majestic

Why? Times like these I hate my job. That feeling will pass and in a couple of weeks I will look back at this fondly, but for now it's the software engineers version of the thousand yard stare for me.

Image from the first episode: Compared to Pegasus this thing plays fair though. Maybe not with the girls, but with us viewers.

Am I still asleep and this is some feverish dream, or is this thread becoming even dumbererer than usual? It has to be satire at this point. Looks like Dr. Horrible's right:

Well, there is a PSP game, so it is possible you maye have come across something official, not a mod. Anyway, I stumbled upon this while I was looking for something quick to watch, a movie or a really short series that fits in between what I fear will be an upcoming hellish workload after an interesting launch tomorrow. The original anime has 12 episode, and it often comes up as anime that would not exist had Sailor Moon not been a success, so I got curious and kind of cheated on JoJo's and Steven Universe. It follows the tale of Madoka and Sayaka, two best friends from school. Having a successful carreer mother but no special talents of her own, Madoka is plagued by feelings of inadequacy, while Sayaka is secretly in love with a hopeful young musician who suffered a tragic accident that will, so the doctors say, render him forever unable to perform. Their luck seems to change when a disturbingly cute little creature offers them the deal of a lifetime: He will grant them a wish, in exchange for signing a pact, becoming mahō shōjo (literally magical girls) who fight witches secretly threatening the world. It does have an issue with explaining a plot element that needed no real explanation, and it is ridiculous enough to be immersion breaking for a moment, but otherwise it's great (it might not even bother you too much). The animation would be better without CGI, but that's almost always the case for modern anime, at least it is used to good effect here. The witches live and work their magic in colorful surrealist hellscapes that could have come straight from Joel Veitch's earlier work (see Frightend Boy, for instance). Overall it looks great and the soundtrack is fantastic. The spoiler is just added for effect. It doesn't spoil anything you wouldn't see immediately.

Has anyone of you seen (or read) Puella Magi Madoka Magica?

Fixed that for you in the spirit of the thread!

This is worse than I thought. The testing was supposed to last until CW 11. We'll be launching production early this week, or so I've been told. In other words, I'm off to take a nap and prepare for an all nighter. It's not like I pulled one yesterday, what could possibly go wrong?

Managed to get Jojo's Bizarre Adventure up to episode 7. I'm beginning to like this. Still not sure about Speedwagon's constant monologuing, but it seems to have picked up some pace now. By the looks of it the Phantom Blood part should be over soon. At least the little blurbs I accidentially looked because Netflix has them in the episode overview suggest that episode 10 is set some 70 years into the future (of the setting, anyway). The muscle dude look I don't really care about, one way or the other. The show's art direction did take some getting used to at first, I'll admit. I kind of had to force myself to watch the second episode. Still, not going to say it's growing on me, but it's okay now.

It might really be better to not take things in strides here. Time did dull the edge of SuperS for me when I first saw it. It might for you too. Have to admit that I'm curious what you think of Sailor Stars. I really hope SuperS isn't going to stop your from watching the final season. edit: look at that, we made the anime topic the only "hot" topic on the WOT board. Not bad. Huh, that might make you plow through Sailor Moon S even faster. It's practically the only season where the plot actually does become... if not interesting, then at least mildly making you want to see more of it.

Yeah, okay. There is a minor chance that the other two people (Lexx and Maedhros) who have posted in here might go an check Sailor Moon out. I stand corrected.

