Another Netflix rental finished off this time it was Samurai Gun a moderately good show that had goofy looking costumed crime fighters equipped with guns instead of swords to fight the injustice of the Shogun and his his anti-samurai gun soldiers.

It's one of those mind numbing what's the point of this show again series that pretty much has a bunch of warriors who have been trained since youth to fight with guns dressed up in skin tight outfits with Samurai warrior like helmets. Also a good number of them are only one eyed guys with a couple of ladies tossed in for good measure. They go around each episode fighting the Shogun warriors who have been committing injustices against the common folk. One episode a couple of brothers were going around killing of girls for sport. Sick bastards of course got what they deserved by getting blasted away by the Samurai Guns. Every episodic with no real over all plot to tie any of it together really. It was interesting to see the different guns they happened to produce (including one very large Gatling gun and while I can't place it a SMG from my time period) compared to the other technology that the show had at the same time. It also did have a fairly decent amount of fan service (not nearly as much though as I thought when I added it ages ago to the netflix queue, stupid previews) but that really didn't help it all that much really.

It was decent and I don't think that I wasted my time on this series but I don't think it's anything better than a passable rental from netflix if your board and up for some mindless blam blam blam action. That's really about it Nothing really bad but nothing really noteworthy either.

Can you go through life as an anime watcher and a gearhead and not hear about Initial D I don't think so and I'll be honest I've watched a lot of Initial D back when I first started using Netflix and while I think the people in the anime look like crap (seriously some of the fugliest animated people ever) the car stuff was CGI awesomeness through out the series. Well Initial D isn't dead just yet as they just recently released an OVA called Initial D Extra Stage 2 which is the sequel to the first Extra Stage which focuses on the girls of Impact Blue. I wasn't able to find or watch the first half but thankfully it didn't matter as the second half deals with the stuff that happened during the first stage (first season) of the anime which I did watch (all those moons ago).

The Extra Stage 2 takes place about 6 months after Itekani messes things up with the girl that he likes Mako. Back in First Stage Itekani met Mako who is the driver for the all girl (well there are only the two of them) drift team called Impact Blue (her car is a blue Sil-80) and they start up a relationship of sorts. Bad luck follows Itekani as he messes up an important meet up with Mako by being more than two hours late. So they don't talk to each other until 6 months later when they have a chance encounter at a rest area and decide to try it one more time.

So it's meet up take 2 and this time Itekani is early but ends up helping an old man. Which makes him late for the second meet up again. Racing back to the meet up trying not to be very late again he punctures a tire and ends up without a usable car or cell phone and running by foot to find another phone. Luckily he is able to call Mako before he totally fails at talking with her. Itekani doesn't confess his love to Mako because he feels bad about the events and doesn't think it's the right time. Mako is then able to tell Itekani about her opportunity to go race professionally in Tokyo. She's really looking for Itekani to tell her not to go but Itekani the good guy that he is tells her to go anyways and that he'll support her wishes but never tells her that he loves her. Mako knew that he loved her and is grateful that he supports her and wants her to go race in Tokyo.

So it ends up being a love story believe it or not. While there is plenty of drifting action (mostly Mako) it's almost entirely a chick flick. Seriously if you took out the CGI drifting and sat a woman down to watch it she would say that it's a chick flick. I'm not saying that's a bad thing I just thought it was kind of interesting that it turned out that way. The question is though was it any good.

I liked it, I'd probably tell others who liked Initial D about it and tell them to watch it as it does give us closure on a story that was left just hanging there during the original series. Will we see this in America though....hahaha no, FUNimation which now has the rights to Initial D isn't licensing anything new from the property due to poor sales (I'd say that's entirely the fault of no fucking advertisement during the heyday of the fast and furious type shows) even though Initial D stuff still sells. Enough that I'd think that a good well thought out advertisement campaign would actually produce a tidy profit for them but then that would actually require FUNimation to venture outside their standard advertising outlets and into the world of actual gearhead territory. But that's what I've been saying all along about what is wrong with the American anime industry as a whole and that's their pathetic advertising campaigns and their reluctence to go outside the anime/popculture box.

Awesome would be the easiest way to describe the new to me Sigma Macro 50mm F2.8 EX DG lens that I was able to snatch off eBay for a freaking fantastic price. I was able to get the lens for $150 (that also included a 55mm tiffen UV filter) while the MSRP is $400 and I've seen prices on eBay from $260 to $350. So yeah this was a great deal.

I've been asked why I went with this lens instead of Canon's budget nifty-fifty the Canon EF 50mm F1.8 lens that can be as inexpensive as $80 but tend to run at about $100 though on eBay. Well there are actually several reasons and the first is of course that the Sigma lens is actually specifically made for Digital SLR cameras while the nifty fifty is a Film and Digital lens. There is also the simple fact that the Sigma lens is an all metal construction compared to the plastic construction of the nifty fifty and while that may not be very important to some it's a longevity and quality issue that may arise in the future. The last feature that really sold me on the Sigma was it's Macro ability that gives you a 1:1 ratio of the objects that you are shooting, the Canon I believe has a 1:3 ratio. It doesn't hurt at all that the Sigma lens is also a very sharp lens and is easily comparable to the higher end Canon 50mm lens.

So what do I think about the lens? I actually haven't shot much with it. When I first got it I of course had to test it out to make sure the thing worked correctly and it did. It actually impressed me with what it could do while I was just taking random snaps around the house with it. I took the last weekly review picture with the lens actually and was really impressed with the quality but I haven't gone out and done any real work with it yet as I'm still feeling under the weather and awaiting my last couple items from eBay to show up before dragging out all the equipment to do a photoshot so hopefully cross your fingers it might be this weekend. I did upload most of the images that I shot to flickr so that you can check it out if you want to here.

