Akazora

The latter. If your "friend" is looking for an inoffensively enjoyable movie to watch on a slow Saturday night, I'd recommend it.

I liked it quite a lot! I wouldn't say it exceeded my expectations, but my expectations were pretty high going into it so the fact that I walked away satisfied and not feeling like I was fooled by anime elitists into investing 110 episodes of my life into something I wasn't enjoying is actually quite impressive. LoGH has an interesting style. It's kinda how I'd always imagined a factually accurate anime about some historical time period to be. There's a massive cast of characters and a huge focus on politics, and a narrator that often sets up the scenes and covers necessary backstory. It's definitely the best portrayal of political conflict and of political systems I've seen in an anime ever, so if you're tired of the "adults are hilariously incompetent and just so happen to be running the government in an overtly evil way" trope you're in for a treat. Though I wouldn't say the exploration of moral and political themes is super deep or complex, at the very least it doesn't insult the intelligence of the viewers. Also, I like how they handle the space fights. Most other shows have the main characters be soldiers or warriors in an army, and most of the war scenes boil down to two armies charging at each other, the hero fighting through fodder to build up hype, the hero confronting his destined rival or the big baddie, the two having an isolated one-on-one fight in the midst of the general fighting, and the result of their fight resulting in the end of the battle. In LoGH the main characters are commanders of giant space fleets, so conflict involves outmaneuvering the opponent, flanking, tactical retreats, positioning, managing supplies and resources, reorganizing the fleet's formation, deception, and dealing with battles of attrition. This allows for interesting dynamics, as characters on either side of the conflict can be resoundingly defeated but still escape with their lives, whereas a character surviving a one-on-one duel to the supposed death often has the effect of seemingly like cheap writing if handled poorly. Also, you won't be getting any flashy action scenes, but flashy action scenes can be found in tons of other anime, so I'd say it's a fair exchange. The music is almost exclusively a bunch of classical music that you've probably heard before. I'm guessing this was originally meant to save on costs, but it ended up giving the anime an interesting atmosphere. And of course, the animation and art style is typical of 1980s shows from that time period, which might turn off some modern day viewers. You seem to have a penchant for that aesthetic so I don't think you'd mind. If you're willing to invest the time, it definitely gets my approval. 110 episodes may seem daunting at first, but it's separated into four main arcs, each defined by their own opening and ending themes (I believe the length of each arc is 26 episodes, 26 episodes, 34 episodes, and 24 episodes, in that order). It may be more digestible if you conceptualize it that way. And also, they're making a remake, which you may have heard of. The first season will be 12 episodes, while the "second season" will be 12 episodes released as 3 movies (4 episodes each movie), which should cover the same material as the first arc of the original series. If it's successful I guess they'll make more. While it's too early to judge, I am a bit put off by the character designs. I guess it's understandable that they've modernized the designs for the current year, but I also don't see why they couldn't just neaten up the designs from the original, like Sunrise did with Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin? On the other hand, the CGI space fleets actually look sick as fuck, so that's good. At the end of the day, the visuals aren't really what make LoGH amazing, so as long as they stay true to the narrative and world building it'll probably be a decent substitute for the original. I've rambled on long enough, so uhhh... tl;dr yea was prett gud I guess -- edit: @machine The Kase-san anime project confirmed to be an OVA, which is neat!

Some of the readings I have to do for an econ class are actually pretty engaging, no joke. They cover practical and historical examples of concepts, especially as they relate to current issues, and it's a lot better than just reading about theory. Too bad my professor just boils down the lectures to theory anyway so it kinda defeats the purpose.....

New Kase-san anime project in the works for next year. It could just be another music video, but maybe it's a full series?

Blame! Less generic but not nearly as fun as its movie adaptation.

Blame! I came for the sci-fi dystopia action flick by Polygon Pictures, stayed for the robo waifus. Also made me binge the manga so that's something.

Is this where we shitpost? Please be gentle with me.

