They are, I suppose, spoilers so this is below the fold. more...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 02:38 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 I think there's at most two scenes worth of material in the epilogue (including Marika coming up to the bridge wearing nothing but a bedsheet), but they might use the rest of the first half of the episode to introduce the ship and the rest of the crew.

I expect the mystery girl from the opening credits to show up before the end of episode 6. The show's web site makes it clear she's important.

Oh, and in her pirate days, mom was apparently "Blaster Ririka", which doesn't surprise me at all.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 09, 2012 03:33 PM (fpXGN)

2 You mean the little blonde with the fancy dress?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 09, 2012 04:30 PM (+rSRq)

3 Yup.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 09, 2012 05:26 PM (fpXGN)

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I wish it was subtitled.

But maybe, just maybe, Michiko will be a major part this time. Yoshika is getting sent back to Europe, we know that; and it would be pretty cool if Michiko went, too.(Though I can't right off think of an excuse for it.)

Looks like at least some of it is going to happen in Venezia. That's pretty neat, too.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 09:33 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Just messing around and landed on this site: majutsu.net

Care to hear some utter crap?

The letters in the word Majutsu have meaning. "Ma” means pure and "jutsu” means art, so Majutsu means the pure art. The person who practices as a magician is called a Majutsushi. The letters "shi” mean user; thus, a Majutsushi is a user of this pure art.

真 ma does indeed mean "pure". But that's not the kanji that's used to write 魔術majutsu. The real first kanji 魔 means "demon".

UPDATE: 魔術師 majutsushi means "magician" or "sorceror". The final 師 shi doesn't mean "user". It means "expert" or "master".

This is like all those strange bad Chinese and Japanese tattoos that they used to post on the now-defunct "Hanzi Smatter". I really miss that site.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Japanese at 03:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I keep rewatching ep 5, just because it's so awesome. I think it's been more than ten times now. There's one big thing I don't get:

Why do they send poems back and forth during the battle?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 05:57 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1 Haven't seen the show, but I dimly recall a story about two samurai in opposing armies trading haiku during a battle--the last composed by the losing general as he was pursued off the field, I think.

Posted by: Canthros at February 07, 2012 06:17 PM (U/oKH)

2 Because Rule of Cool, that's why... though Canthros' reason is probably correct, too.

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 07, 2012 06:18 PM (ZNgWw)

3 I wondered if it was a historical reference of some kind.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2012 07:16 PM (+rSRq)

4 I can tell you this:  they weren't in the original script, it was something added in at the last minute.  I had to get the final rushed to me from Japan to verify it, since random Japanese poems are not something you expect to see in the middle of a sci-fi battle. 

By the way, Jenny's reply to the Lightning-11 should now read "Nuts," which is the correct translation.  You were right to think of General McAuliffe, as that is what she's referencing.  (Though it's a bit more complicated than that, but whatever.)  The translation was changed at the last minute by a QC person who wasn't familiar with the reference.  I had him change it back. 

Posted by: tellu541 at February 07, 2012 07:33 PM (pJ1uW)

5 Haven't seen the show (yet) but perhaps it's like swordfighting in the Monkey Island series of games...?

Posted by: atomic_fungus at February 07, 2012 07:39 PM (BZJtn)

6 The Wikipedia Japan page for Amanokaguyama has what appears to be the first of the Tanka poems in question (#2 on this page has a translation).

(and, yes, the Crunchyroll version now has "Nuts!" for Jenny's line)

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 07, 2012 07:51 PM (fpXGN)

7

Tellu541, is there an official romanization for some of the proper names? I.e. were you forced to use "Barbalusa" instead of "Barbarossa"?

I was just looking at the EC version of the show, and they didn't rip off the Crunchroll translation. Among other things, the planet name was the Japanese Uminoake instead of "Sea of the Morning Star". Marika's mother was Lirika.

So I give them credit for doing their own translation. But it wasn't as good. Ah, well...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 07, 2012 09:36 PM (+rSRq)

8 The end credits have it as "Barbaroosa", flashed on the screen very briefly. Also "Oddette II", and one of the schoolgirls ends up "Berinda", so we can pretend they're only mostly official.


Something interesting that I turned up while poking around for other sources: series author Yuuichi Sasamoto contributed to the screenwriting for the Dirty Pair OVA series back in the Eighties.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 07, 2012 10:46 PM (2XtN5)

9 We're not given an official name list, though we do tend to go with what's in the credits.  The katakana for the name of the pirate ship doesn't match "Barbaroosa" or "Barbarossa" (Barbarossa's famous enough in Japan that there's only one spelling of his name), so I needed something that sounded similar.  Barbalusa it was.

