So whilst sitting through the loud, non-stop, eyeball popping, action-fest that is Transformers 2, it occurred to me.

If we can make a movie that can make mecha look this freakin sweet. (If you say Optimus Prime doesn’t look kick ass in this movie then you are a liar).
Why have we not yet gotten a sniff of a live action Gundam movie?

I think the ticket sales for Transformers has more than proved that my mecha whore brethren and I would more than willingly part with cash to see the metal titans battle it out against each other.

Blasphemous as it may be, I would rather shell out for a live-action Gundam movie than I would for EVA. Though I doubt even that is going to see the light of day since it seems like it will be in production hell forever.

Similarly I haven’t heard anymore on the live action FMP front, although it makes my heart giddy with happiness to think of a honest to god movie with Arbalest in it.

What would really make me happy would be to hear rumblings of a live action Macross. Think about it for a moment, just how effing amazing would that be? Keep thinking about it, see you can’t, because your brain just shuts down at the sheer enormity of just how sweet that would be.

Of course all of us fans in the States would have to cry until someone subbed it and uploaded the torrent for us, because such a movie would never see the light of day over here, even if it were to happen.

*WHOEVER OWNS THE RIGHTS DAMN WELL SORT IT OUT I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO DAMN WELL PURCHASE MACROSS FRONTIER, MACROSS 7 AND MACROSS ZERO GUNDAMMIT!*

Oh well at least we have live-action Blood The Last Vampire to look forward to.

Now how about a live-action Rurouni Kenshin…

I was  going through, Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo, which was made by Akabeisoft 2, who later went on to make Devil on G-string. AND IT WAS FANTASTIC. How can I describe it? The touching moments are very touching, and in some places the crying power is almost as strong as AIR. The kickass moments are very GAR, making you cheer on the characters. And the shock of what really happenes to people who have broken the greatest laws…the absolutely mastery at which the writers had written in all the hints and pulled them together rivals that of EVER17.

BUT, the endings! They all have this weird and choppy feeling to them, placed, almost as if broken off from the main storyline, existing in another dimention (not much better that Princess Waltz). To supplement the endings, AK2 released a fandisc (Sharin no Kuni, Yuukyuu Shounen Shoujo). But, of course, that means extra money and extra years while I wait for a translation group, ANY translation group to release it!

Since I’m sure that very few of you share my agony, go and read this review to get pumped, and then go check the TLwiki and go through the agony of waiting for the game to be released…mua haha!

00:10: OMG, BEACTRICE. Haha, they used the game image! OMG Akiko Shikata, the song sounds awesome! OMG, I can’t believe that this is an anime!!!!!

What the hell, I sound like a rabid fan girl.

Ack, I don’t care anymore. I’ve been in love with Umineko too long to worry about how I sound right now.

00:35: Gasp, a prettified Kanon! His clothes are as weird as ever, but ahhhhh…… he’s so pretty.00:54: Ah, Maria actually looks human now! The game art was not that good in regards to her, as she had neither the build or the chest size of a 9 year old. Did you notice that all the women in this series has a big chest? If not, I’m telling you that they all have really big chests. There’s something wrong with that. And HURRAH for their decision to use the game music! I guess they finally learned. To those of you who didn’t know. Higurashi no naku koro ni (which was created by 07th expansion, just like Umineko) had absolutely fantastic game music, which was unfortunately replaced by a lackluster anime sound track. Fortunately the people over at Kyoani started to use original game music in their adaptions, and it all spread out from there.00:56: Awesomeness.00:58: Seriously, I’m loving the character designs, this is almost washing out the scars that playing Umineko has left on my artistic soul. On an unrelated note, Sayaka Ohara, the person who plays Beatrice, is the same person who did Yuuko of Xxxholic. I am so looking forward to her appearing. At the same time I’m disappointed at how  she appears to early in the series. In the games, the entire thing is balanced on Battler trying to prove that she doesn’t exist, and for the entire episode we didn’t even know whether or not she was going to show up. But, this isn’t too bad, most of the people who are looking forward to this knows that she’s going to show up anyway.02: 26: BIATARICHE!!! Geez, I expected Engrish, but this is worse than I expected. Please stop and just call her Beato already. And this is much cheesier than I remembered.02:41: Battler’s fear of boats is as funny as ever. I’m having trouble believing that this guy also voiced Koizumi Itsuki.

