Last time Kuu got butt naked and tried to seduce Kyoshiro and told him she would do anything for him. Do girls really do that in real life or is this just an episode catered to male Otaku’s fantasy, as opposed to episodes catered to female Otaku’s fantasy?

So we learned that Kuu is an Absolute Angel, but she can’t get her power out, and that Kyoshiro’s older brother may not be so great, according to Mika, Kyoshiro’s older sister. This makes me miss Jerry Springer - I can see it now, if Springer were still on - “A Good Older Brother healing the world with lots of women, or a Evil Brother destroying the world and scoring with lots of women.” Anyway, onto the episode 8 details. Consider the spoiler alert is in effect starting below…
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It looks like somebody in Japan watched Freaky Friday and thought: hey, wouldn’t this actually make a nice serious drama? That’s basically what Asatte no Houkou is: a serious, realistic drama about a little girl and and adult woman who literally get their wishes granted…to become an adult and a child, respectively. Instantly, in front of a shrine with a wishing stone. Could this possibly work, blending what sounds like a comedic premise with some heavy-duty emotional weight?
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So I wake in the morning and I feel absolutely direction-less. Being from a hired translator with a steady but crappy salary to me is easier than to be a first time freelancer that has to put in so much friggin’ effort to find people who’s willing to hire me, but to spare everyone from getting the urge to hack into this site and DoS my mascot to death (what mascot?), I’ve decided to put something down right before I post the next Kyoshiro post and Mike put up the podcast.

It just so happens that life is a boring event which should be filled with anime-related things, and here is the top ten list of anime-related things they should have in real life:

10. Punch someone and that person flies into the sky - and nobody gets hurt!
9. Fire a Dragon slave and blow up your boss’s home!
8. Moving giant robots and space colonies! Zieg Zion!
7. Cat-eared PCs that shape like girls!
6. Freedom pizza that one can eat forever without getting fat!
5. Mafia Zombies! And guns that fires 50 bullets in a row!
4. A notebook that when I write someone’s name in it, he dies!
3. A Huge-ASS sword.
2. Hire girls that can take out 50 plus guys in less than 10 minutes anime time.
And number one on the top ten list…
1. A world resetting egg!

Well, anyone with other lists?

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This shot pretty much captures Makoto Shinkai’s essence in a nutshell: light, shadows, gleam, and two kids holding hands.

It’s a strange experience, watching anime raw without knowing Japanese. But that’s how badly I wanted to see this. I saw the teaser for this film, Makoto Shinkai’s latest work, several months ago, and the combination of gorgeous backdrops, music, and fluid animations compelled me to see this the moment it was available. Even if I couldn’t understand a word of it. So this will not be the usual kind of review, where things like character and dialogue make a difference…
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(from Anime Galleries dot Net http://www.animegalleries.net/img/20947)

A word of explanation for newcomers: we are planning to create downloadable Mystery Science Theater 3000-style commentaries on various mockable anime in the very near future, which you can play along on your iPod or computer. We have already recorded one track for Kyoshiro to Towa no Sora, but are taking time to clean it up and make it presentable for y ‘all. In the meantime, we are soliciting suggestions for our next one below. –MH, 11:35 AM, 2/22/2007

So, the anime gods have been talking again (Kami Lina Inverse shoved a couple of Dragon Slaves up my ass the other day…), and we’ll be having some sort of survey/poll/anketto/whatever as to what should we do for MST3K in the future…Oh, we haven’t put our own MST3K track on yet…. Anyway, we’re taking any nominations/suggestions here, so anyone who cares to leave a short comment please do. Here are my ideas:
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Hello everyone,
For the 2 or less people who have been wondering why we haven’t released our MST3K track officially, let’s just say we’re still adjusting and playing with it. Sufficient to say we won’t be releasing it within this week…:( Oh…But never fear! In the mean time, we’ll be showing a rerun of my old post - “MST3K candidates…what do you think?” Within 35 minutes. For those folks who just can’t get enough of bad anime jokes and one liners, and for anyone who cares to read this instead of Mike’s excellent posts about anything else (I did write about Megadere…but no fansubber picked it up yet). Please enjoy the rerun of the post.
http://anime.imagria.com/miscellaneous/

Program Creative Staffer Ray Hu.

