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)

子供の頃から数えれば、私は多分二、三の友達を一年や二年位の間を持った。それ以上じゃ、私のことを知りすぎて、まぁ、いつもの出来事になるでしょう。

で、この、そうだな…三、四年位かな？とにかく、この数年私はオンラインで友達（と呼べよう）を数人も作られた。私は、いつものように、この人たちを傷つけるだけです。そうだろうな…私は人と付き合い方を知らないからな。それでも、私はその人たちの輪の中に居たかった。いつも飢え死になりそうな人にご飯をあげればのように、凍死そうな人に火を作ればのように、私はただその温もりを感じたかった。だが、何もかものように、終わりがある。私には、その終わりが来た。

この一ヶ月、私は思った。友達（オンラインだけでも）を持ったとしても、私はどうだ…強くなった？嬉しくなった？一体何を得たと言うんだ？いや…私は何も違わなかった。何も得なかった。同じのように、例え皆と一緒だとしても、私はいつも一人。強くもならなかったし、嬉しくもならなかった。何かが変化していれば、それはその逆かもしれない。弱くなった、悲しくなった。私はやはり他人と会うだけで不幸になるでしょう。

だから、今日からはその絆を断ち切ると思った。私はいつものように、何も感じないが…こうなったには、暇だな。友人等に対しての義務はかなり多かった所為か、開放されると何をすればに迷う。

まぁ、時間が作ってしまっただ。じっくり考えればいいんだ。

私がもっと若い頃には、一度だけ少し恋をしましたけど。いわゆる「初恋」というもの。と言われても、私の同級生はエロ過ぎた。せめて私がそう思った。恋より思春期だったかも知れない。

で、肝心なのは他人が「愛をしています」のような台詞を吐くところだ。そのような台詞は意味不明。疑惑を持っている。

神のようなもんかも知れない。皆が神を存在すると言うばかりが、私だけがそれを感じていない、信じていない、疑惑を持って混乱する。本当はどうでもいいが、皆に「有る」ものは私には「無い」。慣れているけど、まだ何か…羨ましい？違う。欲しい…また違う。複雑です。私は普通の人間になりたくわけでもないが、そのような人に少しだけ嫉妬しているかもしれん。

まぁ、今日はそこまで。

Aside from the update in graphics, which I could drone on and on about, I’d like to write a little about my views on what makes Evangelion (the original series and the update) so great.

I’ll note that this is late at night, I’m lazy, and I do not feel like making this post particularly pretty. The text shall have to suffice. I know, some of the letters are pointy. But you’re not supposed to be jabbing them into your eyes, anyway, so you only have yourself to blame.

I suppose I will work my way up with these. Firstly (or lastly, then), are the bishoujo characters. Can’t hurt!

Next, the pacing/realism in stark contrast to the rest of the genre. First giant monster comes along. Conventional weapons not working? Check. More conventional weapons not working? Check check. Nuke? Barely fazes it. All the while, military officials are ruing the decision to get out of bed. Soft bed, calling to me… er, anyway. This is normal in any series/movie featuring giant creatures/mecha/etc. What happens next, is not.

The main character (Ikari Shinji, for those unfamiliar with the series (you heathens, you)) is given the option to pilot a giant robot (creature?) in order to defeat the creature. Of course, he jumps at the opportunity to pilot it! Or not. Realistically, no one would. And our protagonist decides (quite logically) that it’s stupid for him to pilot a giant robot he’s never seen or even heard of before. Because it obviously is. But, well, it wouldn’t be much of an anime if he skipped town and humanity was destroyed, so there’s a little more to this decision. As he makes this decision, everyone leaves him. They’re in a bit of a hurry, of course, but it’s still kind of sad to see Shinji being abandoned because his reasoning facilities are still functioning.

