The Wicked Anime Blog.

Blue Dragon Plus by Ignition - Review

2009-02-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my last post that a review of Blue Dragon Plus would be coming up, and it's about that time. Unfortunately, I got the game 2-3 days after I expected it to get here, so I took a little extra time to work through it some more.

The first thing I will say is this: It was not what I expected it to be. It was better, most definitely. I was expecting a cookie cutter RPG, sort of like Fire Emblem, fun, but overdone. Well, I was quite surprised when it turned out quite different. Read on for more. ^^

First off, I want to say that I like the packaging. I know it's insignificant, but I just have to mention that the simple, streamlined design is quite attractive.

Of course, the important part is the gameplay, which is actually real time. This isn't my first RTS, but it was pretty innovative in the way things were implemented. I started the game off with a tutorial stage, which was quite nice. Easy to understand and it taught me what I needed to know.

You could say that this is a very fast paced game. There are medals that you pick up automatically when one of your units simply walks over it, so no need to stop and "loot." Also, there are treasure chests in almost all stages. In order to pick these up you just have to click a unit, and click the chest. That unit will automatically go up to it and take the loot. Of course, you need to be careful that the unit doesn't get ambushed on the way to the chest. ^^

One of the things that bugged me a bit were some of the drawn out conversations. While they were rather informative, they were a bit long-winded at times, which seems to oppose the idea that this game is aimed toward children. Children = short attention span, thus, long conversations = bad. Of course, that's just a small complaint. I really loved that I got a healer relatively early on in the game, and she AoE heals at that! What game lets you have an AoE healer after the first few battles!? None that I know of, except this one. ^^

The graphics were pretty nice too, cut-scenes made use of both screens, and quality was the best you could expect a DS to handle. Pretty much the entire game is controlled using a stylus and your D-pad, so get used to using that stylus if you aren't already. I found it sort of a pain that I had to constantly touch the screen with a stylus in order for the text to speed up. I didn't want to skip it altogether, but it was far to slow, with no setting (that I know of) to speed it up.

Another pet peeve for me were the menus. They seemed to be made up of *too* many gradient like "buttons," most of which weren't really buttons. I had to figure out if there was more than one button on multiple menus. Definitely could have used a better layout.

Though most of the menus had a pretty bad design, there was one VERY cool redeeming feature, and that was detailed stats of the characters. Far too many RPGs and RTSs don't let you see detailed stats, but this game had it all, far too many to list, but really anything you would need in order to see each of the unit's strengths and weaknesses.

All of my complaints are quite minimal in importance though, because the game is very playable, and very fun. I'm definitely planning to finish it, just a little at a time due to time restraints. Overall, I would definitely recommend this game to any RPGers or RTSers who don't mind playing on a DS, as well as anyone interested in fast-paced game play. It keeps you on your toes, thinking about what to do in split second timing. At the very least, it's good for your brain. ^^

Lastly, just for your edification, there has been an anime made for the Blue Dragon series, 2 seasons in fact. Supposedly part of the first season aired on Cartoon Network, but got canceled soon thereafter. There was also a manga made for the series which ran for 4 volumes. Interestingly, the art for the manga was done by Takeshi Obata, who, as some of you may recall, was the artist for Death Note, Bakuman, and Hikaru no Go.

For anyone interested, I suggest Amazon.com if you want to buy Blue Dragon Plus.

Thanks to RocketXL for allowing me to review Blue Dragon Plus, I'm willing to review any other DS, Wii, or computer games that will be coming out. ^^

Blue Dragon Plus

2009-02-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

Hello all, wanted to let you know about an upcoming review post. I was contacted and asked to do a review of an upcoming Nintendo DS game called Blue Dragon Plus. They gave me some links to media, and I will be getting a copy of the game and reviewing in a day or two hopefully.

So, here is a little widget that they prepared for the release of the game, as well as a pretty interesting cinematic trailer.

