For those who didn’t yet notice (I mean, c’mon, we’re so cool it’s rather hard not to notice), Yukan has been inactive since January 14th. Until now, I’ve been selfishly avoiding the announcement of the team’s disbandment, even though jiff emailed me ages back and suggested that I do so straight away. Of course, I immediately set to work, but my stubby little fingers remained still; I just couldn’t think of what to write, and not really knowing why that was so. Two months later, upon reading one of CalAggie’s latest posts, I asked myself why I had refused to bid my farewells to the ani-blogosphere for so long. And then a few minutes ago it hit me: I was afraid — no — scared shitless of leaving officially because you guys have just been so awesome and supportive of my bunny-torturing ways, and did I mention that I love you guys heaps?

Hence the reason I’m not allowing comments on this post (this is also due to my cowardice/cowardliness(?) — see, even my English sucks now). The thought of reading your lovely comments (at least, I’m assuming they will be lovely because you guys are just so cool and I love you lots and lots and lots and it would be a shame if you didn’t feel the same T.T), would make me teary, and if I cry now and wake up tomorrow morning, I’d find myself with very swollen and red puffy eyes. Not good since I’m now attending a co-ed school (hey, you gotsta look good when duty calls). Anyway, basically what happened to me was one day I decided to fan over Criminal Minds and How I Met Your Mother a little too much that I suddenly lost interest in anime and manga at the same time. I’m not entirely bored of those things — I still like drawing … which is still great, right? I also haven’t completely abandoned my murderous ways, and should I ever return to blogging (hopefully I knock my head pretty hard some day and realize I love anime again), bunnies won’t be the only creatures you’ll see dying/committing suicide, haha.

Now I really have to personally apologize to bateszi and Hynavian because I promised you two (and whoever else I promised but forgot to mention, sorry!) I wouldn’t vanish without warning again, but I shamefully did, and I’m really sorry! And I’d also like to apologize for giving such a late notice to everyone because I should have done this so much sooner, but I didn’t. And to JLeeson and newgeekphilosopher if you’re reading this: I don’t use Gmail anymore, but Riex can reassure you that I’m on MSN a lot more these days. At first, it was just me leaving the team (after Omisyth and 21stcenturydigitalboy) but I don’t think anyone’s writing any posts here anymore anyway (f**k, four any- words in one sentence!! Epic achievement!!), and it doesn’t take rocket science to realize that.

So on behalf of the team: LONG LIVE SACRED YUKAN! And this is our final bye-bye! If you’d like to remove us from your blogroll, feel free to do so because technically we’re no longer alive. I’ll miss ya’ll, and shall continue commenting as much as I can, mostly on topics I can relate to!

P.S. THIS IS THE WORST SHIT EVER, RIGHT?! I have no idea what to say … even now! But when I saw that I had three paragraphs going, I felt the urge to write a little bit more, to share my fun experience I had with blogging, and to … tell you guys how much I’ll miss everything, and that includes watching anime (now I just can’t seem to bear it). Even though I comment every now and then, it’s still not the same, you know? But anyway, love you love you love you love you. Good luck in the future, and Shin, I hope you’re having loads of fun in Australia. I know our internet sucks but it’s a pain you must learn to endure for the sake of survival! And to Landlord Randall, I know I’m not that cool and this post proves it, but what happens to Yukan from now on is entirely up to you, of course. I’m so sorry!

Hello…contrary to what a few(very few) people might believe,I’m not dead.While I am living a life close to that of a dead person,I should let it hinder my writing.See I even had time to fix up this cool picture from the ED single CD cover.Its MINE ALL MINE!!

Um,I guess I should start out with things I left off a few months ago:

Toradora

Apparently I’ve not talked about it for 3 months?In fact its been so long I don’t even know if I remember how to write a proper post.

Well,to say the least, its still one of my top picks for the fall season,though I really liked Michiko to Hatchin too,perhaps more so than Toradora now.

