Haven't been blogging Japan because a) tired, and b) figured I was boring most of my friendslist based on the dwindling number of comments. So no full blogposts from me. Instead, have the Flickr photostreams.

Most of the streams aren't too detailed because time spent shopping == nothing particularly photograph-worthy, but I did put in some lengthy explanations on some of the photos I did take, so they're worth checking out if you're interested (particularly the Washinomiya day).

Tomorrow we head to the Tsukiji fish market in the morning so that might be something more interesting. The day after that I fly back to Singapore.


Day 6: Ikebukuro
10 photos


Day 7: The Lucky Star shrine (Washinomiya)
44 photos


Day 8: Shibuya
7 photos, 3 videos





I'm tired and I want to go home.

AIKBA! A day spent navigating up and down one cramped, crazy multisensory, multifloor store after another. Akiba, the venerable Mecca of otaku the world over, was a long street filled with tall skinny buildings all trying to outshout each other as throngs of geeks made their way down it, occasionally vanishing into one of the shining, gaping maws that awaited them. Was it an eye-opener? Most certainly. Would I want to go again? I'd say yes, but my wallet is sitting in a corner screaming "No! No! NO!" You figure it out.

We spent the day there, going in succession from Kotobukiya, K-Books, Gamers, Asobit Chara City, the @thome maid cafe, Toranoana, and Animate. Each of the shops was overflowing, absolutely overflowing, with varying portions of CDs, DVDs, games, manga, doujinshi, hobby kits and character goods. The madness didn't end where the merch did: the walls, the stairs, the gantries, even the interior of the damn lifts were literally plastered over with posters, ads, prices, and more anime than the eyes could stand. I didn't take many pictures of the places we went: where the hell would I start? Akihabara is not a place, it's an experience.

The absolute best part of our day was the time we spent in the maid cafe. We weren't actually planning on going, but we needed to find a place to sit down and sort through the stuff we'd bought, and we had been given directions to the place by my sister's otaku guy friend, so we decided to give it a try. What we found inside was a delight: the maids were cheerful and friendly, who held a rock-paper-scissors game for all the patrons, taught us to do a little "MOE, MOE, KYUNN~" handsign-and-chant thing before tucking into our sweets, and talked to us despite our general failure in speaking Japanese. One of the maids serving us saw us sorting through the b00bies doujin we'd bought and told us she was a fan of the series too (she liked Lockon and Patrick). When she saw the Tieria-centric ecchi doujin menelvir had bought for me, she said "Banshi ni attai suru!" Which was the title of the doujin, but left us all in a fit of senseless giggles anyway. menelvir asked another of the maids about the ring she was wearing which was this little thing with a faux macaroon on it, because she wanted to see if she could buy one like it. But it turned out that the girl had made it herself, and then she insisted on giving it to menelvir. Oh man! We left the cafe feeling slightly guilty about it, but also completely bubbly and giggly-- it gets infectious. I highly recommend visiting this cafe if you're ever in Akiba, it takes up several floors on a building on the left of the first big cross junction after coming out of the station. (@thome cafe's website)

The worst part of the day, if I had to say, was probably our time in K-books while we were browsing through the used CD section, which was also in the doujin and character good section. That place just gave off... weird vibes, from the body pillows on sale to the shelves of hentai stuff all over, and the men there who were giving us all sorts of strange looks. We three were the only girls in that entire half of the store, and it felt really skeezy in a way that the normal, non-yaoi hentai doujin part of Toranoana didn't (even though the latter had ginormous nipples on display everywhere you looked. Everywhere, I assure you). Maybe guys would have been comfortable hanging up, but we certainly weren't.

What else can I say about Akiba? By the end of the day we had bags filled with anime merch of all sorts, gotten entirely sick of the theme songs to K-on (they were playing in every shop we went into. EVERY shop), and spent more money than we had capacity to not feel guilty for. I'm just thoroughly glad that I'm not a huge fan of any of the anime series that have come out this year, or I would be much, much poorer.

( Pictures of the shops, and my swag! )

And finally, a catalogue of the stuff that I couldn't take out and photograph in public. I have no idea why I thought making a video of it would be a good idea, since I hate my voice and how dumb I sound when I talk, but there you go.




