Anime - coasting on emotion rollers

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

SU s2. Steven met Uncle Grandpa, learned how his parents met, and started making t-shirts.

[InsaneCommander]

Castlevania S3, episodes 4-6:
 

Spoiler

 

Isaac's merry band is hilarious. And he actually expects people will believe he is simply passing by.

Hector might as well pretend Lenore cares about him and do what the council wants. If he resists, he will be handed over to the torturer. If he commits suicide somehow, he will meet with them eventually in hell...

Trevor and Sypha's story once again is dragging, but Saint German has the coolest dreams, with other worlds, giant death robots and spaceships.

Alucard and his friends are having a pretty light training. Good luck when actually fighting vampires.

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

6 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

SU s2. Steven met Uncle Grandpa, learned how his parents met, and started making t-shirts.

gotta love those network-mandated crossover episodes

[Bartimaeus]

I had a sizable post written up for episodes 191 and 192, but Firefox decided to up and crash on me halfway through episode 192, and the forum software didn't feel like making a draft. I guess now I have to start CTRL+Cing everything even long before I'm going to submit it. So...summary is that episode 191 was probably the worst episode of the season (second worst at best I think out of what I've seen so far) and was janked in multiple different areas, which kind of sucks after 190 (and pretty much everything before it) was so good. Some truly weird animation, a lot of very awkward dialogue that was way too on the nose, and this whole forced conflict thing was painful when it was falling on Ami and Taiki's shoulders instead of what had actually been decently compelling on Usagi and Seiya's. Ami had a nice little speech about Usagi's best qualities which was fine, but I was also a little insulted by Ami being the one to save the group in the video game contest. Ami may be the nerd of the group, but to my knowledge she has absolutely no experience playing video games(?) - while literally everyone else does, substantially in Minako's case. Disappointing episode, but anyways, onto 192! I have to go back to the beginning of the episode to re-collect my thoughts here...and look at that, a much better episode!

Spoiler

Loved Artemis genuinely getting excited (and then sad) for Minako for the letter at the beginning. And then she has this little Artemis keychain in her drawer... She may occasionally abuse and beat the snot out of Artemis, but you can tell there's love there! Kind of.

It's not at all hypocritical that Yaten, a POP STAR who has gotten entangled with like a hundred different events like this, is criticizing Minako for attending this event when he's...literally attending this event too. Nope, not at all!

Tin Cat is a super weirdo, but if nothing else, I like her voice (big surprise - I seem to always like that sort of voice), and that helps forgive a lot, . Also, she's hitting on her fellow judge while literally at the judging table in front of everyone after having met him literally five seconds ago. Now THAT is bold. Also, so is tying up perpetually angry lady Karasuma.

Wow, the English dub really screwed up the audio balance in this singing part for her - she's so quiet and tinny-sounding! Wonder how that happened.

Usagi really looks like a proper mom leading Chibi-Chibi around. Also, just in case you weren't sure, Tin Cat likes to meow just so you know for sure that she's sort of a cat.

*staring at Chibi-Chibi* "Is this the scent Taiki was talking about?" ...And just like Taiki, I guess you're not going to investigate any further? ...Nope!

Minako's all grown up and has finally learned the meaning of responsibility. How...utterly terrible!

...Good for her, .

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

gotta love those network-mandated crossover episodes

The **** I do. Uncle Grandpa can ride his tiger into the sunset and never come back.

I watched 13 episodes of SU today....which is equivalent to a 2hr movie because they're so short. I liked where they went and it does storymode much better than Sailor Moon. The best moment of the series so far was Pearl's nightmare projection, which had me burst out laughing.

Greg had a pizza tongue. Lmao

[Bartimaeus]

that episode is one of my favorite S2 episodes, between all of the gems looking like an absolute trainwreck, Pearl having her wonderful """dream'"", Pearl being an absolute creeper staring straight into Steven's face while sitting literally like an inch away while he's sleeping (seriously, what the hell pearl), Lapis' waterfall horror face

 

[majestic]

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Ami had a nice little speech about Usagi's best qualities which was fine, but I was also a little insulted by Ami being the one to save the group in the video game contest. Ami may be the nerd of the group, but to my knowledge she has absolutely no experience playing video games(?) - while literally everyone else does, substantially in Minako's case.

Yes, Ami usually doesn't play video games. She even says she's never played a fighting game before, which makes this doubly worse. The writers clearly had no idea what they were writing about. Competitive fighting game playing is also really different from the casual fun you'd have in an arcade. Really, really different. While it of course depends on the game, it's often the two players just trying to hit each other with safe moves that can't be hard countered (mostly it is make a mistake and lose). If the game has combos that can be broken, then you won't see combos in high level play.

