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Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Maia Shibutani is Beautiful Beyond Belief:

For some reason, the Shibutani siblings only won bronze in ice dancing (the incest taboo polluting yet another beautiful thing?), despite obviously having the best performance.  But Maia Shibutani danced to gold in my heart.  Their performance to the song 'paradise' was infinitely more moving and authentic than everyone else's out there.  It made me actually admire a sport I normally spit upon.  The lift where Alex spun Maia around and around hovering just over the ice at a 90 degree angle from her brother was an impossible, wonderful, and beautiful thing to behold.  The synchrony and difficulty of their twizzles blew everyone else out of the water.

Meanwhile, Dracu Riot and Tenshin Ranman, two acclaimed visual novels, are nearing full translation and release.  As though my things to do list weren't long enough already.

Women's individual figure skating starts today, the highlight of the Olympic Games.  We already saw one skate by Yevgenia and Alina in the team competition, but now we get to see the other half of their programs this time around, so this event is by no means redundant.

As for the men's figure skating competition, Yuzuru Hanyu was the only interesting and worthwhile performance.  He is so good at everything, so perfect, that it makes everyone else look like an amateur out there.  He's like a one blue win the game Magic card playing against Craw Wurms and Frozen Shades.  There's just no point to watching anyone other than Hanyu and then just calling it a day.  Yuzuru's skating is so breathtaking there's no room left in your heart for anyone else.  It's no wonder he's back to back Olympic gold medalist, and acclaimed as the greatest male figure skater of all time.

While my top anime rankings maxes out at 200 series, that's by no means where my anime watching hobby ends.  Currently I also have 192 'good' series, meaning they were entertaining enough that I've watched them in full but didn't think they were truly special, who are all listed in my runners-up section underneath my great rankings.  In addition, I have 259 'mediocre' series which merited watching at least the first three episodes of, but weren't interesting enough to hold my attention to the very end.

Of course, there were many more 'bad' series which I gave up on after the first episode or two, and even more series I didn't even bother trying, but these 651 series make up 100% of my positive experiences with anime.

Right now, each category is about 1/3 of the whole, but as time goes by the 'good' anime section will surpass the 'great.'  At that point, 'great' anime will be more renowned not for my ability to not only watch it but rewatch it in full, but just by the fact that all 200 series are better than the multitudes of good anime that didn't make my list.  The fact that all 200 great anime beat all these runners-up is their greatest claim to fame.  If you see a really good anime on my 'good' anime list, then just imagine how good my 'great' anime must be to beat it.  As the size of my 'good' anime section improves, the prestige of the 'great' anime section will only rise ever higher.  Someday all 200 of my top anime will be as prestigious as the gold medalists at the Olympics, because they will have won in similarly difficult competition against similarly skilled foes.  But today that honor is reserved for Maia Shibutani, the bronze that shines like gold.

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