Today's flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jyyang/sets/72157618685353139/

Tomorrow: Ikebukuro, and a butler cafe!

We got up early and hacked our way to Kyoto station, where we caught the 8:04AM Shinkansen to Hiroshima. Our destination: the A-bomb done and the memorial park.

Luckily for us, there is a electric streetcar that goes from the Shinkansen station to right in from of the A-bomb done. The station's even called Genbaku Dome-mae.


The dome is the beginning of a series of interconnected parks and memorials around the Hiroshima Peace Museum, which documents the bombing.



( Memorials and okonomiyaki )

Tomorrow, we head back to Tokyo and settle in. In the meantime, here's a video I took of the Shinkansen arriving at the station in Hiroshima:

pkyyr and menelvir were trying to stick their fingers into the shot while I was filming >8(


Here's the flickr stream for Day 2. As usual, bookmark it if you are interested in seeing more photos later-- I will probably upload more after I get back to Singapore. This is a brief (very brief) recap, after all.

So! Day 1 in Japan with pkyyr and menelvir. After a long overnight journey which was so empty I got to sleep across a row of chairs in cattle class, we arrived in Japan, and spent the next six hours shuttling from highspeed train to highspeed train until we finally arrived in Kyoto.

Kyoto/Hiroshima is the scenic leg of our trip, all culture and scenery and sane, not-at-all-brain-melting things. Or at least, as un-brain-melty as it can get when it involves people like my sister and I.

A brief pictorial recap!


We arrived in Tokyo in the morning, struggled out of the airport and somehow managed to not only buy our passes, get our tickets and locate the train, but also do so without getting lost. 2 years of Japanese language studies have paid off, apparently!



I did some Japanese studying on the train journey there, which was a rather cramped and uncomfortable affair for someone traveling with 10 days' baggage. I was up to the eyes in stuff, and I kept elbowing the poor salaryman in the seat next to mine everytime I tried to retrieve something from my bag.


It took us a bloody long time (and a lot of trekking, 10 days' baggage and all) before we managed to locate K's House Kyoto, shoved into a small side street. After checking in, a sort-of lunch and a quick shower, we set out to explore on foot and search for Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺)-- the love shrine, and I don't mean the dirty sort. It's old, it's famous, and it's also right on top of a hill overlooking the city.

( A bajillion pictures of Kyoto and Kiyomizu-dera )

And that's my very brief recap of the day. I leave you here with a video I shot while we were walking through the tiny back streets of Kyoto. I call it "The Trouble With Tomare". JSYK, "Tomare (止まれ)" means "STOP!" in Japanese.




Here's the flickr stream for Day 1. Bookmark it if you are interested in seeing more photos of Kyoto-- I have tons more, which I will probably upload after I get back to Singapore. This is a brief (very brief) recap, after all.

Up next: Day 2, Day Trip To Hiroshima! Hopefully, I'll be able to get some blogging done tomorrow since we apparently arrive back at the hostel fairly late. If not, you'll hear from me on Saturday when we finally get back to Tokyo.

Very quick announcemnt, before I have to run off for a dinner appointment.

The results came in the mail today, and:

I PASSED THE JLPT4!
できた！合格しました！よっかた！

370/400-- lost 5 points on writing & vocabulary, 15 on reading & grammar. Wish they gave a detailed breakdown on what I got right and what I got wrong, but tough luck. (I bet at least half the points I lost on the grammar paper were lost from the sections testing on bloody PARTICLES.)

But at least I got a perfect score on listening. ALL THAT WATCHING B00BIES WITHOUT SUBS PAID OFF ALRIGHT BITCHCAKES. And they said you couldn't learn anything from watching anime...

Off to celebrate with sushi dinner. \o/ Yey!

( Also: Printer error gets transferred onto bus ad. )

I just want to celebrate because I finally figured out how to get the hovertext to work on Firefox. Yes!


Context and links:
Atheist Bus Ads
Christian Bus Ad Response
Bus Slogan Generator

Good day! Attended the EOY cosfest in the morning, where I steadfastly refused to admit I was cosplaying Lockon, Japanese class in the afternoon where we got back to lessons post-JLPT. In between I picked up the January issue of Newtype and the third Kadokawa-imprint b00bies manga tankobon from Kinokuniya. Also, preordered Yun Kouga's b00bies artbook. So. Good day.

