spiritsnare's snareblog

So I’m watching Clannad After Story 20 and I come across the Best Part of the Episode, in which Fuko visits the Okazaki household riding on her Wave Of Cute. So, I window it to take a printscreen, and I find that Rome, once again, had tossed me a pair of messages –

mDuo13: Seen After Story 20 yet?
mDuo13: If you haven’t, do.

I figure when new episodes of After Story get released my (or our? I wonder) Radar-O-Cute beeps wildly and I immediately download and watch the episode. Unfortunately, my Key-brand Depressometer was disabled in the process, and the last thirty seconds struck a blow to my heart.

I knew something was up. They have four more episodes to go, after all. I’m expecting a nice build-up to what I expect to be a miraculous climax.

I really, really hope she doesn’t die. She’s too young and too cute to pass away.

The news about Sora no Manimani getting an anime adaptation slipped under my radar for the last three days, but today I had the fortune to pass by the Anime News Network (as I do, every once in a while) to find this particular gem of a headline – of which the discovery led to pumping my fist in the air.

At the time I type this post, it’s 5 AM on Wednesday in Japan, which is when they’re supposed to be releasing the anime project’s website. They need to hurry up. I’m hoping for seiyuu info and a teaser clip – hopefully mostly of Micchan being Micchan.

From time to time, I’ll be re-posting old content that I’ve salvaged from the depths of my old anime blog, Waffles. Sometimes, these entries will be edited to make more sense as a standalone post; sometimes, the content will be unedited. This particular post is edited; you can see the original post on the second page of the Internet Archive copy.

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So, Sunday was the third day of FanimeCon 2007, and manga-ka Sekihiko Inui had a second signing session about an hour after his panel. Truth be told, I actually wasn’t aware of this; caught off-guard without any of my copies of the Comic Party manga on hand, I purchased a brand new copy of volume two from the dealer’s hall, mostly for the fact that it has Chisa Tsukamoto, which is my favorite character of the series.

So I flip through it, figuring out which page I wanted him to sign, and I came across a page that, although it wasn’t Chisa-related at all, would make for the best autograph ever.

So I finally get up to the dude, and they recognize me: “Did you like the panel?” / “Yes, I did.” / “Did I look nervous?” / “No, you appeared really confident.” / “I’m glad.” And he signs the title page.

And then I ask Inui-san if he can go and sign an additional page. I flipped to the page, and when he saw it, he did a double-take.

“Did you like this scene?”

“Yeah. It’s just really…out there.”

“But if I sign this, the signature’s going to cover up the words.”

“Oh, this is a second copy.”

This led to the signing of Anarchy Killing Machine Lyrical Android Ken-chan.

The power of Fuuko and the power of Ushio combine to make one unstoppable wave of cute.

Funny how it came about, though. Rome text messages me Sunday morning telling me “Watch After Story 19, you won’t be disappointed.” After coming back from running an errand, I immediately jump onto AIM after watching the episode.

SpiritsnareAlpha: THAT WAS TOO GOOD
mDuo13: I KNEW IT
mDuo13: I think there was more Fuuko material in the game, too, at least a little bit
SpiritsnareAlpha: I expect more Fuuko material in the coming episodes
SpiritsnareAlpha: but yeah, the moment Kouko showed up I’m all like DAMMIT ROME GG

So at AOU 2009, Konami’s showing off pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE prior to its official release – and thus they’ve released the website for the game, which has a full starting songlist!

I’ve translated the page for the perusal of pop’n players who don’t understand Japanese and are too lazy to Rikaichan.

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.

Today, in the wake of Street Fighter IV‘s North American release, I expected something akin to a particular scene in Vanilla Sky, except instead of a bewildered Tom Cruise dashing out into a Times Square bereft of people, I drive onto a rainy Silicon Valley highway jetting toward college without a car in sight.

Even though it didn’t quite happen that way, I still like to think the traffic was lighter today because of the game’s release.

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.)

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Just three days ago, I recieved the DJ Max Fever Limited Edition set from PM Studios, sent straight from Pentavision marketing director Kalos Kim and relayed via PM Studios’ executive producer, Michael Yum.

To some of you, this DJ Max Portable 2 Orpheus Special Edition might look familiar:

“What’s so Fever about this?”, you might ask. It’s the fact that where the supposed DJMAX PORTABLE 2 UMD TITLE (as described on the cover and protective slip, caps and all) is supposed to be, Fever has taken its place.

Everything else is, to my knowledge, exactly the same as what the lucky few people who were able to purchase the game got when they purchased their Orpheuses.

The best part is that it’s the Metallic Silver version, or what I like to call Ladymade Star-in-a-box. This particular selection somewhat redeems the fact that Michael Yum kept on referring to this as a Limited Edition of Fever to the end, making it sound as though there’d be something exclusive or unique to recipients of the LE.

I’m quite content, but next time, I’d prefer it if Michael Yum were a bit more honest, even if it went down on record that “the plan for the limited edition release of Fever is to closely resemble (or possibly be equivalent to) the release of the DJ Max Portable 2 Orpheus Package”.

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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