Category Archives: Franchises

Of a Dying 2006 Pancake Jamboree

This is the season to bake a cake
With our Queen of all pancakes
Her batter is first-rate
But one thing we all hate:
Skip her jam; your life, it’ll take.

Of the flame of wintry passions
Few hotter is an odd fusion
Of sickeningly cute “moe”
Mixed with a rarer, “moe”
An odd 萌え 燃え confusion?

Makoto, right before the snow
covers her, as if winter knows
that next year,
like every year,
again, memories anew will grow.

But what of tears under half a moon?
Of wishes undying, lovers swoon
to an eternal pledge
and they jump off the edge.
No, I’m not laughing at Black Lagoon.

But of kisses, war and boobs;
Fewer confuses more n00bs
than the trap gallery
on board the flying gallery
of Arctus Prima, the shoujo test tube.

Still there is no understatement
To fandom’s greatest testament
When the morning comes
And your alarm hums
Nayuki’s trademarked statement.

Still, it’s better to sing a song
Even if you get it all wrong
Like a undine
With a karaoke machine
to where the tone-deaf have gone.

If all of that is a pain
Then watch some Soukou no Strain
It’s serious as pie
And full of oppai
It belongs in its own domain.

But of wrecks this year
Perhaps none can possibly compare
To a sequel
With no equal
Because, she sang, life is a canvas.

And with a strong kiss, she landed.
Smitten, like heavy irony, candid
Of Paprika
As Hayashibara
Daughters of moe have commanded!

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
When Renton did his flying round
For love
Kind of?
Death rained down all around.

If “pancake” was a code word
In this theater of the absurd
It’ll spoil the story
Of Jesus’ destiny
Savior of many, head of his herd.

Because we go to war over it
And idol singer acts for it
Awesome cameras
For positive otaku karma
Will FLAG as a banner, fit?

This deadly note must stop
But only because to slumber I drop
You can lament
In my comments
It’s a grand criticism swap.


Write It Down

I’ve gotten many advice over the course of my life, but one good one I’d like to share with you today is in the form of a joke. If you’ve heard it, I apologize for dragging it out and butchering it.

An old couple who lives in the City are, well, old. The husband and wife get along for the most part, being married for so long. But as they age they slowly forget more and more. Lately some fights broke out between them only because one would forget something important, like taking the car in for a tune-up or picking up the other at the airport, some such things. After seeing their doctor, they were suppose to heed his advice: start writing important things down! The two of them then got some notepads and began doing it.

So the wife was going to the kitchen one afternoon and the husband asked her to make a sundae for him. “Two scoops of vanilla ice cream, some walnuts, whipped cream, and chocolate sprinkles.” “Okay, I got it.” “Are you sure? Don’t you want to write it down”? “I’ll remember,” she said. A while later the wife returns with a plate of scrambled eggs. The husband fusses up, expectedly, and said, “where’s the toast”?

Writing it down is important. I should’ve done that with the couple ideas floating in my head while farming for faction and PvP honor in WoW. Farming is humbling work–it brings some kind of mental clarity in a chaotic and disorganized setting. But you gotta write it down when the Muse beckons.

Aside from lamenting about lost ideas, though, I think it’s a powerful narrative device. There are a few anime based on lost and found memories, and some based on rediscovered manuscripts. The link between the loli-tastic Al Azif from Demonbane and a much more subtle and celestial work like Reki’s recollection from Haibane Renmei is not as tenuous as you’d think, from this perspective.

But when you write it down, and take a hard look at what is presented to you, things look differently. This is partly what has happened with Kanon. And this can happen both within and in the meta. Imagine if Yuuichi kept a journal or something? LOL. The journey we take through this half-year with Kanon, likewise, brings to life what we may merely remember so long ago.

And here I present the biggest understatement of the year.


Asatte no Houkou Accomplishes Great Feet

Signature Reimu Pose

If you’ve seen Zettai Shounen, you might be aware of the “feet.” Somehow episode 10 of Asatte no Houkou reminds me of it.

Don’t get me wrong–I actually haven’t seen much of Zettai Shounen at all aside from screen caps. I though the attention to detail to the footwear in episode 10 of Asahou, though, was above and beyond the call of duty.