Scansturday! Newtype has a new b00bies feature called Muchaburi Mission, in which various iterations of "WHAT IF characters so-and-so were X-and-X...?" are explored (i.e. WE WANT AN EXCUSE TO DRAW AU!FANCRACK YEY). In the first edition, the question is: What if the Meisters were classmates...?

I scanned. And I translated. With my paltry JLPT4-level grasp of the language. Caveat emptor.



( MISSION 01: マイスターたちが、もしもクラスマイトだったら？ (350+150 dpi) )

Pictures from this morning's EOY cosfest to come when I get that picture of "Lockon poledancing while Tieria wonders what he did in a past life to deserve this" off thurisaz83. (No, this is not a hint at all. Not a hint at all, thurisaz83!)

JLPT test day.

I fought my way to the test venue, pulled out my test coupon--which had arrived by post a month ago--and my ID, to prove that I was me. After some confusion over the numbers, I got to my seat. The scantron answer sheets were waiting for me with their little blank circles, and I preemptively started filling up the spaces for my registration number, name, and date of birth.

I double-checked it with my test coupon. Correct registered name, check. Correct registration number, check. Correct date of birth--what the fuck?

The date I'd filled in on my scantron answer sheet read 1983/07/12. Which was correct. 12th July 1983, a Cancer born in the year of the Pig.

The date I'd filled in on my test coupon, when I'd registered for the test in September, read 1983/12/07.

OH SH--

I turned to Edgar, the Japanese classmate in the seat next to mine, and gasp, "Fuck!! I put the wrong birth date when I registered! It's supposed to be the 12th of July but I filled in 7th of December!"

He took this in. Then he grinned. "Happy birthday!"

...thanks. Thanks.

When I met my family for dinner later, I told them, "We should eat something special today, because it's my birthday!" And then I pulled out my test coupon as proof.

(I cannot believe that I totally did not notice this until THE DATE OF THE TEST ITSELF. How is that even fucking possible, June. HOW.)

...aside from that major episode of EPIC FAIL, the JLPT went more or less fine. Except for the part where I KEPT HEARING VOICES IN MY HEAD.

As in, I kept hearing the voices of anime characters in my head while I was reading the questions. Like Tieria reading the question that began with "Nan to iu..." Or the conversational question about the little sister looking for her missing wallet that was played out by Lucky Star's Tsukasa and Kagami in my head.

On the other hand, I did hear my sensei's voice in my head a lot while I was reading the questions too, so that probably doesn't make it so pathetic.

...no, my sensei was not saying "FORCE WO TSUKATTE KUDASAI, JUNE-SAN", thank you very much.



OFF TO BED. Expect EPIC GUNDAY CAPFEST from me only tomorrow-- I would have probably gotten it out by today, to be honest, but then I DECIDED TO WRITE A RAP FOR IT AND IT TOOK ME LIKE HALF THE NIGHT OTL.

But it's an epic rap. So it's all worth it.

Doomsday is on the the 7th of December, 2008.

Taking the JLPT4, because I know my grasp of Japanese is too crappy to attempt anything higher than that (I fail, SRSLY).

Guess I'd better start studying in earnest then, eh?


Oh god why am I even doing this to myself? I hate language tests and I haven't taken one since 2001 when I finally managed to somehow pass the Chinese AO levels, dammit!

Short of getting a full Windows emulator, I have completely given up on getting Semagic to run on OSX. I've wasted hours installing a broken copy of Wine, I've ripped runtime libraries out the old PC mine, I've come up with riddles and jokes about war, I've figured out numbers and what they're for. It still doesn't work because X11 haets Semagic and Semagic haets X11. I give up.

I've switched to a system that involves xJournal and a Flickr Pro account to handle intensely image-heavy posts, i.e. all my scandumps. Yes, people, I went and paid for an otherwise free Flickr account just so that I could share all my fandom-related scans with you guys, DON'T YOU FEEL LOVED NOW?

let's just ignore the part where I am also totally bugfuck insane

On the other hand, getting the printer-scanner to cooperate with the new Mac & Photoshop was a breeze, so that was a delightful plus.

