majestic

Oi, she took an arrow to her knee?

At this point in my posting "carreer" I've begun making multiple copies of my posts even while writing them once they get past a length I'd be okay with if I had to re-write it. Which happens every other post. I just realized I actually have to spoiler this because Amentep is watching Discovery's first season right now. That's how everything works in Discovery. On the other hand, it tried a more long-term characterization of an issue last season with the Dilithium explosion boy, and if that was any indication then by Heaven's Light, it's better they glace over everything. You don't think it's good to be seen? That, and because Alex Kurtzman has some dirt on CBS and they can't just axe him, or whoever is in charge of CBS actually likes this trash. There's of course the potential that this is raking in lots and lots of viewers for CBS' streaming service, but I refuse to believe that. You know how Netflix is known for funding every piece of trash they get offered, right? Netflix co-financed the first season and told CBS to stuff it when they came looking for more money for the second one. That's how bad it really is. Netflix, undesputed king of funding dumpster fires, thought it was too bad to continue.

No, you aren't. Everything about this whole subplot has already happened on Star Trek in one form or another, and it was consistently done better. It's really hard to properly state how God damned awful that dialogue was, so I'm not going to try and do the next best thing. To translate a joke by a Kabarett artists who I really enjoy (who sadly retired in the face of all the insanity in the world): I like to quote Merkel verbatim as I have yet to find a better way to insult her. So let's Discovery speak for itself, shall we? Spoilered because it's spoilers, and for brevity. All this show does it blow hot air into the bubble it's stuck in, and it does that in the worst possible way. Voyager's doctor was a real character who the crew got to accept and appreciate over time. He wasn't just the bestest doctor ever, but was obnoxious and had flaws. Like real people do. Emergent AI was already done in TNG with Professor Moriarty, which I didn't exactly like because I didn't care for the Sherlock Holmes holodeck stuff at all, but that's my fault, not the show's, and I could still appreciate what it did with the episodes. This here, this... travesty, isn't doing anyone a service, especially not if the message it transports is that if you have an issue with something for whatever reason and you can't just get over it in an instant, you're terrible and need to be cancelled. Emotionally, as much as that's possible, I understand that, to a point - but that's just not how people work, and works like these that try to be super-inclusive simply don't achieve anything at all - or exactly the opposite. But yeah, we talked about that two weeks ago.

It's that time of the week. I think I should turn this into a drinking game where I take a shot every time something wondrously stupid happens, but that'll turn me into a raging alcoholic, or worse, might even make me like the show. Beverly Hills Dreck, Jumpin' to 90210, episode, uhm, 7. Burnham crying counter: 1:4. If she doesn't cry this episode, I'm dropping it. Mr. Crusher, start the episode, warp 2. Engage! Well, at least the show won't be continuing until February. Count your blessings. Dropping the Burnham counter for the shots game. Would have been fifteen in this episode. That's not so bad, assuming an amount of 2cl per shot. Huh.

Okay this episode of Komi is where the anime finally goes off the deep end. This is it. Insane Stalker Girl (I think it was her) fakes fainting to be able to film under Komi‘s Maid Cafe skirt. Silly me thought the sausage scene was as bad is it can get.

Well, that sucks. Not really surprised, but that... sucks. On the bright side though, Mr. Anderson said that he's finally going to be done "soon" with his final Witcher video, which I'm really looking forward to. He also finally seems to have caved and will upload it in parts. A year back he was "done" and had technical issues with breaking YouTube's upload limit with his 7 hour video, and now it's... uhm, 11 hours and some change that he will upload as eleven separate episodes.