I think episode 8 of Asahou was definitely the best episode of anime that I’ve seen in a long while. It compares with Black Lagoon’s introduction of Roberta, or ENOZ’s performance in Suzumiya Haruhi. (I guess it wasn’t so long of a while?) What struck me as special regarding episode 8 was that it’s very tight and it’s got that stand-alone, slice-of-life packaging to it, in contrast to the plot revealed in that episode. I think you could polish episode 8 up as a tight AMV or even as a stand-alone OAV with slight changes.

Anyways, enough clamoring for a show that’s getting the attention that it deserves. I thought Kotomi’s outfit in the second half of episode 10 was…ludicrous, to say the least. Or I’m just totally out of touch with Japanese fashion. Both might be possible.

I don’t think I have any kind of a “feet” fetish. Maybe a sock/footware thing…but I don’t think it’s any kind of fetish. The reality is that when the character designers go out of their way to make their character’s shoes fashionable, it’s hard to not notice it if you pay attention. I suppose at least this idiosyncratic trait of mine comes true in real life as well, if you ever wonder if I compliment you on your footwear.

I also suppose this is why I dig Ikkitousen and Ryomou in general.

Anyways, as much as I enjoy talking about footwear all post long, here are some pictures to do the talking instead. Honestly lately I’m kind of busy both in the mind and in the physical, so this is as good as it gets.

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Time to Engrish Forever, Baby?

“Sorry to keep you waiting Jumbo, I brought you your prom date”? LOL. This is so dying of a Yotsuba& parody.

Got Rice?

The muse that is Black Lagoon resurrects in the form of LOL I am Chinese so I got the slanty eyes? Or is she just evil?

I’m glad the show flexed its muscle at this critical episode, 22, because so far Second Barrage is heavy. The middle 3 episodes with Mr. Benny’s Good Fortune capped a good, refreshing break, but it was also the low point in the series when it comes to production quality and direction. Mr. Chen worked in season 1, and not so much here. It’s a welcomed distraction to the drama and inter-relational conflicts.

I mean, did you really need me to tell you Revy-Ginji is a foil for Yukio-Rock? Surely not.

But the Japan arc continues into 23, which means it’ll likely to continue into the final stretch of these 24 episodes. I think that’s probably best, but not knowing the manga (and I imagine so far it’s a faithful adaptation) I’m not sure if the pacing works out. When you don’t have that bang-bang-bang pace to bring the plot forward, you use those bang-bang-bang scenes. But what happens when you can’t use either?

Is that when I point out that Omi Minami, Miki Nagasawa and Houko Kuwashima are all in the cast this season? I’m glad that Kuwashima got Yukio–lots of great dialog parts for this part-time character. Speaking of the voice acting, if you’re still hung up on the Engrish, you might want to do see your doctor and schedule for an “am I a Weeaboo” examination.

One last thing–the bird/angel allegory continues!

Pleats rocks


Sara Cruz, I Love Your Boobs?

Actually I take that back. Just her cleavage.

Somehow this picture reminds me of Nana Mizuki's new single

Soukou no Strain deserves a mention. It deserves some fan clamoring. It’s so far a very predictable affair–long separated siblings found themselves on opposite sides of a war; the protagonist, having lost all that is emotionally dear to her except her memories of the past, pushes herself forward to find out why it all happened. In the process she finds and reveals a lot of other secrets that the writers of the show hid, each in its expectant places. Well, at least it has an excuse–it’s an anime and sci-fi rendition of this book. It should seem familiar to many.

Sara reminds me of this show’s lead female. And she’s…not my type of girl, yet I admire both of them so? So driven, valiant in just the wrong way to be…hrm…appealing to the fleshly senses. In as much I hate watching an anime about stupid people getting smarter, I sure like anime about jaded and emotionally scarred people learning how to live like a normal person. Go figure.

But while the story is tried and true, I think I can only take the shell of Marlene for only so long. I think I was so :rolleyes: when I said to myself while watching episode 3, “ZOMG, the doll that gave her a place of solace and comfort turns her dream into reality! Next thing I’ll see is that this is not a real deus ex machina, but an elaborate, Evangelion-esque backstory involving clones with even bigger boobs and some kind of lousy human genome project hack that turned her brother into a terrorist!”

Still, the show itself is relentless. He’s right about its intensity. I think as long as we get more of the other characters to balance out the angst and add some flavor to the main story this is going to be a very good ride. Screw Code Gas, this is where it’s at.