Anime and Manga - < To Be Continued I \ I /

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

15 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

Diamond is unbreakable 8-15

 

Koichi is asked out by a girl and the result is

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Misery, the anime version. He managed to get out of trouble by himself, but she is still obsessed with him...

 

The episode with Standofood was interesting. It makes sense some Stando users are neither heroes nor villains. The new Stando baby is another example. I imagine her parents are gone, with all those severed hands we’ve seem so far.

 

The Stando manga user doesn’t seem to be exactly a villain either. I imagine he will kind of join the team, just like Yukako and the other two (Stando lock and Stando puppet), as the new opening implies.

 

 

So Joseph went to Tokyo to have an affair and didn’t visit his grandson? He said he didn’t know Jotaru in 1987.

 

Could Joseph be pretending to be frail? He shouldn’t be that bad only 11 years after Stardust Crusaders. Although he did age faster than his mother, apparently, or at least faster than some Hamon users.

 

 

I think Joesph is about 80 in Diamond is Unbreakable, and probably went senile from screaming OH MY GOD at all the standos. I probably would have too.

For the most part enemy stand users in Diamond is Unbreakable don't get killed retired and stick around as supporting characters. It's a break from the other JoJo parts that makes the series. Which is hard to believe given the opening salvo, but it's true.

Edited December 6, 2021 by KP Cross Split Attack

[majestic]

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.

Spoiler

Sae and Nanaka have a little fight over feelings, beacuse Sae doesn't really notice that Nanaka is unhappy with hers. Nanaka has a crush on Takeo's supremely gay friend Ayanojyo (who is voiced by none other than DIO), and she knows that he's interested in Takeo and not in her. Akane and a reporter that's been a side character since episode two find out what the aliens have come to Earth for with a divination spell (unsurpsingly it is to analyze magic and deal with any potential threat it poses). Sae has been trying to work up the courage to confess her crush to Takeo, who does share her feelings, but Sae thinks that Takeo is more into Manga Club lady's giant boobies.

Sae has good reason to suspect that, I mean, Takeo stares all the time and keeps getting nosebleeds from looking at them (insert facepalm here). Sae and Nanaka almost cast a spell to see what Ayanojyo and Takeo feel, but stop before following through.

Nanaka opts to confess to him anyway, then bond over being the rejects that aren't eve noticed by the people they're in love with, while Takeo tries in vain to save Sae from being abducted by the aliens after her magical pet teddy bear Jeff attracts the attention of a tentacle android and a giant flying eye machine.

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.

21 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I don't remember them doing it during any important character moments, at least, but I guess I could've just not noticed.

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.

21 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, I wasn't ever quite sure what to make of the art style, but I certainly like it many times better than...say, Nanoha, .

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?

Edited December 5, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Stardust Crusaders 32 - 33 Alessi's Set

Alessi is probably the biggest creep in Stardust Crusaders, maybe in all of JoJo, both of which are saying a lot.

[Gorth]

Made my way through those who hunt elves... it was fun, but as mentioned previously, not binge worthy and I don't think I'm going to bother with the second season. Found something else instead, which looked interesting. A lot more serious than ripping the clothes off elf girls for sure... a show called 'Death Parade'.

Wikiplot: "Whenever someone dies, they are sent to one of many mysterious bars run by bartenders serving as arbiters inside a tower in the afterlife. There, they must compete in Death Games with their souls on the line, the results of which reveal what secrets led them to their situation and what their fate will be afterwards, with the arbiters judging if their souls will either be sent for reincarnation or banished into the void. The series follows Decim, the lone bartender of the bar where people who died at the same time are sent to, known as the Quindecim bar, and his assistant. "

 

 

[Sarex]

Death Parade is good. It has an interesting world if nothing else. While I do not remember much of it, I know I finished it, so that's a good sign.

[Amentep]

New thread split from old.

Old thread:

Supēsu Kobura aka Space Cobra aka Space Adventure Cobra, episode 4: "Dassō!! Shido Keimusho" aka "Escape!! Sid Prison"

Cobra and Jane Royal track one of Jane's sisters, Catherine, to the world she's a teacher on, only to find she's been arrested and taken to the floating prison, Sid.

