Senki Zesshou Symphogear XV

Overall Rating 6.7 out of 10 - Best season of flawed in many ways Symphogear

I recommend watching.

By the 5th seasons Symphogear creators finally understood what they are doing and how to make a waifu show. 

This season begins with best story premise so far: mysterious ancient civilization custodians who are behind many events that happened in the show. An intriguing plot for a change. It is a partial return to the original story premise that got me interested in this series to begin with, but it feels surprisingly fresh.

There is more. Three new antagonists are much more interesting than many of those who came before them. They use clever tricks to fight and overall, their story is more interesting than of those who came before them. They have regrets and self-consciousness instead of desire to serve humanity and sacrifice themselves to help others that often unites both protagonists and antagonists of this show.

Finally, they began sexualizing gear users properly. How they have transformation sequences, just like in Sailor Moon, where they show their bodies in revealing way. Kirika doing a pole dance on handle of her scythe is by far best and Shirabe is second close. Once again, these two carry the show.

Also, there is more Miku in this season, however they do not show her as her usual soft and gentle poor man Haruka, but rather as someone as driven by the ideological drivel as Bikki.

Closer to the end we sadly go back to usual Symphogear themes or sacrifice for others, struggle and willful suffering. These themes are like a spoonful of Marmite in what could have been a nice cake.

Final battles are as flashy as always, but about as much hollow. They substitute flashy action for substance, tactics and ideas. It,s the opposite of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto could make movement of shadows feel tense and intriguing as one wrong move could easily mean death in Naruto universe. Here an explosion that eliminates half of the city feels like another Tuesday.

Overall, it's the best season of Symphogear.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Review

Overall Rating 6.7 out of 10 - Mediocre romantic comedy, entirely carried by its female protagonist.

I recommend watching.

Yet another romantic comedy, most of them are bad. Here however I saw that cute poster girl with her large warm trusting eyes and immediately wanted to watch it.

I will be being with Haruka is she is the only reason to watch it. Haruka combines many of the qualities I like with some that I do not. On one hand she is well mannered, polite, gentle, friendly, warm, calming, soft, passive, caring and supportive - the things I like in women. 

Haruka is almost perfect but there is one problem. Haruka reminds me of Chintanda Eru from Hyouka, whom I also liked initially but grew wary of how she drags male protagonist around for her curiosity bouts.

On the other hand, she is far too dependent on Yuuto and other people around. Something upsets her and she just stops functioning. Yuuto then has to figure out how to fix her. The delicate flower far too delicate. She cannot find her own ass without Yuuto or her maids. 

In contrast Chise from Saikano, despite being slow and weak, handles all her shit herself and does not burden Shuji too much. Also, in contrast to Haruka who has little to now extra responsibilities, Chise has a huge war to fight, and she does not complain.

Aside from Haruka that for the most part makes it worthwhile; the rest of the cast are not likable. Maids and Haruka's little sister are part stalkers part trolls. Maids do have redeeming qualities, but Mika does not. Then there is Yuuto's alcoholic sister and teacher who only serve as an example of unlikable women to make Haruka look good. Then Haruka's parents with hotheaded psycho dad and unlikable dominant mom. Finally, there is that redheaded girl that was somewhat of Haruka's rival for Yuuto affection, but they just made her a friend in the end. Then there is posse of snobbish rich kids who harasses Yuuto for being poor. I think authors were out of ideas and were just adding stuff to fill episode count.

Yuuto himself is not relatable at all. He clearly crosses the somewhat fine line that divides politeness and fancy manners from submissiveness and self-deprecation. He is more concerned with following rules for rules sake rather than because he finds purpose in then. He seems wants to help Haruka with her problems more than interested in her for her feminine qualities. To reference Saikano again, wise and cynical Shuji much more like me and Yuuto is nothing like.

Overall, however Haruka is nice, and the show is enjoyable around half of the time.

Russia's Conflicting Priorities Problem

In his Rules for Rulers video, CGPGrey clearly outlined that the most backward dictatorship are very stable and the most free and advanced democracies are stable. Only countries that fall in between these two extremes are constant unstable ground for revolution. Because when people somewhat educated and somewhat connected, they have more opportunity to rebel and overthrow a dictator.

However, in places like Russia, China and Iran we see a consistent attempt to create people who would be educated enough to build spaceships and computers yet at the same time, too backward to desire democracy or freedoms.

The idea is absurd in itself. How would you prevent people from understanding what a freedom and democracy is, when you expect them to understand physics and complex math.

