Anime!

For the $675 you’ll pay for HiArt’s Manga Madness anime classes, you’ll get 8 classes (starting today). Yes, that’s almost $100 per class, but kids 7-14 will learn anime-style drawing techniques from acclaimed artist Yali-Lin. In addition to learning the techniques for drawing different types of characters and faces, kids will write their own stories and learn how to create panels, incorporate text, and design their page. There will be beginner and advanced sessions so kids can really hone their skills.

Another academic year has come to an end, and three members of Genshiken have graduated. It seems like the otaku aren’t having too much trouble finding a job, which is a good thing for them. Unfortunately, the club’s numbers are dwindling, and they don’t appear to be getting any new members.

The first half of that question: is anime important to me? A lot of what I read and watch now is Eastern. I have two big sort of guilty pleasures. One is American TV drama, stuff like Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica, the Wire, the West Wing. I devour that stuff in enormous quantities and the other is Japanese and Korean movies and comic books. I watch a lot of Japanese animation – the studio Ghibli stuff, My Beautiful Girl Marie and stuff like that. Japanese animation is beautiful and lyrical. And I read, voraciously, Japanese horror mangas – Junji Ito, Hideshi Hino, Shigero Mizuki – I love their stuff and I don’t think there’s anything like that coming out in the West. So I think that has become a great creative influence on me.

The Demon Ororon (悪魔のオロロン, Akuma no Ororon?)　is a romantic tragedy manga series written by Hakase Mizuki. The series is published in English by Tokyopop.

As Tragic Comedy of “My Art Corner” invited me to go for this new manga cafe, I gladly accepted it since it is perhaps not very often that you have a cafe with manga/anime being the context of the place. It is definitely a very interesting place, as I went there with two friends, as well as RDrake to get the trading figures of Higurashi.

According to Anime News Network (ANN), ARIA’s 3rd season is confirmed, this “slice-of-life” anime will return with the same vocal cast and directed by Junichi Sato. No broadcast date has been confirmed yet but according to ANN, the production started since spring this year. I am hoping for a release next year early spring.

Although the random skits at the end are rather funny, I can’t really approve of them. I see them as mainly time wasters, and perhaps that time could have been used to flesh out the story more. The introduction of characters could have been a bit more descriptive as well, but having read the manga it doesn’t affect me as much.

I reckon most of you guys would’ve read my previous two articles on dating otaku girls. Particularly the second one which talks about boyfriend and friend material. I was reading School Rumble volume 16 just now, when it suddenly struck me that Kobayashi Jin’s manga is quite realistic in the application of such boy-girl dynamics.

The portrayal of comiket in this series reminds me more of Comic Party then Genshiken or Lucky Star; where more focus is on the circles and authors than the actual doujin. The animation is understandably sparse, though I don’t think that particularly helps or harms a series like this. As long as the characters aren’t completely off-model, it’s alright. I do think the OP and ED are a little too long for thirteen minute episodes. Doujin Work looks to be a humorous little series to follow for the summer, and its length means it should be easy to keep up with.

Anime I am currently watching: Black Blood Brothers, Tenjho Tenge, R.O.D., The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

I actually truly enjoyed this episode a helluva lot more than the previous arc, mainly because it had Karin, Toushiro…and you guessed it, a soccer ball xD. What impressed me the most about this episode was Toushiro’s perfectly drawn faces. Usually when it comes to fillers, it seems that the well-drawn manga visuals are replaced by failed attempts at creating abstract art, especially for the faces. Expressions are a common problem, where eyes, face edges and hair go flying everywhere across the head. Some even turn out looking like the opposite sex, or another character altogether (lol Yoakena).

One of the best comedy anime series I have watched recently is Genshiken which uses mostly situational comedy but has a slight dash of slapstick in there. The thing that helps it work well is the timing - which as you know is essential for good comedy.

No, the Manga Bible is not an exhaustive collection of manga titles and terms. It's the Holy Bible, depicted in Manga form. I can't find the words to describe how awesome that is.

Genshiken (げんしけん) es un acrónimo de “Gendai shikaku bunka kenkyūkai” (現代視覚文化研究会), que dicho en español significa Sociedad para El Estudio de La Cultura Visual Moderna. Los Genshiken son clubes que se encuentran en las universidades japonesas, cuya finalidad son el ver desde una óptica analítica y seria, todas las manifestaciones que sean parte del momentum.

