#which is obviously fucked up on many levels and blatantly false

[seilon]

sorry I will not shut up about this show But. I just. wanted to mention how fucking cool it is that ok ko has a major bi character in it (a bi man at that) that has important on-screen romantic relationships portrayed with both a female partner and a male partner and neither is considered less legitimate than the other. his orientation isnt pointlessly called into question or suggested to have been faked or changed for ending up with a man when he was previously with a woman. It’s just natural, and so one doubts that he was once romantically interested in/involved with carol just because he ended up with boxman. and I think that is very cool and something I feel like I super rarely see with bi characters– when bi characters are represented I feel like it’s pretty common to only have them shown romantically involved with one gender or another and it’s more of a side note that they also like people outside that gender, or they’re portrayed as “confused” or god forbid suggesting their feelings for someone weren’t really real because they ended up with someone of another gender (not to be confused with comp het; in that case the individual isn’t bi and that’s different). And so having a children/family show that has two solidly bi characters first of all, and one who’s a grown adult who’s had established relationships with two genders on screen is just honestly really cool and I appreciate that so much

[deltaengineering]

Fall Anime 2019 Part 4: also, he has a gun for a head

Beastars

So here’s the CG anime that everyone for some reason decided way in advance would be the best show of the season, more or less by default. I was very skeptical of this for a multitude of reasons. First of all, that is a bad name for a show and you can’t convince me otherwise. It’s actually even worse because you’re supposed to write it in all caps, but I refuse. Second, it has a terribly on the nose conceit in which all sorts of animals live together in a high school setting and it’s all metaphorical ‘n shit. The main character is a wolf but get this, he’s actually all sensitive and quiet! Yeah, this is definitely rated D for Deep. And finally it’s by Orange, the CG studio that got an inordinate amount of acclaim for making Houseki no Kuni, the show that everyone thinks looks great and finally made CG anime worthwhile (actual real fact: HnK does not look great most of the time and CG anime was worthwhile well before it). 

But enough about my preconceptions since Beastars is... pretty good, actually. If you ignore the setting, which is indeed terribly on the nose. And there’s not much else to say about the story so far besides it. However, it looks significantly better than Houseki no Kuni because it actually has really good character animation throughout instead of a one-minute action scene with flashy spinny camera tricks every other episode. The directing’s strong too, even if the show conspicuously mainly consists of obvious manga panels. I’m still not too hot on the animal stuff but the general writing seems to be sufficiently competent it would work simply on a character level. So I don’t love it, but it seems solid enough to see if it goes somewhere with its “Zootopia but also Beverly Hills 90210 but also they eat each other sometimes″ plot.

Rifle is Beautiful

Remember the whole “anime about some assorted anime girls joining a club doing an oddly specific activity” thing? This is another one of those, and now it’s about air rifle sports shooting. Except it’s not about air rifle sports shooting because that’s apparently way too violent, so they use rifles that look like exactly like air rifles but are actually based on lasers or really bright flashlights (they can’t keep their bullshit straight between scenes, sorry) instead. I just don’t think “girls doing activities” anime should blatantly misrepresent their subject matter like that, you know? With the possible exception of idol anime that is, ain’t nobody who wants to hear about that shit. Apart from that it’s nothing special, so if you are really into air rifles and wish to watch an anime that’s not about those, knock yourself out. It goes through a whole “club needs 5 members” arc in the first half of the first episode, so I really can’t say where it goes next. Nowhere much, I would guess.

Oh right, there’s one more thing: They frequently render the bodies in CG and the heads in traditional drawings, and they do it every time when they’d actually have to draw a rifle otherwise. It’s a weird effect that I think I haven’t seen anywhere else before, and it’s not great but also not terrible. And it’s the most interesting thing about the entire show.

Kabukicho Sherlock

“Let’s take a bunch of public domain characters and put them into a hip modern setting” seems to be its own genre at the moment, and not only because the BBC did that with S. Holmes, Esq. already. Obviously this show is influenced by that (besides other public domain namedroppers like Bungou Stray Dogs), mostly in Watson and his relationship with Sherlock, but Sherlock-san is rather different here; he’s neither the classic Victorian bohemian nor the abrasive sociopath of the BBC version, and tends more towards a bumbling 90s pop culture version of autism and/or general wackiness here. These two are surrounded by a bunch of campy transvestites for some reason, and I’m not quite sure whether I’m supposed to find this particular stereotype offensive or empowering this week, but it sure is annoying. And it has the same character designer as Joker Game, so if you like chiseled, angular anime men, you’re in for a treat here - even if they tend to wear a lot of makeup and dresses sometimes. I don’t know man, it seems sort of okay-ish for the most part but it’s neither as funny as they think, nor as weird as they think, nor is the murder of the week intriguing at all. Oh yeah, he’s hunting noted public domain character Jack the Ripper. Because of course he is.

