IRC.

College wasn't too bad today, considering it was the first day back after a week of almost relaxation. Lessons went roughly well, and thankfully no homework was set. That would have probably killed me to be honest. For the past 3 days I've had possibly 7 hours sleep in total. That's naturally my fault since I've been hanging out on IRC a low with the Doujin-World group. They're cool people, and at times completely random. It makes chatting much more enjoyable. In other manga news, chapter 206 of Ah! My Goddess hasn't yet been scanlated to my knowledge which is a shame. What's an even bigger shame is that I have no clue what time of the month it's released. Ah well. At least I recently got to read Bleach chapter 201. **Spoilers ahead** Excellent to see Rukia up on her Shinigami feet again. The mod soul was pretty funny, but most impressive was Rukia's Shi Kai. It destroyed an Arankaru, which was hinted to be at Captain level. Wow. Unfortunately I was a bit upset as I prefer the hollow, vaizard and arankaru character (basically the evil guys) but at least it looked cool.

I've also actually managed to watch some anime too. Zomg indeed. I started downloading s-CRY-ed. I've only managed to get the first 3 episodes, but they were very good. The whole supernatural powers thing is done well, since each user is able to decompose and recompose matter, but each one is unique. As of yet the main characters are interesting, yet not too fleshed out apart from the main woman, but that's to be expected after only 3 episodes. It'll most likely go into more depth and elaborate on the relationships between the characters. At the moment however I'm still downloading the Firefly TV series. admittedly I've still only watched 2 episodes and the whole 14 episode series will be finished in just over an hour, but I'll probably watch it some weekend or something. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll have more s-CRY-ed to watch. Till next time then.

Just in time.

Almost missed the post for today. I've been savouring my last day of the holidays by chatting a lot on IRC. That and listening to Final fantasy VII: Advent Children music pretty much. I've been reading a few random doujins, but nothing overly eventful. I let my computer have mostly a downloading rest today, though in a bit I'll start up downloading Shuffle! ep 15, since that's just come out. Lucky I checked randomly otherwise I wouldn't have downloaded it for a few days, heh. It's been a barren day overall, heh. I've read the Draw comic book partially, and played on my PSP for a while, but that was about it. A very uneventful day. So then, till next time.

Tired.

Yesterday wasn't fun, but at least it passed. I managed to get pretty much all of the work done, though I left the photos till today. Bleh. My mum actually came round today instead of tomorrow, and so we went out around Eastbourne for a few hours, chatting and so forth. She actually bought me the PSP game Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects and the 'Draw Comics with Dick Giordano' book. The game's very good, you battle as a superhero and fight others in one-on-one battles. The arena's are completely 3D and destructible, it's great fun. Some of the fights can get insanely difficult since the only starting characters available are The Thing and Jhonny Ohm. It also has a card-based system, and equipping cards can give certain power ups when they're used. Pretty nifty. The book is quite self explanatory, how to draw comic characters and so forth. What I wanted most within the book however was the lessons on proportion and panelling. There are so many 'How to Draw manga' and 'Drawing Manga' books but they all just show you how to draw set characters. This book has the actual rules behind it, which you customise to suit your character. It's not just full of step-by-step plans to draw already made characters.

Anime-wise nothing's been happening really. I've only been downloading and listening to anime music. Namely the Ah! My Goddess OST's, the Samurai Champloo OST's and singles, the Mahou Sensei Negima's OST's and singles and currently downloading is the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children soundtrack. I'm looking forward to this since the music during the film was fantastic. I'm still searching for kakurenbo, at the moment it hasn't appeared. Similarly I'm still waiting for Blood+, Mai Otome and Solty Rei to build up more episodes. I think I'll probably start downloading them once they have 5 or so episodes released each, that'll at least keep me watching the shows in tandem for a day or two. Since I don't really have any work to do tomorrow (unless I randomly feel like going above and beyond the call of duty by doing more english coursework) I'll probably waste it sleeping then watching Firefly. I've still not finished downloading that TV series, and though the first 6 episodes are done I've only seen the first 2. Meh. Till next time then.

More Goddesses.

Today involved yet more sleeping, hurrah. It's the calm before the storm of homework that'll hit me tomorrow. Urgh. Anyway, after I'd read the Ah! My Goddess manga I felt like watching the original OVA again, so off I went to download that and thankfully since it was around 1.3GB I've already managed to finish watching it. It was a great watch, and reallt heartwarming in some places. verall though I prefer the TV series over the OVA since there was simply more of it. Most of all I like the manga though, since that's the original plotline and the order is much better, and though some things aren't as detailed as the TV series, there's far more stories early on which due to time restrictions the series had to skip. I'm actually quite into the Ah! My Goddess theme at the moment, as you can easily tell, and my current PSP wallpaper is one of Belldandy.

I really am not looking forwards to tomorrow. I have to analyse at least 17 pages of epitaphs, including grouping the famous people's ones. Then I need to sort out the pictures of epitaphs I have an do the same with those. The sociology coursework should be simpler and quicker, but I still need to work out the bibliography for it, which'll be an absolute royal pain. I will most likely not have fun tomorrow, and I can fully see myself working for 5 hours straight and not finishing it. After I watch the almost finished Naruto update I won't have any new anime to watch either. I still have Firefly to watch since I've only watched the first episode, but though it's good it's just not quite the same as anime. Damn it. I really detest holiday homework. It destroys the relaxing atmosphere and ruins the week. Bah. Till next time.

Reading pains.

