The thunderstorms are literal, accompanied by tornado alerts, for pretty much the entire week (I was surprised not to get a power outage or surge Wednesday night). The anime are showing up a few per day until the weekend deluge.

KOOTHP, OP And Clueless

AKA “The Unaware Atelier Master”. The second Spring show to premiere, since Crunchyroll quietly released Delusional Space Virgin several days early. The trailers really scream WE’RE BEING FUNNY NOW, and while the gals are agreeably gal-shaped, they also have that self-conscious exaggerated design that I associate with Pokemon quest NPCs. Which is at best a mixed blessing.

In the usual way, the hero party kicks out the person who did all the grunt work, eventually discovering that they’re helpless without him, while he goes on to enjoy life with the amazing powers nobody ever noticed. He also attracts babes like he’s been dipped in honey and wrapped in $100 bills.

This one also pulls in the tropes from the “grew up in a secret village where everybody is OP, so he thinks it’s normal” genre. So:

1. Innocently do something impossible.
2. Obliviously acquire thirsty new waifu.
3. Cut to hero party to show them suffering.
4. Repeat.

Verdict: no sign of elves or catgirls yet; are all the waifus going to be human? Now that would be novel!

(KOOTHP = Kicked Out Of The Hero Party, a genre that seems to be roleplay therapy for writers carrying a grudge about their office jobs and college group projects)

Sword Of The Demon Hunter

Well, it’s got an art and animation budget, but I got bored really fast, and didn’t make it through the double-length first episode. Tried again, failed again.

I might skip the tedious backstory and try again next week.

(unrelated, not boring)

Your Forma, episode 1

“I’d like it if you don’t behave outside of my expectations.”

Dude, this is clearly your first time interacting with a woman.

Not licensed in the US yet, as far as I can tell, so I watched a multi-subbed torrent. There are claims it will be available next week, somewhere.

The show drops you into the world and the characters, gradually adding in facts as it goes, almost like they’re trying to tell a story. The ubiquitous heads-up display that everyone seems to have implanted is so annoying that I’m sure there are frequent self-inflicted icepick wounds happening offscreen, but for the viewers it’s conveniently-timed supplementary exposition, potentially saving us from some as-you-know-Bob moments. Negative points for having the robot sidekick come right out and say “I see you’ve stopped hating androids”, with her responding like a high-school tsundere.

Our CyberDiving Heroine spends this episode covered from neck to ankles, except for an inexplicable upper-chest window in her uniform (definitely not a boob window); her street clothes are missing the window. All of the female characters have pretty faces, but apart from a few “interesting” camera angles, they’re not on display. Almost like they’re trying to tell a story. Unless they all end up bathing together for some reason…

A non-subtle point in the ED animation is Our Heroine reading a book called “The City of Steel”, a very obvious reference to Asimov’s robot-detective novel “The Caves of Steel”, which ties into both the plot and the general three-laws setting. Almost like they’re trying to tell a story.

Verdict: Are they telling a new story? Not so far; I can think of at least three SF murder mysteries that share the basic tropes, and could come up with more if I thought about it for a minute. That doesn’t mean it will suck, simply that it may play out as just a mashup of material familiar to print-SF fans.

(no fan-art to speak of, so detective is unrelated)

Isekai Prime, fin

“Instead of banging you, your majesty, could I have some old furniture instead?”

The cast picture in the OP just added three new women, two of whom are dressed. The third is a sexy mage gal with boob tassels on her dress, and she’s introduced right away, with Our Shopping “Mage” ordered to duel her in front of the royal family. She summons a dragon, apparently from a Seventies cartoon, and it’s game on. Magical Loli does the heavy lifting (sure, let’s make it a family duel!), and yes, he ends up killing the dragon with his remarkably nimble bulldozer. Wow, that really hurt to type. Almost as much as hearing him go full chuuni again.

Then he gives Our Manipulative Princess a pearl necklace (not the kind he’s been giving the other gals), and Her Wicked Busty Step-Mother demands equal treatment, which she rewards with the key to the kingdom her bedroom. Which he rejects in favor of vintage furniture.

I’m surprised she didn’t throw in the kitchen sink. The writers certainly did, in a walk-and-talk exposition-and-flashback scene that goes from soup to nuts. Then Tassels asks Daughter how she learned magic, with the not-at-all surprising result that she’s so good at magic because her mother was the mage who wrote her favorite grimoire.

Then Our Hero gets a real reward: title to the land he’s been squatting on, with a noble title to go with it. He also gets Spoiled Princess and Her Willing Maid.

Verdict: it had its moments (including one LoL moment this week, with the catgirls mesmerized by the windshield wipers on his van), but wow what a load of crap was mixed in.

AI and the barn door

I was listening to an overview of securing LLMs with other LLMs, and the speaker was talking about his real-world experience helping companies give an LLM unrestricted access to confidential customer information and then “secure” it by having another LLM classify natural-language queries into “safe” and “forbidden”. He gave copious examples of how hard this is to accomplish, how fallible and trickable such systems were, and handwaved away attendee concerns with “our clients’ customers are demanding this!”.

Spoiler alert: customers aren’t demanding AI chatbots, they’re demanding customer service, which they’re not getting from overseas contractors reciting cookie-cutter scripts in a language they’re not fluent in.

Instead of solving real problems, the clients are just replacing a call center with a data center.

Your Forma, supplemental

The show can now be legally streamed in the US. On Samsung TVs. Only.

As for the content, I had forgotten the preview mentioning that the series is explicitly skipping book one of the light novels. Some of the seemingly-random remarks between Our Odd Couple, such as him commenting that she no longer wears a necklace and the “you’ve stopped hating androids” line, are Book One references. So is the friendly girl they’re saying goodbye to at the beginning, and the tabloid headline (before the viewer has any idea what an “amicus” is or what the reference to “royal” means).

By the way, I assume that page three of The Moon tabloid features an ass-shot of a pretty girl. Well, hopefully a girl, anyway.

The Apothecary Diaries 2, episode 13

This week, Shisui reveals one of her small secrets and two of her big ones, as she takes Maomao and Xiaolan to the baths. The part of me that enjoys fan-service is forced to confess that it would be out of character for the show to suddenly start showing the goods, so the scenery is period-correct. Together they start a massage service for the lesser concubines, with Xiaolan hoping to make connections that will lead to a post-palace career. Shisui also points out that it’s a great opportunity to pick up rumors and gossip.

But in addition to this good clean fun, we get two new mysteries, with rumors of a mysteriously-handsome new eunuch, and high consort Lishu’s claim that her pavilion is haunted. Naturally, both are like catnip to Maomao, so that should take care of next week.

