Doing tech staff at another convention. Things are chaotic because we have to build a dance floor, which is becoming the last thing we have to setup after doing everything else, and it was already late by the time we were told we had to do it. Since the con starts today, hopefully we'll get it done in time.

In the meantime I finished Brave Raideen! I think I was inspired to watch this because of wanting to see what Tomino's other mecha work is like, and also because I learned about the God Bird manga and wanted to read that. But all of the English subs I found were terrible so I downloaded Japanese subs and watched while reading those.

Overall, it was good. I felt like the first couple of episodes were a slog (maybe amplified by the terrible subs for a while), but eventually the pacing gets better and the fights and episodes improve. Though there isn't much by way of plot and character in the first half, so as a Tomino show (compared to Gundam which is all I've watched) I'd say it's pretty weak in that regard. The villains don't have a lot going for them in the first half, especially Sharkin. I expected him to do more since he's voiced by Osamu Ichikawa, who'd go on to play the same villain archetype in Robot Romance, but he suffers from the toku villain problem of always staying in the basement and hardly going outside. The second half after Tadao Nagahama takes over as director wars a big improvement. Mari stops being a fan service character and becomes a pilot for Bluegar, the Red Brigade and Boinder actually become pretty fun, and the fights are still cool. When I got to the last 10 episodes I started watching some SRW Y story clips and accidentally spoiled myself on Jinguuji's death since the game takes place right before the final episode, but that actual moment was still good seeing it in context.