majestic

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women. Metaphorically speaking.

Oh, right, look what I did not watch last week and didn't miss at all (how confusing). Guess I'll get a double whammy of Strange New Worlds tomorrow, or maybe over the weekend.

Because she's a 'bit' of a non-character, I'd guess. The Last Unicorn and Valhalla (a film that for some reason features Christopher Lee as Thor in the German dub, but not in the English one) were animated movies I had on VHS a long, long time ago. It's entirely possible that they're not nearly as good as nostalgia makes them out to be. I rewatched The Last Unicorn at some point and still enjoyed it, I think it was on Netflix for a while. Both films are examples of what I mean when I say I sometimes enjoy films based entirely on their atmosphere. My biggest problem is quite frankly the plot and how what should be major points aren't, and what becomes a major point at the end is quite... stupid. Well, and the character development of Arren is unfocused, waffles around and eventually ends with him becoming a generic fantasy hero. There, I just fixed the film. It would still have pacing issues and be a bit on the generic fantasy side, but it could lose half an hour of runtime that way and keep everything much more focused. Eh. Hayao Miyazaki was right, this is a matter of experience, although... he himself doesn't come up with the best endings either, but they're not as... well, dumb as this one. So, what's next?

ゲド戦記 I already used this in a prior post, although translated at the time. The original feels strangely appropriate here. I'm honestly uncertain what to think of the film. As a preface, it stands to necessity that I shall proclaim to be unfamiliar with its source material, and any value - or lack thereof, as seems to be the case here - as an adaptation, as such, shall remain undiscussed herein. I could of course simply take a quote or two from the author of the original, who was unhappy with the adaptation, but that would be disingenuous. I have no emotional or any other connection to the books this film is based on. Famously, the making of this film lead to a bit of a spat between Hayao and Goro Miyazaki, when his father felt that he lacked the experience to direct such a film. Indeed, prior to this, Goro Miyazaki (wisely, probably) kept his distance from animation. What else could he do, as son of Hayao Miyazaki, no matter how good you eventually might end up being, you'll never be able to step out of your father's shadow. But, well, what is done is done. I usually don't do this, but I've browsed through a couple of critiques on the internet (I also am fairly I certain I posted this exact sentence before while talking about other movies and series, so perhaps I am more liable to browse critiques of something prior to posting than I think), there seems to be about an even split between favorable and critical reviews, with a slight tilt towards the critical, perhaps. The film has negatively been called everything I've called Memoria in a recent post in the film thread, which I find rather strange, because the slow and meandering parts of the film were clearly the best, and indeed, for the first almost an hour of watching it, I've wondered why the critical reviews came from, outside of the really strange looking two action scenes taking place in said first hour. Then the plot unfolds, and it becomes a little clearer. The film is a mess, but just not for reasons critics call it so. It promises more than it can keep, it is curiously black and white in its good vs. evil epic fantasy story it tries to tell, and it tells it in a rather unsatisfying manner. These are all things that were the main reason for me liking anime more than Western (and American in particular) cartoons as a kid. From what I read, the source material eschews this approach, which makes it doubly strange, but perhaps this is what Hayao Miyazaki meant when he talked about his son's lack of experience and how he '[was] not an adult yet' after a screening of the film, which seems a little strange to say about an almost fourty year old man at the time. With translations from Japanese one never really knows, they sometimes are really not good. There's the opening which then has nothing to do with the film for the next 90 minutes, for instance, for both the mythical creatures that show up and a major event that separates the main character from his family, something that looks an awful lot like it should become a major focus at some point in the film, but it never does. The biggest crime the film is guilty of is that it promises to be a fantasy epic with a slowly unfolding plot about light and dark, the dual nature of life and death and how one cannot exist without the other, and it ultimately doesn't deliver this on the scale necessary to have any impact. Thematically it is still there, but it's mired in rote fantasy storytelling and a hackneyed, way too quick resolution for a film that otherwise meanders about. This, too, is something that comes from a lack of experience, I think. It reminds me a little of the stories I wrote when we had writing assignments in German at school and we'd have an hour to come up with a certain amount of words or pages written, and I would always begin to spin a slowly unfolding epic that eventually just has the most cursory resolution because there was simply no time to resolve it properly before the assignment needed to be turned in. In a way, this is exactly what happens here. There's this really wonderful film that's slow but appealing when it really is just the main characters wandering through the world and later plowing their field, with a promise of a resolution to the mysteries to come, only for the filmmakers to realize that they're out of time and something needs to happen - and what happens is, as already stated, rote and hackneyed and curiously lacking in nuance for a Studio Ghibli. In terms of tone and atmosphere, the final sequence of the film reminded me a little of The Last Unicorn, a 1982 film animated by essentially the team that later went on to make Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and formed Studio Ghibli. A film that has, however, an unbelievably good voice cast and is elevated simply by that alone. Yeah, I guess, what I'm saying is, go watch The Last Unicorn instead if you haven't. I remain, however, torn. On the one hand, there are flaws in this, on the other hand, I found myself enjoying this film more than I expected to. This is a strange quandary, and one of the instances where I probably would have liked the film a lot less if I went in with different expectations. Would that I could turn back time and check that. So, ultimately, I don't regret spending the time watching it, but I also wouldn't want to watch it again.

