big bad birtha's suggestion box 2: secret passions unveiled

[big bad birtha]

Are you ready for a new and sexier suggestion box? Yea, neither am I, but here it is. If you have done anything here, you know what to do, so an explanation is pointless. Well, a great way to start off is to tell my watching status...

Err.....@_@ I haven't watched a damn thing. Let me see, I have been fighting, controlling a loli army, chasing a sparrow girl so I can eat her (I gave a link in Dopple's thread), and shooting stuff. Yup, I have been devoured by Touhou. Don't worry though, I will start watching when this dies down.

Speaking of Touhou, how is your controller status Suigin? I have been itching for a fight since you said you would get one =D It would also be good to have another player (we are trying to recruit people.)

Well, incase anyone cares, I have downloaded the Kanon and Clannad visual novels. I can play them, but I don't understand a damn word they say, so I will be waiting for the translations to finish.

[Talon87]

Picking up from where we left off ... (http://forums.upnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?p=214164#p214164)

I just finished ef ~A Tale of Memories~ Episode 6. Go Go Kei! :D I hope she wins Hirono-senpai's heart instead of Miyako. But I'm not expecting it to happen. Because if it did, it would leave two people out in the cold (Miyako and Cameraboy), whereas if Kei fails, then everyone winds up with a partner (Miyako x Hirono and Kei x Cameraboy). But bleh, I say! BLEH! :x Please let Kei win. ;_;

Looks like in the next episode, we'll get to see Miyako's sap story. She's been a happy-go-lucky girl all show, but it looks like we're finally going to figure out now what her own trouble past is that has created the girl we see before us today. Looks like when Kei told her, "I'm going to erase your existence from Onii-chan's heart," she took it pretty ... um ... psychotically. 8O If this were Higurashii, I'd be afraid for Kei-chan right now.

Not much Renji x Chihiro in this episode, although we did get to see the humorous seifuku trying-ons at Kuze-san's house, and we also saw (in Chihiro's mental image of her heart) Renji lending a helping hand to the chained Chihiro, helping to widen her total effective radius. Still, it's like the non-pastor guy explained: every morning, Chihiro relies on a stranger's account (herself) to learn who she is and what she's been doing in the last 4 years since the car accident. Even if Renji does earn Trust Points via Chihiro's notes in the diary, that doesn't change the fact that emotionally and memories-wise she's still a 12-year old little girl. I don't see how Renji is ever going to get to 3rd base. Something I thought was bullshit about 50 First Dates, too, sweet a movie as that is.

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As for the new thread title, not bad. A little long. ^_^; But hey, that makes it twice as likely for Mcsweeney to click on it.

Mcsweeney: This running gag about me clicking on the wrong thread and replying to it without looking is getting old. ¬_¬

And as for me getting a controller, I actually haven't been to a Target or Wal-Mart since mentioning it last time. If I am there, then I ought to remember and be able to find the XBox 360 controller which can connect to a PC via the USB port and do stuff. If I can't find one, then I'll just go to a proper game store when I go back to Purdue and see what they have. The Japanese are so Sony obsessed that it might be wise for me to get a PS2-esque controller if I can find one, although I think the original XBox controller (with the 6-button fighting pad layout via Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, White, and Black all being near each other) was the best for fighters.

[Raptor Jesus]

I see you found a use for the name, "Secret Passions." Sorry I said it sounded like a kinky porn/sex toy shop's name.

Two new episodes of Hayate No Gotoku came out. I haven't downloaded them though.

[big bad birtha]

And as for me getting a controller, I actually haven't been to a Target or Wal-Mart since mentioning it last time. If I am there, then I ought to remember and be able to find the XBox 360 controller which can connect to a PC via the USB port and do stuff. If I can't find one, then I'll just go to a proper game store when I go back to Purdue and see what they have. The Japanese are so Sony obsessed that it might be wise for me to get a PS2-esque controller if I can find one, although I think the original XBox controller (with the 6-button fighting pad layout via Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, White, and Black all being near each other) was the best for fighters.

Aah, I see. Anyway, I think you would have trouble playing fighting games with an Xbox controller. I mean, tapping the stick twice for dashing seems really difficult. Actually, I couldn't play Budokai on the cube for the same reason. Well, that's probably the difference between us, because as you know, I can play with the keyboard just fine. You would probably have no problem pushing the control stick twice in a row to dash.

I see you found a use for the name, "Secret Passions." Sorry I said it sounded like a kinky porn/sex toy shop's name.

That's alright. Well, I think what I told you was actually "Silent Passions" but it's close enough. As for what that name was intended for, I still prefer "Gravy and Biscuits". Anyway, it kind of does sound like one, but I still think it's an awesome name.

My names were between this, "attack of the killer lolis", "bbb takes it all off", and something else. I don't know about you, but I think what I chose was the best one.

.................

Anyway, I am loading up episode ten of Ghost Hound. I am also considering watching a show called Hatenk� Yugi. I don't know if it will be any good or not, but apparently it is =o.

[Talon87]

Seen through Episode 8 (http://forums.upnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?p=213966#p213966) of ef ~A Tale of Memories~.

While the plot is improving, it is improving predictably. :| So ... I am both pleased and unpleased. :oops: "Better better than worse" on the one hand, but "I'm starting to get bored calling everything two episodes before it happens" on the other hand.

The animation director, I am almost 90% positive based just on the show alone, is probably the same one in charge of Kare Kano. And that guy fucking sucked and was notorious across the Internet for sucking back when Kare Kano came out. I can't believe he didn't get similar flack this time around. Maybe nobody except Doppel and BBB and me has watched this show yet. -_-; Regardless, the director's idea of what constitutes "art" is really getting on my fucking nerves. "Art for the sake of art" isn't art. It's just noise. And that's what a lot of the animation in this show has been so far -- a lot of visual noise. It's been longer than I can remember (as in, I have no memories of doing this) since I have last had to close my eyes and just listen to the Japanese audio, imperfect as my Japanese is, because I'm better off than trying to read the subtitles amidst the frustrating animation behind it. It's that bad at times. I'm not ranting to be mean. I'm ranting because the show fucking deserves it. :x If I were to review the show right now, I'd give plot a 7, characters a liberal 8, but animation a 5. What it has in shininess and cute character designs, it KILLS in its so-called "artistic direction."

So I've bitched about the plot and the animation direction. What next? Calm down. :P Nothing really. I'm happy ... well, I was happy to see Kei completely creaming Miyako in the war, but lo and behold Kei and Hirono had a fight, Miyako squeezed back in, and Kei is (predictably) softening up to Cameraboy. I also am glad we got Renji's "see Chihiro when she wakes up after having completely forgotten who you are" scene out of the way. I was beginning to worry they weren't going to show that until Episode 11. It's a powerful scene, yes ... if you don't see it coming. :| For those who've read or seen stories like Chihiro's before (*points back to 50 First Dates again), this is something that gets called back around Episode 1 when we put together that she's a girl with anterograde amnesia with a high probability of falling in love with the boy we just saw bump into her at the broken-down train station.

Okay. I think I'm probably nagging too much. :|

Overall impressions through Episode 8: average (on the good side rather than the bad side, but pretty close to deadpan average). Would not recommend to others. Would not rewatch. Not forcing myself to finish -- enjoying it enough to finish on my own steam. But ... the steam's only enough to power a little engine, not a huge one.

Also, what ever happened to Kei's lesbian friend? You know, Hirono's kohai? I thought she was supposed to be just as important as the other three girls ... no?

[big bad birtha]

Alright, I have actually watched something. Here's my thoughts on what I have watched.

Ghost Hound 10- Well, this was a tad boring, but still entertaining. I did love the end to this episode though. That guy was freaked the **** out.

Oh! Edo Rocket 1- This is really weird =O Well, as a matter of fact, I like really weird, so it's all good. I don't completely understand the plot yet, but I have good vibes from this. It's good to watch something a little different.

I am also considering watching Rosario Vampire. Well, back to the loli army game =3 It's so cute.

[Talon87]

Thru Episode 10 of ef ~A Tale of Memories~. Same level of goodness (average to slightly above average). We just got out of the woods, it looks like, with the whole Miyako x Hirono x Kei love triangle, with Kei losing. As predicted. As angrily predicted because Kei is (a) way more deserving and (b) way less psychopathic than Miyako. I just don't get it. Kei loved Hirono for years and he was oblivious to it; then he goes and dates Miyako for what has to have been (as in the storyline) less than 2 months, and bam, sex. I'm glad for Kei, in a sense, that she's not winding up with such a dirtbag as Hirono. And I'm glad, in a sense, that Hirono got saddled with Miyako because he has no idea what he's in for. (Considering Kei erased the 99 psychotic messages Miyako left on Hirono's cell phone.)

Even though I think Cameraboy's a hollow character with not enough development, it was cool to see him kick Hirono's ass both philosophically and physically.

So, with two episodes remaining, it's looking increasingly like we're going to focus on Chihiro and Renji with the occasional Kei x Cameraboy scene to polish things off. I guess I can't complain. Even if I question what sort of relationship Renji and Chihiro can have short of a medical miracle which restores her anterograde memory capabilities.

[Doppleganger]

I actually haven't seen ef - a tale of memories yet; I've heard a lot of praise about the animation/art (which is the point Talon dislikes) and the music. My reasons for not downloading it are...I can't hear sound anymore! If the musical score was one of the highest points of the anime, subtracting it would seem to push me toward a middling review at best. So, I put it down in favour of the OVA Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu (which by reputation is really sad).

As for Talon's disgust with the art director, shes not the same person as the one who did Kare Kano, but nothing on her record seems to strike me as notorious. She's worked on One Piece Movie #6 (which had fantastic animation, if it looked awful) and was the art director for Negima?! and its OVAs.

...

Also, SaiGar's started. I wanted to vote last night but couldn't because of the power-outage.

[Talon87]

The people who think ef ~A Tale of Memories~ has brilliant artwork must be the same people who think that Eva has brilliant artwork. I'll give you an example of this director's sense of "genius art" which gave me such a fucking headache (for real; an actual, physically manifested headache out of nowhere) that starting at 75 seconds left on the calling card, I had to shield everything with my hand except for the very bottom of my screen so I could still read the translation. And I closed my eyes constantly to avoid the strobe effect it did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js7q7HQVFJ8

The link is a scene from Episode 10. Don't watch any of the earlier portion (spoilers!), but do skip to exactly 5 minutes 30 seconds (5:20 to be safe and to recognize that a girl put a calling card into a phone). So long as you don't speak Japanese, you'll be fine, since the sub is in Spanish. Please (DOPPEL, I MEAN YOU!), go ahead and click on this, go to 5:20, and watch it until the video ends. (The video ends right where I would have asked you to quit watching to avoid spoilers anyway. It's way before the "spoiler point," which is when the countdown approaches 0.)

My point is, this drivel is what constitutes "art" to the ef ~A Tale of Memories~ team. -_-; Fucking ridiculous, about as artistic as a Jackson Pollock paint-sneeze or random finger strokes on a canvas by Koko the gorilla. What is it really? Is it art? No. Then what is it? I'll tell you what it is. A guy who is both arrogant enough to believe hit shit constitutes art, and stupid enough to buy his own lie.

Although you're telling me it's a woman, in which case, she is too arrogant and too dumb.

You know, it really, really reminds me of Eva. Where you just watch the same motionless image for 3 minutes while voice actors talk in the background. Like God is playing some sick joke on you, and you're strapped to a chair watching what's really a radio drama with a still painting for your visual stimulus but you've been told that it's "an anime." This is nothing more than lazy animation, and I'll have none of it. >_<

Anyway, I'm about to finish the series, so, here goes.

[Talon87]

Just finished ef ~A Tale of Memories~. So, SPOILERS!

The end of episode 11 was amazing. :D I totally thought Chihiro was going to throw herself from the rooftop, though. :oops: The diary bit was unexpected (despite having watched Renji chasing after the pages in the wind in the 4-minute trailer), and arguably even crueler than killing herself. Man.

The beginning of episode 12 (the final episode) was good, but the second half was really, really disappointing. :| I think that the happy ending with Renji and Chihiro, while desirable from one viewpoint, was a copout. And it felt very forced. "Renji-kun! I just can't forget about you! ;_;" It made no sense. The Chihiro saying that had only known Renji for 2 days (assuming she was waking herself up in the wee hours of the morning to re-read the diary, like last time). The Chihiro who knew Renji the longest (the 5-day one ... iirc it was 5 days) ended up crashing from physical exhaustion of not getting enough sleep, and she slept over 13 hours and forgot everything. How are Renji and Chihiro planning on avoiding that this time around? My point is, 2-Day Chihiro may look fine now, but what's to keep her from crashing in 72 hours' time? What is Renji going to do if Chihiro enters a deep sleep she simply can't be woken from? And even if she does manage to wake up every 8 hours and re-read the diary to keep Renji in her active memory, she's still not going to be able to remember everything. You can't remember an entire lifetime in 1 day -- you just can't. It would be naive to think otherwise. :| This means that Chihiro is only ever going to remember (at most) 13 hours' worth of details about her life with Renji. And more like 12, because that 13th hour is "buffer space" for when she's cycling through memories just to cling on to them. That's right, she gets 12 memories of her and Renji assuming she does nothing each day but process memories for 13 hours. So really, she gets even less. More like 3 or 4 hours, tops.

Back at Episode 8, the show made this precise point and (imo) made it wisely and well. Yet now, they toss it out the window in favor of the Cinderella "happily ever after" ending. Like I said ... it just feels too hollow to be enjoyed. :| You can't enjoy a gift that wasn't earned properly (e.g. enjoying a Wii you stole from a store). It's the same here. I can't enjoy this happy ending because I know it's undeserved.

And the problems don't stop there, I'm afraid. :( My favorite character (Kei) got shit-for-nothing development until the last 10 minutes, wherein she had this explosion of character growth and (DAMNINGLY) was attracted to Cameraboy but didn't act on her feelings other than to blush. Damn it! :x Either don't show her liking him yet (if we're supposed to believe only a day or two has passed) or show her being his lover (if like years have passed).

Also, I reaalllllly hated how Miyako was like, "Oh! It's a phone call from Kei-chan! How is she doing? ^-^" Grrrrrrr. ¬_¬ Even if you do have big boobs (which got dismally smaller as the series progressed), it doesn't mean I like you. I hate you. :P

In the end, a good ending. :) So ... that's good. :) Review next post.

[Talon87]

Plot: 6/10 The plot was slow, clumsy, and cliché. To show I'm not just throwing those words around, I'll explain. It was "slow" because I had to plow through 12 episodes in about 48 hours just to get what felt like 4 episodes' worth of stuff. It was "clumsy" because the first 2/3 of the show felt like it didn't know what it wanted to do and was trying to hold on to everything. (If I gave these guys any credit, I'd say that that could have been the writers trying to vivify Hirono-senpai's spirit and infuse it into the storyline.) It was "cliché" because Chihiro's situation is not a new idea (neither in medicine nor in pop culture), Kei's situation is not new (standard "girl likes guy who sees girl as family but keeps her hopes stringin' along that they might become something more" storyline), and Miyako's situation is not new (standard "girl grows up unloved and has need issues. Major need issues" storyline). I give it a 6 out of 10 because, after all of these serious grievances, it did everything else fine. It wasn't bad. It wasn't a mindfuck anime nor was it too much of a self-congratulatory anime. So that was good.

Characters: 7/10. Average. See above for some character complaints that also affected plot. I felt that the cast was sufficiently large (there were as many main characters here as in Myself;Yourself or Elfen Lied), yet it failed to stay afloat with just those characters' development. You could say the show needed more characters, but I disagree. If anything, it needed fewer (e.g. nix Kuze-san, the dude at the church, the angelic lady, and other minor characters who stole away too much attention from the main characters). It also needed more ... emotional investment in characters. I didn't suffer with Renji. I didn't feel sorry for Renji. I felt like I was just watching Renji, a character devoid of any emotional investment on my part, instead of suffering alongside with him as I do in many other shows and movies. This is clearly a characterization flaw. We needed to know more about Renji, Chihiro, everyone. A hell of a lot more.

Animation: 5/10. Yes, a failing grade. Fucking annoying animation. I hate art directors who think they're such nouveau hot shit and they think to themselves, "Hmm, if I animate the entire second half of this episode on white construction paper with colored pencils, that'll be really artistic, right?" No, bitch. WRONG. -_-; That's what we in the industry like to call "lazy," "what to do when your budget reaches $0," or "running away from your problem." Take your pick. And go back to school and learn what real art is all about. The only reason the score is not lower is because the rest of the animation outside of art direction was fine. That is to say, the colors were nice and vibrant at times. The characters were drawn well. I mean to say, I didn't feel I was watching Ed, Edd, and Eddy for one second. I knew I was watching a 21st Century anime that had been animated in a computer "well." Too bad, really.

Music: 7/10. Average. Annoying intro that grows on you and becomes a nice intro. Several of the many (5, was it?) different ending songs had little 5-second ditties that I absolutely loved, but the rest of the songs were forgettable. The in-show music was not very memorable, either. Missing was the musical excellence I saw in the trailer for this series. I definitely felt cheated on the music front for that reason. :x

Replay Value: 4/10. Very bad score, I know. Sorry. Don't want to watch this again. Lower scores would suggest I'd actually be pained to be made to sit down and watch this show.

OVERALL: 6.5/10. Slightly below average for what I'm used to watching. Probably would have gotten a 7/10 (a dead average) if I had watched this show 2 or 3 years ago. Who knows, maybe even higher. Oh well.

[Talon87]

4th post in a row ... Doppel, I can understand (as he's dealing with blackouts); but BBB? :P ;)

Just cast my vote for Hosaka-senpai (Minami-ke) and Itou Kaiji (Kaiji :roll: ) for Rounds 3 and 4 of SaiGAR 2008. Says the results will be out by 13:00 PST, which should be around 5pm EST. It should be around then that I'll have moved back up to Purdue, so I guess I can wait until then to see if Hosaka-senpai was popular enough to defeat two of the Claymore girls. I'm hoping that since they both come from the same show, fans of Claymore will be split over who to vote for and that'll help Hosaka. Still, even if he does make it, he doesn't stand a chance of beating Dio. My only hope is that Kaiji will prove popular and GAR enough to outperform the Emperor di Britannia and (if he were to do that) Dio. I doubt Kaiji can beat Dio, but who knows ... Kaiji is definitely riding a small but loyal wave of popularity these days, so I'd say it is still possible. :)

Honestly, though, once Kaiji loses (if Kaiji loses), I'll lose interest in this until it's down to the final eight.

[Doppleganger]

Comments on the first round of SaiGar:

Holy shoot, epic! Dio and Kenshiro had a pretty darn close fight, there - a difference of seven votes for two of the heaviest hitters in the whole tournament! I better check the Yotsuba archive to see if SaiGar Guy's report was saved - I must see the graph of the first round. The Emperor cleaned clock on the other side; that's the single largest win of any conteder in the tournament's history!

As for tomorrow, I think it'll be an easy win for Kaiji. The other side is contestable; I'll probably cast my vote for Hosaka, since Teresa wasn't really all that manly...she was practically a lesbian and a lolicon from how she acted before she left the stage. D:

The people who think ef ~A Tale of Memories~ has brilliant artwork must be the same people who think that Eva has brilliant artwork. I'll give you an example of this director's sense of "genius art" which gave me such a fucking headache (for real; an actual, physically manifested headache out of nowhere) that starting at 75 seconds left on the calling card, I had to shield everything with my hand except for the very bottom of my screen so I could still read the translation. And I closed my eyes constantly to avoid the strobe effect it did.

The link is a scene from Episode 10. Don't watch any of the earlier portion (spoilers!), but do skip to exactly 5 minutes 30 seconds (5:20 to be safe and to recognize that a girl put a calling card into a phone). So long as you don't speak Japanese, you'll be fine, since the sub is in Spanish. Please (DOPPEL, I MEAN YOU!), go ahead and click on this, go to 5:20, and watch it until the video ends. (The video ends right where I would have asked you to quit watching to avoid spoilers anyway. It's way before the "spoiler point," which is when the countdown approaches 0.)


I just watched it. Boy did I chuckle. :lol: It's hard to imagine that a lot of the anime is as ridiculous as that! As far as art is concerned, though, I think what people valued in this show was what you described earlier as "shiny-ness"; that scene in between those cuts to the phone card, with the nice sunset and sun-beams in particular. In Evangelion, we had the dumb stuff with single face stills, but most of the praise for Eva's artwork was in the smoothness of animation like when Unit-02 jumped off of a battleship. When I saw Eva a couple years ago, I couldn't help but hold my disgust at how ugly the art was, but I had to concede that at times the frame rate for some scenes was absurd.

But compared to say Gurren-Lagann, Eva made up for those scenes during the last couple episodes (or so I hear). :)

Oh, for the record, I can read Spanish subtitles.

[Talon87]

Whoops. :)

And Doppel, who are you going to believe? /b/tards or Talon? Well, I can see that I am outnumbered, so I'll have to prove my case with even more examples. If you that that calling card scene was me cherrypicking to be mean to ef, THINK AGAIN! :D

Click here and roll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-L_2xHHL10) -- it starts EXACTLY where I wanted it to.

This is why I say ef reminds me in many ways of EVA. Let's watch this together, shall we? And I'll list off the problems I have with it.
They're reusing a bunch of cels from an earlier episode and all they're doing is
[list=a:1ay9m6iq] coloring them B&W, and[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
strobing them with solid black every 0.5 seconds[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]I'm sorry, but that's not art. That's crap. Lazy crap.[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
A disembodied pair of lips talking on an all-white screen. Artsy? Maybe if this was the 1960s. Sorry, but this is such a "been there, done that" concept in cinema that it's no longer excusable, and especially in an anime (where they don't even take the effort to color in the background), it's clear that the issue here is cutting financial corners. "Why draw an entire cel -- why even draw a single full character -- when you can just draw a pair of lips opening and closing in sync with the voice actress?"[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
Okay, color returned, but we're still doing the pointless strobing effect with old cels. Dumb.[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
Storyboard cels. Storyboard cels. Have we stooped that low? I haven't seen this stunt pulled, ever, except in two shows: Kare Kano and Neon Genesis Evangelion. In fact, I'm not even sure I can pinpoint where it happened in Eva. I'm sure it happened in Kare Kano. But enough digression! What the fuck is this shit!? :x Do you mean to tell me that you matched up the seiyuu's voice with your storyboard cels and you colored 'em in with some Crayola® colored pencils?[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
Showing pure text on the screen for what is being said. (e.g. she just said "nanchite", or "Just kidding")[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
Wow. Now the fucking storyboard cels aren't even animated-remuxxed anymore. They're just pure, static cels. "Daddy cel. Mommy cel. Baby Miyako cel." What the FUCK. And you call yourself an artist's anime? FUCK OFF! You're nothing more than a snake oil salesman, asshole! And you've suckered people into BUYING your worthless crap! @_@[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
I got bored, so I skipped ahead to 3:30 in the Youtube video. You should probably do so, too, if you're bored. Tell me when you get to 3:30.[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
Okay, so, 3:30. This is the point where the flashback ends (okay?) and we're back to the present. As in, back to the normal story-telling story of ef. Except ... they're still pulling that bullshit storyboard cel stunt. >_< What the hell. Quit it, you guys! Cut it out! It's not funny any more! Ha ha ha ha, okay, we get it, "This is what an anime might look like on a shitty budget." Now cut the bullcrap and get back to animating real art![/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
So we stare at a phone for a minute. A poorly sketched phone. Thanks a fucking lot.[/*:m:1ay9m6iq]
Then we stare at text with a psychotic girl rambling in the background for 3 minutes. Great. Just great. :roll:[/*:m:1ay9m6iq][/list:o:1ay9m6iq]

And then the thing ends.

[Talon87]

"But Talon!" you say. "My friends want to know, if you're so smart how would you have done things?" Well, I'll tell you. It's pretty fucking simple.

SPOILERS! - DOPPEL, READ ME IN GREEN! -- I want you to either read this reply once you get through Episode 7, or else send it to your friends (should you have any friends who voice the complaint I just wrote above). Okay? But don't read it yourself till you've gotten through Episode 7, if and when you do.

a) most of my complaints could be solved if they had just animated stuff as they do for every other scene. For example, when Renji invites Chihiro over to his house for lunch, that entire scene is animated normally. Why couldn't they have done the same for Miyako's flashback? And don't give me any bullshit like, "Because, Talon, Miyako was a child, so the artists were trying to be clever and were showing her childhood through the eyes of a child -- using colored pencils and paper." Bullshit. You've been fooled, sheep. Open your eyes. Of course the studio is going to try and pawn their POS work off as "art" or "an experiment in psychology." But it's none of that, really. All it is is a bunch of jackasses trying to be artists (like little kids on the playground trying to be whatever) and failing at it poorly, and then stubbornly refusing to admit that a spade is a spade, and that their failure is failure. :| The reality is, they took the easy way out. They couldn't think up a real, genuine way to be artistically revolutionary in anime (like "shiny" Kyoto Animation or like "amazing camera angles" V for Vendetta or like "gothic lolita meets creepy porcelain dolls" Rozen Maiden), so they copped out like a high schooler cops out on his art project and they tried to be clever.

b) for the scene where Miyako calls Hirono and leaves all of those psychotic messages, I'd have done one of two things. What I would not have done was allowed Kei to erase the phone history without even listening to the messages herself. I'd have either ...

