Don’t Miss It — But It May Miss You

Posted on January 28, 2009 by Ubu Roi

ADV (through the Anime Network) has made the entire first series of Divergence Eve available for online viewing here. Just in case you’ve been hiding under a rock, the genre is “big-breasted sci-fi horror” and despite the first hyphenation, it’s not a “dumb tits and blood” show. Essentially the writers took a damn good concept, good execution, and a great story, then slapped humongous jugs on all the girls in order to sell it. The CG sucks, but that’s its greatest flaw.

However, after several minutes of investigating, it appears that the offer isn’t all it’s cracked up to be — because their player is defective. I could not get it to play, despite having javascript enabled and the latest flash player installed; it keeps saying “Javascript/Flash Required Your IP: 70.240.xxx.xxx Your Country:US.” It didn’t matter whether I used Firefox or IE. The screen looked a bit small, too, about 320×200, but if you can work it out, maybe there’s an expand option. It’s definitely worth a watch if their site will just work. There are several other series available, including Angelic Layer and RahXephon.

Although honesty compels me to admit that ADV is not doing itself any favors by having the website be defective. They’d have been smarter to put it on Crunchyroll.

Update: And just like that, I come back a few hours later and it works fine. Fullscreen option looks better than Crunchyroll’s too.

I just wish that Catgirls Gone Wild commercial was for real…

Posted in Anime Industry, Commerce, Random Nonsense, Technology, Upcoming Releases | 1 Comment

Whatever…

Posted on January 27, 2009 by Ubu Roi

Not doing much anime-related, except continuing the GXP discussion with Steven here. Chatted a bit with Dr. Heinous. Seems he’s gotten into the Crunchyroll thing — after he finished Last Exile, he watched Tower of Druaga (1st and 2nd series to date), and Kurrogane no Linebarrels.

Surprisingly, he likes the latter, although he admits the first three episodes are pretty rough sledding, given that the hero isn’t very sympathetic at that point. I recently watched parts of episode 15, and agree that it does appear to get better — and the girl who showed up with the mecha does provide a bit of fanservice. That’s definitely in short supply in Asu no Yoichi, where the fanservice was so tame as to be unnotable. (Or I fast-forwarded through it without noticing. Same thing.) The Girl Who Lept Through Space can be described in two words: “Frentic. Confusion.” It’s looking an awful lot like Druaga will be the only series I follow this season, unless new episodes of Eve no Jikan are produced.

Edit: Kurokami! Forgot that one. Definitely following it…

And in recognition of the newer marketing model of Crunchyroll and Bost, I’ve added “Webcast Review” to my categories.

Posted in Administrative, Fansub Review, Snap Reviews, Webcast Review | Leave a comment

Tenchi Muyo GXP

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Ubu Roi

After the last bit of news and thanks to recently finishing Tench Universe, I recently went back and looked at some information on GXP available at TMAU. There was a surprising conclusion made there, but even discussing the background to it is a huge spoiler, so I’m putting it below the fold.

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Posted in Fan Speculation | 12 Comments

Tenchi… Again?

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Ubu Roi

Don’t look now, there’s a new spinoff of Tenchi Muyo! coming, called Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari This time it’s based around his half-brother we somehow never knew he had.

I’m with the guy on ANN’s forums who said “I’d prefer him to apologize for the third one and do another one that ignores it completely. With my luck, though, it’d end up worse.”

Sigh.

Posted in Anime Industry, Upcoming Releases | Leave a comment

Watch your head…

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Ubu Roi

Meteor strike near Trollig Sweeden, recorded on security camera; Jan 17. Eight second video here.

Various reports here.

And in other news, still no sunspots. Fortunately, this was just marked down at Amazon.

I also found these by accidentally searching for “anime” under “Home Improvement” — but I don’t have any use for them… Searching under “Industrial and Scientific” got me some discontinued Hello Kity “car hooks.” Searching under “Office Products and Supplies” got me 314 items, including this. I’m sure it would go over well in my office — which still lacks catgirls, by the way.

That reminds me. I got the opportunity to join in a GURPS science-fiction campaign while on my recent trip. Human space is under occasional attack by aliens, and we can’t expect help from Earth for our recently-founded colony. My character is a geneticist, and I’ve convinced the planetary governor (a player character) to back my plan to start creating forced-growth clones as part of a long-term plan to build up our colony population and industry.

What, you think I’m crazy or something? Of course it’s only a cover for my secret project to create a catgirl army…duh!

Update: But not this cat!!! AIIIEEEEE!!! It’s everywhere!

Posted in Random Nonsense | 4 Comments

Winter 2009, the Randomosity.

Posted on January 20, 2009 by Ubu Roi

So, I’m back from my trip. I tacked on a couple of extra days detouring to meet up with old friends and such, including a stopover at Dr. Heinous’ place. We amused ourselves by making fun of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla.

“Woman driver!”
“I want my own meson-beam tank”
“Tokyo on a not-so-rare Godzilla-filled day.”
Upon hearing the male lead ask the female lead about having kids, “Hey, the counter’s a flat spot — let’s breed!”

Unfortunately, Dr. Heinous made one comment that was so howlingly funny, we can’t remember what it was he said.

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Posted in Anime Industry, Fansubs, Random Nonsense, Snap Reviews | 9 Comments

Worst Honorable Mentions, 2008

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Ubu Roi

Ok, to keep everyone entertained while I’m out of town, here’s the honorable mentions. To distract you from the total lack of humor inherent in this post, I have provided several NSFW posts of Minato Nagase from Akane-iro, below the fold. Given that she’s terribly sweet, and can sub for a gourmet chef in a pinch, I think it’s understandable that Juunichi developed a sis-con.

10, Worst Loli: V.V. from Code Geass, whose appearance was so childlike and effeminate, I thought he was a loli.

9. Worst Computer Technician: Me

8. Worst Goddess: Standards must be slipping. Kannagi is flat-chested selfish, bitchy, self-centered, jealous… She almost becomes sympathetic at the end, but the writers had to revert to form with a combination of accidental grope, accidental viewing, and accidental pervert all at one time.

7. Worst Harem Lead: Tie: Kouta from Sauce and Wolfie, um, I mean Kanokon, with Saito from Zero no Tskuhime . One is a milquetoast 8 year old (well, he looks like it) and the other has bad taste in women. I’d have given it to, Kouta, but he was mostly skating by on physical appearance only, whereas Saito actively worked for the title.

6. Worst Houseguest: Some guy named Ike. A real blowhard.

5. Worst Trend: Leaving lots of hints and dangling plotlines in the hope of sparking support for a second season: Akane-iro, Strike Witches, Macademi Wasshoi, Kannagi, etc.

4. Worst Anatomy: Spice + Wolf. No. Wolf. Nipples.

3. Worst Choice of Sequel: Kyoani, for subjecting us to a second season of Clannad instead of the never to be made second season of Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

2. Worst Animated Fight: Chizuru vs. Nozomu, Kanokon. Guys! This was not the time for panning over stills!!! NSFW

1. Worst Lame Cop-out: Akane-iro ni Somaru Saka, in which the male lead picks his little sister as the winning haremette (with her enthusiastic agreement) — and then the show drops hints that she’s not really his sister. Even if she is, can you blame him?

(Mildly NSFW below the fold.)

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Posted in Anime Industry, Art and Craft, Cheesecake, Random Nonsense, Stupid Memes | 2 Comments