BESM!!!!

In a few short hours I'll be running my BESM campaign again after a lay off of more than a month (stupid busy summer schedules). Naturally in lieu of preparing for this, I’m writing about it instead. . .

I kid of course. Actually I’ve basically completed all the prep work I wanted to do for this coming session, so I’m taking a little break. You might wonder why I have Schrödinger’s picture (snicker) displayed on this post? Well it is in honor of a question e-mailed to me by one of my gamers after I sent out a completely innocuous e-mail* mentioning that I’d updated the main villain. This player who will remain nameless (and who definitely doesn’t have a blog that I’ve linked to on the left of the screen) asked, “are we boned?” My first thought upon reading this was, “haven’t we been gaming together long enough for you to already know the answer to that?” This quickly lead to me wondering if I had become some sort of Schrödinger’s GM, and thus the picture.

*Said innocuous e-mail may have possibly included some indication of evil GM glee, and/or nefarious laughing. If forced to testify before Congress I fear my memory on the topic would be incomplete.

WoW continues to be fun. Even though I think I’m terrible at PvP, I find I enjoy the Battlegrounds quite a bit. Anime continues to be watched, and hopefully next month I’ll actually spend some time writing about it.

I leave you with a picture sent to me by a friend I’ve gamed with in the past. I find it fitting for today.

A short selection of links that amuse me

One of the nice things about WoW being so huge as compared to the limited number of other MMORPGs I’ve played is there is a larger pool of fans who might create or use cool things of a related nature. I spend far too much time looking up things here. I also spend way too much time looking up things here.

I’m not sure why this would interest anyone but me, but the same could be said of this entire blog so here are my characters on Dark Iron: Chipple, Steinthror, Cominius, Jardo, Malkurn, and Raffles. And my characters on Hellscream: Kobe, and Clovilth.

Some more Star Wars + Steampunk goodness can be found here. I especially liked these two pictures:
The one on the top is by a Robert J. Tiess, and the one on the bottom by Marcel E. Mercado. You can see more of Marcel's art here.

Yes he can tear himself away from WoW

Poor Onegai Teacher, it was an enjoyable series, but it looks like I’m never going to get around to devoting a post to it. Oh sure I could actually write something up about it right now, but seeing as how I watched it back in March I’m afraid it just isn’t the freshest series in my mind. Ghost Hunt, My-Hime, and Mai-Otome all share the same woe; all are excellent series that I enjoyed a great deal, but I enjoyed them back in March (or April in the case of Ghost Hunt but the effect is the same) which makes it difficult to write about the specific details. Busō Renkin is in a similar, but slightly different boat since I was watching that weekly from the time it premiered in October until its end in March.

So in brief:

Onegai Teacher features your basic love story between a high school student and a beautiful space alien masquerading as a high school teacher. Watch enough anime and the above sentence won’t seem weird. The art, music, and story are all quite nice, and most of the characters are very interesting. Onegai Teacher is also only twelve episodes long so it moves along at a good pace. There is also a one episode OVA which is basically fun fluff, nothing of any consequence happens, and on some levels I think it exists as an excuse to say, “Hey remember all those couples we either showed or hinted at in the main series? (snicker) Well they are all having sex! (snicker)" Still it is another chance to spend some time with some very enjoyable characters.

Ghost Hunt is about the investigations of the Shibuya Psychic Research Center (SPR). It shares some similarities with, but isn’t as dark in tone as either Jigoku Shōjo, or Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. I also like that sometimes their investigations reveal no supernatural activity, and other times they are unable do anything (at least directly) about the supernatural entity in question. Again the art is very nice, and the characters are interesting.

My-Hime and Mai-Otome are worth talking about together. My-Hime is an interesting mix of magical girl, and mecha anime. It starts out with a fairly comedic tone, and takes a turn for the more serious about halfway through (coinciding with an interesting plot twist). The cast is pretty large, but they are handled well, and interesting characters abound.

Mai-Otome could be called a sequel, but it may be more accurate to call it a re-envisioning. The same character designs, and in most cases names and personalities are used to tell a completely new story (set thousands of years in the future). The main characters from My-Hime take on supporting roles, while many of the supporting characters become much more featured, and the main protagonists are original (well some more so than others). Much like its predecessor, Mai-Otome starts out fairly light-hearted and then through a number of plot developments becomes more serious in tone. You could watch Mai-Otome without first watching My-Hime, but I wouldn’t recommend it since the character development in Mai-Otome is mostly (but not completely) limited to the original characters, if you have already watched My-Hime this isn’t a problem because the other characters were already well developed there.

