HighDoping's Blog

Best Anime of 2025

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 07:16:03 +0000

TL;DR: None.

There were definitely some good shows this year, but they all had their drawbacks. I can’t quite find one that earns the title of “BEST” for 2025. Instead, here’s a breakdown of my recommendations and what I thought about them.

The Lineup

Sorairo Utility: A continuation of the OVA. It’s a solid “Golf x JK” anime, but the production quality dipped in quite a few places.
Medalist: The story is top-tier, but the production didn’t always do it justice. It was cool to see Kenshi Yonezu volunteers for the OP and Yuzuru Hanyu show up in the MV!
Apocalypse Hotel: The concept is great, but they tried to cram too much into one show. It led to some conflicting settings and a serious lack of continuity between episodes.
CITY THE ANIMATION: Honestly, I didn’t get the jokes. While everyone was expecting something like Nichijou, KyoAni went with a more experimental, manga-like coloring style. Unfortunately, it lacked the character building and tight storytelling needed for a good adaptation.
Ruri Rocks: The production quality is fantastic, but sometimes it feels like “too much.” The educational bits felt a little disconnected from the super fluid animation.
mono: It had its moments, but it was occasionally boring. It felt more like a visual autobiography of the author, Afro.
Food for the Soul: Loved the story and the characters, but it really suffered from poor production quality.
Zatsu Tabi: That’s Journey: This also felt like an autobiography, but I actually really liked the quiet, comforting atmosphere. It reminded me of my own vacation experiences.
See You Tomorrow at the Food Court: This is mostly just characters talking, but the scriptwriting is so good that it never gets boring.
CALL OF THE NIGHT Season 2: Great music, great story, a worthy sequel to the first season.
Ninja to Koroshiya no Futarigurashi Tons of dark humor. Episode 5 had some particularly great character building.
Summer Pockets: A pretty mediocre adaptation. Giving each heroine exactly four episodes made it feel a bit rushed and formulaic.
This Monster Wants to Eat Me: The music and the depressing atmosphere are spot on. However, the actual animation and series composition were a bit of a letdown.
The Catcher in the Ballpark!: Ruriko is a great character. The story focuses on the “other side” of sports and is quite heartwarming, but the animation quality was definitely a struggle.
A Workplace Where You Can’t Help But Smile: A look at the life of a mangaka, with some nice connection to Kuzushiro’s other works. The production was OK.

The Rise of Generative AI in Anime

One huge trend this year was the rise of generative AI.

We had Twins Hinahima, which might be the first show to heavily use GenAI in its production. The quality wasn’t bad, though the workflow behind it is honestly more interesting than the show itself. In my opinion, as long as the story is good, this kind of AI use is acceptable. It’s better than “cheaping out” and making something that looks terrible.

However, that opened the floodgates for a pile of “AI Slop.”

Shūkan Ranobe Anime: Produced by Ziine Studio. Their goal seems to be churning out short-form content on a 3-month cycle.
generAIdoscope：ジェネレイドスコープ and 小泉八雲のKWAIDANの世界 seems to be complete AI slop and don’t get much attention.
Mechanical Marie: This one used AI-generated “Harmony” and got hit with massive backlash. They actually ended up replacing those starting from episode 2 for the TV broadcast.

Behind the scenes, big names like OLM and Toei Animation are already testing GenAI for internal tasks like coloring and backgrounds. I try to keep track of GenAI use in anime here(website in Chinese). 2026 will likely see even more GenAI-assisted anime.Let’s just hope they don’t turn out to be slop.

Amendment to the last blog about VTubers

Thu, 24 Jul 2025 06:52:02 +0000

Coincidentally, less than a week after I published my blog about VTubers, VShojo is on the brink of total collapse.

VShojo, based in California, is one of the largest VTuber talent agencies, following COVER (Hololive) and ANYCOLOR (Nijisanji) from Japan. VShojo bills itself as a “talent first” agency, and even advertises it in Japan. It provides merchandise and event arrangement services to VTubers, and talents hold IP themselves. Kson, as I mentioned in the last blog, is a member of VShojo and has praised its practice multiple times in the past. Mikeneko (みけねこ) was also a member of VShojo under the name Nazuna Amemiya (飴宮なずな).

However, it’s now exposed that VShojo owes a significant amount of merchandise income from its talents, and may even repurpose funds raised for charity to cover operational expenses, which is a huge legal problem if true. Nearly all talents quit after Ironmouse, the founding member and the most famous one, exposed the issues publicly.

