Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by Spirit)

When you think about it, Code Geass really isn’t all that different from your run-of-the-mill harem show in what it sets out to do. It tries to cover it up, but at its core, it’s shameless otaku wish fulfillment.

For starters, let’s examine Lelouch’s qualities. He’s a lot like you!!

• Not very athletic, weak
• Does “nerdy” things such as read books (light novels) and play chess (computer games)
• Has a grudge against society
• Parents disapprove of his actions
• Can only speak his mind when he’s completely and totally anonymous
• Has a sister complex

Now let’s take a look at what he has and the things that happen to him.

• Has a face that is not totally hideous
• Gets the power to force his will on people unconditionally
• Has a harem of beautiful women (complete with moe moe lolis and sexy onee-sans)
• Has an army of followers that will trust him no matter what
• Gets to pilot giant robots
• Is able to inspire fear in the hearts of the people he hates

Clearly the reason why Geass is so popular among the otaku is because they can relate to Lelouch and and enjoy living out their fantasies through him.

Well would you look at that

May need to ctrl+f5 for things to work

I’ve mostly gotten over this, but to some degree, my point of reference for things is still the 1990s. For instance, when someone says “10 years ago” my mind might think of the 1980s for a flash, but then it’ll jump back to reality and realize that 10 years ago was actually 1998… am I getting old?

Zettai Karen Children, with its so-90s-it-could-kill-a-man art style really rubs it in my face that I will be all of 20 years old in a month. Yes, 20 years old isn’t that old, but considering shows that look like this were made something like 20 years ago, I just can’t help but feel like an old fart already. I got into anime in 1999, near the turn of the century, but given what I had available to me, lots of what I watched came from the early to mid 90s. Zettai Karen Children does a good job in reminding me of those days when I was 11 years old and browsing sites like this (I can’t believe that’s still online.)

I can understand shows like Pokemon retaining their 90s aesthetic since it’d be weird to just change the art style, but something totally new like Zettai Karen Children having 90s art is just MEAN.

Original Post

Looking back through the archives, I noticed that I hadn’t even so much as touched upon the issue that is Rosario + Vampire. To atone for this grievous sin, here is a comic which more or less sums up my feelings on the upcoming sequel. I have nothing against fanservice shows, but R+V is a pretty good example of how not to do one. It does get points for Shuuichi Ikeda, though. As far as this comic goes, I’m pretty happy with how the script turned out, and I will admit I was partially influenced by Kaiji when I wrote the punchline. The art is fine– I’m happy with panels 1 and 2, but panel 3 is all too rushed. It looked great in messy sketch form, but not so much when I cleaned it up.

The Ascii Weekly article from a few weeks ago gave the site some pretty decent exposure. I got about 600 more page views that usual and a blog entry! Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a translation deal! (no)

Read the rest of this entry »

My Brave Face

this is the meaning of your life, and this is the meaning of your smile~

I installed Perfect Dark a while ago, and was instantly turned off when I found I couldn’t read a thing given the font size was entirely too small. Absolutely disgusted, I immediately parted ways with the program and went back to using Share. Recent news prompted me to brush the dust off of PD, and thanks to the help of a certain troll, all is fixed. Man, this program rocks. You get a whole bunch more results than Share, and you can even search within results. But the thing that really sold me was the fact that I found the Cymbals’ out of print EP MISSILE&CHOCOLATE with little issue. Thanks, PD. Thanks.

Since I actually know how to find The Important Things on Nico Nico now, I’ll probably be posting shit from there a lot when I have nothing else to do. That said, I did not find the video I’m about to post– it was brought to my attention by Link down at Super Youkai Warhead. If you have an account, click away. If not then… I’m too lazy to find it on YouTube. Besides, this shit’s better with wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww all over the screen.

This dream wasn’t as crazy as the last one, but it was All Go Nagai, All The Time so it’s probably worth mentioning, especially considering Everything I Learned About Go Nagai I Leared Off Wikipedia And I Guess The Devilman Manga. So basically, this dream was my own wacky take on Uncle Go’s franchises that I barely know anything about!!

