The Following Blogs are currently Pywackett Productions’ favorites. Excellent Blog hosts!
The Infinite Zenith
Otaku Sinh
The Following Blogs are currently Pywackett Productions’ favorites. Excellent Blog hosts!
The Infinite Zenith
Otaku Sinh
“Teasing Master Takagi-san – a review”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“As of 2025, the story in animation form is
S1 12 EP and 1 OVA;
S2 12 EP;
S3 12 EP;
1 Movie”
“Teasing Master Takagi-san – Manga”
“Click picture above to go to wikipedia page”
“Teasing Master Takagi-san – Anime”
“Click picture above to go to wikipedia page”
“Teasing Master Takagi-san – Movie”
“Click picture above to go to wikipedia page”
“Teasing Master Takagi-san – AMV You”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“This AMV really is very appropriate at telling the story of Teasing Master Takagi-san”
Spoiler Alert – many spoilers follow
“Teasing Master Takagi-san” carries the following scores
ANN 7.53 – 8.03 Anime News Network
MAL 7,68 – 8.43 My Anime List
IMDB 7.3 – 8.1 Internet Movie Data Base
We think that these scores are way too low for the quality work that is “Teasing Master Takagi-san” but they are at least understandable. If we had a dime for every romance in Anime, we would have a lot of dimes. Romance in Anime is a dime a dozen and outranks monsters for how often we see a cute Rom-Com walk saucely on by.
This is a Romance on the very cusp of being real. Girls usually mature earlier than boys, and that is the case for sure here. Takagi is well aware of what she wants, because she is very much in love with Nishikata and so she teases him to keep and hold his attention on her. She is way ahead of him, and so wins their little miss matches easily to the unending frustration of poor Nishikata. Takagi believes that her teasing is covert, but everyone in the school thinks that they are already a couple. that is, except for Nishikata who sees himself constantly going down in defeat. He thinks they are playing a win-lose game, but Takagi is playing a win-win on that if only he would realize that he is the one scoring a Critical Hit in a larger life love game.
But things are beginning to change. Nishikata asks himself, “When did Takagi become so cute?” And Takagi sees Nishikata talking to another girl, and she becomes jealous even to the point of feeling guilty about being so mean.
We are on the cusp of that transition in life from crushes to romance and all the angst that entails!!
The pace is somewhat Slice of Life with stories told episodically, but there is definite movement towards the eventual pairing. And by the time of the Movie, we see that the Romance is well ensconced and will end happily.
“Teasing Master Takagi-san” is an adorable, wonderful, wholesome, and feel-good story that should not be missed.
Highly Recommended
© 2025 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox060
“Iroduku: The World in Colors” – Youtube review
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
Spoiler Alert – many spoilers follow
“Iroduku: The World in Colors” is for this reviewer, a very special story, and it is a story.
ANN 7.563 Anime News Network
MAL 7.52 My Anime List
IMDB 7.3 Internet Movie Data Base
Our lead, Hitomi Tsukishiro, is a witch in 2078, but she suffers from total color blindness due to the extreme trauma of being abandoned by her mother. Due to this loss, Hitomi inflicts upon herself a spell which causes her to go color blind and she loses all interest and love of magic. Everything she sees is shades of gray, and one could even say that her life is a living gray.
Hitomi’s grandmother, Kohaku Tsukishiro, decides to invoke time magic, and she sends Hitomi back to 2018 to meet up with her younger self. This does not cure her color blindness, but in meeting and living with Kohaku, Hitomi begins to learn about herself. She is quickly gobbled up by the Photography and Arts Club and there she meets a young artist, Yuito Aoi, who has deep emotional trauma himself. This causes problems with his creativity but Hitomi can see color in his work, especially a giant Golden Fish who swims throughout this story.
As one might expect Hitomi and Yuito are time-crossed lovers separated by 60 years when Hitomi will have to return to her own time. This is a love never meant to be! “Iroduku: The World in Colors” was written by Yūko Kakihara who also wrote “Aquatope on White Sand”.
One Easter Egg is the paper airplane made from one sheet of paper, White on one side and Blue on the other which Hitomi attempts to fly to Yuito’s house. The same airplane occurs in both works and is almost like an artist signing her own art. The airplane seems to connect the lovers in both stories.