To me, it seems that VShojo hasn’t found a steady source of income. After the rapid worldwide expansion drained the investment money, the implosion was irresistible. The IP is expensive at the quality VShojo provided to their talents. The talent also gets to hold money from streaming, leaving merchandise and events as the sole income for the company. VShojo’s fan base is more dispersed in the English-speaking world, making the merchandise production and inventory management more difficult than those of the other agencies. With headquarters in California and a Japanese branch, it will face both financial and management problems when the revenue-generating branch is far from the decision-making branch.

Luckily, VShojo seems to keep their word. Talents kept their IP and will continue to be active as independent VTubers. It might cost less than what they are owed, though.

VShojo was once like a dream company in the VTuber world, and the ending is sad. It’s hard for independent VTubers to arrange events and release merchandise, so agencies do hold some value to VTubers. Agencies for actors and singers have existed for more than 100 years, it’s a pity that VTubers haven’t got a working one. It may be due to the special Internet culture, but who knows for sure?

Thoughts about VTuber

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 01:25:16 +0000

Virtual YouTuber, or VTuber, is a cultural phenomenon in recent years. It is widely accepted that Kizuna AI is the first YouTuber. From the beginning, they are just some individuals putting videos on YouTube using some kind of avatar. Now, there are several companies that are publicly traded in the VTuber industry. And you can even get VTuber collaboration goods at NFL events. It will be interesting to go deeper into this topic.

I didn’t watch much VTuber content, so the following are just my impressions on VTuber and not well-researched.

The beginning

Kizuna AI (キズナアイ), who first appeared in December 2016, is widely accepted as the first VTuber. I also watched some of her videos through YouTube recommendations. It’s funny at the time, and it’s really new. I will define VTuber in this era as some 3D characters acted by a real person via motion capture. And the focus is mainly on videos and not streaming. The motion capture technology partially came from the VR boom in this time period.

There is something called The Four Heavenly Kings of VTuber (バーチャルYoutuber四天王) in this era, including Kizuna AI (キズナアイ), Kaguya Luna (輝夜月), Dennou Shojo Siro (電脳少女シロ), Virtual Noja Loli Kitsunemusume Youtuber Ojisan (バーチャルのじゃロリ狐娘Youtuberおじさん) and Mirai Akari (ミライアカリ).

From this definition, we can even vaguely classify the animation gdgd Fairies (gdgd妖精s) in 2011, by Kotaro Ishidate (石ダテコー太郎) from YAOYOROZU(ヤオヨロズ), as a predecessor of VTuber. Parts of the anime are unscripted and all depend on the voice actors’ live actions. Kotaro Ishidate continues to produce more anime based on this concept with varied success. For example, Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono(てさぐれ！部活もの) in 2013 and Minarai Diva(みならいディーバ) in 2014. It’s coincidental that the animation director of Tesagure! Bukatsu-mono is Tatsuki(たつき), who will later be the famous director of the phenomenal anime series Kemono Friends (けものフレンズ).

There’s also a collaboration between NTT DOCOMO and China Mobile Migu to create a series called Live Animation Heart X Algorhythm (生放送アニメ直感×アルゴリズム♪), which is still active as Tacitly now. (Might be the largest corporate VTuber if ranked by market cap of the parent companies.) By the way, Minarai Diva is also supported by NTT DOCOMO. What a circle!

Lots of VTuber at this time is actually run by a company with venture capital but hiding the fact, as we will see later.

Great success without a clear definition

With the greatest success of the beginners, a lot of people try to do similar things. However, the 3D modeling seems too expensive for individuals to start, so many VTubers at this time adopt Live2D, a technology mainly used in GALGAME at the time, to put an animated avatar as the characters. The now-famous Nijisanji started as a motion capture and streaming phone app, and the rest is history.

To catch the VTuber boom, there are many attempts by more traditional companies. Suntory created Suntory Nomu(燦鳥ノム) as their marketing character. Anime VIRTUALSAN - LOOKING (バーチャルさんはみている) was aired in 2019 but received terrible ratings. There is also a drama called Watanuki-san Chi No (四月一日さん家の) aired in 2019 with VTubers as actors.

The fuzzy definition of VTuber also causes some problems with itself. I think companies at this period still see VTubers as similar to anime characters that they have complete control over, which will be deemed wrong later. The company behind Kizuna AI, Activ8, created more characters, calling them variants of Kizuna AI. With the reduced appearance of the original Kizuna AI, fans began to question whether the company wants to replace the original actor. The incident makes fans realize that Kizuna AI is fully controlled by the company, and what they really love is the actor behind the VTuber, not the script writer or the company. In short, fans treat VTubers as their idols, and companies treat VTubers as their creation. The difference between what companies want to do and what fans want to see creates great controversy, resulting in the long break period of Kizuna AI.