Again I have to thank my housemate who made the purchase even possible, thanks a ton Scott.

Thank you Spike channel for giving us a very bloody Sunday with the airing of Afro Samurai: Resurrection. Bloody it definitely was, the opening sequence on the bridge had to be the bloodiest scene ever aired on Spike channel and from there we are reunited with the teddy bear Ninja and someone new someone hot and someone who will die a really lame death at the end. Yes I know I really don't want to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it but to me that part was just lame and I have to rant about it. So major spoilers ahead be warned now.

So if you don't know what Afro Samurai is about at this point lets run it down real fast. Two head bands for number one and number two Afro's dad had N1 and was killed by N2 Justice the first show was about Afro's journey to get the N1 head band from Justice in the mean time everyone one else wants N2 so that they can go up against N1 for god knows what reason.

Resurrection has Afro with the N1 head band but it's stolen by the very not dead Teddy Ninja known as Kuma who was once Afro's best Friend along with Kuma is his sister Sio who wants revenge for Afro killing all that she loved. Sio steals the N1 head band and the remains of Afro's father in order for her to create a clone of Afro's father. Afro must reclaim the N2 headband to fight Sio and he does of course. All in the middle are more fights and blood letting which brings Afro back to the old city that he was from so that he can challenge Sio for the head band before he can do that he has to fight his resurrected father. Afro dies yes that's right he dies by being strangled of all things because he doesn't want to fight his father. Then Kuma gets all sentimental and wants to protect Afro and attacks the clone father and is severly damaged in the fight. Sio seeing her brother hurt attacks the clone father as well and here comes the lamest death of all. The clone father, in the middle of an attack by Sio, grabs the remains of Kuma shoves them in front of Sio stopping her from attacking. He is then able to stab Sio thru Kuma killing both of them leaving them to comfort each other in their last little moments. Seriously WTF just happened everyone's dead but wait during all this chit chat between the siblings the sparks from Kuma revive Afro and he is able to kill his clone father. Snatch that's it.

I was really looking forward to a great fight between Afro and Sio or at least another one between Afro and Kuma but Sio's death was really lame. All that lead up in the beginning to be simply stabbed in the chest so freaking easily. What a waste of a hot animated body I tell ya. I know it was more important to the over all story for him to have killed his father in the end but I just felt let down by Sio's death, but thankfully that's the only thing I didn't like about the show everything else was pretty much epic awesomeness like the first season.

And like the last season you'll definitely have to either rent or buy the DVD to get some added scenes and stuff after all they have no problems showing Afro taking a guy's face off but the sexy stuff has to go on the DVD along with even more gory content. Thankfully there wont be an ass long wait to see it on DVD as it will be out on the 3rd of February. I'll probably be picking it up along with the first season.

Ah another week that just flew by without making much of a stir in the cosmos. It is officially the New Year now (Chinese New Year was today/yesterday) and I'm almost tempted to post another anime fanservice goody new year image but I have something more interesting (well sort of) to post for this week.

Even though I was still sick (well still had the horrid cough) last week it wasn't all cough sleep cough cough work cough and no fun. There was actually quit a bit of fun and goodies this week as two of my four eBay purchases showed up this week. The best one was of course the new to me 50mm Sigma Macro lens that I got from Costa Rica for a sweet deal thanks to my kind housemate letting me borrow some money before my refund was deposited this next week. More on the lens later. Also arrived are the two new Masu cups for the traditional drinking of the Sake that is Still in the frig from the Seattle trip. I do have to seal up one of the cups as it leaks but the other one was fine. The other two items should be showing up at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week.

In addition to those items I was able to make it to the 10th anniversary of the anime club on Saturday and I got as a door prize a moe moe sticker and a Stratos 4 anime pencil board which I haven't seen yet but might add it to the Netflix queue later. In addition to that I also won as a door prize the DVD for Azumi a girl samurai movie that I've been waiting forever for Netflix to get but now I don't have to (well other than waiting for Azumi 2 now) there was some other stuff as well to chose from but that's what I wanted. It was fun but very crowded though.

Which of course brings us to the end of the week and one of the coolest things of the month and that is Spike's airing of Afro Samurai: Resurrection which was pretty damn awesome and of course I'll talking about that later as well. I'll definitely be picking this up on DVD when it hits shelves on February 3rd. It did kind of suck though as they started playing the original series afterwards and I missed that as I was on my way work at that point. So if you don't mind me I'm going to go cough some more and look forward to next week when hopefully I won't be coughing so much.

DVD special episodes can be quit the entertaining show especially the ones that come packed with fanservice goodness and Episode 6.5 of Zero no Tsukaima ~Princesses no Rondo~ is no exception to that.

The only plot to this episode is that the boys found some earth swimsuits and persuade the lovely ladies into wearing at first one piece swimsuits to appease the goddess (I think it was a goddess I really wasn't paying attention to that) of the ocean. It's like going from the the 1920s era swimsuit to the 1990s era one piece pretty significant change for the ladies. The guys are just happy. Then comes the two piece swimsuits and much nose bleeding occurs. Then the girls find out that it was all just a scam by the guys to get them to wear the swimsuits (the next day was just going to be strings and shells) so the boys get taught a lesson of course. Of course what goes best with girls in next to nothingness but wriggling tenticals and what better way to go about that on a beach other than tossing a giant Octopus into the mix to snagg all the lovely girls while the boys are tied up learning their lesson. The girls of course get saved in the end and end up wearing those itty bitty shell bikinis.

To be honest I haven't even seen the third season of this show (currently only watching the first season at the anime club) so I have no idea how this even fits into the series but from what I heard about the OVA from everyone else I just couldn't pass it up while I was waiting for people to get around to subbing the OVAs for Kamen no Maid Guy and Koihime Musou which also promised to be chuck full of fanservice goodness. Admittedly I did just watch it for the fanservice but it did also have a good laugh or two in it as well but lets not mince words these fanservice OVAs are good for one thing getting you to buy the DVD which of course works now doesn't it.