Stuff happened that I don’t remember before this, but at one point in the dream things change into an episode of Devilman. Keep in mind that I’ve never watched Devilman past the opening and ending, but I have read the manga. Suffice it to say, this episode of Devilman playing in my mind very much not like the manga, and probably the anime, given it was quite a subdued a affair. I’m not sure who the main character was. I’m almost sure it wasn’t Akira Fudo, but it could have been me in the shoes of Akira Fudo. The dream had a strange point of view. At points it was in the first person, but other scenes didn’t have Main Character Guy at all, so it’s hard to say. It’s a dream, after all. What I do know for sure is that Amon was around and sayin’ stuff in my head.

Read the rest of this entry »

So I guess we’ll learn more about Haruhi 2 in July Newtype according to June Newtype.

Sauce: Zepy

Everyone knows about Nico Nico Douga, and because everyone knows about it, videos have been disappearing from its pages with YouTube-like efficiency as of late. This bothers me greatly, since my MyList looks something like this at the moment, but I must admit the way in which they go about deleting videos is far more hilarious than YouTube’s cold, soulless text. See, what they do is replace a deleted video with one of their own, and it usually contains a narration about the video’s deletion matched to some very random visuals. As such, it is very much impossible to get angry at them.

Here’s a particularly good one.

Oh yeah.

On the topic of Nico Nico, I’d like to link this one video which has been topping the rankings lately. Give it a look if you have an account.

A little bird recently sent me this post and requested that I publish it. So I am.

————

I may be alone in this opinion, but I think reviewing anime and manga in an
annual publication is probably pointless. As the only academic journal
specifically for manga/anime studies, I buy Mechademia for the
academic work and only read reviews of academic texts. By the time the
journal comes out I’ll almost always have seen the anime or read a
review from one of the many non-academic magazines or websites. My
impression from the shelves of my local bookshop is also that a lot of
anime/manga titles being published are still in the form of beginners
guides, which are also not particularly useful to
Mechademia’s primary audience (or the audience I assume it has, I may
be completely wrong!).

Thanks, Sophie. No, you’re not wrong about Mechademia; many of its
readers are scholars, serious fans, and academics.

But let me try to explain something further about our reviews,
especially of manga and anime. There are, in general, three kinds of
reviews, Two we do not want; one we do. The two we do not want are
purchasing advice and comments/opinions about quality.

Purchasing advice refers to a review that tells the reader whether or
not they should buy or read the manga or anime being reviewed. The
**vast** majority of “reviews” on the internet are of this kind. Often
they are written in semi-literate Internetese (”Naruto is just SOOOO
kkkoooollll! AWWWsome!”) and record the writer’s enthusiastic joy in
the story or his (much of the time, it’s a he) detestation of
something. “I mean, what is so cool about Misa? She’s an airhead.
Light is much better off without her,” says this person about Misa
Amano from “Death Note” (I’m paraphrasing a real comment, BTW). You
can find lots and lots of these reviews on amazon.com, often signed
with names like “Otakuman”. As records of individual opinion, these
reviews are priceless; as serious reviews, they’re useless. We don’t
publish that kind of stuff.

The second kind of review we don’t publish centers on the writer’s
opinions about “quality.” These folks also inhabit the Internet is
vast numbers; they’re the people who solemnly tell you that the video
transfer on “Cutey Honey” is really very good. They go on knowingly
(if uninsightfully) about pixellation and the lack of audio fidelity
in the dubbing. Or they will praise the seiyuu — these people pride
themselves on knowing some Japanese words — for her superb rendition
of Masako from “Eri the Ninja Girl” (which I made up for the
occasion). Then they will go into rants about the hyperellipticism of
“Eri the Ninja Girl,” hoping to impress us all by his ability to spell
“hyperellipticism” (which I also made up for the occasion). We don’t
publish that kind of stuff either.

That takes care of the vast majority of reviews that actually exist
out there on the web and in the few print sources that publish
reviews. Most of them are careless, tossed-off-in-an-hour records of
half-baked opinion. Enthusiastic, misspelled, and ultimately useless.

The reviews we do publish are analytical essays about the manga or
anime in question. Analytical means that the reviewer has to explain
how the narrative is constructed and why, and explain what it means
and tells us. The ideal reaction to such a review is for the reader to
say “Oh, I see!” Our model is the kind of review that might be
published in the New York Times or the New Yorker — literate,
thought-through, with a theoretical framework that makes sense. It
will be worth reading five years from now.

