The cynical view is PT Barnum’s “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”, or more appropriately in this case Oscar Wilde’s “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

I understand Momoka, and therefore Nina’s strong motivation to succeed on their own musical merits and not be pop sellouts though.

First episode: Very watchable. They tried to do some nice action scenes, but didn’t have the budget to pull them off.

The editing was slick though.

Killer Shark was a scene stealer.

The ending felt like a cop out, but a feel good story was good for a change.

A nice way to end the season! I really enjoyed the writing on this show!

The MC Hobin’s highs and lows were thrilling! and I really looked forward to this every week.

@[email protected]

Sakura’s a cool guy when he wants to be, and he’s justifying his classmates’ faith in selecting him as grade representative.

Some nice sakuga of him just jumping down stairs.

@[email protected]

Weird… So the aliens can travel back to the past to change the present?

Neat take on the narrative structure!

I still can’t figure out what the name Isobeyan is referring to…

But this just became bizarro Doraemon.

The flying propeller hat? It’s a classic Doraemon gadget

I forgot that Doraemon is sent from the future to help Nobita.

Likewise the alien also appears to have come from the future.

Mushrooms on the other hand, symbolize that someone’s been doing drugs…

@[email protected]

No surprises there. The punching through your own chest maneuver looked silly instead of… whatever it was supposed to be.

I wouldn’t trust Kafka after that display of losing control either.

And what is Kafka’s alien parasite’s goal anyway?

@[email protected]

A nice wrapup to this story arc. A couple of loose ends are left and may come into play in future stories, like the newly announced season 2!

Sunagawa gets the best art, and this episode is no exception:

At least Misaki’s in good hands

@[email protected]

What a great show! It just played with my emotions, and the characters were all so likeable.

The magic didn’t make sense, but that’s okay because it’s magic.

The art was worthy of a Miyazaki movie at some points…

@[email protected]

One of the better shows this season, it was certainly different and refreshing.

Lots of weird stuff that flashed by quickly in the sorta-normal world:

Tower of Babel by Breugel to the left

That other shorter squat tower with the crenellations and tall mast to the lower left of Babel looks familiar, but I can’t place it…

I’m not super familiar with it, but I’m almost certain there’s only one Sunshine City tower, not 6 of them

Sunshine City in Google Maps:

This street scene…

A real Starbucks in Ikebukuro, from Google Maps. No Romanesco broccoli trees, or mini Statue of Liberty, unfortunately

I have no idea where this is, but, it’s obviously been altered

I read that GBC is supposed to be a long term project, unlike Jellyfish.

It’s too bad the music and writing aren’t better.

Right at that moment when they’re at the temple discussing whether to take DD’s offer, I was thinking of Paripi Koumei’s “borrow the enemy’s arrows” strategy, and they should play before a larger audience to get more exposure, and have a chance of winning over a few of DD’s fans. I mean, people listen to music from different acts in their song rotation all the time, right?

I’m surprised no band members or their agent brought up that argument.

Speaking of rivalries, at this point, I haven’t watched most of Jellyfish, so I’m not sure how the 2 shows compare. I hear it’s good.

One more show that I should have added to the “I didn’t watch it, but maybe probably should have” list: Karasu wa Aruji wo Erabanai; The Raven Does Not Choose Its Master

Wow, I wasn’t expecting anyone to say that.

What made the show good for you?

From what I experienced working retail, Frozen merch was very successful amongst Disney properties up until a couple of years ago.

I never encountered the likes of the crossplaying AMABs in the article.

Maybe the kids from that era have grown out of it by now, but yeah it was pretty successful.

As much as I like Rumiko Takahashi’s works…

Hmm, good question.

I spot checked 3 articles on parents, kids and Frozen, and found 3 different writers.

Bob Ross’ show ended 30 years ago, and PBS and NPR funding has declined even more as a proportion of operating costs since then.

Although I do have to add that the NYTimes has umm, a weird obsession with Frozen, moreso than other mainstream news orgs that I read.

There’s a collection of related articles at the bottom of the article page with titles like:

“My Son Loves Elsa From ‘Frozen.’ I Had to Learn to Love Her, Too”

“The Kids Who Love ‘Frozen’ and the Parents Who Love Them”

“Achieving Transcendence on the Millionth ‘Frozen’ Viewing”

That’s what NPR and PBS were supposed to be, but they’re so perpetually underfunded that they’re almost commercial stations. edit: with corporate sponsors and viewer funding pledge drives.

Some public stations have been taken over by right wing orgs that came in with massive funding.

Gift link to SF Chronicle article
archived version

There’s multiple years jump forwards in time in the story after “The Push” at the end of S1.

Bam/Yoru is recognizably the same character, but he is using a different name for some reason.

For those interested, before the Very Special Military Operation, the 83rd Airborne Brigade had about 40,000 men.