soul.assassin

Another 11... Oh my, I want to see the live movie now XD

(Misaki Mei is too cute^^

Where her figma?)

OT: We'll wait for her and her rival Izumi.

Gonna give this show a shot, especially after Another 11... need to clean out my head.

^

Yeah, Another 11 left me swearing loudly; gone completely postal after 10 episodes of seemingly smart pacing, threatening to come too close to the last two episodes of Blargh-C (wondering if the director has a knack for apocalyptic amount of gore).

Episode 11 changes everything, with a explosive twist near the end, and LOTS of it.

Finished watching Nisemogatari. Kind of dissapointed with the ending and it's no way as good as Nisemonogatari.

Compensated that emptiness by watching Lagrange instead, so balancing things out. Well, this time today's episode of Lagrange was like... "WTF WAS THAT! WOW!"

I felt better afterwards.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1663662/

Honestly, I'm very quite intrigued with this movie's potential that has some kaiju elements written in. And I'm just as intrigued with the inclusion of an Oscar nominee in the mix.

Gonna wait for it.

FYI, the video was a work-in-progress test edit, not final. Fact is, they're still working hard on it as the April 27 deadline looms near, according to the French guy who's working for Satelite.

Footage is from the 1st episode,its first edit was done last week.OK,I'm working on it so I'm biased but things are looking good.The chara design is nice,very cute.It might be very "sugary" but the universe around it isn't so it balances things out.Some phases of animation are pretty impressive,there's a good team of animators.

As you can see some of the phases of the concert are in 3D cel shading like idolmaster.2D is still there for the close up shots to keep good design quality and enough subtility in the design of the faces.

Nothing is finalised (3D animation,compo effects...),there's still a lot of work to be done and the airing date is getting closer.The first show should be 13 episodes long and a sequel with as many episodes is planned shorty afterwards (I have no idea if I the right to say this,oh well...)

Rena Matsui, who's a member down at sister team SKE48 (Sakae) and is known in the fan community to be a hardcore Idolmaster player, asked publicly that the production staff make the CG dance movements feel more natural (machine translation, sorry):

If you do not become more natural movement of the step of character but IM@S will not be exceeded!

There are precedents, for example: first there was New Kids on the Block, who, at the height of their popularity had their own animated show, but for a short time; later there was Puffy Ami Yumi on CN.

Now I can't blame Yasushi Akimoto (Aki-P the boss, bar none) for trying to do something different with the rather bland and banal world of Japanese pop music (in an industry with a certain rival jimusho agency that has a tight grip on its wards, even going so far as to forbid any unofficial photography), as he's experimenting with very different approaches (last week, I think, there was a CM that bordered on sapphic kisses and raised up a storm down at TokyoHive, but otherwise the girls did good work last year raising up more than a billion yen to help with disaster relief efforts).

I'd say that anyone who are critical of the girls or non-fans must do their homework first before putting their opinions forward (fact is, to prepare for this show's coming, and as I have little idea then about the girl group, I immediately took a full-on crash course on AKBology... and came out liking their music).

Finally, as the screenplay is written by Mari Okada (Toradora, Ano Hana), many are making comparisons with Idolmaster: Xenoglossia, but for me... Maybe it'll blow that other one out of the water.

Anyway, here's the final roster:

<AKB0048 - Legacy Members>

Acchan / Maeda Atsuko – Sawashiro Miyuki (Bakemonogatari)

Yuuko / Oshima Yuko – Kanda Akemi (Clannad, Negima!)

Yukirin / Kashiwagi Yuki – Horie Yui (School Rumble, Fruits Basket)

Mayuyu / Watanabe Mayu – Tamura Yukari (Galaxy Angel, Nanoha)

Kojiharu / Kojima Haruna – Noto Mamiko (Hell Girl, Marimite)

Takamina / Takahashi Minami – Shiraishi Ryoko (Hayate the Combat Butler)

Tomochin / Itano Tomomi – Ueda Kana (Fate Stay/Night, Marimite, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 - Japan version)

Sae / Miyazawa Sae – Nakahara Mai (Mai-Hime)

Sayaka / Akimoto Sayaka – Kawasumi Ayako (Fate/Zero, Fate Stay/Night)

<AKB0048 - The Research Students>

Aida Orine – Nakaya Sayaka (AKB48 Team A)

Ichijo Yuka – Sato Amina (AKB48 Team B)

Kanzaki Suzuko – Hata Sawako (SKE48 Team KII)

Kishida Mimori – Sato Sumire (AKB48 Team B)

Shinonome Kanata – Ishida Haruka (AKB48 Team B)

Shinonome Sonata – Yagami Kumi (SKE48 Team S)

Sono Chieri – Watanabe Mayu (AKB48 Team B)

Motomiya Nagisa – Iwata Karen (AKB48 Research Student)

Yokomizo Makoto – Mita Mao (NMB48 Team M)

I'll be damned... it'd love those skins... T_T

No big deal making custom skins if one happens to be playing the Strike Fighters series on the PC.

http://andriasang.co...combat_macross/

Lucky to those living in Japan and playing that game, but still no word about Kawamori's custom-designed bird. Basically, it's a DLC theme skin set for the F-14 Tomcat.