 Shin Chuuka Ichiban!

I am told this is the sequel to episode 19 of a 52-episode anime TV show from 1997. Okay. I am also told to not dare watch this without the important setup therein, which makes me think I should pay less attention to what I’m told because understanding Shin Chuuka Ichiban and its backstory is not hard at all. Kid is superawesome cooking champion in ancient China and goes around clowning on lesser cooks, got it. It’s not a complicated setup and it’s not a complicated genre either: This seems to be mostly about sick shounen cooking duels. Besides the setting, the main difference between this and Shokugeki no Soma seems to be that SnS goes for ridiculous and Chuuka Ichiban goes for epic - which is to say that it fancies itself emotional as well. Apart from that it’s what you’d expect from a cooking shounen, big moves, big reactions, huge twists and so on. One notable thing is that this show looks really, really nice. Production I.G seems to be establishing a sideline in taking stuff from the 90s and updating it with smoother animation and shinier lighting, while keeping the overall look intact; They did it for Mahoujin Guru Guru, and this looks much the same. Still, I’m just fundamentally not really interested in what appears to be a very straightforward cooking shounen from the 90s.

Assassins Pride

Straight from the Department of Chuuni, we have this light novel masterpiece about a cool as fuck teenage assassin who teleports behind u and nothin personells fools all day. He then meets a princess he’s supposed to off but just kinda decides not to, probably because she seems to be smitten by his m’lady act. Now he has to use his sick skillz to keep them both alive. It’s awful and terrible and no good and also kind of adorable. This truly is the most 13 AND A HALF MOM years old anime in a while, and it’s not even isekai! The writing’s just so amateurish and corny you can’t help but smile when princesses exposit their backstory for no reason while being accosted by pumpkin monsters (without knowing that Awessassin McCooldude happens to be listening in, which is certainly convenient). Or when the episode ends with the man just reading the synopsis of the show out again, in case you were too fascinated by this plot to pay attention to what it’s about. Yeah I’m not going to watch this in a thousand years, but it sure made me chuckle. Your mileage may vary.

Mugen no Juunin - Immortal

Speaking of 𝔱𝔥𝔞𝔱 𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔦𝔢𝔰 𝔢𝔡𝔤𝔢, another anime adaptation of Blade of the Immortal appeared! You know, the manga for the cultured and historically minded guro fan. The first episode of Blade of the Immortal runs with this and is an arthouse production that someone most definitely directed the shit out of. I don’t think I’ve seen this much directing since, well, Sarazanmai, but “Ikuhara amounts of directing” is pretty much the idea here. And most of the time it even works! The quickly edited, disorienting style gives episode 1 a feeling closer to horror than to a cool swordmen action show, and that really brings out the best in the material, which is grotesque splatter bordering on the comical - It’s somehow a better Junji Ito anime than the actual Junji Ito anime. I think it tries too hard in a few places, but at least it does try.

But then I watched the second episode and that one’s a fairly conventional splatter-comedy swordin’ anime. I am not at all pleased with this development. The third episode was better again and seemed to split the difference between 1 and 2, even if it mostly uses the tricky editing to save on effort in the action –  I would much prefer actually readable fights and the wacky mannerisms in the more psychological stuff, thank you very much. Based on episode 1 I thought we might have something special here, but as of episode 3 I’d already merely call it pretty decent. I guess I’ll still stick with it but man, that’s a real bummer.

No Guns Life

No Guns Life is a neo-noir thriller about a guy who has a gun for a head. That’s fuckin rad and exactly the kind of silliness I am totally down for. He also has a gun for a hand, and there’s also some battle nun’s who carry revolvers with two cylinders, so in short I think the title is false advertising. This sounds very wacky (and it is), but it also takes its noir very seriously, down to details more wannabe neo-noirs tend to neglect (like being set right after a big war). The look and feel is pretty excellent, with sharp design and high-contrast artwork, and the music goes all in on the moody saxophone as you’d expect. And there’s some really adorable “look mom, I’m writing” stuff about how Man With Gun For A Head really “needs someone to pull his trigger” and so on (which is, as the astute reader might remember, at the back of his head). It feels like a throwback but then I can’t really think of many 80s/90s shows like this, so it’s actually more like the sort of faux-retro idea Trigger/Imaishi would come up with on a lark. Trigger/Imaishi would, of course, make a far worse anime out of it, so it’s all good. Well, it has some pacing problems and as always it’s a fine line between amusingly camp and not so amusingly camp anymore, but No Guns Life seems to have enough real qualities that it can probably stand on its own even when its conceptual gimmick eventually doesn’t suffice anymore. I give it a two gun’s up.

