Space Battleship Yamato 2 06

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 06
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 06 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Yamato begins its approach to the 11th planet of the solar system, which is now under attack from Admiral Nazca's fleet. Waves of fighter-bombers are laying waste to the base there and a squadron of transport craft drop tanks to begin a ground assault. The base's space cavalier force does what it can to defend the base but are fighting a losing battle. Yamato detects several squadrons of enemy fighters and engages them, its pulse lasers taking out many of the craft and even shielding Yamato from taking missile hits. Admiral Nazca receives a report that Yamato is on approach, so he orders that several battleships be deployed to take it out.

Yamato's crew detects the inbound battleships and with its extended range on the main guns, Yamato is able to engage the enemy before they can attack. By the time the enemy ships can return fire, it is already mostly too late with Yamato destroying all but two ships. Susumu orders that the last to be left as they need to provide relief to the base. Yamato approaches Nazca's battle group and its first volley hits Nazca's carrier. Yamato takes out the three battleships sent to intercept it. Realizing they are in desperate trouble, Nazca orders his surviving escort ships to retreat.

Susumu orders the Black Tiger's deployed and to let the fleeing enemy to escape as they need to rescue survivors on the base. The Black Tiger's clear the skies of the remaining enemy fighters and the ground of enemy tanks. Two red cross transports land to gather the surviving space cavaliers. Sanada learns that there are only 20 soldiers left, lead by commanding officer Saito. They are returned to the ship for treatment while Sanada reports that based on the alloys of the destroyed craft they recovered on the planet's surface, they aren't fighting Gamilus forces but a new enemy.

Since this information needs to be reported to Earth, Susumu makes contact with HQ. After receiving the news of this new enemy, the HQ Chief changes the status of Yamato and crew from renegade to active duty, sanctioning their mission to find the source of the message that had been received. Chief then orders the mobilization of Earth's forces and the solar system patrol fleet placed on alert. Meanwhile, Nazca reports to Desler, begging him to tell the Emperor of what happened here. Desler tells Nazca to make the report himself and then speaks to himself, waiting for Yamato's eventual arrival.

Thoughts/Review: Well, Yamato now has a contingent of space cavaliers, or as Wikipedia calls them, "space marines." I don't know why the Japanese used the term "space cavaliers" (空間鬼兵隊) since that term is used for cavalry units. It is possible that this detachment of troops on the 11th planet are like a cavalry division. The modern U.S. military still has those troops, even without horses. I can understand why people would call these troops marines though, especially since they are now stationed on Yamato and will likely function in that role.

I wonder why the writers established this 11th planet as having once been populated by some unknown aliens in the distant past. It seemed like an odd distraction because right now, it doesn't appear to have any bearing on the story. It is possible that down the road, there will be more made of this, but for whatever reason, I don't believe that will happen.

No Andromeda this episode. It is still early so we'll see if that ship and its captain play a future role.

Oh, while I'm thinking of it, Yuki has only been roving between being a nurse and the radar officer on the bridge. I'm betting we'll see her doing more stuff again since she's to token babe of the ship.

Legalize 2D-Real People Marriages!

The Telegraph (in the U.K.) has an article about a new push to have the Japanese law allow people to marry their favorite manga, anime, or game character. There's apparently over 1000 signatures in the online petition, which will then be presented to the government. What?!

I understand the appeal of the 2D girl (speaking as a guy) and I think that most men do. I recall an episode of the British sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf where the characters of Lister and Cat are discussing the attractiveness of Betty Rubble and Wilma Flintstone, who'd they'd like to be with, etc. In World War II, hot babes were painted onto bombers and the like. So yeah, the appeal of the 2D woman is there.

From my own experience, I don't remember ever thinking about 2D women as "attractive" until Robert showed me the world of anime and manga while in Japan, where I learned that in addition to being like normal cartoons and comics, many regular titles had nudity in them (Ranma 1/2 springs to mind, both in anime and manga) and that doesn't touch the seinen/jousei softcore stuff and the hardcore hentai titles. Then when Robert started watching Dirty Pair, I did admit to him that I thought Yuri was pretty hot. That admission on my part did not constitute some idea that I could fall in love with her or even marry her. Ugh.

While I find the idea of wanting to marry your favorite anime, manga, or game character to be sad, I sadly cannot say that I'm surprised. After all, in Japan the 2D fetish is quite strong. The sheer amounts of hentai manga, anime, and games proves that. Then on top of that, if there's a manga, anime, or game that's been created (pornographic or not), there's an excellent chance that you can find an H-doujinshi on that title -- the more popular the title, the greater variety of doujinshi there will be. If you haven't done so, read the Genshiken manga were this is the pursuit of the characters in that manga -- H-doujinshi (and other stuff second). An insight into the mindset of finding 2D girls more comfortable for otaku guys can also be found there.

It is hard to believe that Japanese law will be changed to allow such marriages, but then again, with the worldwide push to have other couplings called marriage beyond one man and one woman, it is not outside of the realm of possibility that such nuttiness could in fact one day become law. This possibility has raised some questions among western anime and manga fans.

Watson asks, "How the bloody hell are you supposed to consummate it?"

Well, there are plenty of dakimakura (抱き枕) for sale in Japan -- "hug pillows." I'll let you perform your own searches, but I'm sure you can find your favorite anime babe (regardless of age) as the casing for such pillows in various states of undress and "I want you" looks. ^_^;;;

If you are rich, you can score a custom made, life sized, fully functional doll made to look like your favorite anime babe (again, you can do your own searches).

Galen remarked, "So long as I get to claim my virtual waifu and our 30 virtual children as tax deductions, I don't really care if I can't touch her."

Yeah, you may soon wish you had that many deductions if you live in the U.S. with our government about to tax and spend like mad. *_*

Derek asks, "But what if you virtually engage to Ryoko, and Ayeka objects?"

Heh!heh! Not only would Aeka object, but so would Sasami, Washu, Ryo-ohki, Mihoshi, and Noike. Your only hope is to marry them all after getting a new law passed to allow marriage to multiple 2D girls of course. ^_~

Watson then asks a 2nd question, "And how about several men all wanting to marry the same character? Wouldn't that count as bigamy?"

As in the case of marrying multiple 2D partners, a law would have to be created to allow multiple men to marry the same 2D girl.

So, there you have it. In a world where strange things happen all the time, it is possible that one day, lonely otaku can marry their favorite 2D babe (or dude as the case may be). After all, they will never turn you down, always be there for you, and will be the perfect spouse. As you can see from these images, they are willing and waiting for you.

Urusei Yatsura 87

うる星やつら episode 87 (TV anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Onsen-sensei sees Ataru has a daikon in class and demands to know why he has it. Ataru says his going to eat it. An inspection of the class reveals that they've all brought in ingredients for nabemono (aka: nabe). Because he will interfere, Onsen is knocked out and tied up. Thus, it is time to make a giant pot of nabe but Cherry is in the pile of vegetables. He's about to be expelled, but then Ataru notices Cherry has a basket full of matsutake mushrooms. This results in Cherry going from unwanted parasite to hero since matsutake mushrooms are extremely expensive. Cherry tries to say something but gets cut off.

The nabe is cooked but four girls pass out. Ataru and some of the other guys jump in there and start scarfing. Mendou chastises them but Lum feeds him some of the mushrooms. Ryuunosuke remembers her father preventing her from eating the "evil mushroom" and weeps as she eats. Soon, the class begins acting strange as various students put on stupid acts to the cheering of their fellow classmates. Lum sees this and realizes that this is a side effect of the mushrooms, so she gets Sakura-sensei. Sakura-sensei realizes Cherry isn't eating the mushrooms and so avoids them herself.

Lum starts bringing in all kinds of people including Ataru's parents, Otama (the ghost from Sudama Inn), Ryoko, and Sakura-sensei's boyfriend Tsubame. Two other teachers even pop by to eat from the nabe as does the principle. Soon, everyone is acting a fool with more and more demands to have more entertainment. Tsubame, under the influence of the mushrooms, decides to marry Sakura and upon kissing her, she too is under the mushroom's influence. A mock wedding is arranged and as the nuttiness continues into the evening, Cherry walks away, glad he didn't eat those poisonous mushrooms.

Thoughts/Review: Wow. Talk about needing to kill time. This entire episode was basically an excuse to (1) cut some costs, (2) kill time (the ultimate filler), and (3) give an excuse to show off some of the myriad of characters that this series contains, including some minor ones like Otama.

That's not to say there wasn't some entertainment value. I'd have to say that the first half of the anime was entertaining, but the joke of these faux matsutake mushrooms and their effect on the class gets old after that. So a mixed bag in the end and really nothing much to comment on.

Clannad After Story 04

クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 04

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Over lunch, Kotomi, Kyou, and Ryou are made clear on the Mei/Youhei situation by Tomoya and Nagisa. After school, Mei is still determined to get her oniichan back on the soccer team, so Tomoya and Nagisa accompany Mei-chan to the soccer club room. The soccer team is full of arrogant guys who haven't forgotten nor forgiven Youhei for disrespecting his senpai's in his first year (even though Youhei is now in his 3rd year). As such, the trio are not given a chance to present their case, so they pay Miyazawa a visit, where Tomoya tells how he met Youhei (both were busted for fighting) and they became friends.

Mei is still determined to get Youhei back on the soccer team despite how arogant and rude they were. Tomoya tries to convince Nagisa to go home, but she won't hear of it. Again, the trio goes to the soccer club room and are rudely treated. However, the captain of the club agrees to make Tomoya, Nagisa, and Mei ball fetchers in exchange for consideration to allow Youhei back in. Rather than practice seriously, the team purposefully kicks balls so that the trio will have to run after them. One even purposefully drills a ball into Mei-chan's gut.

After practice, again an attempt is made to get them to let Youhei back on the team but the team has had enough and begins to torment Mei-chan. She screams for her oniichan and Tomoya has had enough, but Youhei beats him to the punch (no pun intended) and a fight starts, Tomoya ordering Nagisa to get Mei to safety. The fight goes outside and apparently ends in a draw with Youhei and Tomoya left on the ground in the rain. Because of how Youhei has treated Mei, Tomoya then gets into an argument and fight with Youhei despite the pleas to stop from Mei and Nagisa.

Eventually, Mei and Nagisa break up the fight and finally, Youhei realizes that Tomoya wasn't dating Mei at all and Mei has learned that Youhei still cares for her. The following day at school, the battered Tomoya and Nagisa walk to school where they meet Youhei. Nagisa isn't sure what's going to happen as the two boys look angry, but then they break out in laughter at their injured, bandaged faces (which is how they were when they first met). Kotomi, Kyou, and Ryou come up and it is clear that Youhei and Tomoya are friends again. Nagisa is happy about this.

Sometime later, the two of them talk things over in Youhei's room before heading to Nagisa's house so that Youhei can see his true love, Sanae-san. Seeing Aki0-san outside, Youhei asks for Sanae-san (thinking she's his oldest daughter). When Sanae-san steps out and explains that Akio-san is her husband. Nagisa wonders why Tomoya hasn't told Youhei the truth yet, but the answer is clear in Tomoya's laughter. Despite this (and Akio-san's attempt to beat Youhei), Youhei and Tomoya are still best of friends.

Thoughts/Review: So Mei-chan wants her older brother to be back on a soccer team because in her mind, that is what will make him return to normal. OK, I can buy that as an idea. However, after Mei, Tomoya, and Nagisa actually meet the Soccer Club members and find out what utter bastards and scum buckets they are, one would think that just maybe, someone with reason would tell Mei (assuming she didn't come to the conclusion herself), "Are you sure you want your oniichan with bastards like this? They might influence him to be worse than he is."

Nope, we aren't going to do that, y'all. No, lets grovel to the arrogant punks because only soccer will make "oniichan" back to normal. It doesn't matter if they abuse the heck out us because oniichan needs to play soccer. It doesn't matter how they humiliate us because this is the team oniichan must be on in order to play soccer and be a good boy again. After all, jerk wads like this clearly won't influence oniichan to the negative. Ugh! Whatever.

I remembered the Rugby Club having problems with Youhei in the first episode of Clannad and I figured his problems with the Soccer Club woud be the same -- some disrespect on the part of Youhei that put him on the bad side of the club. Well, OK, that happened but because the Soccer Club is so unlikeable and unreasonable combined with the scenerio I put above, that makes the end of the Youhei-Mei arc to be rather "Ugh!" As such, there was no sadness (despite the attempts to make it so) and not even anger, only eye-rolling, "whatever" moments because things just didn't feel real or right.

On a side note, based on Miyazawa's conversation with Mei, Tomoya, and Nagisa, I'm going to guess that the man she was hiding in episode 2 is her older brother that she talked about. If so, maybe she and Youhei can get together.

So while not a bad episode, it didn't have the impact it should have had because of the unbelievable soccer team.

Keroro Gunsou 77

ケロロ軍曹 Episode 77
Sgt. Frog anime, 77
Keroro Gunsou episode 77

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Tamama is chilling out when Taruru and Karara crash into the yard. The purpose of their visit is that Karara is ready to marry Tamama. Tamama is not happy to hear this but things immediately start spinning out of control with Momoka providing Tamama and Karara a new home that Karara loves. The platoon, Natsumi, and Fuyuki hear about this marriage and offer their congratulations. Tamama sees himself being distanced from Keroro so he tries to do everything he can to make Karara hate him. It all backfires. However, when Karara's father arrives in a mecha to take his daughter back home, Tamama feels sorry for Karara and tries to stop her father but fails. Kururu doesn't and that makes Karara fall in love with Kururu. So for now, she and Taruru return to Keron with her father and a new love in her heart.

Tamama decides that with his failure in battling Karara's father, he has to improve and change himself. So he decides to seal his Tamama Impact ability. As such, he goes through stages of training where sees Moa and Keroro together acting lovey. To pass each stage, Tamama swallows his rage and jealousy. This results in Tamama becoming an giant. Kururu determines that Tamama needs to use the Tamama Impact to release this pent up energy but Tamama can no longer do so. He soon stops caring and kidnaps Moa, taking her to the top of the Nishizawa Tower. His swallowed jealousy soon creates an anti-gravity field which sends Tamama into space. He's rescued by the platoon and with Kururu's help, he's finally able to release a massive Tamama Impact and return to normal.

Thoughts/Review: Seeing new Tamama's bedroom with the pillows labeled "Yes" and "No" really cracked me up. For fun, I decided to see if these were sold and sure enough, they are. *lol*

With Karara's constant use of the term "Darling" as well as her cap having two small bumps like mini horns, I don't think it is much of a stretch to say that this is a parody of Urusei Yatsura and the character Lum-chan. I'm glad I picked that series up to watch again.

The second story's parody of King Kong was amusing. Of course the whole idea of Tamama attempting to eat his jealousy in order to be a better person which in turn turned him into a giant is an amusing idea as well.

So, a fun couple of stories though not much else to say about them.

Space Battleship Yamato 2 05

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 05
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 05 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: As Yamato approaches the moon and Earth's outer defense base there, the crew of Yamato are on alert expecting an attack. Almost on cue, several squadrons of fighters emerge. However, rather than attack, they fly past Yamato and take position on her six. The lead fighter waggles its wings and Kato sends a message to Yamato, requesting permission to join. The leaders of two other squadrons, Yamamoto and Jiro, also announce they and their squadrons would like to join Yamato. Naturally, Susumu agrees to this, happy to have his former fighter pilots, the new pilots, and their new Cosmo Tiger fighters.

Earth Defense HQ orders Andromeda to intercept Yamato, which is expected at Jupiter. The crew of Yamato celebrate their escape from Earth when Sado-sensei's cat jumps on the table where Susumu is. He chases the cat and is stunned to come across Yuki. Yuki flees to the medical station where Sado-sensei is getting drunk. Susumu demands to know officially who this woman is, and she announces herself. Since Sado-sensei "forgot" to include her on the roster, she's not a member of the crew. He pleads with Susumu to let her stay and he leaves the two alone. Susumu orders Yuki off the ship, so she starts undressing to put on an EVA suit to leave. Susumu stops her, and while he had not wanted her to be on this dangerous mission, he's glad she's there.

On Andromeda, Captain Hijikata orders that his ship intercept Yamato at the asteroid belt before Jupiter since Yamato is blissfully unaware of their approach. It is only by accident that a member of the crew detects Andromeda, the newer battleship exploiting a weakness in Yamato's sensors. Andromeda sends the order for Yamato to come to a stop, but Susumu refuses and orders the ship into the asteroid field. There, Daisuke shows the skills he picked up and loses Andromeda in the asteroids. As such, Captain Hijikata orders that Andromeda leave the asteroid field and get ahead of Yamato at Jupiter.

Despite having lost Andromeda, Susumu suspects that Captain Hijikata won't give up. Sure enough, Yamato finds Andromeda waiting for them at Jupiter. Hijikata orders that Andromeda be positioned to give Yamato a broadside. Susumu orders that turrets one and two stand ready and they press forward. He does not give the order to fire, nor does Hijikata. Soon, the two battleships are at a range where both will be destroyed if they fire. Neither ship does and Yamato barely makes it over the top of Andromeda. Andromeda's 1st officer orders pursuit but is countered by Hijikata, who is letting them go. He sends a good luck message to Yamato and a message to Earth saying he did not find Yamato.

The Yamato leaving Jupiter is noted by Nazca, who had no plans to report it. However, Desler had also been monitoring the situation and reminds Nazca that he is to give Desler reports on the Yamato. When the communication with Desler ends, Nazca is not amused with how Desler pushes his weight around. He decides he doesn't care as he has a duty to perform and Yamato isn't anything to be worked up over.

Thoughts/Review: Well, we did have the confrontation between Yamato and Andromeda with basically another game of chicken resolving the issue. However, my prediction of a joint fight of Yamato and Andromeda against the Comet Empire proved wrong. I do hope that somehow, the story has the Andromeda seen doing whatever in defense of Earth as Yamato does its mission. I think that will be a bit more interesting to me than a simple redressed version of the original Yamato series.

Its pretty sad when the first indication that the Yamato has that Andromeda is perusing them is when someone sees it out a window while taking a pee. Seriously, that does not bode well for our band of renegades. After all, if their equipment can't detect Earth's best warship, how are they going to detect and fight the Comet Empire? Well, we may get a magic upgrade to Yamato's sensors.

It seems to me that the writers are telegraphing that the way the Comet Empire will ultimately fail to defeat Earth or Yamato is because of the resentment the commanding officers have against Desler. After all, this loser literally lost almost everything to a single ship, thus his ability to properly fight appears to be rather lacking.

So while an entertaining episode, the only thing that happened is that Yamato is outside Jupiter's orbit. The previews for the next episode look to have a confrontation with the Comet Empire.

More Negima! Chapter 231 SPOILER Images

Negima! 231 SPOILER Images!

Here is the second batch of spoiler images from Mahou Sensei Negima! chapter 231. (click pics to make bigger, y'all). I took a moment to clean them up a little so they are easier to see (I should be sleeping ^_^;).

For those who missed it, the first batch of images is here.

Heh! This Fate looks even more like Spider-Zero from A.I. Love You. I'm thinking this chapter may kill the "the boy is Fate" theories but we'll have to wait and see.

Negima! Chapter 231 SPOILER Images

Negima! 231 SPOILER Images
魔法先生 ネギま！Chapter 231 (Images)

What you see are the original-sized, sneak-peek images for Mahou Sensei Negima! 231 as posted on a short-lived Japanese page (click pic to make bigger, y'all). I did a little cleanup since I had a bit of time after Japanese class. ^_^

If there's a 2nd batch of images, I'll upload those as well.

I see Asuna and Arika in the image. People are abuzz that this has to be Negi's mom and maybe Asuna's sister. Their titles are different (as I pointed out here) so we'll see what happens.

The 2nd batch of images can be found here.

Negima! Manga Vol 25 (Ch 230) *SPOILERS*

魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 25 Chapter 230 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 230

Summary/Synopsis: Jack Rakan tells the story of how he was hired to take down Nagi, Al, Eishun, and a boy as those four had stopped the Hellas Empire from succeeding with their Ostia Restoration Operation. The Hellas Empire can't offer official troops to assist Rakan, but can provide him mercenaries if needed. He does not need them.

Out in the country somewhere, Nagi marvels at their location (the "Old World" and the nabe-ryouri ("hot pot") that is being prepared by Eishun, who chastises Nagi for putting meat in right away. Nagi, Eishun, Al, and the boy debate about and eat the nabe (with Eishun being declared the "Nabe Shougun") when they are attacked by Rakan, who challenges them and wastes Esihun's food. Eishun decides to teach this person some manners and attacks, cutting Rakan's sword and showing skills that Setsuna nor Motoko (Love Hina) combined could counter. However, Rakan has done his homework and has four nymphs (a combination of dryad, naiad, and other nymph form) of which three are adult and one is a loli with a tag that says "Insurance" on it. The loli knocks him out.

Nagi decides to get in on the fun and they have a 13-hour battle. Technically, it is a draw but since Rakan had come to fight four people, he counts this as a loss since had all four fought him, he would have been finished.

Rakan cuts off his story at this point to the disappointment of his audience (since he didn't ID the kid or say who Fate is). Rakan then talks about the war on Mundus Magicus between the Mesembrina Confederation (South) and the Hellas Empire (North). The Hellas Empire's true objective was the Kingdom of Vespertatia and its capital Ostia. The Confederation were losing badly to the Empire until Nagi and Ala Rubra stepped in and single handedly handed the Empire a massive defeat, allowing the Confederation to push the Empire back. That lead to Ala Rubra becoming famous with Nagi being known as "Red-Haired Demon of the Confederation" to the Empire and the "Man of a Thousand Spells" to the Confederation. It was about that time that Gatou and Takahata (as a boy) joined the group.-

As the war drags on, Nagi comments on the development of nuclear weapons on Earth as a deterrent to wars while on the Magic World, their war never seems to end. Nagi begins to wonder if maybe they will have to destroy the Hellas Empire capital, figuring that with magic, they could come up with the power to equal that of a nuke. Nagi begins to suspect based on how the war is going that maybe someone wants Mundus Magicus destroyed. Gatou arrives and confirms Nagi's suspicion, thanks to Takahata and the boy. A group called Kosmo Entelecheia has infiltrated both the Confederation and the Empire and they are the ones behind the war. Gatou and Senator McGill have someone they want Nagi to meet -- Princess Akira of Vespertatia (Vesperina).