Komi helps majestic read random Japanese sentences, episode 11. Begins with Insane Stalker Girl(tm) saying that they should create a haunted house for their school festival, because in a dark room nobody will notice when they're all fondling Komi's ass. Najimi wants to put her into a maid café uniform, Insane Dragon Power girl wants to form a band and Komi is supposed to sing (well, that'll work), God Girl wants to play whack-a-mole with her as the mole who is whacked by Komi, the Komi-Bodyguard Ninja troupe wants to make a movie, Insane Stalker Country Girl wants to sell nigiri, Competitive Psycho wants to play games, weirdo who I don't really remember (maybe she's a new character) wants to play "Are you compatible with Komi-san", so some sort of relationship oracle stuff and finally some other weirdo with glasses who is new and helpfully called "Non-Otaku Yuuji Otaku" wants to write fanfiction and put Komi into cosplay. But halt, it does not end here. Insane Stalker Girl(tm) also wants to sell sausages, probably to make Komi kneel and eat her sausage again. Someone else wants to build a dance club or disco, and they vote... again, and it's a tie. Again. Which by the way is 同票, the kanji for "same" and "ballot", so more literally the same votes. The first I already know, and the second I'm pretty sure I'll not remember if I ever happen across it again, but hey, at least the first five minutes of this episode aren't a complete loss. The content is - again - making me contemplate that having a stroke right now might not be the worst thing. Time to get through the remaining 20 minutes. edit: Now they've added an obviously high girl to the cast who got lost at a home depot, and I'm out for the time being. Time for a nap, I'll finish this later. Maybe I'll get lucky and die in my sleep.

Having "Leo" and "J-Law" in the same film makes this really more unappealing than it would otherwise be, but I'll probably check it out. If Hurlshot calls it too cynical then it's probably just spot on (sorry man, I just don't share your optimism ). That reminds me, @Hurlshot, like, post-Trump presidency, do you still think Iron Sky was too heavy-handed? The film is dangerously close to not being funny any more.

A 12 piece series isn't that much longer, especially not on twice the playback speed, however, I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet. It'll probably really be the last time I attempt to follow a creative team from one project to the next, that did not work too well with CLAMP or Sato/Itō, and it doesn't look like it will work well here, but I'm willing to give it a chance, assuming it stays the only incidence of stupid. To its credit it didn't show anyone bathing except for two old guys, and there only the back, so... I'm going to count my blessings there. Yep. Well, then Venus Wars is out until I completely run out of material, and that's probably never going to happen. Adjusting ratings, yeah, sometimes... sometimes things drop a lot, although for me that often happens when I try to replay a game, like it happened with the original Half-Life. I loved the game when it came out, a recent replay, well, the presentation is still top notch, the combination of shooter and awfully inaccurate first person platforming elements is decidedly less fun than it used to be. For films or shows that usally happens if they were all impressive visuals and no substance (hello Avatar rewatch), or are the specific sort of film that are more interesting on a first watch because there's a mystery to figure out or they're based on a plot twist, although in the latter case it's sort of feels unfair to downrank them on a rewatch. Well... if either of us wins the lottery we can commission a translation. The thing is... I'm not playing any, so that's statistically even less likely to happen than an actual win is. Didn't take it as snarky, no worries. I also really ended up asking the grammar video guy about the loan words and he replied, saying that keeping the pronunciation closer to the original in Japanese is really something that is a recent development as more and more people learn English and grow up with the required sounds. That was two days ago, and yesterday he released a new video detailing what's been going on in his life (which next to teaching Japanese is interestingly enough being part of a machine learning research project with the goal of offering personalized and efficient language learning experiences). I almost fell off the ergometer when he mentioned my comment in his video indirectly, that was kind of funky. Also only really possible with small channels that appreciate comments and don't just go all "leave a comment if you have any questions" so YouTube ranks them higher because it detects a call to action.

I will, eventually.

Oh dear God, why did I... do that. It's like everything I touch recently is, dunno, cursed. So, of course there's a bathhouse in Tamako Market. In the first episode. There's also the talking bird that catches a glimpse of the protagonist bathing and promtply gets a nosebleed. Beakbleed? Well, at least there's no ridiculous nudity (or any nudity). Still, pretty much everything about this is seizure inducing. Tamako also goes and gets some coffee. The owner hands her a cup and says Einspänner gold blend. Except that's not an Einspänner, and they make it worse by adding milk. Not that I mind milk in a coffee, but Einspänner are served black with a whipped cream topping (that was traditionally placed there not to make the coffee sweet, but to add insulation so it stays warm longer during coach rides). Get your coffees right writers! Well, so far that's pretty much about Tamako and his royal birdness who just gorged himself on mochi so much he grew fat over a couple of days and now can't fly. Uhm. Everything else is a bit of a Romeo and Juliet setup, there's the daughter and the son of rival mochi shop owners. Sure, seen worse. Looks a bit like K-On! on crack. Nothing too offensive except for that beak issue. Anyway, at least it's short, and it's not ViVid Strike!, so that's... probably not going to end up being a favorite, but at least, eh, yeah. Time to sleep. What, how's that even possible?