Predictably enough it goes not work. Computers they attempt to make do not work and to prevent them from rebelling a huge army of riot police is constantly employed. All three of these countries are plagued by constant problems, brain drain, protests, insurgencies and so on. Smart people emigrate to real democracies or if they can't, simply do not use their talents to help the state and rulers they detest. 

Dictator Inc rockets cannot fly as well as democratic ones. Iran and North Korea try to build nukes and consistently fails. Russia tried to create its own Silicon Valley, and it get them nowhere. Reality constantly reminds the rulers of these countries that the contradiction they attempt to achieve is impossible, rulers constantly ignore it.

Despite that rulers entertain themselves with fairy tales about ascetic genius Perelman and hope one day another such genius would build them weapons better than what Americans have.

Meanwhile the country suffers the bullshit of these rulers.

How to Reform and Replace Coring in EU V

Coring was part of EU since times immemorable. However, the game outgrew its coring system long ago.

During EU III it was a clever abstraction to represent both rightful claim on a foreign province and at the same time distinguish between provinces that were part of your country since forever from a newly acquired land.

Nowadays we have autonomy together with state/territory mechanic, years of separatism, claims and so on to represent these concepts. Compare to these coring feels ever more arbitrary and pointless.

25 years cores of EU III make more sense from practical point of view compared to click to core of EU IV. When you just conquered a province, people still remember that is was part of a different country and lingering separatist sentiments would continue for some time. It will take a while before locals would finally accept their new country and government. EU III coring represented just that.

Overextension is too arbitrary as well. Why having couple of extra provinces on periphery suddenly affect the entire country go haywire?

It would make sense to remove coring and overextension altogether (or make it represent end of separatist sentiment instead). Instead expand on reducing autonomy and make it a major system of internal management. Possibly rename it into integration as changes are rather extensive.

Reducing autonomy should go in stages, cost admin points to do, take time to do. In general, it should be much more central element of the game. Newly conquered provinces would begin at 100% autonomy (or 0% integration) and contribute nothing to the country. By spending admin points on integrating, it and reducing autonomy you finally get benefits from a province.

There could be a strategic depth and tradeoffs with that as well. If you blob a lot, you need to make choices what provinces you will reduce autonomy as your admin points will not let you do it everywhere so need to choose between say high value trade good and high manpower province based on what you need more at the moment, money or more soldiers for next war.

That would make internal country management more engaging and more important for the overall functioning of your country.

That is more realistic representation of differences in internal administration as some small countries are better managed and can field a better and bigger army. On the other hand, other countries maybe huge but most provinces there do not even know what country they are part of and contribute nothing to it. Thus, with this system better managed countries did better than poorly managed ones, this is a way to represent it.

Facial Expressions of Code Geass

 

Gode Geass is all round good anime and does everything right. One particular thing it head and shoulders ahead of other anime is its depiction of emotions and facial expressions. 

Emotions in Code Geass are both complicated and very deeps. At certain points in the show, Lelouch and other main characters, are happy, sad, angry, disgusted, focused, possessed, obsessed, intense and many more. Animators doing really great job at putting these feelings on faces of Code Geass characters. 

This is not a show where smug is the entire personality of certain characters. However pretty much every character can put a smug on their face when they feel it.

Here for example an aptitude of Lelouch. This is his happy and relaxed face when he is with Nunnally

Here is when he is stressed. You can clearly see intensity of his eyes.

Here is is deep in thoughts about his plans

Finally, here what he looks like when his plans working out and he revels in his victory

You can search for his name in any search engine and will get such a variety of emotions. 

Hardly any other shows can give you as many different facial expressions for the same character. 

Choujikuu Yousai Macross Review

Overall Rating 6.7 out of 10 - Interesting and original premise but inconsistent quality. 

I recommend watching.

Macross is a very interesting show. Just that fact that people still remember it 40 years after it originally aired suggests there is something extraordinary about it. Partially it did not disappoint. Sometimes it's as good as 8 and other times it falls to 5.

I will be being with the good. The story and premise. An alien spaceship crashed on Earth, humans rebuild it and used it as their own. However, Zentradi, opponents of the original owners of the ship, mysterious Supervision Army found it and do not know what to do with it. That creates an interesting dilemma. Zentradi have more sheer firepower but they want ship alive so they cannot just destroy it. That gives Marcross a asymmetric fighting chance as Zentradi get out of their way to capture ship alive.

As show progresses you get to learn more about Zentradi and their way of life. I will not spoil too much, but episodes that cover reality of Zentradi life and their surprising weakness are highlight of this show.

Finally, the Valkyrie transforming Jet. It can be a jet, a walking mech like Gundam and even something in between. A vert creative idea.

