It occasionally happens that I find myself sucked into YouTube, hopelessly lost down multiple rabbit trails wasting hours at a time. There is no longer a need for TV. Somehow, this past weekend I landed on episode one of Saiunkoku Monogatari. Back in the day, anime was cool [to me], but the last shows I remember watching are Vampire Hunter D and Fist of the NorthStar, so that kinda gives you an idea for how long ago that was.

Between Friday and Saturday nights no less than five hours were lost watching the first 17 of 39 episods of Saiunkoku Monogatari. It has a suprisingly complex plot and fantastic character design that caught me off guard – so when I got to episode 17 and realized there were no more fan subs my heart sank a little. Hopefully, more are in the works.

Back to YouTube…since I couldn’t get my Saiunkoku Monogatari fix I tried searching for my favorite cartoon of all time – StarBlazers. I can’t even remember how old I was when it was on TV, maybe five or six, so long ago I can hardly place that point in my life. Since then, I have run into a total of two people who remember this series and I have learned that allusions to Captain Avatar, Nova, or Wildstar are usually followed by a blank look or an uncomfortable silence in the conversation. To my surprise there is a plethora of episodes to be found there. Hooray!!!

Come on, how great is a show where the ship’s doctor is always wasted and the starship is equipped with its own weapon of planetary annihilation – the Wave Motion Gun? YouTube, is there anything you can’t do?