This is clearly the series where the animators took ALL the Drugs.

Seriously, it's as coked-up as Gurren Lagan, psychedelic as Flip Flappers, and whatever FLCL was on, they had some of that too.

In two episodes they're still getting the band back together, so they haven't gotten TOO far into who and what the villains are, but basically ten years from their present day, Akihabara was invaded by goons in armor with spherical smiley-face helmets who were confiscating anything Otakus were into, as well as arresting and taking away the Otakus, claiming they were taking them under "Protection" but actually placing them in camps.

In the intervening time, one who escaped their grasp to become Otaku Hero has pulled together a small revolutionary force to fight back, and their first (and largely only) victory was to re-take the ruins of Akihabara. Part of his army were three magical girls, Anarchy, Blue and Pink. But in the last few years a war of attrition has eaten away at Otaku Hero's will to fight. Blue has been captured, Pink disappeared, and Anarchy is trying to keep things going, but can't quite do it without him.

They manage to repel what could have been the final rout, and OH rediscovers his will to fight. But he knows they need all three girls. So they set off to rescue Blue. There's an Otaku prison under the now shuttered Tokyo Big Sight, and Blue is in a 7th level sub-basement, heavily bound and hanging in a spiderweb. When they arrive to free her, a big boss robot emerges from the floor, but it is no match for Anarchy, who is so bored she gets out a kotatsu and tea while it's trying to pummel her into the floor. And once they defeat it, and unbind Blue, well, we learn that Blue is the perverted nympho of the magical trio....

In the second episode, they track down where Pink is running an eternal rave party, and it's practically next door to their headquarters. But persuading her to leave being queen of her followers isn't going to be easy. Understanding her isn't easy either, as she's a small blonde Loli in a pink dress... and a gas mask she never removes, which muffles her words to the extent that only Blue can translate for her. Her condition to rejoin the resistance is that Anarchy and Blue must defeat her on her choice of battlefield - her mind - after giving them pills to bring them into mental unity. Fast forward through the insane kind of crap that goes on in this kind of psychic warfare outside of reality, and they eventually convince Pink to rejoin them.

They're quite a mixed batch, even as Magical girls go. Anarchy uses a wand, Blue a weird demonic-looking scythe, and Pink wields an enormous hypodermic. And don't get me started on their transformations....

Yeah, it's fucking weird as hell, so it interests me enough to stick with it long enough to see if they can make sense out of it.

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I've got maybe 5 things picked out this season. This is the one I took a total flyer on. I seem to recall it was a J-list article about it that made me say "Eh, why not?"

The basic plot is that our protagonist, Rokudo, is one of three geeks in a class, no, a school full of nasty delinquents. One day when he gets home he has a package from his long-deceased Grandfather that contains a magic scroll that the family has had for generations. It's SUPPOSED to protect you from Demons. There is probably some Japanese language gag in there that explains what really happens, because all the delinquent girls who have been bitchy to him start acting nicer, but this has no effect on the bullies.

Hijinks ensue.

I wasn't expecting too much out of it, and frankly, I have serious issues with the art style, but halfway though the first episode I've already gotten a serious laugh out of it. (And that's before he meets the baddest of the bad girls who is destined to be his Girlfriend).

Rokudo Tosuke: The main character. Not entirely sure what his geek specialty is, but he's been a lifelong target for bullies. Also has zero experience with girls, and some exceptionally old-fashioned ideas about them (Which is why he doesn't like "Bad Girls", because they defy traditional roles).

"Taisa" (Chief) Kijima Kota & "Colonel" Hinamoto Masaru: Rokudo's two best, and only friends. They're with him when he opens the scroll, and they see it glow when he first takes hold of it, and the purple pentagram that appears on his forehead (which nobody else seems to notice). Taisa already resembles a middle-aged businessman, and Colonel is a military geek.

Himawari Ranna: "Miss Sukeban" A callback to the old school bad girls of Japanese cinema. She's an Amazonian blonde who wears a long skirt and carries a hardwood bokken. She's a devastating brawler and has a perpetually grim demeanor, until she sets eyes on Rokudo, then she lights up and blushes. She totally terrifies him.

