Force India was my choice for "most improved" team last year, so I've been eagerly awaiting their 2010 charger.  Would they make radical changes?  Gently evolve?  Leave the car be?
The answer turns out to be "evolve."  Nothing shocking here; the only real changes are those prescribed by the rule book.


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Last time, Kagura's father saved the day, then smacked the crap out of his daughter for having a mental block about taking down human-based nasties.  What, then, does Episode 05 bring to us?

Yomi's dad calls her into his office... to give her a gift.  Y'know, right there's the difference between dads in this show: Yomi gets presents from hers, while Kagura's dad gives his daughter a scabbard across the back of the hands.  Anyway, the gift is one of his late wife's high-end kimonos.  After a few seconds of the Schoolgirl in Black making some of the most outrageous sounds ever heard outside of a bedroom, he brings up... Mr Laser Weasel himself, Noriyuki?  And if she still got along with him, and is she still okay with the arranged marriage?  Wait, the what now?  Turns out Noriyuki is the scion of another powerful family line of Exorcists, and yadda yadda stuff junk yadda. 

She gives a middlin'-long speech about how glad she is that he adopted her into the family, and because of that she's perfectly happy to still agree to the situation.  Well, whaddya know?



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-Hidamari Sketch Hoshimittsu, ep04

It's no shock to readers of The Pond that I'm a big fan of the HidaSketch franchise, what with it being the King of the Ducks In Anime category and all.  But this revelation might come as a surprise:

I didn't like this episode. 

In fact, I'm not overly fond of the two new characters either, since they're taking away from the four girls we've come to know and love.  I suppose that given time I could like Nori, the computer user, but Nazuna is everything I detest in one stupidly-wrapped package.  Timid and an inferiority complex the size of the Grand Canyon... ugh.  I cringe when she's on-screen, and recently I've been cringing when she HASN'T been on screen, for fear that she'll appear soon.

There's still plenty of time for her to come around, but I'm not holding out all that much hope: volume 4 of the manga, which is where the series is right now, has her stay pretty much the same.

Ugh.

Still, Yuno has her ducks.

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The virgin Virgin Racing team debuted their first car online today, and it's different...

Touted as the first F1 car designed entirely in computer with zero wind tunnel testing, the VR-01 appears to have some roots in the IRL.  Which makes perfect sense, considering that Virgin's technical designer, Nick Wirth, did a lot of work with Dallara on their IRL chassis.  Specifically, that nose!  Mosquitos have wider probosces.  Compare the VR-01's needle-point nose to the humongous beak on the Renault, for example.

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A different type of hardware from all the F1 stuff we've been seeing:

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In many ways the Toro Rosso STR5 has been the car I've been most looking forward to.  This is the first time the team has had to field an original design, as opposed to being a "client chassis" of the parent Red Bull team.  This puts them in an interesting position of being an experienced F1 team, but never having built their own car.  The question in my mind was how inventive they would be.

The answer turned out to be "not very."  It's essentially an updated STR4, which was the safe way to go for a relatively small team with an all-new design staff.

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Williams rolled out their new car at the first test in Valencia, and it's... conventional.

High nose with just a small downward angle.  Larger sidepod intakes. Pretty vanilla.



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Mercedes brought out their 2010 steed today, and it's pretty clear why they didn't want to roll their car out first.  It's got some interesting things in it, things that we haven't seen before!

No glamour pics, I'm afraid.  Reportedly, this chassis has been worked on (as the Brawn BGP-02) since the 2009 "summer break", so they've already filed off the rough edges.  It's a high nose (though not as high as some), with a serious nod to last year's Red Bull RB5 in that it copies the "V-nose" concept.  You'll note the raised edges, which in the MGP-W01 run all the way back to the cockpit.  The sidepod openings are huge in comparison to those in the McLaren or Ferrari.  The really innovative bit, however, is the air intake above the driver's head.  The structure serves two purposes on a F1 car: it gets air to the engine (ergo the name) and it acts as a roll bar to protect the driver in case the car ends up upside down.  In the past, the entire thing has been protective, built up out of carbon fiber to meet the required strength.  In the Mercedes, however, there is a thick vertical support on the centerline of the airbox that serves the same purpose.  The inlet is, in effect, split into two and is considerably larger as a result.


