English Sentence Structure Exercise

Remember the last time i came back to Truly Asia i spent a whole day marking 80+ exam scripts?

This time i got arrowed to type out some English exercises. Got it done in 10 minutes, so i thought i'd spice them up a bit since they were so generic and boring. (And i was bored.) I kept the original sentence structures (as much as possible), just changed some names and made things a bit more interesting for the poor high schoolers who have to plow through them when school reopens. Help me vet the questions, ok?

Sentence Structure

Instructions: Rewrite the following sentences using the word given in the brackets.

1) Nina lost her self-control over Euphemia but had to make do with furniture. (carried)

2) The weather was so cold that Mako-chan had to hide under the kotatsu. (enough)

3) The censorship board finds it objectionable to look at all the pantsu on display in Kanokon, ToRabuRu and Kamen no Meido Guy. (bear)

4) Maria had just finished tending to her rose bed when Tama and Hayate trashed it. (Scarcely/ No sooner)

5) Horo the Wise Wolf does not like to be ordered about, least of all by measly human Lawrence. (being)

6) Ark Gurren can easily accommodate 100,000 residents should the moon crash onto Earth. (spacious)

7) Is an ophthalmologist treating Lulu for his Geass? (receiving)

8) The boys of Code Geass cannot possibly finish pitching the tents in just two hours. (impossible)

9) Banchou Haruka destroyed the school completely in a berserker rage. (destruction)

10) The rookie seiyuu supported herself by appearing in ero-ge during her free time. (earned)

11) When I heard Kagami’s tsukkomi, I could not hold back thoughts that it is weak sauce compared to Osaka’s. (help)

12) Berserker had too many Continue Tokens, so Sabre could not defeat him without first receiving, urm… mana from Emiya and Rin. (too)

13) It is difficult for us to understand what he is saying because of Odex’s subtitles. (makes)

14) Nodame does not like classical music. (appeal)

15) The boy did not go to school but piloted giant mecha in armed interventions throughout the world in order to end all conflict. (instead)

16) Ueda Kana has not slept for two days because of her 52-hour Halo 3 marathon, so she feels so tired that she did not even notice when a drunken Itou Shizuka pinched her bum. (Not having)

17) It appeared as if the Black Knights were going to get totally owned by Aile Strike Lancelot when Guren Kashoushiki came to the rescue. *cough*plastictoywhoring*cough* (looked)

18) Nice Boat. (survivors)

19) Uguu pimped herself out to Kyon to pay off the taiyaki vendor. (debt)

20) Shana Tan prefers meron-pan to Go-hobi. (would rather)

21) Mai washed her DNA-stained strapless dress thoroughly with soap but the stain remained. (Not even)

22) Toa let out a cute “Kuueehhh!!!” and fled on hearing screams of GIIOOOOO!!!! And JINNNNN!!!! (flight)

23) Konata resembles her father in her love for ero-ge. (takes)

24) The Budoukan was filled to capacity on the night of Mizuki Nana’s live. (taken)

25) My inspiration to compose that song comes from hot yuri twincest. (motivates)

26) Lulu loves Nunally dearly. (eye)

27) There are no solutions to Kagamisumi’s HDD space crunch. (defies)

28) There were Bonta-kuns everywhere in Raki Suta. (infested)

29) Euphemia’s speech declaring the formation of SAR Japan caused a considerable amount of dissatisfaction among snobby Brittanians. (gave)

30) Shinn, in spite of all his emo facial distortions, was unsuccessful in taking down Strike Freedom. (vain)

So are these questions of the appropriate academic standard? =)

I'll try to sneak them into the worksheet, see if i'll get found out before it gets to the xerox machine.

十五面相の娘

Used to have no.13 as my MSN display pic a few months ago, but my favourite among these is no. 8. Which is your favourite Sawashiro Miyuki? Be careful picking the first 2 though, might get you in trouble with the police.

Realised i seem to be quite obsessed with Sawashiro these few days. Haven't been doing much updates on Tanaka Rie either. Don't worry, i've not forsaken rierie. Still religiously following her blog everyday. It's just that she's quite a boring blogger so there's nothing much to report you see. Not that i'm complaining, reading her blog is still tonnes more entertaining than reading my own verbal diarrhoea. And "boring" blog means people with half-assed japanese skills like me don't have to reach for the dictionary every other sentence, which makes life easier. World peace.

