This is Soviet Mig60 airplane from gashapon Mecha Musume Vol.2

He want to make 3D model from it, because I dont know from which angle is needed, so I just shoot from many side. Try to visit his site too, he has 3D model from other Mecha Musume!

(once again, there are some borderline SFW/NSFW images contained herein, please use your judgment, also, once again, there are no hentai images here)

I figure, everyone could do with a little bit of loli in their life.  Who says youth is not invigorating, energizing, revitalizing.  Spanish expeditions didn't wander the jungles and forests of North and South America in search of the fountain of youth (among other things, ha) for S&G.  Now, these posts will probably typically be further apart in the future, but as I have yet to actually write a real post on the current anime season I'm watching, this will have to hold you over until I do.  Silly graduate summer school gettin all up in my fizzace.  (That and the College World Series, playing video games, moving back to Hawaii, and trying to settle a number of financial issues [nothing serious, just a month's worth of backlog due to the vacation in California, or Kawlifourneeah])

So, again, without further adue, on with the spicyhotloligasms!.... Gratuitous Lolis v2.0!

First up today from Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuju ga Ore de (They are My Noble Masters), the sultry...

Kuonji Miyu!

Next, from Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuustu (The Melencholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), a compelation of pictures of Yuki Nagato...

Of course I'll hug you!!

Seductive Yuki, quite acceptable

Aggressive Yuki, also acceptable

Sleeping Yuki, Haruhi, and Mikuru

Leaving Yuki and Co. behind (but not forever!), from Uta~Kata, the docking duo of....

Tachibana Ichika and Kuroki Manastu

And the girls of Uta~Kata...

Yay Swimsuits

Lastly for today, a bit of truth from Ultimate Girls...

Yes, its so true

]]> http://baudattitude.wordpress.com/?p=476 Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:00:37 +0000 baudattitude http://baudattitude.wordpress.com/?p=476 I'm in that "I'm packed up and don't want to try to squeeze anything more in" state of things, so I really didn't need to go back to Akihabara. In truth, I wouldn't have if I hadn't had a directive to go there, but it was also nice to take a last look at it for the trip.

When you leave Akihabara Station, you have to pass through the Maid Gauntlet. This is where girls in maid outfits try to hand you fliers and pretend they're not thoroughly creeped out by their prospective customers. I guess the girls on flier duty have it easier, really, they're not the ones who are giving out the massages and reflexology "treatments" and eye exams and guide services and so on. I turned around after I passed the last one and took this shot, facing back down the gauntlet. Unfortunately, apart from the one in foreground, you really don't get the effect - maybe you can see a frilly headband here and there, but the mass of people kind of obscures the whole thing.

Those guide services I mentioned, that's taken directly from a flier that got handed me. For Y2000 every 30 minutes, you can have your own personal maid to go on a "date" with you - she'll go shopping with you, do karaoke, have dinner with you "and so forth".

I'm guessing that the "and so forth" stops well within the realm of the tame, at least, for those prices. I saw a couple of guys who obviously considered it a reasonable fee to have a girl in a maid outfit hanging off their arm, and they looked happy enough; who am I to criticize?

I wound up in an arcade because I wanted to find an Otomedius machine. This is a shooter that's gotten plenty of coverage on western game sites, because it combines Gradius gameplay with Yoshizaki Mine character designs.

Two minute's googling would turn you up plenty of examples, but I went to the trouble of ignoring a clearly posted - in clear, correct English, even - NO PHOTOGRAPHS sign to give you this picture of an advertising standee:

I played through the first three stages before getting a game over sort of screen - I suspect it's because I had to use a continue to get through the third stage and that if I'd managed it without continues I would have gotten more stages, or something.

Ignoring the cute girl factor for the moment, it's a lot of fun, a 2.5D sort of horizontal shooter affair with lots of 3D characters that move between the backgrounds and the foreground play. The enemies trend towards the weird - lots of penguins, for some reason - and the bosses are appropriately massive screen-filling affairs with glowing weak points that shout "shoot here!"

It's coming out for the Xbox 360, at least in Japan. It had better see a US release, damnit.

I had a guy hanging over my shoulder waiting for a go at the machine, so i bid it a sad farewell and went off in search of small things that I could stuff into niches in my suitcase and use up my small change on.

I happened across a bank of capsule toy vending machines; these are evil soul-sucking devices that take your yen and give you pretty much exactly every possible toy except the one you want. The first time I was in Japan, I sunk probably twenty bucks into one that had Gainax characters in it, trying for a Noriko from Gunbuster with no luck. After I gave up, my wife - who had no vested interest in ANY of the characters, an important point - put money into the same machine and a Noriko popped out, first try.