Kanu Unchou Maid Ver. - By GoodSmile

2009-02-11T13:25:00.001-08:00

Hello all! I know it's been a LONG time since the past post, which was my first music post, but I swear I have a good excuse! Actually, I have a few. After classes ended last semester I was planning to make more posts here, but little did I know that I had less than a couple of weeks worth of vacation, and life off the internet took priority there. Christmas time came, and I got the new Nikon D40 that I asked for, so I have been doing a little experimenting with it, trying to get used to it. It's rather difficult for someone who has never used an SLR before, digital or not. Anyway, down to business. I recently purchased the maid version Kanu Unchou off of a Dannychoo.com member, drakanity, so I thought I would go ahead and do my first formal figure review on her, especially since I have a DSLR to take some nice pics with now. ^^

This Kanu figure isn't a brand new release or anything, but she is quite lovely. She's listed as a "Wani Books" figure, but she was actually sculpted by Good Smile Company, and I have as of yet to be disappointed with Good Smile.

Her skirt is castoff-able (pics at the end of the article ^^), but it's too bad that her top isn't. :p

I read multiple reviews on her before I decided to purchase, something I suggest everyone do before making a figure purchase, even if they are sure that they will like the figure. One review I read mentioned her boots, which happen to be somewhat of a vibrant, semi-dark color blue, which, of course, does not seem to match her outfit at all. This would be the only complaint I have -- as they look more fitting of Ryomou than Kanu, but it's most definitely not that significant of an error in my mind.

I love her maid outfit, it gives her sort of a more girlish, cute look, while retaining her strength and elegance.

In quite a few of these pictures you can see the way Good Smile sculpted her hair, which is quite amazing. Very detailed, lots of work went into her hair, and the entire figure at that.

If anyone were considering buying this figure, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. It's an excellent sculpt, paint job, and general figure design. Definitely worth the money.

Also, not much, but at least a little yoko-pai (side of the "eyes," if you do not know what I mean by "eyes" then you may want to visit dannychoo.com and do a little research) is exposed, always nice to see. ^^

Also, these are the first pictures I have watermarked. I'm not very experienced when it comes to digital photography, whether it be actually taking pictures, or working with them in a photo editor, but I tried my best to make a good looking watermark. I ended up watermarking each photo by hand, individually, for two reasons. One, I don't have a batch watermarker (anyone know of any for windows? ^^.) Two, I had finally found a good looking design/color combo for my watermark text, but it didn't contrast enough with the white snow, so I had to tweak certain images by hand to get the contrast right.

Well, I'll stop babbling on and finish this article off with the remainder of the photos. Any and all feedback on my photo taking/editing skills is welcome, as I am trying to improve however I can. Also, just a little heads up. Here start the cast off photos, not too risque though, so shouldn't matter for most. ^^

I had promised more music posts previously, and they most definitely will be coming. For now, posts will be unpredictable, just as my current school schedule is. x.x Also, I am taking a web design class, and my final project is supposed to be a custom designed web page. As such, I am thinking of using that project as an opportunity to improve this blog. I might end up overhauling the entire design of this site, and hosting it on my own in the (somewhat) near future.

I know I don't have very many readers, but what would you like to see on this site?

Update and J-Music

2008-11-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

Above is "Last Song", a nice slower song from my favorite Japanese artist, Gackt.

Hello all, I know it's been quite a long time since my last update; I've been very busy with school. I've been doing English 1A, History 17, PHP programming, and an Internet class. This post is actually, in part, for the internet class, as part of what the instructor wants the class to do. My semester will be ending relatively soon, so I will most definitely take advantage of that and post quite a bit more.

Anyway, this post, along with another few posts will cover J-Music (J-Music stands for "Japanese-Music" for those of you who might not know). They will also, all have youtube video links. It will be a little bit each day since I don't have the time to sit down and compile large posts just yet. I hope these posts can expose J-Music to Western culture a bit more, maybe help break down some of the ideas that people hold about Japan, for instance, the idea that Japan is entirely traditional and doesn't have modern music and styles. I've heard that one out of many people before. ^^;

First, I'll start off with some J-Rock. There are many artists that are known quite well in America already, but there are many more which have almost no fan basis in America. I'll include a bit of both.

