One kind of leads into the other.
I should really buy some of these P5 albums. They were such a good band, and I feel like a dick for stealing their music. Once I get a more disposable income, I’ll get a CD or two~
“Honoo no Tenkousei”
VOCALS: Toshihiko Seki
Burning fire! Fight!
With a trail of red fire behind him,
Expelling heat, here he comes!
When he grits his teeth, sparks fly.
The attack that he created is a Death Blow.
Snarl! Snarl! The kick snarls!
Hit! Hit! The punch hits!
Who’s that!? Who? It’s me!
I’m the transfer student you’ve heard about!!
SNARL! SNARL! TAKIZAWA KICK!!
HIT! HIT! RAILWAY PUNCH!!
A resolution to fight between good and evil,
I am the Blazing Transfer Student!!
Download
Alternate Version
YouTube
——
Translation by Howard Kawai. Just the first verse.
It goes without saying that Doumo’s rendition of Minami-ke was brilliant, and that such brilliance would be difficult to replicate, especially by a completely different studio. Though, surprisingly enough, Asread’s doing pretty alright. Asread is a fairly new studio, with their resume being chock full of a lot of in-betweening credits and various other wishy-washy roles. Their only true work is Shuffle!, which was spectacular, but with newer studios it’s hard to tell if further works will be just as good as the other one or two things they made. I remember being psyched about Doujin Work, given Remic worked on Magical Pokaan, only to find that it was absolute dreck. Asread, however, doesn’t disappoint with their version of the three Minami sisters.
Now, it’s not all candy and sugar and shit. The show kind of got off on the wrong foot. The first episode was very awkward, like it was trying too hard to duplicate the charming scriptwriting of the first series. About four or so episodes in though, I’m starting to dig it. It could be a case of me just getting used to it, or the series just settled into its groove. The approach to the material is different, yes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. I can’t say I prefer Doumo’s episode structure to Asread’s or vice-versa, but they’re both entertaining, that’s what matters. However, what I do like more about this one are the visuals.
The first thing that struck me about the Shuffle! TV show was how it looked. I loved the character designs, and the use of colour and shading. It all just worked for me. Okawari looks basically the same, so naturally I love it. Everything from the detailed backgrounds, to the colour selections, to the sharp character design– I love it all. This isn’t to say Doumo’s look is inferior. I love the character designs in that one, too (they’re closer to the original, I think?) but as far as the rest goes, it’s good but doesn’t really hit my weak spots.
Anyway, here’s hoping for nine more wonderful episodes.
Ever since I found out what Gegege No Kitarou was, I simply had to partake of it in some form. Everything about it just looked like tons of fun, but it was all in a language that I could just barely understand. What a fucking cocktease. It’s good to know that at least one group of individuals out there cares and have decided to translate what is probably the most faithful Gegege No Kitarou adaptation to date? I dunno, I’m hardly familiar with the franchise at all, but seeing as this is based on the original ORIGINAL Kitarou, I don’t think I’m too wrong in making that claim.
The show doesn’t disappoint. It has a striking visual style, is deliciously dark, and is, as expected, just a lot fun. I can’t write too much about it, since I barely know anything about the characters or the franchise, but what I can say is watch it. If you do maybe Shinsen will sub it faster.
Not really related, but Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode 4 was more awesome than all of the first season combined. If you can even fathom that.
I like this script. It’s solid. Gets the point across. Art is kind of bland, but let’s just say it’s a joke on Gunslinger Girl 2’s poor quality animation. I was going to give GSG 2 the three episode test, but once episode 3 rolled around and I hadn’t even watched episode 2, I gave up since I could only stand the show one episode at a time. I’m buying the manga now, so it’s not as if I’m missing out on anything.
In other site news, we have some new fanart and a new wallpaper. And yes, if anyone was wondering, I will eventually get around to updating the reference guide.
