After months of anticipation and preparation, some cosplayers combing meticulously over their costumes to ensure the utmost degree of accuracy and workmanship, and others throwing together shitty closet costumes (yes, you, L “cosplayers”) Anime North has come and gone, signaling the beginning of con season.

Packed in a car with my waifu, her brother, two of her friends, all of our luggage for the weekend and a sizable amount of alcohol, our journey to the con was underway. A damn long journey it was too, traffic around the con was absolute ass, but we passed the time by picking fun at the thickening crowd of cosplayers as we inched closer. We got to the hotel around 5, checked in, tossed our stuff in the room and hung around for a while. We eventually made our way down to the dealer’s room, which was closing soon, I bought this t-shirt I’ve been after for the better part of a year and that did it for con activities for the day.

After some so-so take out sushi from a nearby restaurant, me and the waifu got some much needed sleep, after two days of running on 2-3 hours of sleep.

Inazuma Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!

First of all, to anyone who doesn’t recognize this character, watch Gunbuster. Yes, it’s from the 80s, yes, the animation is kinda dated, no, there’s no moe, but it’s a damn good series, better than almost everything that succeeded it, and it’s a crying shame how little people have watched it.

I woke up on Saturday and spent a couple hours watching crappy daytime television (John and Kate Plus 8) while the waifu put on her costume and make up.

This is where the weekend began to veer off what thin guise of a schedule we had devised. On Friday before we went to sleep, we planned out what we were going to do on Saturday:

- Grab passes to the masquerade
- Watch a screening of Sword of the Stranger
- Go to some Best/Worst Moments in Anime panel, just to see how well/badly the list was put together
- Masquerade
- The 404s comedy skit show

How much of that did we end up doing? Absolutely none of it! But for all the day’s insubstantiality, it was really fun. The day was instead spent messing around with friends and taking in the sights, ie. creepy old guys and the delicate mix of fail and win cosplays whilst trekking back and forth between the dealer’s room and the Doubletree.

At night we went to the one and only con organized activity we attended over the whole con, the J-Pop dance. A couple words to the Anime North staff is in order on the subject of the J-Pop dance, YOU IDIOTS. For some reason, the Anime North staff decided to separate the line into the J-Pop dance based on gender, that is, girls in one line, boys in another. The best guess I have at why they did this was to funnel more girls into the dance so it wasn’t a sausage fest. But what it actually achieved was splitting up mixed gender groups of friends, creating a cloud of people hanging around the entrance waiting for their buddies to clear the security check. The security check itself was necessary, so I don’t fault them for that, even though it slowed the line to a crawl. Last year’s J-Pop dance was ended prematurely due to some drugs or something, so tighter security was definitely necessary.

Ears ringing, feet aching and stomachs full of nothing but alcohol, popcorn and chips, we went to sleep.

When you see it… =O

Sunday began with another couple hours of waiting for the waifu and her friend to put on make up. As soon as we hit the crowd, it became apparent that it was going to be a hassle getting anywhere with the two in their ridiculously cute Plusle/Minun gijinka cosplays. Our group was advancing at a rate of 3-5 strides between photo requests. Those of us not cosplaying got so bored that we began sabotage their photos by posing in the background doing stupid stuff like holding up a box of donuts or pointing at nothing.

With the con winding down, Sunday was a rather uneventful day. It was, however, free burger day at Harvey’s, the line was massive and it was hot outside, so we opted to use the drive through to procure our free food, during which I was tasked with reciting the burger toppings of the five people in the car, fun times…

Some more perusing of the dealer’s room and the artist alley brought the con to a close, and not soon enough, as something in my leg gave out and I ended up having to limp my way back to the car. I drove my waifu’s friend home, headed to her house, collapsed on the couch and fell asleep.

And now for the pictures! You’d think that with all that free time at the con I’d have taken a ton of pics myself, but I barely took any. Credits for most of these photos go to Tiffany Trinidad and her bitchin’ d300.

Cosplay: The Good

Kweh

So awesome

I’m still not finished watching CCS D:

Cosplay: The Bad

The harpoons. Man them.

I can only hope they’re not Caramelldansen

Cosplay: The Scary

Ah, ah, ah.

