The new cheesecake meme is called "cat cutout" and it refers to a large bra with a hole in it, the hole being in the shape of a cat head. Gelbooru currently has 591 hits for that keyword.

Why, Japan? WHY?

UPDATE: Peter Payne has been posting pictures of these lately: one two three four

The complete fetish includes rather stylized panties which have two triangular ears sticking up. And sometimes other peekaboo holes.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 11:58 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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We seem to be doing girl-of-the-week episodes. Last week was Yurine and this week is Chloe. The series is also inherently monster-of-the-week, obviously, and this week's monster was pretty impressive.

Our Hero wasn't actually in the spotlight much, surprisingly, and they don't seem to be developing the show as a harem. Which is fine with me; it wouldn't be appropriate.

The team currently has two logicalists who don't have partners, and therefore can't participate in missions. One is Olga, the guy with green hair, and apparently he's been like that for a long time. He's desperately looking for a partner but none has come to him and none of the captured monsters will do it no matter how much he begs. My guess is that the reason is that he's an asshole, but that may have developed out of frustration. Anyway, he stays back at HQ and can only observe the missions. The other is the girl we saw recruited in the first episode. She seems to be a nice person but she also can't participate in missions.

I have a guess. Our Hero used to be a logicalist and engaged in a super-power battle in Hong Kong, where the only way to win was for him to use "Super Trance" which ultra-powered him but also cost him his memories. We've never heard who his partner was then, and my guess is that it was Athena, and the memories he lost were of her. She refused to accept that, and spent years finding and collecting his logic cards. When she had enough (all of them?) she came to him, in the first episode, and renewed the partnership, though he doesn't know that.

Anyway, there seems to be a problem with Athena; they were having problems with the trance in this episode and she confessed at the end of the episode that it was her fault. Next episode we're going to learn about Lucifer, the level 9.8 demon who appeared at the end of last episode. At that time I thought he was going to become Olga's partner. For a while I entertained the idea that he would team up with the new girl. But it's also possible that he's the series big-bad, or maybe the big-second-place-bad. We'll find out more next week.

This continues to be fun but it isn't breaking any records. Kind of grade B.

UPDATE: An interesting alternate possibility: his original partner was Lucifer, and Athena knows it, and that's why she's tied in knots now.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Something I thought I'd never write: I'm starting to lose interest in the GATE anime.

My problem is that I've been reading (and rereading) the manga, so whenever I reach some point where they diverge, I'm jerked out of the story. Not just because it's different, but because the anime is worse. It's always been worse. And a lot of the changes have been unnecessary. I wonder if there is animosity between the mangaka and the team doing the anime?

For instance, they've changed the character art for a lot of characters, and I like the manga versions better. For instance, Countess Myui of Italica:

Sage Cato:

And Delilah:

I can't believe that the anime version of Delilah is any easier to draw or animate than the manga version would have been, with a bit of streamlining. Their reason for changing Cato is that in the anime he's a silly old man who only serves as comic relief, and the manga version is entirely too dignified. And I can't think of any reason at all for changing Myui besides Not Invented Here.

They're also abbreviating the story, too much IMHO. It's disjointed; they're leaving too much out and characterization and character motivation is suffering. They've done so much of that that the anime is close to being incoherent.

It feels like they're in a hurry. The next-ep preview suggests that the dragon dies in the next episode. That's where I originally thought this series was going to end, and it's going to happen in the fifth ep.

This isn't what I really wanted.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 04:24 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I think I understand now why this series has been so confusing to me. It's like Kamichu! in that it's an anthology series. The author has set up a basic scenario and is telling a series of one-ep day-in-the-life stories based in that scenario.

Also, it's looking increasingly like the phantoms are created out of human dreams, wishes, lost memories, and regrets. Ep 3 was Mai's story; the phantoms were based on something she did when she was maybe 4 or 5. Ep 4 is Reina's episode; it's based on the fact that Reina's real parents are cold, even harsh, towards her. They don't beat her or anything like that, but there also doesn't seem to be any love there. And this episode's phantoms gave her the loving family she wanted.

To the extent that there is any kind of series plot line, what these episodes did do was to educate us about different aspects of phantoms. But just like Kamichu! the episodes really do stand alone.

I'm not sure I like that. I didn't really like that aspect of Kamichu! partly because there was so damned much variation in story-telling quality from episode to episode. A lot of episodes really reeked; a couple are regular rewatches for me (particularly the Yamato episode). And I get the feeling that's what this series is going to be like, too.

The scenario isn't fully set up yet; we still don't know what's going on with the loli with the teddy bear. But aside from her, it was mostly set up by the end of ep 2, and now we're kind of cruising along. The center eight or nine episodes of Kamichu! could be watched in any order without losing any comprehensibility, and eps 3 and 4 of this series could have been in the opposite order without any problems.

