So fall is finally here, and that means the fall lineup has finally been introduced.  Well, after watching a good amount of first episodes, I have to say that my expectations for this season are fairly bleak.  Here are the series that I have watched the first episodes of along with a comment:

1. Kampfer (ecchi/gender-bender/harem)
2. NyanKoi! (talking cats/comedy/harem)
3. Seitokai no Ichizon (ecchi/heavy parody/harem)
4. White Album S2 (romance/heavy drama)
5. To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (spinoff/comedy/superpower/yuri)
6. 11eyes (sci-fi/fantasy/harem?)
7. Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Purezza (ecchi/romance/comedy)

I think that’s all of them…as you can see, there are way too many harems and not enough of anything else.  To be quite honest, I’m probably only going to watch 1 or 2 of these throughout the entire season (luckily I still have FMA, and Cross Game to keep watching as well).  Here are some very brief first impressions I have of all of these series.

Kampfer

Senou Natsuru is a high school boy who suddenly gets picked to become a Kampfer (means fighter in German).  Through some twist of events, Senou finds himself in a battle where Kampfers have to fight other Kampfers that wear different colored wrist band things.  The whole premise is a little bizarre and the story seems to materialize with no background whatsoever.  I have little hope for this anime other than fanservice shots and a ton of girls.  Oh yeah, and the girl who Senou likes falls in love with his female self.  Yuri yuri yuri yuri yuri.

NyanKoi!

Nyan Koi! might actually have some hope for it.  While it is another harem anime, it doesn’t seem like that will be the main focus of it (hopefully).  Kousaka (the main character) has cursed himself by beheading a cat jizou statue.  An effect of the curse is that he can now hear cats speak.  In order to repel the curse and prevent himself from turning into a cat himself is to do 100 good deeds for cats.  Unfortunately Kousaka is allergic to cats and keeps finding himself in comedic situations when dealing with the cats.  Overall, a pretty lighthearted and leisurely anime.

Seitokai no Ichizon

The entire anime takes place in one room almost entirely, which is kind of interesting I guess.  Other than that, well, this is packed full of parodies and has some unnecessary fanservice.  That’s about it.  I have nothing else to say about this anime other than that if you aren’t seasoned in anime-watcher, definitely don’t watch it cause you won’t get any of the jokes.

White Album S2

Touya is still really dumb, Yuki should’ve moved on a long time ago and left him in the dust, and the rest of the characters are over dramatic and easy to read.  The story isn’t even that good – I’m not sure why I’m still watching; I guess for sake of completeness since the first season ended without any closure whatsoever.  I just want to see Touya get run over by a car and everyone move on with their goddamned lives and professions.  Oh yeah – don’t watch if you haven’t seen season 1.  And uh, don’t watch if you’ve seen season 1 anyway cause you should’ve stopped.  Like me.

To Aru Kagaku no Railgun

If you’ve watched To Aru Majutsu no Index, then you know who this character is.  This is Misaka Mikoto, one of the few level 5’s in Academy City.  I guess this is the story of Misaka.  Not very often is there an entire series of anime for a side-character.  I guess she’s just THAT popular.  It seemingly also takes place at the same time during the events of To Aru Majutsu no Index (as you can see from the beginning of the second episode).  Anyway, seems mostly like a slice-of-life anime that revolves around Misaka, Shirai Kuroko (who is a pervert in love with Misaka), Uihara Kazari, and Saten Ruiko.  I liked To Aru Majutsu no Index a lot, so I hope that this will deliver just as well.  (Hopefully with a season 2 of Majutsu no Index in store later!)

11eyes

So Kakeru and Yuka seem to be the main characters in this one.  I’m not actually sure what it’s about yet, but they apparently grew up at the same orphanage together.  Kakeru’s only family member, his older sister, killed herself.  The intro of the anime also hints that Yuka’s family was involved in an incident of internal killings or suicide.  That aside, the two of them are now in high school together and are close because of the time they spent at the orphanage.  This anime quickly turns from a high school setting to a sci-fi with Kakeru and Yuka being dragged into another dimension of sorts while getting attacked by strange (cheesy) monsters.  I predict that Kakeru and Yuka will eventually awaken to some hidden roles they each have.  Kakeru will gain some secret power and Yuka will always be in danger because of something she has or can do.  End prediction.  Regardless, I’ll at least watch for another episode or two to see where this is going.  Production values seem a little shoddy, but who knows.

