"dasaku" via Randall in Google Reader

5000th hit

2009-11-10T19:53:32Z

Sometime in the last 24 hours, Desu ex Machina got its 5000th hit! (since I’ve started counting like 2 months ago). While it’s quite a humble feat, I’m glad I at least got this project of mine up and running. I remember when I got this thing started up back in June, I didn’t know how or if this was going to work at all! How would people get here? Would they like reading me ranting about anime? How do I use Wordpress? But thanks to my readers and bunch of great help and my friends and collaborators, I’ve gotten this far. Thanks, everyone. Usually there would be some art I drew saying “thank you 5000 hit!! xD” but you seriously don’t want to see me draw. Just take my word for it.

Needless episode 19 is out. I heard it was awesome, I’ll have to grab it later.

The White Love Blinds My Eyes

2009-11-09T21:14:04Z

This eroge is so cute it’s deadly. Palette will slowly stab away at my sanity with their fluffy white swords. They do live up to their subtitle, “love is pure white.”

I didn’t have much time for anything other than work, studies and debate. But at long last, I’ve received some “quality” time to myself and fired up this first because…I’m a Palette fanboy.

After playing deep into Airi’s route, I am gradually deteriorating from all the ‘DAAAAAWWWWW‘ and ‘AAAWWWWW‘ moments. There’s no hope for me. I’m already gone.

The premise seems to be used before…I think. A bunch of guys and girls from a “normal” school transfer over to a prestigious all-girls school. Understandably, there is a bit of cultural friction especially from the sudden presence of boys in what used to be female territory.

But what makes up for the setting are not just the characters, but their development in correlation with their surroundings. Airi was against the plan in the beginning and I cannot stress how long it took for her to change her perspective around. Even more so was the progress of her and Shingo’s relationship. Airi’s first impression of him wasn’t bad but it took forever to change her initial beliefs of men and eventually accepts an open friendship with him.

Then it took a while for that progression to turn to love and DAYUM she is too adorable. Easily embarrassed but also very honest, it’s too freaking cute to watch her troubled to the point of tears.

Game: Airi wants to hide their current relationship from the rest of the school because it’s embarrassing.

Me: Drinking a coke.

Game: Shingo says they’re just friends to the class. Airi shows the puppy tears and scurries out of the room.

Me: Spews out my drink on the keyboard.

Game: Shingo hurries out and reassures her it’s not true. Airi attempts to repeat what Shingo said to the class but stutters and cannot complete the word, “friend.”

Me: SLAMMING HEAD ON DESK! DAAAWWWWW!!!!

Game: In emotional turmoil, Airi blurts out loud they’re really lovers. Everyone is in shock.

Me: SPASM! SPPPAAASMSMINGG! BLALRARGLEJBLAH!

But the progression of Shingo and Airi’s relationship is really slow and amazingly not in a bad way. They’re doing their first arm hugs, first dates, and first kisses with all the ‘DAAAAAAWWW’ packed in. There is drama too as they get into their first fight. Thankfully, after both Airi and Shingo received separate counseling from their friends along with more Airi tears and worries, (DAAAAAAWWWW) they were able to overcome their fears and reconcile.

Does this look like slice-of-life because it sure does for me.

Can’t write any more now. I need to know what happens after the abrupt twist during their “first try.” All I can say is, holy crap. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it happen in an eroge…ever.

Ubuntu Linux on PS3

2009-11-09T03:54:39Z

Note: kboot does not support reiserfs. I don’t know about petitboot. I finally gave in and installed Ubuntu, exactly what a n00b would do and not a Linux pro with 5 years of experience with Gentoo/Debian/Arch. It couldn’t be helped, since the Debian PS3 installer CD is so old it only recognizes the sid distribution and [...]

Ys Seven – First Blood

2009-11-09T02:23:19Z

I spent the last two weeks playing Ys Seven, and I considered this as the best Ys ever made until now.

The Dangers of Gentoo Linux on a Slow System

2009-11-08T05:09:59Z

When I bought my PS3, it was under the assumption that I would use it as a computer, because while I do have 300EURs to blow on a PS3, I certainly don’t have 600EURs to spend on a good machine with at least 8GBs of RAM and four cores. And on top of that I [...]