Taiga:

Up till now I don’t see much character development for taiga besides the fact that she’s still slow, klutzy,predictable,naive and a tsundere.The only perceivable change I sense is that she’s now more attached to Ryuji than ever and that she’s perhaps more open about her feelings.

Ami:

I like her the best so far,while she may come off as a shallow bitch early on she’s slowly coming to terms with who she really is and embracing that fact that she’s not a sweet bishoujo idol.But it doesn’t stop her from acting like one.And of course there’s her totally ambiguous relationship with Ryuji.She seems hesitant to take the initiative for fear of rejection or rather fear of being in a relationship.Might ruin her modeling career? Over time she’s become an entertaining one to watch besides the normal Minorin antics.

Minorin:

She’s a lesbo,end of discussion.jk

Ehh..I liked her in the beginning but hat soon faded into a well of mixed feelings.I have no idea what is going on in this crazy girl’s head.She seems easy to read enough,the bubbly girl next door type of character,probably with a secret crush on someone.But no,she’s started out energetic and lively >>>creepy and crazy>>somewhat deep >>>I don’t know anymore.I think I started to get her better when he made that UFO and ghosts speech to Ryuji but she’s been giving mixed signals ever since and her recent fight with Ryuji just adds more doubt to the role she plays here.When will we know more about her?We practically know at least the basic background of Taiga and Ami,but here we have zero info.She’s -> the girl who Ryuji likes ->has weird habits ->does tons of part time jobs -> likes horror->possibly a lesbo.

Ryuji:

The typical nice guy.Tries to fit in and be a good friend to everybody.Has a father complex.So far I still don’t think much of him though.I would rather end this with him just going for Ami if given a choice right now but people keep(spoiler alert) saying Taiga ends up with him(spoiler alert)

Ehh I don’t really like the rest of the cast that much to give them a mention but I do hate some of them

The parrot:

WTF is up with this freak of nature.Okay I don’t hate this thing…,but it is creepy.

Taiga’s dad:

Total asshole in my eyes.He probably lost his nuts in an accident and now needs Taiga to complete his new family with his new wife.

That guy Taiga has a crush on:

Screw him he’s gay.

Overall:

Up till episode 13,I guess it kinda did meet my expectations to a certain degree as what I’d expect from your typical romance comedy.My only regret was that there isn’t enough background story to envoke enough emotions for the supposedly emotional scenes.Hell,I spent last week watching some anime I havent watched in 7-8 years and I cried like a sissy boy at times.(You didn’t read that)WhenI rewatched this,not even a sob.Rewatched some Code Geass,a couple of sobs no tears.They just don’t make’em like they used to….

I guess the show’s saving grace would be the comedy during the episode usually spawned from some Minorin or Taiga influence.Otherwise it just barely holds up in terms of raw plot because love triangles,even pseudo love triangles don’t do much to impress me.

Now you would probably ask,why I said it was good in the first place.Well, its good compared to everything else out there at the moment that is.

A good 3.5/5 I’d say.

General Stuff:

Okay so putting that aside,this should run till the start of the Spring season,though I can’t give any guarantes I can even keep up with the bloging on the series because college life appaently sucks.Speaking of which,the main reason I went afk for 3 months was because of that very problem including the fact that my computer was broken for a few weeks now and I only discovered what the hell was wrong a couple of days ago.

Omni put up that “Vote for the best anime this year” thingy apparently again.I didn’t vote for Code Geass or Macross Frontier or whatever because I’m weird.*psst* Vote for Wagaya no Oinari-sama*cough*

Cheers & Happy 2009,I know I won’t be.

WTF?! Spoliers Inside.