Uhhhhhh soo, I hadn't realized you had posted this at all... until just today......... oops........ In order to keep my response as brief as possible, I'll just post an off-the-cuff reply. It'll prevent me from overthinking the conversation and will likely reduce the number of tangents I go off on. I admittedly overstepped my argument last time. From what he said, consent cannot be assumed and I was wrong to have suggested otherwise. But similarly, neither can coercion. We don't have any way of knowing what transpired during the events he was referring to in those tapes; it could have been consensual or it could have been coercive, and even then the line between what is legally allowed and what is not isn't entirely clear. If we view things through simplistic lens, in a merely sexual/physical sense, then perhaps things aren't too complicated. But sex is not merely physical, it is also emotional. Physical acts, whether they be acts of advancement such as kissing, groping, etc. or acts of repel-ment such as pushing (in the "away" direction), refusal, etc. are intricately linked to emotional and mental processes. Trying to land a sexual partner is a game, simply put, in which both sides enter the ring with a certain mindset and attempt to change the opposing player's mindset through emotional and physical appeal. And in this game, sometimes there is a disconnect between the mental and the physical. For example, occasionally men and women (who are generally above average in physical appearance) play hard to get in order to leverage the game in their favor. Perhaps a woman would be fine with having sex with a certain man, but only under certain circumstances. So when does her consent manifest? Let's say she'd only be willing once the man has demonstrated a sufficient amount of loyalty to her (taking time out of his schedule, being on time to dates, etc). At the beginning of the game, if the man attempted to have sex with her it would not be consensual, obviously. But through repeated interactions, mental games, sacrifices and compromises from both parties (and yes, physical and emotional manipulations that may be interpreted as "coercion" by certain people) a mutual agreement is eventually reached: either "yes" or "no." By the end of the game, things are consensual. Of course, this leaves a lot to interpretation, especially since people don't keep journals of their true intentions that clash with their public persona. And heck, sometimes people don't even know what they want. If two people have sex when they both believe they're consenting, but then one of them regrets the decision later (certainly reasonable, especially since no one is ever 100% certain about anything, ever) what should be done about that? The malicious thing to do would be to accuse the other person of rape, which is something women more often than men can rely on as a backup plan for obvious reasons. Anyway, this is getting way off topic. To put it shortly, consent is a moving, difficult-to-pinpoint target and coercion is far from self-evident. Since I'm rushing this, if you would like me to expand on this I'd be happy to, but for now this should be enough. Of course, I say that but I also recognize that state laws have done their best to stabilize these two concepts, and since I'm no law student and am in no place to criticize, I can only assume that they are satisfactory. But at the same time, this issue with Trump and the tapes is not a legal one. There is not enough evidence to draw any conclusions. Could it have been consensual? Yes. Could it have been coercive? Yes. Because I believe in innocence until guilt is proven, I will defend Trump as far as that goes. I understand the concern though, insofar as he uses pretty extreme language ("I don't even wait" and "you can do anything"), especially coming from a man of his social stature. But that's merely just another facet of the "game" I mentioned earlier. Physical attractiveness gives people a massive advantage, but social standing does as well. And with that advantage, some people are given an edge in the "game" of love (or sex, or relationships, or whatever, I'm making these terms interchangeable at this point since they aren't significantly independent of each other). They're free to wield that advantage however they'd like so long as they don't do anything illegal, even if that means being borderline coercive. Because at what point does strategy morph into manipulation morph into coercion? When is one's consent established as a result of genuine emotions and not determined by calculated manipulations of the heart? That's the million dollar question, and there's no answer to it. Does it suck that things are like this? Yeah, that's fair to say, I know as someone who doesn't view himself as particularly physically blessed I sometimes think so too. Is it troubling that people like Trump are able to use their status to push the envelope? Sure, but as a guy I also find it troubling that females (both anonymous catfishers and ones legitimately so) are worshiped, given