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu Purezza

If you liked the first season, this one will be the same exact thing – it’s pretty easy to tell.  I actually don’t want to keep watching this.  It’s romance (not good romance either), with fanservice, and lame comedy.  The art also isn’t great either.  Anyway, for those not in the know, it’s about a girl named Haruka who is secretly an otaku, but doesn’t want anyone else to know.  Ayase Yuuto, the male lead, knows Haruka’s secret and over the course of season 1, they get very close.  This series will probably just play on their relationship more while showing lots of fanservice.  Harems harems harems…no more please.

That’s about it for now.  I’ll probably end up watching a few more first episodes, because the ones I’ve seen so far have been pretty poor.  Looking through what has been released so far though, I can’t really hope for anything much better from what the descriptions say.  Hopefully something will come up and if it does, I’ll try to keep you informed.  Until then, it’s basically a crap-shoot.  It might actually be time to pick up something old that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while!  That would probably be worth it a lot more in retrospect.  Oh well – until next time.

Note: If you really need to watch something, try To Aru Kagaku no Railgun and Nyan Koi! if they sound appealing.  Otherwise stay away from most of the others, except maybe 11eyes, which could turn out decent or really bad.

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(Skip if you’ve already read the first paragraph of one of the other ones) So the summer of 2009 has come to an end last week on Tuesday.  Well, what that brings is also the end to all of the summer seasons of anime that I have been watching.  I’m not going to lie, I was pretty ambitious when I started the season; investing time into about 14 different series simultaneously.  Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well – ended up dropping a ton of series that I found boring or just didn’t bother to keep up with.  Now I find myself at the end of summer with around 6 series completed of varying quality.  I have to say, 2009 hasn’t really blown me away with any anime, but it’s been interesting.  So right now, I’m going to sum up what I have finished this summer: Bakemonogatari, Hayate no Gotoku S2, Canaan, Saki, Spice and Wolf S2, and Requiem for the Phantom.  These aren’t listed in any particular order, so don’t follow it so much like that.  Anyway, here we go.

So this article got extremely long.  I’ve split it up into 3 parts so it’s easier to read.  You’ll be able to tell when I’m wrapping up by the title of each one.  I included the intro paragraph in each of these articles too in case you decide to read one, but not the others.

Spice and Wolf II had me guessing at the beginning of it because I thought what had turned out to be a nice slice-of-life anime from a merchant’s point of view back in a Historical view of Europe had turned into a somewhat sappy-romance inspired anime.  And I don’t think I was that wrong either.  This time around, Spice and Wolf had a lot more of Lawrence running around trying to stay together with Horo than anything else.  I guess the producers figured that they get more viewers when they try to sell romance, as opposed to how the economy worked a few hundred years ago – they’re probably right too.  I’m not giving Spice and Wolf the proper credit it deserves though.  A lot of the time though, Lawrence is still trying to make profit somehow while explaining in detail on how he is going about it.  I think a lot of the blubber was cut though from the previous season because it was probably too boring for people to watch anymore.  Either that, or maybe the anime is following the light novels very closely, but since I can’t read Japanese well enough to actually read them, I can’t say.

The plot remains unchanged though.  Lawrence is trying to get Horo back to her hometown of Yoitsu in the North while making money along the way.  Just like the last series, there are crises, opportunities, and unexpected events thrown around that affect the plot and the money schemes.  The series focuses on mainly two real happenings during Lawrence and Horo’s travels though.  To be honest, I think both of these events were nicely done, even if this time around the focus on romance was escalated a bit.  The anime overall remained unchanged, so I think no harm was done in the long run.  Whether or not this series will warrant another season is a tough question.  With Horo getting closer to her hometown and their journey coming to a close though, who knows.

Phantom ~Requiem of the Phantom~ is probably the better of the action anime I’ve watched this season.  I liked this one significantly more than Canaan.  Well, I guess I should talk in the present tense since I haven’t exactly finished watching this yet.  Phantom is about a boy who is abducted into an organization called inferno and is trained to be an incredible assassin.  The memories of his identity and past are concealed using drugs and the only method he has of living is to do the organization’s bidding.  He is personally trained by the organization’s other elite assassin who is called Ein.  As the anime progresses through its first half, we get to watch the progression of Zwei’s abilities and watch as the organization he works for rises to power over all of the mafia and gangs in the US.