Now the bad. The drama. Show wants to prevent itself as love story in space, it takes a lot of time exploring its love triangle/quad between a few main characters. It's dragged out and mostly unpleasant. Both women in Hikaru's life are so short fused and emotional. No matter who is currently with him, the other one seems like a better choice. Both Minmay and Misa take too much undue advantage of Hikaru's kindness. Both first get angry when they see him with the other one, then cry long tears over him favoring their rival. At the same time, they both also like Kaifun and willing to run to him anytime, forgetting all about Hikaru. Then shamelessly coming back to Hikaru when things sour with Kaifun. This story is full of romance you want to avoid.

Kaifun is very annoying. Ever since he was introduced in the middle of the show, it turned worse. Only part of it is because of his anti-miliary pacifism. Kaifun is a slave drive, obsessed with a dubious sense of duty to society. He exploits Minmay to perform her songs to the point of exhaustion. He criticizes military and tries to rally the populace against them.

Finally, about length. The show it 36 episodes long. That is like three seasons. First 12/13 episodes are the best, overall. That is where show shines most. Middle 12 are the worst, they fell more like filler then a real show. The final 12 are mixed bag. Some of them very important plot developments and others just more of the same old drama.

Overall, it is a interesting and unusual anime. It gave birth the whole Macross franchise that has several more shows. I recommend watching, even if some episodes are better off skipped.

Dungeon ni Deai wo Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka III Review

Overall Rating 4.5 - Poorly written agenda show that feels like trolling.

I do not recommend watching.

How to Not Pick Anime to Watch III

The longest of my currently watching is finally over. I picked this anime over Weine. First half of it was not very inspiring, but at the same time very ambiguous as to what direction the show will ultimately take. Thus, I was postponing it for other shows, returning to it when I finish other shows. Finally, when I decided to clean up my backlog I started watching it more frequently. By the time I got completely disillusioned with it I was already three quarters finished so I decided to finish it to make a more informed review as there is a lot to cover.

This show puts everything that is bad with contemporary anime industry in one single show. I will list is here while at it.

It has many poorly drawn characters and unlikable characters. Not the characters the creators wished to make cute and likable but could not draw well, like in DearS. Instead, it has characters that are deliberately designed to be aesthetically unpleasant. Some designs are so hideous like that Freya's assistant, that it feels more like a prank show, that an honest attempt at making something good.

It has a lot of female characters with unlikable personalities too. Show has so many women, but none are really waifu material. Instead, they all remind you why you do not want to deal with women in the first place. Wiene is somewhat likable, but that is not enough to justify watching it.

The whole Xenos idea was so poorly implemented, it feels more like cheap propaganda of inclusivity. When a lizardman calls a literal unicorn or a mushroom man his kind, it's just silly. Line between monsters and people is blurry too, catgirls or elves are people, but bird girls or girls with scales are not. Go figure, why? 

There are better written shows that have inclusivity, for example Code Geass where Black Knights have their fair share of disagreement and mistrust over ethnicity but are intimately united by their common goal and faith in Zero. After all people do not unite just for the sake of diversity or inclusivity. People unite because they have common interests. Code Geass shows that just well.

In contrast here Bell and Xenos are willing to die for each other for no particular reason at all. it's just poor writing by a lazy scriptwriter.

Plot just throws random unpredictable curveballs to avoid being predictable. People just betray and switch sides with no real reasons or explanations. Just to make things less predictable. However, that fails as they make no sense either.

Occasionally show tries to be dramatic, like when Wiene would tear out here claws and wing when Ais accused her of using these to harm people. However, it does not work. Perhaps due to other faults of this show, you just cannot take it seriously. Perhaps something else.

Finally, the world is poor too. It has some families headed by gods, mostly from Greek but also other mythologies. There is Ganesha too, but <spoiler alert>, he just wears silly elephant mask and does not have proper elephant head. Who is in what familia is random and the whole organization system is not compelling. Why would you want to be a subordinate of some god or goddess? It calls for a Lermontov's quote about "blue suits" and their loyal people. Gods plot their own games with each other and so on.

One thing that shows occasionally is that this show could have been better. For example, architecture of non-essential buildings the city is very nice. Too bad good buildings are shown only briefly, and a lot of time characters spend in some plain dungeons or rooms. Ouranos lair, Bell's home and other named and important for the story locations are all very poorly designed.

Finally, Bell is an unlikable martyr hero.

This show feels like a deliberate attempt by creators to shoot themselves in a foot. It's not as bad as say Guilty Crown, but still a waste of time. Hopefully anime will get better. We need DearS and Hand Maid May remaster into full HD graphics.