Spoiler

It comes as no surprise the warden of Sid, Director Schulz, is actually a puppet of the Pirate's Guild.  But rather than turn Catherine over to them as the standing orders dictate, Schulz has double crossed them and is keeping Catherine at the lowest part of the prison, in an air bubble within a giant tank of water, a theoretically unreachable jail.  Jane hits on the idea of how to get in the prison by getting Cobra arrested as a thief.  For his part, Cobra identifies himself as James Bond, 007.  Once in the prison, Cobra must figure out how to escape, defeat two gynoid punishers and find Catherine.  Luckily, Schulz' attention has been divided as Crystal Bowie has shown up and is unimpressed Schulz has Catherine and hasn't told the Guild leadership about it.  Cobra uses gadgets, like a rebreather disguised as his cigar or a pic concealed in his arm, indicating he didn't pick the name of 007 out of a hat.  He gets away with Catherine; Shulz gets one upped by Bowie, who also has now captured Jane Royal.

We're very much in the middle of the story arc, and while we get the typical Cobra resolution (he defeats/vexes/escapes the villain in front of him while achieving his goal), the overarching story continues.

Is it just me, or...

Spoiler

...does it appear that Cobra is also a cyborg of some kind, like Bowie?  While there is little more in the series so far about him other than he has the Psychogun, and how it works in a broad sense, this episode seems to indicate that he has greater than human strength and agility.  Is it possible that Cobra's secret isn't that he has the Psychogun, but that his entire body is a fabrication driven,  as the Psychogun is, by his will?

 

[majestic]

@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.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

18 minutes ago, majestic said:

@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.

 

 

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

@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.

 

Lol, I knew I should have looked it up.

[majestic]

3 hours ago, Amentep said:

Lol, I knew I should have looked it up.

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*

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Stardust Crusaders 34-37 BarbieD'Arby the Gambler and Hol Horse + Boingo's adventure.

[majestic]

Finsihed the Mahoutsukai Tai! OVA.

Spoiler

Erm. Sae essentially beats the Bell by turning it into a giant tree. Alien trees in Tokyo, yes, that... reminds me of something. Not sure what. Some stupid ecchi moments at inappropriate times.

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?

Edited December 7, 2021 by majestic

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, KP Cross Split Attack said:

Stardust Crusaders 34-37 BarbieD'Arby the Gambler and Hol Horse + Boingo's adventure.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Since this thread is now manga as well, I'm going to start re-reading 20th Century Boys. Here's hoping I don't go (even more) insane.

25 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

 

Oingo Boingo Brothers are easily in the top tier of hilarious minor antagonists. Especially considering 

JoJo and the JoBros have no idea they even exist lmao

[InsaneCommander]

44 minutes ago, KP Cross Split Attack said:

Oingo Boingo Brothers are easily in the top tier of hilarious minor antagonists. Especially considering 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

JoJo and the JoBros have no idea they even exist lmao

 

 

Spoiler

Of all the Stando users that were defeated but still lived, these were probably the least interested in ever harming anyone again. Specially after Iggy attacked Boingo.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

24 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Of all the Stando users that were defeated but still lived, these were probably the least interested in ever harming anyone again. Specially after Iggy attacked Boingo.

Jotaro laughing is scarier than any stand. 

I'm not sure if that applies to Oingo, but Boingo pretty much wants to call it quits after Hol Horse gets his ass beat.

[Amentep]

1 hour ago, KP Cross Split Attack said:

Since this thread is now manga as well, I'm going to start re-reading 20th Century Boys. Here's hoping I don't go (even more) insane.

Since we have manga now in the thread, I'll mention I recently finished Kazuo Umezu's DRIFTING CLASSROOM. 50% horror story, 50% Lord of the Flies survival story. Pretty good early 70s storytelling.

[majestic]

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.

[Bartimaeus]

Cardcaptor Sakura, The End of Sakura, aka Leave It To Kero: The Movie!

Yeah, alright.

O.K., with that out of the way, let's talk overall rating.