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 1

If you watched the first fluffy season, this episode promises to fluff in exactly the same fluffy way. There’s a brief reminder of the isekai setup and the platonic harem’s personalities, and then straight into the fluff.

After 300+ years of living in this world, Our Witchy Heroine randomly discovers that it has rice and adzuki beans, so the first half of the episode is spent reinventing manju, noticing that it looks kinda like slimes, pasting eyes on it, and turning it into a new regional specialty. Second half has a goddess working to promote herself with personal appearances, which leads to a reunion with the deity responsible for Azusa’s reincarnation into this world as a “forever seventeen”; you get three guesses who they hired to voice the goddess, and the first two don’t count.

Verdict: the ED promises to make the cast much bigger. As long as they don’t skimp on the Beelzebub appearances, I’m okay with that. Fluff, fluff.

(yes, I still have fan-art leftovers from the first season)

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 1

This one’s streaming on Amazon Prime, simul-dubbed into 8 languages. Cheaply, if the auto-play English dub is representative; 10 seconds of third-rate voice acting was all I could take while I fumbled to change it. Worse, Amazon has goofy auto-continue where in the middle of the end credits it decided I should watch the first episode of Electra Woman And Dyna Girl (the original Seventies series, not the shit-tier 2016 mini-series that has nothing in common except the title).

Take the premise of S-Rank Daughter, but instead of all the young babes seeing him as a father figure, they want a daddy. Seriously, the white-haired one who kicks off the plot lasts about ten seconds before blurting out that she dreams of being wifed. The way her tongue keeps slipping, it’s sure to land in his mouth soon.

For more fun, Haremette #3 (buff redhead variety) is one that Our Sword Daddy actually took in as a child, and went on to become a top-rank adventurer, reinforcing the comparison to S-Rank Daughter. Naturally she has a long-standing rivalry with Thirsty McWhiteHair that doubles when she sees Her Sensei/Daddy for the first time in many years.

Verdict: this is not subtle, with even Our Hero’s dad coming right out and saying “hey, why don’t you make grandkids with this hot former student?”. If they throw in some trashy hot-springs and beach episodes, I’m good.

(Holo-harem is unrelated)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 12

I was kinda hoping that with the Asshole baggage out of the way, we could have ordinary dungeon/harem adventures, but no, this week rapidly escalates from “gosh this dungeon is weird” to “who’s gonna save the world?”, thanks to triple exposition from the creepy old man, the rescued magical schoolgirl, and some noble guy we’re meeting for the first time who has the secret history of the multiverse in his back pocket.

The answer to the world-saving question is, of course, Our Harem Hero. That role doesn’t offer a lot of downtime for waifuplay, so I hope this doesn’t try to turn into a serious show.

Verdict: please counter this extreme plot escalation by giving Jamie an early pardon and holding all future party conferences in the bath.

(I’ll just drown my sorrows with Marina again…)

Lazarus, episode 1

Apparently there will be two ways to watch this: Toonami has a dub, and Max has the sub. So pretty much everyone’s going to torrent it. I think I can get Max free for a while through DoorDash, so maybe I’ll try to watch it that way.

Could be worse, I suppose; the sex-doll-classmate show is licensed by a company I’ve never heard of that wants $13/month without letting you browse their catalog until you sign up.

LLM Story Logic

I fed a story bible into a recommended uncensored LLM and asked it to generate the prologue for the story. The setup was simple: four female adventurers in an inn, discussing the quest they were about to depart on before going to bed, while in the background, the wizard who hired them was planning a double-cross that would end with them enslaved.

The generated scene had a plausible prose structure, with a typical mix of narrative and dialogue, and since there was plenty of room to store the entire bible as context, everything matched the request.

Based on its (horny fiction) training data, the LLM placed the villainous wizard in the scene, drilling a peephole into the girls’ room so he could watch them undress for bed, which excited him enough that he began fondling himself through his robes. Suddenly:

As if sensing his gaze upon them, Meria suddenly looked up and met Khardo’s eye through the peephole. The old wizard quickly pulled back but it was too late - Meria had seen his lecherous expression and the bulge in his pants.

This is what happens when the “writer” is just stringing sentences together. His eye is pressed to a peephole, and yet from across the room she clearly sees the expression on his face and the erection he’s tugging on before he pulls away from the peephole and runs off. The scene continues with plausible sentences about responding to a peeping tom, and yet they all go to sleep without setting a guard, and still plan to set off on the quest he hired them for. Also, in the previous paragraph he was wearing robes, not pants.

As for the wizard:

Khardo would have to act quickly to lure them into his trap before they could warn anyone or change their plans.

So he leaves them alone for the rest of the night in the well-populated inn, where they have plenty of time to tell everyone in the place about the naughty peeping wizard, and no reason whatsoever to leave town and continue his quest the next morning.

In other words, even most direct-to-Kindle shovelware writers are still safe from AI for now.

Lazarus, next month

Turns out even Max only has the dub, and the subtitled version won’t be available for a month. So that’s a big no-can-do.

Delusional Space Virgin, held back for a few weeks

If for some reason you’re wondering where episode 4 of this show is, it’s airing on the 26th, as if the show had had a normal premiere instead of throwing out three episodes in one week.

Clueless Crafter, episode 2

Not content to dig a lit, reinforced, caravan-sized tunnel completely through a mountain in one morning, Our Super Hero also digs down several kilometers to find “decent” ore (legendary, that is), and then fills the hole in for safety. Our First Waifu thought she’d prepared herself for the impossible, but not at that scale.

On his next side job, he cleans a kitchen at superspeed, wanders the house looking for more to do, walks in on a mostly-naked cutie with an unbreakable lethal curse, and casually whips up a meal that cures her. That’s definitely a viable method to recruit a Second Waifu.

We also get an update on the party that kicked him out, which has fallen apart completely, with the leader headed for jail, the hot priestess called in by the church, and the rogue turning out to be a secret agent who has always known how OP Kurt is. She dresses for fan-service, but she doesn’t seem to be a kurtsexual haremette. More left for the other gals, I guess.

Verdict: the girls are cute, and it’s not as shouty as you’d expect from a current show. But how long can they keep escalating his powers without jumping an inflatable shark?

(show lacks animal girls…)

Smothering Dark Elf Waifu, episode 1

HiDive usually gets the uncensored version of shows, but Our Obsessed Naked Dark Elf Maiden is accompanied at all times by three giant steam blobs. Okay, there are brief moments when she’s not naked. That’s pretty much the entire episode.

Verdict: boooooooooobs, without even a hint of story.

Oh, good, let’s start off with all the cheesy CGI exposition we skipped last week. While they’re reciting Not The Three Laws, I’ll throw in a note that the character designer added leggings to her uniform; on the light-novel covers, her legs are bare under her short-shorts, like all good Interpol agents. Also, she’s 19, so she gets a pass for not being the hardened detective she poses as.

