AES Ohio (formerly known in this area as Dayton Power & Light) is my local power company. I’ve gotten multiple opt-out-fast attempts to switch me to “green” electricity (almost as many as when I lived in California!), but this is a new one:

Introducing the all-electric Nissan ARIYA, now available for subscription or purchase with AES Ohio.

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This is like Shell renting Corvettes.

In which Our DFC Engineer ruthlessly teases, Our Mighty Heroine faces her fears, Our Vending Hero makes a new friend, Our New Friend doesn’t last long, Our Sexy Sorceress chickens out, Our Communication-Challenged Heroic Swordsman speaks a complete sentence, and our next-to-last episode sets up the final battle.

Verdict: not much animation, as usual, but at least one of the panned stills was of Lammis’ delightful figure, so there’s that. Hulemy’s tough-love big sister scene did a good job of character development for both her and Lammis. Bonus points for not making poor Lammis wet herself in terror; it’s an overused cliché.

(I’d say it was a little early for a Halloween-ish episode, but I just got back from the grocery, and that shit’s everywhere)

In which Lumps Are Exposited At Length, it’s That Time Of The Metaphor, and Remarkably Precise Rewards are earned, giving birth to Another Overpowered Skill that lets Our Family Hero share the wealth.

Speaking of birth, the family grew again when Ryota refused to allow a naive young girl to join That Abusive Party and reeled her into his gang instead. Turns out she has powers that are nearly as broken as his, having been (tada) born in the dungeon. While the anime dialogue does not clarify that her mother was actually pregnant before giving birth, the manga does, so she’s not a loot drop or literal dungeon spawn.

Once again reduced to comic relief, Our Easily-Satisfied Bunnygirl’s likely objection to the presence of Alice Wonderland (sic) is averted by the discovery that she doesn’t like carrots, so we don’t have to go down that rabbit-hole again.

As a side note, Alice’s voice actress has supporting roles in next season’s Tearmoon and S-Rank Daddy’s Girl, and was previously the lead in Novice Alchemist and McPharmacist And Waifu.

Verdict: if this sounds like it was rushed, I’ll point out that Alice first appears in the tenth manga volume, and they’ve flipped the story so she’s there before the big battle that’s probably going to end the season. So, yeah, even though she’s no more equipped to be a proper haremette than Our Perfect Wife Emily, they zipped through content to add another cute loli and her chibi pets.

(cute chibi pet is unrelated)

This week, Enter The Inhaler.

Our Restaurant Illuminati had a good idea: host an eating contest to draw in business, now that the town has been rebuilt. Well, it was a good idea, until they realized that Our Insatiable Pinkette Archer and Our Voracious Tasmanian Devils would be joining the contest. Our Vending Hero suggests one method of reducing the damage, but ends up also serving as the grand prize.

Rather than just stuffing her face for a day, winner Shui instead shows some real depth, taking Boxxo and Lammis to an orphanage to help out the less fortunate. This does lead to a bath scene, but she and Lammis are thoroughly covered with fluffy towels, and the closest we get to fan-service is Lammis taking off her jacket (not that I’m complaining).

Verdict: gosh, I wonder why the audience at the contest was so excited to see Our Health And Safety Officer’s swallowing technique…

Dungeon Drops, episode 9

The most important part of this episode was The Secret History Of Our Carrot-Addicted Comic-Relief Bunny, especially the part where it’s revealed that bowtie-bunny outfits are standard gear for the Hot Bunnygirl race, even the chibis. In other news, Our Eye-Catching Firestarter nearly starts a riot just by walking through town, and does incite a panic when Our Busty Receptionist With A Crush finds out she’s moving in with Our Quick-Shooting Hero. Also, Our Mighty Perfect Wife becomes the poster girl for Ridiculously Oversized Hammers, Inc.

Did I miss anything? Say, who was that little boy…

Verdict: expanding Eve’s backstory was a good choice.

(unrelated bunnygirl would fit right into chibi-Eve’s first party)

Re: Cutie Honey

Bluray now available. For those who missed this, back in 2004 they made a live-action Cutie Honey movie that was notable primarily for its opening credits animation, produced by Gainax (starts 1 minute in).

