Responding to Bacon5200’s article The Moe Menace: A Matter of Degrees:

The issue that’s conflagrating the conflict isn’t so much that moe exists, it’s the concentration in which it occurs. Those pointing out that it has always existed are missing the forest for the trees. There is a huge divide between moe existing in a show, and moe drenching a show from head to toe. The latter is very much a recent phenomenon, worthy of criticism.

If you don’t like the latter types of shows, don’t watch them. Vote with your viewership and your wallet, that’s all there is to it. #ThereIFixedIt.

In case you needed another reason to obsess over the up and coming second season of the moe-blob-but-still-awesome music anime K-On, there’s going to be a new character called Miura Akane-chan.

She’s going to be 172cm tall which would make her tower even over Mio, and get this: she’s going to play the tuba! I’m really interested to see how they fit a tuba into a pop band, I mean, it’s a gigantic tuba! A… tuba!? It probably weighs more than she does! Wait, hold on, let me see if I’ve got this straight: a… tuba!?

To tell the truth, if they were going to introduce a new character I would have been more excited if he was a guy, someone like Kyon to be mock horrified at their afternoon tea and complain they never get any work done. ;).

Wait, what? A… tuba!?

That reminds me, I only got up to watching episode 08, and I only blogged up to episode 06. I’d better rectify this before someone with a tuba comes along. A… tuba!?

While I think of it, she also reminds me of someone, but I can’t quite put my finger on who. Well I suppose that’s a good thing, otherwise I’d be arrested.

It’s Miku Day and all she got from me was this lousy blog post ^_^;;. Actually it’s even worse than that, Miku Day was yesterday!

Hatsune Miku is of course the insanely popular idol originally from Yamaha’s Vocaloid2 voice synthesiser software, but she’s since been serialised in her own manga, has games released, and has even appeared in Sayonara Zetsubō Sensei (of course!).

For your consideration ^_^. If Tarale happens to come across this, she may want to avoid it because it contains a random list of confusing, disparate thoughts again!

That is the question!

If an anime character dresses up as another anime character, say for example Hiiragi Kagami from Lucky Star dressing up as Tohsaka Rin from the Fate/Stay Night series, is it still called cosplay?

Before you answer, consider this! If we’ve learned anything from Lucky Star and the adventures of Suzumiya Haruhi, it’s that other anime and manga are viewed as fiction within other shows. What that means is Haruhi is able to point at the SHUFFLE manga and talk about it as if it were a book, and Izumi KanataKonata is able to collect anime figures. What I mean is these characters aren’t seen as real within other shows, because the universes don’t collide.

You’re losing them

Still, even if an anime character dresses up as another anime character, is that character cosplaying or is that reserved only for people like me who are blond caucasians but dress up as Japanese people much to the second hand embarrassment of others?

Is cosplaying limited to the real world? What if an anime character dresses up as a character from the same anime, is that called cosplaying? Or is the fact the two characters are from the same universe mean they’d just be dressing up as each other because they don’t see themselves as an anime?

Computers don’t like anime, according to the spell checker I’ve made 25 spelling mistakes in this post. I think I might quit while I’m ahead and while I still understand my own point I was trying to make. Wait, I was making a point? I’m really confused. Never mind.

Yes yes I know it’s painful post to read (ze grammar goggles, zey do nothing!!!), but they make a good point.

So some people i heard during some chat (when I was watching Hellsing) said “I love the anime show there so mad awesome like how they they made made the motion and everything.”

And this guy just came out and yell “Hells no! Manga is way better they tell you more of what happen and they released way early its better then those anime shows when you have to watch TV so you have to wait next week to see more.”

And this happen in anilinkz.com and then they stop cause some guy came in to stop there war raging terror.

To me anime adaptations of manga are just that, adaptations!

People who expect a true to form, purely animated version of a manga are the same kind of people who get frustrated and disappointed when they go to see a Hollywood movie based on a book, then proudly proclaim they left stuff out and they didn’t like it. No, really, they left stuff out? Your powers of deduction are incredible! It’s as if it’s a different medium!

