Ikkitousen: Onsen Broadcast

So over at Chizumatic (linked post is NSFW), Steven is wondering about Ikkitousen ep09, the Onsen episode, and how it was edited for broadcast.  A fair question, considering that the DVD version is rather, shall we say, unrestrained (as are most of the female characters)?

Well, I was first exposed to Ikkitousen via the broadcast fansubs, which I've held onto despite owning the DVDs myself, so I can answer Steven's questions... open his page in one window, open this one in another, and you can see the differences.

Click on to compare, but be warned, the images below are NSFW (though not as bad as the ones on Steven's page)!

more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 260 words, total size 3 kb.

SKY GIRLS "Dear Dad..." Pointers

I was wondering why I was suddenly getting comments on posts almost a year old!  Turns out some other poor sucker adventurous soul stumbled onto Sky Girls TV, both Pete and Steven linked to one of my "letters home" posts on the show.

...and Pete mentioned that the he couldn't find my post for the Sky Girls OVA.  Oops.  The link changed when Pixy changed our blogging software to minx... and I didn't notice.  The pictures extend off the main frame, too.  Again, software change.

So, I thought I'd make this post, so the "letters home" posts can be found easily in the future.

The Sky Girls OVA post from January 8th, 2007 can be found here.  There are comments in the hover-text of each picture, but Firefox doesn't display them.  Pity, they were my favorite part of the post.

The Sky Girls TV post from July 30th, 2007 can be found here.

...and keep an eye out for the letter home from the Fishing Trips!  Coming soon...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 177 words, total size 2 kb.

ARIA's End

Iwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcryIwon'tcry

Dammit...

Dammit...

Dammit...

*sobbing like a little baby*


No, ARIA... thank you.  Over the course of 52 episodes and one OVA, you've introduced me to a wonderful world, full of wonderful characters, characters that I honestly cared about.  There's no action, there's very little drama (except in some special cases), and some would say there's almost no storyline.

There's just Akari, Aika, Alice, and all the rest of your people.  And that's all that's needed, because you did it right.  I like them.  For the first time in my 15 years of anime watching, I actually wish I could live in the world you've created. 

There's no higher praise than I can bestow on a series than that.  I cannot recommend this show enough. 

Thank you, Jeff, for introducing me to ARIA.  Thank you, RightStuf, for licensing the series.  Heck, I'll even thank Tokyopop for releasing the manga (which has become only the third manga series I've purchased, after a few volumes of Ranma 1/2 back in the mid-90s, and Azumanga Daioh in 2007).

But it's going to be hard to adjust to knowing that there won't be any new stories of Neo-Venezia coming.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 197 words, total size 2 kb.

It's Snowing... Sad Girls Everywhere!

...well, not really.  I got home, made myself some dinner, and settled into the Comfy Chair to watch Mythbusters.  Rerun.  What to watch whilst I dined on tortellini and salad?

Yep.  Kanon '06, DVD 4 just came out (I know I could have ordered it from Robert, but... well, I didn't), so lets fire it up.  Sure, I've seen the episodes before, but it's only while I eat dinner.

Two hours later, the DVD came to an end, and I didn't notice how the time had passed, as is usually the case when it comes to episodes 13-15, also known as "the end of the Mai arc."  I forgot just how GOOD the storytelling is in those episodes... so much so, that I got hooked all over again.

Which is amazing to me.  I've seen the show maybe four times all the way through, and spent a long, long time with it for "...Angel", you'd think I'd maybe be tired of it by now?

Nope.  Not by a long shot.  It doesn't hurt that the video quality is perfect, too, even on The Pond's low-quality TV.  There are only a couple of things I can complain about concerning ADV's performance. 

The first is their insistence on translating "Akiko-san" as "Mrs Akiko".  While that might be technically correct, it comes off as clumsy to American ears/eyes/whatever when it's said five or six times in a scene.  The second is the packaging: there's nothing in the DVD box except, well, the DVD.  I would have really liked a booklet of some sort, like what they did with the non-thinpack Azumanga Daioh DVDs.  Budget cuts, I'm sure, but...

Oh well... if those are my biggest complaints, then it's still pretty darn great.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 303 words, total size 2 kb.

Random Anime Picture #18

-ARIA the Origination, ep10

Aika looks like my brain feels.

Over at the Duck U. Bookstore, we've finished the main part of the school year and, with commencement done, bid our graduating seniors "adieu."

Which means we get to slow down, relax a bit, right?  Nope... some summer classes start on Thursday, the rest in June, and in July we'll be getting in the books for the fall semester of the next school year, which starts in August, and then it all begins again.

I had a day off last week, Saturday, which was spent trying to revive Momzerduck's computer (no dice, someone with better skillz and testing equipment needs to work on it)... worked Sunday, will work this coming Saturday.  I'm tired, and my brain doesn't want to work on anything very hard.

Which is why, instead of watching the last two episodes of ARIA, I find myself watching Ramen Fighter Miki.  No brains required (or allowed!).

A more coherent post will come along eventually.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 177 words, total size 1 kb.

Reload of Evangelion 1.01: You Are (not) Alone.

As anybody who's been an anime fan for more than a few hours knows, Neon Genesis Evangelion is pretty much considered one of those "required viewing" shows, along with such titles as Akira and Ghost In The Shell.

As well, anybody who's been an anime fan for more than a few weeks knows that Gainax, the production company that did Evangelion lo these many years ago, has been milking the show for all the money it's worth.  To date, there's been the original anime and manga series, three movies, four artbooks, three new manga series, 17 CDs, 22 video games, an uncountable number of figurines, and four pachinko machines.  A catalogue of only officially licensed merchandise in 1997 ran to 144 pages.

Well, Gainax has come back to the cow once more, with four "Reload of Evangelion" movies, the first three of which are a reimaging of the original anime, and the fourth to be an all-new ending (hopefully more understandable than the two endings currently extant).  The first movie of the lot, "Evangelion 1.01:  You are (not) alone." came down the fansub pike a week or so ago.  What does this movie have that everything in the past 13 years doesn't?

Honestly?  Nothing.  It is nearly a shot-for-shot remake of the original six episodes (though with some filler taken out; the 24 minutes of episode 05, where Shinji goes for a walk/runs away from NERV, are condensed to about five minutes here). 

In fact, I was only able to identify two shots that were new... and one of them was a three second look at a high school shoe rack.

Okay, so the movie really IS a reimaging of the original.  Was it worth it?  Click "more" to find out. 

WARNING: the extended entry has 25 screencaps, and is emphatically NOT safe for dialup. 
more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1248 words, total size 10 kb.