The Chinese variants of Kizuna AI also run into some political problems. Hololive also tried to expand to China and then got entangled with sensitive political issues, which resulted in the abandonment of the Chinese branch and the retirement of Kiryu Coco(桐生ココ). Coco later debuted as kson, doing both VTuber style and real streaming. Reflecting the fuzzy definition of VTuber. The politics-related problems will continue to doom the Chinese expansion of international VTuber companies to the present day.

The streamer era

The elephant in the room is the global lockdown due to the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. People are suddenly stuck at home with nothing to do, and have few social interactions. Gaming, streaming, and other entertainment industries filled the gap and saw incredible success during this time. It will also cause problems with the production of more video-based VTuber content, as the required motion capture needs to be done in specialized studios.

More VTubers will focus on livestreaming, using phones as motion capture devices, and streaming from their own room. It becomes rare that you see a VTuber who is more focused on videos. VTubers became more like other streamers and are not limited to YouTube, but expanded to other streaming platforms like Twitch. This is natural, as most VTubers have previous experience with streaming on Niconico Live (ニコニコ生放送) or other platforms. VTubers got more international recognition at this time and expanded to more countries and languages. To the point that we even get a hololive night at Dodger Stadium. The once-famous The Four Heavenly Kings are relatively minor compared to VTubers from hololive or Nijisanji these days.

Controversy

What will a bunch of people hanging around on the internet create? Controversies. With complex interactions between the actor, the company, and fans. From the early days of individuals to current-day public-traded corporations like Hololive and Nijisanji, the history of VTubers is filled with controversies. Fans will generally lean towards the actor while also treating them as idols. Sometimes, it backfires when the actor misses fans’ expectations of an idol. There is an extreme case when Mikeneko (みけねこ) argues with others online and works under several different names.

I also experience controversies with my favorite unit, UNICreate. UNICreate started as a studio providing motion capture and other VTuber-related services. Akatsuki UNI (赤月ゆに) debuted in April 2018 as the company’s president. The main activity includes daily videos, “Today in history” on Twitter, and a weekly radio program. Mochizuki Himari (餅月ひまり) debuted in October 2019 as an independent VTuber and later joined UNICreate in April 2020. Her main topic was adult gal games, and her preference is relatively hard-core even in adult games. Their contents are mainly full-motion captured videos, and they call themselves YouTubers. I started subscribing to them in 2020, as their topic is funny.

The issue started in about 2022, when the CEO of UNICreate came forward and reported that their audition had no candidates pass. Zutsuki Tsukuru (図月つくる) will later join UNICreate in April 2022, scouted by Himari. Her video will be mainly DIY focused. UNICreate will then form the group Liverary to separate it from the VTuber service branch. Then, there is some staff change in the background, and the schedule miss became more frequent with less activity from Uni. Mutsuki Memori (無月めもり) then joined Liverary in February 2023, and her topic was mainly about conspiracy theory and extrasensory perception. At this time, there are some issues with the crowdfunding project of Himari. The main helper, Bamboo from OVERDRIVE, openly criticizes the practice of UNICreate. The schedule is becoming more tiring, with fewer appearances of Uni and Himari and an increasing rate of missing the timetable. Then Uni will reappear later in June. However, it is noticed by fans that the actor has changed.

The whole situation will intensify as the talents exit one by one in 2023. With the crowdfunding project still in progress, the staff from UNICreate will come out blaming the actor of Himari, and even get an interview with Shūkan Bunshun (週刊文春). But fans have lost their trust in the company. Staff continue to argue with fans on its official channel. The leaked information from the heated exchange shows that the company made a mistake similar to Kizuna AI, thinking the success of VTubers is from the script, and the actor can be replaced. It also reveals that Mochizuki Himari comes from a failed project by Dentsu (電通), and UNICreate brought the related IP. UNICreate gradually dissolves while finally delivering the crowdfunding project CD in 2025.

Ironically, the most famous video from Uni is a video about how VTubers will get into controversies and break down, but later herself resulted in a similar ending. As a comment said:

Sometimes knowing everything that can go wrong cannot prevent it from happening anyway.
― Video comment

All previous Liverary members have reappeared on YouTube, as Amane Kokon (狐今あまね), Fuyu Kurumi (胡桃ふゅ), Mizuno (みずの), Michiru Kitazima (喜多嶋みちる) and Rami Mirai (未來らみ), with varied topics. Best wishes to them.

