1000% SPARKING (Para Para Mix)

Original Post

Been a while, hasn’t it? Well stuff happened. And I got lazy. College isn’t easy, you know! A guy needs to rest, especially after spending an entire day redoing work for a class that he’s allegedly failing in, despite getting a passing grade for each assignment. Anyway, there’s a comic here now. Art-wise, I’m fairly happy. The first and second panels are good. I didn’t really know what to do with the last panel, so it’s rather uninspired. I’m not so happy with the script. I don’t like talking about US companies, as I feel not everyone will get what I’m talking about (apparently I have quite a bit of international readers.) But, I’m low on ideas and Funi’s an easy target. There will be a part two with this one, so look out for that next week.

There is a new podcast up. This time it’s an interview with Patrick Macias. For those who don’t know, Patrick is someone I admire quite a bit. So much so that I got pretty nervous during the interview. I don’t think it’s too apparent, but it prevented me from saying anything else other than the questions I had written down. Thinking back, there were some points and additional questions I would have loved to bring up, but I was simply too nervous. Sigh. Such is the nature of the otaku.

I’ve started a blog. It’s basically a place for me to do focused rantings instead of my weekly (?) general rantings. It’ll also function as a sketchbook of sorts. Which is to say, I’ll be using it to post sketches in progress. Because of this, the blog will be 18+, given I do do some ero work every now and again. Updates from here and my artsite will also be cross-posted there, allowing you to leave comments on them. I’m not sure for how long I’ll actually use this. It’s an experiment so far, but we’ll see how it goes.

Lastly in site news, I finally put up a new featured song (actually, songs) and site. The featured songs are both versions of the Pururin Theme, the happy normal version, and the haunting remix used for Satou’s acid trips. These will be included in the upcoming Sunny Side Ni Youkoso album, but these two songs were leaked a month or so ago, and I kept meaning on posting them but never really did until now. The featured site is related to the songs in quite a humourous way.

I understand that this is a bit on the delayed side, but I picked up the first volume of NHK about… a month ago. I’m very happy with TokyoPop’s work on this. I was so worried they’d fuck it up, but it turns out they did a damn good job. Almost as if they were putting love into it. The translation is pretty much perfect, save a few awkward bubbles (must have missed editing.) The translation faithfuly captures NHK’s feel. Words like “moe” and “ero-game” are left in, with a handy glossary at the back for virgins to otaku jargon. The original color pages are kept in color, which is great. In my experience, TokyoPop usually just uses grey scale copies. This may just be a first-printing kind of deal though. As far as story contents go, there’s not much to say given it’s the same NHK we know and love, just far better than shitty scanslations. However, reading through the first couple chapters again, I’ve noticed that the manga isn’t really nice to the reader. Unlike the anime, the manga doesn’t ease you into Satou’s world, it just throws you in there. As a result, you’re left spending the rest of the volume trying to get your bearings straight. Perhaps that’s intentional, though…

Continuing on the NHK vein, episode 19 of the anime aired some hours ago. It looks like they got the animator for episode 4 to do most of this one. Now, this really wouldn’t bother me if the entire anime was done in this style, as I like this animator’s style, but I don’t like how it clashes severely with the established style of the show (I say this very loosely, given the show is incredibly inconsistent.) The episode worked, I’ll admit, but it kept bugging me. Storywise, it seems to have clearly gone off the path of the manga (perhaps following the novel?) This is good, because they only have about five more episodes to play with and I don’t want the ending of the anime to leave me hanging (think Genshiken.) One thing I like about the anime over the manga is how structured it is. The manga goes every which way and doesn’t really know where it wants to settle. The anime, on the other hand knows where it’s going, and is determined to get there. This is not say that the anime doesn’t go every which way every now and again. I mean, it would given it follows the manga to a certain point. But the anime seems to have a sense of direction. Who knows? Maybe it’ll be able to stand independent of the manga if it goes on its own route and ends well. But stil, there’s that issue of animation. Well, not so much animation. The animation is great. The clashing art styles are a problem. Here’s hoping for some DVD fixes.

I just finished Azumanga Daiou a couple hours ago for the third or fourth time. The last episode is pretty sad. It tries to be funny, but there’s that constant feeling of “it’s over.” Or maybe that’s just all the shots of Chiyo crying. Ah well. It was nice to watch it again. I’ll shelve it for a year or two, just so it doesn’t get old on me. Man, I wish my high school experience was that happy.

KyoAni’s Kanon continues to impress. Episode 6 once again topped all the others. The movie theatre scene was arguably the best, what with Kyuuichi being Kyuuichi and Ayu being Ayu. Speaking of Ayu, I’m liking her a lot more in this one. Same goes for Makoto. KyoAni seems to be breathing a good amount of life into these characters to make these early slice of life episodes fun, instead of mind numbingly boring (hi, Toei.) This should also make the dramatic bits of the story sadder as well. Better get those tissues ready, Kanon virgins. You’re all in for one hell of emotional trip.

My Chocotto Sister DVD came in during the week. I’ve never bought a Japanese DVD before due the language barrier, but ChocoSis is the first show I can mostly understand raw, so I figured I might as well. These Japanese DVDs really are as hot as people say they are. The video quality is nothing short of outstanding. It manages to make a somewhat below average production like ChocoSis look fairly good. Also, because this is the DVD version, that nasty Keep Out tape is gone, and allowing the Loli Ass to be viewed quite clearly (not safe for work.) The extras included on the addtional disc are pretty silly. It’s mostly just Saito Momoko and a woman dressed as Neko Nyan Dance cat doing the Neko Nyan Dance. There is some nice event footage though, and the standard non-credit op/ed. The box is quite cute. It features Choco doing the Neko Nyan Dance. An insert came in the box that has the box art spread out across a couple pages so it can be viewed easy. I scanned it and posted it to danbooru (You might not want to click on my name there, though. I’ve posted some stuff you might not want to see. Well, at work anyway.) Given the quality of a release like this, I’m eager to get my hands on the Kanon DVDs now. I can understand that show fairly well raw, too, so it wouldn’t be waste. Sadly, I’m not in a position to spend too much money anymore. I spent a good 300 or so this past month on figures and such, and just ordered the limited edition of Really? Really! I think I should be on the look out for a job soon…

Anyway, that’s about it. It’s approaching 2:30 and I should really go to bed. Until next week!