Taming Pulseaudio

Taming PulseAudio

PulseAudio is a sound system for Linux.  It offers a few nice features, such as per-application volume control, hot-swapping input and output devices, and more cool stuff, all through an easy-to-use GUI.  Sounds great, but there's a catch: it's broken.  Actually, to be fair, PulseAudio isn't the only thing broken; all of Linux sound is broken.  From the pieces I've been able to glue together, here's enough of the story to understand what I'm talking about.

If you're just here for the guide, scroll down until the part after a large gap.  If you also want to know what the problems are, then you only have to skip until the end of the indented section.

Sound on Linux started with a system called OSS, or Open Sound System.  It was used not just by Linux but by BSD and I think even early versions Mac OS X.  OSS was very simplistic, to the point that only one application at a time could use sound, but it worked.  OSS's limitations could be bypassed by using a sound server.  ESD, Enlightened Sound Daemon, is one such sound server.  For a program to use ESD, the program had to be rewritten to use it.  Thus, you'd see programs coded to use both ESD and OSS as a fallback, as well as another sound server, aRts.  Three different sets of code each for different audio setups.  There had to be a better way.

The better way was ALSA.  It was conceived as a replacement for OSS, as OSS was stagnating in development or something like that.  It had everything from a brand new driver system to the ability to have multiple programs use sound at once without a sound server.  In theory, ALSA should have solved everyone's problems.  In practice, all this ended up doing is dividing the BSD and Linux communities, as ALSA was Linux-only while OSS was cross-platform.  Also, all it accomplished was adding yet another audio system for programmers to code for. 

Eventually, things progressed to the point that programs were dropping support for anything but ALSA.  The problem of Linux audio seemed to be solved, but there were two issues.  First, the BSD folks were getting upset because many of the newest and newest versions of programs weren't compatible with their system anymore.  Second, there were a few features some users wanted which ALSA couldn't provide, but a sound server could.  Third, programmers started to get really frustrated at how complicated ALSA is to code around. 

Enter PulseAudio.  PulseAudio is a sound server implemented on top of ALSA and OSS alike.  According to their wiki, it runs on Linux, Solaris, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows 2000 and XP.  Basically, every relavent operating system can have it's sound work across all operating systems by using PulseAudio, solving the sound fragmentation issue between the open-source operating systems, and providing an allegedly-better coding experience compared to ALSA. 

What happened when ALSA replaced OSS is happening now with apps being programmed to support only PulseAudio and no longer directly use ALSA.  One such example is Skype for Linux.  Starting with version 4.3, PulseAudio is the only supported sound system.  As of writing this guide, that's the only example I can name, as currently most apps have support for both ALSA directly and PulseAudio.

In summary, PulseAudio is swinging on by to be the superhero and fix Linux's audio problems.  And yet, some programs don't want PulseAudio to save them.  One major example in my case is Wine.  Wine is a fake, fully-reprogrammed version of Windows made to be installed into Linux, BSD, or Mac OS X so that they can run Windows programs.  What this means in the realm of sound is that Wine has to write a program which translates the windows sound APIs used by windows programs into those used by the guest operating systems.  There's some holdup with getting a translation layer between PulseAudio and Windows Audio completed, meaning that Wine is one of the only major Linux programs not compatible with PulseAudio, yet fully compatible with ALSA.

The easiest way to solve PulseAudio's problems is to run PulseAudio and ALSA side-by-side.  Technically speaking, PulseAudio runs on top of ALSA and can't run without it, so they already do run side-by-side.  Practically speaking, they don't, because if PulseAudio is running, then no other program can use ALSA.  At least, that's how it works with the default configuration.  We'll be bypassing this with a custom configuration.

What's going wrong here is that PulseAudio, by default, does two very stupid things while attempting to be smart.  The first is grabbing complete, exclusive control of your sound card, done by attempting an automatic detection of all sound devices in your computer.  The proper fix is to modify PulseAudio's code to NEVER take exclusive control of auto-detected devices; instead we'll just edit settings to work around this problem.  The second stupid thing PulseAudio does is an attempt to work around this first problem.  PulseAudio includes an "ALSA compatibility layer", which from here on out will be referred to as a hijacker.  What this does is attempt to make any program which tries to use ALSA use PulseAudio instead through a translation layer.  Except this translation layer is just imperfect enough to cause migraines.  The proper fix is to fix the translation layer, but considering it hasn't been done yet, I doubt it'll ever be done; instead we'll be nuking the thing.  Speaking of which, let's get on to that guide.



This is a guide for allowing programs to play sound through ALSA and PulseAudio simultaneously.  Apps supporting PulseAudio will play sound through PulseAudio and apps not supporting PulseAudio will play through ALSA, bypassing any problems caused by certain programs such as Wine not supporting PulseAudio.  It was written for Lubuntu 14.04, but should translate well into any Ubuntu-derived or Debian-derived distribution of Linux, and shouldn't be too far off from what you're supposed to be doing in other distributions.

STEP 0: Install Pulseaudio.
A. Open a Terminal.
B. sudo apt-get install pulseaudio

STEP 1: Secure a program which can use both PulseAudio and ALSA by user choice.
One such example is the audio player Audacious.
A. Open a Terminal.
B. sudo apt-get install audacious

STEP 2: Configure your program to use ALSA and try to play a sound.
If you're using Audacious, the preferences menu makes this really easy.  Once set to ALSA, try to play a sound.  The program should throw up an error message.  If it somehow works, double check to see if it's configured for ALSA.  If it is, then PulseAudio's ALSA hijacker is active, a hijacker which needs to be crushed.

STEP 3: Disable PulseAudio's ALSA hijacker.
A. Open a terminal.
B. cd /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf.d
C. sudo rm *pulse*
Now, reopen your test program and try again in ALSA mode.  Now it should be throwing up that error message.

STEP 4: Edit Pulseaudio's Configuration.
A. Check if ~/.config/pulse/default.pa exists.
If it does, open it with a text editor.
If it doesn't, open /etc/pulse/default.pa, and save it as ~/.config/pulse/default.pa.
B. Around line 44, you'll see something like this:
### Load audio drivers statically
### (it's probably better to not load these drivers manually, but instead
### use module-udev-detect -- see below -- for doing this automatically)
#load-module module-alsa-sink
#load-module module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0
#load-module module-oss device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-oss-mmap device="/dev/dsp" sink_name=output source_name=input
#load-module module-null-sink
That comment block is full of crap.  Uncomment the two lines related to ALSA by deleting the # at the front.  Also, remove the device=whatever parts of the lines you uncommented if they're present.
NOTE: If you're using a custom .asoundrc, this may or may not work as-is, but it should get you on the right track. If you're not or you have no idea what I mean by .asoundrc, ignore this; you're fine.
C. Save.

STEP 5: Restart Pulseaudio.
A. Open a terminal
B. pulseaudio -k

STEP 6: Try out your test program.
Your program sould be perfectly able to play sound when configured for both ALSA and PulseAudio.

Congratulations, you just made PulseAudio infinitely better!  The one downside is that ALSA-only programs can't use PulseAudio's cool features, but at least they'll be able to play sound, something they couldn't do before!

Anime First Impressions: The Master of Killing Time

High school.  For me, let's just say it's a time which was less than pleasant.  One common memory we have is that there'd be this one guy who could mess around and not pay any attention in any class, never ever get in trouble for it, meanwhile if you did anything you'd instantly be caught.  This is an anime about that guy.

From the sounds of things, this show is a one-trick-pony.  It's possible that this is a short gag anime with an episode length of only a few minutes, and if that's the case it could very well work.  But to do a full season of full length episodes, I don't think it'd work out.  The joke would get old too fast, but who knows.  I'm willing to give this a shot, so let's go!

The Master of Killing Time - Episode 1
0:00  Total length: 7:39.  Yep, it's a short, but a long one at that.
0:07  EVEN POWER TOOLS!?!??! Already?!  Anyway, while I was laughing, I didn't even catch that the intro song started.  It's fairly typical and gets the job done.  And background scenes establishes everything going on.  There's some normal but white-haired girl, and that guy.
0:47  It's over.  Boring class.
1:15  Dominos.
1:28  With block erasers.
1:52  I'm with her.  How does he have so many?!
2:45  And he's only getting started.
3:00  Any it only gets more elaborate.
4:15  After a close call.  It's even more elaborate.
4:35  I declare this guy to be Japanese Rube Goldberg.  And a ninja.
4:50  FIREWORKS!?!?!
5:06  Against all sense, he starts the chain reaction.
5:50  This is the most epic domino scene ever.
6:01  Of course nothing would happen. He's obviously not using a live one.
6:30  And this is the part where the girl gets in trouble, and the guy as quickly as possible cleans up his act.
6:57  And that's that.  The ending song plays, with that guy playing drums improvised out of school supplies.

