Noooo!!! Nagisa Dies!!! - Clannad ~After Story~

After watching last week's episode of Clannad ~After Story~ I was starting to get worried -- and so I looked it up on the Wikipedia.

Nagisa dies in the next episode after delivering her and Tomoya's child Ushio!

I have been watching Tomoya and Nagisa since they were in high school and it will be difficult to see Tomoya go through such a tragedy. Yes I know that it is not real.

I just don't know how I am going to make it through the episode and all the following episodes with the chaos in Tomoya life having lost Nagisa. I will need some tissues.

• Official Clannad Site (TBS)
• Clannad ~After Story~ (Eclipse Fansubs)

MUCC - kanashimi no hate

Kiyoharu and TMRevolution duet

For you enjoyment, Kiyoharu and TMRevolution duet

Yahoo!! 3rd Season of Shakugan no Shana!

According Dengeki online it was hinted at the Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival. If so I will be quite happy — that show has such great writing, artwork, and voice actors!

• Dengek Online
• Dengeki online (Google translation)

Samurai Shodown Stationary

I am so going to use these!

• Samurai Shodown Stationary

Yu Nakajima Solves 10 Rubik's cubes Insanely Fast!

I have never seen a Rubik's Cube move so fast! I figured that they lubricated them with silicone spray or something similar so a quick google search and I found my answer. Maybe I will make my own, but I have always been very bad with Rubik's Cubes.

• Make a Speedcube

こちら宇宙ステーション (This is the Space Station)

I just love some to the ridiculously hilarious stuff that the Japanese come up with.

This is one of the top watched youtube videos in Japan.

School Rumble: The Third Term (スクールランブル三学期)

It is funny how easily it is to miss the release of something you like even with all this technology to like the Web with its RSS feeds etc.

The point is that first episode of School Rumble The Third Term was released in July! I just watched it -- first thing I noticed was that it started as if this OVA was episode 25 and 1-24 been produced and released. There is a short review of the whole fictitious season (based on the manga) and then it picks up (if you are familiar with the manga) right at the end of the walking festival.

I have to say I am very disappointed that they skipped over so much great School Rumble material from the manga. I was really looking forward it to being made into anime form. The leading seiyu(voice actors) Takahashi Hiroki and Koshimizu Ami really give life to the characters. Also animators really add the delivery of what is a awesome show.

Enough of my complaints because I want more School Rumble. The episode it very good! Watch it! I am looking forward to Episode 26 when it comes out at the end of this month!

• スクールランブル三学期 --公式サイト-- (School Rumble The Third Term Official Site

Fall Anime - What I will be watching

Fall is almost upon us which means a new season of anime fresh from Japan! Below are just some of the show I will be watching:

Gundam 00 Second Season

Gundam 00 has to be one of the best Gundam's ever, and the worst. It is created by the creator of Onegai Teacher! and Onegai Twins! -- Yōsuke Kuroda (黒田 洋介) -- two great anime shows both of which have no gigantic robots. Which can be seen in Gundam 00. Previous Gundam shows were much more shallow and the basic story was about the tradigy of humans fighting humans not because of race or economic standing, but because where they live. The visuals from the first season were amazing, and the story quite depressing and enthralling!

My daughter and I watched the show together, and we put together a Gundam Model. She followed along in the directions and removed and put each piece together! All I did was to put on the stickers and marker in the details! Not bad for a four-year-old!

Vampire Knight Guilty

The first season of Vampire Knight was good -- I haven't finished watching all the episodes, but it has some of the same darkness that Zombie-Loan had.

Rosario to Vampire CAPU2

Completely lacking of any kind of plot, this show is actually quite cute. Let's just hope that this season's story is a little more developed. It is like a very bad version Seto no Hanayome (瀬戸の花嫁).

Full Metal Alchemist (Second Season)

All you need to watch the original season of this show is to turn your TV to Cartoon Network. Yeah it's good. I am looking forward to it.

