The only way to indulge...

I'd watched the front half of the series back in the day, but this is the first time I got through the end of it. Some random thoughts...

The show's aesthetic is overdone and silly, to be sure. But in a lot of ways, I enjoyed it much more than, say, the new Mazinger. It's shamelessly indulgent, but with a point back in there somewhere, instead of "the director is reliving his glory days, back when things weren't expected to make any sense".

One of the key themes of GL is male virtue. Not just "the traditional male virtues", yadda yadda, but a real focus on a man's role. (Not that the show tries to argue that women can't exhibit the same virtues - Yoko doesn't give an inch to anyone there, but still remains feminine - just that it's not the point or the focus of the show.)

But the most interesting character in that respect is Rossiu. He's there to comment that, no, you can't run a society off of balls and recklessness alone; at some point you need an accountant, someone with the patience and attention to detail to do the paperwork. But at the same time, the show uses him to illustrate the limitations of that kind of thinking. Rossiu is fundamentally risk-averse, and so that limits his thinking; he'll settle for a sure tragedy over a possible victory, every time. What's worse, though, is that he keeps trying to take charge; by his lights he's obligated to, because the idiots who keep winning battles keep almost losing them.

For a show that's about giant head-robots recklessly combining with everything possible, it's got surprising depth.

Maybe not a work for the ages, but hey, it'll do, it'll do. Also notable for being a Gainax show that doesn't totally come apart at the end...

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The day job company had a pretty big layoff on Thursday, and our department lost a third of its people. I'm a bit relieved, mainly because I'm the most junior guy there (not by much, but the most senior in my position was one of the guys who got the axe...)

Instead I actually got a modest raise, a laptop, and a Blackberry, which may go a long way to alleviating the "hm, I could use both of those things" thoughts I was having. Of course, there'll be more work to go around, but that's hardly a bad thing either, as slow as things are at the moment.

Spent most of the weekend dealing with a glitch in our software. Cuts into the relaxation time, but the overtime isn't bad, especially since I'm leaving for Hawaii in two weeks. Oy, that's going to be a mess... still need to go pick up a swimsuit and a pair of sandals, for that matter.

Haven't been indulging in much anime in the last couple of weeks, since I just had a pretty solid subtitling stint and I half-expect another before the trip. Working on subtitles isn't exactly relaxing, but it does reduce the appeal of watching yet more of the stuff in the hours you have free.

I figure I'll have plenty of time to catch up on the trip.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 10:24 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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...is having to finish up seven episodes of DVD subtitle formatting at five in the morning. Ah well, done now, sleep beckons.

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Didn't stay for long. A-Kon never has a whole heck of a lot for me to do, to be honest. Dealer's room isn't bad (though a lot of dealers don't make the trip, there's a couple of local dealers who have some nice finds sometimes), but the art show wasn't anything special, nothing really appealed in the Artist's Alley, and the panels are A-Kon's usual mix of costume and art panels and their SF rump. The con is run by people who'd rather be running a SF con, and sometimes it shows in the content.

Not a single industry panel. No industry booths except Media Blasters. Nothing from Funi even though it's an in-town trip for them, and that's sad.

Still, not an entirely unproductive trip.



Trading figures... sigh. The Tsukasa is pretty cute and surprisingly well-made. The pimp Itsuki I could have done without. The Gekisou Haruhi trading fig would have been pretty nice if I hadn't just picked up the full-sized, very nice version. I'm liking the Teana figure, even if a little less so than the Haruhi - the skirt wrinkle doesn't look great close up, but not many figures can stand up to inspection from an inch away. The DVDs in the back are complete series of Clannad, Kanon, Gurren Lagann, and GaoGaiGar, all stuff on my "get it someday" list. Manga's a little random, with some Yakitate Japan, Cromartie, and the latest Hayate.

Update: Man, I'm tired. Con wore me out right quick. I must be getting old...

