It's the end of the week and another month. Today is the last day of August and fall is just right around the corner. Also means school is starting again. New seasons of TV shows will be starting and oh yeah it's finally going to start cooling off again. As for last week well thankfully it was a rather mundane SSDD week with nothing major or important going on. It also means the car is still doing great as well.

And we all know that is a great thing. But like I said pretty mundane week in which I still didn't watch the Super GT races (now it's at three races that I haven't watched). I did get my HDDs back at the end of the week but I haven't gotten around to getting them set up, been a bit lazy about that.

Managed to go get along to another MoNAC anime club meetup on Saturday and was glad that I still had some ducktape and the plastic window in my car as it started raining while I was there. The intense thunder and lightning storm that happened after I got home was awesome though. Heavy rain and just a ton of thunder and lightning to the point that you could feel the rumbling and just stepped outside to watch and enjoy the storm, of course it doesn't help that it did knock out the DirectTV connection for a little bit.

I did watch some racing though, I recorded and watched later the latest round of the American Le Mons racing series from the fastest course in North America. Enjoyed that race since there was some series competition going on among the different classes. I do have to get my but in gear and watch those three episodes of the Super GT series now, no excuses.

And that was pretty much my week. Didn't exactly do a lot but it was damn nice not having to work on the damn car this week. For this week's image lets go with another lovely Race Queen to remind me that I need to watch those dang races this coming week.

Before you start thinking lame live action movie from 2007 that featured a hot babe some killer cars and some of the worst acting this side of a B-movie I'm actually talking about the new Redline animated movie that was just recently show cased at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland. A killer racing anime from Madhouse by director Takeshi Koike that is a wild cross between Speed Racer and Death Race.

The first time I saw the YouTube trailer for this movie was some weeks ago when it popped up on my subscription list as a new trailer and after that first initial viewing I was really trying to find out what the heck it was but with the trailer info in Japanese it was hard to figure out what it was and I quickly forgot about as other stuff got in the way. Then I happened upon a new trailer at twitch with a title and yet again I became very interested and with a title it became a bit easier to figure out what was going on.

After some digging around I finally found out more about what Redline was about other than a frenzied mix of music, mayhem and some of the best animated car chase scenes that I've ever scene. It just takes your breath away watching the trailer filled with action that a plot seems like a secondary notion so that you can explain to people what it is they just saw. Anyways I found this article that gives some hint to what is actually going on in the movie a sort of do or die race held every 5 years to see who the best of the best is and intertwined in that craziness of the race is a love story between old friends. All I know is that it every time I check out the trailers or find a new one I find myself watching it several times and drooling over how awesome it is.

Currently it's making it's way through the film festival circuit so I have no idea when it will be either licensed for an American release, which considering this is aimed squarely at the Western Market should be soon, or fansubbed when it's released on DVD in Japan. Either case I'm watching this as soon as I possibly can no ifs ands or buts about it. This movie would actually be worth the overpriced cost of a Fathom Events ticket.

It looks and feels a lot like Dead leaves has a style like Afro Samurai and it just looks like it'll kick all sorts of ass, don't believe me just check out the trailer below.

Who hasn't seen the classic scifi novel The War of the Worlds turned into any number of movie, radio or TV program. A classic alien invasion tale that ends rather lamely when the aliens all die due to bacteria infections. When it was first broadcast on radio it caused mass panic among the people listening to it for the first time. Now it's just become a go to alien invasion franchise to be milked dry. Well guess what, it's back once again getting a new lease on life this time in the form of an animated movie. But this time it looks freaking bad ass.

War of the Worlds: Goliath is next in line for the War of the Worlds franchise but unlike many (almost all you could easily say) of it's predecessors it actually looks interesting and bad ass from the initial trailer. This time around the story is being turned into an animated movie that looks to take place a little after the initial invasion and Earth has been able to adapt to the Alien's technology. The time frame for this one looks to be right around WW1 but thanks in large part to stealing the alien tech the WWI military tech is slightly more evolved including a giant carrier Zeppelin, three legged mecha tanks and hello plasma (I think it's plasma) weapons abound. It also gives off that nice touch of Steampunk scifi as well. I found this little snippet that gives a better idea of the plot.

It looks like it'll be out on DVD some time in 2010 and I'll be eagerly awaiting it's arrival. In the mean time you can check out the awesome trailer below.

Since money has been tight and ammo scarce still I haven't had a chance really to blog about anything related to firearms and less face it I heart firearms so I should really blog more about them since it's in the damn header image as well. So thinking about what I should blog about a new video came across my YouTube front page about the Magpul FMG9 and I was like oh yeah that's a freaking awesome prototype gun. Then I noticed it wasn't a concept anymore. HELL YA! They are making that gun! Now called the Magpul FPG for Folding Pocket Gun it looks very much like it's going to be put it into production.


A quick check of Magpul's site doesn't show any progress (their latest news item is from March 2008) but the little teaser information about the production model being called the FPG gives me some hope that we'll see both a semi-auto (for non LEO type personal) and the full auto version in the near future.

Basically a concealable folding stock for a Glock 17/18 handgun the FPG is a re-invention of Stoner's Ares Folding Machine of which there are other copies of including the UC-M21 and a Soviet block PP-90. Whether it's an Ares or a UC-M21 you can see a version of it in Robocop II. Magpul's version was first shown at the 2008 Shot show to a very interested crowd of onlookers. I just got to watch the video several times. At the time it was a non-functioning prototype that looked like a large brick with a flashlight mounted to it. Gaining it the nick name the Texas Flashlight. However, the latest video shows that it is indeed a very functional weapon system that gives the operator a very concealable weapon system that can be deployed rapidly and be able to put rounds on target accurately and quickly. Using the Glock 17/18 frame work the FPG allows the use of Glock hi-capacity OEM magazines and even the 31 round extended magazine can be folded up into the FPG without any issues. It also offeres a closed bolt firing system that allows the weapon to be carried safely with a round in the chamber, something the Ares concept didn't allow for.

If we ever do see this on the market even a semi-auto version will be hard to get as the ATF will consider this either a SBR (Short Barrel Rifle) or an AOW (Any Other Weapon) which are restricted weapons that require the purchaser to file for a $200 Federal Firearms Tax Stamp. Not exactly a hard thing for any law abiding citizen to do and considering the awesomeness of the FPG it would definitely be worth it. But unless you're a LEO or Class III dealer you can pretty much forget about the Full-auto version.

Click here to read/download the PDF fact sheet for the Magpul FPG.

Then you absolutely must check out the latest video of the Magpul FPG here...