PS3 Linux

2009-11-07T22:30:27Z

That’s not right… alpha-chobit ~ # g++ -mcpu=970 -Os speedup.c alpha-chobit ~ # time ./a.out real 0m5.181s user 0m5.139s sys 0m0.042s alpha-chobit ~ # time ./a.out real 0m5.191s user 0m5.148s sys 0m0.043s alpha-chobit ~ # time ./a.out real 0m5.174s user 0m5.131s sys 0m0.043s alpha-chobit ~ # g++ -mcpu=cell -Os speedup.c alpha-chobit ~ # time ./a.out real 0m5.201s user 0m5.158s sys 0m0.043s alpha-chobit ~ # time ./a.out real 0m5.194s user 0m5.151s sys 0m0.043s alpha-chobit ~ # time ./a.out real 0m5.195s user [...]

The Art of the Rewatch

2009-11-07T22:37:50Z

Because of random stupid complications in my life, I am without internet in my apartment for a few days. I have been heading to my university’s library for internet and right now I am typing this is an empty board room in the business school building. Saturdays are fun because everything is abandoned.

At first I was in much despair, but after a day or two it wasn’t too bad. Late at night I would catch up on some older shows I need to finish but mainly I have been rewatching some anime. I’m on episode 18 of a rewatch of Toradora and I hope to finish tonight. I watched the show as it aired and it’s nice and refreshing to come back to it. I remember I picked up Toradora on around episode 5 or 6 after all the hype drew me over and while I enjoyed the show quite a lot, my critique senses were always active. Now I come back and the show has nothing to prove to me, and it’s just a boatload of fun. Toradora’s well balanced cast, voice talent, quality animation, disciplined directing, pacing, and well conveyed plot and dialogue all contribute to a near flawless product. It’s very difficult to make an anime like Toradora, because so much can go wrong. Anyways, enough fagging here. This post is about rewatching anime, and why we do it.

The first reason is quite intuitive. You miss it.

Much like Toradora, my rewatch of the entire Aria series (starting Origination tonight) is fueled by the feeling the series gives me. Of course, you will pick up one or two little new things along the way, but you seek to relive the magic a show enchants you with. The thing with the rewatch is that you are confident you will enjoy the show. Leave your critical analysis aside and just enjoy the show and relive why you loved it so much. I wouldn’t call an anime I finished this January “nostalgia” but there must be some word for the feeling that overcame me the first time I heard Undine again.

The second reason could be that you want to give it anther chance. Did you miss something? Did you not understand something? Perhaps you want to enjoy the show, but you didn’t when you first watched it. Why?

H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~ is rather niche but people who have seen it generally like it a lot. I didn’t mind it but I’m still in the dark as to why it has seen so much praise. You have to realize that sometimes you don’t like a show and it’s not the show’s fault. I found H2O to have an interesting plot and pacing, but some of the motifs are totally undercooked. I don’t want to feel “left out” of the H2O party, nor do I want to come off as closed minded. Perhaps I did miss something here.

And the third reason is that Kyoto Animation thinks it’s 1998 and aired Clannad After Story and K-ON! in 4:3. Now that widescreens (and even Blu-rays) are out, I’m doing a nice slow rewatch of them. As with other anime I am entertaining myself with, I’m planning on finally finishing Gundam 00, which I started almost two years ago, sometime this month. I missed the party with Macross Frontier and Detroit Metal City as well. Those will be complete in a week or two.

Soul Eater Volume 01 – Thoughts & Impressions

2009-11-07T03:56:59Z

Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a review copy

About the Mangaka

Okubo Atsushi is better known for his more recent work, Soul Eater. However he also assisted on the older series, Get Backers. B.Ichi is his first independent work where he did both the art and story.

About the Manga

While I enjoyed reading this in the Anthology, I couldn’t really get into it fully. Oddly, reading it in the tank format had the opposite effect, I got into it straight away

The biggest difference between the anthology and the tank format is the paper, well, and the size hehe. The paper in the tank is near white which really does make a huge difference in a series like Soul Eater.

This males the designs stand out all the more and look a lot more vivid, it looks awesome truthfully.

I’m still not keen on the designs for a couple of the characters, and I find Atsushi’s prevalence to make the girls babes and guys geeky or ugly a bit annoying. In fact the only normal looking girl in the entire volume is Maka, the heroine. All the rest tend to be babes who get into a lot of fanservice positions hehe.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with this, but I feel that it does get overused a bit.

That said though I do like the character designs of the girls, and a lot of effort clearly went into coming up with them. Mt favourite has got to be the Blair Witch, and personally out of all of the chapters in this volume I preferred hers the most, since it was bloody funny.

