Killer Maid, episode 4

Okay, so Our Emotionless Hot Maid shows up at school as a new transfer student claiming to be Our Hapless Hero’s cousin, gets assigned the seat right in front of him, and calls him by his first name with a -sama attached, and after a single reaction shot, the only other thing that happens at school is the well-worn trope of students stampeding for the lunch special, which doesn’t interest her until she finds out that it’s all about her special sauce, and then she performs multiple super-human feats to cut in line.

Verdict: when Our Manic Pixie Little Sister decided to push for maid/master matrimony, I stopped watching and went off to do laundry. I don’t plan to come back.

(how well-worn is the trope? well, this week is apparently also Ryoga’s intro in the new Ranma show, and school-cafeteria-food-fight is the origin of their rivalry…)

(oh, and while she was technically wearing less as a student than as a maid, this amounted to a few square inches of skin exposed below her neck)

Shangri-La Frontier 2, episode 3

This week, Our Heroes steal a page from That Slime Show and spend the entire episode sitting around a table telling us how good it’s going to be when they get back to actually playing the game. It’s well-drawn but drawn-out, with comic relief coming from Our Animal-Loving Animalia molesting Our Formerly-Pure White Rabbit into a catatonic state.

Verdict: basically an entire episode of exposition and plotting, filled with reaction shots of characters reacting to said exposition.

(admittedly, I am curiously attracted to Animalia, and unlike Our Awesome Chocolate Bunny, she’s at least in the ED animation, so she should be showing up more this season)

Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

The late Shamus Young often ranted about his hatred of “do it again stupid” game design, something I share. This game is full of it, with many of the puzzles forcing you to figure out a solution while dodging bullets, and Zelda is very squishy while most of the enemies are decidedly not. It’s notable that Breath of the Wild had only one major puzzle that had to be restarted from the beginning if you made a single mistake, and that’s in the DLC.

New Mac failure mode

Something I hadn’t seen on any Mac before: the mouse stopped hovering. In every app where there’s some kind of mouse-hover support (including Finder), it just… didn’t. Elements in apps were no longer being informed that the mouse was hovering over them. No tooltips, no scrollbars, no pop-ups, no menus, no video controls, no full file names, nothing. I had to reboot to clear it up. In fairness, I doubt that there’s anyone in “QA” any more who tests how the system behaves after being up for a full month.

(elf-hover > mouse-hover)

This Is Magia Country!

This may be the most accurate depiction of an anime heroine ever committed to 3D, courtesy of the Molesting Magical Girls xTwitter account:

NSFW

This one definitely does not belong on the shelf behind my work computer that shows up in Zoom meetings. I can explain HoiHoi-san, Totoro, Jiji, The Tick, and an assortment of Funko Pops, but not Magia Baiser riding her crop.

Loner Harem, episode 5

This week, Classmates Without Benefits, as Our Harried Loner is henpecked into submission. He also reluctantly rescues Our Local Noble’s Daughter and destroys her mind. And Our Class President accidentally makes him even more over-powered, despite his inability to level up and officially become an adventurer.

Verdict: fluffy, but shouty. I have to cut the volume to enjoy the lite cheesecake.

(well-eared schoolgirls are loosely related)

Super Dragon Balls, episode 4

Story-telling pro tip: when you’ve already established that your hero is ridiculously powerful and basically unstoppable, it takes more than melodramatic music and villain monologing to establish a credible threat. That is, this week’s episode was complete horseshit. Also a real tonal whiplash, with a side order of “what’s wrong with that guy’s face?”.

(well-equipped dragon gal is unrelated)

Cosplay Harem, episode 17

I love it when a plan comes together… in lingerie. Gal Gal has a tendency to start stripping before remembering that Our 2D-Loving Hero is in the room, while Tsuntail would be delighted to show him anything he wants. Awkward Gal is rapidly filling in her social-butterfly bucket list, while Our Cuddly Heroine takes charge of team building to get ready for the big game. And then A Wild Cliffhanger Appears, which should send us off into trauma-land next week, sigh.