Discussion starts here:

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=33622&view=findpost&p=962966

MWO teaser...

I love the top comment, which left me laughing.

^

As far as pics are concerned, to maintain quality I prefer uploading them to Photobucket and then use a thumbnail link to those pics.

^

Moretsu Pirates smartly defines the words "never judge a book by its cover": the miniskirts are mere window dressing compared to the real meat of the story, old-school style sci-fi, with very surprising technical detail on aspects of naval warfare (both old and modern, including electronic warfare) and the depiction of privateering in space, and reinforcing further this nautical image is the sound effects, such as when the ship Bentenmaru creaks and rocks while dodging enemy fire.

If Moretsu is the rather comical-yet-smart "Master and Commander" of this season, then Another might as well be reminiscent of Stephen King's work, as the viewer is pulled in to follow Kouichi Sakakibara's attempts to investigate a horrific malady plaguing his class at school, in a dark and foreboding town strongly reminiscent of any backwoods place in the Pacific Northwest or around Maine... and after every episode (with some fatalities amongst some characters) the viewer now feverishly tries to guess what, how or why the malady happens and where it came from.

This one's a crossover/shoutout to one of my favorite new shows this season (from Satelite, of course).

Those two pics were, by my standards, very impressive artwork, especially with the second pic's low-level Gerwalk strike being awesome.

If I wanted to write some Zentradi characters speaking in Zentran, does anyone know how to write that? Or do I just write, "so-and-so swore loudly in Zentran?"

I prefer this way (in the same way I treat how foreign languages are spoken):

In most of my writings, and as I have an English-speaking audience who don't want to be bothered about picking up a dictionary while reading, I rarely use Japanese words, so I would apply the same practice to the Zentrans' language.

Surprised there's not more love for the hard sci-fi Mouretsu Pirates. Well hard sci-fi as you can get that still has miniskirt wearing pirates... It's been an awesome albiet slow-paced series with a horrible name. The (only) space battle they've had so far was much more chess strategy than typical zoom-zoom-pew-pew.

No doubt about it: a little dash of service, smarter heroines, sophisticated and detailed naval stratagems and tactics, and the show goes at full war power by episode 5 (a change from the usual episode 3 twister seen in most shows).

Interestingly, the series director appears to be implementing a new technique in which the viewer is rewarded for his/her patience after four seemingly-slow episodes, somewhat like picking the real men and women from the service-hungry boys (but no girls ).

The Iron Sky Theatrical Poster

Noticed Udo Kier.

LOL, YURI'S REVENGE THE MOVIE!

Again, thanks, man, for sending the message across.

Now that is one s*t-hot revamp. Excellent modernization work!

Ask Mari Okada; she's about one name I know who could turn in a very good script of a romantic anime show into a very memorable piece of work (one outstanding example: Toradora!).

For some, about the most pleasing consolation is Megu's newly-released OP/ED -- TRY/UNITE! -- which is right now my biggest earworm of the week.

What are you talking about?

The thing is, it made perfect sense for this show to have a cheery feel, especially when taking in consideration the morale of the average Japanese on the street 10 months after the earthquake: he/she has to contend with power outages, radiation in food, political and economic uncertainty and so on. With those issues, IMHO apparently not everyone wants to watch a TV show about more death and destruction (especially that they're weary of hearing bad news); they want something that portrays a modicum of confidence, hope above the rubble, and a funny, plucky heroine.

Not taking itself too seriously (as with past mecha shows) or too realistically, and clearly not aiming to compete (or to be compared critically; let's be honest -- it's pointless to compare Lagrange) with the usual traditional mecha franchises, Lagrange is a breath of fresh air that momentarily makes the viewer forget his/her problems, so as to speak, at least something to feel happy about after watching.

Personally, I'd rather have some fun watching Lagrange and have a laugh, than wasting time nitpicking every minute of it.

Watching Another

Pretty freaky

Recommended. Some shoutouts to Stephen King and John Saul.

Its not a parody, as Daiguard is played rather seriously, and the show brings real world physics to the super robot genre. The pilots aren't reckless as they are more clumsy and unskilled in the beginning. Trust me the pilots do give a damn about the damage they cause, and several episodes deal with the aftermath of their actions and the relief efforts they undertake.

You really are doing yourself a diservice by only watching "clips" and not watching it in its entirety.

Given the nature and mentality of this forum, I predict reactions like this to happen. This is post-3/11 Japan, folks.

When there was the last time a robot pulled off a suplex? Or that its pilot is concerned much about property and collateral damage? My defense, after some pundit blasted at it by calling it lame and lacking the "manliness", "guts" and "grime" of his favorites:

http://hikaritomizu.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/in-defense-of-rinne-no-lagrange-and-the-revitalization-of-the-japanese-collective-psyche/