In-security

I brought my Arlo security cameras with me from the old house, but haven’t gotten around to permanently mounting them outside, due to all the work being done (I just had a temporary setup for while I was in Japan). Now they’re being end-of-lifed, so it’s kind of moot. I think I’ll check out the competition before buying new ones.

With luck, this will improve the price of the ammo…

Smith & Wesson just announced a pistol in 5.7x28mm, a gas-operated 22-rounder in the M&P brand, with an optics mount, picatinny rail, and threaded barrel for mounting a suppressor. Price is approximately half that of FN’s pistol, which should attract some customers. Ergonomically it resembles the M&P line, but lacks the adjustable comfortable grip due to the length of the 5.7 cartridge. Also, it looks like it uses the three-handed hammer-and-punch field-stripping method of the CSX, which is a giant leap backwards.

Little Girls MasterBlading episode 2

Our Sorting Hat Box doesn’t have a voice of its own, which they make up for with exposition from both his and her voices. This is immediately followed by a 6-year timeskip to get Our Battle Maiden up to a full-figured short-skirted twelve-year-old, so the plot can briefly quicken as the young scumbag from the first episode returns as an adult scumbag, complete with scenery chewing and mustache twirling.

They need another six-year timeskip ASAP if she’s going to keep showing that much premium cleavage; the only thing that says “twelve” about her is her height relative to adult males, which just improves their view.

There’s a brief moment of self-awareness as Our Early Bloomer recoils under the lustful gaze of adult men, and she wonders if all the young women he admired in her previous life felt the same. But that’s about it for his feminist awakening, and she doesn’t bring it up again.

Verdict: this is all still prologue; at this pace they won’t reach Ninja High School until the season’s more than half over, which limits the screen time for the other cute girls (and the story, such as it is). Sorry, not willing to stick around that long.

(unrelated busty battle maiden is unrelated)

Zero-Trust Dungeoneering episode 3

Our Dragongirl Gourmand’s a real cutie when she’s happy, and her betrayal backstory was actually well-done. This has earned the show another episode on my watchlist, even though I still want to know about the receptionist’s eye (and there are two girls like this, on opposite sides). Also, Our Undercover Idol seems to be taking a direct interest in her #1 fan, and she’s cute, too.

Verdict: one more, at least

Isekai Amazon Fresh episode 2

Sadly, Our Shopping Hero bids farewell to his escort party, which suggests that Our Genki Scouter Gal will not be a regular part of the show. Which significantly reduces my interest in future episodes, although I did like his interaction with the merchant guild. The receptionist (who we’ll likely never see again…) was easy on the eyes, and smart enough to immediately recognize the quality of his spices.

Verdict: one more, just in case, although the goddesses don’t look as interesting as the adventurer gal.

(genki adventurer gal is unrelated, and no longer on Pixiv for some reason, so I can’t link to the picture)

Unrelated, Modern Problems:

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.”

“Don’t give him free fish the next day, and he’ll burn down your house, loot the neighborhood shops, and murder anyone who disses him.”

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there will never be a US Bluray set of Miss Kuroitsu From The Monster Development Department, but I was kind of surprised it isn’t really available on Amazon Japan, either. There were limited-edition box sets exclusive to Amazon and Animate (bundled with a Kuroitsu lingerie pic and a Kuroitsu/Wolf bikini pic, respectively), but the only copy still on Amazon JP is shipped from Germany.

Animate still lists it as available, but I haven’t bought through them before so I don’t know their international shipping policies; would have been a lot easier if I’d thought of it while I was in Japan.

Interestingly, I can stream or download the soundtrack album on Amazon US (which includes both ED songs), but not the OP song.

Reborn To MasterBlade

Okay, I said in the comments I wasn’t going to watch this one (because I’ve read some of the source material, and the cast keeps growing without any real progress in the core story), but IT hosed my VPN connection, so I had some “free” time.

Anyway, after a brief intro in which Our Once And Future King is visited on his deathbed by a delicious goddess we’ll never see again, we jump to the future where he’s been reborn with an innie instead of an outie, and the OP promises that she’ll grow up very healthy and obsessed with fighting alongside and against other hot chicks.

