F-ZeroOne
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My all-time favourite photo of Japan that I took myself, and a total fluke as well - held the compact digital camera over my head and pressed the button. This, incidentally, is also why one does not visit Shibuya on Sunday nights if you're planning to get anything done there...!
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What Current Anime Are You Watching Version v3.0
F-ZeroOne replied to wolfx's topic in Hall Of The Super Topics
Planetes is really, really good; essentially Patlabor on TV, but in Space. It does have a bit of a shift in tone towards the end, though. -
Theres been some comment that the Amgels seem to be contradicting their own established rules; however at least some of it might be explained by the Doctor stating that the Angels we've met before were in poor condition and these new ones are a lot more powerful (also, IIRC from Blink, the Angels there fed off the energy released by sending their victims back in time; here, they have access to a more powerful and readily available energy source... ) Also, Mr. Moffat would appear to be teasing us more than we know (possible large spoiler about future events):
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Okay, there would appear to be some phrases that we're not going to be able to use for any episode Mr. Moffat has done the script for. These include "Well, that was an average episode" and "Yeah, its fine to watch that one alone, in the dark, at night." Cracking follow-up to last weeks and possibly the first episode to really allow Matt Smith to show off what he can do as The Doctor. Also, be prepared for questions... Spoiler:
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Sorry, Knight26, I forgot you work on those birds! I wasn't being serious, I saw it in the print edition of todays Mail on Sunday and almost laughed out loud at the tone of it myself...!
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Apparently Global Hawks are going to be used to spy on our citizens too. One would think that you people think that we're up to something...
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Surprise candidate for the next Master? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8642854.stm Graham Norton is a UK based chat show host and he has previous in this regard; during the broadcast of the very first episode of the revived Who series back in 2005, a technical error caused Nortons voice to be briefly heard during the episode. Or was it just a technical error, and did the BBC find a small, doll-like corpse in the controllers chair that evening...?
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Carrots. Also, Gundam simply has by far the biggest name recognition in Japan.
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Don't think theres going to be too many mixed feelings about this one.
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I seem to recall reading somewhere that even Gainax staff thought that rape scene was a mistake. As for Japanese TV, I was watching some live action drama at about 15:00 one afternoon in Tokyo and suddenly... hanky-panky of a kind not normally allowed in the UK until after 21:00...!
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I have an Ataru, but hes about three inches tall. I suppose I could always make out it was some accident from eating Oni food or something...
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Its all about Lum. It always was.
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Being in the UK, I had to come to Robotech (and, later, Macross) indirectly, through the RPG, but there probably wouldn't have been a RPG for me to find without people like Mr. Macek. I don't know nearly enough about what else he may have done later to really comment one way or the other...
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Toy manufacturers: Probably going to be the first episode of Matt Smiths run thats going to really split the audience. I actually liked it quite a bit, though all the criticisms are valid. From watching the "Confidential", the writer Mark Gatiss clearly intended it to be a tribute to the days of being ten years old, holding Action Man in one hand and a plastic space gun in the other, spending the bank holiday watching "Where Eagles Dare" for the nth time. Some have suggested it should have been a two-parter, but personally I think it could have been better done as a 60 minutes special. Still, big things next week, and also:
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You've probably heard this by now, but pretty much all commercial jet flying in the UK and Europe has been shut for the past day or so due to a huge cloud of volcanic ash darkening the skies, from an eruption in Iceland. This has allowed the press to trot out perhaps the ultimate example of British understatement ever, from Captain Eric Moody on a British Airways flight that ran into one of these clouds back in 1982: "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them under control. I trust you are not in too much distress."
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If you're stuck for (English language) reading material, try Towers Records in Shibuya or Books Kinokuniya in Shinjuku (its in the "New Times Square" building, but along a walkway on the fifth floor. I always walk across the building a few times before I get the right corridor... .