The plot of this anime is split into basically three parts.  The first focuses on Zwei’s progress as an assassin and his struggle to not lose his own identity, all the while trying to give an identity to Ein.  The second part focuses on Zwei being Inferno’s main assassin.  Here, he meets a young girl named Cal and takes her into his care.  The last part that I’m watching now focuses on all three of the main characters and will ultimately lead up to a conclusion of their conflicts (or at least I’d hope).  I really won’t give any insight other than this on the story because I think you should watch it to find out.  I was skeptical on watching this series throughout the first arc of it, but as it kept progressing, I found myself getting more engrossed in it.  The second and third parts are definitely worth sitting through the first part, even though that was the longest.

While there are action scenes in this anime, that’s not really the main focus of the series in my opinion.  Neither are the goals of inferno or the missions Zwei takes on.  To me, Zwei’s struggles throughout the series are what make up the plot.  His struggle to survive (part 1), his struggle to take his identity back and protect innocence (part 2), and his final struggle against his past and choosing between his only 2 real companions he’s ever had (part 3).  These are what make up the entire series.  Is the story mind-blowing or great in anyway?  Not particularly.  I did feel that the series was pretty good in general though.  As long as the ending doesn’t turn out extremely sour, I give this anime a recommendation.  The biggest complaint I had with it though, were the OP’s and ED’s.  Please, never let me hear ALI PROJECT ever again.  I’ve never liked their music.  Period.

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(Skip if you’ve already read the first paragraph of one of the other ones) So the summer of 2009 has come to an end last week on Tuesday.  Well, what that brings is also the end to all of the summer seasons of anime that I have been watching.  I’m not going to lie, I was pretty ambitious when I started the season; investing time into about 14 different series simultaneously.  Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well – ended up dropping a ton of series that I found boring or just didn’t bother to keep up with.  Now I find myself at the end of summer with around 6 series completed of varying quality.  I have to say, 2009 hasn’t really blown me away with any anime, but it’s been interesting.  So right now, I’m going to sum up what I have finished this summer: Bakemonogatari, Hayate no Gotoku S2, Canaan, Saki, Spice and Wolf S2, and Requiem for the Phantom.  These aren’t listed in any particular order, so don’t follow it so much like that.  Anyway, here we go.

So this article got extremely long.  I’ve split it up into 3 parts so it’s easier to read.  You’ll be able to tell when I’m wrapping up by the title of each one.  I included the intro paragraph in each of these articles too in case you decide to read one, but not the others.

What do I have to say about Canaan?…well for the least, I have some mixed feelings about this anime.  The action scenes were par and the story, while it was good, wasn’t anything spectacular.  Seeing how I didn’t really many action anime this season, it was a bit sub-par for the course I’d say.  As you may have guessed, the main character of the anime is Canaan.  Canaan is a mercenary who is currently operating out of Shanghai.  She was raised from the Middle East during a war and was trained during that time.  At first glimpse, the story seems to be about a terrorist group that go by the name of the Snakes who are purposefully experimenting with the Ua Virus in hopes of creating super-soldiers that are like Canaan.  Canaan has the special ability to synthesize all 5 of her senses and use them incredibly effectively.  As the series goes on though, we learn that there are connections between Canaan and Alphard who is the leader of the Snakes.

Oosawa Maria’s role in this anime is to help stimulate Canaan’s growth as a human being.  I would say that from their relationship with each other, both of them begin maturing.  If you ignore the fact that Maria is always getting kidnapped and Canaan is absurdly killing everything that stands in her way to get to Maria for a second, and just observe their mentalities, they begin to have realizations that their relationship isn’t practical and can’t work.  In my opinion, the whole anime focusing on their relationship is kind of silly while all of the other plot is going on as well, but it seems to tie in ok.

What bothers me the most though, is the end of the series.  I’m not going to put any spoilers here, but I have to say that it’s a little cheesy and kind of ridiculous.  Whatever though – it is what it is.  I give this anime a mediocre rating mainly because I wasn’t whole hearted about watching it all in the first place, but it did keep interest.  Anymore than 13 episodes might’ve pushed me off though.

