majestic

...theatrics? I feel like they're being entirely unfair to Madoka's father here. He only got a handful of lines and does nothing offensive other than picking tomatoes! I know a lot of people who hate tomatoes for some reason, but surely none of you are among those, are you? One point about the exposition dumps by Kyubey: Zucchini and tomatoes have something in common - they're both berries. Don't be sorry, I'm trying my best not to hold it against you. No, just kidding, really. I can't even begin to count the amount of films I've hated watching that friends, family or colleagues recommended to me. There are some beloved classics even that I usually just pretend to have enjoyed so I don't get into debates over it (one of my greatest character "strengths" is being utterly focused on avoiding conflict to the point of rather suffering in silence than actually saying something). There's a wide variety of them, across several genres, and is sometimes seemingly so arbitrary that I can't even properly express why. I absolutely hated Pulp Fiction and I intensely disliked Sin City, and everyone I know enjoyed them. On a more positive note (has nothing to do with anime, film, tv or music): Some talk about Cardcaptor Sakura, Episode 25 (spoilers, obviously):

I understand what you mean. It's similar for me with music. There's a reason I'm so hyper focused on vocalists. Most people I know think the vocalist is merely one of the instruments, and when they're not good, just as long as they're not downright awful, it's all right. It's not for me. I for the life of me can't listen to most hip hop, for instance. I have no problems listening to silly Eurodance numbers with rap vocal parts, because they are usually done by people who at least can sing passingly, but to some of the stuff that was really popular in the mid 90ies, dear god, please stop it, please, stop. The absolute epitome of all that I hate about this was Busta Rhymes' Woo-haa!!. This... creation has the distinction of giving me a headache. I'm not even exaggerating here. The Fugees are another group that are really good at doing this (Lauryn Hill being the sole exception, but that's just one of them...). Someone on the old Interplay forums once accused me of being racist because I said I don't like hip hop. Man, really, I hate white rappers just as much (oh, by the way, anyone who is reading this, please... don't tell me that there's a difference between rap and hip hop, I know that, and I really don't care, the end result is rhythmic speaking that breaks my brain, thank you very much), if not more so - and don't get me started on German rap and its myriad offshoots that have the crudest, most ridiculous lyrics you could find. Luckily I don't have reactions like that to other entertainment. I mean, as long as its not an Adam Sandler level "comedy" or animation that lacks any... any sort of artistry. Yes, looking at you South Park, or stuff like Phineas and Ferb. Or German TV or films. Come to think of it, I hate those for similar reasons you dislike most anime. The (stilted) dialogue, the direction style and editing that is typical for German film, the camera hardware used to film and the character tropes employed. Everything made in Germany looks and feels to god damned German. For me to enjoy any of them, they need to be really good. Insofar, I... understand your position, even if I can't relate to it when it comes to anime. Apology: I'll let you in on a secret: I don't like stage plays either. I mean I read a lot of them because they're part of our curriculum and I, at some point, cared for being able to pass myself off as "cultured" and for that you need to be at least passingly familiar with the classics, and there's not much difference between having read them and having seen them - familiarity is the key, the finer points of who is a better stage actor or some such might be debated, but not that often... so for emulation purposes, reading the silly things is enough. There's a certain irony in that, insofar as I think being familiar with Faust made Madoka less enjoyable. Not that it isn't immediately noticable with the atmosphere of the show/films, but there's literally the writing on the wall at the very beginning that comes directly from Faust. I also mentioned a while back that spoken Standard German was modelled after the language spoken by travelling theatre troupes, so it sort of makes sense that I dislike German film. Although I don't have such extremely adverse reactions to it. That's really only for terrible vocalists. Since foreign languages seem to break that problem in both our cases (in a milder form for you than English does for me, it seems, but still) how about you just learn German and enjoy German dubs from now on. That doesn't seem at all like a lot of work for very little gain (as a bonus, German voice acting is much less theatery than film). Ganbatte! (how perfectly Japanese is that to wish someone good luck by saying do your best?) I wasn't implying that you hated Sayaka in particular, but the first film is arguably all about her, even more so than it is about Madoka or Homura. But who knows, maybe the Speed Racer effect will hit you with the second movie. It doubles down hard on the imagery, relies more on stylistic elements and mood and a bit less on character interactions. Maybe it'll cause a buffer overflow and you'll just start laughing - or enjoying it. I wouldn't bet anything on it however. Now that's just mean. Pegasus has expressed no interest in the actual 8th graders on the show. He only likes elementary school girls. You're right, that was hyperbole, I was just surprised at the level of, let's say detail, this went into considering it's rating. I liked the anime up until its ending, but that we already talked about a while back.

No kidding, after the first episode I wondered if I had accidentially stumbled into a tentacle porn anime that someone accidentially rated FSK 16 (our version of R-rated, sort of).

Yeah, that's just not me. I found that interacting with 8th grade girls is much more stressfull than simply watching them from afar. Besides, it was weird, being creeped out by that unblinking gaze all the time. I'm also not really good at dealing with change, and that... worked better in my mind than it did in practice. So yeah.

Changed my avatar back, that's much better now. Time to go and shoot up some Kilrathi. Boom, kitty litter!

How very American of Netflix, then.

Every now and then I stumble into this thread only to be reminded of why I decided 15 years ago that I will never ever again build a computer myself, after trashing my P4 D840* (great idea Intel, by the way, putting two of these heat monsters onto a single chip) in attempt to get the core temp down to a workable range. I'll just pick the parts I'd like to have and let someon else assemble it, luckily there are plenty of shops these days that do just that. *Might have been broken right from the start, I changed the heatsink because the idle core temperature went up to 70°C, and the CPU overheating protection fired the moment I started a game or two. However, I well and truly trashed the CPU trying to mount the other heatsink, which of course meant that I voided any warranty.