Cue bishoujo #1. Bloodied and being wheeled in on a stretcher, of course. What better way to tug at Shinji’s heart than to place an injured bishoujo into further danger? He’s still a man, of course. So, he finally agrees to pilot Eva 01. Of course, he destroys the creature, saves humanity, and does it all in the name of love, justice, courage, friendship, etc., etc., etc.! Right!? Well, no. He takes a step with Eva 01, tries to take another and falls down in front of the creature, and proceeds to have the stuffing beat out of him. Naturally; this is the first time he’s ever seen or heard of this Eva. Using it to destroy a creature without any prior training would be stupid. What happens to humanity? Well… the Eva goes berserk and rips the creature apart in short order.

Now, none of these elements are so unique on their own. The gradual increase in power levels is familiar to anyone who has ever touched a shounen series, the secret hidden potential being shown early in the series through some twist of fate or other is rather commonplace, and even realistic reactions to unrealistic situations are… well, not terribly commonplace (I can probably only think of a handful), but they’re there. What makes Evangelion so special is that is wraps all of that together in a fast-paced, coherent, interesting first episode. That’s right, almost all of this happens within the first episode (Eva 01 going berserk onwards is from the second episode, if I remember correctly).

Lastly (and most importantly), I feel the most important part of the series are the characters. The pilots defy the norms of both super and real robot protagonists. Unlike super robot characters, they do not fight with courage (I despise GaoGaiGar, just on principle. Never watched the series, but I know a decent amount through Super Robot Taisen), love, friendship, justice, etc., etc., etc. One might wonder if I find these themes ridiculous. I do. I despise super robot series in general, too. While I’m sure there are a handful that do not rely on one of the above or another similar theme, I haven’t heard of or watched any.

Evangelion is much closer to real robots (in terms of protagonists, anyway) in that the pilots are flawed. They fight for their own reasons. Where they differ is that, while real robot protagonists will fight for their friends, their side of the war, etc., all the Evangelion pilots really fight for are themselves. Humanity is at stake, but it never seems to be that big of a stake. On the battlefield, there’s no one but the enemy and themselves. No one to protect. No allies to remind them (or the viewer) that they’re fighting for someone else. Relative solitude…

Off the battlefield, the characters display very undesirable traits in humans. Specifically, they’re all rather flawed. Some try to better themselves, some revel in their flaws; either way, it creates a sense of humanity. Cowardly, overly prideful, sleazy, self-centered… the cast is ugly (in personality; bishoujo, remember!). Far from being perfect people, most don’t even have good intentions!

Anyway. I personally enjoy such flawed characters. More interesting than perfect/practically perfect/good-guy characters.

Since this review-ish post wasn’t necessary in the first place (plenty on the rest of the interwebs), I’m going to end it here and go to sleep. Back to the regularly scheduled Japanese posts that no one wants to read (or have read) tomorrow!

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…

Giving up on that, I wandered around to find where to exchange my Rail Pass. Except I couldn’t really find that, either…

Now, two more things to keep in mind. I had no idea where I first place I reserved was, what prefecture it was in, or what its name was. I was counting on using the internet on the cell to double-check. Second, I don’t ask for directions.

Uh…

Eventually, I saw a sign saying there was an additional Post Office on the third floor and the Rail Pass exchange center was a floor or two below. Go to check out the Post Office, it’s open… and they have my cell! Excellent. I start playing around with it on the way to the Rail Pass center… only to find out that there’s no way to access the internet on it.

Er…

Well, after I obtain my Rail Pass, I call my sibling who is staying in Japan. Between the two of us, and taking only about an hour and a half, we find out… virtually nothing. I am pointed to an internet cafe in Narita however, so I head there and experience the rail system for the very first time.

I’ll not go into the details of it, but riding the rail system for the first time is a bit… overwhelming. Trying to find the right stop (in Japanese!), how much you need for it, which train to take, etc… not stuff you want to wander into with no prior knowledge. I did manage to make it to my destination (the actual Narita stop) safely, however.