Well, we have anime about card players, people making bread, and playing go, so why not one about Mahjong?  Also, let’s add elements that make it seem that every girl in the anime seems like they have feelings for other girls while making it seem like this anime is still completely innocent.  Well with all of that aside (Wait…can we really just ignore that?!), let’s start talking about the anime.  Miyanaga Saki (the girl on the right in the screenshot) is the main character of this anime.  She has just entered high school and somehow finds her way up to the mahjong club.  The only problem is that she hates mahjong.  As the other girls in the club realize very quickly though, Saki has the uncanny ability to score 0 points every time she plays.  Through like 2 episodes of drama, Saki learns to love mahjong (and Nodoka), is super skillful at it, and can even win in a very absurd way almost every time.

There are a few filler episodes and whatnot, but from episodes 6 to 19, all the content is basically filled with the girls from Kiyosumi (the name of their high school) trying to win a spot in nationals.  I have to admit though, even within these, there are a lot of episodes about the relationships of some of the teams they are playing against and a few episodes where not much happens, but overall the anime tries to make mahjong an intense experience.  I’m not sure how many of you have actually played mahjong, but let me tell you, it’s absolutely nothing like they portray.  I’m very disappointed that there are no sparks coming from my eyes or people fighting in the background while I play mahjong.  In fact, I think my lack of knowledge of mahjong actually makes this anime more fun to watch.

By now, you must be wondering why I even kept watching this anime at all since you may have seen an episode or two and been like “well, this sucks.  What next?”  I think I kept watching it because I enjoyed the mahjong playing.  Some of the characters were even pretty supernatural on how they played the game.  No one in real life would ever be able to play the way these girls played, but it was actually kind of fun.  Not the typical thing I’d ever watch, but hey, we need these kinds of anime sometimes right?  Maybe not, but oh well.  Maybe I was just unconsciously in it for the underlying rated R themes that only perverts would pick up on, but I’d like to think not.

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(Skip if you’ve read this paragraph already)  So the summer of 2009 has come to an end last week on Tuesday.  Well, what that brings is also the end to all of the summer seasons of anime that I have been watching.  I’m not going to lie, I was pretty ambitious when I started the season; investing time into about 14 different series simultaneously.  Needless to say, that didn’t work out so well – ended up dropping a ton of series that I found boring or just didn’t bother to keep up with.  Now I find myself at the end of summer with around 6 series completed of varying quality.  I have to say, 2009 hasn’t really blown me away with any anime, but it’s been interesting.  So right now, I’m going to sum up what I have finished this summer: Bakemonogatari, Hayate no Gotoku S2, Canaan, Saki, Spice and Wolf S2, and Requiem for the Phantom.  These aren’t listed in any particular order, so don’t follow it so much like that.  Anyway, here we go.

So this article got extremely long.  I’ve split it up into 3 parts so it’s easier to read.  You’ll be able to tell when I’m wrapping up by the title of each one.  I included the intro paragraph in each of these articles too in case you decide to read one, but not the others.

What will probably end up as my favorite anime of 2009 is Bakemonogatari.  I enjoyed every minute of this series.  The direction was appealing, the vector art was done very well, the characters were all unique and human, the story was always interesting, and the dialogue was probably my favorite aspect.  The story centers around Araragi Koyomi, who we learn is partly a vampire due to circumstances that are pretty much explained in the first episode that happened prior to the series.  Anyway, the rest of series follows Araragi as he tries to help people (girls) deal with certain ‘oddities’ that are plaguing them.  The anime is structured in arcs of 2-3 episodes as Araragi runs into new ‘oddities.’

About the dialogue, I’d have to say that it pretty much consumes almost the entire anime.  Granted, this anime is based off a bunch of light novels, but still.  The amount of lines is absurd compared to some other anime I have watched.  This is by no means bad though, as the dialogue is very amusing most of the time.  There is a lot of wit and banter between the characters (I probably mentioned this in my first impressions post), while there is also the heavy portions of the anime when the characters suffering from the ‘oddities’ explain how they were received.  I think it’s pretty clever how each of the ‘oddities’ can be explained by the circumstances in the characters’ lives.  Events that could happen to anyone are taken as a literal physical representation somehow and affect the character.