I digress. The particular capsule toy vending machine that caught my eye was a Haruhi-characters-in-nekomimi capsule toy vending machine.

I have some simple rules about nekomimi: They're a simple way to add moe factor to an anime or game character, and it's generally successful. When a real, live human tries to pull off the look, though, it has something of the effect that a bright red patch has on a frog: It says, "Poison here. Avoid."

This doesn't apply to the hard-working staff at Cafe With Cat, however.

But there I go digressing again. Anyway, I saw this machine, and it offered up the option of Haruhi, Nagato, Mikuru, or Tsuraya-san figures in nekomimi.

Assuming I'd get a Tsuruya-san, I put in my Y300.

Out popped a Haruhi. Not bad, I thought to myself, and here I have Y900 left in Y100 coins, let's see what else comes out.

The second and third were also Haruhis.

While I guess that's better than three Tsuruya-sans, a man only needs one of these. Arguably he does not even need one, but that goes down that whole road that leads to admitting that I don't NEED ninety percent of the stuff I own:

Anyway, I had Y300 left and was thinking very unkind thoughts towards the evil machine by this point. Fortunately the fourth round popped out a different character; a Nagato this time, and I beat a hasty retreat.

On the way back to the hotel, there was a nice fog effect around Tokyo Tower, so here's a shot of that. They'll be turning off the lights on Tokyo Tower and several other big tourist attractions from tomorrow through the 7th of July, so tonight was the last night that it'll be lit up for a while.

Thus endeth my final night in Tokyo.

Waking up in a strange bed in Tokyo when you're not expecting it is really quite terrifying.

My morning started like that, with a bit of sheer "where the hell am I?" panic. It's gotten better, though.

The flight to Tokyo, now that I'm fully aware of where I am and have spent a full day roaming the city, was pretty decent. I'm getting used to the process: I get up godawful early to make a plane, spend an hour or two getting to Seattle or San Francisco, spend several hours reflecting on Douglas Adam's "It is no coincidence that no language on earth has ever created the phrase "Pretty as an airport"", and then spend 9 to 11 hours on another plane slowly grinding its way across the Pacific.

It's important to get on the plane and fall asleep pretty much immediately; this makes it so you're almost on Tokyo time when you get there.

Just as I'm getting used to the flight, Japan seems to be getting used to me. The customs inspector flipped through my passport, commented on the multiple entry visas, and wished me a friendly "welcome back", the front desk guy at the hotel thanked me for returning and didn't even ask if I needed help finding the room.

The JR pass I bought for this trip is turning out to have been an awesome investment, by the way. It means slight delays at every station - I have to use the single manned ticket gate and can't whip through the automatic turnstiles with my Suica - but it's saved me Y5000 at least in train fare so far, and I got to take the Narita Express in from the airport instead of the slow train.

Getting to the hotel around 6PM last night, I had the bright idea of trying to go out and do stuff; this might have been a good idea if I hadn't also squeezed in a much-needed bath and change of clothes. By the time I got to Ikebukuro, it was after 8PM and places were starting to shut down. I grabbed a chicken curry rice omelet and trudged back to the hotel to get some rest.

This morning started with the aforementioned moment of sheer terror, and as also aforementioned it got better.

First, I went off to Ginza to visit the Sony Building, which was full of shiny things I could not buy. The few things they DO offer for sale in their store there are all "overseas" versions - basically the same stuff I could get at a Sony store in the US. Very disappointing from a buy-stuff perspective, less disappointing from a "wow, neat shiny things" perspective. I got to watch a terribly perky saleswoman demonstrate a Rolly, and I am befuddled as to its popularity.

Then I went back to Ikebukuro, where all the stores were open, and hit up the Uniqlo for a bunch of T-shirts. Damnit, I put in an awful lot of effort to get myself down to the weight where I COULD wear a Japanese XL size, I'm going to buy some shirts. Uniqlo has a cool thing going where they have shirts based on Shonen Jump manga, so I wound up with a lot of shirts.

I thought about going into the Ikebukuro Animate, but then I walked over to the street it's on.

The girls have taken over. That is to say, that part of town has been Otome Road for a while now, but when I was there a year ago, it was at least partially boy-themed stores mixed in with the girl-oriented stores.