Of course, knowing that in '96 is something else entirely, and then... there's the excuse that Ami, having never played the Sailor V arcade game, won that first try all the way back in the first season, a story beat taken directly from the manga where the arcade game gives out Ami's transformation pen and their communicators and the Sailor V in the game is somtimes actually Minako and talks to the girls through the game before they meet because the Sailor V game was made to be Sailor Guardian training, so best not to talk about that.

Ami lacks the experience necessary to win, even if she was the most talented player ever. Makoto also played the arcade game, but little else, Rei I think has a console at home but is never really shown playing (Usagi plays once and ignores what she should be doing, like usual) and Minako might like to play, but win? Eh. 

Too bad that Firefox ate your first post, but watching Minako twice wasn't that bad, huh? Also really nice callback to how easy it is to get lost in a TV station (that was from waaaaay back when Mamoru's part time job was working at one). Loved the exchange between the girls on the rooftop. Even if the rest of the episode had been terrible, I would have liked it just for that.

The audio quality during the singing, hum, I have no idea how well (or even if) Cherami Leigh can sing, so maybe that happened in editing and is the result of making the best of it? I don't know.

By the way, you've passed the point of no return. This was the last monster of the week, and even actually the last time Sailor Moon said her piece. No more "in the name of the moon" from here on out.

[LadyCrimson]

*runs into the room*

"Lina Inverse and Xellos 4ever!!!!"

*runs out of the room*

[majestic]

10 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

*runs into the room*

"Lina Inverse and Xellos 4ever!!!!"

*runs out of the room*

There's no need to run. Stay a while and watch Sailor Moon with us, Bartimaeus is like 8 episodes from being done.

(Also, haven't read or seen Slayers )

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

that episode is one of my favorite S2 episodes, between all of the gems looking like an absolute trainwreck, Pearl having her wonderful """dream'"", Pearl being an absolute creeper staring straight into Steven's face while sitting literally like an inch away while he's sleeping (seriously, what the hell pearl), Lapis' waterfall horror face

 

Pearl going crazy is easily when she is the funniest character in the whole show.

She was also really mean to Greg in the flashbacks to a degree I wasn't expecting. It has been obvious that there was unrequited love towards Rose Quartz but since that's projected onto protecting Steven she has been nice to Greg in the present. I guess jealous Pearl is a lot different than overprotective mom Pearl.

I'm also not usually a stickler for art style in animation, but side profiles of Steven's face look hideous.

And if Steven can fuse with humans, will he end up fusing with Lars to make......Stars?

[Bartimaeus]

@ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

Spoiler

Although it's not always been obvious, she actually showed contempt and disgust for both specifically Greg as well as humans as a whole a number of different times throughout season 1. Remember that time she said all humans lead short and insignificant lives and thus Steven should not care about them...or when she said humans like to oversimplify complex problems because they were incapable of really understanding anything...or when Greg hugged her when he fixed her van and she was literally completely traumatized...or when she called Greg a waste of time when he couldn't figure out THEIR Wailing Stone problem...or that time she said there was no way Rose Quartz would ever leave Greg with anything important like the cannon thingy...or her general attitude of not giving a crap about anyone in Beach City even as the Crystal Gems would accidentally hurt them or destroy their stuff? Heck, even Steven picked up on this when he was worrying that he didn't have magical powers and imagined her saying "you're worthless and we want nothing to do with you" as a response. She's been a liiittle bit racist towards humans, lmao. And then there's Greg...

Throw in Space Race and clearly desiring to leave the planet (heck, even in that dreams episode, she literally asked RQ to leave with her to go travel the galaxy!), and it kind of makes you wonder why she decided to defend the Earth at all, huh? ...Oh, right - guess she wasn't kidding when she said she did everything "for her".

@majestic

Aha, I had a fragment of a memory of the whole "Ami is inexplicably good at video games" thing already happening (hence the question mark when I said she'd never played video games before), but I couldn't figure out from which episode it was from if it had actually happened. But there's a world of difference between being better than Usagi at something and joining an actual competition while having never played nor practiced before...it was just, yeah, it was bad. If you're trying out something entirely new that requires quick reflexes, then it doesn't matter if you have the quickest reflexes in the history of humanity - you're gonna get whooped by someone who already has the muscle memory.