Spoiler

Fundamentally, what I loved most about this show in the first season was the dynamic between Sakura and Tomoyo. Different parts unrequited/unrealized love, sisterly, and best friends, and making the most of it in between the whole card business in only the way that pre-teen schoolchildren could. Adding Xiaolang and Meiling to that mix also worked perfectly and didn't really disrupt that dynamic. Throw in...

1. The show having some quite high quality ways of setting up and capturing the cards in question and making it really feel like it was well-integrated into the show's universe and its characters as opposed to just a little bit of random nonsense that would be immediately dealt with like in other shows (i.e. Sailor Moon).

2. All the other characters that were a part of the regular supporting or main cast that helped really make it feel like Sakura really was a part of an actual family and had other school-friends and interests, plus who had their own stuff going on so they felt like an actual regular part of the show instead of simply pawns or props for fulfilling some goal by the show.

3. Piles of really sweet, cute, and/or funny interactions on the parts of everyone, even some surprise additions like Mirror.

4. The show staying very grounded and never really going out of its own depth or limitations, or making stuff seem more important than it really was. This is a show that is fundamentally about Sakura and the people she knows - not the rest of the world. There are precious few moments where there is not ever true, and they're...all still pretty small and well-justified, I'm pretty sure? Having the events that occur stay focused on the characters that we actually know is a strength.

5. Style matching tone matching themes matching characters...plus good art style and great animation, of course. Everything works in unison, just as a perfect show should.

With all that said (plus plenty more I left unsaid that I'm sure I could keep expounding on if I really wanted to), the focus of the second arc...changed some of these things. We got new characters who didn't really ever feel like they were for anything but a very specific narrative-driven purpose (e.g. Ruby Moon), we got a main plot that was...still Sakura-driven technically but didn't really feel like it most of the time because it felt more driven by her antagonist than herself. We also had the burden of some things feeling...pretty forced, including the main plot itself (which, with Eriol driving it, also simply wasn't as interesting or satisfying as it just being the cards she needed to collect in the first season IMO) but also characters just needing to communicate with each other about some important things that they could've easily done in just about any episode or any day of the week but which couldn't happen because the show's narrative simply wouldn't have worked if it had allowed them to. In the first season, Toya and Yukito are at Sakura's house and able to talk privately...a number of times - are we really supposed to believe that they couldn't ever find any time to talk for as long as that whole shtick went on? The show is knowing and makes light of it, of course, which helps some but the base issue is still there. There was less time for side characters (heck, we lost Meiling entirely!), and instead another main focus went towards trying to develop Sakura and Xiaolang's relationship, which...is perfectly fine and makes sense, but it wasn't all that I loved so dearly about the first season. Which is to say, the majority of what the show decided to do for its second arc was perfectly valid and good...it just got a bit farther away from appealing to me personally.

So...with all that said, I think I do have to downgrade the show as a whole to a 9/10. 9.5/10 is a rating I only given out when something is almost perfect AND deeply personally appealed to me on just about every level, and while the first arc was just that, the second arc was a bit less so. If I had to break it up...

Clow Card arc: 9.5/10
Sakura Card arc: 8/10
Both movies: Individually, they're both 8.5 or maybe 9/10 - I couldn't really decide on either of them.

And now, some favorite episodes. I'll list...let's just do top ten, that should be easy. Later edit as I'm actually going through them: this is not easy, there are too many that I thought were top ten episodes, and I've had to cross some out because I realized they weren't actually top ten.

Episode 3, Sakura's Heart-Racing First Date. This was the real first "oh wow, Tomoyo may actually be lovably insane" episode, plus it clued us into how important Yukito really was to Sakura.

Episode 10, Sakura and the Sports Day of Flowers. I'll never forget that visual of Flower forcing Sakura to dance with her against her will while Tomoyo just watched and talked to Kero over the radio. There were already some "these cards are actually awesome" moments before this (e.g. Wood growing in Sakura's house), but all of that was just too much.

