PokeNirvash

Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Take On Me

I'm more of a streaming/blog kinda person in that regard. Podcasts are neat, and I've listened to multiple irregularly - CSW's podcast, Toonami Faithful's podcast, the Ninja Tune 20th Anniversary episode of Solid Steel, and most recently the first episode of the [as] podcast - but it's just too easy to get distracted during them, especially when it's a topic you're especially interested in, and double especially if you're like me and are capable of entertaining yourself with your own thoughts on media.

... every single character in Black Clover is a hot lady with huge titties and a serious drinking problem? To be honest, I'd probably watch that.

It's a popular character archetype with Pierrot, that's for sure.

Considering that controversy was more around Vic than any of her roles, I think she'll be fine.

Air 1 Yes, it's the dub. No, I'm not sorry.

Monica Rial's actually pretty cool about playing objectifiable characters ("They're not my boobs"), it's Jamie Marchi who isn't pleased with it being her typecast. Real-world VA drama aside, this announcement actually kinda tickles me, as one with a big-breasted OC with Monica as her headcanon VA.

It waffles between 95% and 100% when plugged in, which is almost all of the time. Depends on how much battery power I lost between plug-ins.

Ikebukuro West Gate Park (J-Drama) 8

And even in 2020, the idea of the American government taking away the right to enjoy a niche medium from another nation they're on much better terms with than certain others because of a silly trending topic is just too ridiculous and asinine for even the leftest wing nuts to admit to themselves is a real plausibility. Save your worries for the actual threats, and not this hokum you're worrying about for the sake of a higher post count.

I'm not sure if I ever saw that video (not during the marathon I obviously skipped, that's for sure), but I definitely listened to the song.

You worry too much. You all worry too much.

More like GXP. Believe it or not, many of us actually liked Pop Team Epic.

Somewhere in an alternate universe, Reigen is bitching on Twitter about how typing "mob" into Google Search brings up images of protests both peaceful and otherwise. Still, you don't have to be a never-Trumper to find this shit hilarious.

Welp, after finding myself unable to go to sleep with this news on my mind, I decided to write a letter to [as] to express my feelings in the most civil manner I could muster (read: surprisingly civil for a shithole site like this one). I'm wholly expecting it to be trashed immediately at the earliest or halfway through at the latest - keeping with the narrative that [as] is a suck company that doesn't deserve its views - but at least I got my thoughts out there instead of wallowing in despair over it like some people.

I wasn't able to find the picture I wanted, and this one, like your reaction to it, makes me laugh, so I just made to. Besides, everyone's disagreeing with my "it's far from perfect but I don't hate it as much as you do" stance, so what's one more pile-on?

Eh, I prefer my list because it reflects my opinion, but yours isn't bad either.

If this was 12 years ago, I'd have pulled a "Geass and Moribito premieres shunted off to 5AM" and called this worse than an actual real-world tragedy that shouldn't be joked about. But I know better than I did back then, so I won't do that. Still, this sucks. Like, really, really sucks. I'd have been fine if it was just "you're done after season 8", but to can it so hard that we're not getting even that? That's just flat-out retarded bullshit. Hopefully Jackson and Doc find a way to finish VB on their terms. But until then, I'm just gonna sit here mad as hell and keeping my urge to beat the nearest thing to smithereens in check.

I only managed to get through 20 before deciding, "eh, I'll eventually catch up with the rest via that one dude's MySpace videos". So much for that action. 🙃

You say that like Fairy Tail was Mashima's first try at shounen. Nobody remembers his real first stab with Rave Master?

I figured as much, the cocaine thing was the only thing I knew about Tim Allen controversy-wise before now. This whole "executives haet conservatives" thing really comes off as a whole lotta nothing. I'm sure it was something to somebody, but not to me or my parents. None of us give a shit about Last Man Standing, so this story means nothing to us. And even then, I'd say Tim Allen brought it on himself for voicing those claims to begin with. No matter your political affiliation, if you can't keep your mouth shut when you want to say stupid shit, then you deserve whatever backlash comes your way.

Wait, was this the "cocaine in the 80s" thing, or did he do something colossally stupid between Home Improvement and Last Man Standing that I somehow didn't know about?

