Yes more Yoko from Gurren Lagann greatness. On May 27, 2009 the spectacular Kirameki Yoko Box ~ Pieces of sweet stars was released and I'm busily hunting down a good quality version of the DVD to download until someone hits on the great idea to release a version to us Yoko Hungry viewers in the States. I'd almost order the Japanese version IF I had a region 2 or region free DVD player but I don't so I have to cross my fingers and hope they release it here in the states. Damn them all to hell if they don't. So what exactly is the Kirameki Yoko Box? It's a collectors item that contains a new character single CD with the new song Pieces of Sweet Stars a DVD with a bunch of cool stuff including the Yoko animated music video and a pretty large fanbook that I'm assuming is just chuckfull of Yoko greatness.

I did happen to find an almost 5 minute long cut of the music video on YouTube which I've posted that includes an eye full of epic Yoko fanservice and I'm particularly happy about seeing Yoko as a Race Queen and the hottie naughty dancer outfit is nice too. Well actually it's all nice and something for everyone really. The cameos are great too. Watch it, enjoy it, and BUY IT if it's available in your area.

FINALLY I got around to watching the third round of the Autobacs Super GT round 3 @ the Fuji Speedway. Actually ended up taking it to work to watch it since I just wasn't finding any time while at home to watch it.

The third round was definitely the best so far no rain and no yellow flag finishing under caution crap this time out. It was all clean racing with the one expect ion to the first lap smack up between the Calsonic/Impul GTR and the Arta NSX due to the Impul GTR losing traction and flying into the rear of the Arta NSX punting the NSX off track and completely demolishing the Impul front end. That was pretty much it for the Impul GTR even though it was still able to race after going to the pits and getting some tape mods. The Arta NSX fared much better even though it got punted pretty much to the end of the line after hard charging into the front pack from it's starting position.

With the third round being a 400km race (88 laps) two pit stops were required which I didn't know at first until I did some reading after the fact. So imagine my surprise when I started seeing cars pitting after only 23 laps and just about every finished by the 30th lap. I figured it out later when they all started pitting again at around lap 50.

Now lets look at that racing in the GT500 group it was a race for the Nissan GTR's to take back the points from the Lexus SC430s. The Motul GTR was able to take the pole position and with some pit racing (by the pit crews getting their job done quickly and faster than the other teams) and some good luck they were able to pull off the win. However before they could do that they had to do some serious driving to get past the HIS GTR which took the lead in traffic but with the early pitting and some good timing the Petronas SC430 was able to take the lead leaving the Motul GTR and others to fight on in heavy traffic. It's not just the fight between the Motul GTR and the Petronas Sc430 but there are other great fights going on Most notable was the fight between the Enoes and Kraft SC430s and the HIS GTR However the Arta NSX is fighting even harder coming all the way from 7th to finish in third leaving the last of the fights between the HIS GTR and the Eneos Sc430 but in a last ditch effort to get fourth a hard dive to the inside turns out bad for the Eneos as he can't brake soon enough or hard enough for the corner and ends up overcooking the corner and losing a position to the Kraft SC430. With the last lap looming the Petronas SC430 starts to pressure the Motul GTR but isn't able to do anything to keep the Motul GTR from winning the GT500 race.

On the GT300 side of things it was a bit different. The odd duckling Arta Garaiya was on pole for this round and was eventually able to take the win as well. However our plucky little Studie GLAD BMW Z4 was well at the back but was able to finish in 17th ahead of a couple Lamborghinis at least. it did get some good air time not for itself though but as traffic for the GT500 cars. Hey any coverage is good coverage for this car. The Arta Garaiya wasn't always in the lead that honor went to the Daishin Ferrari F430 which is new this year and was able to hold onto the lead for some time. It seemed like the GT300 cars had more issues though going off course more and having a couple issues in the pits. The Privee Apple Shiden was really having issues and wasn't doing all that well neither was the Reckless Lexus IS350. Even the RX-7 stalled in the pits for a second. At least this time all the Lamborghinis were able to stay on the track this time nor "Ford" Lambos this time around. Most of the show was spent on the GT500 cars but the battles that they did show for the GT300 class was the battle between the Upstart 911 and the S Road 350Z we got to follow that battle for a while until it back to GT500 and then later to the Weds IS350 and S Road 350Z. There just wasn't a whole lot going with the GT300 class this time.