Thoughts/Review: There is a lot of information in this chapter and it is all good stuff. I think the thing that most are going to focus on is Princess Akira (her Japanese title is "oujo" and not "hime" for the record). Since she's from Vespertatia, it would seem almost obvious that this is going to be Asuna's mother. If so, I figure she's the one that gets Nagi and company to rescue Asuna but we'll see.

Regardless, I do not believe this to be Negi's mother, which is a somewhat popular fan theory at the moment. For starters, that would make Negi and Asuna half-siblings and frankly, that doesn't feel right story-wise. In fact, I'd say there's a lot of things that would point against this fact.

Further, I still feel strongly that Negi is Nagi. Rakan said that Nagi was said to have no weaknesses when they first met and battled. Actually, Nagi does have a major weakness -- he needs a spell book. He may be the Thousand Master, capable of magic on a power level that is rarely (if ever) seen, but if you need a spell book to incant spells rather than have them committed to memory, that can be a problem, especially if your spell book gets destroyed. I honestly think that's what ultimately happened with Nagi's fight with Fate -- Fate took out Nagi's spell book and while Nagi was able to escape with his life thanks to his other skills, Nagi (1) needed to hide and (2) needed to learn spells and other attack forms. What better way than in the body of a child with a new identity (you supposed son) that can defy any mind reader. ^_^

I digress (and I could be very wrong in my theory).

Funny how Eishun has a weakness for women. No wonder his temple-estate is filled with beautiful miko. ^_^

I'm looking forward to next chapter and how Princess Arika fits into the Magic World story as well as the Ala Rubra one. Of course, the more we learn, the more I start to feel that the end is coming sooner rather than later (though likely a couple of years away still).

Urusei Yatsura 86

うる星やつら episode 86 (TV anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: MENDOU Ryoko rides her horse through her mansion's hall and stops outside the closed door (guarded by two security men) where her brother Shuutaro is secluded. The security guys refuse Ryoko entry until she offers a massive bribe. Entering the room, which is filled with large jars, she finds Shuutaro in special training. He's clearly shaken by the training and despite two whacks on the head, he refuses to tell her what he's doing. So, she sends a couple of people to see Lum and Ataru to consult them on this.

Lum and Ataru pay him a visit (their whole class tagging along for some free grub). Ataru decides to let Lum know what he's doing and takes her to the training room. His training has him get into one of the jars, pull the lid over, and then attempt to tolerate the experience. Instead, he ends up breaking out of the jar. To Suutaro's dismay, his revelation is also heard by Ataru, Shinobu, and Ryuunosuke. Since it is clear this training isn't cutting it, Lum suggests they go back in time to find out the cause and cure it there. As such, she makes one of the jars a portal to go back in time.

Arriving in the estate fountain back in time, Shuutaro finds himself attacked by his younger self. Young Mendou summons security, who then attack Shuutaro while the others escape with young Mendou. Shuutaro eventually escapes and because young Mendou is being a brat, he takes a few beatings. He eventually leads Shuutaro and Ataru on a chase where they find themselves trapped so that security can grab them. This is observed by Lum and the girls with Lum decidign that they should watch and see what transpires.

In the modern time, Megane and Perm are looking for Lum and the others who've disappeared. They soon find the jar room and they too get sucked into the past. By the time they arrive, Shuutaro and Ataru are chained from the ceiling of the mansion for young Mendou's amusement. Ataru gets out somehow and pretends to be on young Mendou's side, giving advice on how to have more fun with Shuutaro. Shuutaro is not happy with this and despite Ataru's assurance that this is part of a plan to escape, Shuutaro doesn't believe it.

Lum, Ryuunosuke, and Shinobu ambush three guards and change into their uniforms (the latter being oberved by Megane and Perm). The three then enter the mansion, where they then proceed to rescue Ataru and Shuutaro. Shuutaro is VERY upset about all the abuse he had to take and Ataru's enjoyment of it. Ataru flees with young Mendou to the jar room of the past. Placing young, frightened Mendou in a jar to hide him from Shuutaro's wrath, Ataru teases Shuutaro until he can be knocked out and everyone returned to the present. Being trapped in that jar is what lead to Shuutaro's present phobia.

Thoughts/Review: I figured that the group returning back to the past to discover the cause of Mendou's (Shuutaro) phobia of being confined and phobia of the dark would be cause of said phobias. However, knowing this did not lessen my enjoyment of the episode. This is one of those times where one just sits back and enjoys the ride for what it is rather than for where it will go.

It is nice seeing Ryoko and Ryuunosuke again. Ryoko was little more than an extended cameo since she disappears after the first few minutes. However, she had some nice comedy moments (pure slapstick). Ryuunosuke was around longer, but she too is not used much (nor is Shinobu for that matter). However, that didn't matter much to me because as I said, the fun is in the ride. ^_^

One nice little moment was when Ataru whacked young Mendou over his remark of marrying Lum. Ataru had gotten irritated earlier when young Mendou hit on Shinobu, but having him do it for Lum was kinda nice. Lum also appreciated that moment too.

On a side note, thanks to Viz leaving the term "Waka" untranslated in Hayate the Combat Butler manga, I can now hear that term clearly when I watched this episode. Cool, y'all.

Thus far, my return to Urusei Yatsura has been a real delight. I'm really happy about this.

Keroro Gunsou 76

ケロロ軍曹 Episode 76
Sgt. Frog anime, 76
Keroro Gunsou episode 76

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Natsumi discovers an ad about a moon vacation and naturally, suspicion immediately falls to some scheme on the part of Keroro's platoon. Natsumi and Fuyuki head down to the base where Keroro tries to play things off but eventually concedes to the sibling's request to go to the moon for a trip. Using their canon launching technology, Moa fires them all to the moon in three shells. While exploring, Natsumi ends up falling into a narrow canyon and is joined by Giroro, who notices her suit has a small tear, meaning she's losing air. He repairs the hole, but not before most of her air is gone.

Meanwhile, Fuyuki, Tamama, Keroro, and Kururu are doing their own exploration when they discover a large ship already on the moon. A stern rabbit robot is there to greet them and despite his protests, his master requests they be let in. His master is none other than Kaguya-hime (Princess Kaguya), states that they are trapped on the moon until five elements can be retrieved, which Fuyuki realizes coem from the story Kaguya-hime no Monogatari (The Tale of Princess Kaguya , aka: Taketori Monogatari or Tale of the Bamboo Cutter). She confirms that she's Kaguya-hime.

They've found four of the the five elements needed. One of their rabbit robots had found the fifth element but on his return to the moon, he was attacked by a giant space catfish and contact was lost with his ship. Kaguya-hime is ready to give up despite Fuyuki's offer of assistance. She reveals that the ship is a colony ship with 8-billion of her people on board, thus they could not settle on Earth. It is then that Giroro, having accidently found the ship trying to get Natsumi to safety (she being almost out of air) makes contact. Now, Natsumi is saved and Kaguya-hime can take her people to a planet to settle. With those aliens gone, Keroro decides its time to set up his resort, but ends up on the receiving end of Natsumi's wrath.

Thoughts/Review: I'm glad I have watched Space Battleship Yamato. I know I have spoken of the parodies, and some are more obvious than others. Today's parody would be obviousness to those who've never watched the show since it dealt with the first time Yamato aligned her main cannons to be fired. Because I knew this parody reference, I was able to laugh and enjoy the moment. I know I would not have been able to do so were I not versed in that series. Its a shame that in the U.S., all we'll likely ever get is the edited, domesticated version of the series -- Star Blazers.

The Japanese also parodied the 1902 silent French film, Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) with the launch of the platoon to the mood via cannon, complete with the shells smacking into the man on the moon. ^_^ I absolutely love it!

As to the Kaguya-hime tribute, I was only vaguely aware of the story Taketori Monogatari. I want to say it has been referenced in Keroro Gunsou before. I did learn that it is the basis for the Inuyasa movie, The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass.

Because of all the parody tributes, I have to say I enjoyed this episode more than average.

Space Battleship Yamato 2 04

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 04
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 04 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: The Advisor (a military commander) reports to the Chief (also a military commander) that many of the former crew of Yamato have left their current postings and have gone to Yamato, making it clear that Susumu is planning to steal the ship. Chief orders Advisor to order the people on Yamato to leave the ship. On Yamato, Susumu is fretting and wanting to leave now, feeling sure that their actions have been noted by HQ. Sanada advises him to keep his cool and when Advisor contacts the ship and gives them 30-minutes to comply, Susumu turns them down. This annoys Advisor, but Chief tells Advisor to give the crew the full 30-minutes. The crew uses that time to continue pre-launch checks.

At the hospital, Sado-sensei takes a call and discovers that Yamato is about to take off. As such, he is going to leave his patient in Yuki's hands but Yuki refuses, knowing that Sado-sensei is going to join Yamato's crew. Sado-sensei is unable to talk Yuki out of joining him, so they head to the cemetery where they find Daisuke at Captain Okita's grave, pondering what to do. After talking with Yuki and Sado-sensei, Daisuke joins them.

Advisor orders the gate to be closed so that Yamato cannot leave as Sanada has the dock flooded after Susumu orders the ramp to the ship retrieved. Chief talks with Susumu, gently reminding him of the consequences of his actions. With the dock flooded, Susumu is frustrated that Daisuke didn't join the crew and takes the pilots seat to maneuver Yamato out. He's relieved when Daisuke comes onto the bridge and takes his station and pilots Yamato through the closed gates and into the harbor.

Advisor orders that magnetic missiles be fired at Yamato. His orders are modified by Chief, who wants the missiles to be unarmed. Advisor protests, but Chief justifies his order by stating they want to capture Yamato, not destroy it. The missiles are fired to Susumu's surprise and he orders countermeasures. The countermeasures destroy a couple of the missiles but not all. Sanada is surprised that the remaining missiles struck but were not armed, leading Susumu to think that maybe the Chief is possibly helping them.

Once in the air, Advisor orders that the Battle Satellite take out Yamato. Again, Chief modifies the order, siting the safety of civilians on the ground as justification for not shooting down Yamato. After the satellite fires a warning shot, Yamato destroys it and escapes. Advisor is not happy at all and feels that for honor's sake, they have to take down Yamato. As such, he orders that Andromeda be dispatched from its mission to Venus to intercept Yamato. Meanwhile, Yamato's departure from Earth (predicted by Desler) has been witnessed by the Comet Empire. As such, the Emperor orders Nazca to watch Yamato.

Thoughts/Review: This episode was basically filler since it was mostly about the Yamato preparing to take off, taking off, then leaving the surface of Earth. While stretched quite a bit, I didn't really feel bored by things.

I gather that Chief will be an ally of sorts to Susumu without overtly aiding them. After all, while he is justified in all of his orders that soften what Advisor ordered, his counter orders are what allow Yamato to escape.

Since Daisuke made it back in time, I'm going to guess that Sado-sensei and Yuki did as well. So, will Yuki be the babe for all occasions as she was in the first series?

The next episode appears to have a showdown between Andromeda and Yamato. I predict that just before they start fighting, the Comet Empire will attack and the two ships will team up.

Urusei Yatsura 85

うる星やつら episode 85 (TV anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: When Planet Uni is colonized, Oyuki, Ran, Benten, and Lum meet to discuss the problem that this will cause them (later joined by Mendou and Ataru). As kids, Lum and Benten were bent on pulling pranks on their teacher, the robot CAO-2 (which looks like a giant chalkboard eraser). Ran also participated but reluctantly and while Oyuki helped, she always managed to keep herself out of trouble. As their conflict with CAO-2 escalated, the robot pursued them to punish them. The group flees on a ship to Planet Uni and are followed by CAO-2. However, they manage to trap him on the planet and escape. As they finish recounting the story, CAO-2 bust through the restaurant window to punish them all.

Later, Ran finds Onsen-sensei laughing it up with CAO-2. The girls meet (again joined by Mendou and Ataru, who are seeking their own revenge) and decide to take down CAO-2 once and for all (with Ran wavering). At school, Lum and the girls set their trap while Mendou and Ataru head to Onsen's room in the school. Ataru insults Onsen, then he and Mendou flee. CAO-2 falls on Ataru while Mendou escapes. Lum sees things aren't going as planned and when her Darling is being punished, she goes and rescues him. Benten tries to take down CAO-2 but fails and gets punished, as does Ran. As usual, Oyuki is not seen as a troublemaker and when CAO-2 finally catches Lum, she starts to electrocute the robot. However, an open gas nosel causes the school to explode. CAO-2 is unharmed and punishes both Lum and Ataru.

Thoughts/Review: I found this episode rather amusing. I really think the extended break I took from the series has helped a lot. I remember there being stories about the trouble that Lum and her girlfriends got into (with Ran's reluctance) but I don't remember really enjoying them, at least not like I enjoyed this one. Maybe it was something about CAO-2 looking like a giant chalkboard eraser and apparently being indestructible. Maybe it was the absurdity of it all. I'm not sure what exactly put this over the top for me, but it was just a fun ride.

I like how Ataru comes off here. Obviously, he'd be down for some revenge on his own teacher and if doing that scores Lum her revenge, so much the better. When Ataru was captured by Onsen and CAO-2 and "tortured," I loved it when he called for Lum. Naturally, she'd rescue him but just the fact that he'd call for her AND not get mad at her when he got electrocuted as well as a byproduct of her rescue made me realize how far Ataru has come from those ugly early days of the series when he was so unlikable. Plus, Ataru tried to help out Lum in her final confrontation with CAO-2.

I'm glad I finally started watching this series again. I hope that episodes continue to amuse me and provide me enjoyment as the last few have.

Keroro Gunsou 75

ケロロ軍曹 Episode 75
Sgt. Frog anime, 75
Keroro Gunsou episode 75

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Momoka is visiting her father (Bayo-san) in Scotland for tea where he tells her he plans to test Fuyuki-kun. Momoka returns to Japan and her two personalities consider this to be Bayo-san's way of testing Fuyuki to be the head of the Nishizawa Group and thus her bride. So she and Paul interrupt a Pekopon Invasion meeting where they pay ¥50 billion to have Fuyuki trained in an impossible range of subjects, both intellectual and physical. Keroro accepts and decides that if they do it on the cheap, the remaining money can be used for an invasion. That gets Giroro's acceptance of the plan.

Three days later, Keroro arrives at the Nishizawa Estate with an improved Fuyuki. Since Momoka instructed Keroro that Fuyuki must not know the reason for his training, Fuyuki thinks it was for a game show. Paul tests Fuyuki hard and no matter what the subject or event, Fuyuki has mastered it. The final test is a battle with Paul and while initially it seems that Fuyuki will lose, Fuyuki wins. Momoka is happy Paul is touched and says that Fuyuki will be a worthy successor to Bayo-san. However, when it is revealed that Fuyuki achieved everything via a Pekopon suit, Momoka and Paul reject this since Momoka wants Fuyuki to do this himself.

Kururu thinks he can do this by uploading to Fuyuki data from Bayo-san's mind. Everything is set up but Momoka's timid personality backs out at the last second and the upload beam hits her instead of Fuyuki. As a result, she becomes like her father. Her plan then becomes to have Fuyuki ruler of Earth at which Bayo-san will have to accept Fuyuki. The platoon goes along with this plan but when Fuyuki makes a passionate objection, they end up joining Fuyuki in thwarting Momoka's plan. Momoka accepts her defeat and returns to her normal self. Upon revisiting her father, she learns that Bayo-san's test for Fuyuki was to test out a new product and nothing more.

Thoughts/Review: I have to say that this episode was pretty enjoyable. Of course things were pretty predictable, but this ended up being an episode where one just enjoys the ride. Giving Momoka a new personality based on her father gave things a fresh perspective on her normal split personality.

Natsumi only had a brief cameo in this episode. For a while there, I thought she'd actually not be in this one and that seemed almost unthinkable.

Unfortunately, there's just not much to say about this episode beyond I had some laughs and some fun. What more could one as for? ^_~

Slayers REVOLUTION - Final Thoughts

When HAYASHIBARA Megumi (Lina Inverse) first began mentioning wanting to do another Slayers TV series followed by word that a new Slayers TV series would be produced, I have to say that I was pretty excited. Slayers made me a fan of "Megu-chan" (as the manga about her addresses her) because her portrayal of the powerful sorceress Lina Inverse was just so freaking awesome to me. So how did this do? I thought it was pretty enjoyable.

Things got off to a great start with Lina going after pirates rather than bandits. I have to say that I laughed and laughed at that. Inspector Wiser going after Lina for being Lina Inverse is funny but starts wearing thin after a few episodes. Fortunately the writers drop him for a time and allow Lina to have her pursuit of Pokota before bringing Wiser back. I never really cared for Pokota as a character, but he wasn't as bad as I feared he would be considering he looks like he came over from Digimon.

So, the gang all returns (Gourry, Amelia, Lina, and Zelgadiss) which is cool. The powerful mazoku Xellos is also back but he pretty much takes a back seat to things. I think the writers actually use him as he should be used. He gave Marquis Gioconda a warning about showing him disrespect (crossing a line that Lina often touches but won't cross). Xellos simply wanted to keep an eye on things, realizing that a single Zanaffar beast being created could serve mazoku purposes but multiple creatures would not. Also, I liked how the writers had Lina acknowledge that if push came to shove, she and the others would have no chance in a fight against Xellos. So even though Xellos may not have been used as much as some might have liked, I thought he was used and portrayed correctly.

Also returning this time around are Prince Phil and Sylphiel. One positive about seeing Sylphiel is knowing that she served a useful purpose with the armies of Saillune. I felt the writers gave Sylphiel more respect in this series while still retaining some of the aspects that she had in Slayers (addressing Gourry as "Gourry-sama," her carrot-shaped Flare Arrow spells, etc.). Prince Phil is still Prince Phil, but I guess he has a new seiyuu. It didn't bother me, but I know some fans were disappointed and I can understand that.

As to the story itself, I hated the faux Sword of Light that Pokota created. That smacked of cheapness and a way to bring back that weapon which had been returned to Dark Star's universe in Slayers Try. However, since the writers decided to bring back Zanaffar and this time keep him true to how he is described in the novels, I guess they had to do something to get the Sword of Light back, even if a faux one. Also, by this point, Gourry having the Sword of Light is pretty much a trademark I guess. I would have preferred Gourry get a new sword as he did in the novels.

Bringing back Zanaffar in a correct form (unlike how Zanaffar was brought up in Slayers) was a cool thing for me. The aspect to the Zanaffar story this time is how the writers basically tried to ignore what was done in Slayers rather than maybe giving an explanation. So everyone acts dumb as if they'd never dealt with Zanaffar when in fact they'd dealt with Copy Rezo who had a form of Zanaffar when Lina's party battled him in Slayers. It seems like it wouldn't have been too hard to bridge the two series and come up with an explanation but I guess not.

Speaking of Rezo, he's back -- sorta. I'm not so sure I like that. After all, Lina (and company) took down Rezo, then Copy Rezo, and now there's the apparent soul of Rezo in a pot. Unfortunately, that aspect of the story remains unresolved (as well as its ties with the unresolved Taforashia story with Pokota) until Slayers GLORY (or whatever its called).

While the series was a lot of fun to watch, there was one episode that wasn't -- episode 6's side-track where Lina and company try to get a giant ball up a mountain in a competition. Ugh. That episode was just awful and clearly the low-point of the series. Fortunately, that was the only bad episode that I remember.

I noticed something about fan reaction to this series. While my blogging efforts of Macross Frontier would generate significant hits, even if I were the last person to blog about an episode, that was not the case with Slayers REVOLUTION. Indeed, as time went on, the number of hits dropped off, indicating anecdotally that people didn't care much for Slayers any more. However, my article on Slayers GLORY then generated a ton of hits, suggesting there's still interest in Slayers, but not Slayers REVOLUTION. Go figure.

For me, I rather enjoyed this latest outing of Slayers though. I felt that it returned to the fun of the first and second series while retaining an interesting adventure with Zanaffar, the assassin Zuuma and introducing a mystery regarding Rezo. Since it is already licensed, I suppose it is just a matter of time until Enoki finds a distributor (odds on favorite is FUNimation). When that happens, I'll be sure to buy it.

Space Battleship Yamato 2 03

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 03
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 03 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: With Yamato's refit underway, Sanada has more of the message uncovered. Playing it for Susumu, Yuki, and Daisuke, they agree that it appears to be a warning or cry for help and that it is tied in somehow with the giant comet that is on course for Earth. The breaks in the message Susumu attributes to possible jamming as happened when Gamilus tried to block Starsha's communications with Yamato. As such, Sanada and Susumu report to the Defense Committee, only to find them not seeing much of a threat. After all, Andromeda has been launched to investigate the loss of the energy station on Venus and it as well as several other ships are armed with Wave Motion Guns, which should be powerful enough to destroy a comet.

Frustrated, Susumu gets Sanada to sign on with him as Susumu plans to take the Yamato out (whether the refit is complete or not). It is decided that they will contact former crew members of Yamato to see if they want to serve on an unauthorized mission. Susumu takes Yuki to the old, now abandoned underground city from where Yamato was launched. They recall the celebrations and fanfare that happened when Yamato returned and now, nothing. Yuki realizes that Susumu is going to take off to fight again and briefly excuses herself to go off an cry for a bit.

