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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Ookami-San- The Seven Friends of Miss. Wolf and Amagami SS: First Impressions

Well, the summer season has begun, and these two are the first on the agenda.

Seven Friends of Miss. Wolf.

A darn good performance from the first show of the season. I was rather impressed, and chuckled several times.

Anyway, pretty much as predicted, the show focuses on Ookami Ryouko and Akai Ringo, whose names are synonymous with Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, and their work for the Otagi Bank society at their school, which apparently offers loans of aid in return for a later favour (hence the Bank designation, I guess). They’re apparently a well known society that isn’t messed with too much.

During an assignment to stop a stalker, Ryouko acts as the muscle and Ringo the snoop.

It unfortunately devolves to him drawing a knife. Ryouko promptly beats him up with her hilarious matched Neko-Koneko gauntlets, and they get mysterious ranged support from our male protagonist, Ryoushi, whom shoots a light speed stone, but he’s not introduced at this stage.

Shortly afterwards, it becomes apparent, though, that he (Ryoushi) has some kind of obfuscation. He’s rather good at completely concealing his presence so that people don’t notice him even when they’re nearby. He manages, after several attempts due to being too quiet, to confess to Ryouko, whom he has been tailing (this show likes Stalkers… eh?). Unfortunately, when asked to explain why he likes her, he starts with all of the wrong reasons and he leaves. Still, despite his fear of being stared at, he’s actually got guts, which is always nice.

Anyway, after this situation, we hear that the club is looking for new male members, and Ringo, upon hearing about the confession, immediately goes into spy mode, and tries to bring Ryoushi on board.

The way they handled this scene was funny, as it looks like her giving a report, but it turns out he’s actually right next to her being introduced. Ryouko doesn’t want him in the society since she noticed him intervening in the fight before, but said she couldn’t trust her back to one who couldn’t show himself.

Fortunately, he’s just in time for another assignment which could be ideal for him, stopping a girl’s sempai from quitting the tennis club by stealing away the form (because she loves him and his ‘Prince of Tennis’ thing, reference probably intended):

Unfortunately, he manages to fail the assignment at every turn, most often due to people staring at him and triggering his strange phobia. All looks lost!

But then… it somehow manages to turn into a rendition of Cindarella. They chase after the guy in an honest to goodness pumpkin carriage, and the girl leaps off and accidently scissor kicks him in the face from 40 mph cartwheel…

Even managing a pantsu flash in the process.

Which somehow leads to a happy end where he gets all girls in the school to try on the lost shoe (glass slipper style) and kick him in the face. Naturally, she is only one who kicks him face over tit and this somehow this results in their relationship. Apparently he’s a masochist…eh?

Then, in a second fight against the original stalker (who brings mates, to absolutely no avail) Ryoushi manages to man up slightly, by taking a surprise attack meant for Ryouko. This leads her to having more respect for him, at last, and they upgrade to a first name basis (that was fast!).

Anyway, the entire romp was pretty well done. I did like its special tongue-in-cheek behavior; and the fact that the characters seemed to enjoy breaking the fourth wall (they especially liked doing this during the fanservice scenes). This humour was amp’ed up to 11 by the obvious voice of Kuroko from Railgun being the Narrator, whom is very ideal in this slightly sarcastic role.

The fact that Ryouko also looks remarkably like a grown up Taiga (and Ringo looks like a chibified Minorin) from Toradora is also pretty funny (if probably unintentional).

Finally, what’s also cool is all the fairy tale references (not Fairy Tail references, groan) if you’re looking for them. I look forward to the remainder of the series, and can say fairly confidently that this has secured itself a slot already.

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Amagami SS

Go romantic. I wasn’t expecting much here, to be honest, since its based on a game thats so popular, but it surprised me with a real nice bittersweet opening. As noted before, Junichi is a guy whom is reluctant to love after a bad experience during Christmas 2 years beforehand:

Although, one has to wonder why he STILL doesn’t know what happened. Did he not check with the lass at all? Did she never see or speak to him again? Pretty weird. But then, the guy is pretty weird. He sleeps in his closet. Admittedly, it has a painted black interior that has hand drawn stars, which is cute, but still…

We are introduced to the various girls by small cameos here and there, but the initial arc seems to be focusing on Haruka, the school idol, who really does seem like an awesum-cute-perfection type: shining blue eyes and lovely curls, etc.

