Moe Check!

Picture Post – Nanami Madobe

DKellis — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:13:25 GMT

In Real Life news, I've gotten myself an Android phone, specifically a Samsung Galaxy S, and I am infatuated with it. It has already had tangible impact on my productivity: not only am I able to work on stuff while waiting for the bus or whatnot, I find myself procrastinating even that to refresh Twitter on Seesmic like some sort of Pavlovian experiment.

It's probably not all that fitting that I'm using a Nanami Madobe wallpaper for my phone, since it's not exactly a Microsoft product, but Nanami is cute, and that's all that matters.

I love the march of technology, for it lets me look at cute anime girls wherever I go. There can be no greater benefit.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 6:13 pm and is filed under blatant filler, off-topic, pretty pics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 17 – Magical Lyrical

DKellis — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:02:19 GMT

I'm sure there's fanart of that out there somewhere.

One of the reasons I don't consider myself a good poet or lyricist is because I automatically default to irreverence and low humour. Making things rhyme is about the best I can do, and trying to put anything poetically invariably makes me feel self-conscious and embarrassed, which then results in trying to find the best rhyme for "pants" or something.

Ui is all kinds of adorable, though. I wonder why she doesn't join the Light Music Club, especially since she's even more awesome at guitar than her sister… actually, I think I answered my own question.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 6:02 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 16 – Procrastination

DKellis — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:58:15 GMT

The answer to all of life's problems.

I don't know why I love watching character vignettes so much; it is just a Thing which tickles the part of my hindbrain which thrives on relaxation. I admit I'd have preferred more Mugi, but we take what we get.

Azusa has grown into her Straight Man role far more than Mio did, possibly because Mio's thought processes are predictably easy to derail. I suppose that's why she gets to be the viewpoint character here, while Mio shares her screentime with Ritsu, like some kind of linked unit.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 11:58 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Zettai Karen Children OVA – In Darkest Knight

DKellis — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:32:58 GMT

For some reason I keep thinking that this should have been used as a major story arc in the second season, rather than a one-episode OVA.

Which isn't to say that I don't like it, because come on, it's Zettai Karen Children. It's a great series which I've placed on my Rewatch list; no mean feat considering my backlog of shows I keep meaning to watch but never get the chance to. What gave this show its lofty place in my pantheon of shows I admit are Pretty Good and Would Recommend?

And so when I watch this OVA, I'm happy because it's Zettai Karen Children, and it's set in the middle school era (made more interesting by the presence of the PANDRA kids and Yuuri), and it has some sort of action and development… but I keep wishing that this was the first episode (or even an episode, of whatever order) in a second season.

It's certainly not for those who haven't been keeping up with the manga, a trait it shares with the Negima OVAs. The exact timeline is fuzzy. The characters, as mentioned include those introduced in the middle school arc, and given without introduction. Their quirks and foibles will not be recapped; anyone going into this straight from the anime will likely be completely lost. Hopefully the Possible Second Season will remedy this, as well as what could have been pretty important scenes shunted offscreen in favour of even more important ones.

And of course, I'd like more Shiho, please.

I do like how terribly hammy "Darkness Knight" was. The name alone could well come to unholy life through sheer DRAMATIC GESTURE and start chewing the scenery in porcine fury.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 24th, 2010 at 10:32 pm and is filed under zettai karen children. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 15 – Cast Of Thousands

DKellis — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:44:34 GMT

While Kyoto Animation tends to have this reputation for not skimping on the details, I suppose showing the entire school student population is a bit much for them.

They seem to have gotten past it by mixing and matching hair colours to hair styles.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 9:44 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Amagami SS 01 – Making A List

DKellis — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 13:27:37 GMT

Woken up by younger sister: Check.

Has some bizarre hobby that can plausibly be romantic: Paints stars in his closet. Check.

Admiring the school idol from afar: Check.

Has a stupid but cheerfully oblivious best friend: Check.