In terms of plot, the anime seems to be jumping all over the place, but this doesn’t really matter as long as it doesn’t affect the progress of any relationship development. For the moment, the show will probably go into many disjointed episodic stories that introduce/reinforce any characters that have yet to be familiarised. One I’m certainly looking forward to is a Machi-feature episode. Chikage is also pretty interesting, and I would love to see when she finally learns the ‘truth’ about people of the opposite sex.

I was confused at first when I heard this: the official Genshiken website announced a second series that will start broadcasting in Japan this autumn. But then I got enlightened. This one it is not the same as the video mini-series or the spinoff series Kujibiki Unbalance (about which I think I told you about before – but my memory is playing tricks).

Mag saw the manga version of Hana Kimi and went "OOOOH! They are so shuai!" OF COURSE! Then when she saw Kaidoh-senpai, she was exclaiming that the the drawing is so much better than Hana Kimi's (´0ﾉ｀*) she also agreed that kaidoh is so cool! The typical guy girls will love (if he doesn't act so weird... lucky mag doesn't read POT), tall and broad shoulders KYAAAAH (I was still complaining that the author's drawing deproved while going gaga...)!

My first attempt at a fandub. It’s about 4am right now and I’m bored. It’s more or less so that I can see what I sound like on the mic. Also I’ve never taken a japanese class in my life, so the pronunciation is off at some parts. I need to work on my pitch at the higher notes (like when I say “tsubasa”) and the sustained parts (like when I say “MY SOUL”).

I’ve been pretty lazy this week, probbably from being so not-lazy last week. I went one numerous anime marathons, so far I’ve watched entire series of Shakugan no Shana, Fate Stay Night, Soukou no Strain, Genshiken and Rozen Maiden ~ Traumend. They were all pretty good, and I think I liked Fate Stay Night the most, I loved Saber…

I’ve been watching waaaay too much Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. It’s addictiveeeee~~~ Here’s Frankie manga-fied. And Mac, too, but I think what I did with him sucked.

Oh and I had a taste of my first original Taiwan Drama too. I got the Taiwanese version of Hanakimi! Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu ~ It’s funny and sweet. I like it so much even tho the effects are different from Japanese dramas. I’m really not used to it yet. I like all the characters kahit na O.A. sila umarte. Lol. They’re so like the manga… except for our heroine. She’s OOC at times but she’s still cute.

Venus Versus Virus is a Japanese manga series created by Atsushi Suzumi which got serialized in the Japanese Manga, Dengeki Comic Gao! (which is also why I started to buy it to read and flip through the manga) in mid 2005. A drama CD was then created based on the manga series. I don’t have the orginal one but I do have one special drama CD that was given with December 2006 issue of Dengeki Comic Gao!.

Two weeks into the new year and I’ve already checked off one of my resolutions for 2007 - attending a convention. This past weekend I went to Sac-Anime and decided to interview some of the vendors and artists, using my MP3 player’s built-in microphone. So over the rest of this week, I’ll be posting audio from those interviews along with transcriptions because it might hard to hear what’s being said when there are hundreds of people in the same building.

I’m actually writing this post because I got excited after finally watching Genshiken #13 (OVA #1) which gg released overnight. I think I should start by saying that I didn’t think I missed Genshiken THIS much prior to watching this OVA. I really feel like watching the original TV series (yet again).

There was an error in Genshiken 13’s TL caused by Editor dyslexia. Sentence was fine, but alas, “don’t” was missing. So, here is a fixed script you can remux yourself if you’d like. Visit the “Howto steal our subs” segment on the playback page if you’re unfamiliar with MKV Merge.

I’m on a roll! Here’s a cute song for you guys, theme song of 花样少年少女 (Hana Kimi):

It’s the beginning of Sasahara’s third year in university. Madarame and Sasahara discuss the possibility of any new members joining, recalling that Kasukabe scared all potential new members off the previous year. Kugayama is busy looking for a job, Ohno and Tanaka are shopping for cosplay material, and Kohsaka and Kasukabe just returned fom a date. Kuchiki shows up at the club room, and after some annoying rambling Kuchiki Joins Your Party… uh I mean Genshiken.

