So, Eraser was very late with the last three episodes, but I was also late in finally sitting down to watch them....

That was the single most EPIC finale I have ever seen.

I can't even begin to summarize what happened, but it was magnificent. Revelations, like Amira's true origin. Betrayals, the king burning Joan of Arc at the stake, the gods forsaking her, and her transformation into a demon... Redemption. The entire Holy host and Demonic hordes assembled to fight Bahamut, and getting decimated, the reveal of the true villain, and the littlest weapon that takes him down, with the greatest sacrifice to deploy it. The sense of scale when some of the party is miles away, but you can see the big things going on. The unlikely hero whom you knew would be propelled to his destiny fulfilling it. And he finally got his kiss.

And a nice full-circle ending wrapping it all up in a bow.

It was brilliant.

Posted by: Mauser at 08:52 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just a brief note because it's late, but I just watched the first episode of Junketsu no Maria, and Joe-Bob says, Watch it!

This has the potential to be something really good.  I'll be writing more later about it, I'm sure.

Also watched the first of the new Durarara. They definitely are being responsive to their fan-base, since the episode was mostly about Celty, but it had brief appearances by most of the huge ensemble cast. I don't remember who most of them are though, so this one might be one to save up for after mainlining the original.

Posted by: Mauser at 04:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I just tracked down the webUI.zip file for adding the web interface to uTorrent. They don't make it easy, since all the links in 2.x are no longer valid, now that they've commoditized version 3.0.  But a little google-foo found the help forum page that has a link to the latest version.  Which actually works fine with 2.x (The only thing I've noticed so far is that it doesn't support the peers tab, but looking through the release notes and history, that's an api that's only in 3.0 and later.  No big deal).

Still, the upshot is now that if I'm in the other room and I am reading on my laptop, and find an interesting torrent, I can download it, move it to Himawari through the regular Windows file sharing, drop it in my AutoLoad Torrents folder, and then open a link in my browser to start it.

This doesn't happen TOO often, but it has a couple of times. I've locked it down to just the IP I assigned to Etna. I don't want to expose it to the world, and my Router/Modem doesn't make it very safe to do so anyway.

Anyway, it's kinda slick.

Posted by: Mauser at 05:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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When the first season started, I only got a few episodes in before I didn't have enough time to follow it. I kept getting it, and I continued with the second season. I'm finally going through it and I'm really glad I did.

This show has all kinds of elements to make it really interesting. Multiple factions, each with their own perfectly valid motivations, Major game-changing plot twists that alter the course of events, but which still logically follow. A Multiple-McGuffin search quest that is actually different at each stage of the game. And no sign of a high school.

I mentioned Chaika before as a Magical Sniper. She's not the only one. Actually, that can be read two ways. First, the "Gundo" is a standard Magical weapon and multiple characters use one, but more interestingly, Chaika herself is not the only one.

It seems that after the Eight Heroes from the Six Nations took down the "Taboo Emperor" Gaz (Who had developed the science of magic to truly obscene ends) five years ago, the countryside has been crawling with girls claiming to be his daughter, much like Anastasia. They're all of similar appearance, and all have the same goal, to collect the remains of the Emperor, although their motivations are different.

Our Heroes are traveling with the White Chaika, a fairly innocent girl who works magic, and whose goal for the remains (Which are high-performance sources of magic - something our heroes fail to take advantage of when their other resources are low) is simply to give them a decent burial.

Eventually they run across another trio, one of whom comes to be known as the Red Chaika, she is more violent, has shorter hair, and wields a chain-sword. Her goal is to collect the remains and use them for revenge.

There's also the Blue Chaika, who found out her true origin and decided not to be a Chaika any more, and renamed herself Layla. She is a rather evil bitch who manipulated others with drugs and sex, and is hoping to plunge the world into warfare again simply for the carnage of it.

What's that I said? True origin? Oh yeah, as much as we'd like to think "Our" White Chaika is the original and the others are fakes, that's not so. There are hints earlier (with Layla), but a few episodes into the second season, there is horrifying confirmation. All of the Chaikas are fakes. It's all part of the Emperor's plan.

