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I figured I'd let the forum know about this, since it's being done by me with some help from other forum members (most notably Spiritsnare, though I guess I should also thank LastElixir for some pointers on kanji and various things). Basically, I've started a little translation group thingie and we're working on a little manga that it seems nobody is paying attention to, called タビと道づれ, which we're calling "Tabi and the Wayfarers" in English for now.

This manga by TANAKANOKA runs in Mag Garden's Comic BLADE and is up to about 4 volumes in Japan. We took an interest in it because of a little cover slip that advertised how Kozue Amano (manga-ka of ARIA) likes the world TANAKANOKA has created for the series. The story is about a girl named Tabi who takes a train to a mysterious town where time doesn't seem to pass normally.

A note on the translation: we are not expert translators; in fact, we have some difficulty reading Japanese. But with some time, dedication, and help from friends who are, we think we've been able to produce a pretty adequate release. What's important is that right now this title is not available to English-speaking audiences at all, so if we can stir up even a little interest, then we've done our job. That's not to say we don't care about translation quality: if you think you know better and want to help us out, let us know. If you just want to bash on how bad it is... don't bother.

We released it in .cbz format, which you can read with a comic book reader such as CDisplayEx, or you can just unzip it and read it in your image viewer of choice (because .cbz is really just .zip in disguise!).

Download: Tabi and the Wayfarers Chapter 01
Group Website: http://mizunashi.mduo13.com/

So I know that the con does on-site registration for the following year for a really bargain rate sometime on... Sunday? Monday? Anyway, I've been meaning to do it these last two years but I happened to be busy when they announced that it was starting, and by the time I got over there a few hours later they had already closed it. Mordyan somehow manages to sneak away and do it year after year but I have no idea how - I always end up missing it.

So do you think that the hours for next-year pre-registration could be made longer or at least better publicized?

[Aa! Megami-sama]

Fill us in on what series you follow regularly or are currently catching up on. Don't just list names, though, talk about what you think of it!

Personally I read Aa! Megami-sama chapters whenever they get scanlated (I also own a fair number of hardcopies), and consider it my favorite manga. I've been following it somewhat inconsistently for years and years now (back since Dark Horse had only put out like 5 flopped volumes, and you could buy separate chapters in the comic book store for like $2.50) and I just love everything about it; the characters are like old friends to me now, the art has remained beautiful even as it changes through the years; the pacing is great, the balance of action, comedy, and drama is just to my taste...

I'm also currently following Kozue Amano's new manga, Amanchu!. It looks and seems paced a lot like ARIA (to the surprise of no one) so far. Speaking of ARIA, I've been reading that, too, though slowly (in part because I'm reading it in Japanese; in part because I don't want to run out of volumes to read).

Additionally, I read REC whenever scanlations come out (which is rare). It's pretty entertaining in that melodramatic, ecchi kind of way.

About a year ago I caught up on Hunter x Hunter, which unfortunately is on hiatus more often than not. But I have hope that it will continue someday and be awesome when it does.

And recently I caught up on One Piece, which is also a pretty entertaining and moving story, although the I had to learn to just accept the goofy physics and art style. (The art did improve over time, though.) Best thing about One Piece is that it seems pretty reliable about coming out week after week. And the craziest thing is, it's been going on for well over 500 chapters now and it only feels like it's getting bigger and more epic, like it won't come close to concluding within years.

Oh yeah, and for kicks, Code Geass: Knightmare of Nunnally, which is pretty out there but kinda cool. The more I read it, the more I can take it semi-seriously.

I think that about covers it for me. What about everyone else? Something in particular really grabbing your heart lately? Wondering what other people think of something you're following? Perennial favorites you can't help but talk about? Chat it up!

[Akikan]

So it's that time again.
List of shows airing this season.

I've been planning on checking out most everything except sequels I haven't caught up with yet (like Minami-ke, Major, and Marimite) and stuff that looks hardly anime, like Gingerman.

Thus far, I've seen:
Akikan - A melon soda can turns into a girl. Spectacular.

Asu no Yoichi - Samurai-in-training gets sent to the city to learn at a dojo with 4 girls. Generic as hell.

