Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 08:13 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I've done my share of ogling of Rin in Bakuon, as you all know, but there are lines. J-list is selling an adult toy now with Rin's picture on the box. (NSFW!!!)

Which merits a huge squick from me. It doesn't help that they made a huge Japanese ecchi pun with the name. Gross.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 06:50 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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A cape says "presence". A cape says, "power". A cape says, "I'm a badass." A cape says, "I'm not afraid of being sucked into a jet engine". (Or if it's Lina Inverse, "Jet engine? What's a jet engine?" Or if it's Ricotta Elmar, "Jet Engine? I haven't invented that yet.")

A cape says, "The rest of my FRP costume is too skimpy and I'm cold." Today's search term is "cape".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 02:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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John Kovalic is a duck fan. (Whodathunkit?)

UPDATE: Apparently "Tour de Duck" is a fund raiser for... something.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 05:42 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It always makes me feel good when I can add something to TVTropes. It feels like the way I could contribute to projects back when I could still work as an engineer. (I really miss that.)

I particularly like doing Wild Mass Guessing entries because I feel like I'm pretty good at finding odd ways of looking at things. And I got to do one today, for Musaigen no Phantom World: "Albrecht is a phantom".

(In case you don't remember, Albrecht is Kurumi's stuffed bear, who fights for her.)

UPDATE: I also added one recently for Dog Days to the effect that Sharl, the Ryuu no Miko, is actually a tochigami, like Yukikaze is, and Farine is. If so, Sharl may well be far, far older than she looks.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 01:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Seems like "monetizing your blog" is the cool thing to do these days. So today's search term is "Product placement", and let's see if we can get some payola flowing here!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 04:53 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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So I ordered a couple more of those 512G flash drives, and they were supposed to be delivered today. The Fedex tracking site says my package was left at my door at 12:20, but it's not there, 2 hour later.

Probably the driver left it at the wrong building, and if so and if I'm lucky and my neighbor is honest, then when they come home they'll find it and bring it to me. I'd go out and search the complex for it except that I can't walk anymore. I'm tempted to start complaining but I really should wait until tomorrow.

Screw it; I'm going to take a nap.

UPDATE: It's after 8, and I can't figure out how to reach a real person at Fedex in a timely manner, so I got into the NewEgg customer service page. After following lots of links and then filling out a form, I was able to get into a chat session with a customer service rep named "Duncan D." (ostensibly; wouldn't surprise me if that isn't really his name) and he did good.

He's going to do the "package tracing" thing with Fedex and if they can't satisfy him, he'll issue me a refund. Considering it was about $500, that's a good thing. (If it had been $30, I would have just let it go.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 01:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Lime wins the cheesecake award for this episode with this eyecatch

I just noticed that Rin is Zettai Ryouki grade A. I went back and checked the earlier episodes and she always was, but I never noticed before. (Wonder why?) Actually, the tropes page for Zettai Ryouki says that there's a Grade S: thigh high socks plus tsundere plus twintails, so Rin qualifies. Seems to me that she really should be S+ because she's got all that and she's blonde and stacked.

The bikers twintail club! One of these things is not like the other...

Anyway, the episode? It's about Chisame. She still sucks the light out of every scene she's in and she cries at least three times, but we're making progress. She has joined the bike club. She wants to get a license, and her dad has offered to buy her a bike, though the one he suggested isn't appropriate because it's too big for her.

Meanwhile, Hijiri has turned 16 and she wants her license, too. So Hijiri and Chisame are going to the same school that Rin and Hane went to, but Chisame isn't learning anything. Her father is a famous GP racer and Chisame herself has a rep as a mini-bike racer, and all the teachers assume she already knows everything so they won't teach her. Finally she confesses in tears to Hijiri that she wants to learn, and Hijiri promises to teach her, and that's next episode. I hope.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 01:19 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Power failures are a pain in the butt. We had one this morning, about an hour ago. It only lasted about a minute, but all my computers went down, and I had to reset all my clocks.

We take reliable power for granted, and PGE (Portland General Electric) does a really good job overall. So it's really a surprise when it really does happen, kind of like being blindsided by a sucker punch.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 10:24 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Neregate's latest anime chart seems pretty mature, including 48 series, so is there any hope?

Man, it looks just as bleak as ever, maybe more so. There are only two shows listed that have even the slightest chance of being worth watching IMO. There's going to be a 4-ep anime-original story about Nanatsu no Taizai, and there's a sequel series to Shokugeki no Souma. And that's it. I didn't really think the first SnS series was worth watching weekly.