Okay, the show is a one trick pony, but it's a good one and doesn't overstay its welcome.  Once a week, this is great.  I hereby approve of The Master of Killing Time for having the most epic domino scene ever, and can give it an all-ages certification.

Film Review: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within

For once I'm reviewing something which isn't an anime.  Unbelievable, right?  Anyway, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is a thriller from Brazil about the struggles of BOPE, the Special Police Operations Battalion of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police, against the multitude of cartels, as well as internal corruption within the force and government.  It is the sequel to the original Elite Squad movie, which focuses more on the culture of BOPE and the people it recruits.  Elite Squad 2 takes place significantly later, and aside from recurring characters and some similar themes has little to do with the original movie.

When watching this movie, you will very quickly learn that Brazil is an incredibly messed up place.  The cartels are violent, the police is incredibly corrupt, and human rights are routinely violated by the police.  The worst part is that public opinion supports this police brutality, because the cartels are really that bad, and they go unpunished due to corruption.  If the choice is brutal or corruption, the people of Brazil overwhelmingly choose brutality and human rights violations.

That's not to say that the human rights activists don't exist.  They do exist, but they don't have much of a voice.  It takes one to nearly be murdered by police for them to have any say, and all they accomplish is get one human rights violator to leave the force, and instead get promoted because of public backlash to the firing.

This is the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; it's a brutal, corrupt mess.  The corrupt justify themselves by saying that at least they're not violent, while the violent justify themselves by saying that at least they're not corrupt.  And they all hate the human rights activists.

All of this is apparent with the character of our hero, Colonel Nascimento.  He's the leader of BOPE, the Special Police Operations Battalion, and also the movie's narrator.  He makes very clear what it is he believes in.  And that's in brutal assaults against the cartel members.  He has absolutely no respect for any of them, and if it were up to him he'd just shoot and kill everyone in the cartels, or better yet, let them kill themselves in a gang war.

The movie starts with our hero being called in alongside BOPE to deal with a prison break.  One cartel in the prison managed to get a hold of guns, and is killing other inmates, members of a rival cartel.  They take several officers hostage, and yet our hero orders BOPE to hold back until they finish off as many members of other cartels.

The order changes into holding back until their negotiator, a human rights activist and college professor married to Nascimento's ex-wife named Fraga, arrives by helicopter to attempt a peaceful solution.  Even apart from the whole thing about marrying his ex-wife, Nascimento hates this guy's guts.

If it were my call, I'd just throw out the keys let [the cartel members] kill themselves.  But left-wing intellectuals make a living out of scumbags.

It comes as no surprise that Nascimento uses his attempt at negotiating as a diversion.  As soon as the cartel lets their guard down, BOPE moves in and guns everyone down.  After a tense standoff, the leader of the gang, holding Fraga at gunpoint, is shot dead just as he starts to surrender, spilling blood on Fraga's t-shirt, which quite literally says, "HUMAN RIGHTS" in English text.  Naturally, the picture of blood splattered over a white HUMAN RIGHTS t-shirt causes a media frenzy which gets Nascimento fired.

Public opinion soon turns on the governor as the people as well as angry pundits with too many viewers support Nascimento's actions.  An alternate solution is then put forward: Nascimento's second in command Matias, the one who almost shot Fraga, agrees to take the fall, and Nascimento is given a job as the undersecretary of Rio de Janeiro Public Safety for Intelligence.  The role gives Nascimento even more power to make BOPE far stronger than before.  He uses his authority to wiretap almost every favela in Rio, uncovering organized crime in multiple areas, and forwarding the intel to BOPE.  BOPE in turn cleans up the streets, almost completely eliminating cartels it would seem.

Nascimento's whole reason for pushing BOPE forward is because he hates corrupt cops.  His goal is to eliminate the sources of bribery corrupt cops rely on by eliminating the cartels.  For the longest time, he believes that he's been highly successful.  The reality is that he's only made the problem worse, a reality which doesn't hit him until much later.

Dirty cops, realizing exactly what's going on, decide to fill the power vacuum by establishing their own organized crime militia.  They learn that because of all the BOPE drug busts, the drug trade is dying, but there's still money to be made in more creative means, such as pirated cable TV.  Soon, these dirty cops are heading the largest extortion ring in Rio, and are protected by virtue of being part of the system and buying votes for elected officials with their actions.  The elected officials then turn a blind eye to what the militia is doing, as the streets are safer under their control and the governor is getting the incredibly valuable slum voting block.

The heart of the movie is Nascimento finally discovering that the work he's been doing has only made the problem of police corruption worse.  Once he makes this discovery, a process which involves an assassination attempt on his own life among many, many other things, Nascimento ends up joining forces with Fraga, who has since become a state legislator.  Fraga uses his position to call for a congressional hearing, where Nascimento testifies to the incredible corruption.

What happens as a result is one of the largest sprees of witness executions in Brazilian history.  And despite the number of witnesses murdered, the governor of the state is rightfully put behind bars as a criminal.  The corruption and police-sponsored militia have received a massive blow.

Yet in spite of this the corruption soon returns, with the militia continuing its operations.  Nascimento as narrator asks a simple question, "Who do you think pays for all this?"  Silence follows, and then, "exactly."  The system is corrupt to the core, to the highest levels of government.  Rio gets the worst of it, and no matter what happens, the corruption persists.  It reorganizes itself, but will never truly vanish.  Nascimento's actions was a major blow, but ultimately only a temporary setback.  Only through hundreds or thousands of those blows can a significant change be made, a daunting task which Nascimento is not going to back down from.

Elite Squad: The Enemy Within paints a very dark picture of the worst aspects of Brazil.  Despite this, it ultimately paints a hopeful picture.  It doesn't do anything stupid like provide a happy ending; instead the ending is barely an improvement over the status quo.  Only in the context of how bad things could have gotten could the ending be considered happy.  The biggest takeaway is that Nascimento is in a position of high power, is much more aware of how tricky and deeply rooted the corruption is, and has made a powerful and unlikely ally of Fraga.

In my opinion, Elite Squad: The Enemy Within is one of the best movies ever made.  I can easily see why it is Brazil's highest grossing film, and an absolute sensation in the country.  I would recommend it to all audiences, except for the fact that it is very, very violent.  I would say parental supervision required for anyone under 16.  That being said, I can't imagine anyone under 16 finding this movie that interesting.  I highly recommend this movie for anyone interested in seeing a more realistic take on action films, because this one is much more plausible than the vast majority of American-made blockbusters.

Anime First Impressions: Recently, My Sister Is Unusual

Today I'm going to be reviewing what is very likely smut.  There's no other way to describe what I'm talking about.  The show I'm referring to is Recently, My Sister Is Unusual.  The show is about some guy likely in high school who discovers that his step sister suddenly started acting weird.  Weird, as in, like she's possessed by something and also is coming on to him.  Romantically and quite possibly sexually.

Basically, this is probably softcore porn featuring technically-not-incest.  And I already know for a fact that this is going to be messed up.  My only question is how messed up does it get, and how comedic of a spin does it take.  It's possible that this may actually be entertaining, but my hopes are definitely not high for this.  Currently, the show has a 2.6 star rating on Crunchyroll, and when you consider that every show on Crunchyroll is incredibly inflated, that score is probably closer to a 1.6 rating.  Also, confirmation that it's smut comes from a friendly warning:

Yeah, this is going to be incredibly perverted.  Crunchyroll does not give 18+ warnings lightly.  I am going to regret this.