It indeed is. I have the nagging feeling that it was done so conveniently only for the shock value of Chibi-Usa making Mamoru her, ahem, let's call it lover, in the Black Moon arc, rather than to try and make something meaningful out of it (and Usagi proves that she's a complete numbwit when she accuses Mamoru of wanting Chibi-Usa because he cares about her and she's a girl, Jesus Sailor Moon Crystal Usagi, Jesus H. Christ...). The 90ies show tried by taking the really creepy parts out and making an insecure, emotionally destabilized Usagi have some conflict with her over Mamoru's affection. It worked some of the time, but they eventually found their footing - only to throw it all away in SuperS, but I refuse to see SuperS as canon. So there. At any rate, I now have a little more understanding or respect* if you will for that breakup between them in R. It feels forced, has a really silly reason, but it's also there to make the conflicts between Chibi-Usa and Usagi look less like a one-sided crapfest on Usagi's part that makes her really unlikable. *In a detached, more rational way. Emotionally that scene just wrecked me the first time, forced or not. It still hurt the second time around. Can't help it. From what the wikis tell me that might have been an issue with Sailor Moon Crystal. It was apparently a single writer that came up with the episodes. While that really can lead to a more connected feeling between the episodes, you're right that a complete lack of collaboration can indeed have negative effects as well. Especially when you're adapting sub-par source material with the intention of staying mostly true to it. The Dream arc movie adaptation apparently has a new writer at the helm. That might help. I'm being too optimistic here again, I guess. Good day, sir! Good day! No, in all seriousness, I can't sit here and tell you that seasons two or three will change your experience. The show becomes really, really good in the second to the fourth season, but it never really stops having these drops in quality every now and then, especially with the conspiracy storyline becoming a complete Kudzu plot. Season three is probably where it is really at. This is X-Files at the top of its game. The question is though, without the development of the earlier episodes, how much would someone be invested in watching the two characters go about their normal spiel? Hmmm.

Whelp, you're blowing through episodes at a record pace here. And yes, it gets worse. Usagi isn't going to be just hilarious and a loveable dum-dum after S, but really annoyingly childish. It's infuriating. Oh, and we've all seen S here, so you can kind of stop talking about it in spoilers. That was mostly done because Bartimaeus was ahead of KP, and KP was ahead of you. You're good until you hit SuperS. If you keep up that pace it'll be a photo finish between you and KP. Heh.

40 minutes to midnight, and I'm sitting here pushing some code for an unplanned quick release necessitated by one of our branches and a customer simply starting with a new business process that we discussed where I asked them for a week's notice to set everything up. I mean technically they gave me a week. Like "hey we started last week and this doesn't really work, what's the deal?"

Little bobby tables, we call him. hehe.

