That's... Quite The Finish

So there was a 100 mile Indy Lights race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today, during the annual "Carb Day" festivities.  Indy Lights is like the "minor leagues" of IndyCar, a feeder division into bigger and better.  Being a spec series, all the cars are identical 450hp V8 Dallaras, so it's all driver skill.  So the race... yeah, it had a close finish.  How close?

THAT close.  The gap from first to second?  .0026 seconds or maybe six inches.  The gap from first to fourth?  .0443 seconds.  You can watch the actual finish here.

Now if we can get Monaco to be that close...

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Monaco, Friday.

Okay, I'm making an executive decision here... I'm gonna do the Monaco Practice writeup on Friday instead of tonight.  It's been a long couple of weeks, and I want a nap.  While you're waiting, here's the newest trailer for Rush.

Me likey.

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The Evangelion Movies: 1.11 You Are (not) Alone, pt 1

Before I get into the meat 'n' taters of this here writeup, I'm going to cover a little bit of history for those readers who may be not be of an age to understand what Neon Genesis Evangelion really meant to anime.  To call it a game-changer would not be overstating matters in the least.  When the series came out in 1995, it brought with it a number of things that have become commonplace in anime... psychology, deeper themes, mind-blowing imagery, flawed (sometimes deeply flawed) characters, on and on.  When it was first broadcast, it made fans of the show out of people who had never watched anime before, or not since they were very young.  What's happening right now with the Game of Thrones TV series, with people who'd never think of opening a sword-and-sorcery novel hanging on every second of the new episodes, that's what happened with NGE.

In short, it was very, very ambitious, and that's where the problems began.  It went so far afield from the norm that there was some confusion over how to take the show.  Then Gainax, the production house, ran out of money and the final episodes were full of long, long still shots, reused footage, and in the final two episodes, a distinct art shift.  In fact, it never really gave the viewers an ending... or at least an ending people could understand.  Despite this, NGE was a ridiculously big hit... so big, in fact, that Gainax has made a bulletproof cash cow out of the merchandise for the show.  It also spawned a multitude of movies presenting the "true" endings of the series... none of which are to be the subject of these writeups.

Instead, what I'll be doing are the three newest films, collectively called "The Rebuild of Evangelion."  They are... similar... to the original series in many ways, but very different in others.  Which doesn't matter a hill of beans to those who have seen the original series.  There is no doubt in my mind, and those of others, that it is one of the few "must see" shows for a fan of anime.  That doesn't mean that the watcher will actually like the show, but it will almost certainly create strong feelings in the viewer.  Some will be turned off by the dysfunctional emotional cripples that make up the cast, some by the rather graphic violence, some by the weird mindf*cks that occur, whether by plan or by happenstance.  Me, I liked the show, but I've no interest in rewatching it.  Having said that, I'm on record as saying that I think the movies are great improvements over the original series, and I'm actually looking forward to doing these reviews!  So enough of my blathering, let's get to it!

more...

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F1 On The NBC Networks: Monaco 2013

If Silverstone is the birthplace of Formula 1, Monaco is its soul.  The glitz, the glamour, the money, the casino, the royalty, it is everything that the sport could have possibly hoped it would become back in the old days.  Let's take a look at the track map for this historic circuit:

The odd thing about this ultimate street circuit is, of course, that it would never be allowed on the calendar if it was proposed today.  It's too narrow, there's no run-off area to speak of, it's immensely dangerous... and it is glorious.  Win here, and you walk with the legends.  If a team or a driver could only win one race in a season, it would be this one.  It is the ultimate challenge to drive well.

For all that, it's not a great racetrack anymore.  Cars are wider and faster than they used to be, so you often get a processional around here... unless it rains.  Which, considering Monaco's location on the Mediterranean, happens fairly often and with only small amounts of warning.  Anyway, while individually many of the turns are wonderful, the run past The Swimming Pool (13-14-15-16) in particular, as a whole it's probably the hardest track on F1 to drive.  No mistakes are ever allowed, no slacking of attention.  It's perhaps the only circuit in Formula 1 where driver skill can take priority over car.