I almost forgot about this movie. Watched it a couple days ago and almost forgot about blogging about it. Thankfully I didn't have anything else to blog about otherwise I would have forgotten about it. In any case Green Lantern: First Flight is of course as the title would suggest a new origin movie for the Green Lantern from Earth Hal Jordan. I'm not all that familiar with the origin of the Green lantern other than what I caught in the older cartoon series that touched on it briefly. I knew Hal Jordan received his ring from another dying member of the Green Lanterns who was being chased and attacked by Sinestro a former Green Lantern. That's what I remembered from the old cartoons. This movie is entirely different from that.

This movie does a much better job of expanding the mythos of the Green Lanterns and how Hal Jordan the first human to become a member of the Green Lanterns became a trusted member of the group. It also gives us the back story on Sinestro and how and why he defected from the Green Lantern Corp and became enemies with them.

The movie quickly unfolds the many twists and turns that are taken by Sinestro, acting as Hal's mentor, in his quest to create an ultimate weapon to defeat the Green Lantern Corp. Hal figures this out but by then it's to late and Sinestro's gotten his hands on the weapon and the shit hits the fan hard.

Sinestro's ultimate weapon is as it turns out a yellow Lantern that he easily uses to crush the Green Lantern members and pretty much destroys the battery source for all the members leaving them defenseless . This of course means all the members of the Green Lantern are powerless and are easily beaten back by Sinestro. Hal of course gets his power back by jacking straight into the power source and the ultimate rumble between Hal and Sinestro is on. After a pretty good fight involving planets and just about everything else you could think of Hal is able to destroy Sinestro's power source which sends Sinestro running with his tail between his legs.

That's a pretty brief overview of what went on in the movie with out giving a good deal of it away. Just like many of the other Marvel and DC comic related movies that have come out recently this is much darker movie than one might think graphic death scenes is just one of the more darker aspects of the movie. I don't find that a bad thing like I didn't with the other ones as it gives it a much more serious and adult feel to the movies. It's not dumbed down for the younger audience. Like many of the other recent comic book movies the visuals are just stunning and well done and the characters are not to cartoonish and retain that comic book feel to them. I would absolutely recommend at least renting this, like I did, if you're not a diehard comic book fan. It's a great way to learn about the origin of the Green Lantern.

Check out the trailer:

For only the second time this year I spent a weekend day at a car show. My roommate and I went to the NAPA Auto Parts 10th Annual Joe Mama's Car Show in Jerome, ID. My roommate and his dad entered their cars and I just went to take pictures and just enjoy a weekend that I wasn't working on my car. Since it's a car show in Idaho of course the majority of cars at the show were hotrods and muscle cars but there were some other stuff as well.

While Jerome is a bit of a drive on our way down there we passed several of the cars that would eventually show up at the show as well. We passed a few members of the Idaho British Car Club even slowing down to take a closer look at the very clean looking Bug-eye Sprite. Once there we got parked in a section past all the other import cars and next to a Buick Turbo Regal and a large jacked up Jimmy so the Mazda RX-8 seemed a bit out of place. Guess that happens when you show up just a bit late to the registration. There was another Mazda RX-8 there but other than smoked lenses rims and a cold air intake it was pretty standard fair. Actually for import cars it was pretty meh nothing to exciting and pretty generic really. I did see one EVO with a different Carbon Fiber spoiler that I liked there.

Then I found my holy grail of the show a lovely white Porsche 911 Turbo only slightly ruined by the vinyl graphic. Sadly though it was the only Porsche there. Although I did find some restorods/ratrod Volkswagens there close by and while I don't really care for the look there was a very nice pristine looking VW bug just sitting outside the show. It of course had to park next to a bunch of outhouses so made for an interesting picture. Then we found the group of cars from the British Car Club that we had passed earlier and say a nice example of a Morgan and the Bug-eye Sprite that when it left the show didn't sound anything like a little British car taking off.

Then there were was everything else from the new and old muscle cars to the trailer queen show car hotrods and other hotrods to even the large turn out of the new ratrod collective. Flat/satin color schemes were popping up everywhere but at least it wasn't all black this time around. Also say a bit more non-metal parts being covered in Rhino-lining type material as well. There was even a selection of Rock-crawlers and other off-roaders including one decked out Suzuki Samurai.

I didn't see much that was just awful but as I really hate gaudy lowriders I did snap a picture of a very lame lowrider that I just couldn't see how it won trophies but hey it's one of those two each their own and while I'd just as soon use it as a target for a well aimed RPG I'm sure the owner loves it.

In addition to all of that were some race cars. A few "real" Nascar cars and a handful of drag racers and while I wasn't really interested in them they did put on a spectacular show. Probably one of the less politically correct things going on at the car show actually was the demonstrations and show offs done by the race cars. One of the Nascars did a pit stop show and revved it's engine. While the drag cars fired up their engines as well with a bit more flame involved. The Jelly Belly funny car did a spectacular fireball show that smelled a bit like candy. When the jet powered funny car did the same it was really large fireball and smoke show. There was even a short little burnout down the street by one of the drag cars as well. We didn't really get up close and personal to that stuff though as it was really load and the throng of people at the front was pretty insane.

All in all it was an OK show, I would have liked more, nicer, import and euro cars and less well you pretty much know the rest. It was great to get out of the house and look at cars even if I didn't like them all it was still fun. There are a few more shows during the rest of the year the Italian and Porsche shows are still around the corner thankfully so I'll be looking forward to those two shows.

Look at that a week that didn't end with me having to replace the fuel pump in my car again. That's right the fuel pump from Napa has worked wonderfully...so far. But that has freed me up to actually enjoy this week and have some fun. Well most of it anyways.

While the car ran great this week the first drive was to yet another lame ass work meeting at 3pm for the final training session which of course was still lame except we did get pizza this time so that was OK. Then Wednesday we had yet another even more lame ass meeting because it was a go to the meeting or you're fired and the cheap ass owner had to toss in his same old same old two cents of opinion. Oh and the lovely seasonal allergies are assaulting me vigor. Eyeballs feel like popping out sneezing a lot and the constantly running nose oh so much fun. And that was the only horrible part of the week.

Now the good stuff that happened this week is plentiful. Sent the two dead HDDS off to be replaced and should have them back by hopefully the end of the week. I also worked up a nice temporary solution so that I could still have the Internet while the disks are off being replaced. Yeah no Internet withdrawals this time.

The car has been running pretty rock solid the entire week even surviving running to work in the middle of the day in the worst traffic and didn't have any issues. I'm so glad it was just a bad brand of pump but it sucks that it took me that long to figure out.

So with the car fixed I had plenty of time this weekend to do something else and that something else was a trip to Jerome with my roommate for a car show. Only second one that we've been to this year. So that means I took some pictures for the first time in like three months. More on the car show later.