free stuff, and interacted with more reverence than males are online. I'm not going to get particularly upset about either, especially since there is only so much that can be done. I'm a fan of free market concepts and of all the places a free market has established itself, nowhere else has it been established more successfully than in the realm of dating/relationships/sex. There are hardly any government or authoritarian forces restricting the market, and thank goodness. I doubt anyone would be particularly happy if the government forced people, by law, to enter relationships with certain individuals, identified by some factor such as physical attractiveness, age, or social standing, predicated on some lawmaker's arbitrary notion of "fairness." Love is rough, but codifying restrictions on how you're allowed to feel is just distopian. Anyway, after two fat paragraphs about that, it's clear that there is not much left to say about this topic, at least on my side. We've both at least come to an agreement on the facts of the matter, which is a miracle in and of itself. At this point, we're both just arguing how to interpret the facts and debating each other over how problematic or how dismissible this whole fiasco is. I can't even think of anything more to say that would add to the conversation about the Trump tapes themselves that has not already been said, which is why I'm finding myself discussing the broader philosophical aspect of the issue far more than any of the political parts. And as a postscript, I'll admit that it wasn't the best idea to link to /r/The_Donald as a source, though I still stand by the validity of the research done in that thread. Regardless, to address your point about the rhetoric, I'm still not convinced. For one, all that is selective information. The most glaring is that survey by the HRC as evidence of a post-election bullying and harassment spike among young people. If you check the full report, you'll find that the the 50,000+ respondents were solicited through their social media sites and the social media of their "partner organizations" (among which is the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance totally not biased at all). It should be pretty obvious that the only people who would bother to follow the social media accounts of HRC are liberals (and pretty hardcore ones at all). But to prove it, according to the demographics section of the report, 64% identified as female, 27% identified as male, and 8% identified as another gender. Not only that, but only 45% of respondents identified as heterosexual, while the rest were either bisexual, gay, lesbian, pansexual, queer, asexual, or something else. I'm sorry, but it doesn't take a peer reviewed source to realize that this sample size is nowhere near representative of the average American youth, not even in the slightest. This alone should have been enough to disqualify this report as biased, but to make matters worse the report doesn't even list, verbatim, every single question asked and pads many of its pages with self-reported stories of individuals. This survey serves no purpose outside of pushing an agenda. If you had surveyed individuals from /r/The_Donald, you would have gotten equally skewed demographics and likely an equally alarming number of harassment reports, except the victims would have been conservatives and the perpetrators would have been liberals. The entire ABC article is just selectively listing one-off examples of incidents at schools, and quoting people denouncing those incidents. Has there been an uptick since before the election? I don't know, and no one knows because no legitimate surveys have been taken allowing for a comparison. Though I have a hard time taking the ADL seriously ever since their Pepe the Frog fiasco, I don't find anything glaringly wrong with their reporting on the rise of anti-Semitism at least. However, I'm a bit skeptical of how much of a "rise" they claim to report, and of course reports of hate crimes are not the same as actual cases of verified hate crimes (since "reported" hate crimes can and have been found to be hoaxes). And I'm not quite sure I agree with you about politicians and leaders having more pull than celebrities. The absolutely insane amount of loyalty that people have for their favorite authors, movies stars, singers, bands, television personalities, etc. shouldn't be overlooked. I'm fairly certain the average kid cares far less about politics than pop culture and dank memes. But I'll admit that some politicians have somehow entered celebrity status (Obama, Trudeau, JFK, Reagan, and of course, Trump) which is also something to consider. And this past election was as much as a cultural revolution/upheaval as it was a political one, so there's that too. Okay but yeah I really should cut this short now. Feel free to respond if you'd like, but don't force yourself to do anything too rash (like rewrite the whole thing after somehow losing all of it how did that even happen??) -- EDIT: OOPS I forgot to post a dank maymay, forgive me.

