In the interest of getting a title that is easy to say (or spell), because a title that buyers can't convey to bookstores is of no use whatsoever in generating sales, there's some helpful things to keep in mind.

See, I knew I should have gotten up last night to write this while I was thinking about it. Totally can't remember the generic translated titles I was worried about. Although I strongly suspect most of them were love stories, because it's like Kare Kano. The translation of Kareshi to Kanojo no Jijou is just His and Her Circumstances, which is about as bad as Tokyo Shonen Shoujo for generic, unless the story happens to take place in Kyoto (Osaka? somewhere not Tokyo, at any rate) like Love Com.

Definitely not because a show is new and shiny, because I've never been an early adopter for these things. No midnight first showings for me, and I'm not the guy buying stuff on release date, unless it happened to be conveniently something that I wanted to see already and handily available when I went shopping. I may preorder, but it comes via media mail usually, so it's weeks after release date by the time I get it in my hands, so it's not new and shiny for anyone else.

It's not usually the plot, because I couldn't tell you what's going on in almost all the shows I watch. Not coherently, at least. Not in the sense that I have any idea what the whole overarching plot is. I can tell you about events that caught my attention, and that's about it.

Character design is important, but I don't watch just because the cast is populated by good looking guys, although that has a factor in where it stands in the queue once I've acquired the show to watch. On the other hand, Neo Angelique Abyss is always getting bumped by One Piece, so there's other more important things to consider.

Mascot characters are important. Well, they stick in my head more than a lot of human characters. Was watching a bunch of magical girl OPs and Ruby-chan's name came to mind a lot faster than Meimi or Seira or Asuka jr. Even Herb was higher priority in my memory than ... er, the main guy whose name has still not surfaced, but that's because of a vague idea that Herb has Ishida Akira's voice, although I'm not quite sure why I think that.

Watching a few shows online, via Crunchyroll and Hulu. iTunes had dubbed Bleach, so that was a waste of money. Not that many shows, despite the vast assortment available now. No incentive if I already own them on DVD, and no incentive if I wouldn't be watching that show otherwise. So I've seen bits of Natsume Yuujin Cho, because I quite like the manga, plus Inoue Kazuhiko does Nyanko-sensei's voice. And Katekyo Hitman Reborn, because I quite like Hibird, and Kondo Takashi does Hibari. Bits of Bleach, because I like the manga, even if I am currently quite confused about how death is meant to work there, and Ulquiorra has Namikawa Daisuke's voice. Both those reasons are strong contenders for why I preordered Kimi ni Todoke also.

So this guy without glasses says "Captain Jaime" correcting me, sort of thing, and I'm like "OK, Captain Jaime. Do you have my paper?" Turnred out he did. I was half expecting that he'd lost it, actually. And I agreed to sign his reciprocally. No clue whatsoever what these papers actually were, but I was comparing mine with his prior to signing, and it seems like our respective doctors filled out totally different sections. Not in the sense of 'this section if you're a guy, and this section for your OB/Gyn' but his had grip strength and all sorts of stuff and mine had eyesight, etc. (These were computer printouts, so the blank parts were scrunched up empty and the filled out bits took up more room, so it was easy to see that it was different bits if you looked at what was filled out.) And all on one piece of paper, with lots of abbreviations, so I was going 'so what's OB or BP (or whatever the heck abbreviations were on there)' but my brain was getting sidetracked, thinking "Wait, what kind of Captain?"

It was difficult in many ways, because she was a junk food junkie who drank a lot of diet coke. Total reversal of diet. But at least she already knew how to cook, so she wasn't stuck just eating fruit and raw vegetables while learning how to cook. Because part of her premise was that Homo erectus knew how to cook, so she was allowed to cook under her rules.

And then she tried total vegetarian food, partly because she was working at a vegetarian cafe, partly because the meats she had available were all modern in treatment, hormones, drugs, etc. Even the ones which hadn't been treated had been exposed simply by living in America.

Which got me thinking. It's the capitalism, partly, that's responsible. Because look, you get a product that sells, and you think, wow, if only I could sell it to more people, I'd make more money. Maybe not you, but certainly the guy who takes over your business. But the shelf life makes it difficult to spread it further, so some other person thinks, hey, what if we add some emulsifiers or some antioxidants or whatever so that we can spread it further without losing sales time to travel time. So that happens. And then demand outstrips supply, so someone else says, what if you substitute these more easily obtained ingredients for those which take longer to grow, you could make more product, and that happens, but the original recipe has long since been changed out of existence. Except it's all listed as 'New and Improved Formula' or not mentioned at all except maybe to the FDA, which doesn't care as long as it's not actually poisonous.

Same for cows and eggs and whatnot, except that it's hormones to increase size or production. Fertilizers too. Anything to keep supply up to demand to ultimately make money.

I don't know what they do in foreign parts. France and Italy probably don't do all that hormones and fertilizer because they're known for regional produce, so they've got no incentive to spread it. No point in bringing people there if they can get the same thing somewhere else. You must go to ____ to get XXX or YYY. Available nowhere else in the world.

The actual reasons for you looking suspicious don't really matter to the situation, but it's usually got to do with character development, so it's going to vary depending on who wrote the story.

But it always drives me nuts, because it happens all the time, and it's always the non-suspicious looking person who did it, except nobody ever believes you when you say it. (Well, ok, maybe your actual friends believe you, but they've got no pull with authority, so it doesn't matter.) Because usually the other person is nowhere to be found. So you're the one who gets hauled into custody, because innocent until proven guilty doesn't apply in those cases where they've still got to hold you safe until trial.