It's all BL and yaoi now, and the hordes of teenage Japanese girls crowding into the shops were, well, they were a MULTITUDE. Saturday being a school half-day, most of them were wearing their uniforms; this would have been a fantasy-fulfilling vision if it weren't for, well, knowing what they were there to buy.

I made a quick exit. I'm all for equality in access to naughty manga, but actually seeing equality in action was more than a little intimidating.

I did get a cool sticker in Tokyu Hands. I don't know if I'll ever actually put it on anything, though. Nobody's likely to be able to read it, and constantly having to explain what it says would take the humor right out of it.

So, Ginza and Ikebukuro visited, it was off to the first of Japan's Three Holy Places: Akihabara.

My eternally suffering wife puts up with an awful lot, and her husband trotting halfway around the world to the Land of Fanboy Temptation is just one of the things she has to deal with. Her exact words were "don't buy too many gadgets", and my reply was "I won't buy TOO MANY gadgets."

I intended to buy one of the Crimson Red PSPs I saw on Kotaku a few months ago, and it turns out that this was surprisingly difficult, even in Akihabara.

Put this way: I saw multiple "Crisis Core" PSPs for sale, and that was a famously limited edition. I didn't see a single red PSP.

The Crisis Core PSPs were in the $300 range. Presumably the red ones, if they could be found, would be that much or more. That's a lot just to get another PSP. I was half thinking that I might be able to get out of Akihabara without breaking the bank.

Then I thought to myself "Hey, the hotel has free internet access and an ethernet jack in every room. Wouldn't it be cool to pick up a cheap used laptop and blog from Japan?"

Used laptops are pretty available and pretty cheap in Akihabara; if you don't mind that they have no warranty whatsoever and are probably going to have a completely dead battery, you can pick one up for under $200. It was looking like I'd had a pretty good idea.

Then I walked by a display for the Asus EEE, and, well, I was lost. I hadn't gotten a chance to use one in person before, so I hadn't gotten to see how cute it was and how surprisingly decent the keyboard and touchpad were.

I wound up dropping roughly $400 on the EEE. At least it runs Windows XP home and they include a USB optical mouse and 4GB SDHC card in that price, a US machine for the same amount comes with Linux and no accessories.

Oh, and they offer it in pink, but the last shreds of my manhood surfaced just in time to make me buy a white one.

I wanted to pay a return visit to Mai:lish, a maid cafe in Akihabara that's remarkably foreigner-friendly, but they had a heck of a queue to get in.

I wound up, instead, at Cafe With Cat, the nekomimi-maid-themed restaurant in Comic Toranoana. Perv factor: very high. Food (I had beef curry): Not bad.

They serve it with your rice molded into the shape of a valentine heart, which I would call a touch over the top if it weren't being served by a girl in a frilly maid outfit with cat ears. Really, once you're there, there's no more "over the top" to go to.

No pictures of the staff, sorry. You'll just have to go there for the experience.

Oh, both Comic Toranoana AND the Akihabara Mandarake are pretty much given over to the girl themed doujinshi. So you have this male-fantasy-fulfillment cafe on the second floor of a building that mostly caters to girls now. It's a little odd.

On the way out of Toranoana and headed back to the station, I realized that the crowd on the sidewalk was considerably heavier than normal, and then I realized that I was approaching the memorial that's been set up for the victims of last weekend's... I don't know what to call it. Tragedy? That's an over-used word. Sheer damned craziness is a better term; the whole thing is so non-Japanese that it doesn't seem possible.

The memorial is a huge mound of bouquets and the crowd of people stopping to offer prayers is pretty intense, made the more so because the nearby shops seem to have considerably turned down the volume out of respect; it's a small area of quiet and contemplation in the middle of the neon hurricane that is Akihabara.

I didn't expect to walk past it and doing so shook me up a little. It's not enough to make me feel unsafe here; this is still Japan after all, but I hope it stops here and that nobody decides to go copycat.

OK, serious moment over. Tomorrow I'm going to take full advantage of this JR pass and head off in the direction of Japan's SECOND Holy Place: Osu in Nagoya. The shinkansen northbound is still out of service from this morning's earthquake, but I'm assured that southbound is running just fine.

De la mano de Nishino Katsumi esta novela corta se encuentra publicada Media Factory y lleva actualmente 9 volumenes, tambien a inspirado un manga acargo de Yamasaki Rin y recientemente un anime, el mismo es animado por la raza de Xebec (reconocidos por sus trabajos en Love Hina, Nadesico y recientemente To Love Ru).