From there, the internet cafe was literally right across the street. No getting lost there. Hop on a computer, find out the information I need, pay and leave, and hop back on the train for my next destination.

I’ll note that I arrived in Japan around 1400. I finally arrive at my ryokan (hotel) around… 2100.

…At least I arrived! For a moment, I thought I wasn’t going to! >_<

Anyway, some quick shots of the room.

Naturally, being this late, I need to get some food. I find some place that does take-out ramen and order some. I then proceed to eat quite a bit of it before I realize I should take a picture! After that, it’s time for some sleep~.

Anyway, I have a day to waste before going to visit my sibling/pick them up for our trip to Oosaka/Kyouto/etc. So, I naturally spend it in Akihabara! Uh, not much to say here, really. I foolishly left for Akihabara around 0700 (naturally being an early-riser due to work), and arrive to find out… nothing opens until 0900 or 1000! So, I eat at a McDonald’s (only food place I could find open at that time) and wander around for about three hours. After that, I just visited a lot of the shops there, ate gyuudon at a Yoshinoya (GYUUDON IS GOOD AND CHEAP), and went home (did I mention gyuudon is good? Because it’s really good). I think I forgot to eat dinner this night… can’t remember for sure. Anyway, I left the next day for Fukui! And I should note that it’s spring! The time of year when the sakura are in bloom, and everything looks so lovel—

SNOOOOOOW!? And why did I seem to take three pictures of the same spot and manage to keep all three for this post… and not notice it until now when I’m too lazy to get rid of them? Anyway. Snow. Wasn’t expecting it, but at least I brought a heavy jacket just in case.

The morning after.

Random places in Fukui!

I actually took pictures of the male statue with the saxophone on the bench on the other side of the street, but my sibling was in those images, so you don’t get to see them.

Then off to Oosaka!

No pictures since I’m lazy, but Oosaka has some really good food. Nikuman! Oishii~.

Visual Art’s building. Er… long story I’ll not delve into.

Random sign!? I don’t know why I took this picture, honestly. I guess this is as good a place as any to note that my sibling is similarly poor at planning, since we were more than a little lost and only ended up at our hotel at around 2200. Everything was closed by then, so we had to rush out and grab food at the convenience store by the train station and rush back before the curfew at 2300.

The view from the hostel we were staying at.

The sakura were not quite in full blossom. Nasty weather… I’ll mention here that the weather was rather poor pretty much my entire stay here. Typically, it’s not supposed to be this bad… winter was just long this year, I guess. The only time the weather was nice was when I ran out of battery, but I’ll get to that later!

A restaurant called “Ahoya”… XD

Around this point, we decided to go to Oosaka Castle. Actually, we wanted to go to Oosaka Tower… but Google Maps apparently has really, really bad directions for it. We were really lost (we walked for several hours straight before turning back) (also, I won’t admit to being wrong in my directions!). Anyway, on to Oosaka Castle!

Lots and lots of foreigners here, of all sorts of nationalities.

It was actually sprinkling this entire time. Kind of annoying…

Somewhere along the way, my lens gets a little wet and I don’t notice it (I noticed it the first time, though…). Blame my amateur photography skills! I only got this (my first camera) in January! >_<

Now leaving Oosaka Aquarium and going onto the Naniwa Ocean Space-Time Museum! That’s kind of literally what it’s called (なにわの海の時空館). I found it amusing.

Unfortunately, we arrived here close to closing time, so there’s not much of interest from here.

This is actually my trophy.

Now leaving the aquarium… and another train stop sign. Can’t remember why I took this one, either…

Fun Engrish. Though it’s actually pretty much what the Japanese is saying, so… not Engrish?

On the recommendation of a friend of my sibling’s, we took Johnnie Hillwalker’s tour. It wasn’t bad, I’d probably recommend it to anyone with no knowledge of Japanese and/or the culture, as it’s rather informative.