A number of people on this listserve have written reviews for
Mechademia, and trust me, they’re very skilled. When one of these
folks reviews “Death Note”, there will be a lot to take home from that
review. In this case, the reviewer will be Susan Napier, who has
agreed to review “Death Note” for us. You are not going to hear
silliness about “What is so cool about Misa?” from *her*.

Another way of putting it is to say that Mechademia reviews of manga
and anime are short, focussed essays on one work that deal with its
internal aesthetic dynamics. So please do read some of our manga and
anime reviews and see what you think for yourself!

————

lol

Well, obviously the industry isn’t having any problems, since it seems if you’re a manga publisher you’re also granted the right to print free money. This post is more about my personal problems with the US manga industry.

A quick glance at my MyAnimeList profile will tell you that I don’t read much manga at all. Upon closer inspection you will find that most of my completed manga titles are one-shots. It’s not that I hate manga or anything, it’s just that, for the most part, what’s available in English doesn’t interest me at all.

It’s no secret that the market skews towards shoujo and shounen, and very lately, as the manga section of Otaku USA will tell you, boys love. There are sprinklings of seinen, jousei and true blue otaku titles, but for the most part the manga industry seems to have their sights locked on teenagers, and your local bookstore’s manga section is an Itano Circus. I’m not going to ponder as to why this is the case, since I know– this stuff sells. Your Nartuos and Fruits Baskets always top the book listings, and when one takes a glance at what kids are reading in the stores, the pages are either filled with speedlines or flowery screen tone.

Ok. That’s great. You guys have capital. Use it. This is exactly what the anime industry wants but is not getting, and I think maybe, just maybe the manga industry is playing it too safe with what they keep licensing. I’m fascinated by manga due to the wide range of subject matters it covers, but what makes it over in English is very limited. I want to read stuff like this and this, but instead all I have available to me is… fuckin Bus Stop of Love. So, please, US manga publishers, expand your horizons. Viz putting out things like Phoenix and Golgo 13 and those smaller companies like (grumble grumble) Seven Seas putting out otaku-ish things He is My Master is a great start but… MORE.

Of course, I do have the whole wide world of scanslations at my disposal. That world is however big and scary, and once again the stuff I really care about gets neglected. I guess I could read some neverendingshounenromance (I have no problem with shounen romance) but then my aversion to manga never ending comes into play, but that’s another blog post all together.

I guess in the end what it really comes down to is me learning Japanese. I suspect the translators of the titles I care about really don’t see the point given the limited demand, and just read the stuff on their own. Kind of a pity, but them’s the breaks. I guess I’ll be hitting the books now, then.

Just added some things. More lists.

New stuff here, here and here.

I finished Dennou Coil tonight by way of one of MIT’s anime screenings, and boy it certainly was something.

Dennou Coil was really one of those shows were I just kicked back and enjoyed it for the spectacle. I didn’t pay close attention to the story or the characters, opting to instead just relax and marvel at the animation and the direction. Because that stuff was good. That isn’t to say the story stuff wasn’t good either, since there certainly were moments when I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. Though, the problem is, when I actually force my self to think about how the story flowed, it feels very uneven and rough. I dunno, maybe I just can’t decipher wacky technobabble so there’s probably holes in my understanding, but some moments felt too “lol anime” in a show that seemed to want to separate itself from that kind of thing.

I’m not sure how to feel about the characters. Yasako was serviceably moe and Isako was, for the most part, annoyingly emo and DON’T TALK TO ME-ish. The rest were decent in their own ways, but none struck me as particularly interesting. Honestly, my favourite is probably Mega Baa, since she’s just nuts. Her or Densuke. What a fucking legend Densuke was.

The soundtrack was pretty good. They used a lot of the same tracks over and over and OVER again, so eventually they stuck in my head as Pretty Good Stuff. Also, as classics like Gunbuster and End of Evangelion prove, dramatic scenes matched to overly dramatic piano pieces WIN. So yeah, I guess I’ll be downloading buying this OST.

In the end I liked Dennou Coil, but mostly for the Flashy Special Effects and stuff like that. It had some plot points that really interested me, but on the whole the show kind of fell flat when it came to the things that mattered. This is kind of fine though, since the mid-series filler was pretty entertaining. Not really sure about rewatchability as of yet.