I totally forgot that the Rozen Maiden OAV came out before Christmas. I’ve got that one downloading now. I watched Winter Garden, but it didn’t do anything for me seeing how I’ve never seen Di Gi Charat. I did laugh at “I made a 4koma for you”, though. The Genshiken OAV was exactly what I expected it to be: a more or less identical version of the same scene in the manga.

Our Groups Resolution this year… made by me… is to: Catch up to current Air Gear releases, Finish Fruits Basket, and have a PEAK of 200 people in our channel!

The final volume of the eight volume Chrono Crusade manga (and yes, it has been sitting here way too long waiting to be reviewed). As you would hope and expect, this volume picks up right where seven left off, with Chrono trying to hold back the horde of demons while Rosette goes after Joshua. This volume is an emotional roller coaster from beginning to end, as one might expect considering the series starts with Rosette who has practically sold her soul to a demon to save her brother's life.

Good news, boys and girls. We have a Genshiken OAV trailer online! Or, as some call it, episode 13. Not too fancy, not too ecchi, but still, it is something. As soon as my pedo comrade gets up from his daily 15 hours sleep (and finishes up wanking on a certain underaged anime chick), he will probably be uploading it for your streaming twisted pleasure on imouto-web-chan. Untill then, all I can provide you is this here link. The episode will be released in Japan along with the first DVD of the Kujibiki Unbalance series.

By now you've realized that she's on a loop, she's speaking Finnish, and that your brain is starting to hurt. The girl is actually Orihime Inoue, a major character in the anime and manga series BLEACH (check out the wikipedia article). Apparently she likes to eat weird food combinations, which might explain why she's twirling around a leek.

Yesterday, I’ve finished a very well-known shoujo manga which usually pops out as an anime favorite. Is it 3 months ago? Maybe more…I accidentally watched the 11th episode instead of the first one. I was close to deleting some 6GB worth of anime, when I saw the other “1″ on 11. Te-hee, my mistake. It turns out the 11th episode was one of the many weak filler episodes in the anime. That is the major downside of the anime: half of it are fillers. I mean, the most interesting arc will take place on the last 3 episodes. Watching those will make you realize the importance of the other 23 and turn such a simplistic anime comparable to other great shoujos like Honey and Clover.

Kujibiki Unbalance: I think we got about five minutes into this show before turning it off. It fails exactly for the reason that I thought that it would fail. The reason that this show works in Genshiken (both the snippets within the Genshiken episodes and the whole episodes on the Genshiken DVDs) is because of the fact that there is no actual narrative or anyhing. It allows the show to be nothing more than a pure collection of cliches. Not a cliched story, but literally a series of unrelated cliches.

If you are one of those, then sadly, or happily, you are a thin yuri fanboy. For good or for bad, it’s still a viable way of life, and there is no better (living) example of a thin yuri fanboy as Madarame Harunobu of Genshiken.

DC/CMX must be rubbing their hands with glee with their successful release of Megatokyo as it takes the top manga slot and now I would think is set to become their biggest series in the direct market, taking over from the controversial Tenjho Tenge which has been a constant stalwart of the chart. In much the same way Cannon God Exaxxion from Dark Horse doesn’t appear to have suffered either from it’s little bout of internet editing conflab.

I consider this to be a shining example of what doujinshi really can be, and if you liked it, I would tell you to run to your nearest shop and venture a gander at their successful forays into Negima, Genshiken, and… Yakitate! Japan?!? I said they were prolific, didn’t I? They’ll be making a showing at Comiket 70 this year, and hopefully it’ll turn out well. Anyway, in keeping with the flow, here’s a few shots of what you can expect from this title.

Only 3 more days till the end of the month: No more downloading. Don’t know what to download anymore… Downloaded a set of JAVs =D; some One Piece, Fruits Basket, and starting to download Hikaru no Go and Mai Otome. Also downloaded a few games for Will: Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, X-Men the Official game, Heroes of Might and Magic 5, Hitman: Blood Money, Deus Ex: Invisible Force, Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars.