What’s more, maybe its just me, but I can almost see the dating game here. I could almost see the decision boxes appearing just for a second, and the above scene actually made me cry out ‘up goes a flag’. Because it obviously was such a situation. Hehe…

Haruka picks up Kawaii points by the bucketload in basically every scene she’s in. It’s not really a surprise that our protagonist snaps out of his old reverie and falls for her immediately.

When a girl tries to play Jumping Jacks with you and has no hesitation in leaping on top of you, you know she’s a keeper!

Huh… I don’t think I ever played Jumping Jacks back in the day…

Anyway, after various cute scenes, including a pretty funny fanservice imagination scene where he imagines Haruka bathing with his sister (you wacko!) we eventually get to a scene where he goes right out and decides to confess to her (blimey, whats with all of the first episode confessions this season!). She is overjoyed, but sadly turns him down flat, due to an apparent preference for older guys. He falls into a depression fit and staggers home.

Although part of me felt sorry for him, one gets the impression that Haruka really wasn’t actually leading him on, but rather that it was just a natural part of her school persona. Her little section of contemplation near the pool suggests that there are actually deeper parts to her character besides buckets of cute, and it will be quite interesting to see where they go with that.

Though I’m not holding my breath quite yet; this show is showing some actual initial promise. The actual episode title states that this is part of the Haruka arc, so I think we can assume that they will do something like Kanon, with 3-4 episodes per heroine. This can often turn out well, though it can end ambigiously, so I guess we shall have to see.

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And that just about finishes this initial post. Legendary Heroes of Legend should be next, when it is subbed and available. Most likely I’ll post it tommorow.

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The Late, Late Summer 2010 Midseason Post

Well, not as late as it could have been, but I digress.

We’re roughly on episode 9 territory for most episodes at the moment; and though I’m a little behind, so far, I have to say it’s been a season of serious ups and downs. I’ve picked up, dropped, returned to, and switched shows more times this season than ever. Which is pretty odd, eh?

Anyways, as usual, I’ll summarise the five shows I am currently watching:

B-Gata-H-Kei

Oddly enough, this is show that I’ve remained watching all the way through. It’s had consistant development and an ever-present entertainment value. Hilariously, for a show dedicated to Yamada getting laid, there’s almost zero fanservice involved; and you know what: it’s far better that way. I know the concept would put some people off; but you really have to give it a chance. I’d hazard it’s probably the most entertaining of all this season.

And ye gads…there’s far more relationship progression in a show like this than is usual. Though it’s Yamada, so she gets the order wrong all the time (our progression is: Show chest => Put through Hell => Vote for me! => French Kiss => OMG A rival appears => Somehow fall for => Take photos of me! =>OMG Romance => Realise Feelings => Amazingly gutsy public confession from male character => Actually I don’t mind => OMG A rival appears again)

The fact that I can make that flow chart so long is incredible. A normal ‘romantic comedy’ might not manage that in 26 episodes, but B-Gata has done it in 8 one shots!

Yamada re-affirms her lifelong goal. Cue Ojou-sama laugh. Bwahahahah! (It! ITS OKAY! I’m not in love, everything is fine!!)

Although ^ this girl ^ is the real Ojou-sama (the aformentioned ‘rival’). She has a perpetual sparklies aura and a two-face personality. And she loves her brother too much.

Wait, you’re not allowed to compliment me now. Wait what? Wait, Yamada is confused. Gah…

Anyway, it’s gone from strength to strength, and I look forward to seeing what they do with the ending (I mean, content wise it’ll be fairly obvious, but the execution continually surprises me in a good way).

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K-ON Season II

I was very wary of what they might do to K-ON this season, and whilst it has had it’s ups and downs, it has been generally decent. There’s been very few laugh out loud moments like they managed in season 1 though. I hear alot of people have been bitching about the fact that there’s not been enough music (there’s only been 1 new song so far, and almost all their performances are cut short to under 30 seconds). Even so, I’ve often been of the thought that the music side of things was always merely a Plot McGuffin to give us a basis for the comedy to spring from, so it hasn’t really bothered me too much.

One does have to wonder about KyoAni, though. They seem to be rich enough these days to Sponsor THEMSELVES in the most recent episode. Which, whilst funny, does make you wonder if they’re being a bit arrogant, eh?

The recent episodes have had more gems in them such as this one. It was an episode studying Yui’s relationship with her Guitar, Gitah. The way they treated Gitah as somekind of boyfriend character was pretty funny.

