War & Peace watched:

Amazon Prime has some decent series and movies worth watching, including 'War & Peace', a tv series I marathoned in one go.  I'm all for stories set in Russia right now because I find Russians to be the only decent people on Earth these days.  I read the book long ago in high school, so it was nice to see the live action version with all the architecture and costumes brilliantly displayed.  My objection to the story is how childish and ridiculous all the romances are.  A guy falls for a girl at first sight, dances with her once, or flirts with her using salacious chatter, and boom the girl has also fallen in love.  To the point that the girl is willing to commit adultery or run away from home.  All it took was a compliment and touching hands for a second.  In my experience girls aren't remotely that easy -- and for that matter boys aren't that easily bewitched either.

In truth only 4% of marriages are cross party -- a Democrat and a Republican.  That means real romances start from a meeting of minds and values, mutual understanding and appreciation, we care far more about each other's souls than looks, wealth, talents, anything.  Men look at women as people first and foremost, with intellects and souls, and want to marry someone with a rational mind and a virtuous soul.  It takes time to figure these things out -- honestly, because women lie, it's very difficult to figure this out no matter how much time you have.  They are not foremost jumping at girls' bodies.  The same for women, they want a fellow traveler who will sympathize with and support the things they care about.  A liberal woman is not attracted to a famous, powerful, billionaire Republican, because the best Republican ever isn't worth the dirt on the shoes of the worst Democrat ever.  It's like comparing devils to angels.

I have to believe that this pickiness currently displayed in romance today is not some new development but a universal constant of mankind.  Why would you marry someone you expect to get into fights with all the time?  Who on Earth would desire such a union?  And obviously there were political and religious disputes in the past as well as the present.  There were philosophers debating each other back in ancient Greece.  And there were people with obvious personality flaws that might make someone odious to you regardless of their politics or religion, like they drink, or gamble, or are rude to the weak and helpless they ought to treat kindly.  No matter what era or country you live in, all courtships would first try to find out how your partner felt about the issues of the day, the issues you cared most about, and whether you were in agreement about them.  And yet all we see in War & Peace is whether the guy is a good dancer or not and apparently here we go.

Meanwhile, I dropped Meiji Gekken.  I don't like that the story tries to mix historical Meiji era real life with these supernatural power wielders who can just cheat their way to victory in any situation.  Either everyone should have super powers or no one, I hate one-sided good guys just massacring their powerless opponents.  It's stupid.  Why do they keep trying to use this plot device when everyone knows it's more interesting when the hero is the underdog?

Meanwhile, I bought Granblue Fantasy Re:link.  Lyria is mai waifu so I want to interact with her as much as possible.  It should arrive in the mail soon enough.  I hope Nobuo Uematsu is back on form and composed a great soundtrack for it.

Meanwhile, Guyver has had two of its last three remaining chapters translated.  Only one chapter left to go -- not that it matters much, because either way it will end on a cliffhanger, as the author is a useless bum who abandoned his work halfway.