Random Musings – Poll of Day and Upcoming Music Releases Edition

  • On the sidebar to your right, there is now a spot for the Poll of the Week Day. I have been wanting polls for a while now, and finally decided to install one after I saw abq’s over at lolitron. Hopefully, it’ll be a good way to get some feedback about various aspects of the site or about random anime-related things. For now, the question is just about your current screen resolution (if you’re using dual screens or something, please vote the resolution of the screen you view this site on). As usual, please leave a comment if you have questions/complaints/suggestions.
  • As I noted earlier this week, I won’t be blogging Kagihime anymore. Tactical Roar is pretty close to the same fate, but I’m giving that another week. And yes, I’m still watching and enjoying Mushishi. However, because it is a show that requires a lot of time to write up, I’m seriously considering putting it on permanent blogging hiatus.
  • This season’s Music Release Dates section has been updated on the Winter 2006 Schedule page. This time around, I’ve included Amazon.co.jp links. This upcoming Wednesday (January 25th) is going to be a big day.
  • Random Musings – Sunset Swish and Yakitate!! Japan Edition

  • No Jigoku Shoujo this week. Kids Station aired a recap episode to allow the other stations to catch back up (since Kids Station didn’t take a winter break).
  • For those that didn’t see in today’s post, a new Bleach ED will be airing next week, 「マイペース」 (My Pace) by SunSet Swish.
  • I’m watching Yakitate!! Japan again (just watching, not blogging) because they finally caught up to where I was in the manga with today’s double episode.
  • Random Musings – School Rumble Edition

  • I just finished watching the first set of School Rumble OVAs, and they are a riot. The animation and production quality are so good, it almost makes me want to cry. If you enjoyed the series, these OVAs are a must-see. And needless to say, I’m really looking forward to next season now. 🙂
  • Since there’s really nothing to blog about for this weekend – none of the shows I cover are airing Friday, Saturday, or Sunday – I’m thinking of writing up a year-in-review and the upcoming season’s schedule then.
  • Kingdom Hearts II still owns my soul. 35 hours into it (level 47) and I’m just now getting to the point where I visit all of the worlds a second time.
  • The Big Winter Break

    The last week of December and first week of January are typically on-break weeks for anime series. Here’s a quick list of all the shows I’m following and if they are affected or not.

    Angel Heart – Off-air 12/26 and 01/02
    Lamune – Not affected: Ep. 11 airs 12/19, Finale airs 12/26
    Bleach – Off-air 12/27 and 01/03
    Jigoku Shoujo – Not affected
    Shakugan no Shana – Off-air 12/28
    Suzuka – Not affected: ep. 25 airs 12/21, Finale airs 12/28
    SHUFFLE! – Off-air 12/29
    Mai-Otome – Off-air 12/29
    Karin – Off-air 12/29
    Paradise Kiss – Not affected: Finale airs 12/29
    Blood+ – Off-air 12/31
    DCSS – Not affected: Finale airs 12/24 (tomorrow)
    Mushishi – Off-air 12/24 and 12/31
    Canvas2 – Off-air 12/25 and 01/01

    As you can see, the shows that are ending this season (except SHUFFLE!) are not going on break, but the on-going shows (except Jigoku Shoujo) are affected. That means that these next two weeks are going to be very boring around here – good for me because that’ll give me time to play Kingdom Hearts II. 🙂

    PS. Stay tuned though because I’ll be posting a schedule for the upcoming season sometime in this next week.

    Some Brief Notes

  • It’s finals week for me. And since studying comes before blogging, entries will most likely be shorter or late. Regular blogging should resume on Thursday, when I’m done with my exams. This includes today’s episode of Angel Heart, which I’ll blog sometime later this week.
  • I was planning on watching/blogging the first episode of The Wings of Rean, which is directed by “Kill ’em All” Tomino Yoshiyuki. But since I’ve been rather busy, this is getting pushed back to when I get around to it (this or next week).
  • Speaking of Bandai and Sunrise, the Gundam SEED Destiny special conclusion episode is airing December 25th late night from 25:50 to 26:45. That means it’s technically airing December 26th early early morning in Japan from 1:50AM to 2:45AM. And that translates to 11:50AM to 12:45PM EST (East Coast, USA) on Christmas Day. I look forward to seeing if they can salvage any dignity the series has left.
  • And finally, since I’m on break from school starting next week, expect a Winter 2006 schedule to go up sometime then. I haven’t fully researched what series look interesting, but I will definitely be covering Kashimashi and Fate/stay night.
  • Quick Update