But how is the story proceeding? Well, we’ve got a Mad Scientist claiming Her Finest Creations are true AIs (which according to OpenAI means “profitable” and according to this show means “sapient”), a suspect who’s been ruled out with an axe, a team that’s been pulled off the case, and some sitting around talking about plot coupons.

The good news is that once we reach the halfway point, things start happening. On a technical note, when Our Spunky Heroine’s cyber implant boots up, it’s running Linux kernel 2.2.18 with a VGA console and a PS/2 mouse. Also, Our Mysterious Villain couldn’t have flipped his knife open that way. Just sayin’.

My biggest complaint is that when they get around to the brain diving that is the hook for the show, they once again run the full startup animation, like a third-rate magical-girl transformation; I’ll be very happy if they ditch it in future episodes. Just plug her in and go.

Verdict: this does not show signs of being a slow-burn romance, at least not for now, but the buddy-cop dynamic is complicated by the boy-girl dynamic, with both of them being emotionally damaged goods. In a story-promoting way, that is. Unrelated, the ED animation was apparently produced by a team that was told this was a rom-com.

(Our Heroine only acts like a zombie…)

Robo-Ho Classmate

I had to go to Teh Torrentz for this week’s Your Forma, and the trashiest-sounding series of the season was right there, so…

Yes, I just watched the first episode of Hide me! Makina-san!!, in which a ridiculously-stacked naked high-school chick showers before the opening credits with just a hint of soap and steam over her crotch, then shows more nip during the credits, then speaks kindly to the nerdiest nerd who ever nerded, and finally shows up at the apartment where he lives alone (as all high-school nerds do), which she knew about because she’s basically been stalking him.

She opens her flasher coat and shows him that she’s a seriously damaged robot. Also, she makes a complete mockery of all the fan-service up to this point by revealing that her boobs are hollow. As in cracked eggshell hollow. Once she’s fixed up, she’s equipped with sentient lightbeams and steam clouds to keep her crotch Safe For Japan, except when she gets Barbied.

He fixes her up overnight, and she wakes up (alone) in his bed the next morning, a bed that has a prominently-placed box of tissues. Boy Wonder is a wreck, between staying up all night reading her manual that’s filled with future-tech, and having a girl and a robot in his bed.

There’s “not subtle”, and then there’s this thing, which looks like someone read a badly-translated wiki article on Hand Maid May, cut the guy’s age by 10 years, and made the lead girl a willing sexbot with a gal skin. The harem’s even got a loli, according to the credits and the official site.

Verdict: shouty, of course, but unapologetic, and objectively better than Dere-Dere Dark Elf. Faint praise, but I actually made it all the way through the episode…

(unrelated, but naked and busty…)

Not the comparison I would have made…

I happened to notice that Poul Anderson’s classic Three Hearts And Three Lions was on Kindle Unlimited. That’s a good way to spend some time, I thought, and then I read the blurb:

Before Thomas Covenant, Roger Zelazny’s Amber, and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, the great Poul Anderson introduced readers to the Middle World and the legendary hero Ogier the Dane.

This is technically true, if you’re referring to the original 1953 3H&3L novella that ran in a magazine one year before Fellowship was released, but it wasn’t expanded into a novel until 1961, so they can’t be directly compared in scale for “introduced readers to”.

But that’s a small point. Of all the fantasy series written since 1953/1961, they put Thomas Fucking Covenant first on the list?!? Without even including the author’s name, as if it’s more iconic on its own than Amber or LoTR? I don’t think Covenant himself even has anything in common with the heroes of the others except being an adult male.

I can see excluding Narnia, despite its superior name recognition and the fact that it came out in 1950; the same logic might be applied to Prydain and Wrinkle In Time, by calling them “chidren’s books” despite their depth. But since they extended their list to the late 1970s, let’s see what alternatives come to mind: Norton’s Witch World (which even starts off with an isekai transfer), Vance’s The Dying Earth, Le Guin’s Earthsea, McCaffrey’s Pern, Moorcock’s Elric and Corum, Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Cherryh’s Morgaine, and if most of my books weren’t in boxes, I could probably list a dozen more.

Hell, Brooks’ Shannara surely has better name recognition than Thomas F. Covenant, given that it had a two-season TV show less than ten years ago.

Unrelated, Timothy Zahn has a new story out

Trap Line, and by “new” I mean “two weeks ago”.

Okay, so with most of the premieres out of the way, I’ve got a cheesy power fantasy harem (Clueless Crafter) and an over-the-top extra-cheesy manic-pixie-busty-robo-dream-girl (Robo-Ho) on Sundays, one robo-buddy-cop memory-diving not-romance (I, Forma) on Wednesdays, Maomao on Fridays, three fantasy harems on Saturdays (Bumpkin, A-Rank, and the platonic Slime-Killing Witch), and… that’s it.

The subtitled version of Lazarus is a month away and not on any service I subscribe to, and even if I get desperate, Delusional Space Virgin shot its wad in the first week and won’t show up again for another two weeks. I could try to watch Moonrise on Netflix (all 18 episodes are apparently available now), but what little I get from the trailers is a mashup of bad shonen tropes, a really-poor-man’s Moon Is A Harsh Mistress from the wrong PoV, and poor character naming. Seriously, the leader of the lunar revolution is a cyborg badass warrior named “Bob Skylum”. And the “good guys” keep shouting out this name, including Our Hero, Jake Shadow. (wince)

How AI will win

The Apothecary Diaries 2, episode 14

Maomao gets the ghost story and Jinshi gets the handsome new eunuch, while bigger mysteries stir in the background. Poor little Lishu gets a small measure of justice, while sweet Xaiolan gets in trouble. No sign of Shisui this week, but her big moment is coming up fast.

Pretty soon I’m going to have to put anything I say behind spoiler tags, for the sake of those who aren’t current on this season.

Unrelated, Steak & Shake asked me for my opinion…

…so I told them: switching to beef tallow doesn’t magically convert tasteless soggy fries into gold, and also they have the worst burger and hotdog buns in the industry. The shake wasn’t bad, though.

Speaking of food

Well, which is it?

I feel so secure…

I’m currently going through the end-of-lease experience with the Kia Sorento I picked up the day I moved back to Ohio. I’d always gone with the standard purchase financing, but in April 2022 we were in the middle of the Biden/Fauci supply-chain disaster, and there were only a handful of new cars available within 20 miles. I didn’t want to commit to it long-term or tie up too much money, so I went with a three-year lease.

I’d been driving Toyotas for decades, but there were none at local dealerships. The Kia dealer down the street had exactly two Sorentos on the lot, with the dark blue one having better specs and features.