03:18: Whoa, George looks ugly. Comon, studio deen, don’t start this on the first episode!

…Suspiciously, he looks like Mikia from Kara no Kyoukai, with whom he shares a voice actor…Coincidence?

03:22: Please, someone stop me before I gouge my eyes out. On a non related note, Maria is voice by Horie Yui, which means every time she opens her mouth, all I hear is Hanyuu. Hauu is unbelievable similar to Uu-uu-uu. Those who don’t get that should watch Higurashi.

Much better. But still disappointing. For two years I’ve wanted to see Maria’s creepy chant animated, and this is all I get?

05:52: Am I? I think I am. KYAAAAAAAA!!! IT’S KANON!!!!!!!!!!!!

And his voice is absolutely fitting too. This is almost good enough for me to melt into a fangirl puddle.06:35: Props to Studio Deen for using the clock. Now I just hope that they’ll use it properly.06:55: SERIOUSLY? THAT’S KUGIMIYA RIE?10:01: The pace of this was very scattered, especially compared to the game and the manga, and I have to say that the contents of this meeting just isn’t that interesting this time around. The backgrounds are also unsettling to me, as I ‘m just completely unused to it. However, 34 err…Eva sounds convincingly evil here, and I like it. Sadly, the animation just doesn’t match the voice…20:12: Is that you, Beatrice? I think that Studio deen’s making things waaaaay to obvious now. What happened to the tension of wondering whether or not Beatrice exists? 22:01: The ending song sounds and looks AWESOME.

22:18: MY EARS! What an unfitting vocal. We need someone else to a cover of this song, immediately. Everything about it (besides the vocals) screams of awesome. Perferrably, I’d have Miku or Ami Koshimizu do the job, but seriously, I’d take just about anyone over this creaky old man thing that we have going on here.

Overall, I thought that this episode was okay, and I’m looking forward to the rest of it.

*Begs for Jessica to sing S.T.A.R.S, pretty please?

Chibitalia  is just so awesome on so many levels……

I’m so addicted to reading Hetaila, thank the world for those hard working people at LJ.

I’m too into Hetalia, I’m trying to pull out of it, but I can’t.  It’s just too damned cute.

Well, I just polished off the last file in Tsubaki’s path and sent it to the editor,  so the next patch of the game should be out in a few weeks (the translation’s not completely done, there are still unfinished files from before her path). Like always, check Aegis for updates.

Since it’s going to be released so soon, I think that I should take a break from translating and give you guys a (pretty much spoiler free) post about Tsubaki, AKA the really good person who is completely naive and radiates a motherly presence.

The main conflict in her path is about her family, and a big company’s decision to buy all the land in the area that they live in in order to develop it into waterparks and hotels. It shouldn’t have been a problem, except her father was exteremly stubborn and refused to sell his house and his apple farm, which he has always used to susutain his large (and I mean LARGE) family. Seperately, Kyousuke and “Maou”, through contacts at work (not with each other) has been asked to force them to move out, and the things that they do is the driving force behind the story.

“Maou” decided to kiddnap one of the family’s young sons to get his way, which leads to an exteremely exciting piece of writing involving how the ransom was to be delievered (translated my me, mua haha). And Tsubaki, being the responsible and family loving person that she is, tries her hardest to deliever the ransom.

However, what irks me about her is the face that she’s completely naive. She knows that everyone always calls her a good person, but she doesn’t understand why as she believes that everyone is a good person. She can’t understand why street vendors will sell fake designer watches, and didn’t even know that a person can buy things on line. To me, that’s completely unrealistic. Sure, she grew up sheltered and loved, but when I read how the writer describes her, I want to whack the writer on the head for not understanding the difference between innocent and stupid.

