February 11, 2024

Yuusha, Yamemasu

I've actually been really good this season at keeping up with everything I are watching, so on the weekend, I get some progress on the back catalog. In this case I finished off Yuusha, Yamemasu or, "I'm quitting heroing". What started off as the hero, shunned by the humanity he saved, going over to the demon army to offer his services took a very different turn as it finally came out that he was a living bioweapon 3000 years old, with an indelible program to protect humanity, but then a feeling of purposelessness when he brought peace. He knew from observing Echidna when he defeated her invasion, and from working for her in disguise, that the Demon Queen was actually a good ruler and could make peace between the demon and human worlds. So his power core ("Philosopher's stone") would be in good hands and used to uplift the demon world once he forced her and her generals to kill him. Otherwise he might find himself compelled to nearly destroy the world just to imperil it again so he could follow his program to save it.

So yikes, he's got a suicide plan, but he can't just do it himself. Of course, he's made such good friends of them all, they can't really do it until he really forces their hands. And just when they have him laid out after a two episode battle, they come up with a disgustingly facile solution to his order, and everything is good again.

Then I discovered I only had the first half of the OVA, but I found the other half, which just has the main cast go to a haunted onsen resort.

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February 09, 2024

MMG 5

So the fifth installment of Molesting Magical Girls has dropped, and it's mostly background on the blondes on each side. But not before they unleash some of Frieren's "Potion that dissolves only clothing" on Tres Magia, which has the excellent side effect of leaving them glued to the wall. But then they do NOTHING to them! How can you win for the side of Evil that way?

As the girls get cleaned up from their latest humiliation, they flash back on when Buttercup, I mean, Sulfur joined the group. Magenta and Azure were already a duo when the new transfer student comes in, and Magenta becomes her annoyingly persistent New Best Friend(TM) whether she wants it or not (and she doesn't). After school, while on patrol, the two detect evil, and go flying to the rescue, only to discover Sulfur is one of those newfangled Self-Rescuing Damsels, and is beating in the skull of the monster with a broken cinder block. (Why don't we see any of these gimp goons any more?) Magenta makes her pitch and Sulfur isn't really interested, but apparently revealing her secret identity clinches the deal.

It's a lot harder to do the backstory of a character who never talks. So that's short, and it then picks up in the present day where Magenta is playing with kids far younger than her in the playground. Like the base predator she is, Magenta then tries to break the ice with the kid all the other kids say only plays alone with her dolls. Pulling out a little keychain doll, she eventually engages NeroAlice in some roleplaying (Which again, is pretty hard to do with a mute character). Well, when you have the power of the Evil Dollhouse, Roleplaying takes on a new dimension. Magenta leaves, Alice fires up the dollhouse, and Magenta, detecting evil, returns to the playground. She's confident that she can avoid being trapped by just not going into the dollhouse, but the appearance of a giant shredded teddy bear with scythe-like claws (clearly on loan from Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka) behind her puts that plan out of commission.

She awakens alone in a crib transformed into a baby, and Alice comes in as her mom. The illusion is complete and compelling and it takes Magenta quite a while to remember herself. And yet, when she breaks free, she somehow convinces herself (now back in her teenaged form) to continue playing the baby for NeroAlice. That's the WTF filling in what has already been a pretty big WTF pie. Alice feeds her from a bottle until she needs to pee, and changes her diaper. Infantilism is NOT one of my fetishes, but it seems that there's a checklist requirement in any ecchi production that a girl must be made to pee at an unwanted time. When the session ends, and Alice disappears through the gateway, Magenta is left in the playground, sans-pantalones, JUST as Azure and Sulfur show up.

So not a top episode, but a partially necessary one. The first half anyway.

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February 01, 2024

In a Koma

'Tis Time for Torture, Princess may be as dumb as any 4-Koma joke strip, but it IS turning out to be funny.

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January 24, 2024

Chortle

Oh no, he's posting about the Hugo awards again.... (Link to my wordpress blog)

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January 20, 2024

Speed....

