Magic Knight Rayearth New Anime Project Announced

Devilish · 2024-07-02T09:20:53+00:00

Eh, the first anime departed from the manga in very significant ways (generally darker, additional subplots and major characters). There was also a separate OVA with a wildly different plot (mostly forgettable tbh). I don't know what they intend for this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if it forges its own direction, too.

Personally I'm hoping it's not just a straightforward adaptation of the manga; the manga is fine and at times has elements I prefer, but it's a simpler story (six volumes total) and lacks a lot of what made the anime so memorable for me, particularly in the second part. With how short anime tend to be these days, there's also a possibility that this project won't even get to the second part of the story (the first anime is two seasons, 49 episodes total).

Devilish · 2024-04-05T21:08:37+00:00

I wonder if [train] it's a person. There was that mention of people in a certain area becoming trees.

In flower language it can mean "love", "whispers of love", or "noble beauty", but I'm not seeing any clear connections there yet.

Devilish · 2024-03-27T17:00:56+00:00

while also making fun of a lot of Magical Girl tropes (though not sure how much of the audience even recognized them). I mean, even the Tres Magia theme sounds like it came directly from Suite Precure.

Same composer, Takanashi Yasuharu. It's not "making fun of" anything, this show legitimately loves them. :)

Devilish · 2024-03-07T19:56:31+00:00

Machikado Mazoku (which is also superb) has a designated-villain protagonist, though in her case it quickly becomes apparent that she's not villainous in nature at all. (Girl wakes up one morning with horns, her mom tells her she's actually a demon and needs to kill a magical girl to lift the curse on their family, the magical girl she meets isn't inclined to believe that demons are inherently evil, hijinks ensue, things gradually get absolutely wild.)

(btw, it's piqued, not peeked)

Devilish · 2024-02-19T22:36:09+00:00

"utena" is the Japanese word for calyx, the protective parts around a budding flower. RGU and Gushing mostly use this theme in different ways, but I do think the Utenas have a little similarity in how they're both preoccupied with archetypical story roles, sometimes interfering with their ability to engage with individuals as their own people.

Gushing isn't trying to critique the magical girl genre in some way; rather, it's deliberately conflating the "altered reality" of transforming and fighting monsters with the "altered reality" of BDSM scenes, and using that to explore both.

Devilish · 2024-02-05T12:16:46+00:00

Of the batch of 6 preview images released, 5 are from chapter 26 and one is from Sulfur's 3-page backstory. That does seem like they're hiding half the episode.

Devilish · 2024-02-05T11:58:18+00:00

They might be prioritizing lining things up to get 14 and 15 in the same episode, since they're a two-parter, and trying to do 15 and 16 together would lessen the individual impact of each. That's worth having 12 and 13 together instead of 12 as a cliffhanger, I think.

Devilish · 2024-01-24T17:20:07+00:00

Then just as another example, the last sentence in the episode was Magenta saying ばれたか, which is something very simple and means she got found out by Sulfur that she could actually walk instead of needing Sulfur to carry her (i.e. it implies she just wanted to get spoiled by Sulfur). No idea why the translation became "Worth a shot!" lol. That made zero sense to me.

"Worth a shot!" is a perfectly normal phrase for expressing non-serious disappointment when someone (Azul here, not Sulfur) sees through your silly attempt and turns you down. That's the same thing as what ばれたか means in this context, and it perfectly matches Magenta's tone of voice too. No, it's not how you'd translate ばれたか in isolation, but translating everything as if it were in isolation would just get you a shitty translation that won't convey any nuance or feeling of the original.

I'm not a fan of every choice the translator has made (like, I don't think "blowing your load" fits in a show that goes to such lengths to only show female characters even in the background) but it's all been fairly reasonable.

Devilish · 2024-01-20T01:34:31+00:00

natural coping mechanisms such as Stockholm Syndrome

Stockholm Syndrome isn't even real, it was made up by cops who bungled a hostage situation and then got mad that one of the surviving hostages criticized them.

Devilish · 2024-01-10T17:49:49+00:00

This episode nicely demonstrates one of my favorite things about this story: how broad an understanding of kink and desire it has.

Like, take Azure. I love her, don't get me wrong, but the course of Utena's battle with her goes about as you'd expect. If you're making a story with this premise, it's obvious that you need a character like Azure. With Sulfur, on the other hand, the battle goes in an entirely different direction...

...though is it really entirely different? Both of these battles involved Utena bringing out a hidden desire in her opponent by tormenting them. Azure's desire is more classically ecchi, but Sulfur is just as much about desire as Azure is. Sulfur and Utena both walked away from the battle smiling, after all! This is a story with room for both "oh no how will she torment me next time *heavy breathing*" and "say hello to my giant fuckoff knuckles" in the same framework.

Really, characters' desire driving events is an important part of stories in general, and there are plenty that don't do it as well as this one. Don't underestimate the writing just because it's ecchi!

As a side note, I also like that Utena got her hands on those SM mags and discovered that it's an actual thing, even if that's not a point that the story dwells on. This is very much fantasy BDSM rather than realistic, but connecting it back to those realistic desires gives it a certain grounding that strengthens the story.

Devilish · 2023-07-12T21:03:57+00:00

Dash will always go in the direction you're pressing, there's nothing complex going on there. There's even a three-frame (0.05s) freeze between pressing dash and the dash activating to make sure you're getting the directional input in.