Okay, I was following this, but I was to lazy to blog this and acutally a good thing I decided to. I mean, this show turned out to be not I was expecting to be. At this point half of you are wondering: WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! Well, if you read the title, that would be the anime Akaneiro Ni Somaru Saka or A.K.A for the anime viewers The Hill Dyed Rose Madder. And he is a little of what is about…

SYNOPSIS

Jun’ichi Nagase attends a prestigious high school. He has the nickname Geno Killer since he was rebellious in middle school. This is used, inadvertently, to help a girl named Yuuhi Katagiri from trouble. She later transfers to his school, and in order to protect Yuuhi from danger, Jun’ichi is forced to kiss her. Not understanding what happened, she screams at him. Subsequently, it turns out that Yuuhi is his fiancé as arranged by their parents. Their parents discuss the matter and order them to go out together once a month to restore their relationship. If their relationship does not get better, the engagement will then be canceled.

Besides that point, the anime was born from the unholy union of FENGS bad idea and the H game in Japan. To make sense of what I saying: It’s not worth wacthing to me. The ending well does incest mean anything to you? Yeah, Junchi went with Minato. Ewwww!!!!

I have no idea what the writers were thinking, but that ending is something most Americans over Japanese would frown upon, but what can you do, right? Anyway, with this in mind, the hours of sitting through this sad excuse of an anime has been reduced to absloutely nothing. Not by review so to say, but in short, the last epsiode nothing of intrest or critical demise happens. Nothing at all. I regert the time I spent wacthing this deeply, not how I thought it would end, but the ending grade of what is presented seems to be more uncommon to what I was wacthing in the first place. In other words: WTF?! It been better if they ended right about here.

For all it is worth, this anime was a excellent if not a good example of how NOT TO kill time and next time I proabably will be more careful of what I wacth. The only reason I was keeping track because my favorite voice actoress appeared in it and well, it was something again that would kill time.  I guess there is always the next season of shows or something better than this. Blech.

Anyone up for some Tokyo Majin or When They Cry? Anyone…

I smell Yu-gi-oh Lawsuit Brewing!

]]> http://yukan.dasaku.net/miscellaneous/akaneiro-ni-somaru-saka-ends-ep-12/feed/ 10 http://yukan.dasaku.net/miscellaneous/the-animated-spree-disgaea-is-worth-its-weight-in-hel/ http://yukan.dasaku.net/miscellaneous/the-animated-spree-disgaea-is-worth-its-weight-in-hel/#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:07:22 +0000 newgeekphilosopher http://yukan.dasaku.net/?p=3614

Blissmo likes Bunnies, I like Prinnies. Let’s see what I watched this week.

Christmas is coming, look busy. If you’re not busy, you soon will be because it’s Christmas Eve down under and there’s a bit of time left before the traditional midnight one present opening can occur. But what do you do if your lazy film student brother borrowed your external hard drive for a film project and won’t hand it back because he hasn’t finished it? Well it’s time for some licensed Anime DVDs which for some reason have sat on my shelf unwatched for a long time.

That is why this Christmas I decided to finish watching the Disgaea Anime. Disgaea has a warm place in my heart because I manage to laugh with it when others of similar European ancestry would find it baffling to why it produces laughter from me. It’s zany, it’s agressively Japanese in its humor style, but there’s a lot of funny moments to have with this particular Anime.

For starters, this isn’t an ordinary fantasy genre Anime, there are defenders of the Earth in space ships as well who travel with a robot, a moe angel called Flonne and a demon named Etna who are the only two DFC women whom Laharl is not intimidated by via a bounteous bosom. And before you say this series is loli keep in mind there is no chance in hell that any of the characters in this (save “Laharl’s Sister” in what I will call the “onee-chan joke” episode) are children. And if they lock me up in Australia for saying that about this Anime well then our nation has gone to the dingoes.

The Prinnies in this Anime are penguin like creatures resembling bat-winged and blue Linux logos with cash inside them, who are worked like slaves by the Demons, Laharl and Etna in particular.

The anime is twelve episodes and I haven’t been bored watching a single one of them. The good thing about Disgaea is there is no filler, and every moment of it is at least somewhat entertaining, though the progress of the plot is non-linear in a way because characters that appear earlier in the series haven’t reappeared so far, but when I watch the final disc of it tonight I should know what exactly is going on with the squad of mercenaries and what Etna’s motivations are.