We visited this Buddhist temple (Higashi Hongan-ji) on the tour. Actually, we happened to visit on a very special day; April 2nd. They were conducting prayers for all those who have perished in war. We sat in on the ceremony for a short period of time before moving on.

Once upon a time, I took a picture…

of a nice dragon!

You might be wondering why I’m taking pictures of this nondescript building, but this is where Nintendo apparently started out at!

And this is where my battery ended at! I guess I should mention now that I forgot to pack my camera’s battery charger… and getting one in Japan for my American model is not easy.

Well, to start wrapping things up, I’ll ignore the part of my vacation where I didn’t have my camera. It was more fun going without it, though. And the weather was nicer. And the sakura in Nara were quite pretty on a sunny day… anyway. The next place I have my camera with a charged battery is at Tokyo Tower (when the weather got bad again… why!?).

One story I’d like to share about Tokyo Tower is that, when you go up to the special viewing area, the announcer mentions you *may* hear a sharp cracking sound (EH!?), but that’s actually a safety mechanism (or so they say!).

Curse you, cloudy skies! Curse you!

Oh, there were places where you can look down. Didn’t notice them at first… but they’re not really that interesting, anyway. More importantly, in the gift shop… POP! They weren’t actually selling it, unfortunately… I definitely would have bought a copy.

You’re a monkey! At Tokyo Tower… why… okay, let’s not question such things.

From a distance!

Noticed this on the way back to the train station. It’s read “Nagai Saka”; I found this funny because, if you only think about the reading, it sounds like “long hill”, which, as you might be able to tell from the picture, there are indeed some long hills. I was also staying in Akasaka (“red hill”) at the time, which lived up to its name… lots of slopes there, too.

And that about wraps things up for the pictures I brought back from Japan. Skipped out quite a bit of the actual trip, but I wouldn’t want to bother you guys with those minor details… anyway, time for some sleep at last! (No proofreading, so please note any errors in the comments or something.)

Ooh, boxes.  Okay, that’s it for the pictures!  Pretty impressive, right?

What’s that?  You’re not satisfied?  Eh… follow the jump for more, I guess.

I got a couple of boxes in my boxes.  Uh…

In reality, they were used (probably!) to keep some of my larger items flattened, so they wouldn’t be bent.  Pretty thoughtful of them. ^^

One box’ worth!

Closer shots of everything… I would have taken more detailed shots of the contents of some stuff, but no one wanted anything in particular (all I got was “everything!”), so you’ll have to settle for this. =P

Alright, round two!

By the way, the first box was stuff I got from Yahoo! Auctions through SMJ.  The second box is my first shipment from Goody Japan.

The stuff I got two weeks later came in two boxes as well.  The first batch of goods is from a contact I have in Japan, whom I convinced to pick up a few goods for me.

Testing out something with the light… obviously, the second one came out significantly better.  Included a DS for size comparison!  This is a huge, huge book!  I actually take some pictures of the contents since I like it so much.  Those will be later.

Most of the goods laid out.  I also go over the contents of the 2010 Rewrite calendar since I liked it.

A number of these goods came with bags.  The Tenmu Shinryuusai bag only has his signature 和 on the back, so I did not take a picture of it.  Alright, on to the second box, which is my second shipment from Goody Japan!

Not too much, really.  Toranoana (whom I bought from, through Goody Japan), included a special New Year’s card.  I don’t really collect cards, but still nice of them.

These are the images in the giant Rewrite calendar.  I quite like most of these, though my favorite is the winter one… what do you guys think?

Onto the pictures of Kyouto, Haru.’s contents!  This one was the main one I was aiming for since I had heard of it, and I was not disappointed.  Spread out like this, it’s about the same size as my 30″ monitor.  Very atmospheric, very beautiful.

