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New season! and manga.
Oct. 18th, 2004 05:23 pmI'm not dead, although I always do end up posting less at Tech, for the expected reasons. I do have rather a slacker schedule this term, though, and somehow I'm even more behind. I hope it's not because I've grown less and less hardcore since second term last year. (I was okay first term, was at my best second term, and then off-core third term started being weird.) It's possible that without a constant line of stuff due looming over me, I'm just less on top of things until the last minute. Or I'm just a big slacker now. Trying to get a good schedule down for doing sets in a timely fashion before midterms.
Anyhow, that wasn't the point of this entry.
You will sigh in exasperation and roll your eyes to know that however busy or slacking or whatever I am, I always have time to watch anime.
So my computer has begun having problems playing the newest XviD movies. I don't think this is an issue with codecs because episodes that used to play fine now have the same problem. Basically the sound plays fine but the video lags a bit and falls more and more behind. Now I've got it so that every few minutes or so it'll drop a chunk of frames and catch up. But yeah. It's kind of disorienting and whatnot. James things my computer is just too slow and crufted to be able to handle the video fast enough. DivX plays fine, but I've had to convert XviDs into huge-ass MPEGs to play them properly.
So that kind of puts a buffer between how fast I can acquire episodes and how quickly I can watch them. (Aside from the time element, which already means I always have a backlog of episodes.) So to fill this gap, and to create even more flicking, I've started reading a bunch of manga scanlations. For some reason I'm not that into reading completed series, although I have a lot of those, like Angel Sanctuary and Rurouni Kenshin, that I should probably read one of these days. So instead I'm reading a bunch of ongoing scnalations, some quite new.
It all started with Sequence. If you remember the guy I mentioned a while back who was inspired by my Winamp skins, he had a really cool Sequence skin, so when I saw the manga, I was curious. It has a vampire, but it's more generically supernatural than with the bloodsucking and all. The title refers to how the two main characters, the vampire and a normal junior (?) high student ended up being linked such that one's injuries appear on the other. It's not just a novel concept anymore, but it's okay. I guess the series just has a lot of random not-so-new ideas like vampires, a sudden spike in the monster populations, angsty prettyboys, a badass sempai who tries to seduce anyone beautiful including said angsty prettyboys, and so on. But it doesn't really stress any particular one of them, so you don't feel their oldness. And yet it's not so much as to be crazy either.
Then I looked through a lot of shoujo manga and settled on Akuma na Eros. Apparently this is just the kind of twisted series I like. The dark, dashingly evil guy playing around with the innocent schoolgirl's feelings. So the girl has a crush on a guy at school, and ends up summoning the devil in an attempt to win his love, and the devil promises to help her in exchange for her virginity, but the crush is Christian and thus immune to the devil's direct effect, so he has to be more devious, while having fun almost seducing the girl. But can you guess that eventually he's going to fall for her too? Duh.
I read La Esperanca, although it hasn't gotten very far, so I don't know quite where it'll go. That grew out of my thinking that I really wanted something like Akuma na Eros but shounen-ai. (I haven't had much shounen-ai lately. Kyou Kara Maou doesn't count. I ought to read Tokyo Babylon since I finally own it.) So La Esperanca has the badboy seme and the ultra-pure innocent uke thing. It's gotten about as far as the badboy confusing the hell out of the innocent boy and then deciding that he's kind of interesting. That was quite delicious. Then, if I remember the summary correctly, they're supposed to have some connection that helps them in the actual plot-moving point, which was just being hinted at where the scanlations currently end.
In the less "okay, you're a scary fangirl" line of things, I started reading Great Sword of Wah, which is more action comedy. Sword people killing demons, that kind of thing, which means I wouldn't be reading it if it wasn't driven by interesting characters.