Clannad ~After Story~

This show really tugs at my heart. I really want Tomoya and Nagisa to be happy together! Just a really great show. I love the dangos! I bought some recently at a local Asian food market. Yummy and cute!

Ef ~A tale of melodies~

EF was also just as good as Clannad -- but the story is a little temporally (skips around) disjointed -- not as bad as The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (great show!)

¿More?

This is just a vary short list -- I just got tired typing. Check the links below for more shows.

• T.H.A.T Fall 2008 Anime Preview
• A year of sequels - Bokutachi no Blog
• Clannad ~After Story~ confirmed

Zombie-Loan back for a second season? Wait no.

I was checking out the new anime fansubbed episodes on fansub.tv today when to my surprise I saw episode 12 of Zombie Loan! Zombie Loan ran for a very show 11 episodes last fall. This is a most awesome anime was adapted from the mangaka duo Peach-Pit. Peach-Pit also created my daughter's favoriate anime Shugo Chara.

Zombie Loan is a awesomely dark anime about a teenage girl who get caught up with two male teenage zombies. These zombies are working for "the riverman" to payback a loan. This loan is for making them undead from previously being dead. Once they pay back the loan they will become fully alive again. Of course as with all Japanese stories it is never quite that easy.

The style of the show's animation is quite striking with rich colors. The color read is always the most vivid of colors. The opening song "Wolf's Throat (オオカミのノド)" by The Birthday is raw and full of energy that really sets the mood for each episode. And the ending song "Chain Ring (チェインリング)" by MUCC caps off each episode and leaves you looking forward to the next episode!

But alas no new season of Zombie Loan -- just 2 new episodes from the DVD release, but I will take it! I highly recommend that you watch it as soon as possible!

• Zombie-Loan Official Site (Japanese)
• Zombie-Loan Episode 12
• Shinsen Subs
• The Birthday - Official Site
• MUCC - Official Site

Book Review: Learn Japanese the Manga Way

I have been "self teaching" Japanese for about 2 years now. Most of it has been very casual, primarily watching fansubbed Japanese anime, and listening to Japanese music.

I have several Japanese dictionaries and other learning materials -- but what I have always wanted was a book that would translate Japanese word-for-word literally. This year I was given this book by a very thoughtful coworker for my birthday. It does just that.

The book will show a panel from a manga with the original vertical Japanese, then it will write the Japanese right to left, then under that it will translate each word literally. Then below that it will have a properly constructed English translation! All I can say is that this book is AWESOME!!! And so is Mike for giving it to me! Thanks!

If you are teaching yourself Japanese I cannot recommend this book enough. Pick up one right away!!!

• Wayne P. Lammers - Author's Homepage
• Japanese the Manga Way - Google Books
• Japanese the Manga Way (Amazon's Look Inside)

Anecdote Cookies

One of my biggest pet peeves are fortune cookies that do not contain any kind for fortune, but some anecdotal saying. What ever happened to the fortune cookies of auld? I clearly remember cookies with fortunes like "You come into some money", etc.

So I was looking up fortune cookie on Wikipedia, and I was surprised to learn that the fortune cookie was invented by the Japanese and imported to the USA and modified.

natto ga suki ja nai dai yo!

I have been watching Japanese television and listening to Japanese popular music over the past 2 years in hope to learn the language. Well, I have picked up quite a bit -- and not just the language but the culture too.

One thing that has always had me curious about was a Japanese food called natto. I wanted to give it a try -- and just my luck I was in the local Asian food market and I found some with I snatched up before I could regret it.

I will be lazy here and link to a site on how natto is to be served.

I stirred it as instructed while noticing the arouma which has been described as dirty socks, but I would describe it as the following:

1. Coffee beans
2. McDonald's french fries
3. that weird smelling modeling clay that wouldn't harden like play dough.

Now take all those things and mix them up in the blender and leave it in a hot car for a day. Overall it is not bad smelling -- but certainly weird.

It has been said that if you like blue cheese you will like natto. Now that I have tried it I can easily say that it not true. I could eat itif I were starving -- I would not choose to eat it if there were other things to eat.