Not that I have strong opinions on stuff like this, and I do concede on occasion some films (and anime) have less in common with the books and manga than perhaps they should if they’re to share the same name, I’ve just been around enough people who seem to make it their mission to point out problems with book to film adaptations, then endlessly complain. One would thing such people would just stop seeing such films if they irritate them so.

Both my other posts today were serious and drawn out, so I needed something fun and pointless ^_^. Ah how art styles have changed…

For what it’s worth, making a graphic work well with transparent backgrounds is surprisingly difficult. Mac applications get away with it by using shadows with gradual alpha transparency on their high resolution icons. The graphic of Ami, sorry Sailor Mercury (don’t worry your secret identity is safe with me!) only works on white, which come to think of it defeats the purpose of having it transparent, doesn’t it?

The last time I posted a pointless transparent graphic post was in 2008. I had such a crush on the seiyū for Ami in the anime when I was growing up, but I still think that other post was funnier, even if it was just as pointless.

While we’re on the subject of Haruhi, I can’t wait to see the movie with English subtitles when it becomes available! From the poster though I have a couple of observation questions, or questionable observations. Wait, that first one was phrased better.

1. Was Haruhi a zettai ryouiki goddess before? I forget.
2. Since when did Mikuru wear Yui-ness?
3. Since when does Kyon smile?

KyoAni had some ridiculously high expectations to meet when they released the second season of the blockbuster anime that was so friggen huge in 2006, and not only did they completely miss the target they started digging into a black hole void where no light or energy could escape or be released. Well to tell the truth I didn’t think the Endless Eight was as bad as the press and blogging community made it out to be, but it was a missed opportunity. Here’s hoping the movie delivers.

As I was walking through Borders in Wheelock Place last night taking a break from scanning (topic for a future post no doubt) and checking my tweets on my iTelephone (that just sounds wrong for some reason) @Jlist made a remark about Haruhi.

Man, if Haruhi really existed she would totally need to be on meds. #anime

Quizás, quizás, quizás! Of course I read that as I was walking past the manga section and saw Haruhi staring at me from a shelf with a sinister smile. I take that to be a sign that the latest universe she created has her trapped in paper form and scaring the crap out of timid white boys late at night, and I expect she’s getting a royal kick out of it!

But I digress. I commented on The Twitters that if Haruhi is on the mad pills, Mikuru must be on Xanax! :D

Alprazolam, also known under the trade [name] Xanax is a short-acting drug of the benzodiazepine class. It is primarily used to treat moderate to severe anxiety disorders and panic attacks.

Though I suppose if Mikuru was on Xanax she wouldn’t be able to do as effective a Mikuru Beam and she wouldn’t be as jittery and moe, so she’s probably under contract from producers not to take any. Just taking a stab in the dark here.

For me anxiety is best alleviated with hugs. My mum gave the best hugs, of course :(. Any volunteers?

Much like science fiction and inexplicably awesome random shows like this, I tend not to watch an anime just because its in the latest season lineup. Personally I prefer word of mouth recommendations, or in the case of Omamori Himari (translated as Protective Charm Himari) if I see a hilariously bad motivational poster.

If you couldn’t be bothered clicking the link above, the motivational poster reads: "Think Shakugan no Shana, except the female lead has boobs, and manners, the exact opposite of Shana!" Having spent many evenings a few years ago watching Shana I thought I had to check Omamori Himari out, if only to see if the broad generalisation was accurate. In short… well yes it pretty much is! But in the case of the former of the two observations, I wouldn’t hold it against it, at least not yet.

Antihero sounds like a warp core fuel

Having just watched episode numero uno, it seems to be about an antihero Amakawa Yūto who’s protected through family lineage by a sword wielding, kick arse, gravity defying samurai assassin spirit in the form of Himari who’s about as far away from Shana’s tsundereness as… someone with all the sweetness and none of the tsundereness.

In another departure from the tsundereness of HRH Shana, it seemed Himari needed to put little to no effort at all into drawing the affections of Yūto, which of course means lots of sitting at the table next to him and appearing in his bed to make a point about his talisman… and no before you ask, that’s not a euphemism for something else. I’m shocked and appalled.

