...and then it hit me.
So the other night I was looking at Vocaloid videos, many of which had several less well known members of the Vocaloid pantheon. In the process, I blundered into this one and was curious which particular Vocaloids these...
...Vocaloi..
...loi..
.....Oh no.
Oh dear God no...
The Touhou business going on in the background just makes it that much more surreal.
I wonder if this is societal reintegration therapy.
1
From what I've read, the story told in these books definitely suffers from "good grief, what do I do now?", and as much as the first story needed to be fleshed out for the anime, the second needs to be trimmed back. I'm willing to trust the animation team for a while, because they succeeded in making me care about both main characters in the first half.
I don't think they're going to try to explain too much, though, and Lyfa-imoutoko's lack of curiosity about the disparity between his knowledge and his skill really sticks out; there needed to be at least one sentence hand-waving that away. On the bright side, there's one slender thread of hope that Asuna isn't completely stuck in damsel-in-distress mode. Her despair is genuine, but she's still cool enough to try to spot the password that opens the door of her cage.
No matter how they end this season, though, I hope they stop there, because apart from some side stories that might make nice specials, it looks like the rest of the main novels are Kirito solo adventures, with Asuna and other friends left behind in the real world.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Oct 28 21:09:34 2012 (2XtN5)
Recursions
I thought that the Gangnam meme was pretty played out, but via Ace comes this...which is truly a thing of beauty, (unless you are sufficiently deprived and pitiful as to be unaware of Jack Burton)
That's actually James Wong!
That video makes the whole silly thing worthwhile. That is why Psy was put on this earth...to inspire that. Now we can rest contentedly as the fad fades into oblivion, or rather...comes to its Downfall.
Good grief! It's Godwin Style!
If that is not recursive enough for you, you're probably a hipster and I can't do anything for you....except link to this.
TANSTAFAAFL (Otaku edition)
A few weeks ago (on Drudge I think) there was a story about how Internet service providers were getting astoundingly efficient at tracking people who log into sketchy download sites like Mediafire and the sites that link to them heavily, but that they didn't seem to be doing anything about it and it was unclear what they were up to. I'll be damned if I can find it now, but I thought of it when I read this.
Under the new copyright alert system, Internet service providers (ISPs)
will send a series of alerts to subscribers whose accounts may have been
used to illegally distribute music, movies or other entertainment
content via file-sharing. If the subscriber does not respond to the
first set of alerts, which will include educational material on
protecting copyrights and the consequences of illegal file-sharing, the
Internet service provider may temporarily slow down their Internet
speeds, direct them to an online tutorial when they try to access
popular websites or implement other penalties--called "mitigation
measures."
This is to be implemented over the "next couple of weeks" so those of you who are torrenting be aware that now might be a good time to go straight.
Internet users in Japan who illegally download copyright content will
face new penalties after a change to the law. They will now face up to
two years in jail or up fines to two million yen (US$25,700).
This might explain any slowness in torrents appearing.
Now, it is true that the Japanese AV media model is indeed made of fail and unsustainability. It is also true that these rather non-proportional penalties indicate a desperate attempt to keep that moribund business plan afloat. But something needs to be done, and especially given the sense of entitlement to free downloads expressed by many fans and the state of the US anime industry (which is due at least in part to piracy) my first instinct is to be OK with this despite the crazy penalties.
However, the lack of proportionality in the penalties would seem to indicate a very heavy handed approach, that might not recognize things like fair use or parody.... or image macros.
UPDATE: Japan has had US style fair use exceptions since 2008 so that final paragraph was inaccurate.
It should also be noted that the penalties for UP-loaders are rather more severe..
...uploaders of copyright infringing music and videos face a maximum
penalty of a 10-year prison sentence and a 10 million yen fine (US$128,
318 ), said BBC news.
..so what I meant by " This might explain any slowness in torrents appearing." is those of you who depend upon Anime gods in Japan uploading shows to torrent may find the torrents slow to appear for download as said anime gods ability to do so may be somewhat inhibited in the near future.
1
Clear (nee ClearWire) already slows torrents. It can even tell which traffic is which, slowing my torrents while allowing YouTube to run full speed. "Yeah Clear, tell me again how 4 am is peak usage time".
And when the class action lawsuit comes through, I'm gonna be getting a pretty tidy credit.
Posted by: Mauser at Sat Oct 20 03:29:16 2012 (cZPoz)
2
I'd love to see the class action suit that would result from this. "They provide the service we pay for except that they inadequately facilitate our theft!"
I don't think a judge is likely to find the argument compelling.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Oct 20 10:20:10 2012 (e9h6K)
4
It's a bit of Topic drift, but the lawsuit was over them advertising high speed wireless internet, promising that you'd never be throttled ("Unlimited" they said), and that you could watch video on it, but especially for NetFlix subscribers, they got totally killed by the throttling (the algorithm was VERY broken when they implemented it. An hour of heavy use could knock you down to sub 56K modem speeds for a week). Plus they had HUGE cancellation fees.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Oct 21 00:10:22 2012 (cZPoz)
Sword Art Online 15
Following on the footsteps of last episodes high stakes action and surprises, episode 15 provides a bit of a breather with a very touching, low key episode...
