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.

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.

Weekend Update!

This past weekend I’ve been pretty busy.  It was the weekend of Naka-Kon of course, and of course it was lots of fun.  I really enjoyed myself even though the grand majority of my time was spent behind the volunteer desk.

Overall it seemed like a calmer, more organized convention than it had in past years, and a lot safer for that.  I’m not sure if I’ll want to staff again next year or not…at the moment I think I’ll wait and see.  I really didn’t do anything besides work and visit the dealer’s room.

I also didn’t realize how big a draw two raves can be.  I personally don’t think that two are necessary, but from this weekend, I’ve learned that most of the Naka-kon attendees really want both those raves.  This year, one got replaced by a formal ball, and I heard the ball was actually pretty boring.  It’s a nice concept, but really, I’d be happy with a dance party sort of event.  Not a rave, not a ball, a dance.  That’s just me though.

I did pick up some figures, of course.  Not as many as I have in previous years, but the quality outweighs the quantity.  I’m debating on which to have a figure post about first, and I may put up a new poll for that.

I was also very impressed with the many awesome people who donated their time to help with registration and badge checking, including my roommate who got drafted because she was hanging around and chatting with me.  She rocks, and so do all the other volunteers.  I was also quite happy to see the number of adults starting to become larger as well as the usual 20-something and under crowd, especially in volunteers.  It warms this little otaku’s heart.

More later.  I’m going to sleep now and prepare for my boring week of working.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody! I hope you all enjoy today whether it’s a special day to you or not.  I know it can be pretty rough hearing about all the couples doing their lovey-dovey thing out there, so all I can say is just do whatever you enjoy doing and be happy.

This weekend brought another big change to my personal life.  My boyfriend has proposed and we’re getting married this summer.  Very exciting stuff, and it shocked the heck out of me.  I’m pretty lucky, I’ll be married to a guy who won’t mind my overwhelming obsessions…it’s pretty mutual actually.  He’s big into World of Warcraft and science fiction shows, which I don’t mind, so we’re a good fit.  I hope someday everyone can find someone that suits them like that.

Spring season and other thoughts

Recently checked out the chart for anime being released this spring, and it looks like I’ll at least be checking out more anime than I did for the winter (which by the way was zero, unless you count keeping up with Kimi ni Todoke).  I’ll probably be checking out Angel Beats, Maid Sama, and Black Rock Shooter, unless Crunchyroll pulls another Fairy Tail on any of them, in which case I’ll simply pass.  I’m really that lazy, and if I know there’s a legal means to watch the anime that I just don’t want to pay for, I’ll wait for another legal way to watch it.  Although I’ve heard that Fairy Tail is merely okay, so it seems I haven’t missed out on much there.

I’m relieved to admit that so far, out of the big pile of manga I bought a little while back, only 3 have grabbed me enough that I’ll probably keep up to date with them: Black Butler, Pandora Hearts, and Butterflies, Flowers.  I still have about half the pile to read still, and I bought a few more today.  I may do a couple group mini-review posts for all those.

My resolution to watch only a few anime at a time is not working like I’d hoped.  Right now, my MAL will show you that I’m in the middle of 15 series, which to me is a ridiculously high number.  I’m going to try and reduce that number a little, but it doesn’t help when I keep coming across this anime and that anime.  I should be finishing Fullmetal Panic! and Earth Maiden Arjuna soon though.

I’m also currently tempting fate by reading the first One Piece omnibus which contains the first three volumes of manga.  Looking it up earlier, I’ve found that apparently there’s omnibus editions up to the first 12 volumes, which is a good deal if you haven’t checked out One Piece yet.  I know, I’m late to the party, as usual.  I happen to like the rock that I live under for most of the year.  I’m enjoying it so far.

