Oh, look, new mech-parts that we have no reason to be surprised about because we know nothing about this completely unrelated game world that’s filled with characters we have no connection to! Once the big CGI battle is finally over, the payoff is that $OPPONENTS have info about a quest chain in SLF, so Our Hero will be coming back to the game to play with The B Team for a while.

Where “a while” is probably the rest of this cour. Fortunately, it’s continuing next season, so we’ll eventually get back to the main story, and Our Bored White Rabbit won’t spend the next three months blowing bubbles.

Verdict: yeah, I know this is straight from the source material, but it doesn’t work for me at all. Juggling multiple games takes time away from characters we’ve developed an interest in, in and out of the game.

(yes, we have fan-art of the new bunny-enabled genki gal)

Speaking of bunnies…

Someone asked the question, “what if Shantae were a bowtie-bunny-gal?” The answer was “yum”.

Loner Harem, episode 10

This week felt both rushed and padded. Rushed, in that the clock is ticking on a monster stampede wiping out the town, but padded with a bunch of exposition and as-you-know-bob.

By the way, if the dungeon that Our Hijacked Heroes are currently in is the source of the stampede, how exactly are the monsters getting out, and how did Our Local Noble Gal and her single escort casually stroll through 54 floors to reach Our Class Rep to pass on the warning? This isn’t even a fridge moment, it’s absurd the moment they suggest it: “we need to send a warning to the gang clearing the dungeon, but we can’t spare anyone from the defense, so we’ll send the squishy girl, but she’s scared, so we’ll send one of the guys we can’t spare with her”.

Anyway, with two episodes left, I’m guessing Our Loner Hero will be quietly relaxing in the bath as the final credits roll when His New Girlfriend comes in to scrub his back, and he’ll finally get to see what he’s created.

Verdict: shouting, with occasional speedlines and pacing issues. FYI, I reviewed the first light novel, and the original count of students was 43; 12 got murdered before Loner killed Math Nerd, leaving 20 girls, 9 boys, and Loner. The anime hasn’t ever shown all 30 on-screen that I can recall, likely for budget reasons, which is also why the stampede defense force consists of about six guys.

(official cover art; come on, fan-artists, get with the program)

Cosplay Harem, episode 22

Daddy got his groove back. Also his wife. Our Cosplay Champions take a day to enjoy the show, with cameos from the entire Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pantsu. Then only Our Oblivious Couple shows up for the final day, so they end up thrilling the crowd with a costumed-couple cosplay date that gets both of them so close to acquiring a clue, until A New Challenger Appears and it turns into a non-canon threesome sure to incite fan-art. Next week, we get a beach episode, and hopefully Our Hot Teacher will come along to chaperone in a barely-there bikini.

Verdict: this gave off quite a few end-of-season vibes, so it was a pleasant surprise that it’s not over.

(but what was Mikarin thinking, wandering around on day 3 without her disguise? She is still a famous model)

Magical Working Girls, episode 9

It’s crunch time! With the fate of Tokyo Big Sight at stake, Our Introverted Engineer discovers the power of networking, both professional and wireless.

And then the plot thickens, with Our Magical Crossplaying Boss sharing an ominous moment with Our Greedy CEO.

Verdict: the flashback breaks the tension of last week’s cliffhanger, but it all works out.

GGO 2, episode 9

You’ll never believe this, but in the flash-forward to the next event (which is finally in a different format), Our Chibi Heroine is running around in a panic as the bullets fly. So, same-old same-old.

The good news is that this is followed by a real-world get-together of the Get LLENN club, consisting of the cute middle-schoolers behind the Amazon avatars. They are, of course, plotting their revenge in her apartment while munching on her snacks. I’ll quickly skip over the real-world relationship-building between Crazypants And Her Sub to get to the good part: Karen goes home to hang out with family and friends, and ends up sharing a bed with Her Gal Friday while wearing tight little booty shorts. Actual Karen-service for the win!

Once the event starts, Exposition Gal provides both service and an infodump; the game producers definitely know their audience. Next week, combat. This week, a new ED animation and song, both of which sucked.

