Seto Kaiba

More new season stuff... Jujutsu Kaisen's third season has started, picking up where the last one ended with the start of the Culling Game arc. The part where the original manga began seriously inflicting darkness-induced audience apathy on casual readers. It's a tournament arc, and IMO a bit of a pointless one since its villain's ambiguous goal being little more than "for the lulz" and it only really serves to put off the final confrontation with the story's big bad (Sukuna) by putting two dozen or so cannon fodder characters in the way so what's left of the main cast can farm them for powerups.

Started A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation. It's an isekai series, but it's one of those rare ones that tries to subvert the usual formula by having its protagonist get isekai'd from one fantasy world to another. In this case, a young and sheltered nobleman finds himself suddenly transported to another world and rather than make a fuss about it by panicking he opts to take the whole thing in stride and treat it as an extended vacation. First impressions are that it's actually pretty dull. It's definitely different... but the protagonist is so utterly unbothered by every aspect of his predicament that it feels like he's on something. He greets being dumped in an alley in an unfamiliar country or having someone try to lop his head off with the same energy that a normal person might reserve for informing their waiter that a drink they ordered didn't make it onto the check. Hard to get invested in the protagonist's story when they don't feel like they're invested in their own story! The Invisible Man and His Soon-To-Be Wife is a supernatural romcom about a blind woman named Shizuka who works as a receptionist at the Tounome Private Detective Agency. Her employer, detective Tounome, is a literal invisible man (ala the H.G. Wells novel) who is utterly fascinated by her ability to perceive him where normal people cannot. So they start up an odd relationship together as a blind woman and unseeable man. The setting seems... a bit odd. Mostly like the modern world, though there seem to be various flavors of beast-folk (running the gamut from "human with animal ears" to furry mascot). One set of clients that show up at the Tounome agency profess to be literal space aliens. It's mostly just a framing device for a cute but straightforward romcom. It's very light and cheerful. Almost to slice-of-life levels. Definitely one for the "easy viewing" category, if you're looking to clear your palate after something heavy.

OK, lots more shows dropping now. The third season of MF Ghost has begun in earnest. The eurobeat's back with the OP Timeless Power... but is it really necessary to show the chubby race queen getting hit in the face with a packaged ham in the OP? They're finally starting to wrap up the plot they left hanging at the end of season two with an injured Katagiri who couldn't use 2nd gear falling way behind. They're really dragging this race out though, yeesh. It was 2-3 episodes last season and it's gonna be at least 3 this season too. Tamon's B-Side... jeez this girl Utage is thirsty AF. She's taken the "fangirl turns her room into a shrine" thing to the point of even having a poster of the titular idol on the ceiling over her bed. Honestly, it's part of what makes the comedy work. She's so absolutely obsessed with this idol that she refuses to reject him for being a real person with real problems and manages to come off as a bit of a heroic comedic sociopath while she's helping him because she can't bear to see him fail. It's cute, it's funny, and it's on the unconventional side. I quite like it. One new one I picked up is Champignon Witch, a light fantasy series about a feared and shunned, but generally harmless and well-meaning, young witch who makes a living brewing medicines for nearby towns and generally helping people. The people of the kingdom are wary or afraid of her because her magic causes poisonous mushrooms to spring up in her wake wherever she walks, which is also the reason for her unusual nickname "the Champignon Witch". Apparently there's some fantastic bigotry involved with the kingdom she's in being ruled by one faction or species of witches and her belonging to the other.

One of the points of some debate WRT the Ikazuchi is whether that 300m figure is inclusive of the fins on the back. I tend to side with the school of thought that it isn't, since that allows the rest of the ship to be slightly larger and makes the fit for the bays easier. If I use your art there as a sample, the fin-less 300m is approximately 800px (so a resolution of ~0.375 pixels per meter). That makes the interior dimensions of the bays 85x32px, or approximately 32m x 12m. The Legioss Armo-Soldier's only 4.3m across the shoulders according to MOSPEADA Color Graffiti and a bit under 2m front-to-back meaning six ranks of Legioss's stacked side by side only gonna run ya 25.8m x 8m, meaning there's room for 'em to fit with the spacing seen in the anime in the 300m ship as long as the fins aren't part of that 300m. Making it 1/1000 at 35cm more or less aligns to the "the fins don't count" theory of its size. (That's a topic that the MOSPEADA and Robotech fandoms have chewed over many times in the past.)

It's possible it doesn't have traditional landing gear. After all, it's a fold-capable aerospaceliner, so it's got gravity control capabilities. It may just be landing on skids or potentially even just hovering there on gravity control levitation.

~35cm would not be 1/2000 scale for the Ikazuchi space carrier from Genesis Climber MOSPEADA. Per Artmic's settei for Genesis Climber MOSPEADA, the Ikazuchi space carrier is "a large warship with a total length of nearly 300m." This is referenced in B Club Special Artmic Design Works, MOSPEADA Complete Art Works, and a few other publications. 1/2000 scale would be approximately 15 centimeters, not 35. A model with a length of approximately 35cm would be 1/857 scale.