I'll be the first to admit that I really enjoy watching Soul Eater and even though I've fallen behind on watching it due to no one subbing the late show version I thought it was cool that FUNimation had picked it up and had recently released a commercial trailer for their release.

Well that was until I actually watched the trailer and wanted to ram q-tips into my ears so that I could forget just how horrid the trailer was. The narrator is a retard and has the worst voice over ever and half the crap that he is spewing from his lips isn't even right about the show. You just have to watch it your self to see just how freaking horrible it is. Yeah no wonder people don't want to watch anime in America if they look at trailers like this they think the show is shit and not worth watching, hell I could have done a better job. When you're promoting your product you really want people to like it and not want to run screaming from their rooms in abject horror because of it. I definitely think they need to redo the trailer get rid of the narrator voice over and just try something else before people decide that Soul Eater will suck because of the trailer.

Here's FUNimations own trailer for it Sucky trailer 1
If that doesn't work for you try here Sucky trailer 2

Apparently here is a little side note that I just found out. FUNimation said in a comment on the YouTube video that this trailer was provided to them from their Japanese licensor so we have to wait and see if Funimation gets the hint and does something much much better to make up for this atrocity to Soul Eater.

It's been a very long time since I've seen Wicked City. To be honest I watched it with my first college dorm roommate back in 96 or 97 and that was the only time I've seen it. A while ago I thought about looking for it on DVD and I couldn't find anything other than some Korean gray market DVDs which really sucked yet last week it popped up out of no where on the Internet and I just had to grab it so that I could watch it again. Now if someone would just do the same for Psycho Diver and BioHunter that would be great (it would be better if they would just re-release them on DVD but that's probably not going to happen) and then I'd be able to toss my VHS copies of those two movies finally.

Wicked City is of course the story of Two Black Guard members who are sent to protect a VIP who is necessary to ensure the signing of the peace treaty between our world and the demon world. The two guards are a human named Taki (male) and the other is a demon named Maki (female) and during their job of protecting the VIP (who has a thing for the naughty girls) they fight off several demons who are out to break up the peace process and in doing so Maki and Taki are separated. Taki takes off and leaves the VIP in protective custody so that he can go back and save Maki. Well turns out that the VIP wasn't the one being protected he was the one protecting those two as they were meant to get together and hook up and make a baby hopefully. It works and they are able to defeat the bad guys and go to the peace process.

Since it's a much older movie this actually does have a fair amount of nudity, simulated sex and bloody gore galore yet it's not even close to being as bad as some of today's videos in comparison really. I also miss these older types of more adult natured animes that don't often get made anymore it seems. Sure you get your Hentai over here and gory stuff over there but nothing like a good strong R rated 90 minute OVA that has it all like Wicked City does. That's why I wanted to find these older animes on DVD so that I could enjoy them in better quality but that's turning out to be harder than I expected. Oh well it was nice to finally get to watch it again in any case.

Don't regret dying or hold on to any attachments as you move onto the other side or you may come back as a corpse. You'll then find yourself in the crosshairs of some hottie undead corpse princess who's sole job is to kill 108 corpse so that she may make her own journey to heaven.

Pretty nifty idea actually and it didn't make all that bad of an anime show either. In fact I'd say it was one of the better shows of the season and Funimation liked it so much that they just had to go and gobble up the licensing rights to it as soon as they could so that they could stream it on YouTube where I finished watching it myself. I've already mentioned the funimation stuff in an earlier post so wont go over that again but Shikabane Hime: Aka is definitely a must watch series that is still continuing as we speak for another 13 episodes as Shikabane Hime: Kuro and if anyone would like to explain to me what in the world Aka and Kuro have to do with the series that would be greatly appreciated. I know the words mean red and black but I don't see how they work in the title other than there is a lot of red and black in the anime. Or could it be some elaborate part 1 and part 2 name scheme?

Whatever the case it doesn't have anything to do with the actual show which is about undead female corpses who are contracted with priests to kill other undead corpses so that the girls can go to heaven once they have killed 108 corpses. That's the plot in a nutshell but of course nothing ever goes as planned and a group of very powerful corpses called the Shichisei who are out to destroy the group of priests and Shikabane Himes (known collectively as the Kougon cult). In the middle of this great battle we have our main players Makina our duel Mac10 welding Hime who is contracted with the pervert priest Keisei and poor everyday average guy Ouri where the majority of the anime focuses on. Ouri has a bad habit of finding his way to the undead corpses with the help of the dead cat from his childhood (does anyone know who or what the cat actually is? Is it a part of the Shichisei group?) and in doing so he learns of the bond between his adoptive brother priest Keisei and Makina leading him to be in the middle and often at odds with the Kougon cult becoming the focal point of the last events of the first 13 episodes. Sadly Keisei dies protecting Ouri and the other orphans at his place and ends up giving Ouri his contract with Makina so that she can finish her goal of killing the Shichisei group (who killed her and her family).

What can I say about Shikabane Hime that countless others haven't already said in order to get you to watch this rather outstanding show other than you can feel good about yourself for watching it though one of Funimation's feeds and not being an evil pirater of the anime fansubs. There is that I guess but honestly this must be seen in high quality on a bigger screen to be enjoyed the most and look forward to the next season already underway and going a bit more towards some extra fanservice as well with an Otaku cosplaying Hime and an even more perverted priest than Keisei was (seriously it's possible). I wonder when funimation will release the series on DVD (and how) and also there isn't any word (that I can find) on a state side manga release either.