Recently, My Sister is Unusual - Episode 1
0:00  Looks like a normal day in Japan.
0:15  Our main character wakes up to the sound of an alarm clock.
0:30  One day, he woke up and found that he had a younger sister.
1:00  Breakfast with the whole family, something every family should do.
1:30  Apparently, the father is flying to India soon.
2:04  It seems that the two kids are still strangers to each other, and each other's respective parent.
2:35  That was an awkward goodbye.
2:45  And now our main character is talking with a friend about this whole thing.
3:10  His friend has a serious fetish for little sisters, which is apparently culturally acceptable in Japan, and is surprised he hasn't slept with her yet.  Hint: DITCH THE FRIEND.  HE'S A TOTAL PERVERT.
3:50  Our hero looks out the window during his class to see that his new sister is terrible at athletics, but she is making friends.
4:05  And naturally the teacher is talking about marriage between siblings and how that used to be common.  Okay, maybe this is a cultural thing with Japan.  Or maybe this show is just bullshitting.
4:30  Another incredibly awkward conversation between brother and sister.
5:00  After trying just about every honorific, he finally gets her attention.
5:15  Okay, why did she just fall backwards off the stairs?
5:35  Well, she's dead.  That was a great show!
[Actually, this is where the fun all starts. And by fun, I mean smut.]
5:55  Darn it she only fainted.
6:04  Well no wonder she starts coming on to him later!  He's staring at her as she sleeps, and we all know how girls find that to be irresistably sexy.
6:30  Seems that she doesn't remember what
6:33  Damn, that heartbeat was so loud it knocked a painting off the wall in the next room over.
7:02  Oh no, here it all starts.  She just grabbed onto his coat after spending the last 30 seconds panting.
7:12  Wow, the most stereotypical porno music just started playing.  And now she's rubbing her hands across his back while in a hug, talking about how much she's always loved-
7:29 "DON'T TOUCH ME" she says as she kicks him out of the room and almost knocks down a doctor who was walking by.
7:39  Gee, I wonder what gave you that idea.  Though to be fair, that's the exact thing you tell a doctor after such a circumstance.
7:42  Finally, the opening theme.  It's exactly the kind of thing to expect.  A sickeningly sweet j-pop song.
9:16  Good it's over, and now it's sunset.
9:36  So, the mother is driving her home, and apparently she's about to run off as well.  What a setup to a wacky romantic comedy about technically-not-incest!  To be fair, Oreimo is also a wacky romantic comedy about incest, but it's a good comedic show which uses the incest as a subtext for social commentary.
9:55  And immediately she runs into her room.
10:40  She overhears the two talking about how they're going to both be leaving the house for a bit.
10:45  "Why did I do that?"  GOOD QUESTION!  So, apparently she also thinks that she was possessed or something.
11:15  WTF.
11:30  So, the reason she fell off the stairs is because some girl in a pink dress with angel wings suddenly appears, said she needed her to disappear, and flew into her.  I'm pretty sure that would cause anyone to fall off a flight of stairs.
12:00  So she wakes up to discover she's wearing bondage gear underneith her skirt.  She suddenly starts panicking.
12:05  Thank you censorship.  And I say that with no sarcasm whatsoever.
12:11  Hello magic floating pink dress angel girl.  Oh, she's a ghost.
12:20  I think screaming is the only right thing to do in this scenario.
12:40  And the ghost starts raping her or something.
12:55  Oh, the ghost was merely stealing her body.  But did they really have to animate it so that it looked bad?
13:20  Okay, yeah, smut 100% confirmed.  The first thing the ghost does now that she has a real body is masturbate.  Thank you censorship, but seriously?!

Okay, yeah, this is smut, just like I feared.  I'm done.  Such a shame too, because the rest of the show looks like it could have been good.  There's decent humor, the plot summaries I've read sound insane in a good way, and if not for the outright smut this would be an entertaining show.  Unfortunately, it crosses the line in my opinion, so I can not recommend it.

Anime Review: Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION

The long awaited movie sequel to Sword Art Online is finally out and available for streaming on Crunchyroll, and the fans are going insane.  Personally, I could almost care less.  Even at the time, I thought Sword Art Online was really dumb, and the second half of the show had almost no narrative strength to it.  It was good to watch, but now that I've watched it, I'm not going to look back to it.  As far as wanting a second season, I'd probably watch it, but have no excitement for it.  These feelings were greatly amplified by watching Log Horizon, which takes the same concept of being trapped in an MMORPG video game and does just about everything better than Sword Art Online.  As a result, I wasn't too excited to watch EXTRA EDITION, but I figured that I'd give it a very fair shot, while keeping in mind that Log Horizon is biasing me against it.

To the best of my ability, I'm not going to lie about what I think about Sword Art Online EXTRA EDITION.  I'm not going to exaggerate how good or bad I think it is if I can help it; I'm going to be telling you exactly what I saw, what I was thinking then, and what I think now.  And it is going to upset a lot of people, because my opinion is significantly less than favorable to put it gently.  If you're the kind of person offended by disagreement, you may want to stop reading right now.

The movie starts off by playing the show's original opening theme, which brought back pleasant memories.  In the background are opening credits interspersed with main character Kirito and his sister Sugu riding to school on a motorcycle.  Once the credits are over, Kirito and Sugu arrive.  As it turns out, they were meeting with three of their friends, all girls Kirito met in the games, to have a pool party at the school, but Kirito instead has to deal with emergency counseling in the school building instead.  During this scene, Asuna, the female lead of the show and far left in the picture below, says something very, very wrong:

The problem with this line is that during the ALfheim Online arc, part two of the show, SHE WAS LOCKED IN A CAGE THE ENTIRE TIME.  She has no way of knowing that.  I'm sure the fanboys and fangirls will tell me that I'm wrong here and come up with some explanation, but this line is what tipped me off that EXTRA EDITION was going to be EXTRA bad.  Okay, well, maybe not EXTRA bad, but this was not a good sign.

So, Kirito heads off to the counseling office, and hello, nurse!  And then the "real" councilor turns around in his chair.  Kirito recognizes him as, "an elite member of the Virtual Division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs."  That a long enough title there?  It seems this federal agent wants to question Kirito about what happened in the games yet again.  Kirito is initially uncooperative, but after being bribed with candy and implicitly threatened with suddenly gaining media attention, he starts talking.

Before Kirito has a chance to say a single word, the scene cuts to the girls, who are now changing in the locker room.  When a movie has shameless fanservice in the first five minutes, that is a guarantee of the show sucking.  Fortunately for EXTRA EDITION, the shameless fanservice starts at five minutes and thirty-five seconds, passing the guarantee limit by less than a minute.  Also in this scene is lame comedy which was old before the first time someone ever attempted to make the event a joke.  In less than a minute, I was begging for the scene to change back to the interrogation.

Ten seconds later, my wish was granted.  Kirito finally starts talking to the fed, and we cut to the show, the scene which establishes the central conflict of the show.  You know, the same central conflict which I wrote a prior blog post pointing out how it's flat-out stupid.  And the best part is that the scene isn't even edited down in any way.  After three minutes, I realized that it's just going to be copying and pasting segments from the show.  After a 25 second break from flashbacks where Kirito and the agent exchange a few words, we see another flashback.

This flashback ends with Kirito yelling so loud the scene changes to the pool.  And at the pool, we learn that Sugu apparently can't swim and has a bit of a fear of water.  As a result, she gets teased for it by one of the other girls, to the point that the other girl starts sexually assaulting her, all for the laughs of the audience.  I shouldn't need to say this, but there is absolutely nothing funny about sexual assault.  At this point, I decided I would be skipping the remaining pool scenes, because this is just outright wrong.  I wanted to turn the movie off right at this point, only thirteen minutes in.

But I persisted anyway, and the reward for my persistence was nothing more than more flashbacks straight from the show.  I got so tired that I decided to start skipping in five minute intervals until the flashbacks finally stopped.  Here's an excerpt from the notes I was taking.

20:38  Recap.
25:49  More recap.
29:52  EVEN MORE recap.
34:54  re-
40:31  cap
45:30  And we're not even done with the first half of the show.
50:20  Now they are.
55:11  And now we're recapping part 2.
59:45  Yep.
65:55  YEP.
70:29  YAPPERS!
75:12  It's seriously a movie-length recap episode.
79:25  FANSERVICE!
79:45  DONE RECAPPING PART 2!

So, for the first hour and twenty minutes of EXTRA EDITION, all I have gotten is flashbacks to the original show mixed with incredibly lame fanservice and failed attempts at comedy which have served only to piss me off.  Only twenty minutes remain, but despite what I already failed to endure I remained optimistic that the remaining twenty minutes of material would still be worth watching.

The remaining twenty minutes takes place on a beach inside one of the virtual video game worlds, where all of the characters from earlier as well as two others are vacationing to.  During this scene something actually entertaining happens.  After the stupidest water-fight ever between the girls which is only there for the alleged fanservice appeal of seeing girls splash each other with water, we get the only genuinely funny moment in the show.  Kirito announces that it's time for their mission to start.  So the girls all start walking out of the water in slow motion, parodying baywatch.  One of the other guys, Klein, watches this, and is about to explode from the amount of sexy he's seeing.  Just before this happens, the girls press a floating button, and all of their clothes comes back on.  Cue Klein falling on his knees, crying tears of disappointment.

Aside from this joke, the rest of the twenty minutes is either boring or stupid.  The quest is one in which they have to dive deep underwater - good thing Sugu was taught how to swim earlier - to perform a quest where a whale then appears.  Yes, their goal is to go whale-watching while inside a video game.  The quest somehow involves them breaking into an underwater temple, stealing a pearl, discovering it's really an egg, getting their butts kicked by kraken, and then getting rescued by a stand-in for Poseidon and sent back to the beach riding on a whale.  If that sounds exciting, it's because I removed all of the cringeworthy fluff from that summary, including the part where the single best player of all VRMMORPGs falls into the most obvious pitfall trap ever.  Had the other characters not made fun of Kirito for this, I would have turned it off right then and there.

