While searching my anime soundtracks I realized that the special ending song from Black Lagoon 15, The World of Midnight, was on the OST released for the last season. Me being the kind of guy I am have uploaded it to megaupload for anyone who’s wanted the song. Sadly it’s only the tv size though. Still a beautiful song.
Megaupload link: www.megaupload.com/?d=152APOS7
In other news Greenback Jane is super moe, which is weird for black lagoon.
Celebrating Halloween the otaku way! All images thumbnails cause I thought resizing would ruin ones like these. And yes most of them were gotten from Danbooru.
This should be of interest to all those rabid ARIA fanboys and/or Impz. On Tokyo toshokan today I found this torrent of a bunch of ARIA desktop accesories and fanboy junk someone in Japan put together. And man there’s a lot of cool stuff here.
- Bunch of wallpapers and backgrounds, sadly only official ones though.
- Official character sketches
- Hundreds of voice clips for all the characters.
- Some fanmade video that gives a tour of Neo-Venezia. Of course useless to me for my lack of moonspeak.
- Bunch of icons and cursors to customize with, and a handy program to make it simple.
But you Know what I like best? There’s a bunch of clocks, one for each character. It’s weird and cool at the same time. I don’t think I could use this stuff all the time, but it’s nice to know I have it around. Torrents still on tosho if you want it. Just to note it’s an iso file so you’ll need something like daemon tools to mount it. Now see my totally ARIA’d out desktop.
In other news, StrikerS can’t come soon enough…
Fuck. Desu has beat our glorious lady Fate’s ass to win the nerdiest competition ever, Saimoe. Who thinks she won from all the /b/tards spamming the vote? This is why I don’t trust the internet. Oh well I’m more interested in SaiGar anyways.
It’s that time of the week! Time to look at the many music releases of the week relevant to the otaku. This week includes a massive number of opening and ending releases to delight/annoy the ears. As usual I’m just looking at a few, mainly from shows I’m watching. And just a disclaimer I should not be thought of as a professional music reviewer in any sense at all.
Nummer Eins this week is the excellent OP of Pumpkin Scissors, Aoki Flamme by Takahashi Youko, along with the song Change included on the single. I just have to say Aoki Flamme is flat out sex for the ears. This is one of the best anime singles I’ve heard in awhile, beating out Death Note’s awesome the WORLD. Part of this is the excellent vocals of Takahashi Youko, who I realized also did the excellent first ending to Shakugan no Shana (highly recommended for downloading if you like this). She has a power and force in her singing unknown to the usual J-pop singers. This woman is a singer in the most professional sense of the word. Secondly Aoki Flamme is great for being a complex rock number, perfectly fitting the chaotic Pumpkin Scissors. Like I said single best OP of the season. The second track included, Change, I really don’t enjoy. It’s a slow moving acoustic guitar type ballad. Takahashi’s vocals are still good, but it just lacks the power of the former track I enjoy.
Tokimeki Memorial~Only Love~ has it’s OP release this week, Yokan and Anata no Tonari de, both by Makishima Yuki. Yokan’s not exactly the best J-pop song ever, but it’s hardly the worst. Instead of giving us something nauseatilingly sweet like most game adaptations we get a heartfelt song that feels like it’s sung with real emotions. This is probably owed to Makishima Yuki being a pretty good singer. Than again it hardly fits the insane antics I’ve come to associate with the series. Anata no Tonari de is similiar in the heart-felt singing way to Yokan. It follows the normal formula of being slower than Yokan, but it wasn’t exactly fast to begin with. Both songs are basically vocal rich J-pop that you can listen to with or without being familiar with tokimeki.
Why am I reviewing the marimite OVA ED if I’ve never even seen marimite? Because it’s by fucking KOTOKO! She is probably my favorite japanese artist and I always relish everything she does, even if it’s for an anime I’ll never watch. The two songs Chercher and Tsukiyo no Butoukai are for the Maria-sama ga Miteru OVA, Chercher being the ED song. Chercher is one of her more ballad like songs, unlike her totally awesome rock songs. It could probably be said I enjoy KOTOKO’s slower songs the least, which is true, but still it’s pretty good stuff, mainly because she’s just a great singer. Tsukiyo no Butoukai has a deceptive opening with church bells, but then it’s just a normal song, similiar in style to Chercher. I guess the producers didn’t want something like Re-sublimity. Rock tracks just don’t work with marimite. Anyways even though I think it’s a forgettable KOTOKO song it’s still pretty good, and both are a nice listen for KOTOKO fans, or Jpop fans in general.
There is only one Ali-project song, remixed a thousand times and given new lyrics. I’m serious. The Code Geass ED Yuukyou Seishunkan sounds like a slower version of the first Rozen Maiden OP. Crazy. And of course the RZ Op was amazingly fast paced and awesome, making a slower ver. of it massive fail. I liked the second song, Chinkon Shiyou, because I couldn’t immediatly place what Ali-project song it came from and, as a piano-focused ballad, is pretty nice and fits that kind of gothic theme (I think) Ali-project has. Probably listen to this if you like Ali-project, though I am finding the second song deceptively addicting. Maybe check it out just for that.
