This one is for all the geeks in the house

So while browsing the "My WTF video of the day" thread on the Penny Arcade Alliance forums I came across this beauty. Enjoy.



To the best of my knowledge I have five people who read this blog with any regularity (hi guys). So for the two people in my known audience who aren’t big anime fans the soundtrack the above hacked ROM is set to is the ending theme to the thoroughly delightful anime The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

Way too much Haruhi

Tomorrow, weather permitting (and if not technology permitting), I'll be running my BESM campaign. Tomorrow I will also be making the official decision about what to run for my next campaign. That particular decision is approximately 99% made at this point so baring a last minute strenuous objection by one of my players (or some late night epiphany) I'll be running a sci-fi campaign featuring independent mecha pilots in a Firefly/Serenity inspired setting. The second place idea was The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya inspired campaign. In honor of the campaign that might have been (and I guess clings to a 1% chance of still being) I give you this post which happened when happy chance lead me to YouTube, YouTube -like it usually does- lead me to more YouTube, and that inspired me to see how many of these Haruhi Suzumiya videos I could embed in this post.

I'll start with the original video I ran across. It's your basic anime music video featuring the end credits of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya and a song from the Namco game Mojipittan. I found it delightfully amusing and immediately began looking for more.


Next I'll move on to the clean versions of the opening and end credits (see here for song titles and artist info).


With the original versions out of the way I give you the all dance version of the end credits.


I was very happy to find this edited together version of Haruhi's surprising rock concert at her school's cultural festival. Kyon's face when he realizes Haruhi is on stage just kills me.


Sticking with the rock theme I move on to this AMV featuring The White Stripes song "Fell In Love with a Girl."


There is a veritable cornucopia of Haruhi Suzumiya themed AMVs to be found on YouTube (and doubtless even more on the Internet in general). To represent those countless numbers I chose this one because it featured Nagato Yuki who may just be my favorite character in the anime.


Finally I leave you with the Gundam version. The fact that a Gundam version exists is proof that people with far too much time on their hands make wacky things and post them to the Internet, and other people with far to much time on their hands (like me) find those things and blog about them.

Thoughts on a future campaign - part two

My bare bones description of the possible science fiction campaign has generated an impressive amount of e-mail traffic. This makes me a happy Game Master, which in turn makes for happy players. However as I am not yet prepared to commit to a single plan for a future campaign this little experiment in campaign brainstorming continues.

When it comes to running a role playing game I'm a big believer in theft. I steal ideas, adventures, characters, plot, names, and settings with abandon. My current campaign is a perfect example of this behavior. With that in mind I present a number of possible campaigns all which have been heavily inspired by (or if you prefer stolen from) the anime I've been watching, and the manga I've been reading (okay truthfully there are going to be a few examples that have nothing to do with anime or manga).

First up a campaign inspired heavily by Hunter × Hunter, so inspired in fact I might just go ahead and set it in the Hunter × Hunter world. One of the features of Hunter × Hunter that I find so interesting is the different reasons the characters have for wanting to become hunters (for example Gon wants to become a hunter to track down his father who is also a hunter, while Kurapika wants to become a hunter to bring those responsible for the destruction of his tribe to justice). I would strongly encourage the players to come up with interesting reasons for their characters to wish to become a hunter. If we did a short version the campaign it would feature the player characters going through the Hunter examinations. The longer version would continue on with stories focusing on and tying into the reasons the player characters became hunters. The hunter organization and the status and benefits it confers in the Hunter × Hunter world are pretty unique, and creating my own version without just copying wholesale from the anime would be a little tricky. Which is why I'd consider just setting the campaign in the Hunter × Hunter world to begin with; the downside to that is I haven't read any of the manga, and thus far have only watched 17 episodes of the anime so I'm not really all that familiar with the world of Hunter × Hunter.

For something in a similar vein I could go with a campaign drawing inspiration from Naruto. Here the campaign would focus around a team of young ninja and their more experienced sensei (in other words just like the early Naruto). The largely endless possibilities for adventure with this set up should be pretty obvious. I'd be much more apt to go ahead and create my own world for this (even though I do find the setting in Naruto to be pretty interesting); in fact I can all but guarantee that I would create my own world and ninja organizations for this campaign.