Death’s son is the one character design, and character in general, I just hate. The design looks freaky and bizarre, but his personality is even worse. The other characters have their little quirks that make them funny, and add a bit of life to their personalities, he doesn’t. In fact he’s so flat he’s a piece of paper. I do like Patty and Liz Thompson, his weapons. And I found they had more personality and presence than him. Which makes reading chapters with him in more palatable. Naturally they’re babes who get into some rather ecchi situations hehe.

Story wise, there is no story…..yet, though I’m hoping this will change. This volume seems to have been about introducing the characters, showing their idiosyncrasies and personalities.

Yen Press did a good job on this release, and was glad to see no guttering issues. The translation was smooth and consistent with a good flow to it. I didn’t spot anything that felt out out of place. In fact the one section I was expecting them to change wasn’t, the name Shinigami-sama was left in, which gets big bonus from me. Most other publishers would have changed that (as they have in similar titles). The fonts and editing used in this volume are easy to read and follow as well, which is another good thing.

Overall I really enjoyed this volume, and I’m looking forward to future volumes. I’ll give it a few more volumes before I decide whether to add it to my Essential Read list or not.

Where to Buy

Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

Why I no longer support Funimation

2009-11-06T04:03:05Z

I started to lose respect for Funimation some months ago when I saw their hatchet job of Heroic Age and Claymore. Though at the time I was hoping it was just a bad team working on the series, and they would go back to the good company they used to be.

Sadly this hasn’t happened, in fact they’ve become more arrogant and frankly just down right nasty.

It started with the licensing of the Phantom anime, which they were streaming on their site. Like a lot of fans I was disappointed with their over Americanising the series, but felt that even a badly done one was better than none.

Then the hammer dropped and every fan in the UK was banned from the website. When contacted Funi claimed they were doing an overhaul of the site, so as to remove the series that weren’t licensed for the Uk from the site.

I wasn’t happy over this, but I could understand it. After several months of sign of the site being brought back online a group of friends decided to sub the japanese version. They dled the raws from the net, as well as ordered the DVD’s from Japan.

Naturally Funi decided they didn’t like this and sent a C&D letter. In the letter they stated there was no reason for them to be subbing the show since they were streaming the series. Yet the site was still blocking UK residents.

This time when It was raised Funi claimed it was taking them so long because they have hundreds of episodes they needed to fix. However one of the guys in the group shot that full of holes, since he’s a professional web developer, and the site could have been done in a week at the most.

We’re now four months from the Funi site being taken off line to UK residents and they’re still spewing the same old garbage. However when I was able to nab a Funi rep at a recent UK event he was rather abusive, and rather pointedly told me that the site would most likely not be back online till march or April next year, and that Funi don’t consider UK fans as a priority concern since the market here is so small.

This pissed me off no end, but is sadly the general thought for a lot of publishers. It’s stupid though, I mean compared to the US the market in the UK is bound to smaller, I mean hell the UK can fit into a single state in the US, hell several states are larger than the UK. Also America has a larger teen population than the UK, which is who buys the majority of titles.

Frankly I find their attitude towards us Brits disappointing and rather sickening. So, as such I’ve abandoned all of Funi’s titles and won’t be buying any of their releases anymore. I’ll stick with the fansubs, which are usually better any way.

Sorry Funi, but you just lost a customer who used to spend near £1000 a year on your releases, and I just cancelled £400 worth of orders with Amazon. And no I’m not calling for a boycott (cause lets face it those never work), but I would say if your in the UK consider not supporting Funi until they change their attitude towards us and start to treat us with the respect we deserve for supporting them.

Hero Tales Volume 01 – Thoughts & Impressions

2009-11-06T02:50:28Z

Many thanks to Yen Press for sending a review copy.

About the Mangaka

This is Hiromu’s third full series to be published. The first being Stray Dog, then her more famous Full Metal Alchemist. As well as manga she has worked on anime, and dojinshi, and has also done cover designs for novels.

No info on Huang Jin Zhou, aka Studio Flag

About the Manga

When I was reading this in the Yen Plus Anthology I really started to get into it, however now I’ve got a number of issues with this series that are really holding me back from enjoying it to the max.

Art is one of the biggest hurdles for me, everything about this series screams Full Metal Alchemist transplant.

Sure the setting’s are different (this being quasi-historical), but the basic character designs could have literally just been lifted out of the the FMA series, which I don’t like.

The more I read into the volume the more the similarities became clearer. This I felt was similar to Adachi using the same characters in his series.