In videogames, I’m far behind everyone else, also as usual.  I should start playing Bioshock again.  In case you’re not sure, I mean the first Bioshock.  Then again, I might play Twilight Princess some more, but that’s only if I can get hold of a strategy guide.  Before anyone suggests gamefaqs, I’d just like to point out that I prefer guides with pictures and maps, thank you very much.

That’s all that’s going on in my world for now.  Except for Naka-kon which is next weekend.  Boy did time fly getting closer, but that’s how it always goes.  I need to put the finishing touches on my cosplay and see if I can’t get my prop closer to being finished.  I might not have the prop done in time, but I’m not too worried about it.  I’ll be staff this year, so I have no idea what my schedule’s going to be.  Hopefully I’ll still be able to check out a panel or two and take lots of pictures.

Changes are Afoot (personal)

This weekend was really pretty good.  I’d found out that I’d won a Tokyopop manga contest, and received the package for it, which had six volumes of free manga.  Can’t beat that!  However, I’ll be reading all except one of them AFTER I read the giant stack I bought last weekend.  While I’m on last weekend: DAMN.  So far, I’ve been drawn in by every first volume that I’ve read, which is sad news for my wallet.  Fortunately for me, the next volumes are not out, so I’ll just have to be patient.  I can do that, and besides I have plenty to read still.

My roommate is going to be teaching in China for two years.  The way that this affects me personally is that I technically live in HER house.  So we need to find someone else to come live here and help me pay bills, because I unfortunately can’t afford to pay them all on my own, otherwise I would.  We’re hoping to find someone soon though, and have that figured out at least.

How will this affect Araknamedia?  It probably won’t, honestly.  I don’t keep a regular schedule anyway, and one to two posts a week for me seem pretty comfortable.  However, in case I don’t post for a while, that’s probably why.

I’ve been amused to watch the votes trickle in on my review poll.  I’m counting Soul Eater as a shounen action review, so looks like I should review something of CLAMP soon.  I don’t really have anything “new” there, so I’ll probably just pull out something old and write up my opinions on it.  I’m thinking I’ll probably re-read the Legend of Chun Hyang.  Have a suggestion? Let me know in the comments.  If it’s fairly easy to access, that’s what I’ll review.  It has to be CLAMP though.

Attention Manga Lovers

I just went through my manga collection and have quite a few that I don’t want. Here’s the deal: if you see something here that you’d like to have, comment here or e-mail me  (sailorsamus@araknamedia.com) and I’ll send it to you. I’m not really interested in making money from these, I really just want them out of my room and I’m willing to send them to people I (sorta) know first.  No charge.  I will send you free manga.

In the (unlikely) event that more than one person wants a volume of whatever, whoever messages me first gets it. I’ll be keeping this list updated also.  Also, I’ve put this list up on my personal facebook page, so there may be some competition, but I doubt it’ll be all that serious.  I just hope this works.

Manga up for grabs!

-Beauty Pop vol 8 (Shojo Beat/Viz) Kiyoko Arai
-Absolute Boyfriend vols. 1,2,3 (Shojo Beat/Viz) Yuu Watase
-Ral Grad vols. 1,2,3 (Shonen Jump Advanced/Viz) Tsuneo Takano & Takeshi Obata
-Wild Ones vols. 1,2,3,4,5 (Shojo Beat/Viz) Kiyo Fujiwara
-Tokyo Boys & Girls vols. 1,2,3,4,5 (Shojo Beat/Viz) Miki Aihara
-Heaven’s Will (Shojo Beat/Viz) Satoru Takamiya
-The World Exists for Me (Tokyopop) Chiho Saito & Be-Papas
-Descendants of Darkness: Yami no Matsuei, vol.1 (Viz) Yoko Matsushita
-Densha Otoko vol.1 (CMX) Hitori Nakano & Wataru Watanabe
-Her Majesty’s Dog vol.1 (go!Comi) Mick Takeuchi
-Go Go Heaven!! vol.1 (CMX) Keiko Yamada
-The Magic Touch (Oyayubikara Romance) vols. 1,2 (Shojo Beat/Viz) Izumi Tsubaki
-Sensual Phrase vol.1 (Viz) Mayu Shinjo
-Captive Hearts vols. 1,2,3 (Shojo Beat/Viz) Matsuri Hino
*Edit February 10, 2010: all claimed or sold off, sorry about my impatience, although this isn’t too likely to happen again any time soon. Rest assured, any time I have extras of something, I will post them here first for you guys. Or make a contest of it.