Although when she examines her 5-year-old self in a mirror and thinks about what a hottie she’s going to be, and how she wishes he’d had a granddaughter like that in her previous life, I had a certain creepy flashback.

Most annoying feature: while they switched to a female voice for Our Future Boob Warrior’s internal monologue, they kept the male voice around for the (excessive) narration without clarifying the new role. Pity they won’t keep her as either SuperBaby or The Mightiest Five-Year-Old for a while, but at least they’ve got a cute chibi form in the ED animation.

Verdict: maybe one more

Zero-Trust Dungeoneering episode 2

The OP promises a large cast of goofballs. The ED promises another party member. The episode is a heavily-narrated dungeoneering tutorial, mixed with frequent “we can’t trust anyone but we want to trust each other”. But the only thing I actually want explained is WTF is up with the guild receptionist’s eye?

Verdict: not dropped yet

Isekai Amazon Fresh

(aka “Campfire cooking in another world with my absurd skill”)

The setup is painfully trite: summoned to another world by a sketchy kingdom, Our Shopping Hero seems thoroughly unsuited to a life of adventure, so he cashes out and tries to go live a slow life, preferably far far away from his heroic fellow summonees. His “useless” skills turn out to be incredibly useful, so he quickly makes powerful friends. The only refreshing thing is that he remains completely helpless in a fight, and shows no signs of gaining combat power by making a contract with GodWolf.

No goddess harem yet, just a dog that will eat him out of house and home. I’d drop it now, but if they promise to keep the genki tanned adventurer girl on-screen frequently, I could watch some more.

Verdict: maybe one more

Bipolar Princess And Her Perfect Girlfriend episode 2

The OP advertises a yuri romance, or at least a really-close-friends partnership. Then, while getting chastised by the king for kidnapping Our Genius Sorceress (who is the prime minister’s daughter), Our Wacky Princess is forcefully reminded that she once insisted that she had no intention of marrying a man and would prefer to fall in love with a woman.

King Daddy completely loses control of himself and the situation, but Prime Minister Daddy is open to the idea of his daughter becoming Queen by marrying the Princess instead of the Prince. I’m really starting to wonder if she was a boy before getting isekai’d. That would fit with current trends.

It veers back and forth between manic episodes and cuddly moments, with exposition being delivered by the overdressed underexpressive hot maid. No idea where it’s going to end up.

Verdict: yes for now

Bofuri 2

I honestly wasn’t sure if I was watching the first episode of the second season or an unreleased Christmas OVA. It uses the first-season OP and a new ED with a “2” in it (presumably next week’s OP), and just drops you into the world as if it hadn’t been nearly three years since season one, basically following Team Maple around as they each do their own thing.

Verdict: yes for now

(in fact, it pre-aired in Japan the week before Christmas, so it’s a dessert topping and a floor wax)

Spydol Class episode 2

In which Team Loser becomes Team Winner without even a training montage, and the rest of the episode is spent in flashbacks, voiceovers, and a completely painless Mission Impossible infiltration of the country where The Suicide Mission takes place.

Also two separate shower scenes of the guy, while the girls stay fully dressed at all times. Boo.

Verdict: maybe one more

(this is the kind of spycraft I want to see more of)

Minecraft, Hoe! episode 2

Slow Farming Life becomes a lot less tedious when a friendly giant spider moves in and offers to make fabric and tailored clothing in exchange for raw potatoes, and especially when a part-time-loli vampire waifu shows up. Still an awful lot of farming-sim internal monologing, though.

Hopefully the next girl to arrive will explain how to find salt; if Our Magic-Tool Hero weren’t blessed by the gods, he’d have already died of malnutrition and flavorless boiled food. He should hook up with online-shopping dude and swap fresh produce for salt and spices.

Verdict: sure, why not; more haremettes are on the way, and the shy little-big bloodsucker’s a cutie

(in this universe, it’s Clara’s tomatoes that are the perfect size…)

Ars Beastia episode 2

I could do without the excessive exposition and the crystal-eating, mustache-twirling villain who seems to be from another kind of show, but Our Lethal Loli is adorable, and the OP promises they’ll be adding a scantily-clad busty bunnygirl soon.

