Kansas weather is full of surprises. What’s next, oobleck, or fire and brimstone?
Author: Don
First impressions
Re-Kan — Another Shinto 101 show, like Natsume Yuujin-cho and Mokke. It reminds me of Pupipo, but here the girl who sees things that other people don’t has generally supportive classmates. While there’s no hint of fanservice, there is a cat who behaves like the reincarnation of Mr. Kimura, and that might limit its watchability. I’ll probably watch more.
Shokugeki no Soma — Three minutes into it there were tentacles. Forget it.
Houkago no Pleiades — Formulaic mahou shoujo. However, the girls have distinct personalities, and some of the events take place in a conservatory I’d like to visit. There’s also no hint of fanservice, even in the transformation scene. ((except perhaps for the excessively detailed eyecatch.)) I’ll probably continue watching.
Hibiki! Euphonium — I didn’t find the story and characters as enthralling as Ben, but I wasn’t in band when I did time in high school. I gave up about half-way through the first episode. I might give it another try sometime when I’m less preoccupied.
Update: I sampled a couple more.
Etotama — The first episode seemed like a gag manga adaptation, but apparently it’s an anime original. It was energetic and sometimes funny, but it made very little sense. I might watch another episode to see if the writers have anything in mind beyond chibified kemenomimi, but I don’t have high hopes.
Punch Line — noitaminA has given us probable classics (The Tatami Galaxy, Mononoke), curiosities (Moyashimon) and lots of pretentious drivel (pretty much everything else). And now noitaminA presents outright trash. I made it half-way through, and that’s enough.
Seasonal entertainment
I’ve been alternately watching new anime and the radar this evening. A moment ago I noticed a cute little hook in the radar echo. Sure enough, there’s a tornado warning couple of counties west-southwest of here, and the storms are heading east-northeast. I may be visiting the spiders in the basement later tonight. It is now officially springtime in Kansas.
Update (8:34 p.m.): There go the sirens.
Your scientifically accurate horoscope
A public service from Donald Sensing.
(Via Bayou Renaissance Man.)
For an alternative reading of the stars, see A.M. Yankovic.
200 years ago today
Tambora, a volcano on the island of Sumbawa and at that time one of the tallest mountains in Indonesia, erupted violently, propelling a Plinian eruption column up over 18 miles high. Spectacular though it was, the April 5 event was just the warm-up for the main show five days later, when Tambora uncorked the largest eruption observed in historical times, vastly larger than the Pinatubo, Katmai/Novarupta or Krakatau eruptions. Mount St. Helens in 1980 was a mere hiccup in comparison. The top of the mountain was replaced by a caldera four miles across, and the injection of dust and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere led to the “year without a summer.”
Why not, indeed?
After months of tedious waiting, there suddenly are not one but two different subtitled versions of Mouretsu Pirates: Abyss of Hyperspace out. I’ve watched each once so far. As far as I can judge, WhyNot‘s is the better and more thorough translation; Doremi‘s is impressive for a fourteen-hour job. WhyNot’s 1080 fansub has a 5.1 FLAC soundtrack and is more than twice the size of the corresponding Doremi version, which might be important if you have limited disc space or a sub-optimal internet connection.
It’s an enjoyable movie. Abyss of Hyperspace is set after the end of the TV series. Hyperspace has become very turbulent, which plays havoc with businesses dependent on faster-than-light travel. Pirate captain and high school student Marika acquires a “hostage,” a blue-haired boy with a mechanical parrot and father issues, and who is pursued by swarms of mobsters. After various adventures and battles and a bit of psychodrama, all is resolved, conspiracies revealed, bad guys thwarted, and good guys rewarded. The story’s not bad, but the real pleasure of the movie, as with most of Tatsuo Sato’s better work, is spending time with the characters.
It’s not necessary to have seen the television series to enjoy the movie, but those who’ve met Chiaki-chan before will get more out of it. There’s nothing objectionable, and the movie is suitable for anyone old enough to follow a moderately complicated story.
There are more screencaps below the fold.
Anagrammatical thought
While reading about Memories Pizza, it occurred to me that what we have here is not so much “Selma envy” as “Salem envy.”
Music at the horizon
Those who enjoy the soundtrack to Someday’s Dreamers might find the second video here of interest.
Nightmare fuel
Just 28 days until Walpurgisnacht.
Not an April Fool’s joke
Curious what exactly the “jazz hands” are that feminists demand instead of applause, I searched for the definition. It turns out that it’s a term with many meanings (no pictures, but still NSFW). Yeesh. I think that violent, unrestrained applause would be less upsetting than most varieties of “jazz hands.”
Time for some piracy
It seems like I’ve been waiting forever for the promised fansub of Mouretsu Pirates: Abyss of Hyperspace, which has been almost done for several months now. Another circle noticed a day or two ago that the movie was still not available in English and did the subtitles in fourteen hours. Steven has the link. I won’t have time to watch the whole thing until I get home this evening, but what I’ve seen so far has been worth the wait.
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Advisory
I have decided to accept advertising on this weblog, so expect to see occasional announcements of various goods and services. Please note that I preview each ad, and I decline any that does not meet my standards of taste and decorum.
Play ball
For further glimpses of everyday life in Japan, see the Brickmuppet.
Another one gone
I’ve been listening to John Renbourn ever since I first heard Pentangle’s cover of “Sally Go Round the Roses” back in ancient times. He passed away yesterday at the age of 70.
Big ones, weird ones
I finished going through the orchid show pictures. Here are a few more. You can see many more at my Flickr site.
Springtime in Wichita
Hail and sunshine, simultaneously? Yep, it’s Kansas.
Memo to NRO
Spoiler
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Please clean the damned malware off your site NOW. While you’re at it, undo all the recent “improvements” that have made NRO a tedious, unreadable mess, too.
By the way, don’t call that number. I recommend that everyone stay away from National Review Online until get they their act together.
Update: According to some online diagnostic services, National Review‘s site is clean. A scan of my hard drive found no malware. Nevertheless, I still got redirected to a site that wanted to install a bogus Flash update the last time I visited. I would guess that whatever agency handles the advertising on the NR site is running some tainted ads. It looks like I’m not going to spend much time with Kevin and Jonah for a while.
Update II (April 3): Whatever was hijacking my browsers seems to be gone from the site now. NR is still a pain to navigate, though.
Terrestrial and epiphytic
There was another orchid show at the botanical garden, and I spent yesterday there taking too many pictures. It’s going to take a while to go through them all and edit the better ones for my Flickr site. Here are a couple of the weird things.
CM7 CMm7 Cm7 | Am7♭5/C Cdim7 FMm7/C
My friend Roger the Fiddler has begun a weblog, Cold Jazz. If you’re interested in how music works, it’s worth a visit. (John Salmon, are you still around?)