Waaaay back at Anime Expo 2001, a few friends, some of whom just happened to run A-kon's infamous Hentaifest, got together one night and decided that instead of the traditional "get drunk and vomit" plan, we'd try something new. Well, at least new to those of us who didn't run Hentaifest.
We all gathered up on what we dubbed the SPOON room (named after the then-president of the Society for the Promotion of Otaku-Oriented Needs) and, well, watched animated porn so that we could make fun of it. The only way to watch porn is in groups, in my opinion--it's pretty useless except as a comedy outlet, so this was perfect.
Imagine my surprise when, three years later, one of the DVDs we watched that night comes back to haunt me as a TV series. Clean, even! It turns out that in the intervening time, they've released a few more episodes of this "Magical Canan" thing, which surprises me because it started off as a rather cheesy and obvious Card Captor Sakura ripoff, and as far as I know, stayed that way.
Who knew?
So yeah, in 2005, Magical Canan is going to be airing on Japanese TV, making me wonder what the new "schtick" of the show is going to be--after all, ripping off just one show can only take you so far, and minus porn, that's at least 8 minutes of extra content an episode that someone has to write, instead of sticking "PORN HERE" in the script.
Strange, how things can catch up to you...
No news today, I just got back from voter registration and have some more things to take care of--I'll have some tomorrow, though.
October 14, 2004
So Ultima Online: Samurai Empire went gold today, and it would probably damage my friendship with Greg Dean if I didn't mention it--especially since Game Watch has a very amusing interview with Jonathan LeCraft and Anthony Castoro that involves them trying not to look like idiots while wearing hakama and toting katana--and failing miserably.
While I can't translate the whole thing right now, there are a few questions in there I want to point out: first, after mentioning the usual "Ninja Scroll, Seven Samurai and Musashi" references, they joke that they hired a Ninja Consultant for Samurai Empire. And, Jonathan LeCraft likes Pocky.
Gee, I wonder why
So if you've never heard of Za Conbini/The Conveni (AKA The Convenience Store), that's because it's one of those games that gets marked off as Distinctly Japanese in its weirdness. You... run a convenience store. That's it. And so I always wondered how an online version of the game could possibly work after they announced The Conveni Net Battle.
Guess what? It didn't. As of December, they're giving The Conveni Net Battle the axe, putting an end to perhaps the most ill-conceived idea since the millions of attachments to the Genesis.