What BlackAeronaut is Watching (Was Magical Girl Spec Ops)

[Black Aeronaut]

Has anyone seen this yet?  I've only watched the first episode.

HOLY.

SHIT.

You know how PMMM took the Mahou Shoujo genre and cranked the cosmic horror to eleven, but not until after it lulls you in for the first few episodes?

This show's WHAM! episode....  The very first one!!!

I'm strapping myself in for this one folks.  Mr. Bones' Wild Ride this is not!!!

[Black Aeronaut]

UDPATE: Two episodes in so far. Real, actual PTSD. And what's this? Absolute power corrupting absolutely? Wow. This sucker is deconstructing the genre in a MASTERFUL way!

[classicdrogn]

deconstructing the genre

Got it. Thanks for the warning.

[Black Aeronaut]

It's not at all the same way PMMM did it. No faustian deals here.

It's more like....

....Well, being an Magical Girl SUCKS. Not in the "You are damned no matter what" way. More like the "I have SEEN SOME SHIT" way - seeing monsters killing people, having to kill people yourself on top of the monsters because... yeah. And also having friends get caught up in the middle of that, and them suddenly realizing the following:

1) There were people that were standing right next to her that never got to go home that day
2) They couldn't do anything about it.
3) They were so terrified that they couldn't even think anything about it, only how they were going to save themselves.

That's how it's being deconstructed.

[Rajvik]

I want this, is the title actually Magical Girl Spec Ops?

[robkelk]

(goes and looks)

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, according to Wikipedia.

On Crunchyroll.

[Bob Schroeck]

"Asuka Otori"? <crossover sense tingling>

[Dartz]

Tried to watch it.

Crunchyroll keeps bedshitting. Dropping subtitles, crashing the video, grenading firefox....

10 times, the first 2 minutes.

How the fuck is everyone else able to get Crunchy to work?

[classicdrogn]

Streamripper plugins? I don't know of any that work for it specifically, but a few years ago it was the only way I could get Macross Delta episodes off of whichever site it was I found them on. If you have a PS3 or later, you should be able to get a Crunchyroll channel in the video player section, which as a closed platform has far less excuse to not work than whatever combination of hardware and software your PC may be sporting.

[Black Aeronaut]

UBlock Origin helps. So does NoScript, though you’ll have to give one or two blanket whitelist permissions for the scripts that actually handle the video streams, as each one has a specific address it pulls from.

Paying for the service helps, too, believe it or not. They aren’t trying to inject a good dozen or so ads that way, which is probably what is grenadine your browser.

[nocarename]

I also went in and pulled a step back from the highest settings in the defaults myself. Even paying for CR, my net connection just can't handle bits fast enough to make the pretty colours move fast enough to keep up.

[Black Aeronaut]

Well, times like this I have no qualms against torrenting an anime.

It's not like you haven't paid for it, after all.

EDIT: The other times I have no qualms against torrenting?

When the anime in question is out of print/out of stock.
-Doubly so when it's a Funimation or NIS America import as they got no excuse for that after going after torrenting sites the way they do.

[Dartz]

Got it working.

Had to close Chrome (Which I use for Netflix for reasons I can not remember). Now it works perfectly. I've no idea why.


Episode 3. And I hear the Partyvan coming.

[Black Aeronaut]

I have to clear Chrome out of my computer's memory every great now and then because sometimes one of the tabs will crash and stay stuck in my system's memory, and Chrome likes to run each tab as its own process.  Which is nice, in a ways, because if one tab crashes, it doesn't take everything down with it.  But it can be a bit of a pain in the ass if it happens and you don't know about it and suddenly your system is chugging.

[Black Aeronaut]

Episode 3. And I hear the Partyvan coming.

Yeah. Now we'll see just how far down the rabbit hole we're gonna be going here.

[Black Aeronaut]

Got another one for you guys, and this one looks like it's in the same class as Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka.

Rise of the Shield Hero starts off as your usual isekai plot...

.... And then goes in the completely opposite direction.

Framed for a crime he did not commit, the Shield Hero winds up living a cursed existence.

This is no light fluff story. This is no sudden ascension to having Godly Powers. This is a brutal hard-scrabble cursed adventure that is worthy of a soundtrack by both Sabaton and Manowar.

Make sure you got some time for this one, because the episodes are timed for a FULL ONE HOUR TV TIMESLOT and they're coming out every week Wednesdays. Oh, and there's four episodes available on Crunchyroll as of yesterday - three if you aren't paying.

[ECSNorway]

I have to agree, MGSA is one of the must-see anime of the season.

And I am not merely disappointed, but very deeply annoyed, that we will have to wait for July to see more of "Lord El-Melloi II Case Files". Episode zero went up over the hols and it is GLORIOUS.

Another fun series to keep an eye on this season is The Magnificent Kotobuki Squadron. Three episodes out so far, we've got a bit of a dieselpunk world of airships and fighter planes connecting isolated cities. The eponymous Kotobuki Squadron are an all-female, all-elite squadron of fighter pilots working as escort for a dirigible-based transport corporation, defending their airships against sky pirates and other bad ilk. Lots of fun.

Finally, if anyone's been skipping "That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime" because of the silly title and premise? Don't. It's all kinds of rollicking good fun. Modern-day office-bro jumps in front of a mugger's knife to save his crush's fiance, dies, and gets reborn as a Joe Nobody monster in a high-fantasy world... and decides to do some nation-building while he's there. Things get fun.

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh yeah. Seconding That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. Really good stuff there. It's Isekai DONE RIGHT.

And from the very first five minutes, you know that even though Office Bro has his proclivities, he is the Broest Bro Ever.

ADDENDUM: I had to go DIGGING for The Magnificent Kotobuki Squadron because apparently Sentai is only releasing it by way of their in-house simulcasting service. No freakin' wonder I'd never known about it until now.

[Black Aeronaut]

Okay, Episode 4 of MGSO:A is out.

It's official.

This is a first for me, but I need to slap a trigger warning on this one.

Graphic depictions of human torture.

You have been warned.

[Dartz]

T'is just a scratch.

[Black Aeronaut]

Pfft. Took me a second to get it.

[robkelk]

I knew as soon as I saw (in the Wikipedia description) that the core five characters are all that remains of an 11-member squad that this wasn't going to be a shiny-happy story.

Still debating whether I want to look at the manga.

[Black Aeronaut]

Well, what I'm hoping for is a shiny-happy ending. It'd be a hell of a note to end this thing when it comes out the gates as crap-sack as this.

I do appreciate, though, that it's not making any pretenses about it. Rather than how others lull you into a false sense of security, and then suddenly everyone's going all murder-hobo on each other, you know with this one real quick that it's gonna be something that ranks right up there with the REAL Grimm's Fairy Tales and not the Disney-Sanitized versions.

[Black Aeronaut]

Oh guys?

Just thought I should mention. I have three 48-hour Crunchyroll Premium+ guest passes just sitting around.

If anyone wants a chance to shotgun a few anime without getting bombarded by ads (or better yet, watch them in 1080p) shoot me your email address and I'll send you a guest pass.

They expire on the following dates (all 2019):
March 3
April 2
May 2

PS: I'll have another guest pass to give out in 27 days.

[classicdrogn]

Is that 48 hours of content or 48 hours from when they're activated? I don't have anything I want to watch on there at the moment (from what you've said MGSO is a solid nope) so just curiosity on my part, but it's useful to know for folks who do.