My eyes, my poor eyes. I'm vaguely sure that the pain in my eyes is worth it. I finished downloading all 205 scanlated chapters of the Ah! My Goddess manga, which is roughly the first 31 volumes and half of the 32nd. That's not bad. Not only that, but due to spending most of this afternoon constantly reading, I've managed to read the first 196 of them. This means that I'll be able to finish before I even go to sleep. fantastic, since I dislike leaving most things unfinished. It's a prime example of how an artist's style changes, as well as the character concepts. For a start the original Belldandy was more like the 'Dragonball' style, and was blue haired. Now in the recent chapters she looks much better in my opinion, and has lovely brown hair. My favourite character is still Urd however, after watching the OVA, TV series and after reading most of the manga. As half goddess and half daemon she has either the best aspects of both sides, or the worst of both sides depending on how you view it. Yet underneath it all, she's a good person with best interests at heart. Pity she doesn't think too much.

The day today however was even better due to anime updates. The next episode of Bleach, Gun X Sword and Trinity Blood was released, and all were great to watch though they did take up reading time, heh. It won't be long before trinity Blood is fully subbed, so that's excellent news too. Amidst all this manga and anime I've still found time to work on the Soul Society RP forums, and there've been quite a few posts today that I had to review, though not all of them required me to act as Storyteller to advance the plot. Hopefully tomorrow will be more relaxing overall, even though I enjoyed today. The unfortunate thing is that on Friday I'll need to do my Sociology homework as well as more English Language coursework. Thankfully I already have the epitaph pictures, so I'll at least be able to work on those. So, till next time.

Muchos manga.

Today I went to the cemetary and got roughly 25 photos of epitaphs, so that's all good. I then went to Games Workshop for the evening and had one of the most enjoyable games of Warhammer 40k I've ever experienced. It wasn't my army since the guy controlling it gave up after the first turn and asked me to take over since he'd suffered so horribly. I duly took over and had a blast, since I didn't do too badly with the exception of being wiped out, heh. At several points I almost clawed back a draw, but it wasn't to be. Great fun though. Upon returning home I started up the downloads again and managed to get the final episode of Tsubasa (hurrah!) which I'm just about to watch, and I finished downloading the first 26 volumes of the Ah! My Goddess manga. I actually managed to read the first 34 chapters too, out of about 205 overall from all the released volumes.... This will take me quite a bit of time. I'll probably end up spending most of my day tomorrow reading manga. The good thing is however that I've just reached the part where Urd becomes the vessal for the Lord of Terror, which is near the end of the TV anime series of Ah! My Goddess, so soon I'll be able to see what happened after it.

As an irony volume 28 is downloading at over 3 times the speed of volume 27. At the very least this will give me some reading time to catch up with it. By the time I've got all the currently released chapters I'll probably be up to chapter 100 or so with any luck. That was basically my day, so quite a short post today. Till next time.

Fireflies and Manga.

Today didn't quite go to plan. I was supposed to go to the local cemetary to take pictures of the epitaphs for my english coursework, but since it was pouring with rain that was put off till tomorrow, meaning I need to change my schedule slightly. On the highly plus side the next episode of Shuffle! (ep 14) and Girls Bravo second season (ep 11) was released, so I downloaded those whilst I went to the cinema. I saw Sky High, a film about superhero kids with inherited powers etc etc, and it wasn't bad from the 'see all the superpowers and catch the references' point of view, but not that good otherwise. One funny reference was a small kid who turned into a giant rock golem thing. In his normal form he has ginger hair. Well orange and giant rocky thing is most likely a reference to, well.. the Thing from Fantastic Four. There was also a bully with the stretchy skills from Mr. fantastic.

After getting home and watching the updates I also watched the first hour and a half long episode of Firefly. That's a good series, and I enjoyed it almost as much as the film. It wasn't better than the film merely because of the lack of easily quotable lines, but I'm sure that'll pick up since it's done by the Buffy and Angel creator. To pass the time I also decided to start downloading the two Love Hina concerts, where idols representing the Hinata Inn girls sing all the songs from the series. Thanks to a severe lack of seeders only one of them will probably be completed by tomorrow, which is a pity. To use up the remaining download speed I decided to start getting the Ah! My Goddess manga too. There's 29 volumes to download so far. Wow. It's certainly been going on for quite a while then... Since only the first 27 are in a single torrent it'll most likely take several nights depending on seeders. Other than that there isn't much news, so till next time.

Completion.

Well how annoying, I woke up in the morning to find my computer had frozen, so Bottle Fairies had no episodes completed since they were all at around 90% done. Grr. Since I was going round Jake's house I restarted and let it run throughout the day just to finish it, and I also started up the Firefly torrent. I left the house at 12.40pm, aiming to get to his early afternoon. There was engineering works. Hmm. I had to get a bus to Lewes from Polegate, and I arrived at Lewes at 1.40pm. The train to Haywards Heath was at 2.20pm. To hell with a 40 minute wait, so I got the train to Brighton which was just about to leave. I got to Brighton at 1.55pm. The train to Hassocks was at 2.58pm... God damn it. Some evil person who makes the time schedules up for sunday trains should burn in hell for that one. So to pass the time I went to Dave's Comics and Dave's Books, and bought some Magic the Gathering cards and made a deck. When I FINALLY got around my mates house at 3.10pm (2 and a half blasted hours after I left my own house) we ended up playing a shedload of Magic the Gathering and playing on the PS2. That partially made up for the hell of getting there.

