Sociometry

Wow, Mai-Otome 0 ~S.ifr~ came out so fast! I am in awe, the episode was wonderful! It's pretty cool to see Mayo and Shion finally animated too! They look and sound great! It's hard to believe that Sifr seems so much more like Arika than Lena does, I'm a bit shocked. I can't believe that Sifr is going to marry such an older man and have Nina-chan with him! It's quite shocking. Sifr seems so sweet and innocent too... Maybe that's why Nina was in love with Sergey? He's an older guy too. :o

Oh well, the episode was amazing, and the characters are great! Mayo... or Raquel rather is pretty awesome. She has a staff! And I knew Lena would be amazing, but wow she just blew me away! The fight scenes were awesome and there wasn't much fanservice at all, which is good. Zwei had a bit too much fanservice... Anywho, I'm already excited for the next episode! What happens to Sifr?! I wonder why the headmaster of Garderobe is so evil... Not like Natsuki at all! Poor Elliot, has to choose between her love and her master. :o

Also, I absolutely LOVE the new ending for Shakugan no Shana Second! Sociometry by KOTOKO! I seriously can't wait for the single to come out so I can have the full version because the song is just beautiful. Oh... and I just realized that this was my 100th post. :P

Photoshop Stuffs

Sooo I recently changed my wallpaper and this was my previous one! I just felt like posting it because eh, why not share it? Ar tonelico II is awesome anyway! I'm still waiting for it's US release. Yay Chroche-sama and Luca! Reyvateils are awesome.

So... I was fiddling with Photoshop like the whole weekend, and I remembered that Amanda-yan made me some awesome images last year! Or was it the year before last year.... Oh well! This is one of them. It's actually being used as the background for my MySpace profile, so if you're my friend on there, check it out. It's pretty awesome. Ike is the featured character and the awesome picture of various characters from FE9 is there too! Amanda-yan is an awesome photoshop artist, as well as just an awesome artist! Isn't it pretty? I really need to learn how to make awesome backgrounds like this! How do people do it? It's a mystery to me right now... Hopefully I can get someone to help me out with it. :o

Now, this one is AWESOME! Yay Amanda-yan! It features Ike, Tokiha Mai from Mai-HiME, Vivi, Luffy from One Piece, and Sakura and Tomoyo from Cardcaptor Sakura, (although it seems like the art is more from Tsubasa Chronicle) as well as some other of the Mugiwara pirates, but yeah! I honestly think this one is awesome, but it must have been a pain to cut all those characters out. I know your pain now Amanda-yan! The background and coloring is so beautiful though, I seriously wonder how you do that! SOMEBODY TEACH ME! :[ But yeah, Amanda-yan is just awesome, I don't think I'll ever get to her artistic level. xD

This is version 1 of my "Best of Friends, but Rivals of Love" banner. I already have version 2 but I don't want to show it off just yet. I'm going to wait for it to be put up at the top of the blog for a while, since I just put a new one up yesterday. Anywho, this one has Yoshida Kazumi and Shana from Shakugan no Shana (obviously) and Chroche-sama and Luca from Ar tonelico II. You must have noticed that the Chroche-sama and Luca art is from the wallpaper I just posted up there... Well, it's the best art of them together like that so yeah. :D Oh well, I guess that's enough blogging for now. *waves*

Rozen Maiden

I finally finished watching ALL of the Rozen Maiden episodes, I realized yesterday that I hadn't posted anything about it since I started watching it. Anywho, this is a really great anime, lots of emotion and great plot. The characters are plain awesome, especially Shinku. Sawashiro Miyuki, her seiyuu is pretty awesome and I've become a big fan of her because of Shinku, Chroche-sama from Ar tonelico II, and Velvet from Odin Sphere. Sawashiro is also in Mai-Otome as Sara Gallagher and in Mana-Khemia as Titil Mimi Nike Mele. Honestly, I can't tell that it's her sometimes, that just means she's a good voice actress. Anywho, I do recommend to watch this anime to anyone, it's really good! Though some might be creeped out by the fact that the dolls are alive in this... *coughDenniscough* It's not bad or creepy at all in my humble opinion.