Of course things can’t be that easy, here comes the triangle: he already has the attention of someone else in the form of Kuzaki Rinko who isn’t too pleased about this newly found kick arse samurai who’s ready to defend Yūto against possessed daemon friends, can’t imagine why. For some reason she reminded me of Kaede from Shuffle, right down to the inferiority complex and the hair. Wonder if she’ll go insane. I like the way I just asked that so matter-of-fact-ly ;)

You may as well, right?

Depending on how much of an otaku you are you may see this as positive or negative (yes, you know what I’m talking about), but it’s obvious the writers are of the school of thought that if you can make them big and bouncy you may as well, I mean it costs the same to animate right? The outfits of the characters fit the latest zettai ryouiki consensus of 1337 hawtness (skirts, super long socks), and there are a few… well lets just say "opportune" camera angles and moments to take advantage of it.

That said, when the high octane jumping action fight scenes started I was really loathing the thought of the obsessive fanservice they’d be delivering, but fortunately they restrained themselves, quite admirably I thought. In fact considering the skirt length of the characters you could say they under-delivered.

As for clichés it shares with almost every other anime out there, Yūto has no parents which means he’s at home alone, and he has a seat next to the window in class which allows for whimsical looks at the clouds. The sensei hasn’t told him off yet though.

Other stuff

I’ve really been spoilt by two Shaft series recently so the art in Omamori Himari isn’t as awesome by definition, but the colours and settings are still really pretty. Himari isn’t as cool as Senjoughara from Bakemonogatari, but her attitude and clothes pay homage. I wish I had someone like her leaping into my arms while defending me against evil people ^_^.

As of writing it’s up to episode 3 which means I’m catching it as it’s starting, which means I’m watching something as it’s being released for only the third time in my life; hence the overly verbose introduction.

Will you keep watching you terrible reviewer you?

Provided the fanservice stays below that critical threshold, I think I will. I will if I have time, which thanks to my university (that I’m thinking of switching from) is an increasingly precious commodity. Allegedly an existing manic depressive condition worsened by the premature death of your mum who had cancer for over 12 years isn’t real, who’d have thunk it? Not that I’m bitter or anything. I gotta get out of there.

Well I didn’t expect to rant on about that, my apologies. Perhaps I need to get Himari to take them down ^_^!

I was looking for something else entirely but came across two images from Code Geass that I’d never seen before. Looking at the fine print it references R3 Zero Requiem which I’m assuming is an OVA of some description. When I first learned all my anime terminology around 2005 I first thought OVA meant the show was… over! True story.

And to think I haven’t even finished watching the R2 series yet! Or K-On! Or Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei! Not to mention Saki which I let languish. And I finished Bakemonogatari but I haven’t blogged about it! Ditto for Omamori Himari! I’m a terrible person.

Pictures show things

I like cats, but having grown up with pet dogs my entire life I loved the above one, it’s a completely believable scene: I’m exactly that way with our little dogs here :). "Who’s that doggie? Who’s that doggie? You want a treat? Who’s that nice doggie?"

As for the image below, it just further illustrates the implausibility of the women’s Ashford Academy uniform; either that or C.C. put her skirt in the dryer and it shrunk. Yeah, that must be it. I suppose outfits on these shows aren’t supposed to make sense, much like my discussions of said things on my blog here. Did I mention I dropped a heavy duty stapler on my head today?

What does Tsumigi do after a tiring day of playing keyboards on the set of a wildly successful anime series? She endorses pickled radish!

If I saw this in a store I would definitely buy it, the only reason being that I tried this food once before and really liked it. Yeah, that’s the only reason. Judge me however you want.

Smalluswallpaperusphobia noun
The fear of finding an epic picture you want to use it as your desktop background but can’t because of its diminutive size.

Get it? Hey, I thought it was funny.

<(^_^<) (>^_^)>

Hard hitting reporting I can assure you ^_^.

Hey, I wasn’t able to go to the Anime Festival Asia 2009 convention in Singapore that I so gleefully reported on and see the K-On! seiyuus because I was still taking exams, cut me some slack! Or perhaps in this case some stockings. Wait, that didn’t sound right. Never mind.

I’ve been studying my arse off today, so I thought I’d take a break and launch a new blog post series in the same spirit of Fun Facts, only this time they’re Anime Fun Facts! Imaginative name, right?