However Hiromu is an excellent artist, there’s no tow ways around it. Her designs have greatly improved since FMA, the characters have a more polished and rigid shape to them.

For some of the characters this works out really well, however for the main lead, Taitou, I feel it has the reverse effect. I feel he’s to rigid in his design, lacking something that makes him likeable.

Laila on the other hand was the reverse, I really liked her (even if every thing about her screams Winry from FMA). Although by the end of the first volume I sort of feel I know what her role in this series is going to be,

The other thing I liked, for the most part, was the backdrops and settings. The bits we get (and sadly there aren’t many), are very well drawn. Though I have to admit that there wasn’t really a chance to really get into the setting so much, since they weren’t used very much.

I think in time I’ll get used to the character designs, but I wish that Hiromu had directed some of her obvious talent into creating new characters from the ground up. Rather than just altering her previous designs.

The story, and the way it developed this volume was okay, but lacked anything that really grabbed me as exciting. It wasn’t a bad read, and the character developments were okay, but I felt the introduction of five characters in one volume, and so close together, was just to fast. I think a slower pace would have allowed the main characters time to build their relationships. But that’s not Hiromu’s fault, as the story was done by Huang Jin Zhou (pseudonym foe Studio Flag)

I’m hoping the series will improve over the coming volumes, and the characters grow their own personalities and feel.

Yen Press do their usually high standard again, and I have to admit I loved the colour panels of the volume, they were nice and vibrant full of life. I also liked the cover art, and the font used for the title was awesome as well. Almost no guttering at all, even the double spreads didn’t gutter to much.

The fonts were clear and easy to read all the way through, with the exception of the first B&W page, which has iddy-biddy text. TBH I had fun getting the magnifying glass out just to see what it said lol.

‘m not sure I’ll ever add this to my Essential Read list, FMA doesn’t make it either. Both series are lacking something that grabs me. I do feel this series started better than FMA and it is worth reading. However I’d stick with reading it in the anthology for a while, if you find you like it then you can pick up the volumes. If you don’t like it, then you have an extra bit of cash to buy other Yen Press volumes

Where to Buy

Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

Neighbourhood Servant Revelations 6, Translated!

2009-11-05T08:15:07Z

Okay, believe it or not someone actually scanned this and asked me whether I was interested.

So can I call this a commission? I guess I could…

So anyways, i’ll keep the commissioner anonymous unless he tells me otherwise, but yeah, here’s Neighbourhood Servant Revelations 6!

p.s. Archer is the hero we all aspire to be.

Mediafire: HERE
Depositfiles: HERE

Breaking News: Bakemonogatari is Still Awesome

2009-11-04T22:40:19Z

The first streaming episode of Bakemonogatari, perhaps the strongest title of a marquee of solid shows the past two seasons, was released recently. It is really great to see that after the TV airing concluded, Bakemonogatari doesn’t miss a single beat and continues its sublime, distinctive storytelling style at and at the high quality of art and animation that we have come to expect for 12 episodes previous. Arararagi (sorry, I stuttered) is also one of the coolest male leads in anime. His subtle character change and outward attitude both keep him honest and make watching the show fun. If Araragi were different, Bakemonogatari’s dialogue driven structure could easily have collapsed. Oh and he also molests Mayoi-chan at the start of the episode, which is also plus points.

Now remember, this episode was a STREAM. so excuse the 360p or whatever. DVD will be out in like 2010

After a near perfect episode 12, we pick up where we left off with Tsubasa Cat part 3. Horie Yui is one of my favorite voice actors and Bakemonogatari is hocchan at her best. The way she renders Tsubasa is both distinctive and compelling; combined with the masterfully written dialogue, it is hard for this episode to be anything but amazing. After a load of dialogue, they go see Oshino and that’s basically the episode. It’s hard to summarize episodes of this show because the show is about the dialogue, not the plot. It’s not about what happened, it’s about the process by which it was presented to have happened. It’s about the the characters say, the way they say it, the reactions. This is why a good seiyuu corps is needed. If you want to find out what happened, go watch the episode yourself.

I particularly enjoyed the scene where Araragi encounters Hitagi in the bike-lot. Araragi’s relationship with Hitagi is unconventional in an anime sense because there is almost no romantic tension. Hitagi is smart and very rarely misunderstands her boyfriend, which is a fresh breath of air compared to many other anime with romance. Also present is some fourth wall breakage, which never goes over too badly if used in moderation.