Lucky Star

Haha, I've been watching a lot of different anime lately, I just recently got three new anime series, Kimi ga Nozomu Eien, Gunslinger Girl, and Lucky Star. Out of the three, Lucky Star is my favorite right now, if you couldn't tell. Haha. Kimi ga Nozomu Eien is a bit depressing, it doesn't seem like most of my friends like it anyway. Gunslinger Girl, I have yet to get past episode one! I should soon though, but I'm pretty absorbed in Lucky Star. It references to Suzumiya Haruhi a lot! Haha, I heard Hare Hare Yukai like twice already. It's really fun and random! I love it. Plus the main character is an anime and video game freak! Haha, it's so awesome, if I could understand Japanese, I would probably be like, I know exactly what she's saying, most of the time. Haha, but I can understand her when they subtitled her like that anyway. Kona-chan, as she is called by her friends is plain awesome. Haha, I loved it when they put up the MMORPG chat, it was hilarious. ROFLSkATESBBQ~1 Anywho, the video I put up is the opening for the anime.

Kimi ga Nozomu Eien is a romance story depicting Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is based off a Virtual Novel video game. It's very dramatic and tragic and according to Jasmine Ngo, makes you "hate all the characters." It's probably because the anime has backstabber best friends and stuff, but I'm watching it because I downloaded it, I don't want to waste my 2 days of downloading for nothing. Lol. Anyway, the names are very reminescent of other anime! Haruka and Akane are sisters in it, and both names appear in Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome. Their last name Suzimiya, of course reminds me of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi! Plus, Suzumiya Haruhi and Suzumiya Haruka are both very similar names, but I suppose that doesn't really matter. Just pointing it out really. Haruka has the same seiyuu as Erstin Ho in Mai-Otome though! That was probably one of my only incentives to watch it, besides me having the opening songs which are also sung by the same seiyuu, Kuribayashi Minami. Also, is it just me, or does Haruka look strikingly similar to Kinomoto Sakura of CCS? :o I thought Yoshida Kazumi looked similar to Sakura as well... Coincidence? Maybe. :o

Don't know much about Gunslinger girl so far, except it's about a bunch of little girl assassins that were abandoned or something and have gone through some enhancements and trained to kill. Jasmine, one of my anime referencers and buddies, said that it was a very good anime, so I'm going to keep watching it. Haha, besides, it would be a waste to download and never watch. Henrietta seems pretty awesome though. Darn me though, watching too many girl anime! I should pull out Kiba which Dennis gave me a few weeks earlier, and start watching One Piece again. Anywho, if anyone has any suggestions for watching anime. Tell me pl0x! I'm bored in the summer, and have nothing better to do. Oh, and I'm going to use this post to set up some labels that I will probably talk about in the future! For future reference and stuff. Since I mentioned so much anime that I haven't talked about yet and love oh so dearly. :]

Mai-HiME Destiny

Wow, I've just read the first three chapters of Mai-HiME Destiny and it's pretty interesting! Though Mai has yet to make an appearance, the main character, Mayo is a strange character. The setting is almost practically the same as the original Mai-HiME, in Fuuka Academy, though it's on top of Hokkaido Mountain. Many of the returning characters also retain their personality traits, names, and positions in Destiny. It's great, Natsuki is awesome, Shizuru is uber strong, and Nao is as insightful as ever. Mayo is the one with pigtails and handcuffs, which bounds her hands together for some reason. Not even Mayo knows why. The handcuffs depict dragons biting their tails to make a circle, and not even Shizuru could break them with her uber strong MiKO skills.

MiKO are the new HiME, and they're psychic, which I have always found fascinating. My favorite type in Pokemon is Psychic, and one of my favorite characters in X-Men is Jean Grey, who is psychic. Well anywho, Mayo's MiKO powers are telekinesis! Which is pretty awesome, but it's interesting, when she fights her personality changes and she becomes a ruthless girl capable of total destruction. Unfortunately, when her personality changes, she can't seem to be able to remember anything while it happens, she probably has multiple personalities or something. She also seems to remember Shion, the girl with glasses that looks very similar to Chie, as her childhood friend. Although Shion denies it, or just simple doesn't remember it. Shion's MiKO powers are of Psychometry, which is pretty much being able to see the past of something by merely touching it, it's quite interesting. It has made Shion quite intuitive and intellegent. Natsuki, Nao, Shizuru, Yukino, Haruka, Akane, Aoi, Chie, Reito, Nagi, Takeda, and Fumi all return! I may have missed someone but oh well! Oh and strangely, guys can be MiKOs too, it's quite interesting. Takeda and Nagi have both exhibited psychic powers, though I'm not sure if they are considered MiKOs as well. I kind of hope they turn this into an anime! I would be very excited about it, they'll probably announce an anime of it if it's coming out after Mai-Otome Zwei finishes up. :]