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Day job, I'm afraid. On the other hand, hey, it's cash, and I wasn't doing anything in particular today, so a day at the office playing Brickmuppet's music list isn't so bad.

Next weekend is A-Kon! Quite possibly the most seedy of the major cons, but with vacation time being in short supply, a con that's only a quick train ride downtown is no bad thing. Anyone else going to be there? Honestly, I have more fun at cons as a social event than I do hitting the panels, these days...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 07:36 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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7 eps completed since Friday. Not too shabby, me... After Lucky Star, other shows just don't feel like they're much work. Heh.

Four straight days of 4, 5 AM working does take it out of you, though. Time to get some shut-eye.

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More work is good! Keeps me busy on the weekend.

More work is bad, because it keeps me VERY busy on the weekend.

Ah well, could use the scratch, and I was getting bored anyway.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:18 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'd wondered about whether this was even the sort of thing I was interested in.

I read. I read a lot. I spend considerably more time reading than, say, watching anime. Or playing games. Put together. The library's grown... unwieldy. (I do favors for a librarian to get it sorted, every so often... Hey, when a friend is a little compulsive, you can help her get over it or take shameless advantage. Guess which one I do?)



It was a little expensive, but I've still got some spare funding from my travails with Konata and the gang from last year. And it went from "gee, it might be nice" to "where have you BEEN all my life?"

It's light enough that I can use it with one hand (and page turn controls on the left and right mean that I can swap which hand whenever I feel like it). The screen's nice and easy to read. The battery life is plenty long - I killed a George Martin novel over the weekend and the battery indicator didn't even budge. (Yeah, yeah, I'm just now getting around to A Song of Ice and Fire.)

So now that I have a device that lets me read books I get online, does that mean I'm going to start pirating books? Nah. I've downloaded a few, but only stuff that I actually have on a shelf somewhere; it's easy enough to buy more (and I've done that too, heh). I lose the resale value of the paperbacks, but... I don't ever sell the suckers anyway. And now I can enjoy volumes that I had that were, frankly, falling to pieces from having lived in my car in Houston heat.

It's not the latest model. I don't really think I want the 700, though, as people report that its touch screen plus screen lighting mean that it has much greater screen glare. I don't make a habit of reading in the dark; given the choice, I'd rather the one that lets me read in the light.

I thought about the Kindle, but it's a little too tied in to Amazon's system for my taste. I'm not really worried about document portability - the 505 handles .txt just fine, and for PDFs that are a little hard to read, well, I happen to work at a legal discovery shop; we have software that eats PDF for breakfast.

More anime next time. I'm still of the opinion that this is the best season in years...

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Tried out Natsu no Arashi. I was pleasantly surprised - Author wasn't enthralled by it, exactly, so I didn't know what to expect. Three episodes in - Crunchy turns out to be quite nice for those really slow days at work, which I'm afraid are more or less all of them lately.

What I got was a show that runs the line between "artsy for the sake of artsy" and a period piece, giving the viewer a good chunk of both. I feel like it's evoking nostalgia for, let's face it, a period that I certainly never lived through in the first place. The male lead is a ridiculous schoolboy... but he's ridiculous precisely because he's living a stereotype, because he's taking his cues for what to do from old superhero stories. So in some ways he's an idiot... but when he's being an idiot, he knows he's being an idiot, and that counts for a lot.

The time travel aspects are interesting, but it's not clear where it's going with it. Risking paradox to hunt for strawberry shortcake was funny, dodging B-san was a bit less so. So what's really up with Arashi? No clue at all, and that's worth something too.

I'm getting Utena vibes - not plot-wise, but in the directing. The characters are acting, and that acting can go from "normal" acting to "absurd melodrama" in a split second. So are the absurd parts just a break from a somewhat humdrum "normality"? Or are they pointing out the "normal" acting by exaggeration... how Hajime's normal behavior is as much of an act, a geeky little kid stepping into the hero role, as when he and Arashi are acting out military drama against the formidable UFO catcher machine in the arcade?

