Brickmuppet Blog 2.0

October 14, 2017

RWBY's Final Season Begins

Immediately we get confirmation that team RNGR as a group has important and oft overlooked habits which are absolutely necessary for those who would protect themselves and others.

Good trigger discipline and always checking one's targets.

This episode picks up exactly where the last episode of last season left off, with no time-skip. In fact, most of this episode takes place hours before the very end of last season's final episode. Most of the titular cast is still scattered to the four winds but we do get a bit of exposition that provides Ruby herself and her B team with some perspective and a new goal. Blake is still on another continent, Weiss is still de-remittanced, hunted and (unknown to them or her) en route to their general location in possession of an important bit of information

Yang's subplot has taken an unexpected turn...

...literally, she must have done a U-turn after taking that right in the closing credits.

The only thing that really indicates a new season is that there has been another of the show's annual upgrades in quality; production values are visibly better.

This is actually a couple of screencaps from a still pan, but the attention to detail is remarkable, especially when one remembers the "shadow people" of the first season.

There is no spectacular opening fight as there has been every other season, and indeed only one punch is thrown. Improved backgrounds notwithstanding, the season is not so much beginning as the show is continuing, with last season's conclusion feeling even more like a midseason finale. The show, however, remains enjoyable and still looks promising.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 222 words, total size 4 kb.

October 02, 2017

Wishful Thinking & Unwarranted Schadenfreude

There is a fair amount of concern trolling expressed at Marvel's recent sales woes and a belief amongst certain people that they represent the death knell for the Comic industry.

This is not the case.

Marvel and DC don't even NEED to turn a profit anymore. They are now idea factories and copyright farms for Time Warner and Disney to whom the budget of Marvel is a rounding error.The notion that driving away their former audience is going to have any effect upon their editorial decision making is delusional. Furthermore, these reports of declining sales are based largely on Diamond's sales figures, which are not going to show, say, Amazon sales. Comic stores are just another type of brick and mortar store that is being bypassed by direct, online sales so the sales figures for the actual companies may not be as low as is assumed.

Furthermore, the comics themselves are loss leaders. I was reminded of this by a post by a comic professional on a private board. Trade paperbacks are where comics make money nowadays. That is, the comics themselves don't really make money anymore. (I used to know this, but haven't worked in the industry for years).

Pretty much the only people who buy those are those who frequent comic shops, the hardcore fans who are the object of the SJWs hate. Newer fans, and casual readers buy the trade paperbacks, which remain in print (thanks to modern printing technologies) pretty much in perpetuity. A comic doesn't make money. A trade paperback ordered on Amazon does.

I've talked to people in the industry who would know and paperbacks are actually selling pretty well. Indeed, the declining comic sales have no bearing on this because trades are the new way of buying comics...one picks up the trade paperback on Amazon. One industry professional described the new business model as very similar to the Japanese Manga industry, with the individual comics taking the place of the big manga "phone books" as loss leaders. The trade paperbacks here are the American equivalent of the manga complilations...that's what people buy, and the profit on each book actually increases with time as the number of trade paperback editions grows. Trade paperbacks thus work sort of like like compound interest, and in fact they are generally the way that web comics make money.

So while it may be very satisfying to believe that the editors who hate us with every fiber of their being might be forced by economic reality to not make Captain America a Nazi, the fact is that this has not hurt them at all.

Marvel and D.C. are doing exceedingly well. They have cultivated an entirely new fan base which is making them money. This is good business. That these SJWs did so by treating their long time fans with the kindness and respect that a spoiled child demonstrates in pulling the wings off a junebug, is sad.

What is sadder still is a bunch of adults gloating over comic book stores suffering. They had no control over the editorial decisions that many of us find vexing nor the technological innovations that have bypassed them. Their demise will not hurt the big comic companies in any way and will almost certainly (given the demographics of comic store owners) give SJWs a wry smile and cruel chuckle. It will not affect the bottom line of Marvel and DC in any way.

So don't expect multimillion dollar corporations to come crawling back to atone for not catering to us. That is the impotent fantasy of grade school looser. Instead, take some satisfaction that they did a good job with the Wonder Woman movie, and they haven't screwed up Squirrel Girl yet.