While on the way back we stopped off at the Mallad Gorge which I have driven past several times without stopping to look put since I had the camera and felt like taking some non car pictures for a change and I brought the video camera along to test out the new mic cover since I hadn't had a chance to since picking it up with the moving and everything else. The Mallad Gorge was interesting to see in the nature kind of way and I think I got some good shots. I do have to admit that walking on the foot bridge was a bit weird because even without any wind the bridge would sway and that was just a bit unsettling to be honest. I was more worried though about dropping the camera over the ledge though. The pictures can be found here on flickr.

Sunday I spent most of the day editing and uploading the pictures and video of the trip and after finishing that I went and finally fixed the lawn mower after finding out that the real reason it wasn't starting is because the cable for the kill switch was broken and after a quick fix of that it ran great still really needs a new air filter but it's OK for the rest of this season I think. So yeah for the first time since we moved into the new house we finally mowed the lawn.

So finally I had a week that was more enjoyment than pure suckage and next week there are no 3pm meetings which makes me very happy. Oh yeah here is the test video of the new mic-cover. Still could use some work but SO MUCH better than the old ones.

Hey look it's almost already time for a new anime season and yet again I'm way behind on getting my opinion of the next season out there. Of course being that it's fall there should be a ton of awesome new anime coming out right...right. Actually from what I can tell so far with what I've seen on Chartfag's site and else where on the Internets it is looking like a season of mostly new seasons of older series. Thank goodness most of those new seasons are from shows that I liked.

So far this is my list of Anime that I think I'll be watching in the upcoming fall season. That and a bunch of stuff from previous seasons depending on how soon I can start watching fansubbed anime again. Toss in the occasional OVA or two and my plate is super freaking full.

Armed Librarians: Hey one battle hardened library war anime is good how about another one. Wait you mean the Library isn't about books...hmmmm... Ok I checked out the trailer and it looks...well it looks like there will be some nice fanservice but in addition to that some good fighting as well. Looks dark and emo for sure but it might just be good enough. YouTube trailer!

Darker Than Black 2 (Comet of Gemini): LOVED Darker Than Black and even though there are rampant rumors of Yin's death I'll still be watching this religiously. I'll move Heaven and Earth to keep up with this one. YouTube trailer!

The Sacred Blacksmith: OK this looked interesting even though it's another fantasy type show the characters looked interesting enough to make me want to check out a couple episodes. YouTube trailer!

Fairy Tail: To me it looked like another One Piece knock off but apparently the art style is similar but the stories are very much different. I couldn't find a trailer for this one but I'll keep looking. It's another one that is worth checking out a couple episode at least.

Nyan Koi: The style looked very much like Sekirei so I thought I'd check it out but I couldn't really find a good trailer for it to see what it was about but hey I liked Sekirei so I might just like this one as well. Worth a look anyways right. YouTube trailer!

Asura Cryin 2: Hey I liked the first season why not check out the second but I really should finish up the first season soon though. Couldn't find any trailers for it on YouTube, yet.

Heaven's Lost Property: The next three anime series are most likely just going to be mindless guilty pleasure fanservice heavy shows and I'm OK with that. This one looks fairly comical as well so that might make it not seem so bad to watch. YouTube trailer!

Queen's Blade 2 (Heir to the Throne): Really do you even have to ask...BOOBS lots of them, mindless mayhem and bouncing goodness. YouTube trailer!

Shin Koihime Musou: Not really a sequel to the first season but more of a re-imaging based more on the game it'll keep the Yuri overtones and the large amounts of fanservice. Nothing wrong with that. YouTube trailer!

Kampfer: This one is going to be a big iffy one as I'm not sure what exactly this will be besides the generic boy turned girl stuck in an all girl's school fight club. Couldn't find a trailer for it either.

It's looking like it'll be a pretty full anime viewing season that's for sure but hey I can't let you go just yet. During the winter season another one of my past favorite shows is finally starting it's second season of sorts. That's right Sekirei is back, starting sometime in December I think. Entitled Sekirei Pure Engagement it'll be interesting to see if it comes out early but in any case here's the trailer.

So just how late is this review of the Summer anime line up that I'm watching? Very very very late yes very late. To be fair a lot of it has to deal with the very crappy summer that I've experienced so far this year, it has pretty much knocked my anime viewing trends straight on their ass. Moving, Dead HDDs and a constantly broken car along with all manner of other crap has pretty much limited my anime viewing time to catching up on older things on crunchyroll and for a very limited time a few episodes of the new anime series for the 2009 Summer season. Of course that really sucks since there seems to be a great deal of awesome shows this summer when typically summer is the worst time for new anime series.

Go figure right all the good stuff comes out when I can't see it. This is why anime fans who don't illegally watch fansubbs have such a hard time when they know there is kick ass stuff but they don't want to do something illegal and instead have to wait months and years in the hopes that they will be able to see it as well. It's freaking annoying as hell. But enough about my damn woes of late lets check out some of the cool stuff that I've found.

Bakemonogatari: Seems to be the break out hit of the season being a supernatural rom-com sort of thing. I got 3 episodes in and miss it so much that I'm almost driven to install BT software on the work computers just to get that series. It's an interesting talking series so far but the humor is just so out there that you don't mind the talking and it caries it's own action. The supernatural part is definitely an interesting twist but the art, music and just tone of the series just makes it a must watch series.

Canaan: Is probably second on the must watch anime list of mine. It's got girls, guns and a guy who likes getting shot with a soft air gun just a bit to much, if you know what I mean. I've been looking forward to this one ever since I heard about it many moons ago and it hasn't disappointed at all. Reminds me a lot about Ghost In the Shell, different mythos but the gun play and animation looks so familiar and just so spectacular.

Fight Ippatsu! Ju-den Chan: Just a fun little guilty pleasure for the summer. Lots of fanservice and lots of lost body fluids by the girls makes it just a bit weird but it's a fun little romp with girls from a different dimension charging up depressed humans only to find out one human can see them and not only that but he also likes to knock them out of the "ball park" with a baseball bat. It really is just so far a mindless turn off the brain and enjoy the bouncing goodness.

Needless: Not as much as a guilty pleasure as Fight Ippatsu! is there is still a great amount of fanservice, comedy and crazy outlandish fighting with insanely superpowered humans that I just haven't seen in a while so it's a fun to watch series even if there isn't a lot of substance to the series.

Princess Lover!: An eroge turned anime series it's a fanservice rich show just minus the good fanservice. Probably looking for clean up with the uncensored DVD sales of the title it was a good looking series I got all of one episode watched before everything went to hell so while I did enjoy the first episode I might as well just wait for someone to sub the DVD releases instead.

Sea Story: Yet another guilty pleasure series with how much fanservice it has in the two episodes that I've seen so that may taint the review just a bit but it's proven to be interesting enough to want to keep watching even if you discount the fanservice so that's something right. Actually this one might fall more on the back burner since it's been out more than the rest and I only watched two episodes.

