Tsukihime + Shakugan no Shana Vol 1 (Manga)

Okay this is my first time doing a review/update on manga, so bear with me here.

Shakugan no Shana: While reading the manga I found myself recalling every scene exactly as they should be. The anime added a bit more, but other than that the conversion between the two was great. VIZ did an OKAY job at translating it, but I rather read the scanlations. I get somewhat annoyed while reading the official English version just because they translate some things into English while others have their roman names (romanji). It doesn’t get in the way too much, but just the fact that I’m use to terms such as ‘Guze’ and all that stuff it makes reading it weird.  Overall though I felt really happy buying it because Shakugan no Shana became my favorite anime right after I watched it. Official artwork is done by Noizi Ito, who is actually extremely well know from what I know. Also the fact that the names are First Name, Last Name instead of Last Name, First Name annoys me, but thats just official English releases in general.

Tsukihime: The manga is really great. The anime could not fully bring out the store, but the manga has really done its fair share of trying hard to capture the store so that people who have not played the game yet will know it somewhat. I still dislike the fact that the manga doesn’t follow some parts of the original story, but I can’t do much about it. Drawings are really great. Love it a lot more than the anime because the anime made all the characters look like guys…They turned Kohaku into this…I don’t know what. I just disliked the anime’s art-style in general I guess. The whole Nero Vs Arc battle in the hotel looked better. I don’t recall the anime being amazing or having Shiki go into Nanaya until the very end of the anime.  Also Ciel shows up after Arc leaves the hotel/flees from battle. Its pretty good.

~Kevin~

Anime Boston [Day 3]

[Straight from my Xanga]

With the last day of AB there’s nothing better to end it with…SHOPPING! oh yeah and also Cosplay Chess! I went to see the whole thing and still managed to have 45 minutes for dealers room to do my last minute shopping/”stealing” the sales. The Dealers room had an area with many Haruhi Para Para dancers. Haruhi-sama has apparently reached the hearts of many in the US too. The cosplay chess was awesome. With Cloud booting Sephorothe (please feel free to kill me FF7 fans for I can’t spell his name T-T) and having the lines. “This Is Madness!” and “Madness….THIS. IS. MIDGARD!” 300 reference. A Lacus cosplayer was also a chess piece. I kind of cried on the inside when they said Lacus singing bad songs. Rei Tanaka is definitely a good singer! Screw the English dub. JAPANESE FOR THE WIN!. It was also funny having Chii next to Lacus due to the fact its the same seiyuu! Rei Tanaka FOR THE WIN!. The whole chess game was awesome filled with many pauses of just random crap happening. A Leroy Jenkins raid, Hallow chasing, and Aizen seeking an audience…Oh yeah…and Scar being….um yeah… Well I spend quite a lot on just manga. Got over 15 manga at the dealers total. Bought some figurines and a phone strap that I wanted. Also got a Tenjou Tenge wallscroll of Loli Natsumi(I hope that was the right name…) since the other stuff were either gone or too ecchi for my house…even though the wallscroll I got is pretty ecchi…not that bad. Also I got a “Hentai-Free” shirt and a Domo-kun hat because Domo-kun OWNS YOU ALL! In the end everyone kind of left or wasn’t there so I hung out with myself… Oh well. UNTIL NEXT YEAR!

~Kevin~

P.S. I’ll have a ‘Lost My Wallet’ post later on the stuff I bought through the three days.

Anime Boston ‘07 [Day 2]

