I really really really should be sleeping now orz

Ah well, just a few updates on the anime I’ve watched/ am watching. As usual. No pics I think :\

First of all, I finally completed Hunter x Hunter, TV series and OVAs and all. The manga’s still running, but I hear it’s pretty slow and the mangaka just keeps taking breaks. There was this long hiatus from 2006 to 2007, it seems, and then from then on it just went on and off, but now it’s serialised weekly in Jump. Then again, if this is considered bad, I sorta don’t know what to say to the faithful D.N.Angel manga followers. How is it now, really?

I also picked up this really random old anime called Legend of BASARA. Sure, Sengoku BASARA is the more popular of the BASARAs now, but this anime wasn’t too bad, I hear it’s really similar to Fushigi Yuugi. *And if you’ve realised by now, I haven’t watched that many of the so-called “classic must-watch animes”. I think my reading shoujo manga somewhat helped me tolerate the obvious traditional shoujo manga art style being animated. I’m not sure how hearing somewhat familiar voices such as that of Inoue Kazuhiko or that of Chopper (One Piece) affected my experience, but I think the plot was really quite decent. Another thing I’m really bad at is recommending anime to others, but if you like romance and uh. Epicness? Heroic anime, or other anime similar to Fushigi Yuugi, you might just want to give this a try.

Oh. Just a note, the ending is really unsatisfactory. It just ended really really abruptly and the moment we (the viewers) were all waiting for just didn’t happen. In Japanese, I’d say 悔しいぃい～～！なんでやねん、こんなエンディングなんていらねーぞ or something like that. 

I am currently watching Fullmetal Panic!, and I must say it is pretty interesting. It’s another “classic must-watch”, isn’t it. Sure there’s quite a bit lot of panchira and fanservice, though of course not comparable to the likes of Kemeko Deluxe, but the character dynamics more than make up for that. I’m not a mecha anime person, I suppose, since more than too often they center around a lot of politics due to GOODMAN influence, but sometimes I make exceptions. Like Code Gayass Geass. Darn, I really need to get rid of that bad habit of mine, but KL-chan’s fanart really isn’t helping.

Speaking of GOODMAN, I am transferring a large amount of data to do with the latest GOODMAN #00 first season to my external harddrive at the moment, from unknown sources. I may or may not watch it in the end, but I may just try. If you are wondering why I am doing so when I could so much more easily watch it streamed, I shall reply that I have had enough with this ’streaming’ education system here in this tiny pea nation googling a series with two seasons and a huge market based on mecha otakus just like Sagara and hoping that there are good streamed videos was entirely wishful thinking on my part. Or maybe I just did it on a whim |d I sort of get the feeling that I will not come to like most or any of the Meisters though :\\

&More details here: http://myanimelist.net/animelist/shadowangellz. And yes, I did realise that 86.7% of my Currently Watching anime list comprises of anime that are currently airing.

&! One line (or two, three for rants and rambles) for each other anime I’m watching that I haven’t really mentioned yet: 

Skip Beat! is actually getting interesting! And Kannagi filler episode wasn’t that bad, gaiz. More Nagi needed, though, and Less Over-Obsessed Nagi-Otaku Plz. Casshern SINS is kinda reminding me a lot of Kaiba with the same production studio and uh. story flow? Whaddya call it? I mean they both have some 記憶喪失 (amnesiac) guy getting around and trying to make sense of the world around him and on the way they meet people and stuff. NEED…MORE…EVE NO JIKAN. Haven’t been catching up on Gintama but slow subs are slow, too, even though Tudou would do just fine for me? GSZS is good as usual. Earl and Fairy is cheesy but the sappiness is teh funny. Kemeko was actually kinda funny the last time I watched it, I was quite surprised, but the fanservice and random Kemeko just don’t always work for me. Kuroshitsuji is getting better, some of the previous episodes really didn’t interest me much, I just want the plot to thicken. Michiko e Hatchin is… above-average, but I want a little more ….direction? Nodame is pretty good as usual. I can’t help thinking of Sagara now when I hear Chiaki speak, though. One Piece is pretty darned OMFG-WTFHish these days, but kinda in a good way. Just, someone remind me how many litres the average human has? The whole Strawhat Crew is inhuman, even those without the Devil’s Fruit. Looks like Luke is gonna grow up soon in Tales, but he’s still freaking getting on EVERYONE’s nerves already just about now. Toradora! is funny as usual. Still hate the parrot. I only like Taiga as a Tenori Tiger or when she’s actually violent and/or angry for logical reasons, Ryuuji’s too nice sometimes, and Kawashima is really really annoying.

