, and Naoko Takeuchi probably had the idea for Pegasus a while before. Or worse, she got it from that script? Who knows. The other thing is that he just dropped the romance because he wanted a show with girls as main characters to be about something else than boys. Sure they come up often, especially for Minako and Rei, but in the end, that's a pretty interesting stance for a Japanese director in the mid 90ies.

It sure doesn't stop. I didn't expect something like this so early in the show's run, but then... 12 episodes is almost a third through already. The shadowplay in this episode has the shadows leaving on a shadow UFO. That sure was something. I have a vague idea what, but no more. *headscratch*

Revolutionary Girl Utena, episode 11. That was depressing.

Here's a copy from the interview, it has some pretty hard Utena spoilers so not going to link. On what the SuperS movie could have been: Ikuhara on why Mamoru was all but written out of the show in the later seasons: Emphasis added by the editor, in both cases! Given the prevalence of Mamosagi in the manga and the focus on their miracle romance, it's no wonder he and Ms. Takeuchi didn't get along. Changing Rei was probably only a minor part of that. Sailor Moon is a partial self-insertion fic from Naoko Takeuchi where she (admittedly, even, I think - but that's taken by word of mouth from the fandumb) made up the relationship and the friends she wanted to have but didn't at that point in her life. Also, good to see that there never was any subtext intended for Sailor Moon. Take that, stupid Ami x Makoto shippers. Not that it wasn't totally clear from the start (almost) that homosexual relationships in Sailor Moon aren't subtexted. They're overt. Very much so. That's part of the charm... especially for something from the mid 90ies.

Yikes. Revolutionary Girl Utena, episode 10: By the way, when watching this, keep in mind that Ikuhara made Revolutionary Girl Utena out of a failed Sailor Moon movie special script, one that according to him should have had Haruka and Usagi riding a black and white Pegasus to the "End of the World", a location where Michiru was sleeping a magical sleep of some sort. The music that plays when Utena pulls the sword from Anthy reminds me a lot of certain parts of the Lexx soundtrack.