I'm going off to Truly Asia again for a few weeks, will see if i can find more cheap stuff along the way. (Still looking for Utena. The 2-set DVDs here cost $100+. Ouch.) Internet connection at my place over there is horrible so updates might be rare while i'm gone.

Well then, i'll leave you with a video of wife material Sugita at some event. Just fast forward to the part where naughty girls in the audience were heckling Sugita with screams of “足！(Thighmeat!)”　and one particularly shameless one went “開いて！(Spread!)”. Ruined for marriage.

Bunch of tubes

PV of Swinging, OP to Druaga. Single should be out next week.

Very cute “Kuri” by Aruru.

A 16 y/o Sawashiro Miyuki (Kurenai) talking cock with Sanada Asami (Tamaki). 6 year old video.

A 15 y/o Yuuki Aoi (Murasaki) talking cock with Onda Aka and friends. 0 year old video. A 22 y/o Sawashiro turns up at the end. 往事只能回味.

すっぴんでかわいい

The rather fetching meganekko of Toshokan Sensou.

And her seiyuu. Ok, that's quite an unflattering photograph of Sawashiro Miyuki. She looks better properly made up like 99.98% of all celebrities. Evil Tanaka Atsuko was the one who exposed her just-got-out-of-bed face to the rest of the world. But she's still cute to me so it's fine. Miyuki also plays Kurenai Shinkuro this season. Older works include Shinku (Rozen) and my favourite, Aruru (Utawarerumono).

パンツ ハンター

The latest Macross F episode had the whole school chasing after a piece of clothing for half an ep. This is giving me Code Geass vibes - in a good way. Nope, they weren't hunting for Zero's mask, they were after Sheryl's pantsu. Crazy episode.

With Ranka and Sheryl both transfering into the trap's class, we've got ourselves a nice little harem school comedy setup here. Oh, and there's bouncy Nanase too. We just need Catherine and the bridge bunnies to somehow end up as instructers and then we'll have the school festival episode where everyone walks around in nekomimi combat meido powered exoskeleton swimsuits. Need more harem comedy/fanservice in my mecha series.

And Sheryl trounces all the Code Geass girls on the character awesomeness scale simply because she's so outrageously audacious. Karen and C.C. definitely need to buck up. I suggest more screentime and less clothes.

Shintani Ryouko

Kurenai's tone deaf girlfriend sings the ED.

New Wallpaper

Awww... Lulu is so cute... i'm just wondering whether that person in the foreground is Lolo or 李娜娜. Oh, and C.C.'s probably stuck on the sub munching pizza. Either that or she has merged bodies with Lulu ala Kawasumi Vulpini and Shota Mamiko.

Finally got around to watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni yesterday, finished the 鬼隠し arc. It's a cute little piece of horror/psychological thriller, but the shock tactics employed might be a bit too much to stomach.

I'm usually fine with some violence in shows; for instance, Mnemosyne had much more gory scenes (skewers, hooks and meatgrinders). Maybe it's the juxtaposition of violence and cuteness in Higurashi that got to me. While the kawaii character designs suggest slice-of-life or harem comedy, the show is anything but. It's one thing when promiscuous immortals get sliced and diced up and another when kawaii little girls get tortured.

There was a scene in the first arc where Rena was getting her fingers crushed and i felt really 心痛 as she begged Keiichi to stop. Tomoya clobbering Nagisa to death would probably provoke the same visceral reaction.

It isn't too bad for a horror thriller actually, i'm just not in the mood for it right now. Maybe i'll finish up the rest of the series when i'm bored. For now, i'll go catch up on some Gintama.

Ronaldo Misses From the Spot! Hahaha....

Wtf, i actually stayed up for the Champions League results. Followed the game on ESPNsoccernet since i don't have cable. Waiting for the text commentry to pop up was boring like hell. Watched a bit of Kara no Kyoukai in between updates, basically skipping to the bits with rierie in them. i'll watch it properly later when i'm not yawning every other second.