It could yet fall flat. We still don't have an antagonist (I'm assuming that the detective ain't it, heh), or even a real narrative structure. The show's conflict so far is "man versus ?", and that's not sustainable. So will it be able to come up with a point that's as self-aware as the rest of the show? Dropping Hajime and Arashi into the role of action heroes would be a terrible let-down. Or will they end up against someone who's as uncomfortable in the "villain" role as Hajime is as a "hero"? That could be interesting indeed...

Geh. Re-reading this post, I might be making too much of it. But (leaving aside the freaky anime reference ED bit,) they're doing an excellent job of doing fun, tricky things with the art direction, without going into full-on Utena "Giant Castle Rover" no-sense-whatsoever mode. If they can stay in that groove, I'll definitely be happy with it until the end.

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Valkyria Chronicles is delivering Alicia moe, as promised. K-On is cute if insubstantial, balanced by a great ED. Mazinger is very Mazinger-y (completely non-apologetic hot-blooded big robot action, with extra over-the-top on the side.) Guin Saga has the best karate chop of the season. Saki isn't so much mahjongg with yuri as it is yuri with mahjongg. Heck, even the first episode of Ristorante Paradiso was charming, in kind of a "this will become a shoujo trainwreck later, but not before spawning 100 million yaoi doujinshi" way.

It's a good sign when one of the shows I'm least enthusiastic about is Hayate, which I still like; most of the problem here is that the first two episodes have been more or less straight from the manga, and played the story very straight (for Hayate, that is). So it may be more of a change in my reaction to it, as opposed to a degradation in actual quality. Either we'll see what it's got up its sleeve, or we'll get a LOT of Hinagiku romantic comedy; either way we're probably good.

Only three "misses" this season so far. Queen's Blade fails for being what it's supposed to be, which is "almost porn". Okay, tittilation is often more entertaining than what my old boss termed "the furry piston loop". Nothing, absolutely nothing at all, wrong with some fan service. But QB is close enough to porn that I might as well just watch porn - in a way, actual porn is more respectable. And as entertainment outside of porn, the sheer stupidity gives me a whanging headache. I just can't put up with it.

But it's not the dumbest new show I've seen, because there is also Sengoku Basara. A friend described it as "Capcom trying to make a Japanese Romance of the Three Kingdoms story", and in the first three minutes you're confronted with five or six outlandish characters, most with names I vaguely recall, posing dramatically and spouting nonsense. Except for the one who's riding a horse with handlebars and huge chrome tailpipes, who is spouting his nonsense in English... (No, it's just a horse. Not a robot horse, not some kind of steampunk autocheval. He has -pimped his horse-.)

It goes downhill from there.

The only thing that could possibly save the show (and it might yet) is Norio Wakamoto playing Nobunaga Oda. Wakamoto playing the most famous "bad guy" of Japanese history, in a show where the normal characters are so far over the top that they are, in fact, down near the bottom? I don't know if I could miss that if I wanted to!

Most of the good new shows deserve a post of their own, so I'll get around to that sometime. Also, there's stuff still on the "take a look at it" list, notably Eden of the East.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:56 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I was ready to write a grumpy post about having to pay $3700 or so in taxes (that's not total, that's "now" money), but I recalled my moving deduction at the last minute. $140 in my pocket. I feel good about it, despite the fact that I probably shouldn't; the tax code really is too complicated if even geniuses (ahem) have trouble keeping track of all their deductions. If the subtitling business was any more complicated, I'd have to hire an accountant. And I'm still getting killed on self-employment tax...

At the same time, I shouldn't complain too much. I earned the money in the first place, after all, so I can afford the tax; in fact, in anticipation of this day, I'd specifically socked away plenty of cash to cover the bill. (Or rather, I'd actually budgeted $4k...) I didn't go whole-hog last year, but I did get some nice figures, some nice furniture, a nice TV, the PS3...

