It may have been two days since my last post according to relative time. But according to the infallible Gregorian calendar and my time machine owned and operated by Mesaba Airlines, it is still merely "tomorrow" compared to my last post, hence, Scanspam Week is still on schedule.

Anyway, here's this month's Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut - plus a lot more! )

Random info: According the inside flap on volume 39 of the manga, our lovely villianess for this story arc is indeed named Hagall. Which, like Sigil, is apparently the name of a rune...?

Oh well. Since chapter 247 was included in volume 39, I'm working on replacing these fugly old scans with lovely new non-bleedthrough scans. Like so. And so. Thoses pages are all scanned and should be uploaded to the gallery shortly.

Tomorrow: Scanspam Week continues with.... (*points to a random image group in the Scanspam folder*) Okay, then. Tomorrow is Free-For-All Shounenapalooza Day! I hope you all want to see Sheryl Nome's barenaked butt. AND Amuro Ray's barenaked butt. Because you will be seeing both of them tomorrow. (And for context, yes, tomorrow will all be official imagespam, not doujin. You can blame Newtype for Amuro Ray's butt. No, seriously. And not even Newtype Romance. I'm talking the regular Newtype, people.)

Here's this month's Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut - plus MOAR. )

Oh hey look, I never got around to posting last month's Mini-Goddess panel. Oops. So anyway, here are two months' worth of Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut! )

We also got a few nice Mara scans this month. I'm working on getting those online right now.

Coming up next: Another huge multifandom scanspam post! There will be Eureka Seven, Fate/Unlimited Codes, Fullmetal Alchemist, Kyou Kara Maou (Daikekyuu 3 - I has it), Shakugan no Shana, Soul Eater, and THIS, which I feel completely justified in believing was drawn exclusively just for me.

Oh, and a brief word about today's Tsubasa chapter:

It's official. He's his own grandpa. Not even joking, here: He is literally, actually, his own grandpa.

This in addition to being Oedipus. Which means that in upcoming chapters he is going to have to kill his own father in order to complete the hookup with his own mother. Except that now we know that his father is also... his son.

Yep. The father is also the son is also the father is also the son is also the--

OH SHI--

Oh hey look, I never got around to posting last month's Mini-Goddess panel. Oops. So anyway, here are two months' worth of Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comics and links to many, many pretty bonus scans. )

In mid February, Karen Ellis, the creator of popular diary webcomic Planet Karen, was made homeless and nearly possessionless by a fire in the apartment above hers, which resulted in the tragic death of the occupant.

The comics community rallied, and thanks to generous donations of money and equipment, Karen was able to replace some of her art supplies and find a new place to live. Her gratitude and determination are recorded on Planet Karen, but she is still unable to replace many of her possessions.

Girl-Wonder.org is delighted to announce a fundraising auction for Karen, thanks to the generous donations of the comics community. The auction runs until 30th March, and includes items as diverse as an "incredibly wordy" Wonderella giftset, handbags, jewellery, an original Phil Noto Black Widow Sketch, and the original artwork of this post-fire Planet Karen strip.

Also, BUNNIES.

Come on you guys. BUNNIES.

If you see something that strikes your fancy, please bid. This is for a good cause. And there are BUNNIES.




Not related, but still comicry: This month's Ah! My Goddess chapter? Pure Mara. And it is AWESOME. And she does kung-fu. And I will try to post a scan or two, tomorrow night.

Here's this month's Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic. )

( Behind the cut: Ah! My Goddess, Fate/Unlimited Codes, and Soul Eater. Oh yeah and adult!Rin. No, seriously. )

In other news... Oh, Tsubasa. I was going to type up a recap of 210 and 211 last night, but I couldn't find an appropriate South Park clip to open the post with. Over one hundred clips of Kenny's various deaths are available online, but not a single video clip of "Kyle's dead!" to be found.

Come on, South Park. I know that Kyle died onscreen at least once. In "Imaginationland," right?

Because seriously you guys I need a KYLE'S DEAD!!! opening like burning.

Oh snap, spoiler.

Grad school applications: 2.5 out of four complete and submitted. The .5 would be the NKU app, which unfortunately is a two-part process. Yes, that's two steps in paper submission before you even get to the interview stage. Thank goodness they have a final application deadline in freakin' June for the fall semester.