UPDATE: Another anthology series was Mushishi. I only watched about 5 episodes of that. Not because it was badly done, but because I don't like horror and at its root it's a horror series. IMHO.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 01:55 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Don points to an idiotic advertisement in the Hollywood Reporter which essentially advocates censorship. Even though I don't smoke and have no intention of starting and don't want kids to smoke, I don't think censorship is the answer. Censorship is a bad thing.

Apparently censorship of movies is a big thing in the UK, and a guy named Charlie Lyne got tired of it. The BBFC (the censors) have committed to watching every minute of every film submitted to them, so Lyne raised about 6000 pounds with a kickstarter to create a 10 hour movie of paint drying. Which he has now submitted for certification.

This, of course, is a truly masterful troll.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 03:01 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I'm way behind on posts here and I'm sorry. I've been very apathetic the last few days, and it hasn't been helped by the fact that I found the latest episodes of my three series to all be uninspired.

Gate is screaming through the story at supersonic speed, and they're leaving out important points. Itami's late night conversation with the King was cut to the bone, to the point where it almost felt like the King had been briefed by Yanagida to help convince Itami to go after the dragon. And at the rate they're burning through it all, the dragon will be dead by the end of ep 6, quite possibly even sooner, and they'll outrun the manga three episodes after that. (Manga chapters only come out once a month.)

Musaigen no Phantom World is busy laying out plot exposition at a merry rate. I'm sure it's going to make sense later (no, I'm not sure, actually) but at this point it feels like X-files, with them shooting all kinds of plot points at the wall in hopes that some of them will stick. Mai's figure can't carry the show forever; eventually they're going to have to start telling a story.

Luck and Logic is doing character building, but it's really pretty perfunctory. Ep 3 was about the alienation, and then dis-alienation, of Tamaki, who had previously been commander of the team but lost that job to Our Hero at the end of ep 2. At the beginning of ep 3 she was sullen and by the end of ep 3 she was fine again. A new demon just showed up named Lucifer (and his power is over 8000), and it's at least 5:1 that he's going to become Orga's partner. They're trying too hard to avoid making Yoshichika into a Marty Stu and they've turned him into a dork instead.

And I'm so apathetic that I couldn't even find any fan art to post. Sorry; maybe I'm starting to hibernate for the winter.

UPDATE: By the way, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Musaigen no Phantom World is a brain in a bottle story. None of what we're seeing is real; all of it is simulated.

There was another anime series a few years ago like that. I didn't watch it and I can't remember the name, except that I think it began with Y or Z.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 04:12 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 If I understood correctly elsewhere, GATE anime is being based off of the light novel, while the manga off of the web novel, *and* the anime and manga are trying to be their own thing.

Posted by: Jaked at January 24, 2016 08:56 PM (oq31B)

2

I really can't disprove that even though they're tracking pretty closely. I assume the original web novels and the current light novels track closely as well.

The only problem with the theory is that the anime is more abbreviated than the manga, but that could just be adaptation decay in the anime.

But the abbreviation they made to the scene with the king was too much; it approaches incoherence.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 24, 2016 09:02 PM (+rSRq)

3 Also, the anime completely omitted a major scene which took something like 3 manga chapters: Yao getting arrested, Lelei acting as translator, Yao vindicated, Lelei getting Yao into General Hazama's office, Hazama rejecting Yao's request for help, Yao sitting in the restaurant sobbing, Lelei buying her some St. John's Wort tea, Hazama's staff officers sitting nearby talking about how to defeat the dragon.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 24, 2016 09:05 PM (+rSRq)

4 On Musaigen, potential, massive spoilers:

I've seen rumors that LN 2 completely upends it, and that LN1, which is all that's being adapted in the anime, is in the MC's head.

But that was more of the "I know someone that read" it chatter and I've not seen anyone that's read the LN say that directly.  But if true, you've really seen & read a lot of Sci-Fi.  

Posted by: sqa at January 25, 2016 01:15 AM (vcsZ3)

5

...the anime completely omitted a major scene which took something like 3 manga chapters:

What you describe in the spoiler tag is the first half of episode 12. IIRC that was the episode that was delayed for some reason, but only for a few days, so if one was going to the most recent episode it might have been missed. 


