I'm reminded of the old Lenin quote, "There are cours where nothing happens and there are episodes where seasons happen", because Toradora was roughly like this for me:

Episodes 1-11: "Hey this is pretty good, I can dig this: it's cute, it's fun, it's silly, and it's got just a pinch of drama that makes it feel more substantive..."

Episodes 12-20: "Alright this is kinda boring tbh, I'm not nearly invested enough in these characters to particularly care about their teen drama nonsense."

Episodes 21-24: "ACTUALLY I DO CARE SUDDENLY! HOLY SHIT! THEY'RE ACTUALLY DOING IT‽"

Episode 25: "And they... I guess sorta stuck the landing? I mean there were good parts of this episode, but I feel like pacing-wise it would've been better if they just didn't have any conflict in this episode."

^アモガス^

The picture shows Pinkie Pie who is the main character from Bocchi the Rock, for those not in the know

It was apparently called Powerpuff Girls D: Battle in Megaville, and as I remembered it, it also featured Dexter from Dexter's Lab, and whenever you beat your opponent, they'd make this sort of echoey cry/scream. I remember finding the game both very fun and cool — despite not having much of a connection to either cartoon — yet also a bit "disturbing" because these characters are supposed to be each other's siblings, and yet here they are just beating the crap out of each other. I didn't quite understand what the deal with the art style was, but I still understood that it, coupled with the violence, made the game feel more teenage and edgy than the cartoon — and being a preteen at the time, that of course appealed to me. Yet I'm pretty sure I only played the game once and then immediately forgot what it was called, and so I would sometimes think to myself for years later "What was that game?" but simply never bother to look into it until today.

Apparently the D in Powerpuff Girls D stands for "Doujinshi", and the game was based on a Powerpuff Girls doujinshi called Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi written by someone called Bleedman. The game itself upon revisiting it was not nearly as good as I remembered, it was decently fun but the controls were still a bit clunky, and the art and music and sound design were not nearly as "uniform" as I remembered, either (add to this the visual bugs as a result of using Flashpoint). The things about Battle in Megaville that made the game stand out so much as a preteen are obviously just a whole lot of nothing now as a young adult.

It does make me curious about that doujinshi, though, because it looks like it has (or at least had) a pretty sizeable fanbase.

The threat to Jewish and Israeli targets in Norway is seen as significantly increased. The terror threat level is therefore raised from moderate to high, and the police is armed.

• There are multiple negative conditions that have increased the terror threat, among others conditions related to the ongoing escalation of the conflict in the Middle East. In Norway it is first and foremost threats to Jewish and Israeli targets that are significantly raised, says PST senior advisor Eirik Veum to the Norwegian News Agency.

He says that the PST does not wish to say anything concrete about what this entails, but informs that the PST is available for the press from 17 o'clock.

• The PST has at the time no information on if there are concrete plans at hand for committing terrorist acts against targets in Norway, but we are working quickly with clearing up threats and points of insecurity, Veum says.

The "high" terror threat level is a level 4 on a scale of 1 to 5.

The police director has based on the threat evaluation decided that the police should be armed nationwide.

• The PST describes a serious and tense situation in the Middle East. Increased likelihood for attempted terror in Norway is a situation the police take incredibly seriously, and we have a number of measures for protecting the people and ensuring we are as prepared as possible, says police director Benedicte Bjørnland in a press release.

The temporary arming of the police is effective immediately.

• The decision is based on that the police should be able to go quicker into action in the case of a possible terror attack to prevent it, limit the area of damage, or stop an ongoing attack, says Bjørnland.

The police have for a longer period had more measures for the purposes of protecting Jewish and Israeli interests in Norway. This effort is now being strengthened.

• Going forward we will have increased attention directed to the fact that state actors can use criminal networks for committing terrorism, and which consequences this has for the police's efforts against these milieus, says Bjørnland.

As someone who hasn't had that much exposure to the magical girl genre yet, I find that I've tended to think of the "big 3" magical girl shows as Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Precure, and for a "big 5" add Ojamajo Doremi and Tokyo Mew Mew to the aforementioned... But really, I feel like the main determining factor for inclusion in this list is more than anything just that I've repeatedly heard about them, and that isn't objectively the same as actual popularity and influence, although there is certainly a correlation.

So what would your lists look like by comparison?

It's happened to me a few times that I see the original title of an anime compared to its English title, and I just think that the original title is so weak compared to the translated title that it feels like the translated title actually "came first": that the translated title uses alliteration, rhythm and rhyme, brevity, and wordplay so well that the original title feels "phoned in" by comparison.

...Yet I can't actually remember for certain which anime I've had this thought for, so I want to ask here if anyone else has any examples of this that they can recall.

Now someone needs to make a compilation of Sakura going "ho-e~"

In any case we love this kaiju don't we

[TL note: This article was originally written in Nynorsk. My own dialect is generally written in Bokmål.]

Juliana Mattson was deported from Norway while she was participating in a cultural exchange program. Her case has now become a topic of debate in the Storting, Norway's parliament.

Last week, NRK wrote about 22-year-old Juliana Mattson from the USA, who was taken by Norwegian police from a small farm in Innlandet county and then deported from Norway.