Helping a younger student buy bread during lunch: Check.

Talking to the school idol after a minor accident: Slipped and fell, and Haruka helped pick up his stuff. Check.

Talking to the school idol after a minor accident, take two: Crashing into Haruka in the library. Check

Flirted with by school idol: Both times.

Has Significant Seating: Check.

I love this show.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 9:27 pm and is filed under amagami, first impressions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 14 – Befriending

DKellis — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 14:18:09 GMT

It's a Mugi-centric episode. I am happy.

So very happy.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 10th, 2010 at 10:18 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

In Describing Anime

DKellis — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:58:01 GMT

"What song is that on your media player?"

"It's the ending from Eden of the East."

"I don't think I've seen that. Isn't it the one where the guy dances naked in front of the White House?"

"In the first episode, yes."

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 12:58 am and is filed under blatant filler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

BZZZZZ

DKellis — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 15:44:16 GMT

Even though I was rooting for an Asian team, any Asian team, to get far in the World Cup, this doesn't seem to be happening this year.

I'm pretty much just watching to snark at the teams now. That, and be slowly but inevitably driven mad by the droning of the bees.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 11:44 pm and is filed under blatant filler, off-topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 13 – Birds Singing In The Sycamore Tree

DKellis — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 10:33:54 GMT

Has Azusa's skirt always been that long?

I like how the show shows us a plausible scenario, except for a few minor oddities that could plausibly have been explained as animation error… and then reveal that it's a dream sequence. I was suspicious the first time, and knew that something was going on, but didn't catch on that it was a dream sequence until the reveal. Personally I figured "active imagination".

The most memorable example I've seen before of this was in the Mahoraba manga. Not so much the fact that it was a surprise dream sequence, which is hugely common, but that it gradually got more and more ridiculous until there was little choice but to declare it a dream or a Studio SHAFT production.

Possibly the two are related.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 6:33 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 12 – The Quest For Yakisoba

DKellis — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:50:18 GMT

I keep hoping for some sort of Mugi-centric episode, but I suppose the closest we got was the last one. They apparently need to maintain her Mysterious Nature, although I must say her habit of always following Yui or Ritsu's lead is getting a little predictable.

But I like you anyway, Mugi.

When Sawako was explaining the perils of the Summer Band Festival, did anyone else immediately flashback to a different festival? No? Never mind then.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010 at 11:50 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

To The Beat Of My Own Drum

DKellis — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 15:28:41 GMT

Sometimes, when I find that I truly have no time to clear out my backlog, I like to watch a random scene from the latest episode of an anime I've been Meaning To Catch Up On, without subs, without sound, and ad-lib my own script.

I've not watched Angel Beats since episode 7 or so, and I have no idea what's going on here, but I don't think this is actually a scene where ~~Neo~~ Yuri confronts the Architect MakubeX to get him to stop stalking her.

There was probably no lengthy sequence where Yuri and MakubeX debate the meaning of life, the universe, and the Implosion Lens. Yuri may have demanded to know the identity of someone or something, perhaps even asking who was Number One, but I am uncertain of this. I allow that this may or may not have been the results of an experiment, although I am unsure if it is, in any way, serial.

Here, MakubeX may be introducing Yuri to a peculiar game, with a particularly unintuitive winning move.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 26th, 2010 at 11:28 pm and is filed under anime, blatant filler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Another Backlog Lament

DKellis — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 15:21:38 GMT

It's Saturday night, and my Internet is down. I don't think there's any way I can make the post schedule in time. To make things less complicated, I'll backdate this.

So it goes.

In any case, it's not like I have very much to post about; I appear to have reached a saturation point of some sort.

This isn't any sort of anime burnout, or even of blogging burnout. This is more or less some sort of commentary on how my time and energy is allocated among my interests, varied as they are. I've noticed how I seem to have a finite amount of enthusiasm for projects in general, and this must be carefully rationed out. If I become involved in something new, I become very involved in it, to the point of obsession… but something else must give.

