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You're Under Arrest: Full Throttle 1-5

In which multinational corporations function like hereditary monarchies, Saori is put on the Tōkairin bus, Natsumi takes fashion tips from Melissa Mao and the art of taiyaki making and the excretory functions of snakes are explained. And then there's THIS:

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Well, shows what I know because apparently drifting a FWD car is possible, sort of (though that Civic has an extra 1000cc's on the Today which I suspect would just quickly grind to a halt) but it is also a bit friggin' pointless

Putting suspension of drift-belief aside, this season feels a lot more modern, for good or ill. The production values have clearly gone up and we get some really nice animation (it also seems very well directed) but from the progression and change of Season 2 it seems to have all gone a bit business as usual. What happened to Natsumi's new job? What happened to Ken and Miyuki's slightly more developed and formalised relationship? Who knows? Who cares? They're just going to be glossed over for the sake of returning to the status quo, it looks like.

I was a little surprised at the decision to immediately write out Saori after they spent a season integrating her into the main cast (pretty well, I might add) but this does appear to have resulted in more Aoi and Yoriko time, which is a trade I'll take. The comedy and the fanservice seem more obviously played-up here than they were, though this is probably just a reflection of the times - A full six years had gone by since Season 2 when Full Throttle started airing (and just over ten since the TV show began) so tastes and styles are naturally going to change.

And perhaps it was the right decision to go back to basics - The core cast are front and centre again and after the two-part rather Hollywood action style opener (I have to wonder if the writers had a Sonoda moment and visited the US) we seem to be settling once again into episodic cases by turns comedic and dramatic. That perhaps isn't the most satisfying for those who, like me, were looking forward to more development and building on the plot threads and relationships of the previous season but I'll be damned if it isn't bloody entertaining. Only time will tell if these threads get picked up again - Balancing the wants and expectations of fans of the earlier seasons with trying to make the show accessible to new fans after such a lengthy gap can't have been easy, and I can't say I'm really disappointed since the show is still so much fun and is looking better than it has since the OVAs.

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One more thing - The music. I've enjoyed the YUA themes up until now, but I'm finding FF's themes pretty underwhelming. I also kinda miss the familiar music cues which were used throughout seasons 1 & 2, though I can understand them being retired after so long.
 
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Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond episode 6

Bleach (Rewatch)
episodes 15-32, 34-41 (33 is low-tier filler so I skipped it)
 
Totally agree. May I recommend Viz media's excellent artbook of The Wind Rises for that very purpose? :)
Looks nice, but I did some of my own research as I was bored at work.

  • Jiro Horikoshi was born on 22nd June 1903
  • The first scenes of the film takes place in 1918 as seen by the magazine he is given. Making him roughly 15, character model seems a bit short seeing he seems quite tall just 5 years later.
  • The next event is the Great Kantō Earthquake on the 1st of September 1923.
  • So the next scenes at university and with his sisters visit. He tells her he last saw Nahoko "over 2 years" ago so would probably be winter 1925.
  • Next, when he moves to Nagoya, I thought it was the Great Depression (1929-31), but when I found out the date of the plane in the next scenes, I had to go find a different date. Turns out to be the Shōwa Financial Crisis of early 1927.
  • The plane in the next scene is the Mitsubishi 1MF9 which had trial flights in July and September 1927.
  • Next he travels to Germany to visit Junkers. They see the G.38 which first flew in 1929. The scene with the "secret police" (dub version) or men they saw in the hanger (sub) could also be 1929, a mob of antisemitic men chasing a Jew? The Great Depression saw a rise in violence against the Jews, but the law "was fair" until the Nazis got into power in 1933. History of Jews in Germany
  • The next plane was the Mitsubishi_1MF10 which had its maiden flight in March 1933.
  • Next Jiro visits the Hotel Kusakaru after the plane crashes. There were 2 incidents July '33 and June' 34. It's probably '33 as it would be too short a time before the next test and Castorp mentions Junkers being in trouble. He resisted the Nazis taking control of his company at first after they took over in 1933.
  • However in the scene where Jiro gets a telegram there is a date stamp which looks like 9.7.13. If the 9 is correct (it's cut in half by the bottom of the screen) it would, possibly, be the 9th year of the Shōwa Period with 1926 being year 1. So the date would be 13/7/1934.
  • The next plane, the Mitsubishi_A5M, was commissioned in 1934.
  • They probably marry in winter 1934/35.
  • The test flight of the Mitsubishi_A5M with its original gull wing design took place on the 5th of February 1935. The design was changed after this to a straighter version.
  • So they were married for no more than 2 months at the most :-(
  • The next scene is 1945, obviously at the end of the war, where we see the Mitsubishi_A6M Zero in his final vision with Caproni.
 
