December 31, 2018
RWBY Season 6
After the dumpster fire that was the end of last season, RWBY's latest 8 episodes have been something of a shock.
A pleasant one.
Each of these episodes has had more plot and character development than the last half of last season, and most have had more action too. The fight choreography has risen in quality exponentially to levels that would make Monty proud and the show has managed to make the monsters scary again, with some episodes very effectively conveying a sense of existential dread.
Even the most recent episode, where a bunch of characters desperately run around in circles not killing or breaking anything because someone forgot to leave a note, managed to advance the story while developing characters...
...and torturing them.
I've been quite impressed with the season, but I'm now on my guard. The halfway point is where the last season went off the rails, crawled into its own navel and imploded, so this could all go to worms.
On the other hand, this season went "off the rails" in episode one and has doing great things ever since, so I remain hopeful.
I certainly will be watching it.
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Zombieland Saga Ends (?)
Well, it looks like Zombieland Saga finally started running low on local places of interest....
...however the whackadoodle story sort of deepened towards the end and the show provided a quite satisfying ending that was not nearly as predictable as I'd thought it would be.
A couple of threads were left hanging, some of which are tossed aside in such a way as to suggest a sequel...
Which is almost an odd enough premise to work.
This was a 6 hour long idol show that doubled as a commercial for the Saga Chamber of Commerce. By all rights, given its purpose and premise, Zombieland Saga should have been a painting by numbers mess, and yet it ended up being a quirky little gem of a show.
Rewatch value is not particularly high, but if you were put off by the whole zombie thing in the promotions, or just missed it, I strongly suggest you give it a shot.
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December 15, 2018
Well, My First Post After Coming Back Was a Bummer....
Here's something that's both seasonal and more pleasant.
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December 08, 2018
In the Terminal Phase of Late Stage Education
The content drought will continue until both final drafts are polished and I get sleep.
However, this looks to be potentially consequential and needs to be shared.
Note that if the video begins to smoke you should back up to a safe distance and if you are pregnant, elderly or have eaten in the last two hours you might not want to watch it repeatedly. Also, it appears that there are copyright issues, so it may be good to not talk about it too much...especially at work.
Other than that it looks quite promising.
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November 10, 2018
Crunchyroll...What is UP With the Subtitles?
From Rascal Doesn't Dream of Bunnygirl Senpai which, despite this nonrepresentative frame is still gorgeously drawn and really, really well written.
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October 31, 2018
It's Over
I took refuge on campus and thus avoided the ravenous hoards of tiny but insatiable mouths.
Anyway, here is a wolfgirl cosplaying as a witch.
Appropriational art by Lansane
UPDATE: J. Greely discusses these matters rather more thoroughly here.
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October 28, 2018
Palate Cleanser
A few weeks ago we looked at the official video of this K-Pop song. Well it's a hit, so there are now the inevitable MMD videos. Well, instead of just downloading the rotoscoping into MMD, some circle named DD Animations seems to have taken the same bog-standard MMD motion capture file and plugged it into Yandere Simulator.
But then they got creative with the editing.
This is really well done.
The only issue with this is the troubling fact that there actually is a Yandere Simulator.
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October 25, 2018
First 2 Minutes
The last season of RWBY looking promising enough that the inevitable betrayal could sting quite a bit.
Just two days to go.
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October 22, 2018
And Then, As I Stood Before the Refrigerator
It dawned upon me.
Don't they cremate people in Japan?
In related news, I watched the first three episodes of Zombieland Saga again.
Regarding some of the concerns brought up by cxt217 in the comments of the earlier post:
The agent/human beatbox/cosmetologist is actually a character trope of sports manga and to an extent idol shows as well.
He's rather over the top, but not by as much as one might think given the genres involved.
Regarding concerns about Hoshikawa,
I wonder if, in addition to everything else the show is, this counts as Isekai?
Shipstorm
Please use spoiler tags.
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October 21, 2018
ZombieLand Saga
From the Blurb...
I suddenly find myself at a loss for words.
I read the blurb. But what the blurb describes...that's not what I watched.