Future look

The foundation of this industry is laid by the boom of VR and small companies. Now it’s mature enough that everyone can get started with relatively low cost. There seems to be a recent trend of large VTubers exiting the company, restarting as an independent VTuber, and bringing their fans with them. It’s understandable as the basic activity is just like streamers can be done by oneself, as the viewer doesn’t expect to see 3D motion characters. The actor can have a higher cut and more freedom in their schedule. Just like Vocaloid enabled more people to be musicians like Hachi. The technology around VTuber enabled more people to be streamers and content creators without exposing themselves. However, streaming itself is a challenging job. Talking to a camera and finding interesting topics on the run is not easy, and the audience can be very harsh. The constant entry and retirement are inevitable. As a viewer, I could only suggest following the old saying.

Ichi-go ichi-e (一期一会) - Treasure every encounter, for it will never recur.
― Sen no Rikyū (千利休), 茶湯者覚悟十躰

VTuber recommendation

After all this talk, I want to recommend some of my favorite VTubers.

Clear Usui (宇推くりあ): VTuber that focuses on space and rocket-related stuff. Do rocket launch streams and explanations of technical details in Japanese. Have collaborated with space-related entities like H3 Rocket, Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and the Cabinet Office of Japan.
Uparu Anew (亞生うぱる): Sony VEE member. Video topics are fishing, DIY, and cooking. Kind of Denpa-kei.
Hairpin Mamire (ヘアピンまみれ): Video-based VTuber with a topic mainly about DIY and very educational.
Neurosama: I don’t watch many of its streams, honestly. Vedal has definitely shown the world that it is possible to create AI content that is loved by people. His constant effort is what makes Neurosama special.

Some SSH Commands

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 08:17:13 +0000

SSH is the de facto standard for remote terminals these days. However, it can do other things besides normal terminal use, such as tunneling which is useful in some situations.

Pubkey Authentication

Using pubkey authentication with SSH can save some time typing passwords.

On your local computer, use ssh-keygen to create SSH key pairs, which usually come with Windows, Linux, and Mac. Several key types are supported, and I prefer the ed25519 for its short length.

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096
ssh-keygen -t dsa 
ssh-keygen -t ecdsa -b 521
ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C Comment

By default, the key-pair will be saved to ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 and ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub, the name will change base on key type. The path can also be set by using -f ~/key option. The key file is in PEM format and can be convert to PPK format using PuTTYgen.

Add private key to ssh-agent to use it for login.

`1`	`ssh-agent add ~/.ssh/id_ed25519`

On the remote computer, write the pubkey contents to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and the sshd will use it for login, multiple keys can be added.

Tunneling

`1`	`ssh user@remote-host -R 10000:localhost:9090`

localhost:9090 is the local port to share, it will bind to remote port 10000. If the remote port is not default 22, eg. 10022, use -p 10022 option.

This can be used to share a http proxy to remote machine to enable Internet access.

Bind a remote port to local

`1`	`ssh user@remote-host -L 7860:localhost:7860`

localhost:7860 is the remote port to share, it will bind to local port 7860.

This can be used to run Gradio in a remote GPU cluster and share the page to local machine.

Use remote as a Internet proxy

`1`	`ssh -D localhost:9090 user@remote-host`

This will open a SOCKS5 proxy port at local machine to internet access via remote-host.

ProxyJump

`1`	`ssh -J user1@remote-host1 user@remote-target`

-R, -L and -p options can also be used, but is only effective to the remote-target. If non default port and multiple proxy is needed, the format is:

`1`	`ssh -J user1@remote-host1:10022,user2@remote-host2:10023 user@remote-target -p 10024`

This function connects with a path like remote-host1->remote-host2->remote-target, suitable for use if direct connection is not possible due to firewall.

First Impressions About Mac Mini

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 07:58:37 +0000

The Mac mini 2024 with M4 SoC is a great computer with competitive pricing and memory upgrades. I got the version with 32GB of memory and the 10G Ethernet.

First impression

I’m surprised that the Mac is so small! It’s even smaller than my DeskMini X300, which is already a small and powerful PC.

The Appearance

However, there are a few things about the design of the Mac that bother me.

The edges are not rounded or chamfered and appear very sharp. I’m afraid of being cut by the edges as I was once cut by a Logitech keyboard (Logitech G413), and I’m afraid of that happening again. Also, the aluminum surface of the Mac seems so delicate that it can collect fingerprints very quickly. I’ve designed a 3D printed case for my Mac to address these issues. Though it’s making Macs look a little ugly, they serve the purpose of protecting it during transport.
The power button is on the bottom of the computer which makes the setting up experience less elegant as you have to reach for the back and maybe lift it a little bit to power it on. I guess this is because the main body of the Mac is designed to be a single piece of aluminum extrusion. Adding a power button to the side of the main body may have added manufacturing costs. An understandable but not very elegant compromise. The fan is on the bottom and seems to lack adequate filtering, it may get clogged by the dust on the desk.

User Experience

Enough talking about the physical design, let’s move on to the user experience.

