Mahou Meido Meganekko

I noted this in the comments over at SDB’s, but wanted to add the pictures here to make the point. I’m watching Outlaw Star, which I originally saw on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim a number of years ago. I really liked it at the time, though now I’m sort of wondering why. Maybe because my animé pickings were really thin back then, I dunno. The show is very silly, but not in a parody/funny since, just silly in that it doesn’t care how unrealistic it is. Ships that close to contact range and fight with grappling arms? Be serious.

Anyway, the girl on the left below is Melfina. She’s a unique extremely humanistic android built with the combined technology of the Kei Pirates (themselves a galactic power) and Space Patrol. For whatever reason (try “because the show would have sucked without her”), she was designed for two purposes, the first (ability to pilot a small ship known as the XGP-15) being in support of the second, which was to find the macguffin on which the series conflict was hung, a.k.a. “The Galactic Leyline.”

Please note her flat-as-a-washboard chest — those suspenders are straight lines. As a bridge bunny, she’s sadly lacking.

Mother nature often uses camouflage or chameleon-like abilities to keep her creatures out of trouble. An insect might look like the twigs it is normally found on. An fish might be colored so that it’s tail appears to be its head. A lizard might be able to alter its colors to match the background. All of these things have two aspects in common: They’re designed to fool the attacker through appearance and if the attacker decides to carry through with an attack, they’re useless.

Apparently Melfina’s designers hit upon the idea of using similar camouflage to hide her abilities. No one would expect the computer pilot of an illegally-built super-ship to look like a pretty girl. However, they didn’t stop there. Instead, they decided to decided to go mother nature one better, and equip her with a chameleon-like ability that would be useful after an attack began. At least, that’s the only explanation I can think of for these pictures of Melfina in danger:

Somebody come rescue me — I’m attractive!

Well, if you can think of a better explanation…

Porno. I swear, I selected “DVD” and typed “anime” into the search box. That’s all.

Sheesh, talk about fan “service”…. What do they know about me, I wonder? (Yes, I know its hentai, not ecchi or fanservice. Work with me here, ok?)

(Edited to make the bad pun a little clearer.)

Update: I was just reading over at Instapundit, when I noticed the Amazon ad on the right side…. it had one book (which I already own), one anime (which I also own) and three other anime (which I had recently looked at). Obviously, it was tailored to my recent search/views. It occurred to me, “you know, Glen’s about one glitch–if that–away from having porno advertised on his site, and then the fur’s going to fly when someone’s parent complains to him, not realizing little Billy’s been checking out the animated boobies again….”

Yes, I’m still alive, but I’m not sure how much anyone’s going to be able to notice, insofar as my posting might indicate life. There are some long-term changes underway. I have to say “don’t expect lots of posting” because I spend a lot of time working on each post and now I don’t have a lot of un-interrupted time.

As I mentioned long ago, my mother has lung cancer. Seeing as she’s in her 70’s and is still going two years after diagnosis, she’s doing pretty damn good. However, p.d.g. is relative, and when someone who’s already down to a fraction of their lung capacity gets pneumonia — and tries to ignore it — the situation can get pretty serious. That’s one way to describe “life-threatening.” I had to call in reinforcements to get her to see the light and go into the hospital, where they pumped her full of antibiotics and oxygen 24 hours a day. So in addition to her being in the hospital, I had two relatives staying with us at home.

The immediate crisis is past, but cumulative lung damage means that she’s now largely inactive, and a lot of things around the house (that I’ve had the luxury of ignoring) have fallen on my shoulders to get done, plus being caregiver for my mother. I share these duties with my brother, but of course it’s a “two-way street” in that each of us also contributes to the need for things around the house…. for instance, he cooks because he gets home earlier, but dear lord, what he does to a kitchen should be banned under the Geneva Conventions. My job is to clean up. And of course, I had lots of work to catch up.

I’ve found a bit of time to spare for a couple of posts on Houblog and blogHOUSTON, but haven’t had the drive/energy for Majou yet. Not that I’ve been watching much animé for that matter. It hasn’t helped that I’ve had 2 computers require a complete reload of the O/S. First off, the laptop’s HD decided to die, but at least it gave me enough warning to get the critical files off. However, since I’ve replaced it, the system won’t stop rebooting spontaneously. It even turns itself on. I don’t know if it’s some kind of battery problem (I pulled the battery while I changed the HD) or if somethings contacting where it shouldn’t on the HD. At the same time I was coping with that, I found out the hard way that Steven’s dislike of Bittorrent software is well-founded. Although to be fair, my mistake was in clicking on a fansub group’s url to their site. I was getting curious about the different groups, and I thought I’d see if they had a forum and check out their other series, etc. Wish I could remember which group now. For my curiosity I got a trojan, a shitload of spyware, and adware out the wazoo.

I installed the latest AdAware and even hauled out MacAffee, as much as I hate it, but it wasn’t enough to scrub the system. I finally had to nuke it and reload the O/S (yes, it’s still W2K SP4, Dr. Heinous!). Unfortunately, that left me unable to load the MB drivers for several days because I couldn’t find the right CD. “Download and USB,” says Dr.H. “Ouch!” I say, after smacking my head. Still, I can’t get the sound to work out quite right–the onboard sound has been faulty for years, so I installed a cheap card that causes no end of trouble to TeamSpeak, and that hasn’t changed. Can’t hear, can’t talk, but anyone else talking gets an echo. It’s like the Line In is hardwired to the Microphone. Bah.

I haven’t yet re-installed Azureas on that system and I’m not sure I want to, so no more “free” animé. Not that I’ve been in an animé mood lately–most of my spare time has been taken up by WOW, I admit. I’m just now getting to the level where I can administer some payback to those Alliance bastards who ganked us so many times…

I’ve watched maybe 2 more episodes of Outlaw Star, but I’m barely past the halfway point. Haven’t watched the end of Bakumatsu yet. (Aside: I think it lost something after the Revenge Troupe broke up. The story-within-a-story, story-as-reality, and reality-as-story angles seemed to give it a special zing, especially when reality intruded rudely into the play. After the troupe broke up, that was gone and it was just a typical animé swords-and-evil-spirits story, with a side of typical gimmicky animé villains taken straight from central casting and stuffed into British Marine uniforms.) Nor have I opened GITS:SAC, or DVD1 of Coyote Ragtime Show. Obviously I need some better animé to watch.

Well, if I’m not finding it to download, I’d best be ordering from Robert, then. To replace the crappy Chinese bootlegs, I pre-ordered the new thinpack of Vandred I & II. I also pre-ordered DVD 2 (special edition) of Haruhi Suzimaya. I’m really chapped at how they’re releasing it… DVD 2 SE has DVD 1 subbed and in the original broadcast order. So I have to buy BOTH the English and Japanese version and pay for a bunch of extras I don’t give a damn about. Like I’m going to parade about in an SOS armband at a convention. Sheesh. So anyway, after that, and the Divergence Eve soundtrack, I need something stupid and fanservicey. (I said stupid, not brain dead. Girls’ High is not in the cards.) Ikki Tousen ought to fit that bill just fine.

Personally, I blame Wonderduck for that choice.

It’s not just blah. Family medical issues, fairly serious. Unknown amount of time.

I should be working on a post over at Houblog or blogHOUSTON far more than I need to be working on one here.

But I don’t care, really.

Well, maybe a little. But not enough to do anything about it.