To start us off we have this terrible one inspired from a Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu magazine image.

Amamiya Shiina is mortally afraid of luggage.

Thank you.

A person from university asked me today why I like watching anime because he "[didn't] get it". Funny thing is I can’t quite explain it myself, but in this next series of posts I’m going to try.

One of the reasons why I find anime, manga and the surrounding culture engrossing and fascinating is the same reason why I loved Magic The Gathering when I was in primary school: I adore the art. There are some extraordinarily creative and artistic people out there who generate some amazing works.

As the design of the site would attest to, my graphics design abilities are woeful, so I’m naturally in awe of such people. Suffice to say I’ll be submitting material to SourceForge, Github or Google Code before I ever do to DeviantArt! Unless bad photography I nevertheless have fun with counts :).

While we’re talking about this specific aspect of anime and manga, it would be as gross an exaggeration to claim they have a generic style than to say "European" is a language. There have been entire books published on specific artistic styles in anime and manga, and each series, publishing house and studio have their own signature styles. In anime for example we have Navel who are famous for their endearing, cute characters, Kyoto Animation does moe almost too well (which ends up inspiring works like this!), and Shaft is simply congruent to awesomeness.

With each passing year graphics also change, so when I watch all those classic episodes of Sailor Moon I grew up with they look quaint with a nostalgic quality. And you know how I’m a sucker for nostalgia!

And then of course there’s all the fan art which the internet has helped make so easy to distribute, and decreasing costs have made the barriers to entry even lower. The amount of detail in some of their works is simply amazing, and makes me even more ashamed of my crappy site logo I’ve been using since 2005-ish.

Anyway that’s one of the reasons, presented in no particular order. If studying doesn’t take up too much of my time over the next two weeks, hopefully we’ll be able to discuss this topic further good sir/madam.

Now if you’d excuse me, I’m off to put up a bunch of Bleach and Haruhi Suzumiya posters. Sure the second season of the latter sucked compared to the first, but the art is still cool :).

While it wasn’t my favourite anime series in and of itself, Kallen Stadtfeld‎ from Code Geass and Code Geass R2 is one of my favourite characters of all time. Perhaps it’s the whole double personality thing or the fact she could be a super duper underground figure while still being a sweet person. ^^;

Perhaps now the Konachan folks have their hosting problems down pat they’ve been paying attention to The Monnie’s Cupcake Camp here in Adelaide (perhaps they have operatives tapping her phones), because their latest Code Geass desktop background wallpaper is this pretty colourful one of Kallen with a cupcake. It’s adorable ^_^.

Better still it’s 1920×1200 so I can scale it for my little ThinkPad X40 or use it full size on my MacBook Pro’s external 24 inch Samsung display at full resolution which is sweet. Get it? Cupcake? Sweet? Hey, I thought it was funny. I’m so stressed about exams I’m starting to say even sillier things it seems.

On my old anime blog I had an A Team page and Kallen was the executive in charge of my blog’s covert operations. Darn the more I think about that site the more I miss it. It was awesome in a very lame fanboy way :)

So after all this preparation spanned over the course of five K-On episodes the light music club feel as though they’re ready to perform at the school festival thingy. With this series I’m now up to where I was when my anime blog was wiped!

First of all I have to say right off the bat or other athletic instrument (hah, pun) that Yui’s ability to learn guitar and play it smashingly having started that same year when she couldn’t even read music is nothing short of miraculous. People seem to have this impression online that Yui is a few modules short of a kernel (Aussie FreeBSD joke), but learning that quick would take skill! If I could learn keyboards and drums that quickly I’d go ahead and do it.

"I am the pride of Japan! Ha! National sport! Ha!"

One of the things I never quite understood with Japanese school festivals is if most of the people attending are also the people putting all the cafes and plays and other events on, who’s left to actually go to the events themselves? Turns out (and it’s obvious really!) people aren’t attending to their own stalls and whatnot the whole time, they attend in shifts. Makes sense, my keyboard has two shifts. Feel free to laugh at that joke.

So in this episode the girls are all off taking care of various different events much to the dismay of Her Mioness who wants to… oh I don’t know… practise before they perform! Yui is cooking and still hasn’t got her voice back and Ritsu and Tsumugi are taking care of a spook house. Yes, a spook house, with a character like Mio it seems the writers didn’t have a choice in the matter ;). *Squeak, duck, shudder, cry, aaaaa*!

