Mahou Meido Meganekko

Because download-to-own is dead at Crunchyroll:

As Crunchyroll continues to evolve, we add new features and remove ones that don’t perform well. Recently we’ve made a decision to discontinue our Download-to-Own service, which lets users purchase DRM-free, downloadable videos of our popular shows. We believe online streaming video is the future will continue to focus on those efforts. Starting March 31, 2010, no new purchases of video downloads will be allowed. However, your existing downloads will continue to work until May 1, 2010. Please download and save your video files by May 1, 2010.

As an alternative, we offer high quality, ad-free streams through our Premium Membership service. It offers over 50% of currently airing Anime titles in Japan and thousands of catalog episodes for as little as $5/month.

Frankly, I thought they’d already discontinued it. I looked and looked for where to download what I was watching on CR, but couldn’t find the links. Maybe I’m just blind, but I figured that after “Gonzo’s mistake with Strike Witches” (Whatever that was supposed to be, I dunno) This disappointed me tremendously; I have issues with the playback hanging sometimes, so I would prefer to spend the extra money to have a quality download, with an approved translation then and there, rather than wait a day to a week. As a result, I’ve been doing very little watching on CR, and was thinking about canceling my subscription.

DTO would would have been killer for Bakamonogatari, since my copy of ep. 14 is a total botch. Alas, no luck. I think it’s been licensed though, so perhaps we’ll see it at retail soon.

From Chartfag’s Den of Lesbian Enterprise:

# Kuroshitsuji is in July.
# Strike Witches is not airing this season.
# Sekirei is not airing this season.
# Even if movies are apparently “released” on a certain date, they are usually in theatres and so won’t be released online anywhere near the date.

Gotta give him props for the name. Anyway, his preview is here.

On the bright side, the Negima OVA’s continue.

I don’t have time to do this series justice, but it’s turning out not to disappoint. The art & animation could be a little better, but they didn’t do what I feared most, and turn it into a totally brainless jiggle-fest. It’s a weakness in the source material that the story looks like exactly that for the first half. Nor am I saying that it’s high-brow entertainment — it is a harem comedy with some big boobs, and a whole passle of tropes, and it doesn’t aim to be a lot more.

Still, though, the main point I liked about the manga has carried through here: Yuto has some ‘nads. They’re kind of soft and squishy to start, but as his memory comes back, he starts asserting himself a bit. Episode 8 was a major step up in that regard. (If they get far enough into the story and stick to the manga, he’s going to start sounding VERY Western in regards to war and fighting). The childhood marriage betrothal flag has been played, and she (Kueso) is a babe. But for various reasons, she’s pushing too hard, and wants to kill all of Yuto’s friends among the demons (which amounts to 3/5ths of his harem, at this point), then marry him. Yuto finally sits Kueso down and tells her “Not happening — I see what you’re really after, and I WILL NOT AGREE.” Pre-meditated decision, not a “heat of the moment” thing, which makes it even more impressive. Now, whether you agree with what happens next or not may vary, but I thought it was lampshaded hilariously — and Himari’s method of putting Kueso in her place was funny too. (Note that if it continues to follow the manga, she’s not entirely persuaded…there’s going to be some ‘testing to destruction’ coming later if there’s a season 2.)

It looks like the series big bads are about to show up; there’s only 4 episodes left, and it’s about time. Worth noting that in the manga, it took everything the girls and Yuto had to pull off a draw….they’re nasty, and it’s not resolved yet in the manga. I expect an open ending.

I may have more to say about this later, with a few screenshots. I swear, the girls have to be using superhero glue to keep those outfits on.

I very, very much hope that Shaft continues to animate the Negima OVA’s. Or someone does…as long as they get to issue 280. (Start here, as the party breaks up and everyone runs for their life, for the full effect.) The girls have been coming back to front-and-center for the last few chapters, and today was Nodoka’s turn. She’s always been one of my two favorites (along with Asuna, of course), but now….

Holy crap, Batman, she laid the smack down on the baddest opponent in all of Cosmo Entelechia. I always knew that artifact of hers made her potentially damn dangerous, but her biggest drawback was her weakness in combat. Well …. she addressed that little issue — and I should have seen it coming.

It irks me, that twice this manga has gotten an anime, and both times they had to tell a different story because this one wasn’t far enough along.

Update 3/3: And 281 is out; it’s several other girls’ time. “Number 8 on my list of things I’ve always wanted to say… FIRE MAIN CANNON!!!!“

But pretty damn cool all the same. Had an email waiting on me this morning… I’ve been officially declared eligible for redshirting by John Ringo.

YOU HAVE NOT BEEN FORGOTTEN!

I’d been working off the list and waiting until I’d worked it down to get back to this email group. So you’re now ‘officially’ on the list (a word doc :-).

Thanks for signing up.

John

Wish I’d caught up on this back when. I would have commented.

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:26 AM, xxxxxxxx wrote:

Name: xxxxx xxxxxx (Or alternately Ubu Roi — see plays of Alfred Jarry. Do NOT use the two names together, please)

Qualification: Blog post on Claws that Catch anime segment (see comment by Steven Den Beste: “I feel a little unclean”) http://bridgebunnies.com/?p=736

Personality: somewhat lazy, passive-aggressive, Authority. (with a decent track record of being right, alternating with enough flubs to annoy The Wrong People.)

Note: Reason for the unusual request is this blog http://www.houblog.com where, as a city employee, I anonymously blog about city government.

Ubu

(P.S.: yes, I’m *that* xxxxx xxxxxx, the one that triggered Eric Flint’s epic rant four years ago that ended up with you and Tom Kratman challenging him to lay out his political beliefs.)

For those of you wondering what the hell I’m talking about, John Ringo hates making up names or taking them out of phone books, so he uses the names of friends, enemies, con-goers, and volunteers. You’re not guaranteed to be a hero, or even very notable, though the more he likes you the more likely you are to be prominent. Probably the most famous of the redshirts is Joseph Buckley, who has been killed many many times by John Ringo, David Weber, and Eric Flint in return for his services at http://jiltanith.thefifthimperium.com

It will be interesting to see how I end up. What horrible fate awaits me? I expect it will be some incredibly stupid death, caused by my own ineptitude, like drowning in a vat of chocolate.

I watched the Railgun omake last night, which is kind of funny, especially when Mikoto starts acting out of character. They reused a lot of shots from the show, but changed up the dialog.

Dr. Heinous writes that he noticed something while watching the last few filler episodes:

…I don’t think they were ALL filler. Odd that there was a tiny tremor of an earthquake that sent the Anti-Skill girl to hiding under a bench. Then at the orphan school there was a significantly stronger (though still minor) quake…

Hm. He may have a point. Color me Elvis — I’m all shook up. Something you just don’t see in anime set in Japan is an earthquake (Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 being the exception that proves the rule.)

That’s still no excuse for a crappy set of fillers, which the last two were. At least the first two were tolerable, but I’m disappointed that they don’t appear to be heading into the Sisters arc. I could forgive that if they do it as a movie, though. It would be a good move, I think.

Below the fold is a key passage where Leonard explains the oddity that is Kaname, and may inadverdantly drop a clue about Souské as well. Huge spoilers!!! Also, very Engrishy. It’s quite a long segment, with a lot of talking. I’ve bolded certain key passages. For the curious, the last installment is here, and you have to scroll back to find the rest. It’s very difficult reading because of the blog ordering.

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