Ah, I see, yes, that would indeed be the case. Makes the tweet even more hilarious.

I'm not entirely sure I follow. If I vote for a clown, I can neither expect nor want government to be conducted seriously and properly, let alone competently, and that's not even my bias against conservatives speaking because that seems to make no difference in the UK's case as they're blessed with suck either way. Bush Junior's suppository was from Labour, after all.

Well, at least the part that did not elect Trump's appendix. Not so sure about the other ones...

But that's clearly Whisper of the Heart.

I... watched the trailer. Yeah, thanks, but that looks like it wanted to be tentacle porn but didn't dare to.

Everspace 2, an early access game that is so wonderfully optimized that sometimes starts having slow downs even on an i5-12600 with a RTX 3060 (in FullHD resolution, so nothing fancy). I backed this on Kickstarter after really enjoying Everspace, and my old computer just couldn't handle it. The game has numerous issues other than its optimization which will certainly get a pass or two later in its development. The biggest issue is that the gameplay remains largely unchanged from Everspace, which was a roguelite arcade space shooter meant to be played in small one to two hour spurts. There the core gameplay loop works well enough, and you progress and feel more and more powerful. Everspace 2 does away with the roguelite elements and leaves the gameplay for a sort-of freeform space exploration with highly annoying level-scaling. In other words you're flying around, doing the same thing over and over again, and while it does get easier in time, it's kind of... not fun for the extended time, and I'm only in the second of the 8 or so planned systems. It basically has the same problem as the loot system of The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Ideally they'll trim all the fat out of the game prior to launch. I don't see people wanting to keep on playing for long unless they just follow the main quest and maybe do the odd sidejob or two. Then there's the issue of having zero enemy variety. It's the same buch of enemies over and over again, with the same tactics and the same ways you can defeat them. Like I said, nothing of that matters for a quick playthrough of the first game, because it is over before it becomes apparent, but it really, really doesn't lend itself to a sustained gameplay experience that is fun.

風の谷のナウシカ Well, that was a good deal better than もののけ姫, but that is not much of a surprise. Princess Mononoke's animation was more sophisticated, although it's hard to find a lot of faults with the animation in this film. I watched it on Netflix where there's most likely some quality loss of a blu ray version, particularily sometimes the colors of our little protagonist's pants are severely off. They change from white to a pink tinge to sometimes looking a whole lot like the color of Nausicaä's face, which is a little weird. Nausicaä is a figure of Greek myth, which I guess inspired parts of the film. There's one particular part that meta knowledge ruined the impact of: Anyway, much like Princess Mononoke, I feel as if this film could easily lose 15 or even 20 minutes and make for a tighter watching experience, there are a few sequences that are basically the animated equivalent of special effects for the sake of having special effects. I can't fault the artists for that, but I really wish they'd cut that out. Grave of the Fireflies and Whisper of the Heart don't have any scenes that seem to be as, well, let's call them filled with artistic self-indulgence, and are all the better for it. However, that is also probably because neither of the films lend themselves to having sequences that are just there to show off impressive animation. Anyway, the film was good. As usual, post apocalyptic settings, even if they're as interesting as this one, isn't what I usually look for in films, and Nausicaä herself is quite likeable and a better character than Ashitaka, but at times she has the same issues. What she does, though, is have a much, much better personal motivation and reason for being like that, and that integrates her a lot better into the world. Solid. Also, not really related but still hilarious, when you might end up regretting a tattoo: Dude, next time pick someone you can trust. I generally don't have a problem with that, or protagonists or antagonists that are just metaphors instead of real characters, the problem for me with Princess Mononoke in particular is that the film is not overly interesting to begin with and, unlike with Nausicaä, none of the factions or characters really appealed to me. Hence that falls completely on its face, and it kind of ruins the setup which I thought was not a terrible idea, just badly executed - at least while rewatching the film. Now after having watched Nausicaä, it feels almost entirely redundant. Nausicaä is similar and better in every way. Except maybe the usage of colors, but that's subjective. Then there's probably half an hour of runtime that could be cut without changing the impact of meaning of the film, some of these scenes drag on and on with no clear purpose. Meandering isn't a particularily desirable trait to have for a movie with a 130 minute runtime. Aside from that, no, I have not played Half-Life 2 and I'm not very likely to ever do that. For a number of reasons, the strongest of which is a dislike for Valve, and the fact that it apparently ends on a stupid cliffhanger that's never going to be resolved. Screw that.