Figure Photos taken with my Skypephone camera.

Christmas is coming, and some of you may be recieving Anime figures for Christmas. For Australians, the collected box set of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya has finally come out after years of waiting, and years of fans crying out for an easily accessible method of getting Haruhisms. What’s not so easy in acquiring a Haruhism is getting your hands on Wonderfest figures, which are rarer than hen’s teeth.

Fortunately I have the Haruhi Bunny Nendoroid set from Wonderfest and a Skypephone camera (my normal one broke). Let’s take a look at them shall we?

Firstly we have Mikuru in a red bunny suit in which she appears in Haruhi’s student film. She is holding a prop machine gun and she has a moe look on her face, somewhere between not knowing what to do with the gun and sheer lack of confidence (probably because Haruhi bullies her into submission). Mikuru is my favorite out of the Haruhi girls, my second favorite is Haruhi, because even though Yuki Nagato is a meganekko she just doesn’t appeal to me as much as other meganekkos such as Yomiko Readman from Read or Die and Miyuki from Lucky Star. In my opinion Yuki Nagato’s meganekko moe was secondary to her plot device status of being an alien, whereas Mikuru was the time traveller whom Kyon had to choose between happiness with Mikuru or a life with Haruhi and a safe universe. In other words Kyon is screwed.

Here’s the Haruhi Bunny Nendoroid, with guitar and microphone. Haruhi appears in concert in one of the final episodes of the Haruhi Anime, so it’s natural they would base a figure off her outfit in this way. I don’t know about Haruhi, but she has a sort of charm to her that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe because enthusiasm for life is something I like to see in a woman. Near the end of the series Haruhi becomes less of a bitch and more like a softened tsundere, reflecting Japanese gendered values somewhat as she becomes a softie. Warm and fuzzy Haruhi aside, her selfishness towards Kyon is pretty messed up.

Finally we have Yuki Nagato, in a white bunny suit and holding the sign she holds in the movie Haruhi makes. Since she is a reader I put her next to some books, the Harry Potter books to be exact. She is also next to my tokidoki Bastardino figure, designed by Simone Legno. Yuki looks at home on my shelf with the other Haruhi girls next to my books, and I guess they highlight my shelf space more. Figures add a touch to modern living that IKEA furniture doesn’t on its own, sometimes modern living must be moefied to work out.

Overall what do I think of the figures? Well if you like Haruhi you could do worse than try and track down this Haruhi Bunny Nendoroid set, but it is very rare and hard to find. The figures look much better in person than in what crappy phone photography I can give you. But if you can locate a set, try and save it for Christmas as it really is worth the wait and anticipation of opening a set of these firsthand. I liked the Haruhi series a lot so I got these, not just for the collector’s value. GoodSmile Company succeeded in bringing out some nice figures this time around, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen some Haruhi Nendoroids like them about.

]]> http://yukan.dasaku.net/miscellaneous/wonderfest-rare-haruhi-bunny-figures-review/feed/ 4 http://yukan.dasaku.net/miscellaneous/mangajail/ http://yukan.dasaku.net/miscellaneous/mangajail/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 04:08:35 +0000 Kaze No Honoo http://yukan.dasaku.net/?p=3365

Owning manga can get you in jail?!

Well, I’m no expert of the law and I can’t say that I exactly fond of it, but can something harmless as manga get you thrown behind bars?! Maybe…

For those of you lost, I’m talking about a interesting case involving Christopher Handley, a fan of manga that could be facing some serious jail time–20 years worth behind prison bars. We are talking criminal charges, folks. I’m not going to be all subjective or objective on this thing, but to sum it up in a few and thoughtful words: WTF?!