TL/DR: the only thing I didn’t like about the car was that I’d been spoiled by my last Camry’s continuously-variable transmission. Other than that, it’s been great, and the back seats are so comfortable for adults that my mother actually prefers sitting back there; her limited mobility doesn’t interfere with getting in and out, and it’s comfortable for a long ride.

So instead of trading it in on a new one, I just paid off the balance of the lease. From their finance website, I had to use Docusign to confirm the odometer reading. Which opened in a tiny mobile-sized frame that I couldn’t break out of, so instead of reading the legal document in a large browser window, I had to zoom and pan around the tiny frame to make sure everything was sane.

The next day, I received an email that looked a bit scammy, with a low-res company logo, some unloadable images, and a “click here to read a secure message” button. Clicking takes you to an Office365 page that’s missing half the graphics and asks you to click a button to send you an access code by email that will let you read your message.

It was legit, but the entire content of the un-downloadable, un-copyable, un-printable email was just “yup, we reviewed your lease buyout request, and we’re working on the title”. No account numbers, dollar amounts, or personal information that would justify the cumbersome process.

This is the Microsoft Office 365 “secure mail” experience, and it’s a horrible anti-pattern. The goal is to make it easy to “securely” send “encrypted” messages to anyone without any sort of password or key exchange, but the result is encouraging people to blindly click links in random unsolicited emails and then click links on the random broken site they send you to. This is the exact same pattern used by criminals for identity theft and malware. Blech.

(seatcovers cost extra)

Fun note: despite the shortages, I ended up getting a nice discount on the Sorento when I leased it. As I said, they had exactly two on the lot, and the dealer grabbed both sets of keys when we went out to check them out. I said I wanted the blue one, so he handed me the keys, and while my brother and I took it for a test drive, he went inside to start the paperwork. With the keys he had in his other hand.

I signed everything and paid the deposit, and the next morning they realized the paperwork had the VIN for the other car. So they called me to come down and sign an amendment, but they had to eat the price difference.

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 2

Crunchyroll initially posted this without the subs, producing what may be the easiest-to-understand raw ever. Basically, if you can pick out one word in ten, both of the stories make perfect sense. The subs, when they finally showed up, were disappointing in one respect, botching the home-security hikikomori trope.

First up, Our Slime-Spirit Daughters get invited to a gathering of spirits. Our Ever-Seventeen Witch Mama tags along as chaperone, dispelling some rumors and learning a few things that will come in handy soon, before spending the night with One Hot Wet Momma Spirit. Not that way, sadly.

Second, Best Girl Beelzebub makes her first appearance of the season, soliciting assistance to track down a rogue undead. After her cunning plan fails, Our Witch remembers the rumors she just coincidentally learned the night before and leads the Scooby Gang straight to the target. Who turns out to be a cute busty catgirl gamer gal who was such a shut-in that she ended up dying of laziness, and was delighted to turn into a creature of the night that perfectly fits her lifestyle.

Verdict: fun and fluff delivered. Also, lazy undead catgirl is surprisingly well-groomed.

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 2

Our Fourth Haremette has combined her sword skills with a natural talent for magic, but the big news is that A Wild Legal Loli Appears. But first, the secret origin of Thirsty McWhiteHair, whose professional admiration for Our Rural Hero is genuine, but is thoroughly mixed with her deep tingling sensations. Honestly, the others haven’t shown any signs of wanting to get horizontal yet, while she seems to be planning out how many babies they should have. He is still completely oblivious to all this, of course.

Anyway, Legal Loli isn’t one of the listed haremettes, but she’s Number Four’s boss, and wants to try him out to see if he’s as awesome as claimed. With a sword, that is. For now. Given the glimpse we get up her skirt, she may not be all business.

Verdict: it’s kind of weird to see him teach Japanese-style swordsmanship with European straight swords, but I guess you draw what you know. Girls still cute, show not shouty, and his voice seems to work better for the role than it did in the trailers, or else he’s growing on me.

(swordsbunnygal is unrelated, all grown up)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 13

So, we get some new eye candy in supporting roles, but the character art of Our Harem Party is off about half the time, including in Our Legal Loli Healer’s cuddling event that she must have had needed new panties after. Meanwhile, the world-saving plot continues, with a bunch of exposition while everyone drops their guard inside the dungeon, sigh.

Verdict: it hasn’t failed hard enough for me to drop it yet, but the main girls are the only thing holding it together, and Jamie’s still not here. Seriously, if this is supposed to be a do-or-die save-the-world quest, does detention really matter?

(I decided to help Rain make her wish come true)

Unrelated,

Why does X’s “for you” mode repeat the same damn tweet a dozen times a day? Also, how lazy do you have to be to generate a cartoon slut pic that looks literally 1000 times worse than the worst thing I’ve generated with Stable Diffusion. And I’m including total failures like this:

(side note: the Brave browser deletes both ads and phony thots from xTwitter, so they show up for a few seconds and then disappear)

Speaking of image generation…

Mina is based.

Visual jokes can be really hard to set up in Stable Diffusion. I just wanted a grinning Mina Ashido with her legs open, holding out a box of baking soda. When I finally got tired of pictures full of carbonated beverages and baked goods, I took those words out of the prompt and kept going until I had a half-decent yellow box, and then just Photoshopped the text in.

Bonus: exact same prompt, but this one turned out hilarious.

[note to self: design a complete Japanese product label with the kanji for baking soda (炭酸, “tansan”) and perhaps some appropriate emoji for the blackboard]

Back to the fry!

The only chains in my area advertising tallow-fried fries are the aforementioned Steak & Shake, Outback Steakhouse, and Buffalo Wild Wings. There may be some non-chain sources, but I haven’t seen them yet. Since I don’t have any regular TV service, I won’t know unless they drop an ad in my mailbox.

(“Dear Google, when I search for something ‘near Miamisburg, Ohio’, tokenizing it and giving me results for Miami, Florida is not helpful”; “also, your AI summary only mentions Steak & Shake, as if there were no alternatives”)

Best thing since sliced bread

The only downside is that it sometimes leads to me eating an entire pineapple while standing at the kitchen counter.

This week, Our “Powerless” OP Hero goes looking for work and picks up two men. Literally. Meanwhile, First and Second Waifu gather with Our Oddly-Dressed Mage and Our Well-Displayed Atelier to exposit about the nominal plot and come up with an excuse for the waifus to spend all their time with him.

Kurt’s new temp job is hauling loot for a small adventuring party that gets in way over their heads, and he breaks the cutie by taking out three massive iron golems, treating it as a mining problem instead of combat. Having seen too much, they swiftly get recruited into the exclusive club of Defenders Of Kurt’s Delusions.

