Dagger

I didn't mind Vaan particularly--as far as I recall, [spoiler]any slip-ups on his part never really got the party into trouble.[/spoiler] Maybe he was able to magically sense [spoiler]Larsa's extreme awesomeness & trustworthiness.[/spoiler] :animesmil The best part by far, though, is that he never [spoiler]develops romantic designs on Ashe.[/spoiler] If I had to finger a party member as "the angry one," it would most definitely not be Vaan, but that's another story. He's not the protagonist, either--but that's also another story. ~Dagger~

Roxie: I was somewhat off, actually--it was Bandai rather than Viz who said that someone else had licensed the show before they could. Which means that Viz could still have it (and probably does, as a matter of fact). Boo. I think Hikaru Midorikawa's take on Tamaki would probably be similar to Mamoru Miyano's--at the least, he's definitely capable of doing comedy. At the same time, Miyano owned that role, as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't really want to hear anyone else doing it. When was this drama CD released, by the way? CD Japan doesn't even have a listing for it... are you sure it wasn't just a radio drama or something? ETA: Oh, wait! Apparently Viz [i]did[/i] say it, too! The plot thickens--unless, of course, someone is fibbing. ~Dagger~

[url=http://www.gocomi.com/series/nightmare/][u]After School Nightmare[/u][/url] is a new-ish (both in Japan and the US) series from Setona Mizushiro, a very talented storyteller. I first became familiar with her through her older BL work, but she's also done a lot of non-BL material--including [b]X-Day[/b], which was released by Tokyopop a while back. The English version of After School Nightmare is being put out by Go!Comi, and it's a great purchase even on the technical front... the printy quality & color pages are lovely. As for the premise, the Go!Comi page linked to above probably does a better job of summarizing it than I could, but here's a quick rundown. The protagonist is a hermaphrodite who has been passing as male all his life. However, his secret risks exposure once he enters a bizarre after-school class in which students participate--often cruelly or violently--in one another's dreams. Your dream form represents your inner self. For instance, one of the main character's classmates appears as a girl with gaping holes in place of her face and her heart. Two volumes have been released in North America so far; the third is coming in April. I love Mizushiro's comments at the end of volume 2: "After School Nightmare is a manga that is jam-packed with all my favorite elements. It's got cute stuff. Cruel stuff. Dark stuff embedded in blackness. Round, sparkly, transparent things. Sincerely erotic stuff, vague boundaries, fluttering skirts and long silky hair. Feathers! Keys! Moons! Somehow, I've actually been able to include everything I wanted, so I'm in bliss." Anyway, it's a fascinating series from a manga-ka who really knows what she's doing. I very much recommend it. ~Dagger~

The new OP is here!! (Not that I've had a chance to watch it yet, but it--and the ED as well--look amazing, at least based on stills. Plus, episode 20 should contain my favorite light-hearted moment in the entire series, so I'm looking forward to watching 18, 19 and 20 at once. The embargo ends at last.) [spoiler]MELLOOOOOOOOOOOO! NEEEAAAAAAAAR! MIKAMI! TA-KA-DAAA![/spoiler] *coughs and slinks away* ETA: I, um, lack the words to describe the OP music. But the animation? [i]Ohgod[/i]. Someone definitely had fun making this, and by that I mean the extreme acid trip variety of fun (I feel unoriginal--so many people have already said that Madhouse has collectively gone on drugs in the best way possible, but oh well). It's easily one of my favorite OP sequences in a long time. The [spoiler]multiplying maniacal Light[/spoiler] heads? [i]Genius[/i]. They have distilled Death Note to its absolute essence and have chosen to embrace the crazy. I cannot handle such a big dose of win. The elevator in the ED gives me Utena flashbacks... :animestun ~Dagger~

^^ What he said. You can usually let targeting gambits take care of closing the distance--you shouldn't have to worry about running around behind a regular enemy. With a short-range character, backing up after each strike won't do anything to keep you safe. What I would suggest, though, is setting up a character with a long-range weapon as your party leader. When controlled solely by gambits, a long-range character will still stay a little farther back, but he or she may not go far enough away to avoid attacks. When you're controlling his movements, you can creep back to the maximum length of his range, and it offers added protection as well as giving you a much better perspective on even minor battles (in my opinion). This is useful during ordinary battles as well as boss fights, particularly since there are a whole lot of enemies that specifically target the party leader. If you've just come into a new area, and the enemies are suddenly much harder, running around (and particularly using the run away command for short periods) is useful in that it lets you control how many enemies you take on at once and so forth. Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying it! :catgirl: ~Dagger~

