A number of hours ago I mentioned in a comment that I'd watched the first episode of "Youjo Senki", also known as "The Saga of Tanya the Evil."

Holy shit!

This is not your typical magic flying girl soldiers kind of anime. Hell no! This is to Strike Witches what Madoka Magica is to Sailor Moon. The first episode was merely setup of the current war situation. The second episode gives us Tanya's back story. And it is a trip, temporally, theologically, and dimensionally.

Yeah, the "Heroine" is a socipathic atheist being punished by God with a really unfortunate reincarnation in order to push "Him" into such straits that "he" will finally admit to faith, and he's determined to live this life as a gigantic "Fuck you" to God--or "Being X" as he allows the divine to be called.

Sweetness and light it ain't. And that's only two episodes in.

Posted by: Mauser at 05:05 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Just throwing down a Marker here, after 6 episodes, I'm betting the big secret is:
Ursula is Shiny Chariot. They totally gave it away this episode.

Funny thing is, this show reminds me of something I only saw a single episode of in the '80's at the Philadelphia Animation Society, about a poorly regarded school magic club where the witches fly out on brooms and save the city (Tokyo?) from something attacking from the sea. I have no idea what it was called.

And while I'm flashing back on the days of 50 anime fans crammed into a rented room to watch fuzzy tapes on 19" TV's, does anyone remember "Prefectural High School Earth Defense Force"?

Posted by: Mauser at 03:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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An artist I've known personally since the 1980's, Taral Wayne has just announced that he's recently suffered a stroke. I don't know much more than that. He had a friend type that for him in his DeviantArt Status.

Posted by: Mauser at 07:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Seriously. I actually like them. So what are you all watching that you think is good?

Posted by: Mauser at 08:53 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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One of my first introductions to anime back at the Philadelphia Animation Society in the mid '80's, was a fun little convention opening animation set to ELO's "Twilight" from the album Time. It had been degraded from many generations of recopying, but it was pretty amazing, and showed what Fans were capable of. Plus it was an homage to everything that was good in fandom back then.

Lately on Youtube I've been getting an amateur (hardly!) video series suggested to me. But this one, "Cassette Girl" is especially worthy, since it hearkens back to that Daicon IV Opening Animation. Although I still don't understand the fascination with Betamax....

Posted by: Mauser at 07:12 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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For "Who Goes There?!" basically a failed writer goes on HuffPo and writes a piece about how all Self-Pub books are shit because they don't pass through the NYC Publisher's gatekeepers. Larry Correia fisked the living shit out of the post, but I had a different insight that started as a comment and turned into an essay. My theory is that thanks to the way Sales ranking and reviews and also-boughts work on a site like Amazon, plus blogs and social media, the "Gatekeepers" have been Crowdsourced.

Posted by: Mauser at 12:53 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Click to Embiggen

Posted by: Mauser at 12:34 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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You know, sometimes Anime Subtitles make their own Memes.

From Danna ga Nani wo Itteiru ka Wakaranai Ken Ep. 3

Posted by: Mauser at 10:08 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Basically, other than eating and sleeping, and a couple of errands, I spent it grinding 70,000 XP on World of Warships to finish the last two parts of the Takao mission. And it was astonishingly frustrating, because the only qualifying ships I had were the ARP Haguro and the Ryujo carrier. And damned if I can tell what actually equates to XP, because I had one amazing round where I sank three ships and did over 53K in damage, and got only 7-800 XP, and others where I did a lot less, but got a lot more (and it wasn't just the difference between winning or losing, but god did I lose a lot!)

Most frustrating thing with a carrier is getting that last torpedo run perfectly lined up, a guaranteed kill... and the game ends. That happened way too often. With the Cruiser, it was ammo selection. All the general rules of what to use didn't seem to apply. Plus I got stuck in some high tier matches. I actually had one match where I died fairly early. I had 0 Damage, but I didn't get the "You have not proven yourself in this battle" message. I had a hit on one ship with AP for zero damage, and a hit on another with HE, also for no damage. And don't get me started on Haguro's torpedoes....

Still, I won the Takao. I finished attaching all the upgrades, but I haven't allocated her 10 skill points yet.

Posted by: Mauser at 09:18 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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So apparently the way to draw traffic and interest is to post pictures, and I've been way remiss in that department.

Way back when I was reviewing Deadman Wonderland, I mentioned a scene where the security chief of the prison went and donned a catsuit to explore a part of the prison that was secret to her, even though her own uniform would have served her better. There was a delightful shot of her zipping it up. I remember asking other people what they were using to make animated .gifs, but no advice was forthcoming. I was never able to compile one.

I still can't, but someone else did make one of the aforementioned scene, so I present that in all its mesmerizing glory.

I know some would rather see it go down than up, but I'm weird that way.

Posted by: Mauser at 02:58 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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