Desler Hou rendezvous with surviving ships from Gamilus to form what is now known as Desler's Fleet. Desler sets course for the planet Teresart. Meanwhile inside the giant comet ship known as Gatlantis, Emeror Zwordar receives a status of the operation to take Earth. On Earth, Susumu is pleased to discover much of the old crew as returned to Yamato (sans Daisuke, who reportedly will join them).

Thoughts/Review: The attack on Earth by a mysterious force at the same time that the power supply from Venus gets knocked out would be enough to make the military leaders nervous. It hasn't been all that long since Gamilus was defeated and Earth restored but the writers have decided to make Earth's leaders so short sighted and dim as to parrot real life I suppose. I figure that the Wave Motion Guns won't be as useful this series. If Susumu takes Yamato out without authorization, does that make him a pirate?

If Yuki goes off to cry because she knows what Susumu is going to do, I guess that means that she won't be coming with Susumu on Yamato, and yet that seems hard to believe. Well, maybe it isn't so hard to believe since Susumu's idea of a great date is to take Yuki to the old abandoned underground city. I sorta doubt that we'll see any decent romantic development between Yuki and Susumu. I wouldn't mind that though.

So, not only does Desler survive, but he has a larger fleet than I would have thought. Well, that's easily destroyed by Yamato, as we saw before. Question: what does Desler get out of helping the Comet Empire besides revenge? Will they let him turn the beautiful Earth into a wasteland they can live in?

Ultimately, this is a table setting episode, moving pieces into place for what's to come, and I do look forward to seeing where things go.

Clannad After Story 03

クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 03

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Sanae-san introduces herself to Mei as ISOGAI Sanako (Mei thinks she recognizes "Sanako") and the date begins. Youhei takes Sanae-san to his favorite eating joint, where he often gets katsudon. Mei is dismayed by this and Sanae-san is appalled, so much so that it is back to Youhei's dorm room where Sanae-san cooks a feast, which Mei seems to think tastes familar. The date continues with a trip to the arcade (to Mei's dismay) and a CD shop (where Sanae-san discovers Youhei's odd taste in music) before evening sets in.

When a group of boys are observed bullying a little girl, Mei expects Youhei to do something about it, but he's not interesting in getting involved. When the little girl's older brother arrives, Youhei is not interested in helping them get home, the children having gotten lost. Sanae-san gets them home. Youhei is depressed that his date was interrupted but when Sanae-san tells him she'll see him again and that some things are more important than dates, Youhei accepts this gladly.

The following day, Mei, Tomoya, and Nagisa pay Youhei a visit after school. He's anxiously waiting for Sanae-san's phone call and not happy about their visit. Mei makes up a story about having a (dodgy?) boyfriend but Youhei doesn't have anything to say about that and allows Mei to leave. Mei is depressed by this, so Tomoya and Nagisa confess when confronted by Mei that the girlfriend thing is fake. Mei tells Tomoya and Nagisa that as a child, she'd been bullied and that Youhei always came to defend her. In middle school, he was a soccer star but that all ended after he got to high school. She can't believe that he'd let a girl get bullied and that he doesn't seem to worry about her any more.

After sneaking Sanae-san out for her second date with Youhei (because they are trying to prevent Akio-san from learning the truth), Nagisa stays with her father while Tomoya and Mei go on a little date of their own since they can't find Youhei or Sanae-san. Mei wants to call Tomoya "Oniichan," which he finds has an unexpected effect on him. He can't decide if he should forbid Mei from using the term or not until he's caught by Ryou, Kyou, and Kotomi-chan, who see him as being turned on by being called "oniichan" by the young Mei. That ends her addressing him as "oniichan."

Tomoya treats Mei to the ¥2000 "Princess Crepe" (actual name) as well as a shot at a photo club booth, where Mei goes for a "love-love" pose. When Youhei finds them together and sees the photos, Tomoya decides to trigger Youhei's protective nature by telling him he's the one Mei is dating and that they've even spent the night together. Youhei isn't happy and asks about Nagisa, to which Tomoya states that he's broken up with her. However, nothing they do or say seems to trigger Youhei's protective nature and he leaves depressed and upset.

Tomoya and Mei return to Nagisa's home where they tell her what transpired. Tomoya and Nagisa are seeing how things aren't going as they'd hoped and that Mei is depressed. Mei feels that the only way to get her brother back to the way he used to be is to get him back on the soccer team, despite what happened to get him kicked off the team.

Thoughts/Review: I didn't expect this to be so low on the humor scale, especially in light of last week's episode. In fact, the only laugh I got was when Ryou, Kyou, and Kotomi find Tomoya waffling on whether to allow Mei-chan to address him as "oniichan" or not. That was funny, especially since there are so many eroge (H-games), H-doujinshi, and H-manga where part of the lolicon appeal is to have the young girl address the guy as "oniichan." Naturally, the girls were freaked out by that, which added to the humor for me.

Beyond that, I am really surprised at how much of a serious episode this is, exploring Youhei as a character. He's always been a comic relief, supporting male character. Thinking of him in a serious light is something pretty new. Being that this is an unexpected twist for the anime (at least for those with no knowledge of the visual novel game), I have to say that it has my attention. That it also includes Mei for a bit of development is a plus too. I couldn't help but feel a little sad upon learning that Mei had been bullied as a kid.

What I wonder is what will happen to Youhei once he learns the truth about Sanae-san being Nagisa's mother and not her sister. He had known that Sanae-san dating his was fake, right? It was my impression at the very least that his dating Sanae-san was being done to appease Mei. However, I couldn't help but feel sorry for Youhei because of how he has completely fallen for Sanae-san, knowing the pain of loss when he learns the truth. Well, maybe Youhei can get himself a real girlfriend in the story.

So, a surprising turn for the series, which I had been lead to believe would about Nagisa and Tomoya. That means brownie points for Clannad After Story for sure. ^_^

Urusei Yatsura 84

うる星やつら episode 84 (TV anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Cherry presents an idea of what would happen if Global Cooling took effect. His story has Ataru, Lum, Shinobu and Mendou at Mendou's mountain home. After Lum pours an entire bottle of Tabasco onto the pot of spaghetti, she's banned from seasoning anything. Ataru gives her a Tororo potato and tells her to shred it and let Shinobu make the spaghetti instead. Lum looks for a potato shredder and returning to the counter, she finds the potato gone. She wonders if maybe it ran off on its own.

That evening, Lum is cleaning in the kitchen when the water stops. Upstairs, Mendou is about to take a shower, only to have the water cut off and a thick substance starts coming out. He screams which brings the others running. However, they find nothing wrong and no substance. Indeed, the water flow returns. Later, when Ataru is preparing to cut open a watermelon for them to eat, inside is a mass which attacks Ataru in the face, appearing to be trying to smother him. In response, Ataru sucks up the substance and identifies it as Tororo potatoes (apparently mashed).

The group finds itself under attack from swarms of Tororo potatoes. Mendou uses his sword to slice them up, but that only makes things worse since the mashed potato substance then attacks them. The group counters for a while by slurping up potatoes but there are too many. The retreat upstairs and find that potatoes are everywhere. Lum blasts a whole in the wall and the group escapes out but giant potatoes are growing everywhere. When the sun comes up, the growth stops. Ataru suggests that they head into the town at the foot of the mountain but that means going through a field of these potatoes. Mendou finds that too dangerous so they go the long way.

Mendou leads them through the mountains but soon they run into a dead end. Mendou says they simply need to follow the river below, so after Lum flies them all down, they get on a raft and start floating downstream. Unfortunately, potatoes start popping up in the river which freaks Mendou. The river then goes into a rapids complete with a waterfall, which destroys the raft. The group makes it to shore and that evening, they finally make it out to where the town is supposed to be, only to find it overrun with potatoes.

Thoughts/Review: I've never seen Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but I couldn't help but wonder if maybe this episode is a parody of that movie (itself, a parody of B-movies), only replacing tomatoes with potatoes.

Regardless, I found this episode to be pretty funny. I'd forgotten about Lum's love of spicy hot food, so Shinobu's telling Mendou and Ataru that Lum had poured an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce the spaghetti and their reaction was funny to me. I wonder if that joke will get old.

What is funnier are the Tororo potatoes. I laughed at the brief solution to the problem -- eat the potatoes (which I guess are mashed based on how things looked). The trip down the river was predictable, but amusing in that by this time, I was simply enjoying the ride. Shinobu remarked on expecting things to go as they did and that's true but as I said, it didn't matter.

I think the thing that was the most interesting aspect was that this episode was based on Cherry's remarks of what would happen if Global Cooling happened and only a couple of degrees (centigrade?) were lost. Now remember, this is from the first half of the 80's before this Global Warming frenzy, which has now "cooled" (no pun intended) as now there are predictions of Global Cooling being in our near future and indeed some evidence of this happening. It just goes to show how quickly things are forgotten about environmental concerns in favor of the next crisis. ^_^;;; That's why I can't get worked up when someone spouts off that were going to burn up in a ball of fire because the climate is always changing and what the Chicken Little types screech about changes from decade to decade.

So a weird episode, but fun nevertheless.

Keroro Gunsou 74

ケロロ軍曹 Episode 74
Sgt. Frog anime, 74
Keroro Gunsou episode 74

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: This episode has multiple shorts to fill the time. The first is spread out over small chunks where Keroro attempts to get into Guiness Book of World Records for dominos but fails. Next, Keroro tries a series of trades with the goal being to get Earth. However, he gets foiled every time because he ends his trading train with Kogoro, who only has colored boxes for trade. Next, Paul and a man named Gepalt do battle with word games and other such nonsense. Following that, Keroro decides to take over a movie theater and play the platoon's animated movie, desguised as an Admiral Giroro film. Only Kogoro comes to see the movie and his laugh says he hates it.

Next up, Mao-chan tells Natsumi, Koyuki, and Momoka that she can do love fortunes. What the girls don't know is that it involes the destruction of many planets. Then, Keroro is given an invention by Kururu which makes him an esper. However, he only uses his powers to help with his chores. After that, Natsumi and Koyuki are tricked by Keroro into doing weird things as part of a radio exercise program. Next on the radio, Natsumi is frustrated that Keroro's postcards are alway being read on the radio by Mutsumi and hers aren't. She finally gets on thanks to some help from Giroro. After the Viper clan has a reunion, Keroro and Fuyuki work to get everyone into a photograph.

Thoughts/Review: As it goes, this episode of shorts was pretty fun. Nothing too special but I will say that when I saw Tamama's hip thrusts in the 3rd story, I laughed out loud. It was almost as funny as the scene of Keroro humping the laundry in episode 64. Natsumi and Koyuki were tricked into a couple of pelvic thrusts, but it wasn't funny like Tamama's.

While the Space Battleship Yamato parody reference is easy to spot (and there were at least two this outing), I'd swear that Gepault is a take off on Pycal from the first Lupin III TV series as well as the Lupin III: Return of the Magician OVA. The hair style, suit, and general look strongly suggests it, even if the suit and hair colors are different. As to the first Yamato reference, now that I've seen the entire first series, the cover of that manga made me chuckle since it apes events in episode 26.

Of all the shorts, I think I could have done without the Viper one. While it was a parody of some big family event with all of your relatives, it just didn't strike me as funny.

Still, as I said, a fun episode even if difficult to blog.

More Negima! Chapter 230 SPOILER Images

Negima! 230 SPOILER Images!

Here are the second and third batch of spoiler images from Mahou Sensei Negima! chapter 230. (click pics to make bigger, y'all). I didn't have time to do a cleaning on the images. ^_^;



Looks like a lot of good stuff and it isn't all ecchi. ^_~

The first batch of images can be found here.

Update: Chapter review here.

Negima! Chapter 230 SPOILER Images

Negima! 230 SPOILER Images
魔法先生 ネギま！Chapter 230 (Images)

What you see are the original-sized, sneak-peek images for Mahou Sensei Negima! 230 as posted on a short-lived Japanese page (click pic to make bigger, y'all). No cleanup this time because I don't have time.

Looks like things are going to be a bit more ecchi in this chapter, which starts the Rakan flashback sub-arc. There's already rabid speculation that the woman identified as Arika (top right image, which is the last page of chapter 230) might be Negi's mom or Asuna's mom considering this blurb about her being "the MOST IMPORTANT character of AAA's past in magic world." I'll be stunned if it is Negi's mother but any additional information on her won't show up until next chapter at the earliest.

The 2nd and 3rd batch from chapter 230 is here.

Update: chapter review here.

Negima!? 25

ネギま!? Episode 25

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: With everyone having returned to the real world, Anya seems depressed. Negi, Asuna, Setsuna, and Konoka set off in pursuit of Anya (who has fled) while Ayaka and the rest of the class prepares to have a surprise party for Anya, in addition to doing other things. Negi and company find Anya dispelling a piece of darkness, which having been possessed by the Star Crystal, she's sensitive to. A really large piece grabs Negi and the girls and is too large for Anya to dispel, though she does allow them to escape. Negi activates the girl's cosplay cards and with Anya's help, dispel the last piece of darkness. Then, they take Anya to the party where Anya gives Asuna a Chupacabra baby as a present.

Thoughts/Review: Since the writers had already ended the Star Crystal story, I wondered what in the heck the writers would do for the final two episodes of this series. Sadly, they had to take a spatula and scrape the bottom of the bucket to find something and still give everyone some lines. The story with Anya and the *GASP!* surviving darkness was "meh" and the little shorts all over the place were "meh." Even Motsu was mostly "meh" but what the heck. Since there's nothing else to say, here's a Motsu montage.

xxxHOLiC Manga Chapter 166

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: After Watanuki hears that the woman he is teaching to cook won't eat her own cooking (because she finds that idea disgusting), Watanuki heads home with Mokona. Passing Doumeki's place, Monoka convinces Watanuki to stop by. Doumeki asks if Watanuki should be wandering the streets at night, but Watanuki hasn't been bothered by spirits and stuff lately. They discuss the woman, her refusal to eat anything she's cooked, and Doumeki's turning up his nose at the food she made. Doumeki explains that his reasons for not liking her food is that it had no "heart" and as such, he could not get a feel of the person who made it.

After their conversation, Watanuki decides he'd like to get the woman to eat her own food. With that, Monoka and Doumeki decide that Watanuki needs to make them some food. He's annoyed but as usual, agrees to do so. Once he goes into the kitchen, Doumeki asks Monoka if it is OK for Watanuki to be there since Yuuko-san would be of greater assistance to Watanuki than Doumeki would. Monoka answers that Watanuki needs to keep moving forward.

Thoughts/Review: This story arc has been kind of strange, though that's not unusual for xxxHOLiC. While certainly having a feel for earlier stories (someone with a problem gets their wish granted for a price), I gather from Monoka's final statement that we should see some character development for Watanuki. I hope so since we know so little about him other than he's somehow tied to Syaoran and Sakura from Tsubasa.

Still, the whole idea of not eating ones own prepared food is so bizarre. Does that include sandwiches? Technically, you aren't preparing anything, just slapping some stuff between two slices of bread.

I think this concept of not eating food one has made, while even weird in Japan, is going to be harder to grasp in the U.S. In the city in Japan, you are never that far away from a vending machine (or rather a vending machine center) and there's usually some sort of convenience store in the neighborhood. As such, one could quite easily never cook a meal in their whole life. You grab something to eat on the way out, eat out at lunch, and eat out or pick up a prepared something on the way home. If worse comes to worse, you grab something to eat from a vending machine (and yes, you can even get hot food from a vending machine in Japan).

It will be interesting to see where this all leads.

Space Battleship Yamato 2 02

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 02
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 02 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: The Yamato lands and Yuki greets Susumu at the spaceport. Seeing his bandaged hand, she forces him to see Sado-sensei, who finds Susumu's wound to be minor. He reminds the couple of the memorial gathering for Captain Okita that evening and leaves them alone. That evening, Sado-sensei is alone in the cemetery sitting and drinking under Captain Okita's statue. He begins to think that Okita has been forgotten, but the surviving crew from the Yamato mission arrive. As they all sit, drink, and speak, Susumu laments how materialistic humans have become in the year since he was last on Earth (before going on patrol).

The gathering is interrupted by the return of the Andromeda, which flies low overhead. Susumu is angry and takes off. He's then summoned by the captain of the Andromeda, Hijikata, who was an instructor. Captain Hijikata demands to know why Susumu didn't move Yamato aside when Andromeda was leaving Earth. Susumu quotes the regs which state inbound ships have right-of-way, especially if they are damaged, which Yamato was. Hijikata reminds Susumu that Andromeda's testing is so critical that he gets the right of way. Susumu says nothing, clearly disagreeing and is dismissed.

Sanada, who's working on Andromeda, gives Susumu a tour of the giant battleship. All of its weapons and systems are vastly superior to Yamato's, however, HQ has ordered that the systems be fully automated. As such, the crew has little to do but monitor things. Susumu finds this appalling since the crew are the heart of the ship. Sanada tends to agree, stating that Andromeda would not win as it is. Sanada and Susumu discuss the transmission they received as well as the rapidly approaching comet, which Sanada believes to be tied in with the attack on Yamato's fleet.

Returning to Yamato, Sanada tells Susumu that the ship is being upgraded. While some of the weapons won't be quite as powerful as Andromeda's (due to differences in ship design), they will be quite good as will the upgraded systems. There will even be a new wing of torpedo bombers on Yamato. However, Sanada tells Susumu that HQ wants the Yamato to be fully automated as well. Susumu takes off to HQ but his request to not have full automation is denied. At that moment, power to Earth is cut off and the source is a mysterious ship who's design is that of the ships that attacked Yamato.

The loss of power on Earth causes a lot of problems and destructive accidents. After seeing his work completed, Commander Nazca reports to the Emperor. The Emperor's female companion, Sabera, finds Earth to be very weak. Supreme Leader Desler advises caution, stating that Yamato has not been dealt with yet. Sabera finds Desler's fear of Yamato to be unwarranted. Since Desler is going to take care of the Teresart problem, the Emperor places Admiral Gorland's missile fleet under Desler's command. Desler leaves and Sabera advises the Emperor not to trust Desler so much.

Thoughts/Review: I found this episode to be pretty interesting even if there were some things that made me roll my eyes. Before I get to that, I have to say that I liked the tribute to Captain Okita via the memorial gathering. When he died in the first series, only Sado-sensei was there to pay the man some respect. Everyone else was busy first mourning Yuki's apparent passage and then her miracle recovery to be bothered to give the captain his due. Well, better late than never, eh?

Susumu's blathering about people being materialistic kind of annoyed me. Considering what the humans had gone through when the planet was all but destroyed, I can understand that once they rebuilt, they'd want to take it easy and enjoy life some. There's nothing wrong with that providing that the population doesn't decide to do something stupid like kill the military. Considering that Earth had just built the Andromeda and were building other military ships as well tells me that things aren't at that level. Maybe Susumu thinks everyone should live poorly and unhappily because there are evil aliens out there. Hey Susumu -- your job is to keep the evil aliens away. Sorry if it interrupts your time with Yuki.

On a personal level, I found the discussion of automated functions on Andromeda and Yamato most interesting. In the IT/IS world, "automations" has been around for a long while and with the passage of time, more tasks are automated, thus cutting down costs by having people do more. On a warship, automated weapons are much better in terms of accuracy and speed. Human operators of such weapons in our modern day fleet have just as important role as the operators on yesterday's warships did, only their job has changed somewhat over time. That can be applied to Yamato as well. Susumu brings up the argument against automations (and I certainly understand it) but in the end, automations ends up being a plus, not a minus.

Amazing that the person who lost nearly every ship in his combined fleets as well as his planet and several bases (Desler) gets put in charge of a new fleet. Sabera is right to warn the Emperor about trusting Desler too much but at the same time, Desler is right about the threat Yamato will present, even if not obvious at first.

So overall, an entertaining episode.

Urusei Yatsura 83

うる星やつら episode 83 (TV anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: It is breakfast time and young "Ten-chan" is annoyed with Ataru already working on his fourth serving of rice. When Ataru steals food off of Ten-chan's plate, Ten-chan counters with a fire breath attack. However, Ataru is prepared for this with goggles and a frying pan to block the flames. One Ten-chan has exhausted his breath attack, Ataru tosses a large rubber ball into Ten-chan's mouth, then uses the alien boy as a basketball outside. He then uses the frying pan to knock Ten-chan for a home run. As Ten-chan ponders how Ataru has beaten him so many times, Ataru gets another whack on him for a line drive hit.

Ten-chan decides he's had enough and is going to take Ataru down. His first act is to set a rope trap in the school hallway, but Ataru simply doesn't trip on it. Instead, Ten-chan is dragged into the hall and then trodden upon by a group of guys. Ten-chan then digs a small pit in the baseball field for Ataru, but Ataru fills it and Megane packs it with a roller. Ten-chan tries to run over Ataru with his super-charged alien scooter, but misses and sends himself into orbit instead. Depressed by his failures, Ten-chan floats home and is encountered by Cherry. While Ten-chan doesn't want to talk, he agrees to use the iron clogs Cherry gave him for training to defeat Ataru. Lum comes by and gives him some body strengthening spring-thing as well.

Lum is reading and Ataru is working on a model in the bedroom that night when Ten-chan finally gets home. He "clomps" his way slowly upstairs and after a long while, makes it to the bedroom. A mild taunt by Ataru has Ten-chan abandon the training items and flee to the attic. Ataru tells Lum that Ten-chan will be OK. The following morning, Ataru's mother asks where Ten-chan is since he didn't join them for breakfast. Ataru makes light of the matter. As he and Lum go to school, he sees a symbol on the ground and sees a cat in the alley. The cat has a challenge from Ten-chan and Ataru is happy to accept, telling Lum-chan that he'll catch up later.