La historia se desenvuelva alrededor de la vida de nuetro prota Yamada Kouta (y perdonenme el derogativo pero este tipo es una tramapa) que es un alumno de intercambio en la preparatoria Kunpuu, ahora que esta serie diferente de las demas de su mismo genero. Para emepezar tenemos a la bomba de sensualidad llamada Minamoto Chizuru cuya atraccion por Kouta no se le puede llamar de otra forma mas que hambre (desde cuasi violarlo hasta sexo en publico) y para acabarla el chamaco se resiste y llovra como niña (de verdad, ya que su sueiyuu es Mamiko Noto), lo cual lleva grandes malentendidos, entre ellos dandole el apodo de Eros Dai Oh o el gran rey de la perversion.

Una de las cosas mas resaltantes de esta seria es que las dos chavas principales no son humanas si no Yokai (entidades sobrenarutales) que Chizuru es un Bake Kitsune (Zorro Fantasma)de mas de 400 años y Nozumu (la loli de pelo balnco) es un Ookami Yokai (Yokai Lobo) con un gran apaetito (por comida, no como Chizuru), entre estas dos esta la clasica guerra por el pobre chavo que se ve impotente ante los avances de estas dos Yokai.

Entre las habilidades que poseen esta por ejemplo la hibilidad de crear fuego (Kitsunebi)y fusionarse con Kouta por parte de Chizuru en cuanto Nozumo solo se a demnostrado que posee un gran sentido del olfato, tambien encontramos diversos Yokai viviendo entre los humaos, al parecer hay una tregua entre los dos bandos que dicta que los Yokai tienen que hacerse pasar por humanos y no importunar a estos con sus poders (cosa que a Chizuru la vale un cacahuate) entre otros Yokai tenemos a Kiriyama Omi que es un espirtu de viento y Osakabe Mio que es una niña mitad Yokai Rana y Kumada Ryusei que es un espiritu Oso.

]]> http://baudattitude.wordpress.com/?p=378 Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:46:50 +0000 baudattitude http://baudattitude.wordpress.com/?p=378 I'm quite the fan of mahjong games, or at least the sorts of mahjong games you get on consoles, which are generally two-player versions of mahjong where you get to play against cute anime-style girls in skimpy outfits. Not really "proper" mahjong at all, but I like it.

The console mahjong scene has gotten pretty quiet since the glory days of the Saturn -I don't think it's so much that the market for scantily clad anime-style girls has gotten any smaller in the intervening years, it's more that the big mahjong franchises have moved to the PC where there's less censorship.

So, modern games are pretty few and far between, but I do see the occasional release, and that brings me, in a rather awkward way, to the rather awkwardly named Chu~Kana Janshi Tenho Painyan Remix.

This is a remake of a PS2 game from a couple of years back, which I think is related to the Suchie Pai series somehow. It's got the Kenichi Sonoda character designs, it's got Kanai Mika doing the voice of the main character, I don't know if it actually fits in to the Suchie Pai universe anywhere but it's at least a spiritual sequel.

The plot, as best as I can interpret it, involves a rather bratty mahjong master who wants to collect a bunch of mystical stones for the purpose of defending the world from a menace, the nature of which may or may not be specified, but there's an awful lot of kanji I don't recognize and really it's not that important.

You meet people, who are almost all cute, young, and busty, you have a conversation, you play mahjong with them, and when you win you unleash an energy attack that co-incidentally blows most of their clothing to shreds so you can properly search them for these mystical stones.

No naughty bits are exposed, this being a DS game and all that.

Then you explain WHY you had take their mystical stone, they see the light, team up with you and you go off to search for more of the mystical stones together.

Like I said, the plot's really not that important. It's mahjong with a dose of cheesecake and Suchie-pai-style over-the-top special attacks and powerups.

Oh, and there's a Tanuki girl and a seven-tailed-fox-girl in it, which aren't exactly common moe' style characters, so it gets some points there.

On the other hand, there's really no reason to play through it more than once, because there seems to only be one path through the story, and the power-ups and special attacks kind of detract from the actual playing mahjong, so I can't really recommend it unless you're a big Kenichi Sonoda fan or you're enough of a mahjong fanboy that you'll try anything.

Unfortunately, that describes me pretty well.