There's also another part of the plan, when Teams White and Red discover an island meant to house the Emperor's treasure, it turns out to be the Emperor's Moreau Island, where they have been mass-replicating various magical beasts and demi-humans (generic Kemonomimi and Kobalds by the looks of it). The Chaika's weren't replicated, but made from kidnapped girls and remodeled and reprogrammed.

Also on the island is a girl, quite possibly entirely artificial. She needed the presence of a Chaika to become activated, and she bonds to the White Chaika. At a critical juncture it turns out that she's a living(ish) weapon, a Gundo of tremendous power. After they escape the island, she goes from being basically inert to insisting, with that kind of disturbing quiet insistence that they WILL continue going after the remains, even after learning the truth.

There are a lot of characters in the crew, The brother and sister "Saboteurs" (Who aren't really siblings, just childhood friends) - basically ninjas - who first hook up with White Chaika. There is, of course, sexual tension,  Chaika bonds with him innocently, but won't acknowledge it, which his sister needles him about endlessly. She also is a rather deadpan tsundere, who expresses her care in unusual ways, like "Don't wound him too badly when you kill him, I plan to have him stuffed." She's never lovey-dovey towards him, but she definitely has the prior claim to him. Finally at some point they pick up a shape-changing female "Dragoon" who mostly wants to fight him to the death, but they keep putting it off, so she keeps sticking around. She transforms from an giant armored dragon into a frilly girl and a cat.

Red Chaika also has a thing for the boy Saboteur, but can't bring herself to admit it, even if her teammates can see it and needle her about it.

The nice thing about all this stuff is that the show ISN'T built entirely around it. It's a factor in their characters, to be sure, but it's not the driver of the plot. (I was afraid it would derail in that direction about halfway into the first season, but they got back on track.)

There's also a crew of good guys who have some interesting dynamics.

I still have another 6 episodes to go on the second season, and I'm eager to see how it turns out, but first, a couple of pictures, just because I haven't had many lately.

Gentle, kind, innocent White Chaika blowing a safe. (Okay, it's a re-run)

Red Chaika after a near miss with the dissection table.


Blue Chaika/Layla. Shame she's the most evil. There's no way she's wearing panties under that.

Update: It turns out the second season only has 10 episodes, so I actually had them all. Good thing too. The denouement of the series is really, really good. Once they introduce the Black Chaika....

Not triplets, but her dolls. She has a lot of dolls who used to be Chaikas.

I made a prediction at the very beginning of the series that the quest would bring about a Very Bad Thing, and it certainly did. I nailed it. But the journey was very much worth it, and took some routes I never would have guessed.

There were only two weak spots in the series: the establishment of the affections in the first half, and a fighting tournament in the second that could have been de-emphasized. But I guess the fight was important background for the events in the end, though it had some obviously dumb moments. Still, they didn't rise to the level of ruining the story.

All of the possible details got properly tied up as well, Things that had been set up since well back in the first season came into play. You might say that a whole mantlepiece of Chaika's Guns had been fired by the final act.

Well, you might not, but I went there.

All in all, it was awesome.  Recommended.

Posted by: Mauser at 03:12 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Only a week after I uploaded the graphic, my first eBook finally has a new cover – although to be honest, they say each time you go through the submit process fixing other things, it restarts the queue on cover updates….

I had to have a new cover. The original "Eyes in space” cover, supposedly meant to signal SF (the space) and Telepathy (the glowing eyes) really didn’t tell you crap about the story.

My friend Sebastian worked with a simple idea I had and then after a few rounds totally blew me away, exceeding my original imagination. I wanted to show the alien character, and I wanted to show the prison situation with her. And yeah, it’s meant to be a little sexy, if you’re into that kind of thing. Which of course is a signal about the contents to those who are into that kind of thing, and a warning to those who are not.

Sarah Hoyt didn’t like it, she said it made it look like Furry Bondage Porn. But I have to be honest with myself, even with the subtle horror of telepathic manipulation going on in the story, on the physical level, that’s what it is. And in the world of Bondage Erotica, constant sex is not required. Although there is a little at the end.

Now if people would spend a buck to read it, I’d really be happy.

Much to my surprise, the little cover at the bottom of the sidebar automatically updated today.  I thought I had made a fixed image, since Minx and Amazon's Associate widgets do not play at all together.

