Basic premise here is that Samashirou Kamiyama is a regular high school boy who just happens to be the son of God. He isn’t sent to Earth to save everybody’s souls, but rather to simply learn about normal life so he can grow up to be a great God himself.
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I saw some excited previews, rave reviews, and some detractors of this title, so I gave it a shot. I think I can see why folks liked it: good production quality, sci-fi premise, lots of smart characters, lots of gunplay and explosions, and so forth.
Alas, it also has twelve assassin androids wearing maid costumes parachuting into a prison and shooting up the place. Assassin androids in maid costumes? You’re kidding, right? By the time they showed up on the screen I was already a bit leery of the premise (crack government agent tracking down arch-criminal), but come on! What is this semi-retarded fetish doing in my sci-fi action crime drama? No, it’s not like getting chocolate in my peanut butter.
Add in the lack of a likable main character, and this looks like a high-budget recipe for disaster. I’ll be keeping an eye on some other folks’ reviews of future episodes in case it takes a turn for the better, but right now I think I’m stopping at episode 1.
Today saw the end of Windows 98, Window 98SE, and Windows ME support from Microsoft (link). There will be no more security updates for these products, and paid support will no longer be available for them. I personally have fond memories of Windows 98 and 98SE, as these were the last times that a major Microsoft OS revision has left the majority of network-related user interactions alone. From the perspective of an ISP technical support worker, the transitions from Windows 95 to 98 to 98SE were nearly pain-free, requiring very little retraining; if you could walk somebody through their dial-up connectoid in one, you could handle any of the others with minimal variation. A little part of me will miss these old warships.
As for the Millenium Edition? Well, the less said, the better.
Two years ago I picked up a fan-translated comic called NHK ni Youkoso. I liked it enough that I ended up volunteering my skills, poor as they are, at editing it for the translator. Since then, that person has stopped translating comics, and the title has been sporadically released in English to the tune of some 24 issues. Now it has been transformed into a made-for-television animation by Studio Gonzo, and is being met with some rather positive reviews.
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I took a look at the Senate version of the “net neutrality” legislation. That was after the fact. Let’s take a peek under the hood for the House version, shall we? This one apparently is up for a floor vote, so there’s still time to try to help educate your rep about HR5273. As before, please note that this is a non-expert analysis devoid of formal legal training.