After I got home in the late evening Bottle Fairies had completed so I watched the remaining 12 short episodes. The series as a whole was quite funny if you read all the references to their misunderstandings, and was very cute. The artwork at the end of each episode especially so. Firefly episode 1 had also finished, but I reckon I'll watch it tomorrow instead of this late since it's an hour and a half long. Whilst browsing for series to watch I saw another new series that's started being subbed, called Solty Rei. It's about a little girl android being hunted by some federation people, and she bumpbs into a Bounty Hunter who's currently being hired as a bodyguard for some other girl. Helping the little android, he adopts her as his daughter, and begins to protect her too. It sounds interesting, but yet again since it's a new series I'll have to wait a bit for some episodes to build up. This means I have to wait for Blood+, Mai Otome and Solty Rei to build up, whilst waiting for updates to Trinity Blood (4 episodes to go), Gun X Sword (18 episodes to go), Shuffle! (11 episodes to go), Tsubasa Chronicle and Ghost in the Shell 2nd Gig (only 1 episode each to go!), Girls Bravo 2nd series (3 episodes to go), and Bleach and Naruto, both of which have no set episodes thus far. Plus Mezzo Forte to download and Kakurenbo to keep searching for. Quite a bit to get over a long period of time really. Till next time then.

The 50th post.

It hasn't really been that long, but already I'm up to the 50th post on this blog. Huzzah and all that jazz. Anyway, I missed the post yesterday since I'd gone to the Cinema to watch Corpse Bride, then when I got home I finished up watching Trigun the Naruto update. After that I felt so tired I just called it a night and went to sleep. Corpse Bride was enjoyable, though it wasn't as good as a whole compared to The Nightmare Before Christmas. The character were very well designed however, and tw of my particular favourites are the dead Generals in the Land of the Dead. One of them's a dwarf, heh. Some of the songs I found a bit strange, as they didn't seem much more than talking with additional music, but I suppose that's a lot better than some productions... Trigun ended well, and it was left reasonably open-ish. I suppose this is because the series covered the first manga series and then the next 9 volumes of the Trigun Maximum series which is still ongoing to the best of my knowledge. Considering the material for it is still going, I think the anime brought it to a good place of closure without completely cutting off the manga.

The Naruto episode was again a bit of a disappointment. I swear there's far less detail than the first 100 or so episodes. They must be getting a bit bored of it or something. The storyline also seems a bit weak, but then since I don't read the Naruto manga I can't quite judge when it's following the original story or not. Either way Raiga the lightning user looks quite bad. Since no other updates are out at the moment, and since I've also finished a series, I did a bit of a search for new stuff to watch. I ended up going to Brighton today, to a store called dave's Comics. It's quite well known, and stocks quite a bit of manga and figures. I usually go there to get the imported Newtype USA magazine, since that's a brilliant anime and manga mag, but unfortunately they didn't have the newest issue. There was however a much thinner mag called Anime Insider, and so I got that instead. Within it I found reference to the Bottle Fairies series and also a 24 minute long 'movie' called Kakurenbo. Bottle fairies looks cute enough to grab my interest, and if about 4 little fairy girls who live inside bottles of medicine on their owner's desk. They learn about life from a very misguided young kid from next door, leading to a variety of misconceptions. That fits the bill of 'something to pass the time' so I'm currently downloading that.

Kakurenbo however is practically impossible to find. Nearly all the places I go to for torrents doesn't have it, and On AniDB the only two groups that have subbed it seem to be Chinese and what I'm guessing is Arabic. Well damn. Looks like I'll just have to randomly search around for it for some time, and it looks very interesting too. The story is about a group of kids who enter a very deserted and run down area of a city to play a game. The game involves wearing a mask, and running like hell away from giant half demon half mecha things intent on ripping them apart. It's basically a horror, and the stills of it look rather impressive. Not only that but it was completely done on the computer even though it looks authentically hand drawn. As I said, interesting. Hopefully it'll turn up soon. Another three series I'm vaguely pondering about are Mezzo Forte, Mai Otome and Blood+. I was a fan of Mai Hime, and though Otome has the same character, it's a completely different universe with different backgrounds and such. So I'm not too sure about it. Since both Otome and Blood+ have about 3 episodes subbed each, I'll most likely wait at least 2 months for more to be done so I don't end up waiting for ages. Mezzo Forte seems interesting enough, so after my other download projects I'll probably get it.

After Bottle Fairies I will be gaining and watching the Firefly series. It's not anime, but it's supposed to be much better than the movie Serenity (which was based off the series) and if it's even half as good as the movie I want to watch it. My friend Jake, one of the manga-creating trio of which I'm a part of, has already started watching it and he recommends it. With my own interest and a recommendation, I'll be sure to watch it. After all that said I'm running low on news, so till next time.

Snailpace.

Thanks to my internet provider going down yesterday evening, I wasn't able to download overnight. Well, damn. As such I've only managed to gain and watch the next 2 episodes of Trigun, bringing the total watched to 14. Not only that but there haven't been any series updates today, so it's been rather uneventful anime-wise. My friends received the script for the first manga chapter quite well, so that pleased me, and jake already started drawing out the first manga page. The initial cover and few beginning pages as in most manga (blank, title page, etc etc) still need to be done, but my other mate is taking care of that so everything's going well.

With my workload I think I managed to pull off a miracle. Since I felt absolutely terrible this morning due to a slight lack of sleep, my english language teacher actually seemed quite worried about me, and actually told me to schedule in some rest during half term. I found that quite funny. When she looked at my work she also said that I was working very well, and was definately on track. Since she seemed sincere I also found that entertaining, as it meant she thought my hour's worth of work was equal to 4 hour's worth of work which I was supposed to do. Bonus. For law my revision paid off, as I managed to include pretty much everything in the essay about the evil topic of causation. With any luck I'll have actually got a good grade. I also managed to hand my revised personal statement to my tutor again, so that should be checked (again) and returned (again) shortly. After all this exertion, partly due to a slight misjudgement of my time management and schedule, I reckon I'll take my english language teacher's advice and sleep through most of half term. That should be relaxing. Till next time then.

