Way to go:

The opening theme to Kami-tachi S2, 'Way to go,' is available over at nipponsei.  I really liked the opening theme, even though the season itself has been lackluster.  Not bad, just nothing special or evocative to recommend it.  Like with Eminence in Shadow, I plan to demote the series some number of spots next time I revise my rankings, since S2 didn't meet my expectations.

But the music did no harm.  The theme song is worthy of my music hall of fame.  Unfortunately the middle portion of the full length song, which isn't featured in the tv opening, is blah.  Meandering.  That takes what could have been a 5-star song based on the tv version down to a 3-star song.  Still good, but continuing the streak that no new music in my hall of fame this year has reached 5-star.

To make room other songs had to be demoted, all the details of which can be found in my music hall of fame permapost.

The latest Xanth novel, 'Apoca Lips', has come out.  I dutifully bought it like all the others and am now halfway through the book.  Everything and everyone in the story is extremely shallow.  It feels like you're reading through the outline of a story instead of the story itself.  There's no inner life to the characters, they don't think about anything but sex.  I feel such a stronger connection to Lapis from Fire Emblem Engage in her folk poverty wisdom about how to make food stretch longer, how to hunt bears to protect your crops, how to use scrap materials to build exercise machines, than anyone in this book.  Lapis is so adorable in that she's this superb genius at being poor, but embarrassed that she had to accumulate all these skills in the first place, knowing she's out of place surrounded by messiahs and princes.  But Lapis is a minor side character in Fire Emblem Engage -- you only get to know a little about her via skit vignettes.  Framme is even prettier than Lapis and gets more scenes.  She's such a bundle of energy and emotion despite being so small.  I guess you could say she has the highest impact per volume of space taken up.  And guess what -- Framme is a minor character in Engage!  We still haven't gotten to the people who actually convey the plot -- Alear and Veyle!

Oh and guess what, the plot of Engage is simplistic and childish compared to Fire Emblem Three Houses!

This is the problem with western art.  It's such a far cry from its competition that even its best exemplars are no match for the dregs of Japan.  I'm not surprised that all the streaming companies are losing money.  All their scripted shows suck.  They aren't thoughtful or deep enough to maintain viewer interest.  The first chapter of Tales of Crestoria's manga has way more happen of way more emotional weight and savor than the entire Apoca Lips novel.  I would rather own that one chapter of Crestoria than this entire new book.

It's no wonder that the only recent good movies coming out of the west are stuff like Dune, Top Gun and Mortal Kombat, franchises invented ages ago.  The west can still adapt good old content, but they haven't made anything new in ages.  Fire Emblem Engage is brand new.  Tales of Crestoria is brand new.  Japan is spinning out new worlds full of new characters with actual inner lives, layers of complexity, the full suite of human emotions and interests, nearly every day.  At least every month.  Why can't anyone in the west keep up?  Well, they can.  For instance the West could publish my books, which are full of deep and complex characters and settings, but they're not interested.  Because the publishing companies and editors are all women and all they care about is making 'safe spaces' for their readers, who are also mostly women.  They have completely destroyed western literature.  So you can have all the pro-transgender Xanth books you want, but you'll never read an actually good story like Dead Enders.

As a basic prerequisite, whenever you're writing dialogue between two characters, you should be thinking to yourself, "The speaker wants to make a good impression on the listener and is worried he'll be criticized or judged if he doesn't."  Likewise, "The speaker cares about the person he's speaking to so he worries if anything he says might hurt her and takes care not to before he says it."  This is going through the mind of every person in every real life conversation.  This is what it means to be alive and a human being.  Your characters must have these traits or they aren't characters, they're Potemkin cutouts.  In Japan this is taken as a given.  Every conversation knows these basic rules.  But Piers Anthony, one of the best authors in western literature, can't be bothered to follow it.  Maybe in his dotage allowances must be made, I do feel like the earlier Xanth books I read had much more realistic thoughtful characters, but still!  This was published, editors approved this dreck, which means this really is the best the west can do.

Maybe we'll get lucky and this will be the last Xanth novel, so I don't have to read any more.  Piers Anthony is, after all, really, really old.  He can't write sequels forever. . .