Another moderately slow song from Gackt, who, while being classified as mainly J-Rock, kind of isn't. He has rockish sounding songs, but many of his songs are actually slower. Another interesting thing to note, J-Rock could be metal, screamo, slower rock, just about anything that falls under rock, and is by a Japanese band. As such, some harder rock will be coming after Gackt. ^^

"Rain" by Gackt.

By the way, I've been trying to take some good figure photos for reviews, but I just can't seem to get good ones with a point and shoot camera, so I'll hopefully be getting a DSLR soon. *Crosses fingers for Christmas* xD

This is the last one I'll post from Gackt, and is also a faster song, more of what you might expect to hear when you think of "J-Rock". For those who may be interested, there are many sources of information about Japanese artists on the internet (along with artists of every other nationality), so I will post a link to some wikipedia information for each of them.

"Returner (Yami no Shuuen)" by Gackt.

Now for some harder rock. It might be a good idea for me to tell you all a bit about "Visual Kei" (lit. Visual Style in english.) Some people like this style, other hate it, but quite a lot of the harder J-Rock comes from bands that are Visual Kei (which can also be shortened to "Visu", something that I will be doing from now on.) One of the things that many people hate about Visu is the fact that many of the members in different bands look at least slightly androgynous. If people don't like this then that's fine, but there is no reason to judge how good a band is based upon their looks, even though Visu is based upon looks. xD

Here is a couple of videos from what is probably one of the most well known Visu bands, especially in America, Dir en Grey. They have had many different looks and styles of music over the years, but that helps to make them quite a versatile band.

Let me warn you now, Dir en grey does have screamo sounding songs, and some of the videos I link may not be entirely appropriate for younger audiences. :p

"Saku" by Dir en grey

Die en grey is actually a band that's been around for a while, they has their classic Visu days:

"Akuro no Oka" by Dir en grey

And, finally, my favorite song and music video by Dir en grey. This video is, to say the least, very crazy, most definitely not appropriate in many workplaces, and may be hated by many people. But I love it. ^^

"Obscure" by Dir an grey

Two or three more artists left for this post. Next will be a group called Maximum the Hormone, definitely among my favorites.

This first song is the second opening song for the anime "Death Note".

What's Up People! by Maximum the Hormone.

One of my favorite songs.

"Koi no Mega Lover" by Maximum the Hormone

I'll just post one up from this next band, the GazettE. I am only going to post one up for two reasons, one, it's their best song, and two, it's the only song of theirs that immediately comes to mind as one of my favorites. Not that their other songs are no good, they actually have many good songs, but none are nearly as good as this one, at least in my opinion.

Since I'm now running a bit short on time, this will be the last band for this post, more to come later. UVERworld, a band that might be known in America due to the use of one fo their songs in the anime "Bleach". That song is this next one.

"D-Technolife" by UVERworld.

UVERworld is a bit more of a softer rock band, not so metal sounding, but I love all types of music, hopefully everyone else might take this sort of point of view too. ^^

"Chance!" by UVERworld.

Last song of this post, it's a moderately slower song by UVERworld, nice to listen to. :p

"Kimi no Suki na uta" by UVERworld.

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed this post, and maybe became interested in some new bands, there are many more to come, and my posts will never be meant to be comprehensive, as there are so very many different bands out there.

Update and Anime Girls

2008-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

I'm very sorry that I haven't kept up with updates, English and History classes have been taking all of my time up, so things have been pretty hectic. I will definitely update when I have the time, and once classes end for this semester I'll be back to update daily hopefully.

In the mean time, here are a some sexy and cute anime girls. ^^

Ringo and Konata pics are from The Anime Gallery, really not sure about the rest.

