Mahou Meido Meganekko

So Steven’s been discovering the fun of torrenting lately, and one of the series he’s been checking out is a fanservice series from a couple of years ago called Goyshuso-sama, Ninominya-kun. This is translated by the fansubbers within the series as “My condolences, Ninomiya.” Said condolences being given to a guy who’s being chased after two beauties who either vamp him, or tie him up and vamp him. And they’re (spoiler) Show ▼

Poor Ninomiya Shungo, to be caught between these two… and his merciless, probably insane sister. Just for the record, this series earned multiple awards in my never-entirely-serious “Worst of” awards in 2007.

The broadcast series had a reasonable amount of fanservice, particularly centered around Mayu, the well-endowed one. Reika, the DFC heiress, has her moments too though. What turns out to be surprising, is that the usual “DVD un-censoring” has been extremely mild. While these are still fansubs, the torrents that Steven is watching are taken from DVD rips, though mine were from the original broadcast. Sadly, there’s not a lot of difference. Whereas on Code Geass, we at least got a little more T&A from Kallen, Strike Witches dropped a lot of fog and sunbeams, and Kanokon DVD’s should just have been sold in a plain brown wrapper, GSNK has wimped out to an unexpected degree. The already racy OP was not amped up in the least, there’s been no nipples, and just forget anything resembling full frontals. It’s also painfully obvious that this is deliberate.

How lame is it? Below the fold, and mildly NSFW.

(more…)

You know, if I had just posted my suspicion that the re-run of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya was really just a sneaky way to stealth the second season upon us, I’d look at least as smart as all the other people who jumped on that bandwagon.

Oh well.

/glares at Bittorrent. Download faster, dammit!

Ok, I didn’t do this one, because my snark seems to be on vacation. But it still cracks me up, so enjoy.

I actually took some screenshots a few days ago, but “teh funny” just wasn’t there. For my really twisted stuff to come out, I have to be in a weird mood - kind of angry, kind of depressed, on the cusp of a really, really bad mood. And then the creativity starts flowing and the humor gets twisted. But it’s a knife edge; just a bit too far the other side and the creativity may flow, but the desire to use it stops.

I can see where some famous comedians have suicided or had addiction problems — like me, their humor is linked to their dark sides and negative emotions, and for them, it’s their living — they are forced to dance on the edge of the knife blade. Too happy, no humor. Too depressed, no production. It’s undoubtedly difficult to balance the pressures.

Perhaps someday I’ll discover a way to unlink my creativity and the darkness, but that day is not today.

You need not read the rest of this review. Just get the hell out of the chair, and go see it. There’s no spoilers here anyway, so you won’t learn anything.

Still there? Ok, maybe you got time to kill until the next showing. Fine, read on.

(more…)

I watched ep. 4 last night, and it annoyed me with another disjointed beginning that had me running back to the prior episode to see if I forgot something. In this case, rather than going from an action sequence to a non-action sequence, they did it the other way around. However, it was just a pre-OP segment from the middle of the episode.

More importantly, the episode didn’t go anywhere. Now the 3rd and 1st Student Councils are cooperating, albeit not on the best of terms. Tomo doesn’t seem to have learned anything of any import, nor asked. Takatsuki has obviously fallen for Tomo, though she’s too shy to do anything about it. Misao is jealous. There’s a disjointed plot about a lake monster that turns out to be a familiar gone wild. Familiars are born when someone makes a contract with a demon. Takatsuki claims to be a demon, and everyone’s warning him away from her; if he contracts with her, dire things will happen. As in, the 1st Student Council will kill both of them.

Anyway, two more students are introduced, and they’re part of the 2nd Student council. Everyone shown in the OP is now present, but it wasn’t until the previews that I realized why the first four episodes seemed so aimless: The fifth episode looks like its finally going to advance the plot, which means that the first four were aimless. They existed just to introduce all the characters, and set the parameters of the situation, but the writers weren’t good enough to advance the plot until they had all the pieces on the board and clearly labeled.

What we’ve been watching so far is nothing but nearly-unrelated story that they cobbled together just to do that and keep the audience’s attention with action sequences until they were ready. That’s the real reason Tomo isn’t trying to get more answers; the writers aren’t ready for him to.

I’m afraid that is going to be a pretty major black mark. Between the aimlessness of the first four episodes (well, 2-4) and the disjointed transition from 1 to 2, and the screwy beginning to 4, this series has dropped from “highly anticipated and interesting” to merely above average, and that’s on the strength and cuteness of the girls alone.

Ok, so I was fooling around at lunch, clicking random links and somewhow I ended up on SDB’s Tenchi post, back when he and I were discussing GXP. I really enjoyed watching the series and it provided the base for a lot of fun discussions, at the time, but as I was re-reading the comments Show ▼

Then an odd thought hit me: We see three cabbits in all the Tench continuity (except Universe, which I’m pretending doesn’t exist). Fuku, Ryo-ohki and the name of one slips my mind now. But here’s what I realized: On several occasions, we see Fuku inside her spaceship; in other words, she manifests as cabbit and spaceship at the same time. I can’t recall that either of the other two ever did that.

Now Fuku is practically a baby, and lacks the ability to assume a somewhat humaniform appearance that the others have. But do they lack the ability to manifest two forms at once? If so, why? Just a simple “well, Washu refined the design along the way and added that ability?” Or did Nabeshin goof, or did he choose to ignore that point, because the plot needed (or at least was helped) by a cowering Fuku cabbit inside a Fuku ship? And how did Washu screw up and release a cabbit while it was too young? Pressure from Seto? It was necessary for the meta-plot that Fuku be young and vulnerable, but what’s the story justification?

Gah, stupid questions that occur to me for no reason…

So over at Animé News Network, there was a discussion of the announcement of the new season of Strike Witches. Now, I normally don’t read these threads, simply because there’s nothing of worth to be found there. (There’s nothing of worth to be found here either, but I’m writing, not reading. You’re reading, and if you want to waste your time, it’s not my problem. )

I guess I was bored this morning, since I was hanging out there, reading the ususal stupid comments, made-up rumors (second season of Haruhi coming! No it’s not!), wild speculation, and criticisms of the series from people who obviously never saw it.

This time, though, there was an exchange which wasn’t funny enough to merit all this buildup, but nonetheless tickled me. In between all the comments about how the show was retarded, or mecha-moé is, well, moé, user MusicLover764 posted:

Eww? Why do yall wanna watch little girls in awkward positions with elder gentlemen? Really? Come on……….thats gone a little too far…..

Cue various protests such as “you didn’t watch it, obviously,” and “It wasn’t with old men, it was with each other!” However, the prize for best reply has to go to Xizer, a person of only 2 comments, but much wisdom:

Hi, you must be new here.

ZING!