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Renault also rolled out their new car, the R30, today... and there are a few surprises.

It's the first of the 2010 racers to have a low-slung nose.  The idealist would suggest that they've found that it's better than the high nose.  The cynic, however, will say that all the prevaricating over coming back that Renault did last year prevented them from doing enough design work to discover the possible benefits of the high nose.  The sidepod air intakes are larger and lower than the other new releases as well.  The front wing is pretty generic, but that'd be easy to change.



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It was a low-key debut, but SauberF1 brought out their new car today.  I think they're a little behind schedule, however.

The aerodynamics have got to be awful.

Okay, okay, click below for the real pictures.

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Not a full F1 Pr0n entry as the car hasn't yet officially debuted, but the Williams took their new car, the FW32, out for a pre-test shakedown run at Silverstone a couple of days ago.  Y'know, "kick the tires, make sure everything stays in one piece, turn a few burn a few," that sort of thing.  It was supposed to be a secret thing, not for public consumption.

Autosport Magazine was there:


And two guys with a camcorder were there, too:

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Tah-dah!

From the front, McLaren's 2010 challenger doesn't seem too different from the 2009 car.  The nose is higher, but the betting line is that that'll be the norm this season (with the wider front tires last year, the lower nose allowed more ballast to be placed up front.  This season's narrower tires will require a better balance all-round, so the high nose won't hinder anything).

It's when you look at the side view, though, that you realize that we're looking at rolling artwork as much as high-speed racer...


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It's finally time!  The 2010 F1 rollout season is here, and as is traditional, Scuderia Ferrari has the position of honor.  They debuted their new chassis, the F10, this morning.  And here it is:

At casual glance, it looks pretty much like last year's car, but let's take a comparative glance at the 2009 F60, shall we?

The first thing that leaps out you is the sidepods.  On the F60, they go straight across the top, but the F10 is curved, bulging at the outsides.  The nose wing is subtly different as well.  The middle element on the new car, where the Santander logo picture is located, just stops when it reaches the inner limit.  On the F60, they slope down to the limit point.  The air intake has changed, with a more squashed appearance in comparison to the 2009 car.  Other changes are visible on the rear wing and where the sidepods meet the monocoque; look at the Ferrari logo and you'll see what I mean.



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-Shugo Chara Dokki Doki, ep14

Nope, I'm not watching the show, but the good folks at Chihiro happened to post a screenshot that showed duckies, so...

I'm pretty sure this particular entry now holds the record for most rubber duckies in a single screenshot.  The previous title holder was Kanokon ep08, with eight visible and 11 in-scene.

Yes, I'm a geek.

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Today would have been Momzerduck's 66th Birthday.

It's amazing how much I miss her.

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Today, Mercedes-Sauber F1 debuted... their paintjob.

The idea behind the livery is that it's a throwback to the original "silver arrows" of Mercedes.  Back in the day-- if the day you're talking about is 1934 or thereabouts-- the Mercedes team was going to join the  Eifelrennen, but their car was too heavy for the weight restrictions.  So the night before, the team sanded all the paint off, leaving just the silver chassis behind. 

And a legend was born.  Today's paintjob is meant to pay tribute to that one (which really wasn't a paintjob).  The car is (obviously) silver, but has part of it "sanded off", revealing the black carbon fiber underneath (not really, it's just paint, but run with it, okay?).  The greenish-blue on the leading edges of the nose and other places is the color of Petronas, the team's major sponsor.