Spice and Wolf II: One of the more highly anticipated releases of the summer for me was the continuation of the much loved Spice and Wolf series. Pretty much taking off from where we last saw them Horro and Lawrence are still on their journey to get to Horro's home land. Pretty much the same as the first season with new issues and bad guys.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya 2: OK who hasn't heard about the insanity that is the endless 8 by now. Even I have and I'm only at episode 6 of this new season so yeah it's just more Haruhi and gang doing their thing. And I'm still going to watch it regardless of that endless eight stuff.

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0: Talk about some bad timing. Shortly after this started airing Japan has been hit by several earthquakes thankfully nothing like on the scale of this anime though. I've only seen a couple episodes and I just have to say it's definitely not your typical run of the mill anime show but it is so far interesting and timely to say the least.

When Seagulls Cry: Last but not least the interesting murder mystery show makes an appearance yet again only a few episodes in and it's pretty good on the whole murder mystery part so it might just be rather entertaining and mind provoking which is how I like my murder mystery shows.

Now that I've written that all out holy hanna that is a lot of anime series that I picked up to watch for summer, of course I'm not even watching any of it at the moment. Interesting however that there is definitely a good deal more fanservice series, just a bit toned down from Queen's Blade levels thankfully, this season. Also this summer season just seemed packed with good stuff to watch and I hope I get my HDD fixed and up and running so that I can get my butt in gear and get some stuff watched. Thankfully a lot of these are rather short series but then I also have all that other anime from the previous season as well too. So much good anime to watch so little time.

Since I lost yet another HDD anime watching has come by way of crunchyroll and what ever I had saved to my thumb drive which wasn't much at all. So I ended up finishing off the last couple of episodes that I hadn't watched of The Tower of Druaga: Sword of Uruk. I'm not sure why I never finished the series off while it was new but I think it just got left in the dust by better stuff that I found more interesting at the time. But seeing as how I have the extra time now it did allow me to finally finish it off for once.


Pretty much starting a little after the first season ended with the surprise twist our jilted lovers ended up hanging out with each other doing day to day things until one day when Jil and Fatina end up saving a little girl who looks remarkably like a much younger Kaaya. After saving the little girl Jil decides that he's once again going to climb the tower to find his brother and Kaaya and get the answers that he wants. That's what starts the new group on their quest up the tower.

And unless you really want to read a very long blog you'll just have to watch the dang series yourself on crunchyroll as there are plenty of twists and turns and WTF just happened moments going on that you'd need a crib sheet to keep things straight but the gist of it is that the main group from the previous season ends up after much meandering though the inside of the very strange tower finally confront the true form of the King who became trapped inside the tower to live on eternally as he is but he's busted out and has taken control of the older king and is running around doing things unlike him self.

The big points are that the new tag along girl with Jil's group is a traitor who's there to help the king and take control of the robot super soldiers from he first season. Melt and Coopa are back with Jil and company after a bit of side changing with the soldiers. Mostly because almost all the soldiers are now gone from battles with the robots and the third group. Neeba finally takes on the shadow king only to be beaten, Jil does the same with the same result just without a sword stuck in his chest. The King ends up defeated by the last of the Soldiers when he is stabbed in the back. BUT it doesn't end there. No that would be to easy instead Neeba gets his sorry excuse for an ass up kills the traitor girl for no real reason grabs the Blue crystal rod tosses everyone out of the tower and goes on his own crazy rampage.

Neeba creates some crazy magical cannons and starts firing at pretty much everything thanks to the Succubus's' wishes. So in order to stop Neeba from destroying the world Jil and Kaaya go back to the top of the tower and confront Neeba. Kaaya is held up by the Succubus and leaves Neeba to Jil by himself. We find out Neeba is just jealous of Jil and how Jil will surpass him and while those two are fighting Neeba turns into yet another Druaga thankfully Jil still kicks his ass and defeats him in the end. Which finally after all those twists and turns in the story we finally come to a nice happy ending that finds Jil with Kaaya, Fatina with Utu and Melt and Coopa doing their thing as well as everyone else as well.

After watching that last 1/4 of episodes this series just tosses you around and around until you just can't take it anymore. It's not a bad thing at all and it keeps you wondering what will happen next but still sometimes it's a bit too much as well. I did really enjoy the second season and I liked some of the surprises and disliked others. I feel silly now that I've finished it after all this time and wish I would have stuck with it when it was new. I definitely recommend it and you can easily catch it on crunchyroll so you don't have to wait for someone to release it in the states on DVD even though if someone did I'd probably buy it as it's a wonderful series. And don't worry I didn't spoil everything and I left a ton of stuff out for you to enjoy while watching it yourself. The best comedy bit revolves around a spoon as well.

Enjoy the preview and check it out on crunchyroll if you haven't already.

Netflix finally came through for once and I was able to get the original Ikki Tousen season on DVD in one go. For an anime that just doesn't happen all that often and yes I'm blogging about the first season of Ikkitousen or Ikki Tousen or Battle whatever way after blogging about the third season of the series. Go figure and that's because the original version hasn't been available on DVD for some time until lately when FUNimation boxed it up re-released like the good chaps that they are.

The first season is the beginning of it all and is your basic high school fighter anime where groups of students fight for the pride of their school in regulation bouts to see what school will become the ultimate leader for the next year. Of course the twist in this plot is that all the students are replaying roles of their ancestral warrior relatives. They are destined to play out their futures like their pasts but low and behold that just isn't going to be the case. After all if that happened we wouldn't have the other two season right.

OK so that's the plot but really Ikki Tousen is really just a fanservice driven series with mostly pretty girls fighting it out with each other. Most the battles end up with the girls tearing each others clothing off more than any real damage to the girls. There also happens to be a good number ecchi moments and a ton of innuendo and foreshadowing of sex and rape but I was pretty surprised to see that there wasn't a whole lot of straight up nudity as I would have thought there would be. Of course I enjoyed the guilty pleasure of watching it and yeah it's really just a turn off the brain enjoy the fanservice and mindless mayhem and battles as you're not going to be taking any thing earth shattering from watching it it's just a fun little series that spawned two other season and with it now out on a box set by FUNimation and for rent on NETFLIX so you don't have any excuse for not seeing this classic older series. I'm even thinking of picking up a box set

Here's the opening scene for your enjoyment if you've never seen it.

What a shocker but yet again it was a crappy week. Seems like nothing is going right this week this month or for that matter this entire damn summer so far. Ok the moving to a new house was good but the rest... Still no deposit refund from the previous house. The fuel pump is still messing up and low and behold my brand new HDD decided to give up and die about 30 days after purchase. Of course this has pretty much just stressed me out to the freaking max but what can you do but bite the bullet and keep moving forward.