Btw, Man U won after the game went to penalties. The first penalty shootout Alex has won as a manager apparently. Well, i prefer them to Chelsea, but i'm actually a Tsunderland supporter.

zzzz....

大変だ！！

I have some good news and bad news.

Bad news is i may be wrong after all and School Rumble 3rd Semester is really just a 2 episode OVA bundled with the manga. Good news is the trailer is now up on the website. Go watch it if you miss my Yakumo's cockroach sister's blabbering. Get to the end and you will see this plastered across the screen:

『スクールランブル三学期』のテレビ放送はありません。

There is no TV broadcast for SR3. Buy manga to watch.

Shit.

Oh well, i'm sure a real third season is on the way now that they have enough source material to work with. The first 2 seasons covered up to vol. 14 or 15 if i remember correctly, so with the upcoming vol. 22 we'll have 7 volumes of manga to pad out season 3.

The other good news is that you are invited to go on a trip with Katou Emiri (and 2 others). Actually i quite like those 2 others as well, especially Goto Saori. Not for her acting/singing (which is ok), but for her very awesome birthday. People born on such an awesome day are awesome. Need examples? Elvis, Stephen Hawkings and Me.

Ayako and Mamimami

Weird that Ayako's car is left hand drive. Japanese cars are RHD if i remember right (haha), but i did see quite a number of LHD cars on my trip to Osaka some years back. According to our guide, most of those are imported continental cars, which are preferred to the cheaper Japanese makes. Why? Expensive things make better status symbols. I wonder what the artist was implying. =)

Well, Ayako (and Mamimami) supposedly earns ¥6,000,000 a year, which translates into more than $5,000 monthly and that's assuming Japan has exorbitant tax rates. This is peanuts compared to the superstar singers/actors, but poor rierie earns only half of that. FYI, the annual costs for the army to employ a civilian executive with Specialist equivalent rank (read: typist/telephone receptionist) is about the same as rierie's annual earnings.

Therefore, i suggest they sack one of the more irritating chief clerks and hire rierie instead. They can let her man the army hotline; suicide rates among servicemen will drop to nothing. I'm sure even the most zetsubou NS boy will find new meaning in life after a chat with Maria/Lacus/Claudia. Or she can pull out her Suigintou act and scare off all the poor guys calling in to lodge complaints. Either way the army stands to gain.

Rierie can help out in disaster-relief operations too. The next time a space colony falls onto earth,
the army can broadcast videos of her singing Fields of Hope, thereby preventing mass hysteria and rioting. What the fuck, we might as well let her sing the next national day theme song too. Since we're all so enthusiastic about foreign talent nowadays i'm sure nobody will mind if one sings at the next NDP.

Hiring rierie is a freaking bargain really. If you had to choose between a bijin tsundere seiyuu and a cranky auntie who costs the same, who would you hire? The auntie of course! No one understands Japanese in the army (besides Major Irene). The vernacular there is more along the lines of KNN&(*&^$#@. Even the well manicured ladies strutting around on heels slip up at times and mouth the occasional "FO". Ah well.

Btw, if they sacked the Chief of Defence it would free up enough capacity to hire the entire cast of Hayate no Gotoku.

I'm too lazy to think of a title

Seems like the ED for School Rumble Semester 3 will be a cover of season 1's ED by Yakumo and her cockroach sister, according to 2ch. It's a cute song, and i don't mind hearing those two singing it, but it kind of feels like they are 炒ing 冷饭. If they're going to reuse old songs, why don't they make Mamimami sing the Dojibiron theme instead? At the very least give us Lala Gonzales' theme song.

Btw, I've got the lyrics for Hatenkou Robo Dojibiron right here if anyone wants to sing along.