FULL STORY HERE: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/editorial/2008-12-11/christopher-handley/jason-thompson

Something is not adding up here. There is no specifics released in this statement enough, well in my case to understand what is going on. As you can tell, American Law VS Japanese Law is VERY DIFFERENT and so is all the territory that comes with it. I am talking age ratings, age, censorship, and the whole Nine yards of what the public can expect and what is accept. In this case, something wicked is at work. Come on, the guys First Amendment right has been violated and pass-over faster than bad Family Guy Joke.

Like I said before, I won’t dive any deeper into this because of the facts and information not touching home enough for me to even explain or elaborate. Yet, one thing is clear: This something that should peak your interest. In what matter exactly? Well, who knows. Could mean the US more restrictive or know one giving a da** about personal rights. Whatever it does mean, you can be sure that this will be case that affects a larger base than smaller.

In the future, I will be doing some more intresting articles so I hope you guys will stick with me till then.

do not be fooled – its hideous form, illuminated by the righteous light of Jesus

The elusive meaning of lolikitsune is frightening by the sheer depth of its possibilities, it has killed thousands of archaeologists and scholars for millennia.

But now, we can finally interpret this as lol ik its un e, or, lol, I know, its un e.

Such is the message LK decided to offer us in his handle. The lolikitean cryptology proves difficult to master, for anyone able to understand its true meaning has thus inextricably sold their soul to Jason Miao, the lolikitean theological equivalent to Beelzebub.

But you ask, what is the cipher? None other than Icystorm’s ball sack. Its sweat proves an invaluable gravitational lens, much like how a black hole functions, in that you can see into the future by way of superluminal circumnavigation of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. It appears LK has presented unto us the technology of gods.

“inchooka lukaohnoonga inchhoonguh fwarsri dinka pleahbleaurh” thus spoke icystorm

When I saw into the future, I saw the true of meaning of lol ik its un e. The archaic usage of the medieval Spanish un and the Sanskrit e indicated a polyglot meaning that even Joyce could not fathom. But when I peered further into the meaning, I discovered e was not a typical e, but a mathematical symbol. Yes, another meaning of lolikitsune had appeared, it was lol ik its un 2.71828183. By this I was truly baffled. When I finally accumulated enough of Icystorm’s ball sweat to see far enough into the future, I discovered I had, in fact, mis-translated the mystical Vishnu Reincarnation Dance of Life into the equation. Yes! 2.71828183 was not precisely a number, per se, but an algorithmic substitute for a series of Neanderthal hymns that told me to reconfigure the lolikitsune rosetta stone. It turned out to be…

lol, I know, I tsun e

And behold almighty Jesus, tsun appears. But I had yet another premonition evoked by a epileptic seizure through an overdose of Icystorm scrotum perspiration. The e was only allotrophic! And so it turned out to be…

lol, I know, I tsuny

No, despite popular belief, LK was not a Sunni. We are dealing with the connections between prehistoric Lolikiteanism, Hinduism and modern Japan. I would have never guessed that altering the astronomical arc length between the Hindu consellation Dhanwantari and the Shinto deity Aji-Suki-Taka-Hi-Kone by six parsecs would alter the course of history such the unholy union of lolikitsune and tsundere were possible. Over the course of history, though, the riddle had been solved.

lol, I know, I am a tsundere

It’s not dead, well, yet..

I’m always tried of people saying the PS2 is dead. Well, not yet of course, come on. Well, I guess my guys and girls at GUST/NIS are going to have to prove them them dead wrong with Ar Tonelico II. Yeah, how did they pull that off?

Well, anyway, you take the role of a young church knight named Croix Batel that is sent to find the source of a epidemic of some sort in the region of Metafalss. But, eventually, the simple quest turns into something more and it’s up to Croix and his crew to uncover the secrets that at work. I know, it’s not much of a story and the way I explained it is not much better, but at least you get to see the beautiful artwork AR is know for.