Guns blazing.

Happy joy time, Trinity Blood got updated with episode 20. Excellent, I downloaded that and watched it straight away. It seems to be building up to a large confrontation, so I'm looking forwards to that. Continuing on the trigun front I've now watched the first 12 episodes. Though the animation is slightly older, reminding me of Dragonball, the plot is great and I'm really enjoying it. There's lots of comedy, and quite a bit of seriousness too. Vash starts out as a comic character, leading the insurance ladies, or at least one of the two, to think he's not the real 'Vash the Stampede'. However after things start to get serious and he demonstrates just how good with a gun he is, it's clear he most definately is the guy with the $60,000,000 bounty on his head. Overall the torrent is 56.5% complete, which is quite impressive considering I've been downloading artbooks and updates as well.

This afternoon wasn't very enjoyable as a whole however. I did manage to colour in some of my art in photoshop which was good, but I also had to work on my english coursework of which I need to hand in at least a few pages of preliminary analysis, revise for the law exam tomorrow, and rewrite my personal statement. None of those were much fun, and since the law is revision I'll be redoing it after this post to make sure it's all in. Urgh. On the plus side at least I'm getting the work done, and once I've done my law (again) I'll immediately start work on the script for the manga I'm making with my friends. I told them I wouldn't be able to do it this week, but HAH, I'll manage some of it. Booyah. I recommend all of you going to Deviantart and looking up the artist called Bleedman. he's just amazingly good. Go see. Goodness. So, till next time.

Manga making.

Well the project between Jake, Mo and myself is finally starting to take off. We started planning page layouts today, and finalised the general points of the script to work on, so since next week is half term, amidst piles of english coursework I'll be writing the script for the first couple of chapters. It shouldn't be too long, maybe a few weeks or so, before I get a few drawn and inked pages for me to colour, before sending them to Mo to have the script text added where needed. I can feel it all coming together, and it's a great way to ease away the constant annoyance of english coursework, which I still haven't really started.

Trigun also has 4 episodes downloaded now, so I'll be watching them after I finish writing this post. Unfortunately there've been no other updates for any of the series I'm currently watching, but I can still hope for them in the next few days or so. Other than that there's pretty much nothing to report, so oh well. Till next time.

Starting out.

I was lucky enough to spot episode 13 of Shuffle! released by a third group, so I hastily downloaded that too and now I've seen just over half the series. Only 11 episodes to be subbed now, heh. It's a great series and I'm enjoying it immensely. Now it's got more serious issues of loss within it as one of the characters, a young girl called primula, had to return to the Demon realm due to her illness, and there's only a small chance for her survival. Without a doubt she'll survive because it's that type of overall happy anime, but it's good to watch all the same. I didn't get round to starting the Trigun download till late, partly due to the new episode of Shuffle, but also because I was downloading an Onegai! Teacher artbook and several Shuffle! artbooks. The art in both is superb, and all are welcome additions to my artbook collections, even though I don't really have that many. So far the first episode of Trigun is downloaded, so tomorrow I'll be able to watch that and a couple more if they finish. Overall the 26 episodes are about 5.7GB, which is quite chunky, so each episode takes longer than usual to download due to the larger size. It's probably due to higher quality or something. At any rate I certainly hope so.

Since it's still only at 10.8% overall, I still have a long long way to go for it, so that means in the meantime I'll probably hope for updates to the other series and read a load more webcomics, and possibly even get more college work done. Shock, horror! At any rate I've started up a manga project with two ther mates of mine. One is the artist, the other the editor, and I'm the scriptwriter and colourist. Not too sure if colourist is a proper term, but hell, I like the sound of it. The whole premise will be a person walking around an apocalyptic world, piecing together their broken life as they utilise their magic to fend off and combat the demons encroaching upon the world. However the reality will be that they're delusional and that they're just a normal person gone insane in a deserted large city, battling against the horros of their own mind. Why is the city deserted you ask? well well, that's part of the mystery... With any luck the tree of us will be able to pull it off nicely, so I need to start the writing soon whilst my mate continues with concept sketches and starting artwork for the landscapes and such. I'm quite looking forward to seeing a page or two finished, and that should take possibly a few weeks. Apart from that not much is happening, so till next time.

Shuffle!

I managed to finish watching the next 4 episodes of Gun X Sword, bringing me up to date sub-wise as only the first 8 have been released unfortunately. As such I started downloading and watching Shuffle! and have managed to watch the first 9 episodes. It's a great feel-food anime, though also fits quite steadily into the harem genre. The main guy, Rin, lives with his childhood friend kaede since both his parents and her mother died in the same accident. She naturally likes him, and he's semi-aware of it. Another friend, Asa likes him too, but tries not to admit it to herself or others. Not only that, but in the history of the anime the realm of Gods and realm of Demons opened, and since then many gods and demons (who look very similar to people except for their ears) emigrated and integrated, joining schools etc etc. Sia and Narine, princesses of the Gods and Demons respectively, both like Rin since 8 years ago when they were lost (seperately, not together) Rin found them and was kind to them, playing and having fun to cheer them up and so forth. As such the Lord of Gods and Lord of Demons (who seem to be great friends) and nominated him as the marriage candidtate for their daughters. What this means is that if he choses one of the other races, he either becomes Lord of the Gods, or Demons. Quite a bit of power. The show overall is relatively normal lifestyle-wise, and not too much fuss is made over the other races, they're treated just like normal people. That's the basic premise, and of course there's a small amount of jealosy from Kaede. There's apparantly 24 episodes or so of it, yet only 12 have been subbed so far. So, I'll have the rest of those by tomorrow and once I'm done with those I'll be onto Trigun!