Ooo, that came out really well. I'd say don't worry overmuch about the wings, since they kind of mysteriously retract seamlessly into the edge of the airframe in a manner that suggests the designer probably did not think too hard about it themselves.

Tried two more new ones today. I was hoping for something unconventional, and Isekai Office Worker: the Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter seems to be set to fit that bill. Its basic premise seems to be very similar to titles like The Saint's Magic Power is Omnipotent, with a general j-fantasy alternate world that's under threat from periodic outbreaks evil miasma™️ that only the chosen isekai'd Lady Saint™️ can clean up with her magical powers. Where it differs is that it's about a random office worker who is accidentally isekai'd along with the future Lady Saint while trying to save her from being isekai'd. He's so used to Japan's toxic work ethic that, despite being told the kingdom will give him a generous stipend to live on as an apology for being isekai'd by mistake, he demands a job. So the kingdom sets him to work in its government accounting office, where he is immediately stunned by its relaxed work ethic... then finds its lax practices have been allowing all kinds of questionable accounting that he tries to crack down on just as the miasma sends the kingdom into a state of emergency. It's... unusual. I'm curious to see where it goes. The Case Book of Arne is, most unusually, apparently an adaptation of a freeware horror mystery video game made in RPG Maker and released back in 2017. Apparently it garnered enough of a following to be adapted into a manga in 2018, and now an anime. On paper, it's a supernatural detective story about a vampire who works as a Sherlock Holmes-style private detective solving crimes with supernatural origins that the conventional authorities just can't. I'm going to withhold judgement on this series until I've seen at least another episode or two, because the first episode is so badly composed that calling it a mystery or a detective story feels like Blatant Lies or at least false advertising.

Two more new ones today... You Can't Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! is about a first year high school student named Yonosuke who is obsessed with rom-coms where the protagonist falls in love with their childhood friend. That old and overused story trope. Of course, he is also realistic/cynical enough to understand that romance comedies are fiction and doesn't believe he could ever encounter such a circumstance in real life. Because he is IN a rom-com, he's also entertainingly wrong. Both of his female childhood friends have the hots for him and he either has suffered so much rom-com brainrot or is so uninterested that he hasn't noticed. By 1:05 into the first episode, it's pretty clear what we're in for is another one of those ecchi excuse plot harem comedies where the driving force of the plot and the only things that keep the story from ending at chapter one are the protagonist's Buddha-esque aversion to desire, his chronic inability to read even the most blatant signals imaginable, and a total failure to comprehend how abnormal his situation is despite abundant evidence. By 4:10, this series has lost me. This excuse plot is painfully thin even by the already-low standards of the genre. I'm not even going to bother finishing the episode. and deleting it from my watch history. SKIP. Wash It All Away is a slice-of-life series about an amnesiac girl named Wakana Kinme who runs a private laundry service in a quaint seaside town as she navigates daily life. This seems to be one of those titles that either has some clear creator provincialism or government sponsorship behind it, given that the first couple shots of the series are devoted to faithfully recreating real locations. Enough so that we can practically identify what street her fictional business is on. We see her pass through several Tawarahoncho landmarks like Atami station and pass through Atami Heiwa-dori shopping street on her way back to her small business, suggesting she's probably in Sakimicho, Atami, Shizuoka. It's cute, but so far there doesn't seem to be a lot to this one besides the incidental events of the slow daily life of a girl who just really likes doing laundry.

Y'know, ever since I first read Dune I always felt the setting's prohibition on AI felt a little silly and arbitrary. I'm starting to see what the Butlerians were on about. AI really is an affront to Humanity in general. I want to say that's the worst thing I've seen from Star Trek recently, but that'd be a lie. I've seen Starfleet Academy's teasers. So that's a close second. Just EUGH.🤮

In the actually-worth-watching category, we've got the apparently VERY long-awaited anime adaptation of Hanazakari no Kimitachi e... more than twenty-one years after the original manga ended circulation, and almost 30 years after it started serialization in Hana to Yume back in 1996. Gave the first two episodes a whirl. It's definitely a high-quality adaptation with a lot of very experienced voice actors behind it. It does have a weird vibe to it, though... I think because the story was written back in the 90's it feels slightly odd and out of place even with modern animation behind it. Not bad, just... different. Still fun, still well-executed. I'm looking forward to more.