Stripping more and more of Naruto away from the last example leaves me with a core idea of a squad of operatives. Thinking about that quickly brings Ghost in the Shell in all its incarnations to mind. Which does make me think that while I've run Shadowrun on a number of occasions, I've never run a straight up cyberpunk campaign. The obvious choice here is to run a campaign featuring criminals committing crimes for money (that is the standard set up for a Shadowrun campaign and describes the action that takes place in William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel Neuromancer). A fine choice to be sure, but keeping Ghost in the Shell in mind I don't want to rule out creating a governmental organization like Ghost in the Shell's Section 9. All of this means I might be looking to do a covert-ops campaign as much as I'm looking to do a cyberpunk campaign.

With Shadowrun still in my thoughts I turn my attention to the other half of Shadowrun's cross-genre makeup - namely fantasy, and specifically urban fantasy. The urban fantasy most currently occupying my thoughts is The Dresden Files on the Sci-Fi channel (I've also read the first two books in the series and I'd happily recommend them), although Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the works of Laurell K. Hamilton isn't far behind. Whatever the source of inspiration the first question that would need to be answered is does the world-at-large know magic and the supernatural exists. Either choice presents a fine number of options, and a number additional questions to answer (such as why hasn't the world noticed magic, or how would world history be different if magic was real and known).

Pondering magic in the modern world brings me back to anime - namely The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya which is actually a little odd, because of all the bizarre people Haruhi collects around her a magic-user isn't one of them (maybe she does in the novels, but since I don't read Japanese I've only got the anime to go by). So what would I steal from this anime to create a campaign? Well to start with the Japanese High School setting, because that would be really fun. Also this hypothetical campaign would feature a club very much in the vein of Haruhi's SOS Brigade complete with searches for aliens and time-travelers, investigations of the paranormal, the creation of bad student films, competing in the local baseball tournament, and anything else the club founder thinks is a good idea at the time.More importantly this campaign would feature an NPC in the mold of Suzumiya Haruhi, perhaps not in personality, but certainly in ability. If you are familiar with the anime (or the novels I assume) should understand where I'm going with this, however for those not familiar with the anime I'm sure some explanation is required. To put this in terms my current players would understand Suzumiya Haruhi has the GURPS disadvantage Weirdness Magnet except increase its potency about threefold. Even that doesn't really begin to cover it, because Haruhi has the power to alter reality to suit her whims. However she doesn't have a clue that she possesses such a power, and thus uses it only subconsciously and only when she's bored. Enter the SOS Brigade composed almost entirely of the people Haruhi is searching for (namely aliens, espers, and time-travelers), and possibly owning their very existence to her reality warping powers, they strive to keep an eye on her, and above all keep her from becoming bored.

I think that is a good plenty for part two of this exercise. I certainly have more, but you'll have to come back for that in a later post. I leave you with this: I find it comforting to know that no matter what campaign I end up running the only thing able to compete with its awesomeness is the following picture.

Thoughts on a future campaign - part one

Lately I've been spending some time thinking about what sort of campaign I'd like to run once my current BESM campaign wraps us. My initial thoughts were I'd like to do a non-anime campaign. I was thinking a science fiction campaign in general would be fun, and I was particularly excited about the idea of a Star Trek campaign. I've been wanting to do one of those for quite awhile. To be fair it's not as though I'd completely ruled out doing another anime campaign (I love both BESM and anime), I just thought my players may want a change. The arrival of BESM 3rd edition, and a few comments from my players has made me rethink this a bit.

I have sent out two different e-mail questionnaires to my players trying to gage their thoughts and desires on a future campaign. My initial missive to my players presented them with no fewer then 17 options (several of which had 3 or 4 sub-options). Confronted with such an overabundance of choices it isn't surprising my players where slow in responding. My second attempt focused entirely on sci-fi cutting down the number of options to a manageable level, and produced better, but still not entirely satisfactory results. Although one of my players did interpret his own answers thusly, "In otherwords if you could somehow cook up a way to get a group of independent/merc mecha pilots (with mecha) cruising around in a barely holding together dropship plying the space lanes in a Firefly-esque setting I'd be a happy camper for a sci-fi setting."

Well that did get the creative juices flowing. I started focusing first on the Firefly-esque part. Joss Whedon drew a lot of inspiration for Firefly from the book The Killer Angels (a side note here - it is an extremely good book - read it) which is about the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. The Civil War brought the north versus the south to my mind which started me thinking this potential campaign could feature two separate solar systems that had recently fought a war. The first solar system, the side that won the war, would be analogous to the north (and to the central planets in Firefly) more industrialized and populated than the second solar system (the losing side in the war and naturally analogous to the south). For these two solar systems to be able to fight a war this campaign is going to need FTL travel (this is also especially true if this war is going to have been a civil war/war of independence - depending on your point-of-view).

