It’s been my pleasure (allegedly) having served what little I have in the scanlation (and anime, in general) community.

一匹狼 (Ippiki Ookami)

私は無感情…じゃないと思うが、近いと思う。そうなって欲しくてわけじゃない。それはただ、私という生き物だけです。

多くの場合は、私がまだ感じる感情は二つに分かれている。概の感情は「他人にイライラ」。皆はどうしようもない愚者だけだ。特にアメリカでは、皆は何故か自分が一番だと思っている。飽きて当然。

その他はただ、誰にだってある「小さな幸せ」というものもある。例えば、四冊のライノベを買いに行って、持っている小銭が丁度あって、少し喜ぶようになります。私も馬鹿だから…

簡単に言えば、私は人間そのものを嫌うんです。自分はもちろん、除外されてない。

面白い事に、普通の人に「私は人間嫌い」と言えば、当然のように返される質問は、「でも、自分自身は嫌いなわけがないでしょう？でしたら、人間嫌いと言えないでしょう？」。いやいやいや。何故自分自身が嫌わないでしょうか。普通に、他の人間のように嫌う。

違うところはあるが。他人と違って、私は私の実力だけに誇りを持つ。私は人間の私が嫌いだが、その「実力」、「脳」などが好き。熟練や腕のいいところを持つ人に尊敬だってある。人類は根本的に駄目だが、いいところは少しだけある。

まぁ、書き疲れた。今日はここまで。

私はあまり普通ではない。自分の生活には興味を持たない。そのため、それについては書きたくない。
他人に興味を持たない。有名な人は面白くない。最近出た映画やゲームはそんなに面白くない。

それで思ったんです。私にとっては、「楽しい」というものはいったい何なんだ。
答えは微妙に、ハッキリと浮かばない。読書…か。そうでもない…か。

「コンピューター」とかは単に面白いが、それはただその物についてだけです。ソフトやゲームや他の機能はそれほど面白くない。

若い頃（っていうか、まだ若いだけど）は、楽しいことはあった気がする。何故、何時、何処でそれを失っていたか…

私の生活はそれほど悪くない。だが、同時にそれほど良くないも思う。ただ…有る。
これは多分自分の考え方のせいだと思う。が、その考え方がかなり気に入っています…

まぁ、適当な小事を書きました。練習になりますかな…

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Movies

I honestly don’t watch movies that much, so this is going to be short.

Winner: Mononoke Hime.  Easily, far and away, my most favorite movie of all time.  Every now and then, I’ll go back and watch it again, and still enjoy it just as much as the first time.  Studio Ghibli banzai!

Honorable mention: the Kara no Kyoukai movie series.  Haven’t finished watching all of them (watched five or so, but have been meaning to sit down and watch all seven together), but definitely a great series.  The one thing I truly regret about this series (moreso than Mononoke Hime) is the lack of 1080p.  I mean, come on!  It’s 2009, put out a Blu-ray compilation of this series already!

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Anime

Hey, I watch a good bit of anime… probably ~10 series a year.  Maybe I can think of something here.

Except, unfortunately, I don’t believe I have any favorite anime.  Sure, there are plenty of anime I think are good or even great, but none really make it to “favorite” status for me.  The biggest problem is that, most of the time, the anime is second or third rendition of the series, and is almost never as fully realized as the first (usually manga or novel, both of which I enjoy more than anime, anyway).  So, only honorable mentions of the past year or so here.

Honorable mention #1: Bakemonogatari.  Certainly a unique approach.  The entire series was focused more on the conversation between characters, which was a pleasant change of pace.  Likable characters, excellent music, interesting plot.  Not much to complain about.  This might be the anime closest to being a favorite of mine.

Honorable mention #2:  Higashi no Eden.  An interesting anime.  Mysterious main character starts out with a cellphone and a gun… not even clothes on his back.  Sounds like an RPG to me, actually.  He’s going to have to kill a lot of rats to afford some cloth armor… but, uh, returning to the description of why I like it.  Doesn’t particularly stand out visually (good visuals when necessary, but nothing spectacular, from what I remember), only so-so music.  The characters were above-average, and more importantly, the plot was very interesting.  I recommend it.

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Manga

Unlike movies or anime, which I almost never watch, I actually have a decent amount of favorite manga.  I think I’ll limit this one to three moments of the past year, else I might be writing for quite some time here…

Hayate no Gotoku! – chapter 252 – Honestly, there are so many highlights I can make for this series.  Very, very good manga series.  One of my favorites.  This particular chapter was interesting enough for me to start writing about.  Read the link for more on it.

Hayate no Gotoku! – chapter 239 – This was a great post.  Hinagiku, my favorite character of the series, finally works up the courage to confess her feelings to Hayate… who, before she finishes saying she likes him, confesses his own feelings for Athena!  Incidentally, it was at this time that I decided to use a happy Hinagiku avatar.