Then go poke about and look for other comics that you just possibly might like. There are quite a few online.

There's even a likeable genderbent Thor!

Failing that go out and create your own. Or send some of that comic money this guy's way.

Or sit on your duff and wait for Marvel and DC to collapse...but if you do that, you may want to get a book or something. 'Cause it's gonna be a long wait.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:12 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 703 words, total size 6 kb.

1 Ok, question: if nobody's buying (say) Thorette comics in the shops, then who's buying the compilations? Are SJWs rushing out to buy comics they'd previously disdained now that there's a trans Spiderwoman (or whatever?)

Posted by: Rick C at Mon Oct 2 14:58:58 2017 (ECH2/)

Ok, question:

NOPE! Guess again! (While my secret identity is something I keep close to the vest, I assure you that it is not Victor Sage...whose alias should always be capitalized.) HINT: I'm actually a comic book super-villain (no really).
As to the rest of your inquiry, it's probably people who don't show up in comic book stores.
Also, given the price of comic book single issues, the fact that they are awkward and expensive to store, and trade paperbacks are just books one puts on a shelf, a LOT of people are just buying the trades. Those can be gotten from Amazon easier than a comic store and the people who are into the SJW world view are often not going to be hanging out in a comic store, so it's a completely different demographic than we run into. Ordinarily, this would be a good thing, expanding the market with new titles and demographics is objectively good.
The grief arose where this was quite explicitly not about just bringing new people in, but pushing us out.
Finally it should be noted that while not all of the reimagined superheroes have been badly done (The new Blue Beetle worked quite well) ALL of them have elicited howls of protest from people who were emotionally invested in characters that they could see themselves in. The new audiences are interested for that same reason. These are characters who they can see themselves as and so they're picking up these books for the same reason we, as awkward alienated teens did. It would be better if more of these books were written as something other than check boxes on a Benneton ad. It would have been better still if this shift had not had such contempt for the long time fans behind it.

The point is that there is every reason to believe that the up and coming comic book reader is not just as different in their consumption habits from the dwindling number of aging gen Xers as every other Millennial customer segment is. Unlike the editors involved, most of the new fans probably harbor us no ill will any more than we begrudge them their enjoyment of books directed at them. But we only rarely will encounter them because we all hang in different circles....which is contributing to this notion that these companies must be failing, when they most assuredly are not.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Oct 2 17:52:23 2017 (KicmI)

3 Largely, those aren't on sale yet - they tend to lag the individual-issue comics by a good bit to avoid cannibalizing the comic sales. Even beyond that, the number of comics actually affected by this stuff is a pretty small fraction of total comics titles, especially small compared to "total TPBs available from the past few decades".

Sure, it'd affect their ability to draw in new fans - which was already pretty limited by the superhero focus to begin with, mind you. The industry had been busy pigeonholing itself since the 90s. Of course, it's not unlike anime - in the same way that Japan panders to the creepy otaku, the US comic industry has pandered to our own equivalent. I'm going to guess that the intersection between "people who like reading comics about young women with gravity-defying bodies in spandex" and "people who like being judged as horrible human beings for reading comics about young women with gravity-defying bodies in spandex" to be just about zero.

But like you say, the comic book companies make more money through movies than they ever did through actual comics, and they've got a lot of untapped material to work through yet; they'll be selling movies based on comic stories from ten or twenty years ago long enough for everyone now making decisions to retire comfortably. If they aren't managing their companies to keep things rolling fifty years down the road, well, who else is, these days?

The comic shops have long since had to diversify; just about all of the ones I've been to make a lot more off of related goods, gaming stuff, and Magic cards than they do off actual comics. Hell, most of them are really Magic card shops that happen to have a side line in comics...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Mon Oct 2 21:19:17 2017 (/lg1c)

4 I don't think I've bought single-issue comics since Adam Warren and Toren Smith were doing Dirty Pair.

That was.... A while ago now.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tue Oct 3 01:11:05 2017 (PiXy!)

5 Are there any actual numbers to support the claim that Marvel is making up for losses in the direct market with trade paperback sales? Their Amazon rankings aren't spectacular, and BookScan has them at 10% of the C/GN market behind Dc at 14% and Viz at 23%.