BONUS: After the showing I approached rikchik (you can find him lurking in the comment sections from time to time) with my theory– that being, Dennou Coil is a message to otaku telling them not to get too engrossed in eroge and 2ch flame wars. They of course totally fuck this up with the Yasako x Isako yuri at the ending, as it encourages us otaku to go back to our  computers and fap to pics of Yasako and Isako doing it.

Original Post

Before I say anything about the comic, I’d like to call the latest issue of OTAKU USA to your attention. Don’t be fooled by the family friendly Dee Bee Zee cover, since this is most dangerous issue yet. Yes, most dangerous. Daryl Surat may find issue with me labeling it as such, but hear me out, ok? See, normal issues of Otaku USA are simply dangerous since they are overseen by the most dangerous man alive, Patrick Macias. What makes this issue the most dangerous are the various forces that have come together to bring it into existence. It starts off with Clarissa giving a Shuffle! review, which is pretty fucking dangerous in itself– but that’s not enough to make it the most dangerous. What makes this the most dangerous is the fact that this guy and I are in the same in the book at the same time, while forces like Daryl Surat rule over the rest of the pages with an Iron Fist. Yes, you can feel the flames as you touch this burning, blazing publication of HOT BLOOD and MOE PASSION. So go out and BUY IT already. Shit, I haven’t even read it, but I can assure you that your mind will be blown into the outer reaches of space. But that’s not all! The Internet tells me that issue 7 will be even more dangerous than this one. I won’t give any details, but chances are I’ll be in that one, too. I should be writing under my real name, though.

Anyway, enough about Otakus and USAs, on to the comic. I think I’ve reached a new level of Comic Writing in this one, since I actually allude to shows without mentioning them by name. Sure, this writing is still clunky compared to the streamlined Penny Arcade, but we can’t all be legends. For those who don’t know, this comic makes reference to Zettai Karen Children and Kure-nai, shows which are both very good in their own ways, so if you haven’t watched them yet– do it now! I really like the art here. Sure, Tina’s stare in panel 2 is frightening, but the rest turned out pretty well. The backgrounds are even good! So yes, really happy with this one.

One thing I’d kind of like to make clear with this one strip and all others is that this webcomic is not the self-insert comic that 4chan and others would like to think it is. I mean, I’m as much Rets as Tatsuhiko Takimoto is Satou. I don’t write this pretending that I’m in there, I just push my experiences and views onto my character, since it’s easy to write what you know. Hence why Rets’ apartment is similar to mine and the fact that some comics take place in real locations around Boston. I mean c’mon, I’m not shameless enough to make a character that’s supposed to be me hang out with a girl who dresses the way Tina does. If this was realistic, it’d be two guys talking to each other, like every other webcomic about geeky things. But, you know, I like drawing girls! They’re a lot more fun to draw than boring guys. Also, if this was true wish fulfillment, the female character would look more similar to Nagi-tan… or Kaede-chan, but she isn’t really an otaku.

In further comic-related news, Patrick Macias and I recently had a discussion, and this discussion was published in the Japanese magazine Ascii Weekly. As a result, I’ve gotten the attention of the Japanese otaku, and it seems at least one of them is impressed by my knowledge, which makes me quite happy. See, I got an email from a senior otaku who really liked the comic and thought I had the Japanese fan scene down pretty good. Also, another guy from the mag can be found commenting here. I don’t have scans yet, but Macias promised some, so I’ll post them if/when he gets them to me.

The spring season is pretty great. I’ve finally waded through all the crap and found a good 10 or so shows I’m happy with. Full impressions can be found here. I’m mostly happy with my picks, though chances are I’ll drop Allison and Lillia. It’s way too corny for me to stomach.

Anyway, I’ve gone on for long enough, so I’ll cut it off here. Finals are finally over, so now I’m going to kick back and relax in a big way until I go back home and start on my summer job. See you all next week!

Hay hay May

Watching
Allison & Lillia: Bit too much “for the family” polish for my tastes. Not sure if I’ll stick with it.
Chi’s Sweet Home: 3 minutes of joy
Code Goose 2: JUST ASS PLANNED hilarity and general madness. Good times.
Golgo 13: ….
Kanokon: I can’t believe it’s not porn!!
Kure-nai: Best of the season. Great animation, great writing, great acting… just perfect.
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki: Second best of the season. Good mix of craziness and drama. Fuka is too cute. Love abused lolis.
Macross F: Third best, I guess. Not much of a Macross fan, but this is good enough. Nice space battles and nyannyan dances.
To-LOVE-Ru: Guilty pleasure show of the season. I love it.
Toshokan Sensou: A good Production IG show?? And they said it couldn’t be done…
Zettai Karen Children: Decent fluff. Can’t really get past the hay 1990s art style, though.