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Last time on Megadere…

We learned that Ayako makes an unlikely confession to a shortie…ah hem, shouta named Mamoru, and we learned that it’s fun to provoke Ayako, who seems to be in love for the first time of her life, and she’s ultra powerful with a super heated temper when it comes to people messing up her moments with Mamoru, and we learned that it’s fun to see Ayako blows up…Oh, and we learned that someone steals something…Starfire, that’s it! It’s a device made by Ayako in the show for non-beatrix users, and…the world is in danger! This time, I’ll try to spare you all of the details (ha ha). So, let’s get on with the wackiness. Consider the spoiler alert is in effect.
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Translation is hard and inexact work, and something always gets lost in the process. I’m conscious of this every time I read Greek and Hebrew and have to try to render it in English with my lousy beginner skills, and so I have great respect for those who are fluent in other tongues and translate for a living. (Like the co-host of this blog!) Without them, our culture would be robbed of the treasures of other cultures and times–not the least, of course, being anime and manga from Japan.

Nevertheless, I loathe it when American licensors turn beautiful original Japanese titles for shows into mush. (EDIT, 5:29 PM: I stand corrected on assuming Funimation wanted the title below. My aesthetic points, though, still stand.)
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(space__________Space) So, again since I’ve got some time, and some people seems to be curious about Megadere, I’ll go ahead and start blogging about it. I’m already on episode 18 but I’m not giving out my review until I’m done with the show.

Has anyone seen that Uma Thurman film where she plays a superwoman-like girlfriend of Luke Wilson? Me neither. Imagine you’re a shouta, the type that makes oneesan-types drool over, and then you’re transferred to a school where the elite magical users gather and study - no, nobody wears Maho Sensei style capes - and then all of the sudden, the hottest looking and the most powerful magic user in the school and possibly the entire world, nicknamed the “Demoness Beatrice” confesses to you few minutes after you’ve just walked into the school…

Oh, and if you were rather tall, it’d hard to imagine yourself in that role, because our shouta main guy is rather short, he’s 155 cm tall. Our heroine, Takasu Ayako, is about 168.5. This unlikely pairing is the center of this world where the only evidence of magic is when Ayako or her enemies blowing up things, changing weather, and makes “miracles”.

The magical element is called, “Beatrix”. How did it come about? Why is it in this world? How does one get to use it? Who cares! The show doesn’t explain it at all! It’s a fan service/shouta/explosion/provoking a tigress comedy!

Ayako’s the tigress. But who does the provoking? Well, thank God there are some people who’re more than willing to perform the dangerous task~(drum rolls, please) the student council at Tokyo Beatix University’s High School attachment (whatever that’s supposed to be termed in English). With Maya, the handsome and tall council leader, Shione his sister with the super-weird hair style that changes every time, Mitsuki the camera touting paparazzi, and other wacky and willing people who intend on getting the two officially together with some crazy-ass ideas that completely piss the hell out of Ayako, tempting One’s Fate really takes on a whole new level!

So let’s take a look at episode 1, shall we? I always do the details first, opinions later, so consider the spoiler alert be in effect starting from the paragraph below:
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Impressions

This shot echoes the famous picture of Cosette from the original edition of the novel, which also became the iconic picture for the musical.

It’s now very evident that this is a children’s show, since the focus is so frequently on the lives of the kids (Cosette of course, but also Alain, Gavroche, and Eponine and Azelma). I realize that the subtitle of the show kinda gives away what the creators want to focus on, but I was still secretly hoping to see a more elaborate retelling of Jean Valjean’s backstory, particularly the scene of his redemption by the Bishop of Digne. (Especially since the episode is called “Jean Valjean’s Secret.”) It’s a very powerful backstory and I feel it deserved a little more screen time than it got.
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