1- had Kei listen to the messages and been freaked out, or
2- had Hirono listen to the messages and been freaked out
3- had Miyako giving the messages and show her becoming increasingly insane (like that red-haired girl in Higurashii when she looks fucking nuts)

And whichever I'd have done, I would have animated it all. I would shown Kei/Hirono's twisted, contorted face, their eyes bulging, their mouth agape, sweat beading on their temples, etc. I'd have shown them walking backwards in fear away from the desk on which the cell phone sat, its Speakerphone delivering the psychotic sermon relentlessly. I'd have shown them falling over and still listening. So on and so forth. Similar concept for Miyako if #3.

This had the perfect opportunity to be a really creepy scene, and that was squandered by having Kei erase the messages before she or Hirono could listen to them.

[big bad birtha]

4th post in a row ... Doppel, I can understand (as he's dealing with blackouts); but BBB? :P ;)

Eh!? Err.......Everything has been revolving around Touhou the past few days. I have been playing the games (they are so addictive @_@) and I have found some awesome clips/flashes. I mean, I CAN spout ALL of that, but I kind of thought that no-one wanted to hear about it (from the responses I got from the hell thread, and Dopple's topic, one would assume that). Trust me, the things I have shown in the hell thread are nothing. I have seriously been exposed to alot of Touhou. That's what I get for actively joining in the chat's Touhou activities.

I also had nothing to say about your griping to ef either. I mean, all I had to really say was "Well I did like it." and I already said it. Anything else I would have to say might escalate into an argument/fight and I don't want that.

Well, just for you, I will go on one of my Key jabberings =D (I'm sure no-one wants to hear one of these either, but pluh!)

I have played like a few minutes of Kanon and Clannad. I kind of wanted to get a taste of the visuals and the music, and here's what I discovered.

Kanon- The visuals are a little dated, but they kick the crap out of ONE's visuals. Unlike what someone says, I don't think they are ugly. Of course, it'd be nice if they updated the visuals when re-releasing this. The music is the exact same as the 2006. The only difference is that this includes Asakage (well, the orchestraish version.) I'm really surprised at the jump in music and visual quality in only one year. I also love the feather for the mouse pointer =3

Clannad- So gorgeous! I made a screencap of the first scene (http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/4/1/5/superfreddyjacksonman/f_NagisaCGm_e31b13a.png). I haven't played many visual novels, but this definitely qualifies as the best looking one I have seen. The only exception being Sunohara. There is one face he makes that just makes him look deformed. The music is also the same as the anime. You know the music they play after the OP and after every episode? Well, that's the music they play on the start screen. They also put the start screen in English, which helped me in finding how to window it and un-window it. I didn't do much in this, because I had like one hundred lines talking to Sunohara, and I was tired of looking at his face & words I couldn't understand. This has a tree branch as the mouse pointer.

[Doppleganger]

Clannad (the game)'s back-ground visuals and its interface are amazing; pity, though, that to my eyes the character designs are only slightly more improved over Kanon.


Click here and roll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-L_2xHHL10) -- it starts EXACTLY where I wanted it to.


Alright, experiment time. Do we think along the same lines? I shall not read you comments until I've watched most of the video.

...

Ok, couldn't watch it all - skipped over a lot of the sketches and jumped to where the text was flowing on the screen...and it wouldn't stop. D: I can see how you're getting the "Evangelion" vibe from this - without knowing much of the series, I'm just guessing the girl Chihiro is having a memory dive or she's near death and having one of those "fractured thought moments". Regarding what you said earlier, there does appear to be a lot of "lazy" art, if that's the case - a lot of black and white, not in the shaded type like we see in the last episode of Gunbuster, stills that last a second or longer, strange stuff like the aforementioned words going up, down and all around the screen, and more. I actually like the sketches bit as a way of conveying vague memories, but there's virtually no animation there, and there's a lot of those sketches. The screen swaps that I laughed at in the phone card example you posted earlier are pretty frequent as well.

This is sort of disappointing, since I was expecting this story to have a pretty high budget, given the praise for the animation and music. Perhaps not Clannad level, but I was thinking I'd get something comparable to Clannad in this show.


This is why I say ef reminds me in many ways of EVA. Let's watch this together, shall we? And I'll list off the problems I have with it.
They're reusing a bunch of cels from an earlier episode and all they're doing is
[list=a:3spfl08w] coloring them B&W, and[/*:m:3spfl08w]
strobing them with solid black every 0.5 seconds[/*:m:3spfl08w]I'm sorry, but that's not art. That's crap. Lazy crap.[/*:m:3spfl08w]
A disembodied pair of lips talking on an all-white screen. Artsy? Maybe if this was the 1960s. Sorry, but this is such a "been there, done that" concept in cinema that it's no longer excusable, and especially in an anime (where they don't even take the effort to color in the background), it's clear that the issue here is cutting financial corners. "Why draw an entire cel -- why even draw a single full character -- when you can just draw a pair of lips opening and closing in sync with the voice actress?"[/*:m:3spfl08w]
Okay, color returned, but we're still doing the pointless strobing effect with old cels. Dumb.[/*:m:3spfl08w]
Storyboard cels. Storyboard cels. Have we stooped that low? I haven't seen this stunt pulled, ever, except in two shows: Kare Kano and Neon Genesis Evangelion. In fact, I'm not even sure I can pinpoint where it happened in Eva. I'm sure it happened in Kare Kano. But enough digression! What the fuck is this shit!? :x Do you mean to tell me that you matched up the seiyuu's voice with your storyboard cels and you colored 'em in with some Crayola® colored pencils?[/*:m:3spfl08w]
Showing pure text on the screen for what is being said. (e.g. she just said "nanchite", or "Just kidding")[/*:m:3spfl08w]
Wow. Now the fucking storyboard cels aren't even animated-remuxxed anymore. They're just pure, static cels. "Daddy cel. Mommy cel. Baby Miyako cel." What the FUCK. And you call yourself an artist's anime? FUCK OFF! You're nothing more than a snake oil salesman, asshole! And you've suckered people into BUYING your worthless crap! @_@[/*:m:3spfl08w]
I got bored, so I skipped ahead to 3:30 in the Youtube video. You should probably do so, too, if you're bored. Tell me when you get to 3:30.[/*:m:3spfl08w]
Okay, so, 3:30. This is the point where the flashback ends (okay?) and we're back to the present. As in, back to the normal story-telling story of ef. Except ... they're still pulling that bullshit storyboard cel stunt. >_< What the hell. Quit it, you guys! Cut it out! It's not funny any more! Ha ha ha ha, okay, we get it, "This is what an anime might look like on a shitty budget." Now cut the bullcrap and get back to animating real art![/*:m:3spfl08w]
So we stare at a phone for a minute. A poorly sketched phone. Thanks a fucking lot.[/*:m:3spfl08w]
Then we stare at text with a psychotic girl rambling in the background for 3 minutes. Great. Just great. :roll:[/*:m:3spfl08w][/list:o:3spfl08w]

And then the thing ends.

Ooh, I hit on a good number of the major issues. Unfortunately, it's a pity these issues are flaws in the show and not something to be praised of. ._.

...

In other news, I'm on the second episode of Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. I've got a hypothesis; the Newspaper Club chairman is PROBABLY an alien. That is all.

[Talon87]

The story is still decent (just clichéd). And the girl you saw was Miyako (the girl I hate), so don't worry, Chihiro is still fine and dandy.

I dunno. Don't let me reverse-bias you too much. :? I got excited because you guys (I thought; guess it must have just been BBB) said it was really good. Then I got let down, and got jaded, and got ranty. So now you're like, "Sheesh @_@, maybe it's not so good after all. @_@" One can only hope that my overly being negative will improve your reception of the show. ^_^;

BBB: *bites tongue* :evil:

I know when to leave well enough alone. I'm done, I'm done! :oops: And hey, it's not many 6-hour shows I finish in under 36 hours. So I guess that says something ... anyhoo ...

Looks like I won't be beating Ever17 ( ^_^; ) until I return to Purdue tomorrow. Making it a 2-week hiatus. Whoops. I'll get on it, I swear. I'm so close, too, I can feel it!

[Doppleganger]

Oh, that reminds me. I need to post the bad news.

[big bad birtha]

I have some new episodes to watch @_@ I have two Hayates. Rosario Vampire has been uploaded, and then there's H2O Footprints in the sand. Apparently, they are good.

Oh, Doppel, I loved how Nagisa looked in that CG I showed. I don't know about the designs, but to me, the characters' looks (I couldn't think of a better word for it. Don't go on correcting me saying "That IS designs though.") were a massive improvement. Here's the first CG from Kanon. (http://cdimg2.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/01052008/d/4/a/b/d4abeacc44c4e0_full.png) I just wish that when Key re-released Kanon, that they gave visuals that are comparable to Clannad's.

Ok, off to watch my new episodes...if I can @_@ Go away Touhou! I'll play with you later!

[Talon87]

Just downloaded the raw for Minami-ke ~Okawari~ Episode 1. I'll try not to bias people with positive or negative opinions and simply state facts.

This past fall, Studio #2 put out a poster showing their art for the girls. It featured a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Chiaki, a bleach-blonde-haired Haruka, and a red-brown-haired Kana. All of that is gone. The girls various body parts' colors don't completely match those seen in Series #1, but it's much closer than the poster from last fall suggested. Chiaki now has browny-blonde hair with hazel eyes. Haruka's hair is also a little darker than it was in the poster (although much lighter than in Series #1). And Kana's hair color is identical to what we saw in Series #1. Haruka's eyes are burnt sienna now. I think Kana's eyes were roughly the same color.[/*:m:1hxr2uox]
This isn't true for other characters, though. Makoto now has green eyes. Fujioka has spiky, bleach-blonde hair. Actually, ... that's about all I can think of, though, off the top of my head. All the other characters' hair and eye colors seem to have been copied off of Studio #1's. Or else these characters have been shown before in color that leaves no room for doubt. (I say that because Chiaki's hair color in the manga is probably closer to what we see in Series #2 than Series #1, but neither studio got it quite right. Which just goes to show how hard it is.)[/*:m:1hxr2uox]
The animation is jittery.[/*:m:1hxr2uox]
The show tries to preserve the "Bible Black faces" that Series #1 did. I don't know why, since I have not seen this in the manga, but whatever. I will say this (devoid of positive or negative opinion): where Series #1 scary faces reminded people of Bible Black, I think that Series #2's scary faces will remind many people of the scary face that Yamato makes in Naruto Shippuuden (http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/9240/yamatoscaryce6.png).[/*:m:1hxr2uox]

As for opinions ... well, I'll wait till more people have a chance to watch.

[big bad birtha]

God, I'm tired....I'll watch the two Hayates tomorrow. I did watch Rosario and H2O. Here's my thoughts.

Rosario + Vampire 1- .........-_-;........ Err...Lemme catch myself here, because I can't find the exact words for this. Ok, I found them. This was awful! God, the very first thing you see in this is a panty shot. I was like "Okay....that was pointless." Then, you are hit with one hundred more panty shots of the same girl. I mean, you never see that girl without them going up her skirt. However, that's the tip of the iceberg. The story is crap. "OOOOO! This human guy moves into this school full of monsters!" He meets this vampire girl, and they are close in like seconds. She is ultra affectionate towards him, which just feels tacky. Then there are these overdramatic moments that just left me laughing. "Oh! You hate humans? Well, let me tell you! I am a human!" *The girl acts shocked* Honestly, I would've stopped watching this at like the first half of the episode if I wasn't told it was great. I will continue to watch, but I can only endure so much. The girl is really cute, but that will only get a show so far (Prism Ark, Nanatsuiro Drops, etc.)

H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~1- This is surprisingly good. It's so sweet, but this time, it isn't the girls that are sweet. It's the guy this time. You see, he is actually blind, and everyone is helping him adjust to the school. At the same time, the first girl he meets is constantly being harassed/bullied, in turn, giving her a Tsugumi-like personality. This is a little ecchi as well, but it isn't really forced or annoying. Actually, it's kind of cute in a way. I hope this goes in the direction it is going, because I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode.

Aaaaanyway, I will be off to whatever I do best.

One more thing. My figurines still haven't been shipped ;_; I'm not mad or anything, but I am disappointed. I had them preordered over a month before they were available, so I kind of hoped that they would've arrived. God damnit 4chan! It's your fault!

[Doppleganger]

Dopple triumphantly returns from the middle ages to scream,

HOSAKA AND KAIJI DOUBLE WIN FOR THE WIN!

:14

[Talon87]

Yeah, all of the people on Wakachan who hate Minami-ke are pissed. (All 2 of them. :roll: ) Especially the one who really loves Claymore and feels Teresa deserved to win. (All 1 of them. :lol: )

The Minami-ke apologists (amongst whom, even as a fan, I find myself and many other Minami-ke fans find themselves), are saying that while Hosaka may not be Gar, he's still loads more loved and enjoyable than the other two, ergo "Gay for Archer" in the truest sense. In that we who voted for Hosaka are "Gay for Hosaka." Not for the same reasons as those who are gay for Archer were "Gay for Archer" (and thus "GAR" was born), but it's the same idea.

In that sense, I'd say Hosaka was the truest candidate of the three, i.e. he was truly the one most fans were gay for. After all, you can't be gay for a girl. :roll:

[Doppleganger]

When people were selling Hosaka to me, like saying "he climbed a cliff just to deliver hot food to someone who wasn't even there!" I thought pretty highly of him. Just all the more incentive to get farther in Minami!

On the other hand, the lastest match is sort of a disappointment. Speedwagon? Itoshiki-sensei? Very weak characters if I do say so myself. Then again, the "new folk" vote is overwhelming this time around - Boota got 350 votes for punching Anti-Spiral. He was almost a background character!

[Talon87]

Yes, Hosaka does climb a mountain by hand (with no ropes or anything, and with an entire aluminum cart with four dishes of food inside, to boot!), though I dunno if I'd say he climbed it expecting her to be up there. He climbs up on top and the first thing he says is, "Where is the Minami residence?" It's not like he was expecting it to be on the mountain; it's more like he made an exhaustive search of the entire town, and the last place he wound up (i.e. the least likely place, but the only place he'd not yet searched) was the mountaintop.

I voted for L just to be a "let's vote for popular characters" person (otherwise I'd have voted for "???" in that left column), but Alucard in the right column was easy. Although maybe I shouldn't say such things, having never watched Hellsing. :oops: Oh well. I voted, and that's that.

[Talon87]

Off to get an early bed tonight, but just wanted to report in real quick (since I signed on especially for the purpose of checking torrent existences), it looks like Kaiji Episode 14's raw is out, so it should be no more than a week (hopefully :|) before Triad gets their sub out. The good news is, it's aired.

Much to my excitement, Wolf & Spice's first episode has also aired. Again, it's still out in raw format only, but it shouldn't be long before somebody hungrily snatches it up for their project. It could be a dud, but many indicators are pointing to it being the next visual novel smash anime. So look forward to it, please. :oops: :D I know I will be.

[Doppleganger]

While I am just as eager to watch Wolf and Spice, the reactions seem rather luke-warm to the anime.

"Decent looking".
"Sorta boring".
"Main appeal here are the Code Geass character voices >3 ~kyaa".

...

>_>

I can't even hear the music or voices...

[big bad birtha]

Well, even though I haven't said anything, I look forward to watching Wolf and Spice as well. I saw the OP for it, and it is made of pure win =D (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MDMGAV2dHg) Some of my chat buddies have also seen the episode and loved it, so that adds to my curiosity.

Anyway, I have watched Hayate 37, 38 and 39. Since I haven't posted in here as frequently as I usually do, I will hit each episode separately.

Hayate no Gotoku 37- This episode was great. It reminded me of that episode of Ouran where everyone went to Haruhi's house. It was also one of the few episodes that kind of starred Hamster, so that's a plus, I guess. Anyway, this episode was really sweet, and this had some of the most adorable Nagi moments in Hayate. The pointless ending of the episode was pretty good as well.

Hayate no Gotoku 38- Yet another awesome episode. "Banana?" "I'm not sharing any with you." Princess God is the shiznit. I mean, who doesn't love a stupid disguise that looks like the mask of truth from Ocarina of Time (maybe he can talk to weird bouncing tablets =D) Anyway, that one butler was also awesome. I think it was a parody of Gaogaigar (or something like that.) He was funny. Anyway, great episode.

Hayate no Gotoku 39- Err.....is it just me, or was the episode animated differently? Don't worry, I'm not one of those people who bitch about imperfect animations, I was just curious. It looked like it was animated by Gainax (it would make sense, since it did have assloads of Gainax references.) Anyway, great episode =D Funny, touching, and awesome all in one package. I kind of thought that Hayate was getting a clue in this episode, but I was proved wrong at the end ;_;

Well, there we go. I have an awesome picture at the bottom of the post as well =D Err...I don't know if everyone else will find it as funny as I did, but whatever.

[Talon87]

wtf @ image attachment :lol:

I've seen it all in hentai, but armpit fetishism is (afaik) something I've either seen 0 times or 1 time before today. O_o

[big bad birtha]

I don't think it's a serious fetish. I think it's more like a joke directed at Raymoo (as you can tell, when she raises her arms, her armpits show). Well, that, and I'm sure that alot of fans have the hots for Raymoo, so they just say it's the armpits XD.

I personally find Raymoo to be really cute. Actually, I have a picture of her imitating the most adorable character there is. Here you go =D (http://danbooru.donmai.us/data/ef4e17cf6632bbbf9a4696329f5a63d7.jpg) Of course, even with this, Raymoo still doesn't compare to Yuyu =3.

Err....the first episode of Wolf and Spice is out =D I will watch it sometime.

[Doppleganger]

I'm going to watch this awesome show called "Baccano!" which is apparently really great. Need to finish Oh! Edo Rocket first though.

[Doppleganger]

I don't think it's a serious fetish.

You weren't watching Princess Tutu carefully enough, BBB!

[Talon87]

"Raymoo"? :? Are you sure you don't mean Reimu? (Which wouldn't even be pronounced the same way you'd pronounce "raymoo." Or at least not for me. :oops: I'd say ray-MOO, but REI-mu.)

Anyway, "the miko in red" (since that's all I know her as) is definitely my favorite. My initial favorite was (iirc) Marisa? (the blonde witch) But I think the red miko is cuter and she's probably my favorite now. I really don't understand all the Alice love, but whatever.

[big bad birtha]

"Raymoo"? :? Are you sure you don't mean Reimu? (Which wouldn't even be pronounced the same way you'd pronounce "raymoo." Or at least not for me. :oops: I'd say ray-MOO, but REI-mu.)

That's what we on the chat call her =P I don't know where the name came from, but we use it. I know she is called "Raymoo" in this walfas flash. (http://walfas.org/flash/mystia.swf) I don't think that's where the name came from, but meh. In that same site, there's a flash where she runs a fast food restaurant (http://www.walfas.org/flash/reimu_burger.swf) and that might be it, but I'm still not sure. I should ask my chat buddies on where the name came from.

EDIT: Alright, I asked, and the fast food restaurant is indeed where "Raymoo" came from.

Anyway, "the miko in red" (since that's all I know her as) is definitely my favorite. My initial favorite was (iirc) Marisa? (the blonde witch) But I think the red miko is cuter and she's probably my favorite now. I really don't understand all the Alice love, but whatever.

Err....miko in red? I don't know who you are referring to @_@ (please explain her a little further. I can guarantee that I have pictures of her though =D) As for the Alice/Marisa love thing, I think it has something to do with the fact that a) They are neighbors. b) They are partners in Touhou 8 (Imperishable Night) and c) They are the opposite in alot of ways. There might be some dialogue in Imperishable Night that would point out to it, but the freaking English patch won't install ><

I am kind of surprised though, because I kind of thought that your favorite would be Sakuya (just a hunch.) Anyway, my favorite is, of course, Youmu. For some reason, I am quickly attached to a character I am the best with in a game. That's from IaMP. Her fighting style matches my in-your-face fighting style perfectly =D She's also very cute. I mean, look at this X3 (http://cdimg3.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2/01082008/3/d/d/1/3dd1204b911bb0_full.png) As for my second favorite, it is the "Oh My God! X3 X3 X3!!!" super adorable Y (http://www.crunchyroll.com/group/Gensokyo/photos/5985933)u (http://cdimg1.crunchyroll.com/i/spire3/01082008/b/8/4/9/b8493f4a0880b0_full.jpg)y (http://www.crunchyroll.com/group/Gensokyo/photos/5985939)u (http://cdimg3.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2/01082008/f/f/6/2/ff625a25432310_full.jpg)k (http://cdimg3.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/01082008/e/7/6/2/e76229f2e25de0_full.jpg)o (http://cdimg2.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/01082008/1/1/c/6/11c640d5d6bd50_full.jpg). I mean, not only is she super cute, but she's really funny as well, and who doesn't love that whimsical personality?

Err....umm....ahahaha. ^_^; As you can tell, I wanted to let alot out. I will stop myself there though. Wait. Doppel, this is for you! (http://cdimg3.crunchyroll.com/i/spire1/01082008/b/6/9/7/b697073e0df830_full.png) Anyway, I have Wolf and Spice downloaded (I don't think I will be able to watch it without being pissed at my computer though.) I will watch it whenever.

[Talon87]

The miko in red is the girl you JUST SHOWED. The so-called "Raymoo." I'm saying I like her. She's who I use when I (rarely) play IaMP.

Update on IaMP: Haven't touched it, haven't had time to scratch my head (seriously, have barely even had time to mast........icate my food properly), and thus haven't had time to go to the mall to purchase my much-needed replacement for this broken Dell ball-mouse I have. (The Kensington laser-mouse I have is good only on Linux, apparently. :? Windows hates it, and so does my wallet considering it devours 2 AA batteries in under 48 hours when not even in use. O_o Didn't use to do that. O_o) So anyway, I'll be headed to the mall to get that gaming controller Friday or Saturday, don't you worry.

Back to Touhou discussion: Sakuya? Is she related to Kaguya (the moon one) by any chance? :) If Sakuya is the knife-throwing girl, (a) no! :x and (b) you don't know me at all O_o. I thought that's who Sakuya was. Oh well. I don't know the Touhou girls by names at all yet, so whatever. If it is her, then bleh. If it's not her, then disregard me + correct me and explain both who Sakuya is and what the name of the knife-girl is.

The girls I like are the miko in red (Reimu, I'm assuming), Kaguya-hime, and the purple-haired girl with the white rabbit ears. This is solely based on looks with zero knowledge of personality.

[Doppleganger]

My favourite characters is Cirno, the strongest in Gensokyo. Sakuya is the maid of the Scarlet Mansion mistress vampire. She's the only character on PCB that I'm actually good with. :|

...

Going to watch anime from now until mid-night. Yee-haw!

[Talon87]

That walfas flash was cute.

[big bad birtha]

The miko in red is the girl you JUST SHOWED. The so-called "Raymoo." I'm saying I like her. She's who I use when I (rarely) play IaMP.

Ohhhh. That was my first thought, but you kind of mentioned her as if she was a different character than who we were discussing, so I was confused.
Update on IaMP: Haven't touched it, haven't had time to scratch my head (seriously, have barely even had time to mast........icate my food properly), and thus haven't had time to go to the mall to purchase my much-needed replacement for this broken Dell ball-mouse I have. (The Kensington laser-mouse I have is good only on Linux, apparently. :? Windows hates it, and so does my wallet considering it devours 2 AA batteries in under 48 hours when not even in use. O_o Didn't use to do that. O_o) So anyway, I'll be headed to the mall to get that gaming controller Friday or Saturday, don't you worry.

Alrightey. Let me know and I will give you a link to the chat. You see, I won't be logging on AIM much at all because it will slow my IaMP matches even more than it usually does. You will be a welcome opponent to us =D Anyway, you do have all of the characters unlocked and caster, don't you?


Back to Touhou discussion: Sakuya? Is she related to Kaguya (the moon one) by any chance? :) If Sakuya is the knife-throwing girl, (a) no! :x and (b) you don't know me at all O_o. I thought that's who Sakuya was. Oh well. I don't know the Touhou girls by names at all yet, so whatever. If it is her, then bleh. If it's not her, then disregard me + correct me and explain both who Sakuya is and what the name of the knife-girl is.

Sakuya is the maid who uses knives. I thought she would be your favorite because you usually go for the mature and sexy ones, and Sakuya definitely is that. I mean, look (http://cdimg2.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/01072008/3/0/4/0/3040ce0626dd30_full.jpg) at (http://cdimg3.crunchyroll.com/i/spire2/01072008/d/f/0/7/df07f6e86a9160_full.png) these (http://cdimg2.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/01072008/0/e/1/4/0e1473a3d162c0_full.jpg) pictures. (http://cdimg2.crunchyroll.com/i/spire4/01072008/3/b/5/c/3b5ced48fd3180_full.gif) Come on man =D Anyway, just a little funfact, Sakuya is believed to be a lunarian (since you mentioned Kaguya, I figured I'd throw that at you.)

