Episodes are seven and a half minutes. I got one minute into the first episode and then quit. NOT FOR ME, and I don't care how she looks.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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It's a gag show, nominally divided into four parts. It's also a farce. Which isn't necessarily bad, if it's done well. A good farce will have a sympathetic sane character in the middle, surrounded by chaos and people who are nuts, which pretty well describes this.

Our hero is Kokonotsu, a high school boy living in the sticks, in the rear of a candy shop with his father who runs the place. Dad wants Kokonotsu to take over the business, which goes back 9 generations or so it is claimed. But Kokonotsu doesn't want that; he wants to be a mangaka. So they tend to fight about it.

One day a strange girl shows up in the store. Her name is Hotaru. She marches to her own drummer, who misses a few beats, if you know what I mean. She's actually there looking for Dad. She is the daughter of the head of a major candy company, and they want to hire Kokonotsu's dad. But he won't leave unless he's sure the candy store will continue to be open, which means Kokonotsu has to agree to keep running it. And so it become Hotaru's mission to convince Kokonotsu to agree.

And there are two more characters: Kokonotsu's best friend Tou and Tou's younger sister Saya. They run a cafe. Saya has a crush on Kokonotsu; that's her job in the story. Tou's job is to tease her about it and to get clobbered by her. She's a tsundere but her tsun-tsun mode is passive-aggressive towards Kokonotsu. Her brother gets the violence.

So far it's following the standard farce recipe and doing it pretty well. What I didn't expect is that it's a fan-service show. In addition to being nuts, Hotaru is also built. And through a plot machination that doesn't bear repeating Saya and Hotaru meet after Hotaru runs off the road and ends up in the mud of a rice paddy. Saya takes her home and lets her shower, and Tou walks in on her, and she doesn't scream and get angry. Saya does that for her.

Um, NSFW below the fold, OK?

So, is it any good? Damned if I know. I think it will take at least one more episode to see if the creative energy remains high (good) or if they lapse into tropes (bad). I've read that the manga it's based on is really good, so there's hope.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:59 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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more...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 06:24 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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A man named Archer bushwacked a police car in Philadelphia yesterday and fired 13 shots at the cop named Hartnett from point blank range, hitting him 3 times. (Which is really shitty shooting.)

The gun he used had previously been stolen from a policeman. (That's all we know about it, but obviously there are many important questions remaining.)

After calling for help and despite his wounds, Officer Hartnett gave chase and shot Archer, with much better aim. Hartnett's wound were serious but not life threatening, which is a blessing. Archer's wounds were much more serious but also don't appear to be life threatening, which maybe isn't a blessing.

Archer readily confessed to the shooting and claimed that he did it for Islam, on behalf of ISIS.

All of which is sufficiently idiotic, but here's where it gets really maddening.

Mayor Jim Kenney announced that the shooting wasn't motivated by Islam, despite the fact that Archer himself said it was.

I think it's time to retire the phrase "Islam is a religion of peace." I always found that supremely annoying and it hasn't aged well. Back in 2001 it sounded like naivety, but now it sounds like a Big Lie, one that the speaker himself doesn't believe but which he hopes will convince stupid people like us if only they repeat it often enough.

I've always thought it extremely presumptuous for outsiders to explain to people who follow any religion how their religion actually demands that they behave, or for outsiders to try to claim things about that religion that its adherents don't agree with. Lefties do this all the time with Christianity, and though I'm not a Christian I find it really annoying.

But people like Kenney claiming Islam is a religion of peace is even worse. It's not that they expect to influence Muslims with that drivel.

The worst fear of Our Betters is that all of us redneck knuckle draggers will rise up mob-like and start attacking Muslims, burning their places of worship and throwing rocks through the windows of Halal butcher shops and so on.

This is the nightmare for Our Betters, the one thing which must be avoided at all costs. Nothing else is as important -- like protecting the majority from random attacks. That one is well down the charts.

So every time there's an attack like this by someone who is clearly motivated by jihad, whether a lone crackpot or part of an organized force, they always announce that it had nothing to do with Islam. Kenney thinks he knows more about what motivated Archer than Archer himself, and has told us so. Archer claims he shot the policeman for the greater glory of Islam, but Kenney says that wasn't the real reason.

Just thinking about Mayor Kenney is making me feel like screaming.

Folks, it's crap like this which is driving people into Trump's arms. He may be strange; he may even be lying about what he intends. But he's the only high-profile politician who is saying what so many people are thinking. He refuses to play by the unwritten rules of Political Correctness, and every time he says something which sends lefties to their fainting couches, his ratings in the polls rise again. American voters have had it will the Prevailing Wisdom and they're looking for someone, even someone as flamboyant as The Donald, who will acknowledge these things.

I have no idea who will win the 2016 presidential election, let alone who will be the candidates. But if Trump wins either, this will be the reason why. Americans are tired of being talked down to and lied to.

There are peaceful Muslims. Millions of them. But there are also very violent Muslims, and that isn't coincidence.

First rule: The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists.
Second rule: The vast majority of terrorists are Muslims.

Let's stop pretending otherwise.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Rants at 04:46 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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So we're finally back with the split cour. And I was wrong about how much story they were going to tell. I thought they'd end just after the fire dragon dies but at the rate they're burning through the story there's no way that's it.

The first series ended about chapter 26 in the manga, give or take. The anime isn't based on the manga; it's based on the light novels. And so is the manga. Nonetheless, the anime and manga tracked really well, but as of the second season they don't seem to be.

This episode ended at about the end of chapter 32. The ending point I expected was chapter 46.

Obviously they're not going to keep moving at this breakneck speed, but they still aren't sitting around patiently. The next-ep preview promises us Kuribayashi beating up Zorzal which was in chapter 35.

