This is one of the largest scanspam posts I've ever done.

( Behind the cut: Interesting, cool, and beautiful images from Kimagure Orange Road to Azumanga Daioh and beyond. Plus, as promised: Ray Amuro's barenaked butt. )

Whew! That was one mother-long post. I hope that you enjoyed this random spamming of images as much as I enjoyed inflicting them upon you. ;)

Tentative schedule for the remainder of Scanspam Week:
Tomorrow - Funky Advertisements and Stationary Day
Saturday - Anno Moyoco Day
Sunday - Shoujo and Disney Day
Monday - Doujinspam the First (with Takehito Harada Special)
Tuesday - Doujinspam the Second (100% Toho Project)
Wednesday - Fate Day
Thursday - Hello Kitty Day
Friday - Samurai Finale

Okay, so that is more than a week. That's like a week and a half, or something. Whatever. It's my journal, and I'm going to spam it with as many pretty pictures as I goddamn want to. So there!

PS - Unfortunately, doujinspam posts will be flocked. Sorry to all of you lurkers reading this.

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.

Only one batch this time, but it's a good one:

( OH HAY ITSUKI! )

Bonus: A complete guide to all Haruhi CD releases from Season 1. Plus Lucky Star just because.
I love the fact that I can type "from Season 1" because of the upcoming second season. Hooray!


5.75 MB

Coming up ASAP: New Shounen Ace scans including a gorgeous poster calendar, new The Sneaker scans, PSP game packaging materials, and more.

x-posted to sos_brigade

Well, it's that time again. October means the start of new anime series in Japan, and everybody and their dog is throwing up a "fall preview" post on their blog or livejournal. I was thinking of doing that too, but first, I went back and looked at what shows I predicted I would watch last spring, and laughed a bit at myself. Then I started thinking and writing, looking back on a year of watching free anime in wonderful Japanland, and, well...

I guess it's the normal procedure to wait until December to do an "anime year in review" post, but I think that fall would actually be a better time for me to do so. First, in Japan as in the United States, fall is the nominal start of the Year in Television. Second, I arrived in Japan last fall, so if I wanted to write about a year's worth of anime, of course it cover the span of time from autumn to autumn!

So without further adieu, here is my year in anime. ( Behind the cut. )

And, to conclude this amazingly long post...

Recommendations?

Level One: If you breathe air, you will probably like this series.
Seirei no Moribito/Guardian of the Sacred Spirit
Romeo x Juliet
Dennou Coil


Level Two: Recommended, but your mileage may vary.
Gurren Lagann (must love old-fashioned schlock done right)
Code Geass (must love old-fashioned schlock done horribly, horribly wrong)
Claymore (must be able to love a good story despite terrible art)
Hataraki Man (must not be grossed out by onscreen depictions of people eating natto)
Moonlight Mile (must have tolerance for slow pacing)
To Terra (must be able to love that old-school space opera)

So, if I had to sum up all of the above in one sentence, it would be this:
Everybody should watch Seirei no Moribito.
That is all.