Koukaku no Regios - In a desert world, people fight giant bug things. Main character is forced to transfer to a school where they train special powers or something and join the "17th Battalion". Not sure what to think yet.

White Album - A kinda depressed guy is dating an up-and-coming idol. Oddly-paced, but I like.

Maria-Holic - Girl goes to all-girls school to find her lover, accidentally falls in love with a bad-tempered crossdressing boy. Really funny in that bizarre SHAFT-y kind of way.

Ride Back - A former ballet star learns to drive a "Ride Back" which is like a robot motorcycle. Also, the world has been taken over by some organization. Pretty Madhouse, and also awesome.

Kemono no Souja Erin - A young girl has an affinity for huge lizard-beasts that are used as mounts in warfare. Kind of interestingly different.

Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo - A girl living in a space colony meets a wacked-out Fukuyama Jun computer who is the only "living" thing left in a moving space colony. Reeks of "Stupid Sunrise Moe".

Some things I'm planning on checking out but haven't started yet:
Sora wo Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai aka Munto TV - The new KyoAni series.
Slayers Evolution-R - Continuation of Slayers Revolution
Hetalia Axis Powers - A show where kids represent WWII Axis countries.

[What is a visual novel?]

Alright! So I decided that there needs to be a place to talk about this kind of game - the visual novel! Since they're often hardly describable as games, though, I've decided to put it in the anime section - especially considering how many visual novels get made into anime. Here you can chat about what visual novels/kinetic novels you've been playing lately, which ones are coming out and exciting, whatever as long as it's roughly on the topic. But, since they're kind of a niche genre, I'll start with a FAQ!

What is a visual novel?
I like to describe a visual novel as like taking an RPG and then leaving only the in-game cutscenes. Basically, it's a combination of still-images, text, and music put together to tell a story. Usually they feature interaction in the form of choices that lead to branching storylines. (Visual novels that don't offer choices are sometimes called "Kinetic Novels".) Because of that, you could also think of a visual novel as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel but with pictures and sound; I don't like that one as much, though, because Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books tend to be pretty sloppily written.

What about Galge, Bishoujo Games, Ren'ai, AVGs, Sound Novels, and Eroge?
A lot of these terms are related. "Galge" is a shortened version of the Japanese term for "girl game". Basically, a galge or a bishoujo game is a game that includes several girls where you develop some sort of romantic attachment to them through your interactions. Ren'ai games are also known as dating sims, so they'll be similar, but usually involve more stats and that sort of thing as opposed to being strongly story-based. AVGs/ADVs ("Adventure Games") are distinguished from visual novels by the way the text is displayed - in a box at the bottom of the screen rather than taking up the whole screen, over a darkened image; but, honestly, most people outside of Japan will refer to AVGs as visual novels, because Adventure refers to a different genre in English. Sound Novel is a trademarked term for pretty much the same thing as Visual Novels, so you might also hear it used occasionally. As for eroge, that term comes from "erotic game", so it can be applied to any game that has sex scenes in it, whether or not it also qualifies as any of the other genres. Since there's a lot of crossover between all these genres, I'll be using "visual novel" as a sort of blanket term for this kind of thing.

I don't know any visual novels!
Actually, chances are good that you know of a few anime that have been adapted from visual novels.
Key - Original creators of AIR, KANON, and CLANNAD. Their kinetic novel Planetarian and their latest visual novel Little Busters! haven't been adapted to anime yet.
Type-Moon - Original creators of Tsukihime and Fate/stay night. A doujin group that went pro.
Leaf/Aquaplus - Original creators of ToHeart, ToHeart2, and Comic Party. They've also made some games that combine galge elements with the SRPG genre, including Utawarerumono and Tears to Tiara (the latter of which has an anime adaptation forthcoming).
Navel - Original creators of Shuffle!
KID - None of their main visual novels (like the Infinity series) have been animated, though they did an adaptation of Ai Yori Aoshi, which also got animated into a terrible series. Ever17 - out of the infinity was one of the rare visual novels to get a domestic translated release, though.
07th Expansion - A doujin group; original creators of the Higurashi no Naku Koro ni series. Their current project is called Umineko no Naku Koro ni.

