In the Emerald City

YES!

I thought they were bound to come eventually, but it was taking such a long time. And from what I've seen, Tokyopop's way better than DMP at novel translations, so they should be actually readable too!

I'm so happy!

Wow.

So Bandai Entertainment will now be releasing Gurren-Lagann instead of ADV. While I'm glad that it's been rescued, I'm still a bit disappointed for a couple of reasons.

First, I really like ADV's dubs and I was looking forward to seeing this one. I have no idea what Bandai's dubs are usually like, but I hope it'll be good.

Second, it's really starting to seem like ADV no longer has Keroro Gunsou. All of their titles came back after disapperaring except GL and KG. If GL's gone, it seems likely to me that KG is as well. I guess it could be rescued, I certainly hope it will be, but it's still disappointing.

Well, at least now I can look forward to seeing GL in English sometime soon.

I want these figures! Especially the Kamina one, of course. I'll have to be careful not to miss out when they get released!

Is something happening with the Dionaea House story? Baruch's blog was recently updated with some very creepy posts. Through that, I found this blog, in which a deliveryman takes a package to the House. Baruch's first post has been deleted, but it can still be read as a comment in Jenny Levin's blog (after all the spam).

I don't know if these are by the original author, or if they're just people roleplaying. Baruch is creepy and fascinating, but the deliveryman doesn't quite ring true for me. He seems to be just reiterating what all the earlier blogs said the house was like. I hope it's real, and we get some more information about the creation of the house - Loreen Mathers had some interesting things to say about who designed it, but that one hasn't been updated in years.

OMG it's snowing!!! It's even sticking a little bit! It's so pretty ♥ ♥ ♥

This might get me out of the house when nothing else could.

And now for something a bit more cheerful!

The new ending theme to Keroro Gunso is made of complete and utter win. It's called 'Kero-Neko no Tango' and, as you might guess, involves Keroro's platoon, as children, dressed up in kitty outfits, doing a cute little dance, complete with cat-paw movements. It's the most adorable thing ever. Sadly, I couldn't find it on Youtube, but hopefully it'll be up soon.

I did find, however, a trailer for the English language anime. I'm not keen on Keroro's voice. Apparently it's Vic Mignona. I do think he's a very good actor, for all that he doesn't know how to talk to fans, but I just don't think he's the right guy for a mini alien frog originally voiced by a woman. It does amuse me to think about all the times Keroro's crossdressed though. Will Vic be staunchly defending the heterosexuality of the frog?

I quite like the animes based on Key's bishojo games: Kanon, Air and Clannad (though I haven't actually seen the new Kanon yet, but I intend to). There's a couple of aspects, however, that make my skin crawl. I watched episode 13 of Clannad today, and I'm appalled.

( Spoilers for Clannad )

( Spoilers for Air )

( Small spoiler for Kanon )

I've watched the first couple of episodes of the Toonami version of Eyeshield 21, and I'm amused to note that it's been edited to remove every instance of Hiruma with his guns. As you might imagine that's a lot of material, which meant they've had to compress two episodes into one. So episode 2 on Toonami actually covers episodes 3 and 4 of the Japanese version.

I totally get that a teenager playing with machine guns willy-nilly would be unacceptable for US children's programming. And a sports anime with over a hundred episodes is unlikely to be successful anywhere else, so it had to be done. But I have to wonder, how well is it going to work? Might they let a gun through now and then for an important scene, or will they be strict to the point of missing crucial scenes?

Oh well, it doesn't really bother me as long as there are uncut DVDs, and since it's Viz, hopefully there will be. And I do like the dub. The writing's good and I like the voices, especially Sena (it turns out he's played by the English voice actor of Kyo Kara Maoh's Yuri, Yuri Lowenthal. And until I looked that up I never realized he shared his name with the character!) and I think Hiruma and Kurita will be good too. The one thing I'm really annoyed by, though, is that I've yet to hear 'Ya-Ha!' If it doesn't turn up, along with its catchphrase cousins 'Catch MAX!' and 'A-HA-ha!' I will be exceedingly disappointed.

Meanwhile, I've been totally out of it since New Year's. I wanted to get some things done, but I've ended up just lazing around. Hopefully I'll get back on track when work starts again, since I'll have my routine back.

I haven't felt like updating for a while, but I have a bunch of stuff I've been meaning to link to, so I might as well do that.

First, a Princess Bride game is in the works. There isn't much info yet - the official site is nothing but a picture, but it could be a lot of fun. Although I hate Buttercup's dress. Here's a trailer for it, and here's an interview with someone from the development team.

Tonari no 801-chan's reaction to Gaybledore. And it looks like the DVD came out and I didn't even notice, augh.