Bonus points for a brief but timely appearance by The Mysterious Bandana And Her Faithful Bandana.

Verdict: I don’t think we’ve even come close to Peak OP yet. In fact, I’m sure we haven’t. Will this become a complete trainwreck? Stay tuned!

(no fan-art to speak of yet, so I’ll just put a loving waifu here)

Unhappy with this season? Bad news…

What’s been announced for summer so far is worse. The only things I’m willing to watch on this list are Call Of The Night 2 and Kaiju No. 8 2. Even the trashy harem shows are weak, with Private Tutor To The Duke’s Daughter exceeding the statutory limit for loli haremettes, with a ridiculously OP lead who constantly insists he’s weak before busting out never-before-seen magics.

There appears to be only one obvious kicked-out-of-the-hero-party show so far, where the biggest departure from the usual format is that the shy busty mage gal with underrim glasses is fully dressed. Real curveball there. The trailer wastes no time recruiting Our Underconfident Hero into a new party through the power of a manic pixie half-dressed twintail S-rank adventure gal. I’m heartily sick of this genre, but I kind of fear the thought of what will replace it.

Advantage: Trump

So, right after Apple spends a fortune flying planeloads of iDevices into the country to beat the new tariffs, Trump announces that they’re exempt from the new tariffs.

Meanwhile, every “market expert” explanation for what the stock market did last week has been contradicted by the next day’s explanation.

Tomorrow Never Dies:

Admiral: “What the hell is he doing?”

M: “His job.”

[not sure why this disappeared for a while; some sort of glitch in the Hugo run when I added a sidebar link]

This takes a while to show up, because torrents.

“They say it’s better the second time,
they say you get to do the weird stuff.”

Chorus: “We do the weird stuff!”
(classical reference)

First, we meet a female classmate who likes to draw Boy’s Love porn. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of her, if not all of her. Then Our Socially-Inept Sexbot attempts to bully Our Socially-Inept Otaku into mounting her, before revealing that she doesn’t know any more about sex than he does. Not only are the details not covered in her programming, she’s got a built-in obscenity filter on her eyeballs, so the best she can do is talk about it… with the girl who’s into BL. This has led to some confusion.

Frustrated in her attempts to fill in the gaps in her knowledge as well as the ones in her fleshlike covering, she bullies him into keeping her secret, letting her move in, and accepting the position as her “owner”. She doesn’t have a place of her own any more because of the mysterious explosion that damaged her last week, which is also the reason she doesn’t have any clothes. Pretty sure there will be a lingerie-and-school-uniform delivery service showing up next week, accompanied by long, lingering shots of her body. Admittedly, most of the show is already long, lingering shots of her body.

The credits show that her bullying is just the tip of the iceberg, with BL-Loving Gal going after him with a stun-gun and Loli roughly going after her. Science Gal And Her Amazing Friends had a brief appearance last week as someone who might end up hiring Our Hero for his tech-nerd potential, but for some reason she’s dressed up like a cosplay merc in the credits.

Verdict: I have no idea where this is going to end up, but at only 12 minutes per episode (minus standard-length credits), it’s at least not wearing out its welcome. Boy Wonder needs to adjust to his new life soon, though, so the freakouts can be replaced by more fan-service and wacky hijinks. There have been too many shows where the freakouts never end, and I’ve been deeply scarred.

Side note: the Japanese title is “Kakushite! Makina-san!!”, in kana with no kanji. There are two possible interpretations of the first word: “thus” or “hide (something)”. The episode titles so far are of the form “Kakushite, Makina-san wa …”, suggesting the “thus” usage, but the plot, such as it is, is about keeping her non-organic nature hidden.

(I don’t expect any competent fan-art for this one, so here’s some Mina)

“Please don’t tell my fans I have a Patreon”

Author Richard Roberts, whose Young Adult novels are quite entertaining, abandoned his Twitter account, stopped updating his blog, rarely updates his Tumblr, and left the dead-site links on his Amazon author page. However, he turns out to be mildly active on Bluesky, and recently mentioned the Patreon account he set up in February, which he’s posting story updates on (including his horny new sf/magic barely-legal space cadets novel).

I’m currently the only patron.

Related, I just opened Apple Books for the first time

Accidentally, since I clicked on a .epub file expecting Calibre to open, but now that I’ve seen it, I’ll never open it again. Holy jumping trouser frogs, what a terrible reading experience. First it insists on two-column mode (hiding single-column view under “accessibility”), then it dynamically reflows lines based on window width with no regard for sensible line length or spacing, and it doesn’t support a flowing, non-paginated mode. Not that Calibre’s built-in viewer is anything to read home about, but Apple actually sells books through this crap.

I haven’t found a good epub reader for Mac yet, but I’ve found a number of bad ones!

“I wish I could dive into you.”

“I wish I could dive into you, too.”

I wish you’d move things a bit faster, like not starting the episode off by having the camera linger on two spear-carriers, and then cutting from Hero to Heroine with a really long scene transition. There’s letting the story breathe, and then there’s padding out the runtime.

Also the bad CGI explanation of “The Laws Of Respect” is going to be a regular intro? That’s 20 seconds of nonsense added to the credits that we could do without.

This week, Our Cyber Cops chase down an escaped villain into Retro Country, where everyone lives offline to the point of having dial telephones, providing some convenient isolation to make the plot work. The resulting confrontation is painfully awkward; have Our Heroes ever watched a police drama?

After that, everyone arrives at the correct place with precise timing, which is pretty impressive since Our Girl Detective was choked out, tied up, and left behind with a severely damaged car, and didn’t even contact anyone once she was back online. It took the power of sheer coincidence for her to show up just in time for the final confrontation (next week).

Verdict: this takes itself more seriously than the material deserves. I’ll give it another week, but I’m not really feeling it.

(Great Detective Chika is unrelated)

Don’t think I’ve told this story before…

During our 2022 Japan trip, my sister and I ate at Kyoto’s Hanaroku teppanyaki restaurant several times. Their amazing A5 wagyu is served with a tiny dish of sea salt, just right for sprinkling on top.

It’s really good salt, with a distinctive texture. My sister asked the waiter about it, and he came back from the kitchen with the words “tango salt”. Some quick googling revealed this to be sea salt harvested on the Tango Peninsula north of Kyoto.

I texted her the kanji and the search began. Grocery stores, gift shops, gourmet shops, Amazon Japan, etc. By the time we made it back to her place in Chicago, she’d bought at least half a dozen different types of salt, looking for that distinctive texture (which the restaurant had helpfully supplied a sample of…).

As I was packing up to drive back to Ohio, she gave me one of the bags from Amazon, and said “I think this one is the closest.” I immediately pointed at the sticker in the upper-left corner that read, in English, “TangoGoodGoods”; she’d found it without realizing it.