Aren't these games just porn?
Not exactly. It's true that a large number of visual novels contain sex scenes and are therefore adults-only. But it's also true that there are plenty of visual novels that don't have any adult content, and many of the first group are available in all-ages versions. (For example, Leaf games are usually 18+, but the sister brand Aquaplus publishes many of the same games in clean versions.) And, I'd like to point out, that if a game can sell with or without the 18+ parts, then it's obviously not the sex that's the main draw.

How do I read a visual novel if I don't speak Japanese?
Good question, especially since few companies will license these for official distribution (and Hirameki, one of those few, threw in the towel last January). Luckily, there are some very good fan translations for some of these games. Insani is a group that translated quite a few of them, though they're not really active nowadays. For Type-Moon games, Mirror Moon has produced a full translation of Tsukihime, even including an install option to cut out the sex scenes (not something available in the standard Japanese version). They've also translated or collaborated on translating several other games, Type-Moon and otherwise. Plus there are some translation projects that appear for a single game, many of which are being tracked on a wiki.

How do I get a copy of one of these?
In most cases, it's not easy. Usually the translation projects (rightfully) want you to buy the original work, which often means importing a Japanese PC game, switching your Windows locale settings, and then installing the patch over it. There are some that are easier to get than others. For example, "Planetarian" can be purchased to download for like $30 - Insani has instructions which are kind of outdated but not TOO different from the current buying process. And there are some such games that are just free, like True Remembrance (which by the way, I highly recommend).

So, that's about it. I'll say that, personally, I've only played a few visual novels (One path of Ever17, all of Tsukihime, Planetarian and True Remembrance, a little bit of Little Busters!) but I really do enjoy them. What do you all think?

Don't you guys think sometimes, "Man, they definitely need to make a manga out of that!" or, alternatively, "Wow, they made a manga about that?" This thread is here so that you can suggest the ideas you think would be really great. It even might turn out that it's already been done! Like if you thought to yourself, "There SO needs to be a manga about wine," someone might let you in on a little secret called Kami no Shizuku!

So let's get this started. I've been throwing out the idea recently of an ARIA spinoff about Akatsuki's mom, because who knows what sort of adventures she had before she settled down to have a family - and besides, she is hot.

Also, there have been a lot of good series based on retelling tweaked versions of literary classics. That's why I think Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita could be made into a great manga... set in the future. Am I crazy, or am I right? Perhaps both...

On the more mundane front, they could make a manga about academic quiz teams or spelling bees or something. It could be great - villainous opposing coaches, sympathetic competitors, rigged quizzes, self-doubt and the triumph of knowledge...

How about you guys? Got any great ideas for manga?

[メ]

A looser version than Wikipedia's rules. Pretty much any Japanese word. Please post in kana, not romaji or kanji. (If you can't follow moonspeak, you could maybe use Rikaichan and copy-paste from Wikipedia or WWWJDIC or something... Anyway, 行くぞ...

ファンニメ

I found a pretty interesting and thought-provoking article today.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1819594_1819592,00.html

It points out some of the less-obvious benefits of higher gas prices, such as:

6. Fewer Traffic Deaths

Every year, about 40,000 people die in traffic accidents in the U.S. If you are age 5 through 34, you are more likely to die this way than any other way. Ordinary things we do — or don't do — have extraordinary consequences. We know that higher gas prices cause many of us to slow down and drive less — which means fewer people die. Early research into 2006 accident data suggests that many lives have already been spared. If gas remains at $4 per gal. for a year or more, expect as many as 1,000 fewer fatalities a month, according to professor Michael Morrisey at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and associate professor David Grabowski at Harvard Medical School, who calculated that estimate for TIME. That means annual deaths could be cut by almost one-third — a public-health triumph.

That's crazy. It sounds like a case of Freakonomics to me - like, supposing the government taxed gas $1 per gallon, and then invested that money in public health. It's probably one of the most cost-efficient ways to save lives, and yet it would be wildly unpopular (because, among other things, a gasoline tax would be pretty regressive in that it would hit poorer people for a much higher percentage of their income).

