Araknamedia

Viva Disgaea! (and other games)

Recently I’ve noticed a new useless habit I’ve developed.  I buy video games, although I haven’t been playing them much lately.  In the last month, my rationalization for such behavior was that with planning the wedding and working on my dress still, I simply had no time to play games, and would get to them when I could.  I have time now, so I’ve decided to start playing some again.

To that effect, I’ve started playing Disgaea 3 once again.  I figure I should probably try and finish a game that I’ve already started before I start on a new one.  At least until the end of next month, when the new Metroid game comes out. I imagine I’m about halfway through the story, but I quickly got stuck on a new map and will either level up to try to beat it, or look up what I should actually be doing to defeat this map.  I don’t really think grinding is the complete solution, although it’ll probably make the maps after this one easier for me to defeat.

As for portables, I finally found my copy of My Japanese Coach after digging around for it for nearly a month.  I know that’s not really “playing” but it also serves as a re-entry into my self-study of Japanese.  I looked into taking classes recently, but unfortunately they’re just too expensive to be an option for me right now.

I think once again I may plug my Playstation handle, look me up if you have a PS3!  My name there is Kaeryo.  I’ll be happy to friend you, and maybe even play a game competitively or cooperatively, although I suck, so you might keep that in mind.  I was pretty startled recently to find that I friended a coworker on PlayStation Network, and we have absolutely NO games in common!  Not a single one!  I have some odd taste in games though, so I’m sure that accounts for most of it.  Plus, I don’t buy most new games until a year or two later when they’re much cheaper.  Pretty much the only games I buy new are either Disgaea or Metroid.

Gurren Lagann: Childhood’s End & Misc News

My week’s been hectic.  I’m gearing up for my wedding this weekend, and I’ve had not a lot of time for reading manga, watching anime, or playing video games.  Of course this means that I REALLY want to do all 3.  After this weekend……

Yesterday, I came home to find the first Gurren Lagann movie on the table waiting for me, which was a pleasant surprise because I forgot that I had ordered it.  There was some accidental good timing on Bandai’s part, because I read about the movies being available through their website right after I had finished watching the series, and full of the warm glow the series had left me with, I ordered both movies.  I found out somewhat later that they’re just recaps of the series, but I figured that could be good too.

So I decided to watch it when I went to bed, which was probably not the best of ideas because I tend to drift off to sleep pretty quick once I’m cozy and watching pretty much anything on my television, boring or not.  Needless to say, the movie kinda dragged.  I did enjoy taking the trip back into the series and reliving all of Kamina’s awesome one-liners, but after a while even the novelty of that left me.

I am very much in favor of the awesome Yoko/Adiane fight scene however.  That was cool, and the fanservice didn’t bother me a bit.  I actually think it was pretty cleverly done, and ended up more toward the badass end of the spectrum rather than sleazy.

Other than that, I was a little disappointed in the movie.  I watched it with an eye toward introducing new viewers to Gurren Lagann, but I don’t think the movie would be better for that than the series itself.  The beginning is fairly strong, introducing Simon, Kamina, Yoko, and the others, but the middle was too random and just jumped around too much to draw in someone who hadn’t already seen all the footage being covered.  As you may know I’m currently “mentoring” a number of newbie anime fans, so I like to keep an eye out for anything that’s easily accessible to them.

I still like the movie generally though.  It’s good to pop in if I don’t feel like shuffling discs, and there is that great fight scene.  I’m really looking forward to getting the second movie.

I’ve been doing some manga reading, picking up first volumes of various series, mostly because I found them for cheap at the local Hastings when I go to visit my mom.  Recently I’ve read Crying Freeman, vol. 1, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, vol. 1, My Heavenly Hockey Club, vol. 1, and in keeping with my recent habits, Butterflies, Flowers, vol. 3, Black Butler, vol. 2, and Deadman Wonderland, vol. 2.  Pretty good variety.  I’ve had to scale back my spending some, but that really just means that I keep up on around 4 titles, and just put the rest on hold until I can afford to binge-spend, or I start looking up cheap volumes.  My personal favorite of all those is Butterflies, Flowers which is a mature josei (ladies’) title, with surprising amounts of twisted humor.  I literally laughed out loud a few times, and I generally never laugh out loud when I’m reading anything.

