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Strip 840, Volume 5, Page 225

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< Piro >

Yay! New Kanon Anime!

"inner fanboy control"

Friday - March 31, 2006

[Piro] - 16:07:00 - [link here]

I'm sure for those of you who are following the story, the past two weeks have been excruciatingly slow. For me, it's zoomed by way too fast. In fact, i can't believe it's friday. Ugh. Well, the good news is that Megatokyo returns on Monday, and we dive right back into the story. I got a lot done in the past two weeks, but i still have a LOT to do. I'm still very worried about my deadline, but I've done all i can to get closer to hitting it... we'll see how the next few weeks pan out.

If nothing else, the DPDs have been somewhat interesting, both in concept and the final works. There's a lot in them that is reflective of the shift in ideas for what i'm trying to make Circuity fully my own story. It also was interesting working on a 4 drawing sequence, playing with ideas and seeing how they played out. I hope you enjoyed them, even if they are a poor excuse for real comics. While at Sakuracon, I actually did a few other drawings similar to these (one of Ping, one of Yuki and a really small one of Erika) for the Charity Auction for the Make a Wish foundation. I believe they raised around $800, so i was pretty happy with that.

Aside from Charity auctions, i rarely sell or auction off my artwork unless i have a specific idea of what i want to do with the proceeds. When i started this set of 4, i actually did it with the thought that if they turned out ok i'd put them up for auction to fund a little something i'm planning for a certain someone (note that it's not Megatokyo related :P) I think these are pretty decent, so i'm going to go ahead and put them up on Ebay next week. I'll be auctioning each of them separately, so that's four chances to pick up one of these original pieces. Shh, don't tell Sarah. :)

In other news, you may have noticed that the forums have been down for several days now. The original plan was to take things down and upgrade the software to the latest version of IPB, but something keeps failing in the upgrade process. After several tries, we decided to go back to the last version on the current server (Nayuki) and try to discern what is going wrong by experimenting with new installs on our new server (Akiko). Loading up the old forums does take some time - the databases are pretty big. We figure it will take a day or so to finish loading the databases. Of course, this morning we were in the middle of doing that when power went out to the cabinet and we have to start over again. -_- We're hoping to have things up by Sunday.

The hardest thing i've had to do since i got back from Sakuracon was keep my inner fanboy in check. Way back in January of last year, after watching Kyoto Animation's AIR tv series (and fanboying over it) i wrote about how i felt it compared to the Kanon TV series by Toei Animation. I also expressed this wistful thought:

"All in all, i am very happy with the anime version of AIR. I just wish they had taken this approach with Kanon."

When i got back from Seattle, i found out to my inner fanboy's total delight that this implied wish that KyoAnime might someday do the same wonderful job with Kanon has come true. It has been officially announced that Kyoto Animation will be doing its own version of the Kanon series. Even better, i've read that they are planning 24 episodes! Maybe now Nayuki will get the attention she deserves (she got *shafted* in the Toei version, IMHO). There is a tiny little promo you can watch (here are some screenshots), and from the look of it, the visuals are making me very happy indeed. :P

yay :) (happy happy)

Yeah, yeah, i know. I'm sure you are sick of reading about Kanon and Air related stuffs on this website. In fact, i can hear the groans already as you look for a year full of Kanon anime fanboy gushing. Well too bad :P With a nickname like 'piro', what do you expect? :P

< Dom >

Okay, so this isn't very cute.  I find it awesome.

"Brain cell genocide"

Monday - March 20, 2006

[Dom] - 10:30:00 - [link here]

Okay, so this one doesn't have the same cute factor as the last one. I find it (and the series it comes from) hilarious, and they're at least joking about being cute. So I'm grandfathering it in.

Besides, with what I'll be talking about, I need a dose of funny.

You see, I've been watching Kage Kara Mamoru, and I don't know why. Under normal circumstances, I'd call it a guilty pleasure and be done with it. But "guilty pleasure" covers things like ice cream, bacon cheeseburgers and trashy TV talk shows. You know, things you know are bad for you, but you do them anyway in a moment of weakness because you just can't help yourself.

KageMamo? It's like stealing a rib separator from the hospital, using it on yourself and filling your chest cavity with a spicy little homebrew concoction of lye, gasoline and your own urine. It takes a special kind of premeditated masochism to watch this show, and I'll tell you why.

KageMamo is, above all things, STUPID. And it's not just the main characters. The female lead is an idiot, sure. She needs to borrow other people's hands to count past 10, and she'll buy just about any explanation you feed her. Sure.

Mamoru, the main character, is secretly a ninja dedicated to protecting her family? Sure. I can accept that, too. Heck, the word "ninja" is what first made me watch the series anyway. And, since the main girl is so dumb, I guess I can buy the fact that she hasn't noticed the ninja living next door for her entire life.

But then the stupidity just keeps piling on, adding cliche after cliche after mind-numbingly stupid development. There's the samurai girl whose sword can cut anything but Nata de Coco. There's the Iga/Koga ninja clan... sports festival. There's the song that is just the word "banana" over and over again.

Compared to the vast stupidities the show offers, the usual "All the girls like the guy, guy is too thickheaded to notice" cliche--which, I feel obligated to mention, is well-represented in the show in all the classic ways--is a mere drop in the bucket of moronitude (is moronitude even a word? Has this show sucked out my language centers and caused me to create new words to describe its stupidacity?) that is the KageMamo package. I mean, I have lost brain cells to this show and not just to brain death. I think that as I was watching the talent show episode, I heard my brain cells calling their agents and jumping ship to Hollywood, so at least they'd have some cocaine before their inevitably horrible death.

Were this a Newtype review or an old GamePro preview, I'd laugh off the flaws and look for something good to say, like "hey, it has ninjas!" or... uh... "hey, it has ninjas!" Alternately, I'd make some sort of pithy, punny comment that was something like "If you're absolutely shuriken that you want some ninja action in your life" or... "hey, it has ninjas!" But, no, the closest thing I can come to that for this show is "If you enjoy driving nails into wood with your forehead, you'll LOVE KageMamo". And that's the kind version.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have episode 11 to watch. I think they go into an underground maze searching for an ancient treasure in this one. A treasure guarded by ninja mole men.

I must really hate myself.

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