Random Anime Picture #70: Sloths in Anime #5

-Polar Bear Cafe, Ep03
A llama, an okapi a tapir, an otter and a sloth walk into a cafe...

As animals go, having a sloth appear in an anime seems to be a rather unlikely choice.  I'm not sure why I started noticing them (maybe because they're a rather unlikely choice?), but notice them I have.  Not gonna threaten the rubber ducks in anime category anytime soon, but...

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Random Anime Picture #68: What, Again?

-Sora no Woto, Ep13

Didn't I just do one of these a couple of days ago?  Well, yes, yes I did.  Except that one actually had a point to it (i.e., don't watch Kill Me Baby).  This one, on the other hand, is some attempt at an explanation of my lack of actual content here at The Pond of late.  One could argue that it's been 18 days since my last post of any real value.  I will concede the point.  It's not like I don't have big things to write about... indeed, I've got two major posts staring me in the face (Best Late War Fighters, Katawa Shoujo). 

Thing is... I just don't feel like writing.  Part of it is work-related; we've been going great guns all month in preparation for the start of Spring classes, which occurred this week.  Tuesday, to be exact, which might tell you just how sick I really was this past Wednesday.  Anyway, work is part of it.  The aforementioned Katawa Shoujo and Skyrim are also reasons why I haven't blogged much.  It may not be a coincidence that my output went through the floor the same day that KS was released.  I'm enjoying my time in two radically different imaginary worlds for radically different reasons.  I just... look, I've been here at The Pond for a long time (well, in blog time at least).  I still enjoy blogging, it's just a different sort of enjoyment now.

Back in the "old days," when nobody knew who this Wonderduck guy was, I wrote to a) entertain myself; and b) make people aware that there was a hyperintelligent duck with phenomenal (for a duck) typing skills out there who might have some interesting things to say.  Then once I got noticed by a few folks who decided to stick around, the "new day" of blogging dawned.  In some ways, I felt I had to keep one-upping myself.  This led to mammoth posts that took waaaaaaay too long to write; 4100 words and eight hours?  For an episode of Rio Rainbow Gate!?

Maybe I'm just getting old, but the immense need to write seems to have gone away at some point over the past few months.  Maybe having that tooth pulled let it all leak out?  I'm not going anywhere, don't fret none 'bout that.  I'm not even taking a hiatus.  I'm just... going to take it easy for a bit.  Not for long, and you might not even notice a difference, but I'm going to stress less about blogging and try to have myself a little fun again.

Besides, the F1 thing starts up in earnest this week when Caterham rolls out their 2012 car to begin the F1 Pr0n season.  I weep for my lost weekends...

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Random Anime Picture #67: Oh Dear

-Kill Me Baby, Ep02

Pilots everywhere are frantically trying to change course right now.

I'll be blunt: Kill Me Baby is not funny.  At all.  I watched 10 minutes of the first episode and was surprised to find that it still had 12 minutes left to go... I thought for sure I'd gone through a half-hour already.  That is NOT a good sign.  Also not a good sign: Wonderduck skipping ahead during a show.  I just don't do that, particularly during the first episode of a show I was looking forward to.  It's not bad or anything, it's just not funny.

By the halfway point of Ep02, I was actually saying "Kill Me Baby" to my duck collection, hoping one of them would take me up on the offer.  No such luck.  When the above scene came on, I actually envied the one being choked out.  Then I closed zoomplayer and went off and played some Skyrim.

What I'm saying is that Kill Me Baby is not worth anybody's time.  Just writing this little post took more time than KMB was worth.  If I was in a better mood, maybe I'd turn it into the next Rio Rainbow Gate!, but it'd fail for lack of anything interesting.

Don't watch it.  Don't download it.  Don't even read this post... oh wait.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:41 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Your Attention Please

-Fate/Zero ep02

That is all.

Nah, that's not all.  We're three episodes into the prequel of Fate/Stay Night, and it's a huge graphical upgrade.  You'd expect that, of course, seeing how FSN is five years old now, but one could even argue that it looks better in some ways than the Unlimited Blade Works film from last year.  Though UBW's effects blow everything out of the water.

-Unlimited Blade Works movie

I'd love to tell you something about what's going on in F/Z, but as of Ep03 nothing really IS happening.  The Masters have all been introduced, their Servants have taken to the field, and then... Ep03 ended.  What I'm saying is, it's moving a tad slowly.