Which was promptly expanded into a three-episode OAV that was far better than the movie, and which featured Yui Horie as Honey.

(the live-action series was notable only for giving tasty model Mikie Hara her debut acting role)

Never let your domains expire!

Especially when you print them on the side of a product intended for children.

Guilty pleasures: pizza logs

Long ago when the world was young, Buffalo Wild Wings and Weck not only sold cheap hot wings to students at Ohio State, they also sold deep-fried pizza rolls that were simply awesome. You can find a number of recipes online that attempt to recreate that treat, but I never found anything sold commercially that worked. Until I stumbled on Pizza Logs at Meijer last week; they’re basically egg-roll wrappers stuffed with pizza fillings, so they’re longer and narrower than the old BW3 variety, but they’re darn tasty.

They apparently also come in taco, hot-wing, and apple-pie variations, which are probably equally addictive.

(in my nine years at OSU, I had many wings and pizza rolls, but never have I ever eaten weck; I don’t think anyone ate the stuff)

Boxxo’s Rival Can’t Communicate Either, episode 9

Unlike Our Vending Hero’s limited vocabulary, Our Special Guest Good-looking Cool Hero’s problem is the classic Komi. Note that his story is tamed down from the source material, where his magic sword was of the cursed and bloody type. It was a nice touch to show Lammis’ absolute confidence that no matter how powerful he was, he couldn’t possibly break Boxxo’s shield.

While they’re on the road together, Boxxo shows off new forms convenient for that time of the month, thanks to helpful exposition provided by the female tasmanian devil. Once the word spreads about 21st century feminine hygiene products, he’ll be more popular in town than ever.

There’s also an amusing post-credits vignette where the earlier chain-restaurant villains take advantage of Boxxo’s absence and the villagers’ gullibility.

Verdict: good clean fun, with both a washing machine and a car wash.

Gate manga, volumes 4-6

English translations released (4, 5, 6), one month after 1-3, which I kind of expected. The publisher hasn’t used Amazon’s metadata system to link them into a series, so you have to search by author.

The Demon King in the Back Row: Down In Flames

I always felt the anime (which covered the first five novels) was so rushed that it was basically a highlight reel, but I liked the characters. So, since the 13 light novels are on Kindle, I just read them.

TL/DR: the anime stopped at the correct point. There’s some Wacky Hijinks™️ in books 6-10, but not much in the way of interesting story arcs, and in the last three books the author ended up killing everyone off and destroying the entire universe, effectively making it all “just a dream”. He did allow Akuto to finally boink three of his haremettes (Junko, Fujiko, and one who wasn’t in the anime), but only in the afterlife, and then he wiped that out, too. (and, yes, the sex scenes were awkwardly-written tab-a-in-slot-b)

(unicorn chaser supplied by Rory Mercury)

The less you’re injured, the more it helps

When I was looking at first aid kits on Amazon, I found this nonsense:

Dungeon Drops, episode 8

Just because Our Fiery Beauty makes a living incinerating garbage doesn’t mean she enjoys being treated as garbage, leaving her wide open to Our Pistol-Packing Hero’s S-rank acts of kindness. A few warm fuzzies were all she needed to give her all in the dungeon, helping to save the day.

Meanwhile, Our Perfect Wife has outdone herself at god-tier cooking, managing to bake a celebratory layer cake over a campfire and somehow conjure up ice cream to go with it.

Verdict: looking forward to the first meeting between Miss Infatuated Inferno and Miss Innuendo Bunny.

(I’m not even looking for relevant fan-art any more…)

Re: Goblin Slayer

I didn’t watch this when it was new, and by the time I thought about checking it out, Funimation only had the dub. Surprisingly, post-consolidation, Crunchyroll has the sub and dub. Not really my cup of tea, and I don’t think I’ll watch the whole first season and the movie, which means I won’t be watching the upcoming second season.

Honestly, halfway through the second episode I stopped to check the wiki, to make sure that Cow Girl didn’t suffer the usual fate of females in this show (which is featured prominently in most fan-art).

(white-haired dark-skinned robo-swordsgal is unrelated)

So, this is a thing that exists…

Rise of the Outlaw Tamer and his Wild S-Rank Cat Girl manga. Remember the Beast Tamer anime, in which Our Taming Hero met a super-powerful catgirl who invited him to tame her, and then went around collecting a platonic harem of other super-girls with his vast array of OP taming powers? This ain’t that.

