July 04, 2024
Mid-life Adventuring Crisis
Continuing the trend of stealing short titles from .clue. Because we ain't got time to keep typing Shinmai Ossan Boukensha, Saikyou Party ni Shinu hodo Kitaerarete Muteki ni Naru or "The Ossan Newbie Adventurer, Trained to Death by the Most Powerful Party, Became Invincible".
My god, that is the WORST OP song I have ever heard fifteen seconds of. Even muted, there were at least three WTF reactions elicited from me.... Fantasy world building, with RPGs, missile launchers, and a rocket powered scooter? I'm not sure a busty dark elf maid with really stickin'-out ears can redeem this.... But let's continue.
I'm sure the loli demon/succubus is going to annoy the fuck out of me.
Guild headquarters... that's a LOT of alcohol on the wall. Our Hero Rick is there to take his E-rank test, and look, it's his old co-worker, Nami from One-Piece! And a drunken adventurer is hitting on her! Oh No! And... nothing of note happens. He passes out before he gets a well-deserved beating from either of them. (Only it turns out later he laid a hurt on the guy without anyone noticing.)
But just as well, Reanette, the busty dark elf maid is outside waiting for him. We can tell because it takes quite a while for the camera to move up and show her face, concentrating on her more distinctive features instead.
Don't worry, he doesn't linger on it long before he stares at her tits again, and she calls him on it. I'm sure this is the start of a running gag. Or limping. There isn't any budget for Gainaxing, alas.
So, Testing sequence. Hey, it's the magic measuring crystal ball from the last show making another appearance. And the same gag about it cracking. Although our hero Rick measures an F-. Clearly there's something afoot magically.
At the punching bag test, enter antagonist #1, the Duke's 11 year old son who is tremendously full of himself. He casts a fireball that is barely a damp fizzle, and everyone's impressed. Then we cut to a flashback of Rick getting chased down by a bus-sized fireball the loli shoots at him for training.
The gimmick should be pretty obvious at this point. His trainers were so over the top that while he thinks he barely measures up to them, he's light years past everyone else. So when he goes to punch the green slime bag, after training fifty-thousand punches on a GOLD slime bag, he annihilates it, and the wall, and covers every horrified person in the room with slime. Same kind of thing with defensive magic. And then he aces a written test because he was a Guild Receptionist.
When Antagonist #1 finds him outside on a bench with Reanette, he starts crying about how he was supposed to make a fantastic debut and Rick ruined it by outshining him. Enter Antagonist #2, his big sister Angelica, who blames him for making Freed cry. (The smirk on his face when she turns on him makes it look like it was an act.) She challenges Rick to a duel. You can guess where this is going.
Yeah, she's overconfident, being the Royal Knights equivalent of a B-rank adventurer. She proposes that the loser be the other's slave for life. Rick is intimidated, still not believing in his own strength. Her skill is super speed, which seems molasses slow to him. He keeps dodging her attack until she trips on a rock and stumbles, and her spinning "attack" as she tumbles impresses him, although he still dodges it. The next time she trips and slides at his feet, he punches the ground and leaves a substantial crater. She realizes that if that had connected, it would be game over, so she surrenders. And then backs out of her promise by running away, at speed.
Okay, hopefully they've used up this joke by the end of this episode. We get it, he thinks he's e-rank, but he's actually a monster. Enough already.
Reanette is basically a piece of furniture, delivering supporting lines and has the camera focused on her bust about as much as her face is shown. She's busty, sure, but there's not enough there there to make her a character worth following. She's barely animated at all. But then, nobody seems to be. She doesn't move enough to dislodge a single hair, let alone jiggle.
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Isekai Cheat Yada-Yada
I think J. Greely's short title is a worthwhile substitution for Hazurewaku no "Joutai Ijou Skill" de Saikyou ni Natta Ore ga Subete wo Juurin suru made. AKA "Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells" That shit's just WAY too long.
