(Image Overload) And out like a Lamb

Happy Year of the Boar (Yeah, sure belated I know but I had to upload the next album to Photobucket before I could say it -- this one is sorta more impuslive, which means that more borderline NSFW images ended up in the batch, as well as some pictures that are more random than background worthy (though the arguement swings both ways for pedophile Link who is mutually creepy and awesome in his image))

Not my current background however, I've got a quaint Ashley (from Wario Ware) with a Wii Mote wallpaper instead at the moment.

Hmm, seems I managed to leave the prior post untitled, which I may literally edit in as the title, as much as that wasn't the intended title in the first place it's the befittingest title now.

So, Grandparents paid a visit for the Sunday dinner (Note the lack of a Holiday term, while that may be a pretext it's genuinely unspoked in the context of a non-theistic household) and we had a few rounds of "Is that new", my Grandmother's favorite game, you'll have to press David for details, he's much more enthusiastic in his description. If I haven't stressed it enough before, anything that ever gets said in my house can get taken, twisted, and run for a touchdown pretty easily (ie: Thanksgiving away or any of the various usages of my family embracing the fact that I'm not homosexual but would support it anyways). So the following (which actually continued for another dozen or so lines of equal build) conversation broke out after I spent a good minute solid trying to find a way to extract a cupcake from it's plastic container (the standard grocery store 6-pack) without having to get my hands covered in the butter cream frosting:

"In the land of the blind, you're still handicapped."
"Ooh, handicapped, does that mean I get a parking spot?"
"Sure, there's tons of them, no one else is using them."
"So, as empty parking spaces as far as the eye can see, or not as the case may be, then?"

Secured the new job, start it in two weeks with a full day orientation opener. Going to be looking into Night School to finish the education as a result, here's hoping this is the start of something good and at least survivably enjoyable. I'm daunted, but that's true of me and anything new, I need to do something celebratory, but I've not got the foggiest clue what. I figure the combo of work + commute, let alone the prospect of night school, will probably crush my WoW time and then I'll have need to find something else to play. Hopefully the PSP or PS3 will be down in price by then.

And a bit more talk of Anime, as time permits:

Venus Versus Virus-



The jury is still out on this one, after a mere 4 episodes. I've called it a Pokemon meets Bleach thing, since the Viruses seem to have "types" like "earth" which grant them various immunities, weakness, and abilities, but otherwise have pretty much the exact description that Bleach gives to Hollows. The OP/ED speak of a much stronger relationship than I think is going to be evidenced in the show, at least prior to the very end. I'm curious as to where they'll be taking this one, I figure they're gonna go destroy the source of all Viruses to save each other. Shinsen just put out 5 more episodes though, so I'll probably have something more concrete to say in a few weeks. Until then I think I'll just lament the fact that they choose should a quasi-loli age/appearance for the primary cast and hope for some new gimmicks for the battles beyond anti-body beserking.


Negima-



This is probably the cutest of the Negima images I could find, isn't it nice? I don't think I quite agree with the extraneous random that gets into the show (Chupacabra, Mots and company), but it's a very cute and very amusing romp in the Magical Academy genre with touches of dark. Suffice to say all solid points in my book. There's still quite abit of drama and whatnot to pass through before the end, but with the lovely ladies, and the generally high quality art of the show, I think I'll keep watching till that end happens.

And just a set of images to polish off this belatedly belated post, I'll give the remained a fresh hit in a new post, perhaps alongside thoughts on the new season.

Black Lagoon-




Otome / Otome Zwei-

To go, Lagoon, Zwei, Geass, FMP:TSR, Tokyo Majin GK.

*Image Overload* Even though 3 isn't really an overload.

