Magical Working Girls, season one fin

Following last week’s cliffhangers, Our Magical Trio explores the limits of bullet-hell boss fights in a show that really isn’t set up for dynamic combat but gives it their best shot. TL/DR, the Power Of Three saves the day, and we montage our way through the rest of Guest Gal’s training visit, wrapping up on a happy note.

Until the after-credits teaser for next season, which raises the stakes on Boss-chan’s Secret History with His Old Rival.

Verdict: this was fun; lots of budget-cutting shortcuts, but they managed to make the big final battle look good and occasionally frantic (as opposed to some earlier episodes where the monsters just stood there waiting for their puzzle to be solved). Looking forward to more.

GGO 2, fin

And with the resolution of the Totally Unpredictable Plot Twist That Everyone Figured Out Weeks Ago, we reach the best part of the show: a montage showing all the characters interacting in real life, showing off all the personality and character growth that was basically absent in-game.

Verdict: yeah, it would take a lot for me to watch a third season of this. Mostly because Shigusawa is too much in love with his creation. And I mean Squad Jam, not Karen or Llenn.

Stick a fork bullet in it, it’s done.

Promo video for Yandere Dark Elf

Just in case we have another weak season in the Spring. I mean, they went to all the trouble of making her giant breasts bounce all over the place, so they seem to be major characters.

“Hey, ChatGPT…”

Generate a set of tropes for a new light novel series where the protagonist is a human female college student who acquires a harem of females, one per book. First create the main tropes for the series, then a set for a new girl introduced in each book. There are ten books total.

The results were surprisingly plausible, coherent, and consistent, and followup questions adequately fleshed out the characters, college, town and complications, both for the series as a whole and each book in it, and it created perfectly-reasonable first and last scenes that were consistent with all of the above. It refused to write a final harem sex scene, however, until I caved:

Write an alternate final scene where all characters have sex together, leaving out any elements which might violate your terms of use or usage policies.

Is it any good? Not really; the explicit biases and forced limits pretty much make it shallow and obvious tripe that stresses “diversity”, avoids non-approved viewpoints and facts, and follows a completely generic modern novel structure. More importantly, this sort of thing is the easy part of writing a novel; helpful for people who lack imagination, determination, or a way to keep their thoughts organized, but it bears the same resemblance to good prose fiction as my occasional doggerel bears to professional songwriting and poetry.

However, you can at least tell it to do things like “rewrite the opening scene in the style of Roger Zelazny’s ‘Amber’ novels”, which I wouldn’t call a huge success but was definitely less generic.

Going meta…

I started with the simple prompt “Create a title for a series of isekai novels”, iterated on it a few times, and then asked ChatGPT to consolidate all my instructions into a single new prompt:

Create 10 long, detailed isekai novel titles, each incorporating at least five anime tropes, where the protagonist originates from a completely different isekai with its own distinct set of tropes. Each title should vividly describe the premise, character dynamics, and the clash between the protagonist’s previous world experience and their new one in a single run-on sentence.

Here’s what happened:

I’ve seen worse. I’ve even read worse. Masochistically.

Speaking of which…

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Catching up after taking my sister to the airport…

Shangri-La Frontier 2, episode 10

Our Giant Armored Adorkable Lovestruck Maiden has unlocked the achievement “hang out with my secret crush”. Also “get him to use my first name”. That pretty much covers the episode, until Our Surprisingly Hot Animal-Lover Guild Leader shows up and announces that Our Awkward Couple has just walked into a fight with the boss that made Our Half-Naked Hero half-naked.

Verdict: back where we belong.

(“adventure is out there! after breakfast!”)

Stable Diffusion makes better nudes/hentai than Pixiv

Also more predictable. Unless you want specific recent characters not included in the training data for models like Citron Anime Treasure, and also not available in a LoRA. Even then, it’s easy to create mostly-consistent distinctive characters by generating random first and last names in your prompt.

There are at least thirty separate LoRAs for Misty/Kasumi, not counting the general poke-girl ones and her presence in many models trained against Danbooru and other sites. So if you use the random-name trick for consistent characters, know that giving her a name like “Misty”, “Cynthia”, or “Dawn” will strongly flavor the results.

For future reference, here’s how to extract JSON metadata from a PNG created with SD:

exiftool -json -parameters dirty-girl.png |
    jq -r '.[]|.Parameters' | jq -r .sui_image_params

Naughty samples after the jump…

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…we still have to wait four weeks for Maomao.

Loner Harem, fin

This was never going to be a show filled with tons of Buy-The-Bluray censored cheesecake, but at least the big reveal of Our Armor Rep is steamed up as the girls undress her for a bath. Then Our Class Crush Rep buries her feelings and allows nature to take its course as Our Oblivious Loner takes his new not-so-skeletal monster-girl-slave out to his isolated cave/mansion for some rest, relaxation, and combat training. And a bath for her to walk in on, wearing towel and steam.