A few questions that came up from watching this was what exactly are the hummingbird logos on both the Arta cars for? It looked pretty interesting and since it was on both the cars and the driver's uniforms of both cars it must have something to do with Autobacs. And secondly what exactly are the 320R race cars there are a few of them but I'm not exactly sure what exactly they are. Also why are there not that many replays in Super GT you'd get this little dust up for a split second like when the Weds IS350 got into it with I believe a GTR but they never replay that and I'm sure they discussed it but since I don't understand Japanese I have no idea what happened. A replay would have been good there or any of the many times you get a short off course aftermath shot and what the hell what happened where's my replay but oh well that's just what I get for not knowing enough Japanese.

Anyways that was pretty much the third round of the Super GT race series and look at that I finished it before the next one (June 21st) was run and aired. I'm definitely looking forward to the fourth round. This time the image was provided by another flickr member which you can find their stuff here with a lot more coverage of the third round. I was even able to find this short video which shows the punting of the Arta NSX by the Impul GTR.

Is the third time the charm for the Minami sisters? I don't know the third season of Minami-ke was pretty good but I don't think it was any better than the other season or really any worse I know some people were having some issues with the animation being different for all three of the seasons but most of the time I never even paid any attention to that since I was having to good of a time laughing at the antics of the two younger sisters and their friends.

Minami-ke Okaeri is another slice of life comedy show that continues the many adventures of the three sisters and all of their friends usually it revolves around the Minami sister's home but occasionally they venture out not only to school but also the beach and the city. This season was a lot more like the first season in that it was pretty episodic and jumped around a lot through out the school year. It's kinda weird watching Christmas episodes at the end of May and yeah I know that's more my fault for taking so long to finish the series.

One of the oddest things about this season and this series is that the opening and ending sequences were not at the beginning and ending of the show. The Opening happened about 7 minutes into the episode and the ending happened about 18 minutes into the show. I thought that was a bit weird and probably the only time that I've always watched the Opening and endings of an anime show. Usually after a while I'll just skip them. Anyways it was a bit different but not exactly a bad thing since they were used to break up the scenes. Yeah there was still Mr. Muscles who is still day dreaming about the eldest sister but thankfully he was toned down a bit from earlier seasons.

All in all I did enjoy the show but it wasn't really anything to make sure to always watch the new episodes and the first season is still the best in my opinion but this season was still very much watchable and if it ever did make it to the states I would say that it's definitely worth renting to check out.

Only 8 episodes long including the original ONA Candy Boy has to be one of the better yuri anime's that I've seen even though it's missing the generic yuri fanservice and has the strangest title for a Yuri show. The first time I even heard about it I thought it was some thing else entirely with that title but after giving the ONA a short because it was getting discussed a lot on /u/ it was after that that it was hard not to get interested in the story since it was pretty short and took forever for each episode to come out.

Now if you're like me you're rather confused by the whole twin sister yuri thing especially since neither one looks like the other one nor do they really share any real twin traits but then it is an anime so who the hell knows. But this is definitely a love story from the get go between the two main characters Kanade and Yukino with the Kanade loving Sakuya popping in ever now and then. Even the sister's younger non yuri sister shows up ever now and then. Either case the story is pretty much about the "sister's" life in school as they try to find their way through school and with each other and their future. It's very touching and a refreshing change to the ecchiness that you usually get with a yuri anime. I liked it and wouldn't mind renting it if it ever did make it to the states or got an official release on YouTube. It was officially released on NicoNico but since I'm not in Japan couldn't see it that way and had to wait for subbs. A simple search on YouTube will give you all that you need though. However to give you a little taste I've included the original ONA for you to check out. Hopefully this stays up long enough.

Sweet! Haruhi Suzumiya is back with all new episodes that are airing during reruns of the first season but so far it has only been one new episode.

However, before the new episodes started airing Kadokawa gave us new Haruhi content in the form of a 25 mini-episode series on YouTube. Haruhi-chan is a take off of the 4koma comic strip and is a slapstick humorous take on the whole gang with less of the looking for Espers, time travelers and aliens and more about Haruhi high jinks though out the year even tossing in some holidays along the way.

I thought it was funny and a great way to kill a couple minutes while whoring about YouTube. The episodes have been gathered up and released in Japan on DVD so could that mean that the DVD's will find their way to the states? They might they would definitely be worth a rental for sure and depending on how many disks and the price point it might be worth buying as well.

I missed a lot of the episodes when they were first aired on the Kadokawa Channel so ended up just downloading them a little while latter but a quick search on YouTube for subbed episodes turns up a lot but I don't know if it's all 25 episodes.

However here is the first episode so that you can check it out for yourself.

