majestic

I need to correct that statement a little. I don't mean it is noticably different insofar as it does anything with the formula. That is still very much in effect and it is by far the most derivative of all the seasons. Nothing original happens, but the character interaction is a good deal different. Or at least it feels different (maybe different enough). It is noticable that they're now in high school, if that makes any sense. Makoto is the original Marie Kondo.

Oi, you mean like there never were any Star Wars prequels (or sequels to the first trilogy, or first two movies, depending on whom you ask) or only one Matrix film. Yeah, maybe. I'd still like to read your take on the season that does not exist. Don't get me wrong, it is as close to a universal truth of the internet that you can come that in almost every poll SuperS is ranked below every other Sailor Moon season, but that usually has pacing issues cited as the main problem. Not everyone behaving like alien shapeshifters replaced them or the creepy things the antagonists do combined with this childlike dream-state vibe the season gives off. Minor spoilerish fun fact for Sailor Stars relating to SuperS, because the writers appaently agreed with your sentiment there: This is actually more accurate than you might think. It might be a good idea to think of Sailor Moon Sailor Stars as a high-school spin off of the original Sailor Moon that ran for four three seasons. I love Sailor Stars, but it is different...

Warning, complex math spoiler ahead:

Also, enjoy the show while it lasts. Serious mode is about to launch soon. Tick... tock...

Got a complaint today that an order has not been billed correctly, and we should check what went wrong. So I did. Turns out the customer's set to a monthly billing period and the order was finalized last week. Last. Week. Monthly period. Get it? This was my reply: Because screw that, I'm done. From now on I'm just going to reply in memes.

Currently stuck in the worst online meeting ever. It's hilarious.

Spoilers ahead for IC and KP anyway, click at your own discretion:

There are some mild differences in many of the versions. The original english dub for instance reduced the breast contours during the transformations (and made the bathwater intransparent in various scenes). The heaviest editing happend in South Korea where an entire sub-plot was dropped from the fourth season. Although, to be fair, nothing of value was lost. That's the low point of Sailor Moon. Attack on Titan is definitely on my to-watch list, but I'm getting more and more lazy when it comes to spending actual effort to watch something. Netflix had two seasons of Attack on Titan and I figured I'll just wait for the whole thing to drop, and now it's gone altogether. Stupid licencing, no wonder the word contains lice. Parasites, all of them. Time to get the one thing that can stay spoiler free out of the way: The formula is here to stay, except for storyline episodes or some exceptions that don't follow the usual format. Outside of a very few exceptions (one coming up in S03E15) it will also always take Sailor Moon to defeat the Monster of the Week, and in 99% of all cases she will be told "Now, Sailor Moon!" because... honestly, I don't know why. The only explanation I have is because it was supposed to be a show for kids, and repetition helps them retain interest in something. There's a reason why kids want to watch Frozen every day, right? And the reason why the Teletubbies are what they are. But why this was kept even during S and Sailor Stars is another issue entirely. SuperS was clearly an attempt to go back to being mainly a show for little girls. Now to the other things... sort of. I'm not going to re-type my entire post about that Mako or Ami episode, anyway.

Watched two more episodes of Steven Universe. More food. Food. I should not watch that at night. Where would I even get a cheeseburger now? I already had Sailor Moon themed dreams recently, but they were actually nice. I do have recurring nightmares, but they usually revolve around more mundane things, like showing up to exams unprepared (which I always did, so how's that a nightmare and leaves me feel uneasy?) or living the life of a complete stranger. Those tend to be the most disturbing dreams I have, because I actually wake up thinking I am someone else. Eh, and making SuperS look good would really take some doing, but Crystal is so far trying really hard.

That I'm going to do anyway.

See guys, that's the sort of thing the 90ies anime just dropped, obviously very much to the detriment of it. Amirite? Snort. Should I continue posting this stuff, by the way? edit: I am, however, beginning to see how the classic anime adaptation left manga fans dissatisfied with the storyline adaptation. You can almost imagine the meetings in the writing room where they go through the manga and go like: "Well, no, that's crap, let's just do our own thing."

Have you ever tried M+KB in Tie Fighter? That kills your desk, and your mouse. And once you're done running through both your fingers too if you don't stop. For the one time in ten years I feel the urge to go back to Tie Fighter? Nah. I could try to play with a gamepad, but I'm not sure that would work out too well. The game has ten thousand different keyboard shortcuts you ideally use and getting them all mapped on a pad is, uhm, not sure, let's say potentially a challenge.