It just occurred to me that I could make a thin but plausible case to deduct the figures from my business' operating costs. "Office decorating budget"? Don't think I'm quite THAT brave. What's the limits on that anyway?

I'm consoled by the good anime season so far. I've tried four new shows and none of them are bad, though there's still plenty of jury deliberation on 'em. My first-week cull rate is zero.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:16 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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How the heck do I manage to misplace a W2? It's not like I have a lot of them; there's just the one.

I was under the impression that all my vital tax paperwork was in a pile on the mantle, but evidently not; that vital piece of documentation wasn't there, nor has a quick search around turned it up. So either it's buried somewhere around here but good, or I left it in my desk at work... Guess I can go fishing for it tomorrow. Suddenly I'm glad I didn't wait until next weekend to finish up my taxes!

Watched the first ep of Saki on CR. Eh, not bad, not bad. Akagi minus gar plus moe. It's still very much a mahjongg anime (i.e. characters are entirely capable of spouting off lines of incomprehensibly arcane scoring terminology for which finding a translation is next to impossible.) Worth watching some more; not even close to tempting me to pay for it.

Update: Found it in my desk at the office. Also, I applied 8 hours of sleep and the first ep of Valkyria. Very much less grumpy now.

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Man, I don't want to complain about the subs and sound like some kind of monomaniac, but is it too much to ask to sync 'em up correctly? (Or to break the lines correctly?)

Story from the first episode was lifted lock, stock, and barrel from the manga, which makes me think the next few will be as well. I'm a little worried with the new studio, as not all the characters seem to be on model properly (Maria, especially, lost something). At the same time, this is where the story stops being "Hayate and Nagi plus some other girls" and becomes "Hayate and Hinagiku, with Nagi in there somewhere"...

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 11:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Author's right - I really do notice this stuff more than I should.

Third disc of the thinpak box set, episode 9, the font... changed. Suddenly a thin, spindly font. Then it went back on ep 10. It's just... how does that even happen? It boggles the mind that somebody, somewhere, saw that in QC and didn't notice it. (Or did they notice but just not fix it? Sigh...)

Saw about half of the first episode of Queen's Blade before I just turned it off. That is actually pretty rare; I almost never quit in the middle of an episode. It's just that dumb. Hey, I like looking at beautiful unclothed women as much as the next guy, but I demand actual plot too!

The second season of Hayate is streaming on Crunchyroll this year. Wow, just wow. Somewhere, someone thought that was a good idea... Then again, I don't know how well it would sell through retail; 52 episodes in the first season plus however long they can run this one?

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 01:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Well, with any luck it will be less overdone than last year.

But I'm tired of a whole day where I can't take a damned thing seriously. Everyone will go posting three, four impossibilities, implausibilities, or even plausibilities that just happen to be fake. Every anime in existence will be announced to have been licensed to someone or other. A million game sequels that won't ever exist will get previews. Most obnoxiously, one or two of the reports will actually pan out.

I can live with Blizzard, mostly because they do their April Fools' so over the top that I don't have to mentally filter (last year was, if I'm not mistaken, 8-Bit Molten Core, complete with Atari-era graphics, heh.)

More questionable is Mirror Moon and their "Tsukihime 2" release, which is a continuation of last year's joke (i.e. that it existed in the first place). Ironically, I'd probably be a lot more likely to look at it if they just said "hey, we're doing something funny" and left the trolling aspect out of it.

Ah well. Maybe tomorrow will be really busy at the office and I'll just spend the whole day working. ;p

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Busy with the job for the last couple of days, so it's been slow on hobbies. Got an Amazon shipment including Nanoha A's and Berserk 27 (yeah, let's see your recommendation engine figure THAT one out!), so I should dedicate some time soon to sitting down and watching all of Nanoha again. Still want to get through more FSN first, though.