It’s been a long time since I used a Mac. It was some old public school iMac and Intel-based MacBook Pro, maybe Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

Getting a Mac up and running is super easy. I just logged in to my iCloud account and some out-of-the-box experience types of settings and everything is done. The Mac even comes with some trial subscription to Apple TV and Apple Arcade, although I’m not that interested.

I tested the iPhone mirroring and it works great. A great bonus for using the Apple ecosystem. I tried Apple Intelligence but it seems so basic that I haven’t used it much.

Setting up the Mac as a developer machine is also easy. The beautiful graphics and user interface make me forget that they are based on a UNIX-certified operating system. When using the Terminal, the experience of using Linux can be directly applied here. Getting used to the macOS terminal is even faster for me than getting used to the graphical interface.

The most difficult transition from a Windows machine to a Mac is the keyboard layout. I use the same keyboard for both Windows and Mac. The dedicated Option key causes a lot of frustration. The Control-C and Control-V key bindings on my mouse don’t work on the Mac either. The language key is also missing. It’ll take some getting used to, but then I’ll open the Start menu from time to time. Maybe using a Magic Keyboard for Mac will be better.

AI Workload

I’ve tried Ollama and LM Studio on the Mac for large language models and they work great. With the unified memory architecture, the Mac has more RAM for its GPU than any other discrete graphics card in the same price range. I’ve tested the API function in the LM studio and the Mac is even more responsive than a Windows PC with an RTX3080.

The machine learning support on the Mac is great. Enabling hardware acceleration on Mac is just one line of code just like using CUDA and I haven’t found any specific bugs with MPS. It is a huge advantage of choosing the Mac ecosystem because everyone’s hardware is similar and the software can be designed for that specific set of hardware, which is hard to achieve for any x86 system.

When fully utilizing the GPU for large language model token generation, the total system power consumption barely reaches 40 watts, which is very efficient. The idle power is even more impressive with only a few watts, just like a smartphone.

RAM and Storage

The big disadvantage of the Mac is that the storage and memory options are too expensive to upgrade.

For memory, it’s somewhat acceptable because it’s packaged with the SoC to get a faster access speed. But for storage, Apple uses a separate NAND module without a controller, which is a proprietary design. And they didn’t sell any upgrade parts for it. The official price for adding storage when purchasing is daylight robbery.

There are some third-party storage upgrade options from AliExpress, but I highly doubt their source of NAND flash. Since the same NAND flash is used in iPhones and iPads, there is a chance that they are using a used chip for their module and the data is at risk.

Having an external SSD seems like a good way to go, but it kind of defeats the idea of the Mac mini being so light and portable.

Competition

Some competitors are coming.

There are a lot of x86 NUCs and minicomputers like the ones from Minisforum. However, the GPU on the Mac can totally defeat those competitors, and it also requires no external power bricks, which is a huge plus.

The AMD Strix Halo seems to have a maximum of 128GB of RAM and a much bigger GPU than previous generations. But I doubt that the ROCm will get enough software support to compete, as the SemiAnalysis report shows that even the basic GEMM in pytorch is buggy.

NVIDIA Project DIGITS competes directly with Mac in the local AI inference market. With a custom SoC combining Arm CPU from MediaTek and Blackwell Arch GPU, NVIDIA advertises a lot about its 2000 billion parameter model capability and 1 PetaFLOP FP4 performance. The 2000 dollar price tag is definitely for the higher end of the market, but I thought that for this type of customer, they might want higher quantization like Q8 or even BF16, and the 128GB of RAM is just not enough.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m happy with my purchase.

The Pros are:

Small foot print
Low power consumption
Large VRAM for the price
Good software support

The Cons are:

Sharp and delicate case
Pricing for RAM and storage upgrades

Best Anime of 2024: DDDD

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 14:50:01 +0000

The year 2024 is over, it’s time for a short summary.

The best anime

The best anime in 2024 for me is Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction (DDDD).

The story starts with an alien spaceship in the Tokyo metropolitan area and the USAF dropping nuclear bombs on it. I immediately knew I would watch this show to the end. The mixture of anime and politics is my favorite. The story talks about the disaster, the alien invasion, the relationship between the US and Japan, and the relationship between the two main characters Kadode and Ouran.

The post-disaster scene is a perfect reflection of reality, just like Japan still struggles after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The story raises questions about how to deal with post-disaster recovery and incoming threats. However, the pace of the story feels too fast near the end. It doesn’t give answers to the questions raised either, but intentionally skips it by resetting the world at the end.

Episode 6 is easily one of the best single episodes in anime that I watched. The background story, the world setting, and the shocking turn of events are all included in one episode, and it’s tear-jerking.