I interchangeably have these three songs stuck in my head... SASAGEYO, SASAGEYO! SHINZOU WO SASAGEYO! OHH OH OHHH OHHHH OHH OH OHHH OHHHH OH OHHHHHH OHHHHHHHH! I didn't order any whistles...

I watched Kimi no Na wa in theaters back in April, and just saw Koe no Katachi earlier today. They're both really really really good, and I'd recommend them both. 2016 was one helluva year for anime movies.

I'm in the middle of playing Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (somewhere early on in the Third Act), and I quite like it. There are some things about it I like better than Awakening and Fates, and other things I'm not so happy with, but of the three I can't choose a favorite or least favorite. They're all fantastic games and very different in their own rights, and their pros and cons relatively balance each other out. Also, Breath of the Wild is dope as heck and I play it occasionally whenever I feel like shrine hunting (I'm not using a guide and have only 18 left to locate).

[PROTECT INTENSIFIES]

I remembering seeing that back when it was first announced and got some NTR vibes from the summary, which is why I've avoided it. I'm surprised its rating on MAL is as high as it is, but then again I've found myself disagreeing a lot of the time with MAL scores. Since you're watching it, let me know if it's worth checking out. -- Also, ACCA's opening is fantastic. It's not even particularly well animated (lots of stills), but the style and music are addictive.

Autumn 2016 Final Thoughts (Okay I lied, summer wasn't the last season I was doing. Thank the gods for winter break.) This season was absolutely fantastic! A lot of really good shows all around, and a great way to end the amazing year that's been 2016. -- I'm not watching much for winter of 2017: ACCA: 13-ku Kansatsu-ka Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto Fujouou-hen Little Witch Academia (TV) Rewrite: Moon and Terra Seiren Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: Sukeroku Futatabi-hen Tales of Zestiria the X 2nd Season (plus the second halves of 3-gatsu no Lion and ClassicaLoid from autumn) Since there are only two shows I'm watching next season that aren't sequels or continuations of things I've already seen (technically only one, since Seiren takes place in the same setting as Amagami SS, a few years into the future), I don't think I'm going to bother writing up any first impressions (since they won't really be first impressions). Any shows that you guys think look good that I'm missing

IT'S THE DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!

Teaser Trailer "The first 2017 issue of Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday announced on Wednesday that the 21st Detective Conan anime film is titled Meitantei Conan Kara Kurenai no Love Letter (Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter) and is slated to open in Japanese theaters on April 15, 2017. The magazine also unveiled the staff, cast, and a teaser poster illustrated by original creator Gosho Aoyama. "Kobun Shizuno, the director of the last six Detective Conan films, will return to direct the film at TMS and V1 Studio. Takeharu Sakurai is also returning from earlier films to write the script based on Aoyama's story, and franchise composer Katsuo Ono is again providing the music. "The film will be a love story set in Osaka, and it will feature Heiji Hattori and Kazuha Toyama. The visual shows Momiji Ōoka, a new character who refers to Heiji as her future husband and is a rival for Kazuha. She appears in the manga for the first time in the 91st compiled volume, which will ship on December 16 in Japan." Sources: Anime News Network, DCTP

The only song suitable for a day like this.