Oh Saito Chiwa, Aika-chan would have taken offense to all those hazukashii serifu in episode 12

The end of the episode, however, left me most excited. Well, besides this…

if you got gg’s release of the stream, they left in the commercials for the singles of the OPs. They are taking painfully long to come out, especially since they are so fucking good, but after the end credits we get a sneak peek of Horie Yui’s OP for Tsubasa Cat! The little clip I’ve heard sounds fucking amazing and I can’t wait until we get to see the OP, and ultimately (in like January) get the single. It’s called sugar sweet nightmare and sounds great. Definitely check out the commercial after the credits of gg’s release if you haven’t already.

Sumomomo,Momomo Volume 02 – Thoughts & Impressions

2009-11-03T07:01:53Z

Many thanks to Yen Press for providing a review copy

About the Mangaka

Sadly not a lot of info on Ohtaka Shinobu, Sumomomo was their first work, and are currently working on a series called Magi-Labyrinth of Magic.

About the Manga

A rather lacklustre volume that started off dull and went to pure crap. Though It did have a few moments that made me chuckle.

Sadly the praises I was singing from the last volume fail to come through this time around.

I found the art, for the most part, rather uninspiring. Iroha was especially bad I felt, whose legs didn’t seem to really match her body, being at times overly thing and long, I also found the design, loli in fishnet stockings, ninja outfit, really weird.

Unfortunately I also couldn’t get into the other characters this volume for some reason. Momomo really got on my nerves for some reason, she just irritates me with the way she jumps around. I especially found the chibi’s really annoying this volume since I felt they were used in the completely wrong place.

Sadly pretty much all of the art in this volume was the same, rather disappointing, with only a few pieces being any good. Though I will admit the colour panel at the front was definitely one of those. It did look pretty awesome.

Regrettably the story fails to save this volume, unlike the previous one. While I understand it was being used to set up both Iroha and Nakajima, I felt that it was done in a really bad way.

The story flowed like treacle going uphill, in other words nowhere fast Rather there is no progression at all really. We get a bit at the beginning as the initial Iroha arc is finished, but after that it’s chapter after chapter of pointless waffle. Pretty much everything that was revealed in the second half of the volume could have been just as well done in one or possible two chapters.

Yea I know I’m the first one to complain when something is to short, but dragging something out just to make it fit into a volume will also have the same effect as being overly short.

While this volume was disappointing, I’m still hoping the other volumes will be better.

Yen Press did their usual good job, though I did have a few minor gripes. This volume has some pretty bad guttering at times, after two read throughs there were a couple of creases on the spine already. I also hated the way they handled Hikaru’s speech pattern, something about it just feels totally wrong.

Overall this was a disappointing volume, and I doubt it’ll be a series I add to my essential read list.

Where to Buy

Brits: Play.com or Amazon UK
Yanks: Borders or Amazon US
Canadians: Chapters or Amazon CA

The Playstation 3 as a Computer

2009-11-02T21:37:40Z

So over the weekend I had some time to play around with my PS3 at last. The GameOS, naturally, sucks. The web browser sucks. The photo viewer cannot play animated GIFs nor open PNGs in 5000×8000 resolution (I’d expect it to at least be flexible about that), the audio player does not recognize ID3v2/APEv2 tags in [...]

Standing in the bleachers of Saimoe Stadium, watching one last swordfight in the heavens

2009-11-02T05:05:55Z

(image: rezi)

Well, it’s true that I’ve dropped off the written scene of ISML for a long time, and that I’ve probably got many things to apologize for. For drifting away from the denizens of #ISML, for having to nuke my sub-blog Saimoe is very serious! from orbit (due to some really bad database infections), for not getting Shiori that one more win she needed to make it into the relegation tournament… humans are always filled with regrets.

Still, that’s not to say, for the silence and the sorrow, that I’ve fallen out of my somewhat romantic affair with the moe tournaments of today; although my return to college resulted in an unceremonious block on J-Saimoe voting (the infamous proxy issues), I still followed the results of it and ISML on a daily basis, having many days made upon seeing who had triumphed and who has fallen, in the latest battle of moe, popularity, and occasionally, image-board engineering.

Well, how else would you explain such an event as surprising as the seeming moe kingpin Mio Akiyama getting trashed by the BOSS Kana Minami, an upset of enough magnitude that it caused my co-writer kevo to have to eat several feet in backpedaling? (I had to immortalize it now that SIVS is sunk.) Certainly, it is amusing imagining the Minami sisters as some sort of assassins, who only rise to prominence as they drop big-name targets (as in Haruka’s upset of Rika Furude in 2008), only to fade into the background in the next round, as if they had never recieved such a vote surge.