Whats up everyone. Just got back from my 2nd day of AB ‘07. Half way over, but not quite there just yet! Well today I started off at the Video Game room where I played Naruto Accel and lost. Played Gundam SEED: O.M.N.I. Vs Z.A.F.T. and lost. Played Melty Blood Act Cadenza…and lost. So pretty much I got raped in all the games I “own”. I then proceeded to get a scone for breakfast. It was pretty good, but not that amazing. Went to the AMV Contest (2nd viewing) when it was about to start because I couldn’t be at the first viewing yesterday night. The AMVs I saw were both AMAZING and crappy. The amazing ones are just TOO good for words and you will have to see it for yourself. The crappy ones are just really random in my opinion, but hey I still give my props to the people who made them since I know the pain and hardship of even getting an AMV that is good. I then proceeded to walk back and forth between the Dealer Room and Video Game room. In total so far I have bought at least 100 dollars worth of Manga (I’m sure of it!) and also bought a figurine (the Rei Angel figurine thingy…I wanted it for awhile…). Later on after getting Wendy’s for lunch I proceeded to make my final decision and bought the Hi-Nu Gundam kit. It was 85 dollars and wasn’t bad in my opinion. It was either that or see how much the Limited Anniversary Eva unit 01 kit was…or buy the $150? Zero Custom kit. Well after that I just kind of walked around. Went to the Masquerade, but had to leave after they did the Ninja Tetris skit. I started at the part half way through the Mario cosplayers playing the Mario Themes on guitars. The whole day was pretty fun and I can’t wait for tomorrow. Looking forward to a lot of the shows! Until next time.

~Kevin~

Anime Boston ‘07 [Day 1]

Its 4:58am (Eastern Standard Time) on Friday, April 20th of 2007. Anime Boston starts today. I’m tired even though I slept pretty early. Will update on the con later tonight.

Well back from the first day of AB ‘07. I didn’t go to any of the panels (unless you count the Opening Ceremony as something). The Opening Ceremony was pretty good…although the usage of FMA clips was overkill in my opinion. I felt that there needed to be clips other than FMA. Although I have no taste in English dubs in the first place *mwar*. I will give credit to all those who have cosplayed. Saw some really good ones and some that kind of made me want to stab my eyes with a spork. I saw tons of Narutardto, Bleach and Kingdom Hearts cosplayer. Happy to see some School Rumble cosplayers. Haven’t seen any Shakugan no Shana. Saw a few Azumanga, Hellsing, [Games], Sailor Moon cosplayers. Surprisingly enough…I have yet to see ANY! Dragonball cosplayers. I kind of shifted back and forth from the Video Game Room and the Dealer Room. Dealers were cool. Kind of funny how some of the H stuff were pretty blatantly there…luckily I am not of age to buy those…nor will I ever [internets are our friends...like Bit Torrent]. I manage to get my hands on the first volume of (LICENSED!) Shakugan no Shana and Evangelion vol. 1-3. I’m thinking about buying the rest of Eva since it has been one of my favorite series of all time (thank the lord for Gainax’s fucked up minds). I’m trying to find Melody of Oblivion if possible and Vol. 4 of School Rumble. I’ll check back at the dealers tomorrow. I ate some Sushi (because we all know Sushi is a must at every Japanese related event). Today was just full of walking and kind of wondering. Regardless of the fact that I did not participate in any of the panels I still enjoyed myself seeing the crazy costumes people had and just the overall mass of ‘Otaku’ there. The video game room was pretty packed at some points and dead others. It kind of spiked back and forth from populated to somewhat empty. I signed up for the Melty Blood Tournament set to run tomorrow due to the fact that Naruto Shippuuden: Accel is set for 18+ and I rather not do Guilty Gear and Smash is filled. Well until tomorrow I’m off!

~Kevin~

Pre-Anime Boston ‘07

Tomorrow is the start of Anime Boston ‘07. An anime convention that takes place in Boston and is [apparently] the largest convention in the New England area. The convention is 3 days long and it will be the first convention I go to. I’m quite excited about my first con, but also am resisting the urge of getting TOO excited in an effort to prevent my disappointment being great.

I have already picked up all the badge and packets due to the fact I pre-registered and the bag contained the normal hand out packets and a poster, which was folded up and kind of crumpled and wrinkled (not my fault). The poster is kind of ecchi, but whatever…Just need to find a way to flatten it and all.

More updates coming next 3 days.

~Kevin~

Slight update.

Alright so a small update on whats going on.

Recently I’ve been watching:

-Hayate no Gotoku
-Romeo X Juliet
-Kaze no Stigma
-Claymore
-Naruto Shippuuden
-Bleach
-Murder Princess
-Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: StrikerS

and I know I haven’t updated on any of the old stuff in awhile. I apologies for this. Due to my lack of effort and just pure laziness I find myself on 4chan, youtube, or some random place for no reason (Don’t worry I only go on 4chan when I get REALLY! bored and only look at the posts…I don’t post there…) Or sometimes end up reading web comics.