….

AFA ‘08’s coming real soon, gaiz, but first there’s a 20% off promotion going on at Kinokuniya from tomor today~!

And someone keep me away from pixiv, I could spend ages and ages there going 素敵♥！, followed by a loud wail directed at heaven complaining about how talentless I am, a million times at the billions of great budding artists there. In effect, wasting another few hours of the holidays I already happen to be wasting.

Marisa, drawn by DaDa on pixiv, wishes you a Happy (Belated) Halloween~

A bit late, but I haven’t been posting. That’s an unavoidable, inexplicable fact. I write more often on Lang-8, and that’s in Japanese, mind you. And I update Poupee more than I update this site |D Speaking of poupee, I found some guy who actually posted stuff there and dressed up his poupee and shtuff. *trauma trauma* And then I just LOL’d.

I’ll be talking about games I’ve picked up/ have wanted to pick up, as well as the anime I’ve picked up and dropped.

I figured I should try and use my holidays to play some game that I’d wanted to play, so I did. I’m playing Pi Story now, but I lag up in dungeons/ maps/ whatever you call the places the pi bring you to because the connection’s pretty bad for some reason. I don’t usually like to team up with strangers, so it’s quite horrible for me when all the monsters spawn like crazy (i.e. Petite Forest, with the dang orbs). I’d play Mabinogi, but I don’t live in North America. I tried the bypass thing but uh I kept getting problems. So I gave up. ._.u I considered the Japanese server but I couldn’t be bothered in the end.

RO2 is coming soon. I’m not sure I should join or not with my grades in the gutters already.

I think I shall make it a habit to post Miku fanart in every future post… or not. Fyi this is by ぷちでびる (read: puchidevil) on pixiv.

I’ve also picked up some new anime, such as Skip Beat! (quite horrible, but oh well the manga was good I heard and I can’t be bothered to read the manga) and Garei Zero (the plot kind of goes nowhere though ep 4 was funny, but I just had to watch each episode to get to the bottom of it but I’m at my limit and gonna drop it damyou). *Edit, I’ve dropped it. Although Kemeko’s not that bad, it’s just not my taste (Fanservice aka ’saggy bwbs’, and Crazy-with-barely-any-logic-nor-meaning?!), so I’m watching it with little enthusiasm. I’ve picked up Tales of the Abyss (just because it’s one of the ‘Tales’ and I liked the cheagles and Luke didn’t irritate me as much at first and I have no means of getting my Tales of Symphonia for my Wii since I’m broke), Kuroshitsuji (the butler’s pretty much the only character who prevents me from dropping this), Clannad After Story (I don’t quite mind KyoAni works), Toradora! (despite whiny tsundere Al-gone-wrong, the duo are funny) and Michiko to Hacchin (this has potential I believe) although none of these shine quite as much as Kannagi does. Do I have to add in a ‘Kya’ or ‘Squee’ to show just how much I love it? Kya~! Squee~! (I don’t normally do this, you know.) I just love the puns, the tsukkomi, most of all the comedy duo themselves, etc., so that might be my weakness, but the bottom line is I just love this anime. Also, Nagi, tsundere as she might be, doesn’t irritate me much since she’s more like Kana from Minamike than a tsundere. Kugyu voices too many tsunderes already, and I don’t even like her that much :\ 

I dropped Hyakko (bad art and bored me despite a Kana-like character, sorry Jazzu), Yozakura (average but boring too), DMC (too vulgar and way too random for me, dropped quite a while ago, although I did enjoy Gag Manga Biyori) and Index (average and reminding me of Mx0 but ohwell, nothing special). 

