It should come as no surprise that things have been somewhat dour around Pond Central of late.  Relaxing, certainly, but morale here is low.  Over the past few weeks, though, I've noted the occasional good vibes being aimed at a currently-running anime named Tokyo ESP.  As is my wont when I'm investigating a new series, I tried to avoid as much spoilerish information as possible.  For the most part, I've succeeded... what I did discover was that it was based on a manga by Hajime Segawa. 

That forced me to pay attention to what I had been hearing.  See, Segawa was the mangaka behind Ga-Rei, the source material for one of my favorite anime, Ga-Rei Zero.  Around these here parts, GRZ is best known as the first series to get an episodic writeup and pretty much the only truly good series to get that treatment. It didn't take me very long at all to decide that I had to watch at least a little bit of Tokyo ESP.  After some digging around to choose a good translation, I downloaded the first couple of episodes.

So why, exactly, is Wonderduck smiling?

^{Note: if you're a fan of GRZ, do NOT read any farther, and DO watch Ep01 of TESP.  Trust me on this.}

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:55 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ha-ha!  I bet you didn't expect to see another one of these for a couple of weeks at the earliest, and maybe not for months and months.  Well, you were wrong, weren't you?  It's okay, it's totally understandable; it's not like I've had a great track record when it's come to the episodic writeups for Ben-To!.  I admit that.  Not only do I admit it, I embrace it.  I cherish it.  I make it my own.  And then I crumple it up into a small little ball and throw it away, because this here, this now, this is the way things'll be done around here when it comes to our little show about food fights!  If you smell what the Rock is cookin' Because Stone Cold said so Whatcha gonna do when Duckamania Dead man walkin' Vanilla midgets Y2J Rabid Wolverine Will somebody stop the damn match And besides, this episode is supposed to take place in a waterpark, and forgive me, but I just don't see any way that that can be bad.  I don't.  I really, really don't.  Which probably means I haven't been reading my own writeups, but let's just go with it for now... I Am The Game.  Welcome to Ben-to Ep07 is Jericho!  Bang bang!

As the episode begins, Shaga shows up with four tickets to "Totally Hawaii", the newly opened theme park.  Seems the conglomerate that runs Ralph Store ("...we do more than just Ralph!") runs the place and gave their employees free tickets.  Macchan gave her tickets to Shaga, and since she no longer has any friends from The East, decided to offer them to Our Hero and the rest of the Half-Pricers Association.  Our Hero, in a feat of mental ingenuity unsurpassed since man first put cheese on a hamburger, realizes this means swimsuits... particularly for the Ice Witch.

Needless to say, he is enthusiastic about this idea, and truth be told, it's kinda hard to blame him.  I was enthusiastic about it when I first heard about it myself, and yes, I know that sounds rather lame of me.  Yup, perhaps so, but then again, I also spend multiple hours typing episodic writeups for an anime about martial artists kicking each other nigh unto death for Happy Meals.  Of course I'm going to be enthusiastic about a swimsuit episode!  And since we're amongst friends here, you can freely admit the fact that you are too.  Because you know the animation quality of the swimming scenes is going to be top-notch, and we're all here because of the animation quality of Ben-To. 

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:59 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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They say that just claiming to have decided to continue on with a series that you dropped isn't enough: you have to back it up with action.  Well, I did that to a certain extent with the writeup for Ep05, but one episode does not a restart make!  Nope, it's gotta be at least two before you can take my claims seriously.  And this, my good and dear, is the writeup for Ep06... or will be, when it's done.  I mean, yeah, right now this is just the usual opening paragraph that usually has absolutely nothing to do with the writeup itself... it's more a chance for me to warm up.  And by "warm up," I mean in the sense that a pitcher has to warm up before he comes into a game.  Sometimes, I'm like the closer: jogging in from the bullpen with the crowd going crazy and a high-octane theme song blaring, with a rubber arm that needs but a few moments to get loose.  And then there are the days where I'm the fleabitten, mangy old pitcher who needs an hour to get loose and only throws slop, junk and trash, all of it at 82 mph.  But in the end, somebody has to get the outs, no matter how hot or bad the arm is.  Good rule of thumb would be the longer this first paragraph is, the closer I am to being Jamie Moyer than Masahiro Tanaka.  Well, either way, I'm in the major leagues.  Which might be more than I can say about Ben-To!, but perhaps I'm being unkind.

The preceding warmup paragraph was written just about two months earlier.  Much has changed in that time, to say the least.  Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka tore a ligament in his pitching elbow, went on the disabled list, and realistically shouldn't be expected to return this season.  Jamie Moyer is still old.  Your scribe was put on waivers, then released.  Funmation postponed the release of Ben-To! indefinitely.  Heck, even the original viddy I selected for Trevor Hoffman went away.  So yes, much has occurred... and yet, Ben-To! is still in the exact same place it was when we last saw it, just aching for us to return.  And so we shall!

Surprisingly, this is kinda similar to the way I blog.  Except I sit at a desk, use a tower computer, have an incandescent lamp above and to my right, and red accent lighting for the rest of the living room (not bedroom), and I'm a duck.  Desaturation Lass up there is taking the events of Ep05 and making them into one of her yaoi fanfics, and that's just about all the lead-in we get this episode.  It's actually rather disturbing.  Not the lack of lead-in, her writing.  I mean, very disturbing.

OH GOD WHAT DID THEY DO TO THAT POOR RABBIT?!?!?!

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:59 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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1)  Rum & 7up is awful.  Since I can only imagine that rum & orange soda is worse, drunkblogging is not going to happen tonight, if ever.

2)  My internet connection is porpoising tonight, up and down, up and down, up and (mostly) down.  In other words, I'm not going to get any serious (or even unserious) blogging done this evening as I use mu.nu to compose my posts.

3) There will be free ice cream tomorrow.  It will be good.  You will enjoy it.  Yes, you will. 
Oh yes... yes, you most certainly will.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:22 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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I'm going to do something here on Saturday that I've never done before... I'm going to do an episode review while drinking.  Yes, that's right, there's a fair good chance I'll be drunkblogging Ben-To!.

I haven't had a drink in at least six years... I think once in a while I can have something, eh?  I intend to leave all errors in the post, so in theory it'll get sloppier as the night goes on... and therefore funnier! 

See ya then, fans!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:45 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:43 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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