Shameful Otaku Secret!

Howdy! Bye, now!

Oh, Chiko. I don’t envy you. Your aunt’s still trying to off you with soup, or the occasional desperate and ineffectual sneak-attack on a boat. Your best friend thinks you’re a novelty and occasionally pretends to be you just to get in trouble. Your only real friend is your murderous aunt’s servant. And now the latter two, along with the numbnuts detective who “found” you, have all gone hypnotized by some white-haired zombie cyborg demon doll who’s in love with Twenty Faces.

Oh yeah, you’re homeless, and it’s raining. That just sucks. What? Cyborg woman is holding your only friend ransom… Jesus.

Well, all is well, since you’ve found Twenty Faces! Sure, zombie doll bitch is all about killing you out of jealousy, but didn’t we all know that Akechi secretly was Twenty Faces all along?

Wait, he’s not? Okay, so Twenty Faces just disguised himself as Detective Akechi. Hm. Still following, just less so.

So Twenty Faces kills zombie doll lady, cool, but then he falls off a blimp to save you? Ouch! Meaning, you got him back, stabbed him while hypnotized, finally came to your senses, and he’s gone again?

Wow. Did I mention I don’t envy Chiko?

What the hell is going on?

The reunion of Ken, Chiko, and the Boss didn’t have time to be sweet and sappy because they were pretty much under threat of death the whole time. I think that gave us a nice indication of the new darker and more urgent atmosphere — that it’s never going to be the happy Robin Hood’s merry-men party that they used to be living in. Of course, an eyepatch is always a dead giveaway too.

Cyborg-love-interest is gone, but so is Twenty Faces. Or is he? The scene near the end of episode 13 really hints that he’s actually dead this time, but his work isn’t finished, and TF seems like the kind of guy who would gladly cheat death to get the job done.

Say what you will about Twenty Faces (no one is saying much, actually), but these past three episodes gave me what I like the most about the show. First, the rare action scenes are creative and well-animated with a sense of style that I think only Bones could really pull off. And more importantly, the story keeps me guessing, something it’s been doing ever since Twenty Faces disappeared. Love it. I also love the way the writers gave viewers an “I knew it!” moment when Akechi turned out to be Twenty Faces, only to take it away by revealing that he wasn’t.

This backstory on Akine really seems superfluous, and cyborg lover went down pretty easy (she just kind of gave up living), but I can’t say I have real complaints about the direction of the show lately.

As a side note, anyone notice that the visual effects in the OP make noise now, like motion graphics on a Fox TV broadcast? Kind of goofy and lame.

We use “harem” around here, never “bitches”

My kind of meme is the kind that happened two years ago. IcyStorm revived this classy post idea a couple days ago, so I’m going to jump on this newly-renovated bandwagon. If you’ve been hanging out here the past week or so waxing economical and philosophical for Industry Defib (thanks Kabitzin) and you weren’t aware of just what kind of internet neighborhood this was, I’m going to move the horse’s underwire aside now. Or whatever.

My personal harem!

I really didn’t follow any of the rules Icy mentioned, except for the “no-characters-newer-than-6-months one.” But mostly because none of them made the cut (Noe Isurugi? I did date her once, in college. No fun). As an added bonus, I made a short list of girls who will never appear in my harem. So, without further brainpower, I give you this collection of obviousness:

1. Belldandy (Ah! My Goddess!). You have to ask? When everyone else gets you down, that’s who you’d end up going to for a quiet evening of completely platonic relations for seemingly thousands of episodes. According to Danbooru, she’s good in a gangbang too, but according to Danbooru, who isn’t? You sick puppies, this is Belldandy! Have you no scruples?

2. Tsukasa Hiiragi (Lucky☆Star). Give her a new cell phone, then just sit back and enjoy.

3. Winry Rockbell (Fullmetal Alchemist). I do try to avoid FMA references (for no good reason), but gnaw on this: When your car breaks down, Belldandy could just wish it better, but you can’t just take advantage of Belldandy all day like that! For shame. Plus, a girl with a wrench is just fantabulous! Since everyone here is a cartoon and I don’t actually get to have to have sex with any of them, you could exchange her for Leeron, for all I care. I just need a mechanic who knows Volkswagens.