A typical morning. The usual music. Their normal lives. The peace these seven girls experience will suddenly be destroyed. By the living dead... zombies. A reality that they never wanted a part of, an amazing and terrifying zombie world. They all share one wish: "We want to live." These girls will struggle through this saga, in order to achieve a miracle. MAPPA, Avex Pictures, and Cygames team up to bring you a juicy, 100% original anime. A timeless shocker for all audiences, a brand new style of zombie anime, will soon rise.
Now ignore the blurb.
Completely.
Just go watch Zombie Land Saga posthaste.
No. I mean NOW!
Trust me.
This is the show to beat this season.
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Thank You Mauser
If not for your post, I never would have watched this show.
It's not like the poster is devoid of appeal...
...but it and the blurb didn't really grab me.
However, unlike the show reviewed below, this is not exactly what it says on the tin. While that poster is not, strictly speaking, dishonest, it does not adequately convey what this show is about.
Eight Word Title With Bunny Girl In It now has me totally hooked. Despite the poster and an early scene with one of the characters running around in a bunny suit, this is a really creepy show and reminds me most of the Josei horror that was popular at the turn of the century.
It's low key. It's well written and it's keeping me on the edge of my seat.
The characters are well done, likable and react to the just plain "off" things happening around them in rational but believable ways, while still trying to deal with day to day life.
" Yeah. I agree. Shadowbanning is a real problem."
2 episodes in this is definitely looking like a keeper.
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In Todays World...
This is an important component of one's last will and testament.
For...some people.
This is an important component of one's last will and testament.
...
I hear tell.
From That Time I was Reincarnated as a Slime, which, perhaps surprisingly, is a show about exactly what it says on the tin.
A slime, for those of you who don't know, is a low level monster in a lot of computer role playing games, in the fantasy genre 'inspired' by D&D. They are essentially a carnivorous blob of jello for beginning and low level players to learn the ropes on. The lowest and weakest of monsters.
Our hero, having done a genuinely heroic thing which got him killed, is granted a request by the what appears to be the Samsarra AI. However, his dying requests are contradictory and the transmigration algorithm screws up, reincarnating him in a suspiciously D&D like fantasy world....but as a slime.
Yeah, it's another Isekai show, but the loser wish fulfillment is somewhat tempered by...
Our hero.
But he's not just a slime! He has an intellect and all of his memories of his education, his job in construction oversight...and playing D&D.
He quickly becomes the most OP...uh slime... you've ever seen.
This is genuinely odd.
It's not, necessarily good mind you, but it has potential and at episode 3 it is amusing me quite a bit more than it perhaps ought to.
Still watching.
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October 03, 2018
Oh. Wow. This Looks...GOOD!?
I think Miles Morales is going to work out just fine.
This is very promising...right up until that point that the trailer becomes sublime.
It looks really fun, and as a special bonus it seems to be completely respectful of Marvel canon.
ALL OF THE CANON.
Oh my stars and garters, this is on my watch list!
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September 14, 2018
An Admittedly Poor Substitute For Actual Content:
But the editing is quite good.
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September 05, 2018
Stein's Gate
Stein's Gate is a series from 2011 that was popular and fairly well regarded. I'd missed it at the time, but as the one reported beacon of goodness in the vast wasteland that is this season is a sequel to that show, I decided to check it out before starting Sten's Gate Zero.
This turned out to be a sound decision, not only because Stein's Gate Zero makes exactly zero sense without the prequel, but because Stein's Gate is a very neat show.
The story begins with Rintaro Okabe and Itaru Hashida two nerdy male college students and Mayuri Shiina, a moe-blob cosplayer. They run a small applied sciences lab in an apartment rented over a used electronics store. Their current project involves a highly modified food service microwave oven which has been modified to operate via cell phone and internet connection. As the dumpster derived device had no working magnetron, they're also working on a magnetron analog of their own design which is performing...rather erratically.
When two of them decide to go to a physics lecture being given by a controversial scientist, they bump into Kurisu Makise, a neuroscience graduate student on summer break from her studies in the U.S.
And then things get weird.
This is an odd show with all sorts of overused cliche's, gratuitous fanboy references and adult onset Chuunibyou.