１たす１は２　２たす２は４
もひとつたしたら５（GO GO GO?）
みんなの勇気が集まって
衝突合体　破天荒?!!（トリャ!!）
ゆけ！１号　とべ！２号　走れ！３号
潜れ！４号　歌え！５号
心はひとつ　操縦席は５つ
まとまれ　合わせろ　我慢しろ
覇！HA!ハ！破天荒ロボ　ドジビロン

１たす２は３　３たす３は６
ひとーつひいたら５（GO GO GO?）
みんなが勝手に集まって
暴発合体　破天荒?!!（デャ!!）
撃て！１号　守れ！２号　戦え！３号
切り裂け！４号　恋せよ！５号
武器はひとつ　必殺技は多数決
協調　談合　民主主義
覇！HA!ハ！破天荒ロボ　ドジビロン

And random video of Yukana (Tessa, C.C) being interviewed for some Xbox 360 thing. They got her to play some Rocky and Bullwinkle game at the end of it. Somehow the game requires her to swing her arm in giant circles like a mad woman to make Bullwinkle row a canoe. It's actually just an excuse to advertise the Xbox Live Vision camera thingy, but a Yukana executing circular motion is fine too. Cute screams.

Toothbrush

Gurren Lagaan was good. I haven't marathoned a 2 cours series in one sitting since FMP. Why the hell did i decide to give it a miss last year? *slaps self*

いらっしゃいませ

The middle of the week is seriously dead boring this season with all the good shows concentrated on Thurs-Mon so i've been turning to niconico for random shit to keep me occupied till the next Macross ep.

Today's niconico discovery is a training video for supermarket employees featuring Horie Yui. The video was made in 1997, she was probably working part-time while still in seiyuu school. It's quite a long video, but strangely entertaining. It features the dos and don'ts of sucking up to customers with skits to illustrate the point. Yui plays the "good" employee. There was a skit where this guy walks up to Yui and asks “エロ本ありますか？” Of course, she angelically shows him the way. The deluge of "Ho-chan good girl!" comments scrolling across the screen throughout the video was just hilarious.

There was a part where the video was going through filling up your application forms for the job. They used Yui's photo in the form and the commentors were going mad with stuff like "Show me her address!!". Too bad it's a fake form, the name written in there was Suzuki Yoshiko or something.

I did learn a few polite phrases from the video, like いらっしゃいませ and 少々お待ちくださいませ so it wasn't a completely brainless waste of time unlike the millions of Nursery Rhyme parodies out there. Btw, i can't stop watching the Code Geass harem OP version that's all over Youtube. true my heart refuses to get out of my head.

NicoNico Stuff

I was digging around niconico for the latest Code Geass episode but ended up with a couple of rubbish videos involving Koshimizu Ami instead.

The first is an ad for the Code Geass DS gamewith Koshimizu cosplaying Karen. No comments on the cosplay. All i'll say is it shattered my fantasies of Karen. She tried doing the Zero voice, but i don't think she'll be geassing anyone soon. Amusing though.

The second is Koshimizu imitating Mamimami and i've got to say she's good. Like really good. So good she can probably play both Yakumo and her cockroach sister at the same time and you wouldn't notice.

Another crazy video i found the other day was a collection of NG recordings from prawn games. Seiyuu choking on their own spit while hyperventilating? Check. Dribbling like a baby while simulating blowjobs? Check. Screaming the wrong names during climax? Check. Hilarious stuff, but headphones/earphones recommended. You might try to see if you can recognise any big name voices, most use aliases for prawn work.

Gacha=Gacha

Supposedly the first anime made in Singapore. I wouldn't have found out about it if not for the publicity on RIUVA though. It looks bad, but i think 77 Star probably meant it as an exercise for their trainees instead of as a real commercial project. We all start out as Level 1 adventurers, right? Probably. But it's definitely a fact that some people gain exp faster than others and it's got nothing to do with how hard they train. Some start with more $$$/equipment. Some get incarnated onto shitty servers administered by juntas while others look at them and say, "Oh you poor things, I'll send you some n00b items (and gain some reputation points while i'm at it)." Ya, life's a Massive Multiplayer Offline Roleplaying Game with game balance issues.

If you think i sound like Zetsubou Sensei now, you're right. Now where's my harem of dysfunctional fanservice machines? What got me in the mood was this article on CNN. I'm not despairing at Whoever caused the cyclone and i'm not despairing for the fat guys sitting on the biscuits. I am pissed at this video link in the article that says "Watch as families mourn victims".