Finishing Dennou Coil tomorrow. It is a good show.

Reading
Gunslinger Girl: Makes me want to watch the anime again. Great stuff.

Read some Ichinensei ni Nacchattara. It’s good.

Original Post

Yes, for the first time in god knows how long, I will not use the internet.

I’ll be away from internet land for a week due to a couple of reasons: 1) because it’s finals week, and this semester I actually have finals I need to study for, and 2) I’m sick of the internet in general so I figure a break would be good. I’m not totally cutting myself off, though. I’ll just be not blogging, posting on forums, or using AIM/MSN/ICQ/IRC. I’ll still download anime and check my email. I won’t be updating my stats on MyAnimeList because going on there may compel me to be social, but my last.fm stats will keep current since it does that automatically. Not sure how long this’ll last, but dammit I’ll try, and hopefully come out of it a slightly changed man.

Anyway, until next week!

So apparently after a lot of fan yelling FUNi’s going to put out a box for The Best Series Ever. I was kind of bothered that DVD 1 lacked a box, but I had other things to be angry about so it didn’t phase me too much. A box is splendid news, though, and I hope they do a good job. By that I mean I hope they don’t pull an ADV and just put random pretty pictures all over the place.

Ideally the box will have pictures of either a) Kaede doing house work, b) Kaede naked or c) both

Oh man, I just had a dream where Golgo 13 was fighting Lupin III. It was far more bizarre than that, but I can’t even begin to describe just how batshit this all was. For starters tough, Golgo had emotions.

Maybe this is because I watched an episode of Golgo 13 and a Lupin special yesterday.

[16:02:55] wildarmsheero: like apparently Golgo and Lupin III were fighting in the city of boston but boston was under a giant dome with a bunch of lasers on it that were shooting down on everyone and there were guys like attached to that dome too and there were like disco lights and golgo didn’t use a sniper rifle and aaaaaaaa
[16:03:36] TheBigN: XD
[16:05:15] wildarmsheero: that’s the best that I can put into the words
[16:05:19] wildarmsheero: it all happened so fast
[16:05:29] wildarmsheero: the word
[16:05:31] wildarmsheero: into words
[16:05:32] wildarmsheero: rather
[16:05:34] wildarmsheero: blah
[16:05:37] wildarmsheero: i just woke up

No, this isn’t about how Kure-nai features a loli who may or may not be entirely too fuckable for her own good. Never ever would I write about things so vile.

Almost exactly a year ago Gurren Lagann was impressing me with just how over the top and epic it was in its most early of installments. Now, a year later, Kure-nai is impressing me in exactly the opposite way. This show is seductive. It’s such a smooth operator that once it’s done doing its thing some people are just left not knowing what to do. Sure, its foreplay is rather unusual, but strangely arousing… to me, anyway. However, even if its slightly freaky tastes aren’t really your thing, once you move on to the main event you’ll be in for the ride of your fucking life.

God, what a horrible extended metaphor. Especially considering I lack the appropriate experience to make such a comparison.

What I’m trying to get at is that this show is almost sensual with just how smoothly it all flows. So far only the smallest hints of what the overarching plot might be have been dropped, and I’m totally fine with that, since this show is so good at being… slice of life? That’s only a guise, though. What’s clever about the show is how it uses this relaxed slice of life vibe to drop various facts about the world, characters and plot. It’s doing that “slow” arc of 13 or so episodes that most anime have right, and I’ve only ever seen in done right in one other anime– that being Neon Genesis Evangelion… and uh, Shuffle!, I guess.

The means by which it performs these amazing feats is through mostly top-notch-animation (episode 3 was a bit stiff), thoughtful script writing and unusual production methods– at least for Japanese animation. See, according to rumours on the internets, the dialogue in Kure-nai is recorded before the animation is done. I can’t exactly confirm this fact, but that’s the word going around forums and blogs. This is the method for traditonal American animation, but it’s quite unusual for Japanese productions. It really helps. The actors can just read off their lines naturally, allowing the characters’ exchanges to sound slightly less artificial. Sure, most talented Japanese actors can do their best while still being constrained to the wills of the voice flaps, but you really can hear a difference in Kure-nai. This, along with the aforementioned brilliant script writing and fluid animation makes for a piece of Japanese cartoon that is slightly more in the realm of traditional film.