In some ways, this is the least subtle circuit on the calendar.  Downforce?  As much as you can crank on the car, and more besides.  The rules say you can't attach a barn door in place of the rear wing, but if you could, the teams probably would.  Track speed?  Slow.  It's the lowest average speed of any race we'll come across on the calendar.  Perversely, while there's no grip in the tarmac due to their everyday use as public streets, the circuit isn't gentle on tires... because there's no grip in the tarmac.  The tires almost slide over the street surface, which isn't the way they're supposed to work.  Take a pink eraser and rub it over the asphalt of your parking lot, see how much of it comes off... that's kind of the way tires work at Monaco.  Both brakes and engines have cooling problems around The Principality as well; both require airflow, preferably high-velocity airflow which is in short supply here.  So the brakes heat up and never really cool off... that's fine to start with, but when the carbon/carbon discs get too hot, they begin to glaze, reducing efficiency. 

We're going to have something unprecedented this weekend: a European F1 race live on US network TV, and the Legendary Announce Team will be bringing it to us!  Let's take a look at the schedule:

THURSDAY
Practice 2:  7a - 830a  live on NBCSN
FRIDAY
(nothing)
SATURDAY
Quals: 7a - 830a  live on NBCSN
SUNDAY
2013 Grand Prix of Monaco  630a - 9a  live on NBC

As is tradition, there are no race-related activities on Friday, so as to let the multimillionaires and billionaires to come home from St Tropez or Moritz or Newark.  Of course, F1 Update! will be all over the race as well... rejoice!  See you then!

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Well, THAT Was A Code Brown...

Imagine this, if you will:

Outside The Pond, there was a thunderstorm going on.  A big one.  One that, in fact, had spawned a tornado an hour earlier.  Accompanying the thunderstorm were pretty decent winds, small hail, and what looked like the entire contents of the Gulf of Mexico.  Despite all that, the temperatures only dropped five degrees when the front came through.  Unfortunate, as it's been kinda hot and humid-ish all day.  Still, it looked like the front was moving quickly and everything would be calming down in maybe 10 minutes.

And then the tornado warning sirens began to go off.

I got off the internet and headed for the hallway that leads from my living room to the bathroom, while grabbing the TV remote and calling up the good local news station... only to find that nobody knew why the sirens were going off.  A minute or two later, they stopped.

Well.  "Hand me my brown trowsers, please."

UPDATE, 5/20:  Found out this morning that the sirens went off because a police officer saw a funnel cloud over the city.  Good call.

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The Saddest Thing Ever

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Random Anime Picture #78: Tater Babe

-Attack On Titan, Ep04

Nothing I type here can top Brickmuppet's review, so go there and read it.  I just like typing "Tater Babe."

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Simply Amazing

How is this video not being hailed as one of Humanity's Great Accomplishments?

In my lifetime, we've gone from grainy black-and-white video of Neil Armstrong's small step that the entire world watched... to a Canadian mission commander in a more-or-less permanent space station orbiting the Earth, just shortly before he returned to Earth in a Russian capsule, singing a song originally recorded by a Brit a month before that first moon walk.  And it's all in glorious high definition video.

When did the world get so blasé about stuff like this?  How did we let it get so jaded?  What's wrong with us???

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F1 Update!: Spain 2013

Simply a beautiful day greeted the Thundering Herd as it mad its way to the grid behind the gleaming Silver Arrow of Nico Rosberg.  Around the pit lane, however, dark clouds rumbled above the heads of the Pirelli representatives as complaints about their tires had reached "shrieking weasel" levels.  So how would the rubber react when the lights went out?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Spain!

*RACIN':  "We have to drive slowly to protect our tires."  "We're not racing, we're conserving tires."  These and other statements like them have been heard for weeks around the F1 paddock.  Very quickly today, however, it very quickly became obvious that one team had finally gotten tired of whining and decided to make the best of the tire situation.  Scuderia Ferrari had told their drivers "we've got six sets of tires, let's use them."  This may have meant another pit stop in relation to their competition, but the tradeoff was that they'd be going faster than the teams "protecting" their tires.  It pains us to say this, but BRAVO, Ferrari, bravo. 

