While chatting with Rome yesterday, he mentioned something about our blogs having not updated in a while. Not much has been going on in my life, other than the usual tedium of waking up, going to school, and going home, and perhaps hanging out with friends (sometimes referred to by my friend Tsubasa as “sociable nothing”) on the weekend. There are a handful of things that I can think of – none of which I can expand quite nicely upon.

This will be a post not unlike that of the Raymond Mar bullet-point variety: a collection of small (yet somewhat notable) things in my recent life.

• At Sunnyvale Golfland, beatmaniaIIDX 16 EMPRESS and GuitarFreaks&DrumMania V5 Rock to Infinity have been fully unlocked. On the IIDX front, Himiko (injoke aside) is, uh, a 12 on Hyper. Yes, I know that the song’s rated 11, but that’s called Konami Lying To Us. Also, Rock to Infinity (the song) is giving me a run for my money on Basic (88). And while I’m playing copious amounts of both, my time with pop’n music has suffered.
• Speaking of pop’n music, pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE officially released on March 4 after a small delay. The staff mention that the number of unlockables is to make up for the number of songs that were cut. Can I finally say hello to Water Stand songs on AC? Please?
• I recently got into Puerto Rico. It’s a pretty fun game. In fact, I’m considering whether or not I like it more than Die Siedler von Catan*.
• I started actually searching for and browsing stuff on pixiv, which is sorta like the Japanese equivalent of deviantART – the difference being that since I enjoy music game fanart and character fandom (it’s half the charm of pop’n music!), I get a lot more out of pixiv than I do out of deviantART. As an aside, I enjoy having 40 pages (registration required) of smooooch・∀・ parodies to look at, and I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.
• I’m still waiting for the full US release of DJ Max Technika. This week’s unveiling of the update at the Amusement Showcase International exposition in Las Vegas both kills me (I want to plaaaaaay~) and gives me hope for a prompt release of both the game and its online features (the update is scheduled to hit East Coast arcade hotspot 8 on the Break shortly after the show). In the meantime, I’ve found out that I can’t play a DJ Max Portable game anymore without thinking of Technika and how much more fun it would be tapping a screen as opposed to, essentially, DualShocking beatmania.
• I’ve started two JRPGs: one because one of its sequels is the hot thing of the moment, and one because I’ve been hearing hype about it and I’ve been meaning to try it out. Both are pretty fun.
• I watched one episode of White Album, which was interesting. I then rewatched half of Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! (I need to grab the other half from the aforementioned Tsubasa) and watched its OVA about three times. And, finally, an obligatory Clannad After Story update: I didn’t expect that, why’d they have to go there again?

* I like saying Die Siedler von Catan, as opposed to The Settlers of Catan…if only for my opinion that it sounds cooler.

Call me a month late to the party (apparently it released on January 21), but holy crap, I didn’t know Aoki Ume got her own character single.

I need to find myself a copy.

After talking with Rome about Clannad After Story 17 and subsequently watching 18, I can see where Tomoya’s coming from now.

I take all of that back. (Jump for light spoilers.)

–

That’s something interesting to note about the differences between first-person perspective and third-person perspective – in the anime, I’m irked at Tomoya because he’s being a loser who needs to move on (and be nicer to Ushio, d’awwww), but in the game, I would be Tomoya right now, berating myself for being so weak.

I could testify to the power of the first-person. In Mother 3, during a particular moment in time, you become Salsa the monkey, who’s forced into slavery by one of the Pig King’s cronies, Fassad. What Fassad does to, ahem, ‘motivate’ you is put an electric collar around your neck and shock you whenever you do something wrong – even from far away distances, or even when he’s sleeping! – which is this whole (literally) five-second animation that consists of Salsa getting shocked, being turned to black, then wiping himself clean and continuing; it irked me so much to the point that I had to start speeding up the emulator I was using to play the game every time I got shocked.

The thing with Fassad, though, is that because I’m playing his pet monkey, he’s rather weak and can’t do much, so Fassad steps in from time to time in battle to deal three digits of damage (or throw something to completely obliterate an enemy) where I could deal two. Mother 3 creator Shigesato Itoi mentions this in an interview with Nintendo Dream:

Itoi: During battles, there are times when Fassad appears to be a reliable ally. That evokes very complex emotions. Basically, the person who hurts you the most is the one who comes to your aid to save you from outside enemies. There’s also the feeling of, “You probably haven’t felt this feeling before, have you?” Games are really interesting because they’re able to do that. You wouldn’t be able to transfer something that evokes emotions in that way into a novel, for instance.

That last sentence, perhaps, is why visual novels and adventure games exist. If a player is a static entity (e.g. reading a plain novel), he would not be as connected to the world as he would be if he were participating in the world (e.g. playing an AVG).

