Collector’s item

Tsukimi

So Steven is looking for girls with red half-rim glasses? Here’s one he might have missed: Tsukimi, from Princess Jellyfish. ((The frames look brownish here, but elsewhere they’re clearly red.)) (It’s a good show, often very funny, that badly needs a second season, but I suspect that it’s not quite to Steven’s taste.)

It’s been a tedious week …

… and I could use a little silliness right now.

Sailor Fluttershy

When I read Dusty Sage’s comments on Equestria Girls, it occurred to me that there might be another bipedal variation on the Pony theme extant. And indeed there is. Is there ever.

Continue reading “It’s been a tedious week …”

A typical high school

High school

The third Girls und Panzer OVA gave us a panoramic view of the school ship. (To see the full-size image, right-click to open the link in a new window.) In terms of Kansas cities, it looks larger than Haysville but smaller than Emporia.

Update: The more I look at this picture, the spookier it becomes. Where is everybody?

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You all had a narrow escape, by the way. I had a few posts in mind for tomorrow which I planned to type up this afternoon. However, my neighbors decided at 1 a.m. this morning that I didn’t need to sleep. (Curiously, when I called on them later they did not come to the door, even though the door was wide open and the teevee was on.) Instead of writing, I spent the afternoon dozing in bed.

Winter anime notes

From Polar Bear Cafe

Llamas and alpacas celebrate Christmas by going to Mass. (Via Aliens in This World.)

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So, what am I going to watch this winter beyond the rest of Shin Sekai Yori? Let’s see …

• I might watch all of Satoshi Kon’s work in order and see what overall themes emerge. With four movies and one 13-episode series, that’s a manageable goal.

• I might look again at series I started but never finished: Noein, Kurau Phantom Memory, Fantastic Children.

• I might finally watch some of the sets gathering dust on my shelves: Witch Hunter Robin, Welcome to the N.H.K., Texhnolyze, Samurai X, various Ghosts in the Shell.

• I might revisit old favorites that I haven’t watched recently: Serial Experiments Lain, Princess Tutu, Mushishi, Kino’s Journey, Jubei-chan: Secret of the Lovely Eyepatch, Divergence Eve.

• I probably will watch all of Shingu yet again when I once more make the mistake of thinking I can watch just one episode.

… or I might not watch anything, but instead read.

What I’m probably not going to watch is any of the winter anime offerings. In all the previews I’ve read, there is not a single show that looks even slightly interesting.

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Some sort of mesemb

I noticed that Hyouka was on a lot of best-of-the-year lists, including Jonathan’s, so I watched the first episode. It’s okay, I guess, but the premise wasn’t particulary interesting, and the characters were mildly irritating. I doubt I’ll watch more. What caught my attention was the plant above, the first mesemb I’ve seen in anime. There were also images of the distinctive and dangerous Euphorbia marginata, out of focus but unmistakable.

To be fair, I should note that I attended four grade schools and three high schools and was a bored outsider at all of them. I am not the least bit nostalgic for my school years, and any story set in a high school automatically has one strike against it.

Time to hang up your tights

… and Paragon City is no more.

I stayed up way too late last night to observe the end of City of Heroes. I spent most of that time getting in everyone’s way taking screenshots of all the players I had never met. It was the first time that the MMORPG actually was “massively multiplayer” in my few months of occasional visits.

There was a lot of sentimental gushing in the chat, with much affection expressed for the creators of CoH and contempt for their Korean overlords. I have a good deal of sympathy for the stranded players. Still, I came late to the game and never acquired any “friends” in it, so I have less emotional investment in CoH than most of the other players. For the sake of the people who spent up to eight years’ worth of free time in that online world, I hope that CoH is resurrected. However, I probably won’t be there if it is, even if there is another Mac version. I have other ways of connecting with people online, and I am just not that much of an RPGer. (On the other hand, it is fun to fly, and shoot exploding arrows, and wield a blazing sword.)

Screenshots are below the fold. They are all from the “Triumph” and “Infinity” servers.