Wrapping up now though, since I’ve already spent too many words on Bakemonogatari, I really hope that there ends up being 15 episodes.  I saw on wikipedia that the show was scheduled for 15 and the last 3 will be released on the official website.  I need someone to keep subbing it! >_<  Oh yeah.  And Senjougahara Hitagi wins Tsundere of the Year (she’s in the screenshot I put there).

Up next is Hayate no Gotoku Season 2.  This time the series focuses a lot more on staying loyal to the manga.  Don’t worry though, it still has tons of parodies and allusions to other anime/manga/otaku-ism.  The arcs in this season, however, end up focusing more on the relationships between Hayate and Hinagiku, Ayumu, and Nagi.  Of course, probably due to overwhelming popularity, Hinagiku gets tons of attention this season – she even gets her own ending theme song!  Is this popularity well-placed?  I’m not really sure, but for some reason she keeps drawing tons and tons of fans.

I think one of the wiser decisions of Hayate no Gotoku S2 was dropping the episode count from 52 in the first season to 25.  I remember it taking me a very long time to finish the first season due to the sheer length of it; I’m not always in the mood for parodies.  I am, however, well-versed enough in anime to understand around 95% of the jokes that go on (I’m not sure if this fact should be depressing or not).

So what do I think of Hayate no Gotoku in general?  It’s definitely one of your love-comedies, except a lot more focus on the comedy than the love part.  At least for now.  This is one anime that you can definitely take your time and watch leisurely.  The episodes don’t always leave you with a cliffhanger, and even if they do – you’re not enticed to watch the next one immediately (or maybe you are!  Who knows?).  Anyway, if you want to watch some just good-humored, well-natured anime and are knowledgeable in popular anime, then I can recommend this to you strongly.  Will there be a season 3?  I would say probably – and if there is, I hope that it will keep staying loyal to the manga.  I like reading the manga quite a bit in my free time.

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So, if you’re from the Touhou community, today was Cirno Day!  I assume that if you know what Cirno Day is, you already know why.  Here is a brief explanation for those of you who don’t know though!:

Cirno is an ice fairy from the Touhou series and apparently acts childish and stupid.  Apparently, ZUN (basically the creator of the Touhou Project) had labeled Cirno as “9. Baka” in a picture of one of his game’s manuals (Baka literally means stupid or dumb).  Thus, she was nicknamed “Nine-ball” or “⑨.”

That’s about what sums it up.  So being that Wednesday is 9 letters long, September is 9 letters long, Japan’s time zone is +9, September 9th is the 252th day of the year (2+5+2=9), and finally the date is 09/09/09, today has been named “Cirno Day.”  So congrats Cirno from Touhou!  You have your own day!

[Information from Touhou Wiki]
[Touhou Project] – for those of you who don’t know what Touhou is.

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Haha, the other day Danny linked me to a user movie on GameTrailers.  Needless to say, I enjoyed it enough to share it with the rest of the world (if you haven’t already seen it).  It’s called the ‘Anime Boob Jiggle Montage.’  It apparently houses clips from 300 different animes in the span of 2 minutes and 20 seconds.  That’s quite a feat.  Anyway, without further ado.

Edit:The gametrailers embed wasn’t working properly, so I found it on youtube.  The original gametrailers link is [here] though.

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So the manga series, To-Love-Ru (also pronounced, Trouble), has come to a close recently.  As it so happened, I was reading this series pretty faithfully, so I finished reading it soon after the last chapter was scanlated and released.  Now the big question though, why?  I didn’t find this series particularly interesting or anything, so I’m not really sure myself.  I’m hoping that writing this review will clear it up for myself too.

This will be a paragraph on the story, since about a paragraph is all you need.  The story revolves around a boy named Rito, who encounters a beautiful alien girl named Lala.  During through some course of random events, Lala ends up living in Rito’s house.  From here on out, you will witness the daily lives of Rito and his harem, which entails much fanservice and some comedy.  Some of his harem includes Haruna (his crush from the beginning of the manga), Mikan (his younger sister), Yami (an assassin sent to kill him), Yui (the class representative), as well as many other female characters.  I’m not really sure when, but some time during the manga, the characters just started pouring in.