So I've been browsing around my Pandora Profile, altering a few past decisions for station refinement, bookmarking a few more songs/artists for the hell of it. The flaws of the system are pretty evident from the straight facts at the top though. My most thumbed up artists: Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx are total runaways; but the next 3, Venus Hum, Andy Bell, and The Postal Service probably have at most 4-6 songs voted high each. And in The Postal Service's case, most of that is remixes. Which goes to say that creating a station from an artist is hardly any guarantee you'll get much of that artist, all seems to be at least a bit of sinister luck.

As for the thumbed down:

BT -- Give Pandora an inch and it'll take a mile. BT has a pair of really good songs, and the rest of his works are complete garbage. But apparently they still fit the genome profile so they keep showing up. And because I've upped something by him, he'll keep recurring beyond two downed songs.

Stereo Total -- Really a hit or miss artist for me. Foriegn language singing can be a plus but their songs oscillate between bizzare and nigh-painful at times. Same problem about elimination as BT.

Erasure -- I like Andy Bell, who works with Erasure, but most of their stuff is too almost-but-not-quite Chill. It's not really relaxing so much as boring and tepid, but some of the stuff Andy Bell did with them shows through on some songs, and those are keeping them in the mix.

The last two on the list aren't noteworthy, I think they just got 2 marks down as opposed to the vast array of singularly downed artists.

I'm still experimenting with station creation and evolution. The original station: Foundations(Daft Punk), is based solely on Daft Punk, using 107 upped songs and 371 downed to explore the variety of Pandora and set the basis for Masterpiece.

Masterpiece (Andy Bell, Basement Jaxx, Daft Punk, Daniel Bedingfield, The Mountaineers, United State of Electronica, Venus Hum) is my long playing station, having 155 upped songs and 957 downed songs to shape the flow of music. I've found that some of the upped songs are really slow to come back around, either because they're so fringe or because I've trimmed the genome around them.

I've got a pair of experimental stations I fall back to when Masterpiece is having a particularly sour run. Neither one has much expose yet, perhaps 25 songs total between up and down each at most. Panic! Shiny Fallout Service (exactly who it sounds like) attempts to isolate that new genre and it's work wonderfuly so far. Actually boasting more upped than downed songs for the time being. The other station Femmes Fatale (Sarina Paris, Tsunami Bomb, Venus Hum, Ian Van Dahl, Tori Amos, Girls Aloud, Ayumi Hamasaki) is attempting to see if I can teach Pandora along a gender-singular genome, brutally pruned within my purposes (ie: the denial of Madonna, Britney Spears, Lesbians on Ecstasy, and Chicks on Speed).

While it has been long enough for another post on Webcomics (especially with my recent re-acquisitions and drops), I'm hoping to at least get Eureka out of the way, if not more anime than that with today's post - much as the warm of the store and late nights playing in Alcatraz may try and deter that - but I did want to say that Megatokyo is doing well to win back my good graces (not to imply that I have any significance amongst his countless legion of readers).

When you enjoy a series, you like it to run long. I know I'd kill (metaphorically) for more of Suzumiya Haruhi or Sousei no Aquarion (perhaps not the ideal pick since it is getting an OVA, but the idea stands). Eureka kinda wonks that facet, simply because you don't need everything they decided to enclose to love the show. I don't know what Eureka's target really was, like who they were aiming for. Sure it's got Mechas and Explosions, but the LFOs are pretty basic and the explosions are pink and colorful. It's got Skyboarding, but they don't use it for any real tricks. There's not a ton of cute animals (Gulliver, Skyfish), but they are present. The tiniest bit of sex, some slice of life, epic struggle... it's kinda all over the place.









Alot of the show could've been about the dichotomy. Eureka/Anemone, Corelian messenger against her artifically created doppleganger. Renton/Dominic, which is actually more of the same person just caught on different sides. Holland and Dewey, Holland and Charles, Talho and Ray, Talho and Renton's sister. The show has a wider cast than that though, so it never fully falls down to those levels, even if it doesn't really need to give everyone a story. They live their lives: Matthieu and Hilda are married, Doggy gets his piloting spotlight even if he gets abused for half the show (I still laugh when Holland kicks the stool into his leg), Giget gets to educate Eureka about being a girl. All the minor characters have roles and parts and combine to make up something greater, Gekko State as a concept and a family, however dysfunctional.

