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?”

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