Somehow, I made it through to the end without having to skip through the final twenty minutes.  And when it ended, I was laughing. No, it wasn't because the ending was funny; I was laughing because I couldn't believe just how bad this whole thing was.  The twenty minutes of original material contained only one thing of any entertainment value whatsoever, and the plot of it is completely irrelevant.  Reading back through my notes only minutes later, I realized just how bad EXTRA EDITION was.

If I had any interest in watching a second season of Sword Art Online, EXTRA EDITION just completely killed it.  The short version is that EXTRA EDITION is to Sword Art Online as the Star Wars Holiday Special is to Star Wars.  The first eighty minutes of this movie are nothing more than recap, consisting of scenes copy-and-pasted straight from the show, mixed in with the tiniest amount of dialog between the main character and a federal agent trying to figure out what happened, alongside some of the most lame excuses for fanservice and comedy I've ever seen, all of it so bad I had to skip through it.  The remaining twenty minutes are worse than any other twenty minute segment in the show.  It contained no character development, nor did it advance the plot in any way.  If anything happened regarding characterization, either one's characterization was completely destroyed for the sake of lame comedy, or my memory of the character is really bad.  As for the plot, it contributes nothing to the overall story and can be completely ignored with no loss whatsoever.  There wasn't even any extra details of the setting given out for the fans as far as I could tell.  Seeing as how this movie is nothing but things I've aready seen or things which are just cringeworthy, there is literally no point to watching this movie, even if you're a fan of the series, and especially if you're not.  Just watch the show. Or better yet, don't;  Watch Log Horizon instead.  It's the same concept, but done so much better!

Anime First Impressions - Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X)

It's hard to believe it, but a couple of years back, when I first started getting interested in Anime, somebody suggested I watch a show called Rurouni Kenshin, also known as Samurai X.  I don't remember who, but I never did get around to it, likely because of my intention of only watching shows which are available in an unquestionably legal manner.  At the time, Rurouni Kenshin was not available for streaming, and even today I'm not going to spend money to buy DVDs of a show I don't know if I'll like.  Today, Rurouni Kenshin is available on the steaming site Crunchyroll, subtitled and dubbed, but only for Premium members as of right now, and today I am also bored out of my mind, so I'm going to go ahead and watch it.

Rurouni Kenshin is based in Meiji Era Japan, where samurai are common.  From the description on Crunchyroll, it seems the major civil wars have finally ended, replaced by an unsettling peacefulness.  A former assassin tasked with enforcing this uneasy peace eventually has enough and wanders his way into starting his life over, preferably not as a murderer.  This is the story of an antihero searching for redemption, one which has been told many times before.  I'll admit that I'm not too interested in it, but for an older show to be so well-renowned, it has to at least be decent.

Rurouni Kenshin - Episode 1
0:00  Most dubbed anime have terrible dubs, so let's see if the pattern holds true here.
0:03  Starting straight off with the opening theme.  Pretty nice guitar shredding here, I'm going to like...
0:14  WHAT THE $@#& IS THIS SHIT?!  Now it's some sissy pop song about freckles or something.
0:30  Wow, I totally got trolled.  Nice one there, Rurouni.
1:00  ...you're serious about this, aren't you?
1:36  Okay it's over.
1:40  Background about our main character as covered earlier.
2:23  And the episode officially starts in Tokyo, as all anime do.
2:42  Some stupid girl is seriously threatening the most deadly assassin ever.  This will not end well for her.
3:00  And he effortlessly dodges, jumps onto a roof, and it collapses.
3:30  He has a reverse-blade sword!  That must
3:55  Apparently someone claiming to be the assassin has been murdering people all around.
4:30  And this stupid girl charges this guy too.
4:45  Naturally, saved by the goofy idiot with the backwards sword.
5:25  And the bandit gets away.
You know, this is the exact same plot setup as Trigun.
6:20  So, the wandering fool brought her to her home, a dojo, and made friends with her younger sisters who technically aren't.
8:05  Ms. Reckless decides to let the joker stay at her place as long as he likes
8:35  Her motive is that the murderer is claiming to use her family's style of swordfighting, which is defaming her family.
9:30  Also, it just cost the dojo its last students.
It's obvious at this point...
9:45  FANSERVICE!  Yes, we really needed to see suicide girl taking a bath.
10:25  Naturally he walks in on her.
Anyway, it's obvious at this point that the traveling lunatic is going to turn out to be the real assassin and beat the crap out of (not kill) the real assassin.
12:50  So, the wanderer seems to have escaped from the shed he was locked in after he walked in on her.  Oh no!  I wonder what he could possibly be doing.
15:00  The murder's motive really is because he just likes killing all that much and for some stupid reason blames the girl for his breaking a thumb.  Lame.
15:20  Heeeeeeere's JOHNNY!
16:30  This is the most cliche "she's about to die" scene ever.  Come here and get this over with already.
16:50  Thank you.
17:30  Wow, he's actually incredibly dark when he's serious.
18:00  Magic Ninja Warping!
18:45  And they finally figure out that he's the real guy.
19:00  The idiotic murderer challenges the most deadly assassin ever.
19:10  And loses instantly.
20:00  The wanderer leaves, but then the girl decides to yell at him and beg him to stay.  Then changes her mind five times like a true Tsundre.
21:20  "Goofy" slapstick ends the episode.

Really?  This is Rurouni Kenshin?  This is one of the best animes ever, one that I have to watch?  Sorry, but I'm not impressed.  The ending song is actually pretty good and the dub actually isn't terrible, but overall this show is not really that good.  It gets very cliche at points, though it does some things right, such as the main character actually being extremely dark inside; this communicates he has a sincere desire to mend for his past, yet isn't naive at all in how he goes about it.  If I get bored enough, I'll watch the next episode, but overall I was disappointed in it, if only because it was so hyped up.

The [OLD] Anime List (updated 21 December 2013)

THIS LIST IS NOW DEPRECATED

The latest version of the list can now be found here.  This version is preserved in the case I completely screwed something up switching over to the automated generation system I now use, a very high possibility.  Also, I was tired of the permalink to this post saying it was updated over two years ago and wanted a more clean permalink.

Since I've been watching so much anime as of late, I thought I'd start a list of what anime I thought were good, meh, and bad.  Keep in mind that I have unusual tastes, and haven't watched every anime there is.  Also keep in mind that my memory is not perfect and I may have forgotten a few entries.

I have done my best to provide links to watch these shows in a free and unquestionably legitimate manner, primarily through the sites Crunchyroll and Hulu, along with FUNimation's official web site.  I will also leave a mark if the show is available on Netflix Instant Streaming and other similar services.  And finally, YouTube links are acceptable if the show has been uploaded by the rightsholders.  Be sure to leave a comment if you have a good link for a show, even if I already have another link to it, and be sure to report when a link goes bad.

21 December 2013 Update:

• Added the following shows to the Good List:
• The Devil is a Part Timer
• The Eccentric Family
• Golden Time
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor
• Kiki's Delivery Service [Movie]
• Kill la Kill
• Log Horizon
• My Mental Choices are Completely Interfering with my School Romantic Comedy
• Non Non Biyori
• Outbreak Company
• RWBY
• Servant x Service
• Silver Spoon
• Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3
• Sunday Without God
• Toradora
• The World God Only Knows
• Godesses
• Added the following shows to the Meh List:
• Beyond the Boundary
• Dog & Scissors
• I Couldn't Become a Hero, so I Reluctantly Decided to get a Job
• My Neighbor Totoro [Movie]
• Panty & Stocking Featuring Garterbelt
• Rozen Maiden
• Zuruckspulen
• Added the following shows to the Bad List:
• Galilei Donna
• Grenadier
• Also, I beat myself over the head repeatedly for not even trying to keep this list updated.  To remedy this in the future, I'm going to automate the process of updating this.

The Good List
I highly recommend you watch each of these if you have the time.

