Buried Lede

I love how Anime News Network doesn’t feel the need to explain what “ASMR” means, especially in the context of announcing an upcoming release featuring Roxanne from the Dungeon Slave Harem series. But the real news is that they’re also making a Roxanne hug pillow.

Amusing:

My employer’s Facilities department just asked me about my seat assignment in their consolidated Mountain View offices. I was delighted to tell them I don’t need a dedicated space in a building 2,000 miles away. 😁

(in fact, I’m happy to have had no reason to set foot in California since last April, since the state gov really, really tries to keep collecting taxes after you move away, insisting that you’re still a resident for tax purposes)

Not Amusing:

Today I Learned that Doctor Sue was such a mess that they brought back all the worst elements of the convoluted Weeping Angel stories and made them even worse.

Annoying:

A representative from the power company showed up early Friday afternoon to install a new smartmeter. The online documentation for this “upgrade” very casually mentions that it enables a “self-healing grid” capability that involves remotely cutting off your power. In conditions that it is very careful not to clearly define or limit.

Anyway, he knocked first, which allowed me time to shut down the gear that isn’t on the UPS, like the wireless APs. Still, my personal Mac took forever to reconnect to wireless, even while my work Mac was already back into a Zoom meeting. I had to shut off wireless completely and then re-select the correct network from System Preferences. Doing those same operations from the menubar simply didn’t work.

Farm Harem episode 8

In which Our Senior Wolfgirl better start shaking her tail, because there’s already new competition from the dragon and demon camps, with Our Headstrong Pettanko Dragongirl and Our Overconfident Demon Schoolgirl entering the picture. Still no relief for the divine tool, though, as Our Dwarven Brewmasters aren’t interested in any woman who can’t grow a beard.

(the dragon and demon girls don’t know they’re waifu material yet, but it’s no accident that their parents sent virgin sacrifices to appease Our Hoetown Mayor)

Verdict: way past time to stop being coy and get on with the baby-making. Among other things, Tia doesn’t officially become a wife (as opposed to a Willing Waifu) until Ru’s firstborn comes along, and they haven’t even shown her swelling up yet.

NieR episode 5

In which a visit to a peaceful robot village is bookended by the underdressed robot beefcake, first in tighty-whities, then in pants, something I could have done without. Fortunately, in between, the camera continues to linger over 2B’s well-packed cleavage and creamy thighs, while the story meanders along.

Verdict: 2B-service.

Twin Peaks episode 8

In which we learn the answer to the question, “just how many times in one day can a Demon General Swimsuit Model wet herself in fear?”. Also, pity the poor demons serving under this wench, who must be constantly filing worker’s comp claims for whiplash, both physical and emotional. Also, Dariel achieves the rare double squeeze play, inevitably followed by the double smackdown.

Verdict: the kid knows what’s important in life. And the plot doesn’t thicken so much as it bounces, enough so I’m not terribly worried about next week’s thickening.

(in retrospect, Our Appreciative Hero had no idea the danger he was in when he first arrived in the village and consulted her breasts for every decision)

Farm Harem episode 7

In which Our Mayor Of HaremVille acquires three friendly neighbors, an open-door policy, a town drunk, a genre-savvy busty virgin (for now) wolfgirl and 19 junior-high wolfgirls, and a trio of wolfboys to feed to the army of busty elf cheerleaders… in 5-10 years when they hit puberty. Seems fair; it would probably take them that long to get to the front of the line for the divine tool anyway.

Verdict: focusing on a smaller number of haremettes allowed them to be animated occasionally rather than just panned stills, and the reminder that everyone living there is ridiculously OP produced some amusing reactions in the visitors. And part of his monologing is even out loud, to other people.

(Crossover: the “how to die a happy man” starter set)

NieR My Covid To Thee episode 4

The story-telling is a bit pretentious, and definitely being slow-played, but they actually have a story to tell (thanks to a large quantity of source material), and Our Warrior Princess remains both decorative and functional.

Verdict: 2B, continued.

Twin Peaks episode 7

Our Lady Hero Lady is a very silly person, quite at odds with her public image, and I’m grateful for her taste in disguises. She’s also a decent sort who is capable of realizing what she really needs, as well as the depth of what Our Husbandly Hero reveals to her. Meanwhile, Our Demon General Swimsuit Model and Our Demon General Wholesome Maiden are on the move. I won’t say that I’m looking forward to the plot thickening, but I’m starting to fear it less.

Verdict: the kid accepts no substitutes; go thou and do likewise.