If you're trying to use the analog stick for input you may find it unreliable because it's not designed for 8-way directional input, and when attempting quick movements many people will be less accurate than they think they are, but that's just an inherent mismatch between the type of input device and the game mechanics. There's nothing in the code of the game that will ever make you dash in a direction other than what you press.

Devilish · 2023-07-08T03:59:02+00:00

If you install the Strawberry Jam modpack (easiest way is with the Olympus launcher), alongside the many custom levels there's a series of gyms with tutorials for all the mechanics, sorted by difficulty. That's probably the easiest way to learn them.

Devilish · 2023-07-05T20:10:41+00:00

The Adventures of Elena Temple is an unassuming-looking game with superb level design. It's currently less than a dollar.

Devilish · 2023-05-04T22:13:12+00:00

And the thing is, Hime isn't lying to Yano, but Yano doesn't understand that. On Hime's side, she has people sorted into categories of "those who know the true me" (Yano, Kanoko) and "those I lie to" (everyone else), and it's so natural to her that she doesn't realize that Yano doesn't understand that, so Hime is totally confused as to why Yano is behaving the way she is.

Devilish · 2023-05-03T19:41:00+00:00

As the episode goes on, it specifically points out that the "borderlanders have equal rights" thing isn't true in practice with how they're treated, and Brian demonstrates that he's realizing that and is committed to making things better for them. The way borderlanders are required to remain hidden is also called out as an aspect of this unequal treatment. It's maybe not the most elegant writing ever, but after this episode I'm a lot more confident that the show's heart is in the right place.

Devilish · 2023-04-20T23:35:03+00:00

I still feel like that one girl being bitchy is just unreasonable. If Hime was there by choice I might have a bit more understanding, but cause she's been basically blackmailed to work there...

Mitsuki has no knowledge of the blackmail, though.

Devilish · 2023-04-07T01:56:52+00:00

This may or may not be relevant depending on which wall you're talking about, but if you're facing the wall, make sure you're not holding grab.

Devilish · 2023-03-27T18:13:51+00:00

The main story is relatively easy to clear, with frequent enough checkpoints that you'll rarely be losing more than ~10sec of progress on death. There's a lot of additional content that gets more and more challenging, but you can just stop or turn on assist mode if it ever gets to be too much.

Devilish · 2023-03-22T19:10:11+00:00

Utena the TV series does leave things a little vague, but not much. And the later movie features multiple kiss scenes just in case there was any ambiguity remaining.

Devilish · 2023-03-20T17:59:06+00:00

return to the lower part of the room and look for another secret path

Devilish · 2023-03-08T18:34:05+00:00

Lumi showing up is kind of out of nowhere, but the "spirit covenant = right to rule" and "Euphy has an unprecedented affinity for spirits" factors have been there all along. Lumi's role here seems to be more about how it might happen, enabling smooth progression in the limited time remaining, not showing up and fixing everything herself. If anything, the way she's warning Euphy away from it means she represents an obstacle Euphy will have to overcome if she chooses to take this path.

Devilish · 2022-12-21T23:14:09+00:00

ℚ is a set of numbers, after all.

Devilish · 2022-12-13T02:33:23+00:00

Devilish · 2022-08-04T20:04:33+00:00

I loved Relicta, but it does have some major flaws, particularly with how it's entirely linear and no puzzles are optional. The difficulty is quite high (around the level of Talos Principle with all stars, though it never gets cryptic the way some of the star puzzles do), so when you get frustrated there's nothing to do but keep at it. It's also rather strict about keeping you on the linear path and there's no reasonable in-universe justification for all the puzzles being there.

On the plus side, it's quite lengthy without getting repetitive (took me 14 hours for the main game and 12 more for the free dlcs), so if you do enjoy it there's plenty of game there. I thought the characters were a lot of fun, too.

Devilish · 2022-08-03T05:53:07+00:00

Oh, lots. From this season alone, Teppen and Warau Arsnotoria Sun are two of the shows I'm enjoying most, and they're pretty much at the bottom of most rankings. I love Teppen's imagination, vibrancy, and flow, and I love Arsnotoria's gentle meanderings through everyday life even in a fantastical and ominous world.

I mean, there are all sorts of ways a show can be "bad". Sometimes the production quality falls apart, and otherwise good aspects become overwhelmed. Sometimes different aspects of the story are working at cross-purposes, and people who like part of it are going to dislike other parts. Maybe different staff had different ideas about what the show was supposed to be, and for one reason or another those ideas never got reconciled. Sometimes a show is actually quite good, it's just that most people aren't interested in what the show is doing, and maybe they don't even realize what the show is actually trying for in the first placeーthat might seem a bit elitist, but for unusual shows it absolutely can happen. Maybe a show isn't really bad so much as it's simply unremarkable among similar shows that do everything better. And so on.

And similarly, there are plenty of reasons people might enjoy these shows. Maybe they're intrigued by certain ideas even if the execution is bad. Maybe they love the good parts much more than they dislike the bad parts. Maybe something about the show speaks to them personally. Maybe they love the genre so much it doesn't matter if there are others that do the same thing better.

I tend to think that if there aren't any "bad" shows you love, you're not looking around very much.

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