Last of all is Moon Phase, which corresponds to the new anime, Tsukiyomi. I haven't watched the anime yet, but the manga makes it seem at least worth a try. When I first heard about it, I wasn't really interested, as it sounds like one of those Kanon-type shows with the really cutesy girls and all. (I don't know how to explain it. I've never seen any of them except Kanon. I mean things like Ai Yori Aoshi, or almost anything based off of a hentai video game.) So yeah. It probably is one of those kinds of light fluffiness.
So onto the anime... there's Bleach, which is probably the best show so far this season, based on my uninformed opinion and based on what I'm hearing elsewhere. As a bonus, the episodes are DivX encoded, so no lag for me.
I also tried the 15 minute Final Approach. (It's actually "phi-naru", with phi as in the Greek letter. Not sure why.) It's probably also one of those light fluffy shows like Tsukiyomi, minus the supernatural. This girl gets sent to be this completely unsuspecting guy's fiancee as a test run for Japan's new program of national-level arranged marriages. So he's stuck with her. And thus begins the cutesy romanticomedy. It wasn't so saccharine that I couldn't enjoy it, so it can't be that bad.
For even shorter episodes, there was Kappa no Kaikata (How to Raise a "Water Imp"). They're 3 minutes and quite . . . odd. The first one was almost cute, but the second one was worse, so I've dropped it. There's a lot of vulgar not-quite-humor to it. It's not that I can't stand it, but there's no reason to do so.
On the list of things I need to watch are Tsukiyomi, which I already mentioned, and Tactics, which is by the same person who did my beloved Matantei Loki Ragnarok.
Also, there's a lot of carryover from last season because apparently I'm really good at choosing slightly marginal series that just aren't a top priority for the groups. So there's Kyou Kara Maou, which isn't really that behind, I don't think, it's just a longer series. I've heard that it'll run 3 seasons, which is a really weird number. But I'm not complaining, because it's certainly my favorite series at the moment, and probably one of my all time favorites as well.
Melody of Oblivion so got short changed with Konomini and all. It's a neat, slightly dark and philosophical little series. Mahou Shoujo Tai is a 10 minute series, but the story's moving along alright, with each episode really defined by steps of character development. I haven't been keeping up with Sensei no Ojikan and Maria-sama ga Miteru -Haru-, but I will definitely get back to them. (I still think it's funny that "haru", spring, is being aired in the fall.)
Well, I guess that's it. And I wonder why I'm such a slacker.
Anyhow, that wasn't the point of this entry.
You will sigh in exasperation and roll your eyes to know that however busy or slacking or whatever I am, I always have time to watch anime.
So my computer has begun having problems playing the newest XviD movies. I don't think this is an issue with codecs because episodes that used to play fine now have the same problem. Basically the sound plays fine but the video lags a bit and falls more and more behind. Now I've got it so that every few minutes or so it'll drop a chunk of frames and catch up. But yeah. It's kind of disorienting and whatnot. James things my computer is just too slow and crufted to be able to handle the video fast enough. DivX plays fine, but I've had to convert XviDs into huge-ass MPEGs to play them properly.
So that kind of puts a buffer between how fast I can acquire episodes and how quickly I can watch them. (Aside from the time element, which already means I always have a backlog of episodes.) So to fill this gap, and to create even more flicking, I've started reading a bunch of manga scanlations. For some reason I'm not that into reading completed series, although I have a lot of those, like Angel Sanctuary and Rurouni Kenshin, that I should probably read one of these days. So instead I'm reading a bunch of ongoing scnalations, some quite new.
It all started with Sequence. If you remember the guy I mentioned a while back who was inspired by my Winamp skins, he had a really cool Sequence skin, so when I saw the manga, I was curious. It has a vampire, but it's more generically supernatural than with the bloodsucking and all. The title refers to how the two main characters, the vampire and a normal junior (?) high student ended up being linked such that one's injuries appear on the other. It's not just a novel concept anymore, but it's okay. I guess the series just has a lot of random not-so-new ideas like vampires, a sudden spike in the monster populations, angsty prettyboys, a badass sempai who tries to seduce anyone beautiful including said angsty prettyboys, and so on. But it doesn't really stress any particular one of them, so you don't feel their oldness. And yet it's not so much as to be crazy either.
