Strike Witches was tasteful and restrained compared to this. Even the first season.
Sorry guys, but I’m going to have to judge this book by its cover, or to be more precise, this series by the first 15 minutes of the first episode, because that’s all I could take. Non-stop sexual innuendos about junior high girls is NOT cool. Continue reading
Well, if we had the season of the light novel a while back, this is the season of manga. It’s probably not unusual to see four manga made into anime in one season, but what is unusual about it is that I’ve been following all four as manga for some time. So without further ado, I shall enlighten everyone with my totally well thought out critique of these drawings, so just call me Mr. Manga.
Or not.
Continue reading
I was going to post this in a thread at Chizumatic, but realized it would constitute topic drift, and Steven hates that. But posting it here allows me to wander further afield anyway.
To Steven’s remark:
I think this is one of the big mistakes that mecha shows in general, and Infinite Stratos in particular, made. Ichika is being set up as a target of audience envy, not audience admiration. There is a degree to which he is admirable, but not enough, and the way all those girls throw themselves at him just isn’t plausible to me, even with a degree of suspension-of-disbelief.
Fantasy wish-fulfilment also isn’t the same as admiration.
Muon replied:
As for Ichika, he did demonstrate bravery in saving his comrades like Laura and even protected poachers at risk to himself. The other main reason for his attracting girls is hypergamy. Like Cecilia’s story in the novels, (Her father was a spoiled and timid man who had little influence both inside and outside the Alcott family which made her swore to never marry a weak man {A difficulty due to the shift in social status}), it will be almost impossible for the girls to meet men of equal status to themselves. Ichika’s their best shot.
I don’t think I’m being a misogynist in noting that, under the circumstances that existed, Ichika would attract girls like mad. He is the ONLY male in the world that can operate an IS, the strongest weapon known. He’s lucky not to be locked up in a lab somewhere, frankly. That many girls, one guy; Ichika is famous and a bit glamorous (whether he wants to be or not) — between endorsements, book deals, public speaking appearances (after he puts a little polish on), not to mention a government stipend/job), he’s set for life. Muon’s point is well taken. If you consider their “class” to be “IS operators, scientists, and technicians” he is the top candidate. The ones that wouldn’t be trying would go unnoticed among the ones that would be. He is, bluntly, the most eligible bachelor in the world. Even if they didn’t want to ‘sex him up’ most of the female students would be curious and want to know more about him. Remember, they were also after “Charles” too, during the pairs tourney. (And why she didn’t earn the hatred of every girl in the place after she outed herself, I’ll never know.)
The hard-to-believe part is the sheer quality of his harem. I think it may be one of the best (within it’s world-context) of any series. There are no weak sisters. There’s no loli; Laura and… um, whats-her-face-the-Chinese-girl are both DFC’s, but still 15 like the rest. Houki’s got issues, but unknown to her, Tabane is addressing them. Laura is a military commander (if of an oddball unit) and the German candidate rep, Cecelia (British candidate rep) and Charles are related to rich families and both notorious/famous themselves. Count it up: two childhood friends, the sister of the IS inventor, and three national rep candidates among the harem. For that matter, that a ‘stable’ harem would form is odd, rather than one girl being the primary partner. Then again, every one of them has or develops a reason to go for him, and given that level of competition, that’s a group that could pretty much close ranks and intimidate the rest. Note how Houki chased off the senior in episode 1, and she wasn’t even sure she was in the chase at that point. And don’t forget, there’s a third childhood friend who’s tested out on IS and will be his kouhai next year; she’s definitely got him in her sights too.
But the original point: Is Ichika admirable? Well… no. Frankly, he’s too much of a dumbass; that’s where the show loses out. There is NO WAY short of being retarded that he can miss the signals these girls are giving him. Whether it’s through Laura’s brazen naked wrestling, Charlotte’s subtle campaigning, or Cecelia’s doting, all the girls (even Houki) make it obvious that all he’s got to do is say the word, and they’re his. Yet he seems so oblivious, it can’t be an act. He’s only ever tempted once to kiss one of them. Dumb. Ass. The emotion Ichika engenders isn’t envy, it’s contempt. “Hey, moron, how can you be so blind and stupid — you’re hurting the girls, you idiot!” Hell, even Houki whacks him once or twice for being so dumb.
So maybe I do envy him a bit, but he’s too much of an idiot to be a hero.
You know we’re going to get hammered. Right here in Houston*. Doesn’t matter if it’s his lawyer, his priest, some kooky priest, or a headline grabbing psychologist, and it’s a major media market, so it will get play everywhere.
Anime made him do it! I’m sure that’s what they’ll say.