• A Certain Magical Index - A completely luckless loser with the ability to cancel out supernatural phenomenon keeps getting worse and worse luck.  It all starts when he finds a nun named Index laying on the balcony of his dorm, and gets worse when he discovers that sorcerers are trying to kill her. [Full Review] (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Ah! My Goddess - A kindhearted nerd with a horrible life gets sent a Norse goddess who will grant one wish of his.  Without thinking, he wishes to have the goddess's companionship forever.  It's granted, and now he has to live with the consequences: that he's now constantly bothered by the goddess's annoying sisters, as well as the demons that now attack him just to hurt her. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Flights of Fancy - The second season, which is listed separately because it's released in America by a different company.  It's still the same show, with even the same voice actors in the dubs. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Angel Beats - A high school in the afterlife where not being a gun-toting delinquent results in your vanishing into thin air. (Also streaming on: Hulu, Netflix)
• Another - A deadly curse plagues a high school.  Except it kills its victims in the most laughably over-the-top ways.  Great if you mistake it for a comedy, but kind of dumb if you try to take it seriously as it's meant to be. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Attack on Titan - The last of humanity, safe inside their sealed-off Texas-sized region of the earth, receives a brutal reminder of why Titans are to be feared when the outer walls are breached and a city-wide massacre ensues, with many more to come and no way to push them back let alone defend themselves. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Baccano - Prohibition era gangsters accidentally become immortal, and there's at least a four-sided war on a single train, where the world's greatest hammy idiot duo gets caught in the crossfire. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Baka and Test (Season 1)  - At one high school, a student's grades determines the strength of their battle avatars. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• WARNING! Do not watch season 2; it ruins the show.  If you'd like to know how, check out The Bad List.
• Birdy the Mighty: Decode - M. Night Shyamalan is attempting to obtain an alien supernuke in order to destroy the world.  The only one who can stop him is the intergalactic cop Birdy, currently working undercover as a model.  Also, Birdy just happens to be sharing her body with a normal high school student, on account of accidentally BRUTALLY MURDERING him. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Black Lagoon - As bad as it is to be a brownnosing clerk in a giant faceless corporation, you really shouldn't wish for a more exciting life, or else you'll end up kidnapped by modern-day pirates and hunted down by mercenaries hired by your own company to kill you before you reveal any company secrets you don't even know. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Blast of Tempest - Two abnormal teenagers, one a violent delinquent and the other a sociopath with morals, become the special agents of a castaway magician in order to prevent a cult from resurrecting an evil god of destruction and avenge the death of one of the teenagers's sister. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Bodacious Space Pirates - Japan's Firefly, except it lasted longer than 14 episodes.  A high-school girl inherits her father's pirate ship and crew, and has to balance her school life with "pirating" luxury liners and doing other work that comes her way. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• BTOOOM! - An online game based around the concept of throwing bombs to kill other players becomes real, much to the horror of its players who now find themselves trapped on an island with little hope for survival, even without everyone else trying to kill them.  This is an extremely violent and dark show: NOT FOR CHILDREN. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Canaan - A photographer and reporter duo, both in way over their heads, end up partnering up with an assassin with synesthesia to stop a terrorist organization from unleashing biochemical weapons at a meeting of world leaders.
• Carnival Phantasm - A parody of Fate Stay/Night and Tsukihime that's so off the wall that it breaks your brain.  Knowing the original material does not help in understanding what's going on, but this is the kind of show where it's even funnier if you don't.
• Chaos;HEAd - A highly-delusional loser "interested only in 2D girls" becomes the object of affection of two real-life girls.  One is a total stranger he witnessed committing a brutal murder, and the other is a kind and attractive nerd who fell in love with him at first sight.  He's not sure which girl is more frightening. He's also not sure anything he experiences is real anymore, especially once he becomes the prime suspect of the murder he witnessed.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Chobits - A farmboy with a nasty habit of loudly talking to himself finds a humanoid robot in the garbage, and decides to try to fix it and keep it for himself, despite being almost entirely computer illiterate.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Clannad - Part 1 of the BEST. DRAMA. EVER.  But you have to watch After Story once you finish this.
•  After Story - Part 2 of the BEST. DRAMA. EVER. (Also streaming on: Netflix)
• The Count of Monte Cristo: Gankutsuou - This is what happens when Japan takes a classic western novel, changes the setting to 2000 years in the future, and animates it in a rather bizzare art style.  Somehow, this resulted in one of the greatest shows I've ever seen.  The story itself is about how a mysterious Count infiltrates the aristocracy by befriending the son of a renowned general as part of a mysterious and epic master plan. (Also streaming on: Youtube, Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Cuticle Detective Inaba - The insane tale of a police werewolf-turned-private eye as he chases down the Mafia Don Valentino, who is a goat. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Daily Lives of High School Boys - Read the title.  Naturally it's a comedy.
• Darker than Black - Japan's Heroes.  With the arrival of a region known as Hell's Gate 10 years ago came the contractors, people like humans but in place of emotions have superpowers.  The government tries to keep this a secret, but nevertheless competing criminal organizations use hired contractors to do their dirty work.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix [Season 1])
• The Devil is a Part Timer - After losing to humanity's hero, Satan flees to modern day Japan and gets a job at McDonald's.  (Also steaming on: FUNimation)
• Dog Days - A foreign exchange student from England is transported to a land even further away from home, where his skills in extreme athletics make him the perfect warrior in the so-called "wars" fought in this mysterious world where all the people for no adequately explained reason have animal ears and tails.  It's clearly a kid's show, and it's good for what it is.
• Dokkoida!? - Budget cuts have forced the Galaxy Federation Police to do some pretty wacky things, such as testing out some prototype power suits by recruiting random earthlings as testers and unleashing supercriminals upon them.  When higher ups finally notice the stupidity, they turn the whole thing into a reality TV show.
• Dragon Crisis - A middle-school student and his cousin save a dragon from an organized crime lord, only for the dragon to fall madly in love with the student.
• Dusk Maiden of Amnesia - A lonely amnesiac ghost founds the paranormal investigation club at her school with the help of her only friend, a boy who can actually see, hear, and touch her.  Later, an oblivious idiot joins the club, as well as the ghost's living grandniece.  Together the four attempt to decipher the past of the ghost, and find out why she died and why she can't remember. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• The Eccentric Family - The adventures of a family of shape-shifting tanuki from Japanese mythology in modern-day Kyoto.  A very character driven dramedy, with a very naturally flowing plot.  (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Eden of the East - Meet the Savior of Japan: some guy who woke up in front of the White House with a gun and a cell phone, but no memory...and no clothes.  Surprisingly, this is a serious show, and a good one at that. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• El Cazador de la Bruja - In the heart of Mexico, a young amnesiac witch is being brutally hunted down by bounty hunters, save for one that was hired to ensure she survives.  These two partners shake off their pursuers as they travel through Mexico, constantly getting each other's nerves in the process.  By the way, I could sure go for some tacos.  Taco, taco, taco! (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Excel Saga - Amidst a backdrop of an incompetent, idiotic, and hyperactive secret agent working for an evil organization trying to take over the world, this show somehow manages to turn every episode into a parody of something different, from Power Rangers to Latino soap operas. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• FLCL - Want to know what it's like to have an acid trip?  If so, then this is the show for you!  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Fullmetal Alchemist - The world developed alchemy instead of science, and two brothers have to suffer with the consequences of attempting to use alchemy to bring their mom back from the dead. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Brotherhood - A remake of the above, this time with less filler.  Oh, and it wildly diverges after the brothers break into a certain thought-to-be-closed alchemy lab, enough that it becomes its own show. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Full Metal Panic - A 16-year-old elite mecha pilot and former child soldier is sent on his most difficult mission yet: providing covert protection to a Japanese high-schooler.  He epic fails the covert part, not that the bad guys even notice. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Fumoffu - Season 2, where the show focus entirely on comedy, and it is made of win. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• The Second Raid - Season 3, where the show returns to its action-comedy roots, staying as good as ever. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet - A Mobile Suit Gundam pilot finds himself in Waterworld.  He is completely out of place, and is very slow to adapt to concepts like freedom, which are brand new to him.
• Ghost Hound - The essence of the human mind is explored in a show where science and spiritualism both fail to explain what is going on with this kid who keeps having out-of-body experiences, and is unsure if what happens during them is real or not.
• GIRLS und PANZER - Apparently in Japan, it's proper for all high-school girls to learn all the finer points of the highly traditional martial art of operating a tank.  Surprisingly enough the show is not as comedic as you'd think, taking the tank battles seriously and portraying them realistically, apart from the whole nobody dies thing. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Golden Time - You know your college days are going well when you end up accidentally stealing your new-found friend's girlfriend, and he's not even mad about it because she goes psycho whenever those two are together. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Gunslinger Girl - Italy's Social Welfare Agency isn't what it seems; they take in young girls with serious injuries, give them cybernetic implants, brainwash them, and train them to be ruthless assassins. Despite this, the girls are all still children. (Also streaming on: FUNimation, Netflix)
• Il Teatrino - The second season, which focuses more on the action and less on the moral implications of the agency's experiments. (Also streaming on: FUNimation, Netflix [As Season 2 of above]) 
• Hayate the Combat Butler - A kidnapping attempt is mistaken for a confession of love, resulting in the kidnapper becoming the butler of a ludicrously rich girl half his age, who's madly in love with him.
• Can't Take My Eyes Off You - Season 3 of this show takes it into a whole new direction: it actually has a plot.  Surprisingly enough, it does this without sacrificing any of the comedy that makes it so enjoyable.
• Cuties - Focusing on further developing the female characters of Hayate no Gotoku, this series ultimately culminates in an epic parody of romance and harem anime well worth the initial lack of plot.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers - A sketch comedy where the characters are based on heavily stereotyped versions of real-world nations, the sketches are based on heavily exaggerated versions of historical events, and when you're not laughing, you're learning.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• World Series - Seasons 3 and 4 of Hetalia, which expands the focus past the major players of WWII and into the rest of the world.  (Streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation [Look hard and you'll find them.])
• Howl's Moving Castle [Movie] - After a chance encounter with the famous womanizing wizard Howl, a young woman is cursed by one of Howl's enemies to take the appearance of an old woman.  She sets out to find Howl, hoping that he can undo the curse.  Unfortunately, rule number one of the curse is that she can't talk about the curse, but that's the least of her concerns as she finds herself caught in the middle of a an all-out war, as an enemy of both the invaders and her own kingdom's defending army, all because of her association with Howl.
• Humanity Has Declined - Sure, the world may have nearly ended, the few humans that remain are starving to death, and the fairies - the only ones that can help the humans - can't even comprehend their plight, but we have to look at things on the bright side: which is, uhhh...  DID THAT BREAD ROBOT JUST... WHAT THE HECK AM I WATCHING?!  Whatever it is, I think I like it! (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Hunter x Hunter - In order to find his missing dad, a child tries to become a licensed Hunter, and in doing so makes friends with good but extremely dangerous people.
• Inu X Boku: Secret Service - An incredibly rich girl with no social skills, and who happens to be part monster, moves out of her home and is assigned a bodyguard who's completely attached to her in the matter of a dog to its master, which seriously annoys her.
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor - A complete bumbling idiot, through luck dumb beyond all possibilities, enlists in the space force, becomes the captain of a ship, and routinely destroys entire enemy fleets, all in a way which makes one wonder if it's actually a super genius acting the fool.
• Is This a Zombie? - A chainsaw-wielding magical girl screws up a memory-erase spell and instead she accidentally transfers her powers into a zombie.  Thankfully, the zombie's actually a pretty decent guy, so it all works out well enough to make a hilarious comedy. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Ixion Saga DT - An immature-yet-hilarious parody of fantasy stories, in which a lousy gamer is summoned into a world much like those in the video games he plays.  Naturally he becomes a legendary hero who saves the world.  By being a useless idiot with occasional moments of brilliance.
• Kaze no Stigma - A banished failure of a fire mage returns to his home, now a freelance demon hunter and unrivaled wind mage. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Kemeko DX -  An alien girl in a super deformed miniature robot suit fights a megacorp that's secretly taking over earth, and a random middle-schooler gets forcibly married to her.
• Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple - A kid tired of being bullied by quite-literally everybody, including the nerds, decides to learn martial arts under the intense training of multiple borderline-sadistic masters.  Unfortunately his new and rapidly-acquired skills end up drawing the attention of a street gang that wants him to join or die, but that's only if his masters don't get him killed first. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• Kiki's Delivery Service [Movie] - A young witch-in-training and her sarcastic cat leave home, and the witch decides to work in delivery as both a source of income and training.
• Kill la Kill - Complete insanity about a schoolgirl who wants revenge on her father's killer, bloodthirsty sex-offending superpower-granting ultra-revealing school uniforms, the most hyperactive girl ever, and more. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Kokoro Connect - A mysterious being known as Heartseed decides to start screwing with the lives of a five-member after-school club purely for his own amusement, doing things like making them randomly swap bodies, uncontrollably act out on impulses, and other annoying things like that.  Eventually they learn to cope with these difficulties and live fairly normal lives, signaling Heartseed to take more drastic measures. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Kotura-San - A girl born with the ability to read minds ruined her own life and the lives of her family when she was barely old enough to walk, and wasn't even aware that her ability was special.  Just when it can't get worse, when she's almost completely given up on life, things change for the better when she meets a perverted daydreamer who loves to annoy her, one of the only people to ever give her any "positive" attention.