Trugun's actually quite close, and my schedule is moving on quite fast. As I pointed out last post, I assumed Shuffle! would take up monday's download slots too. Well, that's not to be, so hopefully Trigun won't be too long. At 26 episodes, it should take at the least 3 or 4 nights, so meh. Today I also went down to Sainsbury's to try and get a job. Yes, sainsbury's. I need the money for a new computer rather badly, bleh. Anyway they didn't have any application forms, but I'll pick one up tomorrow. With any luck I'll soon be a Customer Service Dest attendant. Woohoo an' all that, yay. Ah well, it's for a good cause. My computer problems seem rather sporadic. The other day I managed to reencode a whole 2 episodes of anime to a smaller format, which was fantastic. However when trying to make something MPEG4, the computer shut down again. Hmm, rather selective. By Christmas, if my plan goes well, I'll be having my friend build a much better computer, so that's all good. That's about everything really, so till next time.

Square eyes.

The morning started off peacefully enough, waking myself up at 6am to set up the next few torrents funning. Then again at 10am. Then letting my computer rest at 1pm. Inbetween I just went back to bed and caught up on sleep, so by the time I actually properly got up at 1pm I'd finished downloading the next set of episodes for Trinity Blood. At the moment only the first 19 episodes have been subbed, but I've now seen them all. Shinsen subs are doing a very good job, it's timed well, the translations are consistent, and the text looks good whilst simultaneously being easy to read. That's quite a bonus since I've seen some groups who choose a stylish font that's ridiculous to read at speed. At any rate, Trinity Blood is going well, and though Abel is Krusnik/Cruisnik (Shinsen use the second term, but the first 12 eps I watched were from another group so different spelling) 02, I got to see Cruisnik 03. It's rather surprising to see who it is, and now I'm quite curious as to who 01 is.

Genshiken ended quite well for a very easy paced series. A spoiler is coming up - the one who joins at the beginning becomes the head of the group when the current chairman retires since he needs to get a job. It's good in that the ending has a sort of closure (new change) whilst at the same time leaving it open to the viewer as to what happens next in their everyday life. Though it was meant to poke fun at the otaku culture I didn't mind at all. Though I feel like an otaku, I've never quite had the money to simply buy everything, and there aren't any big manga or anime conventions in the UK that I know about. In November there's a comic convention in Brighton I believe, but it's for all comis and not just manga, so I wouldn't be that interested in going to be honest.

Time management also went well today, since I managed to tidy and update the Soul Society forums, complete my personal statement for review on monday by my tutor, and also write my psychology essay which I'd planned to do tomorrow. This leaves me mostly free tomorrow, though I do need to go and apply to a few places to get a job. That'll probably take the morning, so in the afternoon I'll either go to the cinema again or watch yet more anime and keep the downloads going. Currently I'm watching Gun X Sword, and there's only 8 episodes of that subbed at the moment and I've watched the first 4. It's been quite a productive day in that I've watched 11 episodes so far. If I had more to watch, I'd do so, but episode 5 won't be done for another hour or so unfortunately. Ah well, I'll just have to wait. This means though that by tomorrow I'll have all 8 episodes, and I'll move onto Shuffle! which currently has 12 episodes subbed. That should probably last until Monday taking up my download schedule, then I'll move onto Trigun. I've noticed recently that I've been watching more spaghetti-western type anime, Gun X Sword and Samurai Champloo being the most noticeable, then Trigun soon. I know, I know, Samurai Champloo is about Samurai obviously and is set in Japan's past, but it has the whole spaghetti feel to it.

In the first 4 episodes of Gun X Sword, I've managed a remarkable feat in that I've remembered some of the names. The main male character is Van, a guy who has a sash that can harden into a sword, and which can summon his 'armour' which is basically a cool-looking mecha. The main female lead is a young girl called Wendy who joins up with him very early on to search for her possibly kidnapped brother, who is with the man Van is loking for. Though there's no explanation as to why Van is going after this guy, it says in most reviews it's because his bride was killed by him, and it was mentioned in the preview for episode 5 that Van's reason would become clear. So, that's sorted then. The funny thing is that the girl said, when she joined up with him, that she'd be his bride in order to travel with him. When he asked if she knew exactly what that meant, she said "Only half.." whilst blusing, and he practically did a runner (with dignity of course). Heheheh. Quite entertaining. The music is also good in the series, and since it's modern the animation quality is very good too. The fight scenes between 'armours' is suitably impressive, and luckily all the mechas aren't the same. I don't always find anime where all the mechas are like Gundam all that interesting. Thankfully Gun X Sword doesn't follow the mould too much. Van's mecha looks more like the Evangelion units, though mostly white and black/dark blue.

Well, I've seemed to ramble on quite a bit today. So to give you a reading rest, till next time.

Vampires and Otaku.

I've almost finished watching Genshiken, the last episode will be finished downloading in about 10 minutes. Woohoo. I've enjoyed this series quite a lot. The plot is very relaxed and just details the club as they go about their business, so it'll be good to see how they actually end it. I doubt it'll have 'closure' since it's just day to day life for the group, but something eventful would obviously be nice. As for Trinity Blood, I've downloaded the first 12 episodes and watched them all. Since the first 19 have been released so far, I still have a bit to go. The series is still in my 'OMG cool' books, especially when Abel released his Krusnik powers to 80%. Makes me wonder just how cool 100% will be. I'm not too sure about favourite characters in Trinity Blood though, but I consider the cyborg to be impressive just because he says 'positive' alot to confirm orders and is basically a machine who shoots with nice guns.