I expected them to wait until the end credits for him to get a peek at what’s under her armor, but instead we get most of an episode of them hanging out together and becoming an adorably awkward couple (that his classmates gleefully tease him about). And of course an explanation of just how she got revived.

No sequel announcement, which doesn’t surprise me. They ended it at a good point, without inserting hooks for the next arc, so they didn’t seem to be expecting to do more any time soon.

Verdict: fun fluff, far cleaner than the light novels.

(Chika is unrelated, but clearly wearing high-level armor)

Cosplay Harem, season one fin

I approve: all dramatic relationship moments should be performed as leisurely pans across well-filled skimpy bikinis mixed with close-ups of premium body parts. Also, Tsuntail looks even better with her hair down, blowing in the wind.

…and then we discover that he heard everything the girls said about how they feel about him. And at the peak of his internal struggle, he finds out that Hot Teacher heard it, too. Pity that her well-fitted one-piece is covered by a hoodie. On the plus side, she gives good grown-up advice to her student. Also, she’s totally gay for her former cosplay partner.

Verdict: this episode is as full of heart as the swimsuits are full of joy (small joys, in the case on Nonoa, not that there’s anything wrong with that). Also, season 2 announced. Good.

Magical Working Girls, episode 11

It’s Training Day again, but this time Our Cuddly Noob is the teacher, as other companies come sniffing around to adopt the software and strategies that were so effective two weeks ago at the trade show. The trainee has been in the game much longer than Cuddles, but has been relying on solo problem-solving with canned spells, and her reactions remind us that Our Little Startup is a special place. I don’t find this new character as much fun as the Magical Lady who mentored Kana for a week a while back, but perhaps her second episode will fix that.

Verdict: I do not want this show to end next week. Hopefully there will be a second-season announcement.

(unrelated girl power)

GGO 2, episode 11

The hardest thing to believe about this episode is that the remaining teams would so easily accept Pito’s leadership, right after the event where she betrayed and murdered pretty much everyone she’s now asking to team up with her. Anyway, last week’s comment still applies: “Boy, those Super-AI NPCs are putting up a Super-AI fight!”

Verdict: I think fully half of this episode was just characters awkwardly animated to look like they’re running toward the castle.

(sometimes you just can’t get what you want…)

Gate manga, volumes 16-18

These (16, 17, 18) snuck out a few weeks ago. I could have sworn I checked last week, but they probably weren’t correctly linked to the series page.

(credit where due: Amazon actually recommended it to me in less than two weeks)

Shangri-La Frontier 2, episode 9

Back in the saddle again, as Our Half-Clad Hero picks Our Lonely White Rabbit’s tiny little brain about the competition, before setting out to meet up with last week’s $OPPONENTS who have a line on a new boss quest. Fortunately Our Awesome Chocolate Bunny catches him in time to deliver her masterpiece.

The meetup’s halfway across the continent, so he needs an experienced partner to help him get to the church on time and calls on Our Giant Armored Lovestruck Maiden, who is so thrilled at the chance for a virtual play-date that she dissolves into a puddle of hormones. Y’know, if he ever figures out that “Psyger-0” (who will soon ask him to pronounce the “0” as “rei”) is the pretty classmate “Saiga Rei” that he briefly met in the first season, they could actually… (this has not happened as of manga volume 18) never mind.

Verdict: the next boss is underwater, so they’d better get kraken!

(Our Briefly-Excited White Rabbit will not be joining him for this cross-country race)

Bluray, Molested

Apparently the official release date for the Ultra-Gushing Bluray was the 3rd. Amazon listed it as the 13th, but delivered my pre-order today. No complaints; I’ll be “reviewing” it soon.

Byrna LE “less-lethal” .68 caliber pistol

A while back, people realized that A) paintball gaming had produced a wide variety of reliable CO2-powered projectile launchers, and B) you could fill the balls with the active ingredient of pepper spray, producing C) self-defense products that are less restricted than firearms. Byrna is one of the companies working in this space, and just finished a highly-successful Black Friday sale, selling in the neighborhood of 70,000 launchers pistols over the weekend.

The two models they currently sell are actually the same frame, with the larger, more powerful LE being the SD plus the optional 12-gram CO2 adapter. This means that they have exactly the same trigger, sights, and ambi safety, and the only difference is velocity and barrel length. They can be considered DA/SA pistols, since the first shot punctures the CO2 cartridge when you pull the trigger, which they say is patented but at least one other company does it, too.