And now for the obligatory more in-depth reply:

I remember I once posted pictures of Madoka as a reference between "then and now" anime styles compared to Sailor Moon - not only in terms of art presentation but also expressions. Interesting how far visuals can go alone. Have stuff to do so can't entirely reply yet - so I will make this short. It's in a spoiler, it concerns the next part, i.e. Eternal, and given your reaction to this, it would be somewhat unfair not to mention it. Still, it's a massive spoiler, so feel free to disregard it. Also (not a spoiler, so feel free):

One last post before going to sleep. Mima sings in Cardcaptor Sakura too: The audio is a bit out of sync with the video, but it's the best actual cap from the episode on YT, at last at a quick look. Mild spoilers:

I also tried The Way of the Househusband. Finished the first "episode" on Netflix, more like the first six mini-stories. I can corroborate what KP said, it looks bad and takes some getting used to. It's pretty... weird though, and definitely entertaining. The animation - or lack thereof, mostly - is breaking my brain though. It takes an extraordinary amount of contentration for me to read the subs and look at the picture for some reason. Not sure why, but it's extremely stressful in the way every other subtitled anime so far wasn't. Still, I'm going to finish it. It's not that long.

No, and you cannot.

Inertia. My desire to play Ubisoft open world collectathons is far outweighed by the amount of work it takes to create an Ubisoft account.

Cardcaptor Sakura, Episode 22 Good job show, now you've made me sad. Also have seen some images from the later made third season. Ugh, please, the original animation is beautiful in its simplicity, the third season looks uninspired and soulless in comparison. I hope that works better on screen than on stills.

I have made one useless hotmail address a long time ago that I use to register everything I don't care about with (and really never check, if anyone tries to contact me through that mail address, well, sucks to be you), and use my normal mail address for the things I need, i.e. electronic signatures, e-governance, online banking - and yes, various game platforms and online shops I use more than once. Not that I don't understand, needing an Ubisoft login prevents me from making use of the free Watchdog games I got from Epic. Not going to register there, sorry Ubisoft. Maybe later. But using a different mail address for everything? That sounds like way too much effort for not enough gain. Just use 10 Minute Mail accounts if you're worried about spam and really only want to be able to complete an activation process. Fire & forget! You can even use these to register with all the hentai games you want to play without your spouse finding out. Or so I have been told. Really.

More spoilers:

That might work, but... honestly, changing avatars with Firefox is so incredibly buggy that I ended up switching to Edge just to switch it. The upload feature doesn't work right. So... if I change it again, then only back to Ol' Bluehair. The idea came to me when I watched the films. There are several shots of Kyubey where the entire screen is filled with his face. Only the dead stare, the red eyes, and all white. I even hat to edit the pictures and move the eyes closer together, because stupid forum stoftware is stupid (and size limits like it's 1998). Madoka spoilers:

Why not? Don't you want to make a contract with me? To be honest, I thought after 17 years with the same avatar I might as well change it, but it's creeping me out something fierce. I might go back to my old one. 😮

Strange, "somehow" Netflix keeps playing Cardcaptor Sakura instead of anything else. I guess you guys are pretty much tired of hearing this already, but it's such a refreshing change from the other shows and movies I've been watching recently. Not just anime. It continues to be simple, completely free of any overarching storyline (or even themes, or anything, really) except for character interactions that span several episodes. The show recently added a relative of Shaoran who is intensely jealous of Sakura because she spends time with him. I still have no idea what it is with this anime, but it's great. Nothing ever happens, most of the time the "action" is limited to Sakura solving a "puzzle" of a sort (the "Glow" card she captured two episodes ago was a harmless swarm of fireflies that took all of 30 seconds to capture), the animation is okay but nothing great outside the character models themselves (the animators put a lot of effort into showing Sakura with constantly changing outfits), but I'll be damned if this isn't one of the most entertaining shows I've seen so far. It's mesmerizing. And really relaxing... Could still change, of course, still 50 episodes to go, but this is fun, even if I really have no real idea why.

I have found one point where the second Madoka movie is significantly worse than its show counterpart: Spoilers, obviously, don't look unless you're done with the show/second movie (I mean it this time, this concerns a massive Homura character spoiler).

Spent half the day at my nephew's birthday party and some time working while listening to the Puella Magi Madoka Magica soundtrack. Seems like a perfect fit.

Most dogs are lactose intolerant, giving them dairy products will result in the same symptoms people with actual lactose intolerance have, i.e. flatulence, diarrhea and in really bad cases vomiting. Giving your dog a cheesy treat or two will not be harmful (well, except for the dog farts you will have fun with afterwards). Chocolate on the other hand contains theobromine (a stimulant found in cocoa beans) which dogs cannot metabolise. Depending on the amount of chocolate your dog ingests, symptoms can range from vomiting and diarrhea to restlessness and seizures - in extreme cases even death. So, don't give your dogs chocolate. Like, ever. And keep them the hell away from cocoa powder, that stuff has like twenty times as much theobromine as chocolate.

Clearly not, that distinction belongs to Code of Honor. edit: I know I've called Shades of Gray the worst TNG episode on this forum, this is just good fun. Before someone goes digging up my old posts.

I've been browsing through job postings (not for myself). I'm kind if used to HR departments putting up the most insane job postings, but... just came across a really ridiculous one, demanding perfect German and English at least on a CEFR B2 level. So what's CEFR B2? Well: Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in their field of specialization. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options. Cambridge Assessment lists roughly five to six hundred hours of cumulative study required to reach B2 proficiency. Guess what the job is? Yeah. GL, HF with that posting. You guys must be drowning in applications.