Farm Harem episode 6

In which at least sixty more busty young women move in, most of whom are eager to have their fertile fields plowed by the divine tool (the rest will no doubt come later, so to speak). If they had the budget to animate all those breasts at once, it’d be like an earthquake. Tasty, tasty earthquake.

Despite all the low-cut tops and miniskirts, shown off this week in a grape-stomping dance, the show remains fundamentally innocent about the harem dynamics, with all the waifu-plowing kept completely offscreen and out of the narrative. I don’t think they’ve even shown anything that confirms that Tia’s a bouncy bedmate.

Also, god’s in the doghouse because he forgot to tell Our Plowing Hero that the god of agriculture that he carved a statue of is actually the goddess of agriculture, who does not appreciate being worshipped in the form of a crusty old man. The gods are completely hands-off, though, so there’s no correction incoming, but we do get a quick handwave of how the divine farming tool suddenly transformed into a Not Safe For Farming OP weapon when convenient.

Verdict: decorative, but the more girls there are to show off, the more the limitations of the animation budget show through. There’s only so much you can do with panned stills, no matter how pleasant the contents. At least with the original seven elf cheerleaders, they spent a few seconds giving them some personality, but adding fifty more without any animation is just posing cardboard cutouts around the village. The OP is still promising demon girls, dragon girls, dark-elf girls, and animal girls, plus some non-waifu characters; is there any money left to animate them?

Slap That Ars episode 6

The plot is now officially thick, with a large cast of people whose actions and motives I couldn’t care less about. About the only thing I liked in this episode was the orc princess turning out to be a proper shoulder loli.

Verdict: bye!

(happy fairy lolis are unrelated but tamed)

Twin Peaks episode 6

Okay, he’s human (Achievement Unlocked: The D!). Signals were sent and received, and Our Squeeze-Dried Hero scored a hole-in-one. Usually it’s the girl who has trouble walking the next morning, but Our Fertile Heroine took no prisoners. Offscreen, of course.

Verdict: LoL x 3. Also, the new Hero has talents sufficient for me to overlook the plot advancement back in DemonVille.

Saitou’s Last Stand episode 6

After another lengthy flashback comes another cliffhanger, as last week’s messy boss fight turns out to be a three-parter.

Verdict: screw this nonsense.

Farm Harem episode 5

This week, the elf cheerleaders show off the new house and escape-proof bedroom, Ru lets her hair down and shows off a bit of lingerie, the dogs confirm that cilantro tastes like soap, Our Kept Hero continues silently monologing instead of talking with his companions, and they all play Winter games together. However, what happens in the playroom stays in the playroom, as the animators continue to keep the waifuplay offscreen. If it weren’t for Ru’s lacy bit-of-nothing, you could pretend they’re just roommates.

Verdict: lite cheesecake.

Giant Ars episode 5

In which Our Fighting Paladin is happy to be cuddled by a pair of cute orc lolis until he’s told he can have one for the night, Our Jessica Rabbit continues to be about as sexy as stale toast despite being drawn that way, Our Kid Sidekick does something stupid again before making up for it with his first sensible idea, Our Cat In The Cat Hat nyas at a Cat In A Tiger Hat, a bunch of random side characters dribble out Incomplete Plot Coupons, and a lot of footage is recycled four or five times.

Verdict: can we put Our Exploding Loli into a different show where she gets to run around in wide-eyed wonder and eat like a pig? Those continue to be the best parts of the show.

(heavily-armed loli is unrelated)

In fairness, if they’d just quietly slipped an orc loli into his bed, he’d most likely have plowed her like an elf cheerleader and kept his mouth shut the next morning,

Twin Peaks episode 5

I’m sorry, but I just can’t buy the drama in this duel. How are we supposed to believe that “no D-rank adventurer could beat a B-ranker”, when we’ve already seen Our Mighty Hero one-shot a monster that his opponent’s entire party couldn’t take down?

Instead, we get an overlong fight scene they clearly didn’t have the budget for, because they had to farm out this episode’s character art to a D-rank studio.

Meanwhile, after suffering the indignity of having the wrong man touch her boob, Our DDD-Rank Heroine drops her broadest hint yet, climbing into the sauna with Her Future Husband while wearing only a poorly-secured towel.

Verdict: if she doesn’t get the D-for-Dariel next episode, he’s not human.

Saitou Knows Jack episode 5

What’s the exact opposite of what I wanted out of this show? If you guessed “giant clusterfuck of a boss fight filled with side characters, flashbacks, and exposition, ending in a cliffhanger”, you’re spot-on.

Verdict: fail.