I've only gotten through the first eleven or so episodes of Tsukuyomi -MOON PHASE- and, well, first things first, I'd run into a version of this OP theme well before I ever even heard about this show.
Dan Kim has a flash version that involves Nana. So yeah wehen I fired this show up and this song was going I had to laugh. Well, more accuratley I went AH! and pointed at the screen, I can't help it... honest. Word of caution, anime sound effects are contagious. You don't even realize you're doing it until you spend long enough away to realize it. Either that or it's normal to start going 'wan wan wan wan' when a parrot starts barking at you... where was I? Oh right, premise of the show is a random camera man named Kouhei, well apparently he can't take a picture and not have some sort of ghost in it. Despite the fact that he can't see or feel them... he can however see things they throw at him. He works for a magazine that specializes in paranormal stuff along with some chick he knows from back in school and a long haired guy who reminds me of Tseng (Final Fantasy 7 reference) with glasses. He's the only one of the three that's actually capable of doing anything magical related, (or is he? muahahaha) Hazuki's a girl trapped in a castle by soem other vampires because they're trying to use her to re-incarnate someone named Luna. The only way she can get out is to go vamp on a human who makes it into the place and have her brand new minion break the thing holding her in there. Sadly for her that same object is creating a barrier that makes pretty much every human feel supremely creeped out and run off. That's where Kouhei the camera man comes in... he just waltzes (not quite) right in and Hazuki does her best to well manipulate him.

Things just get wackier from there what with the magical grandpa's and cat shaped shikigami and loli fiancées (that is the feminine version of fiancé... apparently) and full body cat suits and... you get the picture. The shows always trying to do that whole bounce between comedy and drama thing that... I'm not really sure what a good example is... it reminds me vaguely of Rental Magica but Rental Magica has less roffle time. Hazuki is very tsuntsun... but she's not on Louise levels, no horsewhips although at one point she does try to stick her hand in Kouhei's lung... and succeeds I might add. But aside from that she usually limits herself to yelling, and usually only after Kouhei's done something dumtarded like...uhm... well I'd say drolling over whatserface yeah the other vamp whos name I can't remember F asomething... i want to say Friagne but I think that's Shakugan no Shana related... anyway she's blonde, most of the time, huge rack... yeah, you can see why I pay no attention to her... polar opposite of what does catch my attention... although Saber was blonde and I liked her... which has nothing to do with anything but hell, good point to wrap up with. Saber = awesome. ... speaking of witch. I should really look into getting batteries. >_>;

Brave Story remains quite enjoyable.  It's just gotten to the "OK! You can go anywhere in the world now, and there are all these little side quests and optional bosses to fight!" stage, which is where a lot of RPGs start to drag. Hopefully this won't be one of those, but I'm a little bit nervous.

Oh, and one little thing about the damn Blue Dragon in Lanka Forest: Either I was supposed to do a WHOLE lot of leveling up before going after him, or he is a Grade A Number One Cheap Sumbitch.

Still got him. Took three tries though.

From the searches that bring people to this site - I'm not alone here.  People come here looking for anime girls with cat ears, or ninjas, or ninja girls, or anime ninja girls with cat ears.  If you've been brought here by a similar search, well, you are in good company.

Oddly enough, though, after you filter through the list of moe traits, the next most popular thing that brings people here is "Shadow of the Colossus".  All I can say to that is that people have excellent taste in games.

In the spirit of pandering, I wanted to show off a character good that I bought at Nakano Broadway back in August, and then we can count all the groups it panders to together.

So, let's see:

You've got your Haruhi fans.  And WE ARE LEGION.  This caters to us pretty well.  It's got Haruhi, Mikuru, Yuki, AND Tsuruya-san, so it's not like anyone's favorite character is being left out... Well, unless your favorite character isn't one of those four.  Hmm.  It's got a good chance of not leaving anyone's favorite character out, anyway.

You've got your nekomimi fans covered here, too, and your cosplay fans.

Unfortunately, it's the post-glasses Nagato Yuki, so no pandering to us meganeko-lovers.  They missed a chance there.

And I suppose it also caters to anyone who just likes putting together jigsaw puzzles.  Who doesn't like to spend a quiet Sunday afternoon putting together a jigsaw puzzle?   This doesn't even look like a terribly difficult one. The orange background might be a little dicey, I guess.

So this gets a solid B+ on the pandering scale and still manages to stay on the good side of decency.  You could have this half-completed on a card table and have people over without fear of more than a raised eyebrow.

All that, and it was marked down to 800 Yen.

I'm not a big comics fan, and not a habitual con-goer, but I tagged along anyway. We collected a third friend, who's recently gone through a major comic book burnout, on the way.