I don't know if you've read the very engaging stories we've swapped about school time in this thread, but I have a little anecdote to share. A friend of mine who I met at the school I went to repeated a year twice, which means he was in the course for 7 years instead of 5. This is also the maximum amount of retries you get, more than twice and you're failed out of school altogether. For the rest of this keep in mind that the school I was in, at the time, rejected 90% of the applicants, and 85% to 90% of those wash out. That friend was, for all intents and purposes, an Usagi (a really nice guy but not the brightest bulb, and we to this day have no idea how he managed to pass the applicaiton SAT), but at the same time he was an ingenious con artist. So where I got by simply because attending half the classes and putting in zero effort was enough for me to get passing grades, he got by on pure nerves, a hell of lot of effort put into cheating and simply talking teachers into giving him passing grades with some sob story he just cooked up, or flat out engaging them in conversation about anything but the question he was just asked so that they forgot about the topic and just gave him a passing grade. He was really charming and funny about it too. I remember he once gave a presentation in our history class. His topic was supposed to be the reasons for the mid 19th century unrests in Europe. He casually walked out, put on a single slide full of text and started reading the first paragraph out loud. Our history professor looked at him and went: "Did you even read the presentation you've copied? That paragraph was complete garbage." He just smiled confidently, and said: "Well then let's see if the next paragraph is any better, shall we?" That was such a funny situation it had the entire class in stiches, and the professor too, so she just said that he should go and look for a real presentation to copy and then redo it next time. For all intents and purposes he should have failed history, but he didn't. He put a little more effort into copying a presentation that was actually on topic later and got a passing grade out of it. Our school also runs a practice firm and a practice bank. We were supposed to spend two hours a week there, in years two and three (I think the current curriculum is either four hours a week in the second or third grade, not sure which one, but we were definitely the last class to do two hours for two years). Most of the time I just made sure to sit in the practice bank where I did all sorts of hilarious things (like making transactions disappear), and my teachers were happy enough to get me out of the regular practice firm because I kept being ridiculous. All the schools, including the one I went to, take this stuff really seriously. It's like serious business, you know, so nobody else really was into receiving bills that read payable in unmarked, non-sequential small denomination bank notes upon serviced rendered. I sure found it funny. To be honest, while it's admittedly a little childish, I still do. The guy that ran the practice bank, a real life banker with a side job as teacher, was more than happy to always have me sitting there because I easily got the workload done on my own and he could do whatever he did. Most of the time he was just gone. Guess he cooked up some money earning scheme or other, whatever bankers really do when they have free time, like getting high and posting confusing pro-fascist nonsense on the Obsidian forum. At least until the second semester of the third grade where the other teachers decided that other students also need to spend time doing practice banking. So, first time in the semester I showed up. We sabotaged the network before the class started so we couldn't really get any work done. For the rest of the semester, the guy I'm talking about, another friend of mine from my school days and myself went to practice field sales at the McDonalds next to the school for two hours. Every week. EVERY week. Wait, I need to mention some other detail now. Our student groups (called "class" here, which makes this a little confusing to talk about) at the time - this were the mid 90ies after all - had what was called a class registry. A small book where each teacher would note missing students, special circumstances or events and the topics of the classes prior to the lessons beginning. For the entire semester, the class registry would interestingly enough go missing for the two hours that we were supposed to be in the practice firm. Should the registry be unavailable, a provisional replacement must be used. In other words, just a piece of paper that the administrator of our "class" is supposed to copy into the proper registry. Since the practice firm offce rooms were on the other end of the school, and it took a couple of minutes to walk from one end to the other, nobody went back to look for the registry. It was always presumed to be forgotten in the classroom. It happens. The book usually stays in the classroom that you get assigned in the beginning of the year, unless your upcoming classes are taking place somewhere else (programming lessons always were in computer rooms, obviously, and the practice firm had its own offices). As luck would have it, the provisional register also had a tendency to disappear, right around the time when the real one was brought back from the McD's. Fast forward to the end of the year, we get our grades. The field sales force actually gets a passing grade, but just barely. Why? Well because we apparently always were present in the classes, but never stood out, neither negatively nor positively. Having never drawn attention in some way, the teachers presumed we did what was asked of us, but without applying ourselves or giving it any effort. The very definition of "passing" you see. Yep. Oh boy, some of the other guys in class who had received a failing grade but were always around and even spent some effort (but just couldn't hack it for some reason) were really mad. They went to complain, but nothing came of it. Heck, our administrative teacher, who was... nothing else but the P.E. guy (and someone who always skipped classes whenver he could, as he told us), even told them that they've just learned a valuable life lesson: Sometimes it is just better to cruise under the radar. Anyway, back to the story. I've told this one before, in a more compressed form, on the Interplay forum. The posters there took a somewhat dim view on cheaters and asked me how I can be okay with the guy having the same diploma that I have. The answer is really simple: He deserves it. Honestly, if you can fake it well enough to make it through a school that washes out what amounts to 99% of people that apply, then... dammit, that is some impressive bullsh*tting skill and should be properly honored. TL;DR: There's no reason Usagi couldn't have BS'ed her way through school. I've seen it happen in a much more competitive setting than a regular public junior high school. @KaineParker I sure will, but I'm not entirely certain how much free time I'll have in the upcoming weeks to sneak an episode or two of either JoJo's or Steven Universe in. I'm currently stuck in a business acceptance test that is about to finish, and unless the other parties involved find something that went wrong on their end it's going to be release time soon, and this one is not going to be pretty. In the show maybe. Manga Usagi becomes pregnant with Chibi-Usa at the age of 22, right around the time when the Crystal Palace is being built and she finally marries Mamoru. So that's some six years after the events of Stars.

Yes, that's pretty much what apparently happened. I've read that Toei wanted the show re-tooled/soft rebooted to recapture the tone of its earlier/earliest episodes, to stay relevant for new kids tuning in mostly. The show ran for three years at the time, so the old target audience that started watching became older and Toei thought it would be better to drop them and go back to find an entirely new audience. That worked so well that the last of the old writers and directors left over SuperS. Reading that they left over creative differences really just all but confirms the theory of studio interference. A strange juxtaposition to the manga, where the crazy in the earlier arcs and chapters was reined in by editors and Toei gave the showrunners more leeway to do their own thing (like the girls dying heroically in battle, rather than just keel over to transfer their energy to Usagi like they do in the manga), and the more time passed the crazier the source material was allowed to become and the tighter controlled the anime got. I put potentially spoilery things into the spoiler. It doesn't contain much, but anyway. Final question for today guys, did you think we'd be sitting here discussing the finer points of Usagi's character growth and how SuperS regresses her character in favor of having more childlike humor (childish at times even) when you saw her getting stuck in a giant tennis ball in episode 14?