And now, as the fruit of my test-running efforts, I am proud to present: the promised scans of the b00bies manga volume 2, aka EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE HAMU-SENSEI!!!


PREVIEWS:




( PART 1: GRAHAM + SETSUNA )


( PART 2: GRAHAM + LOCKON )

Poll #1238190 SNAP POLL TIEM!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Graham needs to be given:

...here's the official trailer for the second season that came with the 7th and final DVD volume!

I'm serious. From the maw of Sunrise itself:



I tried to transcribe it but I FAIL because I can't hear half of what is being said AND I KEEP HEARING LOCKON TALK ABOUT HAMBURGERS AND CHICKEN RICE, SOMETHING IS DEFINITELY NOT RIGHT HERE.

Help, anyone? Help!!

( WHAT I COULD MAKE OF IT, HALP PLEASE )


...the second season needs to start NOW. I TOLD YOU I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE EPIC ZOMBIE LOCKON BEING CANON OKAY

ETA COS I JUST REMEMBERED: Also, Sunrise has obviously been rooting around in my harddrive and pinched the idea of replacing Tieria's head with a Haro from there.

(Thank you gundam00, you guys never fail to disappoint! Ah, I love the Internets!)

So, after Japanese class yesterday I met up with thurisaz83 and trilled and we went to have dinner at this little Japanese eatery called Mogu Mogu. trilled had given me a sketchpad of hers that she wasn't using, so at the end of the meal I put the sketchpad on my lap and said, "Okay folks, I'm outta inspiration, request something and I'll draw it."

Because we'd been variously talking about Hard Gay and Lockon Stratos during dinner (thurisaz83 has a Lockon haircut now! Because she cut her hair and it's naturally wavy)... trilled said, "Draw me Lockon as Hard Gay."

Er.


I'm not sure who it was who said that Lockon was doing the Haro earflap with his hands, but I'm blaming them for it anyway. And also for the presence of Haro with spikes. And also, Lockon with bony knees. Because trilled said, "He's Irish and he has bony knees. Er. Well, at least he looks like he would have bony knees." And thurisaz83 said, "I applaud her ability to make the most random observations."

THE TWO OF THEM DON'T EVEN WATCH THE SHOW. WHAT.

thurisaz83 said, "See, if I had to take an exam on the show, I wouldn't watch it. I would read your journal instead."

trilled said, "It's the Cliff Notes for Gundam b00bies. With illustrations!"

*HEADDESK*

(The scary thing is that this isn't the first time I've drawn Lockon as Hard Gay. I had to sketch one for a Stupid Sexy storyboard It's a longstanding running in-joke--there was a comment thread here, eons ago, which started it all off. Lockon == Hard Gay. I can't remember who on my f-list started it. FESS UP!!)

More Japanese class sketches!





And now, I promised lechaco I'd scan in the b00bies 4komas in the Summer issue of Paromedia (comes quarterly with Animedia) once I got it. Which was yesterday. I scanned them and tried to loosely translate them. TAKE WITH A HEAPING BIG PINCH OF SALT, MY SKILLS AT DECIPHERING JAPANESE ARE BEYOND FAIL.



( Scans + translation + downloads here! )

THE DOUJIN SUBMISSION WORK IS ALL DONE.

My credits section, my cover contribution (in color!asfdjkla), the text for stupidsexystrip, the text for  stupidsexystrip credits section-- all done!

To further tease and titillate you guys, here's my contribution to the cover for the doujin anthology. Time constraints == sloppy lineart and color work, but I like the palette! and I figure it would amuse some on my f-list




Oh yes I did. I was originally assigned Shirin and Marina but asked to do Hong Long and Liu Mei instead because I'm not sure I could have resisted giving Marina a Minbari headcrest.

Of course, underhand Macross references are TOTALLY OKAY.

I've had a great weekend so far, actually. Japanese class was awesome and we're slated to start learning plain form next week, which means it won't be so weird when my sister and I start saying Things We Learnt From Watching Anime which are in plain form. Hurrah!