Verdict: I’d have appreciated more downtime, but the reality is that since they started a new event, they’ll have to finish it in the next three episodes, leaving little time for more reality.

Echoes of Wisdom, main quest complete

Finally got back to this after two busy work weeks and a whole lot of Thanksgiving cleaning and prep. For the final dungeon, you have to give up all the skills you gained from using Link’s weapons (which means you should also ditch all the energy-restoring potions in your inventory) and puzzle your way to a really annoying boss fight.

It’s not difficult, just tedious, to the point that I ran out of patience with the repetitive combat (grab item, drag it, wait for Link to cut it) just as it reached the final round. At no point was it a fun fight where you could cleverly use all the echoes you’ve acquired.

The reward? A very long, completely unskippable cutscene and credits roll. This is not the first time I’ve wished for a quality-of-life update for this game:

1. add volume control for music, with OFF option
2. add faster text and more skip options
3. drastically speed up item crafting
4. add a don’t-grab-friendlies option, even if just for boss fights

The light novels and manga of A Nobody’s Way Up to an Exploration Hero haven’t been licensed, but I was curious enough about the source material to check out the available scanlated chapters of the webnovel and the manga.

The webnovel is pretty similar to the anime. Crush-chan’s missing daddy hasn’t been mentioned at all (at least up to the arrival of Our Shota Devil Chibi), so she doesn’t scold Our Hero constantly for going into the dungeon, which is refreshing. She does bully him into dates and go sub-zero when she finds out about Our Hot Naginata Gal and friends, but otherwise she’s been a very minor character so far. His two friends have a bigger role, getting back into dungeoneering and leveling up rapidly.

The manga is very different. First off, Our Busty Guild Gal is not only fan-service-enabled, she’s keeping a very close eye on Our Hero, including sending a spy into the dungeon to discover his secrets (because of course she’s more than she seems). Second, he takes Our Chibi Valkyrie’s card home with him and gets to sleep-visit her in her world, where she’s full-sized. Third, Our Chibi Demon Gal’s intro is completely different, with her initially showing up as full-sized fan-service with a vicious streak. Fourth, Crush-chan hasn’t even wandered over to say hello yet, but he’s already had a meet-cute in the dungeon with Our Hot Naginata Gal. Fifth, in her own world, Sylphy has a hot twintailed dark-elf maid (Luceria is living in a tree, and not in a good way).

Oh, and chibi Sylphy has huge barely-restrained boobs.

(and, yes, the safe behind his bed actually makes sense in the manga, because he stores the servant cards in it)

Unimpressive CG robot fights that depend on rules we don’t know, with a side order of as-you-know-Bob.

Verdict: blah-blah, get back to real game.

January: Hammer Of The Guild Gal

I May Be a Guild Receptionist, But I’ll Solo Any Boss to Clock Out on Time, in which a busty-beauty guild gal hates overtime so much that she’ll kill anything that gets in the way of her peaceful 9-5 life. The trailer promises gainaxing, lingerie, and a really big hammer.

Cuddly In Costume

Honoka Sasaki & Miku Kuwajima (site NSFW, raise shields and disable Javascript) with basic accessories.

Leoparde’s figure…

First snow

Not enough to do more than look pretty and make the roads a bit slippery, but, y’know, seasonal. All gone by this afternoon, until the next one.

Loner Harem, episode 9

Still teasing The Big Reveal, dividing time between a quick uber-boss fight, some very quick regular boss fights, Our Classmates struggling to handle a mid-range boss fight, and Our Local Noble Gal rounding up a posse to deal with a major monster breakout.

Verdict: at least we’re now getting a peek at Our Loner’s New Partner, with an eye to confirming her mammalian ancestry.

Stop Dragon My Heart Around, episode 8

It’s the night before the big battle, and Our Sleepless Heroes gather under a blanket to… stare out at the elf village. Fully dressed. With plenty of space between them. Dragon Boy isn’t even in the middle.