I’m trying to clear a few titles off of my “currently watching” list on MAL.  At the moment, I’m in the middle of around 25 anime, which is just too many.  I’ll make exceptions for One Piece and Bleach, since they’re long and not yet ended, but pretty much everything else had an ending, and I need to get to it.  I just finished Ippatsu Kikimusume, and the next series I finish will be Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and Spice and Wolf.  I just borrowed both seasons of Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex from a coworker, so I’m trying to clear a few series before I start on those.

Like I mentioned in the beginning of the post, I’m getting married this weekend.  It’s pretty exciting, but I’m currently of the opinion that the ceremony is definitely not worth it.  As much as I LOVE getting to see my mom, dad, and brother all at the same time, plus aunts, uncles, and other friends and coworkers that I haven’t seen in a while all in one place, the logistics of being “in charge” of an event where people are constantly telling me what I should do is very irritating.  What’s also irritating is people telling me it’s my event and that I should just do what I want.  Try telling that to the people telling me what to do, thanks.  End rant.  I’m really very excited, and the most exciting bit for me is that I designed (with help) my own dress.

I used a pattern of course, and I also got help sewing the top, since that’s a little advanced for my newbie/beginner skills, but I did most of the work on the skirt, and the color scheme and everything else was my idea.  So at least I’m doing exactly what I want with the dress, which really is fine by me.   I’ll try and post a picture sometime next week for you guys.

Brace Yourself! The Long-Threatened Yaoi Review is Here!

This post comes with some warnings.  If you don’t like boys’ love or yaoi, skip this post.  Just don’t read it.  I’ll probably do another post tomorrow, so just come back then.  If you don’t mind or feel adventurous, please, read on.

I have a limited yaoi collection, mostly because this kind of manga just recently became available at the Borders across the way from where I work, which is where I buy the grand majority of my manga.  The last time I shopped at Barnes & Noble the cashier literally shoved my purchases at me after I paid for them, which I found offensively snobbish and will still be limiting my time there.  However, this is not a bookstore review.

I had initially planned to re-read the two volumes of Love Recipe, but since I do most of my reading at work currently I decided that wasn’t really possible due to the explicit nature of the material and one nosy coworker.  This is my favorite yaoi though, so I should be able to review it with no problems now.

If you’re familiar at all with Animation Runner Kuromi, Love Recipe is similar, but with a boys’ love/yaoi bent.  If you’re not familiar with Animation Runner Kuromi, go get familiar with it.  Now.  In the meantime, Love Recipe is about a newly-minted graduate, Tomonori Ozawa who has just landed his dream job as an editor for a manga publisher.  The tiny detail he isn’t aware of before showing up for his first day on the job, is that he works for a Boys’ Love manga publisher!

It’s not long before Ozawa is sent to retrieve a manuscript from RoseBoy’s most popular author, Sakurako Kakyoin.  Under the impression that Kakyoin is a woman, he readily agrees, and is shocked to find that Kakyoin, is in fact a man that draws boys love comics.  Ozawa is molested by Kakyoin shortly thereafter.

There’s an odd charm to this manga.  Although there is the initial consensual-on-one-side sex, the sex scenes in the rest of the manga seem to be mutually consensual.  At least as much as it ever is in yaoi, from my limited experience.  The relationship between the two main characters is amusingly complex, and all the extra snippets about manga editing, moe, and the purpose of boys love comics makes this manga a continuously good read.

The biggest draw for me is the relationship between Ozawa and Kakyoin.  Kakyoin starts out as the older, experienced aggressor, but ends up quickly falling for Ozawa, who doesn’t have a clue.  Ozawa’s cluelessness carries the humor for the rest of both volumes of this manga.

In short, I highly recommend this manga, for yaoi beginners such as myself, or maybe even long time fans.  It’s cute and sweet, and the sex scenes are well done, without being overly graphic or weird.   They’re a little more expensive than most manga, but for the extra money, you get lovely slipcovers on your manga.  It’s definitely worth the extra money.  In fact, feel free to check out Digital Manga’s website to see more of their catalog.