Wow. Am i suppose to find that headline interesting? The videos linked to weren't even about watching families mourn victims, btw. Playing on people's fascination with the morbid isn't very decent if you ask me. No respect at all. If you think only CNN is screwed up, you're dead wrong (haha). Local reporters do go through the obituaries daily for, i don't know, possibly newsworthy deaths? And they'll turn up uninvited at funeral wakes for a story. How do i know that? A pair of reporters from this chinese tabloid walked in on me doing something silly which i can't remember. I was probably singing anime songs or something.

Remember that news about the uncle whose wife got killed in a traffic accident? No? I don't recall much either, people die everyday. What i remembered though, was that pictures of him breaking down and going hysterical were splashed all over the front page of The Straits Times. Not one photo, but 3 or 4 in sequential order like a 4koma. Just what crime did the old man commit to warrant having his most vulnerable moment dramatised and exposed for public consumption? No respect at all.

My point is this: Why are we so kaypoh as a species?

No one knows and that's the way things are so screw it and go watch the first episode of Gacha=Gacha here. Btw, my internet connection speed set a record high of 980 kb/s while downloading quicktime, which you'll need to watch Gacha=Gacha. Who uses quicktime nowadays? Put it on Youtube!

Even though it's not too impressive, i'm still rather excited at the future prospects of homegrown animation. Maybe instead of pseudo-Japanese moe moe shows like this, they should come up with stuff that's more like Army Daze or Mr Kiasu. Those 2 would trump Lucky Star in the comedy department anyday and rival Pani Poni Dash for the "Most Gaijin-unfriendly Cultural Gags" award.

Which brings me to this point: Would the Singaporean equivalent for Kansai ben be Hokkien or pasar Malay?

Kupo!

What a cute moogle.

Druaga is an asshole of a show, really. After getting my hopes up with an episode made of win, it dashes them with a dead boring one. I mean, where were Fatina and Neeba? I like their party more than Jil's, if only for the chance of seeing Fatina fight a roper. Even Jil's party got sidelined by some (probably) once-off character, leaving Coopa to keep ep6 afloat.

This has been evident since the first ep, but the way most of the fights in Druaga were handled reminded me of Zunderella's fight with the invisible shape-shifting monsters at the Prince's ball. The fighting choreography got outsourced to some far-flung country and didn't make it back on schedule, so they just 轻描淡写 or plain skip to the next chapter. It's as if Jil and company got so sick of level-grinding they went to the options screen and turned off the battle animation just to speed things up. Zunderella didn't have to do much fighting "on screen" because the author sucks at writing you see. Not that i'm complaining, it doesn't really matter to me as i'm tuning in for the laughs (and fanservice) which are sadly missing from this ep.

Highlight of this episode for me was the OP, no joke. The OP animation is still freaking enjoyable after 6 weeks, as is the song itself. When is the single for Swinging coming out? Come to think of it, the other show this season where i enjoyed the first 90 seconds more than the subsequent 20 minutes was ToLoveRu. That song is too good for the show.

On the gaming front, i finally got sick of Persona 3 (again) after 20+ hours and a sore left thumb. Game clock now stands at 90+ hours. The 100% completionist in me refuses to speed play through the game, so I wonder when i'll actually finish Persona 3. FFXII, Xenosaga 3 and SD Gundam G Generation Spirits have all been sitting in my DVD box at various stages of "incompletion" too since last year. I was hoping i could finish up P3 before Persona 4 is released, but that feels improbable now.

P4 seems to be a sequel to P3, but so is the anime. Thus, i shouldn't expect too much in terms of story or character crossovers. Horie Yui and Koshimizu Ami are part of the new cast. Voice samples for Ami here and Yui here. I recognised Koshimizu's voice immediately (it's just a less goofy version of my Yakumo's cockroach sister), but Horie is using a slightly gravelly and tomboyish voice i'm not used to, especially in her very first line in this clip. Interesting stuff.

P.s. Congrats to Kagamisumi on finally solving your Hdd space crunch. What did you do? Delete your triple redundant copies of LS? Or Inuyasha?

Spring 2008 Best Slice-of-Life (i didn't draw the 3koma)

Kurenai 6 was so ridiculous it's awesome. Totally caught me off guard. I don't think i've seen an anime musical since, urm... Excel Saga? Even the sudden drop in animation quality during the musical montage that made the characters look like paper cut-outs added to the absurdity and awesomeness. Plus, the off-key singing was just great. Without a doubt, Kurenai is the premier slice-of-life comedy this season.