While pondering the need for FTL I went off on a little tangent. I recalled Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Fremantle a British observer of Lee's army during the Battle of Gettysburg (or at least I recalled Michael Shaara's depiction of him in The Killer Angels). This made my mind wander to thoughts of the British Empire, which called to mind Napoleon, which got me thinking about the Horatio Hornblower books by C. S. Forester, all of which reminded me of the Honor Harrington books by David Weber. Weber's books occasionally mention a wormhole connecting his Manticore Star Kingdom to various other interstellar nations. It dawns on me that something like this is precisely what I need to tie these two solar systems together and give a plausible reason they could both be run by one government (not to mention why one solar system would be willing and able to fight a war to prevent the other solar system from declaring its independence).

A brief side note: if you are interested in reading some free science fiction, and fantasy novels head over to Baen Books and check out their free library featuring a fair number of the books they publish; including the first two novels in David Weber's Honor Harrington series.

The independent mercenary mecha pilots part shouldn't be to hard to work in; especially if I throw in one or more frontier solar systems not connected to the two main solar systems by any wormhole (and thus only accessible by FTL ships - which are presumably much slower than the basically instantaneous travel through a wormhole). The obvious choice is the PCs will be former soldiers from the losing solar system. Obviously there are still plenty of decisions to make, and questions to be answered, but for some initial brainstorming I'm pretty happy with these results.

As described this campaign could be run with any number of systems, and shoot for any number of different tones and themes. As an example for a more gritty and realistic approach I'd consider using GURPS; while for a much more cinematic feel I'd strongly consider using West End Games' D6 System (D6 Space being the obvious choice). Since my players seem to be looking for some more anime action, and because we'd all like to give it a try BESM 3rd edition seems to be a strong possibility for this potential campaign. For inspirational viewing for an anime version of this campaign I'd suggest Crest of the Stars, followed by Banner of the Stars (I, II, and III), maybe Outlaw Star for a lighter take on things, and Martian Successor Nadesico also seems like some excellent source material.

While this isn't the only idea for an anime campaign I've been kicking around, it is the only one you are getting in this post. However if you come back in a day or two I'm sure I'll have a few more up for perusal. But for now I leave you with another picture that amuses me. The picture comes from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, the commentary comes from some creative person with too much time on his hands.

Words fail me here

I like to think I’m a pretty smart guy, but I can do some remarkably stupid things. I should clarify, in this particular instance I’m not talking about life threateningly stupid, but never-the-less I should really know better. For my most recent act of stupidity I stayed up all night, and am now paying for it while I sit here at work thinking, “well this sucks.” It wouldn't be so bad if I were still 18 (it still would have been stupid, but at least as a teenager you're expected to occasionally do those sorts of stupid things), however I'm 31 so apparently I'm just a big idiot.

I know I have no one but myself to blame for this, but in my defense my work schedule is a contributing factor. Of course my own behavior regarding that work schedule is an even bigger contributing factor. Roughly speaking my work rotation is 4 evening shifts (2:30pm – 11:00pm), followed by 1 day off, followed by 4 morning shifts (6:30am – 3:00pm), followed by 2 days off, and repeat (it is actually a little more complicated then that, but this covers the basics). My trouble always comes with that 1 day off in-between my evening and morning shifts. I basically get up for work, so on days when I have to be at work at 2:30pm I rarely get up before 11am (and often not until 12pm or even sometimes 1pm). Not surprisingly I don’t go straight to bed when I get home from work; I usually stay up until about 3am (or sometimes 4am, or more rarely 5 – 6am). Now if I only worked evening shifts this behavior would be fine, but I don’t work just evening shifts. I unfortunately seem incapable of using the 1 day off to turn my sleep schedule around. No I, if anything, tend to stay up even later the night before my day off, which means I don’t tend to wake up until even later then usual. Consequently I’m never tired at 9 or 10pm when I should be going to sleep (since I need to be waking up at 5:30am the next day).

Usually I’m doing pretty well if I get 4 hours of sleep the night before my first morning shift, last night however I got none. Was I engaged in some important endeavor that would explain my all-nighter? Of course not. I was watching TV. I started off with Stargate SG-1 on Sci-Fi and watched episodes of that from 10pm until 2am. Why oh why didn’t I go to bed at that point? Apparently because it was critically important for me to watch the movie Angel Eyes on TBS from 2am until 4am. I guess I’m not getting enough J.Lo in my media consumption. Please oh please let it instead be because I’m not watching enough James Caviezel movies. The real kicker is I've seen that movie before (my opinion of it is basically neutral) so there was no reason to stay up and watch it again. At this point you’d think I’d still try and take a nap at least before work. However, no, I’d rather stay up and watch BeastMaster (the TV show and not the movie) on Sci-fi. Well now its 5am, and I usually get up at 5:30am, so what do I do? I find a horribly bad movie on Starz Kids & Family to start watching. Oh yes, I start watching Spymate; a movie about a chimpanzee spy. Let me say that again, a chimpanzee spy. . .