Reading: Tsubasa (this week's chapter actually made me cry!!!), Ah! My Goddess (HOLY CRAP you guys this story arc is getting awesomer by the minute), and catching up on the past two years' worth of X-Factor. Oh, X-Factor. You are so, so good. Even with your insistence on revolving entire storylines around Sparklepunk Mary Sue Layla Miller, you're still so, so good.

Linky-links: Derek Kim on the Avatar movie. Read it. NOW. Derek Kim is an amazing writer, and if his words can't convince you that "racist" is exactly the right word for this shit, then nothing can. Also: It just keeps getting worse. However, there may be a way to make lemonade from all those lemons.

Doing: Yes, I am scanning stuff. Hold yer horses.

Good morning, internet!

I am still on vacation with the lovely meiousei. But while we were in Tokyo, I finally bought a new scanner, as the old one was on its last legs. In order to properly inaugurate said new scanner, here's some high-res scanspam for y'all.

( Behind the cut: Ah! My Goddess, Sakura Wars, Fate/Unlimited Codes, and Soul Eater. )

Aaaaand that's it for this scanspam post. The quadruple-whammy of Animage, Animedia, Newtype, and GanGan are all going to hit the streets in a mere two days, though. I will try to have relevant Soul Eater scans posted in a timely fashion. But no promises, as I am still officially ON VACATION for the next week.

Here's this month's Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic. )

More pretty scans from this month's Afternoon are posted at the bottom of the page here. Scans from Chara-Mel volume 7 are posted here. Linking since I am too lazy to repeat-post them in this entry.

Also, in this month's chapter: Lind, Peorth, Chrono, Ere, and Ex are BIG DAMN HEROES. And Gate returns for a bratty cameo.

Went to the bookstore today. Hooray!

I picked up Ah! My Goddess volume 38, with Chrono on the cover. In the manga canon, I guess she's officially strawberry blonde, now.

So I guess Crono is important enough to rank among Rind, Chihiro, and other supporting characters who have gotten their own volume covers. I'm... not sure how I feel about that. I mean, Crono is just so... stupid. But oh well. There are enough better characters in the cast that I really don't care whether Crono deserves her moment in the sun, or not.

The big surprise was an announcement in the back of the book: the Ah! My Goddess "Total Illustration Artbook 1998 ~ 2008" hits the shelves on Christmas Day! Holy crap!! I can't believe that date wasn't announced in last month's Afternoon. Uh, way to advertise your release dates well in advance, guys. Or not.

Speaking of release dates... How to Make Deathscythe was supposed to hit the shelves today, too. But of course, Squeenix has yet to ship any copies to any bookstores in the southern Nagano area. Of course. This always happens, argh! But that's what I get for living in a backwater.

Oh hey, and since I do live in a backwater, today was the first day that I found a copy of Mutuality on the bookstore shelf. Of course I immediately bought it. ;) Yes, yes, I know, the book has been out for three weeks already. But hey, backwater living! Gotta love it.

Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar, Mutuality is the big giant artbook collection of all of CLAMP's illustrations for Code Geass. And it is, absolutely, in a word, stunning. Worth every single penny. Say what you will about Code Geass - and you know I'm not shy about repeatedly stating that I think that it's utter shite, albeit extremely entertaining shite - but it's impossible to deny that CLAMP's artwork for the series, both production designs and promotional materials, really do represent the pinnacle of modern manga artistry. (If you can stand how overwrought they are, that is.)

Anyway, the book is gorgeous, almost mind-blowingly so, and contains many paintings so visually complicated that I could stare at them for hours and still not be able to appreciate every single detail. The best part of the book, however, is an extensive section of all of the early, rejected character designs that CLAMP churned out. Some of them are outright LOLarious. And some of them are extremely... telling. I know that I've written about this phenomenon before, when the original Lelouch and Suzaku character designs were first revealed in an issue of Newtype. But it still *fascinates* me to observe the process that CLAMP applied to evolving those two character designs from their rough versions to their final versions.

( Really long entry in which I ramble about anime character designs, racial coding, and yes, I actually tie Code Geass to Avatar and all of the ugly racewank it's generating. )

Edited to add: Now with visuals! Hooray!