My favourite characters is Cirno, the strongest in Gensokyo. Sakuya is the maid of the Scarlet Mansion mistress vampire. She's the only character on PCB that I'm actually good with. :|

Cirno is awesome =D Anyway, I kind of sucked with Sakuya. She wasn't powerful enough. My best in almost all of the actual Touhou games are Marisa. I mean, she's fast and powerful. Also, who doesn't love the masterspark?


That Walfas flash was cute.

Which one? I put two up there.

[Talon87]

White hair on guys = awesome.:) (Examples that come to mind: Archer, Dr. Emmett Brown, the guy who played Soran in Star Trek: Generations)

White hair on women = fugly. :x (Examples that come tomind: DOA3's Christie, X-Men's Storm, and Sakuya :P)

I also strongly dislike blue-eyes. Which I finally realized when I realized that my long-held belief that "blonde hair < brown hair" was crushed when I figured that I actually prefer blonde hair + brown eyes to brown hair + brown eyes. (I still think that, depending on the girl, auburn hair, i.e. red + brown hair, is better than blonde.)

Also, purple hair + purply-red eyes for the win. (Ayane. :oops: )

EDIT: The first Walfas. The one about fire. And the fridge.

[Doppleganger]

Sakuya's not powerful but Marisa can't aim worth a darn. While I like the Master-Spark (it is one dang fine bomb) it's not needed 99% of the time since killing the opponents with bullet alone is suppposed to be the way to go. No spell-cards any other way. :|

[Talon87]

In fighters with speed vs. damage trade-offs, I always go for "fastest but lightest-hitting." Like in DOA, for example, I always play Kasumi and Ayane; rarely mid-speed girls like Hitomi or Lei Fang; and never slow characters like Helena or (even worse) Bayman and Leon and Bass.

So whoever is the fastest girl in IaMP (both in terms of speed with which her salvos are fired, and in terms of speed with which she can jump around the screen) would probably be my pick. But I've only ever tried Reimu and Marisa, #1 and #2. Because I couldn't properly play (read: I could only hit the A button, the B button, or the C button, basically. No combos, and no D button), I had no fun because I just kept hitting B all the time (the attack that, for Reimu, sends out her spell tags towards the opponent in a straight line of just 1 "row" ... not the fan of 5, that's Button C). I usually would die twice per round, but eventually would win. That quit being the case against this one girl you fight inside what looks like a ballroom or something, and I gave up.

[big bad birtha]

Aww ;_; That's a shame. I'm not picky about haircolor. Of course, I still like shades of red better than any. White is fine with me as well. Actually, incase you didn't make the connection, my favorite Touhou character has white hair ;_; (don't worry, I won't go picture crazy this post. I want to, but I will hold back.)

As for your thing for purple hair and purply red eyes, I'll take it that your third favorite touhou character is something that goes by that. Oh, incase you didn't know, the purple-haired bunny girl's name is Reisen =P

Anyway, despite all of that. The girl that is above all is a girl with brown hair and red eyes =D I don't care what anyone says.

Oh. I loved that flash XD That actually started my love for Yuyu. She's great. Did you see the picture of her eating the orange? That was just utterly adorable X3

Also, they are throwing a new name at me for IaMP ;_; They are calling me "the virus". What the hell?

Sakuya's not powerful but Marisa can't aim worth a darn. While I like the Master-Spark (it is one dang fine bomb) it's not needed 99% of the time since killing the opponents with bullet alone is suppposed to be the way to go. No spell-cards any other way. :|

With Marisa's speed, I just move all over the board. I admit that with her, I actually need some aim myself, but that's fine with me. With Sakuya, I never can kill the bosses, I have to wait for the timer to go down, and I don't have the patience for that. Also, I only use spellcards for defending myself when I'm about to die. I never actually use them for offense either, but the Masterspark is pretty awesome in IaMP.

In fighters with speed vs. damage trade-offs, I always go for "fastest but lightest-hitting." Like in DOA, for example, I always play Kasumi and Ayane; rarely mid-speed girls like Hitomi or Lei Fang; and never slow characters like Helena or (even worse) Bayman and Leon and Bass.

So whoever is the fastest girl in IaMP (both in terms of speed with which her salvos are fired, and in terms of speed with which she can jump around the screen) would probably be my pick. But I've only ever tried Reimu and Marisa, #1 and #2. Because I couldn't properly play (read: I could only hit the A button, the B button, or the C button, basically. No combos, and no D button), I had no fun because I just kept hitting B all the time (the attack that, for Reimu, sends out her spell tags towards the opponent in a straight line of just 1 "row" ... not the fan of 5, that's Button C). I usually would die twice per round, but eventually would win. That quit being the case against this one girl you fight inside what looks like a ballroom or something, and I gave up.

If that is the case, then Remilia is for you. You have to unlock her, but she's worth it. She's the fastest in the game. However, I still prefer Youmu, because I can't chain up combos with Remi (Youmu's the second fastest in the game). Remi is indeed the super-quick and light-hitting character, but Youmu is the pretty quick, hard-hitting, and in-your-face combo juggernaut that I go for.

[Doppleganger]

With Marisa's speed, I just move all over the board. I admit that with her, I actually need some aim myself, but that's fine with me. With Sakuya, I never can kill the bosses, I have to wait for the timer to go down, and I don't have the patience for that. Also, I only use spellcards for defending myself when I'm about to die. I never actually use them for offense either, but the Masterspark is pretty awesome in IaMP.


I don't see how Marisa's speed is of any use at the upper levels of the game when the bullets are everywhere. How far did you get and on what difficulty?

[big bad birtha]

Unfortunately, I only beat it on normal. I still can't beat it without using a damn continue. Anyway, her speed does help in the later levels as well. I am able to maneuver around the massive onslaught of bullets better, and against the bosses, I can follow the boss when she is moving all around the screen.

Of course, speed can also hurt you @_@ In Touhou 8 (Imperishable Night) Youmu is TOO fast! I usually switch super-slow to Yuyu because I usually run into bullets when using Youmu. I mean, Youmu is like Marisa on steroids, as in she has insane amounts of power and speed. However, she sacrifices even more aiming power (only two bullets come out of her). If her ghost homed in on enemies though, she would be a force to be reckoned with.

[Doppleganger]

Watching Wolf and Spice - it's OK, but there's some subtle un-spoken dialogue that I liked! Something that irks me, though, is the censorship - Horo looks weird without nipples. It's not like I'm looking forward to nudity (far from it!) but something just feels off about her looks as a human-like being. Fanservice was kept at a minimum, thankfully - animation-wise, this show reminds me of Shakugan no Shana. Art-wise, something I've never seen before. One thing that bugs me is that sometimes, the skin on certain girls look like plastic. :?

Like Kaiji 01 I think this episode is probably just the start of something wonderous to come. I liked the episode quite a bit.

[Talon87]

Still haven't downloaded it yet since I'm waiting for multiple fansub groups to start work on it, and am hoping for a familiar friend (e.g. ShinsenSubs, SS-Eclipse) to declare their intentions to do the job and do it right. I mean, other groups may be good, but ... I've never even heard of "BSS," and it looks like they just started.

Then again, i'd never heard of Ayako, either, and their translator proved to be better than a.f.k.'s. So ...

[Doppleganger]

BSS, formerly BSS-anon, was the group who did Gurren-Lagann's subs within a day. When they were just "BSS" they sucked really really badly (laughable, even), but after becoming BSS-anon they were (in my view) one of the best subbing groups around, time constraints NOT considered! Right now they're just plain old BSS but I checked out their Moyashimon subs and there's been an enormus improvement. I don't think anon is working for them right now, so they must have got their stuff together.

I watched their sub of Spice and Wolf (which appears to be the right title, since it's written in English in the ED).

[Talon87]

The original title is Ookami to Koushinryou. Ask any bilingual (be they English native or Japanese native) and they'll tell you that the most appropriate translation of that is "Wolf and Spice." If they were truly bilingual (or at least an advanced student of both languages), they might tack on that a second possible reading would be "Spice with Wolf," but that this is unlikely because (normally) one would say it the other way around (just as one would in English): "Wolf with Spice," "Cake with Sugar," etc. However, grammatically, that is how it's set up:

(1) X and Y = X to Y
(2) Y with X = X to Y

I agree with you that the official English title is "Spice and Wolf," but it's another unfortunate case in the long, tired list of mistranslations in the Land of the Rising Sun. :|

[Talon87]

Downloading Kaiji 14 as we speak. It's out, gentlemen. Go! (Probably won't get to watch it myself. Not unless it's done in the next 10 minutes; says it'll be done in 30. :| I have to be at a restaurant in 70 minutes with very limited parking, so ...)

[Talon87]

I started watching Kaiji 14, but I have to leave pretty soon. As a little teaser, I thought I'd upload this image cap from before the halfway point. It's completely non-spoiler (all it shows is Kaiji's face), but it's a pretty awesome incentive to get your butts into gear to download this. Not like one single one of us doesn't already download Kaiji immediately upon finding out it's out. :lol:

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7438/vlc25848xl8.jpg

By the way ... just reached the commercial break, HOLY FUCKING SHIT. You won't believe what happens by 11 minutes 0 seconds. ......... this is just too much. :| :cry: *goes to dinner, then study, and will be back later tonight*

[big bad birtha]

I has watched episode one of Wolf and Spice =D I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly, but there was this one part that just irked me, and that was when Horo transformed. They just skipped to the next scene! I mean, what the hell? I thought my computer was ****ing up on me at first. They could've added something that would of pointed to a scene skip rather than just skipping. I was about to hit my computer @_@.

Err..I will watch Kaiji whenever. Iz gotz to watch more Oh! Edo Rocket as well.

[Talon87]

Just finished Kaiji 14. Thoughts, worded in a non-spoiler way.

I'm amazed at the reality of Kaiji's character development. I think this episode had two important speeches:

1- the speech Tonegawa gives to his henchman about how "hopefully, even if this is a really extreme way of going about it, our contest will change one of these men for the better." It doesn't change the fact that Tonegawa is sick fuck who gets glee from watching men struggle for their lives, but it does at least show that (somewhere in his sick mind) he respects "the self-made man," and he does seem to harbor some genuine hope that one of these "pieces of trash" will become a solid man.

2- the speech that Ishida gives Kaiji. Hooooooly shit.

There were a lot of other important moments which I won't discuss since they'd spoil stuff, but I do think that these two speeches were probably the two most influential events that helped to further sculpt Kaiji's character and how we (as audience members) view Kaiji. Especially that first speech -- sure, Kaiji didn't get to hear it, but he is himself living Tonegawa's message, and we as audience members are left to marvel at that.

Looking forward to Episode 15. Looks like it should be the last of the "human derby" episodes.

[Talon87]

What the fuck. :evil: I tried voting for Yuuichi and Allelujah just now in Saigar, and here's what happened ...

1- I waited an hour for my code.
2- I got my code, like usual.
3- I looked over the choices. Normally, I vote right away, but this time, I did some research before deciding on who to pick on the right column.
4- When I voted, it told me, "Sorry. The code you entered has not been generated this round, and is therefore invalid. Please click here to get a new code."
5- When I clicked the link, it just showed me my old code again. Okaaaaay ...
6- I typed it in again, voted again, and got the same error message.
7- This time after I clicked on the link, it showed my old code for 0.5 seconds, and then it was replaced with a completely new code. Good! :)
8- Except when I typed it in, it still didn't work.
9- In fact, I was told this :evil: : IP Check Failed. Sorry, the your [sic] IP address doesn't match the IP address that requested the vote code. Your vote has not been counted. If you have not requeted [sic] your own voting code, you may do so HERE.

Fuck you, Saigar. :evil: I'm just going to pass on this round because I don't want my IP to be banned. But if it has been banned, then fuck you, Saigar, times two.

[Doppleganger]

That sometimes happens. It's usually a problem when someone has dual IP's and resets their computer - SaiGar displays the code for the old IP, but double checks the new IP and realizes it doesn't match with the code, so it denies submission.

Refreshing the page multiple times until the current code appears is typically the solution. I only had that problem once last year on my home computer, but ran into it several times when voting on public machines.

[Talon87]

Solved it. The font they're using causes lowercase L to look identical to Arabic numeral 1. I typed '1' (one) and it should have been 'l' (L).

In other news, iichan's /a/ seems to have disabled bumping of threads via text-only replies as well as replies w/ image attachments. In other words ... threads aren't bumping anymore. Found this out while bitching in the Saigar thread.

EDIT: In my defense, the character has a leftward-pointing serif on the top. In other words ... like the capital letter T without the right half of the "hat." Or like ] without the bottom-left extension. Honestly, in almost all typographies, that character would be considered a 1 (one), and the l (L) would be a straight line with no serif of any kind. I mean, seriously -- who the fuck puts a serif on a lowercase l and doesn't put the bottom serif on the number 1? (the bottom serif being what you see in UPN's standard font here)

So ... they ought to fix that. They're using a poor font if the character is universally agreed upon to be a 1 and yet it's supposed to actually be an l according to them.

[Doppleganger]

Ahh, the "l/I" issue. I had troubles with that as well in the past.

...

Also, watched the first six episodes of Baccano!. Can't say much since I'm still at school, but I will say that I saw those six last night and like WordsWorth I couldn't stop watching because I couldn't wait to see where the train was going to wreck*.

*There's a double entendre here.

[Doppleganger]

Just finished Baccano!. I have no idea on how I'm supposed to rate this show. Certainly, it gets at least an "Outstanding", though I'm also leaning toward "Flawed Masterpiece" but i can't find anything wrong with it. So, another Masterpiece to my collection?!

I'll watch Kaiji when I wake up.

[big bad birtha]

w00t!! Clannad is subbed. =D After two painful weeks with no Clannad, it is finally here. Now I will have to wait until it's uploaded. I DID download that episode, but my god damn computer wouldn't play it properly. I will tell my thoughts when I watch it. I will also watch Kaiji after that.

I have been currently reading something called Silent Sinners in Blue. So far, I ish satisfied. I just have to find a place to download the last chapters ;_;

[Doppleganger]

I'll watch Kaiji now, but I have a feeling I know what's going to happen since I've been the one supplying spoilers to Wikipedia. The Chinese fellow stopped giving them when Yotsuba started bombing spoilers left and right, and I'll only be putting up stuff slowly from now on.

...

Also, I've settled on a rating for Baccano!, so here's my review.

...

Speak-easies? Prohibition? Gangsters? Sounds like a pretty serious title, even if the name of the anime translates to "stupid commotion" (or something along those lines) in Italian. I was execting a hard-line, noir title with lots of action - what I got was an outrageously fast-paced show mixed with everything - mystery, love, action, horror, the works. Animation-wise, pretty good, art-wise even better and fitting of the show. These are all the credentials of a merely "good" possibly "excellent" show, but Baccano! goes beyond that - in the span of thirteen episodes, with a positively huge cast (eight to ten perspectives, rotating every six or eight minutes each episode) there was extraordinary character development, all wrapped in a rich collection of un-related side-stories and backgrounds which gradually merged and formed a coherent time-line. The direction style is unique; it's something I've never seen before, though some people have claimed they've seen it in some American films of the rag-time era. The fanservice is almost non-existant, and when it's there it's of the favourable (and funny) kind.

Some people claimed they didn't like Baccano!, so I desperately tried to find something bad about the show to give it anything less than a perfect. I can't; even without the benefit of the music, voices, and sound effects (which says a lot about this show - it was amazing even without audio) which hearsay claims is excellent, I could find no flaws in this show. It was the most hypnotic show since Akagi, driving one mad with suspense and rapidly building up internal pressure to watch the next episode and see what happens next, only to blast one in the face with something seemingly un-related at first and rapid switches of viewpoints...really, it's flawless, and could only have been improved if my speakers were working.

Baccano! gets a Masterpiece. One of the best shows I've ever seen.

[Talon87]

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2484 ... cksgp4.png (http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2484/saigarsucksgp4.png)

Twice in a row. WTF. I even looked at it real close this time and said to myself, "That's gotta be a 1. It has both the top serif and the bottom serif. Maybe the l that I mistook for a 1 yesterday only had the top serif."

Nope. Fucking nope. -_-; That's supposed to be a lowercase L.

Photoproof so I can shoot down anyone who tries to shoot me down for making fun of Saigar's shitty serif font that writes lowercase L as every other font would write a 1.

Anyway, voted for my man Naruto (who I'm hoping, but doubting, will beat Huang) and threw away my other vote for Dante since I know nobody on the right column and am tired of voting for "???" in this dumb contest.

[Doppleganger]

Nagasumi is the first character I expect to get 1,000+ votes, followed by Lord Genome. At first I thought Dante might be a credible threat, since he's in a show based on a popular game, but after seeing Shark Fujishiro do so well (and Shark is but a minor supporting character) the right column will be a slaughter.

On the left I had more trouble. Madarame is not Gar in any sense of the word; Naruto himself isn't like that either, especially with how comparatively weak he is in spite of three year training with the amazing Jiraiya. I know practically nothing about Huang, so I'll vote on it randomly.

[Talon87]

Yeah. And I love Madarame, too. But I agree: not gar. I voted for Yuuichi despite harboring similar sentiments, and am a little glad that he was defeated, just 'cause I don't think it'd be fair for him to win out over other candidates, knowing he isn't really what "gar" means. (I mean, Hosaka is more "gar" than Yuuichi or Madarame, so I feel less guilty there.)

Updating my anime status (http://forums.upnetwork.net/viewtopic.php?p=213966#p213966) to reflect the recent episodes I've seen. Well, I guess I've only seen Kaiji 14. Still haven't watched Wolf & Spice because none of the subs (of the four that are out right now) seems to be just right, although I-Z's seems to be the best from what I could personally tell. Still haven't finished Dragonaut's first episode, despite liking the opening premise and having episodes 1-9 by Sekai on my computer already. :| Not really in an anime-watchey mood, I guess. Haven't even got the energy to try and watch more Tsubasa or SumomomoMomomo. Basically just waiting on Kaiji, Minamike ~Okawari~, and a dependable Wolf & Spice. Probably will be my new "weekly 3" for this term, with Wolf & Spice replacing Myself;Yourself.

[Doppleganger]

I went for Yuuichi as well, solely based on his performance in the second anime, though I'm not sure if his personality under-went changes from the first show. If anything, he gets plus points for developing fighting skills, as opposed to K1's muderous bat-bashings which aren't even very powerful, since he's so phyiscally inept.

[Talon87]

See, I've never seen Higurashi, so I have no idea whether or not "Kasey" deserves to win or not. For all I know, he becomes this awesome manly man in S2 or something. Oh well, he'll got hammered if not in Round 2 then in Round 3. If he's as weak as you say he is, no amount of Higurashi-shipping can save him. (Same can be said for Hosaka + the Minami-ke horde [including me! :P ;)] or for Andou and the ANDOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU horde.)

Speaking of which ... don't vote for Andou. @_@ I'll be voting for Buttercup (Kaoru), but if you guys know and/or want to vote for the other guy, be my guest.

[Doppleganger]

K1 is very charismatic, like Kamina and Furukawa Akio. I'm not sure if the Japanese have invented terms for characters like this yet, like how Yandere replaced "Oyashiro-mode" a year or two back when Kaede from Shuffle!'s psychotic persona became more popular. But, Kamina, K1 and Akio are passionate speakers with this idea of what it makes to "be a man", which usually stresses individual responsibility, courtesy to women, looking tough but being soft on the inside. This ideology is typically expressed in the form of a long, metaphorical and melodramatic speech.

If I could best say it, it's the "wow he's pretty awesome" type of Gar character. Not Archer-like or Akagi-like, they're very personality-heavy. K1 himself is popular with the villagers and his classmates because of this personality type, and Kamina is revered like a god by some people. I don't particularly like this kind of character, since it strikes me as horribly exaggerated and contrived both in the form of the character and how people react to said character.

Yuuichi is sort of like K1, Akio and Kamina, but he's far more reserved than the other three. In terms of "how strongly" this type is reflected, I'd say:

Kamina >>> K1 > Akio >> Yuuichi

[Talon87]

Just realized something ... Kamina is up against, and I quote, "Aspergillus Niger." Based on the sheer accidental hilarity of the name and the number of dual 4channer-YTMNDers who vote in SaiGAR, Kamina might actually lose. o.o Doubtful. I'll be voting for Kamina. But I'm just saying ... o.o

[Doppleganger]

"i think aspergillius niger is a pretty cool fugus. eh infects fruits and doesn't afraid of anything".

...

I don't see the appeal to any of Moyashimon's microbes, but I have to concede he'll probably be getting the most troll-votes since there are some folks who like up-setting those who revere old shows with a lot of nostalgia, and Coach from Gunbuster is nothing but. However, since I had to pull a few strings to get Coach into the tournament (independent of his status - I'd acknowledge him anyway), he gets my vote.

I'll be voting against Kamina at every road block in the hope that there won't be a Gurren block final. Nobody would like that and I don't want to see Genome fall to a character who will go out in his semi-final match with much hullaballoo.

[Talon87]

I went out today around 12:40. Here's my story.

I went to the post office to pick up a package that they tried to deliver to me yesterday but could not because it required a signature and the postman came at like 12noon. Well, I expected that the Post Office would be closed by 12:52pm on a Saturday, but I was hopeful that it might still be open. Nope. Closed at 12. Figures. So, I'll have to come back Monday before they close to try and get my package -- a microbiology notebook penned by a medical doctor who was best friends irl with a doctor my mom knows and likes.[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
I headed off to Target to try and purchase the following:
[list:1p0gtbiz] wireless laser mouse to replace my broken wired ball-mouse (yeah, Stone Age, I know)[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
XBox 360 controller compatible with a PC for the purpose of playing doujinsoft fighters[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
flipflops that are comfortable and all rubber so as to be water-proof[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
T-shirts of certain colors it took too much time and space to explain, so, T-shirts :P[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
a mousepad[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
Of these, I ended up getting just the mousepad. Target had the XBox 360 controller, but it didn't say if it could work with my computer or not. It just had a USB cable on it. They also had a mouse for $45, but I didn't like the fact that the right button and left button were both underneath the same massive, flimsy sheet of gray plastic. Bad design. :| They had no flipflops for men (just beach sandals with designs for women, and then clogs). Most surprising of all, though, was that they didn't have the shirts I wanted. Oh well.[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
The next place I went to was Circuit City. This was where I found my XBox 360 controller. The guy at the store looked like a college-aged but not college-attending stoner boy. But he was really nice and helpful -- didn't speak unless spoken to, never tried any salespitches at all, answered all of my questions concisely and satisfactorily -- except for one time where he did speak without being spoken to, to tell me, "Um, sir ... if you're interested in playing this on your computer, you do realize the wireless can do this too, right?" Noooooooooooo, I was not aware of that! :oops: :) So he showed me that they were selling their wireless controllers for $39.99 -- ten bucks off normal price and the same price as the wired controllers -- and that for just $19.99 I could buy this USB wireless dongle + drivers CD that would let me use a wireless XBox 360 controller on my Windows XP computer. Great.

They also had a nice Microsoft mouse (the something-something 8000) which was wireless, laser, felt comfortable, and even came with a portable phone recharger-styled recharger for the mouse so that you didn't have to keep buying expensive AA batteries. And all for $89.99. I considered getting it, but decided I'd head over to Best Buy first.[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
Best Buy. More like "Worst Buy," as every single person I've met who has talked Best Buy with me in the last 6 months has quipped. Must be a meme or something. -_-; Anyway, horrible (and ineffectual) puns aside, Best Buy really was the worst of the three electronics-toting stores I'd been to so far. Even Target, who didn't have the wireless USB dongle on their shelves, was charging $39.99 for the wired 360 controller and $49.99 for the wireless. Here was Best Buy, charging $54.99 for the wireless. Pfft. And, unlike Circuit City, they didn't even have that wide a selection of computer mice. They didn't even have the model 8000 with the phone recharger-styled recharger! Lame. And, the mouse we saw at Target for $45? Yeah, $65 at Best Buy. WTF. :lol: They've earned such a reputation now for robbing people of their money that they figure, "Meh, may as well take the suckers who do walk in for all they're worth, I guess." Huh? Must be. So I left Best Buy in like 10 minutes with no purchases made.[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
Went to get lunch, ate lunch, checked stuff online ...[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
... installed the XBox 360 wireless controller ...[/*:m:1p0gtbiz]
... and it works! :D It works perfectly well with Immaterial and Missing Power. Well, almost perfectly well. :| For some reason, it won't let me use the D-Pad for IaMP's Config page -- only the Analog stick. Only the Left Analog stick. I figure it's IaMP's programming and not that I have a broken controller, but ... bbb, could you ask some of your XBox 360 + IaMP buddies to check for me? I just need to know if IaMP does recognize the XBox 360's wireless controller's D-Pad or not. Because if it doesn't, then it means I have a broken XBox 360 controller with no means of testing it. (If you can't find out for me, I'll have to invite myself over to one med student's place for 10 minutes to test it out.)[/*:m:1p0gtbiz][/list:o:1p0gtbiz]

So ... long story short, I have a controller for PC gaming now and am ready to play BBB!