Of course, only three episodes have aired so far, and the show could very well go down hill. But this is Brain’s Base, and they have enough winners under their belt for me to trust them.

Original Post

Man, ai-sp@ce sure feels like old news now, but such is the nature of the weekly comic, especially when the hack artist/writer can’t come up with a joke about the news story in question the week it hits and instead decides to make a comic about being a horrible Japanophile. Anyway, here we are with a comic about ai-sp@ce, which is actually just pinched from a bit of a forum exchange, because such things make for the best comics. I don’t know about you, but I actually find this one kind of funny. Sure, the dialogue is stilted and awkward, but with this entire webcomic project thing being a learning experience, I think that’s fine. The artwork is also fine. Yes, there is horribleness in Rets’ fucked up collar in panels 2 and 3 along with some really bad shading, but I like the general look and feel of this one. Boston locals may actually know where this comic takes place. I’m trying to be a less-good Makoto Shinkai by basing backgrounds off real locations. How am I doing??

Dennou Coil sure is something. I think I can only watch it force fed to me 4 or 5 episodes at a time, but it sure is great once you get past those boring opening episodes. My favourite part of the show so far has to be the zombie Illegals attacking Yasako’s house. The kids crossing over to the other side is neat, too. What a wonderfully imaginative show. Not sure how much re-watch value it has, but it certainly is great.

Along with finishing Kaiji up a few days ago, I also finished the wonderful Ryofuko-chan OVA. Various personalities in the comments sections of a number of posts kept telling me to take the plunge, so I did about a week ago, and finally finished it up this week. In my mind, there’s two sects of “otaku entertainment”– boring panderific shit (Yotsunoha, Moetan anime) and hilarious panderific shit with lots of personality and energy (PaniPoni Dash, Hayate no Gotoku.) Ryofuko-chan sits happily in the latter category. Yes, the show has lots of naked lolis, and the opening focuses almost entirely on images of the two main girls in skimpy outfits, but damn is this show just wonderfully absurd. It’s not really laugh out loud funny, but its wacky nature can’t help but put a smile on my face. The mere idea of people from Romance of the Three Kingdoms being cast down from the heavens into the present day– two of them as little girls– is just hilarious. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of people from the past coping with modern life, and Ryofuko makes sure to present this concept in the most humourous way possible. And it doesn’t just focus around lolis– there are a lot of other great side characters, some of which are voiced by epic male seiyuu. Jouji Nakata and Norio Wakamoto are in this! Jouji fucking Nakata! NORIO FUCKING WAKAMOTO! It is also one of the few shows that features a GAR hot blooded loli. So yeah, it’s wonderful, and everyone should watch it. Giant Robo even makes an appearance!

Anyway, it’s half-past-noon already and I have things to do on this long weekend, such as write an essay comparing how Lear and Satan deal with exile in King Lear and Paradise Lost respectively. But that can wait, anime comes first, hurr.

According to MyAnimeList, Kaiji is the 300th show/movie/whatever I’ve completed. This number probably isn’t correct, as I’m sure I missed an anime or two in my listing, but whatever!

Kaiji’s ending was more down to earth than I expected. For all its JUST AS PLANNED nonsense and general detachment from reality, the way it brought you back into the real world was quite shocking and blunt. The show as a whole had a bunch of ups and downs, and I probably won’t watch it again because of this. I do hope they make a season 2, however, since the ending was about as good as the Akagi ending. By that I mean it offered shitty closure.

So yeah, congrats Kaiji.

Subbed only, first DVD hits in July. Dub release in 09.

Man, I wish I could’ve been there for this announcement. Not like I could’ve possibly been at the NYCC, but it would’ve been neat. I like how they’re doing a sub-only release just to get it out there as soon as possible. I wonder if there’ll be special editions, or if it’ll just be a no-frills priced down sub-only affair. Who knows!!

Anyway, I’m a bit too tired to get excited about this, so instead have this picture of Nia

Sources: ANN, Bandai, The Internet

I watched all these a couple of days ago so these aren’t immediate reactions like the last few posts.