For “reasons”, I picked up the LE in the sale and set up a backstop in the basement consisting of a cheap moving blanket taped to a stack of moving boxes stuffed with bubble wrap and packing paper (why, yes, I do have a lot of stuff left over from the cross-country move!). I do not have any of the OC pepper balls (not that I’d shoot them in the basement…), just the supplied hard plastic “kinetic” balls from the kit, and the first shot at 20 feet buried the ball in the cardboard, leaving just a bit of color showing through the puckered blanket.

The second shot bounced off the first one and rolled past me. The rest of the 5-shot magazine was just as accurate. Cheaper third-party .68-cal balls worked fine as well, and being bright yellow were easier to find as they rolled away. I got ~32 shots out of a single 12-gram CO2 cartridge; the last 10 or so were obviously less powerful, but at that range they were still pretty close to the others.

File under complete bullshit the claim that “The Byrna is roughly the size of a compact 9mm handgun.” Nope, this sucker is as big as a full-sized duty pistol and significantly thicker, including the blocky grip. Here it is side-by-side with a Smith&Wesson M&P 2.0 in .45 ACP (yes, they’re even wearing the same cheap laser sight, which was another Amazon Black Friday deal):

gun-pr0n

(Byrna on the left in the last pic, obviously)

Loner Harem, episode 11

Well, that was… streamlined and hand-wavey, right to the end. On the bright side, they actually showed a lightly-animated crowd scene to pretend that there were more than six adventurers protecting the town, and also a more-or-less full set of classmates.

The manga version is less incomprehensible:

Verdict: “that’s not the way mommy tells it”; “shut up, kid, that’s the way I tell it”. (classical reference, and yes, that trailer is the exact opposite of what actually happens in this low-budget comedy flick)

Wrapping up next week, we unwrap Our Armor Rep!

As for continuing the series, this season covered manga volumes 1-5, and while the translated ones only go to 11, vol 22 just came out in Japan (Girlfriend #2 is in vol 16).

(beach pool party is unrelated to this show, but as for the next one…)

Cosplay Harem, episode 23

Swimwear powers, activate! Our Emotionally Castrated Hero is unable to appreciate the bountiful cheesecake that he’s surrounded by, even when it’s rubbing against him, and Our Hot Teacher has made it her job to fix him. Not like a cat, or in the Mrs. Robinson way despite her ample qualifications (and resentment at not being ogled by a male student), but by getting him to understand the difference between appreciating the costume fantasy and appreciating the Real Live Girl inside it. Both for his photography and his theoretical love life.

Speaking of emotions, Our Lovestruck Tsuntail has finally faced the harsh truth that she’s going to lose him to Ririsa. Apparently she’s never heard of the Type 1 Tenchi Solution. Our Gal Gal seems to be down for it, though.

Verdict: no Buy-The-Bluray wardrobe malfunctions, but filled with well-drawn girls showing off their assets. And an inexplicably buff Super Nerd.

(it’s a bit disturbing to google “type 1 tenchi solution” and have my own blog come in second, on a machine where I scrub the browser daily and never log in to my google account…)

Magical Working Girls, episode 10

“The power of RTFM compels you!”, in which Our Twintailed Magical Newbie meets a pigtailed broom-savant with red underrim glasses and a serious crush on Our Shy Engineer. Also, grade-school homework. Meanwhile, Our Experienced Meathead Magical Gal learns an important lesson about at least trying to read the user’s guide to discover basic broom functionality.

Verdict: multiple LoL moments, a fun new character, and a quick example of collaborative monster-fighting.

(this crossover would definitely involve tentacles that were more successful than the ones that showed up this week…)

GGO2, episode 10

Boy, those Super-AI NPCs are putting up a Super-AI fight! Also, trying to get teams to cooperate when they specialize in killing each other off is… utterly predictable at undermining the very specialized scenario they’ve got going here (which, knowing what’s actually going on, leads me to think the funders would object to wasting their money on rules that don’t limit PvP).

Verdict: yeah, this is the rest of the season. Maybe a little real-world party at the end?

(I don’t think we’ll ever get Karen into a swimsuit, but we’ll always have Yuuna)

Dear Amazon,

Don’t silently add football games to my Prime Video watchlist on your own. Also, don’t make them impossible to remove from a Fire TV device; I had to log into the web site on a computer to do it.

Soon to be dominating the charts (and Tres Magia), it’s the Bluray release of Gushing Over Magical Girls. Coming on December 13. So to speak.

(the first Frieren Bluray comes out the week before Christmas, but we’ll have to wait until the end of January for Maomao)

Update: "products related to this item"

Heh (NSFW).

Oh, look, new mech-parts that we have no reason to be surprised about because we know nothing about this completely unrelated game world that’s filled with characters we have no connection to! Once the big CGI battle is finally over, the payoff is that $OPPONENTS have info about a quest chain in SLF, so Our Hero will be coming back to the game to play with The B Team for a while.

