Mistakes of Youth: The Blog (Powered by ur mum)

Original Post

This comic had two possible outcomes: 1) Rets cursing Kurenai for being a lucky bastard or 2) Rets saluting him. I decided to go with 2), since getting a young girl to kiss you on her own accord is pretty impressive. Kurenai didn’t even have to force himself on her! That’s salute-worthy. The art here is slightly better than what it was at first. After some critiques I changed some things the best I could to make it look slightly better. It still looks average, but not as bad. It’s only one drawing, anyway. The next comic, which I already have sketched out, should look pretty good. It’ll make up for all the stinkers from the past couple of weeks. Not sure how funny it is, though…

Oh, Anime Blog Awards happened, and Mistakes of Youth won something in the “People’s Choice” vote. Blogger’s Choice hasn’t been made public yet, but I guess I won that too since last I checked I was 10 votes above whoever was under me. Not sure how deserving I am of any awards, but thanks to all who voted.

I’m three episodes away from the end of Nadesico, and it’s been a decently fun ride. I kind of expected it to go serious after a while, but to my surprise it’s keeping its relatively light tone till the end. I can appreciate why this series is so well loved, but I can’t totally get into it. It’s good, and at points great, but part of what puts me off is just how fast cut and brisk most of the episodes are. The show does however have a great cast of characters who are all filled with personality, actually handles relationships in a mature manner and, despite being pretty light, drives home the “war is hell” message pretty well. I have the movie downloading right now, and I guess I’ll watch that soon. I would buy it, but apparently a used copy of the DVD costs ~$50 and, uh, fuck that.

I’ve finally accepted that Kyouran Kazoku Nikki is not the crazy comedy that I want it to be, despite it doing everything it its power to force me back into thinking that it is in fact a crazy a comedy each time the opening sequences comes on. The show seems more about imparting kind of cheesy morals and lessons onto the viewer while in the guise of a crazy otaku show. That works decently, but it makes me like the show less. It’s still entertaining, but I kind of hoped it’d be above stuff like that and focus more on being a parody show. Oh well, at least Yuuka is still cute with her little pink striped shirt.

More Haruhi 2 news has trickled in. It seems they’re scrapping the “second season” label and instead just treating it as an all-new series. I honestly don’t see the point in noting that, if it’s still going to be based off of the same material. So long as it tops the first one, I’ll be fine. Also, its ed best be amazing.

That’s it for this week. I have a birthday celebration happening today, so I’ll be off to fit in some anime before the festivities begin.

Original Post

Looking back through the archives, I noticed that I hadn’t even so much as touched upon the issue that is Rosario + Vampire. To atone for this grievous sin, here is a comic which more or less sums up my feelings on the upcoming sequel. I have nothing against fanservice shows, but R+V is a pretty good example of how not to do one. It does get points for Shuuichi Ikeda, though. As far as this comic goes, I’m pretty happy with how the script turned out, and I will admit I was partially influenced by Kaiji when I wrote the punchline. The art is fine– I’m happy with panels 1 and 2, but panel 3 is all too rushed. It looked great in messy sketch form, but not so much when I cleaned it up.

The Ascii Weekly article from a few weeks ago gave the site some pretty decent exposure. I got about 600 more page views that usual and a blog entry! Who knows, maybe I’ll even get a translation deal! (no)

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So I guess we’ll learn more about Haruhi 2 in July Newtype according to June Newtype.

Sauce: Zepy

I figured I’d do another Mikuru figure while I still have the Mikuru background set up.

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Because Photoshop sucks at being easy to understand, I accidentally overwrote my original highres copies of these photos with the 800×600 versions. Blah. Anyway, some photos now that I have a new desk lamp~

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Despair

Hope

Slightly more affordable Hope

Maybe I should elaborate more on that last post…

I have nothing against Clannad. It’s a good show! It has nice animation, good acting, decent direction and the writing isn’t totally horrible! And yes, considering the ending we got, I too felt a bit shortchanged! I do want to see the rest of the story, if only just to make sense of those few unexplained images in the opening, but– and this is a rather large but– can we please have Haruhi 2 first? I’m not even that much of a Haruhi-ist, but after Kanon and Clannad (I suppose KyoAni did take 6 months off for that Lucky Star thing…) I want some crazy SF adventures again!