And moving forward with the lame ass fuel pump I discovered after some searching on the Internet that Autozone's one and only fuel pump made by airtech is one of the worst fuel pumps on the market so I decided this time instead of getting another crap airtech fuel pump I was going to just get my money back and get a different brand of fuel pump. Ended up getting an OEM Fuel pump by Delphi from Napa complete with strainer for $2 less than the pump from Autozone, go figure. One painfully slow trip into work during the worst part of travel time and so far it's working out so far. Cross my fingers that it actually lasts a bit longer this time.

Stepping back however this week the brand new HDD that I picked up earlier this month decided to have issues and suddenly die as well just like my old one. At least this time I was able to save my bookmarks before it crashed. I'd seriously not know what to do without my bookmarks. Anyways It seems to be a booting issue and then even when it is running I get a horrid lag time with the computer which crashes and gives me the blue screen of death after only a couple of minutes. Sucks some serious ass considering it's less than 30 days old. Now I have to send both HDD to their respective companies for warranty replacements and I have to figure out if it's something my computer is doing or I'm just having some seriously crappy luck this summer. Might have to take my computer in to have it looked at which of course will cost more money but if it means I can solve my HDD problems it'll be worth it.

Of course that means I'm without a computer except for at work yet again. Hopefully I'll be able to continue to blog but anime watching is yet again going to be slow and sucky for a while. Maybe I should get Microsoft to give me money to buy a new Laptop and I could just be done the whole damn thing and just end up with an extra TB of HDD space which would be nice.

So yeah I'm just kind of in a funk at the moment because everything has just stressed me out from those two things along with the deposit check that was supposed to be there soon. Apparently my idea of soon and their idea of soon are way different times. Then of course there are the bills upon bills which of course would be solved with the check but until then blah it's all just funk and stress.

Getting out of the funk might take some time but I did save the Super GT races before the computer crashed so I should be able to get those and watch them and I should be able to watch some more anime stuff on crunchyroll and the extra free non-internet time will give me some extra time to complete my Otaku room and get my diecast cars and figures all nice and cleaned up for display. And even than payday is thankfully only two more days away so that's good. Hopefully the check and paycheck all get here at the same time and I'll be able to solve a lot of my issues and with that. Other than that yeah it was just a lame week here's to hoping for a better one. At least you can enjoy the lovely Race Queen that's always good right. It probably also means a return of the Moko Top Girl for a while on the Hottie of the Day since they are plentiful and easy to find.

Now that I think back on it I really should have just made separated blog posts for each of the three different OADs since not a single one of them had anything to do with the others. Now that I finished the third and last episode I can't remember what the other two were about other than the insane amounts of fanservice, a pretty common staple this year for OADs it seems which is just fine and dandy. So I guess I'll just work backwards from the latest to the first.

If you know anything about To-love-Ru you know that it's about a girl space alien princess who crash lands on Earth to avoid a marriage only to become engaged to an Earth boy even though he truly loves someone else only to have their lives enteruped by other aliens and of course a lot of hilarity due usually to poor Rito (the human boy) being misunderstood by everyone thanks to Lala (The very cute space alien princess) then there is also the fact that her gadgets often end up backfiring which is exactly what happens in this third and last episode.

The girl Rito has a crush on happens to win a luxury spa/island girls only retreat and she ends up taking 8 other girls with her to this island well poor Rito ends up tagging along after he accidentally steps on one of Lala's tools and ends up turning the dog that he is holding at the time into a bag. It also transfers Rito's brain into the dog's head as well. So of course Rito gets to tag along and check out the naughtiness of the girls as they frolic about the spa in and out of swimsuits Probably a good 15minutes of pure fanservice.

The second episode is a bit more serious as it deals with Rito's and his younger sister's relationship and it finds Mikan (Rito's sister) getting ticked off at Rito and Lala and taking off in a huff. Which of course means Rito and Lala have to take off as well to find her and apologize and make things right. It's a nice little fun romp of course with much fanservice present as well.

The first episode is basicly another one of Lala's oops episodes that turns poor Rito into a girl. Of course first all the girls have to get together and talk boobs which leads Lala to make a new gadget which of course backfires and turns Rito into a girl and of course the girls have fun with the whole idea and soon Rito ends up in the hands of the Class President (I think she's the class president anyways it's the rich girl with the crazy laugh that's always at odds with Lala) and her spa where of all things Rito's boobies decide to take on a mind of their own and enlarge themselves to an overly large size before Lala can find Rito and turn him back into a boy. Definitely a fun filled fanservice rich adventure.

Which you know is what these episodes are all about fun and fanservice. I still need to finish the series off (think I was stuck at just under halfway done) but these were just fun extra episodes that are based on some of the stuff that happens in the manga since the anime took a different path than the manga. Now it looks like there is another additional 3 episode OVAs due to at the end of this year for the first episode. Wonder if anyone will license To-love-Ru as it's a pretty fun and enjoyable (and very sell able thanks to the fanservice) series.

Found this video while looking for a commericial or preview for all of the OADs but I think this will work just as well.

Not only did I find Pale Cocoon but I also found another anime that I had been meaning to watch on crunchyroll as well and that was Catblue: Dynamite which isn't so much an anime really as it looks more like a cinematic from a video game with some choppy CGI and stiff movements. Actually the CGI wasn't all that bad but still nothing like what we have today for video games or 3D CGI anime as Catblue is a couple years old now. To be honest before watching it I couldn't really remember why I wanted to see it so badly but it was on my to watch list for so long I decided to check it out anyways.

Set in the '70s it's like a disco mafia story with a little pretty kitty cat tossed into the mix but this pretty kitty cat comes with a prehensile tail and a bag of tricks. Not only can she hang and swing from that tail but she can even hold and fire a gun with it as well. She can also see and communicate with dead spirits as well. And that's only a few of the tricks in her bag of goodies.

Anyways we find Catblue and her spirit friend helping out two mafia couriers who happen to get caught up in the middle of a fight between the Mafia and the FBI because of information contained on a cassette tape that one of couriers has. The reason she's even helping them is because the main guy is the brother to a girl that Catblue is friends with and the other guy is engaged to the sister. Which turns out to be one of the most annoying catch phrases of the movie as the black guy who is engaged to the sister keeps calling the other guy his brother which of course the brother hates.

Well it turns out that the main badgirl is also another cat person and she's in charge of getting the tape back from the guys with the help of an apparently endless supply of goons. The bad kitty does most of her fighting with Catblue while the goons are used as canon fodder against the two couriers. Lots of shooting and catfighting happens but Catblue and the couriers win in the end. During that time though we also find out that Catblue became the way she is because she drank all the blood of her master after he was killed by some goon and she vowed to seek out justice for her master after drinking his blood.