What do you guys think?

[Jerry's Basic House Rules (Modified Uno)]

Uno is a kind of OK game, but Jerry's House Rules turn it into an entirely different beast - once you've played Modified Uno, you can never go back to the original. I'm making this thread to list off and collect custom rules, so that future Modified Uno games can be even better!

Jerry's Basic House Rules (Modified Uno)
1. The Jump Rule - At any time, if you have the same card - color and number - as the card anyone plays, you can "jump" in by playing that card, and then taking your turn as if play had passed to you.
1a. Nobody can jump while you wait to play the card that follows your jump.
1b. If you jump a reverse, both are canceled. If you jump a draw 2 or draw 4, that card is canceled unless the victim has already drawn his or her cards (you keep whatever cards you draw, basically).
1c. If you can't play on top of the card you jumped with, you must draw until you can.

2. Stacking Draws - If someone plays a draw 2 on you, you can stack another draw 2 on it instead of drawing your cards and skipping your turn; the next person then has to draw 4 cards unless he or she also stacks. The same is true of Draw 4s - but you cannot mix and match Draw 4 and Draw 2 cards.

3. Zeroes Trade Hands - If you play a zero, you may choose to trade hands with any other player. You don't have to.
3a. If you trade hands with someone who has only one card, you must say Uno as if you had just played down to that many cards.

4. Winner makes new rules - The winner of a round makes up a custom rule that applies to the following rounds.
4a. (Optional) Each round, all previous custom rules (except for the basic Modified Uno rules) are wiped clean, except that if the same rule is instituted three rounds in a row, it becomes permanent.
4b. Your custom rule can be to repeal an old custom rule. (If you play with 4a, then the same rules apply to making "Repeal" rules permanent as to other rules, e.g. they have to be instituted 3 rounds in a row.)

List of Past-used New Rules
Here are some example New Rules we've used in the past, many of which were a lot of fun. This is just a short list - please add your own, to the thread!

The (Infamous) Speech Patterns Rule - Each player picks a speech pattern. (Such as, "Curses!", "desu", or "nano da.") Every sentence that player speaks must either start or end with that speech pattern. Each time a player gets caught not using his or her speech pattern, that player must draw 1 card.
-(Variation) ... in Bed - Same as the speech patterns rule, but all players must use a pattern that ends their sentences with "... in bed."
-(Variation) The Most Confusing Rule Ever - Same as the speech patterns rule, but all players must use a pattern that ends their sentences with "It's your turn."

Passing the Buck - If a player gets hit with a Draw card, that player may flip a coin to pass it along to the next player. The next player may do the same; this continues until someone loses a coin flip.

The Faraway Deck - The deck is not located conveniently at the table, but instead is placed somewhere far away such as at the top of a nearby staircase. Players must go all the way up there if they want to draw cards.

Targeted Draws - When you use a draw card, you choose whom it affects, but that player gets to go next. If it's a draw 4, the targeted player also decides what color it is.

Weak Wilds - If you play a Wild card, the player after you decides what color it is. So that person can basically play anything.

High Five - If you screw someone over (skipping them, playing a draw card on them, calling Uno on them), you must offer that person a high five. If you don't offer, that person can catch you by offering you a high five - in which case, you must draw a card. Ridiculous faces while high-fiving are optional but highly encouraged.

Dos - Just like with saying "Uno" at 1 card, if you go down to 2 cards, you must say "Dos". If someone catches you, you draw 2 cards.
-(Variation) DOS - Alternate version where you must say, "DOS" (as in the operating system, pronounced "doss"). Saying "dose" does not suffice.

Blue-Green Colorblindness - Blue and Green count as the same color. (Useful for when you're combining Family Guy and Simpsons Uno, where the different shades of blue and green are really hard to tell apart.)

So. How do YOU prefer to down your deliciously unhealthy salt-laden meal replacement? Do you slurp it straight out of the cup/bowl? Do you twirl the noodles around your fork? Drink it through a boba straw? Dice the noodles up with a knife and then finish them off with a spork?