And last, but not least by a long shot:

Fall 2008 Anime List

2008-09-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

The new Fall anime list is out! I would like to thank Denizen over at myanimelist.net for making this list. By the way, click for a much larger image. ^^

Which of these anime are on your to watch list? I have a lot of them on my list, but I'm most looking forward to Rosario + Vampire Capu2, Penguin Musume Heart 2nd Club, Clannad: After Story, Kemeko Deluxe, and Vampire Knight Guilty.

Found via dannychoo.com news items, posted by member, Sie Kensou.

Opening of Good Smile English site

2008-09-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

As you may or may not have heard by now, Good Smile Company has opened an English version of their website. The website is being run on Danny Choo's web platform, Mirai Gaia. Danny was, of course, the first to announce this great achievement. In his post, he also made mention of the fact that he is now part of Good Smile's "International Strategy team", they are aiming to make figures more easily available to people all over the globe. Very good news for all of us not in Japan right now.

With such great a great achievement and, I'm quite sure, many more to come, I do believe we have much to look forward to in the otaku community.

Danny, Haruka and Mirai Nendoroids

2008-08-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

Amazing artist and dannychoo.com member chun finished doodling and coloring her "Nendoroid" versions of Danny Choo, Haruka Suenaga and Mirai Suenaga. Haruka and Mirai are Danny's mascots over at his blog, dannychoo.com.

I sure hope GoodSmile Company decided to make nendoroid figures of these, I would definitely buy them. xD

Once this site gets bigger I think I'm going to commission chun to make me a mascot. ^^

Dannychoo.com news item post here.

S4 League

2008-08-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

I recently found and started playing this game called S4 League. WOW, what an awesome game.

Created by Korean game company Pentavision (Sorry if that link doesn't work, it's supposed to be their homepage but I can't get it to load.), and translated/distributed by international game distributor Ala Playa, the game has anime inspired graphics, awesome fast paced third-person shooter action, amazing physics (not completely realistic but very well executed exaggerated physics), and excellent costume and character designs.

Here are some screen shots of my character and the gameplay.

You play either Death Match or Touch Down (where there is a ball and each team competes to get the ball to the opposing team's goal, very fast paced).

You earn "PEN", the in game currency, for playing games, with which you can purchase new weapons, skills, and costumes.

The game is still in beta so it's somewhat glitchy, bad server connections at times and slow/laggy servers. But overall it's VERY worth it to play, it's a ton of fun.

Originally found via dannychoo.com news items, posted by member: seth.frostheart.

By the way, I'm starting my new college semester tomorrow, Monday. It's already hectic, time wise, and I haven't even start, so I really don't know how much time I'm going to have. I will most definitely try to keep this blog updated, but we'll see what I can manage.

Fullmetal Alchemist - New TV Series

2008-08-21T01:04:00.000-07:00

Awesome news: Fullmetal Alchemist is getting another TV series!

All that's known so far is that it has been confirmed. More detail is available over at Anime News Network, info found via dannychoo.com member news items, posted by member marl0.

Animation's 100th Anniversary.

2008-08-19T00:38:00.000-07:00

Animation had it's 100th anniversary on the 17th of this month.

Sorry this is a little late, have been delayed in things lately.

We owe a thank you of massive proportions to the pioneer of animation: Émile Cohl. 100 years ago it took Cohl from February 1908 to May or June 1908 to create the very first animated film: "Fantasmagorie".

Made up from 700 double-exposed drawings, Fantasmagorie had a running time of almost 2 minutes. The film's title is a reference to the "fantasmograph", a mid-Nineteenth Century variant of the magic lantern that projected ghostly images that floated across the walls.

Émile Cohl

My hat is off to Émile Cohl, along with all the other pioneers of animation, without them we probably would not have such amazing animated shows:

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Death Note

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Howl's Moving Castle

Lucky Star

Or sweet 2D girls as these ^^:

Click on any of the pictures for full res versions, I don't have the sources unfortunately. Also, I recently found a ton of Miku pics on Wakachan, is anyone interested in a Miku pic post? :p

Anime Parody MADs

2008-08-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't really been able to keep up with the posts like I should, been busy organizing and cleaning around the house.