Posted by: muon at Mon Oct 16 05:16:07 2017 (vMYTH)

6 The numbers do exist. I know for a fact that the comic companies are doing very well. However, I have a non-disclosure agreement with my former employer.
Regarding the publicly available numbers, they are not good data. Bookscan is bunk. (Read the whole thing)
Another thing to remember is that TPs are essentially cash in the bank. Printing costs are way lower than they used to be, so once the books are compiled they just sort of make money from then on. Thus even very moderate sales generate more profit than a regular 32 page book.
It would be interesting to know WHAT trade paperbacks are selling. After all, a huge amount of Marvel and DC comics going back decades are for sale in trade paperback form...
I...I...Great Galaxies! If you go to the link, The Watcher is now hocking back issues. So perhaps the end really is nigh !

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Oct 16 16:40:02 2017 (3bBAK)

7 Collen Doran wrote that in 2013, and as she said, Author Central had only linked with BookScan in 2010. It also wouldn't include sales to comic shops, which might also account for the discrepancy. Comichron has the sales figures for TPBs in comic shops, and Amazon has a category for comic books and graphic novels. What most people are interested in is how the diversity titles launched after 2014 are doing as opposed to the classic trades. The first Ms. Marvel TPB seems to be a perennial seller, but the subsequent ones aren't. Patsy Walker aka Hellcat came in at 71 on the Graphic Novel list, but the series was still cancelled.

Posted by: muon at Tue Oct 17 07:16:21 2017 (vMYTH)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

September 24, 2017

Truth in Advertising.

Knights and Magic is a perfectly reasonable name for this show and not a misleading title in any way.

Trapped! in a Fantasy World would work too.

IN A WORLD where the transmigration expressway missed a turn at Alberquerque, one computer programer is reincarnated as a nobleman's son in a world that's ripped from the pages of Cliffs Notes of the Silmarillion...except for the giant robots.

The main difference between this show and every other show that involves a geek getting zapped into a fantasy world is that he's actually reincarnated and at at some point in his childhood, he encounters a giant enchanted suit of armor (which the knights in this realm use to fight) and suddenly remembers his past life as a highly regarded computer programmer and plamo Otaku.

This show actually starts out remarkably well. The story and world are in a lot of ways, very well thought out.

For instance the way they handle magic is kind of neat.

There is a nice (and very atypical) side plot involving another individual's redemption, and a lot of thought went into the creation of the world and its characters.

The plot develops quickly but logically, and the characters are well realized. The show has a bit to say about bureaucracies, institutional inertia and how disruptive technologies can destabilize the international order (nothing terribly insightful mind you, but they touch on these issues). This is a nice touch given the premise of the show. It's just a very solid, remarkably well done and engaging show...

But then..

quite suddenly, (around episode 9) it appears that the writers received word that the show was only going to be 13 episodes and not 26 or 52 and the pacing gets downright... brisk, while he plotting gets inchoate.

The story moves all over the place so quickly that the show actually gets a narrator around that time to explain all the stuff that they're not showing the audience.

For instance there are fragments of a really moving tale of a crown princess who must come to terms with an awesome responsibility thrust upon her...but most of that it taken care of off camera. There's a villain who seems to have a very dark and tragic backstory that was being developed until it was....not.

The show wraps up QUITE abruptly, and unsatisfyingly. This breakneck pacing exacerbates the main negative issue with the hero. That is, he is so good at everything that he gives off a bit of a Mary Sue vibe...

...in more ways than one.

Even more annoying, there are several interpersonal relationships between various characters that start out really well written and fun (this is, astonishingly, NOT a harem show) These just get left unresolved in the mad dash to wrap up the main plot.

The animation and art design was quite good (with the sole exception of the little mini-mechs, which never looked or moved right). Unlike the plot, this does not seem to have suffered much at the end and remains high quality throughout.

Knights and Magic, despite its painting by numbers premise, had a LOT of potential and seems to have had some real skill and talent working on it. It really does seem that the show was cut short unexpectedly and that is unfortunate. However, we should probably keep an eye on the director Yusuke Yamamoto and the writer Michiko Yokote in the future. Because both of these people have definite skill in their craft.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 583 words, total size 5 kb.

