Archive for October, 2009

I had to rush out yesterday—the TV crew showed up at City Hall at 7 a.m.—so I figured I’d toss in a bonus post today so you wouldn’t miss all the Halloween goodness that’s out there.

Halloween isn’t the only event this weekend—Yaoi-Con is going on as well, and Deb Aoki posts a handy guide for manga fans at About.com. And The Yaoi Review is tweeting live updates.

The New York Times best-seller list is up, and among the usual suspects (Naruto, Bleach) is a global title, Vampire Kisses, based on Ellen Schrieber’s YA novels.

David Welsh’s license request this week is Hime-Chan’s Ribbon.

Reviews: EvilOmar posts a handful of brief manga reviews at About Heroes.

Cynthia on Age Called Blue (Boys Next Door)
Julie on vol. 1 of Beast Master (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Snow Wildsmith on vol. 1 of Blue Sheep Reverie (Manga Jouhou)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Cat Paradise (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Billy Aguiar on vol. 1 of Detroit Metal City (Prospero’s Manga)
Cynthia on vol. 3 of Dog Style (Boys Next Door)
Sesho on vol. 4 of Fullmetal Alchemist (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Higurashi When They Cry: Cotton Drifting Arc (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Erica on vol. 1 of Hinagiku Junshin Jogakuen (Okazu)
James Fleenor on vol. 4 of Inukami! (Anime Sentinel)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 1 of March on Earth (i heart manga)
Julie on vol. 4 of Mixed Vegetables (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 2 of Nightschool (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Ken Haley on Red Snow (Manga Recon)
Andrew Wheeler on Red Snow (ComicMix)
Snow Wildsmith on Rica ‘tte Kanji!? (Fujoshi Librarian)
Michelle Smith on vols. 5-7 of Vampire Knight (Soliloquy in Blue)
Sesho on the December 2008 issue of Yen Plus (Korean and global titles) (Sesho’s Anime and Manga Reviews)
Joy Kim on vol. 6 of Yotsuba&! (Joy Kim)

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a.k.a as the budget-saving ‘bridge’ episode. Seriously this was such as bizzare episode I’d almost think they jumped the shark if I wasn’t prep’ed for it over the last three weeks. In any case, poor Shio-, I mean Suou.

“Why so serious? Here, let me put a smile on that deadpan mugs of the both of you!”

“Shake those hips harder!”, says Hei as he trains his personal loli in the ‘basics’.

And this is the reason why people don’t consume expired food that has been kept in dubious circumstances. Like in the freezer of a bankrupt love hotel. Anyways, Contractors are humans too, nothing shameful about getting mild food poisoning. Just don’t hold it in for so long, Suou!

Admittedly, July is probably the single most useful character in the show right now, with Petya/Mao in close second. Good to see he picked up some tips about smiling from Yin!

Is this guy gonna be the joke character of this season? Just like Kurasawa Gai in the first?

And Misaki almost gets ‘it’ from Hazuki. Oooh, yuri rape prospects huh.

Man, this season of DtB is seriously getting out of hand at times. I don’t know if they are trying to be serious or not, just like the Kurasawa Gai episodes in the original DtB. But at least the story is more consistent now that they aren’t using the two-episode format again. I just hope they don’t leave everything to the subtext like in the first season hurr.

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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You anime-only watchers sure missed out on some really good shit now that this got spoiled. Seriously, the impact of this part when it hits you in the game is utterly devastating. I’ll admit, the anime art is much more fear-inducing though.

Battler is so going to be the butt of “IT’S OVER ENDLESS NINE!!!!” jokes for a long time to come hurrr..

“You’re gonna get raped!” faces from the Siestas in this episode gave me an involuntary hardon. Goddamnit!

“Flying hamburger“? Fuck you, gg, FUCK YOU.

Once again, the anime art is probably compensating for the rushed-ness of the story with QUALITY such as this.

Seriously, if you haven’t read the visual novel yet, make some time for it. It’ll be well worth the time spent!