Ataru and Ten-chan face each other in a field and as Ten-chan flies to attack, Ataru is ready with the frying pan. While Ataru scores a hit, the frying pan is heavily damaged and Ataru is jarred by the impact. Ten-chan had placed an iron pot on his head and disguised it as a hat. He then decides to unleash his ultimate attack on Ataru, leaving the latter screaming. Ataru returns to school with his right arm bandaged and in a sling. His classmates are stunned by this since Ataru is so indestructible. However, the passage of time leaves everyone suspicious, leading Lum to unwrap Ataru's arm in class. This reveals Ten-chan, who has bitten Ataru and won't release. Ataru won't give up either though.

Thoughts/Review: I don't know if was the extended break I took from the series or what, but I have to say that I actually laughed and enjoyed this episode a great deal. Ten-chan is a character I've always found annoying, so I rather enjoyed seeing Ataru giving that little brat beating after beating -- the home run talk (whenever Ataru whacked him with a frying pan) being especially enjoyable. Cherry's having Ten-chan wear iron clogs (and the jokes that resulted from that) made me laugh.

As to Ten-chan's ultimate technique, I figured that when Ataru had his arm over-bandaged (combined with him pounding said arm against things at times), Ten-chan was there somehow but I couldn't figure out how. I guess the idea of Ten-chan just biting Ataru and not releasing just never occurred to me, but it was amusing just the same.

One thing I rather enjoyed outside of the Ten-chan abuse was how Lum and Ataru were. While Ten-chan was slowly "clumping" his way up the stairs in the iron cogs, Ataru and Lum were quietly doing their own thing in the bedroom. I found that to be my ideal of a good relationship -- being together but doing your own thing without annoying the other person. Also, I liked Lum and Ataru's trips to school together.

As an episode to mark my return the the Urusei Yatsura series, I have to say this is a good one. I hope for more goodness to come.

The Next Tenchi Title IS -- Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari

AIC has launched the official site for Seikishi, now with the full name Isekai no Seikishi Monogatari. So, that makes the launch of "Saint Knight Tale in an Alternate World" official, which Kajishima-sensei had stated earlier in the year in the doujinshi Kajishima Onsen 8.08. ANN has some more details for those interested.

For me, I'm like a lot of other hardcore Tenchi fans who've enjoyed Kajishima-sensei's works, flaws and all -- we've waited a LONG time to see this latest canon Tenchi spinoff series come to pass. Granted it will be set in an alternate universe (with Tenchi's half-brother Kenji starring) and granted, it has always sounded like another version of Dual! in many regards. That aside, I think this could be a lot of fun. I expect harem, mecha, harem, adventure, harem, and maybe even a bit more about the Choushin (there's some speculation that Tokimi-sama may be a part of this one at some level but that's just fan speculation at this point).

No word on an official release date and we'll see if this new anime gets an unoffical translation.

JGZinv enlarged some of these concept art pictures from the AIC site (drawn by Kajishima-sensei).

A Return to Urusei Yatsura

On May 4, 2005, I watched episode 82 of Urusei Yatsura. While I have planned to return to finish that series ever since I started this blog, I have never done so for whatever reasons. I guess the first 21 episodes are not what I consider to be good anime with Ataru being such an unlikable character and frankly, that set me in a negative frame of mind as I plowed through to episode 82. I don't rightly remember what made me finally take a break from the series but I never planned to stay gone as long as I have.

With well over three years rest, I plan to start watching the series again with episode 83 (with a fresh mindset) and I will begin blogging it. For now, it will be an episode an entry which is my normal mode of blogging, but should I find things becoming tedious with the series, I may switch to a multi-episode per blog entry mode as I did with the second season of Tsubasa Chronicles. For those who've already seen the series (or even if you haven't), I welcome your feedback as I continue this classic, old school anime title.

Negima! Manga Vol 25 (Ch 229) *SPOILERS*

魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 25 Chapter 229 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 229

Summary/Synopsis: Negi lands on Yue's weapon, recognizing her but not sure if maybe this isn't a look-alike. Collet discovers that Negi is the notorious wanted criminal and orders him to stand down as reinforcements are en route. Yue tells Negi to knock her out, stating that she'll be OK though she's not sure why she's doing this. Negi complies since Emily, Beatrix, and other members of their team arrive. Emily orders Beatrix to help the now unconscious Yue while the others attempt to capture Negi, but fail. Emily vows to avenge the death of Yue, leading Collet to tell her Yue isn't dead yet.

Negi is picked up by Paru's ship Great Paru-sama where the entire Battle Harem (sans Anya and Yue) are gathered along with Chamo and Kotaro. As Setsuna showers and is frustrated over her loss to Tsukuyomi, the others learn of Negi's battle with Fate. Negi ponders whether the girl he saw was really Yue or not since there was no reaction from the pactio card. However, that leaves the question of why she let him go when he would have been captured if she had attacked with the others.

Great Paru-sama docks at a small, floating rock and Negi informs them that the group they are against is known as Kosmo (Cosmo?) Entelecheia. He apologizes for getting them into another mess, leading Paru to use one of her giant golems to smack Negi on the head. She reminds him that they've been training for two months for an encounter with Fate's group and throws some blame Asuna's way for messing some things up. The group tells him they won't submit to terrorism, though Setsuna wonders if there are times that they could in order to gain a tactical advantage.

Setsuna produces Fate's magical artifact -- Ennomos Aetosfragis. This device would have made a soul-binding contract on the person agreeing to the terms of the person holding the device. As such, Fate could have prevented Negi from not only stopping him for life, but prevented Negi from even defending his comrades or looking for his father. So Negi's temptation to agree to Fate's demands earlier would have been disastrous if he'd have gone through with it. Asuna gets praised for keeping Negi from making a mistake.

Chamo decides that whether they fight or try to return to Earth, more info is required. Nodoka steps up and with her Comptina Daemonia, reveals that Fate's real name is Tertium -- "Third." The group discusses whether this is even a real name, leading Negi to remind them that some Japanese names are numbers. This leads to speculation on just how many Fate's there might be if he's the third one.

Nodoka continues, bringing out her petrified Diarium Ejus, where upon are the recorded thoughts of Fate, including his dislike of the name Tertium, the fact that he didn't want to involve those from Earth, and the fact that he considers Nodoka's artifact such a threat that he was going to petrify her for good. Fate's plans are revealed on the 2nd page.

• Destroy all 11 Gateports in the world
• Investigate the Ostia area
• Render the Negi boy powerless (failed)
• Induce a diversion involving the various countries' forces => have the former Gateport rendered a blank zone
• Secure the former Gateport
• Induce a diversion involving the various countries' forces => have the former Gateport rendered a blank zone
• Infiltrate the depths of the former Royal Palace - Twilight Imperial Princess?

(Translation from cnet128.)

Since Nodoka re-summoning the Diarium Ejus would wipe out Fate's last thoughts (but would restore the artifact to normal), Kotaro attempts to take a knife and gently get the page on the other side to be revealed, since there's enough of a gap remaining to do so where the page originally fluttered up a bit. Asuna seems enthralled by this and simply reaches out to grab the stone page, breaking off a chunk of it. After being chastised for her actions, the page is removed from the Diarium Ejus and taped together for Negi to read. Negi reads and learns that Fate appears to be pretty old and apparently fought Nagi to a draw. The others want to see the stuff on the page, but Negi destroys it instead. Rakan decides its time to reveal more information on the past and has a film ready (the charges to be deducted from Negi's pay) about himself and Ala Rubra.

Thoughts/Review: I think there are some Japanese-styled Monty Python jokes here. First, there was Emily's "I'll avenge you, Yue" followed by Collet's, "Uh, she's not dead yet" reply (rough translation on my part). That reminded me of Concorde and Sir Lancelot "riding" to Swamp Castle in Holy Grail where Lancelot vows to avenge Concorde's death, only to discover "I'm note quite dead, sir." Next was Sayo-chan's sign which read, "Tero Dame Zettai," which I translate as "Absolutely no terror(ism)." That smacked to me of a scene from Life of Brian where Reg says, "...we shall NOT submit to blackmail." Considering the conversation of Negi's Battle Harem was about not submitting to terrorist (or terrorism), you can see why I easily made this association. Now, maybe this is a stretch to say that these two moments were Monty Python tributes, but for all we know, Akamatsu-sensei is a Monty Python fan. I know I was introduced to Monty Python's nutty humor in Japan and was able to rent just about everything they'd done at the video rental store we used to go to frequently in Fussa.

Still, those of you who've seen Life of Brian or Holy Grail, let me know your opinion here (if you are of a mind to do so).

So far, nothing here to derail my program-construct theory regarding Fate, even though he's likely very old. Fate could be hundreds of years old, especially if he came from the future. The speculative talk about there possibly being more than one of him fits in with what I was thinking to a degree, though I don't think there are multiple Fate's but rather he's the third one created after the previous versions were retired. Others have said that Fate was part of Ala Rubra and that Fate was the other boy in some pictures (along with Takahata as a boy). I guess we'll find out since Rakan will play his movie next episode, but I'm hoping the boy isn't Fate.

Also, Fate fighting Nagi is something I'd predicted. I say that this fight is what lead Nagi to go into hiding. Nothing here to suggest that Nagi couldn't be Negi, which is another theory of mine.

Asuna's story of escape and finding Negi is still passed on. I know theories out of Japan (and even in the U.S.) are that she's possibly a clone. I don't think that at all. I think this is the real Asuna. Now, has she been programmed? I don't think that's the case either. If anything, I think she's had her "Baka Ranger" side brought out. That would explain her seeming stupid when she arrived during the battle with Fate and her stupidity at breaking the stone page. Fate's group would need her dumbed down in order to get her to do what they want down the road.

Yue and Negi's encounter was interesting to be sure. Even if she didn't know why, "her body remembered" (as CLAMP would say) Negi and so her telling him to knock her out. Now, was this recorded or not? I ask because the other girls in their group remarked on how they wouldn't get into trouble based on their conversations being recorded. If they realize Yue is one of the people with Negi, it is game over time. If not, then she could be a help from another angle.

Also, with Negi not getting a reaction from Yue's pactio card, I would speculate that this is due to Yue's memory loss. However, if Negi's master Yue card has no reaction, how can Yue be drawing power from Negi?

Finally, there's Sayo-chan, the scene stealer. ^_^ Yep, she's a cutie alright. ^_^

So, a good chapter all the way around. Can't wait for 230 to get here. I hope to have spoiler images on Saturday.

Clannad After Story 02

クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 02

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: In the Illusionary World, the Garbage Doll and the girl are out scouting the world (which has suffered some catastrophe) for more junk they can use. The girl warns the doll to not wander too far or they won't be able to return home. While gathering junk, the doll encounters a sheep-like creature. Returning to the girl, the doll see that's she's holding a sheep creature and another is at her feet. Releasing the one she's holding, the two critters set out and join a third as the girl comments on how gentle they smell.

In the real world, Youhei is late for school and learns that his little sister Mei-chan did not return home after the baseball game but has obtained permission to stay at Nagisa's home for a while. Apparently, she's worried about her "oniichan" and his future so naturally Tomoya has a plan to set aside Mei-chan's fears -- get Youhei a girlfriend. Nagisa isn't too sure about this plan, feeling that Tomoya is merely having fun with Youhei. However, she does not object to things.

So, the operation to find a fake girlfriend begins. The first girl on the list is Ryou, who is so embarrassed by the idea, she cries.


That leads Kyou to burst onto the scene and give Youhei a beating for making Ryou cry. Youhei recovers quickly, thinking that maybe Kyou would be a better choice. He receives a book in the eyes and Tomoya gets a slap as well.


Next is Tomoyo, who initially ignores Youhei and continues to talk to a group of girls. She continues ignoring him even when Nagisa and Tomoya arrive. In the end, she finally acknowledges Youhei and even agrees to say his fantasy lines before kicking him into the nearby sports field.


Kotomi-chan is next on the list. She's happy to be Youhei's fake girlfriend in exchange for him listening to her music. Her violin playing has not improved and Youhei decides to pass on her offer.


Finally, Youhei, Tomoya, and Nagisa pay a visit to Miyazawa. After hearing what Youhei has to say, a high school thug who'd been hiding under the table decides to give Youhei a thrashing for messing with "Yuki-nee." That has Youhei nearly dead, leading the punk (whom Miyazawa was hiding) to escape out the window. Miyazawa apologizes and runs out of the room to find the punk again since it isn't safe for him to be gone.

They seem to be out of options (having failed to pick up a stranger since Tomoya has Youhei say things that makes him sound like a scout looking to pick up high school girls for porn movies) when Sanae-san hears the situation and agrees to be Youhei's fake girlfriend. Youhei thinks Sanae-san is Nagisa's older sister based on what Tomoya had told him at the baseball game and is excited by the prospect. Nagisa is obviously concerned but Tomoya sees entertainment value in allowing Youhei's misconception to continue.

That evening at home, Sanae-san tries on different costumes from the theater club. Nagisa is concerned about her mother playing a classmate's girlfriend, leading Tomoya to ask Sanae-san if she's truly OK with doing this since Youhei thinks she's Nagisa's "oneesan" (which Sanae-san takes as a compliment). Sanae-san explains that after observing Youhei at the baseball game, she feels he's really a kind person in spite of his many mistakes. As such, she wants to do this to put him on the right path. This makes Nagisa feel better. Tomoya has one request -- keep this from Akio-san.

The following day, Sanae-san meets Youhei for the practice date. He's stiff and nervous and everything Sanae-san does (call him "Youhei-kun," walk close to him, hold his hand) has Youhei running over to Tomoya to report this. The day when Mei-chan gets to meet Youhei's girlfriend arrive and they find him in the park, dressed up but surrounded by lot of empty drink cans. After explaining the cans were part of his plan, he takes off to use the toilet, leaving the cleanup to Mei-chan, Tomoya, and Nagisa. Sanae-san arrives and also helps with the cleanup. She's dressed as a school girl, causing Tomoya to blush and Nagisa to not be happy about that reaction. Youhei returns and apologizes to Sanae-san while Mei-chan has her own concerns about Youhei's new girlfriend.

Thoughts/Review: I think that this has to be the funniest episode of the Clannad franchise, period. Youhei has always been the comic relief in the series, taking beatings from Tomoyo amongst other things all in the name of cheap (but often still good) laughs. So this episode with its plan to give Youhei a fake girlfriend AND that girl be Sanae-san, well that's just funny on all kinds of levels (to say nothing of the beatings Youhei got from Kyou and Tomoyo as well as the violin torture from Kotomi-chan). The only downside to all these laughs is that as I write, I have a pulled muscle on my lower right side and laughing this much isn't helping that injury heal. ^_^;

Still, I have to say that Sanae-san being the one to become Youhei's fake girlfriend surprised me. I actually thought that after Youhei decided against accepting Kotomi-chan's offer to be his fake girlfriend, Miyazawa might actually do it. I guess that's why the writers came up with this new, unnamed punk character who addresses Miyazawa as "Yuki-nee" to throw a monkey wrench into the mix. However, that too was an absolutely funny scene. I wonder if we'll see this guy again because I wouldn't mind seeing Miyazawa's character get explored more.

Anyway, back to Sanae-san being Youhei's fake girlfriend -- I really wonder what she's trying to accomplish here. Oh, I know what she said in the episode about steering him in the right direction after observing him in the baseball game, but I just don't see how pretending to be his girlfriend will help. After all, should he learn that she's actually not Nagisa's older sister but her mother, how would he feel?

BTW, why should Mei-chan care so much anyway? Granted, I know that this is a typical element in certain anime and manga titles where the younger sister becomes obsessed with her "oniichan," not wanting to give him up to anyone. I'm not sure this is what's happening here, but I'll guess we'll find out more next episode.

I kinda wish we'd get more information about the Illusionary World. It was mostly a distraction in Clannad (save for the information that Kotomi-chan's parents were researching it) and I've no clue how it all ties in with the story.

So, the production team continues with the laughs and good times of the series. I still say this is part of the setup for something horrible happening by the series end which will have me bawling like a baby. ^_^;;; However, I'm going to enjoy the fun while it lasts.

School Rumble Z Chapter 02

School Rumble Z Volume 1 Chapter 02 (manga)
スクールランブルZ Chapter ♮2 Van Helsing

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Set in medieval Europe, Harima is a monster slaying knight and exorcist. After receiving a report that Tenma and some girls have to Castle 2C (a "goblins den"), Harima is determined to rescue Tenma. To his surprise, Tenma, Madoka, Mikoto, Akira, and one other girl are having a dating mixer with Frankenstein (Nishimoto), Dracula (Ryuuhei), the Wolfman (Imadori), and Shigeo. They are playing Demon King where the person who draws the Demon King stick gets two of the numbered sticks drawn to do something (kiss, hug, whatever). When Tenma invites Harima to play, Harima changes his mind about saving Tenma.

The game goes on with Shigeo constantly becoming Demon King, which irritates Harima. The game is down to its last round and Harima finally becomes Demon King. He uses a special technique to learn Tenma's number. He sees the number "6" and declares that the Demon King and #6 should kiss. Nishimoto produces the number 6 stick and is excited to kiss Harima. Harima freaks and when he learns that Tenma actually had the number 9, Harima decides to end things by taking out the monsters. The town celebrates Harima for removing the monster threat but the girls then want nothing to do with him.

Review/Thoughts: I have to say that I liked this chapter a lot more than the previous one. For starters, I just found it to be more humorous with some of the "B" characters getting face time. The premise of Tenma and girls excited to be in a mixer with some monsters I found humorous as well. Granted, the joke with Tenma, Nishimoto, Harima, and the numbers 6 & 9 were used in volume 1 of School Rumble, but that didn't bother me.

I couldn't identify the last girl in this story. She may be someone introduced beyond where Del Rey has released School Rumble or I just may have forgotten her (and since Wikipedia sucks horribly and removes identifier images all the time, no help there). Shigeo looked a lot like Nara to me. I guess I need to re-read the volumes of School Rumble that Del Rey has released to refresh his image in my mind (and to just enjoy the School Rumble goodness).

So, a much better chapter this time than last. See you guys in a month or so.

Lupin III: Green vs Red (OVA)

ルパン三世 GREEN VS RED (OVA)
Rupan Sansei: Green vs Red (OAV)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: A Lupin impostor in Tokyo committing shoplifting gets caught and the news is broadcast around the world. This brings Lupin's from all over converging on Tokyo, each claiming to be the real one and wanting to prove it. Zenigata returns to Tokyo to help the police try to sort out the real Lupin from the seemingly endless fakes, all looking as Lupin has looked over the years complete with the red, green, and even pink jackets.

Yasuo works at a ramen restaurant (he might own it, I wasn't clear on that point) and is dating the pretty news reporter Yukiko. However, things aren't going well for him financially and after a customer leaves a green jacket behind, Yasuo starts adding to his income by walking the crowded streets of the Tokyo metroplex and stealing people's wallets. With this, he's able to buy his girlfriend and nice ring even though she says he didn't need to do this for her.

Over time, Yasuo becomes obsessed with becoming Lupin to the point that he reads and watches everything regarding him. He even works with Goemon for a time, disguised as Lupin. However, when Yasuo learns of the Ice Cube diamond, he knows that if he can steal this, he will be the real Lupin. With Fujiko at his side, he attempts to make the theft, only to have the "real" Lupin interrupt. This leads to the red jacket Lupin and the green jacket Lupin in a face-off with the winner becoming the real Lupin. When the battle is over, a red jacket Lupin leaves with Goemon, Yukiko's ring hanging on a chain from the rear-view mirror.

Thoughts/Review: Considering my love for lengthy summaries, you might wonder what the heck is up with a 1 hour 19 minute OVA being compressed into a three paragraph summary. Frankly, this OVA defies the normal summary routine, mainly because it is all over the map. It doesn't follow traditional story flows as there are flash forwards, flash backs, flash side-ways, and flash-flash to leave the audience going, "huh?" Don't watch this when you are tired because you will get lost in a hurry, especially trying to keep up with all the different Lupins.

As to the story, Ice Cube element is almost worthless here. It is a tool to tell another story since this OVA is not about stealing the Ice Cube (supposedly a diamond but actually a form of Plutonium). The writers make a token effort at making some explanations, even trying to make some anti-nuke, anti-military political statement with an anti-U.S. pickle on the side in the form of Mr. Mike Logan, who actually has a native (American?) English speaker play the part -- Josh Keller. As an aside, it is nice that Josh got to speak as a normal American and not be given Engrish lines.

So, what is this 2008 OVA about then? For starters, it was done to celebrate 40 years of Lupin III. Its hard to believe the Lupin franchise has been around so long, but it has (and I'll go into the age thing more in a bit). Because of this celebration, the OP has a clever bit of tribute, showing how Lupin's character designs have changed over the years (depending on the series, movie, OVA, or special) by having all of these Lupin's descend upon Tokyo. There are scenes in the OVA which long time fans of Lupin III will recognize as having come from other titles -- I could only identify Castle of Cagliostro because I've seen it so many times. I could see a nod to Miyazaki-sensei's other influences on the franchise (he was a big part of the first TV series and directed a couple of episodes in the 2nd TV series before doing Castle of Cagliostro) in the form of the giant robot that made a bizarro appearance and the insane faux Lupin in the attack helicopter who's helmet and mask looked to be a Miyazaki creation.

The story then is not about Lupin or his companions trying to steal something and getting caught up in an adventure. Instead, it is about Yasuo not being happy with his life and in wanting something else, slowly becomes Lupin. Not only does he own a yellow Fiat, have the looks and clothing of Lupin, but he also has the good heart, saving a child from drowning. Yasuo may have hated his life, but he had a good woman at his side and there were other ways to improve his lot. He chose a life of crime, a chance at Fujiko, and all the excitement that brings.