Apart from that not much is happening except college work load. For monday I need to write a psychology essay and my personal statement for university applications. For wednesday I also need to finish off a set of sociology notes, and I need to get a -lot- of analysis done on epitaphs for my english language coursework since I'm probably a lesson behind. Meh, that pretty much ruins my weekend, I can only hope it can all be done quickly to let me watch anime. I know it's probably more important than anime (I stress 'probably') yet I really don't have the motivation at the moment. Ah well, I'm sure it'll all work out in the end. In the Soul Society RP another person joined, made a character, and started an RP thread, so that's good as new members are always welcome. Hmm, only 6 minutes left for genshiken to finish downloading. Excellent, mwahaha. Till next time.

New day.

Well, the passing of another day. With all the anime series I've got around to watching the first 5 episodes of Genshiken, and the first 7 episodes of Trinity Blood. Both are, I have to say, superb. Trinity Blood is visually very impressive, and though the episodes don't link that much (each is pretty much an independant story with the characters so far) there are some very, very cool parts. In episode 2 the cyborg does the scene from the Equilibrium film where Preston busts into the dark room and shoots everybody in the dark with gun-flashes. The anime bit is longer, and even better. Awe. Genshiken is also quite funny since it's about a budding otaku who's getting into the genre and so forth, and who joins the Genshiken club, and is immersed in the culture. Some pretty funny stuff, especially at the comic-con where he buys a ridiculous amount of doujin, heh.

My computer is probably still screwed, but I haven't tried any of the programs today that previously shut it down, so I don't really know if they'll work. I'll most likely find out eventually, so meh. I'll also be seeing the Serenity film tomorrow, so that should take my mind off my computer problems, and I need to start actually looking for a job so I can buy a new computer. It's probably the only way to get rid of most of the problems. Meh, oh well. So, (watch Trinity Blood Episode 2!) till next time.

Craptacular.

I finished the Tenjou Tenge series and OVA, and they're definately not craptacular, that title is related to something else I'll mention in a minute. The ending after the series, and even after the OVA, was incredibly open so I assume it comes to a better conclusion in the manga. At any rate it was still good to watch, and there isn't a cliche 'guy and girl get together' but rather 'lots of guys and girls like someone who in turn likes someone else and no one really gets together' heheh. Since I've finished that I've started pondering about what to get next. I reckon I'll go for - Shuffle!, Genshiken, Gun X Sword, Trinity Blood and Trigun. Quite a few to get, and only Genshiken and Trigun have actually finished airing. That means I'll probably go for what's out of Trinity Blood, then Genshiken, then Gun X Sword etc etc. It'll be a nice mix, and a lot more updates to look for. However I'll only be able to do this if my computer works. Onto the meaning of the title.

My computer is absolute rubbish. Craptacular incarnate, if it was a demon, it'd be a Golgothan. Really, truly, rubbish. If I try to run any type of conversion on it, such as re-encoding, making a DVD, converting to MPEG4 and so on, it just shuts down half way through. No matter whan I try, having no other programs running, putting lots of really cold stuff around the hard drive, defragmenting, checking for spyware and viruses, it still just doesn't work. Absolute rubbish. Luckily torrents and burning to DVD still works (touch wood...) and so my anime shouldn't suffer too badly. But even so, I have no clue what the hell is wrong with my computer, and it's so bad I'm actually considering getting a job -purely- to buy a new computer. That just sucks. So, if this heap of junk stays working as best it can, till next time...

Almost.

Tenjou Tenge is almost finished downloading, just another few hours to go. I have up to episode 20 done now, yet I've still only watched ther first 13 so after this post I'll be catching up with it. Huzzah! Yet again I can hope the flashback ends soon. After the series is done I'll probably just start up downloading the OVA to finish it up. Hopefully that should take just a full night at most. Other than that there hasn't really been any anime around. At least the protective screens for my PSP arrived today, and on a white PSP they don't actually show up, and you can only just see them if you look hard enough. That's excellent, since on the black one they were very easy to see and it wasn't exactly aesthetic. So a short post today, since I want to watch some anime. Till next time.

Flashbacks.

I've now watched the first 13 episodes of Tenjou Tenge. That's not bad really since it's half the series. I'm still enjoying it, even if some of the fights are rather brutal, but I've been a little disappointed in that the past 4 episodes or so have been a large 'flashback' as one of the characters explains her reasoning and everything that's happened. It'd be better in my opinion if the anime moved back to the main characters, and with 13 episodes left it most likely will. The backstory is interesting and good to watch, don't get me wrong, but I prefer the main characters overall. I also got around to watching Tsubasa Chronicle episode 25. It was impressive, and the finale looks very good. It'll be interesting to see how the last episode is tackled though, since it's called 'The Final Wish' yet Sakura has nowhere near all of her feathers. Maybe she'll get them all in one go or something, but it looks more like there'll be a second series.

Bleach-wise I've done more writing for my Jacob character, and he's now over halfway on his path to Quincigami status, after 11 pages of writing so far. I'll probably take it to 20 pages then have him qualify, and then start work on my other character Latenter again, having the two work together. It gets quite tiring here and there writing 4 pages in a row, and the occational writer's block hits, but thankfully it never lasts and I can keep writing. I'm wondering exactly where to go with Latenter however, since at the moment he has no set goals. He'll probably go on a rampage after fighting one of the main NPC's who's hunting him. Ooh, drama. At any rate I reckon I should get some sleep now, so till next time.