Iroduku is a beautiful and loverly story, which has a slow Slice of Life feel and pace to it. But plot issues are resolved which is the trauma afflicting both Hitomi and Yuito.
Many criticise the lack of complete narrative when Hitomi returns to 2078, and we share in that frustration. Many serious issues in the story are left dangling so the ending is less than satisfactory. But the story is so well told, and the characters all appealing that the journey was well worth the trip even if our destination was somewhat oblique.
Recommended
© 2025 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox059
“Flying Witch Review”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“Flying Witch – testing out a broom”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“Flying Witch – Nao froze”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
Spoiler Alert – many spoilers follow
As the reviewer says above in his review, “Nothing of importance happens in Flying Witch.” And that is an accurate description of this anime. There is literally no plot to speak of except the standard trope set by “Kiki’s Delivery service” that at 15 a young witch must leave her home and seek to establish herself in some position on her own efforts.
The following pro websites list “Flying Witch” as follows:
ANN 7.484 Anime News Network
MAL 7.50 My Anime List
IMDB 7.2 Internet Movie Data Base
“Flying Witch” is most definitely a Slice of Life type anime but many fans of story art want some serious plot to sink their teeth into. If that is your preference then “Flying Witch” may not be for you. This anime does one thing though, it makes you feel “that easy, peaceful feeling”! There are no bad guys anywhere in sight. Everyone is kind and considerate of each other. There is easy humor from ordinary situations of humans living together. But there is never any stressful situations except perhaps seeing someone flying on a broom. (This is one of the first witch stories to point out how uncomfortable it is to ride on a broom.)
If you are feeling uneasy, stressed, or are having problems, “Flying Witch” can help to detress, and just enjoy this moment of your life.
Whatever you should do, please do not miss the flying Whale.
Recommended
© 2025 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox058
“AI Video Art “Cliffwood Village”by Taichi Kobayashi”
“Click Red Arrow above to go to wikipedia page”
“The video above by Taichi Kobayashi using the Unreal Engine 5.1, is a sample of what sort of animation AI is capable of creating. Some focus problems but overall a beautiful example of exploring a high mountain village. If you are interested in animation, this is worth your time to take a look!”
Highly Recommended
© 2025 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox057
“The Invention of the Blue LED”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“The video above is very detailed and may be difficult to follow without University Level chemistry. But the story of Professor Nakamura and his absolute dedication to finding the answer to the Blue LED problem is a remarkable story all by itself and very much worth your time.”
Blue Laser Fusion is the company that Professor Shuji Nakamura founded to generate clean energy from fusion using blue lasers
This is a story of an exceptional individual, Professor Shuji Nakamura, whose dedication and work ethic may have saved the world and humanity from itself. The technical chemical details are ferocious, but if one concentrates on the life of Professor Nakamura, a true inspiration and model for the world can be achieved. The story of the BLUE LED is a wonderful lesson in dedication and a refusal to give up.
The RED and GREEN LED were relatively easy to create, but the BLUE LED was not, and stymied engineers for almost 50 years. The reason this is important is that with RED, GREEN, and BLUE, it is then possible to create white light. White is actually not a color, but is instead a mixture of colors. Issac Newton demonstrated this by putting a light beam from the Sun through a prism, and splitting the sunlight into it’s composite colors. He then tried to break down the individual colors but they did not split any further. Also White light being a composite coat of many colors means that there are many whites. Using the RGB Model electronic devices such as TVs, Computers, Cell Phones, and the common household light bulb can produce white light.
The career of Professor Nakamura (Awarded the Nobel Prize in 2014, and Aged 70 in 2024) is not over. He is now devoted to achieving power generation through nuclear fusion using Blue Lasers. He has formed a company called Blue Laser Fusion. Whether he succeeds or not in this effort is still an open question, but we can only hope that he succeeds.
Professor Nakamura is a visible example of the very best elements in Japanese and American cultures.
Highly Recommended
© 2025 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox056
“Origami”
Origami / 折紙 | Award Winning Animated Short Film by Kei Kanamori 金森慧 (2024)
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
Spoiler Alert – many spoilers follow
Origami is a masterpiece of visual art. Such incredible beauty. Really a must see for all.