In the end, Yasuo finds that the only way to become Lupin is to defeat Lupin in a duel, which a 3rd party sets up. Yasuo is wearing the green jacket and "Lupin" is wearing the red one. However, red-Lupin states that they are both frauds which is why a duel will settle the matter once and for all. I couldn't help but wonder if this was a comment on seiyuu KURITA Kanichi (who does the voice of this red Lupin) taking over the role of Lupin III in 1995 after YAMADA Yasuo passed away, more so because the Yasuo was named after the original Lupin seiyuu. The OVA strongly suggests that Yasuo wins the duel and breaks up with Yukiko, based on her ring being on the Fiat's rear-view mirror. What happened to the "real" Lupin? The OVA suggests that he may have retired and runs a small bookstore in Tokyo disguised as an old man who knows all about Lupin. That would explain why he left a green jacket at Yasuo's place as well as slipping him the P38.

After all this craziness, I began to wonder if maybe the production team is trying to prepare fans for seiyuu changes by showing how Lupin has changed in character design over the 40 years and how things like how Lupin looks (or sounds) doesn't matter, it is how he behaves that is ultimately key here. When Kurita-san took over as Lupin, the amazing thing is that he sounded almost identical to Yasuo-san's Lupin. So for fans, the change in seiyuu wasn't much of an issue.

All of the other parts (Fujiko, Goemon, Jigen, Zenigata) have been played by the same seiyuu for all these years save for one OVA (which I really need to re-watch) -- Plot of the Fuma Clan. The fact of the matter is that the seiyuu are getting old and they sound it, especially Zenigata's seiyuu NAYA Goro, who's 79. MASUYAMA Eiko (Fujiko) is 72. KOBAYASHI Kiyoshi (Jigen) is 75. INOUE Makio (Goemon) is 68. Kurita-san is the baby, being only 50. I'm guessing the production team will keep using the same seiyuu until they can't make it to a studio to gasp out lines, at which point we'll have to see if Japanese fans can accept a change in seiyuu or not (there've been so many American VA casts for Lupin titles over the years that it doesn't matter to American fans).

Speaking of Lupin's gang, they don't get used much in this episode. All of them get speaking cameos and that's about it. Goemon teams up with Yasuo for a bit as does Fujiko while another Lupin briefly captured Jigen before he escapes. Zenigata fares a little better when it comes to speaking time. Further, he's not a bumbling imbecile for this series. He's a cop who's been after Lupin for years and despite his failures is better equipped to handle him than the entire Tokyo police force. I'm glad the writers didn't make him an idiot as too many of the recent specials have done.

The humor aspect of the Lupin series is all but missing here. Oh there's some humor at the beginning with so many Lupin's coming to Tokyo at the same time. Also, the production team has some fun with the "Rupan" vs "Lupin" spelling of Lupin's name. Because of the controversy with the use of the name Arsène Lupin III (the character Arsène Lupin being created by Maurice Leblanc and apparently the Leblanc family didn't like the Japanese using the name or claiming Lupin III is a descendant of the French character), AnimEigo refused to use the name "Lupin," choosing instead to use "Rupan" which is the actual Romaji spelling of Lupin's name. Other instances of early Lupin in English simply called him "The Wolf" (or something like that). Today, the whole controversy thing is a big joke and that is reflected in one scene of the OVA.

Finally, there's this -- McDonald's.


I wonder how much they paid for spots in the OVA, considering how real-life businesses like McDonald's are parodied and not actually shown.

Ultimately, this is the strangest Lupin title I've ever seen and one that I have no intention of seeing again. I can't say it is a bad anime -- it is a different anime and different does not equate to bad. However, I don't like the jumbled style of story presentation, nor do I care much for the style over substance stuff that came up either. The anime does provoke some thought for Lupin fans, which if the goal of the production team, they succeeded. That alone make this worth a rent (should it ever be licensed in the U.S., which I doubt).

More Negima! Chapter 229 SPOILER Images

Another anonymous Japanese person with a digital camera provides some more spoiler images from Mahou Sensei Negima! chapter 229. (click pic to make bigger, y'all).

And one more for you guys.

Sheeze. That's pretty close to the whole manga, isn't it. ^_^; Looks like the gang is mostly back together now.

For those who missed it, the first batch of images from Negima! 229 can be found here.

My review of chapter 229 can be found here.

Gakuen Alice Manga Volume 4

Gakuen Alice Volume 4 (Manga)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Mikan, having been promoted to 1-star ranking, is very pleased by the situation as it means a better room, better food, and better allowance. Now it is time for the school festival where the students get to show off their Alice powers (save for those with dangerous Alice abilities). Mikan's classmates work on various projects for their Alice type. Mikan's Special Alice group decides to do Aladdin and the Magic Lamp where their customers work through a maze and have to get passed one of the special Alice students without touching them, harming them, or destroying the maze. With Mikan as the final obstacle and the Alice of Nullification at her command (which she has been training to upgrade), it seems like no one will win. However, when Natsume gets roped into attending, he manages to get through to the end, even getting passed Mikan while following the rules.

Since the prize is to make one of the student's in Mikan's group his slave for a week based on which lamp they choose, Natsume has Mind Reader-kun pick a lamp, intending to make the annoying ANDO Tsubasa (Mikan's mentor) his slave. Mind Reader-kun sees the image of Mikan in Natsume's mind and assumes that's who Natsume is referring to. So, Natsume picks Mikan's lamp and now Mikan is Natsume's slave for a week. This results in Natsume, Luca, and Mikan seeing the festival together with one event trapping Natsume and Mikan together for a while.

Finally, Mikan gets a day free from Natsume and spends it with Hotaru and Inchou. It is here that Mikan learns that Hotaru has an older brother in high school, who's the president of the executive committee (for lack of a better term). However, when President Imai and Hotaru meet, the president doesn't act like an older brother but keeps a business-like but polite distance emotionally from Hotaru. The encounter leaves Hotaru wondering if she'll be like that, but Mikan figures otherwise since Hotaru's mother went out of her way to teach Hotaru about important things in life after losing her son to the academy at such a young age.

Thoughts/Review: One of the elements that makes Gakuen Alice so fun is Higuchi-sensei's art style. Whenever Mikan is happy, I can't help but smile. Whenever she's down, I feel a bit down. When Natsume tosses Mikan a candy that turns her mouth into a chicken beak for a minute or so and makes everything she say come out as chicken squawking, I laugh much butt off. *lol* Oh that was terrible and yet so funny. Of course you can't keep Mikan down for long and that's what's great about her as a character. She has the ability to bounce back from even the worst situations and make the best of it in the end. Plus, she has an effect on those she encounters and while a few go negative on her, most people end up treating her well.

I am wondering about Natsume and Mikan. Last volume, Mikan basically rescues Natsume and this volume, Natsume uses Mikan's concern for him to get passed her and win her group's game. Despite all the mean things he's done to her, we keep getting hints that Natsume cares about her as well as Luca. Further, we see that Mikan doesn't hate Natsume even though he may anger her at times (looking at her panties, looking down her top). I can't help but think that maybe Higuchi-sensei is looking to make them some sort of couple. I know the manga is still ongoing in Japan but I don't know if the characters are much older than they are in this volume (I think to Negima! where its only been a little over six months covered in the manga, but the manga has been in production for many years now). Even if the characters don't age much, I guess it would be neat to see where this weird relationship between Natsume and Mikan goes.

While I'm thinking about Mikan, I like that she's gotten a bit better at using her Alice thanks to some training from Natsume. ^_^

Well, now we know why Hotaru's family were so desperate to keep her out of Gakuen Alice considering how cold her older brother is. Kinda sad.

Bottom line: This volume was mostly a fun one with little on the plot advancement front regarding what the school actually is (or rather, what it is involved in). That's not a problem to me at all, especially in this early stage of the manga.

Negima! Chapter 229 SPOILER Images (UPDATED!)

Negima! 229 SPOILER Images
魔法先生 ネギま！Chapter 229 (Images)

What you see are the original-sized, sneak-peek images for Mahou Sensei Negima! chapter 229 as posted on short-lived Japanese pages (click pic to make bigger, y'all). I had a little time, so I performed a bit of cleanup on the images to make them better. Only four in the first batch. If there's a second batch, I'll upload them later.

Poor Setsuna. ^_^;

I'll link to my chapter summary/review here when I score a copy later in the week.

Additional: Oooo...they added a fifth picture to the mix that wasn't there this morning.


A second batch of images can be found here!

My review of chapter 229 is here.

Ah! My Goddess Ch. 239 *SPOILERS*

Ah! My Goddess Manga/Oh My Goddess! Manga
ああっ女神さまっVolume 38 Chapter 239

Summary/Synopsis: With the program processed and people singing all over, Belldandy thanks everyone for their help. Chrono still frets over having broken the ball that contained the program in the first place but hearing that the program had to be broken in order to be properly processed and that she was chosen because she is clumsy, Chrono is not happy with Peorth. Belldandy feels that Chrono was chosen because Peorth has confidence in her. Chrono is becoming convinced until she learns that Belldandy has no idea about the maid costume being an official uniform. With that, she's off to see Peorth and Belldandy embraces K1.

In the heavens, an angry Chrono confronts Peorth, accusing the 1st Class Goddess of lying about the maid outfit being an official costume. Peorth counters that only those under her jurisdiction sent on assignment wear the maid outfit. Case closed.

With Chrono gone, Peorth talks with Lind, who'd been observing Chrono's activities on Earth. Based on her performance, Lind is going to recommend Chrono be given her Silver Wings. Peorth remarks on how Lind's time on Earth changed her to which Lind agrees.

Back on Earth, Urd has Belldandy, Skuld, and herself in maid outfits to greet Keiichi when he returns home. However, Belldandy flubs up the line, forgetting to called Keiichi "master."

Thoughts/Review: The whole idea of the program needed to be broken apart before being re-assembled just came across as a massive pile of you-know-what. I realize Fujishima-sensei needed a way to give Chrono props and a promotion but I kept thinking, "why make the program whole at all if it needs to be broken down first?" Bah, that whole bit is just nutty.

The unexpected (and not at all nutty) appearance of Lind -- yay! I liked that she had been observing Chrono's mission on Earth and that Chrono would be recommended to receive her Valkyrie Silver Wings. I think what I liked most about seeing Lind again is that she smiles now.

The end of this chapter still makes me laugh every time I look at it. It is just funny seeing Belldandy, Urd, and Skuld in maid outfits with Urd teaching Belldandy to say "Welcome home, Master" ("Goshujin-sama" being the otaku term of choice here) as a greeting to Keiichi. So there's a positive end to things.

This story arc was pretty boring to me despite all the cameos along the way. Now, were this story to be table setting for some interesting new story arc where the Valkyrie (including Chrono) have to deal with some threat, joined by K1, Belldandy, Urd, & Skuld, then it wouldn't be so bad to me. However, I'm trying to think of the last time Fujishima-sensei did such a story. Was it the Angel Eater story? I miss those days of the manga.

Next month should see a new story arc. See you then.

Space Battleship Yamato 2 01

Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2 Episode 01
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2 Ep. 01 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: The Comet Empire is taking over the universe and they have set their sights on Earth as the Emperor sees it as a good planet to take to continue the rest of their campaign. Joining the Emperor and his staff is Supreme Leader Desler of Gamilus, who is the Emperor's honored guest. As the Emperor receives information on his forces current status, the military leaders don't see Earth as much of a problem. Desler reminds them of Yamato and while that ship may have defeated Gamilus, Gamilus is not dead as long as Desler is alive, his surviving forces fighting alongside the Comet Empire forces. He advises the military leaders to test out Yamato for themselves and see if he's wrong.

For its part, Yamato is the flagship of the Solar System Perimeter 3rd Patrol Fleet and has just completed its 1-year patrol. With humans building facilities all over the solar system, there is plenty of activity going on. Acting Captain KODAI Susumu has his communications officer report to Earth Defense Force HQ that the fleet is returning home. The officer jokingly asks if there's is a pretty nurse at the Earth Defense Force Central Hospital that Susumu would like to message as well. At that hospital, Yuki performs her duties as the robot Analyzer cops a feel. He's going to tell her that Yamato is returning to Earth but naturally, Yuki already knows this.

Susumu receives a report of unidentified craft following the fleet. Susumu dismisses this as cargo ships but the radar officer is very insistent. Susumu decides to take it seriously but it is too late as communications to Earth are jammed. Ships from the Nazca Fleet (Comet Empire) attack, taking out some destroyers and cargo ships and hitting Yamato as well. Susumu abandons ship to scout the area in his fighter. He encounters the enemy but can do nothing as they are too fast. A frantic call from Yamato has him returning to his ship as Commander Nazca and Commander Balsey (Balsey Fleet, Comet Empire) remark on how easily things are going and how much of a coward Desler is.

Yamato's systems are being overloaded by excessive energy, a phenomenon happening on Earth as well where Sanada and Yuki are attempting to cut power lines and Analyzer overheats. As people on Earth and Yamato attempt to put out small fires from overheated electronic equipment, they detect that some kind of message has been sent to them. Back with the Comet Empire, the Emperor is told that Teresa of Teresart has managed to get a message through to Earth despite their efforts to block it. Teresart is the lone planet within the Empire that the Emperor can't touch and despite her abilities, the Emperor figures they should leave her alone. Desler agrees, saying contact between Teresa and Earth is part of his plan.

Yamato makes a final approach to Earth to land when another battleship leaving Earth is now in their flight path. This brand new flagship for the Earth Defense Force is called Andromeda and Susumu orders that a message be sent to the ship to get out of the way. The captain of Andromeda refuses and a game of chicken begins. Neither captain blink and the two battleships narrowly miss a head-on collision. Once passed, the bridge crew is relieves and Susumu laughs, causing the others to laugh. That out of the way, Yamato continues to its landing point on Earth.

Thoughts/Review: I was surprised when I heard the 2nd variation of the first series' OP theme song being used since the lyrics are about Yamato going to Iscandar. Considering that this second series is already showing signs of copying some aspects of the 1st series (mysterious blonde alien chick sends message to Earth to help them while vast enemy forces prepare to destroy them), maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. Maybe the OP theme will get some lyric modifications from "Iscandar" to "Teresart." ^_^;

Gah! Desler returns. I knew it. If I may quote myself from my episode 26 blog entry for Space Battleship Yamato.

Just because Sanada's deus ex machina "oh, I've been secretly working on some new reflective armor for Yamato" appeared to have killed Desler this time doesn't mean he's dead. Part of me thinks he'll show up again to be a pain in the butt for Space Battleship Yamato 2 (which I will now start watching).

I'm not a fan of the enemy that repeatedly gets "killed" but doesn't actually die. Further, his leadership skills are so great, he lost his entire empire and his home planet to a single freaking ship. So for the Emperor of the Comet Empire to put such blind trust in Desler means the Emperor is a fool too.

Susumu is an idiot captain. OK, so he's still "Acting Captain Kodai," but he's still unworthy of the title. First, he ignores the obvious threat when it is reported to him. Then when Yamato comes under attack, rather than command his ship, he jumps in his fighter, forcing his crew to beg for his return. Ah, but he's SOOOOO brave as when he played chicken with the captain of the Andromeda. Yeah, whatever. Susumu isn't a good captain but the fact that he hasn't been made full captain even though he's been in command of Yamato for well over a year suggests that the production team has other plans for Susumu. I won't say he'll die, but they'll either have Susumu do something so spectacular they make him captain or they give his command to someone else. I'd say the captain of the Andromeda would be a prime choice, but considering his ship is new and better, the writers would have to destroy it first without killing the captain. We'll see what happens.

I see that Yuki is back to being a nurse. Poor Yuki. Sanada's current job seemed right for him. I wonder what happened to Daisuke and the others.

I plan to blog the entire series though I have some qualms after the first episode.

Hayate the Combat Butler Manga Volume 8

Hayate the Combat Butler, Volume 8
ハヤテのごとく！Manga Volume 8
Hayate no Gotoku Manga Volume 8

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Because Hayate saw Nagi naked, Nagi feels self conscious about it. As such, Maria gives Hayate ¥1-million to stay at a hotel for a while. Hayate is stunned at the amount of money he's been given and decides to be very careful with it. Immediately upon coming into the city, the money-hungry Katsura-sensei encounters him. Hayate tries to make a polite but quick getaway but suddenly Himuro arrives without his master, having smelt money. He detects the ¥1-million in Hayate's pocket and suddenly, the two of them want to play Mahjong for money in a nearby parlor. To make matters worse, Sister Sonia, who also likes money, arrives meaning they have a 4-some to play.

Hayate escapes after playing for a short while, leaving his coat and ¥50,000 behind. Multiple encounters later where Hayate helps out others, he's left with nothing but a few yen. He's in a park wondering what to do when Hina arrives and invites him over. Hina's mother is quite taken with Hayate, wanting to dress him up. That night, Hina ponders her own feelings for Hayate and the next morning, she tries to ask him about Ayumu (without saying the name). Hayate thinks Hina is talking about Nagi and this leads to a misunderstanding with Hina thinking Hayate has a girlfriend (Ayumu).

The following day, all of the people Hayate helped as well as Katsura-sensei return all the money Hayate gave them and Hayate's coat. Maria realizes that Hayate may be in trouble and so puts on her old school uniform to head to Hakuou Gakuin to investigate. Maria is trying to be low key but ends up drawing more and more attention to herself. Maria finally encounters Hayate as he enters the elevator to go up to the Student Council chamber at the top of the clock tower and learns what she needs to (even having some fun with him). Hayate is touched that she is concerned for his welfare.

That night, Hina and Hayate do some shopping for dinner as they will be alone for a while. The love-tension is in the air and when Hina finally gets the misunderstanding that Hayate is dating Ayumu cleared (he's not), she flees the home to get ice cream, afraid that the two of them being alone will lead to something. Amazingly, she encounters Ayumu, who'd gotten lost after chasing a sweet potato vendor. Hina doesn't want Ayumu to know that Hayate is staying at her place, but naturally he shows up saying her bath is ready. Ayumu flees and cries at being a fool, but Hina stops her and invites her over to see that there's nothing going on between herself and Hayate.

After rescuing a kitten, the two girls come home and send Hayate out to get some pet supplies. Hayate seeks help from Wataru (who's a cat lover) as Hina makes Ayumu feel better. After the kitten pees on Hina, she takes a bath. Outside the bathroom, Ayumu tells of her own conflicted thoughts regarding Hayate and waiting for his response to her Valentine's Day chocolate. She wishes she could be more like Hina, so Hina confesses that she's not the cool person people think she is. Hina asks Ayumu to call her by her given name (Hinagiku) and she will address Ayumu as Ayumu (instead of Nishizawa-san). Ayumu is impressed that Hina remembered her name but decides that she will address Hina as "Hina-san" instead.

Nagi decides she misses Hayate and so he's allowed to come home. Since Hina's mother is allergic to cats, Hayate promises to give the kitten a good home. He brings the kitten to Nagi, who is opposed to it at first, then says she'll take it and gives it a name -- Shiranui. Tama learns of the kitten and is not pleased. He tells Hayate he won't kill the kitten, but he'll make it so that Nagi hates the animal. Unfortunately for Tama, the kitten gets the better of him and Tama is blamed for acts of destruction by the kitten, leading Tama to be caged.

Isumi learns of Nagi's new pet and wants to see it. She comes over but the kitten has a very negative reaction to Isumi. This depresses Isumi a great deal. Learning of Isumi's troubles, Sakuya decides to help, but in her normal comical way which makes Isumi feel worse. Sakuya decides to be serious and tells Isumi that maybe she needs to change, starting with her clothing. Isumi is shy about wearing western clothing but she does scede to Sakuya's request and wears a western skirt and blouse. Despite the embarrassment, Sakuya gets Isumi over to Nagi's home where both compliment her new outfit even though the kitten won't care. Isumi is not happy to have been setup again by Sakuya but a squirt of catnip on her by Hayate has the kitten race over to be with Isumi.

Sister Sonia comes by Wataru's video store for a visit to see if she really loves the boy or not. Wataru not only remembered his promise to loan her some DVD's, he had a whole stack set aside for her. This impresses her and she's about to confess when Saki shows up and falls down, leading Wataru to express great concern over her. Sister Sonia is upset by this and takes it out on Hayate, who explains who Saki is. Right in front of them, Saki is kidnapped by the men who had tried to kidnap Nagi. Hayate is off to save her, but Sister Sonia tells Wataru that for a kiss, she will save Saki. Wataru agrees, kissing her on the cheek as down payment. So before Hayate can arrive, the kidnapper's car is destroyed and Saki is left dazed by unharmed.

In the final regular chapter, Nagi decides to go fishing with Hayate on Lake Sanzenin (on the estate grounds) along with Maria.

Thoughts/Review: I really love this manga and that makes short summaries more difficult for me. I seem to recall that the story of Hayate staying at Hina's house for a time was in the anime, but I don't remember all of the details the manga provided, especially since that storyline took over half the manga. I now understand how Hina and Ayumu finally became friends. In the anime, the story of them sightseeing in Greece was just sprung on us (and that story is an omake chapter in this volume of the manga). However, this volume of the manga explains how they became friends and I like it.

The story of the kitten getting the best of Tama cracked me up. Also, that story had Isumi wear western clothing for the first time, which was nice.

Hata-sensei picked up the idea of Sister Sonia being attracted to Wataru. That comes off as a little odd to me. Maybe it is because of the nun outfit rather than the age since if Saki had an interest in Wataru, that wouldn't bother me.

Shiranui gets the character profile this volume. The other big omake is the Hina and Ayumu sightseeing in Greece (Miki, Risa, and Izumi are also there, just not with them at the moment).

The standard praise for honorific use is here and the standard complaint about the lack of translator notes is here. After the volume 7 incident with the English text destroying the art, it now seems to me that all of the English text is obtrusive. I'm likely being oversensitive but that's how it feels to me.