Busō Renkin at least got discussed here before so forgive me if I’m extremely brief with this one. If you like Bleach you’ll probably like Busō Renkin as they share some similar subject matter. If you like shōnen fighting anime you’ll probably like Busō Renkin. If you like the idea of shōnen fighting anime, but think they tend to drag on far too long (Dragon Ball Z I’m looking at you) you’ll probably love Busō Renkin because it’s only 26 episodes so the fights get resolved and the plot advances in a timely manner.

With any luck my next post will be about the anime I’m currently following. That would include Bleach and Naruto: Shippūden both of which I’ve mentioned before, and three new anime that started in April: El Cazador de la Bruja, Claymore, and Kaze no Stigma.

I used to write poetry

WoW. That is my excuse. I was bitten by the MMORPG bug again. I blame web-comics, well at least the advertisements on the web-comics. For what it’s worth the Lord of the Rings Online game is rather fun, the open beta wasn’t fun enough to make me buy the game, but it was fun enough to make me try the 10-day free trial to World of Warcraft. I suspect that wasn't the reaction the creators were going for. To be fair I should disclose I had no intention of buying the Lord of the Rings game when I started the open beta test. Of course I had no intention of buying WoW when I started the 10-day free trial, but that resolve only lasted 48-hours.

Anyway I’ve been thinking about different things I could try to get me on a slightly more regular update schedule, and for a brief period of time I pondered bad poetry. I even composed a few WoW related haiku, but ultimately I decided to spare everyone that particular pain. Fate it would seem had a different idea.

One of my old high school English teachers cleaned out her classroom at the end of this last school year and she found a poem I wrote back in the day. Since my mother happens to be a teacher at said school, and since I'm home visiting my parents as I type this, I guess you do get subjected to my poetry after all. I’m thinking I was a sophomore when I wrote this:

She was sitting on a bench in the mall
I see her here each day,
My aunt told me.
She sat there and stared blankly off,
She sat there tired and old.
She sat there weary of life and its troubles.


I wondered why she wore tattered rags,
I wondered if she thought of a lost love.
Did she dream of an opportunity lost,
Or does she dwell on good times once had?
Is she a victim of life or herself?
I wondered if she thought of the cruel ways of life.


Or is it possible, now that I think back,
Could it be she had no regrets?
She only comes to sit and think of life well-lived.
Could the weary look be just a memory?
One that is tainted by guilt?
Guilt from me feeling pity but doing nothing.

.

Some things are too cool by far

I'm not really sure what it is about steampunk that tickles my fancy so, but regardless of the reason it certainly does.

While this isn't precisely steampunk, it is a very interesting site.

I'm especially enamored with the steam powered R2 unit.



And again:



I'm still planning on saying a few things about Onegai Teacher, and a number of other anime I've recently finished, but that will have to wait for another day.

Even Shorter, less random

I'm not sure what it is about the weather that has me wanting to blog about it. While the actual snow fall had stopped by the time I was done with work today, the blowing snow made the driving conditions among the worst I've had to deal with this winter. The whiteout conditions were certainly the worst I've had to drive through for the last two winters. Man am I glad I still don't have my poor old Mustang (or as I liked to think of it the winter deathmobile).

I now return you to my usual non-weather related blog.

Short and Random

A woot for post 40. Even if this is going to be a very short post.

The Twins played their first game of the season last night. That makes me happy. They won and that makes me even happier.

My joy is tempered however by the winter storm that dumped a few inches of snow on me (and obviously everyone else living in my neck-of-the-woods) late last night/early this morning.

I should have a few things to say about Onegai Teacher, and Ghost Hunt within a day or so.

This link is like geek heaven (at least my kind of geek heaven).

I told you this would be a very short post.

Kanon (2006)

I doubt I’ll have as much to say about Kanon, as I did with Kashimashi. I guess that is a little odd since I found Kanon to be one of the nicest and rewarding anime I’ve watched. It certainly isn’t perfect, and I’d never claim it’s for everybody, but I’m always going to rank it high among my favorites. I should point out I’m talking about the 2006 remake. I’ve never seen the 2002 version of Kanon, nor have I ever played any of the versions of the visual novel these anime were based on.

