Another DCSS spreadsheet update… and Longcat’s!!

Yet again, just a tiny little post, updating the spreadsheet once more.

After request for what other features that were wanted on the Crawl forums, spells seemed to be next choice. This took alot of work, as there 134 spells in Crawl that I had to chronicle (no kidding!), so here we are, 20 days later.

Check it out:
Spells are organised by Level, and then alphabetically. Notes are compiled mostly from personal experience and the Knowledge Bots. Each spell has all of its related skill groups, which books it is in, and the backgrounds that start with it (if applicable). A few tweaks were also made the base sheet to correct a couple of errors.

Get the New Version HERE!

Also today, I was dicking around making a new version of the eternal Longcat vs. Tacgnol wallpaper that I made way back in 2010. The old version can be found here. Here it is:
Tokyo is under attack once more! The main improvements are mostly to Tacgnol, who got some much better purple lightning and is being futilely attacked by a wing of F-22’s now. Different panorama, too, now the Tokyo Tower is up in flames!!!

I’ll admit that Longcat was mostly just cut and pasted across. He was pretty good before. Tacgnol now seems to be winning in this picture. And it seems that neither can aim correctly, still. 😀

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Longcat vs. Tacgnol: The Eternal Struggle

Yes, yes, I decided to craft a new, very pointless wallpaper.

As always, click the above to see full size.

Inspired by the ever famous dueling Longcat vs. Tacgnol image. I decided to do the scene five minutes into the duel. Mainly to play around with visual effects.

The scene? Tokyo, of course. Its like a rule that apocalyptic fights take place there. Specifically, this is was a panorama of Shinjuku. I decided that Longcat’s weapon of choice was the classic holy beam laser, and Tacgnol would probably favour dark purple vector lightning. Apparently, neither of them are very good shots, though, considering the devastation that they’ve created. LOL.

If you’re not aware, Longcat and his Nemesis are classic 4chan memes/gags. The White and Black cats of indeterminate length locked in an eternal struggle for supremacy. The above are real life cats with a penchant for stretching their bodies held up by their owners. This whole meme is the source of the longcat is long nonsense too. Heh, it’s amazing how much random crap the internet can generate, isn’t it? Still, due to my general love of kitties, I’ve always found it amusing.

I’ve been distracted doing alot of tasks recently, as well as games (including the newly released Etrian Odyssey III, which I’m crazy enough to try playing in Japanese like I did with 7th Dragon…LOL). An

Anyway, its just a short post as there’s not alot else for today.

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Mayoi Neko Overrun and Senkou no Night Raid: First Impressions

And here’s the next set. Again, I’ll start with Mayoi Neko, and go onto Night Raid.

Mayoi Neko Overrun

Here’s yet another surprise for me this season. There was very little information originally on MayoiNeko, so I wasn’t really expecting anything from it, but it turned out to be better than I anticipated. Hardly world class, but worth a giggle or two. Anyway, as previously noted, our setting is a run down sweet shop called (bizarrely) Stray Cats. Takumi is a generic harem anime protagonist (TM) who also appears to be an orphan adopted by the Sister, Otome. He also has another childhood friend, Fumino, whom is textbook tsundere.

Interestingly though, Takumi actually seems to understand Fumino’s nature (as dishonest and double-sided) with an insight rarely exhibited by protagonists, so maybe he has some potential after all.

I assume she was going for a spine breaking wake up move, but it failed. Oh dear.

The middle guy is an Otaku at war with Fumino because he feels she’s too much of a cliche. I had to laugh at that.

Rich Loli with Ninja Maids and a cosplay fetish? Check.
As a hilarious side note, Chise (the Loli) has the voice actress of Index, and the maids serving her are Mikoto and Kuroko from the same series respectively.

One wonders whether the maids are begrudging servants when things like this happen, though… LOL…

Hey, it’s an anime about catgirls, so that makes perfect sense. Of course, in the real world, I’m sure Fumino would be straight-jacketed in short order. Oh, and the loose plot is that a young boy claims to have seen a huge (girl sized) cat that ate an important cake. Despite the fact that we eventually learn that the boy was fibbing, Fumino goes off to search. Fortunately, said cat-girl is actually discovered thieving a fish from the market.

The catgirl has some real serious agility powers to evade capture; and gets away, until the sister returns with…

Oh my gods! Its Patchiouli!

