Araknamedia

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.)

Successful test!

Anime is available in more forms now than when I first became a fan, back when I was in high school.  As great as streaming is, I do remember the bad old days of taking an obscenely long amount of time to watch a low resolution, 2 minute video.  So I tend toward skepticism every time some new bit of technology is proclaimed as the greatest thing to ever happen.  Mostly because there are always bugs, and the lowest common denominator is hardly ever taken into consideration.

What the heck am I talking about?  Today, I’m talking about my tower.  It’s very slow, and not terribly reliable, although I haven’t had any problems with it lately.  I wasn’t even sure streaming would work well until I tested that out this past weekend, watching anime on Hulu and Crunchyroll.  To my surprise, both worked without a hitch.  Both sites ran 99% perfectly, which is great, because that means I can chip away at my 700-episode queue on Hulu, and watch some more current stuff on Crunchyroll.

What did I watch?  I’m currently trying to catch up on Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, but I don’t actually see that happening any time soon.  It really depends on my mood when I get home from work.  On Crunchyroll, I gave Durarara! a try – both because I finished Baccano! recently and liked it, and because Durarara! had been recommended to me.  I’ve watched 3 episodes and I like it so far.  It’s very intriguing and I actually like that the pace seems more laid back than Baccano!.  I just hope the ending doesn’t annoy me as much as the ending to Baccano! did.

So what would you suggest I watch on either site?  Or, what are you all currently watching?  I’m curious, and questions are a good way to end this relatively short and sweet post.

I want to find happiness

I’m not sure exactly when manga started being published by companies in the United States.  My earliest manga purchases were the paperback size Mixx Manga of Sailor Moon, and the big flopped Magic Knight Rayearths.  The latter of which was surprisingly expensive even then – 14.95 per volume.  Yet I bought them.  I started into anime and manga fandom in the middle of my high school years and remember there only being a shelf of books to consider buying.  Thankfully over the years, the selection has grown to such an extent that I couldn’t possibly keep up with all the titles I want to keep up on, let alone new ones.  I’ve still managed to amass what I’d like to think is a pretty impressive collection.

There was a time early in my fandom when I was able to keep abreast of all CLAMP releases, and one that stood out was Clover with its weird tissue paper-like dust covers.  The volumes I own are in decent condition, but those covers tear so easily.  They’re pretty, but ultimately impractical, so I was glad to see an omnibus edition collecting all of Clover into one convenient volume.  Of course, I purchased it, and re-read the entire thing, and it surprised me.

A quick synopsis: Kazuhiko, a retired military officer, is requested to go on a final mission for his former commander.  He is to escort a girl, Sue to Fairy Park.  Along the way they are intercepted by the military of an opposing country, but eventually they reach their destination.

Now what really surprised me about it is that Clover annoys me terribly.  There are two giant reasons that it annoys me.  I appreciate the story being somewhat centered around a singer and the song that she co-writes with the girl, but the endless repetition of random song lyrics really got on my nerves, personally.  For me, it doesn’t help that I have absolutely no frame of reference for the tune of the song.  Without the tune, the lyrics have no rhythm and don’t add anything to the story besides my annoyance.

The other reason is the art, or the lack thereof.  It’s old style CLAMP with loads of wispy hair and sharp pointy eyes, which isn’t a problem.  The problem for me is all the white space, and all the panels that look like they were simply photocopied badly and pasted into place.  I spent a little time reflecting on why this bothers me so much and the simple reason is that I feel cheated.  I buy manga for both story and art, but this one seems awfully light on the art.  With all the manga I read, I’ve really become used to the page being filled, with empty pages serving to emphasize an event.  Most of the pages being empty however, emphasizes nothing and merely irritates me.  It seems awfully lazy.

My smaller complaint is the story.  The main story is linear, but it’s resolved in two volumes, leaving the other two volumes to fill in background.  I actually enjoy narrative that jumps the timeline of the story, so I didn’t mind this…much.  On a second reading however, it just seems like volumes three and four are filler created solely to fill up space.  The sad part is, I liked volume 3 more than the rest of the series.  It does the most to shed light on the entire world setting and general plot.  Plus the relationship between Ran and Ginsetsu is more interesting than any of the other relationships in any of the volumes.

Sadly, I have to say that I would not recommend buying the Clover omnibus, unless you happen to be a CLAMP completist.  Even then, I probably wouldn’t suggest it, simply because it’s so different from the works of CLAMP that I happen to be familiar with.  I will however, being looking forward to the Cardcaptor Sakura omnibuses with much glee.

