My Otaku Stuff

Over at Dannychoo, everyone's been posting pictures of their rooms and shelves and what not. So here's my scattered collection. I'd say "Hey look, it's a girl's room," but it's not, as I live with my fiancee. These pictures span our bedroom and living room. Just about all of this is mine, with a few (noted) exceptions.



The FF8 scroll belongs to the boy; I was not a fan of the game, and preferred FF7. We can't discuss either at our house as it only leads to vicious arguments. Anyway there's also a FLCL Canti, Atashi and Chii from Chobits, and Kon (Bleach). Also some manga.



Love my plushies. ^_^



Video games...not all of them though. Some of the older ones are scattered throughout the house, and none of the DS/GBA games are there. Some of those (mostly Wii games) belong to my fiancee's son. But a majority of the rest are mine (unless it's an FPS, but isn't Mass Effect).



<3 Kos Mos.



Movies and anime. And my foot. All the anime is mine, and maybe half of the DVDs (the boy and I have very different tastes). That's not all the anime....



There's the rest. Except for Evangelion and Lodoss War, which are out as I've been watching them.



Here's our computer area. The scrolls are Trigun and Cowboy Bebop (and both are mine, as are all of the figures/toys). You can also see my musical theatre stuffed animals from Chicago, Sound of Music and Wicked. Also a large dragon D&D mini, and some other minis for my characters.



My comic book boxes; there's actually four, as there's two you can't see behind there, all piled with books I haven't bagged and labeled yet. And the boy's old roleplaying books.



Bookshelf with manga, comic trades, books, and some figures and plushies.

There's DVDs, games and manga volumes missing here and there, that are either lying around the house, being borrowed out, or in a box somewhere. But that's basically everything.

Skip Beat Anime

The Anime News Network has just announced that Pony Canyon has...announced...that they will be making a Skip Beat! anime for this fall, based on Yoshiki Nakamura's manga of the same name. It will be animated by Hal Film Maker and directed by Kiyoko Sayama.

w00t

Notes on the 2008 Tony Awards

Where was Stephen Sondheim? The guy got a lifetime achievement award and didn't show up. Or couldn't. He had two (revived) shows swimming in nominations too.

How old is Liza Minelli anyway? Good gracious.... An icon she is, but looking well she is not. Was she wearing like, a jacket over a bra?

Whoopi Goldberg as the Emcee? Really? Why? And those outfits....

The Little Mermaid costumes are still hideous.

Let Patti LuPone TALK. The woman can bring the house down by literally just walking onto a stage. Let her make her damn speech.

Did anyone else break into tears when the original cast of RENT got up there and broke into Seasons of Love? Such a shame that it's closing this year.

Daniel Radcliffe will be adorable forever. I smell a Tony coming his way next year.

License plate tap shoes are really quite inventive, and awesome.

August: Osage County must be an incredible play.

The Tony Awards is the only awards show I've ever seen that actually ends ON TIME. 10 pm on the dot. I think it's because they're theatre people. That shit's like clockwork.

Are there not enough "theatre people" to cover roles that so many television and movie actors have to take over roles? I don't really want to knock them, as some of them are really great, but it just seems like there are more of them than actual theatre actors in shows these days.

I thought skating (as in roller skates) shows died with the 80s, but I was mistaken. At least it's funny (in Xanadu; sorry Ariel, but the heelys don't help the atrocious costume you're wearing).

Loving Mandy's mane, but I didn't recognize him at first. He is seriously awesome.

Clearly Alec Baldwin isn't superstitious; good for him I guess.

The Lion King is still incredibly amazing.

You're Under Arrest vol. 12

Well, I asked for it, and Toukairin and Natsumi are out in full force on this disc, which is solely devoted to building their relationship. And I have to say that this is the fastest moving relationship I've ever seen in any anime ever made. 4 episodes cover pretty much the entire thing; if Miyuki and Nakajima's relationship moved even a 10th of this speed it would actually be interesting. Disc 12 covers episodes 45-48: "A Summer's Day Together," "Toukairin's Challenge," "The Time Limit," and "The End of Summer."

A Summer's Day Together:
Oshou has something he needs delivered to his mother who lives out of town (in what looks like a small farming town). Natsumi and Miyuki, who have the day off, agree to make the delivery. Toukairin shows up while they're visiting Oshou. He seems to be spending a lot of time around Bokuto lately, much to the consternation of the police officers there (who are as clueless as a thumb tack), and keeps showing up around Natsumi. On their way to visit Oshou's mother, he shows up again, riding his bicycle (which he manages to ride at inhuman speeds) with the correct item of delivery, and goes along with them. While Miyuki helps put a meal together, Natsumi and Toukairin set off together to shop for extra food so they don't clear out the little old lady's entire kitchen with their endless appetites. Toukairin shares a little of his past with Natsumi, which only confuses her, then they get caught in the rain together and share a couple of very cute moments. Progress has been made!