Whatever, though - there have only been two poor episodes this entire season, which after SuperS is fantastic. All three other seasons that aren't SuperS also had either 1 or 2 poor episodes that didn't work too well, so that's right about in line. I guess I'm gonna see pretty soon here if these last story episodes truly are terrible or not...

Edited April 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

@Bartimaeus

I remember Pearl disliked humans, but it seemed to be more of a distant disdain than going out of her way to be mean. Like JealousPearl fused with Rose just to try to **** with Greg while OverbearingMommyPearl was more of trying to keep to herself and Steven.

[majestic]

6 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

*runs into the room*

"Lina Inverse and Xellos 4ever!!!!"

*runs out of the room*

Also, funny coincidence. Couldn't fall asleep last night so I started thinking about this thread and came up with the idea of maybe asking @LadyCrimson to join watching Sailor Moon, after all she sometimes watches anime and she'd be the first woman I know who watched it (while there's a marked difference between the taget demographic's age and LC, she's closer to being the actual target demographic than we are, right? ).

And lo, she shows up a handful of hours after the thought. Jung would say a thing or two about his concept of synchronicity here, which connects this even more to Sailor Moon. In a way. It's destiny, I tells ya all.

21 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Aha, I had a fragment of a memory of the whole "Ami is inexplicably good at video games" thing already happening (hence the question mark when I said she'd never played video games before), but I couldn't figure out from which episode it was from if it had actually happened.

That one's easy, it is in episode 8 where Ami shows up.

22 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

If you're trying out something entirely new that requires quick reflexes, then it doesn't matter if you have the quickest reflexes in the history of humanity - you're gonna get whooped by someone who already has the muscle memory.

Never mind knowing the game mechanics.

25 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Whatever, though - there have only been two poor episodes this entire season, which after SuperS is fantastic. All three other seasons that aren't SuperS also had either 1 or 2 poor episodes that didn't work too well, so that's right about in line. I guess I'm gonna see pretty soon here if these last story episodes truly are terrible or not...

I watched a bit more NGE. I'm halfway done.
 

Spoiler

 

Not sure yet what Shinji's going to do that made him so disliked. I mean, aside from trying to sleep kiss Asuka, which hey... creep. Seriously. I also don't like Asuka. I think I don't like any of the characters except Misato and maybe Rei.

Not very surprisingly, Asuka's German is kind of bad for someone supposedly from Germany, and that's factoring in the low standards I have for people from Germany (sorry any Germans that might read this, especially Lexx, not sure where you're from... jest made in good fun, unless you're from around Dresden ). Ahem.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

That one's easy, it is in episode 8 where Ami shows up.

I really should've figured that out.

Well...Asuka was my favorite character, followed pretty shortly by Rei - if it hadn't been for those two, I don't think I could've finished the show, Shinji made me too mad. As for Asuka's German...heh, that's kind of funny. Writers should really stop trying to write characters that are supposed to be native speakers of a language and culture they don't know without expert advice, .

Spoiler

Shinji is...a few specific things, but also it's his entire body of work as being ridiculously over-introspective, passive, and whiny. I found him to simply be onerous and unpleasant almost all of the time, so if you don't find him that way already, then you might not ever?

 

[Bartimaeus]

Episode 193:

Spoiler

Goodbye Nurse Minako, hello Maid Minako! Karasuma still pining over Aluminum Siren...Tin Cat experiencing what it's like to be the villain after all that high and mighty talk of their predecessor being incompetent - funny how each new villain does that, and then so quickly faces the same consequences. Y'all could do with a little more empathy. Oh hey, Karasuma called Aluminum Siren her best friend. Well, that's a lot better than a cousin anyways.

lmao, Usagi telling Seiya to put on the maid uniform. Seems...almost a little meta? Except wait, Usagi knows Seiya is sort of a girl, so that's...not exactly meta. Hm...I don't know!

You know, all sorts of problems in this show would've been sorted out if characters could just talk to each other. You think Chibi-Chibi has some kind of connection to your princess? So...talk to Usagi for a moment and ask if you could sit down with Chibi-Chibi and figure out what's up - it's not like Usagi doesn't know there's something strange about Chibi-Chibi. These people need a very serious talk from Garnet on communication, methinks.

Wow, Tin Cat is pretty metal. Just suck the entire planet into a black hole just to steal credit for the Star Seed - that's right up there with the worst of the villains in this show.

CHIBI-CHIBI...NO TOUCH! lmao, Chibi-Chibi saved Usagi, but not Karasuma. Brutal.

