Lalala~ Off to AX~

Direct flight this time, none of that spending hours in a desert waiting for a connecting flight. And a hotel that’s right next to the convention centre… bonus!

Good luck with the forecasted “heat wave” here in England, no doubt it’ll be unbareably humid/sticky.

I may or may not write anything here while out there… depending on internet connectivity. And i may or may not update my twitter depending on the cost of using my phone (and/or internet connectivity, lol). But no doubt there shall be pleanty of pictures upon my return.

If this is true, then cue mass hysteria/protests all across the otaku world…

EOCS have banned all of the following in eroge in Japan:

Rape

Loli

Gang Rape

Assault

Brutality

“Reverse” Rape

Shoujo

Adultery

“Reverse” Assault

Compulsion

Gangbangs

Student Council

Bestiality (i.e. catgirls)

Bondage

Coercion

Train Molestation

Enjo Kousai (Prostitution)

Incest

Torture

Binding

Pregnancy

Violation

Slaves

Pregnant Women

Confinement

Conception

(click for fullsize)

Source(s):
http://blog.livedoor.jp/dqnplus/archives/1277244.html
http://zepy.momotato.com/2009/06/23/online-dl-shop-reveals-new-restrictions/
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/06/24/eroge-taliban-take-over-all-fetishes-banned-in-eroge/ (NSFW!!!!!)

I don’t quite know what to think of that. Is there even any eroge in existence that *doesn’t* have at least one of the above in it?

On the one hand it’s not a government ban, it’s just a ban by the ratings group, but normally those sorts of bans would just result in games companies working around the silly restrictions, however this looks pretty extensive. Perhaps games makers will now start only selling their games online and “unrated”.

As i refrained from writing a long rambling post, feel free to make up for that by adding your own long rambling rage-induced comments…

When was the last one of these i done i wonder (and wait, wasn’t it quarterly before?), lol… i seem to remember Nagasarete Airantou… 2007 maybe? (heh, not quite, it seems Autumn 2007 was the last one i done, meh, close enough)

Well where to start i suppose, first of all i think i need to figure out what i’ve actually watched between now and January. (this could take a while… time is now: 00:14 on 2009/06/23)

Right, lets start with anime i gave up watching, and then we’ll reach higher levels of greatness the further we get through the post (note: may actually cover slightly longer than 6 months, lol):

   

Clannad After Story – Unfortunately I stopped watching purely because the movie had already kinda spoilt the ending, i’m sure it was a great series.

   

Sora o Miageru Shoujo no Hitomi ni Utsuru Sekai (or just Munto TV) – From what i remember it seemed very childish/kinda boring, gave up fairly quickly.

   

White Album – Not sure i made it to the end of the first episode without falling asleep. Looked kinda pretty though.

   

Akikan! – A story about drinks cans turning into girls and an epic battle ensuing… aluminum can girls vs tin can girls. Not a lot more that can be said about that really, it done what it said on the tin can (sorry, couldn’t resist), kinda amusing, but frankly i had far more productive things to do… like… uhh… watch other anime i guess, lol. The music was pretty good though.

   

Kurokami The Animation – Too dark, blah. (title should have given that away i suppose)

   

Asu no Yoichi – Love Hina all over again (well not quite). It was quite amusing, and the green haired girl was hot (coupled with her perfect fashion sense).

   

And now onto stuff i didn’t drop…

Marimite 4 – More of the same, excellent! I remember how i initially hated Touko when she first appeared, but i’ve gradually grown to love her, she and Yumi are the perfect match!

   

Kiss X Sis – The perfect pair of sisters? lol, well, it may aswell be hentai, don’t know why i’m bothering to mention it here though. o.O

   

Hetalia: Axis Powers – Funny funny stuff, it’s true, all we do here in England is talk to fairies/woodland creatures and drink tea. Shame the TV broadcasts were all cancelled so we have to put up with super low quality online streaming.

   

Minami-ke Okaeri – MAKO-CHAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <3 (i believe that is all that needs to be said)

   

Saki – I’d been meaning to learn mahjong for ages, and well now i have (anyone i know play on Tenhou?). Light hearted anime about mahjong with a load of yuri undertones thrown in for good measure.

   

K-On! – Another Kyoto Animation mega popular show. 4 girls get together to make a light music club/band. Nice amusing anime, pretty, funny etc. Great OP & ED, possibly best of the year so far. Ritsu is by far the best character even if no-one else agrees with me, her and Kana from Minami-ke are like the most perfect girls ever, lol (well, maybe add Haruhi to that too).

   

Shangri-la – The future’s gone tits-up, burning fossil fuels are bad, oceans rising etc. There seems to be a bunch of crazy people running the world now, but luckily there is still pleanty of eye candy around. Not entirely sure where the story is going, but pretty interesting nontheless (i know with which one my allegiance lies, lol).