Instead, Our Taming Loser meets a half-naked super-catgirl in the woods who thinks his power is something special, so she wines, dines, and sixty-nines him until he agrees to tame her, and then they spend the night fucking. His taming prowess delivers on its promise to make her even more powerful, so she takes him out to tame a dragon and a spirit wolf, teaches him to borrow the wolf’s power so he can be an OP fighter like her, fucks him some more, then promises to help him tame the next haremette, an angelic healer with even bigger boobs.

(not even going to look for fan-art of this one, but to change things up a bit, I’m going with Princess Piña Co Lada instead of Rory Mercury!)

Pittsburgh: 75, Renter: 1

So, cops in Pittsburgh went to serve an eviction notice, as one does. The disgruntled evictee shot at them, as one does? Then a total of 75 cops surrounded the place and spent the next 6.5 hours in a shootout with him, as one does (seriously?).

Money quote from the county sheriff:

“all of us were strapped, you know, with ammunition, and we were calling for additional ammunition”

The evictee was killed, and all the cops (none of whom were shot) have been placed on administrative leave. There are plenty of questions about this event, but mine is simple:

where did all the bullets go that didn’t hit the evictee?

(I’m thinking the landlord kind of wishes he’d handled things differently, now that his property looks like swiss cheese)

Update: I linked another story in the comments, but it turns out that the initial description was wrong. He wasn't being evicted, because he wasn't renting; he was basically squatting in his dead brother's house, which had been sold off as part of his estate. Worse, it was a duplex, so there was a shared wall with the neighbor, making the spray-and-pray spree even more irresponsible on the part of the cops.

Boxxo Can’t Communicate, episode 8

In which Our Vending Hero combines several previously-seen forms to help the team beat a powerful foe, without killing them himself due to his communication difficulties. Bonus points for coming up with a way to send Our Mighty Heroine over the edge so she’d send him over the edge.

Verdict: missed opportunity to use Hulemy’s intelligence to explain his plan and why jumping down into the pit was a really bad idea.

Another possible for next season: Tearmoon Empire

The premise is simple: Princess Let-Them-Eat-Cake loses her head in a revolution, only to wake up in her past with a chance to fix things. Not for the sake of the people or the empire, but just because she really didn’t enjoy getting her head chopped off. No isekai transfer, overpowered magic, or monsters, just a bunch of human kingdoms in conflict, with a spoiled little rich girl at the center whose future knowledge might be enough to save her.

Reasons it might not suck? First, 10+ light novels worth of source material. Second, character designer and chief animation director of Demon Girl Next Door. Third, the lead voice actress played Aletta in Restaurant To Another World (same chief animation director for that one as well). Fourth, series composition by the gal who did Komi (and who also wrote more than half of the scripts).

(file under peculiar the fact that there are no blurays for Komi; even in Japan, the first season was a limited-edition crowd-funded release)

Unrelated,

I’ve been using Anime Schedule to keep track of what’s on and what’s coming up, but it seems they have a few blind spots, since they haven’t noticed yet that Uma Musume 3 is on the fall schedule. I didn’t watch the first two seasons, but I’ve enjoyed the pony-girl fan-art.

The Return of Rory Mercury…

The English translation of the Gate manga is suddenly being released for Kindle, years after it stalled out. The first three volumes were released on July 28 (1, 2, 3). No sign of the light novels (licensed by the same publisher), and the manga character designs aren’t nearly as fetching for the girls, but the story apparently goes well past the anime series.

(there’s always been some peculiar rejection of this series among reviewers, who seem to think it’s jingoistic, much like many of them thought the 2005 WWII film Yamato was hard-right imperialist propaganda; clearly they never actually sat down and watched)

Speaking of sudden releases…

More on Knight’s [sic] & Magic: apparently this mispunctuated series was actually a single-cour anime in 2017 that I never heard a single word about. The apostrophe comes from the official romanization of the light novels (or is it “light novel’s”? 😁), which were released from 2013-2017. No idea why it’s suddenly being released in 2023.