Ah, gone are the days when I enjoyed Mahou Shoujo and watched anime (as well as the Powerpuff Girls) in Chinese. Akazukin Cha Cha was one of them… Ah, fyi this is by yukke.

My gut tells me that at least 99.9999% of the people who bothered to visit this page just went ‘tl;dr’ as usual and to those who actually know me in real life, this post probably wasn’t relevant to your interests (I don’t really post about my life here so please do look somewhere else where I do if you can even find one in English |D). I wrote a lot of run-on sentences today orz. And I probably abused the parentheses a little too much.

In any case, to sum up, please do watch Kannagi if you haven’t/ don’t plan to |D ! Especially if you love funny anime

And the Kannagi Girls are (from left) Zange-chan, Nagi and Tsugumi. Jin, the main guy and chibi in the centre, is pretty funny, as are his fellow art clubbers. Especially Akiba-kun, who has the same voicer as Simon from Gurren-Lagann. Btw, this is high res so click for fullview.

*Technically, the above image was a highres scan that I had to tweak a little in Photoshop in order for it to look better.

Brits vs. Black Knights. Oh, and I love this drawing style.

So I’m slow. In catching up with the more popular (not necessarily better) anime series, that is. I know. Which is why, being a slacker with no grasp of time management, I have managed to marathon the first season in, oh, three days at most? And I started on R2 today, and I’m at around episode 18. I tell you, my EYAs are shot to hell. But firstly, my homework. As for my foot drill test, I’m leaving it to luck and my ability. (On second thoughts, this applies to most of everything I do.)

But that’s besides the point. Dear Lulu has given me so much entertainment these past few days.

I love the linework. Hm, someone told me this was the way to go for more pageviews

Now I’m not one who particularly likes watching ‘politics’-based shows, or those involving devious strategists and whatnot– Gundam 00 kind of started to bore me after episode 3, while I probably just jumped on the bandwagon for Death Note but either way got bored when LADIES– but seeing as to how I’ve taken quite nicely to Code Geass despite the ridiculous voice of Fukuyama Jun as Lulu (ugh, I especially hate his Zero voice just like I hate Christian Bale’s voice when he does Batman), as well as the fact that I loved Ender’s Game a few years back, I might just consider trying them out again once I’ve got free time. IF I don’t get distracted too easily again, that would mean the December holidays, but this year my lack of time management is entirely off the charts, so I wouldn’t count on that.

Contrast. Phew, the legs are mostly hidden. But the shoulders…

I don’t happen to nitpick the plot that often since I’m not very sharp. But as for the art, you wouldn’t even call it nitpicking.. I mean CLAMP does a great job for the manga versions (except for their inability to draw anything but anorexic bishies – just look at the legs and arms), but as for the anime art, though the animation’s fluid, and mecha scenes still manage to keep my interest, characters look okay after a while since animation’s fairly consistent, I can’t say I love it. From the front, most of the faces drawn are fine (albeit always too angular), but the side profiles are the worst sometimes. Really, just look at it. Specifically the Angry/Emo/Angsty Lulu ones. The Fingers are quite horrid too.

Lulu angsts.. a lot. But 'nuff said, take a look at the fingers…

Another thing is that I can’t help but start to laugh whenever Zero does one of his speeches. It is almost never complete without exaggerated hand-movements. That voice also contributes to the reason that I am so amused by it, I believe.

Summarised thoughts on characters so far:- Kallen is rather too tsundere for me, lol. But she sure kicks ass. A real pity she’s reduced to a mere woman (=fanservice) in R2, sigh. And despite C.C.’s outright advertisement for Pizza Hut (They even rendered that crazy Cheese Fondue or whatever it’s called pizza), I rather liked her (moreso before her memory loss in R2, but anyway). As for Lulu, he’s fine without the maniacal laughter that simply must be there at least once every 5 episodes. Granted, he’s quite the genius (at least in his little 2D fictional world), and a better strategist than I will ever be, but he’s quite the siscon… Furthermore, he liked Shirley, that good-for-nothing bimbo.