I think it might be time to retire

In addition to this, there were like…4 Misty crossplays, bizarre

Cosplay: The Waifu <3

Garmoe

Less than half the boobs, more than twice the win!

And finally my pathetic excuse for loot this year…

Is that a gorilla high fiving a shark?! Why yes, yes it is.

And that does it for this year’s AN! No tirade on the stupidity of anime fans when they gather this time, all that vitriol was spent last year. Now to start preparing for CNAnime in August, where I’ll hopefully be cosplaying for the first time!

~ Shirukii ~

Post Script: I’d also like to take this opportunity to apologize for the lack of K-ON blogging, it’s an awesome show and I have tons to say about it, but in all honesty…I’m lazy D:

Back from the con, extremely tired. Pics and a proper report soon to follow, “soon” pending pictures from a friend and some energy to move my body for more than 10 minute bursts at a time.

Immediate congratulations must go out to congoers this year though, not once did I lose the game, see someone fail miserably at Caramelldansen, get asked for a free hug or had to hold my stomach contents in due to fat Yokos or fail Ls. Excellent work people, I hope to see your continued commendable conduct at cons to come.

…for those who don’t attend cons, please note with the greatest emphasis, that was sarcasm.

~ Shirukii ~

See what I did there? Dohohoho, I am so clever.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to blog K-ON exclusively, because Saki fills me with rage thinking of what it could have been, as opposed to what it’s shaping out to be, I guess I jumped the gun on Gonzo not failing. Meh.

That said though, I just finished exams and am getting over a bout with the flu (and no, not THAT flu) and lethargy is a gross understatement of my current state of mind in terms of blogging motivation. So, it’s time to cop out and do the whole picture plus some brief commentary thing!

Blackmail is awesome and I totally did not see the mild mannered music teacher being a punk rock/metal goddess with a split personality. Her desire to fit into the sweet school teacher role and her previous changing of personality for the sake of impressing a boy makes me dislike her though, as she’s trying to force fit her identity into the situation du jour. Neither of her split personalities were ones that she cultivated on her own, her identity is probably lost forever, poor thing.

Pointing out that any particular season is wrought with lesbian undertones nowadays is grounds for “Captain of the Obvious” accusations, but damn is this season wrought with lesbian undertones. Then again, my sample size is a whopping two shows, so perhaps it isn’t as wide spread as I’m being led to believe. I wonder what kind of “bonding” Mugi imagined happened between Sawa-chan and Yui, I bet Sawa is all kinds of freaky in the bedroom.

Watching K-ON is doing wonders for my motivation to play guitar, but it’s so damaging to see Yui’s playing progress at a rate much quicker than mine, I bet she’ll be better than me in an episode or two D:

But hey, in the past week I’ve learned most of Don’t Say “lazy”, so I’m still having a blast.

I lol’d hard at this scene, it was like a commercial for Gibson. I’ve always had a thing against Gibson (and Fender) guitars because their dominance of use in mainstream entertainment annoys me, however I do admit that the tonal signature of Gibson guitars is a thing of beauty, this scene made me want to grab one…when I have $2,500 lying around ;_;

More on product placement, FUCK YEAH AKG 701s, one of the two headphones that I had narrowed down to in my great headphone debate. I ended up not choosing them though, opting to get Sennheiser’s HD650s instead, boasting better bass than the flat AKGs. They do have their merits over the Senns though, a much wider (almost unnaturally so) sound stage, mainly.

Moe moe kyun~

Anyway, can’t wait until next week, which should be the school festival concert, perhaps I’ll do a full and proper entry for that. Until then!

~ Shirukii ~

I know that this has probably been said a plethora of times previously, but…she came.

Oooh, big dilemma, do I blog Saki, do I blog K-ON, both? Neither?! I kinda want to do both, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep up that pace, since…well, I’m lazy. However, these two shows have the potential to drag the blogger out of me once again. They’re a ton of fun to watch and I can see them being a ton of fun to blog.

Anyway, I digress.

Saki 02

This week starts right where episode 1 left off, Saki pulls an insane hand out of a very select few to bring her score back to +/- 0. Another game is set up, but this time the president asks Saki if she might not try to play to win, suggesting she think of the initial scores being altered to her opponents favor so a perceived +/- 0 is really a guaranteed win. Nodo steps her game up and dominates for the majority of the round, but Saki wins the last hand with a, pardon me if I get this wrong, rinshan tsumo, suanko. (For some reason I want to say it’s a chankan tsumo, instead of a rinshan).