Just made it.

Whew, just managed to write a post before midnight. Well, onto the news. I managed to watch Naruto, Bleach episodes 52 and 53 combined, and the first 6 episodes of Tenjou Tenge. I immediately liked the main characters in Tenjou as both the guys just wanted to fight strong people and improve themselves, and got royally owned in a few fights at their new school. It was pretty funny, and already they've got onto training themselves. The main female characters are just sexy, and also incredibly good at fighting. It's like the Ikkitousen (Battle Vixens manga) series, but slightly more serious, and with twice the episodes. As such I should enjoy it all, as I found Ikkitousen plain funny and entertaining. Most 'fighting and improving' animes I find enjoyable, so it's no big surprise. Plus since I've wanted to get this series since I watched Ikkitousen some time ago, it's also no wonder.

Other than that, I'm still ill, but my cough is hopefully clearing up, and though more frequent, isn't anywhere near as painful as it was 2 days ago. I also spent quite a bit of time at the Soul Society Bleach RP today, fulfilling Storyteller duties and actually having my own characters (well one of the 2 anyway) do something. Jacob the Quincy is now properly on his way to becoming a 'Quincigami' (combination of the two roles) after having acquired his sword. Only took 7 pages of writing too... At any rate I probably won't write a bit for a few days, since I'll be taking it easy and hoping my cough completely goes away. It's very irritating, and I can't even breathe deeply without feeling strained and having to cough. Bah. Lets just hope the anime helps. By tomorrow I should have a few more Tenjou episodes, woo. Till next time.

The Watch.

Huzzah, by tomorrow morning I -should- have the first 6 episodes of Tenjou Tenge to watch. That'll be good, I'll actually be able to see some of it. Not only that, but I've got the latest ep of Naruto to watch. For some reason I still haven't got around to it, but I'll most likely manage it before I go to bed tonight. Recently I've also been to the cinema, yesterday evening and tonight with friends. Yesterday I saw the Russian 'Night Watch' film about 'Others' and their gifts, and if they're on the side of good and evil. Top class, I liked it immensely. Even though there was mostly only hints of action, I was still riveted as even though it was subtitled, it was all done very nicely. Some of the editing was a bit... overzealous, but helped with the overall feel of the film. Since it's going to be a trilogy, I can't wait to see 'Day Watch' and 'Dusk Watch' when they come out.

The film I saw today was 'Wallace and Gromit, The Curse of the Were-rabbit'. Again, top class. I reckon Aardman animations are great (especially the Creature Comforts series) and it was good seeing more of Gromit's expressions. Though he never speaks, you can always tell clearly what he's thinking, and conveying. Weird and wacky inventions galore too, and that's always funny to watch. Yesterday I stayed the night around my mate's house, and we actually spent all night playing Magic the Gathering. Though I've not played it in a long long time, I still won most of the matches with the decks he made. That was quite satisfying, since we kept swapping decks. Apart from that not much has been happening. So, till next time.

Anime-less.

Well, I haven't watched any Tenjou Tenge as I've never really gotten around to downloading any, so not even a single episode of it is finished. After tonight I should have a few done at least, so that should bide me over. The only other things I've been doing really are sleeping, going to college, and reading a Warhammer novel or two. It's not been all that hectic really. In an hour I'll have a new episode of Naruto, but since I'm already tired I'll probably watch it tomorrow, meh. At least there's only tomorrow to cope with before I can have a good sleep in on saturday. It'll be nice and relaxing. So... that's about it really. Till next time.

Aliens.

Just finished watching the DearS series. Takeya (main male character) doesn't seem to get many breaks, and by the end of the series still doesn't admit much to himself. Several things are left unresolved (i.e. the childhood friend doesn't even confess) but Ren stays ok, Miu becomes a good friend, and there's roughly general happiness. Unfortunately when he finally decides he wants Ren to stay around, he says it defiantly with a 'I am Ren's Master!' which a) makes Ren feel better, b) makes himself feel stupid because he actually acknowledged he was her master, and c) let EVERYONE know of the 'relationship'. Naturally everyone assumed the bad version of the Slave/Master thing. Whoops eh? Still, it was funny while it lasted (12 episodes and another unaired one) and was a pleasant little watch. It wasn't superstar spectacular, or an all time great, but much of it was very cute so that was all ok, and it had the funniest mini-break animation (for adverts to go) that I've seen in a while.

I'll be giving my comp a rest tonight, so Tenjou Tenge won't start up properly till tomorrow. I can easily wait, since I've been watching a ridiculous amount lately and a small reprieve wouldn't go amiss. I'll just end up playing my lovely white PSP (hurrah! hurrah!) a lot more, listening to music etc etc etc. Happy happy joy joy. Other than that there isn't much news to report anime-wise, so I guess I may as well natter away about my personal life, barren that it is, to fill space and to have something to type. I doubt many people read this anyway. So, ahem. At college I'm either the 'zany' eclectic weird friend or the supportive friend who gives advice, and those are the two niches I use with my friends. Hence I actually have quite a few, which is always nice. However I've loved my best friend for the past 4 years, but since I'm a good supportive friend to her, I even helped her get together with a guy she liked, and talked her through any doubts she had, just to make her happy. You know in anime and TV the unrequieted love friend will say 'As long as she/he's happy, then I'm ok.'? Well that's complete and utter bull. Every time I see them together it hurts like a freaking bitch, but hey, I can't do nything about it because I'm not -that- cruel, and I'd hate to make her sad. That'd be worse than how I feel already.