Verdict: the only thing missing this week, and it’s a big thing, is the support of Our Hot Teacher. Okay, two big things.

GGO 2, episode 4

This week, we spend time being reminded that the other teams from last season have some skills, too, before The Big Twist is revealed as a cliffhanger.

Verdict: paint-by-numbers stuff, really; I got far enough into the light novels that I know everything that will happen this season, but even if I didn’t, I doubt it would be much more than filler.

(original SAO Second-Best Girl never got nearly enough screen time)

Ero-Zelda…

All Zelda emotes from Echoes Of Wisdom.

(this is basically a reskin of Link’s Adventure with a Zelda PoV and the sort of powers he got in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom; she gains the ability to fight occasionally, but the primary focus is on summoning monsters and objects to solve puzzles)

Good, fast, and cheap

I’ve had good results with Zenni Optical in the past, but my latest order looks like the best yet. First, they’ve improved their frame-preview system that uses your webcam to overlay the frames on your head in 3D, allowing some amount of movement to check style and apparent size. It didn’t work on Safari and it can show some frames comically oversized if you don’t manually enter pupil distance, but it does work, whether you’re wearing your current glasses or not.

Second, I ordered two pairs on Tuesday night, and FedEx delivered them on Friday by noon. That was much faster than I expected, and it turns out their lab is about a 90-minute drive away.

Anyway, I’ll have to go to the range this weekend to see how the split-prescription shooting glasses work out.

No Longer Catgirl

I recently joined my parents for a wine dinner at their favorite restaurant (TL/DR: I don’t care much for wine, but I actually liked the Zilliken Rausch Riesling). We were joined by three family friends, including a couple whose daughter had just turned eighteen. While her dad picked my brains over where to take her in Japan for her graduation present, her mom shared one of her recent papers with my mom. Mostly to show that she’d survived a modern public school education and learned to read and write coherently.

Later, Mom shared the title of the book with me, and I had to laugh: No Longer Human (Ningen Shikkaku). I told her I was pretty sure I knew how an 18-year-old interested in Japan and anime had discovered that book…

(side note: my mother has an interesting relationship with the chef; he’s young and ambitious, but has learned to respect her knowledge, and sits at her knee after these dinners to learn what he got right and wrong)

(classical reference)

If we make it to January…

…we get more Maomao. With luck, we’ll still have Western Civilization as well.

We’ll also get Behemoth…

TL/DR: half-nekkid busty elf and friends who really like her kitten. This is definitely based on the manga, since the light novels collapsed after only two volumes.

(unrelated half-nekkid busty elf chick is half-nekkid, busty)

Age-old problem

Massad Ayoob’s advice for people having trouble getting crisp front-sight focus with pistols as they get older is to have reverse bifocals custom-made, where the reading prescription is on the top. My eye doctor’s advice on Sunday was to just go to Amazon and buy stick-on bifocal lenses and optionally trim them to cover just the part of your glasses that you use for sighting.

Ayoob talks about using your reading prescription, but the doc recommended using a computer prescription (diopter = NV-ADD / 2, rounded up to nearest 0.25; add to Sphere for dedicated computer glasses). Of course, Ayoob was talking about wearing them out in public, while I just want want them on my range glasses (which are safety glasses from Zenni).

Another idea comes from Good Glasses, which recommends splitting your prescription, putting your computer prescription in the dominant eye and distance prescription in the other.

My concern with the stick-ons is based on my historical inability to get window film to cling properly with no bubbles, and some reviews I’ve read have matched that experience.

(in addition to the new prescriptions and shooting advice, he also had some interesting reloading recommendations for light revolver loads for kids)

(related, his office is attached to a Costco, and while I gather that in some states their stores post no-gun signs, that is not the case in Ohio)

Bye-Bye Earth, the novels

Translation of the first one coming in April. I don’t know if I’ll be willing to take one for the team, but it would be nice to find out if the adaptation was bad, or if the source material was incomprehensible dreck, too.