On a side note, i seem to have developed some form of repetitive stress injury in my left thumb after the Persona 3 marathon yesterday. Had to ice it while grinding for exp this morning.

Lucky Star OVA

Apparently, the lucky star OVA will keep the original's cast and crew. Look here.

Yay?

Btw, i'm a bit too distracted by Persona 3 right now. Why the fuck do they have to come up with an undubbed version for the US? I'm stuck playing the dubbed version of course. Shucks... RieRie! Mamimami! Miyukichi!!!! Toyogumi!!!! Arhghhh....

Stuffed Crust Butt

This has got nothing to do with C.C's butt actually, but (haha) remember those seemingly random phrases that the HnG characters spout in the eyecatches?

It's actually a 50-episode long game of shiritori!

Someone edited the eyecatches into a nine minute long video. i didn't notice it was shiritori before this. Did you?

Now i'm even more pumped up for Season 2.

Random Seiyuu Rumours

Trawling Japanese forums netted some fishy trivia.

Rumour #1
Goto Yuko uploads pictures of herself bathing onto her blog.

To verify its veracity, I plowed through a hundred of her blog posts and found this:
Verdict: True, but I somehow felt cheated.

At least I found these as well.
Rumour #2
Noto Mamiko’s pantsu fell onto the balcony of the apartment downstairs when she hung them out to dry. She was too embarrassed to go ask for them so she left them where they were. This happened while she was still a trainee in seiyuu school.

I couldn’t verify that rumour with DNA sampling or even a pic of the garment in question, so these will have to do instead.
Verdict: I sure hope it’s not true. Poor Mamimami…

The mini-auction that followed this post on the forum was hilarious though. I think the bid for Mamimami’s pantsu went up to ¥40,000.

Rumour #3
Tanaka Rie has secretly married ZeoiNagePotato.

From left to right: Rie’s simple and elegant wedding dress; Rie just before boarding the shuttle for their honeymoon to the moon; Rie channeling her Maria persona as she enjoys her new life as Mrs. ZeoiNagePotato.

Verdict: 100% True. I should know.

Rumour #4
Horie Yui’s room is so dirty she dared not call the repairman when her air-conditioner broke down. Btw, Mamimami has got a pigsty of a room as well.

Does she look messy to you?

Verdict: This rumour is confirmed by Horie’s Wikipedia page, and we all know Wiki is the Most Reliable Source on the Internet. Anyway, women are messy, so it’s no surprise.

Rumour #5
Annual incomes:

Yamadera Kouichi ¥20,000,000 (Foreign movie dubs, Talent work)
Minaguchi Yuko　　　¥14,000,000 (Popular veteran, TV narration)
Inoue Kikuko　　¥12,000,000 (Veteran)
Horie Yui　　　¥12,000,000 (Higher fees due to popularity, CD royalties)
Tamura Yukari　　¥12,000,000 (Ditto, Concert earnings)
Mizuki Nana　　　¥10,000,000 (Ditto)
Seki Tomokazu　　　　¥8,000,000 (Popular)
Nogawa Sakura　　¥8,000,000 (CD, Concert earnings)
Kouda Mariko　¥8,000,000 (Ditto)
Iizuka Mayumi　　　¥8,000,000 (Ditto)
Tange Sakura　　　　¥8,000,000 (Ditto)
Suzumura Kenichi　　　¥6,000,000 (Popular)
Minagawa Junko　　　¥6,000,000 (CD earnings, popular)
Noto Mamiko　　 ¥6,000,000 (Narration in ads for big businesses)
Kawasumi Ayako　 ¥6,000,000
Mitsuishi Kotono　　　¥5,800,000
Hisakawa Aya　　　　¥5,500,000
Toyoguchi Megumi　　¥4,700,000
Noda Junko　　　¥4,100,000
Saito Chiwa　　　¥4,000,000
Shintani Ryoko　　　¥3,600,000
Sakurai Takahiro　　　¥3,500,000
Kaneda Tomoko　　　¥3,500,000
Sanada Asami　　¥3,400,000
Nonaka Ai　　　　¥3,400,000
Kawakami Tomoko　　¥3,400,000
Enomoto Atsuko　　　¥3,400,000
Asano Masumi　　　¥3,200,000
Tanaka Rie　　　¥3,200,000
Matsuki Miyu　　　¥3,200,000
Sawashiro Miyuki　　¥3,100,000
Hirohashi Ryou　　　　¥3,000,000
Kuwatani Natsuko　　　¥3,000,000
Takahashi Mikako　　¥2,800,000
Kobayashi Yumiko　　¥2,500,000
Shimizu Kaori　　　¥2,400,000
Itsuki Yui　　　¥2,300,000
Fukuen Misato　　　¥2,200,000