Sure thing, I have the day off tomorrow, so maybe I'll just torture myself. Wouldn't be the first time, and at least this time it'll be with eyes open. The biggest issue I'm forseeing is simply that the movie is most likely going to ask me to feel any sort of empathy for the protagonist and his attempts at redemption, and I already know that's not going to work, and from that everything will just fall flat. Or, maybe, I'll just go and try Tamako Market, that looks like eye cancer too, but at least it's potentially fun eye cancer, and not one that'll make me feel like being a terrible person for not being able to feel any empathy just because the poor bully is now a victim himself. Cry me a river. It's tough to like a film when you hate every character. Except Kei, but she's not in the movie enough to matter. Some things are just unfortunate, like the name Kozue. Depending on the voice actor saying it that almost sounds like Kotze, and that's German for puke (and the etymological basis for the English c-word, originally meaning a very low class prostitute), and also the reason why Kozue was the only character to receive a name change in our Attack No. 1 dub. I liked 2049 too, but that has probably a lot to do with expecting nothing and finding a surprisingly watchable film, except for every scene where Harrison Ford shows up. Feels like he's been phoning it in since the late 80ies now. It was a bit too long for its own good, but I didn't find it to be terribly boring. I also didn't have to pause the playback. I'll make a mental note to probably not check out Venus Wars. I liked your description of it, but now I'm less certain. Part of the issue I had with Akira is that it does too much, and nothing of it properly. I generally have no problem with weird endings, one only needs to look at my posts about the Utena movie, or the series finale. I generally prefer my entertainment to be as free of allegory and metaphors as possible, but if it's done well enough, I don't mind, assuming it doesn't cross into intellectual wankery. I know that done well enough is a debatable when it comes to Utena as a whole because the series really drags in the middle, but I'm mostly talking about the ending, and I also cannot properly define when something stops being well done and becomes intellectual wankery. The original ending of NGE was dangerously close to being the latter, and it was also not much of the former, even though it still worked as a thematic closure to the series. Akira himself - the character, not the film - was a bit too crude as a metaphor for my tastes. It's different if you use a Kaiju to do the same (like the most famous example, Godzilla). The actual ending was set up by a throwaway line of exposition in between. It features social unrest that erupts into a rebellion lead by Tetsuo but does nothing with it and just rushed through it. There's the military takeover of the civilian government that happens almost as a minor afterthought. There's the commentary on the dangers of unethical research. Finally, and most glaringly, you have Tetsuo being able to fight off several laser gun equipped soldiers at one point, and then being almost unable to deal with Canada alone. Sure you can explain that in some manner, but then explain. Do something. Make Tetsuo talk and be blindsided by Kaneda. Anything. Or make that first shot count for more. If you want to bore me with a 20 minute sequence of Tetsuo turning into the evil overlord version of the Starchild, then at least make it interesting. It's not impossible to do any of that properly, given more time. For a single feature film, perhaps stick to one subject and set it up better. Lastly, the biker gangs I mentioned are a stand in for my dislike of juvenile delinquents when they're shown to be ultra-unsympathetic, violent and toxic but stick it to the "man" and rage against the "system" for whatever reason they have, but are largely unfocused, annoying and just simply criminal instead of inspirational. I see nothing of value in a gang of street thugs, and quite frankly, Kaneda and his friends are just that. For some reason that's usually biker gangs. Guess that comes with the renegade image bikes carry, or whatever, really. I also get nothing out of cars or bikes, so that's... adding another layer on top. I guess that basic setup is my personal soft piano music intro. Now the actual rebels, those would have been interesting, but they're in the movie just as a vehicle to get Kaneda to Tetsuo and for a seizure inducing (albeit good looking) and way too long action chase scene. Should I ever get to a level where I can understand spoken Japanese I'll check the series out, but that's probably years away, if the point ever comes at all, especially with reading being a lot more fun than listening. It would probably be better to badger someone into making fan-subs. I mean, there are fan subs for ViVid, so what the hell, anime community, what the hell?

That's r00fles. /counternitpick.

Post-2018 that was fairly easy to predict: NAZI. End of posting. edit: Also, only NAZIs ignore someone and then click on the reveal button. That makes you a NAZI too!