September 22, 2017

This Did Not Suck

The Orville does not seem to be high art, but it's solid. I've seen two episodes and I'm tentatively optimistic.

I was (pleasantly) surprised that its not a typical Seth McFarlane 44 joke a minute comedy, but rather a very Star Trekesque show done largely straight with a sitcom side-plot and a fair amount of snark.

One thing I do like is that this is not the United Federation of Planets Planetary Union flagship/hottest, most cutting edge starship, but a mass produced 5th rate scout vessel whose captain and several of his crew have had...chequered...careers and this is their last chance to avoid being cashiered. They have this chance due mainly to a severe fleetwide crew shortage due to the recent massive expansion of the Union. This is, however, a small ship, with routine duties, so how much trouble could these spacers possibly get into?

Oh.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:02 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 150 words, total size 1 kb.

September 08, 2017

This is an Unexpected Addition to my Film Queue

via

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

September 04, 2017

Midterm Report Card

My Hero Academia

Concept	A
Characterization	A-
Basic Comprehension of American Superhero Comics	A
Plot	A
Screen Time for Frog Frau and Gadget Girl	D-
Pathos	B
Comprehension of What a Hero is	A
Physics/Biology	F*
Pacing	C-

This has been a surprisingly good show, being Kohei Horikoshi's take on superheroes, specifically AMERICAN comic book superheroes, albeit in a Japanese setting and in a Shounen style of storytelling.

That last bit was a cause for some trepidation, especially as season two began with a tournament fighting arc, which, in Japanese boys comics, is usually where interesting stories go to die. Fortunately, this show has thus far used such framing devices, not as filler, but as a way of providing venues for characterization of what is a fairly large cast.

The breakneck pace of the first twelve episodes does slow considerably as much of the show's action is now taking place simultaneously in different locales and some events are told in a Rashomon style from different viewpoints. However, the story is continually moving along and most of the villians are actually quite interesting, several having interesting ( though admittedly warped) philosophical reasons for their mayhem.

The Japanese storytelling techniques notwithstanding, this is a show that GETS the American superhero genre in a way that American superhero comics often don't anymore. Most notably it appears to be a disquisition of the nature of heroism. At least three of the characters are pointedly reflective of some of the more obnoxiously nihilistic 'Iron Age' tropes, not in homage to those ideas, but in mockery of them. The number one hero of the universe, a pivotal, but largely background character named All Might, is a VERY American superhero combining the best aspects of Captain America and Superman. Powerful and idealistic, All Might is an astounding beacon of strength and sincerity...

IN A WORLD

...where superheroes are basically licensed mercenaries .

You see, some years prior, superpowers spread like a disease through the general population granting over 99% of humanity "quirks" which range from the useless to the dangerous. Superheroes are, perhaps surprisingly, not passe' since the criminal element is similarly blessed. Superheroing is somewhat akin to private security firms, licenses and bonding are required and they work closely with the police (many have product endorsement side gigs based on their social media presence). One way to get a license is to go to an accredited superhero college...This is the goal of one Izuku Midoriya, who has, since a young age dreamed of being a superhero. There's just one problem, as the show starts he is revealed to be one of the infinitesimally small number of people with no quirk at all.

The main characters are for the most part quite likeable and (generally) idealistic, though perhaps not quite as much as they think they are, heroism being more than a career path or physical strength (as they are finding out). Interestingly, even some whose goals seem at first glance to be cynical are pursuing them for noble reasons. This is really, well done.

This series is a shonen show, and all that implies, but it is an outlier of its genre in a most positive way. I am enjoying this series immensely more than I have any right to be right now.

* This is as it should be.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:15 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 557 words, total size 6 kb.

Eromanga Sensei Ends

Actually, Eromanga Sensei ended some time ago, but I only just finished it as shortly after watching the first few I had developed a nagging fear that it was going to be horrible.

Fortunately it was merely offensive.

Sometimes exuberantly so....

The show did not conclude, it merely stopped, though there was continuous, if unsteady character development throughout. It remained enjoyably silly till the end. On the debit side, it kind of jumped the shark when the second female author entered out of left field. More disappointing was that her arrival made the series an actual harem show (which it had not quite been up till that point). Still, it was cute and generally funny. It also had a lot to say about the creative process, but it really said all it had to say in the first 8 episodes, and it was pretty much fan service after that.

and crossovers...with troubling implications.

