I watched a review and read a summary of it and it sounds boring. But I didn't even bother with the first one. "Lee"?  What's with the "Lee" thing?  What the fuck was wrong with "Harley"?

Totally random but I finally installed the Chrome extension that makes Google images fucking viewable again. Instead of, you know, a tiny box in the corner which ruins the point of even searching for images of shit.

When Maggie Smith died, I mentioned her to my boss and he went on and on about how he hadn't seen Harry Potter. My boss is old and Maggie Smith had a long-ass career, so I was initially surprised he didn't know of anything else with her in it.  To be fair, the man admits he doesn't watch a lot of movies. He literally has never seen OT Star Wars.

So last Saturday was finally the last episode of Yatagarasu... it was Pompoko all along! I hope the original novels get translated into English. I wasn't crazy for the monkeys as I was the court drama but ultimately this show still ends up a solid A, monkey warts and all. I hope we get another season.

Thought he was gone already. Some people at work side-eyed me when I said that one.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Eh. It was okay. Way too many subplots. In fact, it was nothing but subplots, with no real main throughline. The "threat" spends the entire runtime searching for Beetlejuice, only to be vanquished almost immediately in the final act.

Almost as if the writers held a brainstorming session and didn't really land on any one great idea, so they just settled on throwing in all the middling ones.

I'm kind of baffled by the mostly positive reception it's getting. Maybe "good enough" is enough for some, but I certainly wouldn't call the movie good.

Any cool visuals in it? Or a snazzy musical number?

So "Electric Avenue" by Eddy Grant was playing on the radio and Schmoo was all "who is this?" I was all "Eddy Grant" and she's all "but WHO is he?" Like, damn, woman, people can perform songs without being anything other than a singer/musician. So I looked him up and he was part of this band called The Equals that had the below hit song. It's kinda catchy but she doesn't recall it in the least. I mean, it came out in 1967, she shouldn't expect me to remember it:

My plan today was to binge stream anime on my favorite streaming website since I'm on bedrest. I don't have Covid nor flu, just, er, *looks at paper* "viral illness." So I guess just a rando virus or rando flu or some shit no one cares about. Got a bunch of meds, got cozy, and found the site died.

When you think about, it's mindless flailing. Pirate sites just helped dispense the content. They didn't make it or host it. Netflix or whoever would be better served finding and throwing the book at the people who actually took and released content. But whatever, these things happen and these types of sites will all be replaced anyway.

Record of Lodoss War came to mind, I guess, but I'd argue just your point: it didn't need a specific anime style. Visually, it just needed good artwork and animation.  You could insert Harley Queen from the SS Isekai into that trailer and she would not look out of place standing next to that chick. Gross.

Also, I think the massive leaks this month caused a big pirate crackdown and it murdered a bunch of streaming sites.

I tried to watch the first series or whatever like years ago. Possibly when Netflix had DVDs of it. I don't remember a damn thing other than being kind of bored and not liking the wolf girl. But I couldn't tell you why.

Is the Of because of a show with a similar title? Or something you associate with the word 'spice' in particular?

Oh, and I've watched some of that Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in русский. I thought it had a really good first couple of episodes (even with the dumb panty shot) but as it progressed, I kinda found I liked it less. The dynamic between the girl trying to be a secret flirt and the guy understanding her was cute. I also liked the slacker lead with potential who's not into student council. But then, wait, he's not a slacker but a secret hard-worker from a rich familia and, wait, he actually will join the council. Now it's a student council drama introducing a bunch of dumb stock characters and that makes it rote. I don't give a shit. Imagine if My Dress-Up Darling became Marin and Gojo running for student council four episodes in. Fuck off, that's boring. And while Masha is an A+ sister, Yuki goes straight into the dumpster. Get that brocon bullshit away from me.

I'm sick with Covid or some Covid-like thing right now so I looked for something current I could marathon while resting. I pulled up I Parry Everything. I guess I'd give this like a B-.

Pros:
-It doesn't look completely visually terrible like Dahlia in Bloom. There's of course scenes with weird cheapo shortcuts like most shows these days. But the old people look like old people.

-MC's a nice guy who loves to help others. Visually, he's a good deviation of the generic MC design: he's stockier, has visible scars, and the design of his clothing fits the environment and his station in life. (Unlike, say, the "love interest" in Dahlia in Bloom.) He's also a hard-working guy, even in the face of failures. He jumps forward or rushes in instead of waiting for the story to happen to him, which I like.

-The female MC is okay. Her dad, brother, and guardian also appear to be decent characters.

-Oh, and this is not an isekai.

Cons:
-Generic anime fantasy world is le boring.

-He kicks a dragon in the face. "Parry!"  He hits sticks in the air.  "Parry!"  This looks less like parries and more like he attacks and shouts "parry."  I guess it can be funny at times but sometimes it just comes off as weird.  Also, why is he shouting the word "parry" everytime?

-The way class training is done in this world feels way too video-gamey. "I'm going to be a thief."  "I'm going to be a warrior."  "I'm going to be a hunter." And then he just went to the front door of wherever and they let him in.   

-The MC being a bit of a dunce ranged from mildly funny to just plain stupid. *sees Minotaur* "That cow's gone crazy!"

-The story does what I call Lost flashbacks where you meet a character and then we need their fucking backstory. Honestly, I forwarded most of these. These are boring. Juni Taisen was the only show that I feel did that type of thing well. Why? Because usually the subject of the flashback was going to die, like, immediately. So it was a nice reversal to have their flashback hyping them up and then to have them taken out in what was usually an unexpected way.
   Here, like, the MC fights the arrogant spear dude and then the arrogant spear dude tells his backstory of being an arrogant spear dude. We meet guardian knight lady and then need the guardian knight lady's flashback of how she became a guardian knight lady. We meet abused child slave and get the abused child slave flashback of being an abused child slave. This is all useless information because these flashbacks are shallow and we already have enough context in the present day story to understand these characters to the extent the flashbacks want us to do so.

-That MC energy. What I mean is that various characters in the story remember the MC from seeing him as a child over ten years ago despite not knowing him that long. I let it pass with the guild master but now this story wants to tell me various masters of the schools the MC flunked out of remember him, too? There's a shield dude in the knight lady's flashback that's all "I wish MC was here." What?  W-Why?  He flunked your school as a child over a decade ago. Excuse me?

Watched what was available of Dan Da Dan and it's pretty good. I wasn't sure if I was going to like this or not, especially when granny appeared wanting dicks or whatever. But it's pretty damn good, flashy, and engaging with flawed interesting characters. It's a great palate cleanser for "Retread 1/2", I mean, "Redundant 1/2", I mean "Kasumi-is-adorable-and-you-shitters-couldn't-do-her-justice-and-also-why-does-Kuno-have-monstera-leaf-hair 1/2".

I was wondering why one site I go to was saying it had Ranma 1/2 episodes for the new show. Holy shit. That's terrible. For the people making this, I mean. I'm checking out the Ranma ones right now.

Holy crap, I was so glad he threw in the towel.  Sir, you look like you're gonna drop dead. It's like a paddle wearing a skin suit. All of our politicians are too fucking old, man. Sorry, there needs to be an age cap. They're all too damn old. Someone get a comet for these dinosaurs. You have to be 35 to run for president? So if someone too young can't run, then neither can some fogey. 75 or something and you're done with any major political office. No presidency, no congress, no governor or mayor or anything like that. Go play some shuffleboard.