I've noticed that I haven't had to reboot my cable modem since I moved it. Actually, I think it's been behaving pretty well since New Year's. Anyway, that's a vast improvement over having it drop to 12 Mbps every day and a half or so. It's been maintaining a nice, stable 230 Mbps every time I've checked.

Still slowly rearranging stuff in my Living Room/Office, but working off the new desk is a lot more pleasant than the old setup. Alas, there's no place for the DVD shelf that I built way back in my Vancouver, WA apartment days ('92-'96). It's held up well, but there's no wall space left. But there is a narrow bookcase that can nearly accommodate all of its contents. And if I rearrange stuff on the wall of bookcases I have between the Living room and Dining room, I could manage it without double-stacking.

Desk 3 and the coffee table are still covered with random junk, and three old Macs and a beige PC case occupy the center of the room, but the fireplace is exposed. I bought a pair of plastic 3-drawer storage units that fit nicely under the desk, but I haven't put anything in them because I can't decide what goes where yet. That's the same kind of organizational paralysis I have that explains the dozen empty comics shortboxes in the storage room and the huge stacks of comics in the den that have been that way for years.

I also bought a BD drive for Purah. Haven't put it in yet. It will be interesting to see if it works with MPC-HC natively or not. Also got a Bluetooth Playstation controller. Interestingly, the button assignments are different if it's plugged in to the USB cable. It came with no software but Windows apparently has drivers built in. But there's nothing that lets me assign keys to the buttons, so compatibility with games I currently play is iffy.

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January 09, 2024

Winter 2024 - Part Three

Hime-sama "Goumon" no Jikan desu - 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess

Food Porn anime is a genre unto itself. And frankly, it's not one I'm particularly interested in. It heeds to have something else going on for me to even think about it. Food Porn in the middle of a Tournament arc? Hard Pass. This one's slightly different, where the warrior princess and her talking sword are captured by the demons, and their captor, the Hellhorde's Grand Inquisitor, Torture Tortura tempts her with delicious food. It's a thin joke, and they run through it three times in the first episode with Toast, of all things, Takoyaki, and Ramen. Although they do promise something else in the preview.

So why on Earth do I want to watch it?

This:


There's something about a demoness in semi-business attire. (I'm rather fond of Helltaker fan art too). And she certainly seems to enjoy her work.





This, however, never happens.


Also, there seems to be promise of a catgirl.
more...

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January 07, 2024

Winter 2024 - Part Two

Kekkon Yubiwa Monogatari - (lit. Wedding Ring Story, but romanized as "Tales of Wedding Rings" Note the plural.)

It starts off like a bog-standard Isekai, the kind nobody actually makes any more. Young Satou is chasing stag beetles in the woods when an unearthly beam of light appears, and out steps a pretty blonde girl and her wizardly grandfather. She asks his name, and introduces herself as Nokana Hime (and according to the localizers, says "You can call me Hime", which he does.) Then she advises him to never speak of this event and says he'd be better off forgetting it ever happened.

Ten years later they're inseparable, all his classmates think she's his girlfriend, and she happens to live alone in the apartment next to his (While his parental supervision is also conveniently absent, but they haven't done anything.) She's also developed into quite the Gyaru, and I do mean developed.... It's the last day before summer break, and she asks him to meet up to go to the festival. They play games, eat food, and find a nice secluded spot to watch the fireworks, and he thinks that she's taking this time to confess to him, and she turns to him, and says...

"I've decided to move. Tomorrow."

As he drops her off at her door, he still can't quite manage to blurt out his confession as she keeps rambling, trying to let him off easy, then she dashes inside.

Alone in his room, he finally recalls when they first met. Looking out his window, he can see the beam of light off in the distance in the woods, and runs to intercept her. She is surprised he actually remembers where she came from, and admits "Moving away" was a lie, that she's from a different world, and that as a princess, she's going to get married. It's the third time she's tried to let him off easy, and he's just too thick.... After she goes though the beam, he thinks for a moment about how he doesn't have to think about it, and dashes through the beam as well, and appears in the middle of the wedding.