Chibi Reviews: Suzaku of the Counterattack, Higurashi, and Black Butler

I’ve been reading a lot of manga lately, mostly because I can’t walk out of a store without at least 3 volumes, so I’ve been trimming down my stack to read by taking them to work with me and reading during my breaks.  Since I promised reviews of most of my last massive buying binge, I’m going to post some mini reviews, focusing on three aspects of each: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Code Geass: Suzaku of the Counterattack volume 1 manga by Atsuro Yomino, published by Bandai Entertainment

Synopsis: Code Geass told through the point of view of Suzaku Kururugi and without the mech suits.

the Good: The alternate telling of Code Geass from Suzaku’s perspective is interesting.

the Bad: It’s a little too unfamiliar.

the Ugly: It’s not all that memorable.

I didn’t actually buy this manga intentionally, it was included in a Code Geass DVD box set, which also had a soundtrack and drama CD.  I wish more box sets were that cool.

Higurashi: When They Cry (Abducted by Demons Arc I) story by Ryukishi07, art by Karin Suzuragi, published by Yen Press

Synopsis: Keiichi is really enjoying himself in his new hometown with his new friends, until he starts learning about the secret that everyone is hiding.

the Good: The color art is spectacular and the two page spread in this volume is one of the creepiest images I have ever seen.  I still get chills looking at it.

the Bad: The rest of the art was generic.

the Ugly: The harem seems awfully contrived.  I know this is derived from a game, but it still bothers me.

Black Butler, volume 1 story and art by Yana Toboso, published by Yen Press

Synopsis: Ciel Phantomhive’s butler Sebastian seems to be too good to be true or too perfect to be human…

the Good: There’s a good mix of seriousness and humor.

the Bad: I honestly can’t remember all that much of the plot in this volume.

the Ugly: The first chapter is completely different from the rest of the volume – reading it along nearly turned me off from the series altogether.

Unless otherwise stated, I personally buy all the manga that I review.

Seel! Wait, I mean Ciel!

If you follow me on twitter, you might remember that I complained quite a bit last weekend about sitting next to a guy wearing a skirt.  If you don’t follow me on twitter, that’s cool because I’m going to relate the entire story anyway.

This past weekend was Naka-Kon, a Kansas City anime convention running for its sixth year at the Hyatt Regency Crown Center.  I had applied to be staff this year, and I could be found at the Volunteer desk.  Whenever my director was away from the desk for a while there was usually another staff member sitting there with me.  One happened to be a guy cosplaying Riku Harada from D.N. Angel.  His costume was nice, it was just too bad that he completely acted like a guy.  Wearing a dress.  He would sit in his chair with his legs wide open, and then turn toward me to stare at what I was writing.  It was terribly awkward for me, mostly because I couldn’t leave, and I didn’t want to speak to him.  He’d already tried talking to me, but just quit after I didn’t show any signs of being impressed by what he was saying.

The funny thing is he’d talked to my roommate the day before.  Unfortunately that bit of conversation formed my initial not-exactly-positive image of him.

Him: Hey, you’re Rikku!

Roomie: …..yep.

Him: I’m Riku too!

Roomie: …..that’s cool. (shifty eyes)

Him: We should get a Riku from Kingdom Hearts, and (something I don’t remember), and make a whole group of just Rikus!!

Roomie: …uh….yeah.

Then we took our leave of him. Quickly.

I was happy to see a pretty complete cosplay group for Kuroshitsuji at Naka-kon.  I was surprised too, since the anime is (to me) pretty new, and not licensed (as far as I know).  I had personally just started watching Kuroshitsuji a couple weeks before Naka-kon, so I was especially tickled to see the cosplay group, and since I was working, sent the roomie off with my camera to get pictures of them.

Which brings me to my main-ish subject of this post: Ciel Phantomhive.  Starting Kuroshitsuji, I really didn’t like Ciel all that much.  He just seemed to me to be your fairly typical young, educated/smart, aristocratic, expressionless male.  In short, he’s better than everyone, and lets them know that they bore him.  It’s really overdone, so I’ll admit that I wrote him off.

Then I saw the episode of the anime where Ciel had to be disguised as a girl, wearing one pink and frilly dress.  That’s cause for chuckles normally, but it actually got me to like him.  The reason I started liking Ciel with his whole cross-dressing fiasco is that he was visibly uncomfortable with his situation.  His stance and expression showed his discomfort and the fact that he definitely did not want to be doing that.  Having to avoid his fiancee helped with the humor/discomfort.  For me, that made Ciel relatable.  He didn’t do the “cool guy” thing of showing absolutely no change in expression, and that’s why I now like him, at least more than I did.

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.