[TIL] Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha – The Mamas…

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve recently watched Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha. Ok, it’s been more than a while, and I’ve then watched A’s, but still have the last three episodes to watch… I’ve been occupied lately, and the show is not entirely engrossing.

The show is somewhat anachronistic; the art style is more reminiscent of early 90s anime. Alternately, it kinda looks like Digimon in a way, it feels like something rushed out to make money, or shoved into its slot to fill it after something else got cancelled. The models, that is, the characters are not very well drawn, but are cute. I nearly had an aneurysm in the beginning when each character has like a mad mad hair at the front, with a bunch sticking out, and it’s “Aligned” to the side, and the moment they shift their head slightly the hair really jumps a bunch to the other side.

The graphics of backgrounds, the city-scape, it’s very blocky, the number of different characters in most scenes is exceedingly small (1-2 in a lot, 4 is like “Whoa!“). The characters are often static and talk to themselves, or we have Nanoha’s waking up sequence, which while cute repeats itself. It really feels like on the production front, this show is exceedingly flat, and didn’t have a lot poured into it.
Not to mention, some of the seiyuu, like Arf‘s seiyuu, Natsuko Kuwatani, just sounds so annoying. “Fate-o Chan!” Blergh.

(This is a “Things I Like” post, and as such covers more my thoughts, and is less focused as an actual bona fide review. There will be a medium amount of spoilers in this post.)

[TIL] Domu – Horror is Atmosphere, not Story

I’ve had this manga book, Domu: A Child’s Dream, on my shelf for around 2-3 years, and I’ve found myself looking for something to read, my memory reminded me of Domu and where it was on my shelves (even though my shelves look like this, I know where all my books are!). So I picked it up, and a couple of hours later it was done. And I have some things to say, and this is my blog, so say them I shall!

(Guy’s Note: Well, Hobby Search not loading its pages in English means the “Figure Friday” of sorts post I was meaning to make will be postponed for sometime during the week (or next Friday).)

For those who don’t know, Domu is an anime written by Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of Akira, and had been written (and serialized) between 1980 and 1982. I’ve read the graphic novel version translated by Dark Horse, unsurprisingly. The story follows an accursed housing block in Japan. Accursed you ask? There’s an astonishingly high number of deaths and disappearances around the block, and they send detectives to investigate the matter. And things escalate into a psychic duel.
And this covers the general plot of the story, which you could probably find out online with minor poking.
(This is a “Things I Like” post, and as such covers more my thoughts, and is less focused as an actual bona fide review. There will be a LOT of spoilers in this post.)

Anime Season Midterms – First Impressions.

Well, we’re in the middle of the current anime season (Fall 2010?), and I thought rather than wait for all these anime to end, I’d say a couple of words regarding several series I’ve been watching, meaning to watch, etc. There’d obviously be longer posts after these shows end. Or at least the current seasons…

Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai – for short, Ore no Imoto, or even shorter, Oreimo. In English: My Little Sister Can’t be This Cute.
This show is like Genshiken (blog post) in a way. A show about otaku, exploring them. It is more comical though. Episodes 5-6 were a bit weird, but the show had definitely taken on slightly less hijinks and crazy anime lovers attitude, and a somewhat more “Slice of Life” stance. I have high hopes for it to keep going strong. I love it thus far. Good show, enjoyable cast, cute characters, some good laughs (albeit some weird moments like when Kyosuke fought their father..). But overall? WATCH IT. Right now.

Lie to Me*, Please.

~jiiiiiiii~

(So I’m joining up to help fill in the blog here on occasion, and this is a cross-post with my own small blog adventure: Wishray Fountain. *shameless plug*)

I’ve been watching this show, Lie to Me*, since it began, and I’ve got to say some things about it. These things are more than just the usual: you should be watching this, it’s good television, and the drama is engaging. Instead I want to talk about magic and chemistry.

By all rights this is a show that should flop. A lot of its scriptwriting is rather humdrum, some of the characters are cardboard cutouts, and it on occasion breaks down into a formulaic pile of dog poo. However, much like House, it goes beyond all that and you just end up liking it in the end.

The Benefits of Not Blogging!

There are benefits, real benefits, to not maintaining one’s blog. I’m not talking about the time it takes to maintain one’s blog; oh no. I’m talking about money. Maintaining a blog, even a “free” blog hosted by WordPress, is an endeavour that ends up costing you money. Real money.

 

The sweet sweet fate not blogging "Saves" you from.

I’ve gone in a past post on my figure purchases up until that time (back in September 2009). It came out to $374 back then, and well, it’s gone considerably higher since (especially with the purchase of a limited figure such as Saber Alter Maid version by Alter, reviewed here). Anime also takes time, even if it’s something I find enjoyable. So the blog also costs you time (and this is aside from time spent on it!).

Editorial – Coming Back to Life

Wow, it’s been 4 months since my last entry. I’ve really been remiss in my updates of this blog. I guess you could say it’s taken an end of summer and autumn hibernation. It’s not that I didn’t have what to say… I had a lot to say. But once you stop updating, it’s sort of what I experience with certain fora (plural of forum) or topics; they remember where is the first unread post, so if you see they have 15 unread posts, you wait till you have time to read them all. And then it’s 150 unread posts and you know you’ll never get to it.

Zombie Jesus lives too! Well... sort of?

