Mauser started it, so I’ll take a quick look at next season’s anime:

• Astro Note: Chef meets Landlady From Outer Space. No.

• Bartender: people in trouble get the drink they need. No.

• Blue Archive. I’ve enjoyed the fan-service fan-art, and the teaser has a catgirl with a rifle. Maybe.

• Kicked Out Of The Nobility, A Reincarnated Hero’s Slow Life Is Interrupted By His Ex. Um, why is he prettier than the girls? NO.

• A Salad Bowl Of Eccentrics: jaded detective, magical loli princess from another world, wacky hijinks; what is this, Cop Craft 2: The Wackaning? Highly unlikely.

• Grandpa & Grandma’s Rejuvenation: old couple gets young and hot. No.

• Mysterious Disappearances: horror? romance? giant boobs? Eh, no.

• Gonna Be The Kaiju: Damage Control worker has an Origin. Unlikely.

• Gods’ Game We Play: neither the auto-translated blurb nor the trailer makes a great deal of sense, so all I see is a harem comedy where the guy in the middle is supposed to be good at something instead of a useless potato. Maybe?

• Court Drama With Crow-People: or something like that. Not gonna replace Apothecary Diaries for me. NO.

• Punchy Youtuber. No, seriously. NOT A CHANCE.

• Konosuba 3. Season two dragged, and the Megumin prequel fell apart fast. Maybe.

• Isekai Slow Life With Level 2 Cheats: what it says on the tin. Our Hero gets rejected as useless, only to discover that he gains every power in the world the moment he levels up once; he’s the five-bladed razor of OP cheat heroes. Unlikely. The girls are cute, though, and it’s not a harem.

• How To Love Your Elf Bride: socially inept sorcerer instantly falls for a cute girl at a slave auction, buys her, and attempts to woo her. Fortunately she’s into him, too, and is just as terrible at expressing her feelings. Unlikely.

• Studio Apartment, Good Lighting, Angel Included: high-school boy inexplicably living alone, strange cute girl suddenly moves in and changes his life. Pretty sure I’ve not only seen this before, but also rejected a dozen just like it. NO.

• Spice & Wolf Remake: same voice actors, even, so not sure what the point is. Maybe, just to see what they’re doing different.

• Re: Monster: isekai goblin power-leveling. Highly Unlikely.

• Underside Of Kitten’s Paw (er, Seiyuu Radio Uraomote): cute girls just don’t get along. No.

• Go! Go! Loser Ranger!. The previews are way too shouty. No.

• Shinkalion. I refuse to believe in a world where mechs are piloted by teams of teenage boys. No.

• Shuumatsu Train. Cute girls SCREEEEEEEAMING on the last train to plotsville. Not a chance.

• Tadaima, Okaeri: gay couple raising a child. No, no, no.

• Isekai Appraiser: Realist Hero as a shota who uses appraisal magic instead of quoting Machiavelli? Unlikely.

• Seventh Prince: Super Shota’s got a harem. No.

• Slime, season 3. Yeah, I suppose so.

• The New Gate: I beat the VR death game, and all I got was this lousy isekai. No.

• The Fable: hitman takes a holiday. Pretty sure I’ve avoided watching the Hollywood version of this at least a dozen times. No.

• Unnamed Memory: I Married A Witch. No.

• Vampire Dormitory: Fruits Basket with fangs? No.

• Wind Breaker. Can someone explain to the Japanese what these words mean together? NO.

• Jellyfish Can’t Swim In The Night: cute girls shouting after hours. No.

• Yozakura Family: I Married A Spy, In High School. No.

Gosh, thanks Twitter!

It used to be that every once in a while, “X” would insert an ad in your feed asking you to upgrade to Premium. Today it escalated to a pop-up every time I muted an ad (which is every time an ad appears…). Yeah, fuck that.

When 歳 is not a warning label…

Generally speaking, when the text in a glamour photospread includes the character 歳 preceded by a number, it means that the model is so young that you’ll feel dirty or guilty for enjoying the view. For Fumie Nakajima [site NSFW, disable Javascript], though, that number is 55, which is not only safe but surprising and delightful.

Soro-Soro Leveling, episode 8

“To recap, last week was a clip episode, so to make up for lost time, we’re going to have a bunch of side characters deliver exposition and set up plot points that are 1 to 3 seasons out. To hold your interest, though, we’re going to remind you that there are Fully Dressed Hot Chicks in this show by putting one of them in sweaty spandex briefly.”

