Dagger

[center][IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/DaggerIX1/ral.jpg[/IMG][/center] Ral Grado is a brand new Shounen Jump series--and the latest project from Takeshi Obata, the artist for Hikaru no Go and Death Note. It's apparently based on Blue Dragon, an upcoming RPG for the Xbox 360, but I don't know quite how the two stories are linked, since I'm going into this without any knowledge of the game. It's also noteworthy for being Obata's first action series. Out of his major previous works, Ayatsuri Sakon is a mystery series, Hikaru no Go is about a board game, and Death Note is about... notebooks and stuff. Anyway, I loved the first chapter of Ral Grado. It's refreshingly atypical for a Jump series. The main character is a teenager, but he's more comparable to, say, Wrath from the FMA anime, or even Death Note's L, than any Jump heroes I know of. The setting of the story is referred to as "this star," so it's not clear whether it's Earth or someplace else, but there are monsters/dragons called Shadows coming over from the "world of darkness" and destroying humanity. Shadows take over creatures in three stages. In the First, the parasite form, they take shape in the creature's shadow. In the Second form, the Shadow eats the creature from the inside. In the Third, the Shadow takes over the creature completely. So all of this sounds fairly run-of-the-mill and may make the first chapter seem like an information dump, but that's not really the case. Ral, the protagonist, summoned (or something--it's not totally clear) a dragon with his screams as an infant. In order to seal the dragon away, his own father had to seal him away. His only human contact is with a woman he calls Mio-sensei, who gives him lessons about dragons and so forth in hopes of enabling him to control the dragon Grado without being taken over. The castle where he's being kept is attacked again, and as a last resort, Ral is released--but, not knowing anything about the female sex, he shows more interest in groping Mio and "learning about women" than saving everyone. So Mio makes a deal with him: if he kills away the Shadows outside, she'll teach him everything there is to know about women. When he's lolling around in bed waiting for her, though, he [spoiler]innocently falls asleep.[/spoiler] ;) Not much is known about Ral Grado's writer, but Obata always seems to pick good people to collaborate with. Chapter 1 has a great streak of comedy that isn't too different, in tone, from the quirky humor in Death Note. And of course the art looks fantastic. The first chapter will probably be scanlated soon, so if you're interested, keep your eyes peeled. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Syk3'] So apparently there are three arcs to the manga, the third of which is the longest, and the first two which should complete roughly within the length of season one?[/quote] The manga can most cleanly be divided into two major arcs. One is longer than the other, but for practical purposes you can just consider them the two halves of the series. (The dividing mark occurs in volume 7, out of 12 volumes total). At the pace the anime is currently going, there's no way they'll be able to fit both arcs in just 37 episodes. Unless they speed up real soon, the currently scheduled season of DN will only be able to cover the first major story arc. This leaves two possibilities--either they'll make a new ending there, or possibly take a break between airing the first arc and the second. Despite how closely they've stuck to the manga, the first option isn't inconceivable, since the second live-action movie made up its own ending, which combined the climaxes of the first and second arcs. Personally, although what I've read about the live-action movie ending sounds absolutely fantastic, I would really prefer to see the whole manga animated faithfully. [QUOTE=Syk3] By the way, Dagger, your Japanese makes me jealous. ;_; All in good time, I suppose.. then I can watch anime episodes 2-3 days in advance as well. >:D[/QUOTE] Haha, thanks, but my listening comprehension really isn't very good. I'm only able to follow this satisfactorily because of my familiarity with the manga. It does make for good practice, though... :) ~Dagger~

[quote name='kalon]Ideally, I'd love a Wii and something from Barnes & Noble. There a collection of t[i]The Sandman[/i'] coming out that looks most awesome. That's the first American comic I've ever been really interested in, although I don't know too much about the series. Any opinions?[/quote] I've only been through the first volume or so, but I immensely enjoyed what I've read of the series. The artwork isn't the best, but the writing makes it absolutely worthwhile. If you've read any of Neil Gaiman's novels, you probably know what I mean. To be on the safe side, I should add that it can get pretty disturbing. Since you have a Cain banner and avatar set, though, I don't think you have anything to worry about. :p ~Dagger~