And this is the sort of thing, this is the sort of imagination, that makes moe tournaments probably what they are today, so centric to people like me. We imagine the roles our favorite girls play, the battles they fight, as we face off against each other, feel the passion as we campaign for a girl in seven locations across the internet, and do little dances when we wake up and find that Taiga has put an exclamation point on the sinking of the seemingly invincible ships that were Saki and K-ON, capturing two out of three moe championships in one year.

That’s Saimoe, isn’t it? The the strangest courtship dance the world has seen.

(image: sakurato tsuguhi)
It’s some sort of ‘constructive warfare’. True, the girls go to direct combat, but when most people are speaking in positives and superlatives about their girl rather than trashing their enemy with hatred and venom, it’s a curious sort of battle. A strange politics, where you have some people voting on purely tactical means, others on purely emotional means – many positive, yet a few negative – and so you never really are sure whether a girl wins because she is more moe, more popular, less hated, or just because she’s an easier punching bag for Kyou to take out with the trash in the next round.

I suppose, you say, the same could go for real politics, except here, the candidates never do the speaking. Only the fans speak for the girls here. There’s no one impassioned speech that you’ll see someone deliver, that will win them a thousand votes. Saimoe competitions are small-scale enough that there’s probably not one source with enough reach to tip the balance more than a few votes each way, given that ‘moe’ is such a subjective thing that it’s hard to make an argument that will change the minds of the committed – at best, you can only convince the apathetic to vote.

But still, of course, the people write, and write, and campaign, and campaign, until their word-count-to-vote ratio is something in the thousands (if not infinite), because they know that there’s that possibility, just maybe that Ushio and Ritsu will tie and that any vote they convince people to make could be the deciding one, and how could they let their character slide into the black, unforgiving abyss that is J-Saimoe elimination –

And that’s when you know Saimoe’s got you.

(image: nyama)

It’s when you’re just finishing up a 1000-word blog post after writing a few hundred-word posts for four different forums, posting a link to Facebook and Twitter, and dropping lines in three IRC channels (one which contains people who could go over and punch you in the face in real life), and you realize that this is just one match and you still have to campaign and make sure Minori wins EIGHT more.

It’s when you refresh the ISML home page and see that Taiga’s bid for a triple crown just got violently ended, that instead of ragequitting, you mentally put a little memorial picture of Taiga on the wall (right next to the ones for Nagisa, Minori, and Shiori), put on your Nagato fanboy cap, and head back into the crowd to raise some love for your next-highest favorite. And after Nagato loses, you set all guns to Hinagiku, all the while trying to drum up votes for relegation favorite Reimu on the side. There’s no time for mourning, there’s voting to be done and battles to be won.

Yeah, it’s when you know that Saimoe has that strange appeal that every sport should have had – maybe does have – that it’s got you.

And that’s what Saimoe’s really about, right? Not just the girls, but the passion. That forging, that resolidfying of the connection between you and some abstract personality with some eyes and a funny hair color. It all sounds horrendously escapist, but it’s rather interesting, in that you get to learn a bit about your tastes, your beliefs, and your passions; nothing says ’self-exploratory’ like ‘1500-word essay on why people should vote for Shiori’. Since if you don’t come up with some good reasons why you believe that Shiori is one of the most inspiring characters ever to walk the 2D Earth, you’re going to be writing for a long time.

You could say, more precisely, that Saimoe is what you make it. Together, it’s what the fans make it.

(image: nyanta)
It’s the same as more ‘real’ sports. Some people just check in, browse the scores, muse about how their ‘home team’ (favorite girl, perhaps, here) won, and move on. Others buy all the team gear, get the season pass, go to every game, being the loudest one in the crowd. Sometimes, you have those in between, who tune in for only the exciting parts of the season, or just discuss it around the water cooler.

And so, I can probably imagine that I’m painting myself as someone who’s dressed in a Kanon uniform in some snow-filled stadium somewhere, hugging my plushies and chanting team chants. Whatever those may be. Maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s not. But certainly I wouldn’t have made that analogy if I hadn’t thought about Saimoe as I gazed down the barrel either the last or the second-to-last match of the Saimoe season, in ISML’s Revelation of the Heavenly Tiara.