For me the show really won when it was cheesy, musical, and raw. I couldn't stand the episodes where Renton meets people while wandering and learns to appreciate something better, or a life lesson. Nor did I deal well with Eureka learning about makeup, or the whole misunderstanding episode where everyone thought Renton was trying to make Eureka have sex with him (though, it was amusing how they all reacted to it, especially the guys smuggling him magazines). The children probably deserve their own rant, they barely redeem them from total loathing (omniloathe!) at the end, but the whole Eden stretch when they find true-Earth is pretty god-awful. What won was Ray and Charles, all the fights -- especially the one where Renton finally realizes he's killing people -- and, of course, the one couple I really did like.


While I wouldn't reccomend it, just watching the last 3 episodes of Eureka 7 would probably suffice to capture the core of the story. You'd miss out on alot of the story (which I'd certainly hope would be true given that there were 47 other episodes), alot of it good arcs: Ray and Charles, searching for a replacement for Anemone, Project Orange, etc.

I probably could choose something a bit before that, perhaps any point where Dominic is learning the truth about Anemone, or Anemone realizing the truth of Dewey's nature, but 48 is the solidifying episode of it all. Anemone's monologue in Ballet Mechanique is powerful, and the reaction from theEnd (Shame Nirvash wasn't some reversal of that name, for mirror purposes) really enchances the effect.

49 really demonstrates how planned Dewey was, and whether Great Hero Thurston's information was that good or not is unknown, but the fact that the necklaces are in place not only at the first episode, but also in the flashbacks predating that, is significant if odd (did they never think to take that off when she left the army?). The Compac Drive was probably part of Adrock writings, though I'm uncertain how he obtained it, given what Norbu had to go through to get his.

Episode 50 is just cheese. Though with casual Amenone they could've had Dewey's kids in a firefight with Maurice and I wouldn't have really minded.

Overall it's a really great series, if you can just make it past the kids and the attempts at what is essentially slice-of-life for the socially inept (at least N.H.K. had the concept as focal based on the intent of the episode). The music rocks, the characters are cool, and everybody loves rainbow explosions.


Closing note: I saw the box for the PS2 game the other day, it was scary. At least I guess I recoignized Holland, the rest seem just game-original generics. Dunno how many of the rest of the cast show up in the course of the game.

*Image Overload* Viewing Habits 1 (Part 5 -- The Anime-lite half of the post)

Note, I used the *Image Overload* Tag with strict emphasis in mind.

Finished Guitar Hero on Medium, 5 Starred everything, gotta get back to working on Hard. Then 5 Starring those, and then we'll be into the real difficulty of the game. About that time I figure I'll get sick of even the songs that I like and be forced to get Guitar Hero 1 to keep things interesting. Course, by my current pacing that'll be like mid-June before I've gotten that far.

Anyone wanting to point out that the above pictures (Rider, kinda a grainy scan, and the original, chokers ftw) are actually girls playing Bass can take a seat and a number, not that I'm going to heed any of it -- I prefer Bass anyways.

Back when Christmas rolled around I pondered awhile on asking for a few DVDs of a Cartoon/TV/Anime nature and thusly spent awhile deciding what would actually be worth having in a repeatable format. Obviously it had to be something that I thoroughly enjoyed, probably comedic in nature. David's copy of The Critic is a prime example of a solid decision, that show was so amusing and quotable ("Buy my Book" and "Penguins can't fly!" as primely recoignizable examples). My revised shortlist ended up reaching the following conclusion.

* Pick 1: Teen Titans. Probably the weakest pick on the list, but the show appeals to me despite everything that it's frequently knocked for. The half-adopted anime-mannerisms and style aren't detractions. The show covers some really amusing and rather endearing concepts and does so without resorting to inelegant bloodbaths. Not every episode is a winner but Robin vs Slade fights and anything involving Raven's past are pretty much guaranteed wins.