Cat Soup’d or This Cannot End Well…

I have a mischievous streak.  I’m also extremely shy, so that streak usually stays hidden unless I’ve known a person for years, or if I become instantly comfortable with that person.  The way this streak manifests among people that I’m cultivating to become otaku is that I “make” them watch Cat Soup at some point.

If you haven’t seen Cat Soup, I’d recommend it with a warning: unless you have an idea what’s going on, you won’t know what’s going on.  Heck, even if you know what’s going on, it still won’t make sense.  It’s a very random movie.

Cat Soup could be summed up in the following way: it’s the journey of two kittens to retrieve the girl kitten’s soul from Death.  Alternatively it could be summed up as two kittens journeying to the grocery store to buy bean curd for Mama cat.

Basically I trick people into watching Cat Soup by giving them the technically correct summary.  Then I sit back and watch their head explode.  I do try to be somewhat nice about it by only really showing it to people once I think they’d be ready for it.  I don’t want to scare them away from anime forever.

My latest victim was a coworker who’s been chatting me up about anime and manga.  I’d lent him Cat Soup a month or two ago and he’s just now gotten around to watching it.  Every week, he’d tell me he was going to watch it, and I’d nod and think to myself, “yeah I’ll *know* when you watch it, hehehe.”

He claims that he has something worse than Cat Soup, that he’s going to dig out for me to watch.  I guess I’ll be waiting for that to see what happens.  I think I have a trump card already for that though.  My next act may just be to convince him to watch the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie.  Oh hohohoho!

A-kon 21

A-kon has come and gone, and here I am posting about it in less than a week! Exciting.

Unfortunately I don’t have much of a con report, because I didn’t see much of the con.  A great deal of my experience was ruined by terrible roommates.  I have learned a lesson there.  Sadly, I think I could have made room plans with a complete stranger and THEY probably would have been more courteous than these two people, one of whom I was acquainted with.

I’m happy to say that the cosplay this year was actually pretty varied.  There’s still some Chi’s (Chobits) about, but not near as much Naruto/Bleach/Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy as I’ve seen in recent years.  It’s nice to see that the crazes seem to be calming down a little bit.  However there must have been around 20 Luffy’s and at least a dozen Grell Sutcliffe’s which sucked for me, because I was looking for a specific Luffy and a specific Grell and I was also silly and didn’t bother to message either of them before the con so we could get together.  That’s an opportunity missed, especially since I don’t think I’ll be going back to A-kon next year.  I want to try and hit another convention, and my thoughts are going toward either Anime Boston or Anime Weekend Atlanta.

I did some cosplay for a few hours.  I got hugged quite a bit, mostly by people also cosplaying Deidara from Naruto.  It’s pretty weird, but nice to be loved.  I have to admit that at that point I was pretty down, and hugs from strangers picked me up some.  Yeah, I know.  It’s weird.  I also really enjoyed baffling fellow con-goers by simply staring at them when they decided to speak to me.  Mostly about how odd it was for Deidara and Gaara to be sitting together without fighting or being dead.  I’m pretty awkward socially, but it was also pretty funny to just watch the bafflement on their faces as they continued talking, like that was going to get me to respond to them.  Poor guys.

I did buy a lot of figures, and I will probably be taking some pictures to post over the weekend.  I was happy to find a Grell Sutcliffe, which goes nicely with my Sebastian, and I started a Zoro collection with a 10th anniversary One Piece figure – where apparently they had some joint thing going with Dragonball.  What a weird crossover.  Anyway, I also picked up about half a set of Petit Nendoroid Vocaloids, but I didn’t manage to get a Kaito, who I REALLY wanted.  However I did snag all three versions of Miku, though I have to confess that mostly I wanted her default.

I’ll leave you with pictures of my favorite cosplayer out of the approximately six cosplayers I took pictures of.  I’m getting weirdly shy about taking people’s pictures – I always mean to take more pictures, but I usually don’t.  Cursed shyness.  Anyway, here’s a couple pictures of a cool Zoro cosplayer.

Zoro cosplayer A-kon 21 (2010)

Zoro cosplayer close-up A-kon 21 (2010)

Dragonball Evolution is the greatest movie ever

No, I don’t actually believe that.  I’d really be in trouble or have some terrible taste if I did believe it.

