Filler #1

The first of the fabled fillers! I’m only throwing them out this weekend because I don’t want to spend the 5 minutes it usually takes to scrap together a post.

NIS America sent me this comic a few minutes ago and I thought it was funny. You won’t get it if you don’t know what a prinny is though.

Well…

So much for that new years resolution of mine to post something every day. Heck, the closest I’ve gotten this year is a two-day streak =_=. Since I can’t possibly put out that much writing consistently, I’ll have to do the Bleach/Naruto thing, start making filler!

On an unrelated and totally off-tangent side note, I watched Code Geass the other day. It was alright… nah, just kidding, it was actually pretty good. It’s kind of like Death Note (I’ve finished reading the manga) in that the main character throws around plot twists left and right, but Code Geass focuses more on the bonds between the characters, as is customary with most of CLAMP’s works (Tsubasa Chronicles, CCS, Chobits).

Since first updating the list of finished animu, I’ve finished a few more:

Clannad
Kanon
Kaiji
Ai Yori Aoshi
Ai Yori Aoshi: Enishi
Code Geass

In roughly that order.

On another unrelated side note that’ll probably turn into a full-blown one-sided discussion of mine, I can’t stand insanely long series. I’m not talking about series with slow plotlines or boring stories (though those are bad too), but rather series that have 100+ episodes… and are still going. It makes it practically impossible to get into the series, knowing that you have to catch up on dozens of episodes. Since the series hasn’t ended yet, there aren’t any batch torrents for them either (though if there were, they’d be like 20gb) and downloading individual torrents takes ages. Also, with the size of the series, the groups that work on them change hands multiple times, making the consistency of subs pretty horrid. Series like Naruto, One Piece, and D.GrayMan fit this description. I actually dislike Bleach for this too, though I’m too far in it to drop out of it now.

On a slightly related note, I actually dislike short series as well. Those that try to cram major plot devices into single episodes and those that leave out important story details to fit into a 13 episode scheme. In my humble opinion, 26 episode series do the best job of telling the story without drawing out the action (as in long series) or leaving out the action (as with short series).

Animation Studio

I’ve only recently started paying attention to the animation studio behind anime, but it’s quickly become one of the more important indicators as to whether I’d enjoy watching said anime or if I’d rather gouge my eyes out.

How important is the animation studio behind the series? Important enough that I don’t actually have to watch the op to know how a series will look. Many animation studios have a certain “style” that they’re known for. While the series they produce may look visually different, they all have key similarities that set that studio apart from others. For now, lets just look at a few major animation studios and the series they’ve done.

Sunrise - a subdivision of Bandai, Sunrise has done animation work on a plethora of series, many of which have a strong fanbase throughout the world. Anime they’ve done work on include the Mobile Suit Gundam series, Cowboy Bebop, Inuyasha, and the Code Geass series.

MADHOUSE - known for their multitude of OVAs, MADHOUSE first really entered the scene in the late 90’s with Trigun and CardCaptor Sakura. Other series they’ve worked on include Chobits, Monster, Claymore, and Death Note.

Studio DEEN – widely known for its animation work on the Rurouni Kenshin series, they’ve also worked on Fruits Basket, Fate/Stay Night, the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series, and the Jigoku Shoujo series.

J.C. Staff – worked on OVAs and movies until releasing Revolutionary Girl Utena. Although their track record is pretty scarce, they’ve worked on popular series like Shigofumi,  the Shakugan no Shana series, the Zero no Tsukaima series, and Toradora, the last three of which share multiple traits such as a tsundere female lead and the same voice actress for that character.

Kyoto Animation (KyoAni) - unlike the other studios above, Kyoto Animation took flight during this decade, as opposed to in the late 80’s like the rest. KyoAni is well known for what few series they’ve worked on, including the Full Metal Panic series after the first, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star, and all the Key VNs (Air, Kanon, Clannad).

Toei Animation – by far the oldest of all animation studios, dating back to the late 50’s. Toei Animation has been the studio behind some of the largest anime phenomena in America, including the Dragon Ball series, the Sailor Moon series, the Digimon series, the One Piece series, and the Yugioh series.

BONES - like KyoAni, BONES also started in the new millenium, quickly becoming a well known studio for its work on Full Metal Alchemist. Other notable series they’ve worked on include Darker Than Black and Soul Eater.