Toukairin's Challenge:
A young kendo student gets beaten by a female student and decides he's going to quit kendo all together. Toukairin overhears and challenges the boy and his friends to become stronger. He decides to train them in his own way, and takes them fishing and plays baseball with them (or well, they're throwing baseballs around at least). Meanwhile Natsumi discovers that the reason the young boy was so upset is because he has a crush on the girl who beat him (and she likes him as well). She works with Toukairin to hook the kiddies up by having them attend a traffic safety program at the station.

The Time Limit:
A huge accident has occurred inside a tunnel, involving a pretty ridiculous amount of cars. The rescue workers on the scene enlist the help of Bokuto station to control the flow of traffic around the area, and someone has specifically requested Miyuki and Natsumi for help at the scene of the accident. Guess who? The girls and Toukairin work with the other rescue workers to pull all of the people out of their cars and lead them to safety before all the leaking fuel in the tunnel bursts into flame. They're about to celebrate everyone's safe return when an injured mother declares that her small son was sleeping in the back seat of her car and has not been brought from the tunnel. Toukairin and Natsumi rush inside in a race against time to find and rescue the small boy. Faced with imminent danger, Toukairin finally declares that he cares for Natsumi.

The End of Summer:
Toukairin has been called away from Bokuto (where he has been helping train the officers in rescue methods) to the Himalayas. The station decides to throw him a farewell party. Everyone becomes worried when Natsumi doesn't show up. She didn't take the news of his departure to well. When she finally does show up, hours late, Toukairin, who had stayed to wait for her, invites her out for a night of drinking. They end their evening with one final arm wrestling match, to settle the score, and Natsumi finally beats him. The next day Natsumi goes back to work, and Toukairin heads to the airport. At the last minute, Natsumi finally realizes how she really feels for Toukairin, and rushes off from work to catch him before his plane leaves.

PiQ no more

PiQ Magazine, ADV's replacement of NewType USA, has ended it's publishing run after just 4 issues. You read right. Four issues. The July issue, which just hit the stands is their final issue.

Direct from the PiQ website:

"It’s unfortunate that we’ll never get a chance to see how successful PiQ could have been, but a combination of low advertising revenue, poor business management and a lack of proper marketing and promotion all hamstrung the magazine from the start. We, the editorial/creative/production staff, did the best we could to put together a quality publication, but as we’ve discovered, without a good financial backing, it’s all an exercise in futility."

I don't know what all that mess means, other than it seems like ADV really dropped the ball on this one. As if they didn't even care if the mag succeeded or not. Personally I was really enjoying the mag, and as soon as I drop by the bookstore, I'll have all four issues. Where NewType focused solely on anime, manga, and Japanese...stuff...PiQ had a much broader range. It still talked about anime, there were still manga previews, and there were still articles on various things Japanese. But mixed in with the otaku fan fare was information for geeks of every flavor. There were articles on everything from the new comic book movie hitting theaters to female roller derby. So instead of buying, I don't know, 5 different magazines to cover everything (like NewType, Game Informer, Dragon Magazine, etc), you bought one that had everything you needed to know.

A lot of NewType fans really hated it, I think. PiQ chased away the hard core otakus who didn't care about the newest Adult Swim original (although to be perfectly honest, I don't either). And I'm certain that hurt their readership. I'm not sure how you advertise these sorts of things. I walked into my comic book store one day and there it was, Deunan Knute gracing the glossy cover. I was immediately hooked, but if it hadn't been displayed in such a way that I couldn't help but notice it, helped along by my excitement for a new Appleseed, I never would have known it existed.

Sorry to see you go, PiQ Magazine. You were a great magazine, full of well written articles (though even in just 4 issues I did notice some repetition), an amalgam of all things geek. Perhaps ADV will give it another shot, but in the meantime, there's always Otaku USA.

You're Under Arrest vol. 11

Volume 11 contains episodes 41-44:
"Round it Goes! The Fiery Patrol Light (Part 1)," "Round it Goes! The Fiery Patrol Light (Part 2)," Bokuto Station Scandal," and "Bokuto Ghost Story."