Suddenly, the handful of choices that a player is given in any particular visual novel (if the particular work absorbs him enough) hold much more weight: you’re not just helping the protagonist in making a decision, you are the protagonist making a decision.

Choosing a path for the protagonist to follow is the kind of thing that isn’t possible in a TV anime.

One of these days, I would like to experience Clannad the way it was meant to be. Certainly, it won’t have as strong of an effect on me (as I’ve already experienced the story through that third-person perspective), but when the guys at Baka-Tsuki clean and polish up their translation for release, I’ll be there to experience it – this time, first-hand.

The past two episodes of Clannad After Story have been absolutely heart-wrenching for me. Actually, no, I think I should more aptly say the latter half of the past two episodes.

I don’t have a spoiler tag installed into WordPress at the moment (and I’d like to take the time now to once again mention my current addiction with this Korean music game series called DJ Max), so if you want to hear my thoughts on the subject, take the jump.

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The end half (okay, quarter, but it felt like half, holy hell) of 16 killed me. I saw it coming from a mile away (thanks, Key, for always being tragic), but it didn’t make the actual event that less painful to watch. I was basically echoing nearly all of Tomoya’s sentiments during and after Ushio’s birth, despite, really, having seen it come from a mile away. Requiescat in pace, Nagisa Okazaki, until my prediction comes true and you’re revived and I can watch you, Tomoya, and Ushio live together happily ever after.

Speaking of Tomoya and Ushio, all of 17 killed me in the fact that Tomoya never smiles in the entire episode, but especially in the latter half, where he never gives Ushio some sort of lighted-up expression (the closest was when they were leaving with a “Shuupatsu~!” – that’s still not smiling, Tomoya). The thing I enjoyed most about 17 was Sanae.

The preview made me cringe even more. Tomoya, stop being a prick, dammit. There’s already been a cutepocalypse (the time when the cutest thing in the entire show disappeared for most of the rest of it, and it happened in episode 9 of the original series), and I’d rather like not to see another one.

Azuma Kiyohiko on the lack of a Yotsubato! anime adaptation, roughly translated (love ya, Rikaichan) -

I don’t know why this gets brought up, but lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of -
“I hear that you had a lot of disagreements and arguments with the staff behind the anime adaptation of Azumanga Daioh, and that’s why you’re not making a Yotsubato! anime. Is this rumor really true?”
- this kind of question.
What’s that all about?

Normally, the way I treat the childish rumors that go around is that I just ignore them.
But this particular question has been coming up quite a bit, so I might as well answer it here:
Eh, the rumor’s false…

…Well. Why hasn’t Yotsuba been animated yet?
The biggest problem is that it’d be pretty difficult to realize Yotsuba&! in animated form.
Let’s take a look at what it’d be like if it were to be animated.

For example, a scene where Yotsuba goes on a trip to the Ayase household.
Yotsuba opens the door, runs in, says “Hello”.
Within several seconds, this particular scene has already finished…

…[I think perhaps] Yotsubato! must stay in manga form for it to remain Yotsubato!.

To be honest, I never really had thought of it that way. In retrospect, Azumanga Daioh in itself had quite a bit of filler, too.

(Yes, I’m aware Anime News Network has reported on it. The first draft of this post was done during a bout of insomnia at about four in the morning. I woke up and there the ANN post was in my feed reader.)

I grabbed my copies of the English-version Yotsubato! manga (all two of them, heh) to investigate whether or not the way Azuma writes the manga really wouldn’t at least be fit for a one-episode OVA. Imagining the first chapter of the series as though it were the first episode of an anime, I clocked in at 18 minutes.  Add an OP, an ED, the preview for the next episode, and one minute of filler, and bam, there’s an episode of Yotsubato!. The pauses that Azuma put in would feel just like the pauses that JC Staff gave to Azumanga – except this time intentional.

Certainly, the first chapter or episode of any given series isn’t the best indicator of what kind of rhythm the show or novel will fall into later on, but given that example, I think perhaps he chose an example that was too extreme. But at the same time, so did I; I chose a pretty fast-paced first chapter. There has to be some sort of middle ground that an OVA production can take and mold into something beautiful; the series does not feel entirely unadaptable. And there’s plenty of stuff to work with.

But unfortunately, it seems that Azuma is against the notion for the time being. That’s something that I at least have to respect.

In the meantime, I suppose I should, sometime, buy English volumes 3~6, and a Danboard figure to go along with volume 4. It’d be a nice addition to my little Corner O’ Anime Goods.

The first character I had an eye for, while watching the first two episodes of Toradora!, was Kushieda Minori. I decided to look into her character a bit more.

And then I discovered the fact that she’s voiced by Yui Horie.

Damn.

After all these days, I have to wonder why I don’t immediately recognize her voice whenever she does work for a new character. But, still – it all makes sense now.