It’s going to sound like I’m piling on or being mean, but the truth is, I watched one of his reviews a few months ago, and that was one too many. He was incoherent, really didn’t give me a feel for the anime, and made few points amidst his rambling. I could barely tell whether he liked it or not. I said, “a doper, and what the hell is he doing calling himself Mr. Anime? I bet I have a better claim to that title. At least I can say why I don’t (or do) like a show!” And I promptly forgot about him until a few minutes ago.
Go search for him on YouTube before his clips are taken down, and you’ll see what I mean. This was a tragic, useless, and stupid triple murder, but the saddest part of it was this:
The Houston Chronicle talked to the aunt of the killed father, who said of Trey, “I’ll have to admit, he was quite strange. But naturally, I wasn’t going to tell Trey’s parents that he acts peculiar,” she said.
Way to go, auntie.
*(Well, technically he’s not from Houston, but a small town just beyond the metro area, but you wouldn’t know much of anything accurate from reading the article or watching local TV.)
Edited for additional clarity.
2nd Edit: Sorta puts my whine below in perspective, doesn’t it?
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I HATE THE FUCKING BUREAUCRACY!!!!!!
Which, given that I work for one, is really a bummer for me.*
Ubu has not been having a very good day.
*This message brought to you by the Society for the Prevention of Handicapped Parking Placard Disbursement, a.k.a. the Harris County Tax Assessor’s office, officious jackwads that should just go somewhere (if I suggest that somewhere might be “to fuck off and die” that might be taken as a terrorist threat, so I won’t do that), right along with the assholes who abuse the placards so much that the county does everything they can to not hand them out. The should be joined by the Harris County Health Department that has the most inept and snippy pharmacy crew I’ve ever run into. Hint: You don’t fuck someone’s order up and then tell them they’ll have to come back after its run out to get it fixed, then blame the customer for a series of mishaps and screw-ups caused by your own staff being inattentive and your own laziness in not wanting to fix it. At least they did fix it after I pressed the issue.
Update: Dr. Heinous is right. Too many parallels with where I work. See, we started it off by being too smart for our own good. Nii-san went to see the doctor, while I went to pick up the prescriptions that had already been called in. Both the clinic and pharmacy are in the same building, as it’s the county health department. (My brother does not have insurance). More efficient, for us, right? But they cut one of his prescriptions by 2/3 in error, and I didn’t notice. Someone unqualified coded it into the computer and didn’t understand why it was a 3-month supply, so they cut it to 30 days. I didn’t catch that — “2.67 refills.” Hilarious. I had no idea how many it was supposed to be, so cheerfully accepted the medicine and thought “all right, this is going to be a quick trip after all.” Oh, yes, I tempted fate; I did, I did.
Then the doctor added two more prescriptions (one of which they eventually lost and we said to hell with), and my brother pointed out the mistake. So I went back, and got a new number, intending to get the one fixed, and pick up the other two. This is when it really started spinning out of control. Apparently they have a whole different queue if you have more than two prescriptions. I had already picked up two, so since I was coming back for two more, so apparently I was supposed to be shunted to the slow lane because this was my third and fourth of the day. (I did tell the receptionist I was a repeat customer, but she wasn’t really listening). Effectively, I’d sneaked into the fast lane by splitting up the trips. Note there is nothing that explains how their system works anywhere; it’s a peculiar alpha-numeric system that I now see keeps people from realizing they’re being prioritized, instead of being handled first-in, first-out.
Bureaucracy does not like it when you outsmart them, even if it’s completely by accident.
So I get my fast trip back to the pharmacist’s window (the number is just to drop off the prescription, except when it’s phoned in as the first two were), whereupon I was informed that they couldn’t fix the prescription, he’d have to use it up and then come back. Then they blamed it on me for not checking it, and wanted to know “why didn’t you get it fixed the day you picked it up?” Excuse me? Same day? Try a half-hour ago???? So then the question changed to “why didn’t I check it before I left the window?” Move those goalposts, baby! Um, maybe because I’ve been picking up prescriptions for 35 years and this is the first time anyone ever CHANGED an order without clearing it with the patient or the prescribing physician first? (Other than substituting generic, that is.) Well, sorry, it can’t be fixed, Just have to use it up and come back for more. I pointed out that trying to fix the “2.67 refills” problem was going to be even harder in thirty days, when someone was likely to ask “why didn’t you get it fixed the day you picked it up?” Heh. Sorry, we can’t do it except by voiding your original purchase and re cashiering you out. Ok, I’m game for that. Nope, can’t do that, the transaction is final. Oh, okaaaaay, so what you’re saying is, if you had prescribed the wrong medicine, there’s no way you could have fixed that?
Bureaucracy does not like it when you outsmart them. They really don’t like it when you out-argue them. The second pharmacist (one I was then with) called over the first pharmacist (from the prior trip) and after some fussing, they pinned the blame on a third employee and started ranting about her doing something not her job. So they finally gave in…and then I asked about the other two prescriptions again — and that started the whole “you’re in the wrong queue!” argument. I was told I had to go BACK, and get another number (my third of the day) and come back for the other two prescriptions. Which they claimed to have only one (the other having been lost somewhere between the doctor’s office and the pharmacy.
