Reviews and previews
I usually don’t write per episode posts, but I figured I’d chime in on this episode since it’s the last one, and the series was kind of short to write a whole review for it. And in case you were wondering, yes, spoilers await you ahead! Turn back, ye who haven’t seen Hantsuki 06 yet!
Whilst out in the Internet looking for Ayuki fanservice to rig the current poll (a technique pioneered by Jason), I came across a Japanese site called the "Ayuki Doumei," or Ayuki Alliance! They’re a group of like-minded (and right-minded) individuals that understand who the real heroine of Kashimashi is! Merely seeing the existence of this organization nearly brought me to tears!
I knew I had to join this group (not simply to rig the vote; I’m not that diabolical)! I promptly installed some Japanese text input functionality into my computer and wrote a message in extremely broken Japanese. You can go to the Ayuki Doumei and search for messages by "hengu," they’re good for a laugh. Marvel as I spell "konnichiha" wrong two different ways! (It was rikai-chan that finally taught me how to spell it without a "wa" at the end)
Anyway, they actually accepted my application and now I’m the #10 member of the Ayuki Alliance! Check out my button!
The alliance wrote up a post about getting to the double-digits in membership thanks to an American. They also wrote that either my Japanese was good, or really bad. I’m not quite sure which.
There are also a bunch of "alliances" for other Kashimashi characters, including Hazumu, Tomari, Yasuna, Jan Puu, and even Asuta and Space Man! I’m surprised there’s no alliance for Namiko-sensei…
Anyway, ever since I joined the alliance, Ayuki has seen quite a jump in the poll… I’ll call it a coincidence.
P.S. I still haven’t found that Ayuki fanservice yet. Anyone know where I can get some?
Spurred by some comments I left on Samazama about supporting cast in anime, here’s another poll!
For some reason or other, I always end up liking the characters in anime that have no chance with the main character. They’re still there, and still smokin’ hot, but there’s no chance they’ll "win" in the end. In some cases they might not even be interested in the main character; I just think they’re more interesting than whoever’s flaunting it in the foreground.
Here are my picks for best minor (not as in age, although I guess some of them could be minors. uh oh…) character in the current Winter 2006 anime batch:
While browsing around looking for Animal Yokocho stuff (I need to get my fix!), I came across the site for the manga. It has little animated flash versions of the manga! I haven’t gone through the whole site yet, but it seems to have 18 chapters of flash manga goodness! Plus furigana! There’s also a flash game where you double click on the characters heads to make them disappear (not as violent as might think, though).
There’s also a bunch of other animated manga on the "Manga Online" website, including Gokusen and a bunch of other ones I haven’t heard of.
If, like me, you’re going through Animal Yokocho anime withdrawal, this might be your best hope. Otherwise, it’s still a pretty cool diversion.
Okay, so being a huge Nippon Ichi fanboy, the Disgaea anime is something of a holy grail for me. The slightest news about the Disgaea anime is enough to send me into a giddy mood. So imagine my surprise when I read on Heisei Democracy that there was a new promo out today!
The Disgaea anime is slated for an April release, so I only have about two more months of languishing until it comes out! I guess I could always pass the time by playing the game. I think I logged like, 40+ hours two Summers ago…
So Ergo Proxy has gotten a lot of hype, not necessarily because of its content, but because of its resolution: 1280×720! Any anime that requires a hardware update has got to be good! Do the specs make the anime? Read on to find out!
Back when I did my first preview of REC, all I really knew about it was that it involved a seiyuu. A hot seiyuu! Even with that small amount of info, I had a feeling it would be a pretty good anime. Okay, so maybe I just thought the picture was hot… So how does the first episode hold up?
So I resolved this new year to finish up a lot of the anime that was lounging around on my hard drive. Here’s an update to the stuff I was supposed to finish:
I’d say that overall, I’ve been pretty successful. Too bad I’ve also picked up like a billion shows too. Wait, that’s a good thing! Anime is good!
I might do a few reviews on the stuff I finished too. I also gotta start on Rozen Maiden: Traumend. Those dolls’ adventures are freakin’ addicting!
While perusing the torrents at Tokyotoshokan, I came across the first episode of an anime called "Queen Millennia." Not quite knowing what it was, I decided to go ahead and download it. It turns out that Queen Millennia is an old-school anime that came out in 1981, before I was even born! Not one to waste already used bandwidth, I decided to check it out anyway.
I usually wait for someone to fansub an anime before watching it, but Binchou-tan is an exception. There’s barely any talking in Binchou-tan, and when there is, it’s usually pretty simple Japanese. I’m going to try something new: Here’s my first sub-assistance-free anime preview!