Edit again: Another thing just occurred to me. I originally wrote this post with the intent to debunk the "Aang looks white" meme, but there's a more insidious meme out there that can be addressed here as well. That would be the "Avatar characters are raceless" meme. The most common justification for which seems to be the idea that because the main Avatar characters have such varied facial features, they aren't meant to all be of the same race! Mai and Ty Lee look so completely different, that they couldn't possibly both be of the same race, right? WRONG! This is a stupid idea, because it assumes that there's never any physical variations between people of the same race. It is an insidious packaging of the same old racist belief that a) only white people have varied facial features and b) all Asian people look exactly the same. Oh, barf. The character designs in most anime series, as well as in Avatar, directly defy that idea. But, you know. Viewers are still people, and people are still stupid.

Edit the Third: Just added a bunch more images, including scans of CLAMP's original character designs for Lelouch and Suzaku.

Edit the Fourth: Ampersand links an old essay by Matt Thorn about the same dealio, and a fascinating discussion ensues in the comments.

Things that made me happy today...

1. I had an awesome English class period with the special ed kids, which more than makes up for the suckiness that was Wednesday's class.

2. Dinner with Ms. Kitahara. Mmmmmmmm.

3. AMAZING tribute fanart for Soul Eater manga chapter 56. Yes, that last link is actually the 84K girl drawing a picture of herself crying as she reads the chapter.

Don't worry, poor 84K girl. He's not dead. He's just pining for the fjords.

4. The most excellent Livejournal Haiku meme:

Haiku2 for nenena
accept me sins and all that fail at plucky boy detective skills so
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

Now this, actually, is basically what my journal here has entirely turned into:

Haiku2 for nenena
res click for high res click for high res click for high res click for high res
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

Haiku2 for nenena
part of this chapter next week no new episode on 12 next up is
@ aboutmylife.netadvogato.orgblogger.comblogs.gnome.orgblogspot.comdeadjournal.comgreatestjournal.cominsanejournal.comlivejournal.commyspace.comspaces.msn.com
Created by Grahame

Lulz.

( And then there's an absolutely EPIC one about Belldandy... )

Okay, so... I guess the new Mini-Goddess strips aren't being divided into series of 4 anymore, since this month is the 22nd panel, but it's being advertised as the start of a new "strip." Um. Whatever. Anyway, here is Mini-Goddess, still being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic. )

As for this month's 20th-Anniversary shenanigans... Well, the bonus goodie for this month's Afternoon was the Belldandy-with-flowers figure, of course. It's actually a magnet, not a full figure. But still awesome. There was also a little spread advertising the upcoming artbook, but still not revealing a release date. Volume 38 of the manga is out on December 22nd. Also, starting in March 2009, Kodansha will be releasing an Ah! My Goddess/You're Under Arrest collectible card game. The Afternoon advertisement promises cards with original artwork by Kosuke Fujishima, so hooray for that.

I'm really enjoying the current storyline in the manga, BTW. For the first time in a while. Which is kind of awesome.

Sorry that these are two weeks late, but I haven't gotten to a bookstore lately.

Anyway. First! Part five (apparently) of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of monthly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic, more 20th anniversary stuff, and old school Afternoon covers. )

First! Part four of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of montly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic, 20th anniversary reveals, and lots of bonus scans, too. )

First! Part three of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of montly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic, 20th anniversary wrap-up, and lots of bonus scans, too. )

First! Part two of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of montly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic and bonus scans, too. )

First! Part one of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of montly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic. )

Second! More Chara-Mel Magazine. Here's Kannagi by Kosuke Fujishima:

1.40 MB

1.43 KB

If I understand correctly, that's not an outfit that she wears in either the manga or the upcoming anime series. Rather, it's a magical girl outfit that Fujishima designed himself. Why? Because he can.

PS - Any similarities to the legendary Tamil folk heroine Kannagi is purely coincidental. But boy did that throw me for a loop when I first heard of the Japanese Kannagi series.

( Oh, and one more thing behind the cut. )

I desperately needed some cheering up this evening. So here are some things that cheered me up when I saw them in the July issues of Hobby Japan and Dengeki Hobby.

( Warning: Very image heavy behind the cut. But worth it if you like awesome things THAT ARE AWESOME. )

I really need to make another Haruhi scans dump. I have such a backlog piled up, it's not even funny.

Part four of Kosuke Fujishima's new Mini-Goddess strip, which is being published on the spine of montly issues of Afternoon. In case you missed any of the previous panels, you can find them all linked here.

( Behind the cut: Mini-Goddess comic, and some bonus manga scans. )