I’ve noticed that Key shows are good for me in small doses. I love Air, even if it doesn’t make any sense at all; think Kanon is good solid entertainment; and even find Clannad to be an ok use of 23 minutes each week but… seriously. After a while one just grows tired of Key’s brand of writing and just wants something more off-beat and less vanilla. Sure, by Clannad Key’s writing is in its most matured state, but as a result it’s actually a little boring. Thusly, I’m growing rather pissed that KyoAni is wasting their talents on this sub-par story. That second half best be damn good stuff to make up for shit like Kyou’s EXISTENCE.

Conversely, I’ve heard reports from Haruhi novel nerds that the books skew in favour of Yuki, especially book 4 (the one suspected to be animated next.) I don’t like Yuki (but that’s another post entirely) so naturally I’m also approaching the rest of Haruhi with some degree caution, too. Instead of boring old Yuki, let’s focus on the adventures of Mikuru, guys! She’s clearly the best character! Give the girl some love!

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with Japan. /me grumbles and watches Kodomo no Jikan DVD rips

I figure I’ll bunch all this stuff into one entry, just because.

Thanks to an overseas DVD trade between Shiro and myself, I was finally able to secure the first volume of Nurse Witch Komugi. Having finished SoulTaker a few months back, naturally the next course of action was to dig into these wonderfully fluffy and sugary OVAs, hilariously completely different from the work which they are derived. As of right now, I’ve seen three episodes– 1, 2 and 2.5. In other words, the whole first volume.

A long while back, some fool told me that the jokes would be quite difficult to get, given they referenced seemingly obscure things. As such I was ready for a Pani Poni Dash! styled barrage of weirdness, but almost thankfully, I got something slightly more sane. The show really is your typical otaku moe-fest, with its share of reused gags and routines. It’s very entertaining, well animated, and easy to watch. The only parts where people may get thrown off are at the ends of each of the episodes, which usually feature a reference to something uniquely Japanese. For instance, the first episode had Komugi fighting against a giant Mona (complete with kopipe-beam and other associated 2ch madness) and the second episode had Komugi (all five of her, for some reason) done up as your favourite Science Ninja Team. I suppose if one doesn’t know anything at all about anime, then such things may come off as alien, but for the most part, this shit is basics. Perhaps it gets wackier later on– I don’t know. In the meantime however, I’ll just conclude that the guy who was on about this show being impossible to crack is an idiot, because, well, he is.

The funniest part about this DVD is that you can really see its age in the translation, mostly due to the fact that “moe” is translated as “charming.” I can just imagine the translator wracking his brains over this word which, for the most part, was pretty unknown to US fandom at the time. The image of him trying to define the word for himself and then finding an appropriate English equivalent simply sends me into fits of uncontrollable laughter. “Charming” Medical Shower, lol.

Well, I suppose it makes more sense than “turn ons”

Apparently Kadokawa is cracking down on fanworks for some asinine reason. I can kind of understand the logic behind knocking openings and endings off video sites (even if doing so is incredibly stupid) but cracking down on fanworks is tantamount to shooting any love for your product in the fucking face, especially when it comes to properties such as Haruhi. Haruhi is driven by its fandom– the reason so much attention is still focused around it almost two years later is due to its insane fandom. Telling fans to stop making works of love based on your property is basically the same as telling them to not like it. Is it so hard to see that fanworks are pure and unadulterated works of love? Why squash that creative spirit? It doesn’t hurt the company at all– in fact it only helps them, given it’s fucking free advertising. Doujin sales ain’t gonna hurt you Kadokawa, so chill. Neither will MAD movies, for that matter.

Shinbo is motherfucking holding out on us all for not revealing where he gets his drugs. I’d go as far as to say that the last third of Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei episode 7 is a landmark in Japanese animation for just how fucking out there shit can get. They don’t just switch between different animation styles in one segment, they go through different techniques, even brining flipbooks and claymation into the mix. It’s fucking bizarre. I’ll supply for your the tip of the iceberg of madness in the form of a screencap right now.

Yes, that is Bob Ross painting Konata. And it only gets weirder from there.

Dunno if it’s real or not. Found it on Futaba.

Update

Year in review should hopefully happen tonight

Base colours down. Need to fix some things, but gonna leave it alone for tonight. Gonna shower, then watch some more SoulTaker, and maybe that Hayate sub.

The final product will have her kind of tilted at an angel with a bunch of clouds in the background and maybe sakura petals, I dunno yet.

I’m the Scatman

Kyon’s sister claims my computer in the name of all that is good, loli and imouto.

I actually have two imouto atop the computer now, along with one of my six Mikurus.

i swear i’ll stop posting shit like this and actually make an effort to make somewhat worth-while posts…

So… cute…

http://b.bngi-channel.jp/psp-haruhi/sos.html

They added the Mikuru one.

