Nosferatu (1922):  This is one of the earliest vampire movies, if not the first.  Being from the silent movie era, there are some aspects that might seem cheesy to a modern audience, but this film is still genuinely creepy.  Count Orlok (portrayed by Max Schreck) is a monstrous character, more a daemonic predator than a well-dressed gentleman of class.  Wherever he goes, he is accompanied by rats and pestilence.  He does not turn his victims to vampires, but kills them outright.

Some elements which today would be considered cliche, even comedic, appear here with the force of originality;  it's hard not to cringe when Orlok rises from his coffin.  One of the more memorable scenes was Orlok walking through a town, carrying his coffin lightly under his arm like so much baggage, an almost absurd juxtaposition of the mundane and the eldritch.

There are technical issues here (I guess night scenes could not be shot at night with 1920's film technology), but the cinematography is remarkable for the era, especially in the use of shadow.

Here's a picture of the Count, to trouble your dreams.




Dracula (1931):  This is acclaimed as a classic, but I have no idea why.  This movie is boring.  The pacing (and dialogue) are slow, the acting is uninspired, and the overall effect is about as frightening as a head of cabbage.  Bela Lugosi's Dracula isn't even interesting enough to be a potential target for parody; but at least van Helsing occasionally slips into mad-scientist territory.

Even by 1930's standards, the special effects are pathetic.  The bat is obviously being dangled from a fishing pole or somesuch (at least the wire wasn't obvious), Dracula passing intangibly through a giant spider web is implied by cutting away, and then back again (better to have left the scene out), and too much is done off-screen.  Dracula bites someone?  Off-screen.  Dracula gets staked?  Off-screen.  Dracula turns into a wolf?  We have to be told about it, second hand.  Forget about seeing the transformation, we don't even get to see stock-footage of a wolf running away!   When the subject of werewolves came up, Nosferatu at least provided a shot of some sort of wild dog.

Text dump incoming!  I had yesterday off, so besides finishing up a couple series, I also ran an initial sweep over the new lineup (as available on Crunchyroll). Series I like (for the moment) are coded in blue, ones I particularly disliked in red.
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From backlog:

Spice & Wolf (finished):  I was going to unsubscribe from Funimation after watching this; everything else in my queue has already appeared on Crunchyroll.  But you know?  I think I want to watch this again.  I'll save my review until after the second pass.

Deadman Wonderland (finished):  I loved the premise:  A student is convicted of a crime he didn't commit, and is sentenced to incarceration in a prison theme-park, where inmates are employed in life-threatening tourist attractions.  But, although the series as a whole was entertaining enough, the characterization and plot weren't strong enough to make this recommendable.  Maybe you could watch this if you're feeling gore-deprived between seasons of Attack on Titan.
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From last season:

Gamers! (season 1 finished):  I thought the Love Polygon schtick was somewhat overused by the second half, but this series is still a lot of fun.  I'm shipping Amano and Hoshinomori. desu desu

Classroom of the Elite (season 1 finished):  I liked the series that this almost was, but I wanted 10% less fanservice, and 15% more political backstabbing.

My Hero Academia (season finished):  This series is awesome on every level.

Dragon Ball Super (continuing):  What will happen when Goku runs out of colors to turn into?  Stay tuned!
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Initial impressions from the new season:

Black Clover (1-episode drop):  Asta (Naruto) wants to become the Wizard King (Hokage) but he has no magic powers (ninjutsu), while his friend Yuno (Sasuke) is a natural prodigy.  Plagiarism, much?  Still, there is some originality here: Asta is more irritating than Naruto ever was.

Sengoku Night Blood (2-minute drop): After one minute, I guessed that this was based on an otome game.  I was going to give it a chance anyway, but then saw "Idea Factory" in the production credits.

Juni taisen: Zodiac War (continuing):  This started out okay.  I'll give it a couple episodes.

Love is Like a Cocktail (1-episode drop):  Not to my taste.

Food Wars (continuing into third season):  I'll take a double order.

Urahara (8-minute drop): I know they were aiming for a unique style, but the wonky perspective in the backgrounds gave me a headache, and those first eight minutes were boring.

Konohana Kitan (continuing):   Slice-of-life shows are hit-or-miss with me, but this is starting out cute enough, and hasn't raised any red flags yet.

Tsukipro: The Animation (4-minute drop):  Boy-band anime.

Rainy Cocoa (1-episode drop):  Meh.

King's Game (1-episode drop):  A horror series needs a good lead-in, and a gradual build-up of tension.  Abruptly jumping into the drama--manufactured drama, in this case--is a rookie mistake.  If I don't care about the characters, it isn't going to matter to me when they get splattered all over the landscape.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie (continuing):  When she walked into her apartment, and said "tadaima" to an empty room, I felt a twinge.

Dies Irae (1-episode drop):  ...I have no idea what that was supposed to be.  Perhaps playing the VN is a prerequisite to understanding this, because it felt like I had dropped in on the middle of a long-running series.

Vanishing Line (continuing?):  Hmm.  We'll see.

Code: Realize ~Guardian of Rebirth~ (1-episode drop):  I only watch reverse-harem series when I like the protagonist, and this particular tragic heroine was too Mary Sue for my liking.

Twocar (continuing):  ...sidecar racing?  Sure, I'll give it a try.

