Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by EXCELLENCE!)

Time to judge books by their covers and decide on what shows to watch based on nothing more than promotional artwork and cryptic story summaries! Let’s go!

Definite Picks

• Ah! Megami-sama! Tatakau Tsubasa: I’ve been loving the Megami-sama! anime up till now, so there’s really no reason not to watch this.
• GUNSLINGER GIRL -IL TEATRINO-: The first one is really good stuff, and I was always hoping for a sequel. I hope the new production staff handles it as well as the previous one. I need to get around to re-watching the first series and reading the manga.
• Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei Season 2: Given the first series is sheer brilliance, watching the sequel is a given. I hope a.f.k. hurries up and releases the rest of the first show…

Stuff that looks neat

• Rosario to Vampire: The story is typical retarded Shounen Jump stuff, but the girls are cute, which is reason enough to give it a whirl. The main problem here is that it’s by STUDIO GONZO.
• Noramimi: Saw some scans of the comic floating around, and it looks absolutely hilarious. Too bad no one will sub it.
• Minami-ke ~Okawari~: Asread did an awesome job on one of my favourites from 2005, so it’ll be interesting to see their take on the Minami sisters. Designs look slightly generic, but I’m mostly interested in the quality of their animation.
• Hakaba Kitarou: I’ve seen this described as a pretentious Gegege no Kitarou remake airing on Noitamina (Noitamina, what?) No one will sub it, but I’m interested because the four pages of Gegege no Kitarou I read were gold.
• Ookami to Koushinryou: Only interested because Cunningham speaks so highly of it, and he is a man of taste.

Mildly interesting titles

• Yatterman: Eh, may as well.
• All the other eroge adaptations. Those are fun every now and again.

Not touching with a 10-foot-pole

• Haruka Naru Toki no Naka de 3 -Kurenai no Tsuki: FUCK THIS SHIT. Some people will probably like it, though.

Something of a quiet season. Typical of winter. Kind of sad that all I care about are sequels.

Current Shows
Clannad: I was impressed with Fuuko’s conclusion. Good to see Key can steer away from the all too obvious over-the-top tear-jerkers that are so over-the-top that they turn out not all that tear-jerking. I thought her story was a little weak, but ended well. Moving on to Kotomi now, I guess.
Dragonaut: This show is too funny for me to drop. God, the CG. It’s like 1995 all over again.
ef: The SHAFT factor is still what keeps me coming back, but the story here is pretty ok. I like how each male lead is a creative person to some capacity. Also, Chihiro is SO MOE.
Genshiken 2: Episodes are being padded out with reanimated recaps from the earlier shows, which is kind of weighing the later episodes down. Adding new content that expands upon the story is fine, but please drop the small rehashes here and there, thanks. Animation looking a bit a stiffer, but forms are still well-rendered, which is more than I can say for the first two shows. Perhaps another OVA is the in the works? No way they plan to cover everything in the remaining episodes…
Ghost Hound: I’m growing a little tired of this one, but it’s fine. It needs to pick up the pace a bit, I think. Loli is cute.
Hayate no Gotoku: I love Nagi so much. She is so adorably screwed up. Cute otaku lolis for life!! ｷﾀ━━━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━━━ !!!!!
Kaiji: Still very much entertaining. Latest plot twist was kind of dumb, but it works. The episodes can’t come out fast enough.
Kodomo no Jikan: Brilliant adaptation of the manga, but… the censorship… oh the censorship. Watching this one raw, as the only group subbing it is terrible.
Minami-ke: Same charming comedy that it always is. I await each episode with bated breath. Chiaki and Kana are adorable.
Moyashimon: As unique as its concept is, the show proper is really quite boring. I can’t really get into it past the opening and the little microbe mascots. Oh well, it’s short.
Shana II: Guilty pleasure show. Enjoying it a lot more than the first one since the budget actually does justice to the designs, which is the only reason I watched Shana in the first place. Don’t really care about the story.
Sky Girls: Found its way back to being a thoroughly cheesy and enjoyable show. Almost over, gonna miss it.

Still need to finish Hidasketch.

Not so current shows
Was watching through some old 90s/early 2000 era fanservice OVAs I started when I was younger. Also catching up on some DVDs.

Reading
Finished the NHK novel, which was spectacular. I don’t really get into fiction writing, but this did it very right. Being the original, naturally it’s a lot better than both the anime and the manga. It actually takes its subject matter seriously, and paints an unapologetically honest picture of a hikikomori. Satou comes off as less of a dolt, too.

Other than that, I’m crawling through some manga volumes and trying to get through some shorter titles. For HILARIOUS contrast, I have both BLASTER KNUCKLE and the Kamichu manga sitting here, waiting to be read.

Original Post

Thanks for all the feedback last week, really appreciated it!

I’m pretty satisfied with how this turned out. Won’t go into much detial, but I like it. Kind of late to the party with this one, but given Mr. Sevakis’s article stirred up a lot of discussion, I figured I should contribute my own 2 cents, in comic form.

I’m too beat to write anything of note in this space today, so I’m cutting it short. Once the vacation rolls around I’ll have more energy, and try to update something like two times a week.

Shingo, stealing [ERO] from you. Hope that’s ok. :P

Here’s some Hazuki. I’ve spent far too much time on this, time for some Clannad.

I recently finished my second complete viewing of Pani Poni Dash! at MIT tonight. Over the course of this second viewing, I’ve noticed my kung-fu has improved. That meaning, I get a lot more of the jokes now. Nods to GeGeGe No Kitarou and Uchuu Senkan Yamato no longer feel random and strange, and obvious pokes at Cobra and Mazinger Z don’t go over my head any longer. However, there is still a lot of shit I just don’t get. I’ve found the hilarity of PPD episodes depends entirely on how much you just get it. Entire episodes will go by where I simply don’t understand anything at all, while some episodes will just be chocked full of stuff that makes perfect sense to me (episode 25 was Yamato, Gunbuster, Giant Robo and Eva all at once.)

The point here is that inbetween the year or so when I first finished the show and now, I’ve learned a lot. I think I should just watch PPD every year just to guage my otaku knowledge, and see how much I can pick up. Hell, given how many times it pokes fun at old anime, I’m sure even Macias would like parts of it.

Expect this one around Monday/Tuesday. The semester is drawing to a close, so naturally there is a lot of work to do, thusly things like my hobbies need to be set aside for the moment.

The lineart here is mostly good, and I like the colouring. Tina kind of looks like MORGAN MANJAW in that one panel, but other than that I’m quite happy with the drawings for this one. I love how sunken in and creepy Rets’ eyes look. I need to go out and take some reference photos for the background of this one.