The story revolves around Aizawa Yūichi a second year high school student who moves in with his Aunt and Cousin (Minase Akiko and Minase Nayuki) whom he used to visit during the summers when he was younger (although he hasn’t done so for seven years). Yūichi quickly runs into several girls he used to know from his previous visits, but strangely he and in many cases they have trouble remember details of the events seven years prior.

The early episodes of Kanon are pleasant and leisurely paced. They do a nice job of introducing the main and supporting characters, but beyond some nice conversations, and the sowing of seeds for possible romance nothing much seems to be going on. Or at least it seems that way on the surface, nicely woven throughout are little hints and clues speaking to the fact that there is something more going on. Some are nicely used cues hinting at the areas and themes the anime is going to expand upon; others start out seeming like standard romantic anime fare, but quickly become apparent they have more importance than typical anime cliché. Then there are the more subtle clues that only become apparent when remembered after viewing later episodes. Finally, and these are my favorites, there are the revelations that induced double-takes or vocal interjections on my part while I was watching. The first one of those happened for me at the end of episode 4, where I was left wondering if the entire tone and them of the anime was about to undergo a radical change (happily it didn't, but it did leave me wanting more). A second, possibly even bigger “What!?” moment happened in episode 8. At that point it started to dawn on me, and as I continued through this anime it became more apparent (and delightfully so) that the world Yūichi lives in is every bit as fantastic as the worlds presented in say Kino’s Journey, or The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi (obviously in different ways, but fantastic never-the-less). My absolute favorite part of this anime was discovering just how much more was going on than I then I was expecting.

I should mention a few things in passing.

Forgive me for blogging about the weather, but I felt my local weather was pretty fitting for April Fools' Day. As one might expect from spring the last week has been pretty rainy, the previous two days in particular have been practically nonstop rain. Today however when I looked out my window I was greeted not to the sight of more rain, not to the sight of sunshine, or even just overcast skies. Nope I got to see snow; however it was warm enough that despite the fact the snow was coming down at a decent rate none of it was accumulating. So in a way it was like fake snow, I got the see the stuff fall from the sky, but I didn’t have to deal with it piling up on the ground. I felt it was a pretty appropriate April Fools' Day joke on the part of Mother Nature.

Baseball season has started. I am a very happy person.

I am really good at starting new anime (not as good at finishing them, because I’m easily distracted by more new anime). Last night I started a number of them. I have a feeling when I get home from work Ghost Hunt will occupy a large amount of my time before I go to bed (I watched the first 4 episodes of 25 last night). However Red Garden may give it a run for its money (I’ve watched 2 of its 22 episodes). I also took in the first episode of Code Geass, and the first two episodes of Negima!?.

Ghost Hunt’s title gives you a pretty good idea of what it’s about. The characters seem pretty interesting, and there are hints that the main female character has secrets to be revealed. I found watching Red Garden to be an interesting experience because I knew almost nothing about it when I started watching it (I usually at least know the genre of an anime before I start it). I knew it was by Gonzo, and that back in October John from Ask John had written in his Ask John column that he felt it might be overlooked by American fans (verses Pumpkin Scissors also by Gonzo which John thought would be a hit with American anime fans). I did have an amusing revelation when it dawned on me that Red Garden was set in New York City. If I had paid any attention to the opening credits the setting would have been obvious, but instead I got to sit through the first half of the episode wondering what was bothering me about it. The lack of school uniforms, the yellow school buses, and the characters with names like Rose, Claire, and Kate finally drove the point home for me about two minutes before the anime made mention of New Jersey. I don’t have much to say about Code Geass yet. It’s set in the future, it has mecha, and the main character seems rather intense (he has an interesting power, but I’m not sure I’m going to like him). The art style of Negima!? is very different from Mahou Sensei Negima! I’m a fan of the Negima manga, but less enamored with the original anime (I didn’t hate it, I just preferred the manga). I’m not sure yet what I’m going to think of Negima!? but at least it’s interesting to look at (not quite as stylized as Gankutsuou, but close).

Kashimashi

March saw me watch three separate anime series with a strong element of romance to them: Onegai Teacher, Kanon, and Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ (also Romanized as Kasimasi). I would characterize all three of them as delightful although I’d have to give a qualified delightful to Kashimashi. Of these three Kashimashi is the series I most want to talk about.