Best moment: Our World-Weary Paladin informs Our Impressionable SuperLoli that they’re going to need to do the WonderTwins thing again to save the day, and she leans in for the kissing part, only to be disappointed when he tells her that was a one-time contractual obligation.

Verdict: “show me the bunny!”

(unrelated shrine bunny is unrelated)

NieR episode 2

In which WALL-E has a posse, humanity still breeds hot chicks, humanity also builds hot clumsy twin redhead support androids, and Our Panty Fighter arrives in time to save the day. Unless you’re WALL-E.

Verdict: hoping for a hot-springs episode

(most of the fanart of 2B that’s not explicitly marked explicit is still explicit)

Bonus android assembly error!

nsf2b

Slow Life With Twin Peaks episode 2

Our Non-Demonic Hero gets his first basic quest, and Our Deka-Melon Waifu insists on coming along to show him the ropes. And her panties, deliberately climbing up a cliff wearing a skirt while he’s standing at the bottom waiting his turn. It says something about his maturity that he’s just quietly watching, but it says something about his maturity that he watches the entire time without saying something. Just in case it wasn’t already obvious that she’s claimed him as Mr. Right, she drops hints the size of her boobs throughout the episode, and her father clearly approves.

Then again, what we’ve seen of this sleepy village suggests that any guy with good teeth and two brain cells would be a real catch, no matter his age and origin. The only other adventurer has a chip on his shoulder the size of her boobs until he gets rescued from a giant poisonous snake by Our Super Adventure Time Hero. He’s still a jerk, but now a Hero-worshipping jerk.

Meanwhile, back at the Demon Lord’s army…

Say, remember how in McPharmacist & Waifu the hero party kicked him out only to discover that he handled all their scouting and logistics? And how in Beast Tamer the hero party kicked him out only to discover that he handled all their scouting and logistics? You’ll never believe this, but the Demon Generals are having serious troubles in their battle against the forces of Good because… they kicked out the guy who handled all their scouting and logistics.

I know, I was shocked, too.

Verdict: booooobs

(Clara’s apples would never work for this disguise…)

Isekai Gold Digger episode 2

It’s not until the ED that you get some evidence that Our Gold-Hungry Heroine is not, in fact, a little girl. Contrast with the scene where she’s sitting on the floor of a carriage with her knees up while wearing a micro-miniskirt and thigh-highs, and her modesty is preserved only by precise camera framing. This is a Hide Your Delicious Cake And Eat It Too scenario.

Anyway, GoldHunter realizes that the power she swiped from not-god doesn’t just let her move back and forth between the two worlds, but go anywhere she can clearly visualize. So she uses Google Street View to hop to South America, then uses her Comprehend Languages power to hire a mercenary company to sell her guns and teach her to use them. They also agree to launder gold coins from the other world and funnel them to her retirement account in Japan.

I give them full marks for the clear explanation of the four rules of gun safety, but a zero for neglecting the all-important “front sight focus” advice in pistol training. Seriously, she never even hit the paper in her first session.

Also a plus: she argues with her dead brother’s memory this time, not taking his word on economics or pacifism.

Verdict: worth a shot

(unrelated money-hungry elf is unrelated)

The Handyman Can! episode 2

Good news: the core cast is growing outside their tropes. Also, Our Handy Hero has a trap failure that I’d like to see more of, stripping the armor from Our Shy Warrior Maiden who I’d like to see more of. Also, the origin flashback for his skillset was blessedly brief.

Mixed news: the OP promises a quite large cast, most of them apparently one-shots that get dropped in between the short adventuring vignettes.

Verdict: a better slow-life isekai story than most of the ones that officially claim the title

(picture is completely unrelated but very cute)

First, the important news: DM Of The Rings is being remastered and re-released by Shamus Young’s family. New episodes are available a week early for their Patreon supporters.

Second, PixyVerse Problems this morning:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/pypy2/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 630, in respond
    self._do_respond(path_info)
  File "/opt/pypy2/site-packages/cherrypy/_cprequest.py", line 689, in _do_respond
    response.body = self.handler()
  File "/opt/pypy2/site-packages/cherrypy/lib/encoding.py", line 221, in __call__
    self.body = self.oldhandler(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/opt/pypy2/site-packages/cherrypy/_cpdispatch.py", line 54, in __call__
    return self.callable(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "Test.py", line 157, in index
    return go(cherrypy)
  File "Test.py", line 107, in go
    print 'Blew a gasket - reconnecting and retrying!'
IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device: '<fdopen>'

People Suck, Let’s Save The World!