Some of the characters, particularly those introduced later, appear to have been conceived by rolling dice and referencing an NPC encounter table, but I must say that Elf Yamada is one of the better characters in recent years, having surprising depth and complexity for an utter loon. The show did not live up to its early promise as it spent the last third checking off every trope box on the harem show bucket list as if to apologize for the quirky and touching first part. Disturbingly, this may imply other...issues...with the plot.

It's still cute and funny overall, but nowhere near what it could have been.

(Or was.)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 264 words, total size 3 kb.

Lost in Translation

So, in an attempt to mitigate simultaneous afflictions of boredom and writers block, I went and watched the Japanese dub of RWBY which is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Wow.

This interpretation has a truly bizarre series of editorial choices. Some, like the almost complete omission of the JNPR story elements one can almost get one's head around. Others, like severely cutting the fight scenes (removing most of the cute character bits and even some of the better choreography) are completely inexplicable.

To be fair, the very odd Jaune Arc...er...arc in the first season was indeed a dumpster fire of a subplot (until the end), but it clearly established why Jaune appeared to be a few islets of brilliance in a sea of derpitude.

Along with Weiss, Jaune is one of the characters who has come the farthest in overcoming personal shortcomings, and without this backstory, his later development (especially in season 4) is not going to have anything like the same impact. That whole arc as well as the other excised footage also developed Phyrra's character, establishing her both as 'the pro from Dover' and as a mentor to many of the other characters, particularly Ruby. The whole notion that JNPR are genuinely significant to the story is lost, as are several things that seemed to be random, throwaway bits, but were, in fact important foreshadowing. This can't help but hurt the show later. Indeed, one of the best and most consequential conversations in the series, (Ruby's "Nope" speech from season one) is completely omitted.

Way more important than we initially thought.

The voice work is off as well. However, it's not that the voice acting is bad per se (it's not) but rather that the characters are voiced as straight up versions of their respective (assumed) archtypes. To my surprise though, the guy they got to play Oobleck nails it.

I'm not sure, but they may have cut as much as 45 minutes out of the show as of the middle of season three, much of it, as is noted above, fairly consequential to the later plot.

This brings back memories of my youth in anime fandom when everyone was griping about how edits by the American rights holders would almost inevitably gut the impact of or destroy the cohesiveness of the plots of anime brought to the U.S.

Well, it's not just American distributors that do that...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 402 words, total size 3 kb.

August 16, 2017

An Utter Failure...at Destroying Childhoods

Disney has put the first two episodes of Duck Tales online.

This is really well written and surprisingly faithful in tone to the 80's Cartoon, but even more so old Carl Banks comic it was loosely based on.

Via

The characterizations of the kids, (er ducklings)are way better I was particularly relieved with what they did with Webby, who is a really neat character.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:33 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 69 words, total size 1 kb.

Just Received A Brief, Terse Text

It contained information on how to access the following file...

I'll leave it to you to asses its importance.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:21 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 25 words, total size 1 kb.

August 15, 2017

Attack on Titan Season 2

Attack on Titan continues to be unpredictable, generally well animated and interesting. It is also a seinen show and keeps the attention of its adolescent audience by tempering its introspective moments and thoughtful observations with amazing action scenes and visuals that frequently go beyond graphic to full on baroque in their depiction of carnage.

This space intentionally left blank.

After all the hints in season one, they are finally exploring what the hell was (and is) behind the calamity that inflicted implacable solar powered cannibalistic giants upon society.

That actual expository plot is kind of incoherent and at the end of the series we still have no idea what is actually behind this calamity, except that there appears to be a conspiracy of some sort. The whole thing is treated as the MacGuffin that it is.

The show's strength, however is in how its characters react to their frankly insane and increasingly hopeless situations.

Mercifully not pictured; their situation.

This is a show that's had very good characterizations...except for the main character, who seems to be a parody of a shonen protagonist. He's not at all lacking in courage or determination, but he's not particularly good at his job. The side charachters however, are fascinating and intelligently written. Several of them are quite likable too...