After watching it I was still wonder why I wanted to see it so badly. Not that it's bad it just seems like one really long video game cinematic where in the middle of the story you should be pressing A to begin playing one of the couriers if not Catblue herself and doing the shooting and running around. That's just how it felt to me. I'm glad I finally watched it of course but it's just kinda meh OK I'm seen it now what. Maybe it's just because it's that one episode but anyways it's just there I guess for you to check out on crunchyroll if you want to. Finding any large pictures of it was a pain mostly you get the live action girl who does some dancing about at cons for it as well as some smaller screen caps but NO fanservice of any kind or really any official art work either. I did find a trailer of sorts for it that you can check out to see if you might be interested in seeing it yourself.

After watching several episodes of Time of Eve I was interested to see what other works Yasuhiro Yoshiura had worked on and found that there are two titles that he has made and while Aquatic Language is more like Time of Eve I just couldn't watch more than a couple minutes so I'll have to give it another try later on but the second title that he did was Pale Cocoon which for me was more interesting and enjoyable to watch

At first I didn't even think I would be able to find it since it hasn't been licensed by anyone and it was from 2006 but thank goodness Crunchyroll has them both so I was able to check it out finally. Pale Cocoon is a short story OVA about a couple of people working to recover lost data from a world that once was. They are pretty much the last people working on this recovery as many people have lost the will to find out what the world was like before it was destroyed by humans. Ura is the main character and he starts working on recovering a couple files one day to discover that they are a music video and a journal of a young lady talking about her journey to the moon to be part of a colony or some such junk.

Because of the two videos Ura decides to climb to the top of the industrial complex that they live and work in and leaves his friend behind to discover the truth. The truth that the people were actually living in a moon colony and that the Earth had returned to it's colorful former self of a Blue and Green planet.

I found it to be a rather touching and sincere story with a bit more meat to it than Time of Eve has. It gives you something more to ponder that is more timely (Earth environmental issues green house gases that sort of thing) than something more Scifi. Obviously I highly recommend checking it out on crunchyroll and you can find it here in addition to that you can check out this sort of trailer on YouTube as well.

Or as the English dubbed version is being called Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers which will have a limited one night release in Movie Theaters on Sept 24, 09. Of course it's a Fathom event so get ready to shell out $20 for a movie and some oh so special extra fluff to make it seem like you are getting your money's worth. I've never been interested in seeing any of those events just because of the outrageous pricing scheme they have going on but that's not what this blog post is about. Indeed it isn't, as much as I'd like to rant on about Fathom events it's rather pointless really. Besides I have an entire movie to rant about.

I really wanted to like this movie. Really I did. I loved the series when I saw it on [adult swim] and was really looking forward to the movie even after I found out that it was going to be an alternative story line from the original. I mean how could they possibly mess up Eureka Seven right. Oh but they do and in grand style as well. At first the new animation is great and one can see that Renton and Eureka could have been long lost childhood friends turned lovers it's a good story line and it's going along smoothly up until the introduction of the Gekkostate and it's crew. And the movie just falls apart from there.

The cast of characters that you loved in the series well you can forget about them. They all get their personalities stolen and replaced by complete selfish idiots to concerned about using Eureka as tool to (get ready for your Peter Pan references, no I'm not kidding) take the crew of the Gekkostate, who turn out to be zomg super fast aging children, to a place called Neverland where they wont age anymore. Never mind saving humanity from the crazy alien invaders or the harassment of the overzealous military, nope non of that. The Gekkostate is only out to save it's own aging ass. Seriously a what the fuck moment there. And inside of all this they are just making a complete mess of the love story between Eureka and Renton. The story just kills the movie. The music is great as always the animation is just fantastic like always and there are some glimmers of a movie with great potential and it's entirely killed by the crappiest alternate story line ever.

The movie I think could be enjoyable only if you have never seen the original series. Otherwise you'll hate yourself and the series after watching it. I'd probably say that the movie is just fair enough to warrant renting it when it comes out on DVD to check out the English dub version to see if that adds anything to it but other than that this one is a total skipper sadly. Here's the fathom event trailer spot. I so wanted to title this one Eureka 7: Pocket Full of SUCK.

How about that another week with the Lumina's ass up in the air. Oh yeah sure enough for the fourth time in two months I had to take out the fuel tank and mess around with the fuel pump. And thanks to that nothing much else happened during the week. Watched the Super GT rounds...nope. Did anything fun...nope. Did anything other than get dirty and fix things...nope. Well OK I did enjoy the crazy Thunder and Lightning storm that we had in the middle of week. It was intense and awesome at the same time. Helped to cool down the weather as well.

Well you would definitely think that this week was the suck and to be honest it wasn't the greatest but at least I did get a bunch of other things done as well since lets face it the last thing I wanted to do is work on the car so I ended up doing other things to busy myself instead of working on the car. Changed blinds with my roommate so that I can have a pretty dark room without hanging up something really lame (ie my old black comforter) and still be able to open the blind when I want to. Kinda nice now. Washed and folded up a really nasty tarp with some HUGE wolf spiders hiding in it. Cleaned the kitchen and some other stuff that I just can't think about at the moment.

Of course that leaves me with the damn Lumina. The fuel pump was really clogged up and just running like shit just after driving five miles so that's what caused the removing of the tank for the third time. After seeing that it was severely clogged I decided to go crazy and clean out the fuel tank which was rather interesting to see how much gunk I got out of it when cleaning it. When I went to get that replaced I was talking to them about the fuel pump wiring harness and decided to get that as well.

And that's what caused the tank to come out the fourth time. Turns out that the wiring harness wires were all in backwards so when I tested the pump it didn't work. Hopefully while testing it I didn't break the damn thing. So a nice long journey (had to go way out to the ass end of Nampa to get it) and several phone calls later I picked up another wiring harness that had just came with all the parts just not connected so that you can connect the wires yourself. I didn't like the size of the main two power wires so did a little re-wiring on that. Now the tank is back in and I tested the pump and we have gas to the fuel rail. I was so annoyed about the bolts I decided to pick up a ratcheting box end wrench and it made the tank so much easier to take out and put back that it was great. I so should have gotten it several tank removals ago. When I finished that I decided that since I was still energetic to try and work on the lawnmower as well and saw that the air filter and spark plug needed to be replaced. Nothing to do there but clean it up. Now I'm just sitting here relaxing and watching Fox's Sunday night cartoon block.

Hopefully I'm done working on the car for some time (well except for the rear brakes I need to do that soon as well) and it'll allow me to get to some other things that I've been needing to do as well. In any case even though I did take a picture of the car I'm sure that would just bore you to tears so instead enjoy another lovely race queen instead.

Didn't get enough Candy Boy before? Seven episodes just wasn't enough? Did you really wish that there was more fanservice in Candy Boy? Well you get all your wishes with the second extra episode of Candy Boy, also known as episode 8. The episode was included on the latest DVD release.