Let us know how you weigh-in on this age-old topic of discussion. You've got nothing better to do, after all.

I'm so psyched. It comes out - officially - tomorrow. I'm going to participate in Download Day and everything.

So many features I'm looking forward to. New rendering engine, huge RAM savings, the AwesomeBar, a passwords manager that doesn't make me guess whether I got it right before going on...

Anyone else as ready for this is as I am? Or are you all going to stay back on 2.0 because your favorite extensions don't work with version 3? Or, perhaps, you'd rather use some other browser?

Ok, this is seriously last minute but I can't resist. It is so freakin' on. Who's down for a totally unffocial air hockey "tournament"?

It might be a problem since tourneys are kind of sort of not allowed - this would be totally unscheduled but I could keep score here or something.

Is there a schedule for the asian film room this year? In past years they've been really good about getting it up ahead of schedule, but I don't see it on the main page, and I don't see a thread in this forum, either. Am I blind? Or is something amiss?

For all those of you out there who cringed at The House of the Dead, and who laughed at BloodRayne... for all who have been hurt, disappointed, and terrified of the videogame adaptations and laughable "horror" movies made by German director Uwe Boll, there is a chance for the future. Because, as it turns out, a petition was started, a petition that cried out against the injustices he has perpetrated against movies worldwide. And in an interview, a reported told Uwe Boll about this petition. He said, eighteen thousand signatures isn't enough to make me quit my business.

"Well, how much would be enough?"

"A million."

And so the Great Uwe Boll-Off of 2008 began. Uwe Boll has agreed that, if 1,000,000 genuine, non-duplicated signatures are provided, he will quit the movie-making business. Can we do it?

Sign?

Also, if you somehow like the movie director who punched out Lowtax of Something Awful, and who called Michael Bay "a fucking retard", then there's also a pro-Boll petition.

I think this is perhaps the funniest thing I've seen in ages. Now, I like Garfield, or at least I did. I feel like the comic has really peaked and Jim Davis has been on autopilot for a long time now, but I found something that's actually really amusing.

You may have seen "Silent Garfield" before - a phenomenon wherein people photoshopped out Garfield's speech bubbles, so it appeared that Jon was just talking to his poor, silent cat by himself; but someone has upped the ante. This person photoshopped Garfield out entirely, so the comic turns into what's essentially a much, much sadder commentary on modern life. For example:


Garfield Minus Garfield

... has been delayed again, until March 9. Yeesh.

How much more are they going to spoil before the game gets released? We already know 24 characters, lots of stages, several modes... I wish the game would just come out already!

Share your collective anticipation and griping in this thread.

[Animation Studios]

Have you ever noticed that many anime tend to have very strong similarities to other anime by the same studios or creators? Not only that, but there are people who tend to just gravitate towards certain studios repeatedly? I think it's time we discussed some of the characteristics of these studios and creators! Are there any shows that don't fit in the trend? Did you really like a certain anime? You may just discover that there's an anime you'd really like in here.

Here are a few to start with:

Animation Studios

Bee Train - Creators of Noir, .hack//SIGN, Madlax, El Cazador, Avenger, .hack//Roots, etc. Distinct use of recurring flashbacks, lots of emphasis on music rather than dialogue. Tend to have overly cryptic storylines with somewhat anticlimactic payback in the end but still really satisfying for some people. For other people, slow plot development bores them to death. Unusual color schemes, silhouette-centric opening sequences, etc. The Tsubasa Chronicle TV series was animated by them, which was kind of a horrible clash of styles with the manga artists, CLAMP.

GAINAX - Creators of Evangelion, FLCL, Gurren Lagann, Gunbuster, Mahoromatic, etc. Quirky sci-fi action/comedy series, giant robots with obscure emotions, cliché love stories and apocalyptic endings. The science fiction aspects especially are indecipherable but usually entertaining. Shows have a tendency to start out interesting, have a lot of ordinary filler in the middle, and then go insane by the end. Also one of the studios that tends to show bare breasts most often. Surprisingly, the He Is My Master anime, which breaks many of these rules, was also produced by GAINAX, though based on an extant manga.