Round it Goes! The Fiery Patrol Light Parts 1 & 2:
A rare two parter; most episodes of YUA are stand alone. In this set, Bokuto Police Station comes under scrutiny for a series of attacks on drivers by a black car and 2 motorcycles (all driven by supposed traffic cops, and sporting flashing red lights). The attacks occur in Bokuto's precinct, leading HQ to suspect that it's an inside job involving Bokuto cops. I mean they really think it's them. Inspector Arizuka comes down hard, suspending all patrols from the station except in emergency situations. This seems a little odd, honestly. The cops of Bokuto can be rather...unorthodox in their methods, but they're good cops, and they always get the job done (and do it well). There's not anything specific that really points to Bokuto other than it's happening in their precinct. Of course Miyuki and Natsumi, along with Nakajima, aren't going to sit by quietly and let this happen. They take matters into their own hands to hunt these renegade cops down and regain the faith of the citizens they protect.
Toukairin makes an extremely brief appearance in this story. His face is shown in a thoughtful "I have an idea" expression, and he has a phone conversation with the Chief (but you don't know it was him until later as you don't hear his voice), and he shows up at the very end to give the girls a hand. I really wish he had a larger part, though judging by the preview from episode 44, he'll show up in the next volume with Natsumi. Which is great, as Natsumi's been getting action with Nakajima in this volume (she gets more screen time with him in the entire series than poor Miyuki).

Bokuto Station Scandal:
A group of teens has been spying on Bokuto Station. Using a small remote controlled helicopter equipped with a digital camera, the amateur spies take pictures of the gang and post them up on a website. They appear to be fans of Bokuto, and want to show everyone pictures of the cops being "regular" people, to humanize them and show people how kind they all are so they're not scared to approach them. It's all fun and games until the gang spots a particular photo that contains a bank robber they've been looking for - the man's car and face is in the background. It's a race against time to track down the teens and get them to pull the photo before the robber finds them first.

Bokuto Ghost Story:
Must be a Halloween episode, as it is full of several creepy little stories. The gang thinks a ghost is haunting the station and decides to check it out one evening. The Chief warns them not to mix police business with private business, then proceeds to scare the pants off of them (and himself) with stories about ghosts and murders involving the station in the past. They creeped me out a bit, but I'm pretty much a complete wuss, so it's not hard.

GTA IV - Not for Kids

Yeah, we know. That’s why it’s rated M for Mature. It says right there on the box that it includes “Intense Violence, Blood, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Partial Nudity, Use of Drugs and Alcohol.” So yeah, we know. No one is trying to argue the fact that this game shouldn’t be played by children. The ESRB knows. The gamers know. The stores know. The stores know they’re not supposed to sell the game to a minor. If someone decides to ignore such a rule, that’s the fault of the individual, and maybe they should be fired. As opposed to, I don’t know, blaming the retailer or the game’s production company. Otherwise, the kids are getting it because their parents are buying it for them. A parent can judge what they believe is safe for their child. Unless they don’t know if it’s safe. Maybe they don’t bother to read the content descriptors. Maybe they simply don’t care. Maybe they’re just oblivious.

Gamers know where to find such things. We know what websites to visit, what magazines to read, what TV channels to watch. We know that Grand Theft Auto is a violent game, that it’s full of “strong language,” and that – I know this will be a surprise for some – you steal cars. Do the parents know this? Where do parents get their information from? I can’t imagine that many parents spend their free time watching trailers and reading previews at IGN.com. Or that they all have subscriptions to Electronic Gaming Monthly. Some of them probably watch the news. If they watch Fox News, then they all believe the entire point of Mass Effect is to gallivant across the universe raping alien chicks instead of saving that universe from the ultimate evil. So often I have seen parents (or grandparents) who know very little or nothing at all about the game their child wants them to buy. They simply have a list, and they know their child wants this game and that game. Often they have no idea what that means. Sometimes all they know is “It’s a Mario game.” At any given time there are multiple Mario games on the shelves, so that doesn’t help. Sometimes they don’t know what system the game they’re looking for is on, which is often because they simply don’t know which ones their child owns. I’ve met parents who, when given a description of the game, decided that maybe they shouldn’t be buying a game like GTA for their 9 year old. Then they asked what they should buy instead. When asked what sort of games their child was interested in, they could not give an answer.

It’s understandable that an older generation not raised on games may not understand them. So why isn’t the gaming community trying to help them understand? Or maybe the correct question would be: why isn’t the gaming community given a voice? Goodness knows we try. Goodness knows we’re ignored, at least outside our own circles. It does little good for gamers to argue about video game violence on a channel like G4, which is watched by fellow gamers. We already know. The demographic for the sort of people who are currently unaware read People Magazine, not Game Informer. They watch Oprah, not X-Play. Substitute any other talk show/sitcom/news show or entertainment magazine in there; there’s not a lot of (true) information about video games. So why doesn’t Oprah start a “Safe for Kids Video Game of the Month” list? Even Good Housekeeping could devote a page or two to informing parents about safe games for their children. Articles like that couldn’t be written by just anybody of course; a gamer would have to write them (maybe even a gaming parent), someone who knows and understands video games, but instead of gushing over artistically beautiful blood sprays points out the issues in games that parents are concerned about. How easy the game is to play, how violent the game is, the language content, the sex content, how realistic these things are. With a ratings system based not (only) on how good a game is, but on how appropriate it is for a child. I’m sure parents would rather their children read books or go outside, but if they’re going to be playing video games, at least the parents can be informed about their content.