Naruto Kai Watched:

Naruto Kai got rid of unneeded filler to the very end.  The new Naruto is amazing.  It really is twice as good as what we had before.  If, somehow, you haven't watched Naruto until now, now is the time to watch it, and the version that needs to be watched is Naruto Kai and only Naruto Kai.

I envy the kids who will grow up watching Naruto Kai while I had to suffer through the original all this time.  My mind's been polluted by so much Naruto filler future generations will never even know existed.  But at least now, at the very end, I was able to see what Naruto was always meant to be.

Because Naruto Kai is so much shorter than the original, I'm even further away from my 'over 9,000' anime episodes of great anime goal.  But I'll cross that threshold at least by 2019 again, so no lasting harm.

I've been on fire recently.  My 'Eagerly Awaited Inventions' post is so good and carves out such new philosophical space that I instantly added it to my permapost sidebar.

With the charges against Kavanaugh, it's now clear that my complaints about the Roy Moore election have all come true.  As such, my post dealing with Roy Moore's election has also been added to my permapost sidebar, under the title 'Democracy.'  http://diamed-the-road-less-traveled.blogspot.com/2017/12/its-not-just-california.html

This also deals with a subject heretofore unaddressed except in passing, which is that modern democracy is beyond redemption.  I don't think anyone can argue otherwise after the concrete examples given.  This Kavanaugh farce is just one more example of how broken and hopeless our system is.  If Kavanaugh is not appointed supreme court justice before the midterm, Republicans should just boycott the election and go straight to civil war.  Civil war now, civil war now, is the only answer to democrats who have systematically denied us the results of our own election victory.  Just how much are we going to put up with and for how long?  The absurdity just reaches new heights every day.

Western art is pretty much slated to finish in 2019 -- Star Wars IX, Avengers 4 and Game of Thrones.  Japanese art, however, is just beginning.

Only 5 of my 33 favorite light novel series have both been finished by the author and completely translated.

Only 31 of my favorite 75 manga series have both been finished by the author and completely translated.

Only 5 of my top 10 visual novel franchises have both been finished by the author and completely translated.

Only 79 of my top 200 anime franchises have reached a proper conclusion to their tales.

In the past, when Charles Dickens and Robert Jordan and Plutarch were around, western art was a big deal.  But all the good western artists are dead or too old and feeble to come up with anything worthwhile.  In Japan a lot of these guys are just getting started.  The reason I'm looking forward to the future, despite the failure of democracy and despite the lack of any cool new inventions, is all because of these unfinished Japanese tales.