No, I’m not as stupid as Kana that I’ll fall for the same tricks year after year.

I’m just going to go rant a little. Personally, I don’t quite see the fun in all the crazy sudden site revamps, closing downs, blah blah etc… that happens on this day every year. Well, it certainly works on first timers, but to someone who has been hanging around the anime side of the internet for a few years, this sort of thing gets old really quick.

Granted, it might be a whole lot of fun to play a trick on the unsuspecting, but it’s also a major disruptance to many people. Sometimes, they see things and take them for real, and then their whole day gets ruined. Things they might have been planning to do might also get pushed out of their calendar because some sites decided to play dead for a day.

Then there are also the jokes that go too far. The ones that cause major flame wars between multiple parties who don’t even realize the truth. These kind of stuff can do some pretty serious damage to the inter-woven relationships between internet users. Most commonly expressed in places like forums, the insults thrown around can be quite hard to take back, even though posts can be deleted…

Still, at the end of the day, I don’t intend to spoil someone’s idea of fun. It’s not my place. The reason why people tend to get worked up over these April Fool’s pranks is probably because they have learnt to take the internet and the online service provided by other people for granted. They think things will stay the same stable status quo forever. Well, good luck to them. The world isn’t so easy a place.

Anime: Koihime Muso
Episodes: 12
Released: 2008
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, Action, Slight Ecchi

This anime is an adaptation of a Japanese adult visual novel called Koihime Musō: Doki Otome Darake no Sangokushi Engi which is loosely based on the famous Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. However, the anime does not dwell into the complexities of the Chinese novel at all; instead, it focuses on the travels and adventures of a young beautiful black-haired warrior named Kan’u as she journeys throughout China. She is alone at the start of the anime but is soon quickly joined by other companions on her travels.

I absolutely love an anime which can make me smile or laugh easily and this anime did just that for me. Some of the funniest moments are when the characters are turned “chibi” for a brief humorous skit or the subtle “yuri” jokes and teasing moments which happens among the characters. This anime was really fun to watch and overall it has a very light tone so it was very easy to get into it. The comedy aspect of the anime is complimented by some very nice battle scenes. If you’re a veteran of action and adventure anime then this anime probably won’t offer anything relatively new to you but some of the fights are quite interesting to watch, especially toward the end when Kan’u joins a resistance group. The ending of the anime also left me with the impression that a second season could easily be adapted and I hope to see one in the future.

Personally, I absolutely loved the characters and humor in this anime–they were my favorite aspects–so I’m giving it a B+ and recommending it to anyone who likes to watch anime of this type. Watching anime is meant to be fun and this one is an excellent example.

I’m still alive… I go away for a few months and people start to think that Rakugakid runs this place…

So. Toaru Majutsu no Index comes to a close…

Bye bye Index…

Well, congrats to JC Staff for another series well done. The animation quality was good, ditto for the voice acting. Nothing particularly wrong overall on the technical side.
Sure, some people were a bit unhappy with the pace seeming to feel too slow, and there being not enough action. Well, face it. This is a show based off a light novel. Pulling off action scenes are pretty much pulling nice pictures out of the air. Fine, the screenwriter’s imagination, but you get the idea.

What Toaru Majutsu seemed to excel at was character design and development. Solid characters are a must in any good show, but for TMnI, even the minor characters seem well fleshed out. Take Kanzaki Kaori as an example. After seeing her in the first arc, you think that’s the end of her role. She’s done enough as a villain for a series. Then later she comes back in the Angel Fall arc, and you learn yet more about her and her history. For leaving no generic characters in its cast list, bravo to Toaru Majutsu.

So… Let’s end off with a Misaka BANG!… BANG!

Oh well, now that it’s over, what to do? Wait for the next one of course. If you watched right till the very end of TMnI, you would have noticed this…

Nice eh? For those not in the know, this isn’t just some side story spun up by JC Staff. Toaru Kagaku no Railgun in a comin serialized in Dengenki Daioh. There are currently two manga volumes out publised by the same company. Got a tiny front cover scan of volume two somewhere…

I never heard of this anime (at least, I think it is an anime) but I think that person is a trap. For those who know the truth good for you, however, from two other fans which shares the same title I managed to discriminate two traps thus making me wary of this third one. Anyway, I have to stop here if not this would no longer be a short post. =)

I have also just put this picture on my blog. In case any of you have not come across the December issue of Moeoh this picture came from there. I don’t know what you guys would think about this girl. Cute maybe. But before you carry on further with whatever you might be thinking now, look at her properly. Her top is ok but doesn’t her bottom look…? I shall leave it as that and everything else will be up to your imagination. It could also be just the light anyway. ^__^

First up, a random picture, and the following pictures would also not be related

I got quite addicted to Tower defense and started seeing mazes everywhere. Anyway, I am still very unhappy about being unable to go for the Japan trip organized by my school. Even though I wished that their plane would encounter problems or that their bus would meet with an accident nothing happened. T___T Seems that I am not cut out to be a Gigalomaniac. The only thing which managed to calm me down slightly was that they were not able to make it to the 6 storey anime shop which one of the teacher promised, due to time constrain. Though, a 6 storey anime shop is really no big deal in my opinion. I have seen higher buildings selling anime products in Hong Kong.