Before their first performance in front of a Live Studio Audience though, their supervisor and former super rock star pops out from out of nowhere with cute outfits she made for them that (surprise!) Mio is also terrified of and even Ritsu even questions. Of course Tsumugi thinks they’re fabulous (she things everything is fabulous!) and Yui’s face lights up like a lit up face (sorry I got to bed really late last night, best I could do), even if her costume is somewhat surreal compared to the others.

Of course they also have that they have to carry all the instruments to the stage which Yui has nothing but trouble with and Tsumigi comically does with ease. That’s what I love about K-On, the timing and sound effects in these hilarious scenes are hilarious. And hilarious!

Eventually with much trepidation and Mio trembling they finally assemble on stage and perform their bubbly marshmallow song complete with a whimsical music video. When the song is over the crowd erupts into applause and the girls smile knowing that nothing bad or embarrassing had happened as they feared it’d happen beforehand.

Then of course Mio has her fanclub catalyst moment when she turns around to walk off stage and trips on a speaker cable, you know, the one that revealed she was in the same league as Shigure Asa from Shuffle, Francesca Lucchini from Strike Witches and Hatuse Miku in a *certain* way. A particular class of people were expecting to be presented slightly different version in the Blu Ray release, but having watched the Blu Ray release I can say I saw a 1080p image of a certain shima-rice bowl. Speaking of which I saw such a thing at Ikea recently and couldn’t stop laughing :).

When I watched K-On the first time, this was the episode I got up to before my first anime blog was wiped so next episode I’ll be seeing stuff I’ve never seen before. If I didn’t have any self control I’d put aside all my studying and current family troubles and watch all of them in an afternoon. It’s happened before.

Hard hitting stuff.

As an addendum to my K-On! 05 episode review post thingy, I felt it necessary to divulge that while I very much Akiyama Mio, I really like her house. Can I have Mio’s house?

It’s ironic that I often blog about nonsense and fun stuff when I’m madly studying; perhaps its a coping mechanism or something of that nature. Whatever it is, it works!

Having given K-On a break for a month or so I especially felt the need for some light hearted silliness this evening, so I started up again from episode 5. The Blu Ray versions are pretty spectacular, my aging 2006 era MacBook Pro can barely run them without dropping a few frames a second but they’re still worth it! Now if only I had time to track down a scaling algorithm that didn’t suck since I moved up to Snow Leopard…

We’re not a club, and we’re out of cake!

Having come back from their weekend training camp whatsit, in this episode the girls continue to prepare for the school festival while dealing with a few teeny small little insignificant problems such as not having a supervisor, not being a legitimate club, not having any lyrics in their songs and not having a lead vocalist! Yeah I’m going to start a SQLite club, we have no computers, no source code and our lead programmer only does COBOL. We’re set!

This is why I unabashedly love this show so much, the characters are real human beings that get distracted and worried about regular stuff. Say for example a certain light music club member who forgot to lodge the form to start the light music club even after getting four members because… she was distracted by eating cake. Happens to the best of us, don’t sweat it. Anyone feel like making me a cake? Anyone?

I can tell you’re all fascinated by my epic story, right?

What is particularly shocking and shocking (did I say that twice?) in this entire episode though is we learn our beloved sensei who’s so sweet and nice turns out to have been… a guitarist for a rock band! I know, crazy and intense stuff! To appeal to a guy she liked who claimed she was too quiet (a quality I’m actually looking for not trying to discourage!) she became a wild, loud musician with crazy makeup and clothes; unfortunately she was photographed as such and the K-On girls find the evidence. Oh no, her cover has been blown!

Any other volunteers…? Come on… anyone…?

This is an especially cute episode, there seemed to be a disproportionately (what a verbose term) higher number of stills and frames existing just to show the characters in various teardrop uh-oh and whoops moments. If my sis watched it no doubt she would have said "awwwww!" a few times.