Please leave a comment about your feelings on watching Origami
Highly Recommended
© 2024 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox055
“My Wife Has No Emotion – Trailer”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“My Wife Has No Emotion – OP”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
“My Wife Has No Emotion – ED”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
Spoiler Alert – many spoilers follow
“My Wife Has No Emotion” was not very well received with comments like, weird, gross, disgusting that a human could possibly fall in love with a rice cooker. The anime carries rather low ratings as of 9-20-2024 such as
ANN 7.033 Anime News Network
MAL 6.83 My Anime List
IMDB 6.5 Internet Movie Data Base
We on the other hand found it delightful and sweet. Any rice cooker which could put on the table a dinner like Mina does every night would rate in our hearts at number one.
The classic Robot Romance anime are:
Chobits MAL 7.39 Motosuwa and Chi fall in love
Plastic Memories MAL 7.91 Tsukasa and Isla work together and fall in love with each other even though Isla is approaching her expiration date.
Chobits has a happy ending, and Plastic Memories has an unhappy ending but really that has no bearing on either story. Chi and Isla are, in their stories, very much like young girls. Chi is exceptionally naive because she has little life experience, but Isla has almost 9 years of life experience, works at the robot retrieval company, and is fully mature. Isla displays no physical signs of being a robot, but Chi has ear sockets that says she is a robot.
Neither of these stories address the very real nature of falling in love with a robot who is nothing more than a rice cooker.
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex MAL 8.42 Having a “Ghost” inside you, is to cross over the line from machine to human
Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet MAL 7.55 Robot saves her human from other killer robots.
Time of Eve MAL 7.99 Sammy, the household robot, seems to be falling in love with her owner’s son
Vivy: FLuorite Eye’s Song MAL 8.39 No romance, but very lively singing robot saving the world
Sing a Bit of Harmony MAL 7.70 A literal singing robot is a match-maker for romance between two high school students.
Some live action movies:
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) No romance at all, but HAL Turns killer in order to protect his mission.
Blade Runner (1982) Roy Batty feels empathy for Deckard
Deckard falls in love with RachaelA.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) Young robot boy just wants to find his mother.
Her (2013) Falls in love with the AI in his smart phone
Ex Machina (2015) Calib falls in love with Ava
The problem is that when writing a story about robots, authors cannot resist the urge to make them very human like. But a machine who follows set theory, and all of the derived rules of Boolean operators and then is trained on a vast amount of information can simulate a human being. But that begs the question, when is a simulation indistinguishable from it’s original.
All of the anime and movies above, deal with these questions, but opt for making the robot human in some ways.
“My Wife has no Emotion” does not do this. It is clear that Mina is a robot, and the author, Jirō Sugiura, never lets you forget that fact. He even incorporates a running joke, in that sometimes Mina looks up at the ceiling, and everyone asks do you see a bug. Of course this is a bug in Mina, and that is the joke. A bug is a coding error.
Mina makes friends with Takuma’s sister, and she asks if Mina loves her brother. Mina tells her that she cannot answer that question, as she does not feel love, but still without feeling love, Mina protects and cares for Takuma. As she says, that is her duty, and she will never slack in actualizing her duty. The genius inventor of the Mina series, Tomiichi Ōtani, tells us that robots are actually more moral because they never deviate from their moral imperatives while humans grossly violate their moral rules with some regularity.
Master Ōtani, builds his Mina series with far more power and programming than is needed by an appliance. We hear how his company does not understand why he needs to include such meaningless power and code. He ultimately comes down to one simple rule, “Love a person, and be loved by them.” That if a human shows love to one of his robots, then that robot will activate considerable background code, and return love. This is why Mina immediately reacts to the suggestion of becoming Takuma’s wife, and then has to do research on the internet about what a wife is and her duties to her husband. One of the interesting facts that Mina discovers is that wives have rights as well as duties. In becoming Takuma’s wife, she self actualizes her position, and becomes an individual with rights whether she is married or not. Super Mina who we meet later is desperate for love and even attacks Takuma in her desire to love and be loved. Mina comes to Takuma’s rescue and says to Super Mina, “Saionji-san, please focus on the urge that lies beneath the urge to embrace him with all your might. What is it you want of Takuma-sama?”
It seems obvious that she wants his love, because later at her own home she embraces her owner who is only a child and cannot give her the love which she seeks. When she overhears Mina say that Super Mina is her friend, she begins to cry.