And I wouldn’t have had been able to put out another 1200 words on how at least I believe that Saimoe has been a positive experience, if I hadn’t put myself into it, lose myself in it, waste my time in it.
I wouldn’t be able to explore my own heart and, just maybe, touch those of others if I hadn’t put to press so many words for Shiori, Chinami, Minori, and everyone else.
And maybe I wouldn’t have met some of the people I did, if I never decided to get into ISML in the first place.

Who knows. It’s not in a human’s ability to look into the past and see what would have happened if they did something different. It’s only their job to keep moving on into the future.

And so, after the curtains close and either Hinagiku or Shana is crowned, I’ll be waiting outside the gates of the ISML battlegrounds with a truck of vanilla ice cream, waiting, for when the first flowers of spring have begun to bloom, and the procession of passion begins again.

-CCY

(image: hane riu)
(Incidentally, here’s some curious numbers from my vote-tracking program, about who were the top 16 girls I voted for the most in ISML’s regular season:
54 Misaka Shiori
53 Furukawa Nagisa
52 Furude Hany?
52 Ichinose Kotomi
49 Furude Rika
49 Kinomoto Sakura
47 Mizunashi Akari
47 Patchouli Knowledge
46 Kawazoe Tamaki
45 Kamio Misuzu
45 Kasuga “?saka” Ayumu
43 Alice Carroll
43 Ry?g? Rena
41 Chii
40 Aisaka Taiga
37 Nagato Yuki
The bottom numbers are omitted as they show more of a lack of knowledge more than a particular dislike for most characters.)

PS3 bliss

2009-11-02T00:19:55Z

I just had an experience of PS3 bliss, where I took my friend’s monitor, bought a HDMI-DVI cable and RCA-3.5mm minijack Y-cable, and spent over 40 hours this weekend on my PS3. Of course, all this had to come at a price. I didn’t get any homework done, and when breakfast came around I realized I [...]

Ludus Obscura slår upp portarna!

2009-11-01T21:24:21Z

När tidningar dör måste skribenterna välja vad de ska göra. Söka anställning på andra tidningar? Skapa något eget? För Jonas Högberg, Johan Henriksson och Tommy preger stog sig valet lätt, de öppnade Ludus Obscura där de samlar på sig duktiga skribenter och skriver om indiespel och kommer att efterlikna delen ”gränslöst” som fanns i SuperPLAY.

Så gillar ni indiespel eller bara att läsa vad de duktiga skribenterna skrivit i form av recensioner, artiklar eller bara vad de själva tycker. Besök gärna deras sida och njut av den fina rosa färgen

Själv kommer jag besöka sidan, för det kan bli något riktigt stort detta!!

Acchi Kocchi Chapter 2 Translated!

2009-11-01T08:11:29Z

Because we don’t really celebrate halloween where I am.

Well, that and I have no candy to give. Have bits and bytes and images instead.

Depositfiles: HERE
Mediafire: HERE

Plus, I’ve been busy with work lately so I’m sorry for the lack of updates. Well, that and I’ve finally finished Utawarerumono. Best game I’ve played since Fate.

Happy Halloween, Readers

2009-11-01T02:45:58Z

*ding dong*

Oh, hi there. Thanks for coming to Desu ex Machina in your annual costumed pagan inspired candy run. Dasaku is a decent neighborhood of trick-or-treating, but only if you know what the good houses are. The old man at Mega Megane Moe, the house down the street, never answers his doorbell. Cokematic gives out cans of soda, he’s that strange man in every neighborhood that thinks soda-pop constitutes as a treat, and that house around the corner is kinda scary. Definitely wanna hit up the house across the street, however. Xephfyre gives out extra candy to Fate/Stay night cosplayers and even copies of Together with House-Husband. Yes, books on Halloween. How many times have you seen that. The dude at the house all the way at the end of the street is psyched for Halloween, with decorations and everything. He’s handing out eroge, so I’m not sure parents want their kids heading over there.

Before I continue, excuse me. This is obligatory.

I am actually tempted to watch Umineko for Maria. Horie Yui voicing a crazed loli? Whom I happened to be 100% pedo for? Perhaps sometime down the road after the whole show has aired and after a night of drinking. Maybe.

What has kevo done for Halloween weekend so far? Well, given that it’s Saturday night Halloween and I’m at home blogging, I’m not exactly going crazy. I did get to go see Tiesto last night. It was intense. I live in Minneapolis, not somewhere cool like Malaysia where I can go to see Chihara Minori and steal her water bottle. Regardless, I like electronica and Tiesto is the best in the business. Imagine like 1000 people squeezed into a cramped nightclub jumping to the beat of Escape Me and I am still trying to figure out how my limbs are all in tact. My ears are still ringing, however.