Keroro Gunsou 73

ケロロ軍曹 Episode 73
Sgt. Frog anime, 73
Keroro Gunsou episode 73

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Aki-san decides that the family should go to the fireworks festival that night. Fuyuki is depressed because he has to go to the pool for a swim class. Aki-san says she has miracle magic and draws a star on Fuyuki's right palm. Fuyuki sets out as a thunderstorm begins to build. He finds Keroro and the platoon trying to catch bugs as Keroro is determined to sell these beetles. They were using the "If I Can Do Life Over Again" (translated name) gun to cause the trees to age a bit to attract more beetles. The storm hits and a lengthy lightning strike on the gun causes the forest to grow younger and disappear as well as the Nishizawa Tower.

The platoon and Fuyuki return to where the Hinata house used to be, but there is a field there instead. Stopping at a vending machine for a beverage, Fuyuki sees a posted flyer stating that it is 198x and they realize they've gone back in time. Keroro sends the platoon out to investigate with Fuyuki being with Keroro. They head into the city where Keroro and Fuyuki see life as it was in the 80's. Fuyuki runs into a girl who turns out to be the middle-school aged Aki-san, who has been able to catch glimpses of Keroro despite the anti-barrier.

Keroro hides on a roof and is joined by Kururu as three yankee girls arrive to give Aki and Fuyuki grief. After Aki makes a remark to the yankee's who decide that she and Fuyuki must pay. The two take off and though they end up being chased down a dead-end ally, Aki uses her athletic ability to get both of them out of the jam. They board a train and she tells Fuyuki that she cut class to see the ocean. At a hillside, they look at Tokyo Bay where Aki tells Fuyuki things about being pressured to try to decide her future. They are observed by Kururu and Keroro with Kururu stating that they can erase Aki's memory if needed.

A rain shower appears, causing Aki and Fuyuki to seek shelter at a nearby shrine. As they let their clothes dry, Aki notices that Fuyuki is worried and tells him she has magic to help, but is surprised when she sees a star already drawn on Fuyuki's hand. When she touches it, she has a flash of the future as does Fuyuki. Fuyuki falls asleep, leading Aki to put on his clothes, realizing she and he look alot alike. Indeed, as Aki walks outside, Keroro thinks she is Fuyuki so that when she asks for a ride on the sauser, Keroro agrees.

Kururu comes to erase Aki's memories and discovers it is Fuyuki. Kururu has learned that only Earth went back 20-years and not the universe, meaning that a similar energy discharge onto the gun can return Earth back to the present. Fuyuki makes a call to the sleeping Moa-chan in orbit to make a request on Keroro's behalf. After Keroro returns with Aki-san, he realizes his mistake. However, Aki-san is willing to have her memory erased and as the sleepy Moa-chan lends her power to perform a strike on the gun, time returns to normal so that the adult Aki-san, Natsumi, Fuyuki, and the platoon can enjoy the fireworks.

Thoughts/Review: Being a child of the 80's myself, I have to say that I rather enjoyed this episode's trip back to that time zone, especially since I lived in Japan in the late 80's. ^_^ I laughed at Keroro's puzzlement over the boom box's tape deck (complete with tape) and lack of a CD player. I found it interesting that Keroro noted how different people looked back in the 80's hair-wise. I hadn't realized so much hair dying goes on these days vs. back then. And of course, one can never forget how cheap vending machine drinks were back then with the pull tabs. ^_^

Story-wise, I enjoyed seeing how Aki-san was as a middle school girl. I don't know if this story came from the manga or not, but regardless, it was nice seeing were Fuyuki inherited some of his interests. Aki was pretty cool when she handled the Yankee chicks. I was kinda hoping she'd have a sense of having met Fuyuki with the magic star. I'm not sure why I wanted that because it would cause potential plot problems but oh well. No big deal.

So an enjoyable romp to the 80's that I think will appeal to older anime fans than younger ones, but Keroro fans will enjoy it either way.

Things to Do in Tokyo -- Swim in the Imperial Palace Moat!

Oh, this is just funny and sad at the same time with some 40-year old guy from Spain (though a British citizen) decided that the moat of the Imperial Palace is just too good to pass up for a swim. Here's a Japanese report.



Another Japanese news clip on this.



And a video from Sky News. Be warned, it may burn your eyes. ^_^;;;

Finally, the funniest video on this and proof that music can certainly enhance film. ^_^



So if I get back to Japan, I must remember to take a gainjin swim in the Imperial Palace moat. *nods*

Space Battleship Yamato -- Final Thoughts

After watching Super Dimensional Fortress Macross some time ago, I wanted to eventually add Space Battleship Yamato to the list of classic anime titles to watch and NOT the Americanized, edited Star Blazers. It took some time but after seeing references to Yamato in things like the Negima! manga and the Keroro Gunsou anime (among others), I decided that maybe I needed to move the title up the "to watch" list. I'm glad I did.

Despite the fact that the anime was done in the 70's, it hasn't aged too badly. Don't get me wrong, when you look at Yamato compared to something flashy and new like Macross Frontier, Yamato looks ugly. That's to be expected because of the cell animation vs. the CGI animation. So when I talk about art and animation, I am taking into account the age of the series. As such, I can say that the animation at times is quite good. I think back to the battle sequence in episode 22. The amount of work that went into animating the attack on Yamato by the Gamilus forces is clear, as is the production team's desire to have a World War II tribute. It really is quite impressive and I can't help but think that with today's CGI technology, scenes like that (done properly) would really have jaws in the ground.

Story-wise, things aren't bad but aren't great either. The premise is an interesting one with Earth being bombarded by radioactive asteroids and turned into a wasteland by an unknown, alien force. Earth's fleet is wiped out by this alien force and Earth is prepared to send an ark into space so that some people may survive. To hide what they are doing from the aliens, they build the ship beneath the ruins of the World War II battleship Yamato, designing their ship to look like the original Yamato. When Starsha of Iscandar sends warp technology as well as the tech to create the ultra-powerful Wave Motion Gun to Earth so that they may retrieve a device to clean up the planet, Yamato's mission changes. Once Yamato launches, they learn the aliens attacking them are from Gamilus and there are lots of Gamilon bases between Earth and Iscandar. With Yamato only having one year to get to Iscandar, obtain the device, and get back, the clock is running before humanity is wiped out.

Being that this is a lone ship verses and entire empire, the series has the weaknesses of making the Gamilus people kind of dumb at times. However, at times there are clever bits of strategy such as when Yamato battles the Gamilus base on Mars. Most of the time though, the writers have to rely on various forms and degrees of deus ex machina to get Yamato out of a tight pinch. Most of the time I found this tolerable, but there were other times when it went over the line and became a bit much.

Things move slow with the story in the beginning. I kept going, "lets get on with it!" Even after Yamato finally makes it out of the galaxy, there were way to many conflicts with the Gamilus forces, done in the name of "got to have conflict." I'm sure to the kids, these battles were great because that kind of conflict is easy to understand vs. character conflicts. To be fair, the writers did do an episode where a character had great difficulty dealing with things but unfortunately, this episode was his only one of substance (not being a cast regular) and that weakened the character conflict element. There was another episode with Susumu copping an attitude, but considering he's not a great character to begin with, I didn't care (beyond wishing he had been served greater punishment).

Another weakness of the series is the "magical repairs" and other "magical" things that are done. Yamato might take a beating and within the same episode, repair crews have fixed everything in a rapid amount of time. "Need to mine a special ore for the construction of vital parts on Yamato? No problem. We can mine it, process it, refine it, and mold it into a new part in less than an hour, guaranteed or your money back." Because of this, it cheapens the series as no matter what happens to Yamato, it will be fixed immediately and that includes weapons! I think the series would have been a bit more interesting if the crew had to deal with trying to get their ship fixed and in one piece to Iscandar than in the many (sometimes dopey) battles as witless Gamilus forces attempt to destroy Yamato.

The cast of characters are merely average, save for Yuki, Analyzer, and Sado-sensei. Captain Okita is not all that inspiring, Susumu is just a hot-head who doesn't think a great deal, Daisuke is a nice guy but has little to do beyond steering Yamato, Sanada is "fill in the hole" character and Tokugawa is the mostly forgotten chief engineer. Analyzer is interesting because (1) he's in love with Yuki (actually, it seems like the robot wants to boff her) and (2) despite being a robot, he seems to have more personality than the rest of the crew. Sado-sensei is interesting because he's a sodding drunk and somehow the ship's doctor. As such, he (along with Analyzer) provide comic relief.

Yuki is the all-purpose babe and after episode 11, she's the only chick on the ship. If there's a "woman's job" on the ship that needs doing, she does it. Yuki did the following jobs (as best as I can remember).

• Nurse
• Radar Operator
• Generic Bridge Operator
• Moral Officer
• Tour Guide
• Botanist
  
• Explorer
• Pilot
• Miner
• Coffee Server
• Fashion Model
• Therapist
  
• Hero

Seriously, you can't do that much stuff and not be interesting, eh? ^_~ With that much experience under her belt, she should have been made captain, not Okita. The only negative thing against her being captain is the couple of times she spewed out the moral equivalency crap, which simply means she and the rest of the humans should die for Gamilus to live. Whatever, Yuki. Fortunately, there were only two such outburst on her part.

Bottom line: Space Battleship Yamato has weaknesses in writing and some characters but it holds up pretty well on the whole. Were it licensed in the U.S., I would give this a rent to be sure.

Negima Volume 19 (manga)

Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, Volume 19

Volume 19 has a lot of good stuff, pre-staging the forthcoming Magic World arc, exploring Asuna, and picking up some small stories for different characters as well.

The first half of the manga is dedicated to Asuna. For starters, we get to see how Nagi and Ala Rubra first met Asuna during the war on the Magic World and rescued her (learning her real name is Asuna Vesperina Theotanasia Entheofushia) and then some time later in what appears to be Istanbul, Turkey (Asuna still appears to be the same age). These tidbits about Asuna's past have always been most interesting to me. Fans translated Asuna's title from the Magic World as "Twilight Imperial Princess" (after much debate on the proper choice) but Del Rey has chosen "Princess-Priestess of Twilight." "Priestess" never even entered the discussions when these chapters came out of Japan so I question where the translator or adapter came up with that.

While the stuff about Asuna's past is always good, I rather liked seeing how Asuna survived Eva's week of training in the snow training realm. While it is unfortunate that we didn't get to see everything Al told Eva about Asuna (Akamatsu-sensei is clearly going to continue to give us this information in bits and pieces), I found it interesting how Eva looks at Asuna after learning what she learned. After all, Asuna has what I think Eva wouldn't mind having -- peace and freedom. Even though Eva may not like to admit it, the two have a lot in common. Still, Asuna survived the test and now Eva is training her along with Negi.

Of course, the time in Eva's resort also gives Negi's "Battle Harem" time to train as well, so even though its not gone over in detail, we know that Yue and Nodoka are advancing in mage training, Konoka is advancing as a mage-healer, Paru is advancing in her artifact usage, and Ku Fei, Kaede, and Setsuna (along with Negi and Kotaro) continue to advance. Having the resort is a convenient way for Akamatsu-sensei to make these people more powerful before encountering whatever they encounter when the Magic World arc starts.

As to the side stories, I enjoyed getting a story about Yuuna and her father (a mage teacher). I wonder what happened to Yuuna's mother. The rivarly between Kaede and Mana is a hoot, especially with both being denied the student price for a movie. The cheerleaders getting a bunny girl picture of Ako for "Nagi-san" (Negi's 15-year old form) was fun. Seeing more of how Sayo passes time when Asakura is interesting, especially when Zazie and "friends" show up to keep her company. I wonder when we will learn more about Zazie.

The summer festival story at the end of the manga is where the new Ala Alba OVA takes for its first episode. Eva's test of the Ala Alba group by giving them badges to protect while wearing them is great. It not only provided an opportunity for others like Yuuna, Ako, Ayaka, the twins, Akira, Makie, and others in the class to have some "screen time," but it gave us an opportunity to see how Asuna, Yue, Nodoka, and the others have improved thanks to their training.

So while there's nothing major in the advancement of the plot in this volume, Akamatsu-sensei provides some table setting of the upcoming Magic World arc (the training of Ala Alba), provides interesting tidbits about Asuna's past, and gives us some general fun chapters and pages about the different characters. As such, I rather enjoy this volume.

One final thing -- Del Rey has a rather nice extra for this volume of the manga. They have a page of color pactio cards (in sticker form) for Konoka, Asuna, Setsuna, and Nodoka. Since the Japanese will never allow Del Rey or anyone else to license producing pactio cards for the U.S., this is the best we are going to get. I'm glad to have it.

Tatsuro Sushi (Website)

I'm not sure what started it, but to have something interesting appear on one of our monitors at work at night, we were looking for work-safe webcams. Thanks to my influence on the others with my Japanese studies, our search came to an end when we found Tatsuro Sushi's (たつ郎寿司) webcam from Tokyo.

As you can see, the site has an English side as well as a Japanese side. The top two cams are in real time with a very hit frame-per-second rate (they are sourced from outside of Tatsuro's website). The left camera (for which you have to login to view for the controller, though it often won't work for U.S. visitors) shows the sushi preparation at table-level and the right cam shows the same workspace from above. When things have been slow, I've watched these sushi chefs work their magic and have been amazed, especially when the restaurant is crowded.

The third cam is a slow one with about a frame per second view speed. This third cam shows the view of the bar that the customers can sit at. The unfortunate thing about this camera (besides being lower quality) is that it does not show up in Firefox 2.x (it may work in 3.x but I haven't tried yet).

Since working the night shift means daytime in Tokyo, we get to see all the fun. So you'll need to be a night owl if you want to see the action in Japan. It is an 11-hour time difference from the East Coast of the U.S. so bear that in mind when visiting the site.

However, the site has more to offer than just webcams. There are pictures of the place (which looks small but fancy) and instructions (pictures and video) showing how to prepare some of the sushi dishes. If you ever decide to visit Tokyo and check out the place, the website has the current menu with prices. Some of the sushi ain't cheap, y'all. ^_^;

I'm not a fan of sushi, but should God let me return to Japan one day, I do plan to drop by Tatsuro Sushi and eating. If any of you guys have ever been there, let me know how it is.

Slayers REVOLUTION 13 (finale)

スレイヤーズREVOLUTION Ep. 13 (final)
Slayers REVOLUTION Episode 13 (end)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: With the civilian population of Saillune City evacuated, Prince Phil has his mage troops attack Zanaffar with a rain of Fireball spells while the artillery rains cannon balls and fiery ballista bolts on the beast, all to no effect. Duclis plans to eliminate Lina but Lina figures that his true reason to remove her has less to do with protecting Zanaffar and more to do with keeping her knowledge out of Zanaffar's hands. Duclis declares that fate will decide what is right based on if Zanaffar wins or loses the battle.

Back down in the arena, the mannequin Ozel comes back to life. She asks "Rezo-sama" if this is her destiny t0 die and be reborn constantly. She also wonders if Rezo has entrusted "that person" who has the power to overcome destiny.

Back on the surface, Zanaffar decides to speed up Duclis's conversion into a Zanaffar by attacking him and thus activating the Zanaffar army. Zanaffar knocks Duclis out of the battle area where he is followed by Pokota. Duclis refuses a healing spell, stating that the moment he put on the Zanaffar armor, his fate was sealed as Zanaffar began to consume his mind from that time forward. Duclis figures the reason he wasn't consumed earlier was due to his hatred of those he considered had betrayed Taforashia.

Outside, the battle against Zanaffar does not go well with the beast being amused at the humans not accepting him as their new ruler. He explains to Lina that he was created in the city of Sairaag by arrogant humans who thought they knew it all. He was designed to be a foil to the mazoku but in creating the first Zanaffar armor, something did not go right. Now, Zanaffar plans to not only consume all humans, but the mazoku and the gods (kami) as well. Hearing this, Lina informs Zanaffar that she won't allow it.

Lina, having arranged this with Sylphiel earlier, as the miko and all of the mage troops cast Aqua Create. The streams of water form and pelt Zanaffar. Some of the mages, including Lina and Amelia, begin casting ice-based spells which then freeze upon impacting Zanaffar. Combining with the water from Aqua Create, Zanaffar is quickly sealed in ice. Lina begins casting Ragna Blade, but Zanaffar begins to break free from his ice prison. Duclis, now half tiger-man, half Zanaffar, attacks Zanaffar's eyes, scoring damage. That gives Lina time to finish casting Ragna Blade, upon which she and Gourry issue a double attack on Zanaffar. The damage done, Zanaffar thrashes around but is not dead. Because they've made cracks in his armor, Lina casts an amplified Dragon Slave which finishes the beast off.

The following day, the remains of Zanaffar are emitting shouki, creating a toxic cloud. Pokota takes a seed from the holy tree Flagoon and plants it nearby since Flagoon had the power to cleans the shouki from Sairaag years ago. Duclis arrives and asks for Pokota to execute him for his crimes, but Pokota is unable to do so. Prince Phil declares that Duclis's punishment will be to remain in his current form. With that, Lina and company along with Pokota set off with the mystery of Rezo, Ozel, and the sealed citizens of Taforashia to deal with.

Thoughts/Review: I had figured that Lina would kill Zanaffar with the Ragna Blade spell since that's how she killed the beast in the novels. The anime took a different tact by having Ragna Blade be one of three attacks that actually injured Zanaffar. However, considering that Dragon Slave is Lina's trademark spell, I don't have a problem with how things were done here. With those other attacks having pierced Zanaffar's hide, I could believe that an amplified Dragon Slave would then be able to kill the beast. So kudos to the writers there.

While Xellos has all but dropped out of the series lately (he did have a cameo along with Wiser though to observe the battle), I think the mazoku plans for Zanaffar were made clear in this episode. Since mazoku feed off of the negative human emotions, having a single Zanaffar rampaging across the country would be good for the mazoku. However, having multiple Zanaffar creatures would be bad since they would likely have enough power to overcome higher-ranking mazoku. Consuming those mazoku would then make it easier for the Zanaffar to defeat the mazoku lords. Since Xellos didn't stop Lina from killing Zanaffar, the mazoku must have been willing to accept the loss of the single Zanaffar with no problem. It will be interesting to see what else Xellos and the mazoku have in store for the next series.

As to the specifics of the episode itself, things got a bit talky, didn't they? One would almost think I were writing. *lol* The exposition on the purpose of Zanaffar was good, but the banter between Lina and Zanaffar was mostly filler. Fortunately, it didn't cross the line into boring territory and the chit-chat was broken up by action. It got close on the Pokota-Duclis talking scenes though. In a lot of ways, I'm sorry that we'll have to deal with Pokota in the next Slayers series but that's another issue.

I'm glad to see that Sylphiel has a useful role to play in this episode. It is always nice to bring back old favorite characters, but when they don't have a purpose, things become awkward.


Also, Phil was used in a logical way most of the time (rallying the troops, which is what a good leader would do). The tribute scene of him and Amelia doing a Pacifist Crush attack on Zanaffar was likely done for laughs, but I didn't find it funny.

Overall, I have to say I enjoyed the episode. Plenty of action with a reasonable way of taking down Zanaffar. I'll have some final thoughts on the series soon.

Space Battleship Yamato 26 (finale)

Uchuu Senkan Yamato Episode 26
宇宙戦艦ヤマト Ep. 26 (TV, Anime, final)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: The Yamato crew finishes building the Cosmo Cleaner-D and re-establish communications with Earth to bring them the good news. Little do they know that Supreme Leader Desler (who managed to escape the destruction of Gamilus) and a crew are in a ship known as Desler Hou (meaning "Desler's Cannon"). Desler Hou fires at Yamato, but unfortunately Yamato goes into warp before the beam can hit. Desler orders the crew to follow, so they make their best estimate and warp as well, only to arrive so close to Yamato that they collide with the battleship.

Though this wasn't part of the plan, Desler orders his troops to enter through the hull breach on Yamato, where they begin pumping radioactive gas (which is was the people of Gamilus breathe) inside. The gas begins killing crew and forces Yamato's troops to retreat, allowing Desler and his men to make advances in. Despite the general quarters alarm, Yuki races out of her quarters and learning what is going on, she races to the production facility where the Cosmo Cleaner-D sits at the ready. As gas floods the room, Sanada instructs her on how to use it from an upper-level observation post. She turns the machine on and cleanses the air, but dies in the process.

Desler and his men cannot survive in Yamato's normal atmosphere and so are forced to retreat. Desler Hou pulls away from Yamato and Desler prepares to fire the ship's main beam cannon. Daisuke performs evasive maneuvers, but it won't be enough. Sanada flips a switch at his station which activates a reflective substance on Yamato's entire hull (including gun turrets). When the beam hits Yamato, it reflects back to the source, destroying Desler Hou. The crew is stunned to be alive and Sanada explains that he borrowed the concept from the Gamilus Pluto base, having worked on it in secret during the voyage home.

Susumu hears that Yuki is dead and mourns for her (filled with regret over not confessing to her) as Yamato makes its final approach to Earth. He takes her body from the morgue and carries her to the bridge to her old workstation so that she can see Earth once more. Captain Okita, in his cabin, sends Sado-sensei away and looks at Earth one last time before looking at a picture of himself, Mamoru, and a woman before he dies. Back on the bridge, Susumu is carrying Yuki's body away to be alone with her when she suddenly comes to life, not sure how she got there but happy Susumu is alive. The crew celebrates her miraculous recovery and Earth is returned to what it once was.

Thoughts/Review: Whoa! Yuki dies? I completely didn't see that coming at all. Oh wait, we have a magical, mysterious recovery, much like what happens to the ship whenever it gets beaten to heck. Happy, happy, joy, joy, eh? Good thing too. Susumu carrying around Yuki's body had definite creep factor in it if she'd actually been dead. So, can we add "death defeater" to her resume? I'm telling you, Yuki should be captain, not Susumu.

I did see Captain Okita dying though since he'd been ill for so long and his passing did affect me a little. However, if Yuki can come back, why not Okita? I guess he had to die since they'd been hinting at him dying for so long. Unfortunately, only Sado-sensei appeared to mourn for him. I found that rather unfortunate.

