BillyClark

Oh they’re not my children. The neighbors keep dropping them off. They said somebody has to look after them while everybody else is out fighting wolves. Fortunately, when the parents came to pick up their children, nobody asked about those three, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

Recently, I seem to have a problem that there are too many wolves around. I’ve lost three children this month alone.

One thing I forgot when talking about this episode earlier is the cliffhanger from the last episode where Wilfried is dragging Rozemyne’s bloody unconscious body across the floor. And this episode they just carry on like it didn’t happen.

I suspect that would be jarring if you were binge watching the episodes. There is more context in the LNs. Maybe they plan to do a flashback the next time Rozemyne meets Wilfried? I’m hoping at least.

So, I read the manga for this series yesterday, and I actually think the anime is better than the manga so far. I’m usually a fan of any anime with the word “Villainess” in the title, but conversely, I usually dislike the “clueless” sort of animes where the MC doesn’t realize what’s going on.

I guess I think of Bertia as the MC, even though Cecil is supposed to be the MC.

I’m not sure why the anime seems better than the manga. Maybe because I am watching it knowing how it ends. Maybe because Bertia doesn’t seem quite as clueless as in the manga. Maybe it’s because the mangaka frequently used a really stupid happy face for Bertia that I disliked.

I was surprised they spend so much time making sure that we knew Ferdinand killed Arno. Arno was previously bullying Fran, and Arno was the reason why Ferdinand didn’t respond to the attack in the temple more quickly. So, it’s sort of important to know that Ferdinand can be this ruthless to commoners, and how little grey priests’ lives are worth, but if they just mentioned that he was replaced with Zahm, I still think it would still play out similarly to the audience.

The only plot part that I’ve been disappointed with in this season is the portrayal of Rozemyne’s blessings. They’re not completely consistent with the book, whether you’re going with the original descriptions, or with those that were explained differently later. Especially the ceremony in this episode. I’m not even sure that people watching it will realize it was a marriage ceremony.

For me, the most important overall consideration is whether this season will be popular enough to continue animating the rest of the series. It’s got to be a tough problem for the animation studio. This is a critical time for character development, but I suspect they’re also trying to rush through this arc because there’s no guarantee that the anime will continue. I admit that I was pleased they left the scene with Ferdinand after the Starbind Ceremony.

Personally, I don’t think anything is all that badly done yet… But I’m a little concerned because I’ve expressed opinions like this in the past on different anime, and usually, the naysayers were right.

This is so outrageous that I find it hard to believe. The cost of the entire US Forest Service must be minuscule, especially if you compare it to cost of waging unnecessary, illegal, and unethical wars all over the planet.

There was an anime this year that had a mermaid character who refused to eat fish because she is half fish.

And all of the other characters just acted like that made total sense.

A lot of owls will prey on other birds.

It wouldn’t be surprising if a person who was drinking too little water was also getting too little sleep and too little exercise, so they could have multiple sources for the same symptoms.

I loved the live action drama of Liar Game, but I don’t remember it precisely since it came out something like 20 or more years ago.

I looked up the currency conversion, and in today’s money, 100,000,000 yen is about 625,000 USD.

As for this first episode, maybe it’s because my expectations were higher, but I didn’t like it at all. My memory of the drama is that it’s a lot of psychological trickery and puzzle solving, but this episode had very little of it, and felt very cringey how easily Nao was fooled.

Now that I think about it, the first episode of the drama was probably the same. Like I said, maybe my expectations were too high. Or maybe my tastes have changed in 20 years…

Anyways, I think they probably should have released the first two episodes at the same time. I want to know whether this is just the way the show is, or whether it’s more puzzley like my memory suggests.

When I first watched the anime that had come out so far, I didn’t originally classify it as top-tier. Only after reading the LNs did I get really excited about it. Going back and watching the anime again, I was surprised at how good they were at choosing the parts to animate without changing the story very much.

One thing they changed compared to the anime is that Myne is somewhat more weak and sickly in the books. So, it’s more natural if she collapses with Cornelius and then with Wilfried. By the way, I think those two scenes are months apart.

Also, in this episode, it sort of looks like she fainted with Cornelius because she was walking too much, but in the book, it’s clear that she mostly got overexcited about the book room. They kind of showed this in the episode by showing how happy her face was after she collapsed and was in bed, presumably dreaming about the book room.

So, we know from the previous season that Eckhart investigated Myne with Justus before she entered the temple. So he knows all about her past as a commoner, but she doesn’t recognize him. Knowing this, it’s interesting how he talks to her as her older brother. He specifically says he accepts her because of her relationship with Ferdinand.

As a fan of the LNs, if I could choose one anime to have it become popular so that it is guaranteed to finish the entire main story, it would be Ascendance of a Bookworm.

So, I’m hoping this season does it. So far, so good.

Of course, it’s also hard for me to tell how this episode would play to a person who doesn’t already know the entire story. But some scenes in this episode hit harder for me, I think.

They even gave dialogue to Hartmut.

I don’t recall them explaining it, but I always assumed that case is somehow an infinite storage magic bag that also reduces weight. If this was a world that didn’t have that, they’d have to pull a trailer or something.

Yeah, I was going to say that there is nothing inherently illogical about the misanthropic person, despite what the meme implies.

First use: glowing paint
Second use: cancer

You know, looking at that little scarring in the context of the vaccine, I’m reminded that I heard that there’s this famous idea that milk maids are historically seen as the very definition of pretty, and that the idea stems from the fact that they tended to get cowpox, which protected them from smallpox.

So, basically, before smallpox vaccines, the typical woman was so badly scarred somewhere visible like her face by smallpox that a woman who simply didn’t have those scars would be considered extremely pretty.

You know those influencers who are like makeup addicts? They often use shading or tape to change the shape of their faces. I wonder whether they could fool facial recognition technology as well.

The difference being that a person made up like that won’t stand out as much as a person wearing Juggalo makeup.