Ideally one that's playable without flight stick. That would probably change the feeling of the game for the worse, but at least I could play it again.

Speaking of electronic rock crap, have you head the opening theme of Crystal? Also don't take my take on the music as gospel, you know, my tastes in music are, let's say, strange, but I found it really distracting and strange - but I know for instance that Mr. Unicorn the reviewer liked the music a lot. On the other hand he's also one of the people who hated giving Rei an actual personality over her manga counterpart, so what does he know? *shrug* The most problematic thing about Crystal is untangling it from what came before. By all means the characters in Crystal are absolutely lifeless and underdeveloped, and that they all have the body proportions of alien anthropomorphized giraffes makes it all the more off-putting. The question is, would I watch this if it wasn't Sailor Moon? The answer is no, I guess. But how bad is that actually if you'd know nothing about Sailor Moon? I honestly don't know. The worst part about Crystal is it takes all the fun that was present in the manga (and that is a whole lot less than there was in the original anime) and removes most of it. What's left is pure drama. And speaking of Steven Universe, yeah, the show experimenting is okay with me at that point. I feel like a broken record at this point, but I don't let season one unevenness bother me. If I did, I would most likely have missed several shows that I really ended up loving. I've got to be honest though, I'm not really digging the animation at the moment, but at least I dont hate it, which is more than enough for now (and probably for its entire run). Like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., or... Stargate SG1 (dear god, the first few episodes of SG1 were terribad).

Sailor Moon Crystal continues to be a fine showcase of why show, don't tell is usually a good approach. Also, dear god, the music. Wow. This... no. Really. The first anime had such an amazing soundtrack (for the most part), but this is, wow. Every time something awesome happens on the screen it is underscored by this upbeat fanfare. It's the Sailor Moon Crystal version of a laugh track, to let you know this was supposed to be awesome. Or something. There's also a choral piece for emotional scenes. I guess this will show up every time the star locket version of Moonlight Densetsu would have been used in the first anime. I also watched another Steven Universe episode. That one was less fun but had some needed backstory. I like the idea of having the episodes only be 10 minutes, that makes it easier to watch one here and there, e.g. during lunch break. Still have no idea where the show is going and how it can possibly have a story arc, but yeah, so far it does have the typical "season one" feel to it. Another edit: It looks like Crystal doesn't save me from reading the manga. It stops being overly faithful pretty early in its run.

We can't answer your last question without spoiling too much. Come back one the team is complete and the official identity reveal happened, but then you also already know the answer. But click if you area really curious: Regarding the girls, they always get naked in their transformation scenes. Unless your dub is censored in some way. The anime just switches their regular skin colour out so you really notice when they're supposed to be naked (it happens every now and then). I don't know how much you read from the earlier discussions, but (non-sexual) nudity has cultural meaning of purity and cleansing in Japan, so that's why it happens during transformation. They purify themselves in order to become the guardians of love and justice. That's what's supposed to happen whenever actual nudity is on screen. The fanservice parts of the show are the gratuitous panty shots (and that relates to how underwear was introduced to Japan, but that's a story for another time, yes?).