It also manages to be absolutely riveting.
In the course of 24 episodes our band of 3 nerdy tinkerers and their otaku shield bearers find themselves involved with a whole slew of science weirdness, international conspiracies, the Akihabara chamber of commerce, the Large Hadron Collider and...traps.
Be advised that the superficial wackieness serves as comic relief and a tension breaker. This is dark science fantasy. The story is absolutely gut wrenching at times, almost to the point of sadism in some scenes. However, the characters are endearing and there is a most definite thread of hope that runs through the whole show.
All the characters tend to have surprising (often hidden) depths. My only complaint is that Kurisu Makise, the awesome female lead is somewhat underutilized, at least at first.
All in all, I quite enjoyed Stein's Gate. It's smart, enjoyable and full of surprises.
Aside from the caveat that you go in understanding that it is occasionally quite brutal, I highly recommend this series.
It's just really well done.
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July 26, 2018
Not Everything I Saw At Moe Lane's Blog This Morning Caused Me to Fear For Humanity...
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July 17, 2018
Intersectionality: Am I Doing it Right?
Art by Mokerou
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July 08, 2018
The Feng Shui of Superheroing
For most of this season, My Hero Academia has had amazing pacing. The stakes of the characters' actions have become steadily higher as the show has gone on and this superhero cartoon is one of the few shows that has really kept me on the edge of my seat.
This has been a really well done story in which our heroes witness what appears to be the denouement of an epic tale that has defined a previous generation of heroes.
The episode that wrapped up that arc (ep49) was just...EXCESLIOR!1!!!
Now, In episode 51 we are well into the "High-School Kids Decorate Their Dorm Rooms" arc.
This ought to be something of a let down but it works as a respite from the incredible tension of the first half of the season. Furthermore, these two episodes, which have been devoid of fights have had some serious character and plot development and have been eminently watchable.
In this sense the show reminds me of the old Claremont run on X-Men or some of the books like Young Justice where much of the important stuff was happening when 'nothing was happening'.
They've also looked at ethical issues that these kids are facing; namely the unnerving fact that there is no hard and fast Venn diagram comparing 'Law and Justice' or 'Legal and Right', which, as the late Steve Ditko might have said, is ultimately The Question.
I'm sure there will be some hemming and hawing about "FILLER ARC!" but the way they are doing these less action oriented episodes actually seems to me to be good storytelling. Furthermore, while this is definitely a Japanese Shounen type of show, it's clear that the creators really GET American superhero comics.
Besides, it looks like the down time will be of limited duration....
I'm an old fart and am enjoying the heck out of this show, but if you have kids they are the ones that should be watching it.
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One Room
What....did I just watch?
more...
Logging in to Crunchyroll revealed some new shows so I randomly picked a show that was at Episode zero.
I perused One Room's blurb and frankly read too much into it.
You are the protagonist. A new project in virtual anime from SMIRAL Animation that also brought you the "Anitore" series and "Makuranodanshi." This time, the project is about 3 stories that develop in your (one) room.
From that straightforward discription I somehow thought this was going to be experimental story telling. While it kind of is, it's less My Dinner With Andre' than How I Met Moe'. It says right there in the blurb 'you are the protagonist'...and indeed Episode zero involves "You" (presumably a mute) answering the door to find Yui Hasanaka, a young girl who asks "You" to help her study for her entrance exams.
The episode then proceeds to be a montage of her being...disturbingly...Moe'. By the time the show's four minutes was up I was thinking that Yui may need therapy. There's a LOT of codependency there.
It then dawned on me that there may be more to this show, because I never even made it to the refrigerator when a glaring inconsistency emerged:
Yui is from the country and is completely bewildered by life in the most pleasant and resident-friendly big city in the world. She's in need of remedial tutoring for her college entrance exams. She's a helpless waif...out of her element.
And yet....
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June 18, 2018
This Week's Code Word is Janissary
Not pictured: the actual, honest to God tear running down my cheek...from watching a fricking superhero cartoon.
The current crop of anime has largely been a vast, insipid wasteland. However, My Hero Academia is really making up for that.
My only complaint is that they cannot possibly keep this up.
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