Honestly, it’s one part sarcasm, and one part stubbornness.  The stubbornness springs from the fact that I regularly converse with a person who’s only seen approximately 20 minutes of Dragonball Evolution, but swears that it’s the worst movie ever made.  Which is in fact, untrue.  Don’t get me wrong, Dragonball Evolution is a BAD movie, but I’ve seen worse.  This attitude is just annoying me enough that I will now attempt to annoy that person by defending the movie every time he badmouths it.

It’s weird, but that’s the way I am.  It really annoys me to read/hear people’s opinions when they don’t even bother to watch/listen/read whatever they have the opinion about.  What’s worse is when a person accepts another person’s opinion as their own.  That’s just lazy.  Why bother having an opinion about something you never plan to watch then?  I really don’t get it.

In non-ranting updates, I’ve finally finished watching Gurren Lagann, and I have to admit that the ending had some tears coming to my eyes.  It’s been a little while since I really enjoyed what I was watching as much as Gurren Lagann, and I’m glad that the ending was…..an ending.  Honestly, I really liked the ending.

Since I finished Gurren Lagann out of my personal collection, I’ve moved on to Vandread which is not as good as I remembered it being.  I have the sinking feeling that this is going to be the trend for a lot of the anime I watched when I first became a fan, unfortunately.  It has a great premise: battle of the sexes in space.  Unfortunately, it really just turns into space harem with combining robots and one hell of a bitchy lead.  He is completely unlikable, but I still like a few of the side characters, such as the elderly captain of the female pilots, and the merchant guy who operates their ship naked.  Poor guy.  I’m just going to try and get through both seasons as quick as I can and move on to the next title in my collection.  If I ever finish, I will definitely be thinning it out.  I own some terrible anime.

I caught up with Fullmetal Alchemist:Brotherhood on hulu, so I started watching Spice and Wolf since it expires the soonest (May 14).  I’ll admit that a lot of the subject matter is pretty dry, and it’s definitely not for the average viewer, but I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve been enjoying watching it.  There’s an excellent chance I’ll end up buying it.  It’s a nice contrast to a lot of the other anime I watch, with it’s calmer pacing and excellent music.  I think that the music helps to draw me in even when my attention starts to wander away from the screen.

It’s shocking that I’ve posted twice in the same week now.  If you know Missouri weather, it’s been back and forth between summery warm and wintery chilly for the past month, and it really messes with me.  I spent most of last week simply working and sleeping, since I was pretty run down.  I’m feeling better so far this week though, so hopefully that stays true.  I hope all you guys are doing well too.

Hey look, a cosplay post

As you may or may not know, I’m planning to attend A-kon this year, but I’m not sure if I’ll make all three days or just Saturday and Sunday right now.  That depends on how much time I might have to take off work, and work has been somewhat complicated for me lately.

My budget’s been pretty low also, so the cosplay I had been planning to do, I can’t do now.  I’d been hoping to be able to make the shirt from fabric I already had, but I messed that up and put together something that would be way too small for me.  Plus, I’ve been procrastinating ordering a wig and accessories, so now is definitely too late to be doing any of that.  I really prefer to order wigs around 2 months in advance so I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll receive them on time or not.

Honestly I had given up on the idea of cosplaying for A-kon, but my roommate who’s going and will be cosplaying sorta bugged me into thinking about it again.  It doesn’t help any that I believe the last few costumes I have made have been pretty bad.  Bad enough that I’d rather not remember I wore them.  I’ve been in a slump about it, and I’m perfectionist enough that wearing a crappy costume really brings me down.

So I went through my collection of wigs to see what I had, and try to brainstorm characters to use them for, asking friends on facebook and twitter for suggestions.  Now I have a nice little list of characters I can cosplay that I don’t necessarily need to order a wig for, which is nice.  I ended up choosing Ruby from Rosario Vampire, and this weekend I bought material for her top, along with a pattern to make it.  If all goes well, I’ll start piecing it together and maybe even sewing it this week.

If all doesn’t go well, I just won’t cosplay.  I have nothing old I want to bring back out, and nothing comes to mind that’s all that easy to put together.

Fun random fact: the majority of my wigs are blonde, blue, or black.  I also have a couple green wigs.