Kyoto Animation - Produced Full Metal Panic Fumoffu! and FMP: The Second Raid (but not the original), AIR, Kanon, CLANNAD, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star... This is the studio that everyone loves to talk about. Relatively new, very high level of attention to detail. Lots of fancy lighting effects.

SUNRISE - The entire Mobile Suit Gundam series, Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass, My-HiME, Crest of the Stars, etc. Specialize in epic storylines that inevitable culminate in mech battles, but with more variety than some other studios. There's some crap mixed in with the good stuff (Argento Soma, anyone?), which is inevitable since they've been around since 1979, which is a lot longer than studios like KyoAni and Bee Train.

BONES - Producers of Fullmetal Alchemist, Scrapped Princess, RahXephon, Ouran High School Host Club; Creators of Wolf's Rain, Eureka Seven, Darker Than Black. Pretty versatile combination of action and heavy storyline for the most part. A studio that has established itself pretty well in the past 10 years.

Production IG - One of the super-big names of anime production. Parent company of Bee Train and Xebec. Also tends to make animation for lots of non-anime, including Kill Bill Vol. 2 and lots of videogames.

SHAFT - Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~, Pani Poni Dash!, Hidamari Sketch, Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. Someone else fill in the description for this. They're zany and heavily stylized is all I can really say.

Ghibli - Nasicaa, Spirited Away, Whispers of the Heart, Howl's Moving Castle, etc. You know who this is. Hell, your parents know who this is. They're not called "the Disney of Japan" for no reason. Most of their movies are famous for a reason. There are a surprising number of them that aren't actually directed by Hayao Miyazaki, though. They look similar but some of them are actually quite different in style.

Manga Groups
I'm not going to delve to the level of individual manga-ka for the most part, but some important names in the creation of manga...

Shonen Jump - Probably the most-exported manga collection in Japan, in terms of series popularity. Serialized everything from Dragonball to Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note with uncountable other worthwhile series in the middle. Most (if not all) of the biggest hits in America have their origins in Jump. Their series usually go on seemingly forever and involve fighting with dramatic increases in power level.

CLAMP - A trio of female manga-ka who work together to create stuff like X, Magic Knights Rayearth, Chobits, and xxxHolic. Their fanbase is female-dominated and sizeable, but they are also more or less in mainstream anime fandom. Their manga endings tend to be bloody and somewhat negative in tone, which gets them in a lot of fights with their publishers and whoever is attempting to animate their series (see: Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle).


Anyway, I'm sick of typing, so I'll leave the list at that. For those of you who are knowledgeable about a studio, please do chime in more! I'm no expert on all of them, and there are plenty that have been left off this list. Or say what you think about the various studios.

The idea for this thread stems from a particular favorite scene of mine, and I'm not even sure how it found its way back into my mind except that it always does. But basically - there are some scenes in anime where your jaw drops, you stare at the screen, your heart pounds, and you revel in the absolutely epic intensity of the moment. In that instant, you decide in your head forever that the anime you are watching is great. You know what I mean.

The one in particular that prompted this thread is the scene in Gankutsuou episode 15, starting at about 15 minutes and continuing until the end of the episode. In that moment, everything came together. Mysteries about the plot broke wide open, characters showed their stuff in the most dramatic of ways, the unnatural animation style feels as uniquely awesome as ever (especially with that evil moon... oh god that is amazing), and the music not only fits the mood perfectly but is about as good as it gets.

So what moments come to mind for you as mindblowingly intense and epic? If you have to include spoilers, do them as white text inside a quote:

When Haydee reveals that Morcef is actually Fernand Mondego, she looks freaking hot. Also, when the Count collapses almost crying into the chair, and then stands up laughing maniacally, he utters such a great line: "We're returning to the capital.. where evil flourishes!"

[Female]

Here's an interesting idea for a favorites thread. Most of the time, a lot of people tend to pick minor characters, villains, supporting characters, etc. as favorites even though oftentimes a lot of work goes into the main character. It's just that in order to not offend everyone, main characters usually end up having a strong appeal for no one. Or at least very few*.