I unplugged my PS2 sometime around the end of last year, mainly to clean up the place for the new year without worrying about tripping over wires or whatnot. I haven't plugged it back in yet; there just hasn't been a large enough chunk of uninterrupted time in my schedule to devote to playing any of the games. Put together, I have lots of free time, but I can't even use them, since they're broken up into tiny bitlets.

It is this sort of administrivia that irks me so about Real Life. When something that should take only a short amount of time has to include the downtime of staring blankly at nothing in particular when stuck in traffic, I begin to wonder why matter teleportation has not made greater strides.

And so I've watched maybe one or two episodes of a great many anime, before relegating them to the backlog. Do I want to continue watching anime and being an anime fan? Certainly. Do I want to continue blogging about anime? Indeed. My interest has not diminished in the least.

Do I actually have the time to watch anime and from there obtain the necessary seeds of inspiration for blogging? That, unfortunately is a mystery.

I'm going to sleep now. Hopefully tomorrow my Internet will be back, and I'll be able to post this.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 19th, 2010 at 11:21 pm and is filed under blatant filler, off-topic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 11 – Mugi-chan In A School Swimsuit

DKellis — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:03:47 GMT

I don't think there's really much else to say about that.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 at 11:03 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

A Random Result

DKellis — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:01:17 GMT

Seeing as I was easily disposed of in the first round of the Anime Blog Tournament, I accepted it as all being right and good with the natural order of things, and moved on.

However, I was reminded of this again with all the blogger commentary about the loss of Random Curiosity (note that it's often referred to as "Random Curiosity's Loss", rather than "Listless Ink's Win"), which apparently came with a lot of baggage that I had honestly not been aware of. It is like walking along a pristine garden path, noticing an interesting stone, lifting it up, and seeing things wriggling underneath.

It is not a good advertisement for anyone.

As someone who is mostly on the outside of all of this (I don't have time to hang out in #animeblogger like I used to), I explored the commentary with a sort of morbid fascination. A lot of the back-and-forth is apparently on a new cycle; the initial volleys had been fired long before, and the only evidence of their existence are their echoes, and the inference that something must have happened to keep these people tilting at each other like this.

Remember Koom Valley.

From what I can tell, the contest organizers… didn't like Random Curiosity? Liked Random Curiosity? Didn't like RC, but voted for RC? Didn't like RC, voted for RC, and then somehow fixed the match such that RC lost? I don't know anymore; denials and recriminations fly hard and fast, and I feel a little sorry for Listless Ink that their blog was caught up in all of this through no fault of their own.

I've never quite grasped the concept of the Anime Blog Tournament anyway, mainly because the organizers had better things to do (like, say, actually running the tournament) than answer my insipid questions. On the one hand, we're assured that no action on our parts need to be taken, which implies that the ABT organizers would deal with the advertising of their own tournament themselves, on top of the inevitable drama that accompanies a competition format.

And drama will exist, because this is the Internet, where everything posted becomes a sort of performance art. Quite often, the commentary on a given subject makes it obvious that the commenter is simply not interested in a meaningful discussion, from the way it is phrased. The comment is no longer a contribution to the discussion, but has turned into stand-up comedy. Hecklers do not wish to engage in a formal debate, I think.

Early on, I asked what would happen to the losers of each bracket, once the voting is over and the post falls off the main page. I still have not obtained a definite answer, but one thing which got tossed about was "you'll get more hits on your blog due to exposure". Let's see how this worked out:

Before the Anime Blog Tournament: About 500 to 700 hits daily, with spikes peaking over 1000 hits when someone links GamerS on a forum or something.

During the Anime Blog Tournament: About 600 to 700 hits daily. GamerS did not pick up any new viewers during this time.

After the Anime Blog Tournament: About 500 to 700 hits daily, with spikes peaking over 1000 hits when someone links GamerS on a forum or something.