It's slow, but it's sort of like a David Weber-style infodump.  Without the past three episodes, we'd have no idea what's going on later. 

I hope.

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Zipang'd!

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a little piece about the anime Zipang!.  I liked it at the time.  Now I've gone back and watched the last few episodes and... well... it's probably just me, but I've noticed a lot of glaring discrepancies.

If you remember, the JMSDF cruiser Mirai is sent back in time to 1942.  A lot of things happen, and in the climax to the series, the Mirai becomes involved in a duel with the USS Wasp.  In the picture above, the Wasp is just beginning to launch her first attack on the Japanese cruiser.  The SBD is flawlessly rendered, except that it's specifically said to be carrying a 1000lb bomb.  To be sure, a Dauntless can carry a weapon of that size, and quite often did... except that when it did, it couldn't carry bombs on the wing positions.  Looking at the Wasp, you'll note that it has a deck-edge elevator opposite the island.  Indeed, she was the first ever carrier with such a thing.  Only problem is that it didn't look like that; it was a simple framework arrangement instead.

It certainly doesn't help that I wrote a post about the Wasp last year.  There are other problems as well.  In the climactic battle, the carrier's first attack is 40 planes, divided between SBDs and Avengers.  Her second attack is to be the same size.  That's 80 planes right there, and the Wasp couldn't carry that many.  We only see one Hellcat in the entire sequence.  Sure, there's no need for them in the attack against a lone surface ship, but if she only has one squadron of F6Fs, that still puts her Air Group around 96... many many more aircraft than she could ever carry.  And then there's this picture:

Episode 02 takes us to the Battle of Midway, right as the SBDs come raining down on Kido Butai.  Above, we see the Soryu.  As is traditional, her flight deck is packed with aircraft... though they all appear to be Zeroes.  Of course, we now know that the Japanese carriers didn't have their flight deck filled with aircraft at any time after the Midway striking force landed.  The producers did get the location of her island correct, though.  However, I'm not entirely sure what those SBDs are doing.  Oh, yes, they're pulling up from their bombing run, except they're pulling straight up (the next couple of seconds show them flying right into the camera).  1) the pilots would be unconscious from the g-loads, and b) the wings would have come off.  Still, it's an exciting shot.

I'm nitpicking, but I've got to, it's my job.  Let's not even talk about the way the characters go off-model constantly...  Zipang! is an interesting watch, but I'm no longer convinced it's good.  The CG ships and planes are pure WWII pr0n, though.

Even if the Kaga looks a little squat and cartoony.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:48 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #66: Working On It

I'm getting annoyed with myself.  While I've turned out some okay stuff recently here at The Pond, more often than not I find that I'm more whining about work than writing about something interesting.  So, yes, I'm annoyed with myself.

Not annoyed enough to be able to stop whining, but annoyed.  So instead of moaning, kvetching and complaining (and I totally expected FireFoxy to give me the red squiggly line under "kvetching", but it didn't), instead I'm going to give you something to look at.  Here you go:

-High School Of The Dead, ep08

And really, that's all you need to know about HSotD... which I really liked.  One of these days, I'll get around to giving the show a full review... maybe an episodic one?... but until then, you'll have to be content with a lack of content.  Or something.

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Random Anime Picture #65: Ptui!

-THE iDOLM@STER, ep04

Work is the story of my life right now.  Pulled an 11-hour day on Wednesday, and rewarded myself by coming in only 20 minutes early today!  Woo!  Sunday is my last day off until August 27th, meaning I'll get one day off between August 8th and August 27th.  Double-yay!

Well, at least The Librarian came over tonight.  Lots of banter, no anime, which is fine too.  She's got the annual Anime Club Overnight + Pockypalooza event starting Friday evening, so she borrowed a few DVDs from me: the first four discs of Cardcaptor Sakura and Summer Wars.  Time for the kids to see what good anime is really like.  Oh, and there's Keroro Gunso, too... I gather Funimation donated the show to The Librarian's library.  Very cool of them, that.  Don't envy her, though... 13 or 14 hours of being cooped up with teenagers?  Yeesh.

Enough babbling.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #64: A Pleasant, Happy Show

In an attempt to distract myself from the ongoing saga of the Duck U Bookstore, I decided to watch something lighthearted, something innocuous, cheerful and fluffy.  Something like, oh I dunno...

-Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance
No, I'm not sure what I was thinking either, other than "I haven't watched this yet."  Unlike the first of the new movies, which was a faithful (but shortened) retelling of the first six episodes of the classic series, this second film strays far afield from the original source material.  It introduces a new Eva pilot, for example...

...then forgets about her for 45 minutes, brings her back in for a couple of moments, then misplaces her for an hour, but that's neither here nor there.  The movie also changes the personalities of the three main pilots.  Shinji is less whiny, Asuka is even more antisocial, and Rei... well, she actually has a personality.

The fight scenes are stunningly animated and amazing to watch.  They're also quite violent and brutal.  Blood, or what passes for blood in Evas and Angels, is spilled in copious amounts... and yes, the "wave of blood swamping the panel truck" scene is in here.

It appears that the Evas are "built" using Monty Python Black Knight Technology, as any wound suffered by the huge biomecha immediately begins spraying blood like a fire truck sprays water.  For example, there's one scene where an Eva is eaten by an Angel, the whole thing taken in one bite that severs the Eva just above the knees.  The leg stumps immediately begin spraying blood to the height of a 20-story building, and doesn't stop.  I don't know if Gainax meant that to be funny or not, but it made me laugh.

While there are some moments of intentional levity in Eva 2.22, on the whole it's a grim, dark, depressing film... pretty much like the original series, truth be told.  However, it's also much more tightly written, more engrossing, and less off-putting than the TV show.  I much prefer this "rebooted Eva" over the original, to be blunt.  We'll have to wait for the last two movies to see if they continue to be stronger than the series, of course... but if they are, well, Hideaki Anno will have made up for the horrible mess he made of episodes 25 & 26 of the TV show.

Oh, and Asuka gets her own version of the "toothpick scene."

Pen-Pen's gots the moves.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:12 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #63: Toasty

Things are a little hectic at the Duck U Bookstore these days.  We're a month away from the start of the new school year, there's very nearly three tons of books being delivered to the store over the next few days, we're starting to see the first ducklings coming in to buy said books... and there is no store manager.  She got promoted to a bigger store that was 10 minutes from home (instead of the hour-long drive each way she did to work at the Duck U Bookstore), and her last day was this past Tuesday.  That leaves yours truly in charge...

...of a trained part-timer who has limited availability and two brand-new temps who are still learning how to use the cash register.  Eep.  A new manager is expected to be selected by the first week of August, but even in the best of cases it's going to be somewhat hectic around here for a while.  It's only been two days, but I'm already roughly a day and a half behind on the manager stuff... or at least, that's the way I feel.  Oh, and there's a registration day for incoming students on Saturday, it's going to be 95 degrees outside for the next week, and every single road and most of the parking lots at Duck U have been scraped to the foundations in preparation for resurfacing next week.  And my knee is making unpleasant sounds and hurts something fierce.

-Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko, Ep02

I'd like to hide in a futon too.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:32 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #62: The Last Refuge For The Lazy Wonderduck

-El Cazador de la Bruja, ep12

Just because I felt like putting up a random anime picture... its been a while, and heck, it's not like El Cazador got enough attention.  Quite a good show, from the team that brought us both NOIR and the hideous Madlax.  Yep, it's the third of the BeeTrain "girls with guns" trilogy, and the only one with a sense of humor.  It's not as polished as NOIR, but few shows are.  Well worth a watch or two.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:54 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #61: Not Looking Good

It isn't every day an anime tells you what it thinks about itself in the first minute of the first episode...

-Sengoku Otome Momoiro Paradox, Ep01

I'd love to tell you what's going on in SOMP, but I came to the first eyecatch and realized I expected the show to be ending at that point.  When 12 minutes feels like 24, that is not a good sign.  There's a movement afoot to make this show the next RRG!-esque Bad Anime Reviews.  I don't think I can take that right now... let me have some time to regrow the dead brain cells, huh?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:55 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #60: Gosh!

-The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya movie

I have a secret to reveal.

I love it when an author, or a tv show, or an anime, gives substantial time to a series' secondary characters.  I'd much rather read about Wedge Antilles, normal guy (though an extremely talented pilot), than Luke Skywalker (Jedi God).  After who-knows-how-many pages/hours/whatever we've spent learning about Our Heroes, there are times when I really like to find out more about the Second Spearcarrier On The Left... which is one of the (many) reasons I really like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  I think that's why I prefer the second and third series in the Nanohaverse over the original: in many ways, the namesake of the show isn't the focus of the show.  Instead, the wolkenritter (in A's) and Riot Force 6 (in StrikerS) become the primary characters. 