Oh hey look there just went another rather uneventful week. Kinda glad it's over and we can move onto another week. Did a bit more work on the roommate's Mazda RX-8 and figured the overheating issue was just due to there not being a hole lot of coolant in the car at the moment. Of course I foolishly burned my thumb while doing all this. At least it meant that the car was running again and we were able to check out the new shiftknob. The roommate loves the new shiftknob so that was good and the car is running so better than it has been. And I'm just so happy that it wasn't a clogged heater core.

The rest of the week weas filled with work and sleep. Work was work had to go in a few hours early on my last day since the girl was sick and she was sick again on Saturday and I almost had to go into work on Saturday as well which would have really killed my weekend plans since I was getting ready to go to the weekly anime meetup but thankfully someone else was able to go in instead. The meetup was OK watched some older stuff got some new snacks to share like those chocopandas can't remember what they're called and some of those Milkita candies. Pretty yummy stuff actually.

But yeah that was pretty much it going to check out the new Star Treck movie later tonight and hopefully after mowing the lawn tomorrow I'll hopefully (cross your fingers yet again) get around to watching the third round of the Super GT. I know I said that last week as well but dammit time just keeps getting away from me and three hours is a lot of time to dedicate just to watching racing. But I love it and that's just how it's going to be. Next week is another autocross week and I'm going to try to be packing up stuff for our big move later in June. Until then enjoy another lovely race queen.

WAIT! There was one last thing that happened this week that was epic and awesome for which I had to miss due to going to work early on Friday. Things have a way of getting out of hand on the internet and in real life and some times they span some of the best damn things ever. Loser tool with an anemic lil' Z3 who likes to be a douche and rev his engine like an idiot got a large number of thumbs down from a good number of people who were just feed up with his doucheness and took to the cruise in large numbers to give the guy what he deserved an endless row of thumbs down when he passed by them. Like I said I wasn't able to be there since I had work but thanks to another member of the forum who rolled film while all this was going down you and I can both get a taste of how this all went down by checking out this wonderful video of penguins drifting...

Another anime show finished well after it's finished airing. This time it's Viper's Creed arguably not the best or worst series of the season a fairly run of the mill future establishment vs establishment mecha involved type show. In this case it's the military vs some privatized mercenary group that is responsible for protecting the city from rouge armed robots that like to terrorize the highways. The Privatized mercenary group is referred to as Blademen and it focuses on the best group out there is the unit called Viper. Viper and other blademen use what is known as a Meneuv-roid and is a transforming bike like vehicle that transforms into a bipedal robot and is heavily armed to fight bugmechs.

Now that's all fine and dandy the military vs Viper part starts with a terrorist group called hound and is actually a tool used by the main bad guy to eventually blame Viper for everything that is wrong in the worlds so that the military can make a come back from being considered the bad guys thanks to the previous wars that left people with a bad taste in their mouth about how the military does things.

So when you get to the last couple episodes you find out that the whole thing was a plan to get the people to forget about what the military had done and use Viper as a stop gap the only problem is that Viper was just too good so the people behind the scenes decided to set up Viper as a scapegoat. So Viper ends up fighting for their lives to clear their names and expose the military for what they are doing. Several members die and it's all rather touching.

Just to bad it wasn't any better than it was. It had great potential but it just took to much time getting you involved in the main plot that just seemed to be way to short and then out of no where out pops the dead guy as a token savior to the people. However if you really have a thing for Office Ladies you just might like this as there are plenty of them and that's all you'll get for any fanservice. the Mecha is pretty cool but the plot just seems to drag on that pile every into the last few episodes. It would be worth a rent I believe but definitely not a must buy show so I don't cry any tears if it doesn't make it to States.

HOT! Easily sums up how last Sunday's autocross event was. It was the hottest day of the year and the event started at least a good hour later than usual which left me running home at about 3pm to the comfort of A/C.

Thanks to the event from the previous day not cleaning up their crap that was left all over the parking lot it took members of the SRRSCCA a long time to clean up and set up the course which is why the event had to start hours later than normal putting the majority of the event into the hottest part of the day. At least it was still able to happen. Of course I didn't get there until pretty late so wasn't able to walk the course and find a really good place to set up my camera and video gear but my roommate was able to point out a pretty good spot.

It was a good thing that I went out there since there was a good number of different cars that haven't been out before including a nice older Porsche 911 with whaletail. I love those types of 911's but holy hell it was SLOW at least during the first session. Some other interesting cars were a couple of race cars that I haven't seen before and a new EVO X.

The second run group was a bit annoying since it was a bit of a cluster fuck getting the spotter and I ended up with one that liked to chitchat a bit which is OK so long as they don't make any remarks about the cars and drivers but does throw me off my game a little bit and you can see that with the videos.