Oh man, the preview for this next episode looks amazing. School girl Tin Cat, Minako going nuts with self-defense stuff, Sailor Guardian bodyguards...this looks to have it all.

Episode 194:

Spoiler

Okay, well, the preview for this episode inside of this actual episode doesn't look nearly as fun. Why you always gotta be such a downer, Haruka? Like seriously, you just heard this entire story about how Galaxia is eating up the entire galaxy, and she's LITERALLY HERE ON EARTH RIGHT NOW ATTEMPTING TO TAKE USAGI'S, and you're gonna be all like "lmao, NOT OUR PROBLEM!"? Yeah, you're real good at seeing the bigger picture, . Though I like that Haruka and Michiru are actually at least a little serious about protecting Usagi, since most of the time they just bugger off and disappear - now they're creeping around her house at night.

Why does Tuxedo Mask even appear in the intro for this season? He's been dead or whatever literally the entire season outside of the short Nehellenia arc! That happened in like episode 7 and there's been literally exactly nothing about it since...also, he was horribly victimized during that arc anyways, too! I can't remember if he ever even showed up as Tuxedo Mask even once...

SAILOR WARS? Hmm... "I beg of you, help us, Sailor Moon!" You've been observing Sailor Moon literally this entire season - you should know by now that she would've tried to help you even if you hadn't asked!

Tin Cat has had the most adorably pathetic explanations and pleas whenever she's talking to Galaxia since the moment she was revealed. She's like the complete opposite of her persona compared to when she talks to literally anybody else. also lmao at her being the electrician up on the telephone pole

Poor Rei, . And...uh, okay, Minako: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/qk35u9pcxgbmgpb/XAUCCS7MEt.mp4 And Minako, you said the M word. Why would you say the M word? ...There was a lot less school shenanigans in this episode than I was expecting based on that first preview.

Seiya somehow got a rose to pierce what looks like solid concrete for his Tuxedo Masko switcheroo. And whoa, what the heck did Usagi do to Tin Cat? Looks like she lost one of her bracelets...but I'm not sure if destroying the other would've killed her like Galaxia did to Nezu or if it would've reverted her to true Sailor form.

Well, that was a very sad ending. Also interesting, because it plays directly on the fact that Usagi is always dependent upon others to get stuff done or at least survive. Hey Usagi, let me get you on a phone call with Steven Universe so he can tell you all about how it's actually not a bad thing to depend on others for strength.

Okay, episode 194 done.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I really should've figured that out.

You need to put in some more effort if you want to become a Sugarian level Sailor Moon omega nerd there!

Heh. Just kidding.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Well...Asuka was my favorite character, followed pretty shortly by Rei - if it hadn't been for those two, I don't think I could've finished the show, Shinji made me too mad. As for Asuka's German...heh, that's kind of funny. Writers should really stop trying to write characters that are supposed to be native speakers of a language and culture they don't know without expert advice, .

It's not like she says a lot in German, but the EVA startup sequence in German was hilarious. It's painfully obvious that her voice actor is just a regular Japanese person who was given a few German words to say, with some pointers on how to try and pronounce them. It wasn't half bad, by the way. She did a good job saying "LCL" even, but it's all rather stilted in the way people sound when they have no actual knowledge of the language.

Like the scenes where RLM makes fun of Russian Terminator in one of the Best of the Worst episodes. That's what friends ARE for! It made her switching the EVA to Japanese mode for Shinji's sake hilarious.

One of the worst examples was in X-Files when the Cigarette Smoking Man calls someone in German and says - or at least tries to say - "Kennen Sie die MJ-Akten?" which literally translated means "Do you know the MJ files" but is better translated as "Are you familiar with the MJ files?" in the context. I had to go over that scene more than ten times until I figured out what he was trying to say. Gee. There's no way the (supposedly) German guy on the other end of the phone call had any idea what he said.
 

Spoiler

 

Culturally Asuka isn't so bad. She'd probably not be so loud in social situations given the Japanese context, but the other characters probably wouldn't be either. They're practically screaming at each other all the time, even at home. She seems to be much more direct (which I found to be a common observation of people from other cultures about Germans*) than the Japanese people (although from what the wiki just told me, her mother was Japanese), and she properly complains about everything that would be weird for a foreigner, like sleeping on futons or having really small rooms with barely any privacy.

I don't actively dislike Asuka or Shinji, but I also don't really like them. Sometimes it feels like Asuka is just there to be this polar opposite of Shinji, and her constant berating him about manning up already is really grating - that's actually the primary reason why I don't particularily like her. Could be that gets better, but I don't see how, unless Shinji changes a lot - and from what I gathered he's not going to. Her introduction was fun enough, and she properly slapped Toji for his silly stunt. 