The rest of the episode is reserved for Nodoka BAAAAAW. Saki confronts her after the game but Nodo is all pissy because she got beaten by Saki, who doesn’t even like mahjong. Nodo runs home, broods in the shower, her wet hair clinging to her huge breasts, then she broods some more in bed, her huge breasts pushed against the bed. Breasts breasts breasts breasts breasts. I bet GONZO could redesign Nodoka to have no head and not a single person would notice.

Oh, there was also that bit that hinted that Saki’s mom is a mahjong celebrity of sorts.

I really hate Nodoka, not only because of her cow boobs, but because she keeps switching intermittently between creaming her panties over Saki and hating her because she’s a sore loser.

Speaking of panty creaming, dear god the lesbian undertones are strong in this one. All it’s missing is Nodo humping the corner of the mahjong table while moaning Saki’s name.

Just out of curiosity, I’d like to ask those of you who don’t know much about mahjong to comment on how the show is doing in terms of explaining it. Are you guys following along easily or do you find yourselves lost in the terms and scores being thrown around and only know something is epic when the speedlines and lightning kick in?

K-ON 01-02

This anime is a riot to watch. Yui is by far the driving force of the show, the lazy, easily distracted, airheaded lead who stumbles into the light music club in an attempt to bring some measure of excitement into her otherwise mundane life. She sorta reminds me of mai waifu with her general sillyness and some of the cute stuff she does…

Hup hup hup

And the effectiveness of sweets as a calming agent…

There’s more to the show than Yui though, the rest of the cast meshes very well together. You have the rich ojou-sama character, Tsumugi, the off the wall insane character, Ritsu, and her boke sidekick and voice of reason, Mio.

The show is a great mix of school comedy and slice of life, sorta like a Minami-ke/Manabi Straight fusion. The part time job scenes were pretty funny and everyone hanging out in the club room talking about music and fattening Yui up with cakes and pastries is equally hilarious.

A huge reason why I’m partial to this anime is because I’m also an aspiring guitarist, and when I saw Yui’s excitement to start playing, watched her pine over that Sunburst Les Paul Signature, I started to remember how I felt when I first started out, and it led me to pick up my guitar and start messing around again, the first time I had done so in many months. Damn Yui for getting her $2,500 LP in less than a week while I had to wait for close to half a year before I held my Ibanez RG, at less than half that cost retail. Spoiled brat D:

Now that everyone has an instrument, the real fun (ie. SCALES SCALES SCALES) should begin. Although for some reason I think Yui’s going to be some sort of guitar prodigy and have sweep arpeggios and string skipping under her belt before the week is out.

Quick note on technicals, animation is cutesy, but fitting. Music, judging from OP and ED, seems to fit the bill, and not half bad for an animu.

=O Ritsu you bitch!

~ Shirukii ~

The new season is here and so far I’ve only watched two of the new releases, FMA Brotherhood and Saki. I’m not a huge FMA fan, and while it’ll be fun to watch the series take the darker, more serious route that the manga did vs the first anime, I don’t have much to say about it. Saki, on the other hand, is basically Akagi with lolis, and there are few things better than Akagi.

Saki focuses on the titular character, who is a mahjong prodigy unbeknown to herself, or perhaps more accurately, in denial. Her style of mahjong is an odd and almost surely impossible one, to finish every round with a score of exactly +/- 0. Her compulsion to do so is rooted in her childhood, playing mahjong with her family. If she scored too low she wouldn’t get her sweet candy reward, but if she won too much, she’d be scolded, so consciously or not, she aimed for the middle ground. The EXACT middle ground.

So Saki avoids playing mahjong, even going so far as to say she dislikes it, presumably to avoid similar ridicule/anger that she was subject to as a child. However, her friend drags her to the mahjong club, some easy prey for its members. As the game progresses, one of the club’s star players, Nodoka, begins to suspect Saki’s odd style of play, but its only when their president wakes up that the (rather obvious) conclusion that Saki was playing for +/- 0 becomes apparent.