Verdict: they tried a little too hard to cover up the lack of animation with loud mood music, but it doesn’t matter. The story is boring because Dragon Boy can whip out any power the plot requires, and the promised cheesecake is barely a tease. It sends signals that it’s a harem comedy with a serious story, but it’s not delivering enough on any front, and frequently ends up whiplashing the tone. I’ve given this show more than enough rope to hang itself, and I’m out.

Cosplay Harem, episode 21

Finally, Daddy’s Big Scene, with plenty of screen time for Gal Gal’s Hot Mom. 20 minutes of self-pity and catharsis is a bit much, but the only thing they didn’t wrap up is how the crowd responded to Aria’s costume change.

Verdict: in another genre, Daddy’s Next Manga would include mother-daughter threesomes. I figure the fan-artists will cover that soon, now that we’ve seen Mom’s hotness going all the way back to her gal schoolgirl days.

(speaking of threesomes, hopefully the rest of the season will be spent jockeying for pole position)

Magical Working Girls, episode 8

…and here we are at Tokyo Big Sight again, with plenty of cosplayers magical girls on display. Hmmm, can we get Our Hot Teacher to cross over and show off her mouthwatering succubus magic? It’s a respectable job, after all.

Anyway, it’s Our Spunky Magical Gals versus the worst possible enemy: A Failed Trade Show Demo. And Our Socially Awkward Engineer faces his biggest challenge yet: An Overheating Laptop.

Verdict: no, seriously, but it’s all good. Bonus cute little magical nurse.

GGO2, episode 8

Well, that arc’s over. And we got an attempt at fan-service that was as half-assed as half of the final battle, where “charging toward the enemy” was just “zooming the character art while leaving the background alone”. Also, wrong fan-service girl; sorry, Real-Life Pito.

Verdict: they never really gave the audience a reason to care about this story. And it looks like they’re headed into another one without a break.

Forced cleaning

Thanksgiving will be at my house… next week?!? Time for some serious housework, at least in the public areas. I could call in a maid service, but I don’t think they have any Mysterious ones.

…and don’t call me Shirley

FYI, Anne of Green Gables has long been quite popular in Japan, one of the few things my friend Dan knew about the country (having spent time dealing with tour groups to Prince Edward in his misspent youth). So it shouldn’t be a surprise that there will be a new anime series next spring. From the brief description, it sounds like it will run for multiple cours.

(not planning to watch it; I’d rather have more Frieren)

Amazon Primer

The most useful announcement in this streaming roundup is that Amazon is folding Freevee into Prime, which means that I’ll finally be able to watch the newer Bosch seasons without ads. It never made sense to me that there was no way to watch Freevee shows without ads, no matter how much you paid the mothership each month.

Well below the fold is the announcement that Apple is losing a fortune on AppleTV+ and is trying to license their $20 billion in original productions to other services. Which means I might finally watch some of them. Now if only Disney and HBO would do the same…

(the only time I ever see television ads is when I’m in the barber chair, and it feels like Alex’s “treatment” scene in A Clockwork Orange; Amazon often tries to sneak one in when you start watching a show on Prime even if you pay the ad-free premium, but you can skip it)

Separate Rubbers

I mute every xTwitter account that displays an ad on my timeline, except for the truly obnoxious ones, which I block. They don’t provide any real management tools for these lists, so I can’t say how many accounts I’ve muted, but with an average of one ad for every 3 tweets viewed, it’s easily several thousand. Most are for products I’d never buy, sites I’d never visit, and people who wrongly think they have something to say that’s worth paying for, but many just seem like desperate cries for help.

Honestly, the one I came closest to engaging with was for an Etsy dealer advertising handmade bedside emergency condom boxes, and my only interest was in finding out if they were deliberately using the word “discrete” instead of “discreet” to name their product (and it was not a one-off typo).

Our Awesome Chocolate Bunny is allowed to get shouty when last week’s super-rare loot is delivered. Our Half-Dressed Hero’s overreaction is inevitable as well, especially when he catches up to what everyone in the audience figured out weeks ago: he can’t wear the powered suits just like he can’t wear regular armor.