The voice acting of Ano and Ikura are right on the point. It’s surprising as they are not professional voice actors, and I’m expecting more work from them in the future.

I watched the streaming version, there’s an episode 00 at the beginning. With some information from the movie version, I skipped it and started with episode 1. After watching all the episodes, I think placing episode 00 at the beginning breaks the continuity of the story arrangement. Watching it after episode 16 will be a better experience.

Overall, this is a good anime worth rewatching. It should be more popular without previous movie versions and non-standard streaming schedules.

Other worth watching anime released this year

A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics
Funny comedy with interesting character design.
Too Many Losing Heroines!
Perfect production quality, and generally popular.
Train to the End of the World
Funny comedy with unexpected story.
Mayonaka Punch
Story about Youtuber with funny storyline. Good comparison to other original anime this year.
Tonbo!
Great story and introduction to golf.
Delicious in Dungeon
Great world setting, and generally popular.
Spice and Wolf MERCHANT MEETS THE WISE WOLF
Production quality is not as good as previous versions, but still a good adaption.
Dungeon People
Funny world setting and a touch of Yuri.
Egumi Legacy
A good story with crappy 3DCG animation.
Puniru Is a Cute Slime
Good production quality and cute Puniru.

Wish everyone a happy 2025!

Thoughts about Yurikuma Arashi

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 13:18:20 +0000

Just watched Yurikuma Arashi, this is my first experience with Ikuhara’s work. And I would like to record my first impression here.

Spoiler Alert

To put it simply, I just feel like watching a drama. Kinds of reminds me of Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai! from Mamoru Oshii.

The story starts with a special world setting. The typical high school setting with cartoonish bears, also a lot of background stories like fairy tales. The city background just looks like a dystopia, with high walls and construction machines. The cute bear characters just make the killing and eating of people look like it’s happening on a stage. But there are also well-drawn guns. The trial scenes seem to be happening in an inner world, but the characters still make appearances outside of the court. And there are definitely a lot of nude scenes and fan service, really good though. All these combined, make the plot just more confusing.

A lot of online reviews emphasize the symbolism and metaphors in the show. But I suggest immersing in the setting and feeling the show.

After episode 4, I finally have some clues about the story. Seemly important characters are killed early in the show. Only the main 3 characters are important to the main story. By the end, the formerly killed characters are making some kind of comeback, which makes the ‘drama’ feeling even stronger. Also surprised by Sumika’s comeback as Kumaria.

The end seems to me as a semi-bad ending. When Kureha becomes a bear and lives with Ginko in the bear world, it is a good ending for them. But Lulu and her brother’s comeback makes it feels like a dream ending. The element of change is definitely placed in the human world, but who ever knows the outcomes?

Occasionally humor is placed in the show, and I was surprised by some of the references.

The plot definitely has a lot about bullying and peer pressure. But not escaping from it makes the show somewhat depressing. I would say this is not typical Yuri although the word is repeatedly used in the show. Ikuhara’s style is really strong in this show, but doesn’t seem to be to my liking. I would like to check out Penguindrum next.

Build My First Blog

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 12:41:49 +0000

Blogging seems so old in 2024. Some might say it’s a dead thing from the Web 1.0 era. But after so many years of diving into the “Information Ocean”, I decided to build my first blog.

I’m not a good writer, I may just be an “ATTENTION-SEEKING MONSTER”. “Normal people don’t write dairy” as people say. But I have so many interests and want to share them. This blog might just be too technical. I’m not sure. But I will try to write something interesting.

Getting Started

I have many experiences setting up websites, youBBS, Discuz!, Misskey, Nextcloud, whatever. I even tried Next.js. But I know I have bad design sense. The final products look like plain HTML pages but are built with kilobytes of JavaScript and take seconds to load. I don’t want that.

I have generally good experience with Markdown, so I decided to use a static site generator that lets me write in Markdown. After a few web searches and YouTube videos, I landed on HUGO. It seems well-supported and feature-rich. So go on with the construction.

The comment system

Seems strange to think of comments before building the blog. But I over-engineer sometimes. I want a comment system that isn’t controlled by a third party. So a lot of options are out. Searching, I found Commento and its latest fork, Comentario. Just a docker-compose file and an SMTP service, I’ll have a self-hosted comment system.

Getting an SMTP service for my custom domain was harder than I thought. I’m using Amazon WorkMail, so setting Amazon SES will be as simple as it is. But no, sending emails with Amazon SES to other domains requires production access. For unspecified reasons, AWS just declined my request. I also tried just using SMTP service with Amazon WorkMail, it just ignores the alias and FROM field. So I have to search for other options.