My favorite studio as of yet is definately KyoAni, for their characteristic large eyes that shine like semi-precious gems! Well, aside from that, the colors of the backgrounds are very natural and easy on the eyes. It does help that the series they work on aren’t boring.

Openings

Have you ever wondered how I go about choosing what anime I watch? Me neither. But I’ll explain my process anyways.

A huge part of whether I watch a series or not comes from the OP, or opening. In a minute and a half, I can instantly know exactly how the anime will play out, what the genre is, who the characters are, their relationships with each other, and whether I feel like putting up with it for at least 13 episodes (the standard amount of episodes in a season). Can an op really tell you that much? Well, of course, but only if you really pay attention to the details. Can an op make or break a series? Not really, but it makes that series a lot easier to bear if it turns out to be sub-par.

Even though I use the op to guage a series, I usually don’t watch it anymore than twice afterwards (on the first episode it airs and on the last episode it airs). However, some ops are so riveting, amazing, or otherwise catchy that I do watch it for every single episode of that series. And with that, a list of ops that I can’t not watch despite having the power to skip them.

Elfen Lied
Full Metal Alchemist – Rewrite op
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Jigoku Shoujo
Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori
Lucky Star
Rozen Maiden
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Shigofumi
xxxHolic

In sorta alphabetical order. Kinda fishy how there turned out to be ten titles eh? Well, there was one more, but the series isn’t finished yet: Clannad After Story. It honestly breaks my heart everytime I watch that op (I now know the whole story), but even with my hand on the mouse hovering over the timeline bar, ready to click, I can’t bring myself to skip it.

All this talk about openings, what about the endings? I watch them once, then skip ‘em. No exceptions. I usually watch anime in bulk, so I don’t really care about the next episode previews.

I bet it’s been scrapped

I’ve been a little busy with things the past few days, but a couple days ago, I was browsing through my favorites when Ragnarok Online 2 popped into my mind. Being the ever curious person I am, I checked to see if there was anything new. Turns out it hasn’t been updated in like a year or so now. Me, I’m quite disappointed, not because I wanted to play, but because it’ll never come to iRO.

Earlier today…

…I watched Kaiji (Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji: Ultimate Survivor) and was thoroughly impressed.I’m not a fan of the animation style, but the plot and “action” make up for it, and then some. In all my life, I’ve never been this enthusiastic about watching people play rock, paper, scissors. I’m serious. But hey, it gives me a reason to post this old pic I was saving for such a moment.

 

*snip, cut, rip* (I wrote more in this post, but decided to cut it out and post it seperately later)

uaaaaaa, I’m bored

So for now I’ll throw out a catch-up post. I quitted RO. Surprising isn’t it? Well, not in the least. The last thing that has kept me sane for half of the 4 years I’ve been playing RO disappeared. Hmm? Yea, Insur. To be honest, I’m grateful that they’ve put up with an amateur like me for so long. With a dwindling zeny supply and nowhere else to go, I simply left the game. The last thing I did was WoE in DeM with Tales. That was 3 months ago.

So what’ve I been doing for three months? Well, a couple things here and there. I watched anime on a weekly basis… well to be honest, I’ve been watching anime on a weekly basis since 11th grade. I had absolutely no contact with MMORPGs for 2 months, an amazing feat for me. During the Christmas break, I actually got away from my computer for a week (only a week because of weekly animu dosage). In other words, I did nothing for three months except watch anime! …oh crap… is this a revelation? Am I really going to spend the rest of my life in my room watching anime, the light from the screen flickering in the darkness while the faint smell of a person who hasn’t bathed in weeks permeates the stale air?!? No, I can’t let such a pitiful fate befall myself, for the sake of society! …of course, that can wait ’till I’m out of college~

One of the nicer things to come out of having an a long period of holidays is that you can sleep for however long you want. In my case, I was practically hibernating the entire break. About a week into the break, I was waking up at around 3pm, after which I’d eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all in the span of 6 hours, before retiring to my room to watch more an…i………..mu? Arghhh!