Last season didn't give me a whole lot to work with. I enjoyed Toradora, mostly because I like Ryuji's character. Index was interesting but quite talky for an action show, and not terribly interesting at that; it gave me a very strong vibe of Busou Renkin, in that it has a bad tendency of "okay, now we're going to throw THIS at the main cast" without a whole lot of consistency in theme. Liked the visuals, though. I'll probably get around to the last season of Minami-ke eventually, though honestly, the second season didn't do that much for me.

My expectations aren't too high for this season either. More Hayate is not a bad thing, of course. I've actually already seen the first ep of a show I'm obligated not to identify, and it wasn't bad, but didn't do much to grab me (half-finished animation will do that, though). On the other hand, my "wait a while and watch for late buzz" strategy has worked well for years, and alerted me to hidden gems I'd never have tried on my own (Akagi, for example).

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 05:19 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Had one of these tonight, as I finished dinner. Just the "all is right with the world" feeling.

Mind you, my mouth was full of eel roll covered with avocado slices, so maybe that says something about all it takes to keep me happy.

Went back to watch some Fate/Stay Night out of the box I'd picked up a while back, and... I'm kind of disappointed. Not in the show (seen it already), but in the subtitling job, or the authoring job, or both. The subs are clearly coming up late by a couple tenths, and it's more or less the same everywhere, which makes me think that it was authored on a Spruce system and the author didn't know he had to tweak the timecode by two frames to get it to line up properly (Spruce bug)... but even then the subs would have been a bit late. Combined it's seriously distracting, especially because the script's written with a lot of subs that are "longer" than they should be for the space they're in. I mean, it's not ruining the show or anything - it's got Rin, after all, how bad could it be? - but eh.

The subs weren't proofed that well either...

Driving down to Houston tomorrow, going to spend a day with the folks. Dad hit 66 last week, so he's now officially old enough to get paid for it. On the downside, he can't afford to retire - about half of his investments got wiped out in the recent mess, and the only bright side is that he had so little saved up that it won't make a whole lot of difference. Sigh... And Mom and I had been on him to get everything out of the market and into treasuries.

His job's kind of physically demanding, too - he works on heavy industrial scales, railroad-car and similar, and that means a lot of outdoors work (in bloody Houston, in the bloody summer) and carrying heavy weights around. He's still pretty fit for a man of his age, but he's been "too old for this" for some time now. Last year in February, he put a foot wrong and broke his ankle (and then stumbled on his crutches and broke his other foot's big toe, not ten seconds after I advised him not to trip on the way to bed... sigh.)

Ah well. When I hear my co-workers talk about their brats, I'm left thinking, "Man, I love my family!" So it's not like I can complain, right?

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:15 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I'm finished with Lucky Star! No more shall it haunt me. They'll have to make more if they want me to deal with it! (Mind you, I said that last time too, and they did.)

Other than Lucky Star, it's been pretty quiet on the subtitling front - just not many contracts floatin' around. I'd say I could use a break, but financially I probably shouldn't - big tax bill to pay next month, plus my brother getting married in Hawaii in July, means I don't have quite so much in the reserves these days.

Gives me a chance to catch up on things, however. I still haven't sat down and watched my own Nanoha subs, heh. I've still got all of Gundam Zeta to enjoy, and a couple of other shows too. And I gotta read all the Malazan novels I bought the other day - went looking for the fourth one, and decided "forget it, I will get them all".

Probably socializing with people at some point wouldn't be a bad idea either. Right now my social life is limited to the bi-weekly D&D game, and the occasional lunch with friends on the weekend. I can go a long, long time as a hermit, but at some point I need to get on the "find a spouse" project too.

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Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 12:18 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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Someone mailed this in to Jerry Pournelle. It's too good not to pass on. Take five minutes and enjoy film of exploding bridges, set to a classic Italian opera solo you'll no doubt recognize.

This definitely falls into "valid and proper use of taxpayer dollars"!

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at 02:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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