This extra episodes finds Kanade, Yukino their sister Shizuka and yuri crush girl Sakuya at the pool enjoying a relaxing moment. Sakuya does her yuri stalking of Kanade thing with a photoshot while Kanade and Yukina have their touching moment while Shizuka is just there to relax and enjoy the pool. It's a pretty standard Candy Boy episode that just adds a nice bit of fanservice. Which I'm sure some fans desperately wanted during the regular episodes since for a yuri series there was very little in the original series. This episode is really just a nice treat for the fans and instead of me rambling on some more how about you just enjoy the episode thanks to some generous YouTube uploader. I don't know how long it will stay up so enjoy it while you can. I still hope some one decides to license this nice little slice of yuri life for North America.

To be honest up until reading a handful of blogs about it recently I never even thought about the images that I've "misappropriated" to use in my blog posts but apparently there has been some big blow up about anime bloggers who have been using fanart images on their blogs and not crediting their sources. Interesting since well yeah I do that...a lot (hello anime hottie of the day).

So I spent the better part of today reading other anime related blogs from Anime Blips which has a good number of posts from bloggers who are either very much against bloggers posting other's art without credit/permission or others that were pretty middle of the road seeing both sides of the story. I really didn't see any that were actually "screw you artist I'll post whatever whenever and you'll just have to like it" posts so I guess that's a good thing.

Now while I could add my own two pennies worth of opinion to the debate it's simply just not needed since many before me have given their own and honestly better opinions on the matter. I just think the whole thing is ridiculous to get ones panties in such a bunch over the whole deal. The Internet, fanart and blogging after all is what it is plain and simple, a free for all world. However I'd like to think that the studios are sitting there reading all this as well and having a good laugh and saying "SEE WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG!" Really I'd like to hear what a studio or manga artist has to say about all of this since what I've read has pretty much been basically; posting Fanart without credit or permission...EVIL and morally wrong. However, posting "official" art and screen caps well that's just fine.

Will that matter in the end to anyone other than a handful of power tripping angry bloggers or the artists, of course not. In the end majority will win every time and this discussion will fall off the face of the Internet in a weeks time and be forgotten once again (for three years perhaps?) and anime bloggers will just keep doing what anime bloggers do.

Anyways I just thought I'd include a nice list of blogs that I read during this time. You should too and use them to form your own opinion on the matter.
Eurekaism
RabbitPoets
Hinano
Mistakes of Youth
Fuzakenna!
Geekscream

Now onto the next bandwagon that I think I should jump on. Totally unrelated and totally not credited or asked for permission image used just because I can, actually I left it on the work computer by accident yesterday so I needed a good reason for it to be there and this one is good enough.

About time another Kara no Kyoukai movie was finally subbed. Kara no Kyoukai 6: Oblivion Recording is the sixth in a series of seven animated movies based on a series of novels. The sixth chapter finds Shiki and Azaka (Mikiya's younger sister) investigating a paranormal event in a private school that involves fairies and disappearing memories.

While this movie wasn't nearly as dark, violent or bloody as the others have been it is still awesome. Why is it awesome well you would think with two girls in a private school all sorts of yuri shenanigans would happen but thankfully that isn't the case. No this is a great story to learn more about Mikiya's younger sister who we've only seen a few minutes of here and there in previous movies. Azaka is an apprentice to Touko, she has a serious brother love complex and is doing everything she can to get the attention of her brother and to become a better magus in order to beat out Shiki for his love so it's an interesting twist to toss the two ladies together in an investigation that revolves around fairies being responsible for the recent memories lose and attacks on students and faculty.

In the middle of the two ladies investigating who is responsible for the fairies we get a glimpse into the back story of Azaka and her brother and how she ended up falling in love with her brother. It's a nice backstory and it's interesting how everyone knows that she's in love with her brother except for her brother. But that's just filler to the action and solving the case. The bad guy ends up being a teacher who can manipulate people with words and is using another student to further his goals. The student is the class president who is taking revenge for her dead friend by killing the class that didn't do anything to help her when she was in trouble. Shiki confronts the teacher easily dispatching him in probably the least bloodiest fights I've seen in the movies. While Azaka takes on the class president and her fairies and while the fight isn't bloody it's damn impressive visually. Azaka defeats the class president and everything is dealt with. Nice easy movie. Not the most intense or suspenseful of the movies but still a great watch.

As usual of course the music is fantastic the artwork and animation is fantastic and it's all just combined to make another great addition to the Kara no Kyoukai franchise and damn if I don't want some one to get on their ass and license them for a North American release. I want to buy them and see them in HD damn it but I'm sure the hell not buying R2 non-subbed DVDs. Enjoy the trailer.

Hell yes! While I haven't finished the latest anime Wagan Midnight series I can tell you that I'm super excited for this upcoming live action version. I know there has been several other movies about Wangan Midnight but this one is new dang it. Also I know that the image I posted isn't from this actual movie I couldn't find any stills just yet but this image is still pretty cool.

Wangan Midnight jumped from the pages of the manga to span several video games, anime series and even several other live action movies since it's been around. It's pretty much a story about a young man who purchases a pretty beat up older Nisan Z (known as the Devil Z) and fixes it up so that he can race it on the infamous Wangan Highway racing circuit. The cursed Nissan and the cool young driver does battle against his main rival an upscale man who drives a Porsche 930 Turbo. And that right there is why I'm so stocked to see the movie, as a die hard Porsche 911 fanboy I'm just salivating at the idea of watching those two cars race down the highway in Japan. Of course it's rather obvious who I would like to see win but I know how the story ends so life goes on. The sad thing about the movie is that it'll be a good year or so before it hits state side so you'll just have to enjoy the trailer for now.

Ninjas, samurais, mobile suits and a crazy lady with a gatling gun oh my. Based on a series of video games Sengoku Basara is an anime that takes place during the warring states period of Japanese History which mixes traditional warriors and history with some of the most fanciful off the wall characters that I've seen in some time. Ok after thinking about it and re-reading my review...it sucked so here's another shot at it. [updated Aug 5, 2009]

Ninjas, check! Samurai warriors, check! Hot chicks in revealing outfits, check! Mobile Suit armor...wait what? Oh OK check! Insane weapons and superhuman abilities, check! Feudal Japan warring states large scale standing armies of young men willing to throw their lives away as cannon fodder, yup check! Basara is one of those suspend reality turn off your reasoning and thinking and just sit back enjoy the fanservice and battles of an anime very loosely based around the warring states period. The anime started out as a handful of video games of the same nature and takes from the video games the characters and plot basicly a handful of the warring states generals band together to defeat the self appointed Devil King who is out to take over Japan by pretty much killing everyone.