Mirai Nikki – Finding out Gasai Yuuno was not Gasai Yuuno.  Enough spoiling there.  If you haven’t read it, do so now.

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Characters

Doing top three, since the first two are immovable.  Third place will be interesting.

Number 1: Len from Tsukihime/Kagetsu Tooya/Melty Blood.  Has always been my favorite character since I first used her in a game of Melty Blood (at that time, I was not even familiar with Tsukihime).  The strong, silent character.

Number 2:  Fate Testarossa from Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha/Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha A’s.  Been at number 2 for as long as I’ve known her.  Also a strong, quiet character.  And she has a lightsaber!  Always major bonus points in my book.

Number 3:  Tough decision.  For a long time, Kawasumi Mai from Kanon held this place, though it has been swapped by several characters recently.  Namely, Nishizono Mio/Natsume Rin/Tokido Saya/Kurugaya Yuiko from Little Busters! (I’m quite partial to nearly all of the Little Busters! characters), Katsura Hinagiku/Tennousu Athena from Hayate no Gotoku!, and Toono Akiha from Tsukihime.  For the time being, I’m going to claim Katsura Hinagiku as my number 3.  Her rejected (unintentional as it was) confession and her attempts to show a strong front afterwards just make her that much more endearing to me.  She’s a strong-willed, energetic character, in opposition to my other two favorite characters.

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Well, that pretty much sums up my favorites for the time being.  If anyone requests any other categories, I may consider adding to this.

Other goodies include the artbook Girls Girls Girls! 4, the Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari CD (late in picking this up, but I could not not buy it. ^^), along with the entire Bakemonogatari novel set, or what’s released of it so far… follow the jump for my crappy and not-so-crappy pictures.I first went through and took images almost at random of these goods.  Well, you’ll have to forgive me, since I’m a complete newbie with cameras… they suck.  Fortunately, I got a little advice (and then some conflicting advice), so I at least went back and got some somewhat decent images.  I’ll be posting both to show you my crappy, nonexistent photo skills.

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Those books are pretty heavy, actually… altogether, this shipment weighed almost seven pounds.

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Closeup of the artbook and the CDs.  The quality of the second set is realms away from the first, and they’re still not really that good… goes to show how badly the first were done. ^^;;

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Closeup of the book set.  Those of you who collect light novels (probably no one reading this blog…) will notice that they’re relatively large in comparison to the CD.  In fact…

First Attempt

Second Attempt

Kino no Tabi is, from my experiences, a relatively average sized light novel.  Most light novels seem to share the same height and width, and Kino no Tabi has an average amount of pages (approximately 220 in the first volume).  More than, say, Shakugan no Shana light novels, but less than, say, Ookami to Koushinryou (Wolf and Spice) light novels.  Compare that average light novel to the Bakemonogatari novels…

First Attempt

Second Attempt

This novel could probably eat one or two Kino no Tabi light novels for breakfast… and no, my skills are not so bad as to cause the entire binding to turn pink.  I decided to flip it to the other side (the pink side is the binding for the book, which is within a case), to show the binding of the case, instead.

First Attempt

Second Attempt

It’s just ridiculously larger…

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Well, those are the goods I’ve just recently gotten.  I technically have more on me (specifically, a Hisui figure) and more on the way (three more figures, one being the matching Kohaku figure… waiting on that one to review them).  All of this while C77 is coming up… my bank account is crying.

Also of note, my current obsession is Love Plus.  It’s an incredibly fun dating sim; it’s too bad most people in America have never had the chance to experience a decent one (and trust me, most of the commercially translated ones are not very good, in my opinion.  Too much H, not enough of anything else).  I’ll probably review this once I’ve finished at least one playthrough (I say at least one, since I’m probably going to have to play through another heroine’s route…).  Expect it sometime within the next week.

Oh, I forgot to explain the title of this post; Kaimonogatari kind of a pun on the -monogatari series.  Bakemono + monogatari = monster + story, Nisemono + monogatari = impostor + story, etc.  Kaimono + monogatari = shopping + story.

Note that there are major spoilers, so don’t read if you aren’t close to this far into the series and hate being spoiled.

When we last left our unlucky hero, he was pondering the most difficult choice of his life; to protect Nagi’s fortune, which was the only thing allowing her to live her life as she was; or to rescue Athena, the girl he had loved since he was a child, from the great spirit that has taken up residence with her.  Either protect the stone pendant he was given, give it to Athena to appease the spirit so it can be separated from Athena, or let Isumi destroy it…

At this point in the story, Hayate has slipped away from the last party in Greece to ponder on his situation alone.  However, Nagi has followed him, and they have a private chat…

Nagi actually surprised me here.  Sometimes you forget because she’s just a child (and is selfish, capricious, etc.), but she’s not a genius for no reason.  She already has a good idea of why Hayate has been depressed lately, even if she has no idea about Hayate and Athena’s relationship.  Most of this page (and the ones leading up to it) were innocent topics by Nagi.  She describes how she was told the stone is a stone of the stars, to test relationships… then, the bottom panels:

Nagi: “Hey, Hayate.”
Hayate: “Yes…?”
Nagi: “Is it this stone’s fault?”