Which led to Mio getting all broody over her Bass and even calling it Elizabeth. (Eleezabassu, in Japanese, LOL)

And then there’s comedy gold with Yui and Asuza doing the Manzai routine. (i.e. The straight guy/funny guy act, complete with slaps from the paper harisen (Fan))

It looks as though K-ON will almost certainly end with Season II, however, as the girls have just done their senior final exams; and Asuza will be left in the Light Music Club all by herself (!) for a year. Though, who knows what tricks will be pulled?

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Mayoi Neko Overrun

Well, I’ve never seen a show so intent in taking the piss out of itself than this one. This works magnificently up to about episode 5; especially their freaking amazing take on the cliched hotsprings episode [4], which had me REALLY splitting my sides, it was that good: from the Nyaa-Fan, through the epic table tennis battle, right up to conservation of body heat rule gone VERY VERY wrong.

Unfortunately, it goes so damn far at certain points, like in episode 6, that it sort of stops being funny and loops into this feeling like they’re trolling the viewers because they start to head into Excel Saga stupidity and randomness, whilst dropping the interesting relationship development, good character cliches and just the right amount of tongue in cheek.

Thankyou for that insightful comment, Nozomi.

Epic Table Tennis battle from episode 4 that had slow motion Matrix moves (and of course, crazy needless fanservice).

And now, suddenly it’s a cliche Mecha show called Grand Braver. Wait what!?

I’ve been a little reluctant to carry on past episode 7 after the crazy mecha show piss-take, which, whilst funny in its own way, seems to have completely lost the plot. I have heard that things suddenly find themselves again on episode 9, however, so I may get around to plowing through the 8th episode, which is apparently about Jenga (yes, the blocks removal game…).

This is the textbook case this season of ups and downs, which it really has had…nevertheless, I certainly recommend you look into the earlier episodes, as they are pretty great.

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Senkou no Night Raid

This has been suffering from a rather slow translation speed, with a 2-3 episode lag. However, this is actually to be roughly expected, since it mixes up a copious amount of Mandarin and Japanese and covers a highly contraversial bit of history, so I guess it’s quite a challenge for the fan-translators to keep up. It is very interesting, from what I’ve read about later episodes, that they’re not afraid to tread highly contraversial ground (the Japanese don’t like to talk about the Mukden and Manchuria incidents).

What’s even better is that they’re perfectly lampshading that fact by overlaying the political, historical story with a whole bunch of very well chereographed battles between people with powerful special abilities and contrasting beliefs. Hence, if anyone calls them on their views, they can just say: “look its a fictional story, no really!!” and actually get away with it.

Whenever Kazura and this guy fight, you know you’re in for a treat, as they both have instant rapid teleportation, which makes for some great fight scenes.

Epic Subtitle, eh?

I’m sure this cat also has special abilities. It steals a bag and perfectly wears it without anyone noticing. Why a screencap of it? Who knows?

Though it didn’t turn out at all like ‘Allison & Lillia’ as I first anticipated it might do, I am rather pleased with it’s direction and look forward to seeing the eventual translation of the later episodes.

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Working!

This is one of those shows where you may not laugh immediately upon seeing the gags, but somehow, when you think about it later, it cracks you up. Well, at least this was the case with me. Many episodes leave you with a hmm, but by the time the next ep swings around you sort of want to watch it again, like some kind of persistant habit. I guess this is because the whole situation is so…dysfunctional. I’m sure any regular resturant with these staff members would be out of business faster than…well…they wouldn’t last long…

What is perhaps most interesting here is how they sort of did a heel-face turn on main characters. It LOOKED like Popura was going to be our female lead, but really, Inami has gradually slipped into the spotlight, and Popura has become just a target for height gags. I was at first immensely irritated at her wild destructive androphobia, but they have gradually twisted it into something marginally likable; especially when it was finally explained in the most recent episode with a decent moral about how bad parents can really screw up a kid (and it was, in fact, a very good episode, despite involving crossdressing…).

Poor Souta. When HE was a 4 year old, his father thought it would be best to make him into a trap.

GO GO Magic Hand! Only 3,980 YEN! It’s a modern miracle! A device made for dealing with Androphobic girls! Every good male anime protagonist should have one!

Inami, now is not a good time to admit your hobbies…poor Souta…

Yeah, though we’re clearly on the Inami route now, I’m not too concerned anymore, though its a little bit of a shame that Popura got shafted as a result, since she IS probably cuter. Though this is (I think) an original anime, it does almost lend itself to being made into a visual novel. Which would be an ironic reversal.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed this mid-season post! Stay tuned!