Watched the new episode of Toaru Kagaku no Railgun today. Ever since K-ON, I’ve slowly begun to really like Toyosaki Aki’s voice work. She has that cute, sweet, airheaded vibe. Railgun is doing around 200 times better than Index so far. The episodic, scenario-based structure is working well to explore the wonderfully interesting characters in the Indexverse. The problem with Index was how it focused on characters no one cared about and threw it’s main cast almost to the curb. Plus, the pacing was terrible for a show that wanted to convey some kind of plot. Railgun will do well to just keep it up at this pace and it will be one of the most solid shows of the season.

Second Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann movie is gonna premiere in San Francisco in November. In English subtitles, no less! I like the movies as supplements to the series, as you can never get enough TTGL and the little changes they make are cool. It’s like a quick rewatch of the whole series. I’m excited to see what they changed in the second movie, as the second half of the series was fucking epicsauce. Oh right, no candy for you if you don’t like TTGL. I hope the DVD will be on sale soon. Unfortunately I won’t be able to get to San Fran because I have neither time or money for a pilgrimage. Regardless, Gurren Lagann the Movie 2: The Lights in the Sky are Stars, opening at Viz Cinema on November 17. If you’re in Cali, go for it. (sauce)

What? You want candy? Fine, here have some. Kids these days…

Art courtesy kohaku (pixiv)

Darker than Black II: Gemini of the Meteor – Dramatic Arm Flails

2009-10-31T11:16:27Z

There was a point-and-click adventure game released around 2001 called The Longest Journey. It had pretty glorious prerendered backgrounds and somewhat awkward 3D characters models and quickly became one of my all time favourite games ever made. Its lead character was fantastic (female, normal sized tits, rational head on shoulders), its narrative was complex and rewarding (also: dragons, everywhere) and the cast were excellently realised in terms of both writing and voice acting.

You can imagine my excitement when a sequel, named Dreamfall, was announced and subsequently released. Expectations were high of course, but I wasn’t unreasonable about it. A new protagonist dampened a lot of my fantasising, forcing me to accept that the creators intended to move the concept forward rather than indulge the fans. It helped me learn that this is the sign of the a good sequel; one that builds upon the series strengths and actively explores every possibility within its world instead of resting on its laurels.

Dreamfall turned out to be something of a big sweaty dickslap to the face. It had many problems (technical mostly) but the biggest for me was its abject brutality to the locations/characters of its predecessor. We get what initially appears to be fanservice with the return of April Ryan, the original protagonist, but she was darker, more disillusioned. Things had gone horribly wrong for her in the interim and she had completely lost her way and she’s not the same girl we fell in love with. Equally, locations from the first game were revisited but everything had gone to absolute shitsville. Ravaged by drugs and crime, a mildly dystopian setting offset by its affable community of people had descended into something perversely awful and intentionally upsetting.

I’m the last person to criticise a no-punches-pulled policy to storytelling – I would do exactly the same thing if I had the opportunity. Where I would differ is to not try so damn hard to separate the new from the old with an active interest in upsetting the fanbase. There’s a difference between forging a new path and incinerating everything in your wake.

(Yes, I am thumping my desk in outrage as I write this blog. A letter to the Telegraph is forthcoming.)

Now you’re obviously smart enough to notice the longwinded parallel I’m drawing here and Darker than Black II isn’t as nasty to its fans as Dreamfall was. But I’ve got the fear that they’re both treading a very similar path, and a very particular fact remains: motherfuckers killed April. Not only did they kill her, but they set her up as a genuine member of the supporting cast – and set her up fantastically – only to snatch it away in one swift wire-thingy to the throat. I can see the bigger picture here, don’t get me wrong, how her death might affect certain characters’ motivations and how it was a broader sacrifice – but I’m not going to lie about the impact of seeing her glassy death stare at the start of episode two and what it seemed to communicate. It smacked of a director/writer wanting to make a point.

The whingy fanboy hysteria was further exacerbated by seeing a particular red-collared cat lying corpse-like in the snow, but we’ve since learnt that was misleading.

I know, I know: all this is ultimately jumping the gun (such is my wont to do with episodic blogging). I’m sure all is not what it seems and getting all flighty about dramatic twists is a waste of time. It also gives the wrong impression: I am actually enjoying the second series of Darker than Black an awful lot. It has an excellent tone and feels a well-considered direction for the series. I just hope we, the fans, won’t be smacked about too brutally in the process.