MANGA: Went to the story today and picked up the next few books to a few manga's ive been keeping up with. (Ragnarok, Genshiken, The All New Tenchi Muyo) Also picked up the first book based off of Starcraft. (Going to see if its worth it.) Which brings to mind, what about other books that are based in a video game? Like the Warcraft books (or manga for that matter which i enjoyed actually despite having misgivings about it initially), and the Halo books seem to be extremely well written i have heard from multiple people. (With the Fall of Reach being the best of the 3 out). What other books/mangas based on games are good?

And if you add in the back volumes of Saiyuki I bought to complete my collection, well… that's a lot of manga for one week. Am I getting close to intervention time? Nah. It was only 16 books. I think it feels worse than it is because I also picked up 6 volumes of Hellsing from the library today.

This episode did it. Ouran has somehow wormed its way into one of my top top shows. With only Genshiken and Honey and Clover standing in its path, Ouran is giving them a real good run. It’s been 8 episodes so far and it’s consistently spewing out top notch quality. I’ve mentioned it in the past posts that the background is pleasing to the eyes and this episode continues that trend. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. In case you missed the memo, I have a deep love for chibi-esque characters or whenever the character designs switch from “regular” to “simply drawn” and Ouran worked this angle quite nicely. But oh no, the smooch-fest isn’t over.

Thanks to Moetron, who spotted this on the Genshiken website. The site seems to have been updated, with the licence at the bottom changed to 2006. The picture also shows the final scene of episode 13. Hmm.

Following the news of the Genshiken manga ending, it seems that the highly anticipated second season of the Genshiken anime is actually Kujibiki Unbalance.

Yes, all this and no story or really funny jokes to be had. And yet I’m keeping them. Why? Because I’m a pervert myself. I won’t hide it at all, infact I implore people to be open about it. Ever since Genshiken gave it’s godlike speech on perverted-ness of anime lovers and how to be open about it, I could never say it any better. But still, for an ecchi anime, it’s borderline on my list, mostly because it is an ecchi anime. We don’t get many these days, but I’d rather save HD space then keep crappy anime.

In the meantime, time to rest, download some mangas and stuff. I have downloaded about 4 GB of manga including Gantz, Blade of the Immortal, Hellsing, Vagabond, Akira, One Piece and Initial D. If you have any good mangas to suggest, do tell me. And if you’re looking for the place to download mangas, check the “Lurk Manga Archive” on the right, they got everything, as long as you have IRC.

With a palette that consists of just red, white and black, Motomichi Nakamura makes these at once, silly, funny, gross and evil looking cartoon monsters. Above is a work entitled "The Coming Petro Collapse" for the New York Press. His simple illustrations are accurate depictions of an anime/manga clouded mind's nightmare monsters.

Since it was a rainy day today I figured I might as well go learn how to paint, so that’s what I did. I was interested in the alien army that I had played with the day before so I bought a box of these guys called Termagants, which are part of the Tyranid army/set (it’s all very confusing). One of the guys working there sat down with me for 3 hours and taught me how to paint them. The whole while I was thinking, “wow this is just like that episode of Genshiken where they learn to paint the Gundam models”. It was a lot of fun and I learned quite a bit. I sorta want to buy some more and build up my army. Apparently there is a games workshop in Vaughan Mills so I might check that out some time.

For those fortunate enough to travel to Japan to see the real thing, here’s a great link listing manga/anime museums including iconic Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) in the Tokyo suburb of Mitaka.

So many girls, so little time! lol. *cough* Air Trek (AT) are inline skates with an engine so riders can go really fast and fly through the air! w00t. Here we have Itsuki a normal anime guy (loser) who stumbles upon the world of AT Racing. He later meets SIMCA!! OMG SIMCA! *cough* *cough* um.. yeh.. So.. the story’s a bit cliché, but it is still enjoyable.

Ok, ok, these kinky scrolls are from the Kinki district around the old capital of Japan Kyoto. Still they are charming and the Japanese like to brag that the strolls are, “a precursor to manga comic books and animated films” in their, “use of illustrations [that] enlivens the stories.” Whatever.

Bill Postmus, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of suburban San Bernadino County, California, has ordered the county’s libraries to remove the scholarly text Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics from circulation. He proudly announced the move, calling the book “obscene comics,” on the county’s Website, saying, “That book is absolutely inappropriate for a public library and as soon as I was made aware of it yesterday, I ordered it to be removed immediately.”

