Shingeki no Bahamut_ Genesis [DeadFish] Ep. 01 - Now with pictures

Since I didn't know what I wanted to watch, I got the beginnings of a bunch of things, and I'm slowly getting through them. Here's the first.

N'er-do-well Favaro Leone is a bounty hunter in this pseudo-late-medieval world. That might seem like a "Oh jeez, not another one" anime plot, but his intense rivalry with fallen lord and now also bounty hunter Kaisar Lidfard is epic. And the direction and visuals are definitely high-end. After a prologue set way in the past that hints on the Big Shit that will probably be springing back up at the end of the series, we open on the two chasing each other on horseback across the top of a gigantic stone bridge/aqueduct, leaping across tiled roofs, swords clashing in mid leap. One gets a sense of an almost Lupin/Zenigata relationship between the two. Their battle culminates in a fight atop a gigantic water wheel tumbling down the hill through the city. And the final crash disrupts the actions of three thugs kidnapping some women for their boss.

Later on, those thugs are returning to the boss with their empty wagon, when a beautiful and naked woman with pink hair falls from the sky on top of it. They decide that they're not returning to the boss empty handed. We don't know what happens next, but the glow in her eyes seems to indicate that it will not go well for the thugs....


Favaro goes after a bounty, who coincidentally is the big boss of the three thugs. When he beats the two bodyguards, the boss summons some demons to protect him. Favaro declares, "Well, you leave me no choice." and bolts for the door. But it's a trick, outside he's poured a big puddle of alcohol, and the demons have a fire attack, but alas, not fire immunity. At the end of the fight, the strange wristband the bounty hunters all wear is explained, as it turns the boss into a sort of stone tablet that he later turns in to a "god" for his reward.


While celebrating his good fortune, and telling incredible lies to the bar girls (who coincidentally are the three he accidentally rescued from the thugs), the pink haired girl, no longer naked, and wearing a very familiar hat, overhears him talking about the fabled northern city of Helheim, where he's going next, and that he has a special shortcut so that he can survive the extremely perilous journey. Kaisar shows up to confront Favaro yet again, but Favaro pulls a fast one, leaving him with the girls (and the tab).


But as he sneaks out, he meets up with the mysterious girl, who wants him to guide her to Helheim, and he must quickly decide whether to ditch her or to keep spinning lies. She's cute, so he decides the latter.


But before his clever plan to extort a kiss from her can succeed, the big boss' smaller older brother finds him and picks a fight, summoning an enormous demon. It looks bad for Favaro, until the mysterious girl manifests her power, transforming into a horned, armored demoness.


At the very end of the fight, he gets knocked out, and has a nightmarish vision of hell, with a gigantic dragon (Bahamut?) over it, then he wakes up in a bed in the pub, and is horrified when he discovers that he's just acquired a spaded demon tail.


This was a great first episode, and the production is beautiful. This is on the watch list.

Update: I think I might switch Circles to Commie though. Deadfish mainly uses other people's translations, usually HS for their first release, and sometimes Commie or someone else for a v2.  I don't know what the deal is, but on this show they switched sources midstream.

OTOH, Commie sometimes goes a bit odd with their transliteration. In Twintail, the hero clearly is saying "Stoppu! Stoppu!" and they subbed it as "Time out! Time out!"  If you can't trust your fansubbers, who can you trust?

Secondary Update: Seems that Eraser is the A+ rated circle.  In their favor, they sub the music too.  Although I've seen at least one Your/You're error.  I'm up to episode 4.  But I don't know if I'm going to get a chance to write much more up, I have to work all weekend.

Does a dead girl violate the den Beste rule if she's now an undead zombie princess?

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This was kinda fun

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So I made a Meme

It splashed down on Twitter with nary a ripple.

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Useful info

I downloaded an episode of "I don't understand what my husband is saying" and it didn't work.  I got a green, horizontally interlaced picture.  I commented on the torrent thread, and instantly got good advice.

"The latest nvidia graphics driver contains a bug that breaks 10bit playback. To fix, open your CCCP settings, click the LAV Video Settings button, and uncheck P010 under the 10bit output format."

I don't go after a lot of 10 bit, so this is the first time I ran into this. If anyone else does, there's your fix.

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Gokukoku no Brynhildr - Brynhilder in the Darkness - You thought it was over

So, after that train wreck (Oh, still nothing compared to Muv-Luv...) they produced an episode for the BD release, and out of morbid curiosity, I downloaded it.

Sometimes I think I should subtitle this blog "Watching Bad Anime So You Don't Have To." But it could just be that I like to complain.

So, Gokukoku no Brynhildr did have a plot that tended to crowd out all of the standard Harem Cliches a bit. In order to make up for that, they created this bonus episode that cuts in just after Lone Survivor joins the crew. To make it work, Our Hero has to change from being one of the few competent people in the cast into a pure McGuffin.