Oh, I've been wanting to watch Shakugan no Shana for a while, and I'm finally going to get the chance soon! Haha, it seems interesting, though I'm not sure what it's about exactly yet. I like the openings, it seems like there's a lot of action in it. Shana seems like she is the main fighter, and the protagonist, Yuuji, I believe his name is, is probably just a bystander watching her fight or something. The anime is based off of the light novel, which is what Mai-HiME Destiny is right now, in the form of a light novel. Haha, light novels are basically novels with manga illustrations within them, it's pretty neat. I'm so glad I'm able to read Mai-HiME Destiny though, because I didn't think I was going to be able to. I'm thinking they should call Mai-HiME Destiny, Mai-MiKO, haha. I'm also hearing rumors that Mai is dead in Mai-HiME Destiny, I hope that's not true, she's probably going to appear sometime! Hopefully soon. Oh! I forgot to mention, there are also Mai-Otome characters in Destiny! Which is quite interesting, Mai-Otome characters in a Mai-HiME world, Tomoe was shown in one of the pictures, I wonder if she'll be as evil as she was in Mai-Otome. Haha.

I've been trying not to beat Velvet's Book so quickly in Odin Sphere, but I become so bored if I don't play. Which is probably why I'm blogging right now! :o Oh well though, I guess I should play it soon, I haven't played all day. Lol. I guess I'll be getting to that! I can't believe I'm on Chapter 6 of her book already though, it's crazy. I go way too fast. But I feel underleveled with Velvet for some reason, Oswald was almost at level 40 at Chapter 6 and my Velvet is only level 33 right now! Probably because I didn't have too much of a chance to level with Velvet getting captured by the Valkyries. Oh well, now I know what happened after Gwendolyn saved her from Brigan. Haha. Until next time I guess. *waves*

Tokiha Mai

*WARNING: Contains spoilers for Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome*
I'm bored again! So I'm going to blog about Mai-HiME (Or My-HiME if you prefer, but I like Mai-HiME better, even though My-HiME is the official name, lol.) since I don't blog enough about it, or anime in general! Haha, I love Mai-HiME, it's just so awesome. I think I'm going to blog about random characters when I have nothing to blog about on one day, though sometimes I'm going to forget to blog. So anywho, Mai, the main protagonist of Mai-HiME, and an important character in Mai-Otome is one of my most favorite characters in the whole franchise! Probably becuase she was the main character in Mai-HiME, and so she got a LOT of screen time and character growth. She didn't get a lot of screen time in Mai-Otome, though towards the end she did. Haha, I love Mai though, she's just an awesome character all around. I'm quite happy that she was featured very prominently in the first episode of Mai-Otome Zwei. Haha, which is probably why I liked the first episode so much. I'm not exactly sure if she is my favorite character, though she probably is. Haha, next to Shizuru! Though I like Natsuki too, and Akane, and Nao in Mai-Otome! Haha. Anywho, I'm just going to put up all the pictures I have of Mai up, probably because this is one of the only times I'm going to blog about her, and man, do I have a lot of pictures. xD

She's not the first character that I've known by the name of Mai, the first one was from Yu-Gi-Oh! Mai Valentine in the dubbed, Kujaku Mai in the original version. Haha, hey! I see where her surname came from, Kujakki means Peacock, so it's similar to Kujaku, in which Mai uses Harpy Ladies and such! :o Okay sorry, that was off topic. Lol. Haha, anywho, back to Tokiha Mai. In Mai-HiME, Mai is a very troubled girl who worries about everything, especially her little brother, Takumi, who has some kind of heart disease, though it isn't exactly stated what it is. Fortunately, yet unfortunately, Mai got a scholarship to Fuuka Academy, which is how Mai-HiME starts pretty much. The anime at least, the manga starts out quite differently. Anywho, at the Academy, she finds out that she's a HiME, Highly-Advanced Materializing Equipment which adds even more to her troubles because now she has to work and get money for Takumi's heart problem, and fight Orphans, as well as deal with the other HiMEs, especially the antagonistic ones like Nao. Also, she has to take care of Mikoto now as well, so that adds on, which builds up throughout the whole anime and causes a bunch of things to what the HiMEs were destined to do. Also, she starts dealing with love and romance in her life as well, from Kanzaki Reito romancing her, to falling in love with Tate Yuuichi. Mai-HiME meshed a bunch of genres together, haha. Which is partly why it's so good to me, there is romance, action, drama, comedy. It's great, makes the story and characters easier to follow and relate to, while at the same time adding supernatural and fantastic things to the story. I don't think Mai-HiME is a typical magical girl anime though, like Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura, it has more shounen elements than shoujo. Haha. I like CCS and Sailor Moon though, so I'm pretty odd, doesn't matter too much.

