(Protect the Wall t-shirt on sale at the NeatoShop)

Every few months, I make anime viewing recommmendations and invite Neatorama readers to suggest their own and discuss any anime topics they want. Let's do it again!

The last time that I made anime recommendations, Aldnoah Zero rested at the top of the post. You know what? It does again! It's an extraordinary, soaring drama of love, war, courage, and treachery. Slaine Troyard--the man in the red coat--is the most fascinating character I've encountered in anime. After 24 episodes, the series is now complete and is now easily one of my three favorites.

(Photo: Stephanie Burdo)

This magnificent cosplay by an unknown fan at Star Wars Celebration this past weekend offers the perfect trap. From the bridge of the flagship Home One, the Admiral conducts the attack on the second Death Star. His uniform is now more suited for a hot summer on Endor.

Hopefully he will now be more welcome at Ole Miss.

-via reddit

UPDATE 4/20/15: The name of the cosplayer is Jenny Newman. Thanks, @justJENN!

(Photo: The Community-Pop Culture Group)

Dr. Jackson Crawford of UCLA is a scholar of Scandianvian studies and Old Norse literature. He has faithfully restored the Star Wars saga from its original form before George Lucas set to work on it. Star Wars began not as a movie trilogy, but an Old Norse saga composed a thousand years ago. You can find the entire document here. Skip to chapter 17 to read the beginning of what fans refer to as Episode IV. It includes this introduction of the legendary Viking warriors Han Solo and Chewbacca:

Hani had another great treasure, and that was his ship, which he had gotten when he won a swimming race against Landó Kalrissiansson at Kessel Island. This ship was called the Thousand Year Falcon; it was the fastest of ships.

A Frisian man accompanied Hólmgöngu-Hani; he was named Tsiubakka. He was the hairiest of men and very big, he had blackish-brown hair and was rather chubby-faced and broad across the brows. Tsiubakka did not know how to speak Norse, but he understood what men said, and Hani spoke Frisian.

-via Marginal Revolution

"There's coffee in that nebula"... ehm, I mean... in that #Dragon. pic.twitter.com/9MYrqIOXnI

— Sam Cristoforetti (@AstroSamantha) April 17, 2015

Is there any more appropriate place to wear a Star Trek uniform than in outer space? That couldn’t have been easy, considering the limitations on how many belongings crew members are allowed to bring to the ISS. This is astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, an Italian engineer from the European Space Agency (ESA) aboard the space station. For this picture, though, she is Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager.

She’s pointing to the SpaceX Dragon capsule that was delivering supplies to the ISS Friday, and her text is referring to the coveted espresso machine aboard. They call it the ISSpresso. That is one necessary delivery for an Italian astronaut! -via Uproxx

Kevin Spacey is constantly reinventing himself as an actor, tackling new roles with a zeal that proves he's in it for more than just the money- he has a need to succeed that stems from his dark family history.

According to Spacey's older brother Randall Fowler (who also happens to be a Rod Stewart impersonator) he and Kevin grew up under constant threat of assault from their American Nazi father Thomas Geoffrey Fowler.

Thomas allegedly physically and sexually abused Randall but left Kevin alone, and the emotional damage caused Kevin to cut off all ties with his father and take his mother's maiden name of Spacey.

This story first broke ten years ago, shortly after Randall was interviewed by Sharon Churcher and revealed details of his family's tragic history that were previously thought to be nothing but idle gossip.

I'm not sure why this story is making the rounds again but if you haven't heard Spacey's dark backstory it's news to you!

-Via Moviepilot

(Photo: David Ngo)

Bernadette Bentley is an actress and a master of cosplay. Most recently, she attended WonderCon in Anaheim, California. She does a great job of portraying the titular character from Xena: Warrior Princess, in part because she looks a lot like the Lucy Lawless, the actress who played Xena. 

The future worlds brought to life by our favorite sci-fi franchises are generally either bright and technologically advanced or dark and apocalyptic, and yet somehow Futurama manages to be both.