Luckily, I recently bought something to add to my collection of piano black electronics (computer, psp, tv, you name it). At $400, a ps3 becomes less of an video game system and more like an investment in home theater entertainment. I actually bought it a couple months back, but didn’t have time (more like couldn’t use it) ’till the winter break came around. Without an internet connection (we had just moved into a new house), the ps3 felt more like a paperweight. An expensive one at that. However, as soon as the internet was setup, I completely forgot about my computer for a week; thats how much I was engrossed in it. Setting up my computer and network, I was able to ultimately connect the entire household under the ps3, giving it the ability to play media files from my computer. With a 52″ HDTV, watching anime has never been this exhilarating! …wait a sec…

I did have some games to go with it after all. The new Prince of Persia took me all of 10 hours to beat, which, although fun, was regretfully short. Eternal Sonata, an rpg, took up a good amount more time and was very enjoyable, though the difficulty became harder to bear after the first playthrough. Resistance 2 and LittleBigPlanet were my top choices though. Though Resistance 2 and my ps3 came hand-in-hand, I couldn’t fully enjoy it until the internet was set up. After that, it became that much more enjoyable. LittleBigPlanet on the other hand was fun all the way through, internet or no internet. One of the fun things about LBP is that you can customize your sack person however you want. I chose to have long white unkempt hair with a santa beard and a tan trenchcoat all while thinking, ‘man, it’s great to be a hobo’. I thought about adding glasses, but figured that if I did, it’d look more like a pedophile or something, so I left it at that.

All in all, it was an enjoyable break, and not because of the animu. If you were wondering what I’ve been doing since the break, well, looking at the two posts below should give you an idea…

Clannad & Kanon

I cried. Multiple times actually. Both series are very touching in a way that you would feel sad/sorry/sympathetic. Kanon was definitely the sadder of the two, with pretty much everyone in the anime dead or in the hospital by the 23rd episode. Any explanation of the 24th episode would automatically spoil it, no matter how short.

Clannad on the other hand is a more uplifting tale/story. Or romance… naaaaaah. Multiple girls crowding around a single guy isn’t a romance. It’s a harem. Well, Kanon was the same, but I guess I didn’t notice it as everyone was dropping like flies, the actual amount of people around the main character was always low. Not to mention both Clannad and Kanon are based on visual novels/games.

Clannad is almost a typical Japanese high school drama with stereotypical characters in a typical “lets overcome our hardships together” situation. Oh, did I mention the main character is affected by some degree of amnesia which prevents him from remembering seemingly important plot details about the people around him? Oh wait nvm, thats Kanon, wrong story! The word “clannad” means family in Irish. Or so I’m told ¬_¬ … Anyways, the story revolves around the idea of family, working together for the same goals, overcoming obstacles, and finding the confidence to move forward. Heck, I’ll bet a lot of anime/dramas/tv shows work off that same premise. Actually forget giving an explanation about Clannad, it’s complicated enough and my thoughts are scattered all across the lawn.

Explanations and reviews aside, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Kanon and Clannad, both of which are saddeningly painful to watch, but end well. I’ve thought about watching Air as well, but I’m just about at my limit before falling into depression, so naaah. Instead, I caught myself up on Clannad: After Story. And then I spoiled the ending for myself. And now it doesn’t matter whether I watch Air or not. Usually I balance sad anime with comedic and happy anime, but pretty much everything I watch was delayed an extra week due to the winter break. So not only is it cold and dreary and dark due to the sun setting earlier, my current animu is delayed, gaaah! And that’s why I hate winter. If I wasn’t constantly in tears, I would’ve been that much more irritated watching Kanon, whose setting stayed in winter for the majority of the series.

The Grand List!

So recently, I became quite curious as to my track record in regards to anime. Going through the anidb list, I compiled a list of every anime I’ve ever watched, whether downloaded, subtitled, dubbed, or shown on Toonami (r.i.p.). According to the list (which includes movies and OVAs), I’ve watched a total of 112 series/movies/OVAs. This list only includes animu that I’ve watched in its entirety or am up to date with, as is the case with Bleach and Soul eater. What the heck, I’ll even throw in a couple comments on some of them.