• Kyouran Kazoku Nikki - An X-Files agent is forcibly assigned to his most dangerous mission yet: getting hitched raising a "family."  The word family is used very loosely, as one of his "children" is basically Predator, and another is a jellifish.
• Last Exile - Claus and Lavie's careers as freelance airborne couriers comes to a violent end when their aircraft is shot down on the job and the two are forced into service on a ship they were making a delivery to. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Fam, the Silver Wing - Two years after the original series (and in a different setting), an idiotic child sky pirate and her partner end up pressed into service on the same ship Claus and Lavie were after they attempted to hijack it and failed miserably.  Once allowed to leave, they instead decide to stay and help them take down the Federation, which is hell-bent on peace through world domination. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• Listen to Me, Girls, I'm Your Father - A college student is forced to take in his nieces after their parents die in a plane crash. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Little Busters! - A group of five friends decide to start a baseball team at their school for fun, but find that recruiting enough members for a team involves so much more than asking people to join.  Add to it that there's a supernatural secret to this world, and you get an overall serious comedy show which is shockingly interesting. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Refrain - The secret to the world is finally revealed, and the revelation destroys all the good which was built up in the first season, all for a greater cause. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Little Witch Academia - Japan's Harry Potter.   A young girl enrolls in a witch's academy, only to discover she's a complete idiot on everything related to magic, including her being a fan of a famous stage magician.
• Log Horizon - Trapped in an online game made real, a gamer known as the Villain in Glasses takes charge of the frightened mass of confused players, bringing much needed law and order to the realm through his trademark gross, underhanded abuse of people's trust and the game mechanics.
• Magi [Episodes 1-14] - Japan takes on Middle Eastern folklore in this crossover of Aladdin and Alibaba, where the two team up to become rich by looting ancient dungeons, using the rewards to pursue their own selfish pleasures and to rally against the injustices of society, starting with slavery. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Maoyu - The "Demon King", actually a highly intelligent hot chick, proposes to the hero of the human realm that instead of killing her, they should work together to bring a peaceful end to the war, introducing ideas and technologies leading to events very reminiscent of the Agricultural Revolution in Europe, as well as the Protestant Reformation.
• Mayo Chiki - A high-schooler overcomes his phobia of women after accidentally discovering that one of the most popular male students at his school is actually a girl in disguise.
• Medaka Box (Season 1) - A well-endowed first-year becomes her school's student council president based on her promise to institute a suggestion box and her good-natured but domineering and borderline-psycho personality. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Muromi-San - A completely insane comedy about a boy, wanting nothing more than to fish off of his favorite pier, who gets constantly harassed by an annoying mermaid and her friends.
• My Little Monster - All she was supposed to do was deliver handouts to a delinquent who was suspended from school after a violent fight on the first day, but what she ended up doing was becoming his only friend, the only one who would ever show him any human decency.
• My Mental Choices are Completely Interfering with my School Romantic Comedy - At seemingly random points, our unlucky hero is forced to choose one of two options which ignore all common sense and the laws of physics, are usually extremely embarrassing and perverted, and are always hilarious to the audience.
• My Ordinary Life - If by ordinary you mean one of your best friends is a robot girl created by an 8 year old professor who also owns a talking cat, then yes, it's your ordinary life.
• Negima! - An all-girls middle school gets a new teacher: an extremely British 10-year-old.  It turns out that he's secretly a wizard, that is, if you can even call it secretly, considering how bad he is at hiding it. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• Negima!?: Magister Negi Magi - A remake which keeps the same characters and premise, but is more focused on a central plotline unique to this version of the show.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Night Raid: 1931 - Japanese spies in China take part in major events leading up to the Second Sino-Japanese War, which later became how Japan was involved in World War 2.  And to appeal to people not interested in the history, the spies all covertly have superpowers. (Also streaming on: Crunchyroll [Missing Bonus Episodes], Netflix)
• Non Non Biyori - Nothing ever happens in the countryside, but that doesn't stop the only four students of their school - and the one guy who never talks - from enjoying it, and you from enjoying watching them. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos - Nyarlathotep, one of the Outer Gods from the Cthulu Mythos, takes the form of a cutesy silver-haired girl and helps protect some random kid from space criminals trying to kill him for no adequately explained reason.
• Oh! Edo Rocket - The government of medieval Japan has decided to ban all luxuries, especially fireworks, leading a young firework maker to make a moon rocket using his fireworks expertise while he and his friends mock the absurdity of the entire premise. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Outbreak Company - The Japanese government hires a major anime fan to strength relations and cultural ties with the peoples of a more magical parallel universe by exporting anime culture to them. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Oreimo - Life can be hard on you when you're normal and your little sister is little miss perfect.  Life is even harder when you discover she has a dirty, dirty secret, and you decide to help cover it up for her in an attempt to improve your distant relationship with her, leading to her declaring you her life councilor. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Our Home's Fox Deity - After coming under the threat of attacks from demons due to their family affiliation, a high schooler and his younger brother receive a bodyguard in the form of a fox deity from Japanese mythology, a bodyguard who ends up causing more problems than she solves with her carefree and childish nature. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Pani Poni Dash! - A 10-year-old MIT graduate goes back to Japan to be a high-school teacher while being secretly observed by idiotic aliens.  Meanwhile her pet rabbit gets constantly abused by a sadistic cat with a god complex.  That's just the first five minutes of this absurdist comedy one wall short of a full room. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• The Pet Girl of Sakurasou - Aside from his excess sympathy for abandoned kittens, our hero is the only normal person in the den of total freaks that is his dorm complex, Sakura Hall.  When a girl mentally incapable of living on her own also moves in to the dorms, he's forced to be her caretaker against his wishes. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Polar Bear Cafe - A children's cartoon about a cafe run by a pun-loving polar bear and it's many eccentric customers, most of whom are heavily stereotyped animals.  Still enjoyable for adults too.
• Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they? - Problem children with extreme powers are transported into a fantasy world, where they use their powers to win "gift games" and bring the no-name community they join up with back to prosperity.
• Psycho-Pass - In the near future, Japan has become a society based entirely around analyzing one's psychological health, and preemptively locking away potential criminals and other dangerous people.  The problems in the system become apparent after a series of horrific murders leaves the police baffled at how it's possible. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica - Being a magical girl isn't fun and games; it is a life of fighting to the death on a daily basis, a life which will not end even remotely well.  If you're lucky, you'll be chopped into pieces in front of all your friends, the last thing you see being the horrified looks on their faces.  If you're unlucky, well, you don't want to know. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Recorder and Randsell - A 3 minute glimpse at the daily lives of a elementary school student that looks like an adult, and his high-school student sister that looks like she's an elementary school student.
• RWBY - An American-made anime about a team of schoolgirls at an academy for training monster hunters, each of whom have a horrific past they don't like bringing up. (Also streaming on: YouTube, Rooster Teeth)
• The Sacred Blacksmith - A large-chested female knight proves to be completely incompetent at her job and nearly gets herself killed.  Despite this, she receives a special assignment: guarding a Demon Sword. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Senyu - A five-minute-episode parody of RPG video games.  Low on plot, and high on rapid-paced humor.
• Servant x Service - Japan's The Office.  Being a civil servant is not a boring job in this workplace comedy full of the wacky and bizarre. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Shakugan no Shana [Season 1] - What would you do if on the first day of high school you found out that your existence was eaten by a demon and it's only a matter of time before what's left of you fades away, with nobody remembering you as ever existing?  Panic, that's what.  And when you're done panicking, what would you do with your remaining time?  This show answers that question. (Full Review) (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) [Episodes 1-7] - It's a dystopian future, where psychic powers is a required, no, the most important part of the elementary school curriculum.  Those who cannot learn them, well, let's change the subject.  WARNING!  Do not watch episode 8 on!  See the Bad List for details.
• Silver Spoon - A city kid enrolls in an agricultural high school, where good grades mean nothing if you aren't ready to get up at 4AM to tend to chicken coops.  He's completely out of place and is routinely faced with the harsh realities of where food comes from, but manages to survive. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• SKET Dance - A high-school club consisting of a really lame guy, a delinquent tomboy, and a nerd who talks through his computer does odd jobs while providing endless laughter to the audience.  And then it explores the origins of the club members, where it gets DEAD. NUTS. SERIOUS. providing a realistic and tragic explanation for how the characters became who they were.
• Soranowoto - A girl joins the army to become a trumpet player, only to be stationed in a town near the edge of the world, and in a unit with only four others, all of whom do basically nothing all day.
• Speed Grapher - Standing up against the completely depraved and perverse elite of Japan is a lone photographer with the best superpower ever: everything he takes a picture of explodes.  (As a very disturbing show suitable only for ages 18+, no link will be provided.)
• Spice and Wolf - A travelling merchant gains a fairly unusual business partner: a wolf goddess who's fallen out of favor with the village that worships her.  Together the two use their respective talents to succeed as merchants while constantly bickering with each other. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• Spirited Away [Movie] - Japan's Alice in Wonderland.  After her parents stop their car at a spa resort for demons and steal their food, with the result of them becoming cursed and turned into pigs, a young girl is forced to find a job there if she is going to have a hope of survival, let alone saving her parents.
• Squid Girl - Japan's Spongebob.  A squid girl rises out of the ocean to take revenge on mankind for polluting the ocean, only for her to end up stuck working in a diner on the beach. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Steins;Gate - Wannabe mad scientists accidentally create a time machine out of their microwave, and use it to send text messages to the past. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Stella Women's Academy, High School Division Class C3 - The airsoft team at an all-girls boarding school recruits a shy girl with an overactive imagination, after one of their members catches her in the middle of a hilariously embarrassing episode where she was pretending to be Rambo. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Sunday Without God - A child journeys through a post-apocalyptic world where the dead don't quite die unless properly buried by a gravekeeper, hoping to bring peace to the world in the face of insurmountable evils. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Sword Art Online - The world's first Virtual Reality MMORPG has officially been released!  Unfortunately, it has a few hidden "features" in it, namely that nobody can log out until the game is beaten, and if they die in the game or if anyone in the outside world tries to forcibly log them out, they'll die in real life.  This sends the players into a desperate struggle to survive in a world where everything is trying to kill them, a struggle that is portrayed extremely realistically.  [Joke Rant] (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Time of Eve - Androids have become common place in Japan, and though they look human, they act distinctly like robots.  If their behavior were to change to become more human, how would we react?  Would we be scared?  Should we be scared?  And most importantly, why? (Steaming on: Crunchyroll [Premium Only])
• Toradora - The school's two reputed psychos team up to help each other win over their respective loves, who are their respective best friends. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Tsuritama - An extremely socially-awkward teenager joins an alien with a mind-controlling water gun and the prince of fishing in an epic quest to save the world...by fishing.  At least I think that's what this show is about. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• The UNLIMITED Hyobu Kyosuke - A terrorist organization fighting for human rights to be given to people with ESP powers recruits a new member, an ESPer whose ability is to cancel out other abilities.  Also, he isn't the titular character; the terrorist leader is, and for good reason.
• Usagi Drop - Define awkward: following the passing away of your grandfather, having to take care of his illegitimate child, your six-year-old aunt.  To make things worse, you're a single 30-year-old man with absolutely no parenting experience, the girl's mother is nowhere to be found, and the rest of your family is too ashamed of her existence to want anything to do with her.  Have fun!
• Upotte!! - Characters representing assault rifles from around the world all attend a school in Japan, despite Japan's strong gun control laws.  Join FNC, M16A4, L85A1, and SG550 as they struggle to deal with a pervy and clueless new teacher, engage their older siblings in urban warfare, and overall enjoy their time going to school. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Wagnaria!! - A high-school student goes to work at a family restaurant full of eccentric characters.  Surprisingly, he's the most messed up of them all. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Witchblade - A single mother desperate to maintain custody over her daughter is discovered to unknowingly be in possession of the "Witchblade", and is hired by a shady arms manufacturer to hunt down their escaped prototypes in exchange for keeping child services away from her and her daughter. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• The World God Only Knows -  A hardcore gamer known as The God of Conquest is so addicted to dating simulators that he can't even put the game down when he takes a bath.  A demon from Hell mistakes him for a real god and recruits him to help drive out loose souls by winning the hearts of the real-life girls they're possessing. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Godesses - Season 3 skips a few romantic conquests to get to a turning point in the story, where there's actually a serious plot in addition to the hilarious comedy poking fun of the romance genre.
• xxxHolic - No, this isn't about some guy with a pornography addiction.  Instead, it's about some guy who starts working part-time for a wish-granting witch so that he can have his own wish granted: to never see another supernatural being again, let alone be relentlessly pursued and assaulted by them. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Yurumates3Dei - 3 minutes of insanity at an apartment complex full of people who failed their college entrance exams.