Posted by: tellu541 at February 08, 2012 12:21 AM (pJ1uW)

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To this.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 02:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I ended up with 59 grabs from the first BD, but I'll only be able to use about 40 of them. Still, that's pretty good.

Arcueid is unquestionably the best eye candy of the lot. I'm going to use this particular one, and there were quite a few others in that segment of her in that wonderful bikini.

I read up on her on Wikipedia, and it says that in the original visual novel, and the derivative anime and manga, there was no fan service of her at all (except for one pinup in the manga). Seems that they wanted to correct that in Carnival Phantasm.

I really wish I could use this one:

But I can't convince myself it would be OK. Who is that, by the way?

And here's some nightmare bait:

I definitely won't be using that one.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 12:54 PM | Comments (13) | Add Comment
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It's the biggest television day of the year, at least here in the US. This year NBC has the broadcast rights, and they're going to be streaming the game online.

Which is interesting: it means they're directly competing with their own affiliates. Here in Portland, I could watch the game on KGW (if I owned a TV) or I can watch the game directly on the web, missing KGW's ads.

Or I can do what I'm actually going to do: "watch" the game using a flash file at the NFL site, which will graphically display each play as it happens, and otherwise not assault my senses. And I'll do other things while it's going on.

I remember the first Super Bowl. I was in high school. My dad was a Green Bay fan. (Vince Lombardi, and so on.) This year is Super Bowl 46, and just thinking about that makes me feel old.

UPDATE: No one is being sprinkled with glory so far. New England's Safety is pretty scandalous. And now the Giants got a 12 yard penalty for having an extra man on the field. What a bunch of clowns.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Daily Life at 01:45 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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And so, battle is joined. And it was awesome. And Marika was superb. Just wonderful.

I watched it on Crunchyroll, at 1080p, and it looked great. My download link is fast, and their server is fast, and I didn't have any stuttering or pauses.

By request, the rest is below the fold, because of mild spoilers.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 12:08 PM | Comments (28) | Add Comment
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So I ended up with about 30 candidate frame grabs from the first four episodes of Maken-ki. Gad, going through that was painful. One of the best proofs that fan service alone isn't enough to make a show worth watching. I don't care how many crotch closeups and nude breasts they toss at us; that show was utter crap.

I'm downloading Carnival Phantasm and will go through that next.

UPDATE: Counter to expectation, the Maken-ki omakes were a total loss. I didn't use anything from either of them.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 11:08 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Am I the only one who has noticed that on average about half the nodes are blue? Probably a code bug, but typically about a quarter green and a quarter red, with some random jitter.

My usual game lately has been to get Mortu, stack him to the ceiling with the best gear I can create, let him take out lairs to gain experience points, and then use him alone to wipe out all the nodes on Myrror, resulting in an obscene power base.

Today I tried something a bit different. Instead of Mortu, I decided to try Alorra.

I can't figure out whether Alorra is supposed to be a he or a she. Given the pink frilly shirt, something stuck in the hair, and big poofy lips, I've been assuming "she", but maybe that's just what elves are like, even the men. I've never met an elf; how would I know?

Anyway, it became apparent pretty early that the big problem was that Alorra only had 8 arrows, and for some battles that just wasn't enough.

So I got Mortu after all, and equipped him, and then let the two of the hunt together. And they are most impressive, I must say, laying a bloody swath through everything in their path. Even at "impossible" level, I don't remember anything that was too much of a challenge. For instance, when facing a stack of 8 Great Drakes, the plan was simple: Alorra puts an arrow into one Drake, doing about 25 points of damage, and then Mortu kills it. (Mortu has first strike and armor piercing.) Repeat until all the Drakes are gone. (Did I mention that Mortu and Alorra were both invisible and flying? The Drakes just float there, waiting to be killed.)

The only real problem with this plan is that it takes a hell of a long time to set it up. Between summoning two champions, and then creating a bow, a sword, two plate mails and two magic rings, you're looking at upwards of fifty turns.

But once you've got them...

UPDATE: I've run into another bug a few times recently: if an enemy wizard is banished, and casting the spell of return, and you're merrily marching around destroying his towns in order to defeat him, and he's down to one, and it's an outpost, then when you attack it the game crashes.

You have to leave it long enough for it to turn into a village, with one villager, before you take it out. Or better yet, be more careful about scouting the bastard before you embark on your genocide campaign, and make sure the last one you go after isn't an outpost.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Gaming at 08:33 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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