So, count so far: Three people, of whom only one actually buys comics on a regular basis.

I haven't been to the local comic book show in quite a while - quite possibly not since 1995. The venue hasn't changed much - it's still a bunch of folding tables laid out in the dungeon-like basement of the local convention center, and the overall air of "please buy this crap so I don't have to carry it home" hasn't changed much, either. I found that I could get offered an instant discount at most tables just by picking something up, looking at it, and putting it back down.

I had to buy SOMETHING after paying seven bucks to walk in the door, and I didn't really feel like comics shopping, so I wound up buying a couple of Monsieur Bome figures.

One I quite like:

The Bome figures have been around for quite some while, and this "toramusume" is the second in the series. It might be a little overdone in terms of sheer number of moe fetishes, but I thought it was a really well made figure. Detailed, a neat dynamic pose, and surprisingly stable thanks to a solid base and some clever balance work.

Then there's this:

Misty May is Gainax's over-the-top parody of magical girls show heroines, as seen in Otaku no Video, and since I was going on about Otaku no Video a few days ago, I felt compelled to buy this figure when I saw it.

Having brought it home and put it on the shelf, though, I'm kind of regretting that. It's a well made figure, sure, but, well, the pose is, uh, well, I'm actually a little ashamed to have it on display. I didn't think that possible, but apparently even I have my limits. :)

Trick or Treat indeed! Bandai is dropping it's third color changing figure on us soon.

I have Bandai's other two Metamo figures, so purchasing this one is a given because I was quite happy with both those purchases. Like the Haruhi Metamo and the Asuka Metamo, Yuki changes colors depending on temperature applied to certain parts of the figure (arms, legs, dress, tail). It's a nifty concept, though it can be a bit annoying if your place experiences wacky (i.e., extreme) temperature change. Overall, I think this Yuki figure looks pretty good. The face is stoic and the pose is stoic. What I like about the pose is that you could almost imagine Haruhi commanding Yuki to do it, but of course keeps that status of a face intact. I still think the Max Factory Yuki is the superior one, but this Nekomimi Yuki from Bandai is no slouch.

Yuki stands at around 20 cm (1/8 scale) and does about 3,300 to 3,600 yen damage to our wallets. HLJ is now taking orders at 3,600 yen too. Quite a reasonable price considering the lame increase in figure prices over the last year. The figure is slated for a February 2008 release, so save your paychecks. In addition, Bandai is releasing a version 1.5 of their Haruhi figure. Instead of shifting from black to white, it changes from black to red. The rest of the figure looks exactly the same, so unless you absolutely love the color red on your Haruhi figure, I see no reason to even bother with it if you already have the original version.

In the meantime I am faced with a conundrum.

On the one hand, I should take this opportunity to study for the JLPT.

On the other hand, after finishing Exit, I decided to give Brave Story a spin in the PSP.

Inside the first half hour of Brave Story, you meet your first companion.

mmm nekomimi

So I'd like to play Brave Story for a half hour or so.

On the other hand, if I study Japanese, then I will be better able to understand future nekomimi-inside games, even if they don't get translated.

So really I'm faced with the concept of catgirls-in-actus vs catgirls-in-potentia.

I DID have to look up what the opposite of "in potentia" was. I'm freely admitting that I'm not that big of a geek without reference materials.

I have to give the character designer credit for realizing - leather armor: not cute. Leather armor WITH A BOWTIE and a pink skirt: cute.

Maybe I'll crack the JLPT book open and do ONE chapter.

Also, since I haven't been tracking this every day: "Let's Learn Japanese" progress: 36/52.

Edit: One hour later: TWO chapters read and a self-test administered. Brave Story played: Zero. The things I do for education.

OK, maybe you don't, but if you DO, or if you have a similar case where you've spent a lot of time playing a game and then blown through the sequel because you'd already gotten good at the gameplay in the original, you can probably understand the feeling of mild disappointment I'm having, having finished:

Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! 2.

Granted, I was playing it on easy, and I'll go back and work through it on normal now, and I understand that there are some songs to unlock, so it's not quite as much of a "huh. That's it, then" feeling as Sonic 2 was.

But, since I did bring home a few more DS games, I will probably try some of those first.

My options include:

Mahjong! I can choose between Idol Janshi Suchie-Pai III Remix or Chu ~ Kana Janshi Tenho Painyan.

Either way, I get Kenichi Sonoda character designs and cute girls to play Mahjong against. Suchie Pai has bunny girls and people named after different flavors of pie, but Chu ~ Kana Janshi has catgirls who are also ninja.

