All is revealed, and the players take the field. The most interesting thing to happen, though, is that we get to see things from Shisui’s point of view for once.

Fan-service rocks!

Another announcement for the summer season establishes the “cute girls finding cute rocks” genre, with a teacher whose boulders bounce. Cast and crew are mostly inexperienced, with one true first-timer counterbalanced by Raphtalia.

Not going on my list unless something goes really wrong with the three (sigh) shows already there.

Unrelated, I would support this adventuring party

It might surpass the limits of my carry weight, but somehow I think I can keep up.

The Apothecary Diaries 2, episode 19

This week, Shisui is looking particularly foxy. Pity I can’t say any more than that without massive spoilers. Fortunately, this show is still carrying the entire season.

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 8

This week, a swimsuit episode. Next week, an Egyptian pyramid filled with undead. I know this because they uploaded next week’s subtitles. I think it improved the experience.

(don’t know that I’ll bother rewatching the fixed version later; the bikinis are the best part, and they don’t need translation)

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 8

This week, Thirsty McWhitehair takes Our Oblivious Sensei on a date, using shopping for court-friendly clothing as an excuse to spend the entire day with him. Then she challenges him to a duel, planning to confess her feelings if she wins. Despite stacking the deck with well-displayed cleavage and a thong, she ends up on her back, but not in the way she wants.

Verdict: if the Sweet Young Thing Brigade aren’t going to be proper haremettes, we need more screen time for Hot Teacher.

(hot teacher is unrelated but all grown up)

Please wait until it’s signed…

There’s a whole lot of cheerleading going on about Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Yes, it’s very nice that the House actually passed a budget, but it still has to survive being molested by the Senate before reaching Trump’s desk.

“Why don’t Senators use bookmarks? Because they like their pages bent over.”

(ironically, you actually could bend over someone dressed in this costume…)

(bundling the Hearing Protection Act into it sure sounds nice, and it would definitely boost American manufacturing, but you know there are squishy RINOs in the Senate who’ll fold under the pressure of a light breeze)

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 7

In the least-plausible setup of the season, Our Busty Guild Gal In Red Underrim Glasses is unable to find a man, and drags Our Ever-17 Witch and company to a find-a-mate party as her wingwomen. We haven’t seen this character much this season, so her presence is welcome, even if Her Cunning Plan is a bust. Anyway, the local wedding spirit talks Azusa into buying a sister-bonding package for Our Slime Twins. This gets Best Gal Beelzebub into more clothing than we’ve ever seen her wear. But in a good way.

I wouldn’t have minded some more footage of Our Busty Undead Catgirl and her distracting casino-dealer outfit, though. Maybe she’ll make it into a LoRA.

This might have worked as a half-length sketch, but padding it out to an entire episode dragged.

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 7

This week, Our Sword Dad adjusts to life with a house and a daughter, getting through years of “am I a good dad?” in a few hours. It happens so fast that White and Red barely have time to be jealous that they don’t live under his… roof.

Verdict: a bit slow, but they compensated by giving Daddy his first encounter with an age-appropriate hottie who he has an excuse to spend some time with. Go, teacher!

(Guest Lecturer Zelda is unrelated)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 18

I just fast-forwarded through this because last week’s preview promised that Our Little Blonde Titty-Witch would finally be back, and she is, but fully dressed in street clothes. Other than that, it looks like it was a whole lot of talking and setup for the final story arc.

(spies are completely unrelated, and I just wanted to use this picture)

Traeger Update Update

I hadn’t fired up the smoker yet this year, so I went out to clean it and replace the ash bucket while it ran through the firmware updates. Apparently I’d left it uncovered for one of the bigger storms late last year, because the rain has to be basically horizontal to somehow get inside. That is, rain got inside.

It drained into the ash bucket and overflowed into the cabinet. The pellets were in sealed bins, so nothing was damaged, but soaking the mix of ash and rendered fat in the bucket made for a pretty nasty smell.

End-of-season note to self: thoroughly clean everything before the first snowfall, then leave the cover on all winter, even if you think you might have a chance to get out there and use it…

(maid is unrelated, welcome to drop by and do some cleaning)

Clueless Crafter, episode 7

Well, that fell off a cliff, and not just the character art. This episode would actually have been improved by the addition of pies to the face.

And the flashback of Kurt’s childhood medicinal first kiss is clearly going to bring in a new horny haremette, since he just happened to be named Viceroy to the town that just happens to be next door to the demon kingdom, and I’m sure L’il Demonette just happens to have spent the last ten years dreaming of a reunion.

Verdict: one more chance before I drop it. Maybe.

(horny gal is unrelated, no longer on Pixiv)

Robo-Ho, episode 6

This week, the main character is once again her left leg, as Our Geeky Hero explores the busted joint while Our Naked Barbie Doll lies back and thinks of England. Then gets bored and calls Our Suspicious Galpal just as his probing starts to make her feel all tingly inside. She reacts as if the inside of her leg joint is lined with clits.

“These are the jokes, kid.”

Verdict: couldn’t finish it, giving up now.

(I was never expecting this show to be even a tenth as good as Gushing turned out to be, but I didn’t think it would be so cheap that they couldn’t afford a second joke)

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 6

Fight week times two. A bit shoutier than usual.

(fighter is unrelated)

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 6

Also fight week. This show has basically revealed itself as a jailbait-and-switch, with Our Affectionate And Servicing Former Students never hitting on Our Middle-Aged Rural Swordsman at all, and him never even thinking about it. And now Our Magical Blue-Haired Former Thief has moved into a clear daughter role.