So the manga is a love-comedy.  I think we already got that out of the way.  What are the other redeeming qualities of this manga?  To be honest, I can’t really think of much.  Sometimes, it is pretty funny, however not every chapter made me laugh.  The mangaka, from the very beginning, poured tons of fanservice into this, so I guess that’s a plus (sort of).  For the most part though, there really isn’t much development going on though.  At all.  At first, I thought the story was progressing at a slow pace, but would come to an overall climax somewhere; there was none of that to be found.  I’m not asking for drama or anything, but some kind of story would have been nice.  There were times when a chapter or two will pertain to what the characters are feeling, but after a while the sentiments don’t really change and nothing happens.  I guess whatever story the mangaka had in mind just kind of collapsed or ceased to exist altogether.

Unfortunately as well, for the amount of plot development going on, there seems to be even less character development.  Almost none of the characters matured much at all.  There may have been small tweaks to their mentalities, but nothing profound or meaningful ever happens.  At least in my eyes, none of the characters really changed much.  Except maybe Yami, but even her development was minimal.

The drawing style for this manga does appeal to me though.  For the kind of manga that To-Love-Ru is, the style was suiting.  As you can probably already tell, it’s definitely a shounen manga.  Although I say that I liked the art, there was really nothing I particularly liked or disliked about it.  It was just appealing to me – probably on almost preference alone.

I guess part of the reason why I’m bitter is from the way the series ultimately ended.  I think the manga fell out of popularity so much that the ending was rushed and basically thrown in after some random event.  Even with that explanation though, and my non-existent expectations for it, it was still pretty bad.  Nothing changed and the open-ended way it was written was just awful.  The ending could’ve been done in about half a dozen ways that wouldn’t have been much better, but still.  Ugh.

So by now, I guess I sound like I hate this manga.  Which isn’t really true.  I did keep on reading it for a reason.  Most of the time, it was because I had nothing better to read at the time, but it did give me good filler.  The comedy was par and there were enough cute moments between Rito and his harem to make me go “aww” a few times (I’m a sucker – yes).  Sometimes the scenarios for providing fanservice got to be pretty ridiculous, but hey – it’s manga.  I read through it all and didn’t find it too hard to finish, so I guess somewhere deep inside I liked it.  Unfortunately I probably can’t recommend this series since it wasn’t very good in general though.  Unless you want a story-less, fanservice-filled, comedy manga.  Then by all means – go for it.

And I really liked Kotegawa Yui for whatever reason.  Supporting character or not, she was my favorite.  She’s in the last 3 pictures if you couldn’t tell.

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So a little while ago I wrote my impressions of Canaan, an anime season that is currently ongoing.  Well it seems that Good Smile Company is currently making a Canaan figurine that is now available for pre-order.

The figure will be released at 8,800 Japanese Yen during January of 2010.  It’s 1/8 in scale – pretty typical for a plastic figure.  I have just recently gotten into collecting a few figures (nothing major, I only have 2 currently).  It’s expensive to get into, so I haven’t really bought many yet.  They’re nice to have and collect though – the craftsmanship is pretty detailed.  Also, if a figure is really popular, you won’t have any luck finding it after it’s been released.  It seems preordering is the way to go.

If I had the money though, I think I’d probably be more moderate about this hobby.  Some people have tons though cause they’ve been collecting over a number of years.  To each their own though, right?  I’ve already got way too many expensive hobbies.  I really want this one, but no money =(.

[Content via DannyChoo]  [Pictures via GSC]

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It seems like the iPhone 3GS 32GB model is at the moment the most popular cell phone in Japan. Here is the list of the top cells in the month of July

• Apple iPhone 3GS 32 GB
• Sharp SH-06A
• Panasonic 830P
• Sharp SH-05A
• NEC N-08A
• Sony Ericsson Walkman Phone Premier3
• Sharp SH-02A
• Casio W63CA
• Apple iPhone 3GS 16 GB
• Sharp SH001

I have an iPhone 3GS 32GB myself and I absolutely love it, it does everything I ever needed a phone to do an much more.  It is essentially now my second computer.  I can only wonder how the 3G speeds are in Japan since they have probably the most advanced mobile infrastructure in the world.

The iPhone Blog [via @ MobileCrunch]

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So another series that I have been watching this summer season goes by the name of “Canaan.”  The plot of Canaan isn’t the most original, but it’s a pretty good “girls with guns” take.  There’s action and some kind of plot (which I haven’t quite figure out yet, but I’m working on it).  The first episode of Canaan just kind of throws you into the action without any backdrop of the story at first, so you might be turned off from the lack of understanding.  But after giving it a few more episodes (or maybe 3-4), you start to gain some insight onto what’s going on.