   

Toradora! – A truly great series, great characters, pleanty of heartwarming moments. But boy did the ending annoy me, KUSHIEDA, WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO BE SUCH A HYPOCRITE?!!! *tearful ending* (actually, add Kushieda to the list of near perfect girls…………. is anyone noticing a pattern yet? lol)

   

And now my three favourite of the past 6 months:

Skip Beat! – Normally i’m not into stuff with guys with overly pointy chin’s (CLAMP i’m looking at you >_>), but this series truly was a gem, absolutely, absolutely great show. Honestly couldn’t wait until the next episode was out. Must get around to reading the manga at some point… there *must* be a second season. (random trivia: the hotel i stayed at in Tokyo last year was right next door to the publishers of the Skip Beat manga)

(her changing personality is great)

   

Maria Holic – Hilarious. Nothing more can be said, it is simply hilarious. Trap is the most respected girl in school, yet he/she has a completely evil personality, new girl joining the school who is allergic to guys and only loves women (resulting in nosebleeds in the case of seeing women, or breaking out in hives in the case of men), one thing leads to another, she finds out his secret, he ends up forcing her to share a dorm room, hilarity ensues. Truly truly funny. Oh, and the opening theme was great (also of note was the fansub karaoke… gg really excelled themselves, it took me a few episodes to actually realise that it was fansubbed and not originally created like that), actually the ending theme was pretty good too.

Kimi ni Mune Kyun. Kyun~

   

Sora o Kakeru Shoujo – Sunrise really do come up with some great original shows. Sci-fi series with cute girls and and one (well several) crazy self-obsessed AI’s flying around with colonies of people attached to them. Leopard is the greatest AI ever made, i urge all scientists to have him as your goal, he’s a comedy genius. The plot is really getting quite exciting with these last few episodes, can’t wait to see how it turns out. Sadly the series does start out with Ali Project singing that one song they always sing… you know, the same song that they’ve been singing since Noir because they have no imagination… yes, that one (seriously, you could string all their singles since then together and would think it was just one long angry violin track… i mean i quite like them, but it gets boring hearing the exact same thing every single time). Luckily Sunrise saw the error of their ways and didn’t have Ali Project do the 2nd opening song, lol. Basically, if you liked Mai-Hime/Otome then you’ll like this.

   

Well that’s it for anime. Oh, i guess i can’t leave without mentioning the new series of Haruhi, it should just be getting into the swing of things now. It’ll be interesting to see how they adapt everything from the novels (when’s vol 10 coming out btw, it’s been ages) for the new episodes. THEY MUST ANIMATE THE ENTIRE TREASURE HUNT STORY, BEST PART OF ALL THE NOVELS (vol 7)!!!!!

   

(…2 hours later and i’m finished. I’ll probably do one of these for drama too at some point.)

First things first, after weeks (well, months) of speculation, it has finally been revealed that there will be 3 autographing sessions with Morning Musume at AX!! Three entire autograph sessions, a rare opportunity indeed! (we’d have almost no chance of going to one in Japan)

Rough mathematics leads us to the conclusion that for between 500-1000 fans to get autographs off of 9 girls in the space of 90 minutes then everyone would get between 4.5 – 9 seconds of talking time with each girl (well, that’s already about 5x the length of a handshaking session then, lol). Of course AX have said that they will end the autograph session after 90 minutes regardless of how many people are still in the line, so those numbers could be completely out of whack and people could just take however long they wanted, and we’d end up with only 50 people getting autographs. But meh, 9 seconds of talking time (x 3) is a reasonable guess.

Anyway yes, packing… little over one week to go, no sense leaving it to the last minute otherwise something always gets forgotten. Here’s what i have so far:

lol. Hat to keep the sun off, badge, Naa-san, star-tambourine, 3 wristbands, 2 t-shirts (bonus points for guessing what the red is behind the t-shirts), one hand-made “British” mushroom (the fact it looks like a 5 year old (or a guy with a fractured wrist *cough*) made it is kinda appropriate as anyone who’s watched Kirarin Revolution will know, lol), Kirarin Revolution live DVD. (note: normal clothes and everything else is yet to be packed)

Planning on getting Naa-san signed, the DVD signed, and probably a Morning Musume album (hmm, anyone would think i was only looking forward to getting stuff signed by Koharu, lol… but hey, LinLin is pretty funny too).

Oh btw, the badge was also hand made… the wonders of high def TV these days (lol)…

(click for fullsize)

Ahh, excellent, excellent. It’s going to be pretty damn fun.

After fermenting for a little longer than expected I now have 20 litres (roughly 5 gallons) of home-brewed wheat beer. ^_^

Slightly cloudy, tastes about right (with that unconditioned ‘green beer’ taste which should mellow out as it matures), and smells noticably of banana.

I would have made labels for the bottles, but i think once they’re drinkable they’re not going to last too long… perfect summer drink, lol.