Iinuma Haruya: the primary bully in Rokudo's class. Notable for having half his hair bleached.

Tsubaki: girlfriend of Iinuma. After Rokudo touches the scroll, She becomes a lot more solicitous, actually apologizing to him, and she is quite concerned when suddenly Himawari joins Rokudo in class (She sounds almost jealous, and her boyfriend really picks up on that.).

Tsunoyama Takeru: Lieutenant of Iinuma. Himawari puts him in the hospital by beating him with a desk when he punches Rokudo. (This is why Rokudo is terrified of her. At first she just SEEMED scary, this was the first confirmation - beyond the blood on her hands when they first met at the mall after she trashed a dozen guys at a food court.).

It turns out the gang of thugs Himawari took out was a gang Iinuma was considering joining. When he meets his contact who is in the same hospital as Tsunoyama, the guy tells him about how terrifying she is. That she takes out gangs and Yakuza families just because she's feeling pissy.

Because of his weird old-fashioned beliefs, when he runs into Himawari on the bridge he pledges that as a man he will protect her from the revenge the bullies must be plotting for her. This makes little sense because moments earlier he was talking about transferring schools to avoid her. All she hears from his impassioned speech is that he doesn't like delinquents, so she says she'll slaughter them all for him. And he has no clue what he'd do anyway, since he can't even protect himself.

He has to be careful though, his power over Himawari seems to exceed mere suggestion - she takes a minor beating because he made her promise not to fight - and his outdated ideas about manliness are going to lead him to even more trouble.

Like standing up to his Bully himself.

---

In the second episode, they introduce Tsuyukusa Mizue: The Student Council rep. She is a total good girl, so apparently the spell from the scroll has no effect on her. Except apparently she does like him a bit, and it ruins him in her eyes to see all the trash girls suddenly hanging off of him.

Iinuma apparently is somewhat impressed at Rokudo for actually standing up to him, and decides they're friends now. After school he takes him off to get some Ramen, but they never get around to talking until the very end, where he warns Rokudo that the top dog at the school, Osanada, is after him now.

It's not exactly a timely warning. One of Osanada's gang comes up to him just as Iinuma leaves him in front of the ramen shop. Apparently the beef is something to do with Rokudo "Messing around" with all the girls. The thug grabs him and expresses doubts that he knows anything about being a playboy, but then the pentagram flashes, and the thug's girlfriend suddenly starts defending Rokudo. Obviously the curse doesn't know tactics or strategy. Iinuma reappears and gives Rokudo a choice. Be a weakling (which he loathes) or stand up to Osanada. But if he stands up, he will back him (This makes the thug start to sweat). Chief and Colonel, who were spying on Rokudo the whole time come out to try to talk him out of it. But Rokudo has a burst of newfound determination. He convinces his friends to back him. Then Himawari shows up too, and the thug is cowed into backing off.

Osanada knows where to find him, the message goes, he's not going to be dragged off.

Then Iinuma drops a bombshell with deeper implications. Osanada is a girl. (And is revealed then to be a cute little girl with pink hair, and a length of pipe in her hand, who rides on the shoulders of one of her biggest thugs.)

Rokudo thinks that all he has to do is have the curse work on Osanada, tell her not to fight, and he'll be okay.

Of course, it doesn't go that way. When Osanada drops by his classroom, the pentagram fires, but she's apparently immune. The thought of boys and girls together just grosses her out.

Or perhaps not so immune, as she tries to punch Rokudo and it comes out like a love tap. To make sure, she tests her punch on the Colonel and nearly puts him through the wall. Then she decides Rokudo isn't necessarily all that bad and agrees to talk instead of fight.

And that talk leads to big complications....

I still hate the art, but I think I'll keep on with this. It's overblown and a bit screamy, but the characters are so unique.

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Not quite as impressive lyrically though.

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Okay, I know I watched the first season, but it's not on my drive. I don't normally delete anything except for American TV shows. (Purged my Marvel/DC folder recently. Mostly unwatched.)

I realized this because I noticed how bad my backlog was with the recent two-season part 4.