This way posted by a dannychoo.com member named Coco the Bean in the news items.

Multiple anime OP parodyMADs.

Haruhi x Hidamari Sketch OP

By the way, I realize that I haven't had this blog for long, but I would like to make it as good a blog as possible. I haven't covered any anime or idols, both quite an integral part of otaku-dom. So, I just want to let you all know that I will be covering everything, but it may take a bit for some things because I'm still getting the hang of this and I'm very busy. As a matter of fact I'm starting my next college semester in about a week or so, that will make it even harder for me. I will try to keep a pace of 1 post every 1-2 days, but we will see what happens.

Anyway, without further ado, here are a few OP parody MADs.

This is actually an ED: Haruhi x Hidamari Sketch ED

Gurren Lagann x Cutie Honey OP

Idolm@ster Xenoglossia x Neon Genesis Evangelion OP

Sunon: Sunohara x Kanon OP

Kanon x Lucky Star OP

And last, but definitely not least: Haruhi x Lucky Star OP (I love this one xD).

Has anyone here made any MADs?

Akihabara Geeks

2008-08-15T17:03:00.000-07:00

Otaku Dan has a review up of a movie called Akihabara Geeks over at his blog. More pics available there, too.

I'm trying to get this movie as we speak, seems very interesting. I would really like to see more about the lives of Japanese otaku. Is anyone else interested ins seeing this movie?

My new Nendoroid and Figma!

2008-08-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

Just got these two from Hobby Search, will take more pictures and do full reviews later. Nendoroid Mikuru and Konata Figma, I just HAD to get them both when I saw them at Hobby Seach... I should probably stop browsing that site when I know I should be saving my money. xD

I know I said the same about other figures I got, but I'm having some trouble getting any kind of good pictures out of this camera I'm using. I'm probably going to use my dad's old 35mm SLR and get the pictures on CD, at least till I get my own DSLR.

Butler Cafe

2008-08-13T01:09:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post today, I found this post in Danny's member news items. A Butler Cafe, supposedly called "Love-All"; the equivalent of a maid cafe, except aimed at women. Good looking guys dressed sharp, waiting upon guests.

Post picture and source via dannychoo.com news items, posted by member Ichi.

Bakuman, from the creators of Death Note

2008-08-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

Creators of the hit manga and anime series Death Note, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata have started on a new series, called Bakuman.

For those who don't know, Death Note is an immensely successful series in both the US and in Japan. If you haven't read it or watched the anime by now I highly, highly suggest you do. Some people say it's just a fad, and others just plain hate it, but it really can't be denied, the art in it is amazing and the story is just so awesome.

Well, this post isn't about Death Note so I won't dwell on that too much. I just finished reading the first chapter of Bakuman, released today in Japan (August 11th), it has been scanned and translated already. It's available for reading over at One Manga.

I'm loving it already, awesome beginning chapter. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I will just say a few words about it, the story *seems* to be completely different from Death Note, as far as I can tell it's not a melancholic story, neither is it a detective/mystery story. Surprisingly enough, it seems to be a story about becoming manga-ka, a story type that, I'm sure, appeals to many otaku out there. The first chapter really explains a ton and gets you engaged while at the same time leave the entire story completely open, they could do ANYTHING with the story from this point. The art is spot on, as one would expect from Takeshi Obata. I will definitely be following this series closely, most likely will buy it all when it's released here.

Once again, the manga can currently be read online at One Manga. Source for this news is dannychoo.com member, Akari's news item post.

Suzukaze Air Conditioned Seat Cushion

2008-08-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

A Japanese company called Kuchofuku has released their latest in a line of personal air conditioned products, the "Suzukaze air conditioned seat cushion".