I remember some science fiction book where the justice system worked on the theory of 'guilty until proven innocent' but I can't remember whether anyone worked hard to prove the arrestees' innocence. Can't remember what book it was either, but it was one of those where it was someone from our world running into trouble with aliens. Lots of those around.

Because, darn it, I was reading Clamp Psychic Investigators 1, and that young Takamura got accused of setting the lake on fire just because he was there, and right after that, I was reading Harukanaru 7, I think it was, and Shimon was accused of hurting that kid just because he's blond, so it just fed me up. Aargh.

Plus there's all those darn idiots in mystery stories who pick up the weapon that was just used, for whatever reason, right before authority shows up, and all those other idiots who try to cover up for the other person that they think did it because they saw them leaving the scene just before they came by. Double aargh. Bad enough that you look suspicious in general without compounding it.

So, at the Academy, when they're doing training exercises, they get a sample bridge crew and they're allowed to switch chairs at will, only whatever problem comes up, whoever's in that chair at that time has to handle it. And the problems come up at random, so nobody knows whether it's going to be a distress call in foreign, or a sudden attack, or the steering going all whacko, or what. So the Kirk-oid guy keeps hogging the command chair, and even though people bump him, he bumps them right back a couple of minutes later.

I think my dream was focused on the other guy, the kid genius, except I'm really bad with faces, and everybody was wearing pretty much the same color outfit, so it could have been either of them. Somebody had been studying their butt off for the past few years, once they got incentive, and accelerated himself through regular school into Star Fleet Academy. Probably wasn't Kirk-oid, since the neighborhood surroundings weren't at all farm or plain like, just a bunch of houses and stuff. Unless my subconscious doesn't do farm backgrounds, and substituted normal.

In any case, Kirk-oid guy gets up to take a bit of a walk around to see what everyone else is doing, and in the meantime, the other guy, his big rival, plops down in the command chair, so when Kirk-oid gets back, he has to take the other guy's place. And that other guy doesn't have much chance to savor the command chair when the lady who was in the Chekov seat demands he change with her. I'm not sure what species she was. Got one of those big ridgy foreheads, so Klingon? But one of the pale Klingons. My brain thought Cardassian for a bit, but ... could be hapa, I suppose.

There's some girl who was stuck at the worst seat on the bridge, whatever it is. She doesn't dare bump anyone lest they be mean to her later, and nobody's going to bump her because it's a junk seat. Not sure what it was, but it's got to be one of those people who doesn't get much screen time and no lines either.

So, Lord Blackwood. I haven't been able to work out why he's a Lord. I mean, his dad said he was conceived during a ceremony, so I'm assuming that a) she wasn't his wife, and b) unless she was married to a different lord, he was illegitimate and wouldn't have a title. But if b), then how did his dad know he was his son? And if a), he must have known who his dad was, and it wouldn't have been a secret to be deduced by ear similarity. Although it must have been an open secret in the society, because clearly he definitely knew who his dad was.

And corpse worms. How long does it take for worms to infest a corpse? I'm guessing longer than 10 - 12 hours, which is how long they figured that guy had been dead, and less than that for the time he was in the coffin. Where exactly do corpse worms come from anyway? If they're in the dirt, I'm sure people would notice them when they're digging graves. If they have to develop from whatever insect lays eggs in corpses when they find them, there's no way they'd be all wiggly in the time span.

It is a bit odd for Sherlock to be so hostile to Mary Morstan just because Watson likes her. And assuming that they'll never work together just because he's off and married is totally non-canon. That's gratuitous gayosity right there, so someone was definitely in a slashy frame of mind when the movie was being made, and it's not just fangirling. (Which is not to say that the gayness is not canon, because I swear there's some bits in the original which look totally gay to me.) He wouldn't go around saying that she dumped her old fiance unless there was some logical reason for it, canonically, so that was just plain stupid.

I'm not too sure about this Irene Adler as an action hero sort of thing. Clever, yes, cross dressing, yes, but explosives? working for Moriarty? I'm assuming this would be after A Scandal in Bohemia, since her and Sherlock had a prior acquaintance, so poor Mr. Norton has gotten himself killed off screen, since she was a widow, and so there would have had to be another unchronicled case or two where they could have met again. So it's entirely possible she ended up stuck for money one way or the other, but somehow it doesn't feel quite right.

And I'm still wondering about the French business, but that doesn't matter too much. Probably got some way of telling Caucasians from other Caucasians by their clothing or stance or whatever. And also wondering how Irene and Watson found him in that place where he was trying out the ceremony. Then again, the police did too, so maybe it was just the attic of their regular house.

Take Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Most of the merchandising is taken up by Tsuna and the big 6, with some bits for the rest of the cast, which is probably just as well, because I've been limiting myself to Hibird, Hibari (preferably with Hibird, but sometimes by himself), and Dino. Because Hibird and Hibari stuff sells out pretty quickly, so usually it's out of stock by the time I find out about it (darn Hibird blanket...), and there's not much with Dino, but there's a fighting chance that it'll still be around when I find out about it.

Or Naruto. There's tons of merchandising, but all I'm buying is Kakashi shirts and Iruka pins, largely because that's about all I can put up with. OK, I'd buy an Iruka shirt if I saw one, and it didn't have a whole bunch of other people on it. Because it's got to be an Iruka shirt, and not 'a cast shirt including Iruka, amongst others' as such. Oh, and keychains, except I swear I bought one and I can't find it, so evidently there's a bit of ninja quality to those.