Grrrrr. WordPress just ate a couple of paragraphs I wrote…
Anyway, there are two ways to get back to posting: Go with “I’ll post whenever I feel like it”, so you’d make a post without feeling an obligation to keep on posting, which I dislike (and also, once I resume posting, it’s not an obligation as much as a snowball; can’t stop!). The other method is to bite the bullet. Stop procrastinating, and just resume blogging. Delve head-first.

There’ll be a blog post coming once a week, gauranteed. Even if the skies fall or Cthulhu and the lost city of R’lyeh resurface. I will try, and I think in most weeks will succeed, to get two posts up. I’ll be aiming for Sunday-Tuesday for one and Thursday-Saturday for the other. Some weeks may have three posts, but I’m not promising. I’m too wise for that.

Going to Pick Up Starcraft 2 – Geekography

As I begin writing this post, we are 2 hours and 35 minutes away from midnight in Israel, when Starcraft 2 will be released. For the first time, I will be going to a midnight release of a video game. Not because I’m such a huge Starcraft fan, but, why not?

The hype and excitement over Starcraft 2 is quite crazy, and it’s not like Blizzard even had to do a lot to fan it. Well, that’s not entirely true, they fanned it by not speaking too much about it, and letting gamers who were honestly excited do all the promotion on their own. This is a winning technique, when you already have people going crazy for your next release, no matter what you say or do.

Raynor. Jim Raynor. Human badass.

I really started playing serious video games in my own home when I was in fourth grade. One of the first few games I’ve received was Warcraft 2, and then its expansion (which I didn’t enjoy much with the crazy magic difficulty). I still remember after my father installed it he tried to play and couldn’t get things done, and I got things working from the first few minutes of playing the campaign – I found it intuitive; same as some years later my cousin had Age of Empires and didn’t know how to get things done, and I sat down and within a couple of minutes got the hang of the game.

[TIL] Toy Story 3D – First 3D Experience

Image via Wikipedia

In the year 1999, a movie is released; it’s called, “The Matrix“. In this film viewers are introduced to a technique called “Bullet-time“. A year or two later, and dozens of movies which do not benefit or have a plausible explanation for the usage of bullet-time are produced. Most of us grow weary, as bullet-time no longer elicits amazement, but is delegated to being a gimmick.

It is now the year 2010, and in 2009 a movie called “Avatar“, directed by James Cameron, is released. This movie comes out in 3D, and although it’s not the first movie to come out this way, it is buoyed by waves of PR and marketing and mass hysteria. This signals the beginning of the high-budget 3D movies’ assault, which had been planned in advance; which is evident in how many of the 3D movies coming out this year had already been in production when Avatar hit the silver screens world-wide.

The 3D is neat, it’s pretty convincing, and in one scene I moved my hand forward to move aside some banners which were hiding Woody. But to be honest, our mind is a great computer, and one that always falls for optical illusions. We’ve been capable of tricking it into seeing 3D for quite some time. Heck, taking the special glasses off I didn’t see non-3D, just a bit blurry as there were double-edges going on.

[TIL] House M.D. – When a Mystery Show Is Not

Is not what? When a mystery show is not a mystery show.

I love House M.D. I’ve been watching it every week on the cables for several years now, and have just watched the last episode of season 5 (brilliant!) and the first half of season 6. Now, House M.D. is billed as a “Medical Mystery Show”, but it’s not. After season 3, it seems the writers had figured out for themselves how much it’s not either. I’ve said it before, but it’s still true: All stories are human stories. The mystery is almost incidental.

 When we re-watched season 1 (re-runs in preparation for season 4), my mother remembered the “solution” to each of the cases. I usually didn’t. But that’s because in my mother’s mind, the important thing, and thus the core that she remembered was what the mystery, and its solution, were.

I didn’t remember the mysteries, because they were only catalysts for the important thing. The interaction between the cast of characters, and House’s personality. Seeing the ridiculous, often funny, often amusing, sometimes deep, that he’d throw at us, and at his “friends”.

In season 4 or 5, first Wilson and then Cuddy comment on the manner in which House works, how from a seemingly random thing that occurs he makes the connection. A deus ex machina of sorts. If this were truly a mystery show, then this would be horrible, as the solutions are such that are not only very remote and unlikely, but the kind that you as the (non-doctor, or even doctor) watcher could never figure out on yourself – which is the opposite of what mystery/suspense shows want – they always want to make you feel as if you’ve got a chance.

But this is all ok, because you don’t watch the show for the preposterous medical anomalies. You watch it for the people. It’s almost like Gilmore Girls in that sense!

So, do you watch House M.D.? What do you think of it?

Summer is the Season of Sweat

Well, this should not come as any surprise to you guys, but summer is the season of sweat. It’s not all bad of course, look at all those people who think they look better with sweat, erm, yeah, you don’t really see them off of billboards and ads for shoes, perfumes, or sportscars, do you?

Summer is the season where traditionally students are let off from their chains at school, to go home for two months and go to sleep somewhere between 4 and 5 AM, and wake up around the time they’d usually return from school. Well, it’s been 2003 the last time I had a proper summer vacation, aside from the time I had after finishing my time as a medic and beginning university back in 2007. Yeah, that’s a time where I had time off…

Mindless Anime Characters Celebrating their Youths! Thanks to Yi for the picture.