Um, wow. All I have to say after seeing episode 9 is that either 1) they've run out of money to spend on giving this show something resembling actual animation, or 2) they cut major corners on this episode in order to deliver an uber-leet [spoiler]tennis game[/spoiler] in episode 10. I can only hope that it's the latter. :animeswea ~Dagger~

If we lived in Massachusetts, Sara, that would be my cue to ask for your hand in marriage. :animesmil ~Dagger~

Baron: Ah, I had a friend who was really into Eddings. His stuff didn't make too much of an impression on me, but I remember it being somewhat above the average, at least as far as fantasy is concerned. Not quite my cup of tea, though. Arcadia: [b]Their Eyes Were Watching God[/b] was one of those books that I figured I wouldn't like too much, but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I had expected. Still, I couldn't fully make peace with it until the very end, if that makes any sense. Shin: I innocently started [B] Norwegian Wood[/B] this evening and couldn't put it down. The last line just about killed me. I should have learned my lesson about reading books at night; I never know when I might come across an ending that'll make it hard to sleep. Damn. Anyway, I've read the three you mentioned, plus [b]Kafka on the Shore[/b] (which had Oshima, my favorite Murakami character thus far). In some ways it's hard to compare them, because they're all pretty different... I'd like Hard-Boiled Wonderland the best if it didn't remind me so much of Haibane Renmei--which is unfair, given that Haibane Renmei was made well after he wrote it, but that's life. I can't get rid of the associations, and that doesn't bring the book down in my mind or anything, but it doesn't make it a completely individual experience for me. Well, whatever. I had problems with the way The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle concluded. It was like he got tired of writing and let everything come crashing to a halt simply because the bare threads of the plot could be cut off at that point. I mean, I can't complain about it too much, but it was a soft landing after the rest of the book. Norwegian Wood did a better job of ending swiftly yet in an emotionally satisfying way (even though it had less closure!). You notice weird things when you read a lot of works by the same author in a narrow time frame. Murakami seems to mention wells at least once in all of his novels. :animeswea Oh, and I recently read [b]Sexing the Cherry[/b] by Jeanette Winterson for English. No doubt I'll be able to sort out my thoughts on it once we actually discuss it in class, but it left me flabbergasted, even though normally I'd be all over that kind of book (seriously, in terms of how the plot is organized, it's like Gabriel Garcia Marquez on crack). Next on my hit list: [b]Kokoro[/b], by Natsume Soseki. I'm also working my way through a volume of the complete poems of [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Crane][u]Hart Crane[/u][/url]. I really like his stuff, even if much of it makes zero sense to me. A couple of years ago, I came across an excerpt from his "Voyages" in my Norton Anthology--back then I'd been in the habit of trawling it for good poetry in class when I was bored (and often it seemed like the truly good poems ended up being all the stuff we [i]weren't[/i] reading). [i][size=1]"There's Nothing like this in the world," you say, Knowing I cannot touch your hand and look Too, into that godless cleft of sky Where nothing turns but dead sands flashing. "--And never quite to understand!" No, In all the argosy of your bright hair I dreamed Nothing so flagless as this piracy.[/size][/i] A lot of Crane's work reads like gibberish, but every once in a while the meaning just leaps out of you, and that makes it all worth looking at carefully. ~Dagger~

Heh... just this evening, I started re-watching Sailor Moon S with a friend (good times). Fun as it was to discover Sailor Moon and Gundam Wing for the first time, I can't say I miss the 90s that much. The thing is, any hobby is thrilling when you're first getting really into it, and it's natural to want to recapture the feeling you get when everything seems wild and exciting and new. There have been times when I've thought about how much fun it would be to forget everything I know about anime and get to discover it all over again. But just as there are things about anime that I can't appreciate in the same way as I did when it was all brand new to me, there are things about anime that I simply wasn't able to appreciate when I first started watching it. So I think there's a fair trade-off involved here. As for the state of anime in North America in general, I think we're in a pretty good place. When it comes to DVD releases, censorship is all but a thing of the past, and inexpensive box sets are becoming more and more prevalent. Netflix makes it easy and cheap to check out almost any licensed series under the sun, and regular DVD releases are inching closer and close to the quality of R2 Japanese DVDs. We're not in the middle of a licensing boom, like back in 2003 and 2004, but a steady stream of series is still coming over, and it seems like the market is starting to recover. ~Dagger~