©2009 Kurogane's Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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A Eulogy for Geocities…

Earlier this week, GeoCities became officially unavailable, a few months since YaHoo! announced its closure. GeoCities began in the mid 1990’s providing free web hosting and later on, paid premium service. GeoCities was initially organized into “cities” or neighborhoods, such as Tokyo for anime and other Asian topics, or SiliconValley for tech topics. When Yahoo! acquired GeoCities in 1999, they switched from the neighborhood based URLs to a customized ones.

I first learned of GeoCities in high school, around a couple of years after the city was introduced to the World Wide Web. I was fascinated with Yu Yu Hakusho then and I would research about the anime in the Net. Information regarding Yu Yu Hakusho, however, was limited and so I thought of creating my own YYH website. After deliberating which web host to use, I settled for GeoCities. I learned HTML and came up with a crude lay-out filled with marquees and Java applets (they were all the rage then). I couldn’t exactly remember that site’s URL but I think it was www.geocities.com/yyh_profiles.

In college, I collaborated with two my my classmates to create another anime site: www.geocities.com/anime_list. Our site contained categorizations of anime characters such as those with cool hair, or those with cool weapons, etc. Later on, we put up fanarts and also wallpapers for download.

Also in college, I decided to create my own personal blog. I knew of the existence of blogging services such as LiveJournal and blogger but I opted to put up my blog in GeoCities because it offered greater control. My HTML skills have somehow improved and I learned CSS so I wanted to try coming up with my own design. However, since GeoCities had no blogging framework, I had to manually arrange my pages such that the latest post comes first. I also had to use HaloScan for the commenting and trackbacking system. My blog was at www.geocities.com/disruptive_camouflage.

Eventually, I grew tired of having to rearrange my pages each time I had a new post so I migrated my blog to WordPress. In fact, the oldest entries at my Wordpress blog came from my GeoCities blog. I still kept the GeoCities site and used it as a file server of sorts.

It’s been almost a decade since I’ve used GeoCities and now, the popular free web hosting site has gone to the far reaches of cyberspace oblivion. It is understandable though why YaHoo! closed GeoCities. With the rising popularity of blogging services and the arrival of social networking sites (which too provide blogging services), GeoCities has fallen out of fashion and its userbase has shrunk. And besides, it’s not making money for YaHoo!, as Rupert Goodwins, editor of ZDNet, said, “I think GeoCities was the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet.”

The curtain has finally closed on GeoCities and some things will be missed forever. Well, goodbye Geocities! You have served me well.

This wasn’t really talked about much in the anime ’sphere, wasn’t it? I’m sure many of us were born before the ’90s era, basked in the HTML awefulness of Web 1.0, visited and/or created anime shrines at one point in our otakudom lives… right?

Geocities closed down, together with a good number of anime sites that shaped me as a fan. *Looks at all the Geocities sites in Anipike and sighs* With the exception of Hate Sites or Clubs, these sites were the epitome of remembering love for animes and mangas. Even until now I’d look back at those times and wonder just how I can make a shrine out of this blog. Or a museum, as ghostlightning once said.

There was this bishounen files site I was so fond of way back high school, with profiles of bishies from various series, classified into various types: the boy-next-door type (I remember Yuu from Marmalade Boy was one of them), the underdogs (Ryoga), the cross-dressers (Nuriko), the evil overlords (Zagato), etc etc. My memory’s a bit fuzzy but there’s a big chance that it was hosted in Geocities. I doubt I’ll ever be able to find that now, obviously.

Someone ought to rebuild that bishie bio database. Now it’s all about moe and GAR, seme and uke. Boy do I love digressing.

First encounter with HTML and Photoshop

I was never inspired to make my own site, lazy as I am, not until 1st year college when it was required by our professor. The year was 2002, back when Neopets was all the craze, and CometZone was still hip and trendy; back when I was still addicted to Ranma 1/2 (I remember using Ranma and Akane’s Ballad as my site BGM lol), YuYu Hakusho, Fushigi Yuugi, Rurouni Kenshin, and Card Captor Sakura. And still into fanart-ing.