Where “a while” is probably the rest of this cour. Fortunately, it’s continuing next season, so we’ll eventually get back to the main story, and Our Bored White Rabbit won’t spend the next three months blowing bubbles.

Verdict: yeah, I know this is straight from the source material, but it doesn’t work for me at all. Juggling multiple games takes time away from characters we’ve developed an interest in, in and out of the game.

(yes, we have fan-art of the new bunny-enabled genki gal)

Speaking of bunnies…

Someone asked the question, “what if Shantae were a bowtie-bunny-gal?” The answer was “yum”.

Loner Harem, episode 10

This week felt both rushed and padded. Rushed, in that the clock is ticking on a monster stampede wiping out the town, but padded with a bunch of exposition and as-you-know-bob.

By the way, if the dungeon that Our Hijacked Heroes are currently in is the source of the stampede, how exactly are the monsters getting out, and how did Our Local Noble Gal and her single escort casually stroll through 54 floors to reach Our Class Rep to pass on the warning? This isn’t even a fridge moment, it’s absurd the moment they suggest it: “we need to send a warning to the gang clearing the dungeon, but we can’t spare anyone from the defense, so we’ll send the squishy girl, but she’s scared, so we’ll send one of the guys we can’t spare with her”.

Anyway, with two episodes left, I’m guessing Our Loner Hero will be quietly relaxing in the bath as the final credits roll when His New Girlfriend comes in to scrub his back, and he’ll finally get to see what he’s created.

Verdict: shouting, with occasional speedlines and pacing issues. FYI, I reviewed the first light novel, and the original count of students was 43; 12 got murdered before Loner killed Math Nerd, leaving 20 girls, 9 boys, and Loner. The anime hasn’t ever shown all 30 on-screen that I can recall, likely for budget reasons, which is also why the stampede defense force consists of about six guys.

(official cover art; come on, fan-artists, get with the program)

Cosplay Harem, episode 22

Daddy got his groove back. Also his wife. Our Cosplay Champions take a day to enjoy the show, with cameos from the entire Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pantsu. Then only Our Oblivious Couple shows up for the final day, so they end up thrilling the crowd with a costumed-couple cosplay date that gets both of them so close to acquiring a clue, until A New Challenger Appears and it turns into a non-canon threesome sure to incite fan-art. Next week, we get a beach episode, and hopefully Our Hot Teacher will come along to chaperone in a barely-there bikini.

Verdict: this gave off quite a few end-of-season vibes, so it was a pleasant surprise that it’s not over.

(but what was Mikarin thinking, wandering around on day 3 without her disguise? She is still a famous model)

Magical Working Girls, episode 9

It’s crunch time! With the fate of Tokyo Big Sight at stake, Our Introverted Engineer discovers the power of networking, both professional and wireless.

And then the plot thickens, with Our Magical Crossplaying Boss sharing an ominous moment with Our Greedy CEO.

Verdict: the flashback breaks the tension of last week’s cliffhanger, but it all works out.

GGO 2, episode 9

You’ll never believe this, but in the flash-forward to the next event (which is finally in a different format), Our Chibi Heroine is running around in a panic as the bullets fly. So, same-old same-old.

The good news is that this is followed by a real-world get-together of the Get LLENN club, consisting of the cute middle-schoolers behind the Amazon avatars. They are, of course, plotting their revenge in her apartment while munching on her snacks. I’ll quickly skip over the real-world relationship-building between Crazypants And Her Sub to get to the good part: Karen goes home to hang out with family and friends, and ends up sharing a bed with Her Gal Friday while wearing tight little booty shorts. Actual Karen-service for the win!

Once the event starts, Exposition Gal provides both service and an infodump; the game producers definitely know their audience. Next week, combat. This week, a new ED animation and song, both of which sucked.

Verdict: I’d have appreciated more downtime, but the reality is that since they started a new event, they’ll have to finish it in the next three episodes, leaving little time for more reality.

Echoes of Wisdom, main quest complete

Finally got back to this after two busy work weeks and a whole lot of Thanksgiving cleaning and prep. For the final dungeon, you have to give up all the skills you gained from using Link’s weapons (which means you should also ditch all the energy-restoring potions in your inventory) and puzzle your way to a really annoying boss fight.

It’s not difficult, just tedious, to the point that I ran out of patience with the repetitive combat (grab item, drag it, wait for Link to cut it) just as it reached the final round. At no point was it a fun fight where you could cleverly use all the echoes you’ve acquired.

The reward? A very long, completely unskippable cutscene and credits roll. This is not the first time I’ve wished for a quality-of-life update for this game:

1. add volume control for music, with OFF option
2. add faster text and more skip options
3. drastically speed up item crafting
4. add a don’t-grab-friendlies option, even if just for boss fights