By the way, did you know that this dysfunctional adventuring party is going to save the world? In case the title didn’t tip you off, the narrator makes it explicit at the end of the lengthy exposition of (almost) everyone’s backstory. This is all setup, so there’s not a lot to decide if the show is going anywhere, but the two girls in the party are attractive apart from the wonky eyes, so there’s that.

Verdict: maybe

(dragon girls are apparently the new catgirls)

Manic Pixie Dream Girl And Her Pet Sorceress

This was surprisingly watchable. Surprising because the description was “less than promising”: non-magical princess with magitech based on her past life in Japan teams up with disgraced magical-genius noble lady to make her (the second one) queen. It sounded like the sort of convoluted shojo manga story where everyone is really skinny, has pointy chins, and is slightly gay.

Instead, Princess Lunatic Fan-service crashes into that story and kidnaps the heroine. Wacky Hijinks Will Ensue™. All the girls are cute, so there’s that.

Verdict: yes for now

(note that the source material is apparently quite yuri, which one would hope results in more fan-service down the road)

Spy Class For Dummies

The good news: seven pretty girls carefully separated by hair color, speech pattern, and bust size move into a mansion with a large shared bathtub, which they put to use in this episode. Our PoV gal is the bustiest, and with the names Lily/Flowergarden reeks of fan-service and yuri.

The bad news: they’re all spy-school losers shipped off to be trained for a suicide mission by an autistic superspy who talks way too much without showing a shred of emotion or inflection. Also, the tub is afflicted with buy-the-bluray steam.

Verdict: maybe

Iceblade Exposition Will Bore The World

They’ve telegraphed that this show will include a powerful sexy sorceress who walks around in naughty lingerie, and that’s not enough to save it. Seriously, the moment Our Clark Kent arrives at Military Hogwarts, they tell you who the bad kids are by drawing them badly. Those kids take turns trashing the Muggle Ordinary just to make sure we haven’t forgotten that he doesn’t fit in here, mixed with flashbacks clarifying that he’s The Boy Who Lived, and exposition gushing about just how awesome the mystery Superboy was that no knows is right in front of them.

I gave up halfway, and that’s despite being able to watch a full episode of all these other shows.

Verdict: nope

Super Minecraft Farming Powers, Go!

“Conan Hiraku, what is best in life?”

“To plow fertile fields, see crops ripen before you, and collect a huge multispecies harem.”

Hopefully this one has a giant shared bathtub, too; the cute girls are the primary draw. Good thing they started with a flash-forward to show them all off, and then bounced them onscreen again in the OP, because the rest of the episode is Farming Sim Tutorial 1, narrated inside Our Magic-Hoe-User’s head.

Verdict: maybe

Giant Ars Beasts

“Wonder Twin Powers, Activate! Shape of… a super loli!”

“Form of… a burned-out mercenary!”

I’m surprised it took so long for someone to rip off the whole Attack On Titan vibe, but I’m definitely not surprised that they made the heroine an expressive super-powered loli who explodes when you shoot her full of arrows.

Verdict: yes for now

(Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Best Girl is unrelated; there is literally only one piece of fan-art for this show on Pixiv right now, and it’s a full-frontal nude of the loli)

Slow Life With Twin Peaks

(aka “kicked out of the demon lord’s army…”)

Our Fallen Demon Hero states that the only difference between humans and demons is that humans can’t use magic. This is while he’s in the middle of being kicked out of the demon king’s army for… not being able to use magic. He then meet-cutes Our Generous Scoops Of Mouthwatering Flesh in the forest and has time to check out the color of her panties before rescuing her from a giant monkey, and promptly freaks out when he realizes he’s in enemy territory and would be killed out of hand if they realized he’s a demon.

Which would have to involve him coming right out and telling people he’s a demon, because as he just said, there’s no visible difference between the races. But giant boobs have their own logic, so he’s willing to stay in her village, and in fact, her house. And become an adventurer, because giant boobs; he stops and stares at them every time he needs to make a decision. Even when her parents are right there asking him questions.

