Archive for December, 2006

OH CRAP

Sunday, December 31st, 2006

WHAT COULD THIS POSSIBLY MEAN?!

I guess we’ll find out in a few hours…

There’s also stuff going on the source code, as always. Check it out.

From http://www.asosbrigade.com

By the way, I am working on a comic. It’s pretty much sketched out and stuff. It’s just a matter of coloring it, really. Remember, that’s that part that takes one million hours…

Edit: Haruhi’s dub voice auditions are up, as well as the series’ US logo.

Lupin VS The Clone

Friday, December 29th, 2006

Using some of the extra funds I got for Christmas, I decided to catch up with my ol’ buddy Lupin. I ordered seven of the Lupin films; two being theatrical features (Mamo and Dead or Alive) and five of the TV Specials (in one of Funi’s nifty little thinpaks.) The first one that came in was Mystery of Mamo, which I had seen about two years ago, dubbed. I didn’t especially like the movie when I first saw it. I thought the first hour or so was pretty good, but after that I felt the story didn’t really go anywhere too interesting. I went into this second viewing with adjusted expectations, and while the story still came off as weak, I had far more fun watching it. Perhaps it’s because I opted to watch the movie in its original Japanese with the voice work I’ve come to know and love, or maybe I just appreciate movies like these more now. Probably both. The movie pretty much plays out like any given spy movie from the 1960s, but on a grander scale. If you’ve seen any of the older James Bond movies or something like Our Man Flint, you should know what kinds of antics to expect.

Technically, the film is just how I remember it. The character animation is decent. It shines at certain points, but for the most part it’s somewhere in between 1980s TV qualtiy and 1980s movie quality. Not bad, but not stunning. The animation on the mechanical things, like cars and airplanes wasn’t very good at all. The opening car chases resorted to a lot of cheap tricks. They worked, but they certainly weren’t on the level of the opening chase in Cagliostro, produced a year later. The film has great background art, though. Each background painting was extremely detailed and beautiful. This more or less made up for shortcomings with the animation. There are a lot of scenes and shots which are done very well, too, but these are few and far between. But, overall the film was a good way in which to start the string of Lupin animated features that followed after this one. A simple story, but brought to life with the characters we’ve come to know and love realized to their full potential, and a general tone of silliness that makes it fun to watch.

Pumpkin Scissors Is Officially Good

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

Pumpkin Scissors has been going in a good direction in the past few weeks. For good long while it was hanging around in filler city, with certain episodes being good, and certain others being less than good. Episodes 11 and 12 developed an interesting story, so I was disappointed when I saw the preview for episode 13, which looked like more filler. I went into episode 13 expecting nothing. While it was indeed filler, the episode won 1000 points once cute little princess Septieme opened her mouth and Chiwa Saito’s voice came out. This really just made the episode for me. While the story was pretty cliche, having Chiwa Saito voice most of the episode was a real treat. Now, let’s hope this series can win on more points than just voice work in coming episodes!

Dear Yoshiyuki Tomino,

Thursday, December 28th, 2006

YOUR MOVIES ARE TOO DAMN FAST. I mean seriously, take some time to flesh out the plot you know? I know these are compilation movies here, but please for the love of Haruhi a movie isn’t a bunch of battle sequence strung together by watered down plot elements from an already fast paced FIFTY EPISODE series.

Edit

What the fuck was with that happy ending? KAMILE SHOULD BE DESTROYED! TOTALLY AND UTTERLY DESTROYED. Also, what’s with killing off Char? IS SOMEONE TRYING TO SUGGEST CHAR’S COUNTERATTACK NEVER HAPPENED?

The Haul ‘06

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

Shown

  • Tsukuyomi Moon Phase Volume 1 + Box
  • Gundam Seed Destiny Volume 4
  • IGPX Volume 5
  • Makoto Shinkai Collection (Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days)
  • Tintin in the Congo (there was a reason my father could only buy this in France…)
  • April and Nino (Round Table Featuring Nino albums)
  • Dark Side ni Youkoso (NHK ni Youkoso! soundtrack, listening to it right now)
  • Specialty (Nami Tamaki Album)
  • Blood+ Calendar
  • Pacman

Not Shown

  • ~300 dollars in the form of Amazon gift certificates, Borders Cards and regular money
  • Electronic Razor

Probably forgot things.

Art Site Update: Mikuru

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

I updated my art site with this.

now sleep

Podcast 07

Tuesday, December 26th, 2006

I forgot to mention that episode 7 of the podcast is available. SG kind of fades out by the end, but that’s because he was chasing a tornado at the time, and his mic kinda got knocked around and he couldn’t speak into it so well (in truth, his mic just sucks any my sound cleaning program cleaned most of him out :/) I’m sorry! I’m still new to this >_<

Presents For All! (56k no)

Monday, December 25th, 2006

I hope everyone is having a hot and sexy holiday season. To make it even hotter, I’ve decided to dump a bunch of a Christmas/winter/holiday themed anime images on you. Almost all the images are resized, so please click on them to see the full version. Warning, some of these images are HUEG (Yes, HUEG.) The patented Mistakes of Youth Witty Commentary ™ will be applied to certain images as I see fit.