I want to include 11 (Sakura, Tomoyo, and a Mansion) here, but I'm only 11 episodes in and I would already have 3, so I'm not going to...but I'm still making a note of it. Actually, I kind of wanted to do the same for 5 (Sakura, Panda, and a Cute Pet Shop) and 12 (Sakura's Never-Ending Day) as well, but they're just two great episodes, and it's okay for them not to be top ten favorites, .

Episode 14, Sakura, Toya, and Cindarella. Yeah, no explanation really needed - Toya's first big moment in the show (and a heck of one at that) and about the time you realized that Sakura's family is not Usagi's family and actually serve a purpose in the show...plus this episode was great and hilarious.

Episode 16, Sakura and the Rainbow of Memories. Just in case you needed further confirmation after the previous episode...yep.

Episode 17, Sakura's Scary Test of Courage. This was the summer fun episode with the cave that disappeared the people who entered it, including Tomoyo. Loved the setting, loved the side-characters getting a lot of time, loved the more intense atmosphere of that cave...just a fantastic episode. I think this was the first episode where I said the show peaked and wouldn't get any better, but I could easily be wrong, since I did say it a handful of times throughout the show, .

Episode 19, Sakura and the Summer Holiday Homework...is probably not one of my top ten favorite episodes, but it deserves mention for being great and developing Sakura's powers in a way beyond "YOU GOT NEW POWERS", plus it was the episode that introduced Meiling.

Episode 21, Sakura's Long Marathon Race. This was the episode where Meiling, after a rocky first episode, was so utterly pathetic in just the perfect way that it made her totally sympathetic and likeable, and there...just was a lot of great stuff in this episode.

Uh...crap, how many have I listed? Six already? Shoot, I might need to cross out a few more than I already have...okay, yep, I crossed out a couple, we're back down to 4. Yes, I can do that.

Episode 22, Sakura and Her Kind Father. A lot of similarities to episode 16 but also had some major differences that didn't make it feel like it was in any way a repeat, plus it concerned entirely characters we already know (as opposed to someone that was just introduced), just really great all around. Sakura, the show as well as the character, are so...chipper and upbeat in their entirety that even when an episode like this comes around, it doesn't in any way feel maudlin, because it moves on and solves the problem and gets to happier times, just like real people with all of Sakura's circumstance would as well.

Episode 25, Sakura and One More Sakura. I unabashedly adore Mirror and the way she was used in this show, and this episode was no exception - doppelgangers will always be great in my book, but having one as cute, kind, and mischievous as Mirror is...*chef's kiss*.

Okay, that was season 1...we're officially at 5. Season 2...

Episode 2, Sakura and Tomoyo's Lost Voice. Obviously.

Episode 4, Sakura's Dizzy Fever Day. This was a really good episode for a number of reasons, but the way Mirror was used and then interacted with Toya was kind of a...show-altering moment for me, because the great writing of all the little moments of the first arc just kind of compounded upon themselves and allowed us to reach this little perfect moment between those two. I don't think you could really ask for more here in how this was handled.

Episode 5, Sakura and the Sakura from the Dream. I loved this one so much I watched it twice, back to back. So much awesome stuff in this episode, all culminating in an emotional montage of everything that had happened up to this point.

Episode 7, Sakura and the Blacked Out School Arts Festival. Meiling as the evil queen, Sakura as the dashing prince, Xiaolang as the beautiful princess...season 2 was so good.

Episode 8, Sakura and Farewell to Meiling. Obviously.

What're we at now? 8, not including all the ones I crossed out? That seems about right.

Episode 60, Sakura and the Precious Friend. Yep.

Episode 66, The Person Sakura Likes the Most. Yep.

Uh, wow. Well, that's telling, isn't it? I know I gave season 3 an 8/10 earlier, but I did not consciously realize until just now while I was looking through them how much less season 3 appealed to me compared to season 1 and 2. There were still great episodes in season 3, of course - episodes that would be the highlights of most other shows, episodes that I talked about aplenty and with extremely favorable disposition as I watched them! - but...the intangibles just changed a lot for me in season 3, and the show no longer really felt like crack cocaine injected straight into my bloodstream as season 1 and 2 did. Especially when you realize that these two episodes are BIG HUGE character moment episodes, critical to and for our characters - season 1 and 2 got me in absolute love with the show a ton on episodes that weren't that, that were simply collections of little moments and broader themes or situations that were great in a variety of different but smaller ways. Huh. Guess that's why the second arc got a 8/10 and the first arc got a 9.5/10 - turns out, there was a reason for that.