This is why Ericvonroyer is Evil

Taken from messenger conversation last night

sailorsamus: You should do that. You could use a new game to play. On the other hand, I have games I haven’t even opened o_O

Ericvonroyer: I bet you haven’t even started quest mode in Super Smash Bros.

sailorsamus: uh…. I’ll tell you what I DID start. WiiFit. I’m probably going to regret it tomorrow though.

Ericvonroyer: Nice distraction.

sailorsamus: Besides, you forgot the guide for Twilight Princess again.

Ericvonroyer: I did remember Fight Club though.

sailorsamus: yes you did.

Ericvonroyer: I’d rather you watch that.

sailorsamus: what. But Link is a bastion of manliness.

Ericvonroyer: he wears tights.

sailorsamus: well real manly men wear tights.

Ericvonroyer: And after Twilight New Moon, turning into a wolf and having “twilight” in the title doesn’t help.

sailorsamus:  : o  how dare you! ;^;

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and Happy Holidays to everybody else!  May the season be kind to you all.

Serious business update…yeah, not really

First a personal/site note: if you’re subscribed to the blog would you be so kind as to re-subscribe? I mucked around with feedburner, and now I can’t see any stats for the site, and I know people are visiting… -_-  My apologies.  I promise not to mess around with feedburner any more.  Thanks!

Other personal/site note:  I have attempted to take pictures of my tiny figures with my digital camera, and it didn’t work out all that well -_-;;  That particular project will have to wait until I purchase a better camera, which probably won’t be until next month.

Now on to your regularly scheduled blog post….

I’ll be honest.  I hadn’t actually planned to do a blog post, but tears4dragons (pictured above, muwahaha >:D) suggested I do one.  Which is a good idea actually.

I’ve been planning cosplays for Naka-Kon in February pretty much since the last Naka-kon this past March.  The only constant bit is that I keep changing my mind on which characters I want to cosplay.  My initial plans were to cosplay Mistral from the .hack games and Yomiko from Read or Die, and it has changed to Yomiko from Read or Die and Maka Albarn from Soul Eater, mostly because I can find most of the parts for both costumes without having to rely on my mostly beginner sewing skills.  Mistral requires me to make the entire costume on my own.  I know I could commission it, but commissions tend to be expensive and the quality isn’t assured.  For my own purposes it’s much simpler to attempt the costume myself.

The nice bit about the cosplays at the moment is that they both have some kind of trenchcoats, and since it’s winter, the local thrift store is carrying…trench coats!  I have done fairly decent with simply modifying clothing into cosplay for my first cosplay which was Hinata from Naruto – still one of my most favorite characters ever.  However, the population of Naruto cosplayers in Kansas City is getting younger and younger each year, which leads to me feeling like a pervert whenever I cosplay a Naruto character.  So…there’s a personal need for me to move on to other fandoms.  Unfortunately I can see Soul Eater being one of those fandoms that is particularly embraced by the younger con-goers here, meaning I may not cosplay those characters much in the Midwest.  I’ll have to see what this next Naka-kon is like.

The best part is that I get paid this weekend and can start looking into purchasing bits for this costume.  It should easily be done by February, and I can probably also indulge in my desire to play with prop making.  So in coming weeks, assuming I actually make progress on this endeavor, you could look forward to progress posts.

That’s it for now.  I’m almost finished watching RahXephon and Saiyuki Reload, so I’ll probably be posting thoughts on those soon also.