In the Emerald City

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'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!

Today was much easier than yesterday! There wasn't anything I desperately wanted, so I decided not to rush, and arrived at about noon. Though of course it was still crowded, there didn't seem to be as many people as yesterday. It was also cooler, even though it didn't rain.

First I looked at Rozen Maiden, and though I didn't buy anything, there were a lot of cute books. There were also a lot of cosplayers, particularly of Suiseiseki. After that I looked at Hayate Cross Blade, and there was some really great art there. I didn't buy any books because I couldn't find any with kissing and I'm not familiar enough with the characters yet to know who I want to read about, but I'm sure I'll get plenty in the future. I did, however, buy a fangame, because I'm always interested in those. I just hope its better characterised than the Conrad x Yuri ones I bought a while ago!

After that I took a quick look at the Jump area. I wandered around looking at Eyeshield 21, but sadly there was next to nothing featuring Monta, and no pairings for him. Unsurprisingly, Hiruma was the most popular character. I managed to find Kemono no Hanashi and bought her Hiruma/Musashi book. Although I haven't seen much of Musashi, I'm inclined to think that he wouldn't put up with a lot of Hiruma's crap, so if they're both in character that could be a fun pairing. I love the grin Hiruma has on the covers of some of his love-love books.

There were a few Sena x Hiruma books, which was awesome to see. Sadly, that pairing just doesn't do anything for me, regardless of the order, so I didn't buy them. I bought a gag book called 'YA-OI!' purely for the title (a parody of YA-HA!, of course) but it look well-drawn and funny, so I think that was worth it.

Next up was the Golden Pair. I didn't spend much time looking at them, though there were some cute books. I only bought one, a collection of the artists' previous dojinshi. I'd bought her earlier collection, so I know I like her work, and this one looks really sweet.

After that was lunch with a big group of awesome people, then looking at the cosplayers, then heading off to Ikebukuro. I got the Shonen Onmyoji tickets for the exact day and time I wanted! \o/ It looked like there weren't many left, too, so I had some good luck.

Tomorrow I have to arrive early again. Sigh. Hopefully I'll be able to get a ticket, but if I don't I'll at least be able to hang around during the event and idolise from afar! I'll have to find the circles for the artists I like in the catalogue so that I'll have something to look at while I'm waiting.