This Suzukaze seat cushion is designed to help dissipate the heat and moisture that can accumulate when sitting in front of your computer for long periods of time, especially during the summer... or maybe even those times when you need to take care of your "health", if you're familiar with the term from dannychoo.com :p It works in such a way that the fan in the front will channel a constant stream of air through and out the other end of the specially designed plastic mat inside the cushion, which works as a channel to collect and dissipate the heat and moisture coming off of your behind. ^^ I can see this being needed in Japan, from what I hear, Japanese summers can be VERY hot.

Personally I'm thinking of getting one of these, and maybe even the bed cushion. It seems like a much better and more efficient way of cooling yourself, rather than having to turn on central AC, which costs a TON. Not to mention, no one in my household is comfortable with one single temperature, I tend to be the hottest among us. (In more ways than one ^^) I kid, I kid. xD

There is a standard, a high grade and a car seat version of this cushion, from what I can see the only difference between the high grade and the standard is a on/off switch in the seat itself, so it will activate only when you actually sit on it, and (maybe) higher grade materials/construction? The car model is supposed to have a car power adapter for cigarette lighter outlets.

Accessories.

Video of it in action. It's also supposed to be very economical, supposedly: "Even if the cushion is used every day for 8 hours a day, the monthly electricity fee is less than 5 yen, or 5 cents."

I mentioned that this seat cushion is part of a line of products, Kuchofuku also has an air conditioned bed cushion, and shirt. Personally I think the shirt is taking it a bit too far, but maybe some people really need it. ;p

This is the bed, also supposed to be very economical. Works in the same way as the seat cushion, it's just a lot more expensive.

And the shirt. I'm not too sure about this, but I think it's basically just a USB fan sewn into the shirt, attached to a battery pack... seems like a slight rip off for $169.00. I definitely wouldn't buy this one.

Source for the seat cushion info is here, and source for the bed and shirt info is here.

Just want to clarify this in case this post sounded more like an advertisement than a simple blog post, I'm not advertising these things in any way, I'm not making money off of this in any way (I wish I were xD). I'm simply bringing news about a product that I happened upon and I think is quite nice, to you all. I

f anyone is interested in buying any of those air conditioned products (like I am), here are links to an English site where they sell them. Seat Cushion, Bed Cushion, Shirt.

Lucky Star OVA

2008-08-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

I recently found this scan of a flyer for the new Lucky Star OVA. Release date for the OVA is set for September 26th, it will only be one episode though, unfortunately. =/

No matter though, it should be quite awesome. Lucky Star never fails to amaze me, even after seeing it a countless amount of times. Though, it helps that all of the characters are SO cute. xD And the fact that Aya Hirano is Konata, she really is the best seiyuu ever, at least in my opinion.

Who here likes Lucky Star? I know some people think that Lucky Star is, in their words, a "stupid" show. I guess they don't realize that the original manga was in 4-koma style, and so the show basically seems like that too. I've heard some say that they don't like it because it has too many loli characters. Well, I have the opinion that because it's drawn there is nothing wrong with loli characters, they don't hurt a soul.

Also, almost every anime has a loli character, I always hear people preaching about quality of the show, but they then will ignore shows like Lucky Star, which have excellent animation quality, and are just plain funny, fun shows to watch.

If you haven't watched Lucky Star by now then I urge you to do so right away, it's a great witty comedy.

High res version of the picture above can be found at moe.imouto.

2008 Summer Olympics

2008-08-09T02:51:00.000-07:00

Sorry about this not being an anime related post, but it is related to current news and asia, so I hope no one minds.

I watched the opening ceremony for the Olympics earlier, absolutely incredible. China went all out on this one, amazing technology and choreography was put into making a beautiful and very memorable opening ceremony.

The man in the picture above is Li Ming. He had the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron. They hoisted him into the air once his torch was lit and he mimed running around the screen that spanned the entire circumference of the stadium, ending at the cauldron, which they put in place while the opening ceremony was taking place. Below is a video of him doing his "running man" around the stadium, don't know how long it'll be up though, youtube might take it down due to copyrights and such.