(2B is not happy that her show is on indefinite hold)

So, it seems that Plowing The Fantasy Harem is being adapted from the light novels (14 in print, none translated) rather than from the manga (10 in print, 7 translated so far). So it’s not fair to say that the anime art is better than the source, just better than another adaptation; the handful of illustrations in the light novel are definitely better than the manga.

Either the story was improved for the print version, or the anime is merging in material from later to round out the girls before planting seeds; in the manga & webnovel he bangs them right away without any real character development, or, for that matter, consent (he jumps Ru immediately after seeing her adult-sized nude body, and then she pins Tia down and tells him to take her for a spin). (webnovel: 1, 2)

(Ru & Tia are the only two Official Wives for quite a while, but he knocks up several others along the way (including the pictured elf cheerleader and oni maid), although they don’t seem to be terribly fertile, so it takes a lot of trying (offscreen). Consent issues are inverted with all subsequent waifus by them installing a lock on the outside of his bedroom door)

Speaking of which,

The translated manga are over my usual price limit of $10, but a while back Amazon introduced a beta “points” system for ebook purchases. Since it’s a beta, the link is buried, but it’s $3 off for 300 points, and I had something like 2,500 points in the system.

Full-Trust Dungeoneering episode 5

I enjoyed the roughly four minutes of dragon time, and would have liked to see more. The rest did nothing for me. Next week promises to do nothing for me.

Verdict: maybe I’ll skim through at the end of the season.

Isekai Sausage Party episode 4

They did a nice job on the tavern wench, for the 10 seconds that you see her, and apparently next week finally introduces the first goddess, but Our Helpless Hero also gets his first lesson in combat magic, and discussion of dungeons hints toward the eventual direction of the story. Oh, and the slime shows up after the ED, but hasn’t joined the party yet.

Verdict: goddess-service or bust.

(bust is unrelated, but impressive)

Bofuri 2 episode 4

A series of boss fights, with some minor character interaction.

Verdict: yeah, the first season stopped at the right point; I’m losing interest, because there’s nothing genuinely new or fresh going on.

I just watched the opening scene of Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, in which I learned that not only does nitrocellulose have a high ferrous content, but so does lead buckshot. And they say anime kills brain cells…

Fakey McFakeDitto

I was idly surprise-trading in Pokemon Scarlet, hoping to pick up a Passimian to complete my dex, when I received a level 100 6IV shiny Italian Ditto holding a Master Ball, with both the trainer name and nickname set to the domain of the online store who hacked it.

I’m not sure how this works as advertising, because they gave away pretty much the most useful hacked pokemon for free. And they’re probably not the only store doing this, so if I wanted more, I could just keep surprise-trading. “Why buy a cow Miltank…”

(I got the Passimian another way)

Last Chance, Spy Girls episode 4

Now that the kitten’s out of the bag, we get an episode focused on her emotional growth and bonding with the team and the teacher. That’s just as boring as it sounds. Sadly, all of the fan-service is concentrated in the new OP animation, with all of the spygirl-bonding scenes taking place while they’re fully dressed.

Verdict: bye!

Plowing The Fantasy Harem episode 4

In which our Hoe-Mongering Hero gets the seven busty elf cheerleaders to wrestle in the mud and eat his balls (er, onigiri), then builds a bathtub that is just the right size to share with all the gals before acquiring five more busty elf cheerleaders; also, it’s a dog’s life.

Despite sleeping with the vampire and angel and having all the cheerleaders jump in the tub with him, he still seems to be puzzled about their plan to repopulate their race.

Verdict: 12 busty elf cheerleaders; they even have some rudimentary personality differences. I watched this episode twice.

(the good parts of Manic Princess are unrelated)

Busty Bunny With Giant Ars episode 4

In which “I’m just a harmless dolphin, ma’am”, and bunny-service isn’t nearly as interesting as promised, at least until she uses her boobs as a butt-warmer (butt of the spear, that is). And it turns out that Loli & The Grump haven’t been fooling anyone.

Verdict: next week the plot thickens, and I’d really rather it not; honestly, I’d rather just have them do the sidequests and skip the main storyline.

(unrelated bunnygirl, for the usual reason)

Slow Life With Twin Peaks episode 4

🎶 🎶 🎶
Dear Hero Husband,
    Here’s a few things you’ll need to know
If you wanna make it through your wedding night alive.
🎶 🎶 🎶

In which Our Lung-Hung Heroine almost manages to shyly confess propose, only to end up blurting it out in front of the whole town instead. So that cat’s out of the bag, and Our Hero In Sudden Need Of One Ring brokers deals over the mithril mine he stole last episode.