I didn't expect to see Desler return either when he appeared to have died. When the crew of Yamato were acting all relaxed, I wondered if we might see some left over Gamilus force attack but not like what happened. However, if Susumu's brother can survive, why not Desler, eh? Still, I guess that since this was the final episode, the writers couldn't have Desler attack Yamato anywhere along the 122-day journey back to Earth from Iscandar. Just because Sanada's deus ex machina "oh, I've been secretly working on some new reflective armor for Yamato" appeared to have killed Desler this time doesn't mean he's dead. Part of me thinks he'll show up again to be a pain in the butt for Space Battleship Yamato 2 (which I will now start watching).

I would have liked to have seen Yamato actually land on Earth, the the machinery set up, and shown life returning to normal for the humans (rebuilding on the surface, rebuilding a military, etc.), even if only during the credits. Instead, we just see Earth from space turn from wasteland to normal. Oh well.

I'll write some final thoughts later but for now, I have to say that I enjoyed this old school romp for the most part.

Clannad After Story 01

クラナド アフターストーリー Episode 01

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: With Tomoya officially a couple with Nagisa, Akio-san decides that the boy dating his daughter needs to do him a favor and that involves getting a baseball team together for the sake of their town to take out a rival shopping district's team. Nagisa and Tomoya recruit Youhei, Kotomi (who's very excited to play after having watched the previous baseball game Tomoya was involved in), and Kyou from the Theater Club. Ryou decides she will cheer since she's not good at sports. Youhei and Tomoya pay a visit to Tomoyo, who agrees to play only if Misae-san (the house mother of the dorm Youhei lives in) plays. Misae is soon recruited as is neighborhood electrician (and former rock star) Yuusuke as well as Youhei's little sister, Mei-chan.

Once the team is formed, they meet that Sunday to play the rival shopping district team, who all have uniforms while Akio-san's team does not. Akio-san's pitching proves masterful and soon his team is up to bat. They soon get a surprising 4-0 lead with some of the players doing quite well and some lucking out. However, things change when Akio-san is taken out by a bat that accidentally slips out of the hand of a player from the other team. Nagisa is pulled from cheering with her mother, Ryou, and Kouko (Yuusuke's wife and Fuko-chan's sister) to be a pitcher, not because she's good, but because she's so bad, she'll be hard to hit. It works for the most part but the other team eventually takes the lead in part because of Youhei's mistakes.

It is down to the last inning and Nagisa gets a hit. Soon the bases are loaded and it is Tomoya's turn to be at bat. Because of his shoulder injury, Tomoya hasn't taken full swings. Akio-san knows that Tomoya is just going to have to take a swing anyway. Tomoya does and Akio-san's team wins. To celebrate, everyone comes by Akio-san's place where Sanae-san makes a big feast.

Thoughts/Review: I don't know why the Japanese are doing this dual-release but there has to be some sort of financial thing involved in initially airing an anime in 4:3 pan-and-scan (actually, it may not even be much pan-and-scan as some shots are clearly just cut off with no attempts to scan at all) and then re-airing it a few weeks later in wide screen.

In the OP sequence, I noticed there was no obvious Fuko. I think she's in there in one brief scene with her back to us but she is not mentioned. Granted, her storyline was mostly resolved in Clannad but I hope her absence in the OP doesn't mean that we won't get a few more humorous appearances by her character.

Speaking of Fuko, I was surprised to see her sister and brother-in-law appear in this episode. Not only that, but they had parts to play with Yuusuke having a funny moment trying to give some cliched speech after his first hit but forgetting to call time first. Yuusuke's seiyuu is MIDORIKAWA Hikaru, who's also the voice of Zelgadiss in Slayers. I mention this because with Slayers REVOLUTION having recently ended, it amused me to hear Zelgadiss's voice in another character. ^_^

The story itself would be called filler since it did nothing to advance a plot. There was that bit at the end with Tomoya somehow seeming to be tied with the "Garbage Doll" in the other world. However, I didn't mind that there was no plot. I love the characters from Clannad and as such, I loved seeing them playing baseball, even if this kind of episode has been done many times before in other anime series. I laughed out loud when Kotomi got up to bat and had a complete analysis of the game and hitting in her mind. I laughed when Youhei got beaten by Tomoyo and when Tomoyo decided she wanted to try to hit the baseball like a girl. There were many funny moments in this episode but overall, things were just a heck of a lot of fun. That's good because I have seen some bits and pieces about where the game takes the story and if the anime writers follow that (which they will), I'm sure we'll be grateful for these fun moments now when the tears come later. ^_^;;;

I mention the so-called Garbage Doll (or robot but I guess the official designation is "doll") earlier and that leads me to state that I hope the whole weird sub-story from Clannad about the girl and GD is actually explained this time. We had a lot of hints from Clannad and those need to be fleshed out into at least some answers.

There is one really unique thing about Clannad After Story -- Tomoya and Nagisa being a couple. Clannad followed the steps of Air and Kanon in setting a harem table with the male lead to chose one of the girls. Now that this choice has been made, I rather enjoy seeing Nagisa and Tomoya as a couple (and hope to see a lot more of that). I also like how the other girls who'd been interested in Tomoya are still there and friends with both Tomoya and Nagisa. I find that refreshing and very enjoyable.

So, a really good start to this new series of Clannad.

Oh, I may or may not upgrade the images when the wide screen version is released. Depends on how I feel. ^_~

Negima! Manga Vol 25 (Ch 228) *SPOILERS*

魔法先生 ネギま！Volume 25 Chapter 228 (manga)
Mahou Sensei Negima! Manga Chapter 228

Summary/Synopsis: After Nodoka asks Fate his name, Kotaro teleports her out and Fate follows. Nodoka and Kotaro emerge from a alleyway wall, Kotaro figuring that the 17 teleports he did should keep Fate from following. Nodoka's ring reveals Fate's real name as "Tertium" (Latin for "Third"). At that moment, Fate arrives to petrify Nodoka but Kotaro steps in and his right side gets petrified (Kakon Omma Petroseos). The book begins to reveal Fate's mind, including his desire to still be called "Fate" as he doesn't like the name "Tertium." Fate is about to cast an eternal petrification spell (Aionion Petrosis). Negi blasts in to save Nodoka which impresses Fate since Negi was able to track them without teleportation magic.

Fate is asking if they should continue their fight when Asuna arrives, yelling Negi's name and attacking. Asuna tells Negi that the people in the plaza are safe as Rakan arrives with Konoka and Chamo in a rain of giant blades. With Rakan, Negi, Asuna, and Konoka (the princesses of the old and new worlds) there, Fate decides it is time to retreat as things are not favorable to him.

Elsewhere, Setsuna is amazed at how powerful Tsukuyomi truly is. Tsukuyomi uses a charm (jufu) to summon "Super Kapa-kun," a kappa and S-rank sprite. The kappa immediately strips Setsuna down to her undergarments and that allows Tsukuyomi to pin Setsuna down, defeating her (something very few others could do). Tsukuyomi decides it is time to have fun with Setsuna and cuts the wrappings on Setsuna's breasts. Before Tsukuyomi can do anything else, one of Setsuna's artifact blades nearly gets Tsukuyomi, stabbing her scarf instead. With Tsukuyomi off Setsuna, the later gets up but before the fight can continue, Fate telepathically tells Tsukuyomi that they are retreating which disappoints her but she has enough fantasy materials to get by for now. Tsukuyomi tells Setsuna that Setsuna can't defeat her as she is now. Should Setsuna not improve, Tsukuyomi promises to take every last bit of Setsuna.

Back with Negi, Fate teleports away before Rakan can spear him with a giant blade. Konoka heals Kotaro from his petrification and Negi thanks Nodoka for saving his life. Their moment is interrupted by a healed Kotaro. Nodoka notes her petrified artifact still has the information on the open page still there. Rakan remarks that he recognizes Fate from the past and that he's more dangerous that Rakan first thought. If Fate gets serious, they may not have much time so they need to finish "that." Negi wants more information but Jack's price is too high. Besides, Rakan doesn't want to dwell on the past.

Since the crowds are recognizing the fugitives, it is time to scatter and leave. As Negi flees, he passes Yue, who's coming in to investigate the disturbance.

Thoughts/Review: I recall how Eva has commented on Negi being too much of a thinker in fights. Fate has his own weakness -- he wants to plan everything and run plans (including all fights that may ensue) accordingly. Every time Fate encounters things he doesn't expect, he retreats. He did it this time but he also did it when Eva showed that she wouldn't be killed by Fate's normal methods (the "Stone Spike" spell) and likely wouldn't die from any other easy method, meaning he might lose. Fate likes to be in complete control and since Rakan broke his trap, Negi re-energized, and the powerful Asuna and Konoka (Konoka's powers may be healing-based, but Akamatsu-sensei has said for a long time that she has a staggering amount of power, which could be a threat to Fate in ways we haven't seen yet) being there, Fate bails. I find this style of action on Fate's part to be very logical and computer-like. ^_~

Speaking of that, Fate's name is Tertium which as I said means "third." This continues to support my theory that Fate is a computer construct along the lines of A.I. Love You. As I've said, the Zero program there (called "Spider-Zero" after the program was modified to be a villian) looks exactly like Fate. For Fate's real name to be the number three, that suggests that Fate could be the 3rd-generation of the original Zero program. That too would fall into the program-naming scheme in A.I. Love You where each program generation was given a new number (the three programs living with Hitori's true names were "Twenty," "Thirty," and "Forty" as each new program was better than the previous one).

Since Rakan knew Fate in the past, I think that Fate may well have been the one who killed Gateau, caused Al to go into exile (apparently to recover since he's trapped under the library), and Nagi to disappear. If my theory on Negi actually being Nagi turns out to be correct, this will give Negi's rivalry with Fate have more meaning.

Remember when Setsuna was introduced in volume 4? When she thought Negi was an intruder, she attacked him and didn't worry about being naked. Now, her being stripped caused her to be defeated. With Tsukuyomi quite possibly wanting to rape Setsuna (being a shounen manga, Akamatsu-sensei won't expressly state that but I think this was the intent), Setsuna is going to have to do something. I couldn't help but think back to Setsuna's fight with Eva in the Mahora Festival arc where Eva planned on making Setsuna choose between her sword and happiness. Setsuna wanted both and until now, has been successful but she now has an Achilles' heel revealed; it will be interesting to see how she handles this.

Nodoka's petrified artifact is no big deal. Somehow they'll need to keep the information displayed there but I figure that since Negi has the main card, Chamo can easily create another copy card for Nodoka, restoring her artifact. Also, it is possible that Nodoka can simply return her artifact to card form and then her artifact will be fine when re-summoned. After all, Setsuna has had artifact blades destroyed and that hasn't been a problem.

Asuna. I gather the Japanese are a twitter with theories about whether she's a clone or other type of fake. She might even have been programmed. My own thoughts are that this is the real Asuna with an explanation on her escape from Homua and Shiori coming later. Hata suggests that maybe the trap Homua and Shiori set undid the medicine that Rakan gave Asuna when her memories were flooding back. I actually find that to be a good theory and the most likely one but anything could happen.

OK, Negima! chapter 229 comes out next week. So no spoiler images until then and of course for us English speaking people, no chapter or translation for about two weeks.

Lupin III Seven Days Rhapsody (TV Special)

ルパン三世 セブンデイズ・ラプソディ (TV Special)
Rupan Sansei Seven Days Rhapsody

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Zenigata is waiting at a New York horse racing track for an expected robbery by Lupin. No robbery occurs but a number of jockeys end up falling unconscious off their horses, resulting in an extreme long shot horse winning. Jigen has the ticket on that horse and having bet $100,000, he cleans house. Jigen drives away alone, which is observed by Zenigata. As such, Zenigata goes to the jockey locker room to confront a jockey there. It is Lupin but before Lupin can take off his mask, Zenigata summons the bomb disposal team, who take care of the booby trapped mask.

Now to be outdone, Lupin summons his horse Washington and away he goes. Lupin promises the stallion some Texas fillies if the horse can pour on the speed. Washington does more than that, managing to clear a path through police cars. Zenigata is in pursuit, but at the Brooklyn Bridge, Lupin leaps off into a waiting boat driven by Jigen and they are off. One of the NYPD reports that more helicopters are in route as one passes over head. Zenigata tells the officers it is too late and sure enough, the helicopter explodes, letting Lupin and Jigen get away.

Making it to the cheap hotel Lupin has reserved, Jigen and Lupin are going to celebrate with some bourbon but unfortunately, the room's fridge is out of order so Lupin has no ice. While Jigen prefers his bourbon neat, he goes with Lupin to a nearby convenience store to pick up some ice. On the way there, Jigen hears a shotgun shell and parts company with Lupin, telling his partner that he has something to take care of. Lupin gets to the store to find a final bag of Down South Ice. Before he can make the purchase, a couple of robbers try to hold the place up, only to be thwarted by the store owner. This results in the sacrifice of Lupin's ice.

Outside the store, a 16-year old blonde girl hides behind Lupin and asks for his help as three well-dressed thugs approach to take the girl. They advise Lupin to stay out of it, but he's pissed about losing his bag of ice and instead rescues the girl. Making it to the Waldorf Astoria, the girl presents a Black Card to the desk clerk, who immediately secures her an $8000/night suite. Michelle is not impressed with the suite, but Lupin thinks it is pretty spiffy. The girl, Michelle, wants to hire Lupin for a job to stop her father from doing something, having determined his identity from his gun and his plans to take down another horse race (which fell out of his pocket). Lupin ends up accepting since the job will be done before Saturday.

Meanwhile, Jigen's departure from Lupin was due to him recognizing the sounds from his old mercenary comrade, Riat. Jigen holds Riat responsible for allowing the adult daughter of a South African ruler (Jenny) killed before she could be evacuated from the war-torn country. Jigen was Jenny's bodyguard and the two appear to have been romantically involved. Riat wants to put the past behind them and when Jigen declines to shoot the man, Riat has a job offer to help with things. Since the job will be done before Saturday, he accepts and calls Lupin to let him know.

Lupin pays Fujiko a visit at Madison Square Garden, where a gem expose is going on. With Goemon in her employ, Fujiko is posing as a diamond buyer working with a man named Danon. However, she's really interested in stealing the huge diamond called the Goddess Tear Drop. After getting the details from Goemon, Lupin convinces Goemon to come with him back to the Waldorf Astoria. Unfortunately, the three thugs who'd tried to snag Michelle earlier are back and have her again. The leader, named Fire for his incendiary devices, escapes with Michelle after tossing several incendiary spheres.

As Fire leads his men and Michelle to the roof to take a helicopter, Goemon slices the chopper in half, ending that route of escape. With Lupin using a fire extinguisher to put out Fire's toys, it seems that there is a stalemate until Fire produces a remote control which allows him and the others to escape on a crane. Not to be outdone, Lupin and Goemon take a window washers platform on a rapid decent down the side of the building. As they go down, Zenigata pursues them in another helicopter but ends up crashing it into another building's roof. Lupin finds a "helpful" patron at a nearby bar, where he learns that Fire and company have gone to Thailand with Michelle.

Lupin and Goemon take a flight to Thailand where Goemon notes a Buddhist priest and a beggar aren't what they appear to be. Sure enough, the two men give chase after Goemon and Lupin board a 3-wheeled taxi. With RPG's and bullets flying all around, Goemon receives a call from an angry Fujiko, who demands he return to New York immediate as he's working for her, not Lupin. Goemon literally cuts himself free, the taxi wrecks, and Lupin is taken captive. Lupin meets Fire's boss (Michelle's father) who has Lupin tossed into a cell. Lupin escapes and learns that the group plans on grabbing the Goddess Tear Drop, which is what Fujiko wants.

Michelle's father ends up hiring Riat to deal with Lupin but expresses concern that Riat has Jigen working for him. Riat figures that since Lupin and Jigen are so hard to kill, it is best to fight fire with fire. The following day, Lupin takes a helicopter to scout out Michelle's father's estate (which is seen by Zenigata) where he discovers that Jigen is working for the other side, complicating things. Riat introduces Jigen to Michelle's father and over dinner, Jigen reluctantly signs a contract to work for the man despite knowing he'll be going up against Lupin.

Lupin manages to infiltrate the estate (which is more like a compound) just as Michelle's father demonstrates to Riat and Jigen the weapon they are developing -- Nitro Diamond Weapons (NDW). As such, Lupin gets to witness up close how powerful these NDW's are. Taking compressed nitroglycerin and packing it within cultured diamonds, they have the means to have powerful explosives. The plan is to switch the Goddess Tear Drop (which the President of the United States has purchased) with an NDW copy that could destroy the White House.

Lupin makes it to Michelle's room where they escape. Michelle's father learns of the escape and has his people sent out to catch them, including Riat and Jigen. Jigen is forced to shoot Lupin, who returns the favor but instead ends up shooting down all of Lupin's bullets. Lupin manages to escape with Michelle and take the helicopter to Wat Yai Chai Mongkol, which Zenigata discovers at the airport control tower. Michelle knows that her father has a factory here. Lupin determines there are underground buildings, which means they have to find the entrance.

Riat and Jigen head to Wat Yai Chai Mongkol where Jigen is not happy to have been set up. He tells Riat that he'll kill Lupin as his contract demands, but that Riat won't live either. Meanwhile, Lupin has found a way inside the plant where they discover that the facility is making land mines in addition to NDW's. Lupin steals the faux Goddess Tear Drop and attempts to make his escape with Michelle. Unfortunately, Zenigata takes that moment to show up to arrest Lupin, allowing Riat to capture Michelle again. Jigen shows up to kill Lupin, which stuns Zenigata. As the two engage in a firefight, Riat decides that Jigen needs to die as well and tosses some NDW's down, causing the plant to explode.

Riat reports to Michelle's father that he's taken care of Jigen and Lupin. However, he has another surprise for the man. Riat has Michelle held prisoner with an NDW around her neck. Riat wants the NDW data so that he can get rich and not have to take these kinds of jobs any more. Michelle's father attacks Riat and in the struggle, Riat shoots the man with his shotgun. Michelle's father blows the computer with the NDW data to thwart Riat's plans.

Back at the remains of the plant, Lupin & Jigen bring an unconscious Zenigata out of a metal box. Lupin remarks on their close call with death, leading Jigen to reply that maybe they did die. Lupin sees the bullet hole in Jigen's hat and realizes that this is Jigen's way of saying that the contract is now void, meaning the two are partners again. Meanwhile, Riat, Fire, and fellow thugs return to New York where they are met by "Front Man" (an unnamed company executive). Figuring Michelle's father for dead, Front Man gives Riat an opportunity to take over the company (called Mix) but Riat declines, meaning Front Man will take over.

Danon contacts Fujiko and makes a deal with her to split the profits on the theft of the real Goddess Tear Drop. They go over the plan when Goemon receives a text message on his cell phone and leaves. He meets up with Lupin and Jigen and requests Lupin not text him using female names and with that, Lupin puts his plan into action. That night, Goemon and Fujiko make it into Madison Square Garden and put all the guards to sleep. Goemon is cleaning up the gems while Fujiko attempts to snare the Goddess Tear Drop. However Danon has double-crossed her and as such, the NYPD arrive on scene forcing Fujiko and Goemon to retreat, thereby allowing Danon to take the Goddess Tear Drop and swap it with a fake.

Fujiko has lost not only the Goddess Tear Drop, but the other gems as well while Lupin has managed to score the real Goddess Tear Drop thanks to some clever pre-swapping of his own. Lupin is in a parachute enjoying his prize when Zenigata jumps out of a police helicopter to catch Lupin. This causes Lupin to lose the diamond and the only way to ditch Zenigata is to lose his pants, so Lupin takes off his belt and ditches his slacks. In doing so, Lupin gives up his plans for Saturday as well.

Outside of Mix's HQ, Fire and his boys see Jigen and decide to greet him properly. However, an angry Fujiko arrives on the scene and turns one of Fire's devices back on him. Goemon arrives to finish taking them out. Lupin arrives, meaning the gang is all here to take care of everything at once (including Danon, who works for Mix). They confront Danon and Riat, who then produce Michelle as a bargaining chip. Since Lupin and company's way out is blocked, Danon and Riat move into a special bomb shelter, but with some fancy gunplay aided by Goemon's sword skills, Lupin and Jigen remove the NDW from Michelle's neck and Fujiko gets her to safety before it explodes.

Via closed circuit camera, Lupin tells Danon and Riat that he has the real Goddess Tear Drop, meaning that what they think is the Goddess Tear Drop is actually an NDW, which then goes off. Michelle and Fujiko embrace Lupin but Fujiko gets upset when he learns that Lupin lost the real diamond. Fujiko is going to take Michelle on her bike. Michelle is sad to leave Lupin and since he has no computer or other such technology, she won't be able to contact him. She vows that in 10-years he'll regret it and that at the end of that time, she'll offer herself to him. Fujiko takes off with Michelle as Goemon realizes that Michelle's Black Card is in serious danger.

Come Sunday, Lupin's plans to score at the track are foiled by a hurricane. As he stands in the rain, Zenigata comes up and slaps three sets of cuffs on him. Zenigata expresses concern for Lupin's welfare, inviting him to eat some katsudon with Zenigata inside a warm interrogation room. Lupin naturally declines and flees with Zenigata in pursuit. From the stans, Goemon and Jigen observe the "race" for a bit before taking off, leaving Lupin to deal with Zenigata alone.

Thoughts/Review: Hmmmm...I really do need to be less wordy on my summaries, eh? ^_^;;;

Regardless, this 2006 TV special is mostly pretty good to me. The beginning gets off to a really good start because it is quite funny. I loved how Zenigata was prepared for Lupin's exploding mask by having the bomb disposal box already prepared. I laughed out loud when Lupin offered the stallion Washington a sex bribe to run faster. Goemon producing a cell phone was another good laugh because it is so unlike Goemon, as was him telling Fujiko that he couldn't take down a helicopter at one point (despite taking his normal pose to do so). The scene with the botched robbery is funny as is Lupin's little puppet show for Jigen. Basically, there is a lot of fun in the first half of the special.

