Speaking from what I have heard through him, my dad sells schools busses. The company he sells for offers almost any fuel option you can think of, from diesel and gasoline powered, to CNG powered, to propane powered, to electric busses. And he has said that while he has had a few school districts buy electric busses for fixed routes, he has sold more of the flex-fuel busses (the CNG and propane) than he has electric.
He also said some of the people who were interested in the electric were pretty much only interested under the idea that they could make money off of it. The specific story he told was that this one school district thought that they could have the busses charging at certain times, and then sell the electricity from the batteries back to the grid at times when the price was high and/or on weekends and summer break. Only to immediately abandon the idea and go with traditional busses when my dad informed them that doing that would count as hours against the battery for the purpose of the warranty and you would run through your warranty in a matter of months.
Dont get me wrong, I am absolutely agreeing that there is a huge discrepancy. I am probably have just been lucky in that most I have listened to for dubs have actually been at least good. There are plenty I still watch sub over dub (like you said, Goblin Slayer is much better in Japanese). It is just that on average I will take dub over sub because I would rather be watching what is going on instead of trying to read the subtitles. Sometimes stuff didnt get a dub, or sometimes the dub is an absolute trainwreck, and I will watch subs then. But if there seems to be no real difference in quality to me (like Rising of the Shield Hero), then I will take dub.
Just for my own example, Kayuga-sama I think is better as dub than sub, but a lot of the changes in tone and extra lines on the part of the narrator were changes signed off on by the studio so it is still staying true to the vision (and the over the top nature fits the anime more, IMO).
I feel like there is a growing resentment of foreigners messing with their culture in Japan,
Fully agree on this one though. I know that most Japanese are still OK with Americans and still love it, as well as loving America itself (I recently saw some clips of a few Japanese Hololive Vtubers who went to vacation in LA and said how they loved it there and liked how open and friendly Americans were, even if they thought it seemed kind of dangerous at night). But that is because most Americans like Japan for being Japan. Ironically, it is the "We are totally not racist" Woke Twitter Freaks who are the most anti-Japanese. But that tracks since they are anti-everything that doesnt live up to their California Bay Area sensibilities.
I tend to think most dubs arent that bad, but will also admit that I am in the minority.
Also, I dont think saying "dub bad" helps here, because I have seen more than a few times where they changed the subtitle version. And when people pointed out that issue, some of these ass-munch little shits said "Guess you should learn Japanese if you dont like it then, Chud."
I am just so shocked the Japanese are kicking these people to the curb and saying "Nah, we are going to have bots do it because it is better than the gaijin doing it."
no remake of English Dub
remake of Japanese voices
Things that make you go "hmmmmm".
Probably more signs that Japan is getting wise to the "localizers" messing with their things, and deciding they are having none of it. So they are going to be far more picky about getting English VA's and as we have already seen will have AI perform the translations (with an English speaker on the Japanese side to make sure it comes out without errors).
Like I said, highly recommended on Last Train Home. I am on my 3rd run right now, and it is the furthest I have made it thus far (about 3,700km, halfway to Vladivostok). The only advice I will give is to upgrade your barracks cars first, and make sure you have at least two of them with upgraded bunk space by the time you get to the second major station (Penza I think?). I didnt on my first run I made it there, and it turns out I had rescued some Legionaries but didnt have the space for them, so had to leave them behind. Needless to say, I am trying to get as many out as possible and it was early, so I decided to restart my run.
I have also been enjoying anime, but it is not something that I really keep my ear to the ground over like with video games. Usually I will just watch what I am interested, and leave it at that.
Maybe it is just a difference of perspective. I thought the game was fairly good to Hades, and when you beat it the first time you learn that Hades was right to say you cant go to the surface. And while he does eventually change his mind (yes, after being humbled in defeat), he is still the only one of the gods that cares about you, as the Olympians see you as merely a pawn even after you beat the game.