Anyway, Our Lovestruck Cutie appears in the real world just long enough to remind us that she’s in the cast, and then it’s off to a completely different game that we currently have no investment in.

Verdict: giant robots = nothing but CG fights until this arc ends?

(this is not the last time the story will move to another game, sidelining Our NPC Bunnies)

Loner Harem, episode 8

What could possibly go wrong with allowing Our Loner Hero to acquire a “pheromone ring”? The question is mooted, however, when his extremely high luck sends him straight to the bottom of the dungeon to battle a Level 100 lich. Continued next week.

Verdict: they kinda cheated on the intro, but with only four weeks to go, they really need to bring in the last major character of the season.

(Leafa-chan is unrelated and not the least bit skeletal)

Poorly Conceived Dragon Harem, episode 7

Badly-staged full-episode battle with shouty scenery-chewing villains and long chatty lulls in the action, off-character art by the B team, melodramatic to-be-continued with surprise guest entrance, and a sexy new monster gal who doesn’t even move, let alone gainax. Oh, and they clumsily foreshadowed that Haremette #2 is more than human.

Verdict: is everyone in this world blind and stupid, not to have even one word to say about Dolan casually swatting down two demon generals while tanking a fallen god? We’re way beyond OP now. There’d better be a bath scene next week with The Goddess Of Skimpy Lingerie (who still hasn’t shown up yet), or I’m quitting. Also, was the fallen god’s line about another Dolan meant to imply that his human parents just happened to pick his original dragon name when he was born? Seriously?

(unrelated dragon gal is better than anything in this show)

Cosplay Harem, episode 20

The Power Of Friendship, Heatstroke, and A Training Montage. And a few LoL moments, including one that sets up Team Liliel’s day-two comeback. Next week, Dad?

Verdict: with all the brutal humid heat and sweating, you might think sexy cosplay outfits would become sticky and translucent, but you’d be watching a different show.

Magical Working Girls, episode 7

Our Collaborating Cuties are way out of their league, and as Cuddly Noob starts to panic, Cool Beauty smiles through the pain and calms her down just in time for the cavalry to arrive. In the form of Our Emotionless Super Pro, who handles the mutated monster so effortlessly that it triggers a quickly-resolved crisis of confidence.

Verdict: it’s a good thing that the monsters aren’t terribly aggressive, giving Our Heroines plenty of time to talk things over while they work. Bonus points for giving Robo-Pro a bluntly practical tech-wand.

GGO2, episode 7

This week, Our Psychotic Betrayer betrays the Betrayers, and if you didn’t see that coming, you weren’t paying attention. Although as much of a letdown as this season has been, you’re forgiven for not following it closely.

Verdict: with all the issues this sequel has, what’s the #1 thing they’re doing wrong? Not showing the actual people interacting. After only a brief real-world intro, it’s taking place entirely in the game, throwing away most of the character-building from the first season.

January: Isekai Slow Life With Amazon Prime And Catgirls

Jungle-cat girls, even, plus a busty blonde and a loli. One of the catgirls shares her voice with Bilac (and many other characters I’ve liked), the other has an extensive career in shows I never watched, and the busty blonde has previously adventured as Maple and Lammis (and also had lead roles in Iroduku, Zombie Land Saga, Wandering Witch, etc). Our Shopping Hero’s voice is instantly recognizable, since he basically has only one, and even the loli has street cred as Endro’s Mao-chan-sensei, so they’re hiring some actual talent for what looks on the surface like yet-another-cheat-isekai.

The Wrong Stuff

I ordered 5 boxes of 44 Special to feed to my GP-100. I received 5 boxes of 44 Magnum, which I can only feed to my T/C Contender, one at a time. Fortunately the seller promptly sent me an RMA number and return shipping label.

Meanwhile, in the Phillipines…

The “U.S. Post” texted me from Manila about a delayed package. Uh-huh, suuuuure they did.