SendGrid seems to be a good option. But the sign-up process asks for a company name, not a service for personal use, so continue with the search. Mailtrap offers a free service for personal projects, so I use it. The initial setup is easy, just some DNS records. It requires a domain verification process with the support team, which seems not usually deal with individual users and asks for company emails. But after a few emails, they just verified the domain.

Build the blog

Blogging with Hugo is easy. Open a git repository, set up a devcontainer and Hugo is ready. A theme is needed from the start, Hugo themes listed many themes. I chose a good-looking and well-maintained one, the hugo-theme-stack. Reading through the documentation, referencing the example site, and setting up the config file, the blog is ready.

Get everything ready

CloudFlare is a go-to for me. I bought the domain there, and put the comment system on the VPS and behind the CloudFlare proxy. Setting up the pages build and everything is ready.

Conclusion

The total effort for building the blog is just a few days, and most of the time is spent on getting an SMTP service. Now I need to write more.

Daily Software

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:40:09 +0000

Daily Software

Bluesky Frame Rate Converter

Great program to use AMD Fluid Motion Video to convert 24fps video to 60fps on the fly.

弹弹play

Anime forcus media player. Great for watching anime with danmuku fetched from various sources. A bit shady with its torrent download feature.

qBittorrent Enhanced Edition

A fork of qBittorrent, auto ban malicious peers. Great feature, even self compiled armhf version to use on Raspberry Pi.

yt-dlp

A fork of youtube-dl, with more features and active development. Great for downloading videos from various sites.

Crystal Dew World

Great tools for Windows. CrystalDiskInfo for disk health check, CrystalDiskMark for disk benchmark.

AOMEI

AOMEI Backupper and AOMEI Partition Assistant are great tools for backup and partition management. Seems too much ads on the website. Free version is good enough.

thilmera7

Windows system monitor tool.

Info Websites

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:40:09 +0000

Info Websites

Bangumi

Bangumi (a.k.a.Chobits), great site to track anime, manga, and drama. Also has good community and forum. Multiple URL to access, bgm.tv, bangumi.tv, chii.in.

DSN Now

NASA Deep Space Network live status.

Mapion

Japanese map site.

Short-wave.info

Shortwave radio schedule.

Engrish

Funny English translation fails.

foodNEXT

Taiwanese food blog. Great information.

DSCOVR:EPIC

Live Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera from DSCOVR satelite.

Himawari-8

Live Earth image from Himawari-8 satelite.

动漫花园

Torrent site for ACG contents.

Mikan Project

Torrent site for anime, good rss feature.

珍しい苗字

Rare Japanese surnames.

Moral Machine

Crowdsourced moral decisions for autonomous vehicles.

DATE

Decisive Action Training Environment from Australian Army. Has a lot of resources and scenarios.

COIAS

Crowdsourced asteroid search.

BULBCAM

Live stream of the Centennial Light Bulb, one of the longest-lasting light bulbs.

Fishcam

Live stream of a fish tank, the oldest camera site still in existence.

SKY-MAP

Astronomy map site.

366日の花個紋

Daily flower symbol design. Great for inspiration.

伝統色のいろは

Traditional Japanese color palette. Great for design inspiration.

Latest Earthquakes

Live earthquake map from USGS.

PubChem

Chemical database from NCBI.

Hymmnoserver

Ar tonelico Hymmnos language translation tool. Japanese version

动画巡礼

Community-powered interactive anime pilgrimage map.

IMPDB

The Internet Movie Plane Database

IMFDB

The Internet Movie Firearms Database

Does the Dog Die?

Crowdsourced emotional spoilers for movies, TV, books, and more.

乳首が見えるアニメ

Online Services

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:40:09 +0000

Services

Some services I’ve used and have good experience.

GreenCloud

Dirt cheap VPS provider. Although some outages and no refund policy.

Storj

Decentralized cloud storage. Seems good privacy and security. Cheap as $4/TB/month and egress at $7/TB. Offers S3 compatible API and speed seems good. Network status.

Amazon S3 Glacier storage

Cheap long-term storage. $0.99/TB/month for S3 Glacier Deep Archive. Retrieval fee is a bit high, needs advanced timing and requests are charged but good for long-term storage for really important backup.

Nebula Genomics

Whole genome sequencing. $249 kit will give you 30x depth whole genome sequencing. Seems good privacy and security. Offers raw data download and analysis. But built-in analytics seems not so powerful and requires subscription.

Recommended Blogs

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:40:09 +0000

Blogs

方吉君速報-我笑故我在

Almost daily blog of popular tweets translated into Chinese. Great for daily relax. Although ocassionally translation errors.

Putting the “You” in CPU

Great essay on how programs work on modern systems.