Spoiler

Rei is way too close for comfort. Her manner of speaking, her body language, being apart from everyone, you know... too real.

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Shinji is...a few specific things, but also it's his entire body of work as being ridiculously over-introspective, passive, and whiny. I found him to simply be onerous and unpleasant almost all of the time, so if you don't find him that way already, then you might not ever?

He is ridiculously over-introspective, passive and whiny. Apparently that gets other people killed later. It's just not enough for me to actively dislike or even hate him. He's not likeable like most protagonists, but that's fine with me. For now, at least. Maybe I might not ever come to dislike or hate him.

*Germans, not Austrians, by the way. As Christoph Waltz once said to Conan O'Brien, Austrians are 1. very polite and 2. don't mean it.

 

 

 

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

Okay, well, the preview for this episode inside of this actual episode doesn't look nearly as fun.

 

 

Spoiler

 

It both is and isn't, right? The school hijinks that are there are fun enough, of course, but there's not a lot of them as you saw. But Minako being on point with almost every time she pointed to someone being Tin Nyanko in disguise was pretty funny. If anyone ever had any doubt about Rei and Usagi, this should finally have sealed it. Her running across half of Tokyo like that (magical whistle, I guess?).

That they could solve all their issues by simply sitting down and talking to each other has been Usagi's point for the entire arc, but everyone who is not Seiya and the Inners just keep ignoring her because they know better. And now that Kakyuu is here, they can ignore Seiya, Usagi and her.

 

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

I can't remember if he ever even showed up as Tuxedo Mask even once...

 

 

Spoiler

He did, once, in the second episode, but immediately became fatigued and left.

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Spoiler

Well, that was a very sad ending. Also interesting, because it plays directly on the fact that Usagi is always dependent upon others to get stuff done or at least survive. Hey Usagi, let me get you on a phone call with Steven Universe so he can tell you all about how it's actually not a bad thing to depend on others for strength.

 

 

Spoiler

 

She promised herself to deal with Mamoru being absent without crying in the first regular Sailor Stars episode, and failed a little at the airport. She has not told the girls because she didn't want them to worry on her behalf, being happy as they were. Outside of Seiya, she's the only one who knows that working together would be better than this, and she tried her hardest, but everyone else just keeps ignoring her.

Mini-Spoilers ahead:

Spoiler

I don't really remember how much of the Galaxia backstory is in this episode already, but the folly of not being able to ask for help or trying to do everything on your own, to be strong enough alone is something that runs through the entire finale. Taiki and Yaten think they don't need to help, Haruka and the Outer Senshi think they don't need help. Usagi tries to bear the absence of Mamoru on her own and relies on Seiya for the sort of encouragement and frienship that she... could and should have gotten from her friends (and as Rei was already bothered by, seems to be stringing Seiya along).

Galaxia thought she could deal with everything on her own too.

I've thought about this a lot since I rewatched the finale and wrote the second "essay" style post, and I still don't know if this is an actually intended statement on the ideas of toxic masculinity that just happens to use women (and a transgenderish group) to transport the point or if it just seems applicable - because I think it is. I mean, Usagi, Seiya and the Inner Guardians aside.

SU-ish spoilerish question for @Bartimaeus so no looking KP:

Spoiler

I'm really curious if you'll see the same parallels to the Steven Universe finale that I do - and some other points in Steven Universe.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

It's not like she says a lot in German, but the EVA startup sequence in German was hilarious. It's painfully obvious that her voice actor is just a regular Japanese person who was given a few German words to say, with some pointers on how to try and pronounce them. It wasn't half bad, by the way. She did a good job saying "LCL" even, but it's all rather stilted in the way people sound when they have no actual knowledge of the language.

Okay, so I watched the entire show all in one sitting (like the only time that's ever happened in my entire life), and I watched the original English dub (i.e. not the new Netflix English dub). It's possible that some of this got lost in translation because of dub differences...but it's also possible that I just don't remember because all of what I remember of Evangelion is one big blurry blob - point is, I only have the vaguest memory of what you're talking about, so I need to go back and check.

I just opened up the Asuka debut episode, opened up to like halfway in the episode, and was greeted with this screen.

Spoiler

 

It was paused, so I was like, wow, body proportions are a lot more realistic than I remember! Hm, cool. Unpause...

Spoiler

Oh. I've been bamboozled! Well, if anything, the first one was a little *too* much for anime, but still...