*EVEN BETTER:  It worked.  Right from the beginning, Ferrari had planned to do a four-stop race, while everybody else were suspected of committing to three-stoppers.  By the end of the first round of pitstops, Ferrari's HWMNBN had all the advantages, and very soon thereafter, the lead.  Meanwhile, his teammate Felipe Massa was shadowing him just a few positions behind.

*SCRAMBLING:  At one point in the race, Hannibal Vettel's chief mechanic "Rocky" Rocquelin called to his driver.  "Relax, it's the last five laps that'll be decisive."  This came after HWMNBN had made the three-time World Driver's Champion look slow and bad and awful.  Shortly thereafter, though, Red Bull came to the realization that they were going to lose, and lose badly, if they didn't mirror the four-stop strategy.  Alas, they made that decision too late, and Vettel was never a real threat during the race.  Such a shame.

*GENTLE LOTUS:  In contrast to all the teams reacting to Ferrari's novel concept of "going racin'," Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen kept on his three-stop strategy, comfortable in the knowledge that he could drive smoothly and quickly while being gentle on his tires.  It used to be that Jenson Button was the king of tire kindness... no more.  While he wasn't quite able to dice with HWMNBN for the lead, he was able to lock down second place ahead of Massa.

*MERC MASSACRE:  As expected, from the moment the lights went out to the time the race ended, the Mercedes chassis drove like crap.  You know times are bad when the pit wall is telling their drivers to slow down in the middle of a race.  Shiv Hamilton, who began the race in second place, finished up  12th with tires that refused to warm up and fell apart when he pushed.  "I can't drive any slower" he replied to the pit lane.  Pole sitter Nico Rosberg finished in 6th, having managed to keep the lead until the first round of tire changes. 

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  HWMNBN.  From the start of the race, it was clear that The Spaniard had come to his home track to win.  A brilliant pass through Turn 3 served notice that he was feeling his oats, and that he was going to be dangerous.  That proved to be accurate as he won by nine seconds.  Just an outstanding performance.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Ferrari.  They had both drivers on the podium and forced everybody else to adjust to their strategy.  Yep, that's the way to do it all right.  The church bells are ringing in Maranello tonight.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  One of the standing rules of F1Update! is that nothing that occurs during the first lap of the race is eligible for either the Move or the Mooooooo-ooove of the Race awards.  We are breaking that rule today.  As soon as the lights went out and the field began to move, it was clear that HWMNBN had a wild hair going today.  Heading into Turn 3 he was on the outside, with Kimi Raikkonen, Shiv Hamilton, Hannibal Vettel and, ultimately, Nico Rosberg ahead of him.

Secure in the knowledge that he could run his tires into the ground without penalty, he charged into the long, fast 180° Turn 3 with blood in his eye.

Raikkonen didn't fight HWMNBN, but Shiv Hamilton was less accommodating, making sure that the Ferrari driver had to take the really long way around.

Undaunted, The Spaniard did just that, getting past the Mercedes and pulling himself back inside in the process.  As it was, if Turn 3 had been longer, HWMNBN might have been able to track down Hannibal Vettel for 2nd.  As is, he had picked up two places nearly before the race began.  Just an astonishingly virtuoso performance, and worth us breaking our rules to give him the Move of the Race.

*MOOOOOOOO-OOOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 23, Geido van der Garde pitted his Caterham, emerged, drove half a lap and... his left-rear tire came off.  Half-a-lap later, he managed to bring his car into the pit lane!

Impressive driving performance, but the team still got fined for an unsafe release fro the pit lane.  Caterham, here's your Mooooo!

*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:

more...