Fruits Basket delivers the occasional cross-dressing joke (no more so than what you might see in mainstream entertainment, though). On the whole it's quite innocuous and would be well suited to this type of collection. Demon Diary has BL hints, but since it's primarily a comedy, and there's nothing to suggest that the whole story isn't just about passionate [i]friendship[/i], I don't think it would be particularly risky to get it. In Kare Kano, the main female character [spoiler]becomes pregnant[/spoiler] in her senior year of high school. Both Ceres and Fushigi Yuugi feature attempted rape. Peach Girl has some inappropriate situations as well--I thought there was a story arc that involves Momo being drugged and tricked into thinking [spoiler]she's had sex.[/spoiler] Evangelion is thematically intense and disturbing (and it also features Kaworu, although from what I've heard, the manga isn't as BL-suggestive as the anime). Negima is sold shrink-wrapped in most stores, so it might not be the best choice if you're trying to be conservative about fanservice and whatnot. xxxHOLiC doesn't have anything objectionable as far as sexuality is concerned, although when it comes to CLAMP titles, you can never really be sure where things will head in the future... I'll edit other suggestions into this post later, but for now: Hikaru no Go Full Moon wo Sagashite Hunter x Hunter ~Dagger~

Like the title says... Lately I've been reading a lot of stuff by [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami][u]Haruki Murakami[/u][/url]. I love his writing style, the themes he addresses, everything. Most of his work seems to have some kind of magical realism element to it (which is also something that appeals to me). If you were interested in his stuff, I would suggest starting with [b]Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World[/b], since it's compact and especially well-structured. The other day I took a break to check out the first [b]Kino no Tabi: The Beautiful World[/b] novel and the third book in the Boogiepop series. On the whole I think I prefer the Kino anime to its source material, but the translation is strong, and I want to read the stories that didn't get animated, so I'll keep buying the series as it comes out. As for Boogiepop, I wasn't thrilled about how the conflict with the Imaginator (not a spoiler; it's in the title) concluded, but oh well. I do wish that it had been structured in a more non-linear fashion, like the first book. Tomorrow, on the train home, I'm going to try finishing the last two books in this Gene Wolfe quartet called [b]The Book of the New Sun[/b]. I'm not all that revved up about the series, but it isn't utter tripe, and I take non-awful fantasy wherever I can get it, heh. It'll also make better train reading than the other books I have at hand (more Murakami plus some Yukio Mishima). ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=DeadSeraphim][COLOR=Indigo][SIZE=1][FONT=Arial] You know in my [i]first hand painful experience[/i], that viscious social aspect extends far beyond the beginning of highschool. I can't see it getting any better in an all girl environment, where **** like that is allowed to foster and grow in its own scary bubble without outside influences.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Yeah, that was a bad assumption on my part. From what I saw, it seemed like the wave of girls ganging up on one another peaked in middle school and gradually dropped off after that. I was lucky in that I went to a middle school where they placed a huge emphasis on eliminating cliques and those kinds of conflicts; by the time we were settled in high school, everyone had gotten burned out on picking on each other. It would make sense for this to vary a lot depending on the environment/school you're in. Whether or not it ended up being more socially Darwinist than your average co-ed school, I don't think I'd have enjoyed going to an all-girls' school. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Death God']I just saw casino royal. it rocked! I think Daniel Craig makes a great 007. I hope he stays on for a couple of more movies.[/quote] He was fantastic, wasn't he? I should add that I also [i]loved[/i] the woman who played Vesper. She's one of the most beautiful actresses I've ever seen. I can't speak as a Bond fan, since I've never seen a Bond movie in full until now. But as an action movie, Casino Royale was beyond solid. It was delightful and entertaining rather than totally mind-numbing. It had style and didn't drown the viewer in explosions. Despite its length, I enjoyed it up to the last scene--and when it comes to movies, as I've no doubt mentioned before, I have the attention span of a hyperactive poodle. If the older Bond movies are that different from this, I'm not sure that I really want to go back and watch them. I also liked how Casino Royale had something resembling character development. I guess they were only able to get away with that because it takes place right after Bond gets promoted, though. ~Dagger~