And hey, guess what? He’s actually been a human all along without realizing it, and not only that, he’s got super adventurer powers right out of the box, so good that if it weren’t for the giant boobs, he could move to the city and become a big wheel!

She wears thigh-high stockings to bed, by the way. I’m sure this will come up again. As will the giant boobs.

Verdict: yes for now

NieR: Automata

Yup, that’s pretty much how the tutorial level went, except that on my PC it had better framerate than Crunchyroll. And more panty shots; they avoided them in a few obvious closeups, but once the action got rolling, she pretty much had to flash the camera, so she did.

Verdict: yes for now

Isekai Gold Digger

In which Our Underdeveloped Heroine is not quite killed off by pickup artists filling the role of Truck-kun, instead ending up with the power to freely go back and forth between another world and Japan, where a quick consulation with the memory of her dead brother gives her the idea of moving goods back and forth to make enough money to retire comfortably.

It doesn’t look like there are any hidden depths here. She can world-jump, heal really fast, and as a bonus she asked not-God to give her language powers as well so she can communicate, and the ED shows a large cast of friends and customers, as well as a squad of friendly mercenaries.

Verdict: maybe one more

(unrelated Touhou bunnygirl is unrelated; there are currently two pieces of fan-art for this show, both of them lesbian porn featuring the only two young girls in the episode)

Handyman Is Handy, Man

The good news is that they skip the usual tedious isekai origin story and go straight into Our Handy Hero helping his adventuring party in various ways. There’s no fan-art to speak of, just the original manga artist posting the entire story; the link below pretty much covers the exact events of episode 1, except for some unrelated character intros outside the core party. The characters are pretty much cast directly from TV Tropes: senile wizard, greedy fairy, shy warrior gal, exploding dwarf, etc.

Verdict: maybe one more

Disillusioned Adventurers Accidentally Upgraded WordPress

Always test your site upgrades in Production!

Your server is running PHP version 5.3.3 but WordPress 6.0.2 requires at least 5.6.20.

This is another “kicked out of the party” fantasy series, where Our Hero bands together with other misfits to make a new, better party. It’s also airing one week early on one network, so raws and possibly even some fansubs may be out of sync with all the ‘simulcast’ streaming sites.

Since I know absolutely nothing about this show, and there’s no web site to tell me, I’ll just post a picture of a busty elf santa’s helper wearing red under-rim glasses.

(I think PHP 5.3.3 is probably older than much of the audience for this show…)

In which Our Divine Fox Loli’s application for Waifuhood is formally accepted, but we don’t find out if her powers made Our Taming Hero even more OP, because what’s important is being recognized by the guild and the town as The Real Heroes, leading Our Top-Heavy Guild Receptionist to offer them a great deal on a house with room for the full harem and any future expansion packs.

With one catch: it’s haunted. Good news, though, because not only is the cranky poltergeist a gorgeous maid with a bustline second only to Our Dragon Waifu, her battle to expel the intruders is quickly ended by a brand-new power that’s never been mentioned before. Because of course Rein just happened to spend an afternoon learning ghost taming when he was a little boy in The Village Of Infinite Taming.

Our Luscious Ghost Maid doesn’t get the full waifu treatment, but he can force her to obey, which in a better world would result in some naughty fan-art.

Wrapping up, Team DickHero is run out of town without even a sandwich, further cementing their leader’s desire to destroy Our Taming Hero and the girls he rode in on.

And so we bid a not-terribly-fond farewell to the fall season, and stare into the bleak abyss that is the winter season. For anime, I mean; it’s supposed to be back up to 55°F by Thursday, although it’s going to rain every day for a week. Gives me time to seal the front door, buy a shovel, and sign up for snow removal service. 😁

Bonus Christmas Cheer!

NSFW

(🎶 fins to the left, fins to the right, … 🎶)

A-Cup Alchemist 12 (fin)

In which Our Little Orphan Alchemist grapples with an obvious decision, in order to generate uncertainty and set up the telegraphed happy ending. Group hug!

Flatcat & Sword 12 (fin)

A satisfying finish to the spider-dungeon story, as well as the expected revelation that Our Cleavage Elf has a past connection to Our Triumphant Kitten. The only real surprise was the gainaxing action by Big Bad Mama Spider. I really would have preferred to see that animation applied to Nell and/or Amanda.

