After being exposed to the trailer, I skimmed the fan translations of the original web-novels of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, the upcoming isekai series about a girl and her bear suit. The web-novels were written chapter by chapter with no plan, which I presume was cleaned up for the print edition, currently up to 16 books. The author’s notes are sometimes more amusing than the story, which is the over-familiar “Japanese teen becomes ridiculously overpowered in a fantasy world”.

Judging by the book covers, Our Heroine’s hobby is loli-collecting.

Lindsey Stirling has recorded a new theme song for the Azur Lane mobile game. Not terrible, but I hoped for better.

My favorite mobile game song is still Saori Hayama’s DanMemo theme, Lumière. And she has a new album coming out soon.

Meanwhile, the Act-Age manga series has been cancelled after the writer was arrested for not acting his age. I haven’t followed up to see precisely what the cameras showed him doing (or trying to do) to those two junior high school girls, but they reported him to the cops for it, and he was identifiable in the video.

The problem with fan art from shows you’ve never watched is that I can’t tell whether the artist has correctly drawn a character who strikes with the spine of her blade, or has incorrectly drawn the shape of both sword and scabbard.

That is, the placement of her right hand says that the side facing her body is the (missing) edge, but the scabbard says that’s clearly the inside of the curve, which would be the spine of a normal katana. Other fan drawings (1, 2) show the sword having a shape consistent with her hand placement, suggesting that the answer is #2: the artist blew the curve.

Corona-chan’s 2019 World Tour

Tentative evidence suggesting Corona-chan reached France in November. The pattern that’s emerging is good news for the world, bad news for politicians who couldn’t pass up the chance to remake the world to their liking.

Unrelated

There’s apparently a flier circulating for a planned protest Tuesday at the nearby shopping center that includes a Safeway, Walmart, Target, Olive Garden, Shell, and a bunch of still-mostly-closed small businesses. Setting aside the fact that they’re several days behind the riot curve, this is a terrible place to protest anything, because it’s a sprawling suburban strip mall with no real focus point, and also because the area is closer to La Raza than to BLM. They’re unlikely to draw a sympathetic crowd, and likely to draw an overwhelming response from law enforcement if anyone shows up ready to rumble.

Honestly, selecting a strip mall that’s far away from a government office or police station for their “peaceful” “protest” looks more like choosing the stores they plan to loot. What are they going to do, chant slogans while marching through the parking lot from the Pet Fun to the AutoZone, with a stop for lunch at Red Lobster?

Relaxing food-porn for the win!

I’ve been reading the light novels for this one as well, and Aletta’s increased confidence has had results. She’s been handling deliveries from the restaurant’s Earth-side suppliers, and one of the delivery boys has become quite smitten. In a triumph of otaku acculturation, he thinks her horns are just cosplay ornaments. No big deal for a modern Tokyo youth.

An interesting note is that the occasional mild fan-service that was added for the anime was not further enhanced for the Bluray release.

Related, Amazon may still be determined to kill Brickmuppet under a pile of packages, but they’re no longer delaying Prime shipments for weeks at a time. Every in-stock item I’ve ordered recently has shipped out promptly. The categories that seem to be most sold out now are things like home exercise gear, for people who live in Bluetopian states under lockdown. The fact that most of that stuff was being made in China doesn’t help.

Also related, when I went in to my local drug store to pick up prescriptions yesterday, they had a huge display by the checkouts selling individually-packaged disposable surgical masks for $1.29 each. Also candy bars.

Finished my rewatch of Yuuna on the elliptical, and watched the first episode of Bokuben. I was left with a burning question:

Where did they hide the Lovely Angel?

Episode 2 apparently introduces Mughi…

(picture may be related)

Episode 6 of Interspecies Reviewers contains three very important pieces of advice:

1. Always include a crafter in your party.
2. Never confess your sins.
3. Carry sunglasses.

And if Our Heroes stop to think about it, they really, really need to go back there and pay whatever it costs to have the evidence dismantled.

Unrelated, I’m back from Sedona. I might post a few pictures, but I still haven’t done anything with the ones I took last year in Japan, and the next trip’s coming up fast. It sounds like tourist traffic is way down right now, so as long as I don’t cough while going through Immigration, we should have a great time.

Wait, Amazon Prime Video was also streaming Interspecies Reviewers?!? And didn’t pull it until today?

Seriously, there is nothing subtle about the premise of this show, and even an extremely tame adaptation would have aroused… “controversy”. Anyone paying even the faintest attention to the pre-release marketing in Japan knew what was, um, coming.

Unrelated, here are my latest amusing Amazon recommendations:

Ascendance of a Bookworm episode 6 raises the stakes.

Given the ongoing speculation, I will not discuss any details, except to say that it continues to track the satisfying story told in the novels.