How to sell an American SF novel…

Sexy catgirl with a blaster.

(this is not your daddy’s C’Mell)

(classical reference)

Clumsy Killer Maid, episode 3

So, the “clumsy” part seems to have evaporated into a generic “has no housekeeping skills”, but thanks to the arrival of Our Surprisingly Accepting Super-Genki Little Sister (who lives with the parents that I thought were out of the country or some such; I don’t care enough to rewatch the explanation of why Our Trashy Hero lives alone), Our Withdrawn Maid is coaxed a bit more out of her shell.

Verdict: well, at least next week she’ll finally be wearing less…

Since Maid isn’t a simulcast…

…and my brother and his kids had just left, I killed some time by watching the first episode of the new Ranma. As expected, I was left with no desire to watch the second or third. The only thing notable is that at some point in the past 35 years, the voice actress for middle daughter Nabiki lost the ability to sound like a teenage girl.

(I think it’s extremely unfair to start the OP with a gong and then go into a song that’s nothing like the original)

Shangri-La Frontier 2, episode 2

Our Awesome Chocolate Bunny just met Our Hero’s Partners, but she’s a perfect match for their combat style. Pity the fight that takes up so much screen time is obviously going to be no challenge for them, but at least it gives us another chance to see her in action before she gets sidelined by the plot.

Verdict: I’d be up for a Bilac spinoff series.

Loner Harem, episode 4

Just to be clear, despite a crush so obvious it can be seen from space, Our Class President is not on the fast track to becoming Our Wacky Loner’s girlfriend. That role is reserved for a Very Special Native who’s probably 3-4 episodes away.

Verdict: I’m pretty sure now that they’re working from the manga, so the story will not degenerate to the point that you wonder if the author is working one-handed, as it has in the recent novels where Haruka’s internal narration consists of equal parts insanity and porn. His antics still lead to excessive shouting, though, which has to be weighed against the very mild fan-service.

(flying crazy person is… loosely related, come to think of it)

Super Dragon Balls, episode 3

“Well, hellooooooooo, Goddess! Please visit again soon!”

We’ll just gloss over the part where Our Totally-Not-OP Hero reveals another ridiculous power, and move on to the part where Our Cool Lady Knight duels Our Hot Village Guard with swords, then Our Rowdy Captain with… his wife’s freshly-squeezed milk, a story which is framed by the laziest hot-elf-in-underrim-glasses that I’ve ever seen.

Then Knight Gal gets to be the taste-tester for the fresh teen cowgirl, plants her tuber, summons the sylpheed, and testifies for the defense.

Verdict: The days are just packed. It made less sense than last week, but added more scenery, so we’ll call that a wash.

(pity the OP song sucks, because it has nice previews of the haremettes)

Cosplay Harem, episode 16

So, it turns out that the first rule of Cosplay Club is that you’re not really a member until you’ve gotten a squeeze of Ririsa’s boobs. When Tsuntail gets back into the story, she’s got to get a handful; it’s the law. As enticing as that sounds, this is a show where having three cute girls standing around in lingerie insisting that the other two have better bodies just kinda goes by without lots of closeups and lingering pans.

Anyway, this week is all about indoctrinating Gal Gal into otaku culture and how to dress up as more than “generic hot chick”. The brainwashing works just fine, but then Awkward Gal discovers her deepest, darkest secret, which fires Chekhov’s Gun so quickly your head will spin.

Verdict: getting too shouty, but still decorative.

GGO 2, episode 3

While Our Heroes are waiting for the tide to come in, Yes-I’m-A-Girl-Loving-Girl Clarence and I’m-Totally-Into-This-Now Shirley run wild, killing anyone who gets in their way. Until they get in each other’s way. Next week, Our Middle-School Rhythmic Killing Team takes the field.