It might have some interesting secondary characters joining the Protagonist's party. We've already seen a preview of a big tiddy elf with slightly less ridiculous elf ears (Nice change). But the first episode is there just to make you hate everything and everyone in the show. It's a bold strategy Cotton, lets see if it pays off for 'em.
I wasn't sure what to say about it until I just had a revelation:
This is a grown up version of Shinka no Mi: Shiranai Uchi ni Kachigumi Jinsei, AKA "The Fruit of Evolution: Before I Knew It, My Life Had It Made". You know, with the fat kid who gets no powers when the whole class is abducted to be heroes (And then they get fucked over by the king). Hopefully the elf is smarter than the pink gorilla who turns into a girl. We'll probably have to wait for the second episode to see if there is a plot to abuse the rest of the class.
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Boku no Tsuma wa Kanjou ga Nai - Ep. 01
Here's an idea for a potentially lethal Anime Drinking Game.
- Watch Boku no Tsuma wa Kanjou ga Nai
- Every time Takuma pounds a beer. Match him.
- Flip a coin:
- Heads: Hit on an inanimate object.
- Tails: Die of alcohol poisoning.
Seriously, instead of cute it's just sad. Hopefully it gets over this when they introduce other characters. Of course, I'm only 14 minutes in so far.
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June 29, 2024
Tonari no Youkai-san ep 12 - 13
Feh, the most common cop-out, Everything goes white with all the characters floating around, and then they somehow fix everything by the power of heart (or in this case Kotodama).
So I checked AnimeChart, and there is one more episode to go. Good thing too, because it looks like the end of the world.
The rift has let "Oni" through from an alternate, nullified dimension. They are hollow shells, but deadly beasts as well. But even worse, this is having an negative effect on certain types of the Youkai, basically cancelling out the magic that is required to keep them alive.
There is reference to a similar event 500 years in the past, when the Tengu who taught Jiro's grandfather how to do the Tengu thing sacrificed himself to close a rift. The question I have is that if Jiro has to do the same thing, will he find a way to live through it? And how much will Mu-chan cry before he turns out to be alive?
Feh, the most common cop-out, Everything goes white with all the characters floating around, and then they somehow fix everything by the power of heart (or in this case Kotodama).
But for a while there things looked heavily fucked. Youkai and Ayashi were keeling over left and right. Wagen-san turned back into an ordinary car, Bucchio turned back into a dead cat. It was grim as hell.
But then everything went back to normal-ish, because the kids in the white space remembered everyone (or was it just everyone who counted?). There was still some permanent damage and a few didn't make it.
Cop out ending with tear-jerking disaster? Yeah, but that's what you have to do to wrap up a slice of life show with no antagonists. Because real life doesn't follow the Hero's Journey or any other story pattern.
Still have no idea what those small fans on the power poles were. Way too small for any significant power generation.
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June 18, 2024
Just when you think
that Tonari no Youkai-san is just gonna be a slice of life in a slightly different world, BAM, a crack opens across the sky as the barrier between parallel worlds fails.
It's episode 11, so I'm sure that will close right up.
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June 15, 2024
Stacked
Second chapter of my Dr. Mauser work in progress (or first real chapter if you count the Prologue from last month separately) is up on Substack. I figure if I post one a month, I will run out soon enough to be shamed into getting back to work on it.
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Kaiju No. 8
It's such a cliche. It was inevitable, Kafka has to reveal himself to prevent everyone from being nuked after they've all been thoroughly trounced by a level 9 Kaiju. And when the dust settles, the captain doesn't recognize him as Kafka Hibino any more, only as Kaiju No. 8. And pulls out her sidearm to arrest him.
Mind you, he's been read as a level 9.8 Kaiju. He just STOOD there and shielded everyone from the equivalent of a 20 k-ton nuke. WTF is she thinking that popgun will do to him? Hurt his feelings? (Well, it probably would.)