Linking previous thread because the first post didn't:

 

Edited December 7, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

There were still great episodes in season 3, of course - episodes that would be the highlights of most other shows, episodes that I talked about aplenty and with extremely favorable disposition as I watched them! - but...

 

Spoiler

I'll just pick this out for the time being, because I have to agree. As much as I loved the highlights of the final arc - and they were pivotal, almost picture perfect moments for our characters here, the rest of it is so... mundane? Is mundane the right word to use here? The Sakura Card arc just never felt as magical or perfect as the first one. Mundane is probably not right, because that was what th first arc was. Almost normal, except for that bit of magic happening. The second arc was much more a regular magical girl show. Eh.

Theoretical question. Imagine a world where Sakura Card arc was its own show, and you'd judge that separately, would it still get an 8 out of 10? How much of the rating downgrade is the contrast? Did it get an upgrade for being part of Cardcaptor Sakura?

No way I could make a top ten episode list when I look at yours, even the extended one, I want to keep them all and add some others. Like the episode in the museum where Sakura has to combine her cards for the first time. Maybe not because it was one of the greatest overall, but for the simple fact that I was dumbstruck by the show suddenly elevating its own concept above and beyond anything I expected or imagined it could do.

I also fully agree on Sakura and Her Kind Father. That's just the episode that sold me on Sakura's VA. I liked her before, but that episode, at the end, she just killed it. Strange to see the episode included, because at the time your reaction to it didn't make it seem like it would end up in a top ten list. Not even as a crossed out contender.

Lastly I think I'm far too able to excuse downsides for highs as high as those of the Sakura Card arc. I've said that before, whether it is a show, a book, or music even, even one moment of pure joy is often more than enough to make me enjoy it. That's decidedly not the case for Magic User's Club where that happening just depressed me, and it's certainly not true for Komi Can't Communicate where everything else is either forgettable or bad and the one moment of radiant joy happened right at the start and never came back.

That's part of the reason I often hesistate to fully recommend anything to anyone. Unless it's Magic User's Club, which is really a recommendation for fans of American Pie.

Not a spoiler:

Spoiler

Also quite the reason why I'm anxious about your alter ego maybe trying K-On!. Hmmm.

 

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.

Spoiler

Turns out the one thing I thought would be the worst part turned out to be the most fun and the most problematic at the same time: Learning the written language and kanji. The course has been adding more and more of them, which makes sense, it gives one time to get used to them, you only learn a reading at a time instead of getting punched in the face with everything at once. There's one distinct problem though, and that's what makes learning them easier for me than for others, I guess: Patterns.

I can pick the correct answers in the app for the questions they have without reading, and I really just do that. Which of these three is the correct answer? Voice sample is still talking, *press*, done. There's only one pattern that's right, after all. The more kanji there are, the worse it becomes. This 私 is the neutral, formal "I" (watashi). I see that, do you really think my mind goes "watashi"?

Numbers exemplify the worst of it, really. Look at this:

一万二千三百十四

That's 12314. Or... ichimannisensanbyakujuuyon. Yeah. It's still a bunch shorter than the English equivalent though. Japanese is also more regular when counting than English is, which is nice, but only until you realize that every number has two different readings, and you need to keep in mind when to use which one. This is 7: 七. When you run into this kanji as a number, it's nana. Fine, right? This is time: 時 (the left part is the kanji for day 日, the right supposedly shadows cast by a sun clock). 七時 then is? Yes, seven o'clock. 時, when used for the time of day, is ji, by the way. So what does that read out then? Yes, right! Shichiji. To make matters worse, when you want to indicate that something is happening at a certain time in your sentence, you generally use the particle ni に. Shichijini then means whatever you're talking about will happen at 7 (ni does a lot of other things too, like being the preferred reading of the number 2, for instance...).

