majestic

Some preliminary data concering Omicron. Vaccination efficacy drops to 25% after three months with a booster shot and is a nice flat 0% after six without booster. Existing monoclonal antibodies are completely ineffective. Time to note that this doesn't say anything about severity, but it all but rules out stopping infections with the existing vaccines. Testing was done in vitro with live omicron strain viruses. In other words, Omicron necessitates an adapted vaccine. Sucks for the people who have been waiting for a spike protein or inactivated virus vaccine because they don't want no new-fangled gene therapy nonsense, because by the time Novavax et al are ready and available, Omicron might just emerge as the dominant variant.

Indeed, nothing specifically about the episode, we did talk about the family integration being better than in Sailor Moon. Which is pretty much true, on the other hand, Sakura's family is an integral part of the story. Sailor Moon's biggest issue is that Ms. Takeuchi just threw everything but the kitchen sink into the first few issues and then kept piling ideas on top of it. There's no consistency, characters are introduced and discarded within a few issues. She probably felt like giving Sailor Moon a regular best friend would be a good idea from a narrative point of view. She was right, but nothing was made of it, like ever. It's okay since I already know all the characters, but otherwise, oh boy, there's this weird guy who made a Nanoha video I watched who recommended starting the series by watching THE MOVIE 1st and THE MOVIE 2nd (real titles, lol) because they look better, were shot in 16:9 and are faster paced. I already knew from there what I was getting into, I guess, but it's really, ah, just worse than I imagined. That's not going to stop me from posting about it every now and then. That's generally an issue, but probably worse for Japanese than for many other languages, I'd venture. Just need to watch an interview with someone to realize that, compared to the formality of what's taught in the course for the time being - which probably won't change, because language courses always teach the proper way to speak and write, not the way the actual people do. As a result, you're overly formal and formulaic, something that actually comes up in Clear Card because the new mystery transfer student (tm) talks like that all the time, and the girls comment on it. It's also noticable because voice acting doesn't sound like regular speech, and it isn't. There's a reason why people laugh at the weebs who taught themselves Japanese through anime, because they talk like weird anime characters. I also have no ambitions to ever talk or write like a native. I'm doing this out of an intellectual curiosity, one that was sparked funnily enough by watching a video on grammar. If I end up being able to read untranslated mangas or watch anime without subtitles, that's fine, but not an actual goal. There's no goal for me to pursue, other than... yeah, well, because I can. When I really feel like it, learning something new is essentially my personal reason to climb a mountain: Because it's there! As Captain Kirk once said, most likely because that's a quote usually and wrongfully attributed to Edmund Hillary. Even with English there are some things that you can't pick up unless you're physically present at some places or run into the words in some way or another and look them up - there are so many colloquialisms based on location. First time someone asking you to hand them a kleenex? What's that supposed to be? Right, a brand name for tissues that doesn't exist over here, or didn't, we do have Kleenex tissues too, now, but we call that a Tempo, which is (was?) our largest brand. Same goes for ordering drinks at a bar. There's no way anyone non-native knows what the hell (never mind why, which is something most natives alive no longer know) people are ordering an "Obi" when they want apple juice. Post WW2, Obi was the only apple juice brand available. It doesn't even exist any more, but apple juice being Obi never changed. For extra fun, go to Switzerland or Germany and try ordering an Obi. That's a riot. Yeah, that ends up being fun in some ways, but it makes me terrible at explaining things. One of my colleagues at work has this super annoying tendency to mix up grammatical cases that I keep correcting. In particularily complex cases he sometimes asks me why, and all I can say is "beats me but it is wrong". Being able to read that mess of lines you called nonsense (heh) is part of that. Beats me, really. I mean I once learned the ins and outs of this German grammar stuff at school, but not using something for some 25 odd years makes even me forget things. Just recently had a discussion about someone mixing up gebe and gäbe, both of which are subjunctive forms of geben, the German verb for to give and to exist. One does use the first form in reported speech (if you think reported speech is difficult in English, try German reported speech ), and the other one to express a possibility. These days they're even pronounced mostly in the same way. I kept correcting the text to read gäbe, and he kept changing it back. Barely anyone uses the second subjunctive mood to express possibility in language any more. Its usually formed by using the second subjunctive form of werden, which is würde - English "would" actually, so people would (ha ha) say "I'd do this and that" instead of using the proper form. Erm, what I wanted to say is that I know that now beacuse I looked it up. I did not really know at the time of correcting, I just knew that gebe is wrong and gäbe is correct. *shrug* That's what I liked about StrikerS. Characters having their "badass" moments felt earned or normal, not just there for effect. I mean, that's not going to make you like the season, given its other problems, but there's something rather satisfying to see Tia being able to outsmart and defeat her opponents when cornered in her moment of glory, relying on almost a full season's worth of training and character growth from silly shounen action first, thinking later to proper team member.

