Why Don’t I Miss You A lot Forever?

Posted On November 17, 2006

Original Post

Part II of last week’s comic. If I was a psychic and had known this was going to happen, I would have made a comic about that instead of taking up two weeks with a two parter. However, even though it’ll be late, the next comic will be about Haruhi II. Unless by that I point I feel it’s just too late. News sure gets old fast. Sigh.

I’m not sure what I think about this as far as writing goes. I figured I may as well make a Musashi joke. It was going to happen eventually, so why not do it now? I do feel kind of bad about knocking on series that I haven’t seen, though. I’ve not seen any of the series mentioned in the comic (though I have seen the famous Uo! Mabushi! Musashi clip.) In the end, I guess it’s funny. Rather, I hope you guys think it’s funny. I’m quite happy with the artwork. Pretty much came out exactly how I envisioned. The backgrounds are fairly nice, but that was because I had a reference. That reference being my apartment. Yes, Rets now lives in an apartment that’s similar to mine. In fact, it’s pretty much the same place. Once he returns home from college, he’ll be in his same old room, though.

Last week’s podcast was well received. So much so that a couple of bloggers plugged it. I’m glad people liked it. I feel Patrick’s insight was most definitely something that was missing from the show. Also, as a side note, when I said I was “not quite” into moe, I meant “totally.”

I’ve decided to re-watch Haruhi. See, when Haruhi first aired, it wasn’t exactly a good time for me. I was stressing over college apps, end of year exams along with some other annoying things related to school. Because of this, it was hard to enjoy anything to any great degree. This isn’t to say that now that I’m in college it’s all smooth sailing (because it isn’t), but I have more free time and I’m less stressed in general. I recently watched the first episode, and I found it a lot more enjoyable this time around. I have the second episode all qued up, so I’ll watch that in a bit.

Code Geass is a pretty good show. So good that I can’t wait for the next episode. However, it’s not the story that has me. It’s not that at all. To be perfectly honest, it’s all the girls. While I wasn’t that excited by the designs when I originally saw them, the women of this show have really grown on me. For once, Clamp’s stupid tallness actually works, as it serves to make these girls all the more sexy. CC is my favorite. I love her tight fitting outfit, her green hair and her sleepy bedroom eyes. As far as the story goes, I guess it’s fairly good. So far it seems like your typical revenge story on a grand scale mixed in with what can only be called a “Death Note” or “Jedi Mind Trick” edge. The Geass is still not as fun as the Death Note, but Lelouch’s use of it in episode four brought it up a couple of notches. Speaking of Lelouch, I’ve come to like him very much as a character. Probably because he’s almost exactly like Light. In fact, I just like evil pretty boys. They’re a lot more realistic than nice pretty boys. Well, Lelouch isn’t really evil, but he certainly has a creepy grin. Oh, I’m really digging his Zero outfit. Very over the top and silly, just the way I like it.

ADV got Keroro Gunso. This does come as a bit of a surprise to me as I thought Keroro was something Bandai would bring over. Well, I guess this only serves to strengthen my theory that ADV is trying to snatch up every anime comedy that goes out of its way to make numerous obscure references. I honestly don’t see the point of trying scoop up every series like this, unless it’s to win over more hardcore fans that don’t really “trust” ADV (me being one of them.) But given the way they market these shows, I get the feeling that they are trying to cater to the kind of people who read a lot of shitty webcomics, love “random humour” and all that. They present these kinds of shows as “wacky, random comedies”, and while they are to an extent, there is meaning behind all the madness. Shows like Pani Poni Dash and Excel Saga are filled to brim with inside jokes, anime references, cultural references and the like. Take PPD for instance, in just about every episode there will be a 2ch emote used as a character’s facial expression or something like that. While I laugh because I understand the joke, someone else will be left wondering “what?” Eventually some gears turn in their head telling them, “because I don’t understand it and it happened so suddenly, it MUST be funny because it’s so random!” I think ADV is trying to exploit this kind of market for all its worth, because, well, there are a lot of stupid people who think this way. Incidentally, I wonder how well it’s working. I’ve heard Excel Saga was selling well, but I’m not too sure about all the other “random comedies.” To ADV’s credit though, I appreciate their accurate subtitle work and extensive liner notes. I don’t appreciate the stupid in-house extras though.

Also, still on the subject of licensing, apparently Media Blasters got Kasimasi along with a couple of other shows. Honestly, Kasimasi was the last thing I’d expect to get brought over. I guess the license was cheap, and they’re going to use it exploit all the yuri fanboys. Now, don’t get me wrong, I liked Kasimasi. Well, I liked the first 5 or so episodes, the BGM and the OP and ED songs. It just really saddens me that something like this can be considered for US release with the likes of Air and Kanon aren’t.

Jigoku Shoujo Futagomori is proving to better than the first series about four episodes in. Episodes two, three and four have all put interesting spins on the usual Jigoku Shoujo story. While it is a bit of the same formula from the original show, it’s handled much better this time around, at least thus far. Let’s hope it keeps up. I especially liked episode two. That one was fucked up. Like, Tsutomu Miyazaki fucked up.

Anyway, that’s enough inchoerent ranting for this week. Until next week. I hope.