The chassis this paintjob (actually, vinyl decal, but let's go with paintjob) is on isn't the 2010 MGP W01, but last year's Brawn car.  We should be seeing the new car later this week, when the first FIA practice session begins.  So stay tuned!

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In the last episode, we jumped back in time three years to see how Kagura, the Schoolgirl in White, first met Yomi, the Schoolgirl in Black.  We discovered that Yomi wasn't always a bad guy bent on driving the animation company into bankruptcy by forcing them to hire new voice actors for each episode because she killed off the entire cast.  So what does Episode 04 bring us?

We start off exactly where the last episode left off, with Kagura getting into The Agency's HMMWV and the group running off to deal with a new threat.

It's not the entire team, though.  Mr Laser Weasel, Nabuu and Nabuu seem to already be on site, leaving Iwahata and Kazuki to pick up the girls.  Considering that Yomi appears to be The Agency's heavy-hitter, and they seem to expect great things from Kagura,  I'd've thought more of an honor guard (perhaps with bosun's whistles) would have been appropriate.  Maybe they don't stand on ceremony much.

An episode of Ga-Rei Zero wouldn't be complete without Pocky.  But, oh-oh, there's only one stick left!  Yomi snags it with a whimsical "first come, first served."  Coming between Kagura and her Pocky, however, can be a dangerous proposition:

Yomi, though, will not be denied her delicious chocolate-covered biscuit stick.


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-The Cockpit OVA, ep02

If there's one thing military-based anime do well, it's concentrating on the appearance of the hardware being used.  Case in point, the picture above.  That's a Mitsubishi G4M, perhaps better known by its Allied reporting code of "Betty." 

Unfortunately, Bettys were known by their crews as the "Type One Lighter," or "Cigars".  That's what happens when you put big, non-self-sealing fuel tanks in a lightly-built airplane with no armor... and then put it in the path of the Big Blue Blanket.

You may also notice that it's carrying a Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka... which is the whole point of this episode from The Cockpit.  Considering that most of the Ohkas that were carried aloft never made it to a target, and the Bettys almost invariably were shot down, the above picture seems particularly detailed.  Episode 02 also the only of the three episodes I like.  Eventually, I'll get around to a writeup like I promised back in November.

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As you may remember, at the end of Episode 02 the Schoolgirl in Black, Yomi, seemed to have finished killing off Our (new) Heroes, including the Schoolgirl in White, her friend Kagura.  So just how in the world is Ga-Rei Zero going to continue?  Do we get another bunch of sacrificial heroes?  Nope. 

We get voiceovers:
Kagura: "On that day three years ago, I met someone important."

Yomi: "On that day three years ago, I met a girl lost in sadness."

The woman in the frame is Kagura's mom.  Yomi exorcised the nasty that killed her, while she died in her husband's arms.

Yomi: "That chance meeting was the destiny of two people who bear the burden of fate."
Both: "That is where it all began."

Flashback episode!

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1

I went and looked at Aroduc's posts about the series. So this is kind of like Divergence Eve in that they showed us the end first, and then will show how they get to that end?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 19, 2010 04:27 PM (+rSRq)

2 Yup. 

Posted by: Wonderduck at January 19, 2010 07:22 PM (Cpxcy)

3 Too bad. At least in the case of Divergence Eve, they pulled a switcheroo so that what you thought you saw in the first episode didn't turn out to really be what happened. Doesn't sound like they did that in this case, however.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 20, 2010 01:07 AM (+rSRq)

4 Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaa!  Just keep reading, Steven, just keep reading.

Posted by: Wonderduck at January 20, 2010 06:10 PM (Cpxcy)

5 Thanks for introducing me to Ga-Rei Zero.  I really enjoyed it, and hope it comes to Region 1 someday.  The only down-side, is that there was less laser-weasel action than I had hoped for...

I am now wondering if I should try to get the manga that this was the "preqel" for...

Posted by: Siergen at January 21, 2010 10:55 PM (hu1Gq)

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