Verdict: Who would’ve thought Belldandy’s earnings might be twice that of Yakumo’s? Where the hell did they get these figures in the first place? The figures column looks like a sine wave rotated 90 degrees though.

Lucky Star's Back!

Kagamisumi, your prayers have been answered. An OVA has been announced for LS. Here's a pic of the ad carrying the announcement. News article at ANN is over here.

Not much has been revealed yet, the studio, cast, release date, number of episodes etc, are all unknown as of now. After a quick look through various forums, it appears to me that there are generally 3 types of responses to this piece of news:

1) "Yay!"
2) "Is it by Kyoani?!"
3) "Where the fuck is Haruhi 2?!?!"

I think Kagamisumi will agree most with this guy though:
19 ひなたちゃん(9才) 2008/05/05(月) 18:47:44.27
かがみん以外ｲﾗﾈ (I want no one else but Kagamin)

We'll be getting more details on 10 May, so just sit tight till then.

Female Seiyuu Appearances 2005-2008

Number of anime appearances by female seiyuu from 2005-2008, listed in descending order. Numbers in brackets are for roles in 2008. Appearances in movies and OVAs not included (i think). Koped from here.

73　Noto Mamiko（14）
72　Watanabe Akeno（8 ）
66　Ohara Sayaka（7）
60　Kawasumi Ayako（5）Itou Shizuka（7）Kugimiya Rie（13）
58　Saito Chiwa（12）
57　Sawashiro Miyuki（8）
53　Kuwashima houko（8）
51　Ueda Kana（10）
50　Yukino Satsuki（5）Nazuka Kaori（12）
47　Toyoguchi Megumi（5）Kobayashi Yuu（7）
46　Hisakawa Aya（1）Kawakami Tomoko（5）Minagawa Junko（5）Satou Rina（12）
45　Chiba Saeko（8）Nabatame Hitomi（6）
43　Saiga Mitsuki（7）Fukuen Misato (5)
42　Kaneda Tomoko（2）Inoue Kikuko（3）
41　Horie Yui（7）Kadowaki Mai（4）Takahashi Mikako（7）Kobayashi Sanae（7）Hayamizu Risa（5）
40　Kobayashi Yumiko（6）
38　Koshimizu Ami（6）Shiraishii Ryoko（8）Yuzuki Ryoka（4）Katou Emiri（10）Neya Michiko（6）
37　Matsuki Miyu（4）Tamura Yukari（5）Yukana（5）Nakahara Mai（6）
36　Mizuki Nana（4）
35　Inoue Marina（8）Arai Satomi（7）Park Romi（7）
33　Fujimura Ayumi（9）Nonaka Ai（4）
31　Goto Yuko（7）Hirohashi Ryou（2）
30　Kaida Yuko（5）
29　Yahagi Sayuri（7）

I have no idea how comprehensive this list is, but it appears Mamimami rules the world of female seiyuu. No surprises there i guess. I’ve added a pic of her and her ichigo there on the right to like, celebrate her victory or whatever.

Need to point out that it's just a count of the number of shows though. Doesn’t matter whether a show had 3 or 300 episodes, it still counts as one. Kind of like Legolas fragging the elephant. And I believe the list even includes appearances as Passerby A and Female Student B, which explains the unexpectedly high numbers for relative newcomers like Katou Emiri who spent a few years playing various nameless roles here and there.

Btw, by my count, Tanaka Rie just missed making the list with 20+ shows.

Tower of Druaga Episode 5

Just as i thought the series was steadily sliding into mediocrity, along came ep5 to deliver a comedic knockout on par with Fumoffu. Plus, the Gonzo guys finally got it into their heads to enlarge the credits' fonts so that they're now actually legible on the streamed version.