I also dont think I would count Persephone having sway over him, since she can do that even in the actual lore of Greek mythology.
women always right
I dont know if I would say that. The Olympian gods are shown to be aloof and uncaring about your situation except maybe Artemis (which would make sense as she is the only one not in Olympus), and see you as a toy in their own games against Hades.
I also dont think they showed Hades as particularly evil. Harsh yes, but not evil. And the game does kind of show Zagreus as being rash and impulsive for wanting to go to the surface so bad he is willing to fight and kill anything in his path to get there. The "You have to kill your father to escape" thing also kind of rings hollow for me as a slight since Hades is both A) By far the hardest boss in the game and will therefore whop your ass most of the time, and B) is immortal, so it is kind of moot in the grand scheme of things.
But then, I am also not one of those people who thinks the characters in the game look that bad, and that they all fit the style the game set out for. Even the Muse being what it is seems like a reference to the Disney's Hercules rather than a malicious destruction of Greek lore.
On that note though, I think that as the Woke system starts to fall apart over the next few years, we are going to see more of this. Where companies try to have their cake and eat it too, by still trying to not piss off the SJW's on Twitter or in the Press, but also try to not piss off the now obviously much large portion of paying customers. And it will end when they decide they finally have to pick a side.
And as much as some people want to be doomers about it, I think it is only a matter of time until a Western AI comes up that was made out of the bubble. Much of what we are dealing with in tech and entertainment is a product of the fact that this was all done in basically two places in California. But tech has already been taking off in other parts of the country with people who were never in the bubble (there are more tech companies in Dallas, TX than Silicon Valley now) and entertainment is slowly doing the same, eventually someone is going to decide they are leaving money on the table.
Feuerschwanz
Actually yes. And I really like their cover of Warriors of the World. As for their originals, I kind of have them in the same field as Rammstein: I like the beat and the metal, but I dont know enough German to know what they are saying.
Although on the note of interesting things: Both STARSET and Smash Into Pieces I had funny interactions with for trying to figure out where they were from just on the first listen.
Starset, I thought they were a British band because the lead singer sounded similar to some British bands I had heard before. I look them up, and...nope, they are from Columbus, Ohio. Fine by me, I have always tried to find new American metal, because there isnt a lot of American power metal bands out there (most American is black metal, which is not up my alley at all).
Meanwhile, Smash Into Pieces I was convinced was from the Pacific Northwest, either Portland or Seattle. Even more so when I saw one of their music videos showed them driving across the Golden Gate Bride with their tour bus. And then I look them up...wrong again, they are Swedish. And have that fun thing where the singer sounds fine with no accent when he is singing, then has the thickest Swedish accent when talking normally. Turns out they are among the bands that loves the US more than Europe so that is why they have so much US stuff in their music videos. Which does make the lyrics for the chorus of their song Heathens kind of funny ("Show'em how we do it down South!"....you arent from the South?).
Sabaton are pretty good about letting themselves be the butt of the joke. It is part of the reason I like them so much. Personally, I have not been disappointed in my taste in modern metal.
There are plenty of the big boys like Powerwolf, Sabaton, Evergrey, STARSET, and Amaranthe that turn out hit after hit. Hell, I even like DragonForce as goofy as they can get sometimes (and they seem to have leaned into the fact they got famous from video games hard).
But even with smaller bands, I have plenty of ones I love. Beast In Black, All Good Things, Eclipse, Smash Into Pieces, Rave The Reqviem, and Nordic Union being some of my personal favorites.
you'll probably see an even bigger increase of anti Asian especially Japanese sentiment on social media as they whine on them taking their jobs under the guise of them being 'problematic'
And you better believe they will be ride or die on that point. Because as we have seen said now by one of the authors in Comics (Mark Waid), they would rather their entire industry burn to the ground than have the "alt-right" as fans or coworkers.
A fun one I remember from a Coworker who was in the 1st ID was that when they were first deployed, somehow a rumor got started among the enemy that anyone wearing a "Bloody One" was a killer, and the patch was a mark of their kill. So his commanding officer decided to run with that. Anyone who came into theater fresh off the plane was either given a grey patch or an alternative insignia. Any time there was a firefight with a reported KIA, someone got a patch. Patches would keep being given out the more fights they were in. They had this absolute mountain of a man who was their machine gunner, and he had well over a dozen patches.