  • Just a brief reminder folks, there’s not Bleach tomorrow (errr, today). We’ll have to wait till December 6th for episode 60.
  • In light of what happened in the comments of last week’s Bleach entry, I implemented spoiler tags. Please use <spoiler></spoiler> around any major spoilers for any series.
  • The title for the final episode of Da Capo Second Season is going to be 「幸せの鐘」 (The Bell of Happiness)
  • This One’s Just Too Good to Pass Up…

    ANS is reporting:

    The Japanese Maid industry has taken another turn. Hiroshima-based www.cosp-life.jp is now offering their “Maid Takuhai” service which litteraly brings cosplay maids into your own house to serve you. They will play games with you, tell you a story, help with housework and more. But the move has generated alot of controversy since these young cosplay girls are already the object of lust from the hard moe and naughty tentacles otaku crowd just by doing their thing safe in the trappings of a maid cafe. The website mentions the maids will not perform sexual services.

    This story had me cracking up for quite a long time…

    Blogging Updates

  • I just got through a period of exams, so regular blogging should resume shortly. On the schedule for today are Angel Heart and Lamune, but I will also be finishing the Shakugan no Shana post that I skipped last week. Last ep of Tsubasa Chronicle (maybe) and Canvas2 (also maybe) too.
  • Bleach tomorrow will be late. Very late compared to normal (I estimate the post’ll be up sometime in the evening).
  • Some of you may have noticed that there is now a Donation Button on the sidebar. Popularity for this site and all of the sites on AnimeBlogger has gone up quite a bit recently, and we’re starting to feel the crunch. If you have a dollar or two extra, we would really appreciate some donations.

    DreamHost is nice enough to have a direct donation option, so you can be sure the money won’t go to anything but hosting.
  • More Site Updates

  • The Music Release Dates section of the Fall 2005 Schedule is up. It should include all of the opening and ending songs for the shows I have listed on my schedule, including the shows I’ve dropped, but not the shows that haven’t aired yet. Click here to see the list.
  • The tagboard should now display correctly for all the pages that it’s shown on (the main pages). Previously, if you clicked on “Previous Entries” at the bottom of the main page to see entries further back, that second page that you would go to (and any thereafter) would not load the tagboard. This has been fixed (thanks to moyism for pointing out that I was editing the wrong thing).
  • The AnimeBlogger Forums now have a image/button courtesy (again) of moyism:

    Register and Introduce Yourself to the Community!
  • Random Musings: Site and Series Updates

  • moyism informed me of WordPress plugin that allows you to have paged comments. I installed it and fiddled around with it until it looked similar to the old style. So comments are now shown 20 to a page. I actually wouldn’t have considered using this plugin if last week’s GSD final episode post hadn’t gone over 100 comments. Anyway, if you experience any types of problems, leave a comment or send me an email.
  • Some of you may have noticed that I didn’t blog Zettai Shounen this week. I more or less have lost interest in this series, so I’m putting blogging of it on hold until either the story really picks up or the series ends, whichever comes first. I will still be watching this series, just not writing about it. Matthew does a thorough job on his posts, so refer there if you want to stay updated. For now, I’m biding my time on Fridays until the Hana Yori Dango drama starts in two weeks.
  • I have also axed Ginban Kaleidoscope as a potential series. I found nothing particularly wrong with the first episode, but it just felt really average all around. I was expecting something like Hikaru no Go, however the series comes off feeling more like Suzuka to me (don’t ask why, it just does). The only thing really amusing was the “Kiss my ass” bit, but the rest of the english just got on my nerves. moyism had similar feelings about it.
  • A bit of personal news: I was involved in a car accident yesterday, and my car is now more or less totaled. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But for the time being, I’m having to rely on my friends and others for transportation. This means that I have a lot less control over my schedule, meaning that certain posts over the next month or so may be written later than normal.