Inappropriate Voices: Zero Kiryuu

Viz finally announced some of the dub voice cast for Vampire Knight a while back, and in their announcement Vic Mignogna was listed as the voice for Zero.  Which I personally find disappointing, because Zero is the ONLY reason I read/watch Vampire Knight, and I just think Vic won’t fit.  I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I can’t really judge without actually hearing the dub, right?

So to give myself some amusement, I decided to think of voice actors that would be even MORE inappropriate for the role of Zero.  Here’s my list so far, feel free to add any you think of in the comments.

• Steve Blum
• Crispin Freeman
• Spike Spencer
• Greg Ayres
• Mr. T

Batman/Superman Public Enemies

Recently I’ve decided to watch some of the direct to DVD movies that DC Comics has been putting out. I watched “Justice League: The New Frontier” and enjoyed it. So I figured I’d try out “Superman/Batman: Public Enemies.”

Let’s say I was very underwhelmed by this movie. The first hurdle I had to get over, and this one was tough, was the character designs. Everyone looked like they were made out of balloon animals. Screw the kryptonite, all Lex Luthor needed was a needle to poke Superman with. It seemed like every character’s muscles looked like tubes of brightly colored rubber. Power Girl’s design was especially bad. She reminded me of some kind of creepy rubber action figure that stares at you weird.

The plot wasn’t impressive at all. They had two storylines going on at the same time, which isn’t a problem if there is enough time to develop them. Unfortunately the running time was only 67 minutes, so instead of maybe one really well hashed out story, we got two subpar stories.

There were a few good points. The pointless battle between our protagonists and a small army of DC’s mostly popular and powerful villains was awesome, and well animated despite feeling very shoved into the movie. Well, to me that was the movie, and the stuff around that scene was the stuff that was shoved in. That part did make the rest of this subpar movie worth watching.

The voice cast is what makes me really sad about this movie. They had Kevin Conroy, Tim Daily, and Clancy Brown, three actors who I will forever associate with their DC characters, reprising these roles in such a sad attempt at a movie. I really wished that if they were going to get this trio back they would have made a better attempt at the script so that they would have had something better to work with.

Then there’s Levar “Geordi ‘Reading Rainbow’ La Forge” Burton to voice Black Lightening for ONE FRIGGIN’ LINE! That was it! The character was on screen for at least 10-15 minutes. I wasn’t expecting a speech on “How only you can save the Planet”, but more than one line of dialogue!

All in all, I’m not very impressed so far with the DC DVD movies, but I’m not going to give up just yet!”Justice League: The New Frontier” was pretty darn entertaining.  I’m going to go through 3 more of them this week, starting with “Crisis on Two Earths”, then “Wonder Woman” and finish it up with “Green Lantern: First Flight”.

Well That Figures: Project Diva Hatsune Miku

Last Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend asked me if I wanted him to buy me something from the dealer’s room of the local convention, rather than the traditional gifts.  Being an otaku, of course I said yes.  It was fun walking the dealer’s room looking for the perfect gift, while he nervously accompanied me.  After drooling over a $175 Sephiroth figure, I moved along until I found Project Diva Miku.

How could I resist that face?

What really made me choose this particular figure though, is her pose.  For a standing pose it shows a lot of movement and energy, which is perfect for a performer.

More detailed shots really help emphasize her twisting pose, with wrinkles in her shirt, and the movement of her skirt and tie.

Miku is also wonderfully detailed, right down to her painted fingernails.

As you can see from this close up shot, the paint is a little messy, but I’m personally willing to forgive that since it’s only slightly messy on very small details that are very difficult to paint neatly.

There’s even detail on her headset, and the lace on her collar is all nice and neat.

Miku’s hair is pretty standard anime hair…I don’t think it’s especially dynamic, but it serves its purpose and even doubles as extra stability for the figure as a whole.  If it wasn’t for her hair, I wouldn’t be sure that Miku would stand up without leaning.

All in all, this is an excellent figure with a highly detailed sculpt, and good paint.  She’s well worth what my boyfriend paid for her.

It’s just a shame I saw Miku before I spotted the $200 Zero Kiryuu (Vampire Knight) bedsheet. I could be sleeping on Zero now! (No…not really.  I’m kidding.)