[Talon87]

I was wondering if you'd be interested in making a Touhou Club, BBB, in the Club forum. So that we could discuss IaMP, SRW, and any of the actual Touhou "bullet hell" games like IN or Mountain of Faith. Now that I have a controller, anyway, I figure I'm up for it.

Also, please tell me if you're going to be on later tonight and/or tomorrow and want to play IaMP. I can't keep waiting @_@ , I have work to do and stuff, so, I'm headed afk for now. I should be back in 2-3 hours. Is it possible to play IaMP with others? (I'm assuming it is ... you seem to have done it with your chat buddies.)

Also, links I figure you'd be interested in:
- SRW Demo of Aya's abilities (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QHEjaqgqaE) - pretty cool. No idea who Aya is, but she seems cool, lol.
- The Touhou Wiki's page on SRW (http://www.pooshlmer.com/touhouwiki/index.php/Scarlet_Weather_Rhapsody)
- one fan's SRW-Wiki (http://swr.mizuumi.net/index.php/Main_Page)

And be sure to check out my help thread (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=272.0) at the Touhou forum Maidens of the Kaleidoscope! Pass it along to your chat buddies, BBB! Help a brother out to get his controller working! :cry: (My account name is SuiginChou; I'm Post #4 in the thread.)

[Talon87]

I'm not seeing an option anywhere in IaMP for playing people online. I'm beginning to think you made it up. :oops:

[big bad birtha]

I apologize for not responding earlier. I just got home from work.

Alright. Lets get down to business. First off, your links. I can't wait for SWR either =D I mean, it's IaMP with more characters, and I would just love that. I hope it has Flandre, Cirno, and Nitori especially. Oh, and here's the IaMP wiki. (http://iamp.mizuumi.net/index.php/Main_Page) If you want strategies, then go here. Oh, and Aya is a photographer from "Shoot the Bullet." I haven't played it, but I think you just take pictures in it.

Now for your controller problem. Have you tried changing the controller settings in config? To open up config, right click it, go to properties, go to compatibility and set it to Windows 2000. After that, try setting your controls like that. This isn't coming from my chat buddies, it's coming from ME.

Suigin: Did you even read my link? The guy said he tried that.

Well, I'm asking YOU to try it. Almost all of us use the keyboard, so we don't really know. We can come up with more solutions if you accept my invitation.

I hope you are on tonight, because I was wondering if you were interested in participating in the IaMP tournament (http://sp4y.leetskeet.net/xzomega/IaMP%20Tournament.txt) we are going to have tomorrow. If so, then we welcome you =D (if you join, you are fighting me first thing.)

If you want further help, go to the chat link I gave you. I will be better in solving your problems if you do.

As for the Touhou club, alright. I might. I am kind of reluctant, but whatever.

No anime watching tonight, I must practice for the tournament. Iz gotz to win!

[Talon87]

I just feel like we're spamming this thread with Touhou otherwise. Touhou seems to need its own thread, be it here (in Anime) or there (in Clubs).

I know how to do Configs. ^_^; Thanks for trying to help, but yes, I know all about Win2000 compatibility. Did it ages ago. Like, 2007. As I explained, when in Config, the D-pad isn't even being recognized, nor is the right analog stick. Only the left analog stick and the remaining buttons. (The controller is fine, as proven by Windows's Control Panel's Game Controllers' test tab.)

And did you ask your chat buddies about wireless 360 controller experience with IaMP? You didn't even say.

Based on what you told me "earlier," I think I'd prefer to beat the game in Story Mode myself to unlock people. By the way, to address that now ...

Again, your zeal is flattering, but ........ you act like I didn't know about the China patch, when (iirc) I had it installed before you did. That's what's getting to me right now: you developed Touhou fever based on your chat buddies' discussions, so I pointed you in the direction of IaMP because I knew you liked EFZ and IaMP was by the same maker (in part). Don't you remember? Don't you remember this all coming about when you posted that soccer picture? So ... >_> , yes, I have had the China mod for some time now. (December 13, it says.) And I have extracted it and moved the appropriate files places and everything. That stated, I don't know for 100% certain that it's working because I've never managed to beat Story Mode before.

[center:2apfuwws]==============================[/center:2apfuwws]

Here are some real problems you can address for me:

Problem 1: the foes in Story Mode have these "modes" they enter when their life gets low. Very, very powerful modes. Can I do something like that? If so, how?

Problem 2: What are those numbers (1-9) that rise on the bottom left of the screen, near the magic bar? I assume they're combo-related, but I can't seem to make use of them.

Problem 3: I feel like the only way I am able to win right now is through "cheap tactics" (e.g. hitting A, so the foe falls down, and then just standing still, and then hitting A again the moment they rise, etc. etc.). Whenever I try to do "real fighting," I get murdered. This is no fun, of course. I wish to do combos, but I also wish to not be murdered. Advice? All I've done so far is just run away to the far corner of the stage and use my long-range attacks. Pretty dull stuff. Especially when they get to do those cool things I mentioned in Problem 1 and I don't.

Problem 4a: People keep saying "your deck matters," blah blah blah, but I haven't noticed any changes to the attacks I do regardless of which cards I select at the start. Is this bad? Ought I to notice something? Does this maybe tie in to those super-powerful combos I'm itching to execute?

Problem 4b: When making "a good deck," is it best to choose the higher level card that matches the lower level card you picked? (e.g. Top Top, Mid Mid, Bottom Bottom ... not Top Mid, Top Bottom, Bottom Top, etc.) Or does it not matter? Or does it matter, but in fact there's a mixed arrangement (e.g. Mid for the weak card, Top for the strong card on Reimu) which is best? So far, I've just been choosing Top Top for Reimu and Mid Mid for Marisa.

Problem 5: I'm beginning to wonder if characters have attacks BEYOND the ones listed in the in-game movelists. Sort of like how characters in Guilty Gear have like 75% of their moves not listed by the in-game move list. Do you know for certain one way or the other?

[Doppleganger]

Finished Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. Mediocre at best, pretty generic and nothing original. Despite being an OVA, it wasn't very good animation-wise. Additionally, the biggest twist in the story was retracted suddenly - sort of like Sora's Joke in Ever17.

[big bad birtha]

Don't worry about it. I need posts in here anyway. Now to address your questions.....

Oh, and I did ask them. They responded with a "I don't know, I use the keyboard."

Here are some real problems you can address for me:

Problem 1: the foes in Story Mode have these "modes" they enter when their life gets low. Very, very powerful modes. Can I do something like that? If so, how?

Problem 2: What are those numbers (1-9) that rise on the bottom left of the screen, near the magic bar? I assume they're combo-related, but I can't seem to make use of them.

Problem 3: I feel like the only way I am able to win right now is through "cheap tactics" (e.g. hitting A, so the foe falls down, and then just standing still, and then hitting A again the moment they rise, etc. etc.). Whenever I try to do "real fighting," I get murdered. This is no fun, of course. I wish to do combos, but I also wish to not be murdered. Advice? All I've done so far is just run away to the far corner of the stage and use my long-range attacks. Pretty dull stuff. Especially when they get to do those cool things I mentioned in Problem 1 and I don't.

Problem 4a: People keep saying "your deck matters," blah blah blah, but I haven't noticed any changes to the attacks I do regardless of which cards I select at the start. Is this bad? Ought I to notice something? Does this maybe tie in to those super-powerful combos I'm itching to execute?

Problem 4b: When making "a good deck," is it best to choose the higher level card that matches the lower level card you picked? (e.g. Top Top, Mid Mid, Bottom Bottom ... not Top Mid, Top Bottom, Bottom Top, etc.) Or does it not matter? Or does it matter, but in fact there's a mixed arrangement (e.g. Mid for the weak card, Top for the strong card on Reimu) which is best? So far, I've just been choosing Top Top for Reimu and Mid Mid for Marisa.

Problem 5: I'm beginning to wonder if characters have attacks BEYOND the ones listed in the in-game movelists. Sort of like how characters in Guilty Gear have like 75% of their moves not listed by the in-game move list. Do you know for certain one way or the other?

1) Kind of. Some of these modes are based off specials the character has. I will explain it in problem two.

2) The bar at the bottom is your special/block bar. When it runs out, your blocking is weaker and you can't use special attacks. You run it out by using too many projectiles, or having your defense broken through (I do this to people all the time.) As for the number, that's the amount of times you can use your ultimate attacks. Now, to do an ultimate attack, you must first hit down down D. After that, you will pull out your spellcard, and your temporary damage will heal (the dark red health bar.) To do an ultimate, press down, down-forward, and forward and D. EDIT: "D" is the button you use to dash. I don't know what it is on your controller, but it is the same one you can use to, of course, dash. Test and see what it is, by holding a button and pressing forward.

3) Raymoo sucks at close combat. In order to master her, you need to be able to use you projectiles well. However, she has some good close up attacks, like the teleport kick, and some other annoying attacks. Just keep using projectiles, and then strike the enemy while she is trying to get to you. That's what Raymoo does to me, and she pisses me off. If you want close combat, I suggest using Sakuya, Youmu, China, or Remilia (you have to unlock her).

4a) The cards you pick just affects which ultimate you have. Like if you pick the multi-colored balls, your ultimate will be Raymoo having orbs of energy coming out of her and going toward the opponent. If you pick the blue orb, Raymoo will shoot a massive blue ball out. Just experiment with your ultimates and see what works best for you. If you still have problems using them, ask me.

4b) Like I said in 4a, whatever works best for you. The difference between cards is the power. In the first round, you use the first card you picked. The second round/when you are defeated, you will use a more powerful card, or the second card you picked. I will give you an example as to why it is up to you. You see, with Youmu, I use the green sword as my first attack, because I can use it pretty well, and it does really good damage. The second one, I use the super fast slash. I use it, because I can use it even better, it does more damage than the upgraded giant sword (this one is blue), and I can combo with it. I don't use the lesser fast slash because it doesn't do much damage and I use the green sword better. In other words, the first attack is a massive sword, then the second is a super fast slash. I mix them up.

5) They kind of do. I gave you an IaMP wiki link to help you learn them. It has every character's every move and combo possibilities. Please use it if you hope to stand a chance against "The virus" -_-;

As for the China patch, I knew you knew of it, I just didn't know you HAD it. You didn't know of netplay, so I thought you didn't know where to find China. Also, if the China patch is working, she should be a playable character in versus. The border of the game should also say "Version 1.11". Now, I will ask you, did you put Caster in the appropriate places?

EDIT: I forgot to explain what "D" is. I put it in answer 2.

[Talon87]

I think so, since when I try to load it, it opens the appropriate DOS-esque applet and gives me options 0, 1, 2, and 3. (1 and 2 involve doing stuff. 0 iirc was quit, which was what I did.)

As for Version 1.11 ... I don't see it. Headed off to start up the machine in Japanese mode.

[big bad birtha]

Ack! I apologize >.< I just checked the link I gave you for caster and it was forbidden. http://njm4558.run.buttobi.net/ Go there, and download the file that says
th075Caster071227_exe.zip. After that, extract it and put all of the files in the same folder as your game.

As for China....You shouldn't have to do that. All you should have to do, is hit the microwave and choose the same file your game is in.

Anyway, you are right. We are kind of spamming my lovely suggestion box with this, so I will make a Touhou thread.

[Talon87]

UPDATE: Here is what my controller looks like. (http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/6280/xbox360controller2tu9.jpg)

Also, I just beat the game for the first time ever. (Reimu x Normal Difficulty) I had gotten to Remilia Scarlet before, but I had not realized she was the final boss. I feel better now that I got as far as her before I gave up. And damn was she broken! (I had to use one Continue! And I was afraid, with four KOs, I was going to have to use the 2nd!) I don't think I would have ever been able to beat her if not for you teaching me how to make use of the D-Combos, so thanks. Those were much needed. I liked Reimu's colorful orbs best; her other two attacks, while interesting (the column of light for # of hits, the ball of energy for total damage), are both close range! And like you mentioned, and I agree, Reimu's strength is in staying as far away from the opponent as possible and dealing damage from the safety of the edge of the screen. So, I liked the balls. That, and their semi-ability to home in on the target is nice. (As opposed to having no homing at all.)

I have Caster already! Here is a screencap of my screen.

[Raptor Jesus]

Finally! Shana II 13 delivers some much needed action!

[Doppleganger]

It wasn't a very good episode, though, even if there was some action. I was somewhat disappointed that "THE HIGH POINT" of the last stretch of stench consisted of Shana getting punched around and Wilhelmina restraining Margery. Even "OGATA GETS BLOWN TO BITS" was better in written form than it was animated. I'm starting to think J.C. Staff isn't as good a studio as I once thought.

[Raptor Jesus]

lol. Nice spoilers there.

I personally think your standards are just getting higher. Especially after you started watching TTGL.

[Doppleganger]

That might be the case, but I passed off TTGL as a once-in-a-decade type of show. Then I saw Baccano!, which was done by an un-known studio and animation-wise seemed similar to Shana, and had my socks blown right off. Baccano! was everything I had dreamed I would see in Black Lagoon and then some.

So, it's not a case of just one series raising my bar, but multiple ones. And I still haven't seen Denno Coil or Darker than Black, the former of which also won that award for "best animation of the year" with Gurren-Lagann and the latter is a Bones title, and Bones is famous for high production.

And I supposed I did lament a bit more loudly than I should about Shana, but from my knowledge of what is to come in the novels, this brief spar with Pheles will be the only action we'll see until Sairei no Hebi makes his triumphant return to the living world, likely around episode nineteen or so. We're up for more Indecision 2008 in the coming month, and we won't see "Gar God" Yuuji until long after he's been defeated by Simon in SaiGar.

Plus, we haven't seen Blutsauger in a while. That sword needs to re-appear before anything is to progress.

[Talon87]

Doppel, you may want to notify SaiGAR Guy via 4chan that his page needs a little updating ...

[big bad birtha]

Alright. It has been awhile, but here is zine new episode update. I haven't hit much yet though.

H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~2- I am starting to really like this =D I mean, it has everything. Great characters, mysterious, but promising story, and even a trap. I really wish to find out more about this as everything goes along.

Shakugan no Shana II 13- =D =D =D This episode was made of pure and epic win! It more than makes up for the crappy start this had. I can easily say that this is one of the best episodes of Shana.

I still have to watch Rosario, even though I am kind of reluctant to =/ There's also some Gintama episodes I need to watch. However, Touhou has me ensnared ;_;

[Doppleganger]

Doppel, you may want to notify SaiGAR Guy via 4chan that his page needs a little updating ...

There will be a big topic during the interim between the first and second round matches, which would be ideal for fixing stuff like that. Most of his posts nowadays that accompany graph postings consist of "Dang, I'm feel sick" or "I'm so drunk". We've always known him to be a drunkard, but I think this is a bitch much. >_>

[Talon87]

There will be a big topic during the interim between the first and second round matches, which would be ideal for fixing stuff like that. Most of his posts nowadays that accompany graph postings consist of "Dang, I'm feel sick" or "I'm so drunk". We've always known him to be a drunkard, but I think this is a bitch much. >_>
A "bitch much," huh? :mrgreen: I love it. So glad I caught it before any possible edit.

[Raptor Jesus]

Hahaha! Typos are hilarious.

[Doppleganger]

I started watching Final Approach and I was just about to do a face-palm when I realized this was going to be harem-ish, but there's THREE important points that strike a discord in my brain.

1. The developers of the original visual novel this show was based on do NOT write eroge! They're the same folks who did Hourglass of Summer, which along with Ever17 was one of the big, non-ero visual novels. +5
2. Ryo, the main lead, acts nothing like a normal harem lead would. Had Ryo been Keitaro, or Makoto, Suguru, Shungo or that guy from Shuffle, he'd be totally oblivious and indecisive, un-able to share his feelings...Ryo defies this stereotype so fiercely my first impression of him was "holy shoot, GAR!" and sure enough, he's maintained a view-point akin to my own heart. +10
3. People recommended this title to me on the basis of it being horribly tragic, and the girl what's her name describes herself as "Yamato Nadeshiko - the ideal Japanese woman who would do anything and everything perfectly for her husband". Dopple's logic goes along the lines of, "she'll do anything for him + tragedy at some point = give her life for Ryo"? It seems very possible, and a modulation shift from the first episode would be well warranted. Even if this isn't the case, +15 for making me think about it.

So, +30 and I'm not even done with episode one! This show might shape up to be truly awesome.

[big bad birtha]

I watched the latest Rosario Vampire today. Here are my sexy thoughts.

Rosario + Vampire 2- >.> I don't see how this is so popular. I seriously don't. When I looked at the comments, they were all "I love this!" comments, and I don't see any good points to this show. Sure, when the vampire girl goes insane, it's pretty badass, but that's it. Okay. One more episode. If the next episode is no good, I'm dropping it.

Alrightey. Off to pick up my paycheck then go to work. *sigh* I won't be back until 9:00 ;_;

[Raptor Jesus]

Is episode 39 of Hayate the last episode? I saw the preview of episode 38 and they said final episode and now I'm freaking out. I thought it was supposed to be 52 episodes long, what happened?

[Doppleganger]

Everything from the start of season II and on was filler; since an anime season is thirteen weeks long, Hayate is now in its fourth season with canon content again. Episode forty one aired not too long ago.

[Raptor Jesus]

That can't be true. There are some episodes between 14-25 that have canonical material. Like when Hayate transferred the inheritance condition to defeating him instead of making Nagi cry. Anyway, I'm sure we all knew it was filler after that episode. Like... ridiculous filler. Not as bad as Naruto filler though.

Although for filler, I did like Kuzuha-sama. Her voice is so sexy.

[Doppleganger]

Oh, I see what you mean. There was barely any canon material, though. We never got to see "Hayate no Gotoku" getting used, Church of Alexander Mark never appeared...Trantez, the translator for Musashi QUALITY, was shocked so much was omitted by the anime.

[big bad birtha]

I have hit two new episodes today. I don't know much what to say about Wolf and Spice (don't get me wrong, I really liked the second episode), but I did catch another new one. Here's my thoughts on it.

Shigofumi ~Stories of Last Letter~ This is another great new one. I really liked this. The end of the episode was kind of horrible though ;_; Anyway, I look forward to the next episode.

Err....I still have Kaiji to watch, and then there's Hayate 40 >.> So many new episodes, so much Touhou in my way.

[Talon87]

Minami-ke ~Okawari~ dropped. (http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/6827/okawaridroppedix5.png) No, not by me! By Ayako! That's right -- the better TL of the two fansub groups who were working on Minami-ke Season 1 has informed his fansub group, "You can count me out." :lol: (And who can blame him!?) So, Ayako has had to announce, "Um ... if our translator refuses to do Okawari, there really isn't much we can do." (Click the link to read the real, more concise message.)

Is ~Okawari~'s subject material bad? No(t by much). It's just a continuation of where we left off in Season 1 (with an inferior team of writers and artists imagining how those chapters from the manga would look in anime form as compared with Series 1's team).

Is ~Okawari~'s character design all that bad? Honestly, no, it's not different enough to be bad -- and this is coming from a guy who thinks Series 1 had some of the cutest, normalest character design ever.

So what makes ~Okawari~ so bad that the translators refuse to translate it? Two things:
(1) Rumor has it (wouldn't know, I only have Ep1 raw) that both episodes aired so far have been really lecherous and playing off of perverted humor. Episode 1 certainly had a fair amount of T&A (with the girls going to a hot springs resort), but apparently the Japanese just won't let it die that the animation team (for S2) animated Haruka's voluptuous boobs as floating like floaties in the salty water. Click here (http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/6134/floatieszg3.jpg) for one artist's interpretation of Studio #2's blunder. (NSFW, but very much so rated PG, you should all click on it when no one's around and you're at home)

(2) This one I can confirm, as it was my own chief complaint with the second series: the animation sucks. No, I don't mean the art style, the character designs, the color pallet, etc. None of that. I mean, "you'll be looking at this cup of sake and it'll be warping in size, with nobody moving it, in a way indicative of lazy animation. Like ... as if the team drew 60 different sake cups for 60 different frames, but each time they drew the cup from scratch and, while close!, they were a little off every time, so it gives the 60fps finished product a feel of "the lines moving about." Some shows use this intentionally (e.g. Science Court from Saturday morning cartoons way back when), but it's just not welcome here. -_-;

[Talon87]

I started watching Kyou no Go no Ni (Today's Class 5-2) by Sakuraba Koharu. You may know him as the creator of Minami-ke. Well, it turns out that his older manga was turned into a 4-episode OAV and it's really quite cute. If you enjoy school days animes and would like to see a semi-novel spin on it (5th grade one-sided first love from the girl towards the unaware guy), then check it out. It's only a total of 2 hours long. And the first hour so far's been really cute and mildly funny.

[dosuser]

I thought 5-2 was pretty cool; in fact, I sort of feel like rewatching it now. The collarbone incident was awesome!

[Talon87]

My favorite two girls are the auburn long-haired girl who has the crush on Ryouta (#1) and the blonde quiet girl with vampiring biting tendencies (#2).

[Talon87]

Kaiji 15 is out.

[Doppleganger]

Already saw it. It was OK. Being spoiled sort of nullified the shock of what happened in the first five minutes, and toward the end. ._.

[Talon87]

Finished Kaiji 15 earlier today. It was pretty good, I dunno why Doppel seemed so bummed out about the episode's natural content -- I think he's just grumpy (and rightly so!) that it was spoiled for him. As somebody who went into it completely unspoilered, I'd say that the precise details of certain surprises were quite surprising, even if the general outcome (one of the more obvious examples: the thought "Kaiji doesn't get the money") was predicted from the beginning. (After all, if Kaiji got the money, we know he's grown so much by now that he'd never squander it and get into debt again, and that would mean the show would be over! Unless the yakuza finally employed him as their gambling representative in affairs involving other clans, an option I'm still entertaining but for way later in the show.)

I was a little disappointed by Washizu's doppelganger no longer being able to be called Washizu's doppelganger because ...
a) aside from the hair and the smile, they have no visual similarities. Different noses, different eyes, new guy's got a huge handlebar mustache, etc.
b) after we heard the familiar "Washizu chuckle," he parted with Washizu's voice completely and spoke like an entirely new character. So the vocal similarities are out the door -- for now, anyway.
c) their focuses are different, even if they are both powerful men. I'd describe this guy, perhaps, as "what Washizu was like when he was younger." Very power-hungry and hoping to "be and remain the king." He doesn't particularly have the hatred against young folks that Washizu developed. This is good, of course, from an audience standpoint (since a Washizu rehash would eventually be called out for being just that -- a rehash!), but it's another nail in the coffin for the nickname "Washizu's doppelganger."

So I guess I have to go out now and find a new nickname for this guy. Or, just learn his proper name. :lol:

Oh yeah! Don't forget to support Kratos Aurion in today's SaiGAR! Either he won't need your support he'll be so popular OR your help won't matter because too many people don't know who he is. Time will tell. But still, thought I'd appeal for votes. Dunno about his competitors, but Kratos certainly deserves each and every vote he receives. Even if you don't want to vote for him, I encourage you to check out the Tales of Symphonia OAVs. Not quite as good as the games imo, but a preferable alternative to buying a GC game that takes over 50 hours to complete if you're time-constrained.

[big bad birtha]

Err...I haven't watched any anime, but I will say one thing.....I have converted to downloading ^o^ No more waiting thirty minutes just to watch something I'm not sure is even the right thing. Now.....off to work ;_;

[Talon87]

Wait ... does this mean you finally got a new computer? Or does your conversion come along with the same old box you've currently got?

[Doppleganger]

What struck me as odd was that the stairs didn't seem to be held up by anything, except two points on the building; a bar beneath the stair, and connecting up to the twenty-third story room.


c) their focuses are different, even if they are both powerful men. I'd describe this guy, perhaps, as "what Washizu was like when he was younger." Very power-hungry and hoping to "be and remain the king." He doesn't particularly have the hatred against young folks that Washizu developed. This is good, of course, from an audience standpoint (since a Washizu rehash would eventually be called out for being just that -- a rehash!), but it's another nail in the coffin for the nickname "Washizu's doppelganger."


His formal name is "Kazutaka Hyoudou". Since I did not have sound, I wasn't able to hear his voice, but it's interesting for you to bring up he sounds different from Washizu. Aside from filling the basic role in a Fukumoto story, that is, the "eccentric but dis-interested elderly billionaire with a curious interest in exotic gambles", it's good to hear he's like a different character. sukreih claims Kazutaka is more malevolent than Washizu, and my research seems to tell me he's far richer. Less of a lone wolf as well, but that's to come later.