There are bright elements, like the overabundance of owls on the streets of New New York, and futuristic elements, like signs written in seemingly alien languages and drunken robots like Bender. The dark and apocalyptic? Poplers, Slurm and sewer mutants, just to name a few.

(YouTube Link)

Simply watching Futurama won't help you discover all the secrets hidden in every episode, you have to do some digging and go behind the scenes of the show to discover all the mysteries hidden in plain sight.

Or you can watch this informative video created by Top10Memes and discover a thing or ten about the fantastic world of Futurama in about eight minutes!

-Via GeekTyrant

The cape, the loose collar, the ‘stache. It must be 1980! And Lando Calrissian is ready to welcome you to Cloud City. This young man’s picture is from a collection of Star Wars Celebration cosplay pictures at ComingSoon.com. There are 75 photos. Star Wars Celebration Continues through Sunday at the Anaheim Convention center.

-via reddit

Whenever a trailer for an upcoming movie is released online, especially if it's part of a geeky franchise, the Internet's populace posts a response.

Sometimes it's a tweet or two sharing thoughts about the trailer, sometimes it's a response video which will inexplicably get thousands of views, but whatever the method of delivery the responses are typically chock full of funny.

(Image Link)

The online community has gone gaga over the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, and as you'd expect those who surf the interwebs have had plenty of hilarious responses to the trailer, with plenty more to come.

(Image Link)

See The Internet's Funniest Reactions To The New Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer here

(YouTube link)

Father Roderick Vonhögen is a huge Star Wars fan. He wrote a book called Geekpriest, and has a podcast. Here, he records his reaction while watching the new teaser trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens. It’s two minutes of pure joy and excitement. -via Geeks Are Sexy

We’ve seen some pretty unusual things that pop up in medieval religious manuscripts. Now it appears that one features a certain Jedi master from long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away. Julian Harrison of Medieval Manuscripts told NPR:

"The Yoda image comes from a 14th-century manuscript known as the Smithfield Decretals," Harrison said, after we reached out to the British Library.

"I'd love to say that it really was Yoda, or was drawn by a medieval time traveler," Harrison continued. "It's actually an illustration to the biblical story of Samson — the artist clearly had a vivid imagination!"

The monks who spent their lives hand-copying books can be forgiven for letting their creative juices flow, but none of them would have ever guessed that their art would be so entertaining to us in the 21st century. Read more about the 14th-century Yoda at NPR. -via Daily of the Day

With over 170 episodes, it's understandable that some fans haven't seen all the episodes of Seinfeld no matter how many times they've been syndicated since their original air date. If you've never seen "The Puerto Rican Day" though, you might have missed it due to censorship. In fact, due to complaints about negative portrayals of Puerto Ricans and a burning Puerto Rican flag, the episode was banned completely between its original air date in 1999 and 2002. Even now though, some stations who syndicate the show won't touch it.

And that Seinfeld episode is only one of 27 episodes from popular TV shows that were banned temporarily for one reason or another. Perhaps the strangest of all was the Peppa Pig episode that shows kids that spiders are our friends. It was banned in Australia because the deadly spiders there are most certainly not your friend.

(Video Link)

George Takei played Lt. Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek television series. He recently sat down with Neil deGrasse Tyson, a celebrity physicist and host of the Star Talk radio show. In their conversation, Takei described his audition for Star Trek and meeting Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the show, for the first time. He shares a funny story about how he responded when Roddenberry mispronounced his name.

-via Blastr

Although the rule has not always been enforced, in general, Jedi aren't supposed to be married. They're supposed to live celibate lives of contemplation and service. This came as dismal news to 7-year old Colin Gilpatric. He wants to become a Jedi, but he'd also like to get married and have kids.

So Colin wrote to George Lucas and asked him to alter the Star Wars universe so that Jedi can get married. Lucas responded:

(YouTube link)

When we saw the first trailer for Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, everyone was amazed by the new droid design. We all assumed it was some sort of CGI, but today, he appeared in the flesh, so to speak. Real people got a close-up look at the droid named BB-8 at Star Wars Celebration going on this week in Anaheim, as he was unveiled during a panel discussion with JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy. R2D2 was there, too, and had a few words to say to the newer droid.