Post-credits, they went right into a teaser for the next story arc, so hopefully they’ll get the second season onto the schedule soon.

(I’m running out of Fran-art that isn’t a little heavy on the Fran-service)

Hoe Harem 12 (fin)

Exposition that raises more questions than it answers, literal divine intervention that hurts as much as it helps, a big fight that ends because the villain kinda lost interest, and a haremette hangout. The ending is written as if they expect to get another season, which is highly unlikely.

Case in point: Our Hoe-hum Hero meets up with his childhood buddy, and after muddying the plot, invites him to visit the capitol. As he walks away, the guy darkly mumbles, “I can never leave this village”. Yeah, it’s probably true to the source material, but why even spend the time to bring it up unless you think you’ll be able to animate that arc someday?

(Our Latest Loli is stunned that her story was wrapped up so abruptly and incompletely, with no guarantee that Our Evil Twintailed Mysterious Murder Maiden won’t just come back and wipe out her home again tomorrow; it’s not like there’s anyone capable of stopping her)

Beast Tamer 12

“There’s no way we can possibly defeat this foe, unless we suddenly gained the ability to repeatedly cast Instant Teleport, which… Our Freshly Tamed Divine Fox Loli Waifu can do!”

Meanwhile, Team DickHero asks their boss if they should intervene, since, y’know, we’re all about defeating the demon lord, and there’s a, y’know, demon horde wiping out the town we’re currently in. Which he naturally refuses because he’s directly responsible for the mess and knows it. Are we actually sure he’s the Chosen Hero? Maybe we’ll find out in episode 13!

Meanwhile…

Snow! Wind! Ice! Temperature dropping like dangling plot threads in a single-cour anime series! Me, not wanting to go out there for any reason!

(okay, that would be a pretty good reason; I could at least open the door long enough to let her in…)

Frigid Update!

It turns out that the one opening in the house that does not have weatherstripping is the front door. This message brought to me by 25 mile-per-hour winds and -4°F temperatures. Good thing I have all sorts of bubble wrap from unpacking my Japan goodies to stuff into the gap until it warms up enough for me to attach some; it's supposed to be back up to 40° by Wednesday, and 58° (!!) by next Saturday.

Fortunately, I've gotten used to not using the front door while they were rebuilding the porch and steps...

Winter Watch?

So far, I’m mildly interested in the second season of Bofuri (the lather-rinse-repeat powering-up of Maple gets old after a while, and I think the first season stopped at a good point), and will at least give the first episode of Nier:Automata a shot because y’know, her. Most of the rest are second-to-Nth seasons of things I didn’t watch before, or the usual beaten-to-death isekai themes, or just lame. I mean, what can you say about a season where the big fan-service comedy is about being turned into a puppy and adopted by a busty high-school girl, guaranteeing plenty of low-angle camera work?

A-Cup Alchemist 11

According to Sarasa Feed’s Art Of War, preparation is the key to defeating a powerful foe. Therefore, the first half of this episode is devoted to gathering materials and making weapons and protective gear suitable for taking on a Salamander that’s triggering earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. After preparation comes execution, and by now it should come as no surprise that Our Alchemical Wonder Girl is an ace at executing things, even if she does need a little boost to Give Her All.

Amusing cameo by Our Mysterious Masked Mistress. Clearly, great alchemical minds think alike, at least when it comes to pointless domino masks.

I’m expecting a sappy happy-ending finale next episode, with just a hint of yuri.

(Sarasa’s not the first heroine who needs to be carried home after casting a big spell…)

Flatcat & Sword 11

So She’s Fighting A Spider, So What?, in which Our Depowered Kitten refuses to give in to despair, poison, and pulverized internal organs, holding out long enough for Sword-Dad to come to the rescue. Woof. Special bonus elf-cleavage as Our Mothering A-Ranker breaks out the big guns. Woof.