If Lulu wants an org– I mean, harem, this is it. Daw, isn't he loved.

That said, Rollo is still a bastard for killing her since she didn’t mean any harm to him nor to Lulu (I’ll take her word for it), and being jealous just because of his pathetic buracon. In fact his presence is quite uncalled for. Except for the oh-so-amusing Lulu x Rollo scenes and fanart. Quite disturbing how that even forms a whole fanbase (KL-chan included), but I’m not too surprised now since G00 has spawned such a fandom just based on the fujoshis (sirane included) already. Suzaku is another Syaoran clone, I believe? Suzaku is.. another very contradictory human. Euphie was a manifestation of Lulu’s secret desire for a yandere in the series. No, really. a tragedy. Nina is indeed a lesbian retard, her face when Euphemia died was like the Higurashi girls gone crazy, only a thousand times more unpleasant on the eyes. I see it has spawned several ’shopped versions of other characters on danbooru. Lloyd (especially his voice) is gay. Oh and Sayoko is the greatest ninja ever, while Li Xingke is worshippable prodigy. Too bad he is a lolicon and will die for such a sin.

Main characters for R2.. Pretty decent fanart, I might say.

…That’s all for now, not much to say about the music (bgm is mostly orchestrated :3 and ops/eds are ookay..) or plot (I told you, I’m not sharp enough). Have I told you that I love to ramble? That’s really all I am bothered to do nowadays it seems. :C It’s a bad habit but I don’t think it’s going to change anytime soon. But I shall relieve you of any further pain from reading my horrible ramblings by ending soon D:

Random note, I’ve applied for JLPT Level 3 even though I’d aspired to try for Level 2 this year. :\ It’s quite irritating how Level 3 seems too easy while Level 2 seems too hard. Sigh. Speaking of languages, though, Italian is such a pretty language. A pity learning languages requires commitment/passion and time.

I realise I’ve been neglecting Tetsuwan Birdy: DECODE. ‘Tis sad.

This is Lulu. (Is -ko even needed?) CAN YOU UNSEE IT? CAN YOU?!

P.S. Geass, or rather geis, or geasa -plural- which I assume the word is based on, is pronounced gesh. Sounds horrible, don’t you think? Which is why, I suppose, they decided to coin their own word. Or maybe they just thought it would sound cool to use some rare word.

P.P.S. More picspam below:

A special request made by megane-fetishists

Lulu, pimping out. Britannia, Dark Knights, bring it on – Pizza Hut will conquer all

Note the two (ridiculous) characters in the air. That said, I love the design of this costume.

Cheese-kun is Japan's Pizza Hut mascot

Someone told me to leave this for last

/randomise/ In conclusion, Code Geass is a really popular franchise now… It’s not bad, actually, quite action-packed most of the time, and deserves that popularity, but I think they could have toned down the fanservice. Especially the BL subtext. (Is it really even subtext anymore?!) Also, Fan-pandering and picspam is probably good for pageviews.

If you would excuse me, I have a foot drill test tomorrow. Dammit.

Wall-E and Gokiburi-kun, better known as the near-immortal Cockroach.

Wall-E is probably the most well-done G-rated movie I’ve ever seen It was too cute to be true in many ways. I hear the budget went up to about $180m? But I believe it’s worth it all, since the texturing and details are amazing. Disney, Pixar, you guys are fantastic.

As a sidenote before I proceed to attempt to reorganise some of my thoughts on the movie, it was pretty funny when the three of us as a group were approached by some hairstylist on our way to the cinema. ‘Free haircut?’ or something to that effect since that’s all we kind of paid attention to. I think she simply scouted us because students can’t really say much if they screw up since it was free after all haha and we were the only students on the road at that time. Either way, Wall-E is more important than some free haircut |DD although, it might’ve been interesting to see how it would have turned out, since it seems it was for some ‘training’ for the newbies?