I don't see how what you said could be interpreted as anything of the sort. If anything, I appreciate the chance to engage in this dialogue. And yes, I realize that you obviously didn't take the accusation of Pepe the Frog being an alt-right symbol as anything other than a political stunt. I didn't mean for what I said to be directed at you. I was just expressing my incredulity at this entire situation to anyone who might be reading and actually taking it seriously. Concerning the mainstream media, I do not see how the issue of whether or not it's biased can be left to any sort of interpretation. Clear facts show that the media leans very far left, dare I say alt-left, seeing as how openly they favor Clinton over Trump. They shamelessly censor any opinions that go against the narrative, they blatantly lie to the viewers, they post negative disclaimers at the end of articles for Trump but not for Clinton, they have given debate questions in advance to Clinton, they don't take responsibility when caught colluding with the Clinton Campaign (an illegal act, by the way), they spin positive stories about Trump from over a decade ago into negative ones for the sake of making him look bad, and they disavow gay people who support Trump. And these are just one-off examples. This doesn't even include long-term forms of undermining Trump's campaign, such as by focusing almost exclusively on negative Trump articles to drown out damaging new facts that come to light regarding Clinton. This also doesn't include all the things the media hasn't done, which is just as damning if not more so. They undermine what otherwise would be career ending footage of Clinton collapsing and having her body thrown into a van, they downplay and only write a single article covering the time a DNC buss illegally dumped sewage in the streets, they ignore times Trump clearly lays out his plan for when he takes office so as to paint him as a candidate without substance, they fail to note the fact that Trump rallies sometimes completely fill out stadiums, which is only something Clinton rallies are able to do if they invite celebrities, they never mention the fact that Tim Kaine draws such small crowds that he's forced to cancel because only enough people to fill a lobby showed interest, while Mike Pence maintains crowds of hundreds while speaking in the dead of night in the rain. And this is only a sampling of the evidence. Think of all the articles that are published every day by all the news outlets, and think of the kinds of things that happen on CNN daily, a 24/7 station. And I haven't even gotten into how Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit all use algorithms to promote pro-Clinton/anti-Trump content and hide anti-Clinton/pro-Trump content. This is not an issue of difficulty to pinpoint or a matter of perspective. I'm not just saying this because the candidate I have voted for is on the receiving end of this abuse of power. This is not a feeling I have, or a hunch, or going with my guts. This is a fact and I have evidence to back up this fact. You, and anyone else, is free to argue otherwise so long as evidence to support those claims are provided. And finally, in regards to what you said, I take issue when you claim he "admit[ted] to displaying sexually predatory behavior because he believes he has enough power/influence to get away with it". He did nothing of the sort. He said "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything" (emphasis added). That clearly shows consent on the woman's part. He was also talking about women in the entertainment industry, not just random beautiful women he happens to pass by on the street. Was the things he said about "mov[ing] on her like a bitch," being "automatically attracted to beautiful" women, "just start kissing them; it's like a magnet," and "grab[bing] them by the pussy" a bit uncouth and unfortunate? Yes, they were, and he already formally apologized. But as he has maintained, what he said was "locker room talk." It's no secret people say these things behind closed doors, it's just human nature. And this goes for both men and women (think of the things women have said in regards to 50 Shades of Grey for example). Not only that, but think of the rap songs with lyrics far more vulgar than what Trump has said that are accepted into society. Where is the outrage when it comes to that? And the concern that what Trump says has potentially dangerous consequences is completely unfounded. All of those violent demonstrations at rallies, like the one at Chicago or the one that involved the 69 year old who wearing an oxygen tank, have been proven to be set-up and staged by the DNC and Clinton campaign operatives in order push an agenda. There is no evidence to show that anything Trump has said or done has, by direct consequence, led to violence. In fact, the ones that have been shown to be violent and disruptive are the Clinton supports, or at least those in the anti-Trump camp. Recently, a homeless black women was viciously attacked for supporting Trump, a man was beaten and chased until police intervened for wearing a MAGA hat, students at the University of Pittsburgh were verbally assaulted for distributing pro-Trump merchandise and pamphlets, people leaving a Trump fundraiser were harassed in Minnesota, and the examples continue (none of these were promoted by the mainstream media, because that would go against the narrative). To blame any of these incidents on Trump's rhetoric would be trying to create causation where there is none, as they are all clearly examples of people violating others' right to free speech and being unable to handle different opinions without resorting to violence and ad hominems. So again, to bring this back to the original issue, there is no evidence or precedent showing that the remarks Trump made about women all those years ago could be considered dangerous or a threat. And yes, I concede that those remarks do deserve some news coverage, as you said perhaps a day or two's worth. But instead the story was pushed for weeks, not just days, and the mainstream media then fabricated false rape and sexual assault victims at the same time in order to sustain the conversation, in an attempt to drown out the Wikileaked Podesta e-mails and newly released Project Veritas videos. -- Obligatory spicy meme (this one's a keeper)