I laughed my ass off when I saw how close the character design was (somehow it didn’t click when I was doing the preview). Especially considering that there have been fanarts of Patchy with cat-ears. I also agree with the sisters sentiment since I’m fond of purple haired, red eyed combos.

Well, like I say, I wasn’t expecting anything, but the fact that this show doesn’t try to lampshade its identity and is rather tongue in cheek scores it alot of bonus points. The daft references help too. I’m not sure about our male lead at the moment, but he has some slight potential due to insight, domestic prowess, and not ~seeming~ to be too perverse. I guess we’ll see.

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Senkou no Night Raid

Yet again, I was surprised by this one, and my early estimate had a bit of a crippling oversight. Namely, I thought they were going to play it straight without a fantasy element. I was wrong, since all of the protagonists have some kind of special power.

Because of this, it shares some more similarities with Bantorra besides its artsy style. Everything else about the preview was correct, however. It follows a special Japanese military spy operation in China. The first part follows a rescue operation of an important Japanese Businessman from a Chinese Paramilitary group whom have taken him hostage. However, there is a small conspiracy intertwined when it is discovered that said man is actually selling weapons to them for his own profit.

He hasn’t got a foot to stand on! (wow that’s a bad pun…) Ahem. Anyway, Aoi (right hand chap) seems to have some kind of time control. I suppose it could be telekinesis, but he’s continually going out about ‘running out of time’, so I’m thinking its an ability to mess with causality of certain objects (as in, actually, this bullet from this timeframe was going to hit over there, then I’ll speed to 14X your timeframe and slap you in the face etc.)

This is the guy whom is be rescued. He looked a bit dodgy to me as soon as I saw it.

There’s always time for bike stunts off the side of a bridge girder. LOL.

This shady chap seems to be in charge of the secret service. His shadow bodyguard also seems to remind me of Spike Spiegal, LOL.

They’re pretty advanced for their time period, this lot, with aerial photography and paratrooper assaults.

Natsume the uber sniper shows off his infinite zoom vision by picking off a carefully placed det-pack on a roof from about 3 miles away.

Kazura, meanwhile, has matter tranmogrification. In other words, he can Flash Move to a place he can see, and take people with him.

It’s hardly Allison & Lillia level conspiracy, but the first episode was a pretty fun ride overall. What is especially interesting was that they aren’t afraid to use a good chunk of Mandarin. Its a common anime failing to think everyone in the world speaks fluent Japanese, so its a nice change to see this decision.

Ah yeah, also, didn’t mention the girl operative, Yukina. She has telepathy, long distance mental communication and mind-melding, and really connects the whole team together.

Anyway, it was a pretty (if dark) first showing, and it whet my appetite, so I’m looking forward to this providing a nice action/thriller mixture.

That’s all for now. I think we’re pretty much done with initial previews. I still have to look at Daimaou and Hakuouki, but I’ll probably do those as well soon.

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First Impressions: Nyan Koi, Seiken no Blacksmith

And, the Winter 2009 season has begun. Well, it exhausted me last season creating a post for every two new shows, so sometimes I’ll be extra lazy and do three to a single post for this season. Probably. But this one has two, so yeah.

First up, I felt the need to begin with Nyan Koi, so I’ll review that first:

Nyan Koi

Well, it turned out exceptionally similar to my initial information, which is nice. The main thing I got wrong was the fact that the cat deity was next to the trashcan, not in it. Must have misread some kanji or something. Ah well. Anyway, yes, this does follow a guy, Junpei, with Cat allergies and his hellish curse that requires him to help 100 cats or turn into one himself (and apparently, die because he becomes allergic to himself) whilst also dealing with a his potential love affair whom adores kitties. The first episode has him dealing with the request of a pair of tabbies to stop the evil machinations of a human who tempts cats with tinned salmon and then molests them in an untoward fashion. The said demon inevitably turns out to be none other than his crush, Kaede Mizuno, so more hell awaits him. But it turns out ok in the end!

Oh dear… The moral here is not kick cans. Luck will not favour you. Use your hands. They are designed for this purpose.

For some reason, I thought the cats would have better lip sync. Its amazing that I such ridiculous thoughts, I know!

It vastly amused me to see some dating game parodies in there.

This guy actually has a cat radar. I laughed quite a bit at this scene, which appears to have been inspired by Tron, or something.

Good End! Somehow, all of this pain actually triggered the relationship progression flag! LOL at his 60’s flowers aura.