Verdict: there’s really no emotional hook this season, no stakes beyond just watching familiar characters play the game. I mean, Shirley has a goal that’s led her to not just play the game but get really into it and have fun, but we just covered her entire story arc in one episode, and it’s done; we won’t see her again until Squad Jam 4.

Harem Ninja Team Gainaxin’

Coming in January to HiDive, I’m Living With An Otaku Neet Kunoichi.

Food for thought

Um, wha?

“order now on DoorDash and enjoy authentic Japanese cuisine, like their popular crab rangoon”

Grid of thirds

JetPens has an interesting kanji practice notebook, with a useful feature I hadn’t seen before: thirds markings. It has the usual half-grid lines, but also dots at the thirds to help you balance characters that aren’t split evenly. Naturally I immediately cloned this feature into my Perl script and made a PDF to try it out.

Explaining The Lost Dangerous Visions

So, The Last Dangerous Visions is out, finally completed after Harlan Ellison’s death by executor J. Michael Straczynski. I’m working my way through the stories slowly, but I thought I’d comment on JMS’ intro and explainer, in which he gives a brief history of his close relationship with Ellison over the decades. What explanation does he give for all the delays, broken promises, and outright falsehoods that surrounded this project?

TL/DR: Ellison was manic-depressive for his entire adult life and not only refused to recognize it for most of that time, but held off on seeking treatment until way too late.

Yup, that’d do it. I don’t discuss family here much, but I am very familiar with what happens when a bipolar person goes off their meds, and it maps well to Ellison’s reported behaviors. I would never have tried to diagnose him myself, since I was only ever in the same (large) room with him once, and his behavior that hour was quiet enough that I only knew he was there because he loudly harrumphed upon learning that C.J. Cherryh had just written a Lois & Clark tie-in novel. The crowd’s oh-Harlan reaction was louder than he was.

How are the stories so far? Pretentious twaddle from a vanished world where the Left still thought their ideas were “edgy”. Some of them have the excuse of having been written decades ago by people who died waiting for Ellison to publish, but others do not.

My-HiME, revisited

Not by me, I haven’t lit one up in years; the original show just had its 20th anniversary. The busty and titular heroine Mai was easy on the eyes, and the spoiler-heavy episode previews they inserted for the DVD release led off with a memorable slow-pan of her in lingerie, but the story was a mess, with too many heroines and too many mechs and too many easily-killed keys/hostages. Much of this was due to the fact that the original manga was more of an action/harem story centered around Tate, who got some memorable “unlocking” offers from various girls.

The second and third series were better planned out.

Unrelated, “secondhand smoke” was always bullshit

…and the American Cancer Society finally agrees. Yes, cigarette smoke is foul stuff. Yes, constant exposure has an impact on people with respiratory conditions. Personally, I’ve always rated it right up there with “excessive hairspray” for interfering with my breathing, and second only to pot for leaving rooms and clothing reeking.

Pipe smoke, on the other hand, is potpourri.

Clumsy Killer Maid, episode 2

Baby steps this week, as Our Emotionless Killer Maid is confronted with her induced trauma about vicious wild dogs, with the gentlest, squishiest trigger imaginable. I’ll give even odds that the person who left the puppy at their door was also responsible for sending her there, and that we’ll be seeing more surprise events that help her adjust to normal life.

As for her potential emotional range, the voice actress was also responsible for the super-genki lead in Bakuon!!, so there’s plenty of headroom there.

Verdict: she’s warmed up just a little, enough that I’ll give it another week.

Shangri-La Frontier 2, episode 1

I could do without hearing the OP song ever again. Other than that, the recap is brief, and they quickly pick up where they left off, with Our Birdbrained Hero tackling a new area with two bunnies and a cat. Our Would-Be Romeo Cat clumsily woos Our Awesome Chocolate Bunny, but still contributes significant combat power. Our High-Strung White Rabbit mostly panics, but manages to take out a few exploding golems.

The Sunraku/Bilac dynamic gives me hope that we’ll see a lot of her this season, but I suspect this arc is the only time we’ll really get to see her shine. I was sad that she wasn’t in the ED animation.