I visited my homepage one last time before the D-Day, and a wave of nostalgia came over me as I was looking through my image gallery, most of which were scans of my fanarts and the Newtype magazine I had since 2nd year high school. A walk down memory lane here we go~

(Click on the thumbnails to view the larger image in an overlay window, won’t work through a feed reader)

Low and behold, my first scans, from my first Newtype magazine. Ever.

First impromptu color fanart (woke up in the middle of the night and thought, “I feel like making a fanart of my beloved Kurama-sama, so let’s do that”)

First raburabu fanarts <3

First CG attempt and FAIL

First CG semi-success; first fanart submitted and featured in a local manga-zine. Culture Crash, anyone? Microsoft will so sue me for using that Windows wallpaper for my background.

*cue Winter Sonata’s Memories BGM*

This one’s for you, Geocities:

But you put on quite a show, really had me going.
But now it’s time to go, curtain’s finally closing.
That was quite a show, very entertaining.
But it’s over now…
Go on and take a bow.

Or as SDS says, “Shine On, Geocities. Shine On… Forever”

It was my 2nd year in highschool and I was 16, constantly running away from Britney’s “Oops!… I Did It Again” in those eternal summers of youth. I managed somehow, rocking out to Neon-Genesis Evangelion’s intro by swapping multi-(floppy)-disk zip archives with my friends, and discovering this thing called Anime(lol!). It was either that or dial-up Hyperterminal, downloading it yourself from some random site in Anipike.com or trying your luck in Napster.

So we got techie, learning about the freedom in mp3’s and the internet boom helped us along, albeit slowly at 56kbps, until one day, instead of just visiting Anipike, we thought we’d try our luck with our own tribute/shrine/whatever. My sister was taking Computer Science at the time, and there were plenty of HTML resources online, plus Geocities(God bless his soul!) was offering free hosting with your yahoo mail, so we tried our hand in that.

Mine was called “the Grandstand” to commemorate the bleachers my friends and I usually hung out in. There, along with some game and personal stuff, I also built an anime corner. In hindsight, it was the anime corner that grew the most, housing a menial collection of Fushigi Yuugi pictures, random midi’s(Misato theme!) and large amounts of painstakingly coded HTML code. By code I meant secret links in length marquee’s, thorough use of the tag, and a small banner proclaiming “Proudly made in Notepad” to spite all those perky, oddly-colored, Frontpage users.

We expanded by joining the roster of sites included in Anime-rings’ random links. We also linked to each other–and always href-ed their site at every mention of their name–and signed guestbooks prolifically. All the while, religiously monitoring our daily visit site-counters. And then Google happened, and Blogger/Livejournal was born, and Anipike sorta fizzled out and we found out about going outside.

But I stop by ever-so-often. And though I have to jump through the Wayback Machine because geocities got tired of hosting me, the nostalgia and the indomitable optimism of those teenage years will always be online.

Share your Geocities story and we might just unleash a torrent of nostalgia right here

Further Reading

SDS’s eulogy posts for Geocities, where a number of people also shared their stories.

AstroNerdBoy reminded us to archive old GeoCities anime sites back when the news came about.

princetrunks also shared his Geocities tale, which explains the Web 1.0 look and feel of his site.

toonleap showed his geocities sites before, though unfortunately we can no longer access them. Except maybe through the Wayback Engine.

Reminiscing the Analog Otaku Life Days

Related posts:

1. A Tale of Friendship, Love, LULZ, and ToraDora
2. Cross Game Commercial Break: Nomo’s Picture Drawing Song~!

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Summary:

Yuki tackles Rina for a loss of 5 yards, but Rina is adamant about leaving Ogata productions.  The two have some pie and dry off, but Rina wants Yuki to be strong and decisive.  In a flashback, we also find that Rina encouraged Yuki while recording by offering to have Yuki provide some guest vocals on Rina’s album.  Over at Echoes, Mana is surprised to find that Touya really was dating Yuki, and Mana then proceeds to talk some trash about Haruka’s love life and dead brother.  It’s clear they both like Touya, and Mana mentions that Yayoi’s got to be in her late 20s or early 30s because a woman’s skin doesn’t lie.