Also, my sister should have learnt by now that muttering things like "I want to read lots of ecchi manga" in response to "What would you like to do if you went to Japan?" will result in me SAYING IT ALOUD FOR HER. So that we can get our sensei to make "TT_____TT" faces at us. (And she really does.) TAKUSAN NA ECCHI MANGA WO MITAKOTO SHITAI DE~SU~~

And now, a bunch of questions that have been BURNING AT ME and that I NEED TO ASK. First couple compiled in poll form because People Are Sometimes Too Lazy Too Leave Comments (I myself am often guilty of that vice.) And also because it's easier for me to count the votes (see section about me being Lazy). You can leave the question blank if it's not relevant to you! Really! TRUFAX.

SNAP LJ POLL GET

Poll #1197441
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

#1! Are you getting the b00bies doujin anthology? Just a honestly curious question, no obligations at all! Humor me.

#2! Should I scan the Newtype June b00bies poster in high-res? Just got it yesterday. It's the one of the Meisters flopped on a patch of grass; I've seen pictures of it being used as icons so I'm not sure if another scan of it was neccessary. Should I do it?

#3! Is the 2nd volume of the b00bies manga by Ohmori Kouzoh out yet? I saw the second volume of the other version in Kinokuniya yesterday, the one by Auto Somebody that is not published by Kadokawa. I didn't get it even though it had Allelujah on the cover--money is particularly tight this month (bills and taxes, family stuff). Does anyone know if the Kadokawa one is out? And if it is, what's the ISBN number (so I can go bug Kinokuniya about it)?

#4: If I sold a bunch of Code Geass omake on LJ, would people buy them? I seriously have a lot of Geass stuff just sitting in my room that came with anime magazines that I bought-- 3 different clear files, a mobile phone cleaning strap, a double sided B2 Soul Eater/Geass R2 poster, a handtowel, papercraft Pizza Hut box (for srs!), an art booklet... I was thinking of selling off the whole lot for US$10-15; think anyone would want to buy it?


..and that's it for now.

I know I've been a complete failure at reading my f-list and responding to comments these past entire two weeks, BUT I PROMISE I'LL GET BETTER. You still love me, right?


P.S. Oh, Geass. Rollo's official romanization? LOLO. EL OH FUCKEN EL OH. When I realized this after looking at the Newtype clear file I got yesterday, I had a laughing fit in the classroom. Thank goodness it was half an hour before class started and the room was otherwise empty.

My sister (Her Highness pkyyr) and I make collaborative fandom jokes, because WHEN OUR POWERS COMBINE WE CAN TAKE OVER THE UNIVERSE!!!!, don'cha know?

Here's a video born of a three-line joke I wanted to make, which my sister then expanded on and vidded like the jenius genius she is. (Fuck you, Macross, stop screwing with my brain.**) This is the second version, modified to accomodate Soul Eater (and because I'm an annoying prick). MITTE MITTE WATCH IT GO.



(Should I post this to gundam00? Should I? Should I?)

Now all I have to do is to finally put together the art for the Incredible Japanese Pun she made like half a year ago and we'll be all set. (I am a failure as a sister. D'oh.) Seriously, Setsuna's "Kono sekai ni kami wa inai" is a neverending source of entertainment for us. Especially when we were learning the nai forms in Japanese class and kept repeating it everytime "inai" came up in a flashcard session. Inai inai inai.

Also, I feel that I should mention that I won't be able to read my f-list much over the course of the coming couple of weeks, on account of the doujin-finishing, and work-script-finishing, you know, all that pesky stuff. So, yeah, I'm not deliberately ignoring you guys or anything. DROP ME A LINE IF THERE'S ANYTHING SUPER IMPORTANT THAT YOU WANT ME TO SEE. i'm like, a total failure as a friend orz


The End!

**Speaking of Macross, why can I not stop watching the junk that is Macross 7? It's like a can of Pringles, I know it's bad for my health but I just. can't. stop. popping. Actually, it Needs Moar Max. In his spiffy military hat and formal uniform. Dammit it's like they discovered my secret weakness for men in formal military gear. And hats. ASFDJKLA I ♥ Max so much.

We got to Japanese class early yesterday, before our sensei arrived. We proceeded to attack the magnetic strips on the whiteboard.