I’m reminded of this because the last time she was in Japan for work, she picked up more for both of us. And now the weather is right for grilling steaks.

I’m not springing for wagyu, though. That’s a post-lottery retirement thing.

Speaking of Japan,

A while back my sister was chatting with two friends who were planning a trip to Japan, and they asked her for advice. She pulled up the Trello board we use as a trip planner and emailed them a long list of possibilities: hotels, shopping, restaurants, sights, random fun things, etc.

Fast-forward to their return, and they called her to rave about the country and her recommendations. When she asked what they’d done, their answer was “everything; everything on your list”.

Maomao invokes the power of fruit sherbet to rescue Xiaolan from the trouble she got into, crossing her fingers that it will be enough to placate the one concubine she’s had no direct contact with. Shisui once again appears out of nowhere just in time to swipe the leftovers and hang out with her pals. Lots of fun, and a good character-building moment for Maomao as Jinshi forces her to confront her reason for helping.

Later, Gyokuyou once again demonstrates what a lucky guy the emperor is, as she makes a tough call for the sake of her unborn child. Meanwhile, things continue to stir in the background.

Unrelated, Last Bite

Thursday night, for his mere-days-away birthday, I took my brother to see Alton Brown, who was in Cincinnati for his Last Bite tour. As the name implies, this is his final national tour. As far as we know.

It was very funny, and just a little bit naughty. If one of the remaining shows is near you, go; you won’t regret it. Don’t worry if you don’t get one of the hotdogs; despite the buildup, they were nothing special.

Even more unrelated, school funding

I was carefully discussing current events with a friend, when he went off on the proposed Ohio budget that was estimated to cut $105 million from education, with $95 million of it coming out of special education. His son is autistic, and he had been informed that this will cancel all sorts of programs that benefit him.

When I was back at a computer, I looked into it. Spending and budget numbers are highly obfuscated, and I found half a dozen contradictory claims for the total funding from federal, state, and local governments. More importantly, I found nothing about how much of the money actually ends up in classrooms helping special-needs kids.

But what I did find was a lower bound for the totals in both categories, as well as the easily-missed fact that the claimed cuts were for two years, not one.

TL/DR: the cut for special-ed was ~4%, and ~0.5% for the total budget. That looks like the standard bullshit “if you don’t pass this levy, we’ll have to cut football” trick that school districts have been pulling for decades, but even with that, 4% sounds quite modest when there’s been steadily-declining enrollment for years. Especially if it’s as badly run and grift-y as most public-union-associated programs; how did we get to the point that over 16% of students are considered disabled?

Simulcasts were late again, so I attempted to watch Moonrise. Wow, what a mistake that was. They spent a lot of money on the visuals without managing to seamlessly integrate the CGI, the tech is just there to look cool without any thought behind it, AI solved all of Earth’s problems by deporting them to the Moon and strip-mining it of all resources except the ones necessary to build a high-tech revolutionary army, and if you take a drink every time someone in this show shouts out the scenery-chewing terrorist leader’s full name, binge-watching will take on new meaning.

I will not continue to watch That Time My Family Got Killed By Bob Skylum! And I Had To Stop Being Mega-Rich Playboy Industrialist Jack Shadow And Go Cyber-Commando On The Moon With My Rich-Kid Posse While Searching For My Apparently-Not-Dead Childhood Friend.

(picture is unrelated, as I have no desire to go looking for anything that reminds me of this show…)

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 3

[Crunchyroll overlaid text promising “Drug/Alcohol Use, Nudity”; we did not get the promised nudity, or even alcohol. Also, they put the wrong episode’s subs up at first.]

Following up on last week’s cute busty undead catgirl, she’s now happily settled into a new life of running a game shop in the Demon capitol, and has invented the trading-card game. Next up, Our Sneaky Witch decides to go invisible to watch Best Girl Beelzebub at work, which doesn’t go quite as planned, but leads to the whole family making a visit to Bub’s lush mansion and uncovering her shameful secret. An exploration of her severely-overgrown garden (where pest control would require a boar spear) leads Azusa to a fateful encounter with… a cliffhanger.

Verdict: extra-shouty this week, but full of Beelzebub.

(hey, if they’re not gonna deliver the nudity…)

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 3

🎶 🎶 🎶
Backcountry bumpkin, what’s your function?
  Hooking up with my favorite students.
Backcountry bumpkin, how’s that function?
  I got four haremettes wanna polish my sword now.
Backcountry bumpkin, what’s their function?
  They’re just fan-service to keep horny fans watching.
🎶 🎶 🎶
(classical reference)

This week, the promised duel against the Legal Loli Head Wizard, an offer Our Teaching Hero-Daddy can’t refuse, and a duel against Super-Busty Redhead-With-Abs Third Waifu, with a special bonus flashback to her secret origin. The apparently-mandatory cliffhanger is a monster fight that, as usual, he’s going to be convinced is out of his league until he manages to defeat it and further impress Third Waifu.

First Waifu is all business this week, and there’s no sign of Second Waifu, but Magical Swordsgal Fourth Waifu shows up to apologize for accidentally siccing her boss on him. I have no idea where either of them stored that bottle.

The ED shows a fifth waifu, conveniently color-coded. Maybe I should just start calling them Super Sword Waifu Sentai by their hair color. Respectively, that would be White, Yellow, Red, Black, and Blue. I will give the show credit for making them adults. Yellow and Black seem to be the youngest, but Red is at least 25, and White’s an established career woman.

Verdict: despite my doggerel above, the fan-service shots of the mostly-underdressed harem are actually quite mild; it’s pretty much just quick flashes of T&A to remind us that they’re adult human females with the fashion sense of social-media thots trolling for likes. Unrelated, dodging Legal Loli’s fireballs and cutting giant iceballs in half is not taught in most sword schools. Also, she had loads of time to react to that charge from 40+ feet away.

(chibi GATE harem is unrelated)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 14

Okay, the first half of this episode is a complete write-off, filled with world-saving exposition, blah-blah-blah. After that, however, they pick up the arranged-marriage side-plot again, leading Our Legal Loli Healer to come right out and invite Our Red-Faced Hero to join her in the hot springs bath. When that doesn’t work, she teams up with Our Hot Dark Elf Maiden and they both drag him into the tub, escalating to a double titty-rub.

All of the budget was spent on the bath scene, so I can’t complain about the indifferent character art this week. I can and will complain about the author’s need to insert another asshole party into the story to escalate the world-saving plot. And another waifu-hungry asshole trying to acquire the girls of Clover, sigh.

Verdict: y’know, the landlady looks like she’d be open to a hot-springs frolic with the gals, just sayin’. It would compensate for having to sit through the plot.