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In Which Kadokawa USA And Bandai Entertainment Go Nuts, And The Fans Follow

Monday, December 25th, 2006

Original Post

This comic is kind of lazy. I spent a lot of time on the buildings in the first panel, then just kind of rushed the rest of it. I think the comic as a whole looks fairly decent, though. I really don’t like resorting to random blurs as backgrounds, but it looks ok here. As far as the script goes, this was one of those ideas that I got as I was drifting off to sleep. Not sure if I should really used half baked ideas like that, but apparently some people found it funny… and some didn’t. It was funnier at 2am as I was falling asleep, not so much now. In any case, it’s the holiday special and holiday specials are supposed to suck, right? Right? I’ll try better for the new year orz

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In Which The World Comes To An End

Friday, December 22nd, 2006

http://asosbrigade.com/ has been updated with a link to a myspace page for fans of the series  (lame idea, but done tastefully) and a video stating that  Kadokawa  USA  has the license  and  Bandai  Entertainment is  in  charge of distro.

Now, everyone please join me in \o/ing for a bit.

i wonder how many times we’ll see similar entries like this one across anime blogs today

Further Haruhi-related developments (and other things)

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

In addition to the Haruhi-related developments on the North American front yesterday, our friends in Japan were also presented with something strange: a fake Internet Explorer-styled 404 page. At first glance it looks like nothing special, but upon closer examination of a certain graphic, it is clear that something is up. Further digging into the site’s source code reveals a curious message, “プログラム起動条件・鍵をそろえよ。最終期限・二日後”, or translated (not by me) “Program starting requirement: Complete the key. Final period after two days.” This is apparently a reference to the fourth novel, Suzumiya Haruhi no Shoushitsu or the The Vanishing of Suzumiya Haruhi, which is most likely the next book to be adapted. As of today, the site hasn’t seen many changes, save the inclusion of a mysterious link at the very bottom of the page. Click it. Something neat happens.

asosbrigade.com has seen another update, too. Again, digging into the site’s source code reveals something interesting, “北米計画が発効した。”, or “American project has begun.” Yeah, it’s licensed. FUNi is most likely doing the distribution, well, if this means anything.

Man, stuff like this gets me burning with passion or something. I guess I have to finish re-watching the first series now. If there is any problem with Haruhi, it is the factor that also helped it: the out of order airing. Given the story isn’t told in a linear fashion, there’s not much incentive to continue on with the next episode immediately because it won’t necessarily continue on with the story. Despite that, re-watching the series has been a pleasure. I should probably start episode 6 after I watch the sub of NHK 23 and the last episode of Chocosis.

In other news, I recently bought all of Cardcaptor Sakura at one of RightStuf’s wacky sales. Seriously, I’ve been wondering where this show has been all my life. It’s as if the ladies of Clamp got together to create this wonderful ball of moe, love, happiness and cute just for the future pedo me. One DVD down, 17 to go…

Also, I’ve been working on a comic. With luck it’ll be posted before Christmas. It’s the wacky Christmas special, if you haven’t guessed, which features Tina Rets dressed in nothing but a Santa hat.

No. Here’s the preview image.

28-char-prog1.gif
EDIT: Looks like it may not be FUNi behind this. Though I’d still like it if they handled distribution…

zomg

Monday, December 18th, 2006

http://asosbrigade.com/

http://www.animeondvd.com/ (please look at the entires for December 18th)
that is all

Coyote Ragtime Show: Where It Fell On Its Face

Monday, December 18th, 2006

Does anyone remember that anime Coyote Ragtime Show? You know, that one that aired a little while ago and had so much potential to be incredible but in the end passed like a quiet fart? I would’ve pretty much forgotten about it by now if ADV’s release of it wasn’t so highly publicized and soon-coming. Why am I writing about it, though? Because I placed a lot of faith in the show, even when I knew it was going bad. I look at it now and sigh, knowing it could have been better than what it turned out to be. This isn’t to say I didn’t like the show, because I enjoyed it quite a bit, but in the end it could have been a lot better. To quote a certain someone, “Japan doesn’t get it” and I think Japan really didn’t “get it” at all when it came to CRS. CRS was an American style story told in a Japanese fashion, and that really just doesn’t work… at all.

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A little something to kick off the holiday season

Sunday, December 17th, 2006

yeah i know its from death note volume 1 shut up

Everybody wishes they could be like me, smart and cool. Handsome, wealthy and so sexy.

Saturday, December 16th, 2006

Original Post

Uncensored version here. (warning, nudity!)

The reason why I’m here writing this news post instead of getting ready to go to Karate is because I’m feeling sick, and one should not be punching and kicking other people whilst sick. It’s simply not good form, you know. So here I am, under a blanket (much like this) writing you this lovely news post.

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