Although apparently he isn't the only wedding crasher. A huge demonic beast smashes through the window, clearly intent on killing Hime. Only hovering in place long enough for some important exposition to take place. The two rings Hime has been wearing on a chain around her neck the entire time are The Ring of Light, and the guy whom she marries bears the power. And at the last second, rather than completing her vows with the prince she was scheduled to marry, she runs up to Satou, plants a big kiss on him, and they are enveloped in light, and are now wearing the rings. The prince accepts this well enough to toss his sword to Satou, since he's the one who has to fight the demon now. Satou, who doesn't know which end of the sword to grab luckily catches it by the hilt, and it suddenly transforms into a bright, flaming sword, which slices the demon in half with one swing. Satou passes out then.

This is followed by awkward scenes in the royal bedchamber when he wakes up, and the bath, during which he manages to say the wrong thing several times. Fortunately he is saved by the Alarm Bell as more monsters attack.

If it weren't for the opening credits, you'd never know this wasn't a straightforward story where the guy goes to another world, saves the kingdom and gets the girl. But this shot right here tells you exactly what's going to happen.


Dark-skinned, white-haired, catgirl warrior. Yeah, you sussed it out. That's why I'm planning to watch this sucker. Hey, at least he makes honest women of them all... see the rings?

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January 05, 2024

Winter 2024 - Part One

So here's what we've got so far.

Frieren is, of course, continuing this season. Also, Urusei Yatsura is back for another 23 episodes. (Although I think I have a few to finish off from the last round.)

Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete "Gushing over Magical Girls": SubsPlease has an Uncensored version, Although I'm picking up that an even more uncensored version is in line for the BD. Or is that BDSM?

Hiragi Utena lives in a city protected by the Tres Magia, a Three Magical Girl team in Red, Blue, and Yellow, and she is a total fangirl for them. Then one day, as she stops for a drink at the vending machine, she's approached by a black furry flying critter who offers to make her a magical girl. Only, once she's finished her transformation, she realizes her costume is rather lewd. She doesn't think it looks much like what a Magical Girl would wear, and that's when the critter tells her she's been recruited to FIGHT the Tres Magia. She refuses. The next day, he approaches her again, and tells her that she's perfect for the job because she's so average. Although the examples he gives of her being "average" sound more like she was the first runner up for the lead role in Watamote.

Still following her around, they stop in a park and he makes her transform, then he reveals that he filmed it, and will post it on their Twitter-analogue if she doesn't do what he says. Unfortunately, the Tres Magia can sense evil, and interrupt the discussion. Utena's plea that she's being forced into this falls on deaf ears. At which point the critter, Venalita, gives her her magical wand, er, Riding Crop, and tells her she can use it to create monsters. He tells her to tap one of the flowers, and it suddenly turns into a gigantic flower-gimp, and before you can say "Tentacle Rape" the Tres Magia are subdued. Venalita then tells her she has to step into the fight, and before she knows what she's doing, she finds herself cropping the bejesus out of the magical girls' behinds. And then something awakens in her and she starts really enjoying it, because she assumes it can't be real, and if it's a dream, she may as well go all-out.

Waking up in bed at home reinforces the idea it's all a strangely enjoyable dream, until Venalita addresses her from the top of the dresser. Alas, the magical girls pulled off some kind of "Power of Friendship" rally and defeated the flower monster.

At school, of course it turns out that the secret identities of the Tres Magia are all her classmates, and they are all pissed off at whoever this new Villainess is, because their backsides are all still hurting really bad. But they conclude that she must be protected by the same spell that keeps their identities secret.

Venalita has set the stage for another fight, and so the three all excuse themselves to go to the bathroom at the same time. Utena then notices her phone has blown up, which she doesn't check because it's normally just her family. Venalita tells her she can fly when she transforms, and sends her a map to where the fight is taking place. She gets there almost too late, and she doesn't really want to fight, but he's got video of her whipping the three magical girls to use for blackmail, so she uses her power to animate a bunch of manikins into multi-limbed conglomerates who again capture the Tres Magia, and start tearing off their clothes and tickling them. Alas, the manikins start to fail, so Venalita opens a portal for them to escape through, but the Tres Magia are left pretty well wrung out.

I generally love shows that play games with the standard formats. So I'm very curious which way this one's going to go.