Hoshiai no Sora / Stars Align

And finally, here’s an anime about middle schooler softboys playing a tennis just as soft as themselves, while being henpecked by the elites on the girl’s team. This is not an “actual” sports anime though: for starters, it’s not based on some shounen manga and is an anime original with quite some staff pedigree instead. It’s also more of a character drama that already goes to some surprisingly real places by the end of episode 1, reminiscent of the recent and quite good Run with the Wind. Furthermore, it looks delicious, with minimalist but distinctive and varied character designs and animation that’s both extremely detailed for a TV anime and also not trying to shove that fact into your face with flashy stunt cuts. In short, this show seems very simple at first glance but every aspect of it just oozes quality. If nothing else, it’s already worth watching just for the excellent ending sequence where the characters show off their “best” dance moves and the chunky student council president dunks on everyone. This one caught me by surprise and it’s an easy pick for most promising show of the season.

[mr-river7-blog]

So wrong I made this stupid thing

It was stupid enough to deserve my effort, but so easy to dismiss I’m too lazy to create a proper structure to my writing, so here goes:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/opinion/facts-have-a-well-known-liberal-bias.html

This is in response to the above article, listing several points that are so blatantly wrong that I ought to title this also as “’Facts’ Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias”.

The article starts out stating that: “... the Republican Party has become an extremist institution with little respect for traditional norms of any kind.”

One:

the Republican Party has not become extremist.

 If anything they’ve become too unchanging, and unable to flow with the current that is American society. One of the main reasons why is...

Two:

the Republican Party is obsessed with traditional norms

Slow to accept gay rights when the majority of the nation couldn’t care less if gays got married - the Republican Party is a staunch defender of traditional American culture. While this can be both good and bad (another topic, another time), the argument that it has little respect for traditions is absurd.

Three:

the party that is both extremist and has hates traditional norms is the Democratic Party.

No this isn’t a case of ‘your party stinks, mine rules’. Both have extreme flaws in both ideology and figureheads; I hate both equally.

Calling the Democratic Party extremist is a little...extreme you might say. Well Mr. Krugman decided to fling shit first so now it’s my turn.

Progressivism is the ideological movement of Change. And yes, this is exactly the Obama “Change we can believe in” slogan, type of change. The progressive movement is all about smashing tradition and reforming society. The Democratic Party loves, panders, and consists of Progressives, and therefore would be the more logical choice of hating tradition. 

Finally, the Democratic Party, in their pandering to the Progressive Left, has become, like the Progressive Left...Extreme. Morals and ethics change in society. Slavery, racism, anti-LGBTTQQIAAP, fascism, misogyny, and related issues are ones America tries not to subscribe to. But to keep this short; the so-called “regressive-left”, has become an ideology based on emotions and feelings, more so than facts and reality. Progressivism treats issues like slavery and fascism as relevant issues, and not the relics of history they are - and we’re to blame. Worse yet, many beliefs in this ideology are hypocritical, not based in fact or reality, disingenuous, or actually racist. Some ‘highpoints’ being: You can’t be racist toward white people, the damnation of fascism for it’s dictators while supporting Communism, and the infantilization of American minorities.

...Anyway, back to the article - Krugman then goes on to mention that the mainstream media (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, FOX, etc.) haven’t come to grips with reality. He’s entirely right, for entirely the wrong reasons, stating that: 

“Even in the age of Trump, they try desperately to be “balanced”, which in practice means bending over backwards to say undeserved nice things about Republicans and take undeserved swipes at Democrats.”

Which is entirely true - the mainstream media, MSM for now on, is easily and obviously biased towards the left, with the sole exception being Fox News...most of the time. But then he goes on to say that:

“This dynamic played a crucial role in last year’s election; it’s one of the reasons major news organizations devoted more time to Hillary Clinton’s emails than to all policy issues combined.”

Someone’s got to explain to me how Clinton’s email scandal was an ‘undeserved swipe’, and how he conveniently forgot the fact that, in effort to be “balanced” by bending over backwards to compliment the Republicans;

COVERAGE OF TRUMP HAS BEEN UP TO 93% NEGATIVE, AND REMAINS SO!

This is what deception looks like.

But it only gets worse from here: The article then uses this malicious, deceptive point to bash Paul Ryan...by linking his own opinion pieces. Given the absolute garbage above, I’m going to go ahead and not take you as an unbiased reliable source. I was never into APA citations to begin with.

But, wait there’s more! And it’s really bad.