(I ordered one of each, but got an extra; I’m not sending her back (this model doesn’t have the catgirl, I’ll have to find a new one))

Advantage: anime

I am not yet bored or desperate enough to read it and find out if the flaws were in the adaptation or the source material.

I tried to borrow Sarah’s shocked face…

…but it was busy reacting to a Minnesota state employee vandalizing Teslas, just like his boss Tim Walz suggested.

Anyway, OpenAI is pretending to be surprised that their latest models make shit up even more often than the old ones. Next headline: “water, is it still wet?”

(classical reference)

Clueless Crafter, episode 4

We’re holding at two haremettes (Thirsty Princess and Miss Adventure), with Adventurous SideTail being deeply suspicious of what’s going on, even after the explanation. It takes seeing the results of his construction efforts for her to grasp just how over-powered and innocent Our Clueless Hero is, and she’s too boggled to fall for him like the other two.

Which is refreshing, because SideTail is also the most attractive of the bunch. She’s giving off a kind of grown-up-Misty-dressed-like-Ruby-Roundhouse vibe, and her reactions to the insanity around her are sensible.

The Mysterious Bandana And Her All-Knowing Bandana show up to pull some strings and take care of the louse who betrayed SideTail’s party, only to be surprised that Our Gym Leader Oddly-Dressed Court Mage has some strings of her own. We’re left with an ominous look at The Hot-But-Evil Priestess from Kurt’s original party, who’s apparently in a bit of a pinch.

Verdict: you really have to be in the mood for this show, since the OP hits just keep coming.

(Atelier Thighza is unrelated)

Robo-Ho, episode 3

This week, Our Ignorant Robo-Slut escalates the situation by tackling Our Reluctant Hero in the bath, giving him a close-up view of Silicon(e) Heaven (classical reference). In exchange, she gets her first look at uncensored boyhood, reveals that her AI is just as prone to hallucination as an LLM, and begins working his crank in wrong and painful ways. She loses her head as he attempts to flee her increasingly dangerous stress-testing, and then loses her head. And a leg; seems he needs more practice putting Humpy back together again.

Looks like I jumped the gun by expecting a lingerie and school-uniform parade this week. I guess she conveniently got blown up on a Friday night, and they have all weekend before their classmates find out.

(study-buddy is unrelated)

Dear Google Maps,

When I search for “Sonic near Miamisburg”, why do you take me directly to the page for the one that’s permanently closed (for just under a year now)? Interestingly, searching for “Sonic Drive-In” with the map zoomed on the closed location returns all the still-existant locations within about twenty miles.

Related, why does your “AI” answer to the question “when did the Miamisburg Sonic close?” give completely wrong information? Oh, wait, I know that one: “because AI is bullshit!”

The Sonic in Miamisburg, Ohio, closed in January of 2019. The restaurant was temporarily closed for remodeling and was expected to reopen in the spring, according to a post on their Facebook page, reports Dayton Daily News

The article is a roundup of restaurant closings, and mentions two completely different Sonic locations in other cities with no dates, but the quoted claims refer to an unrelated sub shop in Miamisburg.

This is what “AI” does; this is how it works.

Related, the Dolly’s burger joint ain’t great

These popped up very suddenly in the area. The food is based on Big Boy. The name is based on an old comic strip published by Big Boy.

I linked the background in the sidebar already, but “Dolly’s” is temporary branding, because despite being unable to pay their bills, the franchisee that has the rights to run Big Boy restaurants in Ohio (Frisch’s) refuses to allow the Big Boy franchisee who bought up all their closed locations to use the Big Boy branding. Big Boy.

(just checked, and there’s still a Big Boy in Kyoto, near Ninna-Ji; recent reviews suggest it’s not as good as it was 10+ years ago)

Robo-Ho’s getting a dub?

Previously-unheard-of bottom-tier hentai streaming site OceanVeil has announced an English dub for The Busty Gal I Like Turned Out To Be A Horny Sexbot Trained On Censored Gay Porn, And Ever Since She Moved In She’s Been Trying To Stimulate My ‘Prostate’ Without Knowing What Or Where It Is (aka Kakushite! Makina-san!!).

The dub cast has the shortest list of credits I’ve ever seen. Only one of them has actually performed in more than one show before this. So, one step above “AI” dubbing, I guess.

(“find a love who looks at you the way Animalia looks at Emul… not”)

Reborn As A Vending Machine 2 in July

Okay, now I’ve got a third show to watch next season, alongside Call Of The Night 2 and Kaiju No. 8 2.

(I used up all the good fan-art from this show last time, so I’ll be downloading LoRAs to try out)

Based on this week’s dénouement, the people responsible for this show have never watched a detective show. The staging, the music, the dialogue, the posing, the voice acting, it’s all trying to build up a dramatic scene by replacing detective work with two people competing to as-you-know-Bob each other in front of Our Motionless Cyberdiving Inspector. I mean, nothing says “tense standoff” like a panned still of the hallway outside while random riffs compete with the voices for your attention. And where’s Our Insightful Robo-Assistant? Out cold in a tank; he’s just evidence this week, not a character.

I didn’t finish this episode.

Parsed this wrong at first…

Nice to see the franchise is doing well. Now where’s that second season?

Lazarus can stay dead

I saw that Hulu apparently has the subtitled version now, and I still have an old Hulu account, which I haven’t used much since the first season of Loser Ranger. I figured at some point I’d have to either cancel it or convert to a merged Disney+/Hulu/whatever account now that they’ve been integrated into that shitshow.

I logged in, I clicked on Lazarus, and it told me I’d have to upgrade to a premium account with Disney+, ESPN, and Live TV, for $87.99/month, and that’s with ads. I am not making that up.

Also, not happening. Ever. Hulu was already a marginal service, and I actively do not want any of the other items in the bundle. So I guess it’s time to cancel that sumbitch for good.

Slow buildup to major plot advances, as her uncle/foster-dad’s return to the rear palace gives Maomao some new pieces to add to the puzzle, and her father gives us a subtle hint about what’s really been going on all along. Now Jinshi’s a man with a mission.

And from now on, everything’s a spoiler.

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 4

Another member of the first season’s extended family returns and learns of last week’s mysterious character introduction, triggering a gold rush on Best Gal Beelzebub’s land. This forced the character designer to come up with dozens of new witches, which is never a bad thing. Our Most Wanted Legal Loli joins the cast and dispenses her wisdom in return for protection from being carved into tiny pieces and turned into snake-oil pills.

Verdict: the platonic harem grows again, this time literally. And we get a nutritious side dish of Beelzebub’s Whipped Witches, which could be a totally different show.