Source of picture here.

Hard decision

2008-08-08T05:51:00.000-07:00

Danny asks an impossibly hard decision of us:

"You are in Akihabara at Asobit Game when all of a sudden there is a tsunami warning. You have 5 seconds to choose a DVD which will act as a float to keep you alive."

Which would you pick? I think I would take the Moe-chan (3D girl) dvd. ^^ Though the 2D girls are also very nice, from the eroge Elf Hime. Both of those links have NSFW content.

Picture taken by Danny, links and post taken from original post, located here.

Site design work

2008-08-06T17:31:00.000-07:00

This is an edit to my earlier post. The site redesign is done, I added a second widget bar on the left hand side and fixed the layout.

I feel like I really achieved something, because I can't say I know CSS, but I still managed it. xD To be honest though, just doing that gave me a much better understanding of CSS, I will be working on the site continually and once I get enough income from ads and affiliates I'll get a domain name and host the site on my own, that way I have complete control over what the site is like.

And this is a uber moe~ pic of Kona-chan!

Antec gets moe character

2008-08-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

The PC parts manufacturer Antec now has it's own moe character.

The character, named Antecco, is said to have been originally developed by a Link International employee for an international paper but gained popularity inside of the company until someone suggested the use of this cutie as an official Antec trademark character, Antec happily accepted and the character is now going to be used (at least) for the Japanese face of Antec.

"Acording to staff the girl is 14 years old enjoys surfing and eating california roll."

I think it's quite awesome that Antec has it's own character now. I've always known Antec to be an excellent company, they have amazing cases and overall just great quality products. For the past 3 years they have shared a booth with Maximum PC and other PC related companies at Comic-Con and every year they always give out a TON of free Antec products. From case fans, to lights, and even cases themselves, they give out and raffle off a whole lot of things at Comic-Con, quite an excellent move for a company in my opinion, keeps current customers happy and shows them that you care as a company and brings new customers in.

News and picture via Akiba Today.

WonFes 08

2008-08-03T23:35:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I live in the US so I wasn't able to attend Wonder Festival this year, but many others were.

Those interested in WonFes coverage can check out Danny's post. He also has links to more coverage on other sites in his post.

Pic is of Nendoroids at WonFes, via dannychoo.com. Original source at Ota-Suke

Comic-Con 08: part 2

2008-08-02T04:58:00.000-07:00

I'll begin with a (somewhat quick) description of all the loot in the first picture:

The things we paid for: a ton of manga, the wallscrolls, the figures, the art books (Tony Taka, lucky star, and Arina Tanemura; sorry, didn't take closer pictures of these, let me know if anyone wants some.), different versions of the Mokona plushies for my sister, Pocky and Black Black, Gundam Seed "Complete Best" cd, Shojo Beat, and the Love Hina Christmas special dvd.

And now the free stuff: about 6 or 7 sampler manga, all the Bleach things (including the game), the Square Enix fan that has the words "I'm a fan." printed on it xD, and other little trinkets, including some very cool pliers from some booth selling a lot of Revoltechs, even though I don't have any Revoltechs just yet the pliers work very well with Figma parts, quite useful when you're trying to be gentle pulling out joints and such.

Sorry about taking so long to make this post, I got kind of busy yesterday and had a hard time finding the time to finish taking the pictures. Finally got them though. Also, I found a program called IrfanView to do batch resizing and renaming of pictures, very helpful.

Now, here is a closer look at the rest of the loot. I didn't take individual pictures of everything, so if someone wants to know about something in particular, let me know. ^^

Here is a close up of the manga, we mostly got volumes to finish off series that we had already started.

My first two figmas: Haruhi.

And Yuki. Finally got them!

Woo, Nendoroids, they're so cute. xD Haruhi.

Yuki.

And L. This one is mostly my sister's. I think it's a cool figure and all, but no where near as cute as Haruhi, Yuki, or Misa Misa, to me.

