Asakomi

Wow, the animation was really off this time around. Their faces looked practically deformed most of the time. So disappointing..

Go Miki! That’s right Hattori is a big fat hentai! (read: typical teenage boy). This is the first conversation where I thought Yamato was smarter than Hattori. “We have our own pace for these things.” Amen! You don’t need to rush anything! Look you can say smart things! That’s a good boy. *pat pat*

On the Suzuka front: Suzuka overhears Yamato and Honoka. Suzuka sees a chance to walk home alone with Yamato under her umbrella. Miki is like a mosquito that you just can’t slap away, but finally Suzuka gets rid of her, only to lose her nerve and offer Yamato her umbrella while she goes off with Miki instead. Suzuka acts like a typical girl in emotional turmoil and decides to eat cake. Heh.

I really enjoyed the little reality check Nana gave Yamato at the end. He thinks he’s working so hard to be the perfect boyfriend, but he’s not taking any time to actually get to know her better. He doesn’t know when her birthday is, her favourite colour, her favourite song, he doesn’t know what makes her happy or what makes her sad. He really doesn’t know her. But he’s been feeling satisfied with himself this whole time because he thought he was playing the role of boyfriend well.

I’ve finally managed to have a few minutes where I’m not feeling lazy, so I’ve taken some pictures of the DVDs I’ve recently acquired.

First off is my TSRI birthday order, woohoo! My boss generously gave me an $80.00 gift certificate for my birthday and this is what I spent it on:

My second order was one I made on ADV’s website back in JULY. I had problems placing the order, and then had to wait a million years to get the order, and then one of the DVDs they sent me is wrong and I’m having problems getting them to fix it. Ugh! Never ordering directly from them again. Anyhoo… this time around we have:

Generator Gawl was sent free with my order. What the heck is it? It looks stupid (probably why it’s free), but I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet. (Edit: I watched most of the first episode. Blah animation, blah characters, blah everything. It sucked. But I think I have a table that needs a little propping up…)

And finally, Gankutsuou was released early! Yatta! So Thursday I got my Vol 1 + Artbox and it’s just absolutely stunning. I’m so happy with it. I also got the final two volumes of Chrono Crusade. I’ve already changed them to the reversible covers and I didn’t take pictures of the regular ones, but you can find those anywhere:P.

Right now I have Gankutsuou on its reversible cover, just for picture purposes, but I think I’ll change it back to the ultra-cool count cover. Bah, I just can’t decide!

Included in this order was a free copy of Tokyopop’s new magazine called Takuhai. I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet though. Oh, and they also (woohoo go TSRI) sent me a DVD that has the first two episodes of Samurai 7 on it, an episode of Bakuretsu Tenshi, and an episode of Kiddy Grade. It was quite the lovely package!

p.s. this post took me forever, so if you could like… clap for me.. or something, that’d be great. haha.

I really really like the background music/sounds/whatever you wanna call them for Black Cat. They totally add to the slick and cool atmosphere of the show.

The little blonde girl, Eve, is a bit off methinks. I guess it comes from being the “ultimate bioweapon”, albeit an incomplete one. I wonder if Train was ordered to kill her simply because she’s a weapon, or for some other reason. I also wanna know what the heck Sven all has in that briefcase. It’s as handy as Batman’s belt!

“Elena” is forced to come clean about her identity, since Sven has already figured out that Eve is not her sister and that her actual name is Rinslet Walker, or Rin. Turns out Rin just wants the data on Eve so she can sell it to the military.

Train struggles with the concept of being Chronos’ dog. Sven and Eve end up spending time together in the park and many cute moments ensue. Sven also develops a soft spot for her and makes it his personal mission to save her, especially since he promised her in the park that he’d take her out to eat.

Enjoyable episode, especially the simultaneous conversations between Train/whatever that guy’s name is and Rin/Sven. The scenes between Sven and Eve were also ultra kawaii! I’m enjoying the mix of action, drama, and comedy in Black Cat so far, though I fear that it’s just not exciting enough to hold my interest for long. I hope an overriding story thread starts to develop soon.

So I’m still not 100% better, but I’m feeling well enough to blog the final episode of TSR. Plus, I just couldn’t wait to watch it anymore. More screencaps than usual, and I’ll put my writeup in the extended entry.

Again Honoka dazzles us with her pretty outfits. I need to go shopping with her.

The title for this episode is”Impulse”, and I find it very fitting with the way Yamato grabbed Honoka and kissed her out of the blue in the train station. Then there’s the whole situation that occured in his bedroom, which resulted in a terrified Honoka rushing out with tears in her eyes. Gah Yamato, you stupid, confused, irrational idiot. At least he apologized. But still - gah.

Lastly, Hattori’s view on sex is the first stupid thing I’ve heard him say thus far. What the heck!?

I’m really sick so the next few entries won’t be much more than screencaps and a sentence or two on whether or not I liked the ep. I could put this off until I’m feeling better, but who knows when that will be and I really hate the thought of falling behind.

I gotta say I ALMOST fell for Zaemon’s ruse. Almost, and I think it’s only because I’m highly medicated because there’s no way they’d kill Oboro now, especially without showing her dying. So, nice try Zaemon, but you’ll have to do better than that. Too bad Koshiro fell for it…

I am a freaking MORON! I somehow managed to overwrite my giant Black Cat 1 post, and have no idea if it’s even possible to ever get it back. *Bangs head on desk*. This is why I shouldn’t post while I’m sick. grrrrrrrrr.