How many of these are spambots will be an exercise left for the reader, because I haven't a clue how to find out.

An anecdote does not make a statistic, but lacking other sources, it is the only thing I can present. My blog was respectably unknown, remained respectably unknown during my time in the tournament, and will apparently remain respectably unknown until the end of time, or until the AB.net servers die, whichever comes first.

Presumably my life as an anime blogger will have the same general arc in the eyes of the general public: blog started, screencap comic irregularly updated, blog ended. So it goes.

While I'd appreciate a larger readership, what I really want is a larger commenter base. This tends to come with the larger readership anyway, in the sense that the more people there are watching a train wreck, the more likely there will be someone in there willing to wade in and help. And yet, this doesn't really answer for the other people just watching.

It is like performing your finest acts, displaying your masterpieces of creation, in front of a silent, faceless crowd. You cannot tell whether they are unmoving, or unmoved.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 10:01 pm and is filed under blatant filler, ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Window Of Opportunity

DKellis — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:59:29 GMT

While the details, limited as they are, may be found on my Animenauts post, I'm still greatly amused and thrilled by the fact that Nanami Madobe even exists. What was the marketing proposal for this like? Who came up with it? Did they get a well-deserved promotion, or at least a pay raise?

"Nanairo Generator" is quite catchy, although not especially innovative music-wise. Nana Mizuki is, as usual, solid as Nanami~~zuki~~ Madobe, and the strong guitar riffs keep making me imagine Afterschool Tea Time as the band.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 10:59 am and is filed under blatant filler. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 09 – The Examination Of Yui Hirasawa

DKellis — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:38:23 GMT

If my K-On heart hadn't been given to Mugi, I'd probably be a Nodoka fan.

Yui's homework seems to be a brief biography of Cathy Freeman in English. Maybe some sort of reading comprehension test, since that's what we almost always got in school.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 5th, 2010 at 12:38 pm and is filed under k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Working – Mysterious Meganekko

DKellis — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:13:52 GMT

It seems that Yamada has been inserted into the opening animation for Working starting from episode 8. It's not an obvious splice either, so they probably put some effort into making it at least relatively seamless. The changes do seem a little gratuitous at times, but I might be too used to the non-Yamada opening.

Still, it does bring up a question I've been wondering about ever since I first watched the show:

Who is the girl in the background here? I've been wondering about her ever since I saw her in the opening credits, possibly because meganekko~ and all that. I thought she would be introduced later in the series, but Yamada has cut the queue or something? I don't know.

She's not in the ending shot of the present cast. Then again, there is that conspicuously empty spot on the top left.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 at 4:13 pm and is filed under working. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On – Enjoy Life

DKellis — Sat, 29 May 2010 14:01:40 GMT

I should be working through my backlog of anime, which grows ever more logged with each passing week.

And yet, I end up watching and rewatching the first few minutes of the first episode of K-On season 2. Yui, coming early to school (due to mistaking the time, as she did on her very first day of school in season one), sets up her guitar and amp, and begins playing the second guitar part to "My Love is a Hotchkiss", which happens to be my absolute favourite K-On song.

Along the way, scenes of the other band members arriving at school, hearing the sound of Yui's guitar, and entering the music room just as Yui goes into Pete Townshend Strumming.

I've always said that K-On isn't about the music, but the band. Specifically, their friendships and relationships, of the band doing things together that may not be band-like, but certainly friend-like. The Light Music Club is an excuse for them to be together, but an important excuse: watching Yui play her guitar with such happiness, as she engages in an activity she thoroughly enjoys, is inspiring.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 10:01 pm and is filed under blatant filler, k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

K-On S2 08 – Flash Back Back Back

DKellis — Fri, 28 May 2010 16:34:19 GMT

I like the callback to the first episode of the first season.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 29th, 2010 at 12:34 am and is filed under blatant filler, k-on. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.