Ouran finished airing in Japan a while ago. There are twenty-six episodes total. I wish I could remember where I read this... I saw somewhere that the Viz reps at New York Comic Con said that they tried to license the Ouran anime, but that someone actually beat them to it (woo!). Either way, as far as shoujo anime go, Ouran is as close as you can get to a surefire license. ~Dagger~

Yeah, I've heard great things about the manga as well. There's also a two-volume prequel manga called Aqua. Although ADV originally licensed the Aria manga, they've since dropped it, and Tokyopop is going start releasing Aqua (and presumably Aria) in October. Look forward to it! I ordered the Japanese tanks for both series but won't end up reading them until spring break. I'm just sad that I missed out on buying the gorgeous [url=http://www.animeondvd.com/forum/showpost.php?pid/318529/][u]2007 Aria calendar[/u][/url]... if I had gotten into the show a little bit earlier, I would've snapped it up in an instant. Anyway, I started watching Aria the Natural, and it's just as lovely as the first season. It's hard to explain, but I have to admit that this anime has wormed its way into my all-time top five. Maybe I'm stressed enough to appreciate it; maybe my tastes are changing--or maybe it's just that awesome. What it comes down to is that as naive and earnest as Aria is, it started speaking to me once I got past the first few episodes of the first season, and I haven't looked back since. It actually heightens my appreciation of my own life and surroundings. ~Dagger~

It's not エ but ヱ, an archaic character (which apparently looks cooler or something). I'm a little surprised at how people have been ripping into Anno's statement about the films (full English version [url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2007-02-20/hideaki-anno-releases-statement-about-new-evangelion-movies][u]here[/u][/url]). I mean, what else did they expect? ~Dagger~

I started watching the first disc today but decided to take a break after episodes 1 & 2. I actually had the opposite opinion about the first episode--to me it felt like it kind of crawled toward the ending cliffhanger (which was, granted, an effective hook). Much of the plot so far would all be Greek to me if I didn't have some basic familiarity with [strike]faux Japanese[/strike] French history. :animeswea They're going to have to work very hard to make me care about d'Eon as much as Lia... with her it was, for obvious reasons, love at first sight. I adore Tow Ubakata, though, and he's the one responsible for the story, so I have massive amounts of faith in this show despite the fact that it'll probably take a little while to rise above the level of vaguely historical eye candy. (If Chevalier has gotten anyone else interested in Ubakata's work, check out Fafner--he essentially rescued the series in its second half, and the transformation in writing is astonishing. He's even more involved in this upcoming mecha show called Heroic Age.) The zombies remind me a lot of the monsters in Red Garden, although the comparison should go the other way around. ~Dagger~

Gender is a social construct, not some kind of huge, inbuilt, all-consuming factor that negates everything else that makes you who you are. If you have a strong personality, it'll come through regardless of your physical sex. To me, it makes a lot more sense to find the answer to this question by asking how you personally might be affected by social expectations for the opposite sex--as opposed to saying "this is what girls do" as if they're a different species whose behavior can be summed up with such simplistic generalizations. What do girls do when they're alone? Well, gee, it varies. EDIT: Yeah, Ken said it better. :p ~Dagger~

This news is a few days old, but Blood+ is officially going to start airing on Adult Swim at 12:30 on Saturday, March 10 (slash Sunday the 11th). I guess that means it's taking over the Trinity Blood timeslot (are they trying to maintain a continuity of vampire anime or something?). ETA: Or is it 11:30? ~Dagger~

Sounds like [url=http://www.advfilms.com/titles/yumeria/main.html][u]Yumeria[/u][/url]. It's licensed, and you can currently get each volume for $11 or the whole collection for $36 from [url=http://www.advfilms.com/CatalogFilms_Volumes.asp?ID=2015][u]ADV's store[/u][/url]. ~Dagger~

A Rebuild trailer has made its way online... but it doesn't have any actual footage, just background music of an orchestra tuning and a bit of semi-Engrish ("new character, new machine"). Oh well. :animeswea The first movie will open in Japanese theaters on September 1. ~Dagger~