Verdict: off to a good start, with Our Frenemies showing up at the end with mischief in mind.

Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred

With all the classes overhauled and the loot rescaled, the seasonal content is fine, and fresh enough to be worth playing. As for the $60 DLC, the first problem is that you can’t skip the story quests on a new character until you’ve completed the whole thing at least once. Which is the second problem: the story is slow, boring, filled with unskippable gibberish (excuse me, “ancient language”), and padded out with tons of mindless mook fights. Spoiler alert:

In the base game, you only needed to get through the prologue once, and all future characters had a fully unlocked world. Here, they’re determined to make you sit through their writing and voice acting. There are some tedious scenes you can skip, but not enough. IMHO, if they wanted players to care enough about Neyrelle to make her the emotional core of the DLC, they shouldn’t have introduced her as an annoying omnicompetent snarky teen sidekick in the base game.

“As I was going to St. Ives…”

A group of researchers tested LLM solutions to grade-school math problems, and reached the obvious conclusion that they weren’t capable of mathematical reasoning, being trivially tripped up by injecting variety into straightforward word problems of the type used to train them. Simply changing up the numbers reduced the success rate, but adding irrelevant clauses really killed it. They basically stumped the “smartest” LLMs with MadLibs.

(via Language Log)

Loner Harem, episode 3

The mild fan-service compensates for the shouty freak-outs. Mostly. Our Hero shows off some very mild examples of his unsane view of the world, and proves his trustworthiness by not assaulting the girl who comes into his tent to announce that breakfast is served. (a low bar, sure, but one not cleared by Team Delinquent)

Verdict: decorative, but still very early in the first arc.

Super Dragon Balls, episode 2

I don’t know which is harder to believe, that the village women are happy with their men lustily drinking milk freshly squeezed from the local busty cowgirl (whose daughter looks ready to tap), or that Our Formerly-Draconic Hero has lived sixteen years as a human boy without getting slapped silly every day by the village girls for his clueless behavior. Fish-out-of-water comedy doesn’t really work when the fish is in the water.

Verdict: the premise is already wearing thin. Seriously, this can’t be the first time he’s seen a villager in danger and thought, “oh, no, I have to use my dragon speed to save him”, but they keep setting up situations where he behaves like a dragon disguised as a villager, Clark-Kenting his way through life.

(white-haired dark-skinned dragonette is unrelated, but easy on the eyes)

Cosplay Harem, episode 15

Good news! Gal Gal doesn’t unload her psychological baggage on us. Bad news! Because we spend half the episode dealing with Awkward Lass’s residual trauma. Super Cuddly’s just happy to embrace another cosplayer, while Busty Pro and Hot Teacher mentor the team. We’re also given a hint about The Secret Adventures of Soft Gay and Ambiguous Woman; he’s another teacher at their school who Looks That Way, and she(?)’s an old friend who runs a photo studio that is conveniently free for noob cosplayers.

Verdict: it ends right before we get to see Gal Gal strip down and suit up for photos, so we still have no idea what her costume is; also, no one remembered seeing her at last week’s event. I kinda wish they’d spent some time with Tsuntail before adding two more girls.

(I’m going with a League of SuperPlayers naming theme this week, because there’s a callout to The Avengers assembling)

GGO 2, episode 2

The OP animation needs a seizure warning. Also an explanation of why there’s a flash of LLENN in barely-there lingerie; not the service I was looking for. Now, if they’d swapped that with the tank-top-and-shorts outfit Karen’s wearing in the ED…

Anyway, on to the gun-service, as we jump right into the fight, with all the well-known teams separated to the far corners of the field, and nameless mooks sacrificed to the gods of bullet hell. Next week, two side characters get developed.

Verdict: a good chunk of this is wasted on a CG-heavy extended dance mix of last week’s “LLENN runs away while being shot at by everyone” sequence, which is also quite shouty. Meh.

(a few hours late showing up on Crunchy)