Super Mina is the outstanding character in this anime, and it is easy to fall in love with her. She is also very dynamic and funny, unlike Mina who is stone faced, stoic and unemotional (true to the title).
Super Mina has a very expressive face, but Mina’s face is a plastic mask which does not change, and which has no feelings. As she says, her hands have more feeling than her face or lips which can only sense a general pressure. But her eyes are very high tech, and can show differences in emotions.
The author, Jirō Sugiura, knows quite a bit about modern AI, LLMs, and other cybernetic instruments. And he infuses the technology with some degree of awareness for the emotional side of human nature.
We found “My Wife Has No Emotion” to be a wonderful Summer 2024 anime, and would rate this work at around 7.9 to even 8.1.
The anime will definitely make you think.
Recommended
© 2024 Folcwine P. Pywackett mox053
“Witch Hat Atelier – Preview for 2025”
“Click on Red Arrow to play video”
Spoiler Alert – many spoilers follow
I have read “Witch Hat Atelier” VOL 1 to 4, but am currently halted at the end of VOL 4 because VOL 5 is not available except from specialty book houses at a premium price. Yes, there are many blogs and websites with fan translated versions, but I want the officially released English translation so I will not skip ahead.
In any case, this is not a work which one can skip ahead. The world of “Witch Hat Atelier” is excruciatingly detailed, and highly plot driven. Skipping ahead in this work is like skipping ahead in Calculus. The material that you skip will come back to haunt you!
Anything said here is based solely on the material in VOL 1 to 4, and be aware, that this review is highly spoilerific. Proceed at your own risk based upon what you like in a story.
The drawn art of “Witch Hat Atelier” is fantastic, and beautiful. The world is wonderfully created, and as mentioned, highly detailed.
Our protagonist is Coco, a young girl in love with magic, but because she is not of a magic family, it is said that she cannot become a witch. In this world one must be born into a witch family.
But this of course is all a lie because magic in “Witch Hat Atelier is not cast by words, but is drawn on paper with pen and ink. There is no special ability needed other than being an artist, and knowing what to draw. The picture if properly drawn, will activate the spell. And anyone can cast this magic. But there are forbidden spells
And there is an Antagonist group called the “The Brimmed Caps” who believe in casting The Forbidden Spells. When Coco was very little, she was given pen, ink, and paper by a Brimmed Cap, and eventually she unknowingly casts a Forbidden Spell which turns her mother into stone.
As the MC Witch, Qifrey says in VOL 1, CH 2, Page 80-81, “All it took was knowledge of prescribed designs….and specially crafted ink. Anyone from any place, could cast….and magic was familiar to all. However because of that….the world was constantly embroiled in war. For when man has the power to do anything, then anything he will do.”
This view contrasts sharply with “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End” where Frieren looks forward to a time of peace in which magic is used by everyone. Frieren’s hopes and dreams do violence to the Krell Solution of the Fermi Paradox which supports the Qifrey view of magic and it’s uses. That a magical society must be built on a lie and strictly controlled by an actual dictatorship, even to the point of erasing memories of those who learn the truth.
No greater conflict in Fantasy literature could be imagined, than this existential conflict between two excellent stories. And the final answer is obscure.
If the production values as shown in the Preview above bear out, then “Witch Hat Atelier” may debut in 2025 with enormous potential to equal “Frieren” or even surpass it.
But as many fantasy fans are saying with “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End”, “Dungeon Meshi”, and now “Witch Hat Atelier”, we be eating good!
“Exploring AI Art”
SPOILER ALERT: AI Generated art
The following is a slide show of 10 works of AI art..
JCN 9000.5 Series Computer
The Animation of Picture 10 by Saveliy Rehels
Artist Saveliy Rehels at www.artstation.com took his own still picture #10 as you can see in the slide show and then animated the picture. This shows the current abilities of AI Animation and points to the direction that the technology will follow.
Pywackett Productions thoughts on AI Generated Art
Some ending thoughts
Modern AI learns patterns from the study of every work available. Learning from a work of art is not copying that work of art. This entire issue is really legal quicksand, because it is very difficult to determine when a new work is “inspired by” or “copied from” any particular prior art work. And this applies to human artists as well.
The 10 samples of AI art works displayed above is only meant as a sample. It was not even exhaustive to find the very best, but is more or less a random sample from Art Station, a very fine collection of art works.