4. Kaname Chidori (Full Metal Panic!). Who among us is so bad-ass we wouldn’t need someone to bail us out of a hairy situation every now and then? Chiko from 20 Faces could kick some ass for you too, but even for you sick anime fans she’s underage, and every harem needs a few comedic smacks of the harisen per episode.

5. Marjorie Daw (Shakugan No Shana). In a series known for tsunderes, she’s the queen of them all. She’d go shot-for-shot with me on that cheap whiskey on top of my fridge, and it’s impossible to be jealous of her best male friend, since he’s a goddam book. I almost went with Misato Katsuragi for old times’ sake since she’s good with the booze and probably comes with Pen-Pen too, but damn, all that baggage…

Obligatory Maid: Chiyo and otou-san’s maid from Sakaki’s dream.

What? Don’t judge me.

Girls not appearing in this harem:

1. Kazumi Yoshida. Just. Kill. Yourself. Damn.
2. Any member of the Clannad cast. So obvious. I get it, Kyou is the hottest cartoon character evar.
3. Misa Misa. High maintenance and clingy. Never a good sign.
4. The ef girls. Wait, wait — How many voicemails?
5. Haruko Haruhara. IcyStorm went with her, and I greatly respect that choice, but I prefer to keep my head where it is and the pirate robots in space where they belong.
6. Mamiko Noto. Sadly, she is real, and ineligible for consideration.

Pretend you care!

Well, that was a hell of a hiatus. I can’t accurately call it a break. I packed a 22 foot truck, hooked my car on the back, drove it 1400 miles (about 2200km) at 50mph (80km/h) — which, if you do the math, I shit you not comes to seven billion hours on the road — to finally end up at my new place and unpack approximately 1 ½ boxes before I had to jaunt off to Florida for work. Somewhere along the line, I got sick, and I would assume that somewhere in there I also slept. What I did not do very much of is watch anime, but I managed to get caught up somewhere in there. Here’s what happened in my absence:

Macross F got good. Like really good. Instead of nostalgia-porn for old-school fans, it’s now its own series that’s starting to get balls out. But the upcoming “Vajra Babies” spinoff, while cute, is a blatant cash-in and should not be considered canon.

Geass did its thing. No hardcore plot twists, but Shirley’s killer was quite the surprise to me. Unfortunately, now that LeDouche is trying to off Rolo, the little brother-faker has become the Scrappy Doo of the series. Just die, already.

Twenty Faces had an off week. Chiko as Encyclopedia Brown seems fun on the surface, and a beach episode never fails, uh… right? But the story was silly, didn’t focus on Chiko, and had horrendous animation.

Kaiba became confusing. If you’ve ever wondered why you should consider saving episodes at least for a little while after they’re over, try watching Kaiba with a lot of space between. A lot has been made about this series’ connotations, but in essence the plot is fairly simple. Until you forget what happened in the last three weeks.

Real Drive remain’s Masumune Shirow’s most pointless creation. But I still like it.

Toshokan Sensou finished. And… I really didn’t care. Put it next to Kure-nai on the “hey-ho wrap it up boys! Don’t forget the nice bow!” shitty endings shelf. After typing that and hearing it in my head, I realized it sounded sort of like “nice boat,” now that’s a real ending.

Golgo 13 killed some people. I didn’t even watch it! But I know!

Itazura na Kiss changed directions. It better still be good, or I will use my Ranma powers to change into a fangirl and flip out.

Pretty sure I remained the only person watching Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. Which means I am the only person who is experiencing a weekly psychedelic overload of insanity. Call me crazy, this show is dumb (by its own description, it’s “idiotic late-night anime”) but continues to entertain me.

I started Birdy The Mighty Decode. It’s the only thing that really seemed interesting for the summer, especially since most of my spring shows are continuing into this season.

Strike Witches answered a timeless question: When is something such a pile of shit that you can feel ripped off for spending two bucks? When I told my friend, frequent commenter Jason, to watch only the first 30 seconds, he got progressively more angry with me as the IM conversation went on.

9:54:44 PM jason: that looks a little bit retarded.
9:54:44 PM jason: they have plane propellers on their legs??
9:54:51 PM jason: wtf!

He didn’t even make it to the part where NO ONE WEARS PANTS. But that’s another post. No, really, it is. I cannot let these injustices go unreported.