I can has fanservice goodness. Kemeko DX! is pretty much a turn off the brain enjoy the fanservice and definitely don't take this show seriously enough to worry about the plot holes and lack of anything substantial or innovative. It was fun to watch and laugh at some of the just out there wacky crap that makes up a good majority of the show.

So what is Kemeko DX! Well it's actually Kemeko Deluxe for starters and it's a manga that I may have to look up in order to find out what exactly it was that I watched as the season ends on a pretty good TBC note. Other than that it's a pretty simple story of a girl who gives a boy she likes a very important item and comes back 10 years later piloting an itty bitty chubby robot in order to protect him from the Mishima empire who wants to get back the item that was given to the boy. Kemeko is the name of the robot piloted by the girl named MM who declares that she is the fiance of Sanpeita the boy with the important item as she crash lands in his bedroom one day. After which Kemeko follows Sanpeita round protecting him from the many minions of the Mishima Corporation as they go about their daily life at home and at school. Toss in the well endowed childhood friend with the crush the rich loli with a touch of Yuri and a few other interesting cast members and you get a combination that leads to a good mindless comedy show with a fairly decent amount of insane action to keep you watching every week. And while it definitely isn't epic in quality or storytelling you just can't help but laugh and keep on watching it waiting for the next crazy scene to fly out of no where.

I do have to mention that any time it zoomed out on Sanpeita I just couldn't help but think of Boba Fett because for some odd reason they gave him this T looking expression for his face I don't know why but that's just what came to mind when I saw that. I did think the kemeko robot idea was pretty unique and cool and might end up getting the figure if I can find one that isn't a rip off. Did find an interesting Kemeko DX! calendar on eBay though, might pick that up if it's still there when I get my tax refund. Like I said Kemeko DX! is a good mindless entertain show that I wouldn't mind watching a second season of and would easily recommend this for a good laugh. Will we see this state side? Who knows, but I'd watch it again if it did.

This week was a toss up between being an utter shitty one to one that was pretty good. The bad part was getting sick...again...thanks to the co-worker who probably brought back a different strain of the cold that I already had. Spent the better part of the week coughin and hacking up a lung again. Saturday and Sunday were the worst because I couldn't get any sleep really during those two days, making me really tired right now. That's the bad part the good part is that I got paid on Friday and had enough money to get a couple real sake wood cups and to get another figure. More on those when they arrive. My taxes were also accepted by the IRS so my refund is on it's way so more goodies will be ordered and on their way.

Also this week was the season premier of the last season of Battlestar Galactica which means answers to all those questions. Only problem with that is they gave us more new questions than they did answers to old questions. Like the fact that Starbuck isn't the fifth cylon however she did die and come back so what's the deal with that. The fifth cylon turned out to actually be Ellen, Ty's dead wife, something I never even thought of. Also with the other new cylons we find out that they were actually all living on the planet that they found however it also turned out that the planet was nuked 2000 years ago. So that gave us a massive WTF question there but all that wasn't the biggest OMFGWTF!!!! moment of the episode no that came with the hottie "Dee" offing herself with a single gunshot to the head after going on a date with Apollo. Anyways it looks like this will definitely be the end all of series ending seasons.

Now I just need to go medicate my self some more, stop coughing and wait for my money to be deposited thank goodness that weeks over hopefully I'll get better soon. So until next week stay safe and healthy.

This last season seemed to be chuck full of comedic school life shows and Hyakko is just another one that I've recently finished. It didn't seem to get much fan far even though I thought it would receive a massive amount of fan far considering the voice talents but it seems lately that it's gotten a bit more interest from the fans but almost most of that is coming from the Yuri crowd which considering one of the girls in the show proclaims herself to be bisexual in the second episode isn't entirely unwarranted. Mind you there is zip for fooling around but there is just a bit of fanservice. Most everything though is entirely comedic in nature. However due to a rather lackluster first episode I believe people dismissed this show without giving it a chance.

Hyakko is really a fun and enjoyable show once you get past the first episode and those that didn't give it a chance missed out on one of the funnier shows in my opinion. It's a great non thinker show as you follow a group of high school girls as they become friends and of course cause trouble for others and themselves. While there is a large cast of girls there are four main ones Toraka who is the main lead and all around troublemaker and her right hand girl Suzume who is her BFF and follows her everywhere. After those two you have the shy cute girl Ayumi and the prim and proper Tatsuki all of which have names that correspond to the Chinese constellations which I wasn't aware of until I read the wiki entry on the show. The four main girls often interact with the rest of the girls doing all sorts of interesting things much to the dismay of their teacher.

Like I said I thought this was one of the funnier shows of the season and enjoyed it a lot and hope that it gets licensed so that others can enjoy it as well. Definitely don't get stuck on the first episode and if you have to check out the third episode as it's one of better episodes. One of the interesting things about the ending couple of episodes is that you find out about Torako's troubled home life in one of the only serious episodes of the series that at the ends shows just how close all the girls have become so far and with that you have a good ending with episode 12. But it's not done with episode 12 no there's another episode and it's a bit different in what it does as it comes full circle and goes back to how each girl started high school in what I thought was a good idea because you see how life has changed for all the girls during the series that way.

Even though Japanese Otaku are tearing up their Kannagi manga and not purchasing the DVDs over the possibility that their little sweetheart goddess might not be "pure" I still think Nagi (our main shrine goddess/maiden in the series) is a virgin and even if she wasn't she is definitely not a slut as some cough cough 4chan cough cough fans have come to call her. Plus one reasonable person (there are very few of them) on 4chan gave the best reason of all for her to still be a virgin, and that's because she was "reborn" when she sprung to life from the wood carved idol that Jin made that started this whole mess. Now that that is out of the way lets get to what I think of Kannagi the anime since I haven't even took one look at the manga at all.