We went another couple of rounds over that, and she finally decided I was not going to take a number, so they finally got on the stick and fixed almost everything; it took about ten more minutes. The fourth prescription was still AWOL, but it wasn’t critical; just a diuretic, so we blew it off and retreated with our victory.
Then we went to the Tax Assessor’s office and I’m not even going to discuss that one much, because 1) we didn’t win that argument, 2) they are rat bastards about handicapped parking at that office, and 3) I was so angry afterwards, I had to kick the truck a few times to keep from exploding, and calm down enough to drive home. THIRTY minutes in line, and they threw out the application because the doctor accidentally checked the wrong box!
“Look here, she fixed her error, initialed it, the notary initialed it, this is valid.”
“No, it’s not, if both boxes are checked we can’t accept it, because we have no way of knowing it was actually the doctor….This could have been added later.”
i.e.: she just accused me of falsifying a government document and lying about it.
Here’s the kicker: I was lying about it, but I didn’t falsify the document. See, you’re supposed to have the doctor sign the document in front of the notary, right? But how many doctors have a notary in their office? Especially a county health district doctor? And what notary is going to let you drag her to a doctor’s office or anywhere else, just to put their seal on the document? So the state made a series of conditions that individually make some sense (have the doctor sign it, have the document notarized), but in the aggregate are impossible to follow. (clarification: so the doctor signed it, then we had it notarized later. And yes, if you’ve got a friendly notary, they’ll do it for you even though they’re not supposed to.) And you wonder why I detest governmental power. Governmental power = abuse and illogic. Not leads to, equals. It will always result.
Well, as any follower of Chizumatic or Bridgebunnies knows (I do still have more than two followers, right?), I’ve been somewhat upset with the abrupt ending of Mahou Sensei Negima. I am not exaggerating or engaging in hyperbole when I say that the ending was a complete abortion. Right up until about six issues ago, it was obvious that Akamatsu-sensei was still plotting the series through a multi-year run, and he had plenty of stories to tell. The number of loose ends and new plots unfolding were enough to keep the manga going for at least another 3-5 years. I did see signs that he was getting tired of it — Negima has been going for nine years now, after all. 
On the Legend of Maian, it appears that the scanlators were just waiting on the next tankoboun (sp?). I suspect that crowds threatened to burn down Kim Dal Il’s house or something, because Felix is suddenly acting a lot more reasonable. As before, spoilers below the fold.
About three more issues have been posted so far, all continuing with the grim and dramatic storyline — minimal humor. One of the new characters appears to be taking the place of Felix as the useless noob, whereas Felix himself has obviously taken a level or two in badass. He is still somewhat of a jerk in the new issues, but not as homicidal; now he’s talking sh*t but actually behaving semi-reasonable. Felix has met up with the new characters, one of whom I strongly suspect is another Knight of the Eleven, and the other two being a brother-sister pair, of which the brother is the noob. We get a few clues as to what happened at the end of the prior battle, but Felix’s reasonableness evaporates when one of Dhia’s armies unexpectedly shows up at the city where they’re at, led by two of his four lieutenants.
Said army is getting the whole “rape, burn, pillage” thing in the right order (gotta love competent subordinates), and Felix gets involved when the noob gets in over his head trying to help a soon-to-be victim of objective #1. Things quickly escalate, and it’s obvious that Felix took more than just a couple of levels in badass. Then Dhia’s right-hand man, er, woman shows up, and of course its Felecia. She’s being ultra-loyal to Dhia-sama, prompting Felix to go “Honorifics? YOU?” And then all hell breaks loose, and pity the army caught between them, because Felix hasn’t taken a level, or two, or ten in badass — he is badass incarnate; more precisely, he’s the War God incarnate, because over the last several years, his powers seem to have fully manifested. He may even have the upper hand on Felicia — everyone else, including the lieutenants and possible Knight had best clear the area, quickly.
So, what do I think? I still liked the pre-disaster story way better. I think the baby isn’t Dhia’s; it’s Felix’s, which is why Dhia is having it fostered out. I think Kim wanted a time skip so he could power up Felix, and I think he barely avoided being lynched over the way he did it; which is why he toned Felix down and put him and Felicia back together, even if as opponents. I think this is the type of story that Kim is more comfortable with, and we’re probably not going to get the comedy back. The noob and his sister are supposed to supply it, but they’re just pointless sidekicks for now.
The problem with this type of story is that there’s really only a few directions it can go.
Yeah, right. Like that’s gonna happen in a Kim dal Il story.
Ok, gotta run, but I hope to be back later this weekend with something on the new anime this spring based on a couple of manga I’m currently reading: Tasogare x Amnesia, and Sankarea.