I've run into a couple of voices that I recognized. Zorzal has the same voice as Laxus in Fairy Tail. Yao has the same voice as Brioche in Dog Days and Lynn Lambretta in Mouretsu Pirates. Both are excellent casting choices, I must say. In general I've been very pleased with the casting in this series. For instance, the Emperor's seiyuu is really good at playing vicious bastards, and the seiyuu doing Zorzal is really good at that, too.

Not too surprisingly they redid the OP and ED. I don't think the ED is actual references to what's coming in the show, but it's awesome.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 12:30 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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"Kawakami_Mai" (that's the busty girl in Musaigen no Phantom World) is already a tag on Danbooru. (NSFW)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 03:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Here it is.

UPDATE: They say that Oshiete! Galko-chan is a short. That makes a lot more sense; it's a really threadbare concept for full-length episodes.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 12:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And... we're off! The new season has officially begun here, with our first candidate Musaigen no Phantom World. Which was a lot better than I thought it would be. For one thing, it begins with an extended fourth-wall break.

It's a rather silly show in a lot of ways. It's also mildly ecchi, which is always a bonus. The basic conceit is that ten years ago there was a strange experiment going on at a certain company. A terrorist bomb blew the place up and released a genetically engineered virus, which changed the brains of everyone who got infected, which turned out to be pretty much everyone everywhere. As a result, the border between reality and fantasy has largely broken down, and Phantoms are now a fact of life.

Phantoms are things like fairies, monsters, and lots of other things. Reality is a bit plastic now, and Phantoms keep appearing all over the place. Some of them are rather benign and humans leave them alone. Some of them cause a lot of trouble, and have to be subdued and destroyed. But never fear, we have super-powered high school girls to come to our rescue! (And the occasional icky boy.)

Most people don't have such powers but a few do, all young. Clubs for them are formed at various high schools, and they divide into small teams and take jobs as they come in -- for which they are rewarded with barter but not money.

A lot of that came from an "As you know, Jim" in this episode, but it worked mainly because it wasn't very long and it was just a bit tongue-in-cheek. (He begins, "It's common knowledge, but I'll explain anyway.")

The eventual harem will be five girls, one of which is a loli with a teddy bear according to the OP. Another one is a tame phantom called Ruru, who seems to be a fairy and is hand-sized, though the OP suggests she can change forms and become big if she wants so. Nothing like that happened in this episode so it isn't really established yet.

This begins a bit like 35th Test Platoon did, with the team Our Hero is in being seen as losers in the school. (The difference is that 35th Test Platoon played it straight. This show knows it's dumb and isn't trying to pretend otherwise.) Initially it only consists of our hero, Haruhiko (first year), and the first girl, Mai (second year), who among other things is noteworthy for her amazing rack. Which fact is commented on several times by more than one person.

At the beginning Haruhiko wakens in his apartment, or is wakened by Ruru, who stays with him. He rushes to school fearing he'll be late and that Mai will roundhouse-kick him, and when he gets there she's fighting a phantom, a big one.

Haruhiko's power is that he can draw a phantom, and then suck it into his drawing, capturing it. In addition to being a really athletic fighter, Mai has the power to call on any of the five elements, and use them janken-style to destroy any phantom once it's captured, because each phantom is associated with one of the five elements. So their powers complement each other nicely and it's natural they became partners.

Which brings us to another ecchi humor moment: Mai summons up the various elements by using magic and rubbing her body in different areas. To get water she rubs the area over her kidneys. To summon the power of metal, on the other hand, she fondles her boobs. (Don't ask stupid questions.)

Haruhiko and Mai are aware of their weakness and have decided to try to recruit partners. The first victim is Reina, who is a phantom eater. Which, frankly, makes her a lot more powerful than either of the others, but she's also a bit shy and withdrawn and the other two are outgoing. So she joins them for a case in the second half of the episode. And she calls Mai onee-sama. (It's a harem, but whose harem?)

Some phantom power poles are dancing the limbo, and causing trouble. Haruhiko turns out to be a nerd who reads lots and lots of books, and notices an English language pun. Anyway, skipping over some silly exposition, he decides that they need to dance the limbo themselves in order to win.

So all three of them try it, and Reina and Haruhiko both fail immediately. Mai does surprisingly well, but... her boobs are a problem, sticking up like they do, especially during the last round. So she bounces up and down so that her boobs will gainax, and she is able to move under the power line during a "down" and finally win it.

I don't think I've ever seen a show where gainaxing is a deliberate victory strategy where it isn't about distracting or affecting a guy.

Other silliness: Haruhiko has a cliche'ed meet cute with Reina and realizes it. And whatever else Ruru is (a djinn, maybe?) she's also rather lusty. When Haruhiko is in the library reading, she nags him because his books are boring. She wants H. He says there isn't any.

She also abuses him a few times, including kicking him in the head. She is a major source of humor, consciously so by the director, and she is a source of fan service. She also comments rather explicity about Mai's assets -- twice in this episode and I'm sure there will be more.

ANN currently only categorizes the show as "supernatural", but of course it's eventually going to be "harem" and I won't be at all surprised if it is also "comedy".

Definitely a lot of fun, and well deserving at least a second episode. If it keeps going like it began, I will certainly watch the whole thing.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:13 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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If someone does eventually come up with a reasonable self-driving car, what's to keep some bad guy from loading one up with explosives and then programming it to drive to, and park in front of, some juicy target? And then the bad guy detonates the bomb by remote control (i.e. with a cell phone). Or builds in a GPS that detonates the bomb when it's within a small distance of the target.

You say convenience. I say cruise missile on wheels.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 03:37 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The artist has taken some liberties here. Miho isn't quite as shapely as this.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Cheesecake at 11:15 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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