Of course, I don’t know how guys feel about it, but if I actually met a person like that in real life I wouldn’t touch her with a ten feet pole. Personality aside, her story was pretty entertaining, and pretty touching at the end (not enough to shed tears over though).

I’m going to dispense the advice that I’m going to say quite a few more times in the future: If you think she’s your type and you’re interested, go ahead and read her story, it’s pretty good. But otherwise just stick with the main storyline, okay? Everyone in the translation group worked really hard on this thing so go play it and savour every second, okay?  OKAY?

00:09: Oooh, fishies….

00:33 :Okay, a ring falls down into the sea, and conveniently floats into the hands of a girl who’s almost naked. I’m getting a bad feelings about this…

00:42: Okay, the girl is pretty and the production values are great. I’m getting a REALLY had feeling about this.

01:05: Wow, the opening is so pretty, I’m getting serious Aria vibes from this. And considering the staff, it’s not surprising.

01:44: Flying turtle? Seriously?

02:30: Oh crap, yuri overtones. My fears has been realized. I’ve never had a good experience with Girl love, the last show I watched with GL in it was Simoun, and I hated it. I know that other people love it, but for so much of the time, GL is used as an excuse for fanservice, and I’m seriously hoping that this show won’t dive too much into that. (though looking at the skimpy outfits, I’m guessing that it’s a little too late.)

03:08: “It’s fine, they won’t do anything bad to me, they have such pretty thing!”

…

…

Please don’t let her be the main character, this kind of attitude is the reason that I stopped watching K-on.

03:51: Crap, they even have the younger sister as a foil…And there are sparkles too…There’s no going back after you pull out the sparkles…

07:43: Skip beat reincarnated! You gotta love it when girls have evil auras.

11:50: Boyfriend dumps her and goes with another girl after a few hours? OUCH.

12:07: Please, no more, you’re killing me here…

The ending doesn’t have the great vocals of the opening, but it is still very cute.

Overall, I found the episode to be forgettable story wise, but great production-value wise. The story is just so cliched. Unknowingly releasing something evil? The evil just happens to get into something that the protagonist treasures? Been there, done that. I’m a little interested in the background of the sea people, as they’re definitely not mermaids, and I think that there should be an interesting story about how they ended up living in the sea, why they don’t get the bends, and how they know how to walk. But other than that, I think I’ll just get the soundtrack and forget this show.

P.S.: It’s been too long since I’ve blogged about an anime. Will try to do this more often

A Single Sakura Petal
Vocals: riya
Lyrics: Key
Composition: Maeda Jun
Arrangement: Takumaru
Adapted from original BGM track “Haruka na Toshitsuki”

One day I walked with you on this slope where the sakura blooms
You were a person who was like a single flower petal

Inside of my dreams, I stood at this place when I chased after you
You said, “Please live without regrets”

I’ll name the story
That starts from there ‘life’
We struggled, grieved, lost things
Walking on our road

‘I’ll be by your side forever,’ that day when I vowed so
Becomes faraway; the wind blows and winter comes about

This me knew that I wanted to give you warmth
If I look back, there are distant years

Spring comes, and surrounded in the soft fragrance
A single flower flutters, looking down upon me

Now I’m still ascending this slope where the sakura blooms

Thank you to Atashi for the lyrics!

The story behind this post is that I was clearing my hard drive for the summer season, and then noticed an old clannad song that I haven’t heard in forever. Riya+Clannad+Jun maeda+awesome guitare part near the end=tears and awesomeness. I’ll admit that I cryed listening to this song, and you will too, if you know what Clannad is all about.

So, Megpoid is out, and Gumi sounds nothing like Nakajima Megumi to me. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not good. In fact, I’ve fallen in love with this song, one wish.

I want to write more but Neko’s a total slave driver and I have to go and work on the Devil on G-string translation now…orz

I’m speechless…