As to the rest, it's sequels, game advertisements, idols, and just general crap, not to mention an overdose of bishounen. Have a listen and join me in crying:

Fukigen na Mononokean -- a bishounen helping out youkai.

GraP & RodeO second season -- a random high school boy wants to be an idol.

Hatsukoi Monster -- A girl meets a bishounen and discovers that despite looking grown up he's actually in fifth grade.

B-Project: Kodou Ambitious -- a young woman gets a job managing three bishounen idol groups.

Puzzle & Dragons Cross -- an adaptation of a Nintento 3DS puzzle game.

Show by Rock!! Short!! -- A cat girl, a dog girl, a rabbit girl, and a sheep girl form a wannabe idol group.

Fate/kaleid Liner Prisma*Illya 3rei!! -- the third series in this concept, which seems to have eaten Fate/Stay/Night alive.

Kono Bijutsubu ni wa Mondai ga Aru! -- Cute girls doing cute art things at a girl's high school.

91 Days -- Period piece about a man seeking revenge.

Arslan Senki: Fuujin Ranbu -- another sequel.

Active Raid: something or other -- another sequel.

Handa-Kun -- trials and tribulations of a bishounen.

D.Gray-man Hallow -- another sequel.

Majestic Hour -- a repeat.

Onara Gorou -- is a story about a fart, if the chart is to be believed. (And I thought the Koreans were strange for doing a one-of show about a dog dropping.)

Servamp -- a couple of bishounen, one of which is a vampire.

Amaama to Inazuma -- a widower tries to learn to cook.

Nejimaki Seirei Senki etc. -- A bishounen leads an elite military group consisting of gorgeous girls and ugly guys.

Mob Psycho 100 -- the description is incoherent; I can't figure out why anyone cares.

Cheer Danshi!! -- Bishounen cheer leaders as an all-men university.

Masou Gakuen HxH -- a bishounen has the power to give girls huge powerups when he molests them. I saw a show before based on this conceit; one of the girls was a gorgeous redhead and another was a loli, but I'll be damned if I can remember what it was called. (UPDATE: Got it! It was "Yumeria".) Anyway this time there's no redhead but there's definitely a loli, and one of the girls has twin watermelons on her chest.

Nanatsu no Taizai: Seisen no Shirushi -- a four-episode anime-original series.

Days -- Boys playing soccer.

Berserk -- Sweaty guys with swords.

Love Live! Sunshine!! -- idols, sequel (sort of).

Tales of Zestiria the X -- is so derivative that I can't even begin to describe it.

Saiki Kusuo no something Nan -- a bishounen with super powers tries to live a normal life.

Taboo Tattoo -- MAYBE this will be good. Probably not. A young man who is a martial artist gets involved in an international conspiracy after being given a tattoo on his hand that also bestows supernatural powers on him.

Fudanshi Koukou Seikatsu --is about a bishounen who likes to read boy-love novels, which makes it a double-barf.

Paletarian ~Chiisana Hoshi no Yume~ -- is another one whose description inspires the response, "They can't be serious." It involves an abandoned robot that looks like a cute girl, among other things. And a bishounen.

Amanchu! -- Cute girls doing cute things in wet suits. The rest of the time they wear truly ugly school uniforms designed to totally obscure their figures.

Battery -- a bishounen is a good baseball pitcher.

ReLIFE -- A 27 year old NEET (bishounen, of course) gets kicked out of his parent's house and has nowhere to go, and then someone offers him a chance to relive his 17th year in high school to make it better.

Ozmafia!! -- crime families at war with one another.

Bananya -- is about a "banana cat" mascot for a stationery company.

Tsukiuta the Animation -- bishounen idols.

Qualidea Code -- Super powered children defending the earth against mysterious invaders.

Regalia: The Three Sacred Stars -- No season would be complete without at least one show with high school girls piloting mechas.

Ange Vierge -- adapted from a card game; cute girls with super powers attend a school to teach them to use their abilities.

New Game -- a high school graduate joins a game company.

Rewrite -- is a 6th route through a Key visual novel that I know nothing about.

Dangan Ronpa 3 -- apparently they decided that this show needed two sequels this season.

Orange -- a cute girl in high school trying to prevent a bishounen classmate from committing suicide. (That sounds like fun; loads of yucks!)

Scared Rider Xechs -- one young woman and five bishounen and I don't care.

I say this every season. I know. But usually there are a couple of long-shot series I at least sample. This time there's only only one: Taboo Tattoo, and I make the odds of it being any good no better than 1:20. I'm sure I won't want to watch Shokugeki no Souma weekly and there aren't any others I'm even interested in sampling.

It's gonna be bleak.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:05 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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