I started watching this but couldn't really bring myself to stick with it. You know how, every once in a while, you run into a character that you passionately hate for piddling reasons? Okay, maybe it's just me. :animeswea But that's how I felt about Kai. I wasn't that enthusiastic about any of the other characters, either. All I really wanted was some [spoiler]hawt Haji/Saya romance,[/spoiler] and I didn't want it badly enough to watch the rest of the series just for a development that might never happen. So I ended up "watching" Blood+ vicariously. Which essentially means that I didn't watch it--I just spoiled myself silly every time an important new episode came out. Which sure saved a lot of time, haha. Here's a linguistic question: what's up with "Hagi"? I'm tempted to spell his name that way, to be honest. I can't remember how it was pronounced in the anime, and in the Blood+ manga I started reading (there are several, so who knows where canon begins and ends), it was spelled ハギ, which should be pronounced Hagi, rather than Haji. Hopefully my memory isn't betraying me. Am I missing something? Apparently it's spelled ハジ (Haji) on the official site, except that the romanji is given as "Hagi." An evil typo? Something deep and meaningful? Argh. The manga I read a few chapters of was Blood+ Yakou Joushi; it's about Haji and takes place before the beginning of the anime. Nice art and loads of brooding. Very shoujo, especially in how it slips in BL undertones. :rolleyes: I haven't looked at the other two manga yet, but I'm semi-interested in them. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Sara][color=#b0000b][size=1]I dunno about y'all, but the thought of being in girl-only classes pretty much terrifies me.[/size'][/color][/quote] Mm, I don't think it'd be so terrible. Unless you're talking about the vicious social aspect of it, in which case I'd agree--but only for middle school and maybe the beginning of high school. My college used to be single-sex, and my English professor actually began teaching there shortly before they made the switch to being co-ed. She told us that she could see a huge difference in how her female students behaved before and after the change--afterward, she had to pay much more attention to body language in order to figure out when a girl wanted to speak up but wasn't quite confident enough to raise her hand or otherwise break into the discussion. Hearing this surprised me; although I'd definitely expect to see that kind of behavior among children and younger adolescents, I'd have assumed that people would have grown past it by the time they got to college. Then again, this was back in 1969, so regardless of sex, students were probably carrying a whole bunch of different conceptions about gender and whatnot to college with them. ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=Kaze][font=Times][SPOILER] I didn't really enjoy that, seeing as how she's the only character I really like in the series. Basically seeing her be completely stomped in her every single appearance (even Kouta pimp slapped her - what?), was somewhat disheartening for me, since I liked her so much.[/spoiler][/font][/quote] Oh, I totally agree. I also found Nana to be an immensely loveable character. The first time I saw the series, I remember being incredibly pissed off at [spoiler]Kouta for slapping her (not to mention at Lucy for dismembering her).[/spoiler] [quote name='Kaze][font=Times][SPOILER]The blatant incest between cousins? Threw me off as well. I was left pondering why the girl was so openly into Kouta (they kissed? Wow), aren't they blood relation?[/spoiler'][/font][/quote] The taboo about [spoiler]relationships between cousins[/spoiler] is not nearly as strong in Asian countries as it is in some Western areas. Granted, I'm not too well versed in the cultural details of this, but at the least, I'm pretty sure that it's not a strong taboo in Japan. As a side note, there are quite a few anime and manga in which [spoiler]cousins[/spoiler] have a romantic interest (either one-sided or reciprocal) in one another. [quote name='Kaze][font=Times][SPOILER]The end? The profile at the door clearly resembled Lucy, but I don't really care. Didn't she WANT to die though? Why would she return?[/SPOILER'][/font][/quote] It's also possible that [spoiler]the profile at the door was basically an illusion--a memory surfacing for a brief second, only to fade away.[/spoiler] That's the view I adhere to, since nothing else really makes sense in the context of the series. I think the manga plays out differently, though, since there's more of it. In the manga version of the scene, [spoiler]the person behind the door is apparently Nyuu...[/spoiler] but don't quote me on that, actually, since pretty much everything I know about the manga came to me second-hand. I was satisfied with the ending of the anime--mainly because [spoiler]Mariko's[/spoiler] storyline was wrapped up and [spoiler]Nana got a happy ending.[/spoiler] ~Dagger~