Eve is badass-cool. You question that?

I love Wall-E, but I would love to have or be an Eve. Why? First up, I hate the name Wally irl, just sounds weird to me. No offense, but well. Preference. Dagh but Wall-E kinda makes it sound cute. Second, Eve hovers. And she can fly. There was this one time that I dreamt about flying, it was so exhilarating. Third, Eve is badass if she wants to be (she’s 100% tsundere with 80% tsun and 20% dere after all), with that annihilate-anything-in-her-way laser/gun(??). Wall-E is a wuss to a certain extent. But that’s a semi-good thing, especially for gokiburi-kun (doing), just that he won’t really be my favourite character. Fourth, Eve as a whole is really sleek, with that iPod kind of shiney though it’s not the kirakira/blind-your-eyes-with-glitter shiney.

But what’s irritating is her directive, sigh. :\

Yes, Eve, even I am amazed by how fat they get in fiction. O_O

What was funniest about the movie was how every human was a fat lazy American…

I kind of like mechanical voices now, they’re so fun to listen to. GLaDOS had a nice enough voice to be able to produce a single, and Eve’s laugh was really amusing.

Wall-E is sad to see you go…

It’s been a few days since I’ve seen the movie so I probably haven’t included all my first thoughts on the movie, but it was great. The animation and movie budget is already reason enough to convince me to watch it, and the moral-of-the-story really relates to modern society’s lazy poots now (take yours truly for example, just not fattened up enough yet).

Give it a try I finished the whole series (12 episodes) in just about 3 days – that’s pretty darned fast, don’t you think? And meanwhile, I haven’t even got to finishing up Manabi Straight or other 12-episode semi-recommended series. Of course, the compromise made in terms of time means my grades are pretty screwed this year. Twice over as compared to midyears. Last year was much better, trust me on that one.

Not to digress, though, I think Kaiba is really one of the rarer finds (or maybe it’s because I’ve been watching all sorts of crap or not watching at all). I think Surreal describes the setting perfectly, but it seems to go deeper than that. Oh, and the ending is Confusing, unless it’s just me. I also think Cartoon for Adults or for the more mature sort of fits Kaiba well.

Before one of you Bleatards goes SQUEE HOLLOW!!11!1one, this is Kaiba. Say hello, shake hands, yep yep.

Oh and by the way, I think one other reason why I love Kaiba is that his colours remind me of Link. ORZ WTF SELF |D

In terms of graphics, the art style is very cartoony; not moe, but nowhere near realistic–realistic referring to the style which GONZO (or whatever other animation studio, since I’m not too familiar with them all) usually chooses to use nowadays, and the style which most series with above-average animation use. I got put off by the art style/ ignored it at first because of how kiddy it seemed. Despite the cartoony feel, though, I don’t really mind it now. In fact, I find it pretty interesting, and cute in other ways. The animation was very fluid, too, which is probably more of why I could accept the style and actually love it, in addition to unique and distinct character designs. The production studio is Madhouse btw. Either way the pictures’ll speak ten thousand words.

What I find especially interesting is that the unique, cartoonish art style belies quite a mature theme and overall feel, which is most felt later on in the series… For example there is quite a bit of ‘blood’ or rather green or purple or orange funky-coloured organic fluid that spews out due to conflicts :\ and there was this part pretty early on in the series to do with sex. Not presented in a very tasteful manner since that wasn’t the point, but I exceptionally found the context in this case quite disturbing. You’ll know what I mean once you watch it, it should be in the first 2 or 3 episodes..

Left: Kaba, Right: Hyo Hyo; really cute and unique characters

In terms of music, it mostly uses one main theme (except for action scenes) with quite a few/a lot of variations of it to convey a slightly different mood. Quite fittingly, may I add. Most are engrishy and serene.