So, I see 七時に somewhere, I know that this sentence is saying something is going to happen at seven, but I can simply pattern match that. I know that without having a language in my mind, just a concept. Hence, reading these out loud is a "bit" of a mess. It feels like a lot harder than it should be at this point*.

Fun example sentences:

私は七時に朝ご飯を食べます。(Watashi wa shichiji ni asa gohan wo tabemasu.) - wo is, uhm, historically a sound in japanese that went away. It's pronounced "o" these days, but in this context is still written with the kana for wo, を. を only denotes an object marker, for everything else お is used).

This means I'm eating breakfast at 7, or I will eat breakfast at 7, depending on the context (present and past tense are the same in Japanese).

Adding 時々 (tokidoki, sometimes - not to be confused with dokidoki, and yes indeed, that's the kanji for time, and the kanji that indicates a repeated reading, tokitoki becomes tokidoki because of rendaku) makes this mean I sometimes eat breakfast at 7:

私は 時々七時に朝ご飯を食べます。(Watashi wa tokidoki shichiji ni asa gohan wo tabemasu.)

Or if you're like me, then the following statement is correct:

私 は 全然 朝 ご飯 を 食べません。I never eat breakfast.

Fun fact, adding adverbs like 時々can be done wherever - more or less - you want them to be, as long as they're before the verb. That's why there are particles. に means this happens or will happen at 7, を means that breakfast (朝ご飯 - asagohan, which means literally means something like cooked rice in the morning) is the object that the verb of the sentence is done to. 食べます is the polite form of eating (tabemasu, from ichidandoushi taberu - to eat). 私は 時々七時に朝ご飯を食べます。, 私は七時に時々朝ご飯を食べます。 and 私は七時に朝ご飯を時々食べます。all mean the same thing, really.

Other than that, yeah katakana is like, the worst, but not because of the symbols, but because of how much knowing certain words already is in the way of learning the ten thousand loan words in Japanese - anyone up for guessing what Betonamu - ベトナム  - is supposed to be?

Spoiler

Well, that's Japanese for Vietnam.

*I've been doing this for two weeks now whenever I felt like for half an hour or so per day, on average, maybe a bit more, so "feels a lot harder than it should be" probably has a different meaning for most other people.

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by majestic
Editing fixed the layout, yay.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Stardust Crusaders 38-39 Pet Shop

Shut up! Don't ask me! I'm a dog!

Well that was something else.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Theoretical question. Imagine a world where Sakura Card arc was its own show, and you'd judge that separately, would it still get an 8 out of 10? How much of the rating downgrade is the contrast? Did it get an upgrade for being part of Cardcaptor Sakura?

I think being part of the Sakura package absolutely makes it better, because I already love and am used to the dynamics of the characters plus the general style and flow of the show. Imagine me trying to get used to how Xiaolang acts in the second arc with no proper introduction. I know myself - it would not go over well. Having 56 episodes before any of that is a great boon to it. Most likely, the best it could've done by itself is a 7/10.

1 hour ago, majestic said:

No way I could make a top ten episode list when I look at yours, even the extended one, I want to keep them all and add some others. Like the episode in the museum where Sakura has to combine her cards for the first time. Maybe not because it was one of the greatest overall, but for the simple fact that I was dumbstruck by the show suddenly elevating its own concept above and beyond anything I expected or imagined it could do.

I initially included at least another handful more, but when I tried to write about them, it was basically "oh, this is just another great episode, but that's not particularly noteworthy in of itself, so...", .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I also fully agree on Sakura and Her Kind Father. That's just the episode that sold me on Sakura's VA. I liked her before, but that episode, at the end, she just killed it. Strange to see the episode included, because at the time your reaction to it didn't make it seem like it would end up in a top ten list. Not even as a crossed out contender.

I'm unsure of what I wrote about it, if I wrote much about it at all - if the latter happened, that does not necessarily have any bearing on whether I loved it in all cases, because sometimes something is fantastic but not much needs to be said about it. If I recall correctly, I did not speak anything specifically of that episode, but rather simply said the way the show had actually truly integrated her family into the show in good and meaningful ways was excellent. Feel free to correct me if you can find a post where I actually talked directly about it, though, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Minor update on the Nanoha film:

Yeah, all that sounds no longer simply unappealing, but actually terrible, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Minor update on the Japanese thing

It's not that I don't really care, it's that I don't care at all. There's a huge difference!