You know what, I think now's as good a time as any for me to finally put my personal ranking for the Black Bulls down on digital paper. Remember these are my opinions, so don't go saying I'm objectively wrong or anything if you choose to verbally disagree. It only makes your hate for BC look tryhard, like "calling your kid Asta is literal child abuse!" before it. First place is easy: Yami Fucking Sukehiro. Bathroom issues aside, he's a flawless character. Strong, buff, gives very little of a shit about most things, and entertaining to boot. If there's one objective to this list, it's that he is the best. Second place goes to Secre. Unlike everyone else below her on this list, she doesn't have a one-note gimmick, so that puts her light years ahead of everyone else. Also she spent most of her screentime as a bird, and she was great then. Nothing about her is obnoxious or abrasive, and as little character as she has otherwise, that puts her at the top of the list for tolerability. Plus she's voiced by Monica Rial. I can't hate one of Monica's characters, no matter how much the Vic stans want me to. Third place is Gordon. I was a little disturbed by his design early on in the show's run, and it can be difficult at times to understand what he's saying, but he's truly grown to become one of my favorites as of recent, especially the episode with his family (which I think upped the volume of his whispers on purpose). He's a great guy who cares about his friends, even if his way of showing it is more than a little much. Fourth place... I'm gonna have to give it to Zora. He definitely has flaws to him - his backstory is pretty rote stuff, his mouth movements make it look like he has an unhinged jaw, and the "rainbow stinkbug" gag is pretty juvenile - but past his Dimestore Hisoka look is a "who gives a shit" attitude that, like Yami's, I can respect. Plus he's voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch. I can't hate one of JYB's characters, no matter how much those who were annoyed by his portrayal of Renton Thurston want me to. This is where the rankings start to get tough and penetrate the top layer of subjective territory. A tier consisting of characters I like, but annoy me from time to time. First is Magna. I've gone on record saying that the flexibility of his "wannabe macho man" bit has made him one of the less dreadful of the Bulls whenever they remind the audience of what they're all about 99% of the time. That's part of the reason why he's up there. The rest is Ian Sinclair's portrayal of him. Even at his most obnoxious, you can tell he's having fun with the role. Godspeed, Virgin Street Punk Dandy. Next is Finral. When he's playing the sane man, the coward, or the "well done, big brother" guy, he's perfectly fine. When he's hitting on the ladies, however... yeesh. You can only take so much of it, and that's the one thing I agree with Langris on. After that is Charmy. She's got some great gags when she's on her own, and even the food stuff is enjoyable when done right, but the food stuff is relied on so often during the "multiple character tics at once" routine that it grates on the nerves, even more than Finral's lady-craziness. Really, he and her are interchangeable, depending on my mood. Finral = Charmy on this ranking, is what I'm saying. Following up is the manlet of the hour: Asta [no last name given]. It's been in my nature to root for even the most heinous of "the" main characters since South Park put Stan through the wringer twice - one of which had an extremely depressing lack of a resolution - so of course I was gonna like Asta from the first episode. I'll confess, his "confessing to Sister Lily" gag really isn't funny, but the concept of him having oneitis for a nun of all people is just hilarious to me, to the point where I've joked about it numerous times, from asides in my commentary to making an effortful photoshop out of a Shadbase comic panel. And yes, I'm still planning on writing that "nun fetish epiphany" fanfic; I'm just trying to figure out a believable portrayal of the post-timeskip (because Asta's gonna be 18 in this) given what's going on in the story right now. Luckily, the fact that he spends more time away from Sister Lily than closeby has made that gag less of a consistent concern, so it's strength, determination, and obliviousness for him as far as the gags go, and compared to the rest, they ain't no huge deal. I'll wrap it up here before I get too carried away in justifying my opinions on the human scream generator. Insert Henry here. There's not much for me to think about with him, and the long drawn-out dialogue can get old if you ingest too much of it. An appropriate analog to him sapping your mana if you're too close in proximity. And then there's Vanessa. Definitely attractive, alright when it comes to serious plot, but when you have two character quirks abused for as many cheap laughs out of the low-IQ half of the fanbase as possible, it's actually twice as annoying. I don't blame Angel for losing interest in her. But for what it's worth, I'm making