Interestingly, it's Myutie who provides the get out of jail card. I also just noticed that Rory was in the background in that scene which is the third time we see her with Myutie (in all cases the two seem to be working together patrolling the city) Given Myutie's origin it would make sense that she might be a follower of Emloy. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at January 25, 2016 05:22 AM (AaBUm)

6 Also regarding the General's answer to Yao in ep 12: That's what Yanagida's offer to Itami so darned sketchy. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at January 25, 2016 05:25 AM (AaBUm)

7 Er...That's WHY Yanagida's offer was so sketchy. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at January 25, 2016 05:38 AM (AaBUm)

8 Brickmuppet, you're right. I had forgotten about that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 25, 2016 09:52 AM (+rSRq)

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I hope that Brickmuppet's legendary bad luck decides to take this weekend off. He, and everyone else in eastern Virginia, are going to have enough trouble as it is.

They're saying that DC might get three feet of snow, which would be amusing. The mayor of DC has already apologized for not handling it well, even before the snow began to fall.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 02:47 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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I get weird flashes sometimes. Ask.Metafilter.com:

I'm going into the oyster business! Help me learn more.

And I thought, "You have to watch out for stampedes. When oysters get moving, they're hard to stop."

After all, Clams got legs!

And then I thought about Rocky and Bullwinkle, and the time they were running an earthworm ranch and the worms started to stampede.

Stampedes are really scary, you know that?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 11:50 PM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 RIP Johnny Hart.  He was one of the true greats.
And clams have scruples, too.

Posted by: sqa at January 22, 2016 05:32 AM (MY/dR)

2 BC and The Wizard of Id were never my favorites growing up; even as a young duckling my tastes ran more towards Mad Magazine and Peanuts... not to mention The Adventures of Tintin.

But every now and again, Johnny Hart would bring up something that would stick in my memory.  There was one where BC is seen walking past The Cute Chick, his hands and arms waving madly down at his sides.  When she asks... Peter? I think it was, "What's with the hands?", he says BC fell out of a tree and tore his clothes off.  WHY that stuck in my brain is entirely beyond me. 

"Clams got legs!" was another one.  And to this day, I call the animal with a long nose that feasts on ants the "Eatanter."

I'll even throw out a "Zot!" once in a while.

Posted by: Wonderduck at January 22, 2016 04:59 PM (KiM/Y)

3

I learned "Zorch" from B.C. I still use it to this day, when appropriate.

Also, "I am an Apteryx, a flightless bird with hairy feathers."

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 22, 2016 05:24 PM (+rSRq)

4 B.C. had my favorite baseball jokes:

Wiley:  Ok, Thor; I want you to go out there and get on base.

Thor:  You want me to bunt or swing away?

Wiley:  I want you to stick your head in front of the catcher's mitt!

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2016 09:11 PM (DRaH+)

5 One of the nicest things, that made me a fan forever, was that long after it became seriously politically incorrect he never changed the names of the two women. They were always "The Fat Broad" and "The Cute One".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 22, 2016 10:55 PM (+rSRq)

6 "War is Heck", a sign saying "Protest" and the Fat Broad saying it's just a fad, a turtle flying and fear of the word "Gronk".  Some classics.
My father collected the trades, so I've actually read nearly everything from the mid-60s to the mid-80s.  The man was always brilliant at skewering the stupidity in the culture, but with a broad wit and subtlety. 
Oh, and "The King is a FINK!".

Posted by: sqa at January 23, 2016 05:12 AM (ANM5l)

7

I remember one with the girls marching with signs that said, "Women Suffrage Now!".

And one of the guys yelled at them, "So suffer!"

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 23, 2016 03:35 PM (+rSRq)

8 Ah, one of the classics:

One caveman has a sign "Garage Sale!".  He asks another caveman what he thinks about the sale.

The reply?  "You left out the 'b'!"

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at January 23, 2016 05:29 PM (ATlQg)

9 A variation when B.C. overheard two female clams walking: Clams got gams!

Posted by: muon at January 24, 2016 02:58 AM (IUHrD)

10 "The king is a FINK!"

Sir Rodney yells "Halt or I'll shoot!" and after a short pause, throws a spear.  He then yells "Got him!".

The wizard then says "Good thing he halted."

Posted by: Mark A. Flacy at January 24, 2016 02:16 PM (ATlQg)

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Brickmuppet wants to know why "giantess" is the new champion search term at Pornhub. I would have thought that was obvious. (NSFW below the fold.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 07:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I just ran into a picture of this girl:

Is that really how she looks? She has the same seiyuu as Blanc (Hyperdimension Neptunia), Nyaruko-chan, and Yukikaze from Dog Days. Also Reina in Strike the Blood. She's one of my favorite voices.

Popura is one of the three lead characters in Wagneria, according to ANN. The description of the show never really attracted me, but maybe this is one worth plundering. Or maybe even watching if her voice is right.

Does she really look like that? Or is this a case of fan artists making a good thing better? (Which has been known to happen...)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 02:52 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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