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So these are the images I've been trying to put up since I did the bit about "My Dress-up Darling," just to show off some of the wonderful costumes. Pixy has finally managed to root out the obscure bug that was making file uploads fail.

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So I binged the whole series this weekend. Which is very meta, if you look at it as the main characters basically Binge-watching 17 years of uncle's Isekai adventure.

(Okay, weird thing going on here, in Firefox I have no access to the editing palette. Update, Fixed?)

Uncle's magic still working in the real world is an interesting twist. I was a bit disappointed that the appearance of the Tsundere Elf in the OP was just a transformation, and not that he found a way to bring her here. They sure seem to be hinting at it for season 2 if it happens after the final credits, but who can say for sure.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 07, 2023 08:44 PM (LZ7Bg)

Posted by: Mauser at April 08, 2023 03:40 PM (BzEjn)

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at April 09, 2023 10:05 AM (LZ7Bg)

Posted by: Mauser at April 09, 2023 08:08 PM (BzEjn)

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Feh. This inability to upload is really frustrating, and I'm stuck thinking about these two pics I wanted to put up, which is kinda preventing me from blogging.

And I'm falling behind on my watching. I'm pulling down at least six or seven shows this season, but I've barely watched any of it save for a bit of Neir Automata. I'm finishing up the second season of Shield Hero, which shows you how far behind I am.

As much as I love Spy x Family, I keep bouncing off of episode 17. Right about where Anya is planning to show off the picture of her dog. I keep pausing for some reason, and I have a bluescreen before I get back to it. That some reason is probably because I hate humiliation scenes so much, and I can just tell one is coming.

I actually HAVE managed to eliminate a few causes of my bluescreens. One was that my CPU was running a little hot because the cooling puck was building up a little corrosion and gunk. Fortunately the design I chose is a) easy to disassemble and b) clear, so I could see what the problem was. That dropped a good 5-10 Degrees (C) off my temp, which helps. The second was a crash that happened roughly every other day between 3:00 am and 4:30 am. For some reason I'd get up in the morning and there would be a 50/50 chance I'd have to log in again. Bluescreen View didn't tell me anything useful other than the time, and that it was a K-Mode Exception failure. Well, that time was very useful when I finally looked at the task scheduler. Seems there was a scheduled task to run some Microsoft Telemetry program. Which must be way out of date anyway, and possibly updated to some version incompatible with Windows 7. I deleted those tasks a week and a half ago, and no early morning reboots since.

I still die horribly watching YouTube videos. Oddly that happens very reliably if it's a video about guns. Hmmmm.

On the downside, after reinstalling the cooling puck, I really should have tightened the hose clamps more. A VERY slow drip eventually nuked my 980 card. Fortunately I was able to swap in a 650 card I forgot I had, and that's working okay, games are slow, YouTube still crashes, but it's live until I can finally take a crowbar to my wallet and build a new machine. (My main concern is that Win10 supposedly hunts and kills uTorrent, and I depend on that program's labeling system to track what I'm watching).

I wrote a story for the Jim Baen Memorial short story contest. Got the first round rejection notice with zero feedback a week or so later. So I turned it into my first submission to Analog. Wish me luck.

Posted by: Mauser at February 25, 2023 09:42 PM (BzEjn)

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So I concentrated on finishing up the last of the Winter 2022 season shows I picked.

---

Before Spy x Family came along, Marin was everyone's "Waifu of the year", and I can see why.

Gojo is a second year high school student who lives with his Grandfather in the family's Hina Doll shop, and he is learning the traditional craft, which has utterly fascinated him since he first saw them as a child. However this devotion has left him completely socially awkward, and he has no friends. He is still not quite proficient at painting the faces, but he does well at sewing the miniature clothing.

At school one of the prettiest and popular girls is Kitagawa Marin, a blonde "Gyaru" with a gaggle of girl friends whose obsession with game and anime characters does not make her any kind of Otaku.

One day the antique treadle sewing machine at the shop gives up the ghost, so Gojo takes his current project into the unused home-ec room at school to use the machine there. As he's sitting down, Marin shows up. She's been trying to learn to use the machine to work on a cosplay of one of her favorite characters from an eroge she loves. She has zero talent for sewing. Somehow they manage to bond when she begs him to help her make the costume. He's never made clothes for humans before, so it's a bit of a stretch for him, but he throws himself into it.