Akane-Iro ni Somaru Saka
Azumanga Daiou
Bamboo Blade
Betterman (Watched on G4TV back before they merged with that other network)
Bleach
Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan
Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan Second
Bomberman Jetters (pretty much forced to watch it by Draco, who watched it nonstop)
Bus Gamer
Busou Renkin
Byousoku 5 Centimeter (Awesome animation and a touching story)
Chobits (One of the first full series I’ve downloaded and finished)
Chrno Crusade
Cyborg 009 (2001)
Darker than Black – Kuro no Keiyakusha
Dennou Coil (Great sci-fi anime…really)
Dragonaut: The Resonance
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball Z
Elfen Lied
Fate/stay night
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Furi Kuri
Gekijouban Bleach: Memories of Nobody
Gekijouban Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion Mouhitotsu no Hyourinmaru
Gekijouban Card Captor Sakura (Resolution was so low, like watching tv on a business card)
Gekijouban Shakugan no Shana
Gekijouban xxxHOLiC – Manatsu no Yo no Yume
Genshiken
Goku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun
GTO (One of the better anime in a school setting)
.hack//GIFT
.hack//G.U. Trilogy
.hack//Liminality      (.hack fan ;])
.hack//Roots
.hack//SIGN
Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (Arguably the best series of this decade)
Hayate no Gotoku!
Hellsing
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (Don’t watch alone and at night with lights off)
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai
Inukami!
Inukami! The Movie
Itazura na Kiss
Jigoku Shoujo
Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori
Kannagi
Kaze no Stigma
Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de: They Are My Noble Masters
Koharu Biyori
Kore ga Watashi no Goshujin-sama
Kurenai
Kyou no Go no Ni
Kyouran Kazoku Nikki
Love Hina Again
Lucky Star
Lucky Star OVA
Makai Senki Disgaea
Midori no Hibi
Moyashimon
Myself; Yourself
Nabari no Ou
NHK ni Youkoso! (I wonder how many people who watch anime can relate to this?)
Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu
Ookami to Koushinryou
Pocket Monsters (KidsWB, alright!)
Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation
Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation: Pokemon Ranger to Umi no Ouji
Pocket Monsters Advanced Generation: Rekkuu no Houmonsha Deoxys
Pocket Monsters: Kesshoutou no Teiou
Pocket Monsters: Maboroshi no Pokemon Lugia Bakutan
Pocket Monsters: Mewtwo no Gyakushuu
Pocket Monsters: Mizu no Miyako no Mamorigami Latias to Latios
Pocket Monsters: Serebii Toki wo Koeta Deai
Ragnarok the Animation
Rental Magica
Rozen Maiden
Rozen Maiden – Ouverture
Rozen Maiden: Traumend
Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan – Ishinshishi e no Requiem
Saishuuheiki Kanojo (The very first subtitled anime I’ve watched)
Samurai Deeper Kyo
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
School Days
Sekirei
Serial Experiments Lain (I had to watch this three times to finally get everything)
Shakugan no Shana
Shakugan no Shana II
Shigofumi (Short, but nice)
Shin Kidou Senki Gundam W (Toonami, alright!)
Shin Kidou Senki Gundam W: Endless Waltz Gekijouban
Shuffle!
Sola
Soul Eater
Special A
Sumomomo Momomo: Chijou Saikyou no Yome
Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu
Tenchi Muyou!
To Love-Ru
Tsubasa Chronicle
Tsubasa Chronicle 2nd Series
Tsubasa Chronicle: Tori Kago no Kuni no Himegimi
Tsubasa Tokyo Revelations
Wagaya no Oinari-sama
xxxHOLiC (Creepily good)
xxxHOLiC: Kei
Yuu Gi Ou
Yuu Gi Ou (1999)
Yuu Gi Ou: Duel Monsters
Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
Zombie-Loan

The current season already ended most series I’ve been watching, so those are already on the list. The two that didn’t end yet, but I’m going to finish, are To Aru Majutsu no Index and Toradora. The new season looks very unenticing to be honest. Currently about to start and finish Clannad and Kanon in rapid succession over the next week or so.

If you’ve a question about any of the series on the list, I’d be more than happy to answer. If the question is about me, the answer is no, I’m not an otaku. Really. I’m not.

The Setup

Two laptops and one desktop. The server itself ran on the more powerful laptop, freeing up valuable processing power from the desktop. The two laptops serve as the “actors” while the desktop managed all recording. Why? The laptops can’t record sound. Default recording resolution is 640×480 to lessen the effect of processing lag caused by rendering larger files.. Using GM hide and proper positioning, the desktop will be left at the scene while the acting laptops play out the part. Lines are said slowly, the video can be cut and sped up to compensate. At the very most there will be two actively moving characters at once. All other characters will be controlled through the default monster ai set for the character’s particular class. This’ll most likely apply only to larger scenes. This’ll continue until each scene has been recorded and rendered properly. Except it never continued. Heck, I couldn’t even start. Sometime in the last few months, the monitor being used for the desktop cracked under the pressure of continuous use. I blame the brand (what’sa proview?). We haven’t found a replacement yet, even with all these post-Christmas sales and all. What does this mean? I’m going to be delayed for a while.