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

I know THE FIRST THING that’s coming to your mind is, “But wah, you already own that Kaede figure.” And to this quite understandable query, I will reply with this–that Kaede figure was the first PVC I ever got, and as such I didn’t know how to take care of it, so I left it in the sun for an extended period of time, and it got bent up. I tried to fix it up, but my mortal hands can only do so much. I saw the same figure in Mandarake for 1200 yen, so I figured I may as well buy it.

With that matter taken care of, I bet you are now wondering, “But wah, you don’t like Rei! Why do you have a figure of her in a bikini?” Well, see, my friend found that figure on the street. Literally. Standing straight up on the street, right out side of club Sega. I offered him 1000 yen for it.

Her tummy is soft!

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I sit down with fellow lolicon mt-i to talk about a number of mostly loli-centric topics. The discussion covers Ichigo Mashimaro Encore, Toradora! (with spoilers), the new Hayate OVA and Kodomo no Jikan. It’s all fun and games, and I wish everyday was Sunday!

Guests

• mt-i

Songs

• Opening Song– “Zo!” by Kugimiya Rie
• Ending Song– “1 2 3 Day” by Little Non

All of this is matched to a very slow and beautiful string driven piece of background music.

You probably can’t tell, but over the past couple of days I’ve devoted a lot of time to drawing practice. Along with that, I also approached this new piece with a different mindset–something I probably should have been keeping in mind for the past 20 years–that is, thinking in 3D. I realized that the first step to being able to project what you want onto the page with your mind simply involves getting into the basic mindset. Come to think of it, my drawing teachers told me this millions of times; I just didn’t really listen. Another thing I tried to was to relax while drawing. I have a terrible habit of tensing up no matter what I do, but I really just tried to take it easy here. I did tense up, but when I realized that I was, I just relaxed again. Relaxing is generally just something good to do in life, so I should probably just take it easy in my normal life!

I think this lineart turned out pretty okay. Hopefully I won’t screw up on the colouring.

For what it’s worth, I’m going to give a little shout-out to Kokujin for putting out a more or less exceptional sub of the latest entry into the Kodomo No Jikan anime arsenal: Kuro-chan and Shiro-chan. It’s completely soft-subbed, has a nice re-write that reads like conversational English, and near as I can tell the translation is fairly accurate. I do have issues with the some of the slang words used, and I think the typesetting could use a bit of work, but on the whole this is the best fansub I’ve watched since ADTRW put out the first episode of Gurren Lagann.

So, watch it.

Must… resist…. temptation… to… buy… Megami 104. Must… save… money…

This picture would be my wallpaper, if this picture wasn’t already my wallpaper. Now someone needs to scan the Ichigo Mashimaro poster and I’ll be a happy lolicon.

Original Post

I watch Clannad, and after I’m done with an episode, it usually doesn’t leave much of an impression me. The show isn’t bad, it just doesn’t really resonate with me like it does with others. That’s why I was surprised when I just randomly thought up this comic. Usually when coming up with comic ideas, I have to run through all the shows I’m watching and try to pick out potentially funny aspects of them to make into comics. When I came upon Clannad, this idea popped up without much thought. And I like it. Yes, I like it. Maybe I just like it because I’m using Angryblue brushes for the first time since highschool, but I still like it!

This comic didn’t involve much art, but overall I like how everything turned out. The linework is ok, but after I cleaned it and coloured it I came to not hate it. I think I did a decent job of emulating KyoAni’s overdone lighting for the Illusionary World panels, and the last panel is my best Yasuhiro Yoshiura impression. I may continue to light comics like that, even though I’m totally ripping him off. I’ll keep doing it until I realize I can never be as cool as the dude who made Pale Cocoon and Eve no Jikan. Anyways, me actually liking something I made must be a sign of the apocalypse. If anyone sees Four Horsemen on their way to work or something, It’s probably my fault.

Two podcasts went up over the past month. First one is this Macross Frontier podcast I did with The Internet’s Daryl Surat. I meant to post about this on the main site the week it came out, but I got distracted by Election Day and forgot. Anyways, it’s a good show. I’m pretty quiet, but that’s fine since Daryl knows a lot about Macross and will educate you good. The next one is a show that went up just yesterday about Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu. The guests this time around are TV’s Jeff Lawson and The Internet’s omo. It’s a pretty silly show, but Haruka is a silly anime, so it all works out.

Gankutsuoh is growing less and less interesting as it progresses. I really don’t care about any of the characters anymore, and as a result I don’t really care where the plot is going either. The characters that aren’t the Count/aren’t affiliated with the Count are all dumber than School Days characters, and less sympathetic than them as well. Maybe it’ll get better in the last four episodes. At least this isn’t as bad as Romeo x Juliet, though.

ChäoS;HEAd, however, is still impressive five episodes in. This is a momentous feat, considering its concept sets itself up for failure really easily. The animation is a little bad, but it makes up for it with pretty strong writing. Not an episode goes by where stuff doesn’t happen. It is almost the most enjoyable part of my week, if the most enjoyable part of my week wasn’t Zettai Karen Children. Or Michiko to Hatchin.

Kodomo no Jikan has been meandering a lot lately, but I still like it. Though, when each new chapter hits the pipes, I slowly begin to understand why Seven Seas pulled the plug on its release. When they first announced their cancellation of the title, I had only read the first four or so volumes, which are–for the most part–not that bad. I was slightly annoyed, but figured it was ultimately a good business decision. But upon looking at the latest chapters, I have no idea how this could have survived in the US market without there being lawsuit after lawsuit fired in Seven Seas’ direction. For instance, try figuring out how to localize this joke, and then having the balls to put it in a US bookstore. Nevermind the fact that later on in that chapter Rin discovers that there is more to her special place than just going to the bathroom. They should just put this in a lolicon anthology and be done with it! However, if this did get a US release, it’d totally be a step in the right direction, and would hopefully open the doors for many other lolilicious titles to be brought over. I’m looking at you, Lolicon Phoenix!

Aaaaand, that’s all for this week. I have no homework this weekend, so I’m just going to chill. Later.

Story is, almost a month ago I got the March issue of Megami from J-list. The mag came in one piece, but was kind of bent up due to a poor choice in shipping materials (a thin as fuck paper envelope with DO NOT BEND written on it in black Sharpie.) Once I got back into contact with my Friend in Japan, I complained to him, and he in turn complained to the rest of company. Minutes later I received an email from a J-list employee offering to replace the damaged magazine. However, they were out of issues of March Megami (I took the last one w) so he offered to send me the latest issue. I immediately canceled my order for this new issue on Animenation and took up the good man’s offer.

This is probably the most value I’ve gotten out of an issue of Megami, since I hung up all the posters except for one. Pretty good, especially since I paid absolutely zero for it. It is at this point that I’d like note favourite posters, but all of them are so good that I’d just list them all. A good lead up to issue 100, which is sure to be quite epic.

Also, I tried to put all of these up without taking down in posters. After some slight rearranging of things, I managed to get them all up, and as such I’m nearly out of wallspace. Eventually I’ll take new pictures of my otaku lair, complete with the hug pillows and bedsheets I normally hide when I’m at home– just for the full experience.