And the result is stunning. He and Marin go to a Cosplay event and she makes some serious waves and their work is noticed. This later leads to working with another cosplay star, and a LOT of uncomfortable situations for Gojo, who has been raised extremely conservatively and traditionally, and Marin who is basically a total free spirit, flying solo since her dad works someplace remote and her mother is gone.

Interestingly, the experience also helps Gojo with his work on the dolls. Doing Marin's makeup probably has something to do with it.

Marin falls for Gojo because he is such a good and dedicated guy (And this is well before the end of the series), And Gojo really respects her passion for Cosplay, which resonates with his, but they don't quite admit it to each other. It makes you wish for another season just so they can get there.

The animation is lovely, the character designs and especially the costumes are spectacular, and yeah, you're left kind of wishing there was a Marin for you in your life.

Posted by: Mauser at January 01, 2023 08:47 PM (BzEjn)

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So a few months ago, my 100 mbit internet service suddenly started feeding me 230 mbit, more or less. (except for those random times my modem seems to drop to 12 mbits and needs to have its power toggled.) That's quite cool. I can download all the torrents for the week in a matter of a minute or two. Upload speed though, doesn't even come close to maxing out the 12 mbit upload speed, so it can take a week to serve up my usual 2x seed.

But if it's last week's torrent, it can take even longer. I think this is possibly a problem where the whole Torrent algorithm breaks down a bit. For dozens or hundreds of hosts to serve up little bits, they have to be online and the torrent has to be active. But now, the flurry of activity when a torrent is first released can be fully sated in the first day (Especially when people don't seed). High bandwidth means that you're in and out before the next guy (other than the original seeder) comes along.

Or maybe it's something else that slows down my seeding that doesn't appear to me as any kind of net blockage. I have to say though I've been really happy with Comcast's lack of interference, especially compared to past ISPs. But maybe that is the benefit of huge bandwidth. A few weekly shows has virtually no impact on the network, so they don't need to control it.

Now if only I had the time bandwidth to watch them all! I swear I've been pulling down some of the shows .clue has been posting about, and I haven't even started on them! Urusei Yatsura has replaced Spy x Family as the one show I'm able to get through as soon as it's done. Maybe once Christmas vacation starts....

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Set in Osaka during the Taisho era (~100 years ago) we follow a young tanuki named Mameda visiting the big city. Before letting her go visit, the elders warn her not to try tricking humans, since the old tricks don't really work on them any more.

So of course that's exactly what she sets out to do.

And you can imagine how that goes. Hint, if you're trying to pass off leaves as currency, the illusion drops when they try to look for the watermark. And it only goes downhill from there.

Even worse, she runs into someone who knows exactly what the deal is (She says she's just a Rakugoka - folktale storyteller, although the OP implies something else). And the next day, the jig is already up because the whole town seems to know there's a Tanuki about and they're not gonna take any of her tricks. While running away, she gets swept up in a crowd going into the entertainment hall, where the woman from the night before, Bunko-san, is the star performer.

And she quickly realizes that it's because the Rakugoka is casting an illusion on her audience that puts them in the story she's telling. She shakes it off, because it wouldn't do for a Tanuki to be the one getting tricked.

When the townspeople catch her in the auditorium, she escapes, but is chased up the tower in the center of town. When they corner her, she jumps, remembering how legend tells of Tanuki stretching out their scrotums and gliding like flying squirrels. About halfway down she remembers she's a girl.

Bunko-san catches her mid fall and pulls her aboard a flying boat, and sets her straight about the way of the world, how rapidly things are changing and modernizing. She tells Mameda to go home, and takes her to the boat. But she remembers her father also talking about how fast things are moving in the human world, and that they won't play the Tanuki's games any more, and they will be forced to go into the woods and live like ordinary animals. Mameda decides that no, she won't go home. She'll become a Rakugoka too, and learn to trick humans this way.

Visually this is a very pretty show. The art style is very clean, but not lacking in details. So it very clearly shows its historical context. Most people wear traditional clothing, but there is the occasional western suit.

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