Kannagi: Crazy Shrine Maidens was easily one of the more enjoyable good time animes of this last season. Kannagi starts off with Jin inadvertently creating Nagi by carving up a piece of a sacred tree setting Nagi loose on the world to cleanup impurities and cause poor Jin all sorts of trouble. Nagi ends up living with Jin as his "relative" and when she gets bored with that she starts attending school causing Jin even more trouble. This of course leads to all manner of interesting and funny situations much to the chagrin of Jin's childhood friend Tsugumi who has a secret crush on him and sees Nagi as a rival for his attention. Soon along comes another shrine maiden Zange (who got there by possessing the daughter of the religious studies teacher of the school) who likes to sell confessions for a hundred yen and also has plans to become a successful idol and wants Jin for herself because it will infuriate Nagi the most. Zangi and Nagi are related goddesses of the city that is split in two by the river and they often compete against each other for the attention of the people (in order to survive they need people to believe in them). Toss in a few extra friends (the art club) and you get a funny little show that follows the dynamic bounding relationships that grow during the year that they are all together.

To be honest I really think Kannagi had some of the best second string characters of the season. the "Otaku" president of the Art club was definitely my favorite character of the series though. She was just a bit more interesting than the rest of them and being super cute didn't hurt either. After her I liked Nagi and the rest really seemed a bit too generic in personalities really . Over all though it all worked out to create an enjoyable fun mindless entertainment series that I hope will get licensed as I would really like to see it again on DVD and who knows with the way it was treated in Japan maybe it'll have better luck here in the states and cross your fingers be an affordable complete set. Here's to hoping and also a quick wish of good health and recovery to the creator of the Kannagi manga may she recover completely and hopefully return to doing the manga.

Diebuster, Gunbuster 2 or Aim for the Top 2 whatever you want to call it I recently finished the series thanks to Netflix and I have to say it was better than I thought it would be. To be honest prior to Gurren Lagann I wasn't much into large Mecha shows like Gunbuster but after Gurren Lagann and a bunch of recommendations and finding out that it was done by some of the same folks who did FLCL I decided to add Gunbuster 2 to my netflix queue and it took a while for it to reach the number one spot. For those who hate dubbs don't worry this release is only available in subtitles which means I had to pay attention to the show while watching it at home.

Gunbuster 2 is one of those massively huge space battle animes with massively huge mechas with an even larger out of this world enemy. Gunbuster 2 also had on it's side a pretty well done plot. It would be just better to read the wiki article to completely understand the plot but the gist of it is that a wayward young lady Nono (who is actually an android) wants to be a space pilot. She ends up hooking up with the super special teenager space pilots after a chance encounter and ends up fighting a lot of space monsters and in the process of all that ends up learning about her true identity and surprisingly in the thick of things seems to turn and run away leaving the other space pilots to fend for all of humanity (with the Earth as a weapon I kid you not). However, right before the end all end all battle Nono returns as a freaking HUGE Nono and finishes the end battle herself ending up sacrificing herself to protect everyone else.

Gunbuster 2 is definitely a recommendable series to watch even if you're like me and don't really care all that much for the giant robot shows but this had a good bit of massive overkill action and a good deal of comedy and just a touch of fanservice, Nono takes the whole Topless pilot thing just a bit too seriously, tossed in for good measure. You can even see the FLCL influence here and there as well. Also it's short and sweet and to the point with no time wasted on retardedly stupid and boring things. There is a lot of good stuff and if you haven't seen it you really should.

I hate that damn censor bear and bat. Probably the biggest grip that I have about the second season of Rosario + Vampire is the over use of the censor bear and bat to cover up most of the gratuitous fanservice that pretty much defines Rosario + Vampire as a mindless guilty pleasure show. Of course they did that to hopefully drive up DVD sales but I wonder if it really helped in the end or just made fans not care for the show.

So what else is there to say about Rosario + Vampire Capu 2 really other than fanservice fanservice and more fanservice. The plot was rather lacking it didn't follow the manga and it introduced a second string cast member who honestly could have been left out entirely. This season we met Moka's little sister (she has two older sisters as well) who wants to turn the pink haired Moka back into her more powerful Vampire princess Moka and have her to her self. Not only do we meet her but we also meet the parents of the other main cast members and they are just like adult versions of their children really. The kids go on a few field trips which is nice change of scenery really and of course we can't miss out on the fight of the week.

Like last season the last couple of episodes are the ZOMG bad things are happening and this time it's up to Tsukune to help out Moka as she used her cross to help prevent the collapse of the barrier separating the real world and the Monster academy. Thus permanently turning the pink haired Moka in to the Super Moka which doesn't sit well with Tsukune. In order to get the pink haired Moka back Tsukune has to confront her father (the big #1 baddy whoohoo) the Vampire king or whatever and get another cross from her father. Of course a fight between the two breaks out and FINALLY Tsukune uses his monster powers that Moka gave him last season but still he still gets owned by papa vamp and yet surprise surprise still manages to get the cross and give it back to Moka thus ending the second season.

Will we see a third season? Honestly I really hope not as two is enough. Unless of course they just say screw it let's just do a henti this time. Now that it's over I can say yes I enjoyed the funny bits and the limited fanservice and it was a great time waster with your brain turned off but by no means is this an epic win or even a you gotta watch this. But it's just good enough. Will we see this or the first season state side? Who knows, we do have the manga already so we just might if the manga does well.

Managed to accomplish a good number of things this week. First of all I got my taxes done and submitted and looking at a nice hefty refund of $943 combined. It's just sucky that it won't be here any time soon since they don't start processing the filed taxes until Jan 16 and then it will be 8 business days after that until I receive the refund so I'm looking at the end of January before I get to go on a shopping spree.

