Was bored, made a one-shot story based off a character concept I thought up last night. So I wrote something in 20 or so minutes and the critics (at least one of them) liked it so I decided to post it on my blog.
-----
The initial conditions for the story involve a typical disaster type scenario. Many decades before "current time" in the story, an asteroid falls to the earth without seeming to have much of an effect (it was a rather small asteroid). However upon further studying scientists discover a strange substance that resembled life, yet was not quite like that seen on Earth. Upon further studying the substance, scientists have concluded various interesting and curious properties of this mysterious alien "slime". The slime seems to be self-propagating and grows at a slow rate, similar to bacteria. Also, left alone, the slime will merely spread upon growing, creating an oozy like substance and grows very similarly to a Slime Mold. However, the structure and growth rate of the "slime" can be drastically changed with various voltage pulses not unlike action potentials in nerves. Furthermore, the slime seems to be able to have an accelerated evolution rate where it can rapidly engage in gene transfer, making it possible to adapt remarkably quickly to surrounding environments. However, despite such behaviors studied, the scientists concluded that much of it was too erratic to create any distinct conclusions. For example, one electric pulse can cause a sudden outgrowth of the slime; another of (seemingly) the exact same pulse will cause the slime to shrivel up and die.
Still, many (particularly pharmaceutical companies eager to profit from the unusual discovery) were hopeful for its healing properties. Unfortunately, it was not long before there was a catastrophic disaster that changed everyone's view of the "weird but harmless" alien slime.
One day on a rainy, stormy night, An averaged sized research center at a particular university was conducting studies as usual on the slime specimen when a blackout occurred. This did not seem anything out of the ordinary, but students regardless (being the foolish undergraduates that they are) panicked and began trying to find the source of the blackout, only to find shortly after the lights came back. For a moment they were relieved, but the relieved was to be short lived; for, when the blackout came back on, it delivered a sharp jolt to the machines they were using to stimulate the slime. Furthermore, one student had stumbled and spilled random chemicals. Having been exposed to such random and uncontrolled events, the slime, usually, and to everyone's horror, "exploded".
Exploded wasn't the right term, however the growth rate was remarkably phenomenal and the properties were just as amazing. The slime would change from solid to liquid in the matter of milliseconds, and essentially if any person was present when the slime was in solid form and it grew toward them, the effect was no different than as if they had just been shot or stabbed. The slime eventually grew out of control of the lab and wrecked the building, being exposed to the rainy and stormy night outside. Much to the despair of many, the rain and storm only stood to accelerate the growth and erratic nature of the slime, and eventually it plunged the entire city into chaos (har har pun).
Somewhere in the city a few hours earlier, a young girl, age 4 (or 5, who cares she's a loli) had just been escorted into a limousine along with her parents to visit a skyscraper that the father had recently funded. They were preparing to celebrate on the top of the skyscraper when suddenly, while traveling up the elevator, the building was struck with an immense impact. Immediately they could hear the collapse of the floor they had just past, and then another impact blasted straight through the elevator they were in. By some dumb luck the strike did not hit any of them. However, the tower was soon to fall, and the elevator they were in arched sideways with the hole to the exterior of the building inconveniently placed straight underneath them. The little girl tripped and fell into the gap-- but was caught by her father, struggling desperately to pull his daughter back to them.
And then something sharp slid by. The little girl only had a split second to realize something had sliced through the right arm that her father was holding, and struck straight into her mother. Then she lost consciousness.
Return again to a few minutes earlier. Up upon the same skyscraper, a helicopter had come down to pick up a graduate student. The graduate student had insisted that he should have gone on the plane but the pilot, who had just returned from the military and was proud of his achievement of winning some fancy award that showed how impressive his copter maneuvering abilities were, wanted to show how impressive he was. The student sighed as he boarded the plane with his suitcase, idly thinking that it MUST have been impressive if he could pick him up at a place like this, when then disaster struck. The building was hit and on a verge of collapse. Another blade of slime began heading straight for the helicopter when the pilot lifted up abruptly, causing the blade to miss. Certainly, the pilot picked no better of a time to show what stuff he can do.