Oh, and by the way, if you ever try Clear Card, then for the love of all that is holy, see that as a separate thing, otherwise it'll dump your rating to 5/10. Minor update on the Nanoha film: I'm still not finished with it. I think that should perfectly encapsulate how much I'm not enjoying it after binge watching the first season. It's a two hour movie that I started watching on and off 15 hours ago. Everything I liked about the series is gone in favor of movie-budget grade action scenes, character moments and exposition happen in glossed over flashbacks or compressed montages. The only good things so far are getting rid of the loli-moments (although that kills one of the few episodes that were almost only character bits), dropping the silly mana energy level and making Alph/Arf a magical creation by Fate. Presea gets an expanded background flashback that would be great if it happened organically at some point instead of a piano-music driven way to excuse her whipping Fate and to set up Fate being a clone because HEY GUYS WE'RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME HERE, HAYAKU! Fate is even more fanservice than she was in the series with her outfit. Her mother of course tortures her, but with the pacing of the film this only worked because Fate had some time to be established by the series. For someone watching this as their introduction to the Nanoha universe that's just going to be a "huh?" at best. Arf switches between being dressed like a normal person and her usual fanservice outfit of an ill fitting crop top with unbuttoned hot pants. Why? No idea. No matter how this film ends: If anyone wants to try Nanoha, do it properly. The first season is only 13 episodes. Just skip the loli-parts of episode 5. Or just skip straight to the good stuff in StrikerS. Minor update on the Japanese thing (not that any of you really care ) Spoilered for brevity.

I did, since I don't like teases like that, and just in case anyone else has scruples googling, here's the wikipedia entry, or part of it anyway. Wikipedia also helpfully says the factuality of this article is in question. Hence the allegedly.

20 minutes into Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha THE MOVIE 1st it looks like this is exactly what I was afraid it would be. First season action bits with very trimmed down character stuff, and it's blazing through everything at an even faster pace than I thought it would. Fate shows up at the end of episode three in the first season, and we have an hour to get to know Nanoha and her family and her friends and interact with Yuuno. Eh, and there's movie budget transformation scene that just goes on and on and on. Well, here's to hoping that the loli bits from the fifth episode were also dropped. Ohterwise they'll show up in about 10 minutes or so.

Finsihed the Mahoutsukai Tai! OVA. Very much recommended for anyone who laughed their asses off watching American Pie and likes anime. Everyone else, just... stay clear. Give it a wide, wide berth. There's an interview and making-of featurette with Sato and Itō that is absolutely hilarious and a blast to watch. They also seem to have made this OVA somewhere in a hastily cobbled together office at a run down building that they just squatted in. Holy crap. There's one hell of a mess, the lighting is terrible, there are no windows in Sato's and Itō's "office" (they're sitting back to back)... I mean, I know anime is made under terrible working conditions, but I thought that was limited to the animators or in-betweeners, not directors and chief character designers. Ms. Itō also really likes naruto. Not the anime, but the fish cake. They're lying around everywhere. Really. Everywhere. Eh, without that low pony tail Mr. Sato would rock one hell of a mullet here. You can't see that here, but it goes down quite a way. He also has a magic wand as prop. Look at the animators having an actual window... I also have no idea if that is a joke made for the documentary, but the staff is trying to sit on horizontal bars and brooms to see how flying a broom would work in real life, whether it'll hurt your ass or not, if you'd sway from one buttock to the next or not, all that. It's... weird. Yeah, weird is the word I'm going with here. **** edit: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha: The MOVIE 1st (actual title) is a bit over two hours long. I started watching, but I'll do that tomorrow. I'm not feeling too well and it's pretty late already. Just from the first five minutes, it begins pretty similar to the TV show, and it really is just a retelling of a sort, but if you thought the original season looked not so hot, yikes. For a movie budget, this is... yeah well, anime in the 2010s. What else to expect?

You could also just learn how to translate English words into Katakana just for these thread titles. That's fun, and... yeah, erm, I guess my idea of fun is a little different. *whistles*

@KP Cross Split Attack or @Amentep: Please fix the thread title, that's ZA WARUDO. Or ザー・ワールド if you want to be weeby.

Well, so far nothing much happened, but it's only been four hours. Last time though, at four hours in, my arm felt like it would come off while it doesn't right now, so maybe that's a good sign. edit: Five minutes after posting I tried to pick up my bottle of sugar free lemonade. Tried, being the operative word here. Jinxed it.