I gave in to the fan-boy side of me and bought 2 shirts (got a third for free) from the J-List booth. xD I also got to meet Peter Payne, he runs J-List and the J-List side blog.

Miku.

Haruhi, this one supposedly says "I would die for Haruhi". Still learning Japanese, so I can't read many things. I went through a bit of trouble (because it was fun xD) and romanized what's on the shirt: "Haruhi no tame nara shineru". Shi is a kanji so I had to do some googling, as I know no kanji at all.

This is the shirt I got for free, I think it says "looking around, looking around", romaji is "kiyoro kiyoro", I do believe.

Ikkitousen poster I bought. Who else likes Ikkitousen? I always hear both, negative and positive comments about it. Most negative comments are in regards to all the fan service, I never found anything wrong with fan service, as human beings we all have our carnal desires, there is nothing "wrong" or "dirty" about it in my mind, and fan service is, well, a service to that. xD

A cool Haruhi poster I happened upon, just saw it when I was walking by a booth and bought it.

Another one that's mostly for my sister, the guys from Tsubasa Chronicle and xxxHolic, both are CLAMP series.

These next two are actually scans of freebie posters we got, I couldn't manage good pictures of them and they were small enough to scan. I had to scan both the top and bottom, then photoshop them together since they were too long for the scanner.

Haruhi

Soul Eater

Freebie Afro Samurai poster.

Code Geass wallscroll.

xxxHolic wallscroll.

And now, the freebie bags. You can't walk away from Comic-Con without getting at least one or two HUGE bags. First up is the Astro Boy bag, I had to have this one so I ended up standing in line for it.

Bag for the comic book series Watchmen, now being turned into a live action movie. Does anyone read American comics? Personally I only read Japanese manga, something about American comics just doesn't appeal to me.

Bag from the Viz Media booth. Viz is the American distributor of series like Bleach and Death Note.

Comic-Con 08: Part 1

2008-07-30T02:51:00.000-07:00

Some storm troopers wouldn't let me pass, I had to use my Jedi mind control on them. ^^

Well, as I mentioned in one of my previous posts I was attending this year's Comic-Con for two days, held at the San Diego convention center.

It was quite fun, a ton of booths with all kinds of different subject matter, from video games, to comics (of course), to anime/manga, gothic clothing, figures, statues, the PC magazine "Maximum PC" even had their own booth, they always give out a TON of free things. There were WAY too many people though, every single day was sold out and they estimate that they served about 200,00 unique people over the course of the 4 and 1/2 days. x.x

Anyway, without further ado, here is my coverage from Comic-Con. Another post with my loot to come soon (I.E. once I take all the pictures). xD

Here are some of the original Japanese Bleach manga panels drawn by Tite Kubo. He was also doing an autograph signing there, but that was impossible to get into, only 200 autographs signed over the 4 days. =/

Some manga and posters of the latest from Yen Press at the Square Enix booth. Sorry about the out of focus and shaky pictures, I'm still quite an amateur when it comes to photography, getting better though. :p

And now some figures from the Kotobukiya booth, once again sorry about the shaky and out of focus pictures.

A huge Hulk. xD

Some cosplay pics now, the first is out of focus but the rest aren't too bad.

This one was very cool, it was taken at the Broccoli Books panel, they brought in the author of Fairy Tail (フェアリーテイル): Hiro Mashima and after answering some questions and talking about his manga he drew this up for everyone to see. He was very quick, he did it in about 2 minutes time, quite amazing. I have a video of him actually drawing it but the video is quite horrible quality, I'll upload it somewhere anyway if someone wants it. Let me know. :p

Here are a couple of pictures from outside, they had the terracotta statues from the third Mummy movie set up outside: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, very cool.

And to finish up here, some pictures of the bridge leading to Coronado island where there is a US naval air station along with some pictures of the boats parked right behind the convention center. These were taken from the top level of the convention center.