There have been plenty of new changes made to the game such as the Dualstall and battle system as well as the good old features coming back, so no need to feel as if it has been done before. I won’t spoil all the fun for you, but, there are a few surprises too, that been added to this game  (I played parts of the JPN version, so yeah I know XD)

But in all moderation like with Persona 4, I can’t exactly score this game, until I see the English product done. So, if you have a couple bucks left from the holiday season and they don’t change the date: You can see AR2 coming January 20, 2009.

A few more screenshots

I almost had Hyakko poached from me, but we’ve come to an agreement, Kaze and I.

In my long absence from Yukan in terms of episodic blogging I suppose I have neglected Machiavelli’s rule of taking over the world by building settlements, and so far my settlements at Yukan seem rather dusty since I haven’t posted a review of some actual Anime in a while. Here are some short reviews of Anime series I’ve been watching since I’ve been expanding into other media such as radio spots and winning blogging competitions for the Sydney Morning Herald:

Welcome to the NHK! isn’t the newest Anime on the block, and it certainly isn’t the most wholesome I could be watching, but it is certainly entertaining and gives me hope that there are far more perverse individuals on this Earth than me, but as Sweeney Todd says, “We all deserve to die… even you Mrs. Lovett even I”. Rather than judging the characters of NHK too harshly, they serve as a reminder of what can happen if a man is pushed over the edge into madness, particularly when some of the madness is his own fault. Saki the nice girl is a sort of reverse Marla Singer from Fight Club, and really Welcome to the NHK! bears the resemblance of Fight Club for Japanese otaku people.

I have not read the NHK novel so the plot remains unspoiled and as of yet I am still wincing as I draw closer and closer to the ending, wondering when in a halfway series lull in the depravity the awful stuff starts to happen again. Please don’t spoil the ending of this series for me as I’ve never seen it before, besides, it’s more fun seeing me revolted at things I didn’t expect than for me to see it coming and lessen its effect.

Moving on there’s another series I’ve been following which I’ve been enjoying, called Strawberry Panic.

Baka-Raptor informed me of this one, and I hope the pacing picks up after the first two episodes. I haven’t watched an episode in a while so I forget the character’s names, but as far as I know from experience, when it comes to me interpreting Anime for the first time, unless the characters are already familiar, there’s a fair bit of “Ooh Blue Haired Girlie did this” (Lucky Star initially caused me some character identification problems with Tsusaka and Kagami, being a twin myself I finally felt the frustration of others trying to tell me and my brother apart). Basically Reddish/Brownish haired girl on the right of this picture (at least in the first two episodes) is being stalked by the senior white haired girl on the left, but the problem for her is that the Reddish/Brownish haired girl on the right is straight. Is it love? We don’t know yet, I’ve only watched two episodes, one of which involves a library chase scene.

One of the reasons I’ve been away from actual Anime episodic blogging is that I’ve been producing some “popular art” of my own for the first time in three months and so far I have a page of an illustrated short story. Maybe one day it will be collected into a graphic novel or something, but it’s not something I can really talk about in an Anime post. Even though it is Anime related, such pimping would be unprofessional.

Hopefully once I catch up with Hyakko Kaze and I will be able to settle our differences and blog the series together as nature intended, since with my lulzy sense of humor and Kaze’s skill of actually getting the character names right, who knows what we could bring to the Hyakko discussion table? As far as I know us two are the only ones who cared about Hyakko from the beginning, Issa-sa certainly didn’t give Torako and her friends a chance.

Listen in to me chatting to Safran and Father Bob about Tezuka’s Buddha on the podcast I’m about to link you.

Here is where I talked to John Safran and Father Bob about Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha manga on their show Sunday Night Safran. It took months to organise this interview and because of that I felt really nervous when I finally got on the show, so if you hear some heavy breathing occasionally when I talk (by the way I’m Jacob Martin on the show) it’s because I was really trying to fit as much as I could in the time. You can fast forward to me at 36:53 mins on the Quicktime player of the podcast to hear me speak.