Krugman goes on to criticize Facebook for using The Weekly Standard, an American conservative opinion magazine, as a fact-checker:

“Facebook wanted responsible fact-checking organizations to partner with, and several such organizations exist. But all of these organizations are constantly attacked by the right as having a left-wing bias – so it added The Weekly Standard, even though it clearly failed to meet internationally accepted standards for that role."

Words are important here so I’ll explain why I emphasized two of them above. What this is, is framing - only instead of people being framed, words are. The author’s supported organizations are responsible, to be trusted, and under attack, a malicious act. These organizations are worded as victims of the dastardly right. The reality is that they are not under attack, they’re under criticism. If we take a step back, we can realize that the author has given us no source, nor reason as to why these organizations (which ones?) are responsible. Another step reveals that the so-called “internationally accepted standards” (wow very professional sounding), come from the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter institute. Some google-fu reveals that Poynter institute is a tiny journalism school based out of St. Petersburg that brands itself as...

Okay full stop here. My standard protocol has me checking linked sources, and verifying that everything is up to snuff, but Poynter has derailed my writing entirely. Let me just list what I’ve found, and I’ll let you decide of Poynter and it’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN):

Poynter deems itself the “world’s leading instructor, innovator, convener and resource for anyone who aspires to engage and inform citizens in 21st century democracies”. A big claim and nothing offered to back it up.

Most classes offered by Poynter are ‘webinars’ or DIY self-directed courses. Because internet-based colleges have great reputations just like Ivy-league and other greats.

Poynter has a complicated array of membership levels, partnership programs, benefits, discounts, points and downloadable badges Most schools give you an education and a diploma. This one gives you badges to post to your facebook and benefits and membership levels that sound like they come out of a pyramid scheme.

They reference Pulitzer prize winners, news execs, and prominent national broadcasters as among their advisory board. Most aren’t well known and the Pulitzer-winning journalist, was among the entirety of the Washington Post staff as the winners.

Poynter has tiny blurb of a page on Wikipedia and it’s IFCN isn’t mentioned, nor does it have one.

So to sum this up; our source and guide as to why the Weekly Standard is not up to snuff is:

a self-important network put forward by an online college that nobody knows, cited by a self-described intersectional, progressive, social justice news site (that’s powered by WordPress), and helmed by a former Hillary Clinton campaign research director.

This folks, is our impartial gatekeeper.

(Side note; Personal thanks to WordPress; freely hosting a site for a school project that I used NETSCAPE to view)

But enough on this, it gets better:

The author goes on to check on why Politifact, one of the mythical respected organizations mentioned earlier, is indeed seen as biased. And what better organization to check it’s bias than...The Weekly Standard?? I give up.

Lets take a step back, because this argument is so baffling from beginning to end that I’ll sit here all day if I don’t just quickly sum it up.

Facebook, an organization that is seen by most as more liberal/left in it’s policies, in some weird attempt to pander to the right to seem unbiased, chose to use a conservative magazine as their fact-checkers instead of more popular choices that are seen as left-leaning.

The best course of action, to prove the neutrality of the popular option is, of course, to use the magazine that fails as a fact-checker, to, as the French put it; “Beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker”.

The author then bashes said magazine, as a failure in that role.

Crazy right? Why would you use a source that YOU called bad, as a measure of standard for anything?

To nobodies surprise, the author dissuades the Weekly Standard’s argument! In an acute stroke of enlightenment he manages to posit a hypothesis, sans substantiation!

What do all those fancy words mean?! Is this his crowning achievement? Has he finally managed to make a fair an accurate point? Has he stumbled unto greatness?!

...NO

The translation of my fancy words, as you might’ve already realized, is that he made a point...with no proof, backing, or logic.

All facetiousness aside - the point, asking readers to wonder if Republicans simply make more false claims, is in face to the statistics put forward that Politifact states that Republican claims are found to be false three times more than Democratic claims. My response, given no evidence for his argument is simple:

What if they don’t?

I don’t know if Republicans lie more than Democrats, and I don’t know if Politifact is entirely biased, but I have seen evidence of double standards, and multiple checks on single claims. Point is the author looks like he’s using logic, and even goes to cite sources; but all he’s really doing is taking down strawmen with guesswork.

So what to do after this resounding victory?

How about bring up the very definition of an arbitrary point, and simply call it not arbitrary?

How about slander the GOP as in it just for themselves?

HOW ABOUT GENERALIZE ALL PROFESSIONAL ECONOMISTS TO ONE ORGANIZATION THAT YOU YOURSELF HAVE BEEN CRITICAL OF?!??!?!?

I’m fucking done.