The Meh List
Personally, I didn't care for these, but you might like them.

• Arata the Legend - Two people name Arata, one constantly bullied in modern-day Japan, and the other framed for assassinating the princess in a fantasy world, switch lives.  This means that half of the show is a somewhat generic fantasy adventure, while the other half we barely get to see is a comedy masterpiece.
• Aria: the Scarlet Ammo - A high school trains elite soldiers, detectives, and the like, and the otherwise worthless main character becomes super competent whenever he gets turned on. (FUNimation)
• Best Student Council  - A girl goes to a new school along with her self-aware hand puppet, and joins the absurdly overpowered student council.  Unfortunately it jumps the shark about half way through when it introduces a new character.
• Beyond the Boundary - Something about high school students who fight monsters nobody else can see.  It's extremely generic. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Dog & Scissors - A book-obsessed man gets murdered while saving the life of a stranger, reincarnates as a dog, and gets adopted by the stranger he saved, who is, by an amusing coincidence, his favorite author.  And a scissors-wielding sadist.  Unfortunately the jokes get old long before the series is over. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Durarara!! - You'd think that stuff would happen in a show about a farmboy moving to an inner city neighborhood full of street gangs and mythical beasts, but you'd be surprised by how boring it can be. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Eyeshield 21 - A ragtag American Football team probably wins the championship.
• Fate Stay/Night - A war for the holy grail is fought between summoned legendary heroes.  Also, King Arthur was a woman.  You're expected to take this seriously.
• Fate Zero - A prequel to Fate Stay/Night, about a previous war for the grail fought in the same manner.  King Arthur the woman makes an appearance here as well, and you're still expected to take this seriously. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Folktales from Japan -  Read the title.  Interestingly, its art style reminds me of Rocky and Bullwinkle, but it lacks all of the humor of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
• Fruits Basket - A homeless highschool girl becomes the housekeeper for a family which is cursed to turn into animals whenever they get hugged by someone of the opposite sex. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• I Couldn't Become a Hero, so I Reluctantly Decided to get a Job - With the demon king having been slain, a hero-in-training gets a job as a retail sales clerk, where his skills are entirely wasted on training the new employee: the demon king's daughter.  Unfortunately this show is very unnecessarily perverted, which keeps me from fully enjoying or recommending this show.
• The Knight in the Area - Two young soccer playing brothers get into a car accident.  One of them ends up dead, while the other survives only because he had his brother's heart transplanted into him.  The survivor becomes more like his more-skilled brother, and probably leads his soccer team to victory.
• Kuroko's Basketball - It's an anime about basketball; nothing to see here unless you're into that sort of thing.
• Medaka Box (Season 2) - The show loses its fun odd-job nature and decides to focus entirely on a mysterious flask project, and the stereotypical anime fight scenes that accompany it.  Much of the comedy is gone, and therefore the show is far less enjoyable for me.  (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• My Neighbor Totoro [Movie] - After moving into the country, two children discover that the region they now live in is "haunted", populated by benevolent spirits.
• My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU - An antisocial smart-alec is forced to participate in a school club dedicating to helping other people around school, which is led by an antisocial genius.  Their interaction is great, until the show forgets Comedy is in the title. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Oreshura - An "anti-love" high school student is blackmailed into being the fake boyfriend of the most popular girl in school, by said most popular girl.  She is a psychopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and the show tries to play this for laughs, though in my mind it just fails miserably. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Panty & Stocking Featuring Garterbelt - This is what happens when Japan makes an American-style cartoon with adult themes.  It's insane, it's funny, but it crosses way too many lines in my opinion.  (No links because it is that messed up)
• Pumpkin Scissors - In the aftermath of a massive war, the Army's War Relief Unit does its best to do help the citizens recover from the devastation of the war.  This leads to the unit discovering a massive government conspiracy that among other things wants the unit dead for knowing too much. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• Rozen Maiden
• Zuruckspulen - A loser in college with a lousy job has his life turned upside down when his past self from a parallel universe contacts him and instructs him to make a doll, which then comes to life and slaps him.
• The Severing Crime Edge - This simple story of boy meets girl, only boy is obsessed with cutting hair, girl has uncuttable hair, boy is the only one who can cut her hair, girl is being ruthlessly hunted by the descendants of serial killers, and boy is one of said serial killer descendants. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Soul Eater - Death, the jolly, kind-hearted fellow he is, decides to create an academy for training living weapons and their meisters to hunt down semi-demonic creatures and witches.  It's a good idea, except all of his students are complete idiots.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation, Netflix)
• Space Brothers - Two brothers saw a UFO, and as a result decided that they'd both become astronauts when they grow up.  Well, they both grew up, but only one of them kept his promise; the other just lost his job after a heated argument with his supervisor, and now his only prospect for a decent job is to make good on his promise while he still can.
• Trigun - This is the story of Vash the Stampede, a legendary outlaw with a 60 billion double-dollar bounty on his head.  They say he can dodge bullets, never misses with his gun, and leaves entire towns demolished in his wake.  In truth, he's a complete imbecile that couldn't hurt a fly if he wanted to.  Unfortunately, it jumps the shark about half-way through when it forgets that it's supposed to be a comedy and starts getting weird. (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)