Anyway, I'm done futzing with it.  Next year I plan to finish my first actual novel, an expansion of the "Necessity" story I submitted to the Baen Books Fantasy Short Story contest.

Posted by: Mauser at 08:11 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I thought Amagi Brilliant Park was over, but there's an episode 13?
(Update: Calling that an "episode" is downright generous. There's about a 6 episode span of the season one could insert it into with no continuity concerns - except for the presence of Ironbeard. It would be filler on a BD, but clearly this was meant to be a 13 week season.)

Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu FINALLY makes a bid for "Buy the BD" in the last episode?  (But the shot is so brief as to hardly be worth it).
(Update: I'm not so harsh on this final arc as some reviewers. The whole idea of the hero turning into his fetish so that he has an understanding that it's a lot harder than he thought is actually a good learning experience. (How many women with huge breasts wish men could appreciate the backaches and muscle soreness and other difficulties they face?) And, after all, don't all these shows have an ending that goes, as John Staton once said "all Glowy" and philosophical at the end before a massive powerup and a win?)

Commie is half a season behind on Inou Battle wa Nichijou-kei no Naka de, so I've forgotten why I was watching it.

What madness is this?

Posted by: Mauser at 04:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Comments are actually really important to me.

I mean, otherwise I'm just digging a hole and telling secrets into it.

(Psst. The Czar has the ears of a goat.)

Posted by: Mauser at 05:02 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Almost two years ago I downloaded the new Lupin series. Lupin the Third - Mine Fujiko to Iu Onna (as subbed by Commie). At the time though, I couldn't watch it because my older computer simply couldn't render the frames fast enough. After the death of that computer and the creation of Himawari, I tried it, and it could be handled with ease, but I was distracted by shiny newer things. Now I'm trying to finally finish it.

But it has a lot to recommend it. And some things that you should be warned of. Starting in the titles, there's nudity, and lots of it. That should be a signal: This is not the Lupin of yesteryear, Green, Red or Blue jacket. (For the record, he's wearing green in this series). The whole show is played a lot more straight, not having read the originals, I still get the sense that it may be truer to the original source. That also includes the art style, which LOOKS like animated Manga, not the kind of Clear Line stuff meant to be animated. The use of color and hashed shading results in some really unique visuals.

It's also set in the 60's, as best I can tell. And also set before the whole crew comes together - she meets them individually through her adventures, revealing their origins as well, and as the episodes play out, they slowly coalesce.

The other major difference, since they're playing it straight, is Zenigata, who is not some wacky Inspector Clouseau, but actually highly competent. He's crossed paths with Lupin, but he's actually after a bigger case. There is also a new (to me) character in his Lieutenant, Oscar, who seems to be a closeted gay character with a secret crush on Zenigata that mostly takes the form of trying to outperform his expectations, and a hatred for women, Fujiko in particular, but he's not a major player except in two episodes. However, that's all background.

The story is really about Fujiko and her journey as a character, and it's not entirely a pretty one. From being used by her father for drug experiments, to being a sex toy for wealthy industrialists, to the things she had to do to get herself free, she's had a very warped existence, and some of the events have her on the edge of psychological collapse. She was always a mystery woman in the previous series, and since those shows were aimed at kids, if this is her background, now you know why.

I still have a couple episodes to go, so I can't say how it will end, but I get the impression it will be somewhat sombre.

And in the end, it turns out that past is all fake. Implanted memories from the doctor's real daughter, who then lived vicariously through her.

Posted by: Mauser at 12:59 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So I'm getting the Commie feed for Twintail, and I notice in certain spots of the OP, and sometimes (but thankfully not often) in the episode, there is a spot where the luminance of the image seems to have been dropped, resulting in the colors really getting grayed out.

Here's an example:

Looks strange, doesn't it?  But on the other hand, the text in the middle does go to full white, so I'm not sure what is going on here, but it looks like crap.  It persists for that entire sequence in the OP, from about 2:00 to 2:05.

Any clues?

Posted by: Mauser at 09:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This has been earworming me all week, so I figured I'd share.

Posted by: Mauser at 05:01 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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