Not only that though, but there's 2 other girls I'm friends with, who I'm starting to develop feelings for. It's probably just because I'm really good friends with them, but still, it sucks. I don't really know what to do about either one of them, except to continue being a friend. I've been thinking of asking one of them out, but then I just freeze up inside and think of my best friend, and then feel even worse. It's pathetic I know, and also rather stupid of me and I should just let it go, but I can't help but feel bad. And it just gets worse, and I fully realise that I'm being an undecisive stupid ass, and that doesn't help either. I could complain about how complicated life is, but that'd just be selfish of me since I know damn well some people in the world are dying from horrible diseases, or are living in terrible conditions, and compared to them I'm doing brilliantly. So overall, it feels as though my life if craptacular, though in reality it's a good deal better than some people's lives. Well, damn.

At any rate I feel much better now I've got that off my chest. Typing it out makes me feel as if I'm -almost- talking about it to someone, and it's just a relief to be frank. Now I have a slightly larger peace of mind. Blog entries like this will be incredibly rare and far-between, so if you're a regular reader, or someone wondering why on earth I have a blog, consider this post a one-off in emotional terms. Till next time then.

End and Start.

I finished up watching Samurai Champloo. The ending wasn't what I had hoped for, and didn't quite live up to my expectation for the series as a whole. Even so, it was still a good ending and I still enjoyed it.After that ended, I started the download tenjou Tenge, but then went for a change and so stopped that for later and started DearS. I've heard a lot about it (mostly that it's a little copy of Chobits with far more fan service) so I figured I may as well try it. After watching the first 3 episodes, yes, it's very like Chobits. The main difference is that Ren learns to speak in a night, and the friend of the main male characters is a childhood friend who's a girl (albeit a rather worrying 'straight-lace girl. You know the type, glasses, slightly robotic, vaguely formidible).

From what I've watched so far, it's had me laughing one hell of a lot. If you read my blog you'll know I'm easy to please. The female teacher is just... insane. Insane in the 'hot vivacious teacher who always assumes 'dirty' things' way. So it's a good way. The first you see of her she's teaching the class. In red lengerie. Um. Slightly unusual eh? At any rate it was quite funny. The sheer number of times the childhood friend, other classmates, and even teacher, misunderstands Ren and the main character is funny. It probably doesn't help that Ren insists on calling the main character 'Master' and actually refers to herself as a 'Slave'. Hehehehe.Now I just need to wait for more episodes to download. Till next time.

Samurai.

Samurai Champloo is great. Go watch it. Now. In all seriousness, the fight scenes are amazingly fast and smooth, and the animation style is top notch. Most episodes are vaguely stand-alone, but there are a few 2-parters, and it lends the series a good fastish pace as the characters trek their way across Japan. I've watched the first 17 episodes, and at this moment am waiting for 18 and 19 to finish downloading. I'm also waiting for Fuu to explain her reasoning for looking for the samurai who smells of sunflowers. There have been a few brief hints with certain things she says, and with a flashback or two, but nothing really concrete. With only 9 episodes left I hope it gets resolved and there's a good finale, it'd be a shame to have a weak ending with such a great series.

I'm also looking forwards to tomorrow, and waiting earnestly. My PSP shall arrive, as announced by the Jap EMS site where I've been checking in on it's progress. Woohoo, soon I shall have my (new) PSP to play games on, watch videos on, and listen to music on. Eeeeexxcellent. Today my mum also came round which was nice, and I ex plained about my stolen PSP. She was quite sympathetic, and we walked around eastbourne for a few hours, chatting and so forth. In the process I managed to get a USB hub, finally, so now I can connect my PSP (when it gets here) to my computer far easier than before. No more annoying unplugging and replugging whilst stuck under a small table. I also nabbed Team America on DVD, now I have something else to randomly play in the background, heh. The clock is ticking till tomorrow, so, till next time...

Paranoia.

Well, I watched the rest of Paranoia Agent, then the Saikano OVA, then the Sin City film. Admittedly the last one isn't anime, but it's based on a graphic novel so I reckon it fits in roughly as a 'Live Action' production of a 'manga'. Paranoia Agent ends slightly strangely, but I really like the series. It shows just how twisted each of the people are, or become, and seeing 'who' Shounen Bat is may be already apparant to some people (it was to me after the first few episodes) but it's still a nice twist. The Saikano OVA basically retells the series from the point of view of a Lieutenant, the prototype of the Ultimate Weapon. I found it nice to see everything from a different person's point of view, and there was a more direct way to see Chise's thoughts due to the Lieutenant. Unfortunately though it was only 2 episodes. It would have been nice to have around 6 or so. As for the Sin City, it looks visually amazing. Comic film noir, with selective colour, impressive. It does however glorify violence to an almost worrying degree. Once or twice the thought 'Umm.. that can't be good.' passed through my mind. Some of the characters are quite frankly cool though, such as Kevin, played by Elijah wood with rather reflective glasses. A cool character.

I've started downloading Samurai Champloo too, and the first 8 episodes are almost done. The story sounds a bit strange from what I've read. Searching for a samurai who smells like sunflowers is a bit odd, but I haven't read the girl's reasoning so maybe the character had a valid point in looking. At any rate the general premise seems slightly unusual, so that should be interesting. Plus it has Samurai in it. That has to be good. I guess in the morning I'll have quite a few episodes to watch. It'll probably take another 2 or 3 nights to get them all, so it shouldn't be too long till I'm onto getting Tenjou Tenge, both the series and OVA. I know there's a movie out, but apparantly it's just a bunch of flashbacks and parts from the series mashed together, so I'll give it a miss. So, till next time.