So, the main heroine, who also happens to share the same name of this anime, is Canaan.  She is the closer girl you see in the previous screen.  Canaan is a teenage girl with superior assassination skills and a special ability that allows her to see different colors that represent emotions.  From what I’ve seen so far though, Canaan seems to work for some sort of government agency that assigns her missions and the whatnot.

The organization that Canaan works for, seems to be in direct conflict with a terrorist organization called the “Snakes.”  The apparent leader of this terrorist group goes by the name of “Alphard” (you can see her above).  Anyway, without going too deep into things to spoil it, the basic sum up is that this terrorist group is infecting people with the “Ua Virus” which is a deadly disease with a mortality rate of 100%.  Obviously there is a lot more connection between each of the characters and the virus, but you can watch the series to find out what.

I can see that the ice cream is..uh…amazingly large *cough*.  Anyway – the second main heroine of this series is Maria Oosawa.  She actually lost her memories, but has a strong connection with the Ua Virus as she actually survived from it without any effects.  Somehow she befriended Canaan before the anime even takes place, so there will probably be more on it later (I don’t even know how yet).  Canaan is always saving Maria from various predicaments.  Maria and Canaan seem to be more than just friends <3.

I could go on and on about the characters and plot right now, but since I want to keep this to a minimal, I’ll get on with the more technical aspects of the anime (There are a bunch of more characters, some more important than others, but yeah).  The animation is pretty decent, but what is to be expected from a series from 2009; you get your fair share of fanservice (cat girls!..but not really), and the sound is alright.  The OP and ED are nothing worth noting, so I’ll probably end up skipping out on getting the singles.  The plot as a whole has finally got me interested – it took a while, but I feel I’ve reached the point of finishing it (already halfway through anyway, so why not).  I feel that some people may feel that the story may be a little convoluted, with which I can agree with, but I am hoping for some sort of episode that will just explain things more and give me a better perspective.  Maybe I’m just dumb and can’t read between the lines, but the connections between Maria, Canaan, Alphard, the Ua Virus, Maria’s father (Kenji Oosawa), the Snakes, Canaan’s and Alphard’s trainer, some sort of war, and a bunch of other things all have their ties, but fail to bring me up to the present that is the anime.  I can sort of see where they’re going, but not entirely yet – need more flashbacks!

When did the US ever have a recent blonde haired president – there must have been at least one, right?  As Canaan goes on, more and more of the story gets revealed, especially about some of characters’ pasts; but it has been pretty slow going for the most part.  Also, it kind of seems like some of the characters are spread pretty thin – at least the supporting ones.  The action, when it happens, isn’t bad – but seems short-lived at times (don’t get me wrong though, it’s decent; the taxi-driver is awesome).  If you’re just looking for an anime where it’s action all the time, this may not be for you, but if you like a lot of plot without any sort of indication that they’ll answer  your questions, go for it!  I know this doesn’t really help to make you want to watch this series, but seriously – it’s not too bad for something to watch.  Give it a try at least, and if you don’t like it then stop watching.

Who knows though – this could turn out to be something very original and awesome.

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So Danny took me, Riceboy0019 (Sherman), and a few other of our friends to a Japanese Buffet near Menlo Park Mall in New Jersey last night called IchiUmi (or One Ocean if I’m right).  To be honest, I wasn’t expecting too much from a buffet, but was going to try to eat more than my share since I was spending the money.  Unfortunately because of the weather and a lack of food all day caused me to enjoy it less than I should have, but nevertheless the food was delicious.  Quite a surprise from a buffet style restaurant.  The picture that you actually see here is already my second dish.  My first dish consisted of sushi, eel, eel, eel, eel, and eel.

This is Kaisuri’s dish.  I swear that this kid has a bottomless stomach.  I think one of the biggest draws of this place was that it only served Japanese food.  Usually you expect to see Japanese buffet food accompanied by American-style Chinese food or something, but not here.  IchiUmi actually delivered only Japanese food.  Despite this though, their selection was in no way hindered.  Instead, I believe that this turned out to be one of their greatest strengths.  Fresh sushi being prepared at all times (which wasn’t bad! – very unlike the quality of other Japanese buffets I know), soft-shell crab coming out in the dozens, and eel out of nowhere made my stomach go into bliss for many moments during the night.