What I love is the… timing. Get it? Ah never mind. I love the timing because we get epic shots of Yui for example, then the camera pans to someone else who mutters something disparaging, and a humorous scuffle ensues! People claim K-On is just a moe-blob show which it may be, but at least it doesn’t take itself too seriously; there are plenty of shows that would do such scenes on purpose without any sarcasm. Not that I would admit to watching such things mind ;)

Consumerist otaku fools! Mua har har!

This is also the episode with that infamous scene with Mio attempting to write lyrics as she listens through her expensive audiophile headphones that otaku across Japan rushed out to buy as soon as they saw her using them. I had no idea anime had that much of an impact; did people who watched Code Geass end up eating pizza as much?

And now if you’d excuse me, I have to go and drink several litres of black coffee because this episode was just too sweet ^_^.

Heh whoops, our bad!

Poor Mikuru!

News stories are spreading like some sort of fire (a wild one I presume) that initial sales of the Bakemonogatari DVDs and BluRay discs have not only outsold the disastrous and missed opportunity that was the second season of Haruhi, but even K-On! In real terms outselling Haruhi didn’t surprise me, but beating the K-On with its huge impact on popular culture (sales of musical instruments, shimapan bowls and whatnot) was quite an achievement.

There seems to be two streams of discussion online about this that I would argue are actually the same thing, but people aren’t treating them as such. The first is, despite beating the Kyoani war machine, Shaft still didn’t sell as many as any series that have super robots. Fair enough, everybody expected that because they’re two completely different genres and types of shows. Then the same people turn around and start arbitrarily discussing how much better Bakemonogatari is to both K-On and Haruhi.

Huh?

Let’s get one thing straight; I have adored Bakeomonogatari. I think it’s been one of the freshest, most interesting series I’ve seen since I started watching anime again, and Shaft are to be commended for their successful adaptation. I expected no less from the studio that brought us the brilliant Sayonara Setsubou-Sensei!

That said, I’m of the opinion that arbitrarily comparing Bakemonogatari to both Haruhi and K-On is almost as silly and meaningless as comparing Bakemonogatari to shows with super robots. I preface my proposition with almost because I do concede there is perhaps more of an audience overlap between Kyoani’s shows and Shaft’s, but my point stands. Mostly.

While I admit I adore K-On and thought the first season of Haruhi was far more interesting than anything else coming out at that time, the first is mostly an unabashed moe blob series and Haruhi for all it’s time travellers and espers and universe creation was also largely a slice of life show as well. I think it’s safe to say both were comedies. Bakemonogatari has it’s lighthearted, fun moments, but it’d be quite a stretch to call it a moe blob series or a comedy. The Bakemonogatari universe is also fundamentally different, and aside from anything else comparing the art in it to any other series (perhaps aside from Sayonara Setsubou-Sensei!) is just unfair!

Am I completely wrong? Probably. I just wish people could celebrate the incredible success and achievement Shaft have had with their superb new series without instantly saying it’s because it’s "just better". A fine bottle of Barossa Valley red is better than a can of Coke, but that doesn’t mean the comparison means anything :P.

Singapore’s Anime Festival Asia 2009 has been announced for the 21st to the 22nd of November, in 2009 of all years. I guess it makes sense that it’d be in 2009 given the name is Anime Festival Asia 2009. Sometimes I worry that I could be too funny. I lie, I really never think that, and I’m sure you don’t either.

What’s epic about this years one (aside from the fact I’ll be back in Singapore at that time which means I could go this time!) is the seiyuus from K-On will be there answering questions and even doing a live dub!! What’s more, my spell checker is telling me seiyuu should be spelt seizure. I guess that could be seen as an interpretation of an expected result of this.

Anyone planning on going this year?

If I could come up with a witty opening line to discuss an episode of Bakemonogatari where something advertised didn’t happen and instead we were treated to a cute date episode, I’d probably put it here. In lieu of this, the above sentence will have to suffice. Forgive me for sounding distracted, I’m wearing a jumper and it’s actually quite warm out today.

Despite being titled Tsubasa Cat and the assumption that it would be about Tsubasa and her catlike oddity, we got a drawn out conversation between Koyomi and Her Senjougharaness, I’m sorry Hitagi. If I refer to her as Her Senjougharaness she may construe that to mean I’m discussing matters with her father in the car. Allegedly she’s not a fan of that.