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December 20, 2023

Waiting for Bureau [sic]

If you've ever seen my setup, well first I'd want to know how the hell you did. But if you've ever seen it, you'd know it started as a sort of TV/Entertainment stand with a strong platform bridging two endtable/cabinets my father built. The platform used to have room for my fairly large CRT TV and my big Jensen speakers. But as Screens have gotten flatter and bigger, the speakers have been pushed off to the sides. My Mac still resides, pretty much unused these days, in the bedroom I designated my Den. That room is dominated by disorganized piles of my comic collection. Cats are not allowed in there, which means they find it irresistible.

My PC used to reside underneath the span, until I realized that made it a stationary Roomba. That was three, maybe 4 PC's ago. Now it's next to one of the speakers.

I used to use my wireless keyboard and mouse from a lap-board while sitting in my recliner. But eventually the Fake PVC Leather declined to the point where I had to put it out of its misery. I would rest the lap board on a TV Tray table when it wasn't it use, and that became my "desk", and the recliner was replaced with a chair from my dining room set. (Another of those chairs lives in the Den in front of the Mac.)

This is, you can imagine, sub-optimal.

I also have a rolling stand with adjustable shelves I made for my large-format inkjet printer that is now in the parts bin. Two printers live on it now. The Epson is only used for its scanner, and the Brother Laser replaces the tiny HP DeskJet that also resides in the parts bin because it never ran right for more than a couple pages after a new set of ink cartridges. The Brother works well enough that it has totally derailed my plans to dissect my old LaserWriter 12/640 and find the inaccessible curl of paper that disabled it.

So this year I resolved to upgrade. I also wanted to move my setup so that it isn't blocking the gas fireplace so I can get that repaired. I've already bought a new office chair that is, honestly, meh, and a chairmat to protect the rug.

And just now, about 12:15, the truck pulled up, and I was unable to bribe the driver into helping get them upstairs into the Living Room, so they're stacked in the garage while I retrieve them piece by piece via the front door, while Max grows increasingly impatient shut in the bathroom. When I placed the order they projected delivery on the 26th, which would have been great and not cost me a vacation day. I would have had four days to clean and prepare.

Turns out cleaning up wasn't THAT bad once I cut up all the boxes for recycling. Max protested, but I saved his two favorite ones. I also moved a couple of dead monitors and my dead Toshiba flatscreen down to the garage for the eventual trip to an eRecycler. One was a 21" Dell with a true flat screen and the bug that chassis had that continually raised the lowest brightness level until it was nearly unusable. Fucker must have been 60 lbs with no good way to handle it. My back hurts just from that. Carrying the parts up didn't help.

As a bonus, I found three missing catnip mice and a ball.

Anyway, I trust my two readers are observant enough to notice my use of the Plural. I ordered not one, not two, but THREE Bush Components 60" x 30" desks. I honestly have no idea how many of these things I built when I was doing furniture assembly for the office stores, but they are simple and strong. There are only four major parts, the desk top, the sides, and the modesty panel. They basically make four sides of a box. Two are going to go against the short wall of the stairwell, and the third is going to fit into the Bay window. The only thing I couldn't find was a nice matching 90° corner piece, so I'm probably going to set up my printer stand there.

I'm really tempted to get going on them now, but my back is telling me that would be a bad idea.

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November 26, 2023

Gigantor

Nah, not the show, that's just what I named the new 10 TB drive. I stuck it in the temporary drive slot in the top of my case and copied almost everything off of Biggest, the D drive. It took between 9 and 11 hours - overnight anyway. I didn't see it throw any error alerts. Then I swapped drive letters and uTorrent was none the wiser. It's funny that I went in the space of two months from having no back up of my anime to three copies in varying degrees of completeness.

Eventually I need to swap the drives physically. But the next task is consolidating F and H into one data drive, removing their obsolete Windows 7 installs (three of them between the two!) and reorganizing the stuff I used to split.

Windows 10 has one extremely annoying feature in the save dialog. When you go to save a file, it may go to the last used directory. But if you start drilling down to where you really want to save your file, after a few seconds it will jump back and reselect that previous directory, even as you're about to open another folder.

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