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Space Dandy [Season 2] (Japanese audio) - Episodes 1-3

I managed to watch the series without the lights issue crashing the console (then it crashed after I stopped watching to sort out an AUKN article about an hour later).
 
A Sister's All You Need episode 3

Gundam Reconguista in G episodes 1-4

Juni Taisen: Zodiac War episode 4

Kino's Journey -the Beautiful World- the Animated Series episode 3

Space Battleship Yamato 2199 episode 1

The Ancient Magus' Bride episode 2
 
Hellsing Ultimate Vol V
What the hell was that at the start? And the bad guys destroy London a bit too easily, surely it's the Hellsing company's job to stop Millennium before they do any damage. A bit pointless after everyone is dead!

Kokoro Connect eps 8-10
I knew Inaba liked Taichi, but for a moment there I thought they might pull a switch-a-roo and make her confess to Iori. Especially after the line that she wasn't interested in him at first.
 
I did some of my own research
That's some absolutely phenomenal research on The Wind Rises there! How long did that take?

A Silent Voice (another rewatch)
Sorry to go slightly off-topic here, but it's like this: that Anime Limited collector's edition with the foil artwork on the outer box is just one of the most incredible things I've ever seen! And that idea with the character art on the plastic o-card? Utter genius.

Gurren Lagann movie 2 (rewatch)
I tried to up my MAL score for this to something like 100 out of 10, but it won't let me!
 
Love the series but never seen the films. What are they exactly? A new story or an edited clip-show?
It's technically an edited clip show, but it's got so much new stuff in it that it becomes so much more than that — especially the second film. That has some really clever ways of streamlining the story that it creates a whole new continuity. The final battle has been almost completely reworked, and has some absolutely inspired bits of animation with some rough, sketchy lines that ooze energy. I love that kind of stuff!

You can get the films on their own on a pair of BDs (which also include the music video project, Parallel Works), and they're also available as part of AL's collector's edition set which is already out of print on their own webshop.
 
That's some absolutely phenomenal research on The Wind Rises there! How long did that take?
About an hour at lunch plus about 2 hours typing it out (on mobile, I have a laptop but I can never be arsed to get it out and set it up, etc.) as I scrolled through the film to find info I had already forgotten, like that date stamp.
 
Fantasista Doll
The result of when you put Card Captor Sakura, Rozen Maiden, YuGiOh, Digimon and some Magical Girl Tropes along with a whole bunch of cute girls into a pot. It turned out surprisingly fine in the end.

And I totally and absulutely am sure, I've seen a visual twin sister of Komachi before. I just can't seem to properly remember who. Inori from Guilty Crown?
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Juni Taisen: Zodiac War ep 7
Dragon and Snake flashback time. Tiger has a serious drink problem, but probably the one I want to win now. Dragon probably going to die somehow next week as he's had his flashback

Alien (at the cinema)
Man that chest busting scene on the big screen, almost felt the blood splatter on my face!
 
Bleach (Rewatch) episodes 49, 51-63

Well this was a lot of fun, to rewatch. These initial three arcs tell a pretty solid story, and do well to introduce the main cast of protagonists, secondary protagonists and the main antagonists of future arcs. The only low points are some of the filler excursions which feel out of place and are utter shite-far worse than future filler arcs [including the Bount Arc which I hope to complete on Blu Ray with set 4]. As I stated before I'll try and do a mini review of the three sets some point soon, once I have my Uni work sorted.
 
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