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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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Kaichou wa Maid-Sama and Arakawa: Under The Bridge- First Impressions

Please excuse the delay, I was distracted by Pokemon Soul Silver again (up to Elite Four now).

Anyway, we’ll start with Arakawa this time.

Arakawa: Under The Bridge

Not too far off my estimations. Our protagonist is a rich guy called Kou. He has a family motto of: “Never be indebted to anyone”.

I suppose it’s a weird, if sound choice for a motto. Anyhow, one day, he is crossing a bridge, and somehow has his trousers stolen by some errant kids, who pin them on top of a girder.

Whilst attempting to retrieve them, the dodgy girder falls, and he plummets into the river only to be saved by a strange girl called Nino.

This of course generates a problem: the whole ‘cannot be indebted’ thing is so deeply ingrained in his psyche that he starts to have panic attacks now he owes someone his life and cannot repay them. Seeing that she lives under the bridge, he tries to get out of the situation by offering her a house. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to want this, and he questions her sanity since she claims to be from Venus.

Instead, there is one thing she wants. Someone to fall in love with her. And so the scene is set for a comedy of short skits where Kou is exposed to the very strange events under this bridge with Nino. This includes meeting the village chief, whom is a Kappa:

Though in fact it’s just a guy in a suit…

And Kou discovering that Nino is really quite extraordinarily strange, with an apparently quite short-term memory (she nearly forgets who he is after a day) and a penchant for sleeping in the drawer of an antique bed:

In general, pretty damn weird, I’d have to say. Its following the style of the manga it is based on, by having short sub-episodes or skits making up each main episode (this first one has 8 seperate subdivisions, though they’re fairly pointless due to being fairly contiguous).

Though the animation is quite pretty; I can’t actually say that I really enjoyed the first episode that much. It has a ‘slice-of-life’ base to it with an extra layer of eccentricity, but I’m not entirely sure just what they’re trying to do with it, as it didn’t feel like it was trying to be funny nor dramatic. In fact, it has the same sort of deadpan humour exhibited by Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. Which, considering it is by the same animation studio, shouldn’t really be a surprise. Still, I know I’m not normally compatible with the type, so perhaps that has a bearing on why I can’t get into it. I guess I’ll see if Episode 2 somehow ‘clicks’ with me, but at the moment I’m not sold. Nevertheless, I’m sure it will appeal to others, so don’t take my word for gospel.

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Kaichou wa Maid Sama

Nigh on spot on with the initial thoughts, this follows Misaki in her interactions with Takumi after he discovers her secret side job in a maid cafe. The one thing I did miss in my early translation of what was going on is that she does this is because her family is ridiculously poor due to a father that leaves them in debt. The first episode is really the pitch: we see a slice of happenings, motivations, and such. Takumi discovers Misaki’s secret side career, but never tells anyone due to actually having some feelings for her. Nevertheless, she nearly worries herself to death over the matter, working into a frenzy that leaves her weakened at the worst time; when some other guys also discover her secret. Fortunately, she is saved from a fate worse than death by Takumi’s coincidental appearance. He merely wonders if she can be his personal maid… oh dear…

Misaki is quite a lawful nutcase in her job as Student Council President, especially in her persecution of the baka trio.

And Takumi is such a Bishie, isn’t he?

I sometimes wish there were Maid Cafe’s outside of Japan, but then, I guess that’s revealing a strange fetish, eh? Oh well…

Misaki probably got into power due to that ever useful ability to summon sparklies.

Of course, everyone else can spot the obvious, except the female lead.

Normally, she’d Aikido your ass, but she’s weakened at this point in time (cliche? of course…)

Convienient rescue attempt is convienient.

Her view of Takumi is the usual: Rival that cannot be caught.

For most of this episode, I had continual pangs of familiarity. When the scene in the final above screenshot was shown, it clicked: this show seems to borrow alot from Special A. Clueless, ridiculously hardworking heroine from a impoverished background? Check. Apparently well off  bishie guy who effortlessly achieves greatness without trying? Check. Relationship where girl sees rivalry and guy sees love? Check. Misaki is even remarkably like Hikari in looks and demenor.

Sure, the toppings differ, but the central cake is essentially the same. The only real difference lies in the maid cafe theme. Now, I know that alot of Shoujo based shows have elements in common as a rule, but even so…

Of course, I could be wrong in my initial assumptions and this could swerve off in a completely different direction (and I certainly hope that it does), but at this point in time I’m not especially glued to my screen. We shall see.

Anyhow, thats all for today. I’ll be back again with a third preview post soon, so stay tuned, yes?

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