My condolences. Have fun watching the KLINGORKS battle the FEDERATION, and always keep in mind, this is the best the series gets in overall quality. Which doens't say much, because it's a steaming, fresh turd, but then the show gets a particularily bad case of dysentery in the second season, only to contract cholera in the third. Not sure yet what that is in the fourth season. Probably the stench of death coming from something that died of dehydration.

No, that's probably not going to happen, but there is a whole host of other things that could, and I just recently noticed that with the, uhm, incident in ViVid Strike!, it's not a good idea for me to watch anything that touches on the subject matter too much, and A Silent Voice seems to be entirely dedicated to it. As much as I'm otherwise incapable of carrying a grudge, there's a deep-seated echo of a resentment leftover from times long gone. If something comparatively incompetently crafted as ViVid Strike! can do that, I don't want to be exposed to something that's by all means apparently well made. Works for me. I'm really not sure that I want to, and I don't mean because every review on the planet mentioned it being depressing to the point of wanting to kill yourself (although not in the way @Bartimaeus means, heh). Violet Evergarden was hard enough to watch at times, and that's just commenting on the topic of a similar result, not a root cause.

Well, that explains a few things... If you want to re-evaluate the film, be my guest.

Jesus H. Christ please don't tell me that someone made a clock out of one of those records. edit: Okay. It's done. Dear god. What was is that @Bartimaeus wrote after watching Madoka? Anime isn't just cancelled, it never existed. Yep.

This is... torture. I don't know how else to describe it. I had to pause after... On the bright side, I think this proves that the world doesn't end when (if?) I will watch Samurai Champloo. edit: Three minutes later I want to strangle both of the lead characters. edit 2:

You're so going to love Tetsuo. Some spoilers ahead: It's... well, in a way it is a classic that probably "should" be watched if only to appreciate it's (pop)cultural impact. There's a number of other high profile anime for which it was a precusor, and any number of filmmakers and writers like to cite Akira as an influence. It's easy to see why when you watch it and keep in mind that it is a film from 1988. I guess for the US it was the first actually serious and truly adult animated film that got wide acclaim, i.e. a showcase that animation isn't just for kids, but that's something else entirely and not really relevant to my experience with the film, and I'm guessing it won't be relevant for yours either. Everyone else liked it, and you didn't hate it, and 6.5 is pretty good for something that starts at 0/10 for being made past 2004, so that was a pretty decent recommendation, all in all, and no, I'm not going to finish it in 2x the speed now that Cherry and Yuki are walking around and the film just might finally stop to suck. I mean, hopefully. If it doesn't, I just really might do that.

Update: Huh, the fly won. I thought it was done, it even stopped struggling for a while, now it just broke free and flew off. The spider is gone too, so no idea what happened. Tsk. Just can't get any decent help these days, huh? Now where's that fly swatter at...

There's a little spider in one of the corners of our office. It's probably been there over Christmas. It's a really tiny one, regardless, all of these eight legged creatures from Satan's little shop of horrors are creepy, no matter the size, but for the time being it earned a little respite before it's going to be displaced by either myself or, more likely, the cleaning personnel that'll show up at the end of the day. Spider webs sure are impressive constructs, a fly like twenty times the size of the spider got caught in it (no idea where a fly comes from at the end of December to be honest, but that's some bad luck, surviving the winter until now only to be caught in a web) and it's been struggling, trying to get out for a while now. In vain. The spider, meanwhile, is just sitting at the edge of the web waiting for the thrashing to die down. It's a pity the spider isn't going to get much out of the catch, but eh, there's still some time, and maybe the cleaners won't be removing the web just yet.

