I’ve Seen Your Face Before My Friend (The Top 3 Anime/Game Characters That Look Like Other Ones)

But I Do Know Who You Are

Over the years there have been a lot of similar character designs in anime, after all there’s only so many ways in which you can give a character a wacky hairstyle and all kinds of accessories before you run out of ideas.  What of the ones that seem like borderline copy pasting though.  What about the ones that come out in such short intervals between one another that you can’t possibly imagine how one didn’t inspire the other because it was popular.  There have been a lot of these, but here are my top 3 personal favourites from over the years.

Summer series 2009 Preview ~ Hope no seagulls are crying

With the Spring season ending in a blink of an eye, we are once again back in the summer period and thus brings us a new batch of series to watch. Surprisingly, compared to last year there isn’t that many titles coming out this season (which is a blessing to some…*points to self) with 18 titles being covered in this preview. As usual laziness gets the better of me and the source for the pictures are taken from THAT Blog where you get more information on the series. Without further ado lets start things off with the first of this season’s titles…

All right so it’s like this.  Every season new shows come out and every season somebody goes all, “Blarg, this whole season sucks and there’s nothing worth watching”.  K, what you gotta do is look harder, cause last season looked pretty meh at first and everybody did the thing, but then like I found 6 new series right out of that season too watch.  That’s like better than average or something.  You be asking yourself why I’m talking like this, and truth is I don’t know, just sorta came out.  Anyway, this seasons a little shorter than average when it comes to the list of new shows, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something worth finding.

Happy Canada Day

Yes I know it’s 2009, but this is the best version I could find.

Whether you are spending it on vacation, at home, with family, with friends or all of the above, happy Canada day fellow Canadians and enjoy the fireworks.

Macross Crusade (Because It Was Bound To Happen Eventually)

Anyone remember that Sunrise Crusade card game series I talked about a good while back and posted some cards from?  Well a recent check up on the game reveals that not only is it in it’s 8th set, but the Crusade series has also expanded to include Macross as well:

Minmay In Concert

The Macross Itself

My Personal Favourite, The Max Jenius Custom Valkyrie

Alto's Custom Valkyrie

Klein Klan

Ranka And Sheryl Duet

Of course there’s much more and it’s awesome that this is happening now.  Hopefully this means we might get to see some of the other mecha series get their own card sets as well besides Sunrise and Macross and that the Crusade series will keep expanding cause it’s awesome.  Especially for people like me.

Requiem For Gundam 0081 The Animation (Consolation Prizes For All)

So according to ANN the disappointment many of us felt upon hearing that Gundam 0081 was “just a PS3 game” may become somewhat alleviated depending on people’s priorities as it’s no longer just anything anymore.  That’s right, like most Gundam media it’s getting it’s own side story tie-in manga series in Gundam Ace.  Pretty good news to wake up too.  There’s also a another sidestory that debuted and this one is to the original series and told from Kai Shiden’s perspective (you can see it on the cover just to the centre left and directly above Kira there) instead of Amuro’s, which could also prove interesting.  This is it I think, the deluge of Gundam products for the 30th anniversary is finally underway this month following the completion of the Gundam statue so if you’re into celebrating I say begin the festivities.  For those that aren’t you might want to get out of the way lol.  This is already starting to make the Big Bang Project look like a small undertaking and

Man I love this picture, it’s just the perfect lead out every time.

Straight Up Saturdays (Congratulations)

Hey, so guess what, I actually have a positive entry for this weeks Straight Up Saturday which may or may not provide you all with a glimpse into what actually still manages to touch my cold hard blackened soul.  Some people might know I like music, but they may not know I have a soft spot for Techno and Electronica.  Well I’ve just been blindsided by something I attribute to that genre and it’s completely made my night.  I told Klashhikari this was going to be big, but he doesn’t really care for it.  Me however, I think I may have just found a potential candidate for opening of the year.  Want to know what it is?  Have you guessed yet?  In any case here you go:

Higurashi Opening – Superscription Of Data

MAN!  Right at the get go with the build up it’s just impossible for me to resist a head jerk, it’s just so infectious.  Then the vocals kick in and it starts to feel more like a Higurashi song.  I’m blown away.  I can’t even think of any other opening out there this year that is anything quite like this either.  So catchy, so powerful, such good vocals, it’s just unbelievable to me.  People who know me know that I rarely have such words to attribute to much, but this song is one of those rare times.  Join the eternal playlist Superscription of Data….join the eternal playlist, you have made it.

Time Out! (Because I’m Sick And Tired Of People Telling Me I’m Watching K-On Wrong)

K-On In A Nutshell, Light, Fluffy, Cute, It Is What It Is, But It Doesn’t Mean That People Can’t Criticize It Within That Context

It’s no secret that my experience with K-On and in finishing it has been an arduous one and that I’ve been very critical of what I saw as it’s total lack of imagination with gag bits and characters that I found to ultimately prove about as interesting as the kind you might see on a Saturday Night Live sketch during one of it’s poorer seasons, but that is not what I am here to talk about.  I am here to address the frequently brought up counterpoint that has been offered as a catchall to your general criticism of K-On (whatever it may be), because I think it’s not only a limp-wristed knee jerk defensive reaction that doesn’t really prove a viable rebuttal, but that it’s also somewhat presemptuous as well.

