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This felt a little too real from Yutaka:

This is one of those things that will randomly pop into your head and you will get embarrassed about for decades to come.

At the very least, now we know that Charlotte can actually cast attack magic. That stands in stark contrast to the "healing magic" of Karla. I found the evil wizard really funny this chapter:

Wait, so Narita went through all the effort of convincing the school to hold a prom and did all the planning and prep for it just to wingman these two together...and neither of them are going. Poor guy can't catch a break.

Her victory conditions cracked me up:

No big science section of the post today. Instead they brought together several of the scientific concepts they introduced earlier. See previous threads for my discussions on the astrolabe (tool used to measure the position of Mars in this episode), Ptolemy, and retrograde motion.

I found this episode to be surprisingly emotional for me. I don't think it is necessarily meant to be, but perhaps it was speaking to my inner scientist heart. Badeni's insatiable thirst for knowledge had led him close to self destruction. When Oczy walked in talking about documents that could change his life, Badeni almost let the stifling and punishment of his curiosity send Oczy away. However, his curiosity managed to keep just enough of a desire for knowledge lit inside him that he took a risk on what Oczy talked about. He came so close to letting the most momentous thing to ever happen in his life walk out the door. It also harkens back to Rafal's speech to Nowak, that the thing the church is trying to, and will fail to kill is curiosity and the desire for truth itself. Nowhere is that more evident than in Badeni.

One thing that I wish we had seen more of was Oczy's struggle to take that first Mars measurement. We see him facing a sky full of eyes and then cut to him having completed the task. I feel like there was likely a more meaningful struggle there. What was it that kept him there and helped him face his fears?

Their demonstration of how retrograde motion appears was fine I think. I am not sure it would really help people that don't have a grasp of it, but it's hard for me to put myself in those shoes at this point. I think they did do a pretty good job explaining retrograde motion and epicycles this episode and show how persuasive a "beautiful" theory can be. @[email protected]

When I was in grad school, I was studying biophysics, but since I was in the physics department, I had to take classes in a broad range of topics including quantum and particle physics and many of my fellow cohort worked in particle physics and did stints working at the LHC. I remember having long talks with them about this theory or that theory of what could shake out after the LHC was powered on (super-symmetry and string theory were popular topics of the day). The general consensus among all of them was that the standard model had to be incorrect in some way. A non-insignificant reason for that was that it was too messy. It required caveats, corrections, assumptions, etc. that they didn't like and felt should not be needed in a more complete model. All that is to say that this sense of how "beautiful" a scientific theory is remains a powerful motivating factor for practicing scientists to this day. So, having two models that both work practically, but one is much more beautiful, people tend to go for the beautiful model/theory.

Speaking of beauty, this show continues with beautiful night sky shots. The end with Oczy being able to look at the night sky and find it beautiful was a really nice moment.

Absolutely! I was completely blown away by Bravern. One of the most fun series out there.

In addition to the already mentioned Sakuta from Bunny Girl and Rentaro from 100GF, there are a couple others that I like:

• Bravern - This one is two guys that are both strong-willed. Not really sure you can call this strictly a romance though considering all the robots and apocalypse.
• Endo and Kobayashi - This is actually two romances in one. One of them (in the game world) has an assertive male character. The other (in our world) a bit less so, but it was a great series that got majorly overlooked.
• Girlfriend, Girlfriend - You can call Naoya many things, but timid is not one of them.
• Love After World Domination - A criminally underwatched series that features the Red Ranger character falling in love at first sight, and he will strive to overcome all obstacles to make it happen.
• Tomo-chan Is a Girl - Jun might be dense, but he is a man of action.

Rentarou is really the best answer to this question.

Ugh, this chapter was tough to get through for me. But, like, in a good way. It dragged up a lot of feelings seeing how Rinne never prioritized herself. As a kid, she has given up a lot of the things she liked in order to try and be more supportive/protective of her sister. I relate to this so, so much. Hell, I am reading this chapter right now while waiting in a parking lot to pick up my wife because she isn't allowed to drive due to a chronic condition. In a very real sense, my life is controlled by the limitations of my chosen partner. The main difference between myself and Rinne though is that she didn't have the ability to choose her sister, but she also doesn't have to live her life constrained in the same way.

I was concerned last chapter about this new character, but if she is going to be the tool by which we explore Rinne's character like in this chapter, then sign me up. I hope that we can see Rinne rediscover herself as an actualized individual, instead of being defined by her sister.

It's a little unsatisfying to have Ange collapse for the whole time skip and then just wake up like nothing happened. If it was just charge, then shouldn't Erio have been able to take care of that quicker?

In any case, I am guessing that these two are going to keep moving on their journey after this.

This has been a ridiculously cute series. I can actually kind of relate to the bit in the episode about how loud nighttime is out in the country. I lived all through grad school in various apartments in Boston, but not too long ago bought a house in the woods in one of the suburbs. I was not used to how loud all the crickets were at night. It was way worse than any street noise I dealt with in the city.

I looked up the Aso Volcano Museum because the architecture in the show looked too specific for it not to be a real place, and sure enough, this is what it looks like in real life:

Show	Real life

One thing that baffles me about this episode is where this frog came from. They weren't near any trees, just standing in the middle of a lawn and it somehow jumped on her forehead? I call shenanigans. @[email protected]