Then I looked through a lot of shoujo manga and settled on Akuma na Eros. Apparently this is just the kind of twisted series I like. The dark, dashingly evil guy playing around with the innocent schoolgirl's feelings. So the girl has a crush on a guy at school, and ends up summoning the devil in an attempt to win his love, and the devil promises to help her in exchange for her virginity, but the crush is Christian and thus immune to the devil's direct effect, so he has to be more devious, while having fun almost seducing the girl. But can you guess that eventually he's going to fall for her too? Duh.
I read La Esperanca, although it hasn't gotten very far, so I don't know quite where it'll go. That grew out of my thinking that I really wanted something like Akuma na Eros but shounen-ai. (I haven't had much shounen-ai lately. Kyou Kara Maou doesn't count. I ought to read Tokyo Babylon since I finally own it.) So La Esperanca has the badboy seme and the ultra-pure innocent uke thing. It's gotten about as far as the badboy confusing the hell out of the innocent boy and then deciding that he's kind of interesting. That was quite delicious. Then, if I remember the summary correctly, they're supposed to have some connection that helps them in the actual plot-moving point, which was just being hinted at where the scanlations currently end.
In the less "okay, you're a scary fangirl" line of things, I started reading Great Sword of Wah, which is more action comedy. Sword people killing demons, that kind of thing, which means I wouldn't be reading it if it wasn't driven by interesting characters.
Last of all is Moon Phase, which corresponds to the new anime, Tsukiyomi. I haven't watched the anime yet, but the manga makes it seem at least worth a try. When I first heard about it, I wasn't really interested, as it sounds like one of those Kanon-type shows with the really cutesy girls and all. (I don't know how to explain it. I've never seen any of them except Kanon. I mean things like Ai Yori Aoshi, or almost anything based off of a hentai video game.) So yeah. It probably is one of those kinds of light fluffiness.
So onto the anime... there's Bleach, which is probably the best show so far this season, based on my uninformed opinion and based on what I'm hearing elsewhere. As a bonus, the episodes are DivX encoded, so no lag for me.
I also tried the 15 minute Final Approach. (It's actually "phi-naru", with phi as in the Greek letter. Not sure why.) It's probably also one of those light fluffy shows like Tsukiyomi, minus the supernatural. This girl gets sent to be this completely unsuspecting guy's fiancee as a test run for Japan's new program of national-level arranged marriages. So he's stuck with her. And thus begins the cutesy romanticomedy. It wasn't so saccharine that I couldn't enjoy it, so it can't be that bad.
For even shorter episodes, there was Kappa no Kaikata (How to Raise a "Water Imp"). They're 3 minutes and quite . . . odd. The first one was almost cute, but the second one was worse, so I've dropped it. There's a lot of vulgar not-quite-humor to it. It's not that I can't stand it, but there's no reason to do so.
On the list of things I need to watch are Tsukiyomi, which I already mentioned, and Tactics, which is by the same person who did my beloved Matantei Loki Ragnarok.
Also, there's a lot of carryover from last season because apparently I'm really good at choosing slightly marginal series that just aren't a top priority for the groups. So there's Kyou Kara Maou, which isn't really that behind, I don't think, it's just a longer series. I've heard that it'll run 3 seasons, which is a really weird number. But I'm not complaining, because it's certainly my favorite series at the moment, and probably one of my all time favorites as well.
Melody of Oblivion so got short changed with Konomini and all. It's a neat, slightly dark and philosophical little series. Mahou Shoujo Tai is a 10 minute series, but the story's moving along alright, with each episode really defined by steps of character development. I haven't been keeping up with Sensei no Ojikan and Maria-sama ga Miteru -Haru-, but I will definitely get back to them. (I still think it's funny that "haru", spring, is being aired in the fall.)
Well, I guess that's it. And I wonder why I'm such a slacker.
