I guess I owe at least a small explanation as to where I’ve been. My one sister and brother-in-law dragged me into tabletop pen-n-paper RPGs back in June and they like to host Dungeons and Dragons parties around the major holidays so their friends from across the state can drive over and play. They had planned a 3-day bash around New Years and I thought that my own character was going to be low to participate but about a week before Christmas we figured that if we worked at it then I’d be able to play with everyone else. So, long story short, I played a bunch of Dungeons and Dragons so when we got to New Years I could spend 3 days from dawn-to-dusk playing more DnD. And now that several days have passed since then, I’m starting to feel human again.

On top of that, I spent about a dozen hours helping my other sister, who’s home schooled, do the chemistry experiments she needed to do for her chemistry class.

And I got 5 new books for Christmas and I’ve read 3 of them already (over 900 pages total – which I don’t know if I should boast about ) And finally, I had to watch anime as well.

So, I’m back.

Posted in anime, anime wallpaper, general anime interst

The wallpaper making bug bite me again (writing series impressions of mediocre shows is so much fun ). For awhile I’ve been wanting to figure out a way to make wallpapers out of screen shots that could be used at all three sizes that I make wallpapers for and I think I hit upon a simple yet nice design. I hope you like them and I might have more wallpapers for other shows in the near future.

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Kimi ni Todoke

Natsu no Arashi

Kobato

Sasameki Koto

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Kimi ni Todoke

Natsu no Arashi

Kobato

Sasameki Koto

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Kimi ni Todoke

Natsu no Arashi

Kobato

Sasameki Koto

Posted in anime, anime wallpaper

The awesomeness of the final televised episode of Bakemonogatari has been well documented already but there was one angle that I don’t think I’ve seen anyone pick up on. Namely, the night sky seemed to be on the minds of animators this season because it was featured in at least 3 different anime. There was maybe more but these are the three that I remembered.

Another thing that might be surprising to some is how these scenes were similar. One way was the idea that the night time sky in a rural area is an awe-inspiring sight. Second, upon seeing the night sky for the first time, the viewer is left speechless. And third, it’s possible to look at the night sky for a long period of time without getting bored. I say that it might be surprising because up until summer of last year, I was in the group of people who had never seen the night sky from a rural area and I didn’t believe that it looked as nice as it did in shows like Air. Therefore, I wouldn’t think that all three of these shows would follow so closely the same viewpoint since it really couldn’t be that amazing. Now, I know better, and seeing these scenes makes me want to go somewhere that I could see the true night sky.

I wonder why the awesomeness of a true night sky is suddenly showing up so frequently in anime? I don’t mind but I wonder if there’s some underlying reason. Maybe it’s a subtle environmental idea about getting rid of light pollution or just to appreciate nature. Or a desire to get back to simpler times when it was possible for everyone to see this sky. Or maybe it’s a desire to get people to appreciate the simple joys in life. Or something totally different, I don’t know. All I do know is that I have a bunch of screenshots (and one wallpaper) from these anime that I’m going to post now.

Aoi Hana

Sora no Manimani

Bakemonogatari

1280×1024 wallpaper and my current desktop below – stitched together from this episode of Bakemonogatari. When the bluray edition comes out in a few months, I’ll try to create a large one for other screen sizes.

Posted in anime, anime rants/views, anime wallpaper, general anime interst

The wallpaper making bug bite me again so I looked at the currently running shows for a good show to make wallpapers for. There’s a couple good candidates but Bakemonogatari is just too good of a show to pass up so here we are. I hope you like them and I might have more wallpapers for other shows in the near future.

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Posted in anime, anime wallpaper

I decided to watch the first episode of this solely based on the fact that the title translates to ‘The Girl who Leapt Through Space’. I had to know if there was some reason to use a title that appears to be an obvious reference to the movie ‘The Girl who Leapt Through Time’.

Rating: 8/12 B+

There was definitely a girl and she lives in space and she did do some leaping in a spaceship but as for why it got named the way it did, I’m still unsure. Then again, the show pretty much left me totally clueless as to what I had just watched.

It opens with the oldest sister of a family accepting an offer to marry one of the younger sisters to some unknown gentleman because it’ll help the family’s fortunes. The younger sister, obviously, doesn’t like this and quickly escapes. She ends up on an unknown colony ship that’s run by an unhinged AI with suicidal tendencies and has to stop him before he incinerates the ship by falling into Earth’s atmosphere.

The crazed AI was the highlight of the episode and probably the strongest reason people will find to watch more of this show. The animation looked nice, the voice actors did a good job with their roles, and I even laughed a few times. I had a hard time, though, evaluating if I actually liked this episode or not. I like when a show is different but being really different can make it hard to get a handle on if the show will be any good or not. So in the end, I used the fact that it intrigued me enough to watch another episode to give it a relatively good score.

Posted in anime, first impressions      

Time for more Clannad wallpapers . This time I have wallpapers I made using the nice scans of the 2009 Clannad calendar found in the animesuki forums as well as several retrimmed scans. In case you can’t tell from in the small thumbnails, the first blue Nagisa wallpaper has her name from before episode 13 of Clannad - After Story and the second has her name after episode 13.

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Posted in anime, anime wallpaper      

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Above is a couple anime wallpapers and below are some pictures of my Christmas decorations. Check back later tomorrow for pics of my family’s Christmas feast, my Mom’s awesome cookies and (if I’ve been a good boy ), my present haul.

Posted in anime, other news      

I was looking at my computer desktop last night and realized I needed something new. After looking around at what I had on hand, I ended making more Soul Eater wallpapers. For some reason, it’s easy to find lots of nice artwork from that show.

If you’ve looked at my other wallpaper, you’ll notice that I try to keep them relatively simple so that it’s still possible to use the desktop. After testing out the 1280 x 1024 ones on my own computer, I work on making the other 2 sizes and try to get them all to look similar.

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Posted in anime, anime wallpaper      

First off, just a note that because I spent so long writing up my influential anime list, I didn’t get to my weekly anime review post and since today is now thursday, I’m going to just do a bi-weekly one and hopefully post it on Sunday or Monday.

So instead of rushing the weekly review post, I decided to make a few quick Clannad wallpapers, mainly just cropping large pics down into convenient wallpaper size.

I was having trouble getting a gradient not to appear liney as a jpg and it came out better as a png so I have one png file amongst jpg files, not that it really matters.

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Posted in anime, anime wallpaper      

It’s around those times that I don’t feel like writing when the desire to make new anime wallpapers springs up. This time I felt like making a few wallpapers to the new anime Toradora.

I was able to keep the number of different versions down this time. Like always, click on the thumbnails for the full size version.

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Posted in anime, anime wallpaper