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F1 Quals: Spain 2013

We all know that it's important to be on pole for a F1 race.  It keeps you clear of the thundering herd and all the little incidents that occur in the pack that can kill your race before it begins.  There are some circuits where it's even more important than normal to be on pole.  Monaco is the usual example, but one of those oddball stats that blindside you with its data came to light today... SPAIN, not Monaco, is the most pole-dependent race on the calendar.  Eleven of the past 12 dry races at Barcalounger have been won from the pole... and the one oddball was Hannibal Vettel winning from second in 2011.  So, yes, it's a little important to be on pole this week.  So who just shot to the top of the bookies' sheets?  Here's the provisional grid for the 2013 Grand Prix of Spain:

Pos	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:21.913	1:21.776	1:20.718
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:21.728	1:21.001	1:20.972
3	Hannibal Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:22.158	1:21.602	1:21.054
4	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	1:22.210	1:21.676	1:21.177
5	HWMNBN	Ferrari	1:22.264	1:21.646	1:21.218
6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:22.492	1:21.978	1:21.219
7	Lettuce Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	1:22.613	1:21.998	1:21.308
8	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	1:22.342	1:21.718	1:21.570
9	Sergio Perez	McLaren-Mercedes	1:23.116	1:21.790	1:22.069
10	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:22.663	1:22.019	1:22.233
11	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	1:22.905	1:22.127
12	Jules Vergne	STR-Ferrari	1:22.775	1:22.166
13	Adrian F'n Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:22.952	1:22.346
14	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:23.166	1:22.355
15	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber-Ferrari	1:23.058	1:22.389
16	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:23.218	1:22.793
17	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Renault	1:23.260
18	Friar Maldonado	Williams-Renault	1:23.318
19	Who Reads This Far Down	Caterham-Renault	1:24.661
20	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Cosworth	1:24.713
21	Max Chilton	Marussia-Cosworth	1:24.996
22	Charles ToothPic	Caterham-Renault	1:25.070
	Q1 107% Time		1:27.448

This is the second pole in a row for Nico Rosberg, and the third on the trot for Mercedes... which brings us a puzzling situation.  What happens when the car that's on pole is great for single laps, but not so good over race distances?  Last race, Rosberg started first and ended up ninth... not because of any strategy problems, or traffic woes, but because the car just doesn't like going more than three laps at a time.  Should prove interesting to find an answer... except if the two Mercs don't win, it'll undoubtedly be Hannibal Vettel whose lap the race will fall into.

Dammit.

In other news, one year ago, Pastor Maldonado started the Spanish Grand Prix from pole and won Williams' first race in what seemed like forever.  Tomorrow, he'll be starting 18th, with his Williams teammate in 17th.  Yeesh.  And speaking of "yeesh," McLaren's season is essentially over already; they're 86 points behind Red Bull in the Constructor's Championship... even if they start winning everything in sight, does anybody really believe that Red Bull wouldn't be right behind them?  Nope, stick a fork in 'em, they're done.  Even Force India has more points than they do (26 to 23).  One wonders if they installed the throttle correctly or something.  "Oh, silly us, we put the gas pedal on the LEFT side, not the right..."

Race in the morning, F1U! sometime thereafter.

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F1 Practice: Spain 2013

The first race back in Europe after the first overseas leg always brings us new and... interesting... modifications to the cars.  New wings, new sidepods, new noses, lots of new stuff we can't see.  And on the whole, nothing ever changes.  The fast teams are still fast, the slow teams are still slow, its just the same with more money spent.  Unless you're Caterham.

They're really pushing the edge of the rules with their latest chassis.  I have no idea how it passed the crashtesting, but I'm not the FIA.  Gonna have a helluva lot of downforce, that's for sure.

Seriously though, Pirelli has a problem on their hands.  Take a look at what happened to Force India's Paul di Resta at the end of P2:

The left-rear tire completely delaminated.  Fortunately the carcass stayed inflated, as it occurred as di Resta was on the front straight.  He was able to keep the car under control and bring it to a stop just past pit-out.