Who are you favorite male and/or female protagonists or (in the case of harems) "main target" characters?

Personally, I think I actually tend to like mains a lot. Here are a few, in no particular order:
Female
Akari from ARIA
Belldandy from Aa! Megami-sama
Arcueid from Tsukihime

Male
Shiki from Shingetsutan Tsukihime
Tsukasa from .hack//SIGN

*Obvious exception to the Nobody Likes Main Characters Rule: Kyon. Everybody likes Kyon.

I'm shocked to see there's no thread for this series so far. It's seriously good stuff. I'm only 5 episodes through the first season so far, but I'm working my way up as fast as I can manage.

The major characters are all pretty cool (Hakim is such a pimp), but the minor characters in this series are not to be underestimated. Also, the flashback-young version of Kelly Stowner is quite cute, and 15-year-old Emma is really adorable. Am I right, or am I right?

Also, if second season is really "like drinking a red bull" compared to "drinking tea" then the second season is going to be crazy because I'm all over the first season already.

Can't wait to see some character rankings and whatnot. I'm not far enough into the series to make up my mind.

www.animedvice.com

So this is a site I found (a long time ago actually) that's basically a similar idea to to last.fm, but for anime. You put in your ratings (on a scale of 1-10) for any anime, and it calculates people who have similar taste to yours, then lists 10 anime you haven't rated, that those people rated highly. It's kind of neat!

If you go to your profile, you can also click a link to get a list of every rating you've given. It makes for a rather impressive page if you ask me!

So - rep your favorite shows and, who knows, maybe we'll be neighbors!

Also my fatty ratings list is up for discussion if you guys really care to agree or disagree!

Official Site

Discovered this game today. It's a remake of an old Playstation SRPG (called, obviously, "Hoshigami") for the DS, and it's being ported by Aksys Games, which is a new company comprised mostly of ex-Atlus guys. It sounds like the remake probably fixes some of the problems with the original game. It also has pretty nice-looking anime art.

Has anyone here played the original? Should I be this excited? (Should I wish I had the cash to actually BUY this game?)

It gets its own thread.

I think it's gotten better these past couple episodes. We're getting more interesting details about the way the world works, meeting a variety of interesting characters, and enjoying some great action scenes. I'm still disappointed, though, in the way they tend to create all these interesting (and often sexy) secondary characters, and then the characters only stick around for two episodes. It's like, any one of them I could really grow to know and like if they were permanent characters, but instead, the only permanent character with a big part is Li / Hei, who has almost a non-personality. It's like he's the observer and we're getting a series of character sketches rather than recurring characters.

That said, which characters do you guys think were most interesting?
Shinoda Chiaki (eps 1-2)
Mai? (eps 3-4)
Dr. Tahara? (eps 3-4)
November 11 / MI-6 Agents? (eps 5-6)
Havoc? (eps 5-6)
Detective Kurasawa Gai & his assistant?
Amitabh Kapoor? (the keiyakusha from eps 7-8)
Yuzuki's Widow? (eps 7-8)

I liked the focus on Mao (the black cat) for parts of eps 7-8, though. And I'm definitely looking forward to an episode where they focus on Yin, the girl who senses people with water. I'm not too interested in that one office woman who works for Pandora.

P.S. every once in a while, a cool song shows up to remind me it's Yoko Kanno doing the soundtrack, but it's not exactly a string of nonstop hits like Cowboy Bebop.

So I was thinking, "I kind of want to check out early badge pickup on Thursday, but I've heard that the lines are kind of ridiculous compared to the pre-reg line Friday morning." And my next thought was, "Maybe there will be a bunch of people playing with their DSes in line, though. That'd be fun." That lead to my third thought:

"What if we planned a time for anyone from the Fanimafia who was planning to do Thursday badge pickup to show up and hang out? It could maybe replace our normal Friday get-togethers or something."

Anyone else down for this idea? If so, what time? Pickup is 6-10pm on Thursday the 24th.

Just curious, but I couldn't find a public list of who's currently working which departments. Seems like it'd be really useful if someone had questions about a specific department and all. Am I just blind?