Caught six episodes of Baccano! at MIT last night. I had planned to watch the show when it first aired, but didn’t really get around to it. I was going to marathon it, but after it was over, all the wrong people where praising it, so I passed. I noticed MIT was showing it, so decided to go since if I can’t be arsed to download it, I’ll just walk 20 minutes watch it with something like 30 other people. It’s quite a good show. As of right now, not as good as some people make it out to be, but it’s good fun. The series is special because it has a lot things you don’t normally find in anime, and instead pulls from older American films with a hint of anime craziness to spice it up. It works well. I like the ensemble cast– each character gets a decent amount of time to show off how fun and wacky they are, so the show is never really boring in that respect. Naturally, my favourites are Isaac and Miria. The story is full of mysteries right now, but the show bogs you down with so much stuff that it’s hard to really wonder about them. But that’s fine, since half the fun is just watching it all play out, and hoping all the stupid commotion makes sense in the end. I should note that the opening is really awesome, and is now one of my favourites. It also gets bonus points for doing the Snatch thing.
Also, MIT anime club, as much as I love you, I find issue with what is considered to be “Essential Anime.” Actually, I only really object to two titles, those being Nodame and Gravitation. Replace those two with an episode of Zeta Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato. Hell, even episodes of Haruhi and Lucky Star would do– they’re far more “essential” than the likes of Nodame and Gravitation.
That’s all for right now. Time to use the free time I have now to get through some backlog. Later.
Dunno if it’s real or not. Found it on Futaba.
Kind of cheating with this one. I couldn’t really think of anything to draw this week, so instead I posted up higher-res art of the comic banner. I meant to get around to it earlier, but didn’t have the time.
I don’t have any kind of musical vocabulary at all, so bear with me. The full version of Kuusou Rumba leaves something to be desired. The first 90 or seconds that they made for TV sound great, but after that it really just falls apart (because, you know, Things Fall Apart.) The song seems very much divided into parts, and while these parts sound mostly ok, they don’t flow together too well. That’s really my main problem with the song– it feels rather disjointed. I’ve listened to it a couple of times, and it’s grown on me a little, but I just can’t like it as much as Hito to shite Jiku ga Burete iru. Though, it took me a while to dig that one, so maybe it’ll be the same here.
As far as the new opening animation goes, I have mixed feelings. SHAFT is known for their unique openings, but they’re also known for revising them over a period of time. I really like the look and feel of this new opening, but it feels really unfinished. The first 45 seconds have no animation at all; just random shots of body parts plus credits. While this is fine, it just feels like filler for real animated stuff that’ll go there. I hope that’s the case, because the animated parts in the last 45 seconds are pretty super. I dig Itoshiki’s outfit (what is he wearing, by the way? An old military uniform?), the dance routine, Itoshiki and stalkergirl embracing while falling, and Itoshiki hanging alone on a tree. It’s all so stupidly emo looking that it’s awesome. Well, aside from the dance, that’s just awesome. Hopefully they’ll add more to it. We didn’t get the real, completed opening to season 1 till about episode 5 anyway, so hopefully by this season’s episode 4/5 we’ll see an improvment.
The show itself is good, though.
I like how you can tell how old the second Gunslinger Girl manga volume is by the Animerica quote on the back.
I bought the first three volumes of some random manga called Gunslinger Girl. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
The cover of the first volume is really quite sexually suggestive, and I’ve never noticed it until now. It features an adorable Henrietta blushing with a gun on her chest. Her expression makes it look as if she was just touched inappropriately, and the gun only suggests the violent means the toucher used to make her comply (actually if such a thing actually happened she’d probably just break his fingers.)
So yeah, I bought these out of frustration over how horrible the new TV show is. I’ll read them after I’m done reading other things.
I would write a proper review (actually, I wouldn’t, but whatever) but half of the show was lost on me since I didn’t read the TL notes and I don’t know how to play Mahjong. But despite that the show got by with good tension and cliff-hangers. I probably wouldn’t watch it again unless I learned how to play Mahjong for some random reason. I mostly watch this kind of stuff for the novelty of it all, anyway.
But hey, it has very awkward narration by Toru Furuya where he tries so hard not to sound like Amuro Ray but still sounds like Amuro Ray except with a giant beam saber stuck up his arse.
Anyway, time to watch Shana then maybe draw a comic but I have a class at 8:30 and if I want decent sleep I should probably turn in before/at 12.