I don't think I've ever seen that before.  I've seen tires wear down to the canvas backing, sure, and of course we've seen plenty of blowouts where all you had left were the sidewalls, but I've never seen the rubber fall off the tire altogether.  There is no way you can tell me that this is a good thing.  I've been very calm with Pirelli, as they've just been doing what the FIA has asked them to do, tires running with short lifespans and all... but this just can't be allowed to happen.

Quals in the morning, Quals report sometime quite a bit later.  See ya then!

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I Can't NOT Post This...

...it's too perfect.

Teh Cute!  IZ TOO MUCH CUTE!

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orz

Many of you, my hale and hearty readers, may have noticed something of a decrease in my output of free ice-cream as of late, and arguably a decrease in quality as well.  This is an observation that I would tend to agree with.  My long-time readers, probably less hale and hearty owing to being here longer, probably have some inkling as to why this is occurring.  To whit, Finals week begins on Monday over at Duck U., and that means it's book buyback time at the Duck U Bookstore!

"But Wonderduck," I hear you saying, and I do wish you'd stop that, it's disturbing, "that's next week, not this week, you numbskull."  To which I reply, "Yep.  And there's nothing that needs to be done to lead up to that week, nothing at all."  Sure, it isn't quite as busy at next week, but it's busy enough... and that brings me to what's going to happen with my F1 coverage.

I will be working on Saturday.  We have a registration and orientation day for incoming students, and I'll be manning the Duck U Bookstore cash register from 10am to 5pm.  As one can imagine, my coverage of Quals will probably suffer somewhat.  Allegedly I'll be leaving the store around 3pm on Friday, but that's more a hope than a for-sure.  Practice coverage, never my strong suit even in the best of days, may suffer, depending on when I actually DO leave.  At least race day won't be affected.  I'll admit to hanging on by my wingtips right now... there's so much to do, and my energy levels are somewhat low.

The good news is that I've continued to slog away at the first writeup of Eva Movie 1.11, and it's looking like it'll be quite good.  If you know what I mean.  So there's what's happening.  I'll try to bring you more soft-serve ASAP.

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Mystery Ship VIII Update!

In November of 2011, I put up a "Name This Mystery Ship" contest that proved to be one of my favorites. 

The correct answer was the SS Mamari, aka "Fleet Tender C".  A former passenger liner, she had been taken over by the Royal Navy and converted into a HMS Hermes decoy.  As it turns out, I had not seen another picture of this erstwhile vessel until just about a week ago, when I also found out her fate.  First, the second picture:

As it turns out, the Mamari was a very good decoy indeed.  On June 3rd, 1941, she was attacked by German aircraft.  In the process of evading them, she got stuck on the wreck of a tanker.  While the Admiralty intended to refloat her, a few days later the E-boats came.  After a couple of torpedoes, she ended up as you see her here.  You can see just how skimpy that "flight deck" was.  It couldn't even be used as a transport.

So there you are... more Fleet Tender C!

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Words To Live By

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F1 On NBCSN: Spain 2013!

It has been a while since Formula 1 has graced the digital pages of The Pond, but the first long break of the season has come to an end and F1 is back!  The high-horsepower Circus has made its way back home to Europe and what many consider the real beginning of the season.  The first race on The Continent is, as always, the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcalounger.  Let's take a look at the track map, shall we?

If there is an "average track" in Formula 1, this is it.  The teams have tested here so much, they know it like the back of their hand.  There are no surprises in store, nothing they aren't aware of, leaving it down to the cars, the mechanics and the drivers.  Having said all that, it's because there are no surprises in store at Barcalounger that races here can often have the appearance of being a parade.  Not last year, though, when Pastor Maldonado won his first race, Williams won their first race in years on Sir Frank's birthday, and then their pit garage exploded into flames.  Yes, that counts as memorable.

The biggest news going into the race is that Pirelli folded under the pressure from Red Bull and has changed the tire compound on their Hards.  It's now going to be closer to the 2012 rubber, longer lasting and ohbytheway, something that the Red Bull chassis loved.  The rest of the compounds have not changed, but give it time.  We'll find out just how much difference it'll make this weekend as Pirelli brings the Hard and Medium tires to Barcalounger.