Also this week I fixed my chair which decided to break a few weeks back so now I can actually lean back in my chair again without the possibility of falling over on my ass. Of course that's what you get when you buy a $50 Walmart office chair which uses plastic as the main support structure. It's fixed now so I'm not worried about it. Along with fixing the chair I also upgraded my computer. Feeling just a bit of jealousy towards the housemate's awesome new computer I purchased a 3.2ghz cpu for my computer to speed it up a bit and maybe help the stupid audio from sucking so bad. Sure the computer works better but the audio still sucks. Oh and now Windows Media Player is having issues and doesn't like running anymore. Working on fixing that at the moment.

I finished up the week by taking some more pictures of my Yoko figure (one for the blog and a couple more test shoots) and one of the things that I'm definitely picking up with my refund is a new lens for close up work. The lenses that I have now are great for big things not so much as you can tell for the small things. I also uploaded a ton of older images to flickr as well this week, more people than cars though. I also went to the weekly anime club meeting were I actually won something from the prize chest. I went with the soundtrack to FLCL haven't played it yet though. I'll be honest though the kid who kept pestering EVERYONE who won that day to trade his losing ticket for our winning ticket was seriously annoying and was looking to get a swift kick to the head if he didn't stop. I can maybe see asking in a joking manner once but when you keep asking me three...four times that's making a total ass out of yourself and totally not cool or acceptable manners.

Anyways it's off to make my refund shopping list and find a bunch of hottie of the day pictures. I was looking for this week's theme and thought I'd do a Playboy Bunny costume one for this week.

Lost in the year end postings I should of done the review of Yozakura Quartet a while ago actually. Considering I finished it right around Christmas time, For shame I know. It deserved better than that and sadly that's the truth about this anime. It didn't get near as much interest as I thought it should have.

I suspect that one of the main reasons it didn't get a lot of notice is that there is little to no fanservice (there isn't much fanmade fanservice either) for the boys to drool over while there is great potential for it. After all the Mayor (who's a teenage female) tends to travel around the city by jumping (in a short skirt) from roof top to roof top and the majority of the cast is entirely female. Everything else pointed to it being a good show but hardly anyone talked about it and 4chan hated it (not that you should EVER take 4chan's anime ratings or watching habits seriously).

The things it had going for it was a decent plot (if a well used one) and good characters. It was set in a town that is co-habitated by humans and Youkai and protected by a group of teenagers with Youkai and superhuman powers. Fighting against the teenagers (and the entire town) is a powerful Youkai that has possessed the body of the groups friend and wants to destroy the town and bring the Youkai world into the human world. Of course battles ensue and all manner of fun stuff happens. That's a pretty basic run down of the plot really. You can read more about it at the wiki link up above.

I enjoyed the show it was interesting and entertaining and kept me returning for more and of course I really liked the gun nut Kotoha. I mean a girl that can pull out a freaking railway cannon out of thin air with her voice is just awesome in my book. Actually there are a lot of like able characters in this show (something for everyone) and I think that helped it out as well. I noticed that the manga is licensed here in the states so I might check that out as well. Of course no news on if the anime is getting licensed but in this economy I don't think it will be not for a while anyways.

Oh My God! That's pretty much my reaction after watching the first two episode of Ga-Rei Zero. The reason for that is simple really the entire promoted cast was wiped out at the end of both episodes. Episode three was looking like the same thing was going to happen then when episode four aired it went into flash back mode giving us the reason why the second lead character Yomi killed off the casts of the previous two episodes. Ga-Rei Zero is actually a prequel anime to the manga series Ga-Rei or The Enchanted Spiritual Beast Ga-Rei.

The rest of the anime that follows the third episode shows us the back history of Kagura the main lead in the manga and her friend Yomi as they develop their friendship over time until Yomi is corrupted by the death stone and starts to kill off the entire Agency that the two of them belonged to. Around the last four episodes it comes full swing back to the ending of the third episode and the fight from the third episode continues. At the end of the last episode it tosses us two years into the future with Kagura and her new partner as they begin the fight that is shown in the first chapter of the manga. After Kagura kills Yomi the person responsible for turning Yomi in the first place wonders if the stone did grant Yomi's wish to protect Kagura as Kagura finally gained the strength necessary to kill anything in her path since she killed the most important person to her. I think it did.

Ga-Rei Zero was definitely one of the more out there shows of the year with the way they dealt with the first promotions of the series but I really think it worked out for the better for those that stuck around after the third episode (I heard a lot of people dropped it because the didn't want to see one cast after another killed off) if you're one of those people who didn't stick around to finish off the show you really do owe it to yourself to finish the series. It definitely made me interested in the manga which might have been the entire point behind the show in the first place who knows. I also wouldn't mind seeing more Ga-Rei anime either but I don't know if that will happen. Haven't heard anything about licensing of either the manga or the anime so I don't have high hopes for seeing it released state side but think it might do alright if it did.

On an entirely unrelated issue though were the weapon designs. Have to say they were definitely some of the more original ideas that I've seen in a while and the lady in the wheelchair with the minigun leg was downright freaking awesome. It was actually nice to see that those two characters survived their battle with Yomi as well at the end.

My only experience with the Touhou Project was with the occasional post on the /jp board on 4chan and the images that are all over the internet so I had no idea what I was going to be getting my self into with watching Touhou Anime Project: A Summers Day Dream. An entirely fan made anime coming out during Comiket 75 but nonetheless I downloaded it and watched it to see what all the fuss was about.

As an unofficial fan made anime I wasn't expecting epic quality or really any quality at all when watching it but as it turns out it wasn't entirely that bad not epic quality for sure but the backgrounds were really well done and the girls while they looked a bit chubby (not entirely a bad thing) and occasionally a bit oddly drawn they weren't horrible looking either and they had a full range of motion and emotion. I've seen worse professionally made anime than this so I give it a single thumbs up for quality.