Found a nice day to get my third shot. Public holiday on Wednesday, have some time off on Thursday and Friday, so I got my shot today. If it whacks me down I won't miss much, and I should be good until the holiday comes up.

Episode five: Was almost an episode in the sense that there were only a few instances of stupid, some nice moments that happen and decent setup for the final episode of the OVA. All that's left is to be disappointed by the resolution, but I'll do that tomorrow, I think. Then it's either the TV show version or the Nanoha movies. No, there aren't, but the show practically starts her off bowing over Shinji for no other reason than to stare at her ass for a bit before the mine goes off and blows over her car. It's not during any important character moments unless it is part of them (like Asuka dangling her assets in front of Shinji's face). Insofar that's pretty well done, most of the time. Nanoha has this sort of art style that's just... I don't know. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't like it, and for the action scenes at least, it wasn't a good fit. It needed a more visceral feel and more detail to make them really work, like NGE or maybe Cowboy Bepop (since people are talking about the live action adaptation currently). edit: Forgot to talk about Miranda, yeah, dunno, my idea of genetic perfection is pretty different, but hey, she's a female clone of Martin Sheen, so some problems are to be expected, right?

Yeah, I don't know. That doesn't look very appealing, and I really mean the art. I might eventually try it out of pure desperation. Part of the issue with it in Magic User's Club is that there is a lot, and I mean a lot of it, and it's almost always trying to be funny, and I already have problems finding any slapstick fun, much less slapstick that's about Akane practicing broom riding and flying boobs-forward into Takeo's face (making him spurt more blood) or Sae accidentially driving her broom up his behind. Sure there are, just as long as there's a reason for it to be there beyond it being fanservice. I've said that time and again, I don't have any problem with sexual content per se, just as long as it's tastefully done and has a point. There are some scenes with Misato in NGE for instance, but not so much all the closeups of her behind, they're 100% pointless and only there because Anno likes to stare at animated butts (and giant animated boobs, if that instrumentality scene from End of Evangelion is any indication).

Classic blunder, like land war in Asia? The absolute worst thing about this OVA is that every now and then - and it's really just every now and then - it stops being stupid and becomes absolutely wonderful in a way that makes everything just worse. I tried it because it was directed and written by Junichi Sato. Halfway through the beach episode it stops being terrible ecchi and all of a sudden comes up with nice character moments that remind me of a certain other show of Mr. Sato's. I kind of wish this was all bad, really. As it is, I hate this so much. God dammit. Outro was also her, I think.

Yeah, yeah. I know what you said, and I ignored it. The song does for me what it is supposed to, I guess - it's a lullaby, there are subtitles in the anime for it. I really like it. Masami Okui also sang the intro song for Utena. Hm. It was pretty funny in Kill la Kill, but there it was a parody...

Wrapping up stuff I started: Mahoutsukai Tai! OVA, episode three. The preview of the next epsiode of the OVA told me the fourth episode is going to be a beach episode. This one featured Akane in nothing but a towel for the second half while she's abudcted by a cable-tentacle wielding alien android. It can't get any worse at the beach, can it? Worst thing is, without the stupid and embarrassing parts, this would be a fun, if a bit silly, little anime. The outro music is really nice though. edit: Of course it can get worse, and of course it did. I don't know what else I expected. Projectile nosebleed from seeing Akane in a bikini is definitely worse. Sigh. Wow, this episode goes stick in the butt all out. I mean, balls to the wall? What. Sae rides her broom deep into Takeo's behind: Help me, please. Please, I beg you.

I'll go hit the shower now, and when I'm back I expect you to have edited in a Neil Breen picture, I mean, come on. Just... come on.

Move forward into the attack before pressing the dodge button. If your character isn't dashing forward directly into the attack, you're dodging wrong, if you do and still get hit it's your timing. You can counter sweep attacks with some combat arts, but From Software nerfed that pretty hard, it's barely worth the effort now (well, in my opinion, at least). Still looks good, but just jumping over and on the enemy is easier, does almost as much posture damage and doesn't lock you into an extended animation.

What... what... what? What. ? 何?!

Can't argue with that. Madoushi is more interesting than Nothing. I'd say nothing about Nothing is really interesting, not even the concept of an anti-card to balance things out, that's just an asspull to get the film going. Am I wrong in thinking that the amount of action in the second movie is less than in the first? Because the first film felt like it was half action, and I didn't find it to be that engaging. Particularily not the part after Sakura's friends and family were whisked away by her. The non-action parts of the first movie also weren't as strong as the ones in the second film, but that might really also be the timing. Seing Shaoran and Meiling like that after Meiling was written out of the show just fell flat, but that's not the film's fault, but mine. I just binged over the winter break. Colleague keeps watching Sailor Stars, I'm so close to caving and simply watching along, or rewatching Sailor Moon as a whole. This isn't helping.