My sister thought she was funny and turned his name from Haro to PARO.

Our sensei was so amused she took photos of it (shumi wa shashing wo torukoto kara, itsu mo kamera wo mottekimasu).

And then later we were given a printout for a conversation exercise in which we were supposed to say what we were going to do when we next went to Japan.

It was an illustrated printout.



It's amusing how my sister and I both saw the same illustration, immediately thought, "Guy A's stabbing Guy B in the head with a ski pole!!" and proceeded to deface the drawing thus.

Moral of the story: don't learn how to ski from Hallelujah. Ever. ("He ran into my ski pole! He ran into my ski pole ten times!")

It had been our sensei's birthday Monday this week, so we gave her a card (handmade by yours truly), and a little teddy bear (because she likes 'em). Then we took class photos!




Unfortunately my camera is a piece of crud and my photo came off out of focus. I'm the dude with the hat and the blue scarf.

Okay, so I wasn't going to buy May's Newtype because I didn't think the extras were anything special, but someone reminded me that there was the Celestial Memories thing, which is something I always look forward to with every Newtype. So I went to get it on Saturday and... man, oh man, you guys. Am I ever glad I did.

Why?


The funny thing is that all the instalments of Celestial Memories so far have been GIANT ROBOTS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER OMG!!! and then all of a sudden you get this glorious dump of the MINES OF MOERIA. Oh, Newtype, I love ya.

I've managed to get all 6 instalments scanned in HQ now and I will share them... after I get around to posting the first batch of World Report scans. OTL That post is nearly done, I just have to polish it up and add comments. Eyes peeled, peeps.

In the meantime, I am totally blaming logam for this, since he noticed that I frequent 'skine art daily to gawp at the gorgeous, gorgeous art that people do in their Moleskines. He jokingly said "Stop looking at that site already, just go buy your own Moleskine and draw your own!" I pouted and was all BUT MOLESKINES ARE EXPENSIVE and besides which I blow donkey balls at art, are you kidding?

But he put the idea in my head.

Which is how I found myself in Kinokuniya on Saturday blowing nearly sixty dollars on Moleskines. I got a large plain softcover notebook and a set of 3 plain tiny, pocket-sized cahiers in brown. In Japanese class that followed (in which we finally learnt to use dekita and the jisho-verb form!) I experimented with B/W art on one of the baby cahiers.




The thinness of the pages is really an issue because even the archival black ink shows through on the other side, and it's not as penetrative as Zebra pens or black Copics. I should have gotten a sketchbook-type 'skine instead, but they didn't have it in a size big enough for my purposes (coughb00biesone-shotdoujincough). We'll see how the large notebook holds up to the ink treatment. (Fucking thing cost me forty-one dollars, dammit!)

(Come to think of it, all my Japanese class doodles so far count as Moleskine art, since my Japanese class notebook is a black lined cahier with DEATH NOTE written convincingly on the cover. OHO)

Had post-class dinner with thurisaz83 and trilled, lovely as usual. I taught trilled to say "I do not want to go on a business trip" in Japanese (shucchoushitakunai, and it's kind of one word, because Japanese is just that fucking awesome). And then somewhere along the way we had a conversation like this:

misshallelujah: Mmm, greasy saxophone music.
thurisaz83: "Greasy"?
misshallelujah: Isn't that a phrase? "Greasy saxophone music"? Like, the kind you'd put into the soundtrack of a porn movie?
trilled: The kind of music that Lockon would use.
misshallelujah: WHAT.
trilled: Well I mean, he seems the kind of person who would use it.
misshallelujah: ...wait, YOU DON'T EVEN WATCH THE SHOW.
trilled: I got the impression from your LJ. With your comic and all the scans you've been putting up.
misshallelujah: ...
trilled: He's always got this sleazy kind of look on his face in those scans.
misshallelujah: ASFDJKLA

Holy fucking shamrocks, Batman!