Verdict: next week, something happens. $10 says that the real fight scene is two weeks out, though.

The Apothecary Diaries, episode 21

Ox spit, beefcake, jealousy, and intrigue; the days are just packed. Also, does Pairin Draft cost extra, or is it included?

Verdict: very much a “calm before the storm” feel.

Kicked Around By The Slow-Living Former Hero Party, The Psychotic New Hero Works Hard To Make The Second Season Unwatchable By Preventing All The Cute Girls From Taking Baths Together, episode 9

If Rit weren’t supplying passive fan-service just from going out in that outfit, all that would be left is plodding plotting. The girls are all drawn well, but they’re stuck telling Van’s story, and it isn’t even close to over. It’d probably take up all of a third season if they got one.

Verdict: this is what I was afraid they’d do, because the light novel author can’t just keep his slow-life pants on, and keeps pulling Our Heroes into larger-than-life events and convoluted backstory. (it hasn’t yet reached the level of bullshit that sank the Realist Hero novels for me, but it’s real close…)

Shangri-La Frontier, episode 21

Recharging and laundry. Next week: Chocolate Bunny Raising Project.

Verdict: I struggle with the shouty bits, but otherwise it’s fun.

(I can’t criticize the pro gamer for selecting a female avatar (“ask me about my red-skinned hottie in hot pants in Palworld”), just for not making her hotter)

Frieren, episode 25

Setting aside the half of this episode that’s the mages talking about how to beat the bad guy, which is so boring that Our Wondertwins are off squabbling in the background (the most interesting part of the scene), the OG Party Flashbacks are worthwhile, and the actual fight against Dark Frieren is well-animated.

Verdict: are we there yet?

Oni Pon, episode 9

Wait, more new outfits? Is this what they spent the money on instead of hiring bouncers? Anyway, it’s time for another festival, but Girl#3 was traumatized as a small child by an encounter with someone in an oni costume. Sadly, in the aftermath of explaining it, we get traumatized by the THIS IS COMEDY music.

Not having heard of trigger warnings, the other girls show up in paper oni masks to desensitize her to it. I disbelieve that Miss Solid Gold Mahjong Set somehow couldn’t get her hands on real masks, but that’s what they’re going with.

The big news items this week are that Girl#2 actually bounced (one ping only, and she had to punch herself in the boob to pull it off), and then they played mahjong.

Verdict: the character art was off in a number of scenes, so that bounce must have been expensive.

(yeah, this is perfectly innocent)

Nanoha season 1 bluray

Released at the end of January.

(what could possibly go wrong?)

“To dodging bullets”

Metallic Rouge goes full trainwreck. Called it.

iCyberpunk

Apple’s working on a mini-series for Neuromancer. This will not end well. Or begin well. Or, well, middle well.

Molesting Magical Girls, episode 9

Our Bustiest Magical Girl is still trying to overcome her forbidden desires, but it turns out that pretty much anything can flip her switch now. Meanwhile, Our Terrible Idol Singer and friend try for an exhibition rematch with Our Naughty Trio that ends up revealing secret things.

Also, “Oh, that’s where our bath scene went!”, say the girls of McPharma. Not that it ends well for Azure.

Verdict: having Baiser’s attempt to dominate Loco backfire was a nice touch. Kind of a “won the battle, lost the war” moment.

Shangri-La Frontier, episodes 1-20

Had some dead time, so I binged this. A bit shouty for my tastes, especially when Vanilla Bunny freaks out (which is often), but the girls are cute and the art and animation are pretty good. (they really can’t cut the budget too much for something that’s explicitly supposed to be the best VR game…)

Verdict: am I a bad person for wanting to see Chocolate Bunny’s human transformation?

The name’s the thing

Coming soon, your iTools .Mac MobileMe me.com iCloud AppleID will be your Apple Account. That oughta fix it.

In which the formerly-dysfunctional former-hero former-party throws down with the new kid, who just keeps getting worse. The real problem with this episode, though, is that they forgot to include bath scenes.

Verdict: if I’m going to put up with Wackjob Zealot Van and His Tiny OP Girlfriend, I insist that the girls bathe frequently.

(LLENN says, “show me the honey! or else!”)