Wrapping things up, or not, part XIX: Watched 20 more minutes of Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. At this rate, it'll four more watch "sessions" until I'm done, but it's hard to take this in more than series-sized chunks. I did get a slight kick out of being able to read part of the names on the duty roster for the day care Cherry works at, and I've spent a whole lot of time trying fo figure out what ショッピングモール ("shoppingumōru") is supposed to be - well, shopping was easy enough, but to get from mōru to mall is a bit of a stretch for poor old me. Transliteration by syllable approximation is super confusing. I got to the part where Cherry has to read his haiku in front of the old people, then I went all Mace Windu on it: Except it was well past midnight and no Yarael Poof in sight to get any pizza. The most frustrating thing about this film is, I mean, aside from getting sore eyes from looking at it, is that it simply doesn't work for me even though by all means it should. Cherry's friends are super annoying, for instance, as is Yuki's family, and that video call, dear god. "Japan" dude als causes the worst sort of Daru flashbacks, even though he's more harmless and less hentai (in the original meaning, i.e. perverted). Nope. Spending more effort on things than I should, part XXI: Finished another rewatch of Akira, as we talked about that recently. I've seen the film three times now, the last two times in an effort to appreciate it beyond being impressed by the sheer effort that went into making it, and no, I just can't. It tries to do too many things at once (and I absolutely don't like dsytopian or post-apocalyptic biker gangs, so this starts out from a very bad place for me), is thematically all over the place to a point where some people write entire essays - real essays, that is, not just overly long streams of consciousness on the Obsidian forums - about what it could mean. In a way that makes it a bit like 2001: A Space Odyssey which is another film I... yeah, never mind. That's about the thing, it's hybrid between Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey and any sci-fi film warning about the dangers of genetic engineering/technology/weapons (any and all work here, which just adds to the film feeling thematically all over the place). While I like Blade Runner more than most posters here (not just visually), it also falls a bit short here and there and is more saved by the impressive mood Ridley Scott sets and the performances in the film than by its actual content. There's too much too unpack to properly talk about it. The characters are all pretty much intentionally unlikeable, so I won't hold that against the film. It's part cyberpunk/dystopian social commentary that isn't followed through, it's partially techno-critical which is doesn't follow through, and it continues on to try to be philosophical with "the potential in each of us" where at the end in a scene that curiously resembles the Birth of the Starchild in 2001, not so much by mirroring the visuals, but by doing something similar, albeit much more jarring and with a whole lot of body horror). It is all over the place and way too unfocused. That might be because of the source material, however, allegedly this movie began with a script over 700 pages long. As a comparison, a typical feature film script is anywhere between 90 and 125 pages long, although this isn't entirely comparable between live action and animation, it really just shows how much they compressed - or tried to - into a two hour animated film. You could take any of the themes present and make a decent, focused film out of it. Or you could just throw everything but the kitchen sink at it and come out with a mess. Needless to say that this film was a major influence on anime and even filmmaking as a whole, and as such it has a historic impact that cannot be denied. It's an origin point and it is easy to look at it today and ascribe problems with the story to it being to ubiquitous or crude compared to the more focused and modern offerings it spawned. That is partially true, but not quite. The film was a mess of themes back when it released, and it still is that today. It's not bad by any means, but it's also not exactly enjoyable, and I don't think I'll watch it again. I'm not ever going to like this.

ViVid Strike! OVA ("Episode 5.5") Fuuka wins a martial arts sparring fight against Corona by TKO (this seems to work like in boxing). Fuu is overjoyed and is sent to take a shower by Einhart, who promptly afterwards organizes a real sparring match against Rio and Corona where they are not limited to purely martial art style fighting, but can utilize their full range of powers. They handily beat Fuu without breaking a sweat. Fuu once more resolves to become BETTERER STRONGERER and TOUGHERER to take on Rinne. I don't know why this was made. While this holds true for the entire series, I guess, this OVA in particular was a whole bunch of nothing that wasn't in the earlier episodes already. Well, no, that's not entirely true. We get shower fanservice scene, some transformation sequences and two supremely boring sparring fights, and a whole lot of shounen stuff. Onwards to the next OVA, Episode 5.75... edit: Which ended up being the complete opposite of 5.5 and 15 minutes of pure character interactions. Now, if these characters were actually interesting, it would have been a nice episode, as it is, the best I can say is that it wasn't a bad episode by any means, and at least there was a reason to create this OVA to fill in a gap or two. Rinne has this super shounen moment where she wants to fight an under 19 world championship contender to show off how her pover level is OVER NINE THOUSAND and tries to provoke her and she pats Rinne on the head and is like nope, I'm good. This watching episodes at double playback speed is working out pretty well.

Sure sounded like it, at least. Indeed. The comments you found were pretty much spot on. There's just absolutely no reason for anyone to watch this other than some compulsion to finish it. It really is just a waste of time, and nothing highlights it more than one main character asking the other what the point of it all is, and the other character replying: "I'll worry about that afterwards." Yeah. That just about sums it up. It's less offensive than Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid, but that's not hard to do. Guess that makes ViVid Strike! the Joe Biden of anime. Nothing special, but at least not as offensive as Trump... what a mark of quality.