No, it's not, but it also wouldn't be very surprising if it really were. I know a bit or two about what I like to call voodoo (no offense meant to the actual religion). It makes ridiculing people who really believe in Astrology easier. if that sounds like a petty reason then that's because it is. A bit might be an understatement. I know enough Astrology to be able to interpret a radix chart. Not entirely by heart due to a lack of actually doing it. It's the same as every other way that is used to scam people out of their money. It's generic enough to make some things hit, and the rest is cold reading or people willingly giving you all sorts of information, because let's face it, if you actually got to an astrologer you're most likely already a believer. See, for instance, if I look at my natal chart, I'd see I have Mercury in the third house, and my third house ruler is the Sun (beause the house cusp is in Leo). Mercury also has a sextile with Saturn. One of the many ways to interpret this is to read it as someone who has an easy time learning and acquiring knowledge (which would entirely be true). The sextile with Saturn also means that it is easy for me to pick up new things and my thinking is goverend mostly by logic, not feelings (i.e. Saturn being a planet that stands for endings and new beginnings, destruction and creation - you can probably already see how that relates to Sailor Moon... ). So far for the fun part that's correct, however, once we come down to the Leo and the Sun thing it all really falls apart, because that is interpreted as someone who is born to be outgoing, communicative and a natural teacher, and someone who loves to talk about himself. It tells me I have an easy time to communicate with others and can easily insert myself into conversations, where I can shine with great eloquence to a point where I become the center of attention! Yay, isn't it great to be me then? I like talking about myself all right, can't deny that, but everything else I'm supposed to glean from this is flat out wrong. In real life, it takes an immense amount of effort for me to even attempt to join in a random conversation because I actively need to push myself to overcome my anxiety (both of talking to and meeting new people). I worked on that and it has gotten a bit better, but even something as simple as calling someone I don't know is still terrifying. The very thought makes my skin crawl, my blood pressure goes through the roof and my heart rate spikes. There were times when I was home alone and would have liked to order a pizza but couldn't because nobody else is around that would do the calling for me (well luckily online ordering fixed that, mostly), and when I do talk something eloquent is the last thing that comes out of my mouth. I could go into even more detail, but it's getting really late (could already call it early) and I need to get a little bit of sleep at least. The TL;DR from here is, it's hit and miss, and you just leave out whatever you think or know doesn't fit your client.

Good old Erdolf (if you don't like Erdolf you can susbstitute Bosporussian ). So the MAGA raid on the Capitol was really a ANTIFA false flag operation with overseas Kurdish support to... to what end then? Keeping the guy in office that let him attack the Kurds in the first place? Man... so many layers.

I was hoping to get to edit that out before anyone replied to it or read it, but hey, that's done and dusted. I posted that really quickly before going off to do my cardio, and it hit me then that this is potentially confusing for others. Still, at least it's a decent showcase what happens when I skip four steps in my brain and brabble something during a burst of excitement (sort of). It's one of the things that Naoko Takeuchi actually did check and make care to incorporate in a somewhat meaningful way (except for Rei, let's just say anime Rei is much closer to what an Aries is supposed to be than Crystal/Manga Rei would be). My train of thought was: Earlier talking about Age of Heroes -> Mythology -> Astrology being part of this + InsaneCommander talking about the age of Mamoru and the girls -> Birthdates of the girls -> Zodiac signs. Eh. So here's the answer, might as well finish what I started. Character name spoilers ahead. Random fun fact of the day, Tsukino Usagi literally means Moon Bunny. In Japanese folklore bunnies are on the moon in the same way it is made of cheese in Western culture. That was odd, yes. I'd chalk that up to fanservice, but the scene wasn't very really fanservice-y. Maybe it was both an attempt at fanservice and a way to showcase that the transformations aren't really lasting as long as they do on screen. Althoug that is constantly hinted at anyway, because whenever an episode doesn't need the padding in runtime, the transformations are either cut short or skipped completely. It's magic!

I don't think the anime ever states just how old he really is, but he's done with high school and in college, so anime Mamoru is at least 18. He is probably a bit older. Rei, Ami, and Usagi are all 14 during the first season. Or more specifically, they're all in second grade junior high, beause IIRC in the original Japanese version Usagi gave her age as "second grade junior high" which supposedly is a common way to express your age in Japan. The passage of time is incredibly wonky in the first anime. It runs for five seasons and features multiple summers and winters, but Usagi is 16 by the end of it. This has led to a fan theory of a sort of time reset somewhere between seasons. Manga Mamoru is in high school (16 to 18). So, yeah, Mamoru's increased age in the anime is a little creepy, but this is Japan, you know. Oh boy, if you're thinking too hard about this already, I'm REALLY looking forward to what you have to say about season 4. PS: Anyone wanna guess the girl's zodiac signs? No cheating by looking it up! edit: Mamoru is the only one who can transform without getting naked first.

Still sounds better than this creepy romance thing that's going on in Crystal right now. Usagi feels as if Mamoru's eyes consume her. Right. Not just his eyes my dear Usagi, not just his eyes. *snort* I hope that's just bad subtitling, but they do look genuine, not like a fan sub. edit: edit 2: edit: More tech upscaling. Naru is in a video rental shop where they have DVDs. Huh. So this definitely isn't '92 any more, which makes the lack of cell phones for the girls even weirder.

Hahaha. More first season Crystal (so okay for KP + Bartimaeus).

I said that before, but it's really easy to get me interested. The show had me with the time travel comeback gag in the pilot.