Update: No surprise here.

Continue reading “Time to hang up your tights”

Annual task

What anime calendars are available for 2013? I did a little searching at YesAsia and found a few:

Mouretsu Pirates
Natsume Yujincho (times three)
Inu x Boku SS
To Aru Kagaku no Railgun
Moyashimon
Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica (times two)
Sword Art Online
Accel World
Idolm@ster

Osamu Tezuka
TV Anime

… plus the usual Naruto, Gintama, Bleach and One Piece products, and of course multiple Totoro calendars. There are also Hatsune Miku and Mount Fuji. I didn’t see any Strike Witches or Dog Days calendars; maybe next year.

And then there’s Karel Capek. In the western world, Capek is known for such works as R.U.R., War with the Newts, The Absolute at Large and The Insect Play, but in Japan, “Karel Capekmeans tea.

High culture, low culture

Thomas L. McDonald states:

I’ve said before that I consider the ink line of Charles Schulz one of the great artistic gifts of our time, and believe that Jack Kirby is a better artist than Pablo Picasso. It’s unlikely those would be “safe” opinions to have without the influence of Warhol, who once said Walt Disney was the greatest artist of the 20th century. (I agree.)

So who do you think is the better artist? Jack Kirby?

Or Pablo Picasso?

Continue reading “High culture, low culture”

Back to school Hell

Excel began her saga by getting hit by a truck. If the Great Will of the Macrocosm had not intervened, her story might have been something like Hells. Here are some screen captures from the first third of the movie. (It will probably be a week or two before I watch the rest of it. Right now, I’m getting ready for Winfield.)

Continue reading “Back to school Hell”

Pigs can fly

Here’s some nonsense to amuse you while I’m busy not writing.

Missing link discovered: Magical girls perform functions in Japanese society similar to those of superheroes in America. I’ve wondered whether if this is an example of parallel evolution or if there is a common ancestor. A recent discovery suggests that the latter may be the case. The protagonist of Ai to Yuuki no Pig Girl Tonde Buurin is essentially a superhero. However, she has a henshin sequence that is unmistakably that of a mahou shoujo. (The show is on the border between silly and dumb, and I don’t recommend it except as a curiosity.)

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Um, no comment.

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European history, according to freshman papers:

The Reformnation happened when German nobles resented the idea that tithes were going to Papal France or the Pope thus enriching Catholic coiffures. Traditions had become oppressive so they too were crushed in the wake of man’s quest for ressurection above thenot-just-social beast he had become. An angry Martin Luther nailed 95 theocrats to a church door. Theologically, Luthar was into reorientation mutation. Calvinism was the most convenient religion since the days of the ancients. Anabaptist services tended to be migratory. The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic. Monks went right on seeing themselves as worms. The last Jesuit priest died in the 19th century.

I spent ninth grade at a Jesuit high school. Either I’m older than I had realized, or I was educated by zombies.

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Let’s intellect: Is this a parody, or for real?

A community where all angst struggling writers and poets can intellect. We are not only spiritual and constructive in our writing. We are serious, hardworking writers. We have given perspiration to inspiration; We have strived in our thrivations. We have lived to build our living characters, penciled through every constructive detail in our realms filled in sorrow, death, birth, hardship, and pain. Our imaginations entwined to unfurl past a world of hope, a universe of dreams, fairies, trolls, gas- breathing dragons or three-warped witches, tales of Heros, and stories of legend all capsized into an outlined story draft. Words strumming onto a page of pure magic; and it is magic. Our work is engraved in our names, stitched into our bloods, ravenous through our ink-coursed veins that defines the artistic process. Join us and forever hold your peace in The Ambitious Writers, The Children Writers, The Erotics, The Romances, The Horrors, The Fictitious, The Poets, The Westerns, The Adventures, The Mystery, THE STRUGGLING WRITERS

Oh, yeah: Rule #1 is “No negative critiquing.”

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Would you buy it for a quarter?

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Fear the clown.