Zetsubou shita!!!

The twisted tales of SZS spiral onward.

“Bure, Bure, Bure, Bure” has been stuck in my head for days and bashes around like a hyperactive two year old, interfering with normal thinking processes. Read the rest of this entry »

OK, new poll is up. This time I’m curious who your favorite characters from Lucky Star are. Don’t forget you can vote for two!

Polls about the main four have already been covered quite a bit, but now that the other girls have gotten some actual airtime, I thought it would be interesting to see which of the rest of the cast is popular.

In regard to the previous poll, it seems pretty clear that CLANNAD and Shakugan no Shana are the big favorites. I know I didn’t include that many of the shows starting up this season; I hadn’t checked Moonphase to see what all was airing yet, so the list was made mostly just from memory. If you chose the “Other” option, I’m curious to know which show you would’ve voted for if the option had been available.

Pretty soon Guff and I will be going over what looks interesting in the fall and what we’re planning to watch/blog, so keep an eye out for that.

Edit: A bit late, but I added Kanata to the poll, now that she’s actually appeared in the show as more than just a photograph.

Shiraishi Minoru just gained like 100 GAR points for his jaw-dropping performance in this episode’s Lucky Channel.

And it’s not just Shiraishi that’s back in top form. Lucky Star 21 more than makes up for all the slow episodes recently with humor that nearly had me literally rolling on the floor laughing. Read the rest of this entry »

An Open Letter to Our Former Hosting Provider:

Dear Our Former Hosting Provider,

Why must you eat babies for sustenance, even though they provide little if any nutritional value? Why must you outsource all your technical support (and I use that term very loosely) to India, where they are all named James and yet cannot speak a single sentence of intelligible English?

Why, even though you promised 9,999.99% uptime, must your servers crash and burn harder than Michael Vick’s NFL career? Why do you force memes? And why is yo momma so fat?

Sincerely,

Epic Win

*sigh* My apologies to everybody who experienced problems trying to browse our site in the last few days. Our old host’s uptime proved worse than Itou Makoto’s long term relationship prospects, and I wasn’t about to pull a Katsura and stick around for more abuse. The DNS records should all be pointing over to our new server, and everything seems to be in working order.

If you have any problems surfing the site or trying to post comments, please let me know.

~0rion

“You are already dead!”

Fist of the North Star reference…I laughed, I cried, I drank copious amounts of tea.

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What’s funny is that I do this all the time. If you wait until the mosquito is almost done, and then flex really suddenly, the mosquito can’t control the flow and the sudden increase in pressure makes them explode spectacularly.

If you’ve never tried it before I highly recommend giving it a shot. It’s more than worth the minor itching. Read the rest of this entry »

A series with enough morose and deliciously dark comedy to make any cynic shout for joy…or at least snicker quietly. The rollickingly pleasant juxtaposition of the ever despairing Itoshiki-sensei and the perpetually genki Fuura-san is just priceless. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve been wondering about the relative silence here at EW recently, well, this is the reason.

I’ve been occupied with fending off Big Daddies and desperately hunting for my next ADAM fix like some kind of strung out junkie. Read the rest of this entry »

Otaku invade Washinomiya-jinja, home of the Hiiragi Twins

This is kind of old news, but it seems like a number of people haven’t seen this yet, so I thought I’d mention it here.

As you may know, the setting for Lucky Star is in Japan’s Saitama prefecture. What you may not realize is just how closely the show matches reality. In fact, the locations that appear in the show for the most part actually exist, and are strikingly similar to their real life counterparts.

Lucky Star is set in the real life town of Washimiya in southern Saitama, and many of the town’s locations are featured in the show, most notably the venerable Washinomiya-jinja, which appears in the opening credits.

Hakase’s site Small Love has a nice set of comparison shots between various scenes in the show and photographs of the real town. Read the rest of this entry »

Fireworks light up the sky over Miyajima

Continued from Part 1.

Having finally achieved the summit of Mt. Misen, Miyajima Island’s tallest peak, I decided to hurry back down to the beach so that I could secure a good spot from which to photograph the fireworks. Read the rest of this entry »

The famous floating torii of Miyajima

Japan is, in my very humble opinion, one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Certainly it’s one of the most accommodating to travellers. The country offers a stunning juxtaposition between the modern and the traditional, all easily accessible via one of the world’s most modern transportation networks. Hop on the shinkansen (bullet train) in Tokyo and head north into the mountains, and within an less than an hour the seething mass of humanity and skyscrapers gives way to rice fields, endless bamboo forests, and soaring alpine scenery.

In addition to anime news and reviews and the like, it’s also my goal to share with you my passion for other aspects of Japanese culture. As a former resident of Tokyo and a card-carrying Japan-o-phile, I always enjoy talking about the many fascinating and unique experiences I’ve had while traveling throughout the Land of the Rising Sun. To that end, I hope to put together these little travel diaries from time to time as I feel motivated, giving you a window into my journies.

Since it’s Obon season right now, I thought it would be fitting to show you a little bit about one of my more memorable Obon adventures. Guff hasn’t been to Miyajima yet (the poor sap), so this post will be just me (0rion). Read the rest of this entry »