In two of the four episodes this far, I’m getting what I’d call a “less-goofy Eccleston” feel. This is not a bad thing.

In the other two episodes, I’m getting a “half-assed crap” feel, but hopefully we’re past that.

However, and I’m just asking as a friend, what made you sure that they were all in range of Ryan’s music? I mean, we saw at least two dog-sized ones around town, and nothing to suggest that there weren’t a few dozen more.

…featuring the always delightful Saya Kataoka…

Saya’s own twitter account has lots of nice previews and outtakes of her various work. Sansei seems to have taken down the link to the Sansei Girls page, but in compensation, I’ll link to one of their 18-or-older games…

Q: How do you make a vegan sub?

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Well, I guess now we know what they were saving their effects budget for. Honestly, I’d have preferred a midget in a rubber suit, in the great Doctor Who tradition, but at least we’re in space in the future doing future space things, and not reminding people about Socially Important 20th-Century History. Oh, wait, that’s next week, when they find Yaz’s grandmother hip-deep in the partition of India and Pakistan.

Warning quote from next week’s writer:

“I grew up watching shows like Star Trek and Quantum Leap on the edge of my dad’s bed, and I loved how they managed to capture the imagination of a kid like me as well as acting as a moral compass.”

The “Resistance” is Feudal:

Even if this were being used metaphorically, I’d still have to call fail on filing “Ninja Skills” as a self-help book:

In related news, Steven Turnbull has disowned his earlier gullibilityshallow scholarship on the subject and written a new book that straightens out the mix of history, pulp fiction, and wishful thinking that created the myth of Ancient Ninja Secrets. Good stuff.

Goodness, she’s pretty.

Popular young (20) actress Wakana Aoi spent some time as an idol singer while launching her quite successful acting career, but managed to escape without a large stash of bikini and lingerie photos to her credit. Probably a good thing, since that phase of her career ended before she turned 16…

More pictures here; site not SFW, but her pictures are.

If it works with catgirls, this man is my hero.

Fumika Kart is the game to play.

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“This doesn’t make sense!”

"That we're being chased by lingerie space pirates, or that

our pilot is a sex toy?”

“That the sex toy is a better pilot than I am!”

"She's probably just had more stick time."

“Not funny. Why does her programming include combat evasion tactics?”

"Maybe she's playing hard-to-get, who cares. Can we focus on

this problem?”

“Right. Killer robot trying to cripple the ship. How long have we got?”

"Two minutes, tops. And if it goes straight for the drive

once it’s inside…”

“…then we’re toast. Okay, I distract, you smash.”

Clearly my recent search for cotton rope has led you down a dark path…

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Am I a bad person for wishing the cast of Doctor Who had turned this week’s episode into a Bollywood musical?

I got bored around the time the spoiler died, mostly because I honestly don’t give a flying fuck about the partition of India and Pakistan, and the writer clearly thinks I should, having the Doctor play Woke-ipedia with the number of displaced and dead, etc. As the fishwrap I linked to last week puts it, this fits in with “Doctor Who’s new direction under new showrunner Chris Chibnall to increase diversity”.

Silly me, I thought your job was to increase entertainment. Y’know, for ratings, merchandise sales, loyal fan-base even…

Anyway, I just finished watching it after pausing on Sunday, and it was: preach, preach, preach, power-walking villains, preach, preach, extreme close-up, power-walking “heroes”, moral lesson, awwwww.

Next week? Amazon Prime… In Spaaaace! They’re the villains, of course.

Best thing about this week’s episode? Young Umbreen was stunning.

Do you have an oooooh button?

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(Artist: Sakichi Sakichi)

Of the many sketchy things about the group’s producer, the fact that he does their makeup is the one that gets me.

Their full-body makeup. Including inner thighs.

Note: Junko seems to be the runaway favorite for fan-art. I still haven’t picked a favorite.

Julia, Moe Amatsuka, and Kurea Hasumi show off their cosplay skills as bow-tie bunny girls:

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The judge says Trump has to let him in. Doesn’t say he’s allowed to speak.

Tax cheat
Michael Avenatti,
Creepy Porn Attorney

Told big
lies for his clients,
Of which we’re sure of three.

Jailed for
beating a woman,
“People,” he said, said he;

“You must always believe the accusers of men,
unless they’re accusing me.”

Don’t you think this is getting out of hand?

The good news is that last week’s trailer was wrong:

The bad news is that that was all of the good news.

Also, no trailer for next week, just a warningpromise that there are only three more episodes (and no Christmas episode).

And, yes, she’s thrusting with the sonic again…

“Oh, the pointing again! They’re screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?”

