I am, as the evidence in the blog archives can painfully attest, not very good with self-induced blogging deadlines which approach me stealthily like some sort of dastardly rogue bound and determined to use all those extra Sneak Attack dice, leading to a desperate last-minute rush to hammer out a post extempore.

Plenty of other blogs have, by now, wished one and all a Happy Chinese New Year, or some equivalent sentiment, and I see no reason to be any different. Much has also been made about the zodiac animal baton being passed to the Rat, ranging from the direct reference to Yuki Sohma from Fruits Basket, to ranging further afield with rodents in general, featuring Chamo the ermine from Mahou Sensei Negima or Yuuno in ferret form of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. I’m sure that there are other rat-like beings or characters associated with such in anime which I am blanking on at the moment.

And of course, the title picture is Ayumu Nishizawa from Hayate the Combat Butler, whose attachment to Rodentia is what appears to be her nickname and animal totem, the hamster. Said hamster was the embodiment of her fighting spirit, albeit for the very brief time it was around before Nagi’s dragon ate it.

Nishizawa has vowed revenge. Possibly this may involve radioactive hamsters from a planet near Mars.

Kalium gave me this.

Blame him.

One of the issues often raised is how much anime blogs, at least in the rather incestuous community which the Popular Anime Blogs are mostly a part of, tend to focus their sights on the Newest Anime, currently being broadcast at this very moment in Japan. The lament is that people who don’t keep up with the newest and freshest feel left out in the cold, with nothing to inform them on what they can actually obtain in a wholly legal manner. (Rant excised For Your Convenience.)

I’ve gotten several compliments for my episode summaries for Card Captor Sakura, by no means a new series. On the flipside, I’ve also been the target of several puzzled looks and questions on why I am spending my time with older series, which everyone can presumably watch for themselves. I remain peacefully in my zen of simultaneously Doing It Right and Doing It Wrong at the same time.

And since it’s been a while since I had the time to sit down and watch some anime for the sake of personal enjoyment, rather than as a prelude to some blog post in the near future where I wax sesquipedalian over what would invariably amount to an incoherent fanboy gush over a female character or other, I have taken the opportunity to finish up watching a few series which have not actually obtained the distinction of being old enough to get a DVD release with subs, but which are nevertheless not new, and not of this current season.

It’s a refreshing feeling to be able to make all the usual comments about a plot development without having to write it down. Although I have to admit that the primary purpose of this post is entirely so that I can use that joke.

In about a week (the 26th of January, to be precise), this blog will hit one year of active operation. I have no idea what I’m going to do for that; suggestions would be welcome.

What is with the fascination in anime to make the characters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms into girls?

And no, this isn’t a complaint about “OMG they’re moe-fying everything”. Instead, it’s a complaint from the other direction: why RoTK? There’s plenty of other source material to draw on. I don’t think I’ve seen an adaptation of Sun Wukong (or Son Goku, in the Japanese translation) featuring lots of girls, that one episode of Love Hina notwithstanding. Yes, there’s Saiyuki, and the more famous but less faithfully-adapted Dragonball, but those contain very Manly Men of varying degrees of homoeroticism.

Another story I can think of which gets immense attention in anime off the top of my head would be the amalgamation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll, which also gets plenty of mention in non-anime stories. I wonder if there’s another reason for their popularity other than simply being familiar.

I wonder how anime would handle, say, the stories of Sherlock Holmes as depicted by cute lolis.

(After seeing how Marvel and DC adapt their own creations without regard for continuity, or more to the point Disney and its interpretations of classic tales, I apologize for nothing.)

And so, on the last day of the year Two Thousand And Seven of our lord and saviour Sephiroth the Pretty Kefka the Disturbing, I have once again engaged in Deep Dental Diving and ingested my daily dose of painkillers, hopefully for the last time, if only because I have a limited supply of brain cells teeth.