Bribing her with books, the president gets Saki to return the next day, having shook up Nodoka, who, despite her best efforts, can’t match Saki’s unique skill. And once again, despite her best efforts, cornering Saki into a position where only a couple choice hands (70 fu 2 han hands) would net her the coveted +/- 0 score, she manages to pull a rinshan tsumo (winning on the bonus draw after a kan) out of sheer godly luck.

Thoughts

It’s okay Saki ;_; someday you’ll find someone who loves your DFC

FUCK YEAH AKAGI WITH LOLIS!

Well…actually, not quite. So far, Saki, both the show and title character, lack the chronic insanity that Akagi did. Saki has a sort of calm confidence about her, which kicked up a notch in the final scene where she drew her “winning” hand, but she’s not about to play chicken with a bunch of thugs and run herself off a cliff in a speeding car. Also, the mindfuck element is missing in Saki, so far. No lengthy explanations as to how Saki set up her hand, defying all logic, reason and odds, it was seemingly random, or purely luck, which is fine, but not nearly as awesome as seeing Akagi’s perfect manipulation of not only the game itself, but the people playing it. And the cheating, of course.

However, the sheer impossibility of consistently scoring +/- 0 in every game Saki plays edges it into the same domain as Akagi mindfuckery.

But damn if these high schoolers don’t take their mahjong seriously, let alone the club owning a fully automatic mahjong table, Nodoka has her own personal one (albeit with little else in her room). These things can run you thousands to tens of thousands of dollars! Also…

Mahjong graphs!

Akagi comparisons aside, on the technical aspect of things, animation is…sufficient. No frills animation is at work here, with some questionable choices here and there, like the CG umbrella in the rain scene. But at least GONZO knows where to allocate their resources, putting the most animation weight into Saki’s epic final draw.

Music is, once again, inconsequential, if not bordering on pretty bad.

Finally, seiyuu cast is decent, with Kugimiya Rie, Ueda Kana and Koshimizu Ami being the recognizable voices thus far.

Speaking of GONZO, with two seasons of Druaga and now Saki, whose manga has a respectable following, they’re actually not sucking too hard as of late. Kudos guys.

lol at the pseudo fanservice though, a stupid move if you ask me because it’s going to piss off both extremes, those that clamor for fanservice any chance they get and those that abhor it. Personally, I don’t mind it, I think it’s funny and not at a level that’s distracting…yet.

I’m going to blog Saki, or at least TRY to, when school doesn’t have it’s boot firmly planted in my ass. It’s a quirky and fun show whose base concept I have an underlying knowledge of. I’m by no means a mahjong expert, but I know enough about it that I’ll be able to explain to the clueless out there exactly how epic Saki’s latest hand was.

Then again…perhaps I’m just choosing Saki because I long for the excitement that Akagi brought to the table, even if it’s in its most watered down form D:

I’m definitely not doing it for the lolis, not at all. What kind of absurd accusation is that!?

And a pinch of yuri undertones for good measure

~ Shirukii ~

Screw you KeyAni, screw you and your bullshit miracles.

Let me assert a belief of mine before going onto my rant: reset endings, wherein previously killed characters return to life, suck. If you disagree with that, stop reading now.

Reset endings are terrible excuses for series finales, it didn’t work for Mai HiME, it didn’t work for Wolf’s Rain and it didn’t work for Clannad, tainting otherwise excellent series in each case. Reset endings are stupid primarily because they invalidate all the emotions felt during the deaths of the characters that return to life. Both Nagisa and Ushio’s deaths had profound impacts on the characters in the show and those watching it. Tomoya was thrown into 5 years of emotional ruin because of his wife’s death, building a strong sense of sorrow and pity in the viewers, almost as if we were going through the grief with him.

We watched on as a childish delinquent pulled his life together in the name of love and the hell his life became when that was snatched away from him. Then we saw it happen all over again with his daughter Ushio. The deaths of those characters, whom we had grown to know and care for were BAAAW worthy moments, sending many an anime fan into honest to god tears. Then, in the last 15 minutes of a four cour anime series, spanning over a year, it’s all undone.