As far as the race goes, the good folks at NBCSN will be providing their usual sterling coverage all weekend!  Here's the broadcast schedule:
FRIDAY
Practice 2: 7a - 830a live
SATURDAY
Quals: 7a - 830a live
SUNDAY
2013 Grand Prix of Spain: 63a - 9a
As usual, NBCSN's schedule is online via the excremental Zap2It, so it should all be taken with a grain of salt the size of a salt lick. 

As is also usual, F1Update! will be all over the race, and by "all over," we mean we'll watch it and give it the writeup it deserves.  Because that's what we do now.  See ya then!

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Random Anime Picture #77: Just Because

-Toaru Kagaku no Railgun S, Ep04

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I Truly Did NOT Expect This...

Via Robert's Weekly Newsletter came this little bit of information:

North American video distributor Media Blasters announced on Friday that they had acquired the license for the Rio Rainbow Gate! anime series.

Of all the things I expected to hear, that was waaaaaaaaay down the list.  I mean, WAY down the list.  "Marianas Trench"-level down.  On the other hand, Media Blasters has just become my favorite anime company ever... or the company I hate the most, one of the two, and I'm not sure which.  Y'know what's even more amazing?

THIS is going to make me buy a LCD TV and a Blu-Ray player.  Rio Rainbow Gate! is my killer app!  How screwed up is that?  And yet, I can't help but feel like I had something to do with it... it's my own damn fault, in other words.  Longtime readers will remember, of course, that RRG! was the second series I'd done writeups for, and I think the most successful.  Certainly it turned out to be better than I expected, though since I had expectations as low as whale snot, that's not saying much.  Media Blasters has set no release date yet, but one might expect that I'm going to preorder the deluxe set as soon as possible. 

Rio Rainbow Gate! has been licensed.  I never thought I'd live to see the day.  I didn't think ANYBODY would live to see the day.  Thank you, Media Blasters, for showing us how to love... again.

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Something Strange And Wonderful

So the other day I was searching for pictures of the USS Liscome Bay when the contents of a thumbnail caught my eye and made me do a metaphorical doubletake.  I simply could not for the life of me figure out what I was looking at.  Of course I had to click on it.

And then I started to laugh.  The USS Thetis Bay, CVE-90, with deck-parked PBY Catalinas as she ferries them back to California in 1944.  I've never seen anything like that before!  I looked a little closer, and realized there was also a J2F Duck on deck, to boot!  The Hellcats pale by comparison.  I guess it makes perfect sense to ferry PBYs like this... it's not like they could fly the entire way on their own, particularly when they've been beaten up like these ones... but you just don't expect to see them dwarfing the carrier they're on.

It reminds me of the C-130 landing on a supercarrier: sure, it works, but man does it look weird.

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Announcing The Next Episodic Review Series...

Now that I've finished Vividred Operation, I've sort of been at loose ends as far as what show I wanted to do next.  Waiting until next season didn't really appeal to me, and currently airing series are so hit-and-miss anyway.  Case in point: Vividred Operation.  If I hadn't've been doing writeups for it, I would have let it go long before. the end.  But something longtime reader Avatar said in a comment for the last episode writeup made me raise an eyebrow (metaphorically... I can't actually do that without duct tape or staples) and stroke my chin pensively.  Then I realized that over in Japan, a particular movie was being released soon, and my course became clear.  The next series I will be doing Episodic Reviews for is...

Evangelion.  Really, it's an obvious choice... a decent show that's more screwed up and broken and just begging for my gentle touch would probably be impossible to find.  "But Wonderduck," I hear you say, which as usual I respond with "How did you get in here?"  "But Wonderduck, what about the 'no 26 episode series' rule?"   Simple... I'm going to do the movie version.  The third film just came out on BD in Japan.  If I break each film into three "episodes", that's nine writeups; I can also make do six, with two per movie if I feel like it.  Depends on the flow of each one, I guess.  I suspect fewer of my readers have seen the movies than the series anyway.

This is gonna be epic.  So whaddya think?

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