Verdict: please don’t let the appearance of the actual Demon Lord (or the introduction of Some Idiot Out-Of-Town Adventurer) lead to an escalation out of the slow-life genre. And throw in a beach episode with girls of both races.

Isekai Jack-Of-All-Trades episode 4

I disagree with the caption’s claim that Saitou’s quick-change armor invention failed in any way.

Verdict: more light armor and less inter-party interaction, please.

Let’s get the important things out of the way first: chibi maid robot girls with guns (iOS/Android). Pixiv artist Chowbie announced the release of the game Maid Master on Tuesday. Always-connected, with microtransactions, but hopefully you can get something out of it without a major investment.

The English translation was not edited by a native speaker:

Amusing side note:

After my recent link to Bond Arms’ absurd new derringer, I happened to be browsing guns.com’s Certified Used list, and there are four of their current products on it, all certified in Excellent condition at nearly-new prices. This is gun-dealer code for “fired it once, traded it in”. 😁

Off the list!

• MasterBlading Schoolgirls
• Princesses Gone Wild
• NieR: AutoCovid (until it resumes production)
• GoldFlinger

Zero-Trust Full-Trust Dungeoneering episode 4

Wow, that was quick. I guess we’re all done with the title premise and can get on with the world-saving, right? At least now we know who the pompous narrator is, as well as the fifth party member.

Verdict: needs more dragon-service; I’m not much interested in the rest.

Isekai Sausage Party episode 3

In which we no longer have Our Genki Adventurer Gal, but haven’t yet acquired any of the promised goddesses, leaving us with a lesson in the value of orc testicles and a reminder that Earth food is full of buffs. Also, Our Cooking Papa is going to absolutely destroy the world economy by taking all their gold and either hiding it in his item box or spending it on Amazon Fresh.

Verdict: sadly, I suspect we’ll get slime-focused episodes before goddess-focused ones, so I’m running out of patience (the slime even has its own spinoff manga).

Bofuri 2 episode 3

Halfway through, Crunchyroll’s attempt to translate all the on-screen text completely broke the subtitling. I had to pause it right after that scene, exit the player, and restart the stream. This is not nearly as fun as Maple’s accidental bug-exploits, on full display this week. Oddly, Sally’s moment of triumph happened offscreen; did they just run out of budget due to the other fight scenes?

Verdict: Girls Just Wanna Clear Dungeons. Devs Just Wanna Clear Maple.

It occurs to me that the real danger of “AI-generated” art is that inevitably the output is going to end up being used as future input, scraped from picture sites and fed back through to train the models, amplifying their errors. This Will Not End Well.

It’s much like the devolution of superhero comic-book art, where the first generation were trained commercial artists, the next generation were kids who imitated them (How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way!), and so on, until you have “artists” who don’t even know that they can’t draw human anatomy, and can’t recognize perspective distortion when they’re tracing porn.

Bi(polar) Princess And Her Perfect Girlfriend episode 3

Moving Day for Our Rejected Fiancée builds character, but drags the momentum of the story to a halt, only briefly interrupted when Our Wacky Princess crashes in for flight training and a present.

Verdict: I’m not really here for a serious story about breaking the magical dream girl out of her shell while uncovering the mystery of why Our Prickly Prince chose the shy tit queen over his political engagement (and in any case, I know the answer; there be spoilers in them there interwebs!). Also, the character art is frequently wonky (even in the OP; that hand!). I’ll try one more, and there better be some wacky hijinks. Episode 1 promised us wacky hijinks and animal corpses worn on heads.

Bofuri 2 episode 2

In which the guild catches a break because Maple caught a cold, so they get to actually participate in a boss fight. Then Maple fights the wrong boss and… wait for it… acquires a wacky new overpowered skill which she immediately shows off in front of another guild. Then Level 5 goes past so fast you hardly see it, to jump the story ahead and reveal Sally’s fear of things that go bump get handsy in the night.

Verdict: yup, that’s what this show is about. Unsteaming Sally’s bath scene is, however, not what this show is about, although they like to tease.

Spy Harder, Girls! episode 3

In which the tables are turned, flipped over, lit on fire, and ashes scattered to the wind, as our extremely convoluted and nonsensical spy-versus-spy mission is resolved. Without a single bath or shower scene.