Oh yeah! Don't forget to support Kratos Aurion in today's SaiGAR! Either he won't need your support he'll be so popular OR your help won't matter because too many people don't know who he is. Time will tell. But still, thought I'd appeal for votes. Dunno about his competitors, but Kratos certainly deserves each and every vote he receives. Even if you don't want to vote for him, I encourage you to check out the Tales of Symphonia OAVs. Not quite as good as the games imo, but a preferable alternative to buying a GC game that takes over 50 hours to complete if you're time-constrained.

I might have voted for that character, but I've frowned upon ToS in the past and hadn't seen the OVAs.

[Talon87]

What struck me as odd was that the stairs didn't seem to be held up by anything, except two points on the building; a bar beneath the stair, and connecting up to the twenty-third story room.I noticed that too. Even if the glass was the strongest substance known to man and it neither was brittle (to the point of crumbling) nor tensile (to the point of warping), it doesn't make sense that it would be perfectly upright like that. One would have thought it would have lain against the building with its other parts hanging downwards.

His formal name is "Kazutaka Hyoudou". Since I did not have sound, I wasn't able to hear his voice, but it's interesting for you to bring up he sounds different from Washizu. Aside from filling the basic role in a Fukumoto story, that is, the "eccentric but dis-interested elderly billionaire with a curious interest in exotic gambles", it's good to hear he's like a different character. sukreih claims Kazutaka is more malevolent than Washizu, and my research seems to tell me he's far richer. Less of a lone wolf as well, but that's to come later.In Washizu's defense, (a) he squandered a lot of his wealth in his later years and (b) we met him in the 1950s, not the 1990s. So it's possible that Washizu really was "the richest man in Japan" in immediately-post-war Japan, but that even if he had not lost his fortunes, he would have been lapped by others as the Japanese economy picked up. After all, Washizu's entire fortune was built around the war and the aftermath that followed; once peace time dragged on long enough, it's understandable that his influence would have waned.

Hyoudou's voice actor is clearly the same based on the early vocal hints (like "the Washizu chuckle" we heard not only on the Espoir but even in Episode 15!), but you'd never know it from 85% of his dialogue. He sounds as different from Washizu (now) as Tonegawa or the loan shark guy. Not as different as, say, Sahara / Kaiji from Washizu, but you get the idea. Doppel, why not check it out on Youtube? :? You could probably find Kaiji 15 divided into chunks on there ... just find the part where Hyoudou is leading Kaiji to the E-Card room.

[Talon87]

Double-post, yes, but ... link to the voice (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J4dNNBF54w). It was the first hit for "Kaiji 15" on Youtube, go figure. :P ;)

[Doppleganger]

I should clarify; I couldn't hear Kazutaka's voice because the sound on my computer is dead. All the anime I've seen since three weeks ago have been without sound.

...

On the bridge issue, perhaps there were some columns under-neath it that we didn't see. Could be a case of lazy artwork - in Shana II, there's supposed to be some swirly magic around anyone not named Yuuji, a Flame Haze or Tomogara to allow them to walk in Fuzetsu, but that was dropped from the first season. Also accompanies the strange habit some have of referring to Shana as "Shana" instead of "Yukari-chan". >_>

Regarding your assessment of Washizu, Yasuoka estimated Washizu's original net worth at a billion yen, though Washizu's power extended beyond that raw cash; his investments were always growing at an astounding rate and he could influence politicians to do almost anything. Befitting of "the first king" if there was one, rather than an oligarch who Kazutaka seems to be.

Kazutaka's net worth is in the hundreds of billions of yen, even considering Japan starting a floating yen and inflation relative to US dollars, Washizu can't tough Kazutaka in terms of raw cash. Whether or not Kazutaka has soft-power has yet to be revealed to me.

It's not mentioned explicitly in any story, but I want to know who the other "shadow kings" are; the kind of folk conspiracy theorists would go nuts over. Akagi presumably took Washizu's place in Ten, Kazutaka appears to be one as well. Are there more, I wonder I wonder?

[big bad birtha]

Wait ... does this mean you finally got a new computer? Or does your conversion come along with the same old box you've currently got?

No ;_; It just means that I found a way to watch episodes without the screen stopping.

Anyway, the new Clannad has been downloaded. Expect my sexy thoughts when I finish.

[Doppleganger]

Oh, BBB. I finally got the ending for Clannad (Nagisa's Route) spoiled for me, and if it's true, it's enough for me to not pick up the show again. -_-; Seriously, I expected the weeaboo folks who kept saying "BEST VISUAL NOVEL EVER MADE" to be concealing info, much like the Church of Scientology, and sure enough I find one of the most ridiculous scenarios ever conceived for a story. It's not even original, it's just fudgin' dumb. I really want to see Tomoyo's scenario though.

I'd like you to confirm something. After Fuko's route, did Tomoya grab some sort of weird light orb that was floating around in the air?

[big bad birtha]

I'd like you to confirm something. After Fuko's route, did Tomoya grab some sort of weird light orb that was floating around in the air?

Err..I don't remember him doing so.

[Doppleganger]

That's a good sign. Who's the girl getting focus right now? Tell me if Tomoya grabs an orb when her arc ends.

[big bad birtha]

I will answer your question in the Clannad thread (I'm sure you were satisfied by my review of the latest episode >.>)

Anyway, I have only one new episode review to hit. Here's my thoughts.

H2O~Footprints in the Sand~ 3- This was a pretty good episode. However, a certain mystery was kind of revealed, and if what I am thinking is true, then -_-; I am also starting to dislike the blond girl (err.....the one with long hair. There's three of them ^_^; ) The character I wanna know about, though is the trap. It was spoiled to me that the character is a trap (I don't think I was supposed to know so early), and I'd like to see through the person's trapness (he's the cutest character in the show.) I just hope it's serious and not like the trap in Lovely Complex (Oh my god, it was funny as hell though.)

I still have assloads of new episodes to hit. I downloaded the 40th episode of Hayate, and I am also downloading all of Oh! Edo Rocket. So much to watch, so little time.

[Raptor Jesus]

I watched Shana II-14. I only have one word for it-

[attachment=0:2v0rl7hx]fisted.JPG[/attachment:2v0rl7hx]

FISTED!!!

Pheles is hawt. <3

[Doppleganger]

>>Pheles was hawt.

Oh hey, I fixed your post. :)

[Doppleganger]

BBB, I'm laughing my arse off at Rosario + Vampire. Sure, the fanservice is annoying and bad, but the story's cheesy plot - meshed with the fact that the story is like a worksafe (for analogy's sake) Bible Black, and even has similar uniforms and colourations - makes it extremely funny to me. Let's just say that even if this show is the current season's Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, it's a heck of a lot more entertaining.

[Talon87]

Kaiji OST is out. Unfortunately, the opening theme song's full version is only 2:29 in length with an unimpressive bridge. However, I do think it's cute that half the tracks on Side 2 of the CD have the following names:

Ko Zawazawa 1
Ko Zawazawa 2
Chuu Zawazawa 1
Chuu Zawazawa 2
Dai Zawazawa 1
Dai Zawazawa 2
Dai Dai Zawazawa

Ko is a not-often-heard reading for ??? (chiisai, small), but there you have it. "Small Zawazawa." Chuu (as you're no doubt aware from mahjong) corresponds to ? (middle), so "Middle Zawazawa." Dai is ?, or Big Zawazawa. And so finally they call the last one "Big Big Zawazawa." :) :lol:

I just listened to all seven for 5-10 seconds, and the first two didn't stand out but didn't strike me as new, either. The middle four were all VERY familiar. But the 7th? "Dai Dai Zawazawa?" 100% certain we've not heard it yet. It has people of different voices and temperaments saying "zawa zawa" all throughout it and sounds REALLY maddening. No doubt this is either coming up or will be a climactic "Zawa Zawa" saved for the moment where Kaiji is closest to snapping.

[Doppleganger]

Moonlander went to #3 on my list of all time favourite trip-folk for ripping it so quickly, but I can't hear it regardless. ;_; Also, today's SaiGar match is really important. Talon mentioned a while back that this year doesn't seem to have a character like Archer in the tournament, but that's not exactly true (http://youtube.com/watch?v=6hQp9JLb1hA) since Hiroshi Shiba is both Archer's ancestor and re-incarnation. I've been campaigning pretty hard for a one-man job to try and get his series noticed, but I haven't had any luck and I'm getting a lot of heat for it. So, consider voting for Hiroshi in this round's match. I'd proxy votes but it's too conspicuous this year, and thirty something votes won't matter if Chiaki from Nodame gets 300+ votes.

[Talon87]

Sorry, but I was pretty gay for Chiaki all through Nodame, so he gets my vote. Maybe your plea will sway me. We'll see. I have 60 minutes to decide. But I think I'll have to vote for Chiaki (a) because your guy is the Nader of today's vote (i.e. a throwaway vote, even if he is the best candidate) and (b) I would want Chiaki to win over Luffy, and he's going to need every last vote he can muster to do that since so many 4channers enjoy One Piece.

[Doppleganger]

4channers don't like One Piece. Each topic dedicated to it gets swarmed with trolls and sages within seconds of each posting. Haven't you ever heard of "set fail"? :P

...

Also, Kaiji's out.

[big bad birtha]

-_- I have been feeling like crap in the past few days. I'm sure no-one cares though. Actually, I'm sure that no-one has even noticed my lack in posts the past few days. Well, whatever.

I have watched a few new episodes, but not much. I have hit the latest Hayate, Okawari, and something else. I have everything downloaded, but I haven't gotten to watching them yet. Now, off to watch Clannad.

[Talon87]

-_- I have been feeling like crap in the past few days. I'm sure no-one cares though. Actually, I'm sure that no-one has even noticed my lack in posts the past few days. Well, whatever.

We've noticed. I've noticed. You vanished right after our spat.

I was angry with you at the time, and I think we still have some issues that will need to be resolved at some point in the future, but for now, I'm good with just giving one another a wide berth. Many of the problems I had with how you talked to me the other day were problems, I realized, that I also have with myself and how I talk to others. (For example, your treatment of me regarding Touhou reminded me very much of my treatment of Doppel regarding Chobits.) I realized that there were many things I wanted to say to you a few days ago that could have been said right back in my face. It made it much easier to understand your pain and anger, and it also made it touch close to home with how much I need to change inside and become a better, more tolerant person. I don't think how you treated me the other day was excusable, but I cannot chastise you for doing something I do daily to others. If you are wrong, then I am more wrong. And so before I can demand anything from you, I need to demand things from myself -- and meet those demands.

I would like it very much if you would return to discussing things on UPN because you have many friends here who care about you as a person and about your opinions and moods on topics mutually enjoyed. If you don't want to speak with me -- or at least do not want to speak about Touhou, CCS, and other things with me -- then that's fine, but it should not mean that the others have to suffer for it.

[big bad birtha]

I stayed away because I was pissed. Honestly, I am still pissed, but like everything else, I will bottle it away and let it all out if something similar happens.

I will just do like always and act like nothing happened. Anyway, if you don't want to discuss Touhou anymore, that's fine. It's a shame though, because I found a demo to SWR.....

One more thing. I am going to attach a picture. Now, look closely and tell me if any of you find anything unusual. I mean, other than the fact that this person is utterly adorable. If you can't find it out, then here's the answer.....It's a guy. >< Yes, this beyond adorable character is a guy. WTF?!

[Doppleganger]

Sigh, it would appear Talon was correct as Hiroshi did become a Ralph Nader of sorts. I am honestly surprised that Luffy won, since most of the 4channers were backing Chiaki, Arlong Park (a bloody OP forum) went for Hiroshi, and AnimeSuki also backed Hiroshi as well. It would appear most of the Luffy votes came from NarutoFan and GaiaOnline. :cry:

...

Anyway, today's match on the left is easy for me. Claire is (literally) bloody Gar, I look forward to a Claire x Ladd finale in this bloc.

[Raptor Jesus]

STFU no. I hate those. Thank god the swimsuit has locks cause with that information, I know to never unlock that Pandora's box.

[big bad birtha]

I have hit a few new episodes last night. Here's my thoughts on what I can remember.

Rosario + Vampire 3- I took Doppel's example and decided to take this less seriously when watching this. The result? I like it quite a bit better. I mean, I am still not fond of it, because I think all of the cheesy stuff is supposed to be serious, but until the serious parts come, I will continue to go on the "this is so stupid" mindset. I do love how they made fun of the witch girl's "desu". "Desu. Desu. Is she trying to attract some lolicons?" XP

Spice and Wolf 3- I am starting to really like this =D I mean, I am completely uninterested in the whole "trade" thing, but everything else is awesome. I look forward to the next episode ^o^

Minami-ke: Okawari 1- This isn't as bad as people make it out to be. I mean, it's not as good as the original, but it's still pretty funny. It will take a while to get used to the slight change in appearance, but that won't be a big leap. I WAS going to watch episode two last night, but the file was corrupted >.<

Shakugan no Shana II 14- FISTED! The rest of the episode was alright, but that one moment was awesome. I will await the next episode with a shaved badger in hand.

I have yet to watch Kaiji. I have them DLed, but not watched. I also watched Clannad =D

[Talon87]

Just finished Prince of Tennis Nationals OAV (13 episodes long). It was decent. The good news is, they did what fans of the show had been clamoring for -- they took matches between athletes and contained them within one episode. The good news about this was that we covered a lot of ground (two full teams) in just 13 episodes. (Usually 13 episodes, if you were lucky, would get you through just one team. Much more normal for it to cover only 60-75% of one team.) The bad news about this was that we've gotten so accustomed to the way TeniPuri tells the story long-and-drawn-outedly that, even though we bitched for change, the change felt really awkward. There were a lot of times I caught myself thinking, "Man, I sort of wish that had been a two-parter and we could have seen more tennis from both sides. :|" xfd @ fans like me and the poor position they place Studio Pierrot in.

Rather than starting on Clannad, Wolf & Spice, or other Fall 2007 and Winter 2008 series, I'm thinking about (in between med school and daily life) starting Monster. I've put it off for long enough, there aren't really that many shows right now grabbing my attention, and the only show I've significantly started (and so won't put down) is Kaiji (plus Kaiji rocks :D so why would I put it down!?). So ... probably going to start Monster later tonight or tomorrow. We'll see.

[Raptor Jesus]

Monster is really good. I personally like the manga more, but the anime isn't much worse. Anyway, it's like 79? episodes, so it takes up a lot of room HDD-wise and time-wise.

Anyway, I started downloading and watching Futari Wa Pretty Cure and it's not so bad. It's like watching a show that combines a bit of DBZ, Sailor Moon, and a tiny bit of Power Rangers. The fights are definitely cooler than original Sailor Moon and the characters are definitely less annoying than Usagi-chan. Fights are still won with "combining our might~!" which basically means they hold hands and shoot super powerful kamehameha, except Cure White shoots white blasts and Cure Blast shoots black blasts.

[Talon87]

I already have it all burned to DVD; the issue is time.

[Talon87]

"YES! Yes, yes, YES!" - me irl just now, and then I shut myself up because I realized I was being too loud and the neighbors might mistake it for something naughty O_o;

Tales of Symphonia wins it by a hair! (http://saigar08.michaeldodd.net/graph/battle_44.png) It looks like the Gundam fans either (a) happened to rally around midday or (b) may have gotten some insider information about Lloyd kicking their asses and attempted to stage a coup. Regardless, as the graph shows, one vote made all the difference, and Lloyd won.

I was one of those votes. :) My vote made a difference. You could say my vote made the difference.

YES. 8) First SaiGar 2008 win I've been unsure about the victor, have cared about, and have ended up winning. I've never had all three happen before tonight. Oh yeah. 8)

[Doppleganger]

Wow, that's pretty awesome. I didn't think Jesus Yamato would get many votes, but thought he could end up winning since this was a low voter round. But I've got one word to describe the match - crucified!

...

Next round for me will be Ladd Russo and Kenpachi. Ken's an OK candidate, but his opponents are pretty close to trash (Potemayo? :roll: ). Ladd is extremely awesome; I wasn't partial to him at first, but at the end of Baccano! he showed he had all the stellar qualities I prize in a Gar character.

[Talon87]

I'm done voting until the first match of the 2nd Round matches. But I've already loaded up my vote for today and it just needs 2 more mintues before I can vote, so ... anyone you need me to vote for? Ladd and Kenpachi, is it? Whatever. Dunno who they are, but I can lend you my vote tonight for them.

[Doppleganger]

My thanks. I'll be through following until the second round as well - too many of these matches are dangerous for my taste, i.e. the Alucard, Lord Genome, and Giovanni matches.

[Talon87]

I don't understand how Giovanni has such a following and will be voting against him at ever corner. How is he gar!? Just because you like Pokemon doesn't make him gar. Show me where he was gar in Seasons 1-4. Show me where he's been gar since I quit watching. I doubt he's become gar, and he was never gar in the first place. He was just an asshole.

[big bad birtha]

I have watched a few episodes. =D Here are my thoughts.

Kaiji 14 (yea, I have put this off for a while.)- OMFG! This episode was awesome. Err....don't know any spoiler-free ways of describing it, so I'll stop there.

H2O~ Footprints in the Sand~ 4- This episode was pretty pointless, but something has been revealed that I have kind of wanted to know. What is going to be great is the next episode. This was left at kind of a cliffhanger.

I have downloaded episode 15 of Shana II. I have also downloaded episode 41 of Hayate, so expect my thoughts when I watch them.

(Also, how's my adorable new avatar? =3 I'm just trying this out though. I will most likely switch back to Ayu in time.)

[Doppleganger]

I don't understand how Giovanni has such a following and will be voting against him at ever corner. How is he gar!? Just because you like Pokemon doesn't make him gar. Show me where he was gar in Seasons 1-4. Show me where he's been gar since I quit watching. I doubt he's become gar, and he was never gar in the first place. He was just an asshole.

It's a long, complicated story.

...

A while ago, the 4.5M GET on /a/ (on appearance) was a parody of Twelve Kingdoms featuring the characters from Azumanga Daioh, but for whatever reason, either a server error or whatnot, when clicked that picture would detour to a picture of Giovanni knocking out a Chansey (http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/3968/1196317029637kj0.jpg). The GET was considered horrible because /v/ had an influence on it, but the surprise Giovanni picture struck a lot of people as very funny. Somebody then realized that Chansey had some of the highest hit points of any Pokemon ever, and for a normal human - especially a businessman-type clandestine leader who shouldn't be getting out much - to defeat a Pokemon like that with his bare hands impressed a lot of people. Such awe was inflamed when someone else posted pictures of a Giovanni "excursion", where he wore a Tauros skin loin-cloth and ran around in a jungle, mingling with/beating up various Pokemon, swinging from vines and jumping off of a cliff just to out-dive an Aerodactyl. Such images earned him the title, "a buffet of manliness" and from then on many shops were made of Giovanni punching things /a/ didn't like, such as Haruhi, Lucky Star, various trolls, and such. Not long after that, he started punching annoying memes, and that was when he became REALLY popular. The first example was Pimp Ed, which is a borrowed idea from Futaba where an Edward Elric picture that came from Ed sprawled out on a couch was shopped onto various girls, men, whatever, to show "how much of a pimp" Ed was, like so (http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/6421/1197889616360gb2.jpg). Most didn't expect the outcome (http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/5196/gaijin4komaedvsgiovanniqo9.png) and were very pleased. However, Pimp Ed was but the beginning, and was actually overshadowed by the big explosion of Giovanni love - when he fought Cirno.

People were annoyed with the Touhou fanbase and felt it had over-stayed its welcome on /a/. They were especially fed up with Cirno, who became a poster girl for the franchise because of ZUN's biography comment in one of the instruction manuals, allegedly because of Cirno's legendary stupidity - "?: Idiot". Cirno was so popular as "?" her likeness was the subject of fan-art, particularly my avatar, the whole image of which features Cirno in the classic "PROMOTIONS" pose. This particular image, which was the best drawn and cutest of the ELC fanart, angered a lot of people whenever it appeared. So someone shopped Giovanni onto it, and all heck broke lose between the Touhou fans and Giovanni folk, who weren't very large at the time but became more famous after the fact. This new "rivalry" became rather famous (or infamous), and soon pictures of Giovanni and Cirno slugging it out in the boxing ring started to appear. Some folks attempted to create a pairing out of the two (as in this case (http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1361/1200801030587se4.png)) but they're more frequently portrayed in fan art as rivals, an even more commonly, with Cirno living near Giovanni and annoying the heck out of him.

The final boost of fame came from something called "Card Crusher", a format from a Japanese video of a guy named "Rude Dude" who crumples this lady's business card after she gives it to him. Most Card Crusher edits were done in MS Paint and sucked, but to curb the suckiness one really taleneted fellow did a parody featuring (who else?) Giovanni and Cirno. It's probably the funniest Card Crusher ever, but since it's an inside joke it'll probably be wasted on most people. The original one done by a Japanese artist (before the imitations appeared) can be found (right to left) here (http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/337/1198916848847rj4.png), see the Giovanni x Cirno one here (http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/1795/1201075961896vv1.png).

...

So that's the history, in a nut-shell. Basically, Giovanni became famous because of a GET, and various fanart productions (my personal favourite being this (http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/5408/1200744205770vz0.jpg)) appeared and fanart/original doujin work always excites people. The little fan-made story between Ed, Giovanni, Cirno and recently Lord Genome (who had a guitar duel with him, a la the Guitar Ninjas from Princess Tutu) created a sort of "fictional Gar" character. He's not Gar in the Pokemon series so much as /a/ has made him a hero unofficially, and once in a while more fanart comes out and that just makes people love him more (myself included). So in a sense, we gained a bit of the Japanese Touhou mind-set with a few characters gone meme.

[Talon87]

Suisei Seki : SaiMoe :: Giovanni : SaiGar

Gotcha. :|

[Doppleganger]

Is that so? I never made it past the first episode of Rozen Maiden's first season, so I don't know much about her role in the story - is her popularity really from doujin depiction? I know that's frequently the case with Nanoha and the alleged lesbian pairings between Nanoha and Fate, but I didn't know that was the case with Suiseiseki. I thought people liked her because she acted like a Yamato Nadeshiko.

[Talon87]

Do you even know who Yamato Nadeshiko is? >_> One does not simply act like the perfect Japanese bride; one either is or is not the perfect Japanese bride. And Suisei Seki is a far cry from most Japanese or white males' perfect bride. (Even if she is my 2nd favorite Rozen Maiden right behind Suigin Tou.)

No, what I meant was, 4chan catapulted Suisei Seki to victory in Saimoe 2006 based purely on her memetic popularity, and I'm beginning to fear that the same is about to take place with Giovanni. :| Yeah, it's all good fun that a 4chan meme can compete with serious Garsident candidates, but it's not funny when he starts knocking out legitimate candidates. (Hell, he already did -- Kratos Aurion was the first casualty of this meme's nonsense.)

Maybe you don't realize this, but Suisei Seki did not win SaiMoe 2006 because "the Internets" voted for her. No; instead what happened was that 4chan campaigned heavily for her, more or less invaded the then-almost-entirely-Japanese SaiMoe contest, and cast hundreds of ballots for Suisei Seki. This is why the Japanese moe freaks hate us Westerners so much -- because (to them) some dumb Rozen Maiden won a contest that belonged to superior candidates.

[Doppleganger]

Do you even know who Yamato Nadeshiko is? >_> One does not simply act like the perfect Japanese bride; one either is or is not the perfect Japanese bride. And Suisei Seki is a far cry from most Japanese or white males' perfect bride. (Even if she is my 2nd favorite Rozen Maiden right behind Suigin Tou.)


I do. But to my knowledge, Suiseiseki's popularity in Japan was because she acted so much like the perfect wife, and how she ended her sentences just seasoned the appeal. Then again I haven't seen the show proper so for all I know she could be tsundere or something worse.


No, what I meant was, 4chan catapulted Suisei Seki to victory in Saimoe 2006 based purely on her memetic popularity, and I'm beginning to fear that the same is about to take place with Giovanni. :| Yeah, it's all good fun that a 4chan meme can compete with serious Garsident candidates, but it's not funny when he starts knocking out legitimate candidates. (Hell, he already did -- Kratos Aurion was the first casualty of this meme's nonsense.)


That's a misconception, actually. I can speak about this from having taken part in SaiMoe 2006 - very few, if any, 4channers took part in it. Fifty tops; most of the topics were ignored, only getting a couple posts until after the results for the final were announced, whereby people got pissed. SaiMoe 2006's controversial vote was one of the founding reasons SaiGar came into being. Just between you and me, I voted Suiseiseki for SaiMoe 2006 because I vehemently despise Nanoha and anything related to it- up until then, I voted for Eruru, Shana, Rin and even Shinku - anyone but a Nanoha character.