The moody direction and sense of trancendental dread of the early episodes of the season are not as well handled in the latter half, which relies on increasingly bizarre plot twists, and breakneck pacing only interrupted by an episode of fairly non-expository dialog that seems to have been placed there just to get to the requisite number of episodes.

Despite that and its gruesome visuals the series is still interesting enough that I hope they do another season. Its splatterpunk tendencies notwithstanding, the show manages to have some remarkably effective and even subtle horror. It has quite a bit to say about the importance of redemption, as well as the nature of true heroism....

...the 'last stand of Potato Girl' being particularly epic in that regard .

The show was wildly uneven and should not be watched while eating, but it remains surprisingly interesting.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 04:21 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 364 words, total size 5 kb.

July 02, 2017

Just a Reminder That When You Break Out the Apple Pies on Tuesday...

(Language Warning)

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 03:49 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 15 words, total size 1 kb.

July 01, 2017

Oh.

I understand now!

Pete, in the comments, specifically said stay with Eromaga Sensei 'till episode 3, because...Elf.

And I was all like..."Elf annoys the hell out of me. If she's the hook, screw this noise!"

Well.

Pete was right.

Elf Yamada is a gloriously whacked antagonist. I mean she is epically nutsoid in a most entertaining way. Now in any other show with someone like her that would be the alpha and omega of her characterization, but not in this show...

There was an amazing amount of character development and exposition in this episode, and all of it was superbly written.

I'm afraid I've gotta watch more of this delightful trainwreck.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:52 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 113 words, total size 3 kb.

June 29, 2017

Alice and Zoroku Ends

That was remarkably satisfying despite the fact that I really would like to see more of this show.

Although, Alice and Zoroku is rather schizo in tone, the series leverages this trait quite well..

For one thing, it has the benefit of being completely unpredictable.

One never knows if an episode is going to be action adventure..

...adventures in floristry...

...fast food appreciation...

....haute cuisine appreciation...

...fantasy horror...

...or merely an excuse to trot out a new action figure....

...whatever genre it's dabbling in, Alice and Zoroku manages to be consistently good.

If you haven't watched it, you are wrong.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 105 words, total size 2 kb.

June 22, 2017

Spoiler Warning!

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 08:20 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 2 words, total size 1 kb.

June 20, 2017

The Only Battle That Counts Is The Last One

And now for something refreshingly silly.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 05:49 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.

April 30, 2017

FINALLY!

We get to see Yotsuba&! in an anime!

...from Eromanga Sensei episode 2 which introduces the girl in pink, a rival author who is amazingly annoying. Why, she's almost as annoying as Sagiri's class rep.

Thanks to Meguni here, the show is now on probation. That darn class rep managed to inject all the squick that I was so happy the pilot avoided into the show and then some....

To our heroes' credit, he is mortified. unfortunately, he is a teenage boy and blissfully unaware that in the age of the iPhone there is no expectation of privacy, especially if one's response to an annoying, pushy girl is awkwardly phrased.

On the plus side, he has now persuaded his sister to come out of her room occasionally. If only to do laundry.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 134 words, total size 2 kb.

April 23, 2017

So....

You're supposed to be Princess Emillia, from Re:Zero, right?

I'm more interested in our protagonist's agent anyway.

What are we prattling on about?

Eromanga Sensei has a dumb as rocks premise, but it's extremely well done for what it is.

Our hero, Masamune Izume, is a light novel author...in high school, who, being recently orphaned, has to support his younger sister, Sagiri. Complicating this is the fact that, aside from the most fleeting glimpses, he's only seen her once, briefly, when she was adopted after HER parents died. You see, she's a hikikomori, presumably because there's been a lot of death in this tweener's short life.

Masamune has been particularly fortunate to land the services of a noted cheesecake illustrator on his latest novel series. He's never actually met the dude, but the artist helped to make his latest trilogy enough of a success that our hero is making a decent living...and loosing his anonymity, This is beginning to further complicate his already hectic life.

This being anime, things take a turn for the weird when series of conversations during and after a book signing and an obscure website set our hero on a path to discovering a shocking secret that will change his life forever!

Hijinks ensue.

This was a really solid first episode and except for one gratuitously tasteless gag at 14:29 this is really cute show, though I'm not sure how far they can go with this.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 12:40 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 242 words, total size 2 kb.