SAO Delayed as Expected:

So the spring season now has nothing.  Coronavirus has destroyed the stock market, March Madness, the Olympics and the spring anime season -- all while inflicting no more casualties than the regular flu season on the same old sickly population as the regular flu.  What a farce.

With all these delays I've been able to concentrate on editing my book, and I added in a new explanatory phrase (highlighted in bold for the reader's convenience) to this sentence most recently:

She wanted people to avoid serving others so that there would be more interesting variations between them

Cute's goal for humanity is first and foremost for people to be interesting to her.  If they all follow a single person's will then it's like the population is reduced back down to 1.  Obviously more is better, so the less consolidation the more subjects of entertainment.  I wanted to make it clear that she didn't want things for humanity's sake, but solely for her own sake, and so the additional phrase was required to explain how freedom benefited her.

While I'm at it, I think I'll be dropping Hachi-nantte.  The main character is supposedly a reborn adult from Earth, so despite his pretend age of 5 in the new world, he should act like an emotionally mature adult.  And yet in this episode he whined and blubbered like a dumb kid, refusing to face facts or do what must be done, creating all sorts of unnecessary drama.  He suddenly became the five year old he supposedly only possessed.  It's just terrible writing.  No one should ever cry and break down over putting an undead monster that's about to go berserk and wreak havoc on mankind out of its misery.

Made in Abyss had a very good scene about the heartbreaking nature of euthanasia, but that was for a harmless retard.  The question was whether the mutated thing was happier alive or dead -- even if it lived on it would never pose a problem for others.  However, in this case it was a straight out monster threatening to kill everyone on Earth, and still our hero is refusing to put it down.  It's inexcusable.  Perhaps if he really were a 5 year old these sorts of emotional tantrums would be excusable, but he's a grown adult living in the body of a 5 year old with absolutely no excuse as to why this easy utilitarian moral calculation can't be made.

I'm reminded of all the good stories that quickly made the right decision in cases like these -- High School of the Dead, Hai to Gensou no Grimgar, Fairy Tail, Naruto, Scrapped Princess, Shin Seiki Evangelion, Shingeki no Kyojin, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri, Juuou Mujin no Fafnir, in each case a sympathetic figure had been warped beyond recognition into a threat to humanity and in each case the heroes had swallowed their sympathy and eliminated the threat.  Shinji squished the angel in his hand.

This is a baseline test of a story's worth.  If it can't even do this right what are the odds the writing will be any good concerning anything else?

Soon enough the Final Fantasy VII Remake copy I ordered will arrive in the mail and I won't need lame anime anymore anyway.