For a while, it did actually result in a noticeable drop in enemy activity in their sector, because they didnt want to fight the "Bloody Killers".
Which is kind of ironic. Because when you look at the data, the average American gets along better with Asians than they do with Europeans in general, and the feeling is mutual. It is part of the reason that there has been such a push to, at a policy level, tell Europe to eat a bag of dicks and then go join our real friends in Asia.
I imagine pissing off a significant chunk of the politicians who could help extend your copyright probably also doesnt help. Not that they would say no, but probably that it would make them angry enough the money needed to make them dance is now too high.
Havent played it yet, but I have heard it is a pretty good tactical shooter, best played with friends. And that it doesnt really discriminate on who it sends you after. Right-Wing Militas, Left-Wing Anarchist communes, Muslim terrorist, they are all fair game.
If you want an idea of a place to start getting into it though, I would recommend a podcast called Adeptus Ridiculous. The host are kind of on the liberal side, but they care more about the lore than trying to change it, and usually keep their politics out of episodes. And I recommend it because while one guy is a lore nerd, the other host is a newb to the lore. So I like to recommend them because it makes sure that things are actually understandable for a newb since one of them is one themselves.
Its been kind of strange. Games Workshop has been extremely resilient about making sure anything important has been changed, because they are greedy motherfuckers and dont like anyone touching their money (even when helping them). So most of the wokeness has been in side stories and out of the main plot. Additionally, there is a bit of an issue for the SJW's where if they make a White Male the bad guy.....that is literally just basic ass Warhammer already. So people would be like "Oh thank god, I thought you were going to change it too much."
So it has been harder for them to get in than they thought it would.
Im...interested. In so far as I didnt see anything immediately jump out and scream woke at me, so I am interested in seeing what they actually do with this and what actually happens.
Of course, they are still out of the camp of allowing preorders, so I will need to hear from sources I trust before I pull the trigger. And it sounds like it will be a year late to PC anyway.
Napoleon and Flower Moon were also paid for up front by Apple to eventually get exclusive streaming rights on Apple TV. They could have gone through their entire theater run without making a single penny and they still would have broke even because it was Apples problem (and that kind of loss they make up for in a few hours selling Iphones).
It is very different from Disney who insist that they will not allow anyone else to have their movies and so have to rely on Disney+, which is still in the hole and losing money hand over fist each quarter.
how many gen z raised on instant entertainment are going to look at classics?
You would be surprised. There has actually been a pretty major trend of Gen Z doing just that and hitting up the classics instead of the stuff made for them. Apparently MASH is pretty popular with Gen Z, and they have been getting into a lot of 1990's and 2000's entertainment.
Speaking as a local who knows a lot of the culture: Unlikely. It has been faced with pretty extreme backlash among fans when they try to get rid of it, and it has the blessing of many of the local Indian tribes who are in many cases Chiefs fans themselves. Mahomes has also taken part in it and he has a lot of sway in that regard as one of the most popular players in the NFL.
It was the African empire that controlled Egypt for about 100 years that is used by a lot of the Black Supremist types to prove that Egypt is "Black". Even though they were Mediterranean before that (like the Greeks and Italians), and were Arab later in history.
The other thing that is important is that not everyone needs to be foaming at the mouth screaming about wokeness at every given turn. Yes, your Ryan Kinel's can, but they will turn off the average normie who is only starting to realize there is a constant "Message" in everything they watch.
So you show them Critical Drinker or Film Threat, who is very approachable and talks about movies they do like instead of just constantly harping on the ones they hate. Then as that starts to click and they realize there is a coordinated campaign in Hollywood, maybe they move up to the likes of Nerdrotic, Az, and Disparu (who are a bit more aggressive in calling it out, but still in a fun way). And then maybe some of them will take the next step to Ryan, and go "This situation is so out of whack we need a political change just to fight it."