A few more of this season's new simulcasts have dropped. The Daily Life of a Part-Time Torturer is... well, on paper it's allegedly a comedy. I say allegedly because it's not actually funny. Not even slightly. The series is set in an alternate Japan where torture and murder are not only legal, but a form of private enterprise. The protagonist Cero is a 20-something former job-hopper with more than fifty different part-time jobs under his belt who has settled comfortably into his new chosen vocation of torturer at a torture firm named Spirytus Company and is living his daily life wringing confessions out of a variety of ne'er do wells, criminals, and the like through force with his coworkers, whip-enthusiast Siu, horror author Mikke, and a man named Hugh who is simply Too Pretty to work with others. It's billed as a comedy, but nothing about it is funny unless you count the absurdity of the setting treating torture like it belongs to the same basic class of manual labor as hospitality, restaurant food prep, or construction. (To the extent that a torture hardware supply store has a loyalty card like a Japanese supermarket.) Nothing about it is funny, though, and the characters aren't engaging enough for it to pass for a slice-of-life story either. It doesn't even manage to feel inappropriate. The subject matter's transgressive as all get-out but it's so bland that it doesn't feel like it. It's just dull. I don't think I could recommend it, even as a form of torture. Kunon the Sorcerer Can See is a fantasy slice-of-life series about the son of a marquis who is born with a heredity disability called the Hero's Scar because he is a descendant of The Hero who was terribly maimed defeating The Demon Lord. In his case, he was born blind. He's terribly depressed about this because it means that he really can't do anything and requires constant care from others. Then, a faux pas on the part of his magic tutor gives him an idea... he decides to study magic in the hopes of being able to create new eyes for himself. It has an interesting premise and got off to a promising start, but it quickly becomes apparent that the story doesn't really know what to do with its own premise and it's padded like a menstruating fire hydrant. The protagonist's more of a one-trick magical pony than Harry Potter (the only spell he knows creates a ball of water) and yet he is treated as some kind of godlike magical prodigy. Somehow this very basic magic all but eliminates several aspects of his disability, and by the end of the second episode he's not only able to discern colors, he's able to read and is attending the now obligatory-in-j-fantasy School for the Nobility. Past about the halfway point in the first episode the series feels really lazy and uninspired... veering straight into "boring" territory by the first episode's end.

Remember, fold boosters are mainly for short-ranged fold navigation and the early models were exclusively short-ranged and single-use. That 4th Gen Valkyrie using a fold booster to insert itself behind enemy lines to rescue hostages or strike command ships or bases is not crossing the galaxy. It's coming from a ship or base that's at most 20 light years away. An impossibly vast distance for sublight flight, but practically just across the street in fold navigation terms. The sort of trip that fold-capable ships can make almost instantly. That Valkyrie isn't a one-man-army. There's a carrier, a taskforce, or potentially even a whole fleet hanging around just outside the area of operations waiting for a signal or an agreed time to move in and capitalize on the confusion of a now leaderless enemy or suppress the hostage-takers now that they no longer have hostages to hide behind. "Escape" may be as simple as linking up with a carrier that just popped out of fold space a few dozen kilometers away, or SSTOing back to orbital space where a pack of heavily armed warships just arrived. (For a really good example, consider Operation Stargazer, where Max used a fold booster to jump directly from orbit to a planet's surface instead of across interstellar distances, making a surprise entry to launch a reaction weapon with the intention of escaping back to his ship in orbit.)

The ones in Macross Plus, Macross 7, and Macross Dynamite 7 are broadly indicated to be the initial generation single-use type. By the time of Macross Frontier, the technology had improved to the point that modern (c.2059) fold boosters could perform multiple fold jumps and do so over longer distances. 4th Gen VFs had the concept of inserting a VF behind enemy lines using stealth and/or fold capability in order to strike enemy command centers, carry out hostage rescues, etc., as a part of a larger operation. Escaping via space fold is not mentioned. As with the 5th Gen YF-24 Evolution, use of a fold booster in direct combat is described as a way to maximize the element of surprise, and the VF's extraction from the combat area afterwards isn't mentioned. Presumably in such an operation, they would use stealth and their high flight performance to escape the enemy and then link up with friendly forces. Escape via space fold might be possible in later generations where reusable fold boosters exist, though leaving the booster behind would be quite risky. (There is some material to suggest mounting multiple fold boosters is possible. Macross Frontier shows this being done with the VF-171 and Master File shows the same with a VF-19.)

I dunno... the animation, and pretty much every textual description, suggests it's essentially a ballistic reentry. Macross Chronicle is, AFAIK, the only source to suggest that there was any semblance of control from the ship side beyond the unscheduled "lithobraking" maneuver at the terminal end of the descent, and it only mentions the ship slowing down not a turn. Depending on whether we're seeing the light and dust from impact or simply from the ship's passage overhead in that scene, that radically opens the field as to where he could've been. Shin could be in Novi and this would work. Sunrise on July 17th 1999 in Novi was ~06:10 and the Macross may well have been overhead around sunrise given the -13hr time zone adjustment (19:00 JST would've been 6:00 local time). Also possible. Though given that his home seems to have been unaffected by the passage of the ASS-1 overhead, and the ship is said to have cut a swath across Asia and Europe, caused volcanic eruptions in Canada, the western US would seem like the best candidate to be unaffected given a roughly ballistic flightpath. The severity of the impact would've likely caused at least some destruction in Japan, given that it was about 1,000km away and this was 13 times as energetic as Tsar Bomba, which blew out windows 780km away. Something to mathematically model later.