*Pick 2: Naruto

Okay, so maybe that was totally an excuse to use that image, only not really. Naruto really appeals to me on both the viewer and the group level. Now everyone gives me the strange look about the latter, so let me explain. There's anime that's great to watch, and then there's anime that's great to watch with someone else. I mean, I'm enjoying Welcome to the N.H.K. but it's not the sort of anime you'd bring out to watch as a group, it's not that style. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about the perverse level to the show (I'm not that far actually) but the complexity, it's the sort of thing you want to flip back through, and have sole control over.



I mean, sure, Naruto just fill the generic shounen slot on the watch list, but it's the creme of shounen shows that I have access to. What else is there with that level of battles and relationship interplay? DragonBall-Anything is purely around for mockeries sake, at least as far as I'm concerned, and while Bleach is out, there isn't enough of it yet to really be a contender. I mean, they're not in Soul Society, which, truth be told is all I care about. You have to get Ishida out of the picture in Bleach for me, I just don't like his early introduction or anything in the middle range. It's not until they drop the doilies and the dead mentor/grandfather that I can even begin to appreciate the fact that he's a dead-eye fighter. Same with Chad, but at least they cut the crap quickly with him. Before I totally sidetrack myself, I'd just like to say that Renji's English VA does not fit at all though the attitude is right... ... ... and for the same reason, I'm waiting eagerly for Ichimaru Gin's first arrival.



Back on track, Naruto is aimed right at the mid-adolescent range (some sexual appeal, some violence without going heavy on either and no language) but it doesn't do anything to alienate those outside the range, the US-side editing is light enough not to be troublesome, and its got eye candy for both genders. Sure there's a few nuances, like why the hell they chose Frogs, but they make that work. It's great writing, lots of intrigue, and ninjas, everyone loves ninjas.



Really, I think One Piece could've done this if it hadn't been toned down to kiddy level and butchered so.


See what I mean? Total bad-ass-ness. (Yeah, I realize that's just fan art, but it's cool anyways, and One Piece definately had the potential to be). 4Kids should've had faith in the power of the original to gather a fanbase, instead of trying to force it through edits.

* Pick 3: Invader Zim
No brainer really. Zim is awesomeness, mostly in the for of Dib and Gir, but awesomeness nonetheless. J.Vasquez is a brilliant, if twisted, mind and Zim manages to do everything amusing without falling into the overly-disgusting-images/concepts pitfall that brought down Ren & Stimpy, Rocko's Modern Life, and other similar shows.

The Doom Song, Taquitos, the Jolly Boots of Doom, and Gir's cupcake being prime examples of Invader Zim's level of humor, it's definately something I could see myself buying on DVD.



*Pick 4: Avatar
"Wait, you can use your bending?!"
"Sure, they didn't cover my face"
"Why didn't you do that earlier"
"Gin."
"Gin?"
"You know about Gin right?"
"Sure. There's two kinds of Gin: Positive Gin from attacking and Negative Gin when you're defending."
"And Neutral Gin."
"Neutral Gin?"
"When you do nothing and wait for the right moment."
"So there's 3 kinds of Gin?"
"Actually there's 85, but lets just focus on the third."

The frequency with which Avatar: The Last Airbender can get me to laugh is pretty astounding. The show has all the magic that Naruto possess without actually coming from overseas. The groundwork rules that the powers in the show exist within were laid back at the beginning and the creativity they use within those parameters is remarkable and amusing. Avatar is bloodless but still not friendly, themes of Hatred and Revenge are fairly common. The show has likeable and visually appealing characters and the battles are bright and creative. Plus, the dialog not only rocks, but started in English and thus didn't lose any of it's jokes to translation (some things just can't cross the language barrier).

Honorable mention to Firefly.