Heraldry, the Answers

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Ubu Roi

Note: thought I lost the entire post, but the autosave got about half of it.

The answer, more or less, was given this episode. Spoilers below the fold.

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Demon King Heraldry?

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Ubu Roi

I was just rewatching episode 9 of Ichiban Ushiro no Daimaou, when I noticed something. When the three part-demonic guys go to assassinate Keina, a blood-spattered badge gets shown briefly.

Then it gets shown again, but not as the badge, just the symbol itself, as a quick cut.

Why? This screams that it’s important in some way. I don’t think it’s the symbol of CIM08, because the implication is that it came off the bad guy that was about to kill Keina. It looks kind of familiar, but I can’t find it in the show anywhere. I think my feeling of familiarity is based on it resembling a real-world badge or heraldry, but I’m damned if I know whose.

Actually, now that I look at it more closely, it’s evident in the second picture that the stylized text at the bottom says “Suhara” which is the name of the god that’s trying to have Keina killed. It’s also the god of Junko Hattori’s family. Akuto is a “follower” of Koro, but the truth is, he’s an atheist at heart.

I wonder what part the gods will play… and what are they, exactly?

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Strike Witches Notes

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Ubu Roi

Haven’t watched far enough to determine if they removed a lot of the fog. Not sure I want to. Even though I knew, I’d forgotten just how much the first episode sticks the viewer’s nose into the crotches of little girls, and just how rare pants were. As in Miyafuji’s entire class was missing them, not just the Strike Witches.

Keeping otaku out of jail everywhere...

The liner has notes about the girls, including their “colors.” Not, you understand, their national colors, but their panties’ colors. Helpful shots are provided, just in case you forgot after the episode.

“The War on Pants” indeed.

What’s scary is this actually could have been a really decent show, without the panties and the screwed up ending. It hits the right buttons and pulls the right strings. It’s just….Gonzo. Or rather, it was Gonzo

Of course, given the borderline nature of this show, the caption “Jury Recommended” takes on some scary unintended meanings. I know, they mean the Japan Media Arts Festival, but still…

I did find it odd that there are no trailers and no other extras. There were a couple of inserts about upcoming shows, but that was it.

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Order Time

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Ubu Roi

Way overdue in fact, but it’s time to loosen the purse strings a bit. My pusher, er, RACS, was just sent the following order:

All obligation buys this time:
Last 3 DVD’s of Code Geass R2
Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens, disks 1 and 2 (which was cheaper than the set, go figure)
Strike Witches

That’s all for now. Smaller than some of my orders … Otoboku and Ouran Host Club still get the cold shoulder. The former was just… too unbelievable, and the latter…. ok I feel guilty, because it was a surprisingly good show, but it just doesn’t have any rewatch value for me. The joy of watching it was in discovering the unexpected depths to all the characters (well, except for Honey, who was just weird). But once you discover all that, what do you do? There’s not much else…

And Queen’s Blade shall not grace my optical drive. My hard drive is still complaining that it feels cheapened by the few episodes I watched. (Related: I’m sort of hoping that they left a lot of the fog IN for Strike Witches; some of them are way too young to be that ecchi.)

Update: I am such an idiot. Strike Witches was not an obligation buy, because I didn’t bittorrent it. I bought it from Crunchyroll, back when they were doing DTO.

Oh well, supporting dead Japanese animé companies counts too. Right?

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Ten Shows to Watch?

Posted on May 5, 2010 by Ubu Roi

This isn’t exactly timely, but the response I started yesterday to Pixy and Steven’s discussions of “Ten Must See Anime of the Last 10 Years” was saved in progress, and I rather abruptly lost contact with it. So I’m kinda late to the party.

I don’t object to either Pixy or Steven’s selections; it’s their categories that I object to. Look, “huge boobs” aren’t a genre, they’re a feature. “Gainax ending” – what are we trying to say here? What is “squishy?” What kind of “only ten” list would deliberately include a “bad” show? (I use quotes here, because I’m completely in disagreement over one of the picks. That was the right ending – we can’t have them all be happy and wonderful.)

So first, what are our categories, and do we even need 10 of them? Now I don’t want to define this list against someone else’s (so why are you starting by picking on someone else’s? –ed.), but I think most of these should be able to stand on their own as the traditional “genres” of anime.

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Good News: Disappearance

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Ubu Roi

From today’s “Crunchyroll Takeout”; news about anime

Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya Set for US Run

On April 15, 2010, Bandai Entertainment had announced its official licensing of the much anticipated film The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya. American screenings of the film will begin on May 21st at San Francisco’s Viz Cinema, followed by a theatrical run in Hawaii during the month of June. Bang Zoom Entertainment, the dubbing studio in charge of Haruhi’s official dub, will be producing an English version of the film, which will be released on DVD at a later date. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya will be a feature length adaptation of the forth volume of the original light novel series by Nagaru Tanigawa and Noizi Ito. The film premiered in Japan on February 6th and has earned $7,479,561 by the end of March.

It better get a little bit east of San Fran, is all I got to say.

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Some Random Thoughts

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Ubu Roi

(edited for spelling and clarity)

Lately, its not been that I have had nothing to say, I simply haven’t had the motivation to say it. Wait, I said that already. Ok, fine, so here we go on another stream-of-alleged-consciousness post about anime.

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