It seems Lina missed us too. Unfortunately, now she has a chance to aim.

There is nothing else I can say about the much-awaited fourth season of Slayers that has not been said before, whether by myself or by other more worthy luminaries. I don’t think I can give a fair and unbiased view of the matter through the impenetrable haze of sheer, undiluted nostalgia.

It was, as Arudoc mentioned, fitting that Lina made her debut by blowing up bandits, this time of the seagoing kind led by Captain Jack Sparrow. It is an ancient tradition as hallowed as the sun rising in the east, the ubiquity of hydrogen and stupidity, and Amelia giving a Justice Speech.

Things became something of a blur from there. A squee-ful blur, to butcher the language.

I must also admit to surprise at New Character Pokota’s entrance. I wonder what the Dark Lord Ruby-Eye Shabranigdo thinks of his signature spell being cast by a Pokemon muppet.

I have mentioned before that I’ve been trying to create various magical girl concepts, if not actual established characters, in the HERO System. Since I’ve had the point hammered into me with great force that I shouldn’t try to stat existing characters without compromising their stated abilities, I’ve been trying to create my own original magical girls from scratch.

Now, I could turn this into a series of posts about What Makes A Mahou Shoujo, but I’m not sure anyone really wants to read endless ramblings about the Creative Process, which is largely ugly, incoherent, and should not be seen by the light of day. Instead, I’ll just shine a narrow beam of illumination onto one aspect which struck me as blog fodder.

I have to give massive props to Princess Tutu for doing it right.

We’ve all had our discussions about how anime can be Art, or at least be in the same general vicinity as Art. Princess Tutu falls in at least the latter category, and I believe that it makes a very strong case for the former: the composition of each scene, the musical background, the plot, all of it is suffused with the essence of Art-ness. I would not hesitate to recommend this anime to those who would like an anime that makes them ponder the deconstruction (and, possibly, reconstruction) of fairy tales.

And yet, with all its Art-ness, Princess Tutu never forgets to entertain. I can watch it and analyse the roles of the Prince, the Princess, the Evil Villain, and how they’re just roles rather than characters, an unfortunate fact that said characters are fully aware of. Or I can watch it and enjoy Ahiru being, well, Ahiru, the happy-go-lucky naive-but-charming little girl who isn’t very good at much, but who still tries her best.

Princess Tutu is the best proof I have right now that anime doesn’t have to be Serious and Edgy to be thought-provoking. It can be fun, and it can be art, all at the same time.

Also, I’ve always thought that Saint-Saens’s “Les Carnaval des Animaux: Aquarium” would be perfect for a Creepy Eerie Revelation BGM, and Princess Tutu has done exactly that.

I hasten to assure one and all that I have not suddenly become some sort of tech guru, but merely that after eighteen straight hours of investigative file rearrangement, I caved and bought a new hard disk, reinstalling Windows XP, for the purpose of. Before anyone suggests it, I have indeed entertained the notion of switching operating systems, but always I return to the consideration that Windows XP is the only OS upon which City of Heroes may run without complaint or workaround. (Yes, I am aware of WINE and Boot Camp. Even so.)

Currently my old hard disk stands in digital and physical quarantine, as I cannot be bothered any more with trying to figure out which of the DLLs removed by that overzealous anti-Trojan utility are legitimately innocent, and which are truly pestilent. My files, which I have ascertained to be free from taint, I have transferred to another hard disk, roomier and separate from the Operating System disk. In theory, this should protect my data should Windows decide to Nice Boat on me again. Nevertheless, I have had far too many hard disks crash on me to be entirely sanguine about this state of affairs.

So it goes.

Download Day 2008 has been confirmed to be June 17th. Participate in the attempt to set a world record for most downloads in 24 hours, and there may be a foxgirl for you. No, not really.

And I had, in hindsight, somewhat irresponsible and unreliable faith in the ability of anti-virus Trojan removal not to completely screw up Windows.

As of this moment, as I am posting on a library computer (which explains the lack of an illustrative header picture), I have what is essentially an expensive doorstop that was once a personal computer. As far as I believe, the data is still intact, but gated by an operating system clamouring for missing DLLs and refusing to boot up further.

I cannot even use a Linux liveboot CD to transfer my files, since apparently there is that odd but insurmountable difference between NTFS and FAT file systems.

In effect, I will not be able to update this blog, or my Livejournal (which this post shall be crossposted to, assuming that doesn’t go wrong as well), until I get the computer fixed. The hardware is all fine, but that is small comfort if I cannot recover all my files, collected over the years.

Any advice on the matter will likely go unread, as I cannot check my email or comments either, at least not in time. All my efforts shall be bent towards reviving my computer, and I shall not rest until it is once again functional.

This is one reason why, despite my habit of naming my computers (and peripherals), I do not christen them with names of characters I really like. This is a policy borne from experience, considering that I seem to have a schedule of something catastrophic happening to my computer(s) more or less annually.