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 4

Wow, they really spent a lot of time painting that griffon. Even more than they spent drawing that triumphant ass-shot of the redhead. Pity we didn’t get to enjoy it longer, not that I’ll complain about her well-exposed tits filling the screen; that top must be reinforced with some serious magic to hold together during her acrobatics. I do have some questions about the choreography of the fight, though, as well as that whole “running on lava” thing. And the hanging-on-for-dear-life flight scene. And the way momentum is not really a thing in this universe.

With Our Misunderstood Hero’s sword broken in the fight, Strong But Tiny Haremette #2 takes him to her favorite blacksmith, where he tells her she needs to grip something longer and thicker; later, he gives her a few private lessons. Of course Thirsty McWhiteHair blew off work and tagged along, and for more fun, they were met by SweetCheeks O’RedHair, who insisted on taking care of his sword personally.

Finally, we get our first glimpse of Blue-Haired Fiery Gal #5, who looks a little light in the chest for a haremette, and we’ve already got a Legal Loli. More of her next week, it seems.

Related, I skimmed the previews of the translated light novels, and it seems he never gets anywhere with His Frisky Former Students, despite their obvious interest and their service-friendly fashion sense. He does go out on a date with an age-appropriate teacher at the magic school at one point.

Verdict: it doesn’t look like there’s much chance of getting the gals to a beach or hot-springs resort, but they do love their close-ups.

(Toxico is unrelated, Best Girl)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 15

This episode was brought to you by The Principle of Conservation Of Assholes, in which assholes cannot be created or destroyed, simply transformed into other, worse assholes. Seriously, can these people write a villain who doesn’t stand around monologing while licking things? I mean, I can’t complain about Random Spear-Carrier Miniskirt Witch getting wrapped up in tentacles, that’s just good clean fun, but Our New Party Of Assholes is all about the licking, and they’re not even putting up enough of a fight to earn it. Sure, Our Adventure Gals run away a bit frantically before turning the tables, but the fight choreography is… not good, even after the assholes are replaced by Undead King Twirler. Only the mild fan-service saves it from being completely wretched.

Worse, after the exposition-heavy semifinals are over and hugs are delivered (with the promise of Special Catgirl Nene Time after it’s all over), Our Harem Hero suddenly realizes, based on no evidence that’s been shared with the audience, that The Golden McGuffin that they need to destroy to save the world is none other than… Original Asshole Party Leader!

Which, metaphysically speaking, means that everything bad that ever happened to one of the many worlds ruined by Golden McGuffin A-Rank Asshole is actually Yuke’s fault for cursing him with immortal suffering. Just sayin’.

Verdict: my brain really hurts now. They’d better make up for this with some major bath scenes, with Our Little Blonde Titty-Witch included, or I’m done.

(cat-ears leak worse than haircolor and elf-ears)

Unrelated, Shattered Space ain’t worth it at half-price

Bethesda delivered some major DLC for Skyrim and Fallout 4, but Starfield? Nah, it’s crap. A shitload of infodumps about the snake-cult-in-space faction that’s just been a bunch of mooks to shoot up to now, and we end up actually learning very little about their history and culture. But we spend way too much time sitting through conversations to get those scraps.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of the least-entertaining part of Fallout 4‘s Far Harbor, in which Boss Synth tries to convince you that you’re not a real human either, and you’re not allowed to give any answers that flatly contradict his bullshit. It also feels quite derivative of two core quest chains in the base Starfield game.

I got this for $15 through the MS Company Store, and I feel like they charged $10 too much.

Update: just noticed that Robo-Ho's last name is "Agatsuma" = 我妻 = "My Wife". Subtle!

Clueless Crafter, episode 5

You know the drill: something amazing happens that turns out to be Our Clueless Hero’s work, and when asked about it, he says, “oh, that used to happen all the time in my home town”. Other than that, there are three things of note about this episode:

First, Our Hot-But-Evil Priestess meets up with Cardinal Goldfinger and gets handed over to a demon to participate in the latest assassination attempt against Princess Goofy Eyeballs. Second, Kurt forges a shortsword for Princess that you just know is going to go off next week and do something ridiculous. Third, there’s no sign of Our Mysterious Bandana And Her Watchful Bandana; guess she really did leave town to go report to his home village at a “what could go wrong” dramatic moment.

Verdict: I’m guessing the skeleton army came out of the Princess-face-drawing budget, because she looked really horrific in the close-ups.

(unrelated princess is unrelated, not deformed)

Robo-Ho, episode 4

“Normally I wear protection. But then I thought, when am I going to make it back to Haiti?” (classical reference)

This week, after Our Observant Hero wakes up with an obvious stiffy, Our Loosely-Coupled Robo Gal asks to take a peek. Rejected, she heads out to pick up a loaner school uniform from a friend, dragging him along. She initially plans to go out in just her “body paint”, until he manages to talk her into actual clothing. His, which inexplicably fit, although they’re much more flattering on her.

Convinced that it would be too suspicious for him to be seen in public with her, he tries to disguise himself and ends up looking and acting like a stalker. Compounding his bad idea, she decides that while waiting for her friend to show up, she’ll test how well her repairs are holding up. They don’t, and just as the friend arrives, he carries her off to the nearest private place to make repairs, which of course results in dialogue written to be misinterpreted as she comes to the rescue. We even get a “wrong hole” joke, despite the clear evidence that there’s only one place to stick the leg joint.

Given the fact that Gal’s Pal is running around with a stun-gun in the credits, this is clearly not the last time there will be such a “misunderstanding”.

Verdict: trash and proud of it.

Matsuri Kiritani, running on a beach, naked, in slow motion. It’s like a masterclass in Gainaxing. The Bluray is basically an animated photoshoot with terrible lighting, auto-white-balance, and cheaply-licensed music, but her personality shines through, and you occasionally get to hear her voice.

And, yes, I know, video or it didn’t happen (NSFW). The Bluray is no longer available on Amazon Japan, but the title is “Matsuri5 らぶりー☆とらべるらばーず” (“Lovely Travel Lovers”), and a quick search turned up a streaming site (set pop-up ad-blocker to stun).

(plenty of pics here and here, with the usual warnings about NSFW and disabling Javascript)

The gold standard for this sort of nekkid cheesecake video was Playboy Video Centerfolds, which were usually stuffed with personality. And since I met most of the women who were featured in these, I can confirm that they were really like that. A lot of Playboy’s other videos were more contrived, with little regard for the women as more than posing dummies, but the video centerfolds really humanized them. Matsuri would have made a terrific Playmate if she’d been born twenty years earlier.

(most of the video centerfolds were never released on DVD, and could only be seen by buying VHS tapes directly from Playboy; some of them were also aired on Playboy’s cable/satellite channel, back in the days when it had something to do with Playboy)