Things slow down a lot when the writers start working on the three plot threads to their ultimate merger. It is not that the serious aspects to the story are bad, in fact the premise of Jigen and Lupin being enemies is quite interesting. Unfortunately, it just doesn't play out that well in this anime. Why? I never really believed they were serious opponents. Luis A. Cruz from the Lupin III Encyclopedia mentioned that he would have liked to have seen this scenario played out over several episodes in a TV series. I'm not so sure that would have worked but that may be what the doctor ordered. Still, I give the writers credit for daring to make Jigen and Lupin opponents at all.

After all the plot threads merge and the anime is winding down, the fun returns with Zenigata rubbing his stubbled face on Lupin, Jigen questioning where Lupin's pants are, and of course the final Lupin-Zenigata encounter. I actually wish the fun would have stayed throughout the anime rather than the fun being dropped for a while for serious plot.

The character design for Michelle really struck me as being very similar to Armitage from Armitage III. If you've never seen that OVA, it won't bother you but it kept distracting me at times.

Overall, were this to be licensed by FUNimation, I would go ahead and buy it. While the story turning serious did make things seem to go slower, the fact that the writers tried to do new things combines with all the fun in the first half of the anime and the very end of the anime make up for that.

Keroro Gunsou 72

ケロロ軍曹 Episode 72
Sgt. Frog anime, 72
Keroro Gunsou episode 72

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: Famous alien chefs Minemine and Gumogumo challenge Keroro to a cooking competition. If they win, they get the Keron base. If they lose, they will give him a brand new (counter top) dish washer known as Super Clean. Keroro accepts and summons Natsumi, Fuyuki, Koyuki, and the platoon to assist him, their efforts to be judged by the Space Taste King. Bringing down some ingredients, Natsumi is tasked with making the first dish, but when Giroro uses a grenade rather than a knife on the meat, most of the ingredients are lost. Natsumi loses. Keroro goes through his entire crew but everyone loses. Aki-san arrives to participate and makes a leftover stew, but that loses too. However, because the alien chefs see how Aki-san got everyone to work together, they don't take the base and give them the dishwasher, which actually has a multi-tongued alien inside to do the work.

As Tamama and Dororo look for a specific insect, tons of beetles start showing up at the Hinata home, which freaks Fuyuki out. Some super beetles show up to challenge Tamama, having known him from his battle with the insect at Grandma Hinata's place. Tamama senses the bugs, so he and Dororo return to the Hinata home. Tamama has a battle with the lead bug and while he loses, he's happy and the insects promise to return to challenge their rival again.

Thoughts/Review: The first story's parody of cooking competitions was fun, but very predictable. I even had a feeling that Aki-san's dish at the end would fail and it did. That said, the Japanese concept of a dish washer always seems to be a counter top model. I'm not even sure the Japanese would know what to do with an American-styled dishwasher.

Sadly, the second story didn't do anything for me. I remember the original story of Tamama fighting the big insect, but this was just too much for me. It was really like an exercise in killing time without doing anything (including having any humor).

Space Battleship Yamato 25

Uchuu Senkan Yamato Episode 25
宇宙戦艦ヤマト Ep. 25 (TV, Anime)

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: A fully repaired Yamato is contacted by Starsha and given instructions to land on the ocean outside of Mother Town. They do so and Starsha is there to greet them. Because they are so behind schedule, the parts for the Cosmo Cleaner-D are immediately loaded into Yamato's cargo hold for assembly on route back to Earth. Starsha meets Yuki and immediately thinks it is her younger sister Sarsha and is shocked to learn of Sarsha's death on Mars.

The crew is stunned to learn that Starsha is the only one of her people alive on Iscandar as it is a dying planet. She does have one other guest though, a human whom she asks the Yamato crew to take back to Earth. It is Captain Mamoru Kodai, who has a happy reunion with his brother Susumu. Yuki notices that Starsha is sad about this and determines that Starsha is in love with Mamoru. Yuki invites Starsha to come with them, but she declines as she cannot leave Iscandar, which still has quite a bit of time left until it dies completely.

A dozen or so members of the crew decide that since they may not get back to Earth in time, they want to stay on Iscandar. They kidnap Yuki and take off for Diamond Island. Starsha is not happy that humans are on the island, especially since the island will sink into the ocean due to sismic instability. Acting Captain Susumu contacts the group and orders them back. They don't believe the island story and when they reveal that they have Yuki in order to produce offspring, Susumu is not happy. An earthquake changes their mind and while Susumu has Yamato launch rescue craft, only Yuki is saved as the others are killed.

After making apologies to Starsha, the crew makes ready to depart. Starsha tells Mamoru she loves him and runs away. He chases her and catches her, deciding to stay with her on Iscandar, which Susumu understands. Starsha and Mamoru will be the new Adam and Eve of that planet. Launching the Yamato, the ship takes off for the return trip to Earth.

Thoughts/Review: I see the magical ship repairs happened. The guys at Central Anime say that from what Sanada said, it is 18-days after the battle on Gamilus. How it took 18-days to get to a planet that was right there is a mystery but then again if that's how all the gun turrets, the third bridge, and everything else, I guess it makes sense.

I didn't expect Starsha to be the only person left alive on Iscandar. I get the feeling she can live a long time but her wanting to stay on her planet didn't make a lot of sense to me beyond a certain sentimental aspect. Still, how could she not know her sister had died? That doesn't make any sense to me.

When I saw Susumu's brother, I wasn't surprised that he was somehow alive. After all in episode 6, that Yukikaze is shown to have not been completely destroyed, but crashed onto Titan (from Pluto mind you). Further, Susumu found Mamoru's gun on Titan which strongly suggested that Mamoru would be alive. Plus, Starsha needed a man to keep her company, y'all.

If Iscandar will be around for a few thousand more years before it dies completely, I didn't see the harm in the dozen or so crew wanting to remain behind. Taking Yuki to be their person baby factory was a bit of a problem though. I looked at this as the writers' way of acknowledging, "We know there's only one woman on board ship and under normal circumstances, there'd be a line outside her door around the clock." *_*

One more episode to make everything right.

Hayate the Combat Butler Manga Volume 7

Hayate the Combat Butler, Volume 7
ハヤテのごとく！Manga Volume 7
Hayate no Gotoku Manga Volume 7

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis: After Hayate recovers from the poisoning in the dungeon, a power failure that evening at the mansion has Hayate going across the snowy grounds when a blizzard comes up. Turns out the source of the blizzard is Sakuya with a giant snow-making machine but the a real blizzard comes up forcing the two to seek shelter at the mansion's power station with its own onsen. Hayate manages to get power back on to the mansion but offends Sakuya in the process.

It is Valentine's Day and after consulting with Wataru, Ayumu decides to get two chocolates for Hayate -- a love chocolate and an obligation chocolate. She takes them to Hakuou Gakuin where she's caught by security. Hina, who was out to buy some milk, uses her Student Council President job to get Ayumu in. She learns of Ayumu's desire to give Hayate a chocolate and so arranges for Hayate to receive it. When she realizes that Ayumu only gave Hayate the obligation chocolate, she has Hayate go after Ayumu, where Ayumu gives Hayate the romantic chocolate, leaving him stunned. She takes the obligation chocolate and gives it to Hina as thanks, leading Miki to tease Hina on being so kindhearted, which is why she gets so many chocolates.

Back at the mansion, Nagi fails at making chocolate, so she orders Hayate to make one. Maria makes one as well but when she sees Hayate's elaborate chocolate, she has to outdo him. In the end, Hayate gives a simple chocolate to Nagi, which embarrasses Maria. He gives Maria one as well.

With that holiday over, Nagi is fretting over not winning manga contests and decides she needs more life experiences. As such, she decides to become a maid and help Maria with not so great results.

At Hakuou Gakuin, Katsura-sensei is distressed to learn that robot creator Shiori (who's being punished) is assigned to be her co-teacher. So she hatches a scheme to get Shiori in a compromising situation with Hayate. She scores a digital photo of Hayate on top of Shiori (Katsura-sensei having pushed Hayate into Shiori) but is still losing to Shiori. Hayate learns that Miki, Risa, and Izumi are class officers with Izumi being Class President. Risa and Miki abandon Izumi when it comes to working the class report, but Hayate agrees to help. Katsura-sensei still has the picture of Hayate and is threatening him with it. Izumi takes Hayate's side and because she's wearing bicycle shorts under her skirt, Hayate is able to use his deadly technique (a whirlwind attack) destroy the camera's memory card.

Isumi is lost but feeling confident because she has a cell phone. She can't figure out how to use it and thinks it is broken, leading Sakuya to whack her with a harisen. A carp patron spirit approaches to plead with Isumi to get rid of a youkai who's threatening the area. Isumi figures it is a carp herpes youkai and she's right. Isumi gets Sakuya to act as a diversion and she ends up getting trapped and has to be rescued by Hayate. Isumi then easily destroys the youkai with a touch, leading Sakuya to realize that Isumi was getting her back for the harisen whack earlier.

Ayumu's little brother Kazuki has fallen in love with Nagi and so when they meet again on the street, they end up having an impromptu date (Kazuki having even confessed to Nagi). Nagi gets concerned that Hayate might get jealous if he sees her cheating on him. For his part, Hayate ends up observing things from a distance to make sure Nagi is OK, even saving her from falling into a lake when she and Kazuki are taking a boat ride. However, Hayate's attitude about the whole thing leads Nagi to believe that Hayate hasn't been seeing her as a woman. Nagi first consults with Sakuya before consulting with Maria, who can't tell Nagi that Hayate has no romantic feelings for her. Through a miscommunication, Hayate ends up entering the bathroom where Nagi is bathing and sees her nude. Nagi wants him to stick around and with a blindfold on, Hayate dries Nagi's hair, leading her to kiss him on the cheek.

Thoughts/Review: Until volume 7, the only problem I've had with Viz's adaptation of Hayate the Combat Butler is the lack of translator notes. Viz has done an excellent job translation-wise (as best as I can tell) and have provided an otaku-friendly adaptation, using all of the Japanese honorifics and even titles that many English-speaking otaku fans might not be aware of. I'm all for that and I praise Viz for that and chastise them for the lack of translator notes. The list of negatives goes up one with this volume however.

Take a look at this image and without regard to the story, tell me what the smeg this is. I'll give you a clue -- it is a dessert.

Now, take a look at the same image from the Japanese tankoubon.


When Hata-sensei drew the image, he had the Japanese text be transparent so that the artwork would still come through. This desert looks like an extravagant cake. That is NOT apparent at all in the Viz version.

To date, I have not said anything about Viz's removal of 99.9% of Japanese text in favor of English text, to include sound effects. Companies like TokyoPop and Del Rey cut costs and leave the Japanese text in most of the time with little translations to let us know what the sound effect (or sign or whatever) is. Viz spends extra money in removing that same text and placing English in its stead. Until now, that really hasn't been a problem but in this case, removing the Japanese text in favor of English text completely kills the original art and the joke behind it (Maria's outdoing Hayate's chocolate). That's just bad, bad, BAD policy, Viz. If you cannot preserve the original art when replacing Japanese text with English text, then don't bother replacing the Japanese text! It isn't going to kill us to see some Japanese text with a little translation somewhere. After all, we see it in a lot of other manga titles.

While the lack of translator notes has been annoying, killing the artwork is downright enough to make me a bit angry. I really hope that Viz will not do such a thing ever again!

On the other side of the coin, I do have some praise for Viz. With this volume, they introduced the term "youkai" to the vernacular, which is a term that hardcore Inuyasha fans (and those who've watched FUNimation's Yu Yu Hakusho w/ subtitles) will be well versed with. The story provides the Japanese idea on how youkai are formed and Viz even left the term "oni" untranslated. Very cool indeed.

As to the manga itself, I can see were the anime really stretched many of these stories. No wonder at times the anime seemed tedious to me by the midpoint. A lot of filler was injected into 1-chapter stories to make them fill a 30-minute block.

I liked the introduction of Kazuki as someone with a love interest in Nagi. The fact that he's Ayumu's little brother makes it all the more interesting to me and since he was not in the anime, it will be fun seeing where Hata-sensei takes that story. I find it humorous that both he and Ayumu are friends with Wataru, Nagi's official fiance.

No character profiles this week as Hata-sensei decided to publish some 4-koma strips that were used to advertise Hayate promotional giveaways.

So while I'm not happy with how Viz destroyed artwork just to have big English letters replace the transparent Japanese text, I am happy with the manga overall.

FUNimation Forum Problems Resolved (Mostly)

Admin just informed me that the FUNimation Forums are back up and running. I have gone out there and the problems people reported to me regarding replying to messages has indeed been fixed.

On the down side, it looks like as much as 2-weeks of posts may be gone. I've let Admin know about this and he's looking into it. The IT team tried to keep data loss to a minimum during Wednesday's work that was done to the forum and thought they'd been successful. I don't know if those messages can be recovered or not but either way, the forum is open again for those who wish to post. Should there be any more news, I'll let you know.

-ANB
FUNimation Forums, User Manager

Back to the Vaults 04 -- Vandread

Not too long ago, there was a bit of a buzz in the anime fandom about a scanned page from a Japanese magazine talking about Vandread 2 (not to be confused with Vandread: Second Stage). Apparently this was a planned 3rd series in the franchise but sadly it never got off the ground. However, it did get me to thinking that it has been way too long since I last watched by Vandread DVD's, so I dusted off the four DVD's that made up the first series and away I went.

I remember when I was first introduced to Vandread a few years ago. At the time, I had no anime backlog and thus was looking for stuff to watch, whether new on the market or not. Some people suggested to me that I really should give this Vandread anime a watch. I wasn't looking for a mecha title but after I started renting the series, I quickly discovered that I really enjoyed this fun anime and purchased it and its sequel before having watched the entire anime, something I very rarely do.

For those who don't know, the premise of the story is that there there are two human colony planets named Mejere and Taraak. Women live on Mejere and Men live on Taraak. The two sides are at war (a literal battle of the sexes) with Taraak having taken the old Earth colony ship Ikazuchi and having constructed a new, larger section to attach to it, turning the Ikazuchi into a battleship. The launch of this new warship is made into a huge even on Taraak, but festivities are spoiled when 3rd-class citizen Hibiki is caught trying to steal one of the new mecha "Vanguard" weapons (having been goaded into doing so) that is marked with the character "hi."

With Hibiki in the brig and guarded by an old NAVI Robot unit, the Ikazuchi comes under attack from a Mejere pirate ship. Since the Ikazuchi is full of trainees, it is clear the battleship will be lost after the original section of the ship is boarded by the female pirates. The general in charge orders that section jettisoned and attempts to destroy it (at which point Hibiki escapes prison with the NAVI Robot). In doing so, the power core of the Ikazuchi, known as the Paksis Pragma, reacts and as the mega warheads explode, rather than destroy the pirate ship and the original part of the Ikazuchi, the ships and their crews are sent to another part of the galaxy, where it will take nearly a year to return home.

The Praksis Pragma causes some unusual effects. It leaks a crystalline substance that causes the Ikazuchi and the pirate ship to merge into a single ship. Not only that, but the pirate ship has some of its configurations changed due to the substance. Three of the pirate Dread fighters that were in the Ikazuchi when the Praksis Pragma "erupted" are also modified, increasing their size so that they no longer fit into the fighter bays. Also, the Vanguard unit that Hibiki had attempted to steal is also made larger and changes somewhat in appearance.

With three men as the female pirates prisoners (Hibiki, navigator Bart, and ship's doctor Duelo), the pirates not only have to figure out what to do with them, but also what to do about this newly-formed ship. The issue of the men and women being forced to work together comes to a head when an unknown enemy of robotic fighting machines attacks. With the new ship's weapons non-functional and the crew being unable to move it, the pirate leader (called "Okashira" in the Japanese) has the fast-talking Bart move into the pilot pod, which is how they are able to move. Duelo gives the pirates a much-needed doctor (they only had a young nurse before), so he has a job and for the attack, Hibiki is allowed to use the modified Vanguard unit to fight.

The battles with this enemy (which gets named the "Harvesters" when the crew learns they've been sent from a mysterious planet and are intent on harvesting humans for their various body parts) soon reveal that Hibiki's Vanguard unit can "combine" with the three modified Dread units to form a new "Vandread" unit of increased power. Each Vandread unit has a different specialty and can be used for different situations.

The pilots for the three modified Dread units (Dita, the Dread fighter leader Meia, and Jura) form the central female characters to Hibiki's being the central male character. In addition the female pirate crew consists of characters like the elderly pirate leader Magno Vivan, her vice-captain "BC," the woman in charge of the Registry (weapons) Gascogne, and the ship's chief engineer Parfet. The other characters of note are Barnette, who appears to be Jura's special someone as well as being one of the Dread squad leaders and Ezra, who is part of the bridge crew and who is in the first trimester of pregnancy which is learned after the ship begins the return trip home.

Through the course of the series, the ship (which is given the name Nirvana) has the crew not only deal with integration of the former enemies, but also dealing with the constant fights with the Harvesters, learning more about the Harvester mission, and the men and women (primarily through Hibiki and Dita) deal with these strange feelings they have for each other. The series ends with an encounter with a Harvester flagship that ends up with the Nirvana in a race to get home before five other Harvester flagships catch and destroy them.

So, what makes this anime so special? On the surface, it seems little more than a typical shounen mecha sci-fi comedy piece with harem elements to boot. However, the writers end up pulling off some very interesting things. First, their overall story arc involving the Harvesters and their ability to adapt to the strategies of the Nirvana crew give them a Borg-like quality (before they were neutered in Star Trek: Voyager).

There's also a horror element since the Harvestors literally want to harvest humans. On one planet, Anpathos, the Nirvana crew find a colony of humans who've been raised to be harvested for their spinal cords. Not only this, but these humans have been conditioned to willingly accept their fate. When Hibiki flees the Nirvana late in the series due to a misunderstanding that causes most of the women to turn on the three male members, he encounters another group of humans who've been raised to have their skin harvested. However, these humans are not going to give up without a fight, but in doing so, Hibiki sees people he comes to care for get killed.

The second element is the literal battle of the sexes. Having men on one planet and females on another planet for about 100-years with both being seen as "the enemy," the integration of the men into the female pirate crew turns into an interesting element. The men have heard all sorts of things which aren't true and the females have heard all sorts of things which aren't correct. Because females are the overwhelming majority of the crew, it is natural that the writers have them take this integration hardest at times. It felt natural to me that even after the women had accepted the men, a single incident causes the old mistrusts the women had to resurface.

A sub-element of the integrations of the crew comes from some of the women feeling that they don't need a man to help them do anything and Hibiki's cocky attitude which annoys some of the women, such as Meia, who sees Hibiki as a threat not only to her leadership, but the moral of her pilots. Having the Nirvana set up so that unless Bart pilots it, it doesn't move or unless Hibiki's Vanguard combines with one of the three modified Dread fighters, they are unlikely to win against an improving enemy gives the writers a vehicle to have this distrust overcome that feels right.

With only thirteen episodes, there isn't a great deal that the writers can do to develope all the characters. However, they give us enough stuff on the important characters so that we understand and like them. Hibiki gets the greatest development among the three males characters. He starts out as a loud-mouth, cocky, cliche-spouting guy. His interactions with Dita shows him that sometimes his words have unexpected consequences. His interactions with Meia shows him that teamwork isn't such a bad thing. When they encounter the male rogue trader Rabat, he learns that spouting cliche's won't get him anywhere. Finally, his encounter with the group of humans in a desperate fight with the Harvestors shows him that this isn't a joke. People can and do die for a cause.

On the female side, Meia gets the greatest development. She's like the opposite of Hibiki in that while he's open and will spout out anything, she's reserved. Hibiki tends to draw people to him somehow and Meia keeps people at an arm's length. However, Hibiki shows her that having a man around and helping doesn't lessen her as a woman. Further, through Meia, we get to learn about the family structure that the women formed on Mejer and a bit on the events that caused a group of women to reject their government and turn to piracy.

The romance between Hibiki and Dita is funny but touching as well. Both are having to deal with the concept of being attracted to each other, something that was unthinkable prior to their meeting. Dita has no problem showing her affection for Hibiki, affectionately calling him "Uchujin-san" ("Space Alien-san"), constantly preparing meals for him (and considering food on Taraak consisted of pellets, Hibiki loves that), and constantly wanting to give him gifts and combine with him in combat.

The other characters do their part as well, adding to the charm of the series as a whole. With the comedic elements that are profuse throughout the series, the combined whole turns what initially seemed like nothing special into a real treat. With Gonzo in charge of the animation, the space battles are nice to look at (though the 3D graphics for that kinda jars with the normal 2D computer graphics everywhere else) and things are visually appealing except for episode 2, where is seems that some other company took charge of things (the character designs get ugly in that episode to the point of being a major distraction at times).

I hadn't intended on being so wordy, but I guess that goes to show how much I really loved this anime. It holds a place of honor in my DVD collection and is certainly one of my top-10 favorite anime titles (along with its sequel).

FUNimation Forum Problems

I've been made aware that the FUNimation Forums are in kind of a mess right now. One can post new messages but one may not reply to any established messages. I've sent word to the forum admin about this through alternate means since I don't know that the forum messaging system is even working. However, one can expect that nothing will happen until tomorrow at the earliest. I'm sorry I don't have more information, but unfortunately FUNimation moderators are not kept abreast of FUNimation's plans. IF I get more info and can pass it along, I'll do so.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Hopefully once all this shakes loose, the boards will be better than ever.

-ANB
FUNimation Forums, User Manager