Haha, I've been wanting to buy the Mai-HiME manga for quite a while, though I've been reluctant because it's rated 18+. Which is odd of me, since I already read it online. I don't know why I'm so reluctant to buy it just because of the rating, I mean, I'm already 18! Haha, maybe it's because I'm so poor right now though. *shrug* Oh well, someone get me to buy it when I have money! I want to support the franchise. Haha. The more I support it, the more it will be brought here, even though I hate localizations most of the time, Bandai does a pretty good job with their DVDs, as I have them all. Haha, I only listen to the original Japanese voices though, I doubt I'll be able to stand hearing them in English after listening to them in Japanese for over a year. I heard a few bits of it in English and they just made me change it back to Japanese really fast. This is going to be a pretty long post actually, probably because of the pictures. Lol. I am writing quite a lot though probably because I want to fill in space for the pictures. Haha.

The manga is pretty good though! It's way different from the anime, I like it actually. With the manga, they are still HiMEs, but there isn't a fate that all of them will battle each other until there is only one left. Instead of Mai being the main character, Tate is and he is the transfer student instead of Mai. Takumi still has heart problems though, and eventually he "dies" in the manga, but turns out to be the Obsidian Prince instead of Reito, which kind of surprised me! Haha. Mai also turned out to be a QUEEN like Marie Antoinette and Yang Guifei. QUEEN stands for Quant Elemental Enchantress, which sounds cool. Haha, there are also PRINCESSes in the manga which stands for Perfect Realization of Independent Access. But I can explain that later for a character that is more relevant. Basically QUEENs are the most powerful HiME that exist, and not surprisingly, Mai is one. I mean she does have Kagutsuchi and was the most powerful HiME in the anime. She does become and antagonist for sometime in the manga, but that's only because of Takumi being evil and she doesn't want to oppose the brother that she has taken care of for most of her life. Her backstory is mostly the same as the anime, but the plot of the manga and anime diverge quite a bit. Strangely, I mostly have pictures of her HiME incarnation, haha.

Some of the art is from the PS2 video game actually, which I find absolutely gorgeous and just different from the anime in general. Haha, for Mai-Otome, she isn't so different from her HiME counterpart. Though she is dead in the manga, she was Mashiro's and Manshiro's mother with Tate, which is kind of strange. I'm sad that she doesn't get too much page time though. The anime is different! She is the princess of Zipang, while Takumi is the prince, but he still has his heart problem and is still being taken good care by Akira. However, this version of Mai is part of a Legend, which turns out to not be true at all! Which is funny, haha. Mai helps out Mashiro in her political affairs though, which is pretty cool. She also helps to fight against Nagi in the last episode, and against the strange Child in the beginning of the OVA. I forgot to mention that her Meister Robe is called the Fire String Ruby, and her Master is (accidentally) Mikoto, the Neko Kami-sama. xD

Mai is really the most powerful HiME there is in most of the incarnations, probably because of Kagutsuchi, haha. Kagutsuchi is awesome, I really like him, he's like a Phoenix/Dragon thing. It's really cool. Mai mostly controls fire in all of her incarnations. Her Elements are basically these rings with green jewels on them that allow her to fly and such. they're quite unique actually, I like her Element, though she never fought enough with them. Mostly defended. Mai wasn't a fighter in the anime, though she was in the manga because she fought with Natsuki a lot. xD She's a person that cares about others, and will do anything to protect her friends. Although she gets frustrated with all the problems in her life, she still remains the same in her ideals. Finally realizing that it's good to be true to yourself and your feelings. Haha, actually I think Mai really is my favorite character! If not, it's Shizuru, only because Shizuru is just plain awesome. Well, I think that's all the pictures I have, blah. I searched for some so I just added the amount of picures I wanted to add. Haha, oh well. I should go look for more for fun! I don't like taking up too much space on my computer though, but I've been saving pictures like mad for my blog. Lol. Oh well! I guess that's enough on Mai. :D I'll probably do a different character from something other than Mai-HiME next when I'm bored, maybe a video game one. Who knows? Whatever I feel like. Haha, it's like I wrote a Biography or something. :P Most of these pictures are from the official site of the PS2 video game, the official Mai-Otome website, and Wikipedia by the way.