However they wrap it up in episode 12, there will be… Flatcat Season 2! (date unknown)

Hoe Harem 11

Happiness is a warm hoe, with two haremettes bent over… to pick vegetables! Then a series of random events leads to meeting Our Latest Loli, who lures Our Heroic Hoe-er away from some Really Important Weeding for an Overseas Solo Adventure that starts to get grim, until A Sudden Twist explains why they wasted an entire episode killing off Our Childhood Girlfriend.

Unexplained is how You’re-Not-My-Real-Mom knew to use Reaks’ name to explain her presence. Also the whole dead-and-buried thing, but I’m sure that’s going to feature prominently in the next episode’s exposition. Now, as for Our Mystery Angel who’s been hanging out in the opening credits waiting for someone to bonk Al over the head, will there really be enough time in the final episode to explain her as well as everything else that’s going on? I vote “no”.

(because there’s still basically no fan-art for this show, we’ve secretly replaced the key characters from this episode with Folger’s Crystals GGO battle lolis)

Beast Tamer 11

In which Team Harem rescues the hostages and wipes the floor with the bad guys, while Our Taming Hero uses last week’s new power to free Our Fox Loli from captivity by… taming her! Then the evil plot backfires because of course he’s now immune to instant-death and all other negative status effects; that’s just what Ultimate Girl Power does for a guy.

But wait, there’s more! The backlash from Asshat #2’s failed ass(hat)ass(hat)ination attempt summons a giant cliffhanger! Team Harem, Fight-o!

This one goes to 13, by the way, so if I manage to catch up before Saturday, I can watch the big finish Christmas Eve. Because I have no intention of driving anywhere when it’s 1°F after days of mixed rain and snow, and it’s a major drinking holiday.

Vacationally-speaking,

Higashi Honganji, the temple pretty much everyone sees in Kyoto because it’s just up the street from the station, had a special night-time event while we were there where they turned the Shosei-en garden into a moonlit book store. My sister looked up the English version of their site to see what it was about, and was immediately turned off when she saw that they’d be serving hot cow piss.

The folks at Calpis really need to contact all the online translation sites and get them on the same page.

(speaking of vending-machine drinks, I found the Georgia Emerald Mountain “special blend” canned coffee (blue can) to be quite drinkable, hot or cold; this is of course because the “blend” refers to milk and sugar, while most of them are quite bitter black coffee)

Unrelated,

Homebrew doesn’t seem to notice or care that I upgraded my Mac to Monterey, other than that it’s stopped complaining about Catalina being old and stable. None of the installed packages were altered in any way.

MacPorts, on the other hand, simply refuses to run until you go through a convoluted upgrade reinstall process. This clearly could be scripted, but the closest they get is having a TCL (!) script for the package reinstallation step.

Homeward-bound

I can haz front steps! After the cement and mortar finishes curing for 48 hours, anyway. They spent today scrambling to get plants into the ground before the upcoming storm and freeze. For their own benefit as well as mine: they need their trucks and equipment back to prep for the fallout. Snow removal is a big part of their business this season.

A-Cup Alchemist 10

In which everything happens all at once: Our Klutzy Gather Girl turns out to be the daughter of an impoverished noble house served by the family of Our Busty Gather Elf, and they’re so deep in debt their best offer is an arranged wedding, but the prospective groom is the son of the SoB that Team Alchemy just bankrupted so clearly there’s some kind of scam involved, and then Our A-Team sets out to solve The Mystery Of Giant Flaming Rage Bear Mountain while quickly making a bundle to help with the family debt(s), which leads to a nearly-fatal encounter with Tougher Monsters, and when Our Overpowered Alchemigal chops them into stew meat, there’s a sudden volcanic eruption that releases An Even Tougher Monster.

It’s like they took a look at the episode count and suddenly rushed to cram it all in before the end of the series.

Flatcat & Sword 10

In which excessive exposition and physical comedy lead Our Dysfunctional Dungeon Delvers to drop their guard, only to be caught in a trap. Suddenly deprived of The Power Of Sword-Dad, Our Curry-Mad Catgirl is forced to fight… The Cliffhanger!

(unrelated, I’d be happy to see a naughty spinoff series about the girl who appears in the how-to-learn-water-magic portion of the exposition…)

Hoe Harem 10

In which it’s like the previous episode never happened and we’re back to the wacky harem hijinks, with Our Happy Hoemonger picking up a new girl in the woods and carrying her off to his bed, leading Best Girl Ruri to assume the worst (but still come to the rescue anyway). The actual wacky plot is the worst yet, resolved with the power of… asparagus.