The Bad List
Unless you enjoy watching crap, you should stay away from these.

• 11eyes - A bunch of high school students are suddenly launched into a world where everything is trying to kill them.  Then everybody becomes psycho stupid in a way that provokes me to anger. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• A Certain Scientific Railgun - A stand-alone spinoff of Index which follows the secondary character Misaka Mikoto, or Railgun.  It's supposed to be comedic, but based on the first episode-and-a-half, 10% of the jokes are actually funny, while the other 90% revolve around lesbians doing perverted things, usually involving panties.  I'm not watching any further, nor am I providing any links to this offensive of a show, a show that BETRAYS the comic book it's based on.
• Baka and Test (Season 2) - The show forgets what it's about and instead focuses on just the topic of perverts trying to break into the girls locker room. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• Elfen Leid - Nothing more than a vehicle for mindless violence and full frontal nudity.  In my opinion this is hentai (pornographic), and as a result I will never provide a link to this show.
• Galilei Donna - Descendants of Gallileo Gallilei, all young girls, are wrongfully declared criminals and on the run from interpol.  One is entirely unlikable, the other is obnoxiously cute and smart, and the third is a lawyer.
• Grenadier - A swordsman with a dark past meets a big-boobed sharpshooter with a revolver, and the two set off to bring peace to the land, one random village at a time.  Unfortunately half-way through it devolves into stupid cliche boss fights.
• Guilty Crown - In a post-apocalyptic Japan ruled by a mercenary army, an ordinary high school student gains superpowers and joins the resistance movement.  Pretend it got canceled after episode 15, OR YOU WILL NEVER GET OVER YOUR STUPIDITY-INDUCED HEADACHE.  It gets so bad that it prompted me to write an angry blog post about it. (Also streaming on: FUNimation)
• HENNEKO - A wish-granting cat-shaped idol raises hell against a closet pervert by granting his wishes and the wishes of his friends in the worst ways possible for him, which gets highly predictable fast.
• Magi [Episodes 15 on] - The show forgets what it's about and turns into just about any other "fighting" anime.  It loses almost everything that made it stand out and be different, meaning most of the philosophical side of things. (Also streaming on: Hulu)
• Noir - Two female assassins, one of whom has complete amnesia, team up under the title Noir and kill people for a living.  I have two major problems with the show.  The first is that neither of these assassins have any characterization.  The second and much more serious problem is that their plans consist entirely of running in head first and shooting everything that moves.  Sorry, but after playing Hitman and watching Burn Notice, I can't accept that any of their plans could possibly result in anything but both of them dying in about 3 seconds flat.  (Also streaming on: Hulu, FUNimation)
• School Days - An incredibly boring romance story where everybody eventually becomes psycho stupid.  The only good part is the end where everybody kills each other.
• Shakugan no Shana [Seasons 2 and 3] - The show forgets what it's about, quickly turing into a poorly-written romantic drama for the first half of season 2.  In the second half, stuff that makes no sense keeps happening allowing the heroes to win for no good reason.  Then at the start of season 3 there's a twist which makes absolutely no sense and remains entirely unexplained, which is what made me give up all hope on the show. (See season 1 in the Good List for review and links)
• Shin Sekai Yori (From the New World) [Episode 8 on] - Read what I wrote for episodes 1-7 in the Good List.  Now, would you believe that the creators decided to give the story a time skip and change the show into a gay romance story?  No, of course you wouldn't.  Too bad they really did.  Which sucks because the show was awesome.
• Voices of a Distant Star - Boyfriend, normal kid, and girlfriend, mecha pilot IN SPAAAACE, attempt to maintain a REALLY long distance relationship over cell phones which were ancient at the time they made this show, let alone in the futuristic setting.  And nothing else happens.