When I get bored between episodes of obscure anime, I google my name to see if anyone has said funny things about me. I usually come out with nothing, but just now I found this. Apparently it came from /a/
“>>8987598 >>8987530 >>8987458 Fuck off wildarmsheero … Oh by all means no, but it couldn’t hurt reiterating what a ronrey loser wildarmsheero is. …”
Unfortunately the thread is gone and it wasn’t cached, so I can only wonder. It seems someone was masquerading as me though, since I was a told to fuck off and I don’t even browse 4chan, let alone post there. Anyone know the thread in question or did it disappear all too fast? I wanna know!
Also, Akagi is pretty great. I get lost in all the Mahjong terms, and can’t follow the copious notes that appear on-screen, but it’s all a good time. Going to try to get up to at least episode 5 tonight, and then maybe fit in another Devil Hunter Yohko episode. It’s going to be nothing but oldies for a while, considering how weak this season is.
Riichi!
Devil Hunter Yohko was the shit (as the kids say) back when my buds and I were something like 12/13 years old. Along with the first Tenchi movie, it was one of the first UNCUT AND UNEDITED anime we ever set our impressionable little eyes on. VIOLENCE! GORE! SEX! CURSING! DIRTY JOKES! It was a dream come true for us, just going through puberty and discovering what happens “down there.”
Looking back on the first episode now it’s uh… quite rough. You can’t really say something like Devil Hunter Yoko is really good or bad, it just is. Further episodes look better, given Madhouse had budget due the success of the first one, so I guess it gets better. I’m going to watch it all just because I own it, and never really got around to finishing it. Well, I did “finish” it but watching the end dubbed with the volume on 2 during a sleepover trying not wake parents up hardly counts as watching. Also, Shinbo did the last episode, so that’s another reason to finish it.
Also, I totally didn’t know Mugihito was in the first episode. Awesome.
I was going to wait until after I went to bed to post this, but given I’m so hyped up on stuff, I figure I’ll put the comic up now. There’s really not much to say here, as I think its best for you draw your own meanings from it. The artwork is mostly good. Tina came out nicely, and I’m happy with how creepy I rendered Anno. Rets’ lineart is a bit wonky, but it gets covered but shadows so it all works out. I’m using a set of pens to clean up the sketches now, rather than a mechanical pencil. A friend of mine got me a set of Copic pens as a late Christmas present, and I was delighted to see that they had a 0.03 mm size pen. A long time ago I used to use Sakura Mircons, and whenever I used the 0.05mm it broke on me. I’ve been using 0.3mm Copic for a bit and it has yet to die on me. At this rate I may go back to using actual ink! Actually, does the lineart look slightly thinner?
I’ve been messing with the site design lately. If it looks funny just force reload and it should be ok. I’m not sure how I feel about the black. I may tone it down a darker grey, but anything is better than unresolved white.
Recently got that Max Factory Pachira from HLJ, and let me tell you, it’s quite a lovely figure. I can’t say I’m enamored enough with MagiPokaa enough to buy figures from it (though, I do like the character designs. I may pick up that Uma if I see it at a con again), but this figure’s gimmick was too awesome pass up. Those in the know should have a good idea as to what I’m on about :3. The only real problem is that during the cast-off process some red paint rubbed off on her chest. It’s nothing major, but it’d like to clean it up. Anyone got any tips?
The current crop of stuff airing hasn’t been all that impressive lately. I just finished Moyashimon, which was a weird show. Not weird in the way that I wanted it to be, though. The promo material suggested the show would be all about the microbes, but they really take a back seat to bizarre plot twists and character interaction. The show has fun sitcom-ish qualities to it, along with some strange drama-ish aspects, but never did it really act on what I expected out of it. I doubt I’ll watch it again, since a good half of it is extremely boring, but I guess it was fine in the end. I’m also not too taken with Clannad. The stories are fine, but they lack a lot of the overdone drama that made both Air and Kanon engaging to me. The characters, while well-written, don’t really leave much of an impact on me either. Maybe I just like poorly written stories better? I dunno. Kaiji is pretty DBZ at the moment, but it seems like they moved out of that with episode 15.
