Girls, girls, girls!
Loner Harem, episode 5
This week, Classmates Without Benefits, as Our Harried Loner is henpecked into submission. He also reluctantly rescues Our Local Noble’s Daughter and destroys her mind. And Our Class President accidentally makes him even more over-powered, despite his inability to level up and officially become an adventurer.
Verdict: fluffy, but shouty. I have to cut the volume to enjoy the lite cheesecake.
(well-eared schoolgirls are loosely related)
Super Dragon Balls, episode 4
Story-telling pro tip: when you’ve already established that your hero is ridiculously powerful and basically unstoppable, it takes more than melodramatic music and villain monologing to establish a credible threat. That is, this week’s episode was complete horseshit. Also a real tonal whiplash, with a side order of “what’s wrong with that guy’s face?”.
(well-equipped dragon gal is unrelated)
Cosplay Harem, episode 17
I love it when a plan comes together… in lingerie. Gal Gal has a tendency to start stripping before remembering that Our 2D-Loving Hero is in the room, while Tsuntail would be delighted to show him anything he wants. Awkward Gal is rapidly filling in her social-butterfly bucket list, while Our Cuddly Heroine takes charge of team building to get ready for the big game. And then A Wild Cliffhanger Appears, which should send us off into trauma-land next week, sigh.
Verdict: the only thing missing this week, and it’s a big thing, is the support of Our Hot Teacher. Okay, two big things.
GGO 2, episode 4
This week, we spend time being reminded that the other teams from last season have some skills, too, before The Big Twist is revealed as a cliffhanger.
Verdict: paint-by-numbers stuff, really; I got far enough into the light novels that I know everything that will happen this season, but even if I didn’t, I doubt it would be much more than filler.
(original SAO Second-Best Girl never got nearly enough screen time)
Ero-Zelda…
All Zelda emotes from Echoes Of Wisdom.
(this is basically a reskin of Link’s Adventure with a Zelda PoV and the sort of powers he got in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom; she gains the ability to fight occasionally, but the primary focus is on summoning monsters and objects to solve puzzles)
Good, fast, and cheap
I’ve had good results with Zenni Optical in the past, but my latest order looks like the best yet. First, they’ve improved their frame-preview system that uses your webcam to overlay the frames on your head in 3D, allowing some amount of movement to check style and apparent size. It didn’t work on Safari and it can show some frames comically oversized if you don’t manually enter pupil distance, but it does work, whether you’re wearing your current glasses or not.
Second, I ordered two pairs on Tuesday night, and FedEx delivered them on Friday by noon. That was much faster than I expected, and it turns out their lab is about a 90-minute drive away.
Anyway, I’ll have to go to the range this weekend to see how the split-prescription shooting glasses work out.
No Longer Catgirl
I recently joined my parents for a wine dinner at their favorite restaurant (TL/DR: I don’t care much for wine, but I actually liked the Zilliken Rausch Riesling). We were joined by three family friends, including a couple whose daughter had just turned eighteen. While her dad picked my brains over where to take her in Japan for her graduation present, her mom shared one of her recent papers with my mom. Mostly to show that she’d survived a modern public school education and learned to read and write coherently.
Later, Mom shared the title of the book with me, and I had to laugh: No Longer Human (Ningen Shikkaku). I told her I was pretty sure I knew how an 18-year-old interested in Japan and anime had discovered that book…
(side note: my mother has an interesting relationship with the chef; he’s young and ambitious, but has learned to respect her knowledge, and sits at her knee after these dinners to learn what he got right and wrong)
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