On the bright side, Our New Girl cleans up nicely, but her promise to steal Al away from his harem as soon as she’s old enough is doomed to failure, since she has no idea just who she’s up against. I mean, she works in a pendant shop, and the opposition includes a magical princess, a half-dragon adventurer, and a hero-with-a-capital-H. Her only chance is if it’s a naked mud-wrestling match, in which case the winners will be everyone watching.

(unrelated Tsundere Elf is here to remind Netflix that they haven’t resumed running Uncle yet after its production woes)

Beast Tamer 10

In which Asshat #1 (Teh Hero) meets Asshat #2 (Loli Collector And FoxLoli Kicker), and joins forces to kill Our Taming Hero. Next episode. Also, we finally find out what special power he gets from Our Twin Fairy Loli Waifus, after they wondered why there didn’t seem to be one last week.

The Last Good Knight finally shows up and hires Team Harem to clean up the corrupt knights who enable Asshat #2 to get away with his crimes. Given the relative power levels, this takes about two minutes, and mostly happens offscreen. Our Good Lady Knight gets to take down her boss in a classic samurai-movie face-off, which ought to count for something.

IMHO, A#2’s villainy was a bit gratuitous. Seriously, he demands that Our Twin Fairy Loli Waifus be handed over to him as sex toys, orders his guards to kill Rein to get his way, orders his surviving guards to murder the innocent townsfolk if Rein doesn’t surrender them, and then pays the knights off to cover up their failure, and the rescued townies then reveal that he does this all the time, openly kidnapping women to abuse in his mansion. But that wasn’t enough for the writers, who then show him keeping an N-tailed loli foxgirl in chains and battering her with his boots to make himself feel better. Twice.

Seriously, just give him a mustache and have him twirl it. We get it, he’s a villain. And so is Teh Hero, who does his own clean-shaven mustache-twirling.

The mistake shared with Hoe Harem is someone thinking that light-hearted harem hijinks isn’t enough, and there has to be A Serious Subplot somewhere, which is like a rap break in a bouncy bubblegum k-pop tune.

Unrelated,

My sister and I both ordered yen from our banks before the trip, taking advantage of the excellent exchange rate, which the Japanese government has managed to reduce a bit since then.

Unexpectedly, both of our banks split the money into equal numbers of ¥10000, ¥5000, ¥2000, and ¥1000 bills. ¥2000 bills are a recent innovation that are actually quite rare in Japan, and sometimes difficult to use. Most machines accept them, but human clerks are usually surprised, and often briefly confused. They were, however, a huge hit at flea and craft markets, where vendors were excited to see them, and treated them as collectibles.

I’d still have preferred to have most of the money in ¥10000 bills, just to reduce bulk, so next time I may ask for maybe 20 ¥2000 bills with the rest in ¥10000, and just break a few right away. (we both had credit cards with no foreign-transaction fees, but it’s still not unusual to run into cash-only stores, even for fairly expensive items; and of course the flea markets and craft markets run on cash)

Speaking of which, the best place I found to get change was the capsule-toy change machine in Akihabara Station, which would take a ¥10000 bill and give you 8 ¥1000 bills and 20 ¥100 coins. Other large banks of capsule-toy machines probably have similar machines, but the ones in Nakano Broadway looked kind of dubious, so I didn’t try them.

(bubble wrap wasn’t the only padding available at Don Quijote…)

In home-improvement news,

I’m kind of wondering about the progress of all the outdoor work, with the weather promising to drop by 30°F this weekend. They’re here with two crews every weekday, simultaneously doing the stonework and putting in the new plants, but none of it looks like they’re actually finishing. Particularly the steps leading to the front and back doors, although they made enough progress at it today that I at least know what they’ll look like. I’d kind of like to have a place for delivery drivers to drop off packages without keeping the garage door open.

Side note:

I found Musk’s “should I stop running Twitter” poll to be a hilarious bit of trolling. Obviously he has new executive candidates in mind, and the poll didn’t have a date on it, so he wins no matter how many bots stuff the ballot box. And also gets a nice list of active bots.