1 hour ago, majestic said:

It's still a bunch shorter than the English equivalent though.

Shorter is not always simpler, though...in fact, compromising between the two is often a reality of life in many different and unexpected ways, but especially language. If you want to be able to speak like a native speaker of probably any language but at least English, you're going to have to know tons of little things that would shorten how you would say or write something where simply writing super formally (and also awkwardly/stiffly/poorly...) would suffice, but which would instantly sound unnatural to native speakers. All the knowledge governing that stuff is difficult to learn unless you speak the language on a daily basis for a prolonged period of time, though (...having good pattern-recognition skills that let you quickly adopt others' writing/speaking conventions surely would help as well).

The rest of what you wrote was nonsense, and I refuse to believe it could have meaning for anyone, .

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Mundane is probably not right, because that was what th first arc was. Almost normal, except for that bit of magic happening. The second arc was much more a regular magical girl show. Eh.

Grounded and mundane is what I tend to enjoy the most when I love the characters. If the Sailor Guardians want to just go out and do some shopping while having their style of silly, cute, and/or oft-times heartfelt dialogue with nothing else much really going on in terms of real events but still staying genuine to their characters without flanderization, I would almost certainly watch and love that, and I would think you would as well. Getting away from the mundane is usually what makes me less interested in something unless the writers have actually taken the time to really set it all up well, because it tends to get us away from what is most important, which is our characters simply being our characters. Prolonged action sequences, important narrative set pieces, "epic" character moments that require our characters to not be their normal selves but instead the "serious" and "cool" versions of themselves that don't make mistakes or really show off who they are as characters in any meaningful way...bleh to all of it. Obviously, there are different grades to this and good writers will figure out ways of getting everything to work in unison so you can let your characters be themselves while also having them respond to actual events that are occurring, but I think you get the idea.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Amentep]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Linking previous thread because the first post didn't:

 

Apparently I linked to this thread rather than the old thread in my first post.

Not my finest hour.

[majestic]

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm unsure of what I wrote about it, if I wrote much about it at all - if the latter happened, that does not necessarily have any bearing on whether I loved it in all cases, because sometimes something is fantastic but not much needs to be said about it. If I recall correctly, I did not speak anything specifically of that episode, but rather simply said the way the show had actually truly integrated her family into the show in good and meaningful ways was excellent. Feel free to correct me if you can find a post where I actually talked directly about it, though, .

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.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Yeah, all that sounds no longer simply unappealing, but actually terrible, .

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.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's not that I don't really care, it's that I don't care at all. There's a huge difference!

That's not going to stop me from posting about it every now and then.

8 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Shorter is not always simpler, though...in fact, compromising between the two is often a reality of life in many different and unexpected ways, but especially language. If you want to be able to speak like a native speaker of probably any language but at least English, you're going to have to know tons of little things that would shorten how you would say or write something where simply writing super formally (and also awkwardly/stiffly/poorly...) would suffice, but which would instantly sound unnatural to native speakers.

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.

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

All the knowledge governing that stuff is difficult to learn unless you speak the language on a daily basis for a prolonged period of time, though (...having good pattern-recognition skills that let you quickly adopt others' writing/speaking conventions surely would help as well).

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*

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Obviously, there are different grades to this and good writers will figure out ways of getting everything to work in unison so you can let your characters be themselves while also having them respond to actual events that are occurring, but I think you get the idea.

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.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Stardust Crusaders 40-44

(Terence D) D'Arby the Player and Vanilla Ice's Cream. I guess Kenny G and Nukesaku too.

D'Arby makes the mistake of being too confident and gets Ora'd as a result. I didn't think about it much before, but having a stand probably gives you a big edge at playing video games.

Vanilla Ice was something else, and his episodes hit much differently than D'Arby. Abayo, Iggy.