One more review for the year, shall we? I decided to see what all the fuss was about from all the other bloggers about this delightfully weird combination of comedy, agricultural science, and a little-explored setting for anime: the agricultural college!
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So…what shows and movies deserve a place in the hall of shame rather than the hall of fame? Since I tend to give up on shows I dislike very quickly, it’s shorter than the winners’ list. But we’ve still got plenty to populate this, the first annual Diet Demerits!

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Notice a few things different? That’s right, I installed a whole raft of new plugins alongside the necessary security upgrade to Wordpress 2.3.2. A bunch of them were more for us admins (database backup, batch category editing, and the like), but here are the ones that affect you, our dear readers:

• Category Tree–now there’s a much, much better way to navigate the categories and subcategories our on site. The levels are collapsible, at long last, and don’t take up enormous oodles of space. Courtesy of the wp-dTree plugin.
• Edit Your Comments–ever wished you could fix a mistake you made or add something to a comment left on our site? Well, now you can, within 15 minutes of your posting. Courtesy of WP Ajax Edit Comments plugin.
• Related Posts–see what posts from our past might be related to the article you’re reading now! Admittedly, this doesn’t work quite as well as it should for the moment. Anyone got any clue how to fine tune it so that genuinely related posts show up? Courtesy of the Related Posts plugin.
• Currently Blogging List–see the list of shows we are blogging for the current season in the sidebar. Made possible by ExecPHP plugin, which allows PHP code to be run on the sidebar via a widget. Will change, of course, as soon as the Winter 2008 season gets rolling.

Planned future enhancements include a horizontal drop-down menu that clearly marks the sections of our website, so you don’t have to search or go digging through hard-to-navigate archives for something you’re looking for. Also, in the longer term, the entire layout needs a refreshing.

Thanks for reading and we hope the new features will be useful to you. Let us know in the comments if there are any problems/bugs. Thanks!

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From the Diet 3 Daily -

January 1st, 2008. Deep with in the heart of Akiba, also known as the Akiba@Very_Deep, a secret betting club has been predicting the champion of the AnimeBowl since the late 1980s.

Members often disguise themselves as nerds with thick glasses, greasy hair, smelly breath, and often wearing stained t-shirts (with unknown substance) that often features anime characters – surprisingly, male or female.

The AnimeBowl is an underground gambling game much like fantasy football/baseball/soccer/horseracing/curling/bowling/AV making/whatever-you-couldn’t-imagine, in which different people pick a team filled with their favorite anime, and based on the popularity indicator commonly used at the time (in today’s world, the Japanese edition features the 2ch, while the western edition features the blogsphere), and a winning team is picked at the end of the season. A special “VIP” award is presented to the member with all of his selections winning the entire year.

There are special matches, or as the club lingo goes, “Fight for the Holey Grail”, in which anime that received special attentions are pitted against each other for the entire year, and at the end of the year, the members (they’re so really NOT Otakus) with the most games won would receive the latest technological breakthrough created and constructed in Basement level-62 of the Akiba Station (AKA. “The Secret Underground Lab”). Prizes have been rumored to be many things such as ideas for the latest anime, nearly-life sized Gundam models with Minovsky drives, potion to make a King Nerd into Dr. Love, 7 potions that make goth-loving princesses into nadeshico, a real Holey Grail that’s said to grant wishes of sleeping with different blond tsundere that use legendary swords, and so on.

Our agent reported that one of the most fiercely watched match is the Claymore VS Gurren Lagann match. The predicted odds are 20 to 1, in favor of Claymore, because most of the members favor women with big swords.

Some lady members, however, have firmly stayed with their pick of Gurren Lagann. They cited their “admiration” for men’s friendship as “hot and amazing.”

Our agency also predicts Claymore winning over Gurren Lagann. But our odds are only 5 to 1.

More details are forth coming.

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Mike Huang also contributed to this report while recovering from the aftermath of the Touch and Feel Football at the Academy.

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From The Diet 3 Daily -

December 31, 2007 – He still has trouble scoring a touchdown, that is. At the Mega Playboy Academy, one of the end of the year traditions is co-ed touch and feel football. Because those who attend are often people who don’t exercise much and hence don’t have the physical prowess to attract women, and for some, lolis, the Academy instituted a series of end of year festivities designed to get the members in shape.

One of the favored festivities is the Maid VS Butler Touch and Feel Football. That’s right, it’s “Touch and Feel” and not “Flag” football”. The game is relatively simple compared with your average American football. A “ball” is something like an American Football filled with pink jelly used in one of the “Training Videos” provided by the Academy for the staff. There are two teams, Team Maid, dressing in Akiba-style maid uniforms, and Team Butler, dressed in BL-style Butler uniforms. The two teams select two Captains (not a Quarterback because most people in Akiba don’t know about that), and the captains will duel it out with paper fans and the team of winner of the paper fan duel (similar to Kendo rules) will be able to select to kick so the other team and attack or receive so his or her team can attack.