I won't spoil the gags, but be prepared for boobs, penises and THE ROPER DANCE. Oh, and watch out for Mamimami's shota, for no reason other than it's Mamimami. It's like she's playing nothing but shotas this season.

This ep totally bumped Druaga up my watching priority list by a good 10 places or so. Please excuse me while i go watch the whole episode again.

Candy☆Boy

First episode of the new Candy Boy series has been released on niconico - raw of course, but several groups have already got their subbed versions done. So glad the original 10 minute promo video for the song was popular enough for them to make 7 more. Yay!

This new episode was just as entertaining as the original, and just as yuri. =) Kana and Yuki are such a goofy couple i can't help but laugh. Just look at the opening scene with Kana trying to wake Yuki. Sakuya gets more screentime this time round and she's still a scheming stalker, but somehow more adorable.

We get more of the same lazy animation from this installment, lots of stillshots and panning, and i don't think they gave a damn about matching the lip flaps. But with such cute character designs, who cares?

What i liked about the original was how short yet effective it was, and this new episode lived up to expectations. My sole complaint is that the new theme song isn't as awesome as Candy☆Boy (the song).

Here's the official site with the niconico link. Character bios and pics are under the "キャラクター" tab, and there are 2 pages of manga under the "Specials" tab. I'm having a hard time reading the handwritten Japanese on the manga though. The "で"s look like "Z"s with sweatdrops.

School Rumble 3rd Semester

A promo video featuring Koshimizu Ami and Mamimami is now up on the official site.

It seems like episodes 25 and 26 of this new season will be bundled with the limited first edition of manga volumes 21 and 22, which will go on sale on 17 July and 17 September respectively. (If my Jap reading skill is not sucky enough to get it wrong that is.)

I thought this is kind of weird, since a quick look at the calendar tells me that the summer anime season should be starting around the beginning of July. Which means episode 25 will be released on DVD when the TV run is just 2 or 3 episodes in? That’s assuming SR3 airs in July, and that there’s a TV run to begin with. ANN has ominously labeled SR3 an OVA – I hate OVAs simply because they make me wait months (or even years) between episodes. *cough*Hellsing Ultimate*cough*

To sum it up, we are likely to see ep 25 before the series even starts, which isn’t a big deal really (see: TMOSH), so, ya, I have no point. Ami said recording work is already underway, I’m just secretly hoping they’ll crank out 3 episodes a week from now until July just in time for ep 25’s release.

Ya right.

And about it being an OVA: if this is true it’ll be the longest OVA I’ve seen in my very short life. Bet you 15 bucks ANN made a mistake. But hey, who knows? There might be some info on the page labeled “Broadcast News” at the SR3 official site, but I’ll have to say it’s very well hidden among the random stuff though.

I really hope SR makes it into the summer line-up, can’t wait anymore. First ep should be about Valentine’s Day if they’re following the manga closely. Yakumo’s handmade chocos!!! Too bad it’s for Harima, and he’s too busy stalking her cockroach sister. Wait… was that a *spoiler*?

Oops.

Other sequels on summer wish-list: Clannad After Story, HnG2, Marimite 4.

Lucky Stripes 1 - 树干

Does Kagamisumi remember that military slice-of-life doujinshi idea that we cooked up last year? The one with the Lucky Star cast doing National Service in BMT? Remember how the project was consigned to the recycling bin because we couldn't find an artist?

I went ahead and drew the first installment of this Lucky Stripe 4koma.

Enjoy.

(To refresh your memory, Konata is the PC, Kagami the PS, Tsukasa and Miyuki are sergeants, the doujin drawing girl is the medic, Shiraishi the sole recruit, and i have forgotten the rest.)

Halfway through i decided to cheat and just draw the heads. Saved a hell lot of effort.

We didn't decide on a name back then, so i took the liberty of titling it "Lucky Stripes". Stars are for the bigshots. This strip is about the rank-and-file men in green, hence "stripes".

There won't be a second installment any time soon. In fact, we might not have one at all.

I can't bear to butcher those cute girls anymore with my drawing. =p