More than anything else, I’d love a good scan (or the original digital copy!) of the miko on the right… miko banzai!
The violin player on the left is also quite lovely… I’m quite partial to violins, too. ^^

Hard to choose favorites in this book, but the one on the right here is definitely one of mine. ^^

Like the book says at the end, I hope we get to see more of Kirsche-neesan next spring. ^^

As the astute may have noticed, Kyouto, Haru. is a collaboration between Takeuchi Takashi  and Kobayashi Jin.  And all of these (mind you, this isn’t everything in the book) are done by Takeuchi Takashi.  The reason being, well… I didn’t really find Kobayashi Jin’s works to be that appealing.

Well, that’s it for my C77 (and then some) goods… let’s see what everyone else got! ^^

Don’t be so reserved, have a seat! Since we don’t get snow, what you see there is a figment of your imagination, surely.

It almost does seem real, though, doesn’t it…

Even though it looked like this last night, most of it was gone by the morning.

I didn’t take too many pictures last night since it was cold and I was tired, so this is all I’m going to share. =P

C77 goods should be arriving in the next couple of days, so expect that sooner than later.

Taking apart the top layer, I find… the base.  Okay, nothing exciting here.

Flipping the rest over and removing the other layer, I am greeted with Kudo-kou!

But wait… something seems wrong with her ribbon!

For reference, it is not supposed to come off like that.  The other half is in her cloak, next to her hand.

A quick shot of the rest of her quickly put together.

The pieces that broke off.  The two pink ribbons obviously belong to the ribbon on her chest, and the purple ribbon belongs to her hat.  Tried focusing on two close, but different areas… trying to distract myself from this great tragedy. ;_;

But, nevertheless, the show must go on.  And on it went!

One thing about this figure… it is HEAVY.  The huge metal poles you saw on both of her feet in the earlier image?  That should give you a good idea of how heavy this figure is.

I used basically the same camera settings I used for the Kaleido Ruby figure here.  The images came out pretty decently, I think.  However, I wanted to see if I could get away without flash when taking pictures of the figure after I glued the broken parts back on.  On with those…

Compared to the image directly above… I think it came out a little better.  Changed some settings around (biggest change was probably changing the shutter speed from 1/30 to 1/10 – 1/15, to allow in more light due to the absence of flash; played around with ISO, but ended up leaving it at 800 for these shots, and eventually slightly increased aperture from 5.6 to 7.1.  Different images have different settings applied since I’m still mostly testing things out, so expect different quality from each photo).  I then loaded the raws in Photoshop and changed the lighting to balance out for fluorescent lighting.  Changing for tungsten provided an image that seemed a little closer to the real colors, but felt a bit too gray… fluorescent seemed to provide a little more “life”, so I stuck with that.

You should be able to notice the purple ribbon is now attached to her hat, as well as the pink ribbon on her chest.  Not the best job at gluing things back together, but it’s hardly noticeable more than a few feet away.

Overall, it turned out okay.  I just wish it hadn’t arrived broken in the first place, but that can’t be helped. >_<

One last look at the ribbon in particular before moving on to…

Kudryavka Noumi!  W-wait, what!?

This is the Alter version of Kudryavka Noumi, recently released.  I obtained it in between my last post and this.  She’s considerably smaller and lighter than her double…  The tiny little foothold she rests on concerns me in comparison, but I have a couple of figures resting on one foot like that, and nothing bad has happened… yet.

Kudo-kou’s exuberance is captured quite clearly in this figure.

More focus testing!

Pan…

chira…

There’s quite a lot of similarities between these two figures.  Well, aside from the obvious fact that they’re the same character.  Same signature clothing, same flowing cloak, flowing hair, etc.  Even the same pantsu!

Her base is… well, in my opinion, a bit gaudy.  I don’t really pay too much attention to the bases unless it’s something special, like Black★Rock Shooter‘s.

And a final shoot focusing on this Kudo-kou’s unmarred ribbon… ;_;

I suspect the next post from me should be about my C77 goods, most of which should be arriving within the next week or so.  Look forward to it (or avoid it like the plague, either way)!