This entire episode could be summarised with one word which looking back now seeing as we’re in paragraph three should have been put further up the top somewhere. "Awww." After having a troubled childhood and a father who’s always away on business (I would have no idea what that’s like -__-) Koyomi has changed her life and her father comments that he hasn’t seen her that happy in a long time. Awww.

And what does their date consist of? Lying on a tarp looking up at the stars. Awwww. And how does the date get started? By her awkwardly trying to figure out the words. Awwwww. I can imagine a few people were agitated with the lack of action in this episode, I thought it was cute. Awwwwww. There was even some suggestive talking and some Haruhi inspired ear action. Awwwwwww.

As to the title to which I’ve already discussed, I genuinely thought at the beginning when Koyomi suggested the day was unforgettable "but…" he was referring to the fact a random person who’d morphed into a cat was going to appear and ruin their evening or something of that nature. No, it turns out this episode was about showing Hitagi in various different up close poses pulling different facial expressions. Like episode 02, I lost count after a few dozen times.

Warning: cheesyness alert. Despite the limited number of scenes and the slower pace, I really did like this episode in an overly cheesy fanboy way! I actually thought the scene with the discussion of Hitagi’s dad and Koyomi was sweet, and choosing to go on their first date to a place where her parents used to take her to look at the starts — as cheesy as it sounds — made me smile. I remember my late mum and I going to Ubud in Bali and looking over this particular spot where you could see the terraced rice fields fade off into the distance and in the evening the flikering candlelight in the soapstone carved lanterns down the streets; one of these days I’ll take someone dear to me and show them the same things in the same way :).

As for the graphics, they were still excellent even if some of the same stock road footage was used in several dozen places. What struck me was the fact her father’s car wasn’t one of those retro modern white two door "vehicle" that up until this point were the only ones we’d seen! Even more shocking: I can never spell "vehicle", and both the Mac OS X and Gnome spell checkers can never figure out what I typed! Thank heavens The Googles suggest spelling.

Because of a combination of not having internet for several hundred years, then assignments all being due at the same time, then work piling up (they always come in threes) I had to push this episode discussion whatnot back for several weeks. Bakemonogatari watches saw this ages ago and are probably already watching and discussing the online episodes. Is that a new thing for a production house to do? Haven’t heard of anything else being released in this fashion.

Stars are pretty. Singapore banned the night sky with it’s luminescent dense city night light glow, particularly ironic given their flag has five stars on it. Adelaide has pretty night skies. I’ll stop now.

Just spent just over nine hours straight without breaks programming; suffice to say my eyes are protesting but I got the job done! To celebrate, I thought I’d publish a post that’s been sitting in my drafts folder for far too long just waiting for an opportunity such as this.

My question I pose to you is this: What are all those girls looking at? Do you have any ideas? They all look interested in whatever (or whoever) it is. Makoto almost looks bemused and Ami is so shocked she’s twisted her leg into what looks like a very uncomfortable position. My theory is Tuxedo Mask probably genetically engineered a rose or something. If we were to take it more literally, if you’re reading this in a blog aggregator they’re probably staring in disbelief at your unread post count!

I’m glad there’s someone out there on the Internet asking the tough questions. We can’t trust newspaper journalists to do that any more.

Enclosed above for your convenience and for posterity is my avatar on Twitter for one of the shortest-lived memes in the history of the intertubes in mid September. Lots of people had this on their avatar but I thought it particularly made sense on mine seeing as I was on a phone and all. In the middle of a canola field.

I would write more on this post, and I’m being told I’m going to be allowed to finish it, but apparently there are other bloggers who’s posts are better. To be fair, I’m not in disagreement with him. Because he likes fishsticks! Wow, two memes in one. Now that’s value for money.

In retrospect I should have used this super cute avatar of Yui instead. I’ve changed my mind, she’s my favourite character along with Mio instead of just Mio; apparently I just needed to watch K-On again to be reminded of her awesomeness. That reminds me, I still have BluRay episodes to watch and review. Take that lowly widescreen versions! Mua har har!

Ima let you finish. On a side note, when I first heard about Kanye West years ago, I thought his name was Kayne (as in Cane) West. True story.