Meanwhile, Itsuki stops by to tell Eji that she didn’t actually own the painting that Eji won from her.  In a hilarious scene, we find that Eji cannot give it back because he wrote “Fake” on the painting, and so he has to give up his recording studio to stave off the painting’s true owners.  This is part of a mysterious plan by Itsuki, and she takes the studio while mentioning that Menou records and sings alone (except for her lucky teddy bear assistant girl).  Itsuki’s coworker also drops a hint about what Itsuki’s husband would think about this arrangement, but Itsuki quickly tells him to SHUT UP in Engrish.

Reaction:

Oh Eji, not only do you have craptastic calligraphy skills, but you just painted on a ¥1 billion painting and lost your top singer.  When Eji was saying it was too late to return the painting, I thought for sure he’d fapped all over it; you’d think he could have put a glass pane over the painting (since it’s already framed) and gotten the same effect.  All I know is that I hope Itsuki succeeds in her plot to cheat Eji, and that Rina completely obliterates Ogata Productions and turns whiny Yuki into her backup singer/assistant (a la Menou’s teddy bear).  That’s right #6, there’s no way #1 Rina is going to have guest vocals on your album now!

I found it interesting that they want to showcase Touya working so hard on prepping Mana for her exams.  He never cared before, but I guess you can only sleep so many hours in a day, and waiting in a hospital is pretty boring.  Yayoi trying to pseudo-breakup with Touya was intriguing, and I fear she has fallen for the salty-teared lowlife.  I’m not sure if the truth that Touya didn’t want to accept was that his relationship with Yuki was over, or if it was something to do with Yayoi.  However, I think that when Yayoi saw Rina’s new ex-managers getting hot and heavy next to her, Yayoi was hoping to jump on any guy that looked like Touya.

©2009 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Related posts:

1. White Album 08
2. White Album 14

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Don’t worry, it’s probably not phallus-flavored

I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other color used in an anime series. This one’s by Lires again.

©2009 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Related posts:

1. Totally Different From Seikan Hikou
2. New Mascot Announcement!

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At Good Comics for Kids, Lori Henderson lists this week’s new kid-friendly comics and manga.

There’s plenty of manga goodness at comiXology today, as Shaenon Garrity lists her top five untranslated manga and Jason Thompson writes about long-running manga series.

News from Japan: ANN has the latest comics rankings.

Reviews: Danielle Leigh discusses three Halloween-friendly manga at Comics Should Be Good. Kate Dacey checks out three more spooky titles at The Manga Critic. Lissa Pattillo lists her recommendations at Kuriousity, and Lori Henderson gets in on the act as well with a look at monster manga at Manga Xanadu.

Dan Polley on vols. 3-4 of B.Ichi (Comics Village)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of Fire Investigator Nanase (i heart manga)
Connie on Hino Horror 13: Zipangu Night (Slightly Biased Manga)
Johanna Draper Carlson on vol. 5 of I.N.V.U. (Comics Worth Reading)
Melinda Beasi on Mijeong (Manga Recon)
Emily on Oniisamakata Goranshin! (Emily’s Random Shoujo Manga Blog)
Connie on vol. 3 of Rasetsu (Slightly Biased Manga)
Sam Kusek on vol. 1 of Rin-ne (Manga Recon)
Kinukitty on Tale of the Waning Moon (The Hooded Utilitarian)
Diana Dang on vol. 1 of X-Men: Misfits (Stop, Drop, and Read)

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The Viz folks have been busy, despite the flooding and all. Here’s the hot skinny on their newest release, Jormungand, which apparently involves mercenaries ‘n’ stuff.

VIZ MEDIA LETS THE BULLETS AND ACTION FLY IN NEW MANGA SERIES JORMUNGAND

Death Is A Business And Business Is Good For A Crack Team Of Mercenaries; Staying Alive Becomes Even More Dangerous When A New Young Recruit Joins The Team

San Francisco, CA, October 29, 2009– VIZ Media, LLC (VIZ Media), one of the entertainment industry’s most innovative and comprehensive publishing, animation and licensing companies, will premiere the exciting new manga series JORMUNGAND to readers across North America next month. The new action adventure by Keitaro Takahashi will be published by VIZ Media’s Signature imprint and will release on November 10th. JORMUNGAND is rated ‘M’ for Mature Readers and will carry an MSRP of $12.99 U.S. / $16.99 CAN.