Rumor has it that DN has been licensed by Viz. Not a huge surprise, given that they get most Shounen Jump anime. In any case, if they are planning to release it, you can probably expect to hear some of the actors that get used in other Viz dubs; I don't pay much attention to which studios they turn to most often, so I can't tell you much more than that. As for episode 8, I want to marry Ryuk. It was a surprisingly entertaining episode, given that the part of the storyline depicted here is very bland compared to what we're going to get in episode 9. I loved the opening scene with the [spoiler]ice cream,[/spoiler] which was almost Utena-esque in its casual surrealness. The rest of the episode basically descended into extreme self-parody, but I'm willing to believe that the anime writers knew what they were doing and did it deliberately. And it definitely kept my attention, haha. That has got to be the most epic [spoiler]potato chip eating[/spoiler] scene of all time. It sent me into Ryuk-like fits of laughter. On a side note, Hideki Ryuuga got his own J-drama! :love: Other perks of episode 8 include lovingly colored porn (not really, but about as close to it as any show of this type can get) and a heavy helping of glorious Ryuk moments. I can't wait for episode 9, though. It's going to pwn six ways from Tuesday. ~Dagger~

I'm glad you enjoyed it! That's a cute avatar, too. :catgirl: I look forward to seeing your impressions of the rest of the series... especially the way in which the episodes are ordered and all that fun stuff. It's a stretch to call it crazier than Excel Saga or FLCL, haha, but the show definitely has its wild moments. If you really dig the animation style, keep Kyoto Animation in the back of your head. They're the studio that did Haruhi, AIR, the second and third seasons of FMP, and Kanon 2006. Their upcoming project, Lucky Star (which will air after Kanon finishes and before the second season of Haruhi Suzumiya), is a based on a 4-koma manga that's similar to Azumanga Daioh, except that the main characters are female otaku. I'm really pumped about seeing their take on it. Also, all of the series they've done the main animation production for have looked downright gorgeous. FMP: Fumoffu was their first independent project, and it way outshines the visuals GONZO gave us with the original season of FMP--and even then, it's still the weakest of Kyoto Animation's efforts. They've gotten better and better as time goes along. ~Dagger~

I asked for... Final Fantasy XII Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (the Smashing Pumpkins CD) Kaleido Star: New Wings volumes 5 & 6 (anime DVDs) A Borders gift card Assuming that I'm given the gift card, I'm definitely going to spend it on acquiring more Haruki Murakami goodness. I started reading some of his stuff a few days ago (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, followed by The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and now Kafka by the Shore) and absolutely tore through it. It's been ages since I was so thrilled by a particular writer; now I'm just mad at myself for waiting so long to read his stuff. For some reason I had always avoided it, even when I was reading a lot of other Japanese literature. Well, it'll be either Murakami or BL manga. One or the other, haha. If there are bigger presents I want, I'll probably just give them to myself. I'm thinking of buying myself a DS, but I'm not sure that I will--I'm mainly interested in Phoenix Wright, the Xenosaga compilation and Death Note game, and two of the three won't be coming over here for a while. Plus, I'd feel a little guilty about getting a DS when I still have a minor backlog of purchased but unplayed PS2 games. Considering that I already got the first PW game, though, I'll certainly be picking a DS up sooner or later. ~Dagger~

If you liked Elfen Lied's mixture of psychotic violence and cuteness, you're in luck--more and more series nowadays seem to have that kind of theme. It's not licensed yet, but [url=http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=6134][u]Higurashi no Naku Koro ni[/u][/url] definitely falls into this category. If you ever get to check it out, I'd be interested in seeing your thoughts on it. ~Dagger~