The Isekai ones at least are, yes. That will most certainly be an interesting character drama with some humor in it, right? Right? Normally, this would be a decent case for the "WAT?" meme, however, I do know that in real life, there are actually forums where - mostly men, for obvious reasons I guess - discuss the merits and abilities of prostitutes. A pseudo-humorous anime about such talk doesn't surprise me in the least. I guess at least it doesn't demean actual people providing a service that is almost always in demand but usually vilified, leading to all sorts of problems, but on the other hand it might normalize the idea. Sheesh. Working hard for that five star rating gets a whole different meaning, huh?

I, too, am done rewatching the film. It's been twenty or so years now, and a couple of things have changed since then. I do have a slightly larger knowledge of some cultural aspects, for one. There's also the fun aspect in reading the subtitles and smiling at the creative liberties taken in translating, some which are pretty good, some where aren't, although it still feels like a broader understanding of anything, really, is still far out of reach. I don't know what it is exactly about films or anime in general that is set sometime around the 15th century, but it's just not very interesting to me most of the time, and もののけ姫 is no real exception. Fun fact, the word hime - 姫 - which means young lady of noble birth, is most often translated as princess, but a king's daughter, specifically, is 王女 (oujo). Statistically, hime has a much higher usage in anime, visual novels and novels than live action drama (there's a fun database that tracks word usage across various media sources). The nice thing about German is that it makes for a much better medieval sounding language if done well, to a point where I actually like the translated Lord of the Rings better than the original, and it takes a bit of Tolkien's, say, somewhat, uhm, unengaging writing style out of it. Ah, right. Still, regardless of language specifics, my reaction to the film is about the same as I remember it being. It, next to Akira, is kind of the reason why I didn't watch too many anime movies. It's not a bad film, and it certainly is visually pleasing, and I appreciate the attempt at making characters with different motivations that act not based on where the story needs to go but what their desires are, however, it ended up being just an attempt. That pretty much everyone is an idiot doesn't help. The film also tries to not paint the ongoing conflict in black and white terms, something that would work much better if Ashitaka's position wouldn't be the only sensible one and so clearly right that it is almost painful at times. The effort to be multi-facetted just evaporates in the light of there being clearly one best way to handle the situations, and no one else seeing them. Alas, such is the fate of the one destined to see with both eyes open, unclouded by hate. edit: Addendum: Clearly, given the success of the film, I find myself thinking that I am not the intended target audience. I suppose I shall have to live with it - unless my preferences were cooked with a candle, or something.

I think that's Russian disinformation. Oby changed his name is and is now making German TV ads:

Guys, in like two days My Isekai Life: I Gained a Second Character Class and Became the Strongest Sage in the World will be released, and not much later Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World. Are you as excited as I am? Anyway, what to do to tide me over, perhaps watch Date A Bullet: Dead or Bullet? Questions, questions...

Sorry, one France is enough in the EU, we sure don't need the Wannabe-French of Quebec.