Most of the consistent SaiMoe voting bloc comes from AnimeSuki, who churned out two hundred votes in 2006 and between five and six hundred in 2007. I've forgotten the rankings for SaiMoe 2006, but the margin was decent, I think Suiseiseki would have won even without aid from AnimeSuki. The situation changes drastically for 2007, where from the data released by the SaiMoe coordinators, Nagi would have won SaiMoe by a two hundred vote safety net, until the foreign votes are factored in, most tracked to AnimeSuki. A hundred people from there voted Nagi, four hundred voted for Rika, which angered the Japanese as well. For SaiGar, the three hundred vote large voting bloc is 70% from NarutoFan users and 30% GaiaOnline, with nearly all AnimeSuki voters being 4channers themselves.

...

As for Giovanni, I consider him a semi-legitimate candidate, moreso than "Bruce Ironstaunch" anyway. He's got some credibility in the Pokemon show even if his deeds are exaggerated, and the fictional story makes for a better vote than some other candidates (particularly the other jokes, like KONATA of all creatures). Not saying Kratos, since I don't know much about him, but clearly far better than Andou/Dango/Rika/Makoto. If Giovanni wasn't in that match, I think Negi would have pulled it since there's bias against game adapted anime and against not widely seen shows. With Jonathan Joestar in the opposite bracket, a low voter turn-out for the right seems unlikely, and high votes are death to not well known candidates. Once the candidates get past their first round, people think to themselves "well, if this character got past the first round, maybe there's something to him after-all" and they actually start to research. This was what popularised Akagi last year and will probably help Baccano! and Seto no Hanayome this time around. This was why I wanted Hiroshi to win - I want Jeeg to be better known. Hiroshi just needed to win one round to get Jeeg known, that was all I could ask for. A topic not made by me appeared today and I was quite happy, since it tells me my campaigning wasn't totally worthless.

Lloyd's victory today was contingent on a number of factors; people voting against Jesus, people voting FOR ToS, people voting on Gar and the low voter turnout overall because some folks don't care unless a character is from "Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann". I voted for Lloyd on two grounds; against Jesus, and for Gar, since by your testament Kratos was an excellent vote and from what I read on Lloyd, he wasn't a bad choice either.

[Raptor Jesus]

Jeez Doppleganger. For a guy who keeps saying 4channers are tards, you seem to know a ridiculously large amount of information about them and the stupid things they do.

[Talon87]

That's because he is a 4channer. Duh.

[Raptor Jesus]

I know that >>;; But for someone to say how they don't like 4channer and then go and hang around their forums all the time seems hypocritical.

[Talon87]

It's why I keep plugging iichan. In the hopes that he'll choose our community (despite our many shortcomings) over the Mos Eisley that is 4chan. Anyway ...

I forgot to mention that I watched Kaiji 16 last night. It was pretty good. E-Card seems like it's way too similar to the first story arc, so (1) band news is, it's hard to get worked up over it, but (2) good news is, it looks like the anime team is aware of that problem and that the story arc will be done in just 2-3 more episodes. I say this because Kaiji has already completed 2 of his 12 rounds and we spent the first 2/3 of the episode explaining the situation. So I figure we'll get through at least 3 rounds an episode, possibly more. Also, as in the show, each round is limited to 5 minutes, so theoretically they'd have to go faster unless they want to slow down time. And Kaiji has been pretty good so far about trying to maintain the relationship between how much time passes within the show and how much airtime has passed (e.g. Espoir lasted 7 episodes and was about 4 hours to the men onboard; crossing the beam, the men had about 2 hours and it was accomplished by Kaiji in about 3 episodes; etc).

I'm looking forward to seeing Kaiji defeat Tonegawa (as we know he must) simply because it will mean that we're that much closer to the mafia leader (I've forgotten his name again already >_<) formally employing Kaiji as his representative in gambling affairs.

[Doppleganger]

I know that >>;; But for someone to say how they don't like 4channer[s] and then go and hang around their forums all the time seems hypocritical.

I don't see what's hypocritical. I can think for myself, right? Just because I'm a 4channer doesn't mean I have to subscribe to their ridiculous "hive mind" all of the time - sufficient lurking is enough for people to get a grasp of the place, but the key is to not get swept up in it, especially since there's a lot of un-desirable views that would be absolutely dreadful to passively internalize (the Nietzsche quote best applies here). Even then, most of the dissent with Yotsuba related issues stems from it's long term illness - cancer, or the continual growth of the place and leaking of the inside jokes. If SaiGar was simply the light hearted but still serious little anime festival of a few boards, I couldn't complain, but becoming some large-scale commercial troll infestation is just frown inducing.

This only applies to /a/, though. I either don't care for or hate the other boards, specifically /b/ because of the bad reputation and ire that board invokes by simply being the largest and most noisy. It's almost a visual representation of chaos, and that plus racism, pornography, and malicious cruelty just disgust me.

It's why I keep plugging iichan. In the hopes that he'll choose our community (despite our many shortcomings) over the Mos Eisley that is 4chan. Anyway ...


It worked, actually. I've been visiting there more frequently when I'm at home.

[Talon87]

Cool. I dunno if you'll recognize my posts all the time, though, since I post as one Anon amongst many, but if it's really lengthy, I'd say there's a 1-in-5 chance it's me. (I think there's about 5 of us who write tomes. Not quite certain.) I'm pretty vocal in News, Anime, Cute Females, and as vocal as I need to be in about half of the hentai channels.

lol if we ever get in nasty arguments and don't realize it XD

If you're ever in the hentai channels (and don't want to admit it here :oops: ) , you'll know it's me who's helped you out or argued with you if the format of my help posts looks like this one (http://www.koichan.net/r/res/30274.html#i30276). (NSFW)

Maybe so you know it's me, I'll start using a subtle code, like ... like the inclusion of some word. Hmm. Can't think of one that's neither too common nor too rare. :lol: We'll see.

[Doppleganger]

This just in: Cloe is an anime-original character. More on this story at 11:00...

[Talon87]

This just in: Cloe is an anime-original character. More on this story at 11:00...
What?

[big bad birtha]

PROMOTIONS! =D (http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8616/1184061283164yy9.jpg) Sry ;_; I wanted to try it out. I know this is a strange and stupid question, but does the whole promotions thing have anything to do with showing your boss a bunch of NSFW pictures? My chat buddies have yelled "PROMOTIONS!" at random times and shown that Cirno pic. When I asked what the hell was up with it, all I got was "Birtha, show your boss a bunch of NSFW pictures and get promoted." (that's right, they actually spell out one of my names =P) I was too confused to say anything more.

I had to work today, so no new episodes. However, I have found a series that I'll watch after OER (if I can get to watching it >.>) That series is Bottle Fairy =D OMG, is it cute. I don't know if it will be a good anime or not, but it does guarantee adorableness, and that's good enough for me. I mean, look at this! (http://p-images.veoh.com/image.out?imageId=user-angelmomo62.jpg&version=4) X3

One more thing and I'll shut up. If I say anything strange in the next few days, please disregard it. I don't mean the stupid stuff that I usually say. I mean anything that is out of character. I have had these fits of depression the past few days, and I might say something that just isn't me. However, I have better control of them than usual, so I most likely will not.

Everyone: Hey, guess what! I don't ****ing care!

I thought that was the case. I'll shut up now.

[Doppleganger]

It sounds like most of your Touhou friends are 4channers. o.o In any matter, I'd post lurk's entry on promo but since it's in the /v/ section, I had no part of it and it's rather poorly written. So I'll have to give you my own summary. For the record, that Cirno image is in-complete since the original one had her wings as well.

...

"Promotions" derives from the fact that on the work-safe (no nudity) boards of Yotsuba, people who want to get banned post not safe for work images, often to the chagrin of those who don't want to see them (like myself). The joke is that if someone was caught seeing not safe for work pictures while at work, that person would be fired, or someone in management above him would get fired. So, phrases like "I just got promoted" implies that, after just moving up the corporate ladder the fellow is fired, or that the firing of the manager leaves a slot open for that fellow to move up.

[Talon87]

Bottle Fairy is a cute, okay show. I watched it in Spring 2006. The larger your knowledge of Japanese culture, the better, but then again, it's a show targeted towards children ages 4-6 in Japan (by my personal assessment), so it actually does a decent job of teaching those very cultural elements I'm saying you'd do well to know in advance. In other words ... you might learn quite a bit of fun trivia from this series.

[Raptor Jesus]

It's become very apparent that my Hard Drive needs to get bigger or I need to dump stuff, as after getting the internetz, I have had to do about a dozen cleanings just to download one series.

[Doppleganger]

So, I finished Final Approach last night. Despite being half length episodes, it was tough to get through. A brief review - the series wasn't what I was expecting. It was harem, but it wasn't generic harem, even if the designs were sort of pasta-ish (same face, body shape, different hairstyle, different colour voice) - there were only four men in the entire show, most of the girls looked the same except for the aforementioned switches.

Character-wise, original! For the most part, anyway - except for the tomboy girl, I haven't seen these characteristics in a show before, and they were quite entertaining to watch. Development-wise, very good as well for a series given its budget limitations, time constraint and material to cover - only two girls got development, and I was exceedingly pleased with how both went.

I hated the main girl Shizuka at first, much like the main boy Ryou did. At the same time, I reveled whenever she screwed up or got in trouble, though I suspected stuff about her and foresaw the development path right away. However, I was still touched when it happened.

Normally I'd give a title I liked an "EXCELLENT" score, but I've decided to downgrade it to "Good". Why? Because I was expecting tragedy; when I asked for a "baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw" anime, I was expecting something along the lines of " ;_; (oh why? This is so horrible...)", not solid drama and a satisfying resolution. I.e., when Shizuka vowed to be a Yamato Nadeshiko in the first episode, "to do everything for her husband" I was expecting her to give her life for him, only for Ryou to realize he loved her as she died in his arms! This did not happen but I would have felt more satisfied if it did, hence the "Good" rating.

This is a nice title for BBB. Talon, Loki, BPK would probably not feel interested - given its brevity, it's tough to give it a high ranking, though it manages to competently deal with its limited resources in a good-looking package. As far as art/animation goes, it's average at best, but not poor or terrible - somewhere in between. As usual, I can't comment on voices or music, and this lack will likely influence my rankings in the future more sternly.

[Talon87]

I suggest investing in a low-price mid-quality DVD+RW (I purchased a Sony DVD+RW 16x for just $50 this summer; never been used but I've got it just in case). Here's what I do ... here's what I've been doing for some time ...

The Small Hard Drive Plan (< 250 GB)
When my hard drive gets full, I delete all the crap and (depending on the severity) all of the silver-medalist material, too, keeping only gold hentai and gold anime.[/*:m:3hmgulc8]
My hard drive gets full again. (Say I have 40 GB, like I used to on my laptop.) Well, I pop in the CD-R's and start burning stuff. Burn, burn, burn. I burn everything, and then I delete everything except for stuff I use daily (like common music files). Anime, movie files, hentai ... anything I'm not likely to look at for months or perhaps years, to the CD-R's.[/*:m:3hmgulc8]

The Large Hard Drive Plan (250 GB < x < 1 TB)
Same as before, but this time, it's not likely to need to happen for a while; and DVD-R's become a must since CD burning would waste way too many discs.[/*:m:3hmgulc8]

My Current Plan (> 1 TB)
I'm not likely to run out of space too soon so long as I make sure to burn all of my anime and J-dramas and hentai anime to DVDs, since these are the huge-ass files that take up the most space. I currently have 300 GB of 1 TB (internal only) in use, but over 75% of that 300 GB is related to deletable anime, hentai, or J-drama -- deletable, that is, once I've saved it. Like last season's ef ~ A Tale of Memories. Or the Nodame Cantabile Europe special that just aired. So here's what I do ... in fact, what I was just doing two weeks ago (ask BBB):
Every 6 months (as a general safety precaution policy), export all the contents of your machine to a 250 GB external hard drive. (If you have more than 250 GB, do it in sessions.)[/*:m:3hmgulc8]
Take this hard drive to a computer with a 16x DVD burner. (If that is the one you're working on, skip this and the previous step.)[/*:m:3hmgulc8]
Burn 250 GB of data to DVDs as a back-up.[/*:m:3hmgulc8]
Repeat until all of the 1 TB plus of data has been backed up.[/*:m:3hmgulc8]
Delete all data which you're not likely to use for 6+ months. (e.g. an anime you just finished)[/*:m:3hmgulc8]
Because you have 1+ TERABYTE, chances are you're not going to have to worry about deleting your bronze or even your silver calibre files any time soon.[/*:m:3hmgulc8]

I've had my computer since July; once I delete all the superfluous anime and J-drama and hentai anime files, I think it'll only have around 100 GB in use. Probably less. In other words, if we assume I acquire 100 permanent GB every 6 months (and that's sick, because ~90% of that data is a long story that won't happen ever again), I'd still be good for a solid 5 years before I needed to worry about deleting silver.

Closing comment: the smaller your hard drive, the more often you'll have to burn and the more likely you'll have to delete perfectly acceptable silver. Considering prices today (500 GB internal hard drive for $150 last time I checked; perhaps even less now?), you should totally upgrade to at least a 500 GB internal system.

[big bad birtha]

It sounds like most of your Touhou friends are 4channers. o.o

Actually, they hate 4channers. One of them went troll hunting today, because a 4channer was being a pain in the ass in the pooshlmer boards.

Also, I have already watched Final Approach and I gave it a pretty good. I liked the overall story and the character designs, but it was sooooo cheesy. God, the last scene just embarrassed me.

EDIT: I am caught up on Kaiji =D So far, it's excellently excellent. I can't wait 'till the next episode.

[Raptor Jesus]

I do have a DVD burner and I do burn shows onto discs. But I don't like burning anything I'm currently in the middle of watching. It always bugs me when I have to check a prior episode to double check things and it's not just two clicks away. This season (and now with high speed online) has been my biggest load in a long time. Normally I just download 1-2 series a season, each being approximately 13-26 episodes. But I'm watching Hayate, which is at 41 today and Shana, which is 14 right now. That's already larger then two 26 episode series. Now I'm trying to catch up on Pretty Cure, which has a total of 49 episodes.

I should probably just hold off on Pretty Cure until one of the other shows finish. Although, waiting more than a week for a grand total of one hour of anime sucks. Especially since they download in 10 minutes now. It was one thing when it took 14 hours to get the new Shana. Now I have too much time on my hands.

[Talon87]

Then it's clear: you need a bigger hard drive. I purchased a 250 GB external in October for around $120 iirc. This is if you're really averse to the notion of purchasing a larger-but-internal HDD because of the installation hassle required with internals.

[Raptor Jesus]

I actually want to toss out my computer because I've been working on a new one for two years now, but I've been too busy with everything from work to bills to just wanting to relax to handle replacing the power supply, which shorted during a lightning storm and getting a new video card which I took out and put it into my old one because that old one died in the same storm and I want something prettier. But I might have to end up getting a different motherboard because new video cards have different slots, which could end up to me having to buy a different processor and the list keeps going into a run-on sentence.

I'll probably work on it after Chinese New Year.

[Talon87]

Sounds like it. You should probably approach the problem asking yourself, "What do I need to buy if I'm building a PC from scratch in February 2008?" and then compile the small list of the things you already own that are (a) acceptable to you in terms of their quality and power and (b) would be 100% compatible with the system you outlined above when building a Feb 2008 machine from scratch.

That is to say ... don't buy a new GPU if you don't have to, but if you have to buy a new motherboard anyway and your old GPU is the old pin type (I forget what the old one was and what the new one is), you may just want to consider getting the new kind so it's good for the next 3-4 years.

[Raptor Jesus]

Actually, at the time I bought the motherboard, it was 'new' technology so the socket was only 754, which is completely out of date. 939 is the smallest in the market and 754s are like 8 track tapes, impossible to find and completely obsolete. Similarly, AGP is an outdated slot replaced by PCI Express. AGP video cards are still out there, but are seriously outclassed. Oh well, I can still run on older stuff. I stopped gaming on my PC since I got the 360 anyway.

[Talon87]

That's what it was. AGP vs. PCI vs. PCI Express. (My card is PCI-Express, but I don't think my motherboard allows it to be used, funnily enough.)

[Raptor Jesus]

The PCIe slots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:PCIExpress.jpg) are a different shape from PCI slots (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:64bitpci.jpg) iirc. They should be able to fit together. If it's PCIe, you have a PCIe slot. If it's PCI, it's PCI.

[Talon87]

I'm putting PCI-Express into PCI-Express, don't worry about that. Rather, my motherboard had more NVidea influence than I was aware of at the time of purchase (it's practically fully integrated and irremovable), but I wanted a Radeon ATI card. So ... they fight. lol

[Raptor Jesus]

ATI sucks. But for reasons I'd rather not get into. Mostly because I forgot xd. I just remember a half dozen people telling me to not buy ATI and each having legitimate reasons for it. I think dami was one of them.

[big bad birtha]

Everyone! I have found these two anime that everyone HAS to watch. They are Boku no Pico and Okane ga nai. Now! Go and watch them as soon as possible!

Anyway, I have watched the first two episodes of Bottle Fairy. Here's my thoughts.

Bottle Fairy 1-2- OMG! I feel like I am going to die. It's like I am being smothered by adorableness, and that's not bad at all. It's also pretty funny. I mean, it barely has a plot, but that doesn't matter. It's funny and really cute, so that's enough. I look forward to watching the next few episodes. I have also made some screenshots =3 (http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/jj20/bigbadbirtha/Bottle%20Fairy%20Screenshots/) Don't you just want to pick them up and hug them?

Now, off to do what I do best. I just don't know what that is....

[Doppleganger]

Boku no Pico


-_-

[big bad birtha]

I don't know if Doppleganger showed this already, but here's a really funny picture depicting the 4Koma dudes. (http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/4/4d/Gaijin_4Koma_Reaction_Guys_33.jpg) I'm sorry for not being able to produce a bigger image ;_;

Anyway, I have caught up on Shigofumi and Okawari. I'm sure you know what comes up next.

Shigofumi 2-3- This is really good. Episode two was a continuation of episode one. It brought a tear or two as well. Episode three was great too. It showed me a different way of suicide. It's not always depression that brings about it, but just a mere curiosity of what it's like to "jump."

Minami-ke Okawari 2-3- So far, this hasn't disappointed me much. It's still pretty funny, but still not quite at the first season. I have almost gotten used to the slight change in visuals as well (Haruka's eyes kind of scare me though.) Speaking of change, Chiyaki's friend is adorable. The last two episodes have also given Fujioka some attention that he has deserved. Now, I wish they'd dum down on the ecchi content in this, especially when it's focused on Chiyaki's friends (that's not right!) >.> Well, other than that, I still like this.

The last episode of Da Capo II hash been downloaded, so I'll watch it when I get off work. Now...off to work ;_;

[Raptor Jesus]

After watching Shana II 15, I don't think I'll be able to clean these boxers to their original colors again.

More mysteries! More fighting! And hawt girl on girl action!

Hayate 41 was silly.

[Mcsweeney]

The speeches in Kaiji are awesome and my favourite thing about the show. I especially liked the one about how people insist that "their real life hasn't started yet" to explain why they're a loser, and it's not until they're on their deathbed that they realize it was their real life all along.

But actually, it's decently noble to be in debt. Instead of mooching off of parents or society, you're mooching off your future self.

[Talon87]

Hey BBB, did you get all of Kanon on DVD already? Word on the street is that ADV has taken Kanon off of their webpage and is acting as though they will no longer be printing new discs. Did they even complete the release cycle for Kanon (i.e. are all 26 episodes available)? And if so, you do have all the DVDs, right?

EDIT: Hmm, a quick look at Amazon.com suggests that BBB is S-C-R-E-W-E-D. Looks like DVD #2 (just #2!) was set to come out on February 12. That's almost 2 weeks away. No way in hell he's going to get the entire series on DVD now unless ADV decides to resume Kanon DVD production in the USA.

Sorry, BBB. Looks like you've been hit with Kanon and ADV by the same problem I was hit with with Rozen Maiden and Geneon. (DVDs #1-3 look lonely, waiting for DVDs #4-6)

First signs (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-01-28/adv-films-removes-titles-from-website)
Second signs (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-01-30/adv-films-removes-titles-from-website-update)
ADV fans naively interpret this letter to mean "it's coming" when what it really says is "we can neither confirm nor deny that we're going bankrupt at the present time" (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-01-30/adv-films-removes-titles-from-website-update-2)

[big bad birtha]

WTF!? That's just not right. I will look further into this, but I will be pissed if they discontinue it. I already have volume 2 with artbox and volume 3 paid for. I am already being screwed over in the figurines I have ordered (they were supposed to come a fucking month ago!!!!) If I am with my Kanon DVDs, I will murder someone!

Looks like Shuffle will by my release of the year >.> (I have volume 1 and 2 paid for.)

[Doppleganger]

ADV's not dead yet. Semi-false alarm by the ANN fanboys/girls that sort of got out of control. No one would have noticed the re-tooling of the site if people weren't hawks watching for this kind of event.

...

Also, picked up a new show - status (everything) updated. It's Hakaba Kitaro, a manga made fifty years ago that literally introduced youkai and folk-lore spirits into manga and anime. It's excellent but only two episodes have been subbed thus far.

[Talon87]

Voted Hosaka in Saigar. Not expecting him to win, but in the event that he does, it will be because the JoJo vote is split down the middle between the other two candidates and Hosaka's fans will drive a wedge between them and pave his path towards [strike:1pymhf24]Minami Haruka[/strike:1pymhf24] victory. Frankly, I don't think Hosaka deserves to win if this is a contest of GAR, but I don't know who to vote for amongst the JoJo candidates and I really do like Hosaka, so meh. :P My apologies if my vote contributes to him winning. ^_^; (Hey! My vote nudged Lloyd into the winner's seat! It could happen again!)

Been watching bits and pieces of Nodame Cantabile Shinshun Special - EUROPE when I get the chance. (Currently 15 minutes into Part 2.) It's pretty good, but I think that the actress who plays Nodame has forgotten how to play her very own role properly, and now she's overacting way too strongly. Which is a shame, but oh well, Nodame Cantabile was always a charmingly silly J-drama to begin with thanks to the fact that the producers made it as anime-esque as possible, even going so far as to comically hire Japanese men and women for Caucasian roles despite hiring actual Caucasians for other Caucasian roles (i.e. Stresseman and his assistant being played comically by Japanese actors vs. Vieira-sensei whose actor is actually white!).

[Raptor Jesus]

Sweet! I just saw online that an XBox 360 update on XBox Live allows it to support DivX and XVid files. Huzzah! Now I can have anime marathons without having my friends being stuffed in my room. Now they can leisurely sit in the living room.

[Talon87]

Is your XBox 360 modded? If Microsoft's anti-piracy policies are anything like their XBox ones, you're SOL:

1- The original XBox, unmodded, could only read R1 corporate-burned DVDs and R1 corporate-burned audio CDs. No burned CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVD+Rs, etc.

2- Even if you managed to bypass the optical disc (e.g. you transfer the files from your PC to your 360 using a crossover cable), the media files could not be stored on an unmodded XBox hard drive. (So I was told; no idea, never tried unmodded.)

If your 360 is modded, then you can disregard this. But I'd like to know how a modded 360 goes onto XBox Live undetected.

[Doppleganger]

I voted for Hosaka as well, because let's face it, Dio's only real quality is his willingness to do anything to satisfy his ambition, which isn't that strong a characteristic. Then there's the "batcrazy insane" issue in Part III I'm not too fond of, really. For tomorrow's match, I'm voting Kaiji since while Charles di Britannia is very manly, he's done NOTHING except give a charismatic speech. That's no different from Garlock scoffing at the Great Dimensional Government and going "GURREN-LAGANN, SPIN ON!" - one scene isn't going to cut it as far as I'm concerned.

[Raptor Jesus]

It's not modded. I've played DVD-R discs before, so your points are moot. I personally haven't watched any DivX things since I haven't gotten onto Live myself yet, but my friend has already confirmed that home made DVDs/CDs work on the 360.

Anyway, the other great thing is that I have an HDMI port, which means clearer picture than Component AV Cables.

[Doppleganger]

Hey Talon.

...

I can't say more, saying more will give away the surprise. But you should go to the regular place where you cast your ballots.

[Talon87]

I lay down to take a nap around 4pm ... and just woke up. (Damn it! :x ) But yeah, noticing the local time of 10pm, I headed straight over to Saigar to (a) see who won and (b) prepare my vote for Kaiji (which won't happen until 11pm, but oh well), and what do I see? Whoops. I bet a ton of SaiGar fans are spitting blood and venom right now on 4chan. Dio really deserved to win, and, well ... shit. XD

Anyway, Kaiji (a) ought to win his round (please ;_; ) and (b) ought to prove more popular even amongst Minami-ke fans (like me! ^_^), so Hosaka's reign of terror will probably come to a halt at that time. Still ... if (for some perverse reason) it ends up being one of the other two men who win against Kaiji, I'll definitely be voting Hosaka. So ... this'll be interesting, one way or the other.

EDIT-Update at 11:06pm: Just voted for Itou Kaiji (as said in a serious voice like I'm one of the characters in the show ;)).

[Doppleganger]

There were way more happy people than disappointed ones. Surely, the Jojo fans had their spines broken tonight (chain reaction - no Jojo save Zeppeli maybe will progress after Dio lost) but some of them honored a well fought match. I was indifferent either way, though Dio's manliness is horribly exaggerated.