After getting lunch which was a much needed several glasses of water and a Milkshake we headed back and I decided that I had had enough for the day and didn't want to stay much longer so decided to call it a day after taking some more pictures of the cars out in the parking lot even some that were not out running in the autocross event.

Ended up with a few more than a hundred pictures but only posted 88 of them on flickr and also only ended up with 68 videos (the new ones go to page 4 with the last new video being the Nissan 240SX) since I skipped the second session of the event after lunch. I did go for one ride along in the packed Subaru Outback for a little ride, which was fun. All in all it was fun but damn hot and it's only going to get hotter still.

Here's just a sample video.

Yet another week has just flown by like it was only a day. The days are getting hotter and longer and summer is definitely here even if there are a few breaks here and there like this last week with a couple days of hard rain followed with a mini heat wave. At least this week was fairly interesting had a do or die (get fired) meeting at work and it was about the lamest thing in the world yet again so nothing new there. Applied for a couple jobs just because working is going to be turned into a really lame thing come June 1st and I'd just as soon be gone by then.

This week I received my 10th little lady and my first Figma figure in the form of Makina Hoshimura from Shikabane Hime. She's lovely and I like her little Mac10's with muzzle flash attachments. She also came with an exclusive BLUE handbag which I have no idea what to do with it. And like the two other lil' ladies that I've gotten previously I'll get around to writing and photography them some time in the near future. No really I will I swear.

I wasn't the only one to get something this week as my roommate received his replacement shiftknob from Razo and we went out and installed it right away. Of course it's great that we got the new knob on the car but of course the car is acting up again and over heating. We haven't had a chance to look into why it is doing that just yet.

With the Mazda RX-8 out for this weekends autocross Scott took the Subaru Outback instead. More on that later after I get the videos uploaded and can post about the autocross in full later this week. I also haven't had a chance yet to watch the third round of the Super GT yet and will be hopefully getting to that as well later this week.

With that the week came to an end and since I just feel like it I'm uploading a lovely race queen image again this time around it'll be one of the girls from StudieGlad Racing and Good Smile Racing. The new addition of the Anime Hottie of the day seems to be doing alright gets about as many hits a day as the regular hottie of the day. Since I'm hotlinking to a naughty picture I can't tell how many times it's viewed. So until next week have a good one.

What a waste but I finished it. Every now and then an anime show will show some promise but then you'll watch it and wonder why the hell you're watching it and yet you'll end up finishing it just because you hope that it'll show some great ending that will make it all worth the effort. That to me is how Kurozuka ending up as.

What starts out as a 12th century samurai show with a Vampire twist quickly turns into a boring scifi hunt or be hunted show that has the main not so vampire like Kuro running across some post-apocalyptic world as he looks for his lost love Kuromitsu. During the hunt for his love we find out that some organization is trying to recreate how Kuro is immortal and this is the battle between Kuro and an expendable (seriously every single one of them dies by the end) rag tag group of freedom fighters and the group that is responsible for killing Kuro way back when. Lots of blood letting really lame plot twists and a pissed off viewer who finds out that the whole damn thing with Kuro and Kuromitsu is a never ending story with Kuromitsu taking Kuro's head and burring it somewhere to regenerate with little to no memories of what has happened before only that he knows he has to find her and it just repeats itself over and over again.

But damn it I had to finish it to see if it was all worth it in the end and no no it really wasn't sure you get a nice bit of fanservice of Kuromitsu at the end and how could you not like that just to bad you have to wait until the end pretty much for that. So no this won't be on my to rent list or to buy list if, and I highly doubt that, it ever makes it to the States.

Every now and then Disney does toss something out there that is just total epicness and in this case that Epicness is Tokyo Mater a nice Disney Pixar short from the cast of Cars. I've only seen it on YouTube so I don't know if it's aired on TV or not as I don't really watch a lot of Disney lately now that there isn't any new Kim Possible cartoons on any more.

This epic short is a tall tale weaved by Mater the tow truck as he tells his friends how he became the Drift King of Tokyo after giving a Japanese car a tow back to Tokyo and accidentally gets himself challenged to a drift off. Mater wins of course but that was bound to happen and the poor loser gets stripped of all his mods and becomes STOCK again...oh the horror of being stock.

I loved it and every time I watch it (about 5 times already) I just bust out laughing and have a grin for some time afterwards. This could so easily be a great sequel to the movie or something. I'd like to see more but don't think that will happen any time soon. So without further ado here it is in all it's glory.