Well, actually, I was pleasantly surprised by this. It was FAR better than I suspected it would be. It has smooth animation, some fairly decent chuckles, and plenty of cats. All good. Not a show stopper, certainly, but worth watching, and I probably will.

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Seiken no Blacksmith (The Sacred Blacksmith)

Again, this has turned out fairly similar to my research. The only thing that really kind of surprised me is that Cecily is pretty crap. Luke saves her three times already in the first episode. She must be level 1 with everything pumped into Charisma, LOL. In any case, she is a brand new knight and the only daughter of the Campbell house (a fact she irritatingly reminds everyone about on a regular basis~ bloody nobles and their personal ego). She talks down some ruffian whom is shaking up a store owner, but then gets sounded beaten by a rampaging knight gone insane from lack of salvation. Her prized heirloom sword is cut asunder and she is about to be cut herself when a mysterious guy chops the rampaging knights sword in half with his Katana. She wonders if he can fix her sword since his is obviously one with an amazing edge. Stuff occurs, and more monsters attack the town, leading her to be saved twice more. His katana breaks, and then his loli sister helps him do a spell to forge a new one and the episode ends on his dramatic pose.

Prepare to hear me state my lineage for the 13th time this episode!

What? Medieval market traders understand discount economics now? Shocking! Does he have a calculator?

See, thats cheating! You’re supposed to use a forge to make a sword, not a Loli with a Purple Eye.

Whats most amusing though is that the monster patiently waits for Luke to finish his turn despite the long cutscene. Who says honour is restricted to knights?

This was a very cute ending sequence. There were some subtle hints that suggest that the above girl might actually be Cecilys new sword, rather than a mage. Some kind of sentient wind blade, I’d imagine.

Well, this was a little bit cheesy. I almost have to wonder whether the things I found funny were actually intentional or whether they meant to be serious/were stupid oversights. I mean, they’re all the things you’d often find amusing from over-analysing a computer game RPG: People waiting for each others turns, awesomely accurate market traders, “I don’t take injuries until I run out of HP”, amazing quick travel without the intervening distance, and you can even ~almost~ see the skill checks going on in the background.

In fact, since there’s also a giant cloud eating mountain, its like Etrian Odyssey the Anime. Or something. LOL. I’ll keep looking into it for now at least.

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Earl and Fairy

Ah yeah, here’s another one that passed me by initially because its obviously a bishoujo series (as in, one which predominantly has lots of pretty guys and one girl), but then I got interested in the material; because hey, its nice to set something set in my homeland (England), even if the Japanese go and butcher it. (Don’t get me started on Negima. Negi is supposed to be from Wales in that and yet talks about being an English gentleman…<sigh>)

And then there’s the fantasy element of the fairies, brownies, merfolk, and talking cat familiars, which is always cool to watch. So much so, I can tolerate the excessive sexual tension and angst, if and when it occurs. I liked Fruits Basket, after all.

Anyhow, Earl and Fairy is focused on Lydia, whom is a Fairy Doctor. As in, she has the special green eyes which can see the fairies and other supernatural creatures that most ignore; and her family has an association as historically being go-betweens with the fairy royalty (The Blue Earl, in this case) though this has died out in the modern eras where people have started to put the stories of fairies into question. Its set in the Georgian or Victorian Era, by the looks of things.

She comes into contact with John, whom is initially portrayed as being the descendant of the Blue Earl, and whom is looking for the sword which will proclaim his right (which is why Lydia is enlisted). Various kidnappings, ambushes and weirdness later, we’ve also met his manservant Raven, whom is an absurd killing machine with apparently super speed and strength (all you can see of him when he’s going fast are his glowing green eyes) and we’ve also figured out John isn’t actually whom he’s portrayed himself to be. There are indeed rumours that he is a famed killer. But those are actually false; and some of John’s past is still cloaked in mystery, though it looks as though he was used in some mad doctors experiments or something. Lydia initially has trust problems with him, but becomes strangely motived by his resolve, and eventually decides she will help him find the sword of the merrow.

Eventually, by episode 3, they’ve reached the Isle of Man in their search.

Lydia seems to get pushed up against walls alot by John. <sigh>

Bwahahahaha! Out of context, that line just sounds WRONG..

Thats so Raven. (Sorry couldn’t resist). That eye kinda scares me.

Eavesdropping will never win you any friends, girl…

But of course, Nico the cat is the real star of this show…

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