[big bad birtha]

w00t! I have bought a new figurine =3 I will talk about it later. Here's my review of Da Capo II.

Da Capo II- =/ This was alright at best. It pretty much covers Koko's, and Amakase's paths. Koko's kind of sucked, while Amakase's was a little sweet, but very cheesy and chiche. I mean, episode 7 was great, but everything else was meh. I really wanted them to go on Nanaka's and the Asakura sisters' paths. Oh well, I guess that will be up to the next season. I will go ahead and sum this up and give Da Capo II a decent. The insert song at the end sucked as well. Kotori's insert songs were pretty good, but they decided to give Yui Horie to Yume and give someone else to Nanaka.

Now, speaking of Da Capo II, I found an adorable Da Capo II figurine =D It's one of Yume Asakura. (http://www.animecastle.com/images/Product/large/77852.JPG) Honestly, I don't like her too much, because she's like a less interesting Nemu. I like her older sister better =3 Well, despite that, she is really cute, so that's good.

[Talon87]

Finished Nodame Cantabile's European special (4 hours in total length). It was pretty good, but just like the original J-drama, the end felt really weak compared to the "2nd-to-last" big scene before it. (In the J-drama, the 2nd-to-last scene would be Chiaki at the Nodas' and the last scene would be his final performance with Rising Star. Here, I'm referring to Nodame's performance [which was cool] vs. Chiaki's European debut [which was dull and uneventful and did not warrant all the tears he cried].) I recommend it to fans of the Nodame J-drama because it can truly be viewed as "missing episodes" and not "an unnecessary special," but it'll end even more abruptly than the original did, so you'll be even more angsty for a second special if you do watch it. You've been forewarned.

Didn't want to get out of bed, so I used my 360 controller to load up Naruto 43 and 44. Pretty good -- finally some Sai storyline development! -- but the show is definitely stalling for time and I wish it wouldn't. I nearly pulled my hair out when Kabuto repeated in Episode 43 "Does Naruto really want to save Sasuke so badly he'd turn into that?" FOR THE THIRD TIME. It's like, Jesus, Studio Pierrot! >_< Do you really need to rehash the same dialogue over and over and over!? >_< At least make it a flashback! Then at least Kabuto won't sound like he's missing a few nuts in his head! >_<

Edit:
Can I ask someone here to do me a favor? You have to be a non-staff member, though:

1- Make a post (as you normally would).
2- Wait 10 minutes. (Can be longer. Not shorter, just to be safe.)
3- Edit your post. DON'T fill in the "reason for editing" box.
4- The best way to edit it and let me know that you edited it at the same time would be to make your edit the notification message, i.e. you edit your post just to add a line at the bottom that reads "Talon, I edited my post 10 minutes after making it."

I have a suspicion about an edit somebody made in an unrelated thread, but I don't want to go into further details until I know more. >.>

[Talon87]

Looks like Kaiji won his 2nd round of Saigar '08. But he didn't pull that many total votes (nor did either of his opponents) -- even the 2nd-place Dio from yesterday's round pulled more votes than Kaiji did. :| This could be bad news unless (a) the JoJo fans can be convinced to support Kaiji in order to take down Hosaka, (b) the JoJo fans are already Kaiji fans, or (c) people just didn't care to vote today but come Hosaka vs. Kaiji they will show up and vote Kaiji.

Those are some substantial "if"s, though. :| As much as I love Minami-ke, I hate to admit that the lolikon horde also enjoys it and they will probably sponsor Hosaka as "the representative of the lolilicious goodness that is Minami-ke" (ugh -_-) especially when he's up against the most gar character from the least loli show of the Fall 2007 - Winter 2008 lineup. And considering the lolikon horde is numerous, vicious, and groupthinky, I'm afraid for Kaiji. :cry: Hosaka might very well make it to the quarterfinals.

[Doppleganger]

SLAVE BEATS EMPEROR.

...

KAIJI WINS!

[Talon87]

Nice! Did you think that one up all by yourself, or is that an already-established 4chan joke? You should totally pass that along on 4chan and The Triad's website if it's your own idea. Very nice! :D

[dosuser]

Currently drinking: KING SNAKE 40 OZ.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN2VqFPNS8w

Edit, 10+ minutes later: This post was completely useless. OR WAS IT?

[Talon87]

Useless, no. Wrong thread, yes.

Hey, Doppel? I have a dispensable vote on hand, i.e. I don't know any of the three guys listed here (I barely recognize L), and I recall you saying you liked Seto no Hanayome, but I know you also like TTGL, and heck, maybe L really is the most Gar of the three, so ... suggestions / requests for how to spend my vote this round?

Edit: lol, I'm so silly. Thanks, Morg!

[Doppleganger]

On the subject of the joke, that's not my work - it was shouted in the result announcement topic for round. But it was accompanied by some original content, so it's all good!

...

I'm most partial to Shark, less so to L, and not favourable to Bruce at all. Bruce isn't even a real character, he was a background shot of this guy in a crowd arming "fudge you" to Rossiu. Only, in Japan, that kind of gesture is an act of ENDORSEMENT not DEFIANCE. He didn't even throw the rock, either - terrible character, really. In a sense similar to Giovanni except his "acts" aren't even that impressive.

[Talon87]

Shark it is, then.

Just finished Wolf & Spice Episode 1. Not bad -- the overall story is what I'd been expecting and hoping for, but the particulars of Episode 1's stand-alone plot were pretty dull. :| Very slow. Very slow. Hopefully it'll pick up next episode.

Despite saying I want to start Monster, I still haven't. Maybe I will right now ;p ... maybe.

[Doppleganger]

Awesome (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Uc4tM48Lc)!

[big bad birtha]

That is awesome! Everything fit in perfectly. I have an utterly epic clip myself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud9xs0xMVHQ)(it's a youtube version of a clip I posted earlier.)

Unfortunately, no new episodes. I watched the new Clannad already, but I don't feel like bothering with it.

[Mcsweeney]

I'll start Minami-ke in honour of you starting Monster.

Also, finish Gurren Lagann for no particular reason.

[Talon87]

Nice new avatar. Also, consider Monster started tonight, then. (Or so he says. :oops: I'll be sure to let you really know when I've started it by giving my synopsis of the first episode.)

[Mcsweeney]

I don't know what I was thinking with my previous Fake Akagi avatar. This is a way better shot!

[Doppleganger]

I'm really happy Shark won! The tournament is starting to shape up, finally. All we need is Alucard, Kamina, Viral, Lulu and Luffy to go down and the tournament will be 100% awesome again! :D

...

Bad news regarding mahjong, must report in soon.

[big bad birtha]

I have hit a few new episodes. Not much though. Here's what I hit.

H2O~Footprints in the Sand~ 5- This was a really good episode. I am starting to figure out more and more with each episode =D I mean, the one girl's constant crying is annoying, but whatever. I hope for a good next episode.

Minami-ke Okawari 4- Not bad. Still not at the first season's fire, but still good. The new boy seems to be a potential good character as well.

God damnit >.> I was going to say something, but I forgot what it was. Anyway, I am going to start on a manga callled Sekirei. If I remember what I was going to say, I will edit this post. Now....off to fight some people =D

[Talon87]

Through Episode 2 of Monster. So yes, I've finally started it. And yes, Mcsweeney, that's your queue to watch Minami-ke! :3

So, thoughts. A, holy shit all the medical terms I recognize! o.o "Middle cerebral artery" (the MCA is the most important artery for the cortex of the brain, one might say), "internal carotid artery", so on and so forth. Crazy.

B, hmm, interesting premise, but ma~an has it been slow!

C, man, these people are such slimeballs I feel squeamish just watching the show. >_< It feels like Tenma is the only good person in a sea of evil. It's amazing he wasn't corrupted by it, and it's depressing that he didn't GET THE FUCK OUT once he realized what the situation was.

D, hmm, looks like the kid murdered those doctors and it's going to fall back on Tenma because he has the perfect motive. Just like people have said, "Tenma did a good thing saving that kid ... and it was the biggest mistake of his life." Jesus.

[Raptor Jesus]

The story gets much better after that. It's actually quite amazing how Monster keeps people captivated without doing anything boring. Ever. And there's like no filler in it. Almost every episode is somewhat important to the big picture. It's such a great series. I wish someone would license it.

[Doppleganger]

Loki, an over-whelming majority of people who watched Monster claim it's dull as heck and there's no denying it. The almost unanimous consensus was, "while the anime is good, it drags and is very long, the manga is more concise and too the point without a lot of the fluff".

[Talon87]

Well, I must say that if it doesn't pick up in the next four episodes (I'm ready for Ep5 right now), I'll probably put it back down. The premise is interesting, but I'm not up for a slow-delivery long-length anime. >_> TeniPuri sort of burned me out on that flavor. We'll see, though. Considering the only other show competing in my heart right now for attention is another lengthy series I've had on hold for years (YGO), I don't think Monster's in too bad a position right now.

[Talon87]

Never mind what I said above ... here we go:

I just finished Episode 6, and the show is incredible. But it's not like the show has changed dramatically in just 50 minutes. Here's what I think happened:

1- Loki, Mcsweeney, and everyone who has ever plugged Monster has told me the basic premise. That "basic premise" is fleshed out over the first four episodes.
2- So for the first four episodes, I knew the general gist of everything that was going to happen. I didn't know specifics, but none of the major plot twists were surprising.
3- But starting with Episode 5, I was in completely fresh territory. Zero spoilers.

And so, from that point on, the show has been a thrilling rollercoaster ride of suspense. Because I have so many theories about what's about to happen but I don't know with any certainty what really will happen. I found my heart pumping faster, my body getting restless, my back arching up seeking the bedroom wall for support as I lay on my bed, and it even got so suspenseful at one point that I felt like I needed to pause and use the toilet. :oops: The show is that good, that suspenseful. A crazy mix of horror, drama, and mystery.

Also ... Mcsweeney! The VA for Anna / Nina is the same as Yuka's from Elfen Lied! ^-^ Ever since I first heard her voice in Elfen Lied in association with the sexy Yuka, I have always liked the sound of this woman's voice and it's just so unmistakable. Pretty bizarre to see her voicing a blonde haired blue eyed 20 year old German girl, but hey, I'll run with it.

Anyway, the show just went from C+ to A+ in 50 minutes. Pretty wild. We'll see if it can maintain its A grade or if it slumps back down as I get closer to #13.

[Mcsweeney]

The intensity in Monster tends to come in stretches. There'll be a few episodes of super thrills, then it slows down for a bit, set up, then more intensity as things come to a head. Repeat.

When it's good, it's very good, and when it's slow, it's not THAT slow.

Congratulations on predicting that Johan was the one doing all the murders. That is if you weren't spoiled. Because I didn't figure it out! That's why episode 04 blew me away.

[Talon87]

No, I knew he was the one doing all the murders because you or Loki or someone in the past who plugged Monster had explained to me, "The boy who the doctor saves, the boy for whom the doctor sacrifices his career, turns out to be the monster."

The only things I've predicted so far are pretty small and not impressive, like:
- I predicted Nina was Anna from the moment we saw her running to class at the start of episode 5, simply because she looked like an older Anna.
- I predicted that Mauler and the Fortners were screwed the moment Dr. Tenma left with the car.

Very small and obvious things. In my defense, nothing as big as predicting that Johan is the monster has come along since then (I'm through Ep8 right now), so it's not like I've had a chance to shine alongside those individuals who predicted that unspoilered; but I doubt that even if such a thing comes along again that I'll get it. I dunno, we'll see.

[Mcsweeney]

Oh god, there's no way I would have ever told you that! I even said not to read any synopses because a lot of them give away the first big spoiler of the series (that).

[Talon87]

I think my favorite bit of detective work Tenma has done so far was when the Müllenberg (iirc) detectives came to pick him up and escort him to the police department with Nina, and he was like ...

o they had badges, but ...
x they didn't have their siren on as they arrived at the crime scene
x they didn't attempt to preserve the crime scene nor grill their primary witness
x they're taking us to a different town

So he suspects they're fakes, when all of a sudden they stop at a roadside checkpoint and his theory is negated by the fact that the roadside cops recognize these two detectives. Beginning to wonder if he's just letting the stress get to him, he asks the police to let him and Nina get some fresh air, and as he takes his time deciding what course of action to take ...

x "What's wrong, Dr. Tenma?"

"I never told you I was a doctor!"

So fucking suspenseful. XD

[Raptor Jesus]

Loki, an over-whelming majority of people who watched Monster claim it's dull as heck and there's no denying it. The almost unanimous consensus was, "while the anime is good, it drags and is very long, the manga is more concise and too the point without a lot of the fluff".
Well, I stopped watching the anime when around 16? and picked up the manga. From 1-16, it was pretty accurate to the book and according to my friends, they kept it like that throughout the rest of the series. But if the rest of the universe saw a slow down, then I'm sure you're right.

The Devil May Cry anime is a weird love-hate show for me. If I didn't know anything about Devil May Cry, I might have liked it because of the action and such, but when you know how ridiculously insane monster fights are in the game, the show makes it look like monsters are piss shit nothing and Dante can't be touched. I do like the Japanese VA for Dante more than the American VA though. I hated the American version's 'party' attitude.

[Mcsweeney]

So I just finished watching Minami-ke episode 01. Nothing spectacular so far, but it was still mildly amusing so I'll hold off on my expanded thoughts until I've seen the rest. I can watch this at a more rapid pace than Gurren Lagann so it gets bumped down the queue.

I never did get around to watching Lucky ? Star past episode 02, despite Tsukasa and Kagami being super cute and hot, respectively.

[Talon87]

Doppel wasn't very impressed by Minami-ke's first episode either iirc. The show picked up for him iirc but it never really took off. I dunno. I seem to be a loner at UPN for thinking Minami-ke is one of the best five anime I've ever seen, but BBB seems to like it, too, so ... I dunno, give it until you're through Episode 3. If it's not working any magic by then, you don't have to force yourself on my account.

I thought Minami-ke Episode 1 it was epic: one of the best, if not the best, first episodes to an anime I've ever seen. It had it all -- cute scenes (like Chiaki stretching when she woke up in the morning), hilarious comedy (like Kana chasing Chiaki around the house and also begging Chiaki to not make her eat her own concoction for dinner), and the most perfect wife ever (HARUKA).

I'm through Episode 14 of Monster and, sure enough, I've hit a slow patch again. The first episode I tuned in to this morning was the one of Tenma at the firearm training camp. That was one of the best filler episodes I've ever seen in a drama, but it was still filler. Things only went downhill from there (though not badly) -- non-filler-but-slow-as-hell with Dieter, filler with the country village in which Tenma saves an old grandma's life, and non-filler-but-again-slow with Lunge and Eva's split episode, i.e. the one where the first half follows Lunge for ~3 days and shows how he loses his family and his job and where the second half follows Eva over those same three days and shows how she falls for her gardener (even though she's still an evil bitch) and then her heart is broken when she sees that he's reunited with his wife. Those two (Lunge and Eva) make for an odd couple, but I suppose it'll be interesting to see what happens now that Lunge is no longer a German officer of the law but a vigilante operating outside of it.

Next episode looks like it's our first glimpse of Anna / Nina since she ran away in Ep8.

As for thoughts on Monster ... I have a gut feeling that Anna is either going to turn out to be "the mega monster" and that she's forgotten all about it and that she's actually even more evil and devious than Johan, or something else. I can't put my finger on the something else, other than to say "if Anna really is good, then it won't be so simple as her joining up with Tenma to track down Johan. Even if they do that for a while, something else will happen." I hope that she doesn't turn out to be an evil mega-monster, though, because that'd be sort of dumb imo. It's good enough (or bad enough, I suppose you could say) that Johan is this Professor Moriarity with Jack the Ripper's bloodlust, killing dozens of people before he was adopted at age 11. It'd be even worse if it was like, "Hahaha, Anna was really the one calling the shots." C'mon. I sure hope they don't do that. >_>

Okay, enough speculation that'll probably turn out to be way off base once I get farther along. lol

[Doppleganger]

Very funny (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/920/battle52oc9.png)!

[Talon87]

"What the hell happened? What ... the hell happened?" - me, just now

A, I voted for Alucard because I figured he was a deserving vote. November 11 didn't stand out on the Darker than Black wiki page and Kino's Journey is the antithesis of gar.

B, I expected either Alucard or November 11 to win.

C, I am at a complete loss as to why anyone would want Kino to win, never mind the majority.

D, votes cannot be viewed until the polls are closed, meaning you can't rally a "voter's revolution" in response to Candidate A leading the polls if you hate Candidate A. So I wonder ... the graph suggests that somebody on 4chan staged an effective Kino revolution, yet that shouldn't have been possible.

I repeat, what the hell happened!?

Yes, it is pretty funny. I'm smiling, just a bit. Mostly because this upset didn't knock out one of my characters. I'm sure the Hellsing crowd is angry, though.

[Doppleganger]

There's a number of theories going around.

1. First is that a "computer room consultant" with access to a hundred or so computers on the East Coast voted on each one of them. This fellow first appeared during the A. Niger sticky to promote Aspergillus against Kamina, but most felt he wasn't serious. If the sub-net of his IPs were revealed we would know the truth. The secret though, is that...THIS GUY DOESN'T EXIST! I made him up to troll folks into fearing Niger was going to win the round, in hopes they would vote for Kamina. I don't know the degree of impact I had, but this fictional character appears to have come in handy. A note that I based this fellow on myself since I cast multiple votes last year when I was on various computers at school, so it is possible this fellow could have existed.

2. Europeans love Kino. I wouldn't know, before the tournament I hadn't heard of her (which is one of the pluses of it!) but the Europeans seem to know different anime, just like the Philippines. Mazinger is unknown here but huge in the Philippines, Jeeg is gigantic in Italy but likewise unknown everywhere else.

3. Kino promotion topics. Before I caught some illness this morning, I was awake at 2:00 A.M. and Anonymous started to post massive, picture-heavy topics about Kino. Allegedly these topics only stopped until 9:00 A.M. and there were a lot of them. As far as size magnitude, each probably had two hundred and fifty posts of high quality fan-art, and there were four or five topics of these at any one time and all congregated near the first and second pages of /a/ due to the constant posting.

4. Proxy vote. Unlikely in my view because the only person who could likely get a working proxy would be a clever computer manipulator, most /a/rseholes lack that kind of technical sophistication, they only have the skills they need to get by. At that, such a person would not likely be a fanboy and vote rather in the 1,000+ ballot range to make a statement about the status of online tournaments. So, I've ruled out proxies as extremely highly unlikely, subnet voting seems to be the most probable way of getting multiple votes.

...

As for how I swayed, I voted for 11/11 because he's not the usual type of Gar, and his end in the anime was allegedly extremely over-the-top but at the same time admirable and a testament to his lifestyle and ideals. Of the DtB characters, the other two - Huang, and the main lead Hei - are said to be utterly pathetic in comparison. From the Wikipedia page I didn't think much of 11/11 either, but from the spoilers I heard investigating the character he seemed to be the best of the three.

Going by Gar, though, Kino is remarkably badarse as far as girls go. Or rather, it's more like her sex doesn't matter - for most of the series, no one knew her sex until she confirmed it herself. Not the best candidate for a winner, but certainly not a joke like KONATA.

[Talon87]

Well, I think I'll be voting for Masa this round, because:

1- I hate Higurashi fanboys for no good reason.
2- Huang looks less gar than the rodent from TTGL that people voted for.
3- And that leaves me with Masa, whose Wiki at least made him sound like a nice gentleman.

I don't have any votes I really care about for a while. I don't understand TTGL having not watched it so like half the battles coming up are dull to me, and so I think the next one I'm interested in is Lelouch. Yep, just checked -- there are a few people I'm passionate about voting against between now and then (Keiichi, Giovanni, Jeremiah), but the next person I'm passionate about voting for is Lelouch. Weeks away. And I'm not even all that passionate about his gar-vote, either.

*Sigh*Gar is what they should call this contest. It's a really dull year. Just crown Kamina or Kaiji and let's get it over with.

[Doppleganger]

I'm voting Masa as well - if going by the "original" definition, everyone in Seto is gay for Masa. BBB should testify! He's a tad dull as far as the Setouichi Merfolk Group go, but is nevertheless tough and loyal. I'm expecting K1 to win though because Higurashi is so popular, but that'll give us the semi-decent and at the same time well-placed K1 v. Nagasumi.

Here's a fake (http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9545/saigarfinalsfakeme9.gif) of what I wanted the SaiGar quarters to look like. Man, one day and it already can't happen! :|

...

EDIT: Seems SaiGar Guy might actually throw out Kino's votes, based on probable cheating. More on this at 11/11...

[Talon87]

That would really upset the Kino fans, but it's the right thing to do. Short of a genuine, legitimate "come on guys! let's all rally at 2 hours before the polls close and VOTE FOR KINO! :D YAAAAAAAA~AAAAAAAAY!" event, the graph suggests cheating.

[Doppleganger]

No, the strongest cries for a re-count are coming from the Kino fans. I'm seeing stuff like, "it doesn't do Kino justice for her to win by cheating" and "I was the one who posted a million Kino threads into the early morning of /a/, and even I think there's something wrong with this".

[big bad birtha]

JAOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Out of the three contestants you showed, I have no idea who any of them are. As for the next round, Masa-san all the way. I mean, who's not gay for Masa-san?

Well, I am halfway through Bottle Fairy. Will review when I finish.

Err....I really don't have much more relevant to say. I mean, I have found a song that took over the title of the most adorable song I have ever heard, but I'm sure no-one wants to hear about that. I am also not going to bother with my new episodes, because it just feels like I am talking to myself, so I'll leave it with another.....

JAOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

[Doppleganger]

I feel rather bad for Masa, but looking at the voting ballots as they came in it wasn't surprising that K1 would have such an overwhelming victory.

...

Today's match is weird. Akio v. Nagasumi v. Allelujah? I've heard a few things about Allelujah, I've seen what Nagasumi is made of and know about Akio. Easy vote for Nagasumi but Akio could just pull it off. -_-

[Talon87]

Not voting in this round. Not really motivated to even do a throwaway vote for friends if my friends themselves aren't all that passionate about today's contestants either.

I'll say it once more: if anybody is really passionate about so-and-so, be sure to give me a head's up the day before because (otherwise) I don't give a shit about voting in Saigar again until Lelouch's turn comes up. I'll either vote as a throwaway, vote against people I don't want to win (like Giovanni), or just plain not vote.

[Raptor Jesus]

Shana II-16 was great because Pheles told Yoshida to die. Oh yeah, new OP & ED too!

[Doppleganger]

It's time to vote Lord Genome!! If you need proof of his manliness just check out his brand-spankin' new en.wikipedia.org article, authored by yours truly on the first day of madness. :mrgreen:

[big bad birtha]

I have an utterly epic clip to show off. Of course, you have to have a nicovideo account to watch it. Suigin should like this more than anyone though =D Here you go. (http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm2234735)

I have another clip that I found a little funny, but I just don't get it. There have been several ones that have the same song. I'll show the Gurren Lagann one. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6JGTx0kVAA) The other two were Higurashi and Haruhi.

[Talon87]

Well, I did my part to sponsor Kamina. Especially since I fear that, now that the "never vote for the superpower! :evil: always vote for the underdog! :cool: " types are clued in that Kamina is poised to win this entire contest (with his insane 1000+ votes in Round 1 alone), I'm actually of the opinion that a lot of these people will vote against Kamina, and it could even cost him Round 2 and Round 3. So, yeah. Voted Kamina. Never seen TTGL. Barely recognize the name. But I know he's one of the main characters in the show and is well-loved by TTGL fans and TTGL is the #1 Gar show of 2007, so ... yeah. Again. :lol:

0 new anime since last post. (Still ready for Monster 15.) My recreation, limited as it's been, has either been checking blogs (barely) or doing Fizzy Bubbles stuff with Loki's cool campaign (more than I probably should be doing >_>).

[Doppleganger]

I really wish you hadn't, but it can't be helped right now.

[Talon87]

Why? I want to see Lord Genome vs. Kamina, even if you don't. May the best man win, I say. Then again, I have little emotional investment involved, and you may be really passionate about Genome deserving this more than Kamina. (Sort of like how I would have felt if Kaiji had lost to the Emperor of Britannia.) Who is Genome, anyway? The villain? I've never heard his name before SaiGar. Only Kamina, Simon/Shimon (whatever it is, I've seen it in a few doujins), and Yoko. That's it.

[Doppleganger]

While I agree Lord Genome v. Kamina would be a great match, if LG loses by a large margin it'll hurt the chances of another tournament next year. If /a/ becomes like /m/ in that they feel "their vote doesn't matter anymore" since the number of people on NarutoFan/GaiaOnline would smother their votes no matter how they pledge, the tournament will be banned and it'll be the same old troll-nest all year round. This tournament is a once-a-year festival that breaks up a lot of the "maggotry" as it were (sort of like opening a window in a very warm, stuffy car), I'd hate to see it spoiled by outside interference. This is why a controversial character, or one with a lot of negative baggage, wouldn't be a prudent choice to take the tournament. Of the four quarter finalists last year - Guts, Akagi, Master Asia and Onizuka - there was little bad that could be said of either, if any bad things at all. The only thing Onizuka had against him was angry TYPE-MOON fans for example, and the Akagi fans bowed when Guts beat their champ. So there weren't any real regrets.