Jonah is a child soldier, born amidst the chaotic conflicts that rage across West Asia. His family was lost to a war fueled by weapons supplied by the so-called Merchants of Death – international arms dealers. Despite Jonah’s hatred of weapons and violence, he employs them extremely well in the service of high-flying arms dealer named Koko Hekmatyar and her band of mercenaries. Their journey through the dark underbelly of the world’s arms markets may lead to damnation, but will Jonah somehow make his way back to the light? Only one thing is certain: it’s going to be a long, hard road out of hell… Death is their business, and business is good!

In Volume 1, Koko Hekmatyar, the head of H&C Logistic Incorporated, introduces new recruit Jonah to her expert team of troubleshooters, and it isn’t long before they find some trouble to shoot. An Eastern European government official holds up a shipment of aircraft parts that would shift the balance of power in the region. But the real trouble is that shipment belongs to Koko, and she’s not about to miss an opportunity to make a profit, even if it means two nations go to war!

“JORMUNGAND takes its name from the fabled ferocious sea serpent in Norse mythology, and readers will be at the edge of their seats with this fierce band of mercenaries that live up to the name with an insatiable taste for trouble and gunplay,” says Gonzalo Ferrerya, Vice President, Sales & Marketing. “JORMUNGAND is a must-read for any action fan, and Keitaro Takahashi’s manga delivers plenty of bullet-riddled adventures as he fills each chapter with plenty of shady characters, double deals, and enough heavy metal weaponry to make any modern paramilitary jealous! Just remember to keep your head down and eyes glued to the page!”

Keitaro Takahashi’s debut manga, Ordinary±, won the Four Seasons Prize in 1999 and was subsequently serialized in Gekkan Afternoon magazine in Japan. Prior to creating JORMUNGAND in 2006, Takahashi worked as an illustrator for several books and he has drawn considerable acclaim for his striking, realistic and angular style.

For information on VIZ Media titles, please visit www.VIZ.com.

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She doesn't beat me, I just… just fell down those stairs back there

Jesus159159159 had some extra homework this week, so I (Kabitzin) am taking over on this post.  He left a bunch of crazy captions and notes in his draft, and so I am going to attempt to Frankenstein them in with my summary and screencaps.  Consider it a Halloween Easter Egg hunt to see if you can pick out his words from mine.

Summary:

Where’d we leave off last time? Oh right, Hei was showing August 7 the magic in his pants.

Gonna pierce your boxers with my saber… let's see if you can contort your body correctly

Non-anal?!?! I thought you said you hacked past the anti-yaoi firewall!!!

Goddamn, leaving me high and dry

Before Hei can give August 7 some shock therapy, however, the trap in the Hei hay pops up and zaps him with some Dr. Shroeder magic.  The strange field nullifies Hei’s powers, but Suou’s amulet absorbs some of the energy to put her in rational Contractor mode.  Suddenly, Mao’s voice orders Suou to run, and so she tackles Hei into the freezing water to escape (ummm…).

Hello, I’m here to tell you about the Women’s Activist Program in which we discuss the importance of Woman’s Ri-*SMACK*

YOU’LL NEVER REPLACE YIN… BUT I’M GONNA DO YOU ANYWAY!!!

Sometimes an ice bath isn't enough to cool down that extremely rational Contractor libido

Alright, fine, but you promised non-anal

Better not be going back on that non-anal promise

Hei wakes up the next day, but gets pissed off that Nika’s blowing up Suou’s phone. In a jealous rage, Hei manhandles Suou and then slaps her around for cheating on him. He then breaks her phone for not having a QWERTY keyboard. Shoulda gotten a DARKER than Blackberry *RIMshot*.

Oh man Suou, you should see this episode of… oh wait, you can't, haha!

Clearly a spam whale

"Who said you could touch my Mc-Muffins?"