A little late in posting this since I actually watched this Fanservice rich OVA from Koihime Musou some time ago. This OVA is a stand alone episode that doesn't have anything at all to do with the series. In fact it takes place at a school setting is themed around all the girls competing in teams to see who will be the next President of the Student Council.

While we all know that Koihime Musou isn't known for it's outstanding plot or epic storytelling we do like it for the absurd abundance of fanservice and humor and the OVA is chuck full of both. It's also fully uncensored so no magic steam to get in the way like the broadcast of the series.

The plot is a little on the week side as the girls all team up into small groups to compete in challenges to see what team will be the new school council. Aisha and RinRin end up on different teams since there was a bit of a girl squabble between the two of them (over a sandwhich of all things) in the beginning and after several rounds of the challenges the two girls make up and become friends again and the queen wins the competition since Aisha forfeited her chance to save Rinrin when she was in trouble.

It was an OK OVA not the best not the worst funny enough and with enough fanservice to be a guilty pleasure. Here's the preview for the OVA.

About time I got to this considering June is now just right around the corner. So far there is only this first version of the Summer Season chart (updates can be found here). And after taking a look at it this is what I'll more than likely be watching.

Spice & Wolf: Of course I'll be watching this. I liked the first season and this one seems like it will be right on target to follow in it's footsteps.

Canaan: I've been waiting for this one since it was mentioned in previous seasons.

What's not on that list so far that I'm also interested in watching is the new OVA season of Aika which I've already mentioned before and Fight Ippatsu! Juuden-chan!! which was scheduled for last season but I believe got pushed back to a June release instead. You can watch a fanservice rich preview of Fight Ippatsu at Sankaku Complex and here is a preview of Canaan.

Another anime series that I finished last week was Rideback. Mostly an anti-establishment series that pits some anti-gov't group called the BMA (which is not that well explained in the anime) and the GGP which is an oppressive military gov't faction that comes to Japan and starts setting up rules and regulations even banning the Ridebacks which are motorcycles that can transform into a bipedal like robot and imposing a curfew to fight the terrorists.

While those two groups are slugging it out a new freshman college student and former ballerina ends up finding a Rideback machine and joins up with the college Rideback club and in short order is an expert rider that can do amazing things on it. Her name is Rin and she inadvertently becomes a tool for the BMA when during a terrorist attack on a shopping area Rin rushes in by passing the GGP checkpoints and rescues her childhood friend who had been in the middle of the terrorist attack. This of course leads the GGP to believe that Rin is in fact a terrorist herself.

This leads to her arrest (after saving her brother from being killed by the GGP in a test of the new white Ridebacks) and subsequent rescue by the BMA (for the second time) the last part of the series is a major battle between the BMA forces and the GGP as the GGP unleashes new riderless Ridebacks but are easily dealt with by Rin who smashes them to pieces in a lovely ballet dance with her Rideback. The GGP is easily defeated and the main leader of the GGP is killed in the end by one of his own officers who decided that his egomania was to much and needed to be dealt with. Or some such thing anyway. It was more than likely an order from the higher ups to take out the trash. All ends well after that.

As for me I liked the series once it really started to get going but holy hell they didn't need to kill off one of the bit characters like they did but I guess they used that as a catalyst for Rin's need to stop running and fight back in the end. That honestly is my only complaint about the show well that and how fast her little brother enters and leaves just like that during the anime. Other than that it's pretty decent and I'd say it would be a great rental if it was released in the States. Not really a must buy but a worthy rental in my opinion. It would be awesome to have a Rideback though.

And that concludes another fine week in the year 2009. Once again a pretty normal boring same old same old routine week with not much going on. I was able to finish up a couple more anime shows from the previous season so that's a good thing. Also my latest Figure purchase is on it's way from Japan and it might be here next week but I'm not going to hold my breathe. I did find the third round of Autobacs Super GT yesterday so that's downloaded and ready to go some time this next week. I did the Mother's day stuff with my Grandma and step mother and enjoyed the nice company and time spent with them and on Saturday did the anime group meetup ting as well.

On Friday my roommate and I were able to reprogram his fuel to air ratio in the Turbocharged Mazda RX-8 so it runs much better and we did get the POV to work as well so we were really happy about that and he was able to take it out to Firebird on Saturday and get his 100mph stickers which is cool. However in the process he also broke his gear shift knob and will be replacing it with an OMG...JDM aftermarket one...ZOMG. Ok it does actually look pretty good compared the other ones that he could have gotten.