Story wise the plot was alright, but I thought this would be a stand alone episode instead I was greated with a TBC next episode ending. Kind of disappointed in that because really who knows when or even if another episode will come out. Overall though I would have to say this is a pretty fun to watch little episode that I think people should check out whether or not they are interested in the Touhou Project. Of course being fan made and unofficial this anime will definitely never make it to the US for public viewing so I'd suggest downloading it or finding it on youtube as I don't think you can even purchase it any more even if you wanted to as it was only released during Comiket 75.

One of the more interesting things about the show is that I found out that the lovely Shameimaru Aya (pictured above) is a Journalist and Photographer which automatically makes her my favorite among the cast. After all I went to school to be a Journalist myself originally and fancy myself as a photographer so she's a bit of an anime idol for me.

For those of you with short attention spans and for those who think the other post was TL/DR how about one with just numbers.

I posted 192 blog entrees last year.

Since July 21 my blog had 8,165 visits, 10,665 page views with a high of 93 visits in one day according to Google's Analytics

When ever I started using AdSense it shows that I've had 23,152 page impressions with 97 clicks earning me a whooping grand total of $14.39.

Flickr on the other hand has had 13,828 views with a total of 667 pictures with the most viewed going to an Infiniti G35 Coupe right on it's heels though is the Ruger 10/22.

Last but not least is YouTube with a total uploaded video count of 122 (down from last years 200+) videos and I can't make any since of YouTube's insight program but my videos are mostly popular with the older crowd and people seem to really like that Audi TT run on the Salt Flats.

For things not related to the blog though.

I shot thousands of rounds of ammo

Watched hundreds of hours of anime

Drove thousands of miles

Flew for the first time

Went on two trips

Took hundreds of pictures

Took several hours of autocross videos

Went to several car shows

Fixed or helped fix two cars (several times)

Purchased 7 different anime related figures

Was sick twice

Slept a lot

Worked a lot

Played a lot

Visited with my Grandma a lot

Lost one horrible housemate

Gained one great housemate

Watched the neighborhood park catch on fire twice

Last but not least Mourned the passing of one very special loved one, my mother.

Oh yeah sat in front of the computer WAY TO MUCH!

Enjoy Ruby Chan from Rosario + Vampire as she said it best "Lots of things have happened" well it's something like that anyways.

Yeah OK so it took me a bit longer to get around to doing the year end review but here it is. This was actually a busy year and a down right hum dinger of a year. It was filled with happy memories and sad memories. Fun times and I can't believe that just happened times. I pretty much gave up on myspace early in the year and started blogging and this is were we are now.

The beginning of the year saw the removal of one retard housemate and the moving in of a much better housemate. I was also sick in early part of the year with the same thing that I was sick with the last couple weeks. I also had a fun lovely skin problem on my hands which was NASTY. This year I hope to prevent that with lots of moisturizer.

There was a ton of car action this year learned to replace the engine in a Mazda RX-8 and a stupid little piece of metal in my Lumina which required the removal of the steering column and a lot more money than it should have been. Also went to a lot of car shows and a lot of Autocross events. Even managed to watch some extra motorsport events thanks to torrents.

Went on a few trips this year more than I've been on in some time really even went on my first plane trip as well. Went to Reno for a good friends wedding and had a great time. Also went to Seattle by car with the housemate to pick up an extra set of rims for the RX-8 and to enjoy a good time. Also got to unleash my inner Otaku and Porschephile just a bit. Also learned that Mango is bad for a road trip.

This was also the first year that I started purchasing anime figures. I'm up to 7 lil figures now and adding more here and there. Of course this has both slowed down the purchase of diecast cars (only 4 total this year) and Star Wars action figures. But that's OK. Also this year I inherited and bought several different firearms. I inherited my grandfathers police revolver and holster and I purchased and customized a Ruger 10/22 along with a Mossberg Maverick 88 shotgun. Managed to get a fair bit of shooting in during the year as well which was a nice thing. You know if I would have known there was an indoor range in 2002 I'd still have another pistol to go shooting with as well but that's just how things happen I guess.

Did manage to get in a good deal of photography and even one paying job as well even though that paying job sucked some serious donkey balls it was for a good cause even if it was a bit late. Loved photographing cars during the year though and think a good amount of them came out really well. Still need to do some more work on it though. This year I also changed from Fotki which was a pain to use really to the much more powerful and friendly Flickr for my picture hosting needs. Lately I also switched to IGoogle and GMail away from my.yahoo and yahoo mail. I thought it was time to change once I started getting spam mail from myself. That and yahoo was really starting to SUCK at the spam guard wanting you to instead pay for some more advanced mail program.

With all the good things going on it felt like a great year sure the other housemate owed me $300 and stole my stuff but meh he's gone and there's nothing I can do about it but move on right nothing else will happen this year to ruin it right. No in fact quit the opposite happened. As far as it goes this year SUCKED so much more than last year when my grandfather passed away from a chest infection. Things like this are just not supposed to happen but in late June my mom was diagnosed with Brain Cancer and by the end of September she was gone. Yeah it was just that fast.

And that was 2008 in a nut shell. well there was a lot of work, a lot of sleep and a hole ton of anime watching in there as well. But here is to the new year and new times. May this year be void of any more family deaths or broken cars.

Ended up realizing that I was taking entirely to long with the Best and Worst of 2008 so decided to finish the rest of them off with this little round up of sorts.

B&W Firearms related things: Definitely the worst news of 2008 is the election. It's going to be a war on guns and the President can keep his promise because he's just going to let all his little Democratic gun haters do all the work for him as he just sits back and watch. Some stupid anti-gun group is even calling for a ban on big bore hunting handguns because some idiot in Mexico killed a cop with one and now they are saying that criminals are getting these guns because they can defeat bullet proof vests. Blah blah blah they are a bunch of idiots who will jump at any thing to try and get rid of any type of gun no matter what the truth actually is about it. The best thing of 2008 is of course that I got more guns my friends got more guns and we all had a fun time plinking about.