Hey, lets ignore the fact that in every single sighting of No. 8 he has been benign, and has helped and rescued people. Let's ignore that he just saved all your asses. And lets ignore, Captain, that you personally knew him before this Kaiju ever appeared, which should make it clear that he's Kafka first.
Nah, we've gotta play it this way.
Seriously, at this point the cards are on the table, can people just TALK for once?
Oh, next episode is 11. Yeah, I guess they'll talk it out a bit, then a bit more, then have a bureaucratic battle with superiors who don't understand... and end episode 12 with a freeze-frame of everyone going into battle.
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June 12, 2024
What part of No doesn't Microsoft Understand?
All of them, apparently.
Got home from work today to my computer's lock screen. That doesn't happen too often with the new build, thankfully. I logged in and was greeted by Windows asking me to upgrade to Win 11. The options for Yes right now and Yes in a little while were way on the other side of the screen from "Keep Windows 10." but at least it wasn't as hidden as last time. And then you had to say No again.
I'm sure I will have many more opportunities to decline opening up my computer to their data miners in the future.
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May 27, 2024
Musically....
Of all the shows I've been watching this season, Shuumatsu Train Doko e Iku? has had the most memorable theme music. Urusei Yatsura traditionally has a few bangers in their soundtrack as well, but I'm not up to the current season yet.
MediaHuman has a free YouTube to MP3 utility (As well as a video player that lets you avoid the ads, and a non-free video downloader). I fired it up on these videos, which are nice in that they have translated lyrics:
Or is that TRAINSlated? :-)
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Trying to catch up...
Elf Bride has reached a part of the story where it seems kind of aimless, because the new boss antagonist they brought in doesn't seem to be antagonizing as hard as he could.
Tonari no Youkai-san continues to be pretty and introspective, and a little maudlin, as Buchio has concerns about the relative lifespan of his form of Youkai and his beloved family. But that's not universal, as some of his Youkai friends have lifespans similar to humans. Mu-chan has a similar issue from the opposite perspective when she learns that Jiro and her great-grandmother were friends when she was little.
That will cover it for tonight.
I really should have dropped Re:Monster a long time ago. If you want a show where the protagonist gets buried under a waterfall of new skills that don't even make sense every time he so much as sneezes, this is the one for you. Where everything works out in his favor with no effort, you've got it. Wait, now that he's evolved so far and brought his entire tribe and those others he's picked up along the way into a "Mercenary Company" he's managed to wipe out three bands of the human army, over 3500 troops, all in plate armor, with almost no casualties until the end - at best two dozen.
Maybe the point was taking nine episodes to introduce these other 8 or 9 supreme warriors, one step below legendary heroes. He fights one and he gets away. That's as close to a loss as I've ever seen in this show. Which means eventually he's gonna steamroll them all. He also finds out the root cause of why the Humans are after the Elves (They have a sick princess betrothed to the adjoining emperor, the elves have a cure-all medicine that they won't give up to them) and makes an end-run around it.
If I were the protagonist, I'd be dying of boredom. And it hasn't even been three months since he was reincarnated.
Elf Bride has reached a part of the story where it seems kind of aimless, because the new boss antagonist they brought in doesn't seem to be antagonizing as hard as he could.
Tonari no Youkai-san continues to be pretty and introspective, and a little maudlin, as Buchio has concerns about the relative lifespan of his form of Youkai and his beloved family. But that's not universal, as some of his Youkai friends have lifespans similar to humans. Mu-chan has a similar issue from the opposite perspective when she learns that Jiro and her great-grandmother were friends when she was little.
Episode 8 drops some interesting tidbits about things like the Magic in England, and how it's used for all the movie special effects. The power there is so pervasive that anyone can learn to do magic. But it also goes deeper into the relationship between Jiro and Mu-chan's great grandmother, and it's not happy.
That will cover it for tonight.
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