Intermission : Cactuar <3

Anyway yeah, if I could have gone for the trip, there was a possibility that I wouldn’t give a dam about anime. The experience would have been enough. Oh well, the trip is over and whats done cannot be undone… Or maybe if I have a time machine, I would travel back to the past and switch places with one of the person who is going for the trip.

Oh yeah, EOY should be over by now

Just side tracking a little, I found it no point to go to EOY because it was an epic waste of time and money, and even though it is held one stop away from my house, I found absolutely no point in going as nothing good would probabaly come out of it. Singapore cosplayers are full of failplay in any case. I have yet to see a decent cosplayer, one of the reason could be that I avert my eyes away from Singaporean Cosplayers. As the saying goes, once bitten, twice shy. After the EOY two years ago, I found no point in going to EOY ever again. Though, Cosfest is another thing.

This totally changed my definition of benches

One reason why Cosfest is a better option than EOY is because it is free and doesn’t cause as much eyes burn. Though, Cosfest is usually dam crowded and packed, but EOY would probably be the same.

A parked bicycle right below a no parking sign

Maybe I should also be defiant, as shown in the picture. The GP department in charge of the trip gave us a hell lot of homework for the holidays. I guess I would not do them. The reading log which was due over a month ago still rests on my desktop, the article that is.

OK, I guess that was a long enough rant. I still have work tomorrow and there’s some stuff which I still need to clear up so I shall take my leave.

I’m also trying to see if I can drag in more co-bloggers to hold the fort while I gone… Based on past experience, I think there are very few people willing to write stuff on a small time anime blog like this…

Adios. I’ll be back when I’m done with training, I hope.

I am a manga addict

Since most people would probably wonder who this guy is, I would do a small introduction. I am just a plain normal manga addict. My hobby is to collect manga and keep them and not read them. Looking at them makes me happy… That introduction probably make me look like a dam sad person, but who cares. Since my existence is not of much importance, I shall continue on.

I see that AFA has been covered so I shall not touch on that. Anyway I don’t have many pictures to contribute. I totally ignored the cosplayers there and I only took pictures of what I thought mattered.

I just started reading Air Gear

Yeah, I know its rather late to start reading Air Gear since it has been around for years. I didn’t even know why did I pick it up… Probably because of the -random function from Onemanga. Anyway I got these books at S$1 per book.

It was sold at Nandemoya, which Rdrake had told me that they are having a clearance sale this morning, and it was all thanks to him that I could get my hands on such a deal even though the manga were from Chuang Yi, and since I owe him one I would do a post as I promised 2 months ago and whenever I am free from now on.

I walked to Kinokuniya after buying Air Gear

Since Nandemoya didn’t have book 4 and 5 I had to get 5 from Kino, but they also did not have 4. T_T
Ouch… I just heard that Okto (?) is playing the girl who leapt through time movie. Since I have not watched television for… about… a year plus? hence I don’t know what is that.

Note onscreen : All my unread manga

I don’t know whether this is considered a lot or little so I shall not add on. In any case, this post is definitely shorter than the one on my own blog but I have work tomorrow and I need to watch pantsu witches which I only started today. Anyway if anyone stumbles on to my blog, don’t be surprised that whatever I write here is different from what I wrote there. I don’t like to do double posts as I see no point in doing so thats why I changed the content.

Ok, that was fun. I just spent the whole day down at Suntec City where Anime Festival Asia(AFA) 08 is being held. Sorry, but I don’t have any pictures, but I’ll try to get some from the other bloggers.

At 8.30am, I met up with the other bloggers at City Hall. The event didn’t start until around 10am or so, but they had media passes and could go in early. (Maybe next year I’ll go do that too, after I get this place into better shape.)

By the time we reached the event hall, the place was already packed. Apparently, the queues for tickets are incredibly long. It took me a 20 minute wait just to get a ticket, and I was even pre-registered. The poor non-registered visitors had to wait in line for hours…

Anyway, the doors opened at 10am and and the opening ceremony was held with all the delegates and guests of honour. Then things start to get busy…

Immediatly as the event started, there were long queues at two booths, the Takashimaya booth and the KKNM booth. Both stores were releasing new items today. (In Taka’s case, it was a limited edition trans-am Gundam Exia). Long queues indeed. Someone should have a photo to show just how long… The one at kknm simply refused to go away, right from opening to closing of the store O_O

Most of the booths seemed to have pretty brisk business. Including the arcade area. Which I just don’t get. It’s one thing to hold an arcade gaming competition, but another altogether to set up shop in there WHEN THE ENTRANCE FEE IS 4-5 SGD.