To stop a runner, players on the other team must try to grab the runner’s body parts and/or feel the runner’s behind. To score points the player with the ball must first squirt some of the pink jelly onto one of the defenders before running into the end zone.

With the audience cheering, Team Butler selected our very own Ikari “Mike” Gendo as captain. In his speech, he complained about not wanting to do this and yet not wanting to run away. He ended the speech by staring at the ceiling of the “Mega Playboy Dome” and said: “Another unfamiliar ceiling.” To which the men and some women in the audience screamed: “You’re not Shinji! That’s the wrong line!”

Team Maid selected a woman named Clare Miyako who has blond hair, silver eyes and is taller than “Mike”. The paper fan duel was quick – “Clare” score all 3 hits within 5 seconds (not counting the stops after the hits), and surprisingly, after the Dean of the academy made squirming motions and other rather odd gestures, Team Maid selected to kick.

What’s even more surprising is that “Mike” received the ball, but he advanced about 2 yards before player number 45, “Undine” knocked him unconscious. “Mike” did not return for the rest of the game – he slept for 3 hours. Team Butler performed extremely well as in the previous years, and the score was 63 – 7.

The festival was declared a success and many, uh, letters of affection were exchanged.

Rumor has it that based on the Academy’s success, the Dean in considering establishing a Mega Playgirl Academy. This has received vehement criticism from the members and the board of the Mega Playboy Academy, as well as the 2ch community and Akiba community. However, a letter of petitions for the establishment was submitted by members of the Ikekuburo “少女のみち” community.

More details are forth coming.

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Yes, it’s time to do the year-end award list, like everyone always does! I did one last year, barely two weeks into the founding of this site’s predecessor, Scattered Cels, and I’m going to be using most of the same categories–as well a couple of new ones. And, in tomorrow’s entry in part 2, they won’t be “honors.” :) Note, too, this is for anime that I’ve seen. There’s a lot I haven’t seen at all.

With that–drumroll please…

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They actually got a real live native English speaker for this trailer–and he even has the TV Announcer Guy voice! (He’s not deep and gravelly to have the “Movie Guy” voice though–the “in a world…” voice.) Though I can tell he probably didn’t write the following:

This is a solid juvenile renaissance…much more innocent than adolescence, much more cruel than pure love!

It does, however, have one of the all-time records for audacious promises. TV Announcer Guy, after all, assures us that

H20 will ROCK YOUR SOUL!

One wonders whether this is a direct pitch to American and other English-speaking fansub watchers. If it is, I am happy to accept some hard cash in exchange for positive reviews careful, objective consideration for a show I would almost surely, based on what I see in this trailer, give very negative reviews!

If not, well–we’ll see just how much this rocks my soul. [Folds arms skeptically]

HT to Xebek for this.

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So…what am I going to be watching next season? I’ve now done this exercise enough that I know the shows I often find interesting from the plot summaries are not necessarily the things I will actually blog about. But here’s what I find eye-catching for the moment. (Information taken primarily from hashihime’s brilliant and useful list. He serves the fan community very well.)

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It is like a dream: a series of moments both strange and memorable, passing through the filter of the mind’s eye that, with a little direction, arrange themselves into patterns and meanings whose sum is greater than the parts. This series’ melange of art, memory, dream, and sorrow is a creative triumph and is, for me, the best anime I’ve seen this year. Even if the ending is a just a little too tidy.

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Why so short? Because Michael has already reviewed it.

All I’ve got to say, and I’ve got to say it now is Michael sou uke (har har har to our very own Mike)…I mean, Mihail sou uke! But Alto will take the first plunge (heh heh heh heh heh).

Minmei in this show is ugly as hell.

Macross cocert, a Chinese restaurant.

Reprising the old. It’s even more obvious when they actually mentioned how the entire saga came about.

Too many bishounen will make it Gundam-like with guys doing each other in the asses in doujinshi. Oh well, that sells.

Oh and Alto? Is GRAVITY getting you down? Do what Amuro Ray, Char, Camille, and countless other classic Gundam pilots do! I know you’re going to anyway.

I hate the ending song. 80’s BANZAI! STUPID REMIXES Saiyaku! Saite!

Zentradis on drugs? Possibly.

One thing that lacks in the Macross franchise is the lack of great opponents after the first series. Now we have Aliens (don’t we always), but I love the CG. The graphic is breath taking as always.

Oh and, Michael…I mean Mihail is still Sou Uke (sneakering)

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