My week of vacation hasn’t been much special. I’ve received God of War II for the PS2 as a late B-day gift from my friends. I then find out my PS2 memory cards are either screwed up or full (I have a 16mb Third party memory card and the 8mb song memory card). I’ve tried playing some Generation of Chaos on my PSP, but got really pissed and confused that I kind of gave up. In the end I ended up playing Super Robot Taisen(Wars) Alpha 3.

SRW has been my favorite series since I first played it (which was when I was 5 playing it for the SNES or something…) I never really understood the story considering I don’t know Japanese, but I manage to play the game fairly fine. I have not beaten Alpha 1 or 2 yet, but to me I just want to play whatever is more entertaining…which is Alpha 3.

I will try my hardest to update on everything that I need to in the coming month (thats what I always say…)

Also I will update during Anime Boston. I’ll keep people posted on the con and give you my review of the con and my first con experience. Joy~

~Kevin~

Claymore Ep1 + Hidamari Sketch Ep1

Recently watched Hidamari Sketch and the newest release in Japan, Claymore. Also downloading Murder Princess.

Claymore: Starts off with a pretty brutal battle between a ‘Yoma’ and a Claymore. Claymores are half-human and half-yoma (a hanyou if you will). They are given the nickname ‘Silver-Eyed Witches’ for their eyes are silver. They turn gold when fighting a Yoma. They have the ability to seek out a Yoma when they hid themselves as humans. Yomas eat people’s guts. The main characters so are are Ralik(sp?) and Clare. Ralik is a villager in which a Yoma has been attacking. His parents were killed by the Yoma and it apparently took possession of his brother’s mind and body, causing a perfect disguise from everyone. A Claymore was requested to exterminate the yoma. Thus the story begins from there. Ralik was kicked out of his village and now journeys with Clare.

Hidamari Sketch: A very ‘happy’ anime. Lots of moe in it I’d say. Extremely cute. I couldn’t really follow along with the story or characters, but it was definitely entertaining watching it. Just the extreme cuteness and lolirific theme got to me (although they are probably not loli…) Quite recommended. The style is weird. It uses real photos along with normal artwork which causes a weird blend, but quite interesting nonetheless.

~Kevin~

P.S. I shall update on Murder Princess later and might start watching Ikkitousen ~Dragon Destiny~ (HURRAY FOR FANSERVICE!)

Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha: StrikerS Ep 1

Alright Episode one is finally subbed. Thanks to everyone at [yesy] for subbing Nanoha StrikerS although I wish the original RAW wasn’t so low quality. Anyways the story starts off at a weird area talking about Subaru’s childhood on how she met Nanoha. It then goes to Subaru and Tea-chan taking their test to get into B-rank (Naruto’s Chuunin exam much???). The episode itself wasn’t bad. You see Rein Zwei (Reinforce Chibi-mode), Hayate, Fate, Nanoha, Subaru, and Tea. Nanoha doesn’t look THAT! bad, but I still dislike how she looks in her Barrier Jacket…

Nanoha also maintained her yuri-ness. It was funny…I think Fate might be jealous of Subaru taking her Nanoha away (kidding). Anyways its a really good watch and I REALLY recommend that people watch it, but should watch Nanoha and Nanoha: A’s first. I can’t wait to see some really battles. Also Subaru can do Divine Buster…a more bootleg version of it, but still Divine Buster none-the-less…..

GO WATCH IT EVERYONE!!!!

~Kevin~

P.S. I will SERIOUSLY! do some updating on Code Geass, Bleach and Shippuuden when I get the time. Recently I’ve been procrastinating on my homework and that’s dragging me done. I’ve become lazy again…

Shana gets a second season!

Today is getting better and better (although it will end in 30 minutes). Many thanks to Moetron’s pKjd for posting this. Well as I said…new season of Shana. Read more at Moetron.

~Kevin~

Nanoha: StrikerS NOW OUT!

WOOOH~ Nanoha StrikerS is out in Japan. RAWs are out too. The OP is badass. I can’t wait to see subs. AHHH~ *dies from Nanoha overload*

OP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gnbXhY0jXY

HAYATE-CHAN!!!