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If you get the chance, order the book "Tokyo Underground" by Brian Flynn; theres a new edition out soon but might not be available before you go. Its full of useful advice and tips on the best places for toy hunting. I can speak from experience when I say that the authors know their stuff. Quick advice: 1) Get a good map of Tokyo. You have never been lost until you have been lost in Tokyo. If you are meeting someone or need to be somewhere specific, make sure you have good directions, map and if possible a contact number. When instructions provided by a Japanese business say "4 minutes walk from... " they miss out the part that reads "if you're Usain Bolt". Mentally double walking estimates in these situations. 2) You pockets will fill up with coins pretty quickly. 100 yen, 50 yen and 10 yen coins are useful; 5 yen coins pretty much aren't and 1 yen coins make good tiddly winks. Wait until you visit a shrine and dump them in a donation box, or some convenience stores have charity boxes for loose change. 3) Don't be "da hardcore"; department store toy sections and "ordinary" toy shops can be good places to find recent but older items. Ueno station has a very good toy shop across the road from it; Kiddyland in Harujuku is another. Keep your eyes peeled; there may be shops of interest above or below your eye level. 4) Navigating Shinjuku: for the main part, best done by department store. You need a good map of Tokyo for this (see point 1) which names the department stores but beware the "Marui" trap; you will be looking for the Marui stores and all you see are stores marked "OIOI". They are the Marui stores; the OIOI branding is a word/language play on the name Marui. 5) If you want to see Akihabara at its best, visit on a Saturday or a Sunday, when cat-girls prowl the streets and idols promote the latest dating sim. If you want to get anything done in Akihabara, visit on a weekday around 10:30am, when the shops are just opening. On that note, many smaller Japanese businesses tend to open fairly late in the morning and close on a random day of the week instead of a weekend day. This can be annoying if its your one chance to visit a particular place, so check if possible. 6) If you have an iPhone, PDA or smart phone, try and get a copy of Metro, a free public transport guide that covers several Japanese cities. Very useful. 7) If you're in a hurry, Akihabara or Nakano Broadway are probably the best places to do all your Da Culture shopping in one hit. If you're really in a hurry, the looming Yodabashi Akiba store, just behind Akihabara, is a good place for modern toys and the worlds largest collection of iPod socks. Be prepared to to a lot of walking; Japan has one of the worlds best public transport systems but that doesn't make the corridors any shorter, and shrines, temples and castles are designed to destroy your knees. 9) Travel light; Japanese trains, even bullet trains, tend to be a little short on luggage rack space and some older buildings can have stairs that - I swear - are 90 degrees to the vertical. Bought too much stuff? Ditch packaging before you leave if possible, buy or pack an empty holdall and consider posting items back. Japanese post offices sell boxes, scrunched up newspaper can make reasonable packing material and loans are available to cover the postal costs. 10) Generally, Japanese toilets are of three kinds: traditional "squat" type, Western type (though with unusual twists; that spout on top is not to watch your hands with!) and Toilet Borg 3000s. Toilet Borgs 3000s have control panels which are played with at your own personal risk of being soaked by a six foot arc of high velocity water. 11) DON'T PANIC. Just because everyone else is rushing around doesn't mean you have to. Find a quiet spot, check your map and consider. 12) The tissue thing. You'll find out.
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Controversy coming in 3... 2... 1... (warning, major spoiler for this Saturdays episode):
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When does the World Cup start again...? Or Wimbledon...?
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Hottest companion? K-9. What? Another nice Moffat-penned episode this week; very 2000AD (long-running British SF comic known for its mostly dystopian future tales). Next week... lets just say old friends.
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"Why is there a gauge marked "tea" level on this panel, Herr Tom...?"
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Earth Defence Force 2017. By every standard of modern game design, it is appalling. And yet it lets you shoot Giant Space Ants with a rocket launcher, over and over and over. Recommended; its like Roger Cormans Halo.
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Apparently the RAF flew a Tornado GR4 strike mission over Afghanistan recently with a British pilot in front and a German - Luftwaffe - navigator in back. You can probably supply the in-cockpit banter...
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First Matt Smith episode finished about, uh, 15 minutes ago over here. You can stop worrying now.
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They seem to have left that particular design requirement out of every account of R.J. Mitchell I've ever read...