And then I read the book, The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya... and nearly wept with happiness.  No lunatic Haruhi and a story based around Nagato?  Sign me all the way up for that, please and thank you very much.  I think the book is the best of the four light novels translated and released here to date, but your mileage may vary.  Then I found out about the movie... and that Kyoto Animation was doing it, and I began to hope for the best, but prepared for the worst.  Because to put it simply, KyoAni's recent shows have been pretty 'meh' in the artwork department. 

I need not have worried.  KyoAni has returned to their pre-K-On!ification days, and the whole thing looks gorgeous as a result.  If you liked KyoAni's style from before they started to get cartoony, back when they were doing Kanon '06, the first Clannad, and the original Haruhi series, it's worth watching for that alone.

And, hey, Yuki shows actual emotion in the movie... which can't be bad, right?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 09:09 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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(Completely) Random Anime Picture #59

-Strike Witches 1st Series, ep04

As I'm currently working on a series of posts, tentatively titled "Wonderduck's Favorite Anime Series Of All Time," and can't be bothered to come up with something clever today, here's a picture of Gertrud Barkhorn from a series that isn't on the list, Strike Witches the first season, which is a perfectly acceptable show, but doesn't make it onto the short list of my favorite anime series of all time, and thus I end this run-on sentence.

By "(Completely) Random," I mean it.  I used a totally impartial random number generator in Virginia to give me the number of a folder I have sitting on my external hard drive, then chose an episode by waving the mouse over the episodes contained therein with my eyes closed.  Then I chose a spot in the episode, also at random, and voila!  A Barkhorn appears.  Enjoy!

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Random Anime Picture(s) #58: Continue? (Y/N)

-Amagami SS, ep16
She's welcoming you with open arms, how sweet!

more...

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Random Anime Picture #57: Suddenly, A Sanya Appears!

-Strike Witches 2 ep12

The new series was really quite good, but it could have used more Sanya V Litvyak for my tastes.  As a lark, I went back and watched the original OVA, which I called "the greatest seven minutes of anime ever", and I discovered something...

-Strike Witches OVA
...it's amazing what you can do with a budget.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:13 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #56: D'AAAAWWWWWWWWWWW!

-High School of the Dead, ep11

Who's a cute widdle warrior?  Alice is, Alice is a cute widdle warrior!  Yes she is!  Yes she is! 

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:15 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #55

-Sora no Woto, ep 7.5

A wagon-mounted gatling squirtgun created by a genius armament designer being pushed by a nun with the ammo supply carried by a trumpet player, all three of whom are drunk.  Sure, I can see that.

Actually, this DVD-only episode was really, really funny and well worth watching if you're a fan of the show.  Heck, maybe if you aren't a fan, too.  Heck, just for the facial distortions that Noël displays when she reveals her secret weapon:

Gotta love it when a person takes pride in their work...

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Random Anime Picture #54: Crossover

-Sketchbook ~full color'S~ ep13

As if having President Aria show up as a bowling alley mascot wasn't enough, Akari makes an appearance too!  Okay, sure, it's actually after the credits roll on the last episode of Sketchbook, but there she is.

There is a little bit of backstory here, of course.  Both Sketchbook and the ARIA franchise were animated by Hal Film Maker, and ARIA the Origination was their next show to air.  In fact, I seem to remember reading somewhere that they even ran in the same timeslot.

I really enjoyed Sketchbook, at least until Kate the Canadian otaku shows up.  At that point, my skin began to crawl a little bit, but not enough to truly dampen my enthusiasm for the show.  My recent rewatch of the series just confirmed that opinion, both of the show and of Kate.

If you liked ARIA or Hidamari Sketch, you'll feel right at home with Sketchbook.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:35 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Random Anime Picture #53: Aria Bowling

For a lark, I decided to watch the first episode of Sketchbook ~full color's~ this evening.  I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed the whole laid-back pace of the show... and then this came across my monitor:

-Sketchbook ~full color's~, Ep01
I nearly fell out of my chair, I was laughing so hard.  I completely forgot that was in there!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Until It Is Here, Here Is Something Else

I've begun work on the writeup for the final episode of Ga-Rei Zero.  While you're waiting, please enjoy this picture.

-Hatsukoi Limited ED

Unfortunately, she never actually wears that outfit in the show...

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