Another thing I was very impressed with, was the aesthetics of the place.  It didn’t really have a huge Asian feel to it, but it was inviting and gave just enough hint of its oriental roots.  It was clean, organized, and wasn’t cluttered like some places make you feel.  There was always enough space for me to get the food I wanted and whenever people were there, they didn’t get in my way for very long.  Once you have your food, you keep moving – people didn’t stay in one spot for very long.  With the selection, it was hard to since everything was so good.

As you can see, just rolls and rolls of sushi.  Awesome.

I guess as a scare tactic, IchiUmi tries to warn you that leaving extra food and rice on your dish is very offensive in the Japanese culture.  I’m not exactly sure if this is true or not (at least I haven’t heard of it), but if you abuse their system and leave tons of food on your plates, they will charge you an extra 35% surcharge.  It’s to their own discretion though, so as long as you aren’t too wasteful, you’ll be fine.

So I guess as a final note, I’d like to say that I’d very much recommend this buffet.  If you live in the area, try it out soon, since from my experience, the quality of a buffet can drop dramatically from when it opens.  I at least hope it doesn’t.  Dinner was on the pricey side ($32 on weekends), but I think it was pretty worth it.  Being that I had a massive headache, I regret not being able to eat more, but that’s my own fault.  But yeah, definitely worth checking out: IchiUmi

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So as always, I’ve been watching a ton of anime, but this particular one has perked my interest quite a bit.  Bakemonogatari, which is a play on the words ‘bakemono’ which means ‘monster’ and ‘monogatari’ which means ‘story’ is based off a bunch of light novels by Nishio Ishin.  So essentially ‘Bakemonogatari’ means Monstory or Ghostory or something.  Being unable to read Japanese and no english licenses for it, I don’t think I’ll get around to reading the light novels anytime soon, though I’d like to.

Back onto the anime though, if you watch it, you will immediately notice the use of a lot of vector looking art for the backgrounds and the interesting perspectives.  You’ll also notice that the anime cuts to a lot of pages where all there is, is nothing but words.  Bakemonogatari focuses a lot on dialogue in the interaction between characters – usually one on one as I have seen so far.

Again, the camera angles are different, but I think they’re designed so that you keep focus on listening to the characters speak.  Also, the image on the screen changes a lot.  This seems usually to be employed when the characters aren’t doing anything interesting except maybe having a conversation.  It’s pretty unique and the fact that the style is almost always different makes it fun to watch.

Sometimes I find it hard to keep up with all the witty banter going on, but it’s very entertaining.  I think I can attribute this to Nishio Ishin.  There seems to be a lot of puns and word plays that happen, even when the characters are having a serious conversation.  Each character also feels like they have a different style to them as well.

I’ve also noticed that there’s a lot of repetition in the environment in Bakemonogatari.  It makes it feel as if the world the characters are in is sort of dull, but at the same time, the story focuses on oddities.  These oddities (which mainly stem from Japanese mythology and folklore seemingly) are what pulls all of the characters together too, since the main character Koyomi Araragi is always running into them and can’t leave them alone.

Another example of a change in style.  A lot of times when characters are explaining something from their past that is significant, it will constantly scroll through the art style on the screen and the way it’s produced changes as well.

And then at other times, it’s just for fun.

Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I feel like even though the background was made to be bland purposefully, the characters are what doesn’t stand out as much.

The use of color in this anime seems to be huge as well.  There are very few times when an object will have more than one color (other than the characters).  As you can see, the entire house is the yellow/brown, while the steel structure around it is red, and the birds are all blue.  I haven’t noticed many difficult colors either – they all seem to be pretty basic.

I know I’ve been talking a lot about the art, but the animation is also pretty good as well.  The story of Bakemonogatari is separated into 2-3 episode arcs.  Each arc introduces a new character with a different oddity and the characters from the previous arcs seem to always play a roll in the new arc for solving the oddity.  I think in this way, it makes it easy to remember individual characters.  I can never seem to remember names when 10 characters are introduced at once.

The ending song for Bakemonogatari is pretty good too.  It’s actually sung by Nagi, who is pretty popular on Nico video for her voice.  It’s composed by Ryo from supercell who did a lot of music for Hatsune Miku (the vocaloid).

This series is definitely worth watching.

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