The art shows were nice enough. There are two art competitions with prize ceremonies being held at AFA. Graphite, by NUS Anime Club, and Mangaka. Today’s prize ceremony was for Graphite, and tomorrow’s will be for Mangaka. Nice art, worth a look if you find them at the corner…

Ok, on the stage, they were having some photo events and stuff. Tamagotchi, 5 second man, power rangers, even… Oh the screening of MS Igloo was nice. They played it using the english dub, but the dubbing is really really good… It’s hard to believe it was done locally. (Yes, it’s a Singaporean dub, believe it or not.) There was also a preview for the movie coming out soon, “The Sky Crawlers”. It looks, good, I’ll probably catch it in cinemas when it’s out. The Gundam designer made an appearance too, but I didn’t catch much of him because I was leading some friends from school around.

Overall, the whole affair was well done, and things proceded in an orderly manner. I give the organisers kudos for that, this being the first time an anime convention of this magnitude is being held here after all. And the number of special guests they managed to attract in are marvelous. Just May’n alone would have been a coup, but having half a dozen or so is really nice, especially since this is “backward” SEA…

On the downside, the content, while pretty full, wasn’t very attractive to anime veterans like us animebloggers. Studio 4C is good, sure, but it doesn’t have the same bulging portfolio full of blockbuster works as other studios like Sunrise or KyoAni. On the merchandising front, there wasn’t much to buy either. The exclusive limited edition Gunpla was a good idea, but there were too few off them. Other than that, most of the shops didn’t have a AFA exclusive release. KKnM’s release was a exclusive release mainly on account of it arriving from Japan on the same date as AFA.

Ok, I suppose that’s a simple round up of AFA day 1. I’ll be going the whole day again tomorrow, so stay tuned for more updates.

All in all, this season is good. Not just good as in nothing to really drag it down, but good as in lots of actually much-more-than-mediocre serieses. Admittedly I have low standards, and will watch just about anything, but there’s good action, good comedy… What more could I ask for?

These are quite obviously the shows I’ve been watching for the past few weeks now… Well, just some of them. NovaJinx’s list covers some more, and then there are still some which are not listed, such as Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganare.

Jigoku Shoujo is doing fine in its own unique way, but as much as I like it, at the same time I don’t feel good talking about it too much beacuse it makes me start to feel depressed. The whole series is just way too sad and serious.

Kannagi is doing absolute great! I’m probably going to end up marking it as the best shows of Fall08. It’s the sort of thing that just seems to work well in its simplicity. Sure, it might not have the best animation (JC Staff are slowly waffling Toaru Majutsu no Index to death), or the most famous seiyuus (look where that’s gotten AkaneSaka), but character design is excellent. (The manga was nice, yes :3) Also, the directing is good, the occasional parody and reference to real life works well next to a modest, everyday, feel in the storytelling. Evidently, not being too overly dramatic works too.

Kemeko Deluxe, Macademi Wasshoi are probably the top two comedy animes of the season. They do appear to be following the traditional harem comedy genre to a certain extent, but I don’t want to lump them in the same group as Rosario and Akane-iro, thanks to the vast difference in performance. The unrestrained, slapstick comedy really hits the spot for a poor little blogger cramming for his A level exams. Also… HAADO GEI!!! in my anime? I almost burst while laughing through Macademi episode 5.

Rosario is being mediocre, same as the last season. I used to like GONZO but I’m starting to lose that. First off, it’s not particularly spectacular on any front. I’m not attracted to fanservice, but it irks me to find that GONZO censored all the pantsu flashes in one of the silliest ways possible. They covered up the incrimination areas with that little bat or teddy bear. This really irks me for being so… UNREAL AND ARTIFICIAL! Is the traditional bright light and heavy fog/mist not good enough anymore that such ridiculous measures have to be taken?

Akane-iro is getting bad to the point where I’m just watching it to pass the time spent travelling on the bus. I’m not even going to waste my breath (or whatever energy equavalent typing has) bashing it…

Yozakura is also being mediocre, so I don’t have much comment. But it’s interesting enough in the character interaction department, so I’m keeping it on my watch list.

Hmm, looks like I’m running out of steam. Been a long time since I wrote a post like this. Ok, signing off here. Need to sleep and get ready for tomorrow’s big day anyway. I’ll be going downtown to AFA08 early tomorrow to meet up with the other bloggers. After that, will probably hang around until it’s open to public, and will go take a look around till my friends arrive. Can’t promise anything, but I’ll try get pictures and reports up here. Ok, RDrake out.