Blend-S (continuing?): I thought I was going to hate this, but then I started laughing.  I doubt I'll stick with it, but it might be okay for a bit.

Anime-Gataris (1-episode drop): This is a show about an anime club.  It didn't start out too bad, but in the preview, they ask the viewer not to drop the series after the first episode.  So naturally I dropped it.  I'm contrary that way.

A Sister's All You Need (4-minute drop):  Four minutes was too much, and now I can't unwatch it.  Eww.

When a bank teller or grocer asks me if I have any plans for the evening or weekend, I find myself flailing for a response. "I'm going to play video games, or maybe watch some anime" isn't exactly something I could say to a normie, but it's not like I can lie extemporaneously, either.  I either say "nothing much", or something completely random about the weather.  Even when a social interaction goes smoothly, I often still feel like an idiot afterward, and end up replaying it multiple times to figure out what I might have said wrong.

The last trip to the grocery store, the guy asked about my weekend plans, and I said "pickling" (the vinegar, spices, and large quantity of garlic served as my alibi).  It only occurred to me later that because this is Canada's Thanksgiving long-weekend, he would have expected an answer that involved some sort of family gathering, and that it was really quite odd that I was spending my time processing vegetables, instead.

I wish they would just let me finish the transaction and go home.  My life isn't that interesting, really.

Haps:  Eight quarts of pickled carrots.

Played through Diablo yet again, and got a cramp in my mousing hand.  Went with a Rogue this time.  This is one of those games I keep coming back to.

but did you use the tracking???

I didn't need to adjust the tracking, which is fortunate, since then I would have had to find the remote.

Frank Herbert - The Dosadi Experiment:  I wasn't paying enough attention when I picked this up, and it turns out to have been the sequel to a book I hadn't read.  Notwithstanding that, reading this wasn't really worth my time.

The major interesting ideas here are rehashed from Dune.  Dosadi is an extremely inhospitable planet, and after a number of generations, the colonists placed there have developed extraordinary survival talents (also see: Arrakis, Salusa Secundus), and, for some reason, an almost preternatural ability to read other people's mental state (also see: Bene Gesserit).  One of the alien races involved had a legal system that seemed quite interesting, but unfortunately Herbert didn't expound upon it adequately.  I normally enjoy figuring things out with incomplete information, but here I was left with more questions than answers.

It might be easy to attribute my confusion to having not read the first book (Whipping Star), but Dosadi didn't seem very well constructed to begin with.  Although the middle of the book held my interest, by the end, the roles and motivations of the main characters were unclear, and the whole thing seemed rather muddled.

I think I need to be more careful about checking reviews for anything Herbert wrote in the second half of his career.  (Dune is one of my favorite books, but the last two or three books in the Dune series were pretty bad.)

Valkyria Chronicles 3:

Kurt Irving graduated from the military academy at the top of his class, and after leading the troops under his command to victory in his first two battles, his future looked bright.  But after unknowingly witnessing a suspicious transaction between a general and a civilian (spy?), he finds himself suddenly transferred to Squad 422 (The Nameless), a small unit populated by criminals and other expendables.

He is not welcomed.  The first squadmate he encounters almost kills him, half the team won't acknowledge him as leader (even though he's the ranking officer), and the rest ignore him completely. 

The plotline is parallel to VC1; as the narrator explains what the main Gallian forces are doing, I keep thinking to myself, "Hey, I was there for that!"  It looks like the writing is going to be more mature than VC2 (no "anime highschool", yet), but I'm a little concerned about the story telegraphing its punches.  (There's a girl with some silver in her hair and the "Mysterious Body" potential.  I hope I'm not supposed to be surprised at her true nature when it is inevitably revealed.)

The translation is fairly good (for being fan-made), although there are some technical issues, such as misaligned text. The translation project is clearly incomplete; I'm hoping that all of the main story was translated, but some of the ancillary material (newspaper articles and such) is still in Japanese.  I can cope with a little katakana here and there, but I hope I don't have to break out the dictionary later on.

My major complaint (aside from the lack of an official translation), carries over from VC2:  This is a PSP game.  The maps are still segmented into small chunks, and the AI is still as dumb as a concrete post.  As much as I love the VC style of gameplay, it feels wasted on a handheld.

P.S.  In case you're wondering, yes, I imported a physical copy.

Fate/Grand Order:  I've now drawn a sixth Robin Hood.  This is starting to get weird.
The translation for chapter two is rather better than chapter one. The punctuation is notably erratic, but I can at least blame that on a rushed editing job, rather than gross incompetence.  It's funny how the improved translation makes the writing seem better, when it really isn't.
I haven't drawn any good sabers yet, and I still only have two 4-star servants.

Current mains:
Rider:  Martha (4*)
Lancer: Cu Chulainn (3*)
Assassin: Jing Ke (3*)
Berserker: Tamamo Cat (4*)
Archer: Robin Hood (3*) (yeah, I know, but he's still the best archer I've got)
Caster: Medea (3*)
Saber:  Accepting applications.

To be honest, I do have two 3* sabers in my deck, but the character art for Julius Caesar is just... weird, and, given his historical reputation, there's no way I would ever field Gilles de Rais.  (Okay, Medea was a pretty nasty person, too, but at least she's cute).