I am fairly certain that the manga is a whole lot less offensive than the anime is. I base this on my experiences with Sailor Moon vis a vis Crystal. Animation, music and sound add many different layers to the assault on my senses. In the case of Komi, it's most voice actors who just add their crazy in an overbearing manner. Holy hell Najimi is annoying. They're* one of the nicer characters around, but their voice acting is so atrocious I just can't stand it. At all. Ugh. *Gender might be intentionally left open, but that she sleeps with the girls at the school trip but doesn't go into the girl's bath is pretty telling. That should have been handled better, I guess.

Yeah, but they don't. They put the top end teams* of each nations against each other, and they're all inside a money feedback loop. More international exposure leads to more income through competitions and better sponsorship deals leads to better players, more money and more sponsorship, and perhaps a Russian oligarch or two or some Sheikh with more money than sense dropping hundreds of millions on any given team. It's a mess. *Teams are not limited to their own nationality. Most superteams simply consist of the world's best players, regardless of country of origin. Not talking about World or European championships here, but regular national and internatonal leagues, like your MLS.

The differences are really only noticable in benchmarks, at least when you're looking at most PCIE 4.0 SSDs. Chasing numbers is pretty pointless beyond specialized use cases. Particularily that sustained write over 5 minutes figure, who needs that in any home use scenario? It is only anecdotal, but a friend of mine is a field technician for a large Japanese IT vendor and he's servicing mainframe and datacenter solutions, and in his experience Samsung SSDs are the most reliable SSDs out there under heavy loads. Although, of course, what works in data centers is an entirely different ballpark. There they also need decent sustained read and write performance, obviously, and you can always just have bad luck and find one that doesn't work well. Well, okay, that's... not really worth it then. That's about four times the difference we have, and that is taking the conversion rate into account. That's either a really cheap 970 EVO Plus or a terribly expensive 980 PRO.

If you look outside of Samsung there are decent SSDs to be found too. An HP FX900 or an Adata Legend 840 for instance should be about the price of a 970 EVO Plus (well, your milage price may vary, given the current inflation by a good deal too) and offer great performance for the price, even if they don't reach full PCIE 4.0 throughput rates, they're still faster than their 3.0 counterparts. If money is no objection then there's also the Acer Predator GM7000 or the Patriot Viper VP4300, although, yeah, dunno, we're talking an 80% markup on the price for not much of a gain in any realistic (home) usage scenario, and if money was no objection there'd be no reason to stick with DDR4 memory I guess. What makes Samsung attractive is their reliability. The price is fine and the performance is great and the difference to the Acer and Patriot SSDs is really just noticable in benchmarks, not in actual use.

Ho, you'd have a lot of fun watching our football leagues. Not one of the larger, more competitive ones that don't have an issue of a couple of super teams dominating the leagues. Interntional competitions end up being a battle of superteams with nary an upset in sight - usually, at least - and the insane amount of money thrown around by billionaire team owners and the payout from the international competitions make sure everything spirals even more towards a small group of teams dominating everything. Fun fact: One of our teams as twice the budget of every other team... combined. Guess how often they don't win the local championship?

Well, I don't know about Canadian prices, but a Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB PCIE 4.0 SSDs isn't much more expensive than a 970 EVO Plus. Might want to go with a 980 PRO and enjoy the extra speed, unless the 970 Evo Plus comes from your current setup, but you said you'd move the drives, not the SSD. Either was is a massive speed upgrade, but there really is a noticable difference between my 980 Pro and my father's 970 EVO.

K-On! is one of the rather few cases where having to tough it out through the first season turned out to be a boon. I mean, the first season is... what it is. Although I really enjoyed the last two episodes, and some of the middle parts. I got lucky that it went on to be a good deal goodlier in the second season. Considering it has Sawako and that dreadful Christmas episode, a 5/10 is quite the endorsment there. K-On! also has Sailor Saturn and Sailor Mars in the English dub lineup. Kind of funny how one can waste all that voice talent. Oh come on. That's... oh dear god, imagine this will run for as long as Pretty Cure. Oh noes...

Poor K-On!, don't cry, he wasn't intentionally mean to you, it's just that you have a really rough beginning and the better parts are a bit later and are actually called K-On!!. *pets* This week's Komi has insane stalker girl bring Komi chocolates on Valentine's day. They all look like stalker girl's face, and when she gives them to Komi she tells her to "lick me, eat me, suck on me until I become a part of you!" which... wow, is another low that I think matches the kneeling and sausage part, but your mileage may vary.