This is a difficult question to answer because writing & story [i]always[/i] trump genre. If anything, the best work tends to defy being lumped in a single category. ~Dagger~

I'm boycotting this show until we get the new OP & ED. :p The frigging singles were even released... what else are they waiting for!? Actually, it's pretty obvious what they're waiting for, but I still think it's lazy. They could at least have the grace to switch [spoiler]Naomi & Raye[/spoiler] out of the OP animation. (By the by, the song I identified as the new OP is actually the new ED--the new OP is another single by the same band, "What's Up People?" Haha. I only wish I were kidding.) Wedy and Aiber are two of the most [spoiler]woefully underused[/spoiler] characters in DN. But at least they look cool. ~Dagger~

[i]How many dead philosophers does it take to get off an island?[/i] Another awesome episode. Way too tired to recap. But man, does it ever suck to be Desmond. [spoiler]Amusingly, my friend who was watching Lost for the second time this week picked up on the Charlie plot twist way before anyone else did (although initially she thought it was Claire).[/spoiler] Inquiring minds wish to know: [spoiler]was the fair-haired woman outside Jack's cage in the preview the same one who spoke to Desmond about his "sodding ring" during the flashbacks? Also, have we seen the dark-haired, younger woman who was talking to him through his cage before? The people next to me were muttering something about that, but I didn't get the chance to ask them to explain it.[/spoiler] I like how Paolo and Nikki have basically vanished. ~Dagger~

But blind imitation isn't the point. (God knows the FMA novels aren't shining examples of great literature, after all.) What I'm trying to say is that you can get a lesson out of anything you read or watch. You shouldn't be unconsciously influenced by other works to the point that reading a crappy book suddenly drags your own writing down. Nor should you give anything a free pass. Let's look at the titles you mentioned... Death Note is a prime example of a story with funky pacing. Its author deliberately opted to throw away character development in order to go for suspense & thrills, but do you want to make the same trade-off? It's an unrealistic story that touts itself as being the epitome of realism (and I'm not talking about the shinigami, either). And Boogiepop's complex structure makes it easy to overlook weaknesses in the basic story and characters. I can say this despite being a fan of both series. ForgotteÑ-HerÖ: Just try to examine your stories from the reader's perspective. Why should [I]they[/I] care about what's happening? If you haven't given them a good reason to keep going after the first paragraph, better do some revision. ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=2007DigitalBoy][COLOR=DarkOrange] Just be careful what you read.[B] Reading manga will not help you[/B]. If anything, it can only make you worse (especially if you're reading freaking [B]Inuyasha[/B]). [/COLOR][/QUOTE] I disagree. Even watching movies can be helpful if you're taking a critical approach to the script/story. The same basic principles of storytelling apply as much to manga/comics and other mediums as to novels. Besides, learning what [I]not[/I] to do is just as important as figuring out what makes good writing good. ~Dagger~

Reading great novels, and keeping an eye out for what makes them great, is half of it. The other half is reading critically. The pitfall of this is that it can make it much harder for you enjoy and/or get sucked into books. Look for plot holes, poor pacing, weak endings, etc. Ask the same questions when you're looking over your own work: why would someone want to start reading this? Why would he or she want to continue reading it? For studying structure (and a lot of other stuff, for that matter), I'd suggest starting with short stories. ~Dagger~

Ditto. ^^ And color me impressed--the graphics are even more wonderful than last year. Great job to all of you who worked on them. ~Dagger~

Hm, okay, the plot slowed way down in volume 2. I have a feeling that we won't find out what a Proxy is until, like, episode 20. The coolness of [spoiler]Open-Eyed Vincent[/spoiler] is somewhat dragged down by the angstiness of [spoiler]Boo-Hoo, I'm All On My Own Again Vincent.[/spoiler] I have trouble telling whether Raul is supposed to be a villain (he certainly dresses like one) or just annoying. On the plus side, there's at least one character I like in both groups of the main cast (specifically, Pino and Daedalus kept me from yawning). I'm a little disappointed that Vince has [i]no idea whatsoever[/i] about the nature of the connection between him and [spoiler]the Proxy.[/spoiler] I also want clarification regarding just how long he's known Re-L. I mean, his interest in her is kind of intense, if we assume that they only met in episode 1. Did they have any kind of business relationship before that? (This is the problem with waiting weeks or months between DVDs...) ~Dagger~