Okay, here it is. Heh, funnier than I was able to remember: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/n1eomrwo4gbnm2h/zJgg0EBtr2.mp4 (accidentally cut off half a second there from where I wanted to, but good enough)

This lady have better or worse German than the Japanese lady?

Edited April 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

Based only on clips on YouTube, I'm not sure I could get all that into Sailor Moon at this point.  Especially the highschool (?) setting.

With Slayers, I kept watching the first season mainly because Lina was so hilariously violent tempered/mercenary, and Gourry so hilariously stupid (but loyal!) - and the fights were frequent and fun - but I didn't get super into it until 2nd season and Xellos involvement. 2nd season was best season.

Edited April 23, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

11 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Based only on clips on YouTube, I'm not sure I could get all that into Sailor Moon at this point.  Especially the highschool (?) setting.

With Slayers, I kept watching the first season mainly because Lina was so hilariously violent tempered/mercenary, and Gourry so hilariously stupid (but loyal!) - and the fights were frequent and fun - but I didn't get super into it until 2nd season and Xellos involvement. 2nd season was best season.

You can always watch JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. 

[Bartimaeus]

10 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Based only on clips on YouTube, I'm not sure I could get all that into Sailor Moon at this point.  Especially the highschool (?) setting.

With Slayers, I kept watching the first season mainly because Lina was so hilariously violent tempered/mercenary, and Gourry so hilariously stupid (but loyal!) - and the fights were frequent and fun - but I didn't get super into it until 2nd season and Xellos involvement. 2nd season was best season.

If someone had described Sailor Moon to me, there's not a chance in hell I would've ever been interested. On the other hand, one little incredibly stupid 30 second clip on YouTube and I was like "okay, now we're getting somewhere". So based on my experience, if the YouTube clips don't appeal to you on at least some level, then it may indeed not be for you, .

[majestic]

31 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

This lady have better or worse German than the Japanese lady?

The Japanese lady has better pronunciation, but they both really sound like they're just reading words from a paper. That last word... should be "nun" (now, in this instance) I guess, which has a much longer vowel than what she's saying.

25 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Based only on clips on YouTube, I'm not sure I could get all that into Sailor Moon at this point.  Especially the highschool (?) setting.

With Slayers, I kept watching the first season mainly because Lina was so hilariously violent tempered/mercenary, and Gourry so hilariously stupid (but loyal!) - and the fights were frequent and fun - but I didn't get super into it until 2nd season and Xellos involvement. 2nd season was best season.

You need to be careful if you watched English clips, there's the, uhm, old dub that's really... something else, and the new dub that's actually good.

It's middle school - Usagi's 14 in the beginning. School is a part of it, but not all. It's beyond silly, utterly hilarious, a complete meme, sometimes thoughtful, sometimes sad... and pretty good! Yes. Except for the fourth season. Don't bother with that. *cough*

Edited April 23, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

8 minutes ago, majestic said:

You need to be careful if you watched English clips, there's the, uhm, old dub that's really... something else, and the new dub that's actually good.

Sir, you seem to be applying implying that the original dub is *not* "actually good". Let me construct my reply in a series of YouTube reaction clips:

Oh dang it, this last one is from SU season 4 - even though it doesn't really have any spoilers, KP might not appreciate seeing it, so here it is spoilered:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

Sir, you seem to be applying that the original dub is *not* "actually good". Let me construct my reply in a series of YouTube reaction clips:

We're trying to sell the anime to someone new, not immediately start with the dub that made it an even bigger meme than it already was to begin with.

 

[Bartimaeus]

But that's literally how I was sold on it! You're not American or Canadian, you just couldn't ever understand how perfectly ingenious the original dub is, . ...Am I going to watch the entire thing in the the original English dub, you ask? Well...maybe someday, but I'm very busy right now, so please stop asking!!

19 minutes ago, majestic said:

The Japanese lady has better pronunciation, but they both really sound like they're just reading words from a paper. That last word... should be "nun" (now, in this instance) I guess, which has a much longer vowel than what she's saying.

Glad I don't know German and can't tell then! Also, what did you think of Asuka's VA in general in that clip? I remember the first time I heard her, and I was like "whoa, she sounds SUPER strange for what's supposed to be a teen girl, and I'm not sure that I like it or will be able to get used to it"...and then a few episodes later I couldn't imagine her sounding anything EXCEPT like this VA. Don't know how that happened, and wondering if she sounds very strange to you (or KP) as well.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Bartimaeus