I suppose the counter to my argument would be that Tomoya endured his share of hardship and in the end deserved to be rewarded for his efforts and suffering. While I agree with that sentiment, is it inconceivable that he could be happy otherwise? If the ending were to have done the same, transported Tomoya to the alternate world and given him one last talk with Ushio, and then thrown him back in the snow with a dead daughter in his arms, it sure as hell would have taken him longer to get over it, but he would, Tomoya’s a strong person.

The whole thing with Fuko didn’t exactly serve to make this a more enjoyable finale either, my dislike for her having been voiced many times in the past. I find Fuko to be a gag character with one joke that’s been played ad infinitum since her appearance. Yeah, okay, she’s an eccentric ball of energy who clings onto cute things on sight, acts half her age and likes starfish, I get it.

Also,

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!

So, in conclusion…

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Jay will likely be along soon with a proper, and less hate filled, summary and review, touching upon story elements and whatnot, since I believe he actually enjoyed it.

~ Shirukii ~

Jay’s thoughts

To clarify, yes, I did actually enjoy it. ^^; Since this was an important episode, I would’ve normally done a summary, but I’ve got midterms to study for, so I’ll just be leaving some quick thoughts since Shirukii’s already done most of the job for me.

Everything after the snow part, anyways, since I really didn’t understand everything Illusionary-World Ushio said about being the world and what not. From what I understand, the Okazaki family all reincarnated into another world where Nagisa lives? This whole parallel world stuff was always left vague, so it’s sudden importance makes it feel too deus ex and convenient, even with Tomoya’s light from a few episodes ago. I’m sure it would really bore the viewers, but maybe they should’ve taken a bit more time to explain the mechanics of the lights and such, or at least word it differently.

It would’ve been better time spent than say, seeing Fuko act moe-tarded for the last 5-minutes, and it’s not as laughable since we don’t have Tomoya’s sarcastic comments to go along with it. I understand she had very little screen time, but even so, they could’ve just included her in the montage. Still, that faux-adult voice sounded pretty hawt… o_o

And no, Mei with boobs is fine too.

So is Cooltomi. What’s NOT fine is…

Bullshit, why is she alone!? ;A;

Tomoyo After. Now.

PREVIEW

It would’ve been great if the next episode was something like a picnic with all the characters, but no, it looks like we’re being treated to Nagisa’s POV of the beginning of Clannad. Maybe there’s a twist at the end where she’s telling all this to a sleeping baby Ushio or something.

How could I have missed the implications? These two are obviously lesbians.

-Jay

Hijacking blogs for mushy birthday wishes? Sure, why not!

Happy birthday to mai waifu, who turns 20 but looks like she should be turning 14, FUCK YEAH pseudo loli!

Every day with you is a blessing and I’m so lucky for finding someone who understands and shares my views on almost every subject, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you for coming into life and preventing the formerly inevitable violent killing spree in which I would have tried to cleanse the Earth of as many idiots as I could before a police sniper put a .50 through my eyes. I am forever in your debt for making the world a much more tolerable and less ronery place, have a great day!

~ Shirukii ~

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! Valentine’s Day is awesome, so get out there and have fun.

If you’re in a relationship, go and have a grand ol’ time with your significant other, regardless of whether you do it in the name of a prefabricated hallmark holiday or just for the hell of it. The bane of Valentine’s Day is that it encourages the display of love, which really shouldn’t necessitate a holiday, but rather than that, think of it as a little extra incentive, that last tiny nudge that you need to make the day special.

If you happen to not be seeing anyone, don’t fret, make some fun of the day anyway. If you’re content with your single life, kick back and relax for the day, knowing that the sweet promise of discount chocolate lies in the near future. If you’re single and don’t want to be, now’s as good a time as any to do something about it, go out and try meeting someone, use your bitterness towards the holiday as leverage if you must, misery loves company and finding someone to complain about the same things you do can lead to great things!

~ Shirukii ~

Post Script: First person to point out my hypocrisy gets barbed wire shoved down their throat, out their ass and flossed to death.

Mind = Blown

Despite the dip in posting here at AniAri, a steady stream of hits kept on flowing in and today we hit 1,000,000 unique hits (and somewhere in the range of 1,800,000 visits).

I’d like to extend my thanks to those who kept checking here, even in lieu of a post drought! And of course the google crawl bots, I <3 you Google, even if we aren't the first search result for "arimasu" anymore D:

Onwards to two million! (Hah.)