BONES (the studio that made FMA, Wolf's Rain, RahXephon and--at least recently--some less impressive stuff) has two new series coming in the spring. Both of them will probably be licensed pretty quickly. [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFbEiEabr3o][u]Darker Than Black - Kuro no Keiyakusha[/u][/url] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBIUHLh1ne4][u]The Skull Man[/u][/url] Click for trailers, although I'm afraid that Darker Than Black's is rather short. Both shows look like dark urban fantasy/action stuff, which is fine, except that Skull Man will have to be really impressive to get over the fact that the whole, er, Skull Man concept doesn't appeal to me at all. Some people have guessed that Yoko Kanno will be doing the music for Darker Than Black, although this is just based on its trailer. That would get me to watch it... Oh, and both Mushishi and Rozen Maiden [i]have[/i] been licensed. :catgirl: Rozen Maiden is supposed to be coming out in the spring, while [url=http://funimation.com/mushishi/][u]Mushishi[/u][/url] is scheduled for the summer. The first volume of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya will be released on May 29. ~Dagger~

I had all sorts of fun theorizing to do about the latest episode... but then I was forced to watch Snakes on a Plane, and the remaining four brain cells in my head just withered away. Oh well. It's the best episode of the season so far, I think--stuff is really starting to happen. The [spoiler]bus accident[/spoiler] scene shocked me; I guess I didn't hear the line that it was based off of, although I understood once it was explained. Anyway, it looks like [spoiler]Ethan was pretty well-fed and happy before he had to live on the island long-term, haha. I liked hearing his creepy greetings again.[/spoiler] I assume that [spoiler]the dark-haired recruiter died in the past, if we haven't seen him in the present yet (unless he, er, lost an eye and decided to become a pirate.... naaah).[/spoiler] Did you guys watch the long recap that came first? I caught the tail end of it--it was a nice refresher course in the series, actually. One of the people I ended up watching this episode with had never seen Lost before, so that was a pretty interesting experience. :animeswea ~Dagger~

Episode 17 was as crazily awesome as I had hoped (more on that in a second), and the Yotsuba arc has started at last. For some reason, [spoiler]good Light[/spoiler] is a lot more interesting & likeable to me in the anime than in the manga (maybe it's just the seiyuu?), so I'm fired up to see more. The contrast between the exaggerated comedy and even more exaggerated drama was quite drastic. I loved the background music toward the end, and the final line spoken by [spoiler]Rem, 「人間って生き物は実に醜い」 (I can't translate gracefully for my life, but it'd be something like "These creatures called humans are truly ugly"),[/spoiler] was just chilling. See, I'm not a demanding viewer when it comes to Death Note--give me some pretty animation, pretentious music, humor and hardcore voice acting, and I'm good to [strike]fangirl[/strike] go. Speaking of which, this episode also delivered the plot device that spawned a thousand BL doujinshi. [spoiler]Mm, handcuffs.[/spoiler] On a personal level, though, I liked [url=http://randomc.animeblogger.net/image/DEATH%20NOTE/DEATH%20NOTE%20-%2017%20-%20Large%2017.jpg][u]this part[/u][/url] even more. :catgirl: I can't wait for [spoiler]the punch-out[/spoiler] in the next episode. Plus the introduction of [spoiler]Aiber, Wedy and Manager Matsuda.[/spoiler] Hooray hooray. ~Dagger~

[CENTER][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/DaggerIX1/akari.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER] Mars has been terraformed and renamed Aqua. In the canal city of Neo Venezia, young women train to become professional undines (gondoliers) while enjoying everything that life has to offer them on this beautiful, peaceful and nostalgic planet. It's really hard for me to pass judgment on Aria. It has low-budget animation, and the messages it conveys are pretty simplistic. At the same time, it's the best slice-of-life anime I've seen, and I love it. Aria the Animation is thirteen episodes long, but it has a twenty-six episode sequel called Aria the Natural. I wouldn't suggest that anyone go into this expecting to be swept up in awe or blown away. It's a "healing anime"--gentle, relaxing, heartwarming and sometimes a little bittersweet. No drama here; just the quiet beauty of everyday life. ~Dagger~