sure her "pot potatoes could be a decent bar snack" line from episode 30 sees fruition in one of my many story ideas. You probably know which one it'll be. Teetering the edge between this tier and the next is Noelle. Tsunderes are not my favorite character archetype, but I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt if they're dere-dere enough, or their tsun-tsun antics tickle my humerus. Noelle is neither. While I enjoy seeing her development as a mage, and pity her for living with a family of douchebags for most of her life, she is probably the most quick-to-violence tsundere I've ever seen. Attacking Asta whenever she's the least bit embarrassed at his accidental flirtations is beyond groan-worthy, and you don't even need to like Asta to know where I'm coming from with this. She's not the most impulsive-to-violence tsundere on Toonami Swim - seriously, Tokine, slapping Yoshimori across the face for almost saying "cockroach" is just a bitch move for the sake of being a bitch move - but she certainly ranks near the bottom in that regard. This is where I insert the power gap, because after this come the bottom three. My least favorite Black Bulls. Technically the best among them is Luck. Man, this kid is the textbook example of having your defining character trait be your only character trait. Every time he's on screen, every time he has a line, it's always about how much he loves fighting, how much he wants to fight a certain character, and how exciting whatever dangerous thing that happens to him is. Not even in his tragic backstory or Clover Clips can his fight fetishism be escaped. Even Asta's nun love pales in comparison to Luck's perpetual fightboner. Hopefully, with the super-powerful Spade guy's aura having finally rendered him limp, he'll start showing more than just how much cruisin' for a bruisin' he's willing to do. Having watched over 300 individual titles (according to MAL) spanning a wide range of obscurities to completion and coming out the other side relatively unscathed, I'm anime-savvy enough that incest and lolicon don't bother me as much as it does your casual anime watcher. But Gauche... Man. Fuck his gimmick. It's been repeated in this thread several times before, and here I am repeating it again. Nothing screams controversy like a character on the good guys' side who has an unhealthy obsession with his sister whose age hasn't even reached double digits yet, to the point of nosebleeding. The one thing worse than him wanting to bang his imouto is that, for the first three cours of the series, it's all he ever talks about. Marie this, Marie that, can I see Marie now, don't you dare touch Marie... I can put up with a lot of bullshit from so many obnoxious anime characters, but Gauche doesn't have to scream his lungs out, warp his speech patterns, or make nonsense verbal tics to make the audience's eyes glaze over in the hopes of sweet release from either watching Black Clover or straight up living with how much he goes on and on about his dear sister. The only reason he isn't dead last is because, while his gimmick is still a major problem with him as a character, killing whatever intrinsic likability he could possibly have on him, he's lately started to talk about more than just his sister. Joining Asta and Finral on coming up with theories on who does Nozel's hair was the first sign of that, telling Noelle "Like hell you're giving up on my watch!" when she perfected her control over Sea Dragon's Lair was the second, and more extensive moments like playing the sane man in a group of three and reacting like the biggest casual to the spookiness of Gordon's family proved that, when he isn't doing the whole Polaroid-and-nosebleed routine, Gauche could actually be tolerable. Still a freak, though. Still a freak. Which means that last place goes to Grey. Before the reveal of her true appearance, she was the biggest non-character of the Black Bulls: a smoke-billowing giant of ambiguous gender whose face was always hidden in shadow, droned occasionally during the gimmick roll calls, and only acted like they had any character when they transformed into someone else. After the reveal, her 24/7 shyness immediately wore thin, to the point where it superseded Luck and fighting and Gauche and his sister for being the most aggressively consistent marriage of Bull to gimmick of the whole group. And her mouth during her "I'm too shy~" scenes... I fucking hate that squiggly-lined hole more than Angel hates Asta's sparkly shoujo eyes. Fuck Grey. And there you have it. My quick rundown on where the Black Bulls rank in regards to personal stance and why that is. I will not be taking questions, comments, concerns or complaints, nor will I be ranking every single BC character on a scale of 1 to infinity. Thank you, and good night.

Yes, yes, we've already established that several posts ago.

Clearly Vic is one of those "always look on the bright side of life" kind of guys, which is ironic considering the depth of the hole he's been digging for himself since he first wooed the opposite sex.