And then I ran into kingbitch in the middle of the street, and he said that I looked more like a hippie than ever, maybe because of the hat and the scarf, and then on the way home I passed by the freak traffic accident that involved a toppled 18-wheeler sending prefab concrete slabs flying everywhere crushing a van and blocking off one entire half of the highway WITHOUT GETTING ANYBODY SERIOUSLY HURT. I mean, what the fuck. FLYING. CONCRETE. SLABS. On a major highway leading to town on a Saturday afternoon. Only one van got squashed AND THE SLAB MISSED THE DRIVER. That's seriously Patrick-level "How the fuck did you even survive that!?" going on down there.


TL;DR summary: My Saturday was weird. Yours?

Minna, mitte! New scanning project in the works!



I did a few test scans and they scanned beautifully; I've already gotten the Meister pages scanned and I'm working on the spreads yoinked from Gundam Ace. I might scan the mecha pages too depending on how much harsh treatment the book can take. The binding is so scrappy and I brutalized the spine of the book so much that I've had the thing for an entire two days and PAGES ARE ALREADY FALLING OUT. WTF. The things I do for my f-list.

I'll put the scans up in batches (because I'm such a perverted tease), but I just had to share this blurb from Tieria's page:


Basically, if I'm reading this right, the official blurb on Tieria's appearance says: "Slimmest amongst the Meisters and appears to be of ambiguous gender sex. (ETA: I fail at Japanese/Chinese and in the morning, I realize that 性 refers directly to biological sex. Not sure if it covers gender, do not have proficient enough grasp of either language. FAIL) And his civvies are probably hiding the b00bs and the child-bearing hips" WHAT?! ASFDJKLA out loud!

Seriously, if Sunrise doesn't go somewhere with this in the next season I will be one disappointed fangirl.

In the meantime, I am throwing at you the thing which has been eating my brain all day, and that I have been flinging at IM windows like a bloody virus (and you can blame nightrays for inflicting it on me first).

THE GUNDAM B00BIES DANJOU DANCE

Switched to the far more awesome and hilarious version pointed out by swirling_chaos. WITH SUBTITLES!

Additionally, I've found ones for Death Note, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Suzumiya Haruhi.

But it took watching this one with text and helpful illustrations to realize that the whole song is UTTER NONSENSE about lining up people in boy-girl-boy-boy-girl-boy-girl formation. And the guy keeps getting it wrong and the teacher/group leader is like CHIGAU! YOKU KITTE! DO IT LIKE THIS OKAY. DAN JOU DAN DAN JOU DAN JOU [sound effect]. Oh my god. The whole song is just inane and makes NO SENSE.

But the one that has to take the cake is the Moyashimon overdub version. They filked the song with bacterial dialogue! KOU YATTE KAMOSE (ferment it like this)! It's utterly delighful and it doesn't take much Japanese to get the gist of it (I mean, I understood it and my Japanese is pretty much fail). If you know Moyashimon, you cannot not watch it. MINAKEREBA NARIMASEN.


...enough insanity for one day.

Well, I'm not a birthday person and I don't do the wishing birthday wishes thing, unless birthday person happens to be related to me or one of my 3 IRL BFFs. But I couldn't help noticing that today was the confluence of an amazing number of f-list birthdays. So, happy birthday to midnight_rain, ladybrick, catalina_marina, pastles, harlemovka and panda_bot.

And Setsuna F. Seiei. But I don't care about Setsuna. Although maybe midnight_rain does.

The best line of my entire day came from my exec. producer, who was just back from a week-and-a-half-long business trip that included the Tokyo Anime Fair. "June!! I didn't know you like Gundam! I bought you girly stuff. We went to Akihabara and just randomly bought whatever looked nice..."

What? How many Gunpla models do I have to put on my desk until people start noticing that HEY, GIRLS LIKE GIANT ROBOTS TOO? I ain't complaining, since she got me a lovely Totoro pencil, but it really amused me. "I didn't know you like Gundam", ha! Hey, it's a good thing my b00bies obsession hasn't been let out of the bag yet.

Also, half the office now have miniature Gundam models on their desks. Didn't see any b00bies ones though, pity. It's okay, I've got a miniature Kyrios perched on top of my iMac that makes up for it.

Plus, logam gave me the dogtag that came with his, so I now have a shiny brushed aluminum dogtag that reads O.M.N.I. KIRA YAMATO. Has this got something to do with the whole Kira Yamato == Jesus thing?