As for the voice-acting… Generally quite suitable and well-done imo. Kaiba, who is the main character, is voiced by Kuwashima Houko. She is probably best known as Tomoyo in Clannad and Sango in Inuyasha. Oh, and also Michiru in Zombie-Loan, which I just kind of picked up, and now I can’t stop thinking of her as a guy when I hear her voice. Yep, here goes a ‘wtf self?!’. The second-most main character is Neiro, voiced by Noto Mamiko. The name should at least sound a little familiar.. She was Kotomi in Clannad, Ana in Ichigo Mashimaro (yet another yet-to-complete series) and Enma Ai in Jigoku Shoujo. Ring a few bells now?

Is this considered a spoiler? Anyway, Neiro on the left and Kaiba on the right.

Special mention for Paku Romi who voice-acts Popo, a secondary character though more major only later on. Her voice almost ALWAYS makes me automatically register the character as a guy first orz even though she still does female roles now and then like Kuchiha in Amatsuki. (I haven’t been catching up on the anime or manga ever since, because it’s kinda incoherent although that’s true for me too.) Anyway as I said, Popo doesn’t play too major a role in the first part of the series, but later on he gets to be a major asshole, also spelt ‘retard’ in this case.. Look out for that one. You might better know Paku Romi as Edward from FMA, Hitsugaya from Bleach, Temari from Naruto, Teresa from Claymore amongst some other popular roles. She does it pretty well imo except maybe the ever occasional screaming/shrieking parts…?

And, as a bonus if anyone’s interested in the voice of that cute girl Chroniko, Saito Chiwa most notably voiced Lavie from Last Exile, otherwise I only know her as Yuuta from Zombie-Loan. I actually wasn’t paying very much attention to her voice… And who cares about Vanilla lol

Chroniko on the left and Vanilla on the right. I love the dog here though it's fanart

Okay enough of all this rambling though. Although, I guess you could count it as a trademark of mine 89 |D If you’re wondering about the plot, the style kind of changes slightly as more revelations take place.

I should start by introducing the premise of the entire series.. So. Kaiba’s lost his memory, and to get it back, he needs to know more about the world he’s in. The thing is, in the world the series is set in, there’s this guy called Warp, the King, who invented a system in which memories of any individual could be stored in a chip. Even if you die, as long as the chip is unharmed, if the chip is placed into another body, that individual will still live life in the same way as before, except for any major physical differences in which it would simply be more difficult to get used to life again.

At first, Kaiba’s just trying to make sense of everything he’s thrown into, gets chased, and ends up going on a little trip to different planets (yep this part reminded me of Le Petit Prince which I was forced to read in CHINESE of all blasted things) where the audience learns more about the world of Kaiba through Kaiba’s new experiences and memories. But later on as he gets to know more and more is thus revealed, the plot just thickens on a whole new level and there are more things like politics, clones, romance, rebellion etc. There are also a lot of plot twists and major revelations nearing the end, which isn’t always a good thing :\ I think I got lost at the final episode of the series, though I still enjoyed it as a whole.

Kaba, again. Fanart

In a sense, you could take it that this series is essentially simply there to answer the What Ifs if technology advanced to such a level/ major implications of a major What If question. It’s more of an interesting than impacting series, because the whole atmosphere gets too surreal in most cases to relate to, although the characters are more or less realistic (though I’m afraid Popo became a bit too much of a retard for me), though I’m not too discerning of such things.

If you just need the lowdown on everything, I would give it around 8 or 9 out of 10. You can just take it as 8.5/10 lol. I’m in a good mood, and I really love the art and music. Although, definitely not as much in the same way as I love Wall-E animation or Zelda and Xenosaga and Chrono Trigger music or say, Mx0 plot. Kaiba is simply really unique and …different to me, but this may change as I get exposed to more series :\ oh the ironies of life..

I shall end off with a Moe. Except she has a buttcrack, which rates disturbing everytime I look at it. Even though it’s really not that obvious, and even though she’s always looking so innocent, you Chroniko you.

Chroniko has got to be the cutest character in the whole series. In terms of Moe that is.

Well I hope that wasn’t too bad a read. I get really really rambly. All the time, too. Not good. Not good at all.