When I first saw this I was wondering why someone would bother, but after trying it out, it’s pretty cool. I watched some of the Kingdom Hearts opening.

Watch QuickTime movies as ASCIImation. Apple has released a Quicktime-to-ASCII-mation converter for OS X. Open a movie with this app in your Terminal and you can watch any arbitrary Quicktime video in glorious text-based artwork. Take that, pewling smiley-mongers! Bow before my superior ASCIImation!

Link Discuss(Thanks, Wiley!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Now I think I need to play around to figure out what font is the best to use for this.

I’m not sure what happened to the day. I just went to take a short nap at 10am. When I woke up it was 4:15 in the afternoon. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened. I’m still in that just woke up daze and trying to figure out if there was anything important I was supposed to be doing today.

I’ve noticed that Lyn and I have no identifying marks on our posts, which means that none of you know which of us is saying what. Unless you can infer it from the numerous, fairly obvious clues (and yes, one of them is my atrocious spelling). Maybe I’ll try to fix that later on, but… I know my laziness well enough to not make any promises.

Anyway, time for me to harp on the virtues of my chosen series. I was going to do Hikaru no Go, but then I realized that HnG’s probably the least obscure “obscure series” out there, so I decided on something else entirely: Giant Robo!

Why? Well, I had barely heard of it before my local anime club began showing it, so that means it’s at least mildly unknown. Also, it’s very, very good. And lastly, it’s my blog, so I can do what I want, right? Anyway, GR is a seven part OVA (except that each episode is almost as long as two normal episodes (40 minutes)) that focuses on the struggle between the evil cult/crime organization Big Fire and the heroic Experts of Interpol. The two are led by, respectively, the Magnificent Ten and the Nine Kings of Heaven. Each leader has their own Marvel-ish superpower, ranging from the standard point-and-shoot energy blasts to hypnotic control of insects to giant… metal… fans… well, suffice it to say, the powers are pretty varied. Of course, the two forces also use various giant robots, in particular the “strongest robot on earth,” Giant Robo (descriptive name, huh?), who is controlled via the wristwatch of the main protagonist (and young kid), Daisaku.

If this hasn’t tingled your 80’s cheese sense, you’re in trouble.

Now, what’s so great about all this? Mostly, it’s the fact that, despite all the cheese, GR is a great show. Of course it has the combat down pat, but it also has a much deeper story, involving revenge, energy sources, parents, sacrifice, desire, and so forth. It stays at a nice, fast pace, dealing with the issues as they come up, and never once does it seem artificial or like the director is preaching at you (**coughcough**Evangelion**coughcough**). In short, it’s an immensely cool series.

Plus, it’s got a guy in a neon yellow suit who dances around effeminately while cutting people in half by snapping his fingers, and he calls himself Fabulous Fitzgerald. How can you beat that?

PS: I don’t know, but he left a silver entry.

EDIT: Well, the name thing has been fixed, making the title/PS joke and the first part of my update obsolete. Oh well, such is life.

I went out to check the mail this afternoon and found a box waiting there for me from Amazon. I tried to remembered if I’d preordered anything and couldn’t think of anything it might be. I quickly scurried back into my apartment and opened it up. It was a book! Big thanks to Pasiphae for Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. I’ve got to pull it off my wish list now. Yay, my birthday’s starting a whole week early! ^_^.

I’ve been wearing my hair in little Witch Hunter Robin-style bumps all day. It’s like cosplay! Except not!

For several months now I have been in an abusive relationship with Saikano.

Saikano (Saishi Heiiki no Kanojo or She, the Ultimate Weapon) seemed like a sweet gentle anime at first. Sure, there were some warning signs at the beginning, but it wasn’t until the first punch at the end of episode one that I really suspected anything was really wrong.

But I kept watching, even though it didn’t apologize, even as it revealed more of its darker nature to me and I realized I was in way over my head or maybe just my tolerance. Perhaps I did it because I sympathized, perhaps out of a morbid curiousity, perhaps because I thought things would work out all right, that everyone would be happy. I’m not saying it was an easy series to watch, the opposite in fact, but I couldn’t help myself.

Situations got worse, and it still never apologized. Even when I cried or when it kicked me down the stairs, and maybe that’s why I kept coming back, because Saikano made it clear that this is what it was, this is what it stood for, and it really was beautiful, in its own way.

It’s been thirteen episodes, but now it’s over. It broke it off with me, ironically enough. I’m okay now, after all the tears and heartache; shaky and raw, but this ending has been oddly carthartic too, as if I had dead skin scrapped off with sand. It has been a tramautic series, but I do still love Saikano, as crazy as that may seem. Maybe this experience hasn’t taught me anything, but it’s reminded me of what I may have forgotten.

I read about this over at #!/usr/bin/girl. Supposedly teenage boys in japan are becoming hermits.

Teenage boys in Japan’s cities are turning into modern hermits – never leaving their rooms. Pressure from schools and an inability to talk to their families are suggested causes. Phil Rees visits the country to see what the “hikikomori” condition is all about.

I knew him only as the boy in the kitchen.

His mother, Yoshiko, wouldn’t tell me his name, fearful that neighbours in this Tokyo suburb might discover her secret.

Her son is 17 years old. Three years ago he was unhappy in school and began to play truant.

Then one day, he walked into the family’s kitchen, shut the door and refused to leave.

All I know is that if I tried to do that with my mom’s kitchen, she’d kill me. I joke with being a hermit, but this puts me to shame.

Somehow, A Blander Blog fell off my news aggregator when I wasn’t looking. Luckily, thanks to the jenett.radio.randomizer I found it again. Here’s a tasty tidbit from today.

Videogame Music Archive. Thousands of midi files from almost every video game ever produced…. [largehearted boy] [A Blander Blog]

I took a moment to groove to the theme to Toejam & Earl (one of the best games for the Genesis).

click it

You know you want to play the game.

I’ve wanted to do a group blog for a while. I’m not sure why, but it has just seemed like it might be interesting. And I’m always up for playing at community building. So I was fiddling around with Moveable Type and decided to just make a go of it. You can find it over here. At the moment there are just three of us. I’m trying to decide on a fourth. There’s a good probability it will be my friend Chris, but I haven’t decided yet. Partially because I’m thinking of finding some random stranger to throw into the mix.

For the moment the blog will be just about random anime stuff, though who knows, it may evolve. I hate setting rules on things like that.