Verdict: not that there’s anything wrong with that; S-Rank Daughter succeeded at supplying a collection of cute girls while keeping them out of Daddy’s pants, so maybe this one can, too. But they did kind of lead us on…

(Best Daughter is unrelated)

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 17

Despite the six minutes of post-adventure exposition and the travel montage, this episode pretty much wrapped up everything, including shifting Our Little Blonde Titty-Witch into full tsundere mode, and it even kept the character art fairly consistent.

Verdict: I think this is a good place to stop for me. Big adventure is over, Yuke’s got a house full of gals who love him, and there isn’t an Asshole Party in sight.

(fan-art is still mostly just poorly-posed CG or bad pr0n, so an actual drawing of Jamie was a surprise)

Deep Thoughts, For Stupid People

Last night I watched Lucy, Luc Besson’s cinematic drinking game. That is, if you take one shot every time someone states something absolutely ludicrous as fact, you’ll be dead in the first fifteen minutes. With bonus animal husbandry.

Why did I watch it? It was free, I was bored, and the highly deceptive trailer was vaguely interesting.

Why did I keep watching it all the way to the end? For the same reason I watched Kill Bill 1: I kept wondering if it would stop getting worse. And it never did.

(crazy blonde magic engineer is unrelated)

Anti-Semantic Versioning

There’s a reason I froze the version of Hugo I use to build this site: constant breaking changes. Yes, version 0.146.0 completely changes the templating system, forcing you to move all your layout files around. No, this wasn’t clearly documented until after 0.147.2 came out.

I gave up after trying to go from 0.119.0 to 0.120.0 left me with ~30,000 lines of diff output again. I have seen nothing in the changelogs since September 2023 that would make me want to take on that mess again.

If anyone doubted the sincerity of Lakan’s feelings about his daughter Maomao, this week’s events should blow that away. As for Jinshi’s feelings about her, well, he’s had a life-changing epiphany about just how far he’ll go. It doesn’t hurt that, at the same time, he’s growing more aware of the ongoing revelations about the former emperor that we’ve been seeing.

Fuck you, Broadcom

I can’t download the latest update for VMware Fusion because it requires “additional verification”. The form auto-fills in your profile information, but the Javascript verification does not accept single-letter names such as “J”, and does not allow you to edit the field. In fact, their entire customer-support system has had read-only profiles for a while now, complete with an FAQ. And their chatbot does not understand the problem or connect you to human beings.

Well, that’s one way to keep costs down while you destroy an acquisition.

Clueless Crafter, episode 6

Our Impenetrably-Clueless Cleaning Hero mops up the demon army and saves Our Hot-But-Evil Ex-Priestess while Our Crushing Bug-Eyed Princess uses Her Ridiculously OP Sword to take out the Big Bad and save Our Gal Who Wears The Pants In This Harem.

Perhaps next week Kurt will invent a way to animate barely-panned stills and add lip-flaps on a shoestring budget.

Verdict: really cheap, but extra-cheesy.

Robo-Ho, episode 5

Wow, this show gives new meaning to “one-trick pony”, with the humor continuing to be so centered around her easy-off leg that she can’t make it down the hallway at school without slipping on a banana peel. Twice.

That’s after Our Hapless Robo-Nerd wakes up wondering why he’s had yet another sex dream about his sexy naked clinging roommate and tries to reach the tissue box so he can jack off before she wakes up. Fortunately she wakes up before he starts, so we’re spared that sight. Although it would help correct her persistent misunderstanding about what little boys are made of.

It would be understating the case to say that my expectations for this show were low, but it’s getting hard to watch, and we’ve only reached the first day back at school. They’ve gotta do something to bring in the other two gals, and quick. At least they showed the little blue-haired one just before the end credits, but there haven’t been any sightings of merc/lab gal and her squad of robo-clones since the first episode.

Verdict: we’re nearly halfway through the show, and we’ve really only introduced Our Badly-Coupled Couple and Our Overprotective Misinformative Galpal. Not that I’m expecting major plotting in a show that’s only got nine minutes in between the credits…

(there’s basically no fan-art; this is the manga artist, showing off the weak joint that’s effectively a main character)

Slime-Killing Witch 2, episode 5

This week brings back Our Watery Tart Spirit Mama for, well, momma lessons. School, shopping, bedtime stories, reverse aging, a little light kidnapping; y’know, the usual.

Bumpkin & Harem, episode 5

Our Blue-Haired Young Pickpocket comes in from the cold, and she not only looks older than Our Legal-Loli Head Wizard, she dresses like she’s ready to graduate to adult crime. Seriously, where do these fantasy worlds come up with daisy dukes for hot gals to wear unbuttoned, when nobody else in the world seems to wear denim at all? Not that Our Hero’s Sword responds to either of them that way; he may be the only man in town who doesn’t wonder what it would be like to double-date the jailbait.

Anyway, since she’s in the ED animation with a sword, we know Blue is going to continue hanging out with Sword Daddy in some fashion. If he had the slightest inkling of exactly how Former Female Students feel about him, he’d think twice about training Yet Another Underage Treat.

Verdict: this one’s got some sass, at least; a nice contrast with the others. No redhead this week, though.

A-Rank Adventure Harem, episode 16

They blew half the episode on wrapping up the Rain-stealing-bozo B-story, so that when they finally got around to getting everyone into the bath together, they’d handed over the character art to a group of fourth-graders. They did airdrop Our New Magic Loli into the tub with them, but they forgot to bring Jamie. It’s not like she didn’t have time to travel to join them, since they made Our Hapless Harem Hero take two weeks to get home from last week’s big fight.

Verdict: it’s nice that the prince who was after Rain turned out to be a decent guy who wanted her adventuring talents, but not being able to draw the haremettes well in their moment of wet naked triumph is inexcusable. And they can’t excuse the lack of Jamie by pointing at the source material; it’s an actual trope to rearrange events in a harem comedy to get a gal onscreen early.

(proper bath scene is unrelated, dammit)