"Sorry mam. We removed the koi. There were complaints."
1
Sugo is
a bit too Snidely Whiplash for my tastes, but with a little push from imouto/itoko and her screen-filling cleavage, his mustache-twirling monologue certainly gets Our Hero back in the saddle. His reflexive sheathing after the match was a nice bit of VR-muscle memory, and the fact that he's stayed in touch with Egil says a lot. I was having a hell of a time getting this to stream yesterday, though, so I'll have to rewatch a download to really get into it.
Now, I know this isn't going to turn into a harem show, but I wouldn't complain if Lisbeth and Silica started hanging out with Suguha so they could find someone else to crush on together.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Oct 14 11:26:34 2012 (2XtN5)
2 Snidely Wiplash=absolutely perfect description. He is certainly not a complex or conflicted individual.
The Imouto thing really bugged me and it was a real disappointment in
this show. One reason is that until now the most risque thing (beyond
some necklines) had been Silica in her skivvies...which were so modest
that she could have walked down the street in them and no one would have
batted an eyelash. OTOH it's obvious that this is a non starter and his
'siousin' knows it.
I dearly hope they don't reduce Asuna to off camera damsel in distress. She's a fine character and that would be a waste.
It IS nice to see that Kazuko has gotten up with Egil. That is pretty
interesting especially considering the taboos that developed in the game
regarding 'offline life'
Now, I know this isn't going to turn into a harem show, but I wouldn't
complain if Lisbeth and Silica started hanging out with Suguha so they
could find someone else to crush on together.
Hmmm..that could work. Have a spinoff series about these girls who've been scarred in some way by SAO. Have them glom onto some inoffensive schlep. Then have hijinks ensue. If you got Kyo-Ani to animate it. Wonderduck would watch it and we wouldn't have to. Everybody wins!
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Oct 14 15:12:42 2012 (e9h6K)
Wow. W.O.W. Went "Pow!".
Someone REALLY didn't like episode 14 of Sword Art Online and decided take out a real virtual realm.
Or its just a random hacker.
Or Blizzard screwed up.
Entire cities in the World of Warcraft have been reportedly destroyed with no one spared, not even the NPCs.
1
Yeah, the losses were grim, especially considering that they'd already lost 10 people in the scouting trip. Probably half a dozen of the survivors would have given up in despair and "gone fishin'", and it would have gotten even harder to recruit and train replacements. Their odds of eventually finishing were not good, and the big reveal made it even worse.
As for Asuna's surprise:
"I've spent the last few years building up an immunity to iocane powder". :-)
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Oct 7 17:01:52 2012 (2XtN5)
It
was also possibly hinted at in the last episode. "This fishmonter is obviously a
major achievement...bur all it drops is meat.What does it give you?" "I
dunno...My wife's cooking level is 100, so lets find out. "
I was wondering how they were going to keep this show fresh. ...now I
know. I'm particularly glad that the next 14 episodes are not new
permutations of watching a Leeroy Jenkins video.
Whats most interesting is that this is apparently a completely different kind of show than we thought we were watching.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sun Oct 7 18:17:12 2012 (e9h6K)
5
I can see why a lot of fans are royally angry about this.
"10 more episodes of this show, and you already ended the computer game? What in hell are you going to do? And the answer is, probably, have the two of them find each other IRL and try to reestablish the relationship they had in the game, and do a lot of angsting before it finally comes together.
6
The problem the animation team faced is that the story arc that ended in episode 14 was just the first novel. They padded it out with side stories that were written later, but the actual SAO game ended in book one. People who've read the books say they still cut corners, but some of that was inevitable in any adaptation.
What did the author come up with to continue his standalone story when offered a contract for sequels?
Other VR games, along with some real-world adventure. For most of the 10 novels, SAO is just part of the characters' history. Except for the released-this-week book 11, which apparently satisfies fan's requests for a more detailed walkthrough of the original game.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Mon Oct 8 15:42:00 2012 (fpXGN)
7
I have added an addendum to the post that is less coy.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Mon Oct 8 17:06:03 2012 (e9h6K)
Yamato 2199 Third Movie Clip
As with the first two films, a promo clip with the first 10 minutes of the third Yamato 2199 movie has aired on Japanese TV.
As the third movie starts the ship is finally leaving the solar system. However, it seems their FTL communications can't punch through the heliopause, so, for morale purposes the Admiral arranges for everyone to have 1 minute to talk to their families back home one last time.
...and the nurse is in a french maid outfit for some reason. ( WTF)
For collectors, we have a limited number of first edition GN’s still available. My BOOKSTORE IS HERE. We only have about a half dozen of the original Volume I left. They will be gone by NYCC, I am sure. First come, first served.
My previous edition covers are now for sale HERE. Volume II cover has already sold. These are already reduced prices, but
I accept payment plans. I will also consider a reduced price if you buy
more than one painting.
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