Here is a little tip. If the movie you are watching features a nonhuman primate as one of the leads, it probably isn't a very good movie.

I do have plans to continue the horrible movie madness this evening. I'm thinking I'm going have to take in BloodRayne tonight on Sci-Fi. I don't see how I can miss this opportunity to watch my first Uwe Boll film. I'm looking forward to what I hope will be a truly awful film.

Well with that I think it's time to bring this odd little post to an end. I have no doubt the next time I blog about something it will be the usual anime related topic (or perhaps RPG). On the plus side this entry officially makes January my most prolific month. I guess I can take solace in that.

As an ending treat, and to cleanse the palate a little. I leave you with this picture, entirely unrelated to anything else in this post, of Suzumiya Haruhi (on the right - from The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi) and Fujiota Haruhi (on the left - from Ouran High School Host Club) dressed in each other's school uniforms; I do this mostly because this picture really amuses me.

I got a little shōjo in my shōnen

Since I obviously haven't been watching enough anime for the last month and a half this week I started four more series. The first of these new series I watched is Black Blood Brothers. It's a fun little 12 episode series about vampires. It is lighter in tone then Hellsing (or Trinity Blood for that matter). It tells a decent story, and balances a satisfactory ending with leaving itself logical avenues for another season or a sequel. I don't really have anything bad to say about it, there just wasn't anything particularly special about it either.

The second new series I started watching is Busō Renkin. This series is still on going of the planned 26 episodes ten have aired in Japan of which I've watched fansubs of the first 9. This series reminds me a lot of Bleach as it balances a fairly dark story with slapstick comedy. The setup is also similar to Bleach with a high school boy being thrust into a secret world of monster fighting after encountering a mysterious girl. All and all pretty fun and interesting enough that I'll keep watching.

The next two series I thought were real gems. I’ll start with Ouran High School Host Club. I found this show to be witty, funny, well animated, and just plain entertaining. I know I called it pure shōjo bliss in one e-mail I sent to a friend regarding it. I devoured all 26 episodes of this show in two sittings and quite possibly all within a 24 hour span.

Fujioka Haruhi (pictured above), the main heroine of the story, is a lower-middle class first-year student who is able to attend Ouran Private Academy through an academic scholarship. The school is home to the children of some of Japan’s post prestigious and wealthy families, and is so expensive the Haruhi cannot even afford to buy a school uniform. While not actively trying to pass as a boy, Haruhi does dress in a fairly androgynous manner and doesn’t feel any need to correct peoples assumptions when she is taken for a boy. Shortly after her arrival at Ouran she accidentally break a vase belonging to the Host Club worth 8 million yen. The Host Club, who like (presumably) everybody else in school still thinks she is a boy, puts her to work as a gofer to pay off the debt. However upon seeing her without her glasses on they realize she is quite good looking, so Suō Tamaki (sometimes spelled Suou or Suoh), the Host Club president, promotes her to rookie host and the club provides her with contacts and a school uniform (of course since they think she is a boy it is a male uniform). Throughout the first episode each member of the Host Club comes to realize Haruhi is actually a girl, but since Haruhi doesn’t mind being taken for a boy, and because it’s easier to work off her debt as a host they agree to keep her secret (not that Haruhi ever really actively tries to disguise her gender).

The final new series I started and finished this week is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. This 14 episode series is difficult to explain without giving away the plot. It covers a pretty wide range of genres: comedy, supernatural, science fiction, psychological, philosophical, and why not through in postmodern for good measure. More impressively it does justice to each genre is touches upon. One interesting thing about the anime is it isn’t shown in chronologic order, only rarely does the action of an episode directly follow the preceding episode (the events of episode three directly follow episode two, and the events of episode fourteen directly follow episode thirteen). I really cannot say enough good things about this anime it is beautifully animated, the plot is well crafted and intricate, the main characters are all interesting, it is thought provoking, and it invites and rewards repeat viewing. I will say the first episode may seem a little odd especially since if shown chronologically it would likely have been episode 11, but stick with this series and you will be very quickly rewarded.

Just so you don't think I'm ignoring all those other anime I'm happy to report I'm up to episode 136 of Prince of Tennis.