On the bad guy side you have the Devil King a super insane leitenant who likes to relish in other's pain as well as his own. A crazy lady who has a thing for guns and can whip out a gatling gun for fun. There is even a young dude who's an archer with little screen time but enough to know that he's a bad ass with a bow and arrow.

On the good guy side is several crazy Generals and leitenants of various feudal states with their own unique personalities, weapons and abilities. And one hot little blond ninja lady who I think ends up being more about comedy relief than a kick ass warrior like she could be. We see little snippets of her fighting but then we also see more of her cleavage as well. In any case she's just like the rest of them and just way out there for what she can do and with what.

I really did enjoy the series it was a fun little time waster not epic not OMFG you have to see this but just fun and enjoyable in that far fetched fantasy of the warring states idea. Luckily for those of you who missed it FUNimation has licensed the first season which I'm thinking will also include the forth coming 13th episode OVA and double hopefully the second season that will be out during the spring(?) season. While I probably wouldn't buy it myself I do have to admit that as soon as I can I'll be adding it to my Netflix queue. I've included the opening to the series so that you can check it out, so enjoy.

Also known by it's official title Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo was one of the more enjoyable shows of the last couple seasons. When everything went crashing down around me I only had one episode left to watch before I finished the series and I have to admit I was a bit frustrated by that since the lead up to the last episode was pretty epic and then nothing for a month...Frustrating.

But I finally finished it this last weekend and wow it was well worth the wait. Definitely a great ending to a very good anime even if it was pretty heavy on the fanservice. I mean with the girls in their skintight rather revealing space outfits and great camera angels "DAT ASS" show was a common nick name for the series.

Sora Kake Girl while heavy with the fanservice was equally heavy with the comedy bits that it throws out there even more so than the fanservice. It gets a little lost though when it tries to get series and comes up looking half baked when it does that. Well up until the end when things just start connecting and happening at a really fast pace at times I think it was a bit rushed but since it works out rather well in the end it's alright. I really got confused though with everyone always changing sides here there and everywhere oh and Nami just seemed like a toss away character in the end. However, who doesn't want their own Imo-chan, yes a half baked potato that's interested in old military machines and can do some series business when they need to.

So what is Sora Kake Girl besides a funny fanservice series with girls in space? It's a tale of humanity seen through the eyes of the main character Akiha the Girl who Leapt Through Space and her adventures with the brain colony known as Leopard who is on a quest to complete his restoration from his previous form. During this quest several other brain colonies show up some to fight Leopard and others on their own quests to fix humanity. Nerval is the main bad guy out to fix humanity by placing them all in boxes but it's during his quest that he also learns that humanity is cool and decides to stop his boxing project only at this time Leopard has gone crazy with power and is destroying things. It's at this point in the series where the seriousness gets good the action really ramps up and everything starts clicking into place and makes for a pretty dang enjoyable show which while it was good before turns out to be even better.

I would really like to see this licensed for North America as I think this is worth a look. I'd buy it but if you're not really sure if you can handle the fanservice I'd absolutely suggest renting it from Netflix. Now if I could just find a good video to post that wasn't a segment of one of the episodes that would be great but I guess you'll just have to settle for this one. The second bonus episode on the DVD.

Yet again we are not only at the end of the week but at the end of another month as well. This week was filled with lame work meetings a failed fuelpump and more house work. Mind you nothing at all fun and exciting. And yes since I don't have any better picture to post I'm still going with posting Race Queen pictures for my weekly review because lets face it who wants to look at a picture of my torn apart car.


So July finished out the month with yet another failed fuel pump I knew it was going bad last week but it didn't last nearly as long as it did last time after it started going bad. I still have some issues with the fuel system that I'll need to check out after driving it around a couple of days. Might end up replacing some other stuff as well depending on how it works out. Hopefully the new pump just works and everything is fine. I really don't want to do this three times.

But that was the least of my issues for this week. At work we are currently having a meeting on Mondays from 3pm until 5pm which for me sucks major ass as it really screws up my sleeping pattern which screwed up the rest of the week. But the good thing about this week at work is that there was little laundry on a couple of days so it allowed me to do some catching up on anime. Finished a couple of series from last season started a few new ones from this season and since I forgot my thumbdrive the other day did some catching up on older stuff on Crunchyroll.

Finally this week our third housemate started moving into his room this week and is pretty well moved in, just has some more unpacking to do. Just like the rest of us. With his moving in though it got us more energized to get the cat5 cables ran under the house for the Internet and to get the cables out of the hallways and bedrooms. We still have to get an extra long cable to run from the back bedroom all the way out to the entertainment room where we'll be running a second router to connect the DVR and XBOX360 up to the Internet. We'll get that done soon because I want to check out the Anime Network.

With that we close the book and hopefully my problems on July and move on to a new month and new things. I'm still going to hate those Monday meetings (we have them all month long in August) but I should be able to find time this week to finally watch the fourth round of the SuperGT and maybe the 5th round as well. I also checked and found out that most likely the next autocross that I'll be going to will be at the end of August.

I missed the boat when Neon Genesis Evangelion first came out and I even missed probably 3/4 of the series when it was broadcast on [adult swim] all those long years ago. I missed it because at the time I just wasn't interested in the mecha shows and what I did see on [adult swim] didn't impress me at all at the time. However, when I sat down and watched the first remake movie Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone I think I discovered why it's so well liked and has such a following and this is what I thought about it.

Since I have very little experience with NGE watching the movie for me was a fresh start to the series so I can't compare it at all to the original series nor can I point out what is actually new and improved. What I do know is that the movie is a retooling and retelling of the first six episodes of the series which introduces us to the main cast of characters and explores a little bit about why poor Shinji goes from being just an average teenage boy to the most important person in Tokyo and the only person who can pilot the massive humanoid like mecha. His only mission; kill invading objects known as angels.

The first movie focuses on Shinji and how he has to learn to adjust not only to being the all important pilot but how he has to adjust to a new school a new roommate/guardian and trying to get along with the other pilot a quit no-nonsense girl called Rei. All that while he struggles internally to find the need, want and reason why he should even fight for the great good of mankind in the first place. With all that pretty well condensed down to a movie format it makes for a pretty compelling story. It probably even ended up working out better than the original series. I remember watching a few of the original series episodes on [adult swim] and I can't remember it being as good or making you care as much.

Not only is the story compelling but the music score and visuals are just outstanding from something that was touched up from an older series it doesn't look as dated as I thought it would. Nor does the additional stuff standout like a sore thumb like GiTS 2.0 did so well. I'm glad I was able to catch this while I await the US DVD release late in November(?) which will be added to the Netflix queue as soon as I can. It definitely changed my mind about the series and I have to admit that it's pretty good and worth a second look or like in my case a first look.