This week I'll leave you once again with a lovely and charming Race Queen

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So I finished the second half of Shikabane Hime last night. That took way to long to finish really but now that I have I'm glad I was able to finally finish it and the entire season. Skikabane Hime: Kuro is more about Makina's personal battle to destroy the people that killed her and her family and turned her into a Corps in the first place. Not only that but a lot of who and what the Shikabane Hime's really are and what really happens when they kill those 108 corpses that are supposed to send them to Heaven. I didn't really see it coming but should have expected it as they do not get to go to Heaven after collecting their 108 dead again corpses. Nope something entirely different is awaiting them.

They also answer the bigger question that I had during the first season and that is just who the hell is the cat with many eyes and that actually has to do with Oori and his past which is also explained. I thought it was great that they were able to work in the answers to my questions while keeping the action going non-stop. And while the first season is more episodic monster of the week the second season is all about the battle between the Kougan and the Shichisei with Makina and Oori on the outside. One more thing that this season had that last season didn't have much of is the Fanservice. All the Shikabane Hime's were girls and most were well endowed and with the one Loli hime her priestess made up the difference heck even the evil girls were well built as well. Oddly enough though I haven't seen hardly anything in the way of

What's great about this is that FUNimation has licensed it (at least streaming so far that I know of) so it's a good bet that it will be coming to the states and I've already did my part by purchasing the Figma Makina action doll from Hobby Link Japan which should be showing up sometime next week. And if the DVD does get release here I'll maybe buy it but it'll definitely go on the Netflix queue were it will sit for while as being a VERY LONG WAIT rental because Netflix still hasn't figured out the whole lots of people want anime to watch but lets keep supplies limited so NO one gets to watch anything. If you haven't seen it yet you can check it out here on youtube and do it legally as well.

Also known as Spice and Wolf II OVA "Wolf and Amber-colored Melancholy. This preview episode of the forth coming new season of Spice and Wolf finds Horo sick in bed suffering from fatigue it would seem (although it also seems to be a touch of the HEAT if you ask me) leaving poor Lawrence to take care of her while she gets better.

Of course Nola the young Shepherdess wants to see how Horo is fairing as well and stops by to see her. This of course leads to tension in the room which probably gives Spice and Wolf it's more interesting sideline story and might lead to some interesting development in the new season perhaps. There's a bit of humor in it with the tension and how it plays out and there is a bit of fanservice while Horo dreams some weird dreams while she's sick. No Nipples which honestly is a bit weird but hey it's no doubt that the fans will fix that right away with even more and new fanservice.

It was a pretty simple episode with nothing to dramatic and it brings you right back to where we left off with the last season and leaves you wanting the next season right now dangit. While the anime looked a little bit different it wasn't any better or worse than I can remember the first season being.

Now that was some racing! Was able to watch the second round of the Autobacs Super GT series held this time at Suzuka Circuit on Monday (while the third round was going on in Japan) and with the sun out and the track in great shape for racing we finally got some good racing action going on. However, what we didn't get is another race with the StudieGLAD Racing BMW Z4. Moving along though lets get back to the cars that did show up to race.

The GT500 race was finally a well fought race from start to finish. Well Ok there was some parts in the middle that was really boring but the beginning was a hard fought battle between the Motul GTR and a pair of hungry Lexus SC430s that were looking to take the lead away from the GTRs and while there was a bit of traffic helping the lead GTR get away from the SC430s for a while anyways. Even after getting passed by the Impul GTR the Zent Lexus SC430 was able to fight back from 7th place all the way up to 1st place with a huge battle between 1-3 during that last 10 laps or so of the race. First it started with Petronas and Zent jumping down MOtul's back side almost sending Zent off course. Petronas was able to pass the Motul GTR and Zent was able to follow behind quickly leaving Motul in third wondering what happened. Then Zent went after Petronas with aggressive driving side by side getting a little bump action going but not giving up any space until Petronas backed off a bit and Zent was able to surge ahead and take 1st place. All within the last five laps left to go. Sadly Petronas nor Motul were able to fight back due to a full course yellow which would end the racing for the day.

On the GT300 side there was even more battles going on. Not so much for 1st place mind you as that was won by the Hankook Porsche 911 that started on Pole and pretty much staid there the entire race with out much of a threat from anyone else. The major player during the GT300 was the Privee Apple Shiden car that didn't even make it to the starting line but was able to fight back to an astounding finish in that it was able to finish in 7th. Of course the Lamborghinis are still having issues and yet again there was another Lamborghini on the side of the track after breaking down but it looked like the cars having the biggest issue this race were the two Lexus IS350s since both spent some time spinning off course and one could say that the Reckless IS350 was just a bit too reckless during this race. Still with the wreck in the last few laps the racing was called short due to the full course yellow.