Kashimashi induced the strongest emotional response an anime has produced in me for sometime, unfortunately that response was anger directed at the OVA ending. The main characters are three high school classmates Osaragi Hazumu, Kamiizumi Yasuna, and Kurusu Tomari. Hazumu is a somewhat effeminate boy easily described with words like kind and gentle. Yasuna is a quiet and lonely girl who suffers from a pretty unique form of androphobia (although Hazumu is the exception to that). They share an interest in gardening. Tomari is a tomboy who has protected Hazumu from bullies since they were both small children. The plot revolves around Hazumu’s sudden transformation into a girl (due to a very close encounter with an extraterrestrial scientist), and the love triangle that develops between the three of them afterwards.

The supporting characters are generally fun and interesting. Hazumu’s parents and Tsuki Namiko, one of her teachers (the only teacher depicted), exist almost solely for comic relief, but they aren’t overly intrusive (and on the scale of amusing to annoying they lean towards the amusing side). To some extent Soro Asuta, Hazumu’s only male friend, also serves as comic relief, but as he comes to grips with the fact that Hazumu is a very cute girl he presents an interesting (if never very serious) alternative to the main love triangle. I found the final member of Hazumu’s circle of friends, Mari Ayuki, to be particularly interesting. She is the only friend neither pursuing nor contemplating a relationship with Hazumu (although it is strongly hinted that she does have feelings for one of her friends, probably Hazumu, but the object of her affection is never explicitly identified). Ayuki is basically an emotional voyeur (that may be putting too harshly but it does get the point across), and is very content to remain an observer and not a participant in the unfolding drama (not that events allow her to completely get her wish). The final major supporting characters are Sora Hitoshi and Jan Pū. Hitoshi is the alien responsible for turning Hazumu into a girl, and is also an anthropologist who traveled to Earth to study love; Jan Pū is the spaceship’s anthropomorphic AI. Jan Pū’s primary functions in the anime are being cute, and providing comic relief. Hitoshi’s lack of understanding of human culture and his interactions with Namiko also results in a fair amount of comic relief. His study of love boils down to either observing Hazumu or placing Hazumu in situations where her relationship with her suitors could advance.

The series opens during the aftermath of Hazumu confessing his love to Yasuna. After Yasuna rejects his confession Hazumu hikes up Mt. Kashima to find solace. As Hazumu walks up the mountain he reflects on his relationship with Yasuna and a series of flashbacks tell the back story of how they met and became friends as well as the encouragement and advice his friends gave him prior to him making his confession. Meanwhile Hazumu’s friends Asuta, Ayuki, Tomari learn of the results of his confession and concerned start searching for him. Eventually Tomari concludes Hazumu must have hiked up Mt. Kashima, so with Asuta and Ayuki in tow she starts up the mountain to find him. Interlaced through all of this are scenes of Yasuna showing signs of regret and hinting at that her rejection of Hazumu was undertaken rather reluctantly as she makes her own way up Mt. Kashima to return one of the two plants she and Hazumu transplanted from the mountainside to the school garden. Finally mixed in with all this terrestrial action is the goings on of Hitoshi’s spacecraft in orbit around Earth, and wouldn’t you know it the ship suffers engine failure.

While the alien ship is falling towards Earth Hazumu sees what he thinks is a shooting star only after making the obligatory wish (for a loving relationship naturally) does he realize something is amiss. Well apparently being rejected by the girl he loves wasn’t all the abuse the universe had in store for Hazumu on this day because the ship crash-lands directly onto the poor guy. Naturally Hitoshi feels very bad about this and with access to advanced alien technology is able to save Hazumu’s life, however one small mistake is made while rebuilding Hazumu’s body and he is turned irreversibly into a she. Acting in accordance with galactic law Hitoshi reveals its ship to the world and announces to everyone that he is very sorry for crashing into Osaragi Hazumu, and he is also very sorry about accidentally turning Hazumu into a girl, but asks that everyone please treat her with respect. Attracted by both the large alien spacecraft hovering over the mountain (engines apparently fixed) and by the announcement concerning Hazumu both Yasuna, and Tomari rush towards a clearing just in time to see an unconscious (also a very naked, and very female) Hazumu float down in a beam of light into their waiting arms. With Hazumu alive and returned to Earth the spacecraft disappears back into space, and the first episode comes to an end with Hazumu waking up to Yasuna and Tomori looking over her.