Thanks, that validates my feeling about SuperS and that episode in particular perfectly. It's what I mean by shapeshifting aliens replaced all the characters, and/or the writers, because the writer of that episode had been on board since season one. It's even worse because earlier in the season, in the episode with the giant beach ball monster, Usagi isn't at all worried about the things she's going nuts over in the ninja one, even though she has much more reason to. Alternate dimensions don't bother me too much though. I guess I don't see it as invalidation of the "prime" universe. SG-1 had a version like that where a device called a quantum mirror was used to travel between alternate universes, and most of the episodes were either goofy fun or touching character explorations (and a way for otherwise dead characters to rake some of that sweet guest star cash in). It does have the bad aftertaste of being used as a deus ex machina-ish way to warn the prime universe that a major threat is incoming, but it's not like season one was really great anyway. Time travel, while I like it, is something best left out in your setting, unless it's a movie and is the only point. When it is good it's a nice exploration of whatever issue you want to highlight, when it's bad you get Star Trek: Enterprise's temporal cold war situation. So either use it lightly, or just go all out goofy with it, like in Doctor Who. It's okay in Sailor Moon, but not really good. And lastly, @Bartimaeus, that's some tough crap, but I'm glad that you found a way to make it somewhat workable. While I can't even begin to imagine losing control of my hands, I can see first hand how frightening that is. I mentioned it in one of the other threads before, my mother has Parkinson's, and it mostly affects her right hand. It's heartbreaking enough to see, can't imagine how terrible that must be to experience when things that used to be a matter of course in your life suddenly start to become problematic or impossible. Not that it helps you any, but I can relate to the problems with falling asleep. They're not caused by physical pain in my case, but they've always been there. My focus on entertainment waves back and forth. There are times like now where almost all my free time is spent on watching TV or films, then there are times where all I do is play games, and times where all I do is read books. It's never really a mix though, and a focus period can go for years at a time. Interestingly enough reading fiction for entertainment is the newest of these. It wasn't until I was in my late teens and early 20ies that I started to do that (did read a lot of non-fiction though).

Are you psychic, how did you know I was typing up a storm just right now? edit: I also just realized that I barely touched on the production value aspects of the show, but I don't think there's anything left to be said. It looks terrible, it's animated terribly and evn the upgraded third season doesn't change that too much.