Wanna know what I think about T-Mobile? *CRACK* GRRUUGGGHH!!! THAT’S WHAT I THINK ABOUT T-MOBILE!!!

Tanya tricked Nika into calling Suou so the Russian forces could track Suou, but Hei quickly changes into an inconspicuous purple outfit and takes off. Using the Ikebukuro hint that Shion left in some whale origami, the two make their way to the train station, only to find a whole bunch of bad guys waiting for them. Since all the experienced Contractors are off duty, the Russians have no choice but to send in Tanuki Tanya. Suou of course counters with Pecha, who has been possessed by Mao. Although the name no longer makes sense, keeping regular backups always does.

Wanna know what I think about vodka? *PUNCH* GRRRUUUGGAHHH!!! THAT’S WHAT I THINK ABOUT VODKA!!!!

Tsk, no one knows how to make a pin-up shot? Check it out bloggers, I’m a PC, and this is how it’s done!

We fai hai… no lai… you knoowww dis, BAAAAALLLLLIIIIN'!!! (or should I say, NUTTIN' cause I'm a Squirel who knows NUTTIN' bout dem SACKIN' I play MAHJONG cause I'm SAKI I have BIG TITS like KABITZIN but that's A LIE cause I'm SO FLY I hate MACKIES cause I'm SEVEN Windows clean dem like ELEVENS cause they're SLAVES, dey get no PAY, just like BLOGGIN' I'm so HOGGIN' but i'm no swine cause I'm a squirel but i FLEW, I is better, not is YOU! I'm so FAT-ASS and MC-BINKY wanna SLOW-DANCE wit mah SLINKY? So mah WIZERD is dah UPPAH, wanna-ef-up-da MC-BUNKER? I am JESUS, I'm ABOVE, He Is Sea, you is SLUG, we be FOR SHO as da KITTIES dey is pussys wit da BIGGIE eyes dat go da BOING-ER, let-me-sho-how-i-BONE-ER and BONE-HER and LONE-HER my SPERM. I TOLD HER, I SHOWED-HER that we are not WORMS. SLUGZ WHERE IT AT, WHERE IT BE, MAMA-MIA, LONGEST CAPTION LIKE MY WII! (as in, penor)

Pecha didn't think you were gonna see me again! and/or WTF BITCH dat caption was off da GRIZZY!!!

"Damn Pecha yo ass be STANKY!!!… but that actually turns me on! *FAPFAPFAPF*" – "(What an Obsessed-Loser-Bloggin' FREAK!!!)"

No one told me Sunrise was producing this episode!

Wanna know what I think about Slice-of-Slice? *SLICE* GRRUUGGAAHH!!! THAT’S WHAT I THINK ABOUT SLICE OF LIFE!!!

Shizume Genma and Hazuki Mina also show up to play, and it doesn’t help that Hei keeps trying to zap but ends up sharting his pants instead. After seeing tons of Russians getting killed, Nika getting eaten by bugs, and Hei looking constipated, Suou has no choice but to use her Amulet powers to bust out a gigantic anti-material sniper rifle and use it for CQC. Fortunately, July is there to help her aimbot. Before Suou can tearfully snipe Tanuki Tanya, Hei shows up to stop her, because nothing ruins a long journey like a moody teenage girl. Elsewhere, some real identical twins note that Suou’s gotten the party started.

OMGLARGHABLARGH SHOULDA WORN MY MOTORCYCLE HELMET!!!

IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAaaaAAaaaAaaaNNDD!!! and/or Insert Charlie Brown reference Here and/or why do some of the pics look Better than OTHERS??!?! HMMM?!?!

Wanna know what I think about modern era weapons? *HUGE GUN* GRRRUUUGGAHHH!!! THAT’S WHAT I THINK ABOUT MODERN ERA WEAPONS!!!

A grope for the road! WTF, can't feel anything through this jacket…

Hey man, you LFG?

In Hachijou, Misaki gets a call from Kanami and they chat about the disappearance of BK-201’s staaaaaaaaaaaaaar (201’s staa-aaaa-aaa-aaa-aaaar). I guess she got herself exiled, and that’s when someone from the mysterious Section 35 shows up to offer her a chance to find BK-201 in exchange for helping them wipe out the remains of the Syndicate.