The next eleven episodes are spent setting up, fleshing out, and then resolving the love triangle between Hazumu, Yasuna, and Tomari. And it does so very nicely and in a rewarding fashion. It takes some work for Tomari to accept Hazumu as a girl, and Hazumu has to exert some effort to renew her friendship with Yasuna. When Yasuna tries to take her relationship with Hazumu beyond friendship it causes not only Tomari to deal with her feelings for Hazumu, but starts Hazumu down the path of actually coming to a decision. When that decision is finally made it makes sense given the internal logic on the anime, and I was generally happy with the outcome (admittedly I would have preferred Hazumu choose the other girl, but that doesn’t mean I hated the choice that was made). In other words it was a good, if bittersweet ending.

Then I watched the OVA. My main problem with the OVA is that far too much happens in one 27 minute episode. It’s not that I’m unhappy with the results, it’s just everything was rushed, and there was little explanation of why the characters were undertaking the actions depicted. When there was explanation it consisted of something like this:

Char1: Hey Char2 do you remember when you did that thing?

Char2: Yes I do. It was a hard thing to do.

Char1: Why did you do that?

Char2: Well I did it for this reason (gives reason).

Char1: Yes I understand and accept your reason for doing that.


I have no idea how much (if any) manga was left to adapt after episode 12, and I have no doubt there were probably significant financial reasons making more than a 1 episode OVA unlikely, but all that aside from a purely story driven perspective the events of the OVA should have been broken up into 6-8 more episodes. This would have allowed time to actually show why the characters did what we are told they did in-between episode 12 and the start of the OVA. There would have been time to show why several characters underwent a change in attitude from episode 12 to the OVA allowing their behavior in the OVA to make sense. If there had been time to show all that I have no doubt I would have been completely satisfied with the outcome. In the end I feel like the OVA is just saying here let me in one episode completely change everything and provide a new resolution that totally negates the one the previous twelve episodes carefully worked towards.

Okay so I spent way more time talking about Kashimashi than I thought I would. So I’m going to have to save my thoughts on Kanon and Onegai Teacher for another post.

Well this month kinda got away from me

I really didn’t mean to let a whole month go by without posting anything, but obviously those intentions were for naught. It’s not like I wasn’t up to anything during March, granted I wasn’t up to anything new, but I continued on with my usual activities meaning role playing and anime. You’ll forgive me if I touch on some of this only briefly.

The BESM campaign continues to go extremely well. I can see the end approaching, but I find I am repeatedly under estimating the number of remaining sessions. I’ve been thinking only three more to go for probably the last three sessions. We should be holding our next session April 14 assuming things go as planned there will be at least one more session after that (but given how things are taking longer then I think they will probably two more sessions). I suspect my players are enjoying themselves as much as I am if for no other reason then some of the interesting plans they come up with for their characters (for example). We did meet once for the Eberron campaign during March, and I look forward to continuing that, although I haven’t heard anything about that for a while now.

A little aside I’ve mentioned that one of the things my friends and I do when we gather to game is spend some time with the Wii first. Well this ritual lead some of my friends to ponder while bowling on Wii Sports, why don’t we actually go bowling for real. So we did just that. I broke 100 during our first game (quite good for me), and struggled to get to into the 50s during the second game (all in all pretty typical).

So anime. . .

I watched a great deal of it during March. Probably the most I’ve watched in a month since last November (I may well have exceeded the amount I watched in November). First off I’ve stayed current with the same shows I’ve been staying current with for a while now namely Bleach, Busou Renkin, and Naruto Shippuden. I started and finished My-HiME, Mai-Otome, Kanon (the 2006 version), Onegai Teacher (including OVA), and Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ (also including OVA). I also started (but not yet finished) BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad (18 of 26 episodes), Pumpkin Scissors (4 of 24 episodes), Kino's Journey (8 of 13 episodes), Kyo Kara Maoh! (25 of 78 episodes), and Doki Doki School Hours (15 of 20 episodes). I’ve continued watching Hunter × Hunter and am through all 62 TV episodes, the first 8 episode OVA, and 7 episodes of the second 8 episode OVA. I’ve also watched a few more episodes of Tokimeki Memorial Only Love.

I don’t know that I’ll do this tomorrow, but soon I think I’ll post my thoughts on Kanon and Kashimashi for sure, and probably something about My-HiME, and Mai-Otome after that. I only have one episode of Busou Renkin left to watch so I’m sure I’ll have something more to say about it once I’ve finished that series off as well.