Man, that's a tough decision.

Or I could put the mahjong aside for a quick game of...

Curling!

Yes, Minna No DS Curling.

It was in the clearance bin of the Ikebukuro Toys R Us, and who am I to turn down a 1500 yen discounted DS game featuring Canada's national sport?

(Disclaimer: I don't think it's actually Canada's national sport.)

To make my point quickly and move on: There's rather a lot of guilt that happens when you spend a half hour utterly ravaging some poor Joe's paper and pointing out all the places they didn't follow the assignment and in general have no business being allowed near a keyboard...

...And you get your OWN paper back from that same Joe and it's filled with comments like "I really like what you did here" and "good images" and "this is great" and basically non-stop positive happy vibes...

I'm just saying, I'm glad I don't have to actually face these people on a daily basis.

Other stuff:

The last Moon Phase / tsukiyomi DVD came out! Time to sit down and get my nekomimi on. Boy, that's a weird phrase. Try : "Time to sit down and watch the rest of the series since I only watched the first 2 DVDs and now I finally have it all".

The first Haruhi DVD came out! I intended to be strong and not buy the collector's edition and maybe even hold out for the complete series box, but my wife wouldn't let me - she took the box off the shelf and made me buy it. Probably just so she doesn't have to hear me whining about missing out on it later.

I will present Greg Dean's take on what it's like to be lucky enough to be married to a woman who understands fanboys ... This is really quite close to a normal scene for us.

On the subject of fanboys, one advantage of my new job is that if I walk home, immediately put a DVD in, eat, and walk back, I can get an episode of something in and make it back to work in less than an hour. So I've been re-watching Genshiken, a great series and probably this generation's best answer to Otaku no Video. Otaku no Video represents a completely different age, of course, one in which being otaku was so unusual that if you were one you tended to turn into a bit of an evangelist... trying to convert people to the otaku way. These days, with the different attitudes and the sheer ease of access, converts find their own otaku way on their own, and seek out others of their kind. It's hard to put in to words how things have changed... but I think if you were around then and you're still around you understand.

To get off the maudlin sentimental bit, Deux Ex continues to be an excellent and engrossing game. I'm just past the bit where you meet your brother at the 747, I think that's a good way to describe my progress without spoiling it for anyone. I think I have an awful lot of "game" left to see, there are so many plot threads open at this point that there's no way they can resolve quickly. I'm kind of wishing I'd downgraded pistol at the start and dumped every point I could into low-tech weaponry, I find that 90% of the time I'm using either the baton or the prod.

Other stuff... I downloaded Stepmania recently and need to see if my PS2-to-USB converter works with my PS2 dance mat. I'd been curious about it for a while and not really sure where to get started, but j1m0ne posted an excellent writeup that got me going in the right direction. I've played around a bit with it on keyboard, but it will be much more enjoyable once it's actually making me sweat. It's like DDR... but with songs I actually know!

Also in Eternally Behind the Times... I can't use my DS Lite's Wi-fi connectivity at home because it only supports WEP and my wireless network is running WPA with as much security turned on as I can manage, but I did take it to a McDonald's yesterday so I could try out the online mode of Bomberman Land Touch for the first time. First time I've had McDonald's food in a year and a half, too, apart from a couple of McBiscuits - very weird considering I used to have McDonald's probably 5-10 times every week.

But that aside aside, Bomberman Land Touch online. Setup was easy, very few people out there to play with though and once I got into a match I died quite quickly. Still an enjoyable experiment. I'll have to look into what other DS games offer online connectivity.

"Thank you for submitting your order for Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit CD/DVD OEM.
Your order has been shipped. You should receive your order within 3 weeks. If you do not receive your order, please contact us via email MSTUPVISTANA@moduslink.com by May 1, 2007, for English language versions of the product and June 1, 2007, for non-English language versions of the product so that we may research your request and ship your order."

So if you have an Acer and have been waiting for your free Vista, it might be on the way.

This is my fifth blog entry talking about Vista, and I'll probably do a sixth when the disc finally shows up.  I am putting way too much thought into this, so now:

On the topic of forklifts in recent video games:

Ico: Zero forklift content.

Justice League Heroes:  I want to say there was zero forklift content, but the game's design seems like it might have some forklifts somewhere that you could pick up and throw at things.  You can certainly toss cars around.

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 : Zero forklift content unless there's a gravure scene where Hitomi is driving one or something.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Forklifts present.  Not drivable, and certainly not part of the plot, but this game does include forklifts.