Solo Repeating, episode 7.5

Clip episode; new material next week. Also, Crunchyroll just announced a two-episode documentary about the franchise, which strongly suggests that there should be more cours coming.

(after complaining about all the Jin-something characters in this show, I noticed that despite the subtitles calling Our Player “Jinwoo”, the japanese dialogue just has him as “Jin”; sigh)

The Apothecary Diaries, episode 20

This week, Maomao channels her inner Tanya Degurechaff while earning her Scooby Snacks, and any remaining ambiguity about Jinshi and Gaoshun’s manliness is removed. After tying up all the recent mysteries, it’s back to the harem, with Gyokuyo possibly preggers while the emperor tries to avoid knocking up the new gal. Who seems to be the well-informed scheming type; her plans might be subtle, but the show’s aren’t (“is this a foreshadow I see before me?”).

Verdict: much better than last week, although rehashing that mess cost them some points. Which they earned back when Maomao completely lost her shit reserve.

On Golden Pon

I found an actual “999 fine” gold mahjong set! The devil’s in the details, though, since the actual gold content is 0.1 grams per tile…

(no self-respecting dragon would settle for foil wrappers)

Frieren, episode 24

I kind of wish they’d made all these other mages interesting before demanding that I care about them. As it is, I can’t keep track of their personalities and powers from week to week.

Verdict: the only thing I really liked was Fern’s jealousy. If she reacted like that around her boyfriend, one or the other of them might figure out that he is her boyfriend.

Community Pon-Service, episode 8

Apparently all the opening dream sequences are based on a well-known video on how to cheat at mahjong. After that, though, this episode has even less to do with mahjong than usual, with Our Lead Girl being volunteered to produce thousands of paper lanterns for a festival on very short notice. Naturally the gang joins in, and the rest of the episode is spent making them, setting them up, and viewing them. The mahjong references are restricted to drawing the tiles on some of the lanterns, which means they continue the welcome trend of no man-face jokes.

But hey, it takes place over several days, and they wear different outfits; it’s hardly like anime at all!

Verdict: my greatest disappointment is that they completely skipped over the part where Our Goth Girl slept over; they immediately cut to meeting up at the parlor the next morning. On the bright side, they promised Our Poor Little Riiche Girl a pajama party…

Related, last week’s golden birthday present:

1. the only way to get the tiles out is to dump the box, which is sure to damage the table.
2. putting a handle on the case is kinda pointless, given the weight. It should have wheels.
3. the box lid is as deep as the base, which makes no sense whatsoever.
4. she paid to commision solid gold tiles, but then had them engraved and painted with the exact same design as a $50 Chinese-made set?

Speaking of which, here’s a copper mahjong set that is, to be blunt, gaudy crap. It’s also one of the many phony “vintage” sets being sold on etsy and ebay. As in, “vintage last Thursday”.

While we’re on the subject…

It seems that last year The Forces Of Evil attacked an American mahjong company for creating whimsical tiles. Apparently they were whitewashing and culturally appropriating an ancient treasure of Chinese culture (that’s barely 150 years old, was banned in China for much of that time, and has been modified continuously by pretty much every other country in the world for roughly 100 years). It should surprise no one that the only people outraged were upper-middle-class white women, which ironically was also the target market.

I wonder if they’d have been equally outraged by this sparkplug set or this anime character set…

In which Our Rejected Sub seeks martial counseling, Our Not-Evil-Just-Naughty Team meets their Actually-Evil Superiors and faces holy marshmallow hell, Our Terrible Idol Singer is severely punished for failure, Our Naughty Dom levels up and gets serious with Her Lying Mascot, and Our Gun-Crazy Weakest Tamer Panty Fighter grows up just a little.

Verdict: I approve of Loco Musica’s costume, her display of more jiggle in 30 seconds than an entire season of Pon No Michi (including the credits), and even the part where she strips while facing the camera, but there was nothing playful or fun about the whipping she took after that, which is not the sort that belongs on cheesecake. Villains gotta villain, sure, but no more of that, please; we get it, Evil Lord Is Evil.

(this week they brought out the big guns, and when I say big guns…)

Dear Adobe,

Why does Illustrator default to 1 decimal place of precision for SVG export when the tooltip says “3 is the best choice for most files”?

(four-eyed pony girls are four-eared as well!)