In a political sense, it would be like electing a moderate to high office, not a straight out liberal or conservative. The moderate might not be profound in all categories that people value in a leader, but said candidate would still be "outrageously impressive" and that covers all grounds. He's less controversial to the most number of people - Median Voter Theorem and all that rot.

Another thing I'm worried about is balance. This year there are several shows with high concentrations of manly, and many other shows with absolutely none. This poses a problem if people are going to chide the tournament for being the domain only of "popular" shows. You and I both know this is a popularity contest and makes no secret of it by restricting only to recent shows, but many feel people vote popularly for "who they like" rather than "who fits the theme of the contest". As was illustrated by the poll I tried to show Blastoise in that Ron Paul topic in Misc, it's actually quite fallacious to assume people are unitary rational actors or that they take into account all relevant information - they vote for who they like, not "who is Gar". Having the tournament reflect this is yet another blow to it's legitimacy and hurts the chances of good reception next year.

...

As for my own personal feelings...I never really saw the "larger than life god-like" appeal of the guy. Kamina's a pretty likable character, but he's not manly and certainly not Gar-level material. He's more of an arsehole if anything, but his forte is inspiring other characters TO be Gar, like Simon/Kittan particularly. The problem is his speeches endeared him to a lot of people and they refuse to vote against him no matter what in ANYTHING. Sort of like the mentality, "if I keep voting for Kamina in stuff like SaiGar, maybe Gainax will animate a TV series just about him and no other characters. That would be totally sweet".

His best moment was in episode twenty six, since he only showed his inspirational quality since he left the chauvinism/arrogance/stupidity back in Part I. But most people didn't even get to twenty six! A hypothetical conversation, but one that (hopefully) illustrates the kind of people that grate me in this competition.


Voter: I just voted Kamina.
Dopple: Why did you vote Kamina?
Voter: Because he was fearless.
Dopple: Fearless? Did you even watch Gurren-Lagann 11? Kamina admitted himself that his bluster was to make up for his own feelings of insecurity and dependence on others; he deliberately acted as outrageously as possible because he knew that kind of personality could motivate other people to do stuff he was physically/mentally/skillfully incapable of accomplishing. It layers his character well with the interdependence theme of "believe in me who believes in you".
Voter: Uh, I just voted because he was fearless, not because of that. And I didn't know he said that in episode eleven because I dropped the series after episode eight.
Dopple: -_-
Voter: Look at my Kamina gallery on DeviantArt!

[Doppleganger]

OH SNAP! THIS IS AWESOME.

...


1202355842,1a5KdFa4-FT,Kamina
1202355845,vap47S8w-SS,Kamina
1202355987,V9gH957s-VR,Kamina
1202356101,464m8Fp3-QT,Kamina
1202356124,945U84KE-YT,Kamina
1202356222,5NMDAR8s-MS,Kamina
1202356229,t21V4dN8-KT,Kamina
1202356240,nMU1LkS5-PT,Kamina
1202356326,9963248R-YT,Kamina
1202356340,yVc4lNh1-WT,Kino
1202356395,GT2DTw6e-LS,Kamina
1202356514,vm4Ce98R-TT,Kamina
1202356697,Xe79RfWs-XT,Cornelia Ii Britannia
1202356722,97E63wC9-ST,Kamina
1202356782,FLi3yI8T-NT,Kino
1202356822,3762cf55-IT,Kamina
1202356921,LpCAHDmm-UT,Cornelia Ii Britannia
1202356937,L82xxn41-ET,Kamina
1202357001,3xtb1l59-WT,Cornelia Ii Britannia
1202357010,LQb58RSs-HT,Kino
1202357027,e7iTEkRh-HT,Firo Prochainezo
1202357060,ExI1yIht-IS,Kamina
1202357077,1X9gT1AG-US,Kamina
1202357134,9S3Ld7Le-BT,Kamina
1202357245,MX9P58qJ-IS,Cornelia Ii Britannia
1202357299,3f1eMLWt-ES,Kamina
1202357308,j7YdBMY3-VU,Kamina
1202357436,Y7wQ4xMu-XT,Cornelia Ii Britannia
1202357459,2i49G3fm-YT,Kamina

[Talon87]

I don't think /a/ has any right to bitch about how "SaiGar has been ruined and turned into a lame popularity contest that isn't really about the gar" when they fucking elect ineligibles like Rena (Higurashi) or when they even hand over landslide victories to characters who should have to fight, tooth and nail, to even make it out of Round 2 (e.g. Higurashi again, surprise surprise).

All of the lolikons at 4chan have already ruined SaiGar because they want Rena to do here what she failed to do in SaiMoe, and they're supporting her (and any other Higurashi characters they encounter along the way). So frankly, here's a big FUCK YOU to all the /a/rseholes and /b/tards at 4chan who feel that Gaia and Naruto fans are ruining SaiGar.

If you want to know who's ruining SaiGar, it's the people that caused Madarame from Genshiken to get more votes than Naruto. Love him or hate him, doing that to Naruto is a fucking joke. So it's a fucking joke, to me, to hear you tell me that 4channers are pissed that SaiGar has lost its legitimacy.

IT IS 4CHAN ITSELF THAT COST SAIGAR THAT LEGITIMACY.

That they fail to realize it is a needless reminder of how arrogant and stupid 4chan is, both as a collective and for 90% of its individual members.

[Doppleganger]

That wasn't totally /a/'s fault, though. It goes along with what I've been saying before - there are other anime forums that send out large, consistent voting blocks to vouch for a character. In Rena and Rika's case, it was a voting block from AnimeSuki, and despite a few number of 4channers who consistently pledge voting "correctly" in that topic, folks from the SaiMoe crowd dive in on the tournament to try and get Rena to win something.

/a/ has standards and norms not unlike Usenet used to have, but like Usenet we've been suffering from massive influx of newfolk and "commercialization" of the inside-jokes, memes and whatnot that made the place unique. Even moot, who wants to make the whole website "huge", frowns on other websites stealing content and discussing what goes on in the imageboards rather than posting on the imageboards themselves. I dislike this because most "newfolk" are too young to be browsing the boards anyway and "don't know how the play with fire", so they're much more likely to internalize the sensationalism that goes on there than other people. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised if, down the line, people start using "Elevens" and "Britannians" in honest to God racist terms instead of merely looking "trendy and cool because 4chan uses those terms!".

Part of the reason I want SaiGar to continue on next year is I realize "Gar" (like everything else we consider 'ours') won't be limited to Yotsuba forever, but if it spreads into anime communities I want it to be used correctly. During Gurren-Lagann's run people were selling the show using phrases like "GURREN LAGANN IS SO EPIC AND GAR HOLY GOSH I JUST CAME BRICKS" which, presumably, would raise eyebrows. Especially if people wonder "What's Gar?" and then the people who use it, but don't understand the meaning themselves, show a clip from something to convey the "feeling" of the vague concept and other people get the wrong idea. This is why how we got to the "girls can be GAR" and "Aspergillus Niger is GAR" scenario.

The tournament is supposed to straighten those misconceptions out. It's the opportunity for the mountain to stand firm against the howling wind. For the voters in the SaiGar round who pledged Rena and weren't from the AnimeSuki crowd, they're part of the Eternal September/misconception problem I'm talking about. Which only puts more emphasis on why Rena shoud lose - it'll culture people the right way and get them on the right path, and come next year, more people will have the right idea and we can improve things as early as the nomination level.

There's also the troll votes, but if anything the troll votes are rather small this year. A. Niger had only about 65% troll votes, augmented because of a day-long sticky and folks thinking, "I don't want to vote for Kamina, but I don't know who Coach is and A. Niger seems popular so yeah". This means that beyond even the best, no troll candidate will ever earn more than A. Niger. A percieved troll that does better than him is likely a candidate people think is legitimately manly (like Giovanni).

[Mcsweeney]

Minami-ke through 4 episodes. There are a bunch of bits I remember from the manga (although I don't remember Kana trying to kiss Chiaki being a chase scene).

I wish I could find a different subbing group than Ayako but it doesn't seem like there's a better option out there. Their 4chan shit is kind of annoying. And there's nothing wrong with a little localization! "Banchou"? What's wrong with "delinquent king"?

This show's really picked up over the last two episodes. It seems like episode 04 in every anime is always the big showstopper!

The video game based on the TV drama was a great bit. Kana and Chiaki have good chemistry together.

Haha, fuck. The guy who fantasizes about Haruka wiping his sweat off. That guy rules!

[Talon87]

In terms of moe, Haruka > Chiaki > Kana for me. In terms of enjoying watching for the hilarity, Kana > Chiaki > Haruka, again for me. So I guess I get to enjoy all three sisters roughly equally yet in different ways. Like saying "Whether I'm eating two scoops of vanilla and one of chocolate or two of chocolate and one of vanilla, it's still three scoops of ice cream."

Hosaka is pretty amusing. Though I agree with Haruka's friend VA'ed by SumomomoMomomo's Momoko: "kimoi." ("Gross.") He is pretty ... well, he reminds me of me in some ways. In some bad ways, according to society at large. I can relate to Hosaka. I think a lot of otaku can relate to Hosaka.

I don't think the chase scene was in Volume 1 of the manga. I never did finish reading it (in English) or Volume 2 (in Japanese), nor did I ever end up finding Volumes 3 and 4. I should go and do that.

[Mcsweeney]

Oh jeez. I didn't even realize until now that Hosaka is in Saigar! Guess I've got three people I care about now (the others being Kaiji and Giovanni, OBVIOUSLY).

Kana is my favourite sister, which is strange because I liked Chiaki the best in the manga. I guess her deadpan delivery shines through even better in written form.

I like it in the intro when the little characters pop up and go "yay!" or something.

[Talon87]

Hosaka's in, but you're going to have to pick between him and Kaiji. I love Minami-ke, but I also greatly enjoy Kaiji and believe Kaiji is waaaaaaay more Gar. I even believe (personally) that out of all the candidates I recognize, Kaiji deserves to be SaiGar 2008's winner. But we'll have to see if "teh Interwebs" agrees with me or not. He has some stiff competition.

Taking suggestions for who to vote for in tonight's round. Reminder: I will be voting for Viral tomorrow because a vote for Viral is a vote against Higurashi (boo) and Giovanni (who bumped out Kratos Aurion because of a retarded 4chan meme).

That reminds me, Doppel ... you say that 4chan is pissed about SaiGar not selecting the men who are truly most Gar, yet they voted for a man they INVENTED as being Gar ("4chan Giovanni," who isn't even close to the real Giovanni, and we both know that) instead of voting for a guy like Kratos. So ... yeah. I have zero sympathy, zero, if 4channers abandon SaiGar and feel it's been overrun by Gaia and Narutards.

[Doppleganger]

Speaking of Hosaka, I'm not sure if Talon's seen these on Wakaba or iichan, but a (talented, though he feigns the lack thereof) draw person has been creating these crude drawings of Hosaka's experience in SaiGar. First he turned Dio into a girl, then he voted for November 11 and got shot by Kino, and...I can't remember. They're so bad they're good by alternate testament.

Also, I've heard that in the second series Hosaka is even more incredible than in the first show. At least I've seen pictures and they sort of remind me of Akagi in the second OP.


That reminds me, Doppel ... you say that 4chan is pissed about SaiGar not selecting the men who are truly most Gar, yet they voted for a man they INVENTED as being Gar ("4chan Giovanni," who isn't even close to the real Giovanni, and we both know that) instead of voting for a guy like Kratos. So ... yeah. I have zero sympathy, zero, if 4channers abandon SaiGar and feel it's been overrun by Gaia and Narutards.

Well, awareness has always been a theme for the tournament; Akagi wasn't "THAT" well known on the imageboards until after SaiGar, where Akagi's success earned him a lot of attention. Kino is getting that this year, both with her victory over 11/11 and sneaking in three votes in the Kamina v. Cornelia v. Firo match of yesterday. Suffice to say, torrents are being downloaded.

Kratos suffered from two hindrances; the first was, as said before, awareness. Not many folks saw the ToS anime, just like not many saw MapleStory or other shows. This is connected to the second, and in my view more probably case - video game adapted anime are stereotyped as very bad. This stereotype is frequently accurate, as MS, DMC, Disgaea and numerous other shows had horrible adaptations, and ToS was likewise eschewed for this reason regardless of what its true quality might have been,.

Another potential turn-off is that Kratos is (in my view) a bishounen, and bishounen nowadays are likewise stereotyped as being Japanese fangirl yaoi bait. Even non-bishounen characters or semi-bishounen characters like the GL folks get hit on by this kind of stuff, Japan knows no bounds when it comes to gay couplings. Leaves a sort of bad taste in one's mouth if one stumbles on a particularly shocking one.

...

Anyway, today's match is KITTAN all the way. Now THAT guy is a true man! Also reminds me...BPK, how far are you in GL?

[Mcsweeney]

Well, of course Kaiji will be my guy if it comes down to that.

Hey, I genuinely like Giovanni and thought he was manly and cool way before 4chan! I especially like the part where he gets mad and CRUSHES HIS BRANDY GLASS IN HIS HAND in Mewtwo Returns.

I'm at episode 10 of Gurren Lagann and I don't even get what's so great about Kamina. He just seems like your garden variety action hero protagonist. He made some moderately cool speeches ("don't believe in yourself! Believe in me, who believes in you" is a great line for example), but there wasn't ever a time where I went "holy SHIT I can't believe he's doing this! This guy is insane!" the way I thought I would be after people hyped his manliness so much. Sure he's badass, never backs down etc., but you may as well go crazy over how awesome any random Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal character is. Kamina's being hot blooded and having a philosophy puts him a step above those guys, but not by much.

In the case of guys like Kaiji and Guts, there are specific, creative examples where you see how hardcore they are.

Guts: He's having sex with some chick, and when she turns into a monster, he just shoots her in the face with a crossbow without even bothering to pull his dick out.

Kaiji: Appeared to be doomed when he was trapped in "the other room", but just when the viewer assumes he's done for, he fucking punches some sharp teethed asshole in the face and steals his jewels which he figured out he had through brilliant deductive reasoning. Afterwards he destroys a table in anger.

With Kamina, it's just "oh well here's some giant mech time to attack it head on again!"

[Talon87]

I didn't mean to, but I just watched Kaiji 17. :oops: It was pretty good. Looking more forward to 18, though.

[Doppleganger]

Kittan lost. :x

Another blatantly cheated match, from the graph's indications (http://saigar08.michaeldodd.net/graph/battle_57.png) anyway. I know there are very jealous/angry Kamina fans who hate Kittan, but this was just too cruel. :|

[Talon87]

Nah, I think this is actually the JoJo fans taking revenge for the loss they experienced in Round 2-A-West to Hosaka. I don't think it's anything personal for them against Kittan or the TTGL community; rather, I think they just banded together to ensure that someone from one of the more Gar animes (truthfully) made it into the 3rd round.

I agree that, even if my theory is correct, you make a good point about the graph looking suspicious. If it was a graded exponential curve, I might believe it -- hell, maybe JoJo fans wake up at a different time of day from the rest of us!? :lol: -- but the sharp kink in the graph, almost as if it's "the real line graph" to the left and "the hacked line graph" to the right ... it's just a bit suspicious. :| Sigh.

[Mcsweeney]

Kaiji 17 kicked ass of course. God damn, Tonegawa is like Akagi light.

I forgot to make a comment on Kratos in Saigar: I don't know, he never seemed that "gar" to me. He seemed more like a "powerful wise man" character. I liked Zelos a lot better because he was such a cocky asshole. And he looked ridiculously handsome in his party outfit.

I wouldn't vote for Kratos over Giovanni!

[Talon87]

By the "gay" Gar definition: I would be more inclined to be gay for Kratos. I wouldn't be gay for Giovanni. Hence, Kratos is more Gar.

By the "macho" Gar definition: They're about the same. Both are level-headed, wise men whose ulterior motives are not well-understood by those who find out about them. (That is to say, Giovanni in the anime has never, afaik, been made out to be a pointlessly evil villain like the one in Inspector Gadget. He's shown to use ruthless and cutthroat means to achieve what he wants, like fucking over poor Mewtwo, but his goal may be more than the simple "complete world domination" that his underlings think he's going for. I dunno, maybe that's just me. Or maybe that's been disproven by newer episodes and he really is a pointlessly evil asshat.)

By the "brute Guts power" definition: Kratos, without a doubt. No comparison. No fucking comparison. ToS spoiler: He's a mortal man who became a demigod for goodness' sake. Compare that to Giovanni punching a Chansey. :roll:

[Mcsweeney]

I put more value in displays of manliness/insanity than sheer fighting power.

Giovanni wears stylish red suits, is possibly banging an extremely hot chick (Domino), doesn't really give a shit about spending several thousand ???? in salary on three pinheads trying to capture a Pikachu, and romps around in the jungle displaying his glistening pecs while wearing a loincloth.

It doesn't matter if there's some character who could kick God's ass unless he does so in a really cool and creative way!

[Doppleganger]

Haha, I've been wondering which episode the loincloth incident occurs in. I couldn't stop laughing at the screens, I really want to see the clip!

...

In other news, I've just seen Kaiji 17. Or rather, it took me twelve hours to watch. Wasn't as good an episode as previous ones...I was particularly annoyed that Kaiji seemed totally unaware of his body language and was letting Tonegawa walk all over him with ease. As Tonegawa said, Kaiji was basically destroying himself. This match felt like a regression from what Kaiji learned in Gentei Janken, particularly with the Kitami match.

That said, I'm also looking forward to eighteen more.

[Mcsweeney]

I thought the whole episode was very intense. In fact I'll go so far as to say this was one of my favourites. It's easy to criticize Kaiji for not maintaining a poker face, but god damn if that was me playing the game I would be a nervous wreck, especially after hearing the drill descend into my ear, and I wouldn't be able to help giving away "tells".

The stakes are higher than in Rock Paper Scissors, so he would feel additional pressure, leading to over thinking what Tonegawa will deal, hence "destroying himself". Also keep in mind that Kaiji's reasoning this episode probably would have worked if he was back on the Espoir, but he's not playing indebted losers anymore. This is goddamn Tonegawa. When his intelligent analysis fails to work, it's natural for him to regress from the strong mental confidence he had on the Espoir.

[Talon87]

The thing that disappointed me the most about this episode was that Kaiji seemed convinced that there was a way to "figure out the game." For example:
- he concluded that you wouldn't normally deal the Emperor on turns 1 or 3 because those are the turns the Emperor player has to place his card down first
- he concluded that you wouldn't normally deal the Emperor on turn 4 because the odds of meeting the Slave would be 33%
- he seemed convinced that no one would ever, EVER save the Emperor until the very last card

But what Kaiji doesn't seem to appreciate is that this is all an illusion. The game remains "20% probability of playing the Emperor on any given turn" because an intelligent player will just play randomly. Precisely because:
- if he were to play into Kaiji's strategy, he would lose 100% of the time
- and if he were to never play into Kaiji's strategy, i.e. if he were to play with "the anti-strategy," Kaiji would figure that out, too

The key here is to keep the opponent guessing by bouncing all around. "Maybe I'll let him think that you'd never save the Emperor card for Turn 4, and that's when I'll hold onto it. Then we sees I've done that, maybe I'll discard my Emperor card immediately on Turn 1. Then we sees I've done that, that's when I'll return to depositing my Emperor on Turn 2 -- on the turn he originally predicted I would and therefore the turn I had to avoid at all costs! But now it's safe[r], because his mind's aflutter with trying to guess where I'll go next."

What disappointed me about the episode was that Kaiji seemed to be aware of none of this. He seemed certain that he could decipher the game and figure out its secret. When really ... I don't think there is any secret.

The one window into an advantage that I could see here is when Kaiji is playing as the Slave and its turns 1, 3, or 5 -- because he can read Tonegawa ahead of time and try to tell if it's the Emperor or the Citizen -- and then when Kaiji is playing as the Emperor on turns 2 and 4 -- because he can read Tonegawa to see if he's planning on playing a Slave or a Citizen. And frankly, Tonegawa is too good a player to be "read": he has the perfect Poker face and Poker voice. So the game just boils down to luck.

That's why I find this game to be really, really boring. :| Rock Paper Scissors had a small avenue for strategy. Human Horseracing was epic, both with strategy and with courage. But E Card? :|

[Mcsweeney]

THIS GAME IS ALL ABOUT PSYCHOLOGY AND INTIMIDATION. I really like that stuff so maybe that's why I'm enjoying it but not you guys! There's no way that Kaiji can win the 20 million he feels he needs to win by relying on luck. He HAS to figure out "the secret" of the game if he wants to win big money and not have his eardrum bored out.

[Talon87]

But there is no secret except "fool your opponent," and Kaiji is in no way valid competition for Tonegawa. What you're saying is, "The only way to beat a chess grand master is to fool him," and I'm saying, "Yeah, I agree. The only way to win any chess game is to outsmart the opponent. But Kaiji ain't no grand master."

I dunno. I still enjoyed it, didn't I? :P ^_^ Just not as much as the Espoir or the human derby story arcs. Don't mean to rush you since you're having fun with this one, but the sooner we move on to Game #4, the better imo. Seriously hoping that Game #3 ends with either Ep18 (doubtful) or Ep19 (quite possible). I'd love to have the final 5-to-7 episodes be dedicated to Game #4, whatever it is.

By the way ... ;_;, I just realized! Unless Kaiji's confirmed for 52 episodes, we're almost out! It's almost done with! Neuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu. ;_;

[Mcsweeney]

He probably will use those strategies later on though. But you can't blame him for not acting completely rationally right now; I know the exact feeling of being mentally backed into a corner, and I'm only bluffing in Hold 'Em Poker, let alone having a drill descending into my eardrum!

You guys should see the story of Rick Ankiel. It's all about how one of the best young Major League Baseball pitching prospects of all time mentally fell apart during the playoffs because of the pressure, and he couldn't even throw a strike anymore from that point on.

But yeah, I'm really sad that the show is already more than half way over. There's a good chance they'll make a season 2 since there's still plenty more material. They even play Mahjong later! I try not to read too much about the future happenings in the manga though.

Speaking of the manga, I've started reading some of the first chapters and it's pretty good. A lot of the dialogue is expanded upon from the time restricted anime, so it makes more sense. For example, in episode 01 of the anime, Kaiji slashes BMW tires and states "Anyone driving a car like this wouldn't be a good person anyway" and leaves it at that. In the manga, he goes on to explain that a person with a car like that is probably a power hungry bully, gangster, or tax evader, and they're getting what's coming to them etc..

[Doppleganger]

Talon, what you said didn't really bother me because of who Tonegawa is. As a gambler, even a small-time one, Kaiji is well aware of how gamblers read body language to get information about another person's mind-set; for normal people, Kaiji would expect this and would use the same techniques, leveling any playing field. But for Tonegawa, who is effectively one of the "elites" in society (a high ranking member of Love Emperor) who has demonstrated a brilliant understanding of human psychology, going against him is very intimidating. Most people don't get to Tonegawa's position using common body language reading techniques, so Kaiji suspects there's something more hidden there, like a superior insight a la Akagi. It is this fear that is destroying him - I think this was particularly evident when Kaiji immediately thought in the third round that Tonegawa must be a mind-reader, which is absurd for most people but given Tonegawa's status (or perceived status, as we will find out) a scared fellow like him would have reached that irrational conclusion.

E-Card does indeed feel like a stripped down Gentei Janken, but only because the focus is the psychological warfare rather than the card game tricks.

[Talon87]

Voting (dispassionately) for Hayate in one hour. Asking ahead of time whether I should vote Simon or Anti-Viral, as I have no idea who the latter is and my knowledge of the former (from TTGL Yoko doujinshi) suggests he's just a little boy.

[Doppleganger]

It doesn't really matter who you cast a ballot for in that round, all three candidates (Zeppeli, Simon, Anti-Spiral) are excellent choices. It's a wonderful match I'd be pleased with no matter how it ends. My personal vote is going to go to Anti-Spiral, though, since he's basically taking up Blick Winkel's slot from last year and he'll likely get the smallest number of votes.

[Talon87]

Blick Winkel >.< ... *still hasn't beaten Ever17 ... still doesn't know who Blick Winkel is ... still is right where he left on, with them surfacing, READY to find out the truth*

I should finish Ever17. >_>

*is a great game; dunno why I put it down again, I was really enjoying it! I blame Christmas for coming along -- I played it right up through December 25 3am. Never touched it since*

As for the votes ... I'll vote for Anti-Spiral then (whoops).

[Mcsweeney]

According to the Minami-ke episode 07 preview of episode 08, it is simply titled "Hosaka".

Oh my god, yes.