Final thoughts on Sailor Moon Crystal. Hard to say. In retrospect, this makes Sailor Moon SuperS look decent. I won't go as far as to say that it makes SuperS look good, unless you specifically want to look only at animation, because I think SuperS looks the best of all the five original seasons (and each of them looks better than Crystal). Sailor Moon Sailor Stars has some really good animation too, but with the entire team more or less changed in between, it does look noticably different. I've talked at length by now about how everything that was problematic in Sailor Moon was exacerbated by Sailor Moon Crystal. The worst part about watching this wasn't watching a cashgrab by Toei, even though that it clearly was in the first arc at the very least, or even watching a sub-par reboot of what isn't just one of my favorite animes of all time, but something that made a lasting impression on a younger version of me. No. That's not it. That would not bother me as much, the world is full of sub-par terrible looking CGI cashgrab reboots of shows that I watched as a kid, like Maya the Honey Bee. Watching Sailor Moon Crystal is like staring into the abyss and realizing that it would have taken just one wrong step at the wrong time, by the wrong person, and something that played such a large part in my life would have come out not only completely different, but absolutely, loathably terrible. Even now, I'm giving the manga the benefit of the doubt, even though I probably should not. It might be that Sailor Moon Crystal just distilled the really awful parts and made them worse, but that is certainly not the case for the major issues with the storyline(s). For now I'm hoping, against all reason, that the manga has more time for the girls and that it was a lamentable decision by the creative team of Crystal to put Usagi and Mamoru front and center, and that there is some reason why this was or is as popular as it is. Something beyond riding on the coattails of its anime adaptation. Because everything that could be called good in Sailor Moon Crystal has to do with other characters or their interactions with Usagi - every time she's not the sole focus of something it's at least potentially not terrible, and in a sea of darkness even the faintest of lights shine brightly. I liked Pluto's original role, even if it immediately took a dump over it five episodes later and reduced her to exposition lady #4 that talks about space and time really quickly afterwards. I like Chibi-Usa a lot in Sailor Moon Crystal, but I've also come to realize that I liked her in the original anime as long as I remove Sailor Moon SuperS from the continuity and pretend it doesn't exist. I wish I would remember more clearly why I hated her so much a quarter of a century ago, but I don't. It might have something to do with watching the German dub. I know for a fact that Rei was much meaner to Usagi in the dub than she was in the original, now that I've seen it with translated subtitles that were not the dub transcript. Dub Chibi-Usa might have been a lot brattier in R than in the original, and I hated how much she hogged screen time - and Mamoru in R. Mamoru was already being mean to Usagi for stupid reasons, and she just made it worse. I wanted the two to be happy (in some way this goes back to my self-hate at the time). I'm also somewhat certain that being older made me change my outlook a bit. Chibi-Usa blames herself for everything that went wrong in the future, and of course she immediately latches on the closest thing she finds to a father figure, thanks to time travel that happens to be her actual father. Back to Crystal for a bit now. I have no idea how Toei managed to adapt the material they were given into something as interesting, funny and moving as the Sailor Moon anime. This is like one of these rare once in a lifetime occasions where everything just comes together and works. From the time and budget starved artystle decisions, to the writing team that apparently was jackpot all of its own (until studio interference messed up SuperS), to the music made and used. You're probably getting tired of me bringing up X-Files, but it does share something interesting with Sailor Moon. When Chris Carter made X-Files, they initially had no idea what they were doing. The first season was a series of standalone episodes, but its massive success and fan reactions to certain characters led to them given much more expanded roles (and Fox demanding more, like Toei). Chris Carter came up with a conspiracy storyline the show would follow mostly out of necessity (Gillian Anderson was pregnant, so she was abducted by "aliens" on the show) until a somewhat satisfying conclusion in its 6th season - and afterwards the storyline just fell apart. It became clear much earlier on that the writers were just making everything up as they went along though. And like in Sailor Moon, while sometimes interesting, the story episodes of X-Files weren't the best episodes unless they focused on the characters and not the actual "plot". And like in Sailor Moon, over time, the strength of X-Files was in its incredible creative team, the way they shot and framed episodes and the on-screen chemistry of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. And like Naoko Takeuchi, nothing Chris Carter ever made came close to the success of X-Files. The creative team that worked on X-Files over the course of its run went on to make and work on, amongst others, Space: Above and Beyond, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, American Horror Story, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Supernatural, Smallville and The Man In The High Castle. This excursion is only there to illustrate that I think what is now known as The Chris Carter Effect apparently hit the Sailor Moon manga in full force. While the writing of the first arc - both in the manga and very much in Sailor Moon Crystal - leaves a bit to be desired (to put it diplomatically), at least it doesn't come across as schizophrenic. The story beats, while not really great, don't feel like they're made up just to fill a chapter each month. The second arc, but especially the third one do. This disjointed mess was clearly just written from one month to the next, with perhaps only the barest idea of where to go. How else would you go from "We will never be friends, or even allies!" to "We've always just wanted to be close to you and fight together!" in the span of 20 minutes? Then there's the creepy element. The first arc has Tuxedo Kamen be a stalker that abducts Usagi and he kisses her at a time she can't consent, being passed out from exhaustion. The framing of these shots isn't negative, unlike when the same thing happens to Usagi but it is done by a different character in the second arc. It's the same thing happening on the screen, just one is clearly wrong, the other isn't. This does leave one thinking that the line between flirting and sexual assault is the amount of attraction between two people. Is this the message you really want to transport today? The manga remains a product of its time, and as such should be left standing like that. I don't think it should be changed like it's all the rage nowadays, but if you make an adaptation it really doesn't hurt to overthink tropes or problematic scenes. It's also something that needs to be brought up again. This entire Black Lady business at the end of the Black Moon arc is deeply disturbing, and the implications have a lasting effect. I see Usagi, Mamoru and Chibi-Usa sleeping in the same bed, and it forms horrible scenarios in my head. One poor girl has a seizure on screen and I post what I thought not only once, but twice. Now don't get me wrong, before anyone accuses me of hyprocrisy. How can I read and enjoy Sexy Losers and then have a problem with (forced) incest or 12 year old girls in underwear. When I read Sexy Losers I know what I'm getting into. Sailor Moon isn't the right vehicle for topics like this, and I have no idea how or why Naoko Takeuchi got away with it in the manga, but it was a good idea to drop it. Lastly, one of the more annoying parts of Sailor Moon Crystal is when it unthinkingly takes internal monologue and dialogue from the manga and puts it on screen even though we see what's happening. I have no idea why that is in there. It is mostly pointless at best, and detracts from the scenes at worst. And it almost always is at its worst. So where does that leave us? Quick TL;DR: Go watch X-Files if you haven't already. The show was way ahead of its time, the lead actors are terrific and the writing is often outstanding. It does take a bit to find its footing in the first season, like many other TV shows, but unless you totally hate the supernatural (how or why are you watching anime then?) you should be good. It should also be noted that I loved the X-Files even though I normally can't stand police or detective procedurals. And unless you're curious, please, for the love of god do not watch the first two Sailor Moon Crystal arcs. I can't even recommend the Infinity arc, but it does make for a good comparison between the old and the new show (and how much better character development is when it isn't rushed).