The pilot himself was in a rather large pinch. He could not go too high because of the storm, yet staying closer to the ground presented the challenge of avoiding falling debris, not to mention random shots of slime flying out of nowhere. However his split second of indecision was broken after seeing a young child fall not too far from where currently was, and with his epic sense of heroism he goes and flies towards the girl, urging the student to extend his arms and catch her. The student, already having a hard time standing still in the copter, tried his best to grab hold of the one arm that was extending out to him, until by sheer dumb luck another blade of slime slid by and slashed off her other arm. Furthermore because of the blade the pilot had to pull back which send the student flying out of the copter.
The pilot cursed himself and flew down to catch the two. Meanwhile, the student extended his arms to the child and gripped on tightly. Although it was probably a bad time, he had realized something. Actually, two things: first, the girl now had no arms. The second was, amazingly, the arms were not bleeding. The student, who was thinking such thoughts when he was on the brink of life or death, was suddenly brought in back to the copter and hit the (relatively) soft seats with great gravitational force. The pilot, seeing that they were safe, flew off and managed, with all his awesome piloting skills, to escape the disaster safely.
With such a disaster it was natural that conducting studies of the slime was now prohibited... at least in public. However, as everyone knows, there are secret military projects and black market terrorist people now eager to get their hands on the slime, except, they don't really know how to use it. Therefore, with research publicly halted and even the top military and terrorist organizations baffled on how exactly the slime can be used as a weapon, eventually the fad died down and the slime event, aside from being a tragic disaster that destroyed an entire city, was slowly forgotten.
Except for two men and one girl.
Shortly after the event, the graduate student, who had been doing studies on the slime himself, thought about the situation of the girl. He was carrying a briefcase, and inside the briefcase... was a concentrated sample of the slime. Through connections with his pilot friend, he managed to carry out an amazing operation in a military lab: he fused the nerves of the amputated girl, at the amputation site, to the concentrated slime itself. The effect was amazing. The girl was able to use the slime to form new hands, and do even more. They could transform into wings (when the girl saw a bird in a picture), and then be retracted again as if she had no arms, then expanded to create as much as four arms, or even more. But a year or two passed and the military still contained her within the lab rooms. The original pilot, with his noble sense of heroness, thought this was outrageous and proposed an outbreak with his student friend, who already distrusted the military for their desire to use such research in such a manner (he was much more insistent of this being a medical breakthrough than to use it to make super powered soldiers).
And so, the broke out. How convenient.
After that the military tried searching for them as much as possible, especially since they couldn't replicate the student's achievements. But these two guys were awesome and didn't get caught.
10 years later, There is a science teacher at a particular high school that is known to be strict and unforgiving. Always unusually precise in his experimental lectures and stringent on the knowledge he thinks students should know for the class, many students dislike him. One girl in particular was feeling rather spiteful for the low test she had received recently.
She was feeling specially spiteful because the teacher was her (adopted) father.
She couldn't understand why her father couldn't be more like her uncle, who had a freeflowing spirit and brought her on adventures. She also couldn't understand why her father was so stringent on keeping her "secret power" low. Of course she understands its dangerous if people knew about her secret, but because of this, she could be a real Magical Girl!! Just like the shows she sees on TV which her father occasionally watches!!
Of course, she thought, it could be due to the extensive amount of frilly things she likes to by, which makes her father stringent on cash and her uncle bankrupt and looking for jobs all the time. But that was okay, because when uncle was bankrupt and looking for jobs there were more adventures to have!
For example, last night she had to sneak into a ballroom dance for rich people! It was really pretty and exciting there! But of course, they weren't there for just the party and treats, although she had a lot of fun dressing up really nicely and acting as if she was treated like a rich girl. But no, actually, they were there to investigate a terrorist meeting that was located in a room within the same building. There was cool fighting involved and she got to show off her powers! And then the bad guys were arrested!
...So she recalled as she slept in class, drooling and giggling foolishly while the science teacher gave her a look of disdain.
28.4.09
26.4.09
Ga Rei Zero
Initially I wasn't going to do a write up for this series. I actually didn't know if I would even be able to finish the series, seeing how I dropped Kurenai, but it turns out I actually liked the series quite a bit. I have no idea why, but it might have to do with the girls turning into monsters.
I'll go over the basic review details really briefly. Essentially, the anime has impressive fight scenes, decently drawn characters and obligatory-but-not-really fanservice scenes. It also has an awesome intro song which I liked. But the main reason I wanted to blog something about the series is because of the whole concept of one of the main heroines ending up turning into a demon herself. Anyway blah blah spoiler warning blah blah although I think that's too late, but then again you find this out in the first/second episode anyway so its not really that big of a spoiler. (Althought I was quite annoyed how they start with all the action and then cut to happy happy peaceful life, but I suppose this is appropriate for the series).