As for the new offerings from the winter season, I am again mostly not too taken. Gunslinger Girl 2 is an absolute depressing wreck. I may give it the three episode test, but it’s just too sad to watch. Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is of course genius, so I’ll just leave it at that. So far the best thing I can think off that’s not a sequel this season is Spicy Wolf. Episode 1 was boring, but by episode 2 I am beginning to see truth in Cunningham’s words on the original novel. Horo and Lawrence’s banter is entertaining, though I’m not sure if that alone will keep me for 13 episodes. It really seems like it’s a good time to catch up on old things, so I guess I’ll watch something like Devil Hunter Yoko tomorrow, or these Crusher Joe things that came down the pipes this morning.
I guess I’ll try to get some sleep now. Later.
Call me…
Porno update. 18+ only plz
Cool cats Jeff and moyism recently divulged to us the awful truths behind how much they spend on anime and anime related goods. This, of course, got me thinking about how much I waste on my sick and twisted hobby for devil worshiping sinners. Now, I come from a fairly well-off family (and I’m sure they hate me very much each time they read this blog) so basically all my living stuff is covered. Thusly, any money I make on my own goes towards CRAP, and I’m horrible at saving. That said, it’s not really all that much, at least compared to those two guys. Then again, they have real jobs, and I’m just a stinky, fat and ugly college student. My personal spending quota for the year usually turns out to be something like ~$1500. Now, this usually covers all the stuff I REALLY want, and lesser things such as DVDs are usually saved as birthday or Christmas presents. Still, if I had a real job, I’d probably be spending a lot more. Probably a bit more than Jeff, but not nearly as much as moy (I don’t see how the man does it!) What follows is my ideal anime crap budget.
So, about $5000 total is the hypothetical absolute maximum I’d spend on anime in a year, if I had that kind of money. Not so bad, really. Now, where to get the $5000…
Found the Nanako SOS opening song on Share.
I guess you literally can find anything on there if you look hard enough…
The second, and probably last round of reviews for the winter season. Only two this time– probably not going to watch much more than this unless someone decides to sub the new Gegege no Kitarou and/or Noramimi.
That’s it. Considering the titles this season has to offer, I may just end up watching Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Minami-ke ~Okawari~. Rosario + Vampire is pretty insipid and poorly animated, and Spicy Wolf could go up or down for me. I guess the good part is that I’ll have time to catch up with some older shows.
I watched Soultaker earlier in the week. I promise I won’t do this ever again. Maybe. The script is about how downloading doujinshi is kind of bad. I know I have at least two Japanese readers, and one of them took offense to my comics about downloading doujinshi. If I could buy doujin easily, I would, but I can’t. I download them because my penis is stronger than my morals, but I do buy as many as I can at cons and the like. Also, this comic references this other comic, if you forgot about it.
In other site/comic news, we have some fanart. I’d also like to draw attention to my year in review, since I didn’t write ~3,500 words just so no one could read them. Also this Eva review, which is just what everyone else wrote back in September, but whatever.
That’s all. I just got back to Boston, so I’m bit worn out from traveling.
I only really post on one forum these days, but every now and again I complete a piece of work that looks kind of ok and decide to post it on various other forums that I have posted on in the past. Back in the far off year of 2003, I posted on the Anime Academy forums for a period of time. After I figured out the place wasn’t really for me, I left, but I still popped in a few times to post bits of art in their art forum for critique. It seems they have some kind of hilarious anti-pedo sentiment now, and because of this totally harmless sig, plus a link to my art site, I am now temp-banned.
Now, I don’t really care at all. It’s not my type of community, so being shut off from it doesn’t really bother me. What I do find hilarious is how there are still anime fans out there who are genuinely bothered by those of us who have a preference for younger 2D girls. I’d think by 2008 the general American fan community would learn to accept us, given they’ve accept freaks like yaoi fangirls (and fanboys!) quite readily. Near as I’m concerned, if a dude who likes looking at pictures of 2D dudes fucking other 2D dudes is acceptable, then certainly a dude who likes pictures of 2D dudes fucking 2D little girls is acceptable. If the anime fan community is open minded enough to accept faggots homosexuals, then certainly they can open their minds to accept the far more enlightened lolicon men of the world.