To me it's interesting that there is so few multicar wrecks during the Super GT races considering how much traffic there is and how many twists and turns there are to navigate around. However that wasn't the case during the last few laps of this race as a handful of cars got into a banger of a mess. Since they didn't show a replay of the accident I can only speculate as to what happened during the wreck that involved the Autobacs Arta NSX, the Bomex 320R, the HASEMI GTR and I believe the Raybrig NSX the wreck was so bad that it send the driver of the Masemi GTR off in an ambulance. Since this was a pretty serious wreck it caused a full course caution and brought out the pace car. The race ended up being called under the full course yellow so the last couple of laps were rather boring and uneventful. You can find the official results of the race here.

With the second race in the bag for me I get to look forward to the release of the third race and hopefully I'll get to it before the next scheduled race in June. Once again I'm using an image taken by this guy and if you take a look at his sets you'll find a whole host of new images as well.

What a lazy week. Work was work although I did have a bit more time this week to actually watch some anime so that was nice the rest of the week was pretty lazy as well. While there was a lot of things going on this weekend with Free Comic Book day being on Saturday I took a look at what was available online and decided that there just wasn't anything that interested me. There was also a large FN display going on at Boise Gun Company but since that place is packed when it's not busy I couldn't imagine how packed it would be while busy with the FN display. There was also an autox scheduled for Sunday. Since it was scheduled to rain heavily over the weekend and there is another autox scheduled for May 17th I decided to skip this one.

What I did manage to do during the weekend then, well I did help my roommate a bit with his Mazda RX-8 even though that also meant fixing a couple issues on his laptop to even get it hooked up to the computer in the car which we still can't get to work. Total Jenga Cat moment actually with how frustrating the hole process was, especially since we didn't even accomplish what we set out to do in the first place. At least now the wideband works for his car. During a short break in the madness we grabbed some lunch and sent to see how the autox was doing and decided that indeed it was a good thing that we skipped this one as the course didn't look all that fun at all and the rain was causing serious problems as well.

In any case it's nice to relax and be lazy for a weekend and yes I finally did watch the second round of the Autobacs Super GT and it was awesome. Some time later this week I'll be able to get the 3rd round and Fuji.

Look what's coming in August. Another Aika OVA series called Aika Zero. Yes just what the summer season needs (judging by the few previews that I've seen so far) even more eye candy fanservice guilty pleasure anime because less face it we all know that Aika is known for all of the above. The pantie low angler anime will be back this time around focusing on Aika Sumeragi's college years. From what I've gathered from other sources Aika Zero will be another 3 part OVA with the first episode releasing on August 25th (2nd on Oct 27, 3rd on Dec 22) and the first DVD/BD will be released with a few extra goodies including a special "H pinup", a special booklet and a "picture drama" video extra. kinda looks pricey though but hopefully Bandai will get along with releasing it here in the States in a timely fashion. Oh who the hell am I kidding we won't see a DVD for at least a year afterwards. Sorry for the small image there isn't any thing really that large released for it other than the background image on the Aika Zero site yet but I imagine that will change shortly.

It's a short lil ova coming in at just a touch over 10 minutes but in those 10 minutes is a fun interesting lil' robot shooter anime. Hoi Hoi-san takes place in the future where all bugs are immune to insecticides so the pharmaceutical companies developed tiny robots that are designed and programed to go around and kill bugs with tiny lil' weapons. Sounds cool and it is. I actually wish there was more and while there is the manga and soon to be released toy version of Hoi Hoi-san I just want more animated Hoi Hoi-san dang it. There isn't much of a plot sales girl is freaked out about the doll that she loves and has a hard time selling them and Otaku boy buys a couple other dolls to play with Hoi Hoi-san with rather disastrous affects. In fact here check it out yourself on YouTube.

It's well into the Spring season now and since there already is a Summer preview chart out already I thought I should get on the ball and do my anime roundup of the shows that I'm watching from this season. And it's actually quit a lot of good stuff. It actually kind of caught me off guard a bit by how much was actually worth watching. A bit different than what I originally thought I'd be watching.

Asura Cryin': Another Supernatural Mecha show with spirits and what not all wrapped up in a school setting. So far it's been pretty interesting with some good mecha action and side kick hilarity has a little bit of fanservice but I like the girl with glasses and built in weaponry which is what got me to watch it in the first place.

Basquash: At first I wasn't all that interested in it since I thought it was going to be a mecha sports show but then the fanservice started showing up on a couple chan sites so decided I'd give it a try and it turned out to be a fairly interesting non-sports mecha show where the basketball part so far only takes up a small part of the anime.