Oh, you've found the fun part of SuperS. It'll stay that way for a while. Like... until the season's over almost. Are you having fun? I mean, honest question. What's your take so far? Given how far along you are there's ample reason to become really tired of the SuperS formula by now. edit: One more episode of Steven Universe. He made a bubble, and of course someone's eating popcorn. There's always some food, isn't there?

Well, Abeloth is a dark side entity that looks something like this: And is said to be untold ages old (at least one hundred thousand years) and could not be killed by the Ones (a weird pure force precursor species of some sort), only sealed away. Luke and company accidentially set her loose by destroying Centerpoint Station and preventing the failsafe system from destroying Kessel and the entire Maw area. She's called The Beloved Queen of the Stars, and sometimes the Bringer of Chaos. She can do typical Old Ones stuff, like making people explode at whim, dominate minds and change shape (and absorb people and "wear" their skin which apparently looks normal for most people but not for those that can see behind the veil). In the end she was only defated because the Jedi and Sith joined forces for a brief time. Just not before melting half of Coruscant or something near enough. That's why I call her Force Cthulu.

Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 38: Endgame. If anyone wonders why the Act names are lagging behind in the episode count, that's because Act 27 was two episodes long.

Works for me too. I also realized that Master Usagiwalker isn't nearly as good as calling her Master Moonwalker would have been. Tsk. Ah, well. Sailor Moon Crystal, Act 37:

It indeed is at times, especially during and after the time The Force Awakens is set in - part of the reason why Disney threw out the old EU. At that time extragalactical invaders show up that are way into self-mutilation and body modification, use organic technology instead of machines and have a cultural fetish for enduring pain (i.e. they strap themselves onto torture racks for some R & R). They cut a swathe of destruction across the galaxy, and in a grimdark low point crash New Republic starships filled with refugees into Coruscant's plantary shield to break it. Oh, right, and the side story of the same book follows a suicide mission led by Han's youngest son Anakin who, because nothing and no one else is left to spare, leads a team of Jedi teenagers to fight off a threat dangerous enough to be the final nail in the coffin of the New Republic. Predictably, while the mission is a success, half of them (including Anakin) die and Han and Leia's other son Jacen is captured (and copiously tortured later, of course). The book then ends with the New Republic in full retreat, Coruscant invaded and it's population taken captive to be used for forced labor, torture and sacrifices. All in all truly wholesome fun for the family that. I'll give Sailor Moon Crystal the highest honor: I will never look at it again. It is perfection and not to be seen more than once for fear of tarnishing the experience. Plus I still have the manga to read, the live action series, Steven Universe and JoJo's to watch, so I'm good for a while. I'm not sure in which order to tackle everything yet. I want to put off reading the manga for a while, but maybe I should just push through the crap and then get to the good stuff?