It’s just funny, you know?
The winter season has started, but unlike every other blog I’ve come across, I am in fact not watching every show that rears its poorly animated head. I am a very discerning creature, and after about four or so years of seriously watching anime I can tell just from various promotional materials what would probably interest me. Thusly, out of all the current offerings that have aired up to this point, I have only watched three shows, all of which I will cover now.
That’s all. Apart from those three, I’m waiting for subs of Minami-ke ~Okawari~ and Gunslinger Girl 2. Yeah, I know they’ve gotten mixed reviews, but I need to see them for myself. I’d watch Hakaba Kitarou and Noramimi if people actually subbed them, though.
This post will have spoilers. Just so you know.
Saw that new Eva movie. Something like the first 50 or so minutes are just prettier scenes from the TV show cut together. The cutting probably feels a little jerky to someone like me who’s seen the show something like 50 billion times, but I guess to a newcomer it’d be ok. The only cut that really struck me as really rough was how they introduce Toji with him punching Shinji in the face. Maybe it was just because I was watching the movie raw, but it still didn’t seem like there was much of a segue to that scene. In any case, it’s a lot smoother than the Zeta movies, but that’s not saying much at all.
After they rush through episodes 1, 2 and 3, and cut episode 4 down to a mere scene, the movie ends with completely redone versions of episodes 5 and 6. I swear to god, basically none of the shots are the same as in the TV series, save one or two. Everyone’s heard about how they made Diamond-Angel (I can never remember their fucking names) shape-shift so I won’t go on about that. Basically they just made those two episodes a lot better than they already were.
While the movie is mostly recap, they do mix some stuff up which could make for interesting plot changes in the coming films. Like how there is one Lilith down in Central Dogma, but its mask is like Sachiel’s face, and there’s another one on the moon hanging out with Kaworu. Also, why did Misato bring Shinji down there so early in the game? Maybe I missed it because it was raw, but it seems somewhat less shocking seeing that so early on, whereas in the TV series it was like “WHOA ZOMG WUT.” I dunno, like I said, it could just be because I’ve seen it already so it doesn’t really shock me anymore. Maybe it shocked the two people who were seeing Eva for the first time, I dunno.
I watched a cam of the movie, but it was surprisingly good. Scenes with lots of lighting looked good, and scenes that were dark looked like that bad copy I have of My Youth in Arcadia. Sound is kind of tinny, and it’s hard to make out a number of lines. Not like it matters, none of you know Japanese anyway.
For recap, it was pretty good. It nice to see Eva presented in the kind of epic format it truly deserved. The animation is great, and for a show in which the scenes were all 4:3, they make the transition to 16:9 pretty well. Music is mostly the same, with some additions. Some scenes had completely redone pieces, and I’m not sure how I feel about them at the moment. I’ll have to see it again, which will probably be after I preorder the DVD from CD Japan with the money I don’t have.
The movie ended with a preview for the second movie, and it seems like it’ll cover up to episode 18-ish based on what they show, and if I remember the TV show correctly. There’s some old stuff, some new stuff and a lot of shit that leaves me scratching my head, hoping it’ll all make sense in the end. But yeah, it’s a lot better than the poopy Zeta movies, so WATCH IT.
2007 was really fucking uneven. The first few months got by on the better titles that carried over from 2006, but between April and August it was something of a wasteland. I managed to get my fix for good modern anime by way of genius works such as Gurren Lagann and Hayate no Gotoku, but all the other offerings during that period of time where somewhere between mildly amusing to plain bad. Thankfully, August saw the debut of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Zero No Tsukaima 2, both of which restored my faith in the industry somewhat. October once again impressed with Minami-ke, Kaiji and Clannad.
What follows will be something similar to my monthly posts, but for the Year In Review, I’ll be ordering things by quality using letter grades, starting from the worst to the VERY BEST. I cover a lot of shows in the post, but it’s not everything I watched during the year.
Here’s my rankings.
Year in review should hopefully happen tonight
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