Remember those nausiatingly cute jpop songs I was talking about earlier? The mamoru OP is one of them. Though as far as sweet jpop songs go it isn’t that bad. It’s enjoyable just because it is a fast paced sugary sweet song. Reminds me of the Tsuyokiss OP for some reason. Very similiar I think. Vocals could stand some work though. Kind of amateurish, or maybe just trying to sound sweet too hard. Actually it’s kind of addictive in a weird way. Konayuki Maifuru Kouen de is another jpop ballad. Similiarly it’s not really bad, just forgettable. It really hurts these ballad type songs that I can’t understand their lyrics. Oh well good music is good music.
Other releases this week are:
Asatte no Houkou. OP
BLACK BLOOD BROTHERS OP + ED
BLOOD+ COMPLETE BEST
Bokura ga Ita ED
Galaxy Angelu~n OP
Garasu no Kantai OST
Gift eternal rainbow OP
Gundam SEED DESTINY Special Edition 3 ED
Hapiness! OP + ED
Innocent Venus OST
Kujibiki Unbalance OP
NHK ni Youkoso! ED2
Otome wa Oneesama ni Koishiteru OP + ED
Shounen Onmyouji OP
Teikoku Rikugun Jouhoubu Dai 3 Ka OP
Utawarerumono OST
Sumomo mo Momo mo OP
Galaxy Angel 2 Character CD Vol. 3
Chocotto Sister Anchoko 3 Satsume
As usual all this and more can be gotten the excellent site Nipponsei.
While searching for any more Bokurano scanlations I stumbled upon another one of Mohiro Kitoh’s works, this one a collection of six short stories. From the description their apparently from different points in his career, which you can kind of tell. The early ones are light hearted and romantic, while later tales are a bit more ” Mature ” though nothing bordering on the horror of Narutaru or Bokurano. The short stories are:
Zansho - Summer Heat - A boy is visited by the ghost of his recently dead sister who has a regret holding her in this world, mostly pertaining to a love letter…
The Girl on the Telephone Pole At the Intersection of 3rd Street - Hideto is a ghost stuck on a telephone pole, who happens to fall in love with the only girl that can see him. However his situation as a ghost isn’t everything it seems…
Bringing Flowers to Kasei Inn - Kyouji is invited to his sixth grade reunion and called by Shinako, the girl who loved him back then, and wants him to keep his promise of going to Kasei Inn, a love hotel. But her reasons for going aren’t that obvious…
Soiled, Beautiful - Yuuko is a perfect rich girl who’s father has suddenly been fired, and she starts being mercylessly bullied by her classmates. Takashi is one of her bully’s, however suddenly his father is fired too, and through circumstances the two begin to understand each other…
A & R - Rakuto is an overworked salesman, however when he see’s a motorcycle he remembers to his highschool days when he had one, and the weird girl he gave a ride too…
Papa’s Song - Takashi and Matsuba are a young married couple, and Matsuba is going to stay with her parent’s while she’s pregnant. On the car ride there a conversation about fathers, children, parenting, and fast cars begins…
Just to note: on the volume release I have it says there should a seventh chapter called Pochi’s Place but it’s not included. Though that story is translated by a different group, but their network is down so I can’t get it.
Of all the stories I probably like ” Soiled, Beautiful ” the best, as it’s more in-line with the longer darker stories Kitoh puts out. However just because these stories aren’t as dark doesn’t mean their not good. Their great stories, each one with it’s own moral and food for thought. Kitoh talks more poignantly about love here, in all it’s forms, to love wished for, love gained, love lost, or the love between parent and child. The artwork is usual Kitoh style, sparse in details and characters looking to similiar, but still you can forgive him for the good writing. His females also always look beautiful, in a demure beauty kind of way. I would say read this if you already know of Kitoh’s works, or read it if you want an introduction to his style. Right now I’m reading another one of his short story collections, Hallucinations from the Womb, that’s not done translating yet. When it’s done I’ll talk about it.
This volume can be found here, courtesy of Kotonoha.
Adult Evangeline is some much hotter than her loli self.
Obligatory end of arc impressions.
Shoe-owned!
Boat-owned!
So Negima!?’s first story arc finishes strong, though still there could of been some improvements. First I really wasn’t as wowed as many fellow bloggers were at the action scenes. Negamia was given a stronger set-up, but still it’s fight scene paled in comparison to superior tsukuyomi grandpa vs. Kinkel or fate vs. Nanoha battles. This being by the same director I was expecting more. Hopefully later fights we’ll be more fleshed out and exciting (maybe Negi won’t run away half the time). However I did really like Asuna’s transformation. Can’t go wrong with a badass sword you can hardly swing. I have to say I’m really warming up to Asuna. She’s too dumb not to like ;).
Chamo: It’s what’s for dinner.
Goin’ super saiyan 3 on your ass.
And that brings me to what I’m really liking about Negima!? so far: the comedy. With such a rich cast of characters I can’t help but find something to laugh at. I mean, how about Setsuka completely obsessing over a game and being embarassed at being found out, and Konoka being obsessed with it later? Konoka and Setsuka are quickly becoming a favorite pair of mine. Best part was definately Asuna’s shoe throwing antics at Evangeline. Who thought the girl could lift a boat? So far Negima is like a crazy mixture of paniponi, tsukuyomi, and nanoha thrown in a blender, and I’m liking it. Just fix up the fight scenes will ya? I really hope they’ll animate the awesome looking time-travel arc I’ve seen manga scans of. I mean that shit looks EPIC in a great way. I definately think I’m picking up the manga soon.
Why indeed.
I have no idea why Evangeline say’s power after being clobbered by a boat. It’s just too weird. Hence why I title a post after it.