~ Shirukii ~

Bitch please, you’re 1000 years too early to be leaping past me

The winter anime season is in full swing now and I’m still lagging behind in my viewing, I’ve downloaded the first episodes of Druaga no Tou 2, Akikan, and Minami-ke Okaeri but haven’t watched them yet. I picked up Marimite for blogging and dropped White Album. Other than that, I gave the first episode of Rideback a chance, hailed by many as having potential for greatness. I must say I’m a little skeptical.

I do see the potential in Rideback in the prospect of immense character growth of Ogata Rin, the daughter of a ballet superstar whose hopes to surpass her mother were torn along with the ligament in her right ankle. I immediately took a liking to her character because she didn’t sit there BAAAWing after it happened, she didn’t mope around crying about how her dreams have been crushed and fall into depression. She moved on in a “when life closes one door, it opens another” manner, but did so calmly and seamlessly, without being preachy or self-important. Life threw Rin a curveball, she missed, but there are more pitches to be had and she’s prepping for the next one.

What I’m looking forward to is seeing Rin change as the world around her does, I want to see how this seemingly unfazable girl (having no issues with her panties being on public display) will react when taken out of the safety bubbles of school life and ballet, which she’s so familiar with and thrust into the horrors of a world divided.

However, I’m a little iffy on what else the show has to offer, the pseudo-mecha aspect doesn’t excite me at all. Not because I think it’s overdone, because while it probably is, I haven’t seen enough of it to make that call (although others seem to be shitstorming about how generic it is in that regard) it’s because the mecha themselves shouldn’t be the focal point of a show, but rather a driving force. Surfboard powered mecha, rollerblade powered mecha, anthropomorphic motorcycle mecha, it’s all the same to me.

Where this series will likely fail is pacing and transition, this preview hails the series as…

…a mecha sci-fi action spectacular, and a political thriller. While the ballerina heroine is discovering the joys of making ride backs dance the way few others can, she’s also getting mixed up in student protests against the new world government.

And goes on to say that Rideback covers a wide range of genres, changing between them seamlessly and naturally. But this is all in reference to the manga, I believe the anime will fail hard in this regard, I say this because…

I’m going to risk having to shove my foot in my mouth later and say unreservedly that 12 episodes is not enough to do a series like this justice, there’s just too much to cover. Rin has just made the transition to normal old school life from being a world stage performer ballerina and has just found a new calling with these ridebacks. There’s going to have to be a few episodes showing her adjustment to this relaxed life, explaining the workings of the ridebacks and some TRAINING LOL to make her truly hax with them. Then there has to be at least one or two episodes to explain the “my country ’tis of thee” politics that’s going on here, with this military based power who developed, in secret, the technology to perform a global coup d’etat. Then a major conflict whose implications make it impossible for Rin to remain a civilian must build, pulling her into the fray. Only then will we be in the full swing of things, and that’s already like…five or six episodes, minimum, leaving six episodes of buildup and one or two for climax, conflict resolution and falling action.

Not that a compelling story can’t be fleshed out in this time, but it’s not enough time to do true justice to the themes and characters presented. Subtleties in character development and atmosphere that distinguish great from mediocre anime will be lost in the rushed pacing.

So basically, I see great potential in Rideback, but expect it to fall on its face due to the short amount of time it has to work with. Not to mention I can already see it getting bogged down in military and political themes, losing sight of the characters in its attempt to create an immersive alternate reality.

On the technical side, animation is top notch, lots of eye candy and everything is silky smooth, the sakura blizzard scene was particularly well done. The music was rather forgettable, the OP being your typical house-ish j-pop thing, but admittedly had a catchy beat. The ED was weird in that it had a really upbeat back track accompanied by vocals that seemed more fit to a slow ballad, but more than that, the sibilance on that damned hi-hat prevented me from concentrating on anything else.

I’ll be watching this for now and will reserve full judgment until we get to the meat of the story, but already, based on the source materials claim to fame being its graceful maneuvering across multiple genres looking to be stifled by a short one-cour run, and the danger of politics and war overshadowing the characters within, I wouldn’t be surprised if this show ended up in my drop list.

~ Shirukii ~