The cause of the deportation was that the Directorate of Immigration (Utlendingsdirektoratet; UDI) believed that Mattson had taken up work on the farm.

This, despite the fact that Mattson was on the farm because she was participating in a cultural exchange program led by the organization Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF).

Alfred Bjørlo of the Liberal Party reacts strongly to this affair.

– "This is hopeless. We can't let Norway deport people taking part in a serious international exchange program to learn about agriculture," Bjørlo said to NRK.

Questions for the Minister of Justice

– "Does the Council of State believe that participation in this type of exchange program in Norway, as the only country in Europe, should be equated to immigration for work, such that people risk arrest and deportation from the Schengen Area?"

This quote is from a letter that Bjørlo wrote to Minister of Justice Emilie Enger Mehl (Centre Party) dated to the 9th of September.

[TL note: "Centre Party" refers to "Senterpartiet", as opposed to "Center Party" which refers to the much newer and much less successful "Partiet Sentrum".]

Bjørlo's question is now being reviewed by the Ministry of Justice.

Alfred Bjørlo strongly doubts that the legal framework actually puts a stop to the activity that WWOOF offers.

– "The first thing we will ask the government about is if this was because of a block in the legal framework, or if this is about how the law is handled by UDI. If this incident happened because of a misinterpretation of the law by UDI, then I expect the government to take this up with UDI," he said.

For the stay was not intended as work, neither by Mattson, nor by the hosts from the organic hobby-farm in Eidskog. They have accepted wwoofers to that farm for over ten years.

The plan was for Mattson to stay on the farm for two weeks.

– "I was just helping out a little with the board and lodging," Mattson said to NRK just after her deportation in August.

– "That was a part of a practical education in sustainable agriculture. It wasn't work, I was there to learn," she continued.

For according to WWOOF's guidelines, there should not be any form of wage in connection to these types of stays.

Nevertheless, the stay on the farm was defined as employment by UDI.

In the official decision to deport Mattson, UDI pointed to among others section 55 in the Immigration Act where it says that a foreign national who is to work in Norway must have a work permit that gives one the right to employment.

"The seriousness of the situation is exacerbated by that the illegal work can be connected to workplace criminality. Following from this, general preventative considerations and considerations for the legal consensus point to that you should be deported." — UDI

Bjørlo believes that if the law bans this type of practice, that the law should be changed.

– "It must be possible to find a way to open our borders for this type of activity as an exception, without allowing for illegal migrant labor," he said.

[TL note: the original said "the Storting representative" rather than "he", but to me this was a bit clumsy to translate literally.]

Read also: Mother of three deported from Norway, very difficult for the children

"Unreasonable consequences"

Storting Representative Rasmus Hansson of the Green Party is also not particularly impressed with how UDI has interpreted the law in connection with this case.

– "Where on Earth is UDI's understanding of people? This is rigid, bureaucratic nonsense with completely unreasonable consequences," he wrote to NRK.

Hansson is clear about why he believes this.

– "What Juliana Mattson was to do in Norway is 100% positive. She was nothing but a good contributor to Norwegian agriculture bothering neither the state nor the people of Norway. It is pretty hopeless that UDI would pour out buckets of public resources to chase her out of the country," the Green politician said.

NRK has been in contact with the Ministry of Justice to ask Minister of Justice Emilie Enger Mehl about the case. The minister says via the communication department that she cannot answer before she has answered Alfred Bjørlo's question in the Storting.

Immigration Act section 55

A foreign national who intends to take up employment with or without remuneration or who wishes to engage in business activity in the realm must hold a residence permit giving him or her the right to take up employment or engage in business activity, unless otherwise provided in or in accordance with this Act.

A foreign national who intends to take up residence in the realm for more than three months without taking employment must hold a residence permit. Residence in another country participating in cooperation under the Schengen Agreement is equivalent to residence in Norway. The King may issue regulations containing further provisions on calculation of the period of residence.

[TL note: Translation courtesy of Lovdata]

Appendix: Image captions from the article

DISAPPOINTED: Juliana Mattson is very dissatisfied with the treatment she received in Norway.

Alfred Bjørlo (Liberal) hopes that the government takes measures to ensure that a similar incident will not happen again.

Rasmus Hansson (Green) believes that the deportation is a result of outdated bureaucracy.

BACK IN THE USA: Juliana Mattson is now back home with her mother and cat in Rhode Island in the USA. She is still disappointed about what happened in Norway. She says that she will probably go on another WWOOF exchange a different time, but not to Norway.

Åklangenga is an organic hobby farm that cultivates vegetables and holds sheep for their own use. About ten youths visit the farm each year to learn about organic farming.

Toni Poleo is associate professor in ecology, agriculture and biotechnology at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. At the farm he and his wife show circular agriculture in practice to youths from around the world.

The Old Norwegian Short Tail Landrace is descended from the Old Norwegian Sheep, the progenitors of the Norwegian Short Tail Landrace breeds of today. Sheep are an important part of the Åklangenga farm.

André Lemee from Normandy is also at Åklangenga farm through WWOOF. But since he's from the EU country of France, he can stay on the farm as long as he wants.

Julia Hurter grew up in the USA, but is also a Norwegian citizen. She went to Åklangenga for two weeks in May through WWOOF, and is now back on her own initiative.