@Gromnir, @Maedhros Apparently monologues are defined differently in German and English literary theory. In German literary theory, a monologue is never addressed directly at someone, and when it takes the form of a speech, it only counts as a monologue if it written in a way that precludes it being addressed to any one character in particular, i.e. the monologue itself still works if you remove the other present characters, like the audience of a speech. An answer to a question, no matter how long winded and expository it ends up being - and in this case Sarah asking the Sheriff why he's not going to follow up on her kooky idea that the faith on the Island is spreading an unknown contagion with supernatural properties that nobody is going to believe without proof that she does not have at the time - just cannot be a monologue. Needles to say that German literary theory also makes no distinction between monologue and soliloquy (or soliloquium, which is just Latin for monologue, being a direct translation from ancient Greek). So indeed, I made the mistake of assuming that monologues are the same in German and English, and thought I'd nitpick. Geez, way to look stupid.

Nitpicky remark: Monologues require the absence of other characters, hence the name. Mono, from ancient Greek mónos, meaning single. Just because someone is giving a long winded explanation to another character doesn't make it a monologue.

Midnight Mass: edit: Well, look at me going into hypercritical mode in spite of really enjoying the series.

Midnight Mass, finale. I think I'll give The Haunting of Bly Manor a shot now.

I honestly don't know, and I can't for sure say it's because of the film alone, which objectively is a little unfair, but for my enjoyment that doesn't truly play a part. There are two things, mostly, the first it being a movie spinoff of the usual kind, almost all of which were disappointments or needed sequels to make a decent film. Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for instance, most - all, when not counting guilty pleasures, and I mean First Contact by that - of the Next Generation movies, all of the new ones. Of all the films the only ones I like are II, IV and VI, and of them only The Undiscovered Country can be counted as an actual Star Trek tale. There's a certain irony to be found in that movie series - the films that are the most like Star Trek episodes are all not that great, or even bad. Not that the first Cardcaptor Sakura movie is a bad film by any means. It isn't. But it's also just that, and the entire time I watched it I felt as if something was missing that made the anime special, and in its place we had an actual villain and a classical three acts story setup. A perfectly crafted film, but not... not quite what I wanted, maybe? In the same way Princess Tutu was great to watch, but not at all what I was looking for at the time. The other part is that timing. I watched all of Cardcaptor Sakura before the first movie, and even some parts of Clear Card before the second*. Going back to series as it was in between the three months time skip between the first and the second season (within the first arc!) also did not feel right. I think I might have enjoyed the film more had I watched it when I was supposed to. I've finished watching the Sakura Card arc at a frightening pace back then, I think I went from watching the finale of the Clow Card arc to finishing the entire series in the span of four or five days. Your aproach seems like the more sensible one. Also, uhm, if I take the movie as what it is - the finale to the series - then it's probably somewhere near my #1 spot of best series finales I've seen. Good to know that you didn't like it less (or a lot less?), at least, that would have been... strange to process. Never could shake the feeling that it you'd think the difference between them a lot less than I did after you enjoyed the first one so much though. Maybe that's part of the reason. Madoushi was an actual character and a villain (well, villain, was she really one? She just accidentially ended up being an antagonist to Sakura, and that without intent), Nothing was just a force of nature set loose, much like most of the other cards. In a way, Nothing is really like the Angel in Midnight Mass, a way to set the plot in motion, but nothing else. I mean... here I was, telling the forum how much I enjoy CCS because it's Sakura and Tomoyo "fighting" a tree and cleaning house, and in that way Nothing was... closer to that than Madoushi. At the end of the day, this is one of these "me" things I sometimes mention. There's nothing wrong with the first film, I'm pretty sure that's just me. Gonna take some time before trying Clear Card or will you attempt to get that over with? *If you think I overrated the second film, perhaps that there is the reason why. It was so much better next to the terrible sequel?

You're right, if we're talking about actual film snobs and not the film snobs on the internet, but even that has been changing in recent years. A bit, at least. I was by far and large thinking of online discussions like this one, where the opinion overwhelmingly (in my experience) is that Alien is better than Aliens, Terminator is better than Terminator 2, and the first bad Indiana Jones movie wasn't Crystal Skull but The Last Crusade because it was too comedic and not gritty enough as an adventure film. Yeah, don't look at me. Also, I guess that would be different for a place like the Bioware forums, if they still existed. Not sure though. Never put up my tent there. There's good company down there. Plenty of films I could comment on that would land me back there, I'm sure. Just bring up Fargo... or almost anything by and with Mr. Tarantino. Like, go ahead and ask me what my opinion on Pulp Fiction is. Heh.