[QUOTE=AzureWolf][COLOR=maroon]Although I haven't seen a single anime in well over a year now, I will now come out of my abstinence with this show, simply because of its name. Downloading, will discuss after watching. Muahahaha![/COLOR][/QUOTE] Haha, well, I guess that's as good a reason as any. :animesmil I hope you get something out of watching it. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Tatsubei Yagyu][COLOR=Navy][FONT=Comic Sans MS]Oh, and does Light in the beginning of the Ending theme [B][I]reeeeeeally[/I][/B] freak anyone else out? :animedepr [/FONT'][/COLOR][/quote] Kind of, although I also find the red-eyed grin to be sort of comical. :animeswea [QUOTE=shingen] whats up with the shinshigama i mean first bleach now death note are there other anime's with these guy's.[/QUOTE] Shinigami are a pretty common theme in anime and manga... they even appear in Full Moon wo Sagashite (a magical girl series). But Yu Yu Hakusho is probably more along the lines of what you're thinking of; Botan is a shinigami, as are other minor characters. Anyway, episode 7 was[B] [i]fantastic[/i][/B]. The ending actually left me breathless. I thought it improved on the manga in several respects, such as clearly showing [spoiler]why Aizawa happened to cross paths with Light at that point in the story[/spoiler] instead of leaving it as an unexplained two-page spread that left manga readers bewildered and full of speculation. In the manga version, if I'm remembering right, [spoiler]Aizawa basically appears out of nowhere during that one scene, but his figure had such a prominent place in the panel--appearing in the foreground with Light and Naomi--that it ended up confusing people.[/spoiler] It's a little amazing when you think about the fact that the whole episode is basically a [spoiler]short walk dragged out over thirty minutes of story-telling.[/spoiler] But I was on tenterhooks as I watched it, even though I knew how things would unfold. As I said above, I really appreciated the little flourishes that the anime staff added--[spoiler]Ryuk's theatrical, red-tinged laughter[/spoiler] at the climax was almost a brilliant touch in terms of how it helped build things up. Also, the manga version of the story didn't specify how [spoiler]Naomi would be forced to commit suicide,[/spoiler] and I liked how the anime version added that in. The final shot of [spoiler]Naomi ascending the stairs to the noose[/spoiler] worked really well for me, although others might find it to be over the top. More so than any actual changes of that nature, though, the music, voice acting and animation made a huge difference for the story presented in episode 7. In the manga, I remember feeling that [spoiler]Naomi's death was unfortunate,[/spoiler] but only on a cerebral level. The anime, by its lovely use of [spoiler]silence and snow, hammered home the tragedy of what Light did to her. The cruelty of his questions at the end (e.g. asking her if she wanted to call his father) sank in so much more when I had to watch her walk away dully while he asked them.[/spoiler] Other good stuff: + [spoiler]Watari's true face[/spoiler] is revealed! Hooray! + Some hilarious Matsuda moments.

God, what a title. :animeswea Iroha is a series which, like virtually every other anime that deals with historical Japan, takes place toward the end of the age of the samurai. The main character is the taciturn Akizuki, who was previously a bodyguard to Sakamoto Ryouma (but Sakamoto is already dead at the beginning of the first episode). Anyway, Akizuki becomes involved with a traveling theatrical group who put on controversial plays--and, on the side, seek revenge against the killer of their leader's parents. Throw in a bunch of foreigners, historical figures of varying levels of prominence, the requisite supernatural elements, and you've got yourself a plot. Iroha is interesting on a couple of levels. So far, it's much more about the setting than about the characters. In the five episodes that I've seen, the plot has chugged along nicely, but what keeps me watching is the complexity of the language, the different types of speech patterns used by different characters (I have no idea how difficult this show must be to translate), and the exhilaration of trying to stay afloat amidst a soup of historical names and references. The serious tone and lack of wild hair colors also make for a pleasant change from the norm. Oh, and the action is pretty impressive. It's not that it seems to have a substantially higher budget than other recent, good-looking action series, but the fight sequences go pretty heavy on the kind of zany choreography that you tend to only see in brief flashes in other series. The battles in episode five are a good example of this. ~Dagger~

[quote name='Fasteriskhead']Give him points for industry if not for style, I guess.[/quote]:animesmil (Oh happy day--no Zero outfit in episode 5!) Actually, yesterday I saw a blog post entitled "Code Geass is Tokimeki Memorial in Disguise." Now it all makes sense, haha. But the women of Code Geass really are starting to steal the show. I love C.C.--I was very much expecting her to be a brainless Chi type, so it was rather fulfilling to watch her [spoiler]walk all over Lelouch.[/spoiler] The princess isn't half bad either, even with her Nyaa-ing. I guess everyone's going to be [spoiler]in the same school[/spoiler] now? I need a relationship chart... [spoiler]Yuffie being Clovis' sister means that she's related to Nanali and Lelouch somehow. Half-siblings? Whole siblings? Yargh.[/spoiler] Have you taken a look at Soukou no Strain? It's comparable to Code Geass on some levels (they're both fast-moving and flawed and too dramatic for their own good, at any rate, and it's not like there are many other mecha series this season), but I find it to be a lot more loveable. Maybe that's because of the Gunbuster-esque training sequences and stuff. ~Dagger~

