Categories
Music

J-Pop Review – ROUND TABLE featuring Nino: April

ROUND TABLE Feat. Nino - APRIL

What better time would there be to review an album called “April” than March 31? Perhaps two years ago…

I’ve wanted April probably since the moment it came out: April 2003! There’s a good reason for me holding out! The CD still costs about 3000 yen. This means that after shipping it would probably amount to more than $30 US. For a CD! Anyway, I found the Korean “Special Edition” at yesasia for $10.99. I think the only difference is the price and some added liner notes in Korean.

Here’s my review:

Categories
Anime Poll

New Anime Poll: What Are You Calling The Ergo Proxy Heroine By?

school rumble.jpg

As I expected, School Rumble Ni Gakki kicks all other anime in the butt winning 30% of the vote and taking 1st place! In second place was XXXHOLiC TV with 14%, and third was Strawberry Panic! taking 9% of the vote. The competition was pretty fierce; there’s a lotta anime coming out this Spring.

That brings us to the new anime poll: What are you calling the Ergo Proxy heroine by? Her name is written in katakana as “リル・メイヤ” so this leaves her romanized name up to interpretation.

Ril, or Lil, or Lill, Or Rill, or Real, or...

A quick survey of the anime blogosphere shows that:

So what’s your say in her name? Sure, a cyberpunk chick by any other name would be as sweet, but maybe we can get around to choosing a standard name for her.

And for simplicity, can we all agree that her last name is “Meyer?” That would be great.

Categories
Expenses Gaming

Random Kaimono from Jlist.com

So yesterday I got a bunch of random otaku stuff from Jlist.com that I ordered a while back. The shipment included some Final Fantasy XII Potion drinks and this cool Super Mario SFX Keychain:

There’s also some other cool random junk. I wrote about it on my other page because it’s not really about anime or manga, but I figured it might be interesting to the general otaku nerd community. If you want the whole scoop, click here!

Categories
Anime

Spring 2006 Anime Preview Part IV

What follows is part IV of the Basugasubakuhatsu Spring 2006 Anime Preview. I think this is the last part, unless someone lets me know any anime they want me to preview. Then a part V could possibly be made.

Strawberry Panic!
Strawberry Panic!.jpg

Strawberry Panic! is about three all girl’s schools where men are totally not allowed. It’s been described sort of as a cross between Sister Princess (sister harem) and Maria-Sama ga Miteru (school yuri). Will I be watching this show? Heck yes!

Categories
Anime

Spring 2006 Anime Preview Part III

Logically, part III of the Spring 2006 Anime Preview should come after part II. And that’s just what it does:

Air Gear
Air Gear.jpg

Air Gear is a sports shounen anime based off of a manga done by the same mangaka who wrote Tenjou Tenge. It’s about a guy who enters the world of Air Trek; an inline skate with engines! My guess is that this show will just end up being boring shounen fluff. How interesting can flying rollerskates be?

Categories
Anime

Spring 2006 Anime Preview Part II

Without further ado, part II of the Basugasubakuhatsu Spring 2006 Anime Preview:

Joshikousei
Joshikousei.jpg

Joshikousei translates to “Girl’s High School Students.” Supposedly the anime falls under Seinen (young men’s), Ecchi, and Comedy genres. So I’m envisioning sort of a more mature version of Azumanga Daioh. Or maybe that’s just what I want to see. It also seems like it could be similar to School Rumble (without the boys). I’ll keep an eye on this anime. After all, it does have a cute meganekko in it!

Categories
Anime

Spring 2006 Anime Preview Part I

As promised, I did a little detective work on the latest upcoming anime. Here’s Part I of my Spring 2006 Anime Preview:

Gakuen Heaven
gakuen heaven.jpg

Gakuen Heaven is originally a manga and video game. The genre? Boy’s love! Uh oh! Not that there’s anything wrong with that… Shounen Ai just isn’t my bag. I guess I’ll watch the first episode anyway to try it out, but I have a feeling I won’t be into this for the long haul…

Categories
Anime Poll

New Poll: Which Spring 2006 Anime Are You Looking Forward To Most?

yomiko.jpg

In the battle of Meganekko, Yomiko Readman wins! I guess I underestimated the power of her hot meganekko looks coupled with her ability to use paper as a weapon. Don’t worry Ayuki, I’ll win a poll for you one of these days!

The next poll: Which Spring 2006 anime are you looking forward to most? I figured if I didn’t do it, someone else would. Unless someone already has… The choices for this poll include some, but not all of the new season’s anime. This is because just about everyone and their mom has an anime premiering this Spring. My sidebar will cry if I put them all in there. The choices are:

Categories
Anime Expenses Manga

News Flash: I’m Not Dead!

Just busy. Really busy. Super omega kawaii busy. So just a few news things and then I’ll get back to being busy.

For pretty much a whole week, I was in Tucson, AZ for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Our team won the first game, so I had to stay there until Yesterday. While there, we pretty much ate all the time, went to malls, and had fun. But I didn’t really have any access to the outside world.

I think I’m going to switch this to a “look what I bought” post, because I did get quite a few things in my absence:

While at the mall, I went into a Borders and checked out their manga selection. Unlike my normal Borders at home, they had import stuff! I saw a few titles that I recognized (Death Note, other stuff I can’t remember), but the one that caught my eye was the School Rumble manga! They were really expensive (like, $12 a book), but I decided I’d go ahead and grab the manga anyway. So now I have the first 2 volumes of School Rumble in Japanese! And it’s really tough to read!

I also got my yesasia.com order finally. It included the Keroro manga, the Hantsuki manga, Hayate Cross Blade, and Shikabane Hime. I’ll try and post pics and reviews and whatnot when I’ve got more time to breathe.

I just wanted to give a quick heads up, especially after reading this post about quitting the whole anime manga blogging scene and realizing I seem to be falling off the face of the Earth.

Categories
Anime

A Fansub Quality Comparison Site!

all your base.jpg

There are many ways to go about watching anime. One thing that never changes (unless you watch raws) is that there will be a middleman: The fansubbers.