This actually sent a bit of a shiver down my spine. ^^

Note: read these next two right to left.

No translation necessary here.  Nagi doesn’t want to see Hayate suffering, even if it means she loses her inheritance… while I’m not a big fan of pairing Hayate and Nagi together (I much prefer Athena and Hinagiku, though it’s too late for the latter), Nagi certainly holds her own.  Hayate is the one who necessarily reacts to this, shouting that money has allowed Nagi her lifestyle, has given her power, and, most importantly, protects her.

Nagi:  From here on… Hayate, you protect me.

Again, I’m not a big Nagi fan, but this is a great line.  I’m a little sad that this probably means the Nagi flag has been raised and Hayate can no longer load a quick save to visit any of the other heroine’s paths, but one should really have expected this.  With the stone out of the way (maybe; there are others…), it seems like we might come to a conclusion for this series soon.  I do believe the writer did mention a number of chapters back that there were only two or so major arcs left, so expect the pace to keep up. ^^

I’ve considered what I’ve been doing with this site (i.e., nothing) and decided that I need to change directions with it.  I’ll probably start using this site as something of an experiment while building a new site from scratch; likely with PHP.  What does this mean?  In the short run, nothing.  I’m lazy like that.  In the long run, I might remove or try transferring the blog entries I’ve made here onto what I make in the future.  While this affects probably no one but myself, I thought I’d throw that out there (putting it in a physical form so I’m at least somewhat motivated).

Now that I think about it, I should have taken a picture of how tall it was… oh well.

Cutting open the box, I lay out most of the contents here.

Let’s get some of the lesser items out of the way first, shall we? Here are some miscellaneous items:

We have a September issue of Dengeki Hime (I purchased solely for the Komari figure, which you shall see later), a Major Arcana deck from K-Books, and ビミョ～な日本語 (Bimyo~ na Nihongo). The last is a book I saw and was instantly interested by the concept. It seeks to demystify some common kanji that are similar in pronunciation and meaning, yet are slightly, strangely different (bimyou ni). The first group given will serve as an example; 会う, 合う and 遭う. All pronounced ‘au’, yet they’re slightly different. Enough about that though, on to the other goodies.

Adding Komari and Kanatan (…I’m sad that no one will get that joke.) to my collection completes it! I now have all six Little Busters! bath themed figures.

Dmyotic 3 and the postcard set it comes with. Artist is dmyo (visit here). I’ve heard from anony that it’s not nearly as good as the previous two. Since I don’t have the previous two, I can’t really comment. The story is relatively interesting though, so I’d like to read the continuation.

The only figure I got in this package… but it’s Len! With cake, real cake! And I managed to snag it for 1,000 yen. What more can I say about it? It’s a simple figurine (hence the price), but that doesn’t necessarily detract from the aesthetic value. If only it could switch to mizugi or pajama form a la Last Arc… drool.

A Duel Dolls fanbook done by Tinkle, so you know what to expect from the quality. Lots of pantsu, lovely dresses, pantsu, cute girls, pantsu, swords, and pantsu. Okay, I realize ‘swords’ is not common to her art, but it is for the Duel Dolls theme. I lucked out and got the ecchi stick poster, too. Those boxes holding down the stick poster are Komari and Kanata.

Fate-chan! These particular renditions of Fate Testarossa were done by Himukai Kyousuke (visit his EXTREMELY NOT SAFE FOR WORK site here) of the circle Studio Himawari. Being a fan of Fate, I have seen her drawn in many different styles… Himukai’s is one of the, if not the best. The only downside to this particular item is that I now have to go out and purchase a body pillow.

Last but most certainly not least, my Nagomiko goods. The artist behind Nagomiko is Tenmu Shinryuusai (visit here). My favorite artist.
The top two images are his C73 goods, the first being the front of the bag, a clear file holder, and the doujin itself. The second image is the back of the bag as well as the clear stick poster.
The bottom image is of his C74 goods; the bag, fan, clear file and doujin.

And that’s it for this package. I still have a few more goodies that have yet to be delivered, but I don’t expect them for a while.

Also, if you’re wondering what happened to the frequent updates earlier in the month, I have been obsessed with an MMO. Yes, really. It’s not a genre I play very often. This particular one is named Atlantica Online. It’s more of a turn-based game, harkening back to the olden days… I quite like it.

Whenever I’m not playing Atlantica, I’m having a few matches in Melty Blood. I consider myself average at the game. Right now, all the people at a lower level than I are cursing me, whilst the people at a higher level are thinking I’m over-exaggerating my skills… well, that’s what you get with a fighting game. The difference between skill levels can be quite great. If I have any interesting matches, I’ll see about posting some replays.