Wired Sound

Lain Fan site. Great cyberpunk design.

秘密花园

Historical Chinese blog since 1999.

猫骨匣

Site remembering SF author Liu Wenyang.

NAZOrip

NAZOrip group blog.

星明天文台

Chinese amateur Observatory.

Software Development

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:40:09 +0000

Software Development

Notepad++

Free and lightweight text editor for Windows. Feature-rich and supports many programming languages.

Visual Studio Code

Go-to code editor for more serious projects. Great plugin support but can be a bit heavy on resources.

Poetry

Python dependency management and packaging tool. Great to keep Python dependencies managed and isolated.

Great starting guide.

Chocolatey

Windows package manager. Install and update software with a single command.

A5:SQL Mk-2

Free SQL editor for Windows. Supports multiple databases and has a lot of features.

DB Browser for SQLite

Free and open-source SQLite database manager. Great for viewing and editing SQLite databases.

NERTON

Visualizer for neural network models.

PortQuiz

Outbound port tester.

MAS

Microsoft Activation Scripts.

`1`	`irm https://get.activated.win \| iex`

UUP dump

Get Windows ISO from UUP.

Tool websites

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 05:40:09 +0000

Tool websites

midi.city

Online MIDI synthesizer.

squoosh

Online image compression tool.

CyberChef

Tool to convert, analyze, and decrypt data. Great for quick data manipulation.

Regex101

Tool to test and debug regular expressions. Also has a quick reference and explanation.

Compiler Explorer

Tool to see how code is compiled. Supports many languages and compilers.

神奇海螺试验场

Funny and interesting web tools.

重編國語辭典修訂本

Online Chinese dictionary. Great for looking up Chinese words.

中文譯音轉換系統

Chinese phonetic conversion system. Great for converting Chinese words to phonetic symbols.

地圖數位典藏整合查詢系統

Historical map system. Although a lot of maps are behind login.

机械设计云平台

Chinese mechanical design online calculator.

Hi!Penpal!

Penpal site. Various language related tools.

ADS-B Exchange

ADS-B flight tracking site.

Kemono Friends Logo Generator

拼音转写

Convert Chinese Pinyin to International Phonetic Alphabet.

Visual6502

Visual Transistor-level Simulation of the MOS6502, ARM1, and Motorola6800.

BLAST

Online Basic Local Alignment Search Tool.

FotoForensics

Digital photo analysis tool.

UFO Test

Test monitor refresh rate and other display features.

Neutrino

AI Singing Voice Synthesis.

Vocal Remover

Remove vocals from music.

trace.moe

Anime scene search.

HYSPLIT

Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model. For tracking air movement.

ProTox

Predicting the toxicity of chemicals.

漢字古今中外讀音查詢

Chinese character phonetic search. Also as Android app.

Sinsy

Online singing voice synthesis.

IOBIO

Interactive online DNA sequence analysis.

About Site

Tue, 29 Oct 2024 03:25:17 +0000

This is my personal blog site built with Hugo. I use it to share my thoughts, projects, and experiences. I’m a tech enthusiast with interests in a lot of things. Expect mixings of topics in this blog.

Comment system

I just don’t like an external comment system to decide what I can speak on my own site. So I decided to self-host a Comentario instance. All comments are stored in my own database and moderated by me.

About me

Mon, 28 Oct 2024 07:40:00 +0000

Having fun tweaking things.

Machine learning
Home networking
3D printing
Embedded systems
Crypto and Web3
Fediverse

And more…

Highlight Projects

Contact 📫

[email protected]" >[email protected]

@[email protected]

Stats 📊

Search

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

HighDoping's Blog

Best Anime of 2025

The Lineup

The Rise of Generative AI in Anime

Amendment to the last blog about VTubers

Thoughts about VTuber

The beginning

Great success without a clear definition

The streamer era

Controversy

Future look

VTuber recommendation

Some SSH Commands

Pubkey Authentication

Tunneling

Share a port to remote machine

Bind a remote port to local

Use remote as a Internet proxy

ProxyJump

First Impressions About Mac Mini

First impression

The Appearance

User Experience

AI Workload

RAM and Storage

Competition

Conclusion

Best Anime of 2024: DDDD

The best anime

Other worth watching anime released this year

Wish everyone a happy 2025!

Thoughts about Yurikuma Arashi

Spoiler Alert

Build My First Blog

Getting Started

The comment system

Build the blog

Get everything ready

Conclusion

Daily Software

Daily Software

Info Websites

Info Websites

Online Services

Services

Recommended Blogs

Blogs

Software Development

Software Development

Tool websites

Tool websites

About Site

Comment system

About me

Highlight Projects

Contact 📫

Stats 📊

Archives

Search