Kamen no Maid Guy

This was a real disappointment. I expected quality gags in the vein of Hayate, but instead I got some really badly designed and poorly scripted bunk. All this show has going for it is boobs, and even those are poorly done. I’m sure there’s an audience out there for this stuff, though– the same audience that loved Magikano, probably.

Golgo 13

Japan’s number 1 stone cold killer finally makes his way onto the small screen after 40+ years of being mostly restricted to the pages of his 140+ volumes of manga. None of this stuff is really original, but it’s proper no-nonsense Adult Anime, and the medium could probably do with more of it. People have been complaining that the animation is stiff– while it is, it doesn’t really bother me. When stuff actually needs to move, it moves well, and the scenes with little to no movement don’t really feel cheap. The production is about as good as your average Death Note epsiode, which is to say pretty good. There’s going to be 50 episodes of this, so I hope the subbers can keep up/don’t loose interest.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki

This show almost has my favourite character designs of the season if it wasn’t for Kure-nai and Kanokon. Fuka especially is quite fuckable. That stuff aside, the first episode of this show is humour scenes mixed with trying-to-be-serious-but-this-is-not-a-serious-show scenes. This one has potential to be real fun, but the final shot of episode 1 coupled with the small bits of “seriousness” sprinkled throughout this episode make me worry that it’ll take its silly self seriously. Kyouko, the main girl, is the kind of character I don’t really like, but she’s cute enough so that’s all well and good. I’ll probably be keeping up with this one.

And that’s it for this series of posts. There are still a few other shows I’ve seen and want to see, but the spring rush is pretty much over now. Hope you all chose your spring viewing wisely!

This post will probably be the last of these for a bit.

For the Alter figure, I auto-level’d all the pics, then touched some up individually. As such, the lighting and colours are kind of inconsistent between the photos. For the trading figures I just did the auto level thing and left it at that. The colours still change a bit, but I’ll blame that on my camera. As you can see, I’m still rather new at this.

Alter 1/8 Hazuki Dress Version

Read the rest of this entry »

I figured I’d do another Mikuru figure while I still have the Mikuru background set up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because Photoshop sucks at being easy to understand, I accidentally overwrote my original highres copies of these photos with the 800×600 versions. Blah. Anyway, some photos now that I have a new desk lamp~

Read the rest of this entry »

Original Post

Little late with this one, but I was kind of in a funk for the last couple of weeks. That coupled with a whole shit ton of anime and homework hitting me like a ton of bricks hindered comic production. But here we are, at Tuesday, with a new comic. I hate liking what I do, but I’m kind of happy with this one. Yes, the art is wonky as usual (make your threads now, 4chan!!) but I generally like how it turned out. The script is something I came up with right around when I started Japanese class last semester, but only got around to making it now. With school about to end for the year, the timing is a bit off, but whatever. For the record, I am myself am shameless with wearing anime shirts to class. I just really don’t care.

God, spring season. Anyone who’s been reading the blog will know that I’ve been documenting my first impressions three at time across various posts. I’m actually working on part IV of that, I just need time to sit down and write it. Overall though, I’m quite satisfied. Some stinkers and wholly mediocre entries, but enough quality to go around. My two favourites off the top of my head have to be Kure-nai and Macross F. Code Geass and Kanokon get mentions for best trash of the season, in two very different ways.

Kure-nai is a bit lighter than I expected it to be, but that dark undercurrent is still there. It could go on being a lighthearted Odd Couple affair, but I want it to act on its darker side a bit more. Macross F is just fucking impressive anime SF. I haven’t seen anything this good in a while. It has 3D work that’s actually good! Code Geass is something I rag on, but watching this second season has made me change my tune. I guess it’s just the fans that are pretentious, because season 2 reminded me that Geass knows it’s silly shit and loves it. Episode 2 was one of the most hilarious episodes of anime I’ve ever seen. Sunrise isn’t really taking this shit seriously at all, and neither should you. I may write a blog post on how Geass is such a great entertainer, but I need to find time. Kanokon is just well animated softcore porn, and I respect that. I like fanservice shows, but they have to be well done. Kanokon has sexy production values, so I’m sticking around for that.

Anyways, I’m playing catchup in the game of life at the moment. I need to catch up on homework, catch up on anime and catch up on making comics. As such, I’ll be taking my leave.

Too much homework + animu