And Terry Pratchett says he has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. D:

Oops, nearly forgot: Tokyopop will be releasing the Kyo Kara Maoh manga. I'm very glad to see this. It's not the novels, but they're bound to be coming eventually, right? Right?

I don't feel like doing much of anything right now. The winter blues, maybe? It's annoying, but at least it's not nearly as bad as it was last year. Maybe Comiket will pick me up - I'm really looking forward to it, especially to getting some new Gurren-Lagann dojinshi. There's seriously a lot of really awesome stuff.

Cougar's November event: Judo and Karate.

With gyudon and raw egg for Manly Stamina! I think Kamina would appreciate it.

ANN says Kyo Kara Maoh is back!

Woohoo! Season Three, here we come.

It'd be great if they go back to basing it on the novels rather than making up their own story as they've been doing.

It looks like Blu's mysterious pirate-themed novel is indeed Flesh & Blood! I'm a bit surprised they'd choose such a long series for their first novel release, but it's supposed to be a good series. They're also releasing an OEL book by Studio Kosen, who I like best of the OEL 'yaoi' creators.

Yaoisuki has the list here. I'm happy to see that June has licensed Loving Gaze ("Otonarino Birunikoino Shisen") by Akira Kanbe. I'm not familiar with that particular title, but I have been reading and enjoying a lot by Ms Kanbe. It's true that she's not particularly groundbreaking, and she sticks very much to seme/uke types. Her art is lovely, but she has a tendency to make a lot of characters look alike. What she is, though, is sweet. Her couple are all adorably loving, and she mostly sticks with clearly consensual sex too. And, for the most part, the couples talk to each other about their feelings, so there aren't too many of those frustrating misunderstandings. I'm looking forward to reading it.

They've also licensed a bunch of novels that aren't by Narise Konohara. I don't recognise any of them, but hopefully I'll be able to find something I like.

Or rather, my thoughts on Avatar episode 306: The Avatar and the Firelord. ( Spoilers, both for Harry Potter and Avatar. )

Cougar's October theme: Cute Sailors! Though once again, they don't announce it in their blog til the month's nearly over.

It also looks like there's an article in something called 'Comic Box Junior' about Cougar. I'm glad of that; they need more publicity!

And I actually have a butler icon this time - well, sort of anyway. ^_^

After not having updated since May, the Blue Impact website has finally put up something new about White Shadow. It's just a promotional image that'll be in Cool B magazine, but at least we know the project's not dead. I'll have to see if I can pick up the magazine tomorrow. The whole Studio e.go site's been remodelled too, and Blue Impact now has a. 'Are you over 18?' entry page, which I like.

Meanwhile, BPAL's got some new Good Omens and Stardust scents, and Madame Tracy sounds perfect for me. At last, a Good Omens scent I'll (probably) be able to wear!

Here are the romanised lyrics to Rock Star, the opening theme of the Angel's Feather OVA.

ROCK STAR

Lyrics: AKIHITO
Composed by: AKIHITO
English translation: HIRO
Arrangement: Takizawa Mitsuhiro & Eight
Sung by: Hatano Wataru vs Kakihara Tetsuya

( ROCK STAR )

Since Yukiange on LJ requested it, I thought I'd have a go at translating Rock Star, the opening theme to the Angel's Feather OVA. I'm afraid this isn't my best work; I just didn't understand what they were getting at in a lot of it, and I had some trouble rendering it into natural English. And don't ask me to interpret the English lines either - I mean, what is 'Give her spirits a life' supposed to refer to? At any rate, here is my attempt!

( Rock Star )

The romanised lyrics can be found here.

I'm kind of shocked to discover that I now understand what Konata of Lucky Star was talking about when she complained about baseball getting in the way of her anime. Eyeshield 21 is supposed to be on!

The other day, I read through the Dionaea House. I'd avoided it up until now because I'd heard it was scary, and I didn't want to freak myself out. Fortunately, I didn't find it too scary (though many others seem to have found it very frightening), but it was very intriguing. I read through all the associated blogs too, and I was disappointed that there hadn't been anything new in over a year. However, there are two recent comments on the only post in Jenny Levin's blog, from the 14th of September 2007 - just a few weeks ago. They lead to the blog of someone called Baruch, who appears to have been driven insane by the House. He gives some new information about it, and even references the cancelled movie. I have no idea whether it was actually made by the creator of the series, but it's pretty detailed and interesting, and I'd like to think it's legit. Could he be planning another story to culminate on Halloween, like the original one? But if so, you'd think there'd have been more updates by now, and it would have been linked to in a more prominent place.