The plot goes something like this. All of a sudden, after Lone Survivor announced her love for Our Hero and stole a kiss (and Not-Kuroneko destroyed the cell tower unconsciously), Psychic Hacker decides they will have a Contest over possession of Our Hero. Please remove your glasses before facepalming. Our Hero isn't up for it (He says his only love is for Kuroneko, whom Psychic Hacker points out does not exist) but does nothing to stop it. Deciding that if they can't be his girlfriend, they'll step right up to who would make the best wife, I guess love isn't entirely necessary for that role? Psychic Hacker is surprised when everyone is up for it (except Gothy Precog).

Contest 1 is cooking. Busty Freshman takes the lead there, while Not-Kuroneko starts blending everything, because that's all she knows how to do to prepare food for Gothy Precog. Psychic Hacker, noticing she's being outclassed, announces that they've started before she lays down the rules. The rule being that it's Naked Apron cooking, because a wife would do that for him. If Naked Apron is your thing, it might be worth a brief look. For some reason though it's just down to Psychic Hacker and Lone Survivor, and they both produced utterly inedible food. Draw.

Contest 2 is endurance, arrived at by some really fractured logic on Psychic Hacker's part. They all have to stay in the hot spring until there's only one left. It ends in a draw with them all passed out from the heat and floating.

Contest 3 is Massage, and at some point Not-Kuroneko gets jealous and is about to bring down the whole observatory on them, fulfilling a premonition Gothy Precog had, but instead of everyone dying, they all survive except Psychic Hacker who gets crushed under the fallen telescope.

And then.... it was all a dream. Psychic Hacker really needs to work out why she'd dream she lost and got killed.

---

On the other hand, I grabbed a couple episodes of Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken, the one about the Office Lady married to the Otaku. It's one of those 5 minute shows, which I wasn't expecting. It's full of really short jokes, but surprised me by not going for the lowest possible humor. And the Otaku husband actually has a fairly profitable blog he runs, so it's not like he's a leech. That factor alone improves the set-up a lot.

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I need to learn to curse in Russian

This weekend, I got a dashcam.

Frankly, I'm amazed by the technology, it's so frigging small, but shoots 1080p, and with a 32 gig MicroSD card (it comes with an 8, but I bought one so that I could get the adapters for it.) I think the smallest mode can go around 8 hours. It has a still picture feature, but since it's so hard to hold steady, that's not too useful. It has a built in battery, but that's just to tide it over in the event of power interruptions (like an accident). It records in a loop, producing files between 1 and 10 minutes long (user selectable) and if you push a button, or if the internal G-sensor detects an sudden jolt, it will automatically protect the current file from being overwritten. It also has motion detection, so I'm curious about what it would do with an external power supply. (Connected to a computer, it acts like a USB drive, or it can act like a USB webcam, but I haven't tried that yet). It also auto-starts recording when it detects power from the cigarette lighter cord.

The only thing it doesn't come with is a mini HDMI to HDMI cable, but yes, it can talk to a TV in 1080p or 720p modes, but other than that lack, it comes ready to use out of the box.

I don't really have any amazing videos to share, just my commute to and from work. And hopefully I never will. But considering all the crazy dashcam videos you get coming out of Russia, you can see the logic behind my title.

(Amazon link: Cobra CDR820 Dashcam I paid $99 at Fry's. It's $80 and change on Amazon.)

Update: I bought a MiniHDMI/HDMI cable for too much at WalMart (but the cost of gas for a trip to Fry's and the opportunity cost of waiting made it worth it) and hooked up the Dashcam to my TV. Although they don't say much in the manual to document it, this feature works VERY well if you don't have a computer to play the files from.

I also bought a little portable power source/USB charger thingy, and that also makes the dashcam happy. The thing can charge from USB or plug directly into a lighter socket, has 1450 mAh of capacity, and can function as a car USB power supply without involving its battery. Plus it has a built-in flashlight. I want to try hooking the cam up to the battery, put the cam in motion detect mode, and see if the cats can set it off.

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Kill La Kill OVA

Maybe I'm late to the game, (it came out in September) but maybe someone else is later.... Underwater just put out (okay, a month ago) the Kill la Kill OVA.

Update: Having watched it, I have to say, it does sew up some loose threads.... :-)

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Why did I...

... download Macademi Wasshoi?

Oh, now I remember.

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I might actually be in this one...

Although for once, on that night, putting the fin down I was NOT up on the stand.  That might be me down below. (I can tell because typically I have a yellow hard hat during the lifts that I whimsically drew the Tonka logo on, because I never had one as a child.)

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