Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha – The Mamas…

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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.)

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.