I’m up to episode 13 of Mushishi. Also finished up nearly all of Genshiken. This one was given to me by a friend of mine. I haven’t found much about it on the internet, so it might be worthwhile to write about this one. Also finished up watching 3 Lupin movies that I hadn’t seen before. Also given to me by the same friend who gave me Genshiken. I’ll try and write up some reviews on these animes in the next few days or so. I might end up putting them on tsumetaihana. (I haven’t touched it in ages. Plus, it would be nice to make that blog dedicated to just anime and jpop.)

Finally, Air Gear. I was sort of looking forward to this but really trying to avoid getting my hopes up because as we all know, the last Oh! Great manga to anime adaption, Tenjo Tenge, was awful. Air Gear’s OP is pretty weak, but after that, it well exceeds what I was expecting.

Ok I haven’t changed the poll in awhile and that’s a bad thing. This may have been brought on by my laziness or unwillingness to accept the truth from the last poll (I kept on prolonging it)! LOL Anyways…the winner was Genshiken by a measly two votes.

I have a confession…I’m absolutely obsessed with Shojo mangas right now. It started off innocently with Peach girl, to Mars and now Hot Gimmick. Currently I’m a girl on a mission, trying to discover more shojo titles to subdue my interest. Am I succeeding? Maybe! Has anyone read “Fushigi Yuugi” yet because I’m thinking of collecting that next after I’m done buying Paradise Kiss and Genshiken… (so far I have Paradise Kiss vol. 1 ordered at my local bookstore.)

I always feel a little conflicted about manga adapted from anime. For whatever reason, I’m much more willing to watch anime adaptations of manga and I tend to be less enthusiastic about manga versions of anime. There are certain series where I’ll watch/read both versions (Kare Kano, Fruits Basket, Fullmetal Alchemist, etc) but I’ve never felt the need to seek out the manga versions of anime I’ve enjoyed like RahXephon, Cowboy Bebop, or Evangelion. Read or Die is an exception, as there was no way I wasn’t going to check out the further adventures of Yomiko Readman, special agent to the Library of England.

Equally fascinating is the manga version by Miyazaki: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/manga/otto.html

Now, for the main dish. Genshiken. I’ve seen a few people say that Genshiken will be coming out this Spring Season (aka April-ish). They’re wrong. It was announced way back when that it will be OCTOBER. So, fans, run, dont walk to your dvd collection and watch Genshiken again… and again… and again. I’m actually wishing I’m wrong and that it will be coming out this Spring, but I do not believe this is so.

I’ve had a perfectly normal day today, not done anything out of the ordinary – woke late, took my bike downtown, bought a manga volume I’d been waiting for, decided it was too cold to wander around aimlessly, and went back home. I’ve struggled with the lousy connection (10 minutes just to get the connection stable enough to access the proxy!), wondered what I should get for supper, and discovered I forgot my Japanese book in my desk after last class. But I’ve also shared the leftovers of my supper with a very hungry friend, gotten a Japanese book in exchange, and chatted with a whole bunch of people, just in passing, as I was sitting with my computer in the hallway, trying to get a signal. And those things are enough to make this a very, very good day – just like most days here are for me. Even if I don’t understand how it happened, really, that I’ve found myself halfway across the world, and loving it so much…

Hana Kimi #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #8 - My new shoujo obsession.

Mizuki is a track and field star in her own right and she throws herself in to her new role as a boy with enthusiasm, as shown when she punches a boy in the face. I always think face-punching is an admirable quality for a shoujo heroine. Mizuki’s friendship with Sano grows, but how long will they be happy with a platonic relationship? And how long will she keep thinking that he thinks she’s a boy, when he knows she’s a girl? Hana Kimi also has a motley supporting cast that includes a womanizing RA, gay school doctor, menacing jock, pervy photographer, petulant pretty boy, and a cute doggie. Wacky hijinks ensue with almost every volume as Mizuki takes part in school life while trying to hide her secret. Although the plot of Hana Kimi is very typical, I enjoyed the character interaction and being able to see how Mizuki and Sano’s personalities change as the result of their friendship. The art is fairly standard, it serves the story but I don’t think it displays a very unique style. If you’re looking for a light and fluffy shoujo fix with plenty of cross-dressing, I