I am so happy.

According to these guys it may just be happening.

MORE NEWS AT THINGS DEVELOP, LIKE A PREPUBESCENT GIRL BECOMING A WOMAN.  

…that is if Kaede didn’t exist, but this was neat.

Also, they’ve since changed it, but lol.

TODAY IS HARUHI LAUNCH DAY

HERE IS A MIKURU IMAGE TO CELEBRATE

I asked for special edition vol. 1 for my birthday, which is in a few days. Let’s hope my parents didn’t fail me >:O

So uh, Yuuko Goto, Minori Chihara and Aya Hirano will be at Anime Expo.

I hope you fuckers in California enjoy yourselves. In other news, us poppets on the East Coast have significantly less important guests for Otakon…

Pink or White?

I’m leaning towards pink, but white looks pretty good, too. Speaking of leaning, that other Mikuru figure I got can’t stay up straight! Any figure enthusiasts out there know how to rectify this problem? I have a half a mind to Crazy Glue it into place…

Edit: Pink is pre-ordered.

Podcasts, a comic and further photos to follow (I really didn’t take many though. Seriously, no more than 10, tops.) For now, the loots. If for some reason porn offends you, don’t read further!

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The art site has been updated with a picture of Mikuru by the sea. Safe for work, for once.

I am not a pervert. Ok, that’s a lie. I love little girls. They are so beautiful. Ms. Kinomoto is no exception. One piece of animation from the Kero 10 minute short that came with the second CCS movie caught my eye. It was a beautifully animated sequence of Sakura moving her legs in tight frilly red shorts. I nearly came. Whoever animated that is a dirty pedophile. Seriously. Just look at that detail.

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http://www.asosbrigade.com just updated their site with an English trailer for Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. It can be found on the main page of the site, or directly on Revver. My thoughts on the English dub? Quite bad. To be fair, I don’t watch English dubs so I don’t know how bad it is on the whole English-dub-scale. Whoever does Haruhi kind of has the same quality as Aya but at the same time kind of doesn’t, and I’m convinced no American person can emulate Kyon’s voice in English. Same for Mikuru. Yuki didn’t talk, which isn’t surprising. Itsuki didn’t talk either, which is surprising.

But yeah, you dub people have a ball.

So I just looked at the source code for asosbrigade.com, and…

<!– Some of them desire the original japanese OP/EDs untouched –>
<!– They don’t want english credits? :( –>
<!– It is difficult to please everyone at the same time –>
<!– What about multi-angle video? –>
<!– Done improperly it will look ugly, let’s devote the full stream to one video –>
<!– How about putting the Japanese-language OP/ED sequence on the special edition DVDs? –>
<!– So regular edition will have english-translated OP/EDs, and the special edition will have the original Japanese-language OP/EDs left as-is? –>
<!– An excellent compromise. –>
<!– Let us hope they are happy –>
<!– I wonder if anyone reads these messages? –>
<!– Are you packed yet? –>

I know this is stupid and picky of me, but I like when companies leave the credits in Japanese (or do the whole multi-angle thing, which FUNi does.) English credits on a Japanese production just seems awfully strange to me. It doesn’t affect my viewing experience either way, I just prefer the credits in Japanese. So it seems the original opening and endings will be left as is on the special editions, which is cool, given I’ll be buying those. I guess their reasoning was that the more hardcore fans would buy the SEs, and the hardcore fans are the only ones who would care about such a detail. I’m coming to like this release more and more.

<!– I wonder if anyone reads these messages? –>

Ahaha~

This just in from http://www.asosbrigade.com

The latest video put up on the ASOS Brigade website revealed all the US release details for Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu. For those who do not feel like watching the video, here is the rundown.

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The first Eva movie has a release date of September 1st.

A naughty picture of Misato after the jump to celebrate this auspicious occasion.

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So FUNimation is doing this 2007 kick off thing where they announce a new acquisition everyday of this week. So far they’ve only picked up stupid crap I don’t care about, but today they picked up Shuffle! among other things. To be totally honest, I am surprised, as I never expected it to get licensed. At all. Ah well, I’m happy. I’ll get to buy it now \o/

…now someone work on getting Air and Kanon :)

In other news, the first Haruhi DVD has a release date of May 29th. SO FAR AWAY. Infos are at the usual place.

Edit: NICE JPEG ARTIFACTS FUNI. Jesus.