I still really really like the OP. Anyone know when the single is coming out? *check’s Omni’s site* Yatta! November 2nd!

The singing girl, who is a sweeper like Sven, is kinda crazy. When she first sang I thought her character was going to be all mysterious and stuff, but she’s actually rather spacey. Spacey, but kickass. Anyway, Train more than fills the mysterious/brooding bill so we don’t need *two* characters like that or the whole series might just be [insert character name] stares moodily off into the distance. Perhaps she will balance him out a bit.

I enjoyed the interactions between Sven and the waitress, and giggled immensely when she called him an old man. Poor Sven can’t catch a break. He’s got no money for food, and all the sweeper jobs get taken right from under his nose.

That is until the well endowed blonde lady who calls herself Elena, but is really named Rin and doesn’t even have blonde hair, comes in and he ends up saving her from the other sweepers (because they’re pigs) and then she hires him to help her with the job she has: Her sister’s been kidnapped by Torneo Ludman, a weapon’s dealer who was at the party for Lib.

We also get an interesting interaction between Train and the singing sweeper girl. “Guns are killing tools,” he says. “Depends on how you use them,” says she. I’m sure this theme/difference between Train’s job and that of a sweeper will be explored more as the series goes on, and I look forward to it.

I’m really enjoying Black Cat, probably more so than others because I haven’t read the manga. I like the animation, the character designs, the music, the characters and the plot so far.

Suzuka and Yamato are stranded with no money when a drunken man stumbles by and notices them. He sidles up to Yamato and teases him about getting into a fight with his girl and how it’s probably his fault, as men are usually the unfaithful ones. Our poor dear Honoka is probably thinking something along these same lines at this point.

Honoka worries because they haven’t heard from them yet, and then worries because he’s with Suzuka. But I thought he handled the conversation with her in a wonderfully gentle manner with the way he talked to her on the phone and tried to reassure her that everything would be ok.

He then calls his dad to lend him some money so that Suzuka can at least stay in a nice hotel for the night.

While they wait Suzuka asks about how he and Honoka ended up together. He says being with her makes him feel calm, and then Suzuka gets all uppity. He calls her on it - good on him! It’s true, she did ask.

His dad shows up and declares that Suzuka won’t be staying in a hotel - she’s coming home with them. So we get to see Yamato’s family. They make fun of him as much as Suzuka does!. Maybe that’s why he’s so drawn to her. They say that women often look for men that remind them of their fathers, and vice versa for men.. haha.

Later Yamato asks her if she wants to see the fireflies, but she gets offended at his offer and says no. But after she overhears him telling Honoka that he’ll be home that night she suddenly she wants to see the fireflies. Hmmmmmmmmm. Then we have the scene where Yamato pretends to confess to Suzuka, and she gets pretty into it. Looks like she’s starting to realize her own feelings. This should definitely make things extra interesting from here on in.

Gates utter lack of humanity is bone chilling. How could he taunt Xia Yu Fang about her sister’s death like that? I would be very interested to know what kind of childhood and upbringing Gates had that contributed to turning him into the monster he is today. Is it weird that as much as I am horrified by him, I also feel really sorry for him? But with only one more episode to go I doubt it’ll happen.

Gah! Gauron is still alive! I certainly didn’t see that coming, and apparently neither did Sousuke. Granted, he’s not exactly in the best shape, but still! It’s noteworthy that after only a couple of minutes with Sousuke even Gauron can tell that he’s not the same man he used to be. He’s become down-right emotional.

“Each Whispered has knowledge inherent to that Whispered alone.” Which is why even though Amalgam has one Whispered in its group - Tessa’s brother, they still have much to gain by capturing Chidori. Finally we are given more knowledge about the Whispered. I wish there was more time to learn even more.

Gauron also remarks that when he first met Sousuke the boy had no fear, no doubts, no thoughts whatsoever about life or death, he just carried out his missions. I believe that throughout the first season of FMP, but especially during this one, we have seen Sousuke grow by leaps and bounds as a character. But it can’t just be described as character development. What Sousuke has been on has been a journey towards becoming human. A human with wants, needs, hopes, fears, and dreams; with all of our frailties and uncertainties, but also the ability to draw upon courage and strength in spite of these so-called weaknesses of human flesh. A line from one of my favourite books comes to mind: “How can I become human, and stay human?” This to me is a picture of Sousuke’s journey so far.

One final note: Tessa deserves an Academy Award for her beautiful defence of Sousuke as well as her own self.

One episode to go, and with how this one ended that’s sooo not fair.

Kunichiyo has been poisoned and his mama aint too happy about it, obviously. She wants to go to Sunpu but is stopped for the moment.

There’s a brief showdown between Koshiro/Gennosuke/Kagero, but Hyouma steps in and tells Kagero to take Gennosuke and run. Hyouma tries to use his power on Koshiro but it doesn’t work since Koshiro is still blind from Gennosuke’s attack.

We get to see how Hyouma and Gennosuke first meet, and whatddya know, they’re related - Hyouma is his uncle! I didn’t think Hyouma was that much older than Gennosuke. Anyway, Hyouma was the one who trained Gennosuke how to use his ninja art and who also instilled in him the idea of peace between the clans. These flashback scenes made me like Hyouma much more than I have up to this point. I never disliked him, in fact I don’t think I thought much about him at all, but now I think he’s awesome.

I just got home from a sleepover and I’m pooped. Too much food + too little sleep = need for nap. So off I go.