Eden of the East: This by far is one of the better series quality wise of the season. Not much has really be revealed yet but what we have seen has been interesting and fun to watch so far.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood: I already like this version of FMA only a few episodes in seems to be moving at a faster pace than the first one and the quality of the anime is better than the original.

Hatsukoi Limited: This is one of the purely guilty pleasure shows of the season don't know anything about it but the fanservice is quit nice and it's actually pretty funny when it wants to be even though it looks to be more of a school romance show than anything else.

K-ON!: OMFG this is just the best show of the season MOE MOE KYUN indeed. It's hard not to just love how funny and cute it is.

Phantom ~Requiem for the Phantom~: Cute mindless assassin for the win. Not really sure where it's going but so far from what I've seen it's pretty good a bit of fanservice but the assassin part is what makes this show.

Queen's Blade: The second just guilty pleasure show of the season QB is just a T&A show with a bit of plot tossed in but really it's all about the other part. It has been a pain though as I got my first DMCA Violation for downloading it so have been a bit more careful of late but I'm still watching it.

Sengoku BASARA: Based on a video game and the war states period of Japan this is mostly a fighting show and I'm watching it for the hilarity of some of the characters. The fighting is cool but sometimes all to short but with the over the top characters it's just keeps you coming back for more. Blondie Ninja girl isn't so bad either.

Shangri-la: Two words Range Murata is the reason that I was interested in watching this show and while some parts keep me scratching my head it has been interesting enough to keep me watching I love the animation of Range Murata but the anime has to be interesting to keep me watching and so far it has done just that. I do like is idea of what the future will be like though.

Tayutama: I'd like to think of it as a cross between Horo from Spice and Wolf and Mayu from Goshuushou-sama Ninomiya-kun (same art director does both anime shows) a powerful goddess comes back to fight evil spirits and in the process she becomes the wife of a priest in training during all this she is going to school to learn how to be more human. A little bit of fanservice and a lot of school hijink hilarity and just a touch of violence rounds out the eroge turned anime.

Valkyria Chronicles: Another game based anime the art direction of this show is just a bit different but it makes it look pretty cool actually and so far it's been a pretty interesting some times comical series with a good deal of military action and adventure going on.

Think that's enough shows to be watching at one time? Well thanks to work taking it's toll of things I've actually been running behind on some of the shows that I've been meaning to watch from the previous season. Not only that but I've been missing some shows due to a slow down in sub groups that I like subbing some shows at a very slow rate. There are also the OVAs as well but I'll just blog about them when I finish watching them. What's even worse is that May is already here and that means next month the Summer season starts and there is already a V1 Chart for summer out already at the blog that is responsible for the charts.

I grew up in the '80s with the old school GI JOE cartoon and I liked it and I was hyped to see that it was going to be made into a Live Action Movie. Well I was up until I heard about how the studio was changing crap to make it more "friendly" to a larger world market. Then I was greatly disappointed in the movie when I started seeing the new toy line up and what good ol' Cobra Commander was going to look like. Feeling a bit let down by the whole deal I was surprised to see a new cartoon floating around the Internet that I hadn't heard of called G.I. Joe: Resolute.

Originally played out as 5 min webisodes on with a 10 min season finale G.I. Joe: Resolute aired recently on [adult swim]and I found it on the Internet quit by accident but as a long time fan of the series I decided to give it a shot. Couldn't be any worse than that crap series Sigma 6 after all.

Resolute goes straight for the more mature crowd of fans with a PG13 rating and it doesn't waste any time making that rating known with the death of Major Blood at the hands of Cobra Commander (we don't see the actual killing but you get the idea). With that as the start the death toll only rises and while you never get to see any blood you know that people are kicking the bucket. It's not just the Joes and Cobra forces that are taking the swan dive either as Cobra Commander who isn't a pansy ass joke of a leader in this one takes out Russia with his super weapon of the week.

Not only is there a death toll but the actual combat looks real and has some thought as to how things work and that lends it self to being so much more interesting than the old everyone rush out and start shooting plan. All of that rolled up into a nice hour long program or so makes me happy to have seen it and it renews my interest in the franchise. I didn't like the looks of either the Baroness or Destroy but the rest of the characters and vehicles are updated for the new show and surprise of surprises we actually learn why Snake Eyes doesn't talk. I've always wondered why that was and now I know. In any case I'm sure it'll be out on DVD soon but why wait really you can find it pretty easily on YouTube and after a quick little look on [adult swim] turns up the videos as well. Or you could just torrent it too.