Shadow of the Colossus: Zero forklift content.

Shining Tears: Zero forklift content, but it does have a ninja girl with cat ears.

Your daily dose of nekomimi delivered, I'm going to bed.

Click picture for bigger version.

You know, when I was taking this, I didn't even notice the nekomimi-Rei figure behind her. Double fan-service!

Let me back up a bit.

If you were a fan of mahjong games or Capcom fighting games or just plain weird games and imported much during the mid-late 90s, you probably owned a Sega Saturn.

If you didn't, or if your reaction was, "No, I had a Playstation, it was better", then you can move on to the next bit because this isn't for you.

If you're still with me, you may know the glory that was the Virtua Stick.

A while back, I purchased a little $12 adapter that purported to make Saturn (and PS2, and Dreamcast) controllers work as standard USB joysticks. I doubted its actual functionality, because it looked like, well, it looked like a $12 piece of electronics and it took me a while to even work up the courage to plug it in without worrying too much that it would actually fry whatever it got plugged into.

Short version: Here's Vampire Savior 2 running on MAME with the glorious Virtua Stick connected. In this action shot, I've abandoned Felicia and stepped back so I could take a photo. I am such a cad. Also, here is a picture of the aforementioned USB adapter. I have thoughtfully made sure that the name is fully visible, and a moment's work on Google will give you ample places where you may procure one should you likewise desire to do so. I give the following testimonial:

My PC did not actually explode when this thing was attached. Also, Felicia is still this fanboy's #1 catgirl. You may quote me on both.

Added because my wife thought it might be necessary: The cleavage on the right hand side is a DOA XBV2 calendar, not a scantily clad live action woman kind of calendar. I should mention that my wife is extremely tolerant of the things I do with the deliberate motive of making her roll her eyes and sigh in sad acceptance.

This term is wrapping up, and not nearly fast enough in my book. Math continues to go quite well - I scored a 98/100 on the last exam, and at this point I'd have to do really poorly on the final not to get an A. Speech, well, it's something to be endured and when I'm done with it there will be a checkbox checked on the degree checklist and that's all I really ought to be caring about.

I do have some sympathy for any teacher who's in the position of teaching a mandatory class. Fortunately, I'm almost done attending mandatory classes so it will soon cease to be a problem for me - I'll be able to get on with the business of taking classes that are full of people that don't HAVE to be there. If you are a fully graduated college student and the last sentence made you laugh and say things like "oh, if he only knew...", please do not share. Currently I am enjoying my ignorance.

Da Capo Season Season episodes 10 and 11 were "introduce wacky new characters you've only seen in the OP and in cameos" episodes, and I'm betting that 12 will be the same way before we get the clips show and get in to the actual plot. It wouldn't be so painful if they weren't Aisia episodes. I'm sure she has fans, but... look, I put up with the nekomimi maid and the banana loving robot in Da Capo, but the Inept Witch Wannabe is just a little severe - it's one of those archetypes that deserves to be forgotten.

I should be watching some of the commercial DVDs that have piled up instead - speaking of nekomimi, I have two unwatched DVDs of Tsukiyomi sitting on the shelf staring at me, and that's only the tiniest tip of the iceberg. The how-can-I-resist-for-this-cheap? anime has really been piling up.

As an example: It took me two nights to watch the Di Gi Charat disc I bought, and that's less than an hour long!

huh. we're back to nekomimi. For my next comment I will mention a show with no nekomimi.

Now all I can think of is shows that have at least some nekomimi content. They're even in Welcome to the NHK.

I recently re-watched Akira. That has no nekomimi. I just can't ever really seem to like it. I bought the first DVD release because I got seduced by the cool tin case, and I bought the DTS reissue because Right Stuf was selling them for 10 bucks and it was anamorphic and, as mentioned, DTS, and every once in a while I watch it and hate most of the characters and ... well, anyway, it is nekomimi free. As far as Otomo films go, I'm more of a Roujin Z fan... in fact, now that I've remembered how fun that is, I'm kind of vexed that it's almost 1 AM because there's no way on earth I can watch it and still function at work in the morning.

More evidence of actual progress with my Grand Getting My Stuff In Line project, I encoded two whole VHS tapes of stuff to MPEG2 today, which leaves only a whole lot to do. Still, I'm certainly not adding tapes, and I am subtracting them, which means that the trend is positive.

If you want to see a full size version of this picture check out > the Gallery version.