Eden of The East Finale=Gundam 00?

Don’t know what the gg half time break is talking about with regard to Code Geass R2 comparisons, but so many parts of this finale made me feel like I was watching Gundam 00 without the mecha and with a different goal and a smaller scope that I’m wondering what the deal is:

Straight Up Saturdays (Dear Internet But A Few Humble Requests)

- Please stop posting your Haruhi episode order theory lists.  Nobody actually knows the full breakdown of the episode order because somebody never bothered to make it official.  Plus nobody can predict the future, not even me.  How about some discussion on the episodes that we do have?

-  While you’re at it stop telling me that “The God Empress” (or whatever name you want to call Haruhi) is back with a caption from the show as some sort of required proof.  It’s like this you see…..I know already okay *gasp* .  Tell me what you think about it, I’m all ears, but not that it happened because we’ve been past that point for about a month.

- Enough with the character marriage list thing from 2ch and trying to analyze it as a source of scientifically confirmed data.  We might like to believe that these character marriage lists were based in some kind of forethought on the otaku’s part, but let’s just get real for a second here now, they are popularity polls.  On the girl’s side you have the popular shonen characters and on the men’s side you have the popular moe characters.  It’s a snapshot of a singular point in time, an uncontrolled study and very likely not even a proper cross section of the otaku population at that.  In short fun times, but please just stop trying to attach any sort of significance to it.

- Please stop telling me how hot Megan Fox is when splayed out over the hood of a car.  I’ve seen the picture, I get the idea here, but if all I cared about when watching my crappy incoherent over the top action blockbuster movie was a girl’s breasts then I would get myself a poster.  Though in all honesty I’ve gotta level here, I find Megan Fox entirely unattractive.  Shocking I suppose….

- Please stop trying to convince me that x company is trolling you, are the biggest trolls, whatever.  Companies make boneheaded marketing decisions all the time, shit happens, doesn’t mean they’re out there pulling a 4chan on you.  If they have a term for what they are doing (and by god I really hope they do and it’s as awesome as the one I’m about to come up with) then it’s probably some kind of business jargon and not netspeak, so let’s start calling what it is.  Telecommunication Restriction Operations Limiting Liability In Necessary Groups.

- Please stop telling me that I need to read the source material for an adapation to truly appreciate a given show.  If the show has something to prove I’m sure it can do it on it’s own without the help of its source work.  After all that’s the point of an adaptation, to transfer the content from one medium to another in a manner that makes the media content itself workable within that new context, be it a movie, a TV show, an audio drama, a game, or whatever.  If I need to know the source material before watching something then something has obviously gone wrong in this adaptation process.

- Finally please stop telling me that x show should be granted immunity from my analysis because it is what it is.  No duh a show is what it is, I’d be kind of bewildered if it wasn’t and I’m sure the fabric of space and time would rip apart from the resulting contradiction of realities, but more importantly and since I digress I’ll just say that it’s kind of beside the point.  A show being something doesn’t necessarily mean I find it entirely good at being that something, nor does it mean that I afford it an immediate dismissal either.  Taking things as they come and evaluating them on those grounds with an injection of personal preference (and a handful of media courses), that’s how I prefer to look at shows.  I’m no expert critic of course, but I do what I can and if I’ve misevaluated what a show is trying to be then by all means let me know, but do it make it convincing and be sure to show that you’ve put at least as much thought into the framework of said show as I have….preferrably more.

That is all.

Sora Kake Girl Picture Drama 2 (Itsuki Kannagi And The Tag Of Eternal Distraction)

Let The Doujin Flow……Wait, This Is Official?!!

So the second picture drama was quite hilarious and explains why Itsuki’s interaction with Akiha is so messed up and Yuri-ish.  If you remember back to the part where Nina “killed off” Itsuki and then she showed up at Surre Academy in that wig to spy on Akiha, then this is what supposedly happened in between the two events.  As it turns out she only read half of the booklet Nina prepared for her on behaving like a schoolgirl and then looked at some Yuri manga and assumed that’s how schoolgirls act towards each other nowadays. The rest of it is mostly pictures of her trying on a whole bunch of different costumes that have nothing to do with casual schoolgirl attire (and ending with Hatsune Miku for some reason) which also partially explains what posessed her to dress up in the bondage outfit for the school far.  By far the funniest part for me though was when she become situationally aware of a tag in the bottom right corner that had been there the whole time and which most people will probably assume was only obvious to the viewer. Turns out it was a washing/drying/fabric label off of some clothing which Itsuki thought might come in useful.  Sora Kake Girl fears not the fourth wall.

Anyway you’ve gotta love Aya Endo’s Leslie Nielsen like approach to playing the whole thing absolutely deadpan and serious and really the whole concept of these picture dramas.  They do so much more then the image albums for supplementing the characters and can actually be useful for enjoying the shows a little more as well.  The first one being Akiha and this one being Itsuki, I would have to assume the last one will be Honoka “doshite?” Kawai and I can only imagine what they’ll pull for her’s.  I except some outcries of “lolicon fodder!” to greet what will almost certainly be another attempt to exploit the uncensored nudity that these Sora Kake PD’s appear to delight in.