This post was originally an ode to Hidamari Sketch x365, having just finished it off two days after the guys at SpoonSubs released the last episode. Why is it so good? Why did the show never fail to envelop me in a blanket of warm slice-of-life goodness? Why are Hiro and Sae so damn lesbian and why do I find such a pairing so amusing?

But then I watched episode 9 of Clannad After Story and it flashed back to a handful of scenes in the original series that involved Nagisa Furukawa, and I wept.

There’s certainly enough space in my heart for both. I can’t say yet that a single Nagisa can stand in for my love of the wonderful Sunshine Apartments crew. There’s a good chance that she might, as I bear witness to After Story, and perhaps weep some more.

Oh, and I watched the first episode of Toradora!. It was okay.

1.

[21:44] SpiritsnareAlpha: also I just realized that every Key protagonist is, in some way, a delinquent
[21:45] mduo13: Suppose so
[21:45] SpiritsnareAlpha: Yuuichi is a freeloader; Yukito starts homeless and becomes a freeloader and becomes homeless again; Tomoya is a delinquent; and Riki is dragged into delinquency
[21:45] mduo13: Riki is the least delinquent of them, though
[21:45] SpiritsnareAlpha: It’s true
[21:45] SpiritsnareAlpha: I had to stretch that, admittedly
[21:45] mduo13: also, Yuuichi usually tries not to be a freeloader
[21:45] mduo13: sorry
[21:45] mduo13: Yukito
[21:45] mduo13: I always mix up their names
[21:46] SpiritsnareAlpha: You can make a case for either one
[21:46] mduo13: Yukito actually has a job, of sorts
[21:46] SpiritsnareAlpha: Too bad he never gets money from his main job, hahahaha
[21:47] mduo13: I think Tomoya is the most delinquent
[21:47] SpiritsnareAlpha: Yeah, definitely

Not included in the list: people in a post-apocalyptic world breaking into planetariums. That’s also a stretch, though, but it works!

2. I know I mentioned that this wasn’t an anime blog, but it certainly feels like it is, huh? Not that it’s a bad thing, I guess. I could wax poetic about how the local Mexican chicken place ’round here is quite tasty, but I’m saving restaurant reviews for another time.

[13:36] mduo13: Matt.
[13:36] mduo13: I’m coming back in less than a week.
[13:36] mduo13: You need to finish CLANNAD (the first season at least) before then.
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: I am busy watching Kanon 2006 *and* 2002~~~
[13:37] mduo13: You can skip 2002
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: :<
[13:37] mduo13: Watch it after Clannad
[13:37] mduo13: I am serious.
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: Okay, here’s the deal
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: if I can *obtain* Clannad, I will watch it
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: actually
[13:37] mduo13: How fast can you download?
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: I think I have like up to 1x
[13:37] SpiritsnareAlpha: not all 26
[13:38] SpiritsnareAlpha: lemme take a look
[13:38] SpiritsnareAlpha: also, I download fast enough
[13:38] mduo13: Now uploading Clannad
[13:38] mduo13: Episodes 1 and 2 should be finished within the next 25 seconds
[13:38] SpiritsnareAlpha: lemme double-check which episodes I have
[13:38] SpiritsnareAlpha: you can skip 1~9 for sure
[13:39] mduo13: It’s going at 3.5MB/s per episode, 2 episodes at a time
[13:39] SpiritsnareAlpha: DAAAAAMN
[13:39] mduo13: 1 and 2 done, 3 and 4 going
[13:40] mduo13: 3 and 4 done

I realized afterward that the series is like 24 episodes, but still, I certainly can’t finish both Kanon and Clannad – not with my homework (a paper that I have to do research for) in the way. I guess I’m going to have to leave Kanon for later.

Without further ado, ‘sup, Kotomi?

Having thwarted the wrath of my lovely English teacher (she asked for 750 words on The Laramie Project and I gave her 150 more!…although once you take the quotes from the book out it’s probably ’round 750), I decided that I would rewatch Air, as my friend Tsubasa had done. The exchange went something like this:

Spiritsnare: Give me anime. I actually cleared up some space on my laptop for once.
Tsubasa: Sure. Oh, speaking of which, I just recently finished rewatching Air – did you want it?
Spiritsnare: By gee golly yes.

It’s been a while; in fact, it’s been three years and eight months since the initial broadcast of the series. I had almost forgotten how good of a show it was, until I rewatched it. And now I’ve a new desktop in honor (before, I had this shot from Byousoku 5 Centimeter for, like, half a year).

I should get around to actually purchasing the series sometime. I remember being really hyped up about it back in the hey.

I should also probably get around to watching that thing called Clannad. But not after a runthrough of Kanon, either version – although I might get more of a kick out of the 2002 series. And maybe if my stock of tears haven’t dried up by then I might replay Planetarian.