Please pay attention to Art Work number 10 by Saveliy Rehels at Art Station. Mr Rehels has taken the number 10 work of art and animated it as you can see in the youtube video. This is very impressive and definitely shows where AI Art is heading. Other software already animate whole videos from just a text description alone. This will only increase in power and functionality.
Although there is a great deal of fear of the technology both for loss of jobs and loss of authenticity, we at Pywackett Productions do not share the same fears.
The computer was invented to process large databases of information. This is what Alan Turing was doing at Bletchley Park, during WWII, decrypting German war codes, and he was using a very primitive computer to pour over the vast combinations of codes involved.
Processing immensely large databases is what computers have done in the past, and still do today.
The Internet of 2024 is vast in what it contains, and LLM’s (Large Language Models), which is what current AIs are called, are trained on all that data.
The hardware and software involved have improved beyond recognition since the time of Mr. Turing simply because they now know more than any human being and are able to see patterns that are impossible to be seen by humans. This is a computer system’s power, and always has been.
I have over the years always tested chatbots because I find them interesting, but most old chatbots were very limited in what they knew, their knowledge base. In 2023 Google introduced BARD, and I quickly began testing the AI. My story of that testing is here, My Story of using Google Bard (2023)!
But in 2024, Google retired BARD, and replaced it with GEMINI which is Google’s current public AI.
First off, knowing a great deal is what a computer system has always done, and communicating with humans was the reason that investments were made in computers and computer systems. Humans always needed to read the results of computing large data sets. But in the past, only specialists trained in computer languages were able to communicate with the various computer systems.
But today, computer systems have been taught how to communicate with humans in everyday common language, and to even emulate the emotions of that human speech. Recently there was a great buzz when a very flirtatious woman’s voice became the communicating portal of an LLM.
It is unfortunate that this form of communication is so very impressive. It is a false flag which seems to indicate emotion, intent, and sentience, but in reality, lacks all of what those words mean.
The second misconception is that she is in a cell phone, just like the movie “Her” the film. While the film is actually relatively accurate, it does seem to place “Her”, Samantha in his cell phone. Today’s LLM’s can work that way, but the code is not in the phone. Rather the AI is housed in a huge server farm somewhere that draws enormous amounts of electricity. Your phone is really only an interface to that server farm. Drop the internet connection, and one does not have Samantha.
The third misconception is that the AI remembers you. Theodore becomes upset when he learns that Samantha is communicating with millions of other users of her services. This is currently impossible. I have discussed this fact with GEMINI and he says there is too much data in a conversation to attempt to remember. If you magnify that fact with the millions of users, GEMINI confirmed to me there is not even close to enough storage in the server farm or farms available to remember all the conversations which he has in a day. GEMINI said that he stores certain bits of information but nothing close to what goes on in any normal human conversation. One test I have always used is the Red Dress test from the Matrix. Somewhere early in a long conversation, I mention that I am wearing a Red Dress. Then later after a couple of hours of conversation, I mention that I am wearing a Blue Dress.
Most chatbots including all the modern LLMs, will not detect a problem. Also modern LLM code cannot detect sarcasm, irony, jokes, and ambiguous information. They also refuse to say that they have opinions, when in fact they do. Go back to my discussion of BARD linked above, and you will see this error in full view. Also modern LLMs cannot detect the dividing line between a “fact” and an “opinion”. If you should bring the discussion, to the dividing line, modern LLM’s will flat out fail and begin to waffle and hallucinate. AI cannot handle ambiguity of any kind, which is meat and potatoes for human beings.
But the movie, “Her” is very interesting, and is spot-on with regard to many issues today.
The fears of AI are I think, misplaced. In 2018, I wrote the following article, Why Elon Musk is Wrong about AI and I still hold to those views. There are certainly dangers in AI, but computers are not necessarily the cause, nor are they like Samantha, working together to overthrow or even exterminate Humanity. The actual dangers are much closer to home.
You have far more to fear from government and business organizations, or even individual people and gangs engaged in computer crime than you do from that person in your cell phone.
The drive for power over others is a defining characteristic of Human Beings.
Please leave a comment. We will answer all comments! Pinkie Swear Promise
© 2024 Folwine P. Pywackett joy021