What, I haven’t done one of these since September? And the “hc” folder’s filling up again? Well, I can fix that!

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Every once in a while, Chinese companies selling direct on Amazon manage to amuse me. Sometimes it’s with their Boggle-dice fly-by-night company names, but usually it’s their “missed it by that much” English…

“The cover will protect your stuffs from rain or dust, you can easily remove it when you don’t wanna use the cover.”

Interestingly, the body copy further down is all much cleaner English, from a company claiming to have been founded in San Jose. So there’s a bit of a disconnect here.

“…as if dozens of fan-artists were feeling trolled AF after the latest episode of Zombieland Saga…”

“…and dozens more found new inspiration…”

Classical NSFW Reference

This is her shocked face. Not to be confused with Sarah Hoyt’s.

How dare you crop out GAM’s gams!

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As I mentioned a while back, the mobile game for the Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon? franchise is chock full of story, much of it written by the original novelist, so it’s arguably canon. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the recent Attack on Titan crossover, but the current Christmas story includes a very interesting internal monologue that provides information on the popular mystery, WTF is Syr, really?.

spoiler

Frantically chasing after a kidnapped little girl, Syr thinks to herself:

I had better things to do than watch Doctor Who this weekend, mostly involving cooking with my sister (homemade pizza, Guinness beef stew, stuffing w/gravy, homemade pizza, two kinds of cookies, tangzhong dinner rolls, Japanese curry, homemade pizza).

Yes, she really, really likes my current pizza recipe. Leftover stuffing and Cheesecake Factory bread got combined with some Boar’s Head teriyaki chicken into Irish-style chicken & stuffing sandwiches, another of her favorite things.

Anyway, there was no trailer last week for this episode, so I was going into it cold. Just watched it, and y’know what? I’m still cold.

“But now,” says the Doctor, “now that you’re here,
the word of the Morax seems perfectly clear.
Unless they hire writers who know how to plot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

I’ll grant them this: if you strip away the lecturing and the SJ rubbish, there’s the germ of a cheesy Seventies DW episode in there somewhere.

For various reasons, my sister and I haven’t been able to visit Japan together for a few years. Her new job has her in Tokyo (and London and Sydney and…) quite often, so she’s building up plenty of airline miles, but she’s booked pretty solid when she’s working.

Basically, we’re going to be in Kyoto for the two weeks between cherry blossoms and Golden Week, with a couple of days in Tokyo at the start. Since we won’t have our parents along this time, we’ll be moving at a much faster pace, while still managing to revisit some favorite spots.

I’m in the “collecting cool stuff” stage of planning right now. Obvious things include the Toji Market, the Tenjin-san Market, and the Kamigamo-jinja Market. We haven’t done Toji before, but the other two are great fun.

While we’re briefly in Tokyo, I’ll be hitting the relatively new Samurai Museum. I will not be buying a sword at their gift shop; well, maybe one of the replica wall-hangers might catch my eye. (note that these are not iaitō)

And since I’ll be in the area, a trip to Nakano Broadway is clearly in order.

Once we reach our neighborhood in Kyoto, I’m sure our first stop will be the little noodle shop that serves katsu curry udon, followed by a quick run up to Shijō/Teramachi/Nishiki for ginger crack and some new kitchen knives for my sister, with a convenience-store stop to locate her latest obsessiondiscovery, monaka ice cream sandwiches.

At some point, we’ll definitely visit the Nishijin Textile Center, both for the kimono fashion show and the fact that last time, none of us had gotten into kumihimo yet, so we didn’t pay much attention to the obi and other braids they had. (there are also kumihimo lessons, a craft museum, and at least two stores (1 2), but those all go in the “maybe” column)

I hope to finally do the Osaka Duck Tour and find out if they sell copies of their mascot. We will of course be hitting up Tenka Gyoza at least once while in Osaka (their web site is down, but we’ll be keeping our fingers firmly crossed that she’s still in business).

Other than that, things are pretty open right now. I don’t think we’ll be dining at the Ninja Restaurant, but it sounds like their live concerts might be worthwhile. Likewise, I don’t think we’ll be doing the Kyoto Samurai Experience, either, even though the kimono rental shop that runs it is just down the street.

Oh, and despite spending most of our time in Kyoto, we’re flying in and out of Haneda, because every other option had the upgrades to business class wait-listed, so it’s a good thing that I found the app for booking Tokaido Shinkansen tickets a month in advance.

Hope he doesn’t pass any schools on the way back to mom’s basement…

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…it’s Ayaka Umeda.

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(powered-down version)

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