B&W motorsports related things: Itasha in my motorsports? I got to watch a little bit of Super GT and the Porsche Carrera Cup of Asia this year thanks to Torrents but I still missed a bunch of stuff but during this year a couple of the Super GT cars had anime figures on them called Itasha so it's cool to see them getting a little bit of exposure in motorsports and maybe we'll see a bit more next year. The bad news is that thanks to the economy being in the toilet several pro racing groups are pulling out of the large races. Audi is pulling out of ALMS Porsche is pulling its P2 teams out of everything a handful of teams are out of F1 and the list just keeps growing. And it sucks.

B&W internet related things: Hello the absolute best of the year for the Internet has to go to Moko.cc it's awesome and the girls are just so darn cute. The worst of course are the idiots posting up crap on chan sites trying to be complete idiots with hacking and other nasty business and those that have sites to share things but make you jump through hoops to share and often times infecting your computer along the way. They suck and they can die horrible nasty deaths for all I care. But definitely visit Moko.cc for so nice stuff.

B&W photography related things: I took a lot of pictures this year and it was a great time I still need to learn some things and acquire a few things to do a bit better next year (plan on buying a new lens for the DSLR with Tax refund) and to just get out and practice some more. On the sucky side I took a job that I really didn't want to do but did anyways so that I could have some money to visit my mom but only ended up running my self ragged trying to get the money only to find out that it was just to late. That sucked.

OK so I believe that pretty much concludes my Best & Worst of 2008 posting so that I can move on to tomorrow's Year end review...FINALLY!

First weekly review of the new year. This week was a bit of a toss up as I changed my schedule so that I could party on New Year's Eve and have some fun. In order to do that I picked up a Saturday shift in the morning. Which meant no anime watching and no blogging since the big boss was even there showing a Japanese couple around. I think it was a guy looking to invest but I really think this would be a hugely bad time to start investing in the Hotel industry unless you are trying to get in cheap and hope that it rebounds soon. Still that's not a wise gamble.

Anyways back to the party. Went to a friends house for the New Years party and took the DSLR and camcorder but didn't take pictures of much (pictures still in camera, been a bit lazy) or video of much and once I looked at them sober honestly they weren't all that great. Had a good time but didn't drink much as I was planning on driving home later in morning when I was sober so just enjoyed watching others make a fool of them selves and the two "gay" guys make out with more girls then the straight guys which is always interesting to watch for the lolz. Of course there was more lolz coming from the annoying guy who even had a girl rather fall face first to the ground than get kissed by him at midnight. Poor thing. When I finally went home (sober of course) I could hear sirens in the distance apparently 33 people were arrested for DUI's that night.

Worked the next day then had another day off then worked that Saturday morning. That was a cluster fuck because the girl who was going to work 3-11 wanted to trade me but then some where in the communications she told be she would get back to me if she didn't want to trade so I ended up being late and not only that but when I came out to my car the stupid tire was flat so had to quickly change that before I could head off to work. It's interesting driving on a donut as every imperfection in the road is found and amplified by that donut making it rather interesting driving. Work was boring as I couldn't do what I normally do at work but at least I was able to make it to the Anime club meeting at relax for a bit. Of course I didn't take my car and took the roommate's Subaru so that he had an excuse to take the Black RX-8 out (after replacing the bunge plug ...tightly) and of course the curse of my car breaks his car breaks and vice verse happened yet again as even he got a flat tire while out driving. At least they're just flat tires and nothing to serious.

And that just brings me to a peaceful ending to the first week of the year. Yes I missed a day but I'm making up for it later by posting again today as I did look at the year end thing but am going to instead wrap up my Best & Wost of 2008 in just one post as I'm getting tired of doing them and I have a ton (well OK about 5) anime reviews to do now. Since I don't have any pictures for this week how about a lovely lady from Moko.cc? How also this weeks theme for Hottie of the day is...Girls in pants and high heels. It's an awesome combination when done right.

Welcome to the first post of the year and hopefully one of 260 posts of the year. That's right being as how it is the first of the year it's time to make some resolutions for the new year. Well actually I'm more of a goal setter than a resolution setter and one of the first goals that I'm setting is to post 260...er 259 times or more during the coming year. Why 260 times? Well that means that I'll have to post 5 times a week (once per work day) at least. I figure that's a good goal to set for the blog. That also means 260 lovely ladies to keep you happy during the year as well.

Right now that's the only goal that I have set in stone at the moment because I haven't given much thought yet to what I want to accomplish in the new year. Probably one of them should be to not be as lazy and get more things done than I did last year.

However that doesn't mean we can't look forward to what 2009 might have in store for us. The roommate is looking at buying a house which means a move to a new place which might help the both of us out. I'll be able to get my stuff out of storage (yeah more toys and books) and save a little bit of money hopefully. We'll all get a new President and political douchebagger, honestly that's exactly what's going to happen and not all of it's going to be the Presidents fault either I see congress making a mess of things. A new season of autocross and car shows which means more opportunities for pictures and videos. There is also Battlestar Galactica ending this year. And hopefully a lot of good changes all around to help better man kind blah blah blah all that good junk will happen as well. Tomorrow I'm going to review the last year and write up the year end review and get on the ball about making some short term and long term goals for the coming year.

Also before I forget you see those lovely ladies of Gurren Lagann up there cosplaying as cows? Well that's to celebrate 2009 the year of the OX and here is what the Chinese zodiac says about the year of the OX. Rather interesting read really but then I'm a fire snake myself so we'll just see how this year works out.