Being that I am mentally unsound to provide a post of actual value, I shall instead provide you with one picture from what I believe to be Comp H’s 2007 calendar, one year late.

If it helps, imagine the female three-fifths of the SOS Brigade giving the year a send-off, instead of welcoming it in.

Occasionally I wonder if some of the references I toss out here and there in my loquacity is too byzantine for the casual reader to truly connect to, in the manner of one speaking in tongues as yet unknown to the rest of the civilized world. I cannot even claim the defense of Pop Culture, since it is such a miniscule and mildly eccentric corner of aforesaid Popular Culture which may not fit the definition of Popular, much less being Cultured. It is the corner occupied by the sort of person who is far more interested than is psychologically sound in the little details of a given setting or lore, even if he completely misses the point of the story in question.

It may well be the case that the only person who gets all of my references is myself, since it is not a given that the various interests and fandoms being alluded to will overlap with the average reader’s experiences. I try to explain these as best as I can without spoiling the joke, mainly by linking to the Wikipedia article or some such. For some, like the more esoteric discussions about my MMORPG of choice, I reword and rephrase until the sentence is structured to my satisfaction, for the balance of impact and understanding. For others, like a mention of some game mechanic in a Final Fantasy game, I just leave it as it is, since such things are ubiquitous, even if one does not personally partake of the fandom in question (for example, I do not even like the Harry Potter books, but I do recognize a fair number of references from it), and it is an educated guess that a reader is likely to recognize that offhand comment about One-Winged Angels accompanied by Ominous Foreign (generally Latin, being Foreign to everyone still reading it, effectively a dead language) Chanting.

And yet sometimes, explaining the joke in any way would ruin it, which is why I doubt anyone not already in the know can truly comprehend the amusement I obtain from the confluence of Portal and Eddie Izzard.

Therefore (using this convenient segue), like the events in the Enrichment Centre, further passageways and links are made in these labyrinthine Walls Of Text and the reader is led through logic-defying apertures and might very well end up upside-down or inside-out or whatever orientation is the most inconvenient for figuring out where one needs to go next. The best way to deal with times like these, I find, is to jump right in, after quicksaving.

The analogy could use some work, I admit.

On a side note (pun unintended), thanks to what may possibly be overuse of the theme, or perhaps simply a leitmotif for a character with much screentime, I cannot quite think of Kotomi without hearing “Etude pour les petites” (literally, “Etude for children”) in my head. For those wondering, it’s that chamber music-style melody which plays whenever Kotomi appears, and probably a few other occasions.

Brought to my attention first on the City of Heroes forums, although I’m sure that this is probably from ANN’s article on the matter, we now have ADV’s The Anime Network’s streaming service joining the Internet distribution fray.

Other blogs have already noted the primary draws: it’s free (as in beer), it’s subbed-only, and it has Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as the chiefly promoted series of this venture, which has been said to be Awesome and Manly and all sorts of superlatives. I have yet to watch this series myself, although I have been Meaning To.

However, I find myself completely unable to recommend or even comment on this service. Not because of anything bad, as such, about the video stream or site, but entirely because of the following message:

Sorry guys and gals! This feature is only available to US and Canadian residents at the present time. Please check back soon as we continue to strive to provide you with the best anime available online for free. If you have additional questions, please check out our FAQ.

Regional licencing restrictions, you are my bane.

Generally speaking, I watch my anime as a hobby, as a way to unwind and relax. After a long day full of stress and shouting, where people are, well, people, it’s kind of nice to sit back and enjoy a few hours of not thinking in twenty-five minute chunks at a time. Something easy on the eyes, and easy on the brain, where the world is a happier, funnier place.

Having said that, I’m not entirely sure this show is good for me.

If anyone cares, I’ve transcribed the somewhat random text-only opening title cards from the first three episodes of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.

Yes, it’s another filler post. ZETSUBOU DA~

Cat.

Dog.

Boar.

Frog.

Hawk.

There’s just something about animals in anime which seems a bit odd to me.