Man, I wish I had more to say. But I hash over each episode with my friend after we watch it, and then I have to call my mom about it, haha. So I get kind of burned out on Lost discussion before I come back here. Nikki and Paolo are like Boone and Shannon, except without the [spoiler]quasi-incestuous hawtness.[/spoiler] :animenose I'm kind of dreading the prospect of an episode about them. The last episode was pretty weak right up until the end. (Thanks a lot, Kate.) It really paled in comparison to [spoiler]Eko's episode.[/spoiler] The flashbacks were almost astonishingly pointless--I mean, they didn't tell us anything we didn't already know about the character. Maybe there's something big hidden in there that they couldn't reveal just yet? Or maybe not. But I actually came away from the episode with a good feeling, because it's been a while since [spoiler]Jack did anything remotely cool.[/spoiler] The [spoiler]Sawyer/Kate[/spoiler] material is starting to get to me, though--I mean, I liked Sawyer's episode from earlier in this season, but just [spoiler]ditching the less appealing aspects of his character,[/spoiler] as the writers have been doing lately, is a little too convenient. I'll be pretty upset if [spoiler]Benry[/spoiler] dies. I was on the fence about Juliet for a while, but now I'm becoming convinced that [spoiler]she's more dangerous, or at least more secretly psychotic. I don't know; it might just be me, but I find that her puzzling mixture of competence and vulnerability just seems really calculated.[/spoiler] ~Dagger~

[size=1][quote name='Raiyuu][FONT=Trebuchet MS']Where can you find the novels in English? Since watching the series I've been interested in reading them, but I've tried Amazon and drawn a blank.[/FONT][/quote] The novels haven't been licensed (yet). There's a fan translation project going on at the moment, however. I haven't checked out the novels myself, although I hear that some of the later books are must-reads for Yuki fans... I'm holding out because I figure that surely they'll be animated eventually.[/size] -------------------------------------- [b]W00t![/b] [url=http://d.hatena.ne.jp/moonphase/20061109][u]Moonphase[/u][/url] reports that the second season of Haruhi Suzumiya will air in Fall 2007. But be warned that if you're interested in looking at the actual paragraph about it, you'll have to scroll down quite a bit. Anyway, this is great (albeit not terribly surprising) news. The hard part will be the wait, but in the meantime I'm going to enjoy Kyoto Animation's work on Kanon and Lucky Star. ~Dagger~

You know... I could happily kick back and watch an entire series about L's toes. Episode 6 is the same old in terms of art and animation; since the next six episodes after episode 1 were reportedly outsourced, I'm guessing that things will pick up again in episode 8. Not that it matters, since L's toes are being drawn in all their knobbly glory. As for part two of Kappei Yamaguchi's take on L, I do believe I approve. His [spoiler]"Justice always prevails" (sorry, I don't remember the exact translation)[/spoiler] line was delivered oddly, although I suppose that isn't necessarily a bad thing, since L as a character rarely does the expected. I liked how he drew a clear but not glaring contrast between L's darker-toned internal monologues and the lighter voice he used in conversation. Either way, he definitely succeeded in sounding like a genius whose thinking is on a whole other level, to the point that he doesn't quite have the patience for ordinary people but puts up with them anyway. Well, I'm not describing it well, but he hit the blase notes beautifully, without overdoing it. Miyano Mamoru did a lot of the same internal versus external thing with Light's voice in this episode, what with [spoiler]the cheerful and trustworthy persona he tried to present to Ray's fiancee.[/spoiler] Speaking of which, it might be fun for manga readers to pick out the clues they may have missed when they first read this part of the story. I, for one, liked knowing the significance of [spoiler]Ryuk's laughter.[/spoiler] :) ~Dagger~