Verdict: bullshit. They won not because the girls deceived the enemy, but because the writers deceived the viewers. If the next episode doesn’t deliver plenty of female fan-service right away, I see no reason to subject myself to this writing. The voice actors are doing their part, and the girls are definitely cute, but…

(note that the staff even spoiled one of the twists in an announcement that aired the same day as the episode)

Magic Waifu-Farming Tool episode 3

(which is only nominally a “simulcast”, since apparently HiDive has difficulty getting media files onto their servers; I couldn’t get either of the Friday shows to stream until 8 hours later)

In which Our Busty Angel Bounty Hunter comes looking for Our Busty Bloodsucker-With-Benefits, but quickly abandons the mission when invited to become a villager. Mostly because the girls re-evaluate their relationship based on having gotten their asses kicked by the dogs. Then when her desire for a fresh crop of strawberries outstrips the capacity of a three-person farm, she flies off and returns with seven Elf Cheerleaders With Big Talents (in architecture, construction, mining, and metalworking; and boobs, of course). As a bonus, the cheer-elves make it clear that their goals are to find a new home and repopulate their race.

Still about four times as much internal narration as necessary, however; now that Our Power-Tool Hero has company, some of this exposition could be handled out loud while the camera is panning over exposed cleavage. Which it does a lot of.

I enjoy the girls treating him as a lovable goofball who has no idea how anything works, like living without salt for months despite having dug his root cellar right through a vein of salt-rich soil (which, absent magic tools, would really suck for agriculture). Or thinking that elves live in hippy-dippy harmony with nature. Not to mention that despite three separate sets of freakouts and two major beatdowns, he still hasn’t figured out that his “dogs” are hardcore monsters. As is the friendly spider-tailor.

Verdict: plenty of eye candy to compensate for the exposition, and no obvious plans to break away from the slow-life theme.

By the way, I took a look at the previews of the translated manga, and the show is better-drawn than the source material. And in case you think this is going to be one of those harems where the guy can’t make up his mind and never gets any, This Hero Plants Seeds!

No idea how many wives he ends up plowing with his divine tool (offscreen), but the yeast that the elf cheerleaders brought isn’t the only thing that puts buns in the oven. At least he puts a ring on it first.

🎶 I Like Giant Ars Beasts, I Cannot Lie,… episode 3

In which Our Lively Loli does not accidentally kill anyone, Our Cat-Wearing Oompa-Loompa negotiates rent with a Dog-Wearing Oompa-Loompa, and Our Animal-Boy Apprentice from the OP joins the gang (I lose track of the ear varieties after a while; I have no idea what these villagers are supposed to be). Meanwhile Our Not-So-Hard-Hearted Paladin gives in and saves the day again; I think he’s getting to like having a loli inside of him.

Verdict: next week, Busty Bunny Girl plays Hide-The-Spear, so I’m in.

(picture is unrelated because of the five pieces of fan-art on Pixiv, three are nudes of the loli, and the other two only vaguely resemble her)

NieR episode 3

Good news: the naked men are not anatomically correct.

Bad news: only men get naked.

Meanwhile the story is all over the place, trying to merge game logic (from multiple games!) and anime logic.

Verdict: nice to look at, anyway. Moot point, though, because production has been delayed indefinitely due to Covid. I guess they weren’t kidding when they called all these anime studios sweatshops.

Slow Life With Twin Peaks episode 3

Our Slow-Living Hero really needs to learn to keep his not-magic defense shield charged up at all times, to protect himself from Our Overly-Attached Deka-Melon Waifu. There has of course been no explanation for her ridiculous strength and total lack of control thereof, but if she’s nearly killing him just with hugs, she’ll eventually snap him in half with her thighs.

Anyway, this week he undermines the Demon Army while wearing the wrong underwear, fixing the human economy as a side-effect of rescuing a tribe of ewoks.

Verdict: mind candy, with boobs.

Isekai Gold Digger episode 3

Yeah, I think I’m done here. I stopped after her “cunning plan” actually worked.

Isekai Jack-Of-All-Trades episode 3

(honestly, after pulling a chef certificate out of his ass last episode, “handyman” doesn’t come close to covering his skillset)

This week, Our Handy Hero nearly gets some, in a bad way, and then is prevented from getting some in a good way. Then we get the rest of his origin story, in which he really sticks the landing, only to nearly get stuck. There’s some more random bits, as usual, but it seems odd for a series that doesn’t have a terribly linear flow to close the episode with a scene that would have made a good season-ender. At least there’s finally a reason for all the random weirdos to come into the main story.

On that note, Our Shy Maiden Warrior looks good in Saitou’s jumpsuit, but she really ought to try on her succubus rival’s outfit sometime and work her own kind of magic.

Verdict: Truck-kun delivered him to the place he belonged.

(poké-milf is unrelated; there’s no fan-art for this show)