LET'S HAVE US SOME BIRTHDAY POST ART.

I was supposed to draw T-chan in pigtails and a skirt for the lovely ali_chama, who cosplayed Tieria... in pigtails and a skirt. So I drew this in the Japanese class before the finale aired (or rather, the Japanese class that was going on while the finale was airing in Japan). My sister said, "That's Lockon and Tieria's genki little daughter, isn't it?" I denied this, but labelled the kid "Lockon Erde" anyway. Just to appease her.

This week's Japanese class sketch. Meistertachi wa atama ga manju no you ni desu (Meisters have heads shaped like steamed buns). Like blind men we were learning to describe the parts of an elephant in class, so I thought, why not?

When I showed it to trilled and thurisaz83 later they said "mushrooms!" and started assigning them species: Setsuna an oyster mushroom, Tieria a button mushroom, Allelujah a shiitake mushroom and Lockon a white English mushroom.

Mom also said "mushroomhead" when she saw them, so perhaps the line should read meistertachi wa atama ga kinoko no you ni desu instead.



I discovered a roll of 18 scrappy colorpencils I'd shoved in my pedestal cabinet at work and completely forgotten about. To celebrate finally getting a halfway-decent story idea out and sent off to our story editor in the UK, I drew more mushroomhead Meisters. LOCKON'S ARMS ARE TOO FAT AND I FORGOT HIS GLOVES AAJHFLKJDHF.

100 word fiction!

#9: Interview

The applicant is as well spoken as she is dressed and qualified. She’s perfect for the job. But the way she speaks bugs him.

Decades ago he worked on a government project, cheap digital dictionaries for slum kids, teaching them how to speak and read proper. They sprinkled vocal tics into the computer voice, random strange vowel inflections.

The way she pronounced ‘elite’ was one of his, thought up on a sudden whim.

When she leaves he puts the red mark on her dossier and adds “Unsuitable For Position”. After all, he’s seen where those kids come from, and how could he trust anyone like that?

I promised scans, I bring them.

These are more scans from Animedia's April 2008 issue; I really do encourage you to get your hands on a copy if you can because the bonuses (the Meister's Magazine, plus the academic-year calendar with the cracktastic illustrations I shared earlier) make it all worth the price.

Anyway, at the request of some people, I've scanned the entirety of the Meister's Magazine booklet, as well as the cover of the Animedia and the first 4 pages of their b00bies article. As usual, all the scans are in 300dpi, so they're grossly huge. I've put them all on Mediafire because it's the only filesharing service that doesn't give my connection grief.

Give a yell if snagging, I like to know my effort doesn't go unnoticed!

Meister's Magazine bonus (16 pages)

And that's just the cover of the syrupy goodness.

( More previews & d/l links )


The Magazine Article itself: (5 pages)
( Previews & d/l links )

I made this for the St. Patrick's Day post for stupidsexystrip, but I figured that I'd share it with everybody here too. I wouldn't have done it in traditional media, except that I thought I wouldn't have a working scanner, so I desperately inked it with manga pens, filled in watercolors, and took pictures of it with my digital camera.

Then Dad came home with a replacement scanner. D'oh!




I wanted to do the monochrome shading in Copic, but my warm gray #1 died halfway through Tieria's hair, so I was forced to improvise by brush-painting diluted manga ink. It was a wonderful technique to play with, except that I forgot about how manga ink, unlike watercolors, is PERMANENT, and once I slop down the brush there's no turning back.

I like the effect, though; definitely something worth experimenting with in the future.

For the record, I wore my green Edgar Allen Poe t-shirt from Threadless to work today.

100 word fic.

#6: Greenwaves

The light fades into a sea of green stretching over the horizon. The breeze brings familiar smells, the sound of laughter.

"What bothers me," he says to Allelujah, "is how he said he would face judgement after everything was over. What do you think that meant?"

A long pause, then: "I'd like to think he's happy, wherever he is. He was that sort of person."

"That's true." And their fingers touch, brief and unseen.

He walks over springy grass towards his family. As he approaches Amy smiles, takes his hand; somewhere within him his heart soars. “Welcome home, brother.”

Inspired by this song:

Lyrics