"Why yes, I would love to know how you got those scars!" – wait, did someone say Scar? *TAKES MIC* A shining new ERA is tiptoeing NEARER!!! And where do we FEATURE? Just listen to TEACHA!!! I know it sounds SORID, But you'll be REWARDED, when at last I am given my DUES! And injustice deliciously SQUARED! BE PREEEEPAAAARRREEEDDD!!!

It appears that Disney just got…

MARVELous (YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!)

secret.organization@badguys.com was taken

Yeah, I'm in class, this teacher is boring as hell

Misaki, there are no cell phones allowed in class

HOLD ON TEACH, I'M UPDATING MAH TWITTER!!!

I'm on a boat

Reaction:

This episode rocked, but Suou’s rifle sucked.  I bet just like Hei’s real stolen power that Suou’s power is not to pull out an impractical bolt-action sniper rifle, but some more general power.  In a similar manner, I’m sure that Hei didn’t mean he wanted to kill Yin when he said he was out to off “that woman” but rather someone else.  DtB likes to use this kind of misdirection, but I’m glad to hear Mao’s deep sexy voice again (even if he got that poor kitty body killed, surely there are similar spares).

I was a bit surprised that July helped Suou, considering that Hei killed April, but perhaps April’s stint as Bella got Suou some brownie points.  Whatever, once the starting doll returns, you know July is going back to bench duty.  I’m ready for the team to get out of Russia, because there are way too many factions right now to keep track of.

©2009 Sea Slugs! Anime Blog. All Rights Reserved.

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Related posts:

1. Brighter Than Magenta, HEI(L) to BK: Darker Than BLACK 2: 01
2. Darker Than BLACK 2: 02

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The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has posted the nominations for its Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, and as always, manga is well represented.

Laura lists her favorite supernatural shoujo manga at Heart of Manga. And David Welsh is up to the letter C in his shojo-sunjeong alphabet.

Just in time for Halloween, Manga University is starting a new webcomic, Net Auction, by Atsuhisa Okura, the Japanese artist who illustrated the Wired article on manga.

Deb Aoki goes for the classics with her list of 15 essential manga by Osamu Tezuka at About.com. Deb also has the scoop on two manga events: Haruka Minami has cancelled her planned appearance at Yaoi-Con, but Domo-kun creator Tsuneo Goda will be in LA today and will be a guest on Tokyopop’s webcast this evening.

Hey, this is cool: The Ohio State University Libraries have a manga blog, written by Japanese Studies Librarian and Associate Professor Maureen Donovan. From there I found Catholic University of Leuven’s blog, Let’s Manga, which isn’t updated much but has a lot of interesting links to academics and research (such as this essay on manga depictions of the World War II German army).

News from Japan: A new manga, Calendar Boy, turns the Japanese national holidays into manga characters. Sounds kind of interesting. Close the Last Door creator Yugi Yamada is restarting her BL manga based on the novel Mahoro Ekimae Tada Benrikan.

Reviews: David Welsh takes a look at some volume 2s at Precocious Curmudgeon.

Brad Rice on Afterschool Charisma (Japanator)
Michael May on vol. 1 of Bizenghast (Robot 6)
Julie on vol. 1 of Cirque du Freak (Manga Maniac Cafe)
Tiamat’s Disciple on vol. 1 of Crimson Shell (Tiamat’s Manga Reviews)
Michelle Smith on Cowa! (Soliloquy in Blue)
Lorena Nava Ruggero on vol. 2 of The Embalmer (i heart manga)
Tangognat on vol. 11 of High School Debut and vol. 18 of Nana (Tangognat)
Connie on vol. 15 of Lovely Complex (Slightly Biased Manga)
Connie on vols. 17 and 18 of Monster (Slightly Biased Manga)
Tangognat on vol. 2 of Rasetsu (Tangognat)
Connie on vol. 19 of Skip Beat (Slightly Biased Manga)
Matthew Rozier on vol. 1 of The Summit of the Gods (Comics Village)

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