At first, one would think that Yomi accepted the evil stone thingy on whim, because she was in despair and so the evil shota took advantage of it and turned her into a demon. But as the series went on, and more is revealed, I think (and possibly what the authors were trying to convey) was that there was really another reason why Yomi took the stone, and it was indeed to the benefit of... that other girl (who btw I thought was kind of annoying, she should have turned into a demon instead :V). Essentially from the time she killed pink haired girl to the time she accepted the stone, Yomi was completely helpless and was completely dependent on others for survival. In some way, this would have hindered others because of her form and their attachment to her, especially to that younger sister character. In the end, it seemed like who she really hated was not the sister but herself, but she couldn't do anything about it because of her state. So instead she accepted the stone and did bad stuff.
But in a way even though all that bad stuff was, uh, bad, it was also (possibly intentionally?) letting younger sister (lets call her imoto from now on, because I forgot her name) mature and grow stronger. Sort of like, accelerating her growth to become a better demon slayer. Of course, Yomi didn't like this solution that Mr. Stone came up with at all, and tried to end it herself, but if that had happened then imoto wouldn't have been able to become stronger. It's because, as imoto's father had stated, imoto has to bear all sorts of emotions if she wants to be truly strong, including the feeling of having to kill her own onee-chan in order to do so. I believe this is what the last episode was trying to say all along.
Yes this is sort of a twisted conclusion. But then again some people (coughPJBWcough) think the entire series is twisted in itself. But oh well. Watch out for brain-eating squishies taking over pretty girlies now. :V
I'll go over the basic review details really briefly. Essentially, the anime has impressive fight scenes, decently drawn characters and obligatory-but-not-really fanservice scenes. It also has an awesome intro song which I liked. But the main reason I wanted to blog something about the series is because of the whole concept of one of the main heroines ending up turning into a demon herself. Anyway blah blah spoiler warning blah blah although I think that's too late, but then again you find this out in the first/second episode anyway so its not really that big of a spoiler. (Althought I was quite annoyed how they start with all the action and then cut to happy happy peaceful life, but I suppose this is appropriate for the series).
At first, one would think that Yomi accepted the evil stone thingy on whim, because she was in despair and so the evil shota took advantage of it and turned her into a demon. But as the series went on, and more is revealed, I think (and possibly what the authors were trying to convey) was that there was really another reason why Yomi took the stone, and it was indeed to the benefit of... that other girl (who btw I thought was kind of annoying, she should have turned into a demon instead :V). Essentially from the time she killed pink haired girl to the time she accepted the stone, Yomi was completely helpless and was completely dependent on others for survival. In some way, this would have hindered others because of her form and their attachment to her, especially to that younger sister character. In the end, it seemed like who she really hated was not the sister but herself, but she couldn't do anything about it because of her state. So instead she accepted the stone and did bad stuff.
But in a way even though all that bad stuff was, uh, bad, it was also (possibly intentionally?) letting younger sister (lets call her imoto from now on, because I forgot her name) mature and grow stronger. Sort of like, accelerating her growth to become a better demon slayer. Of course, Yomi didn't like this solution that Mr. Stone came up with at all, and tried to end it herself, but if that had happened then imoto wouldn't have been able to become stronger. It's because, as imoto's father had stated, imoto has to bear all sorts of emotions if she wants to be truly strong, including the feeling of having to kill her own onee-chan in order to do so. I believe this is what the last episode was trying to say all along.
Yes this is sort of a twisted conclusion. But then again some people (coughPJBWcough) think the entire series is twisted in itself. But oh well. Watch out for brain-eating squishies taking over pretty girlies now. :V
25.4.09
Fruit Flies and Computers
The day when computers know what flies are thinking...
http://mr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR13247.html
http://mr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR13247.html
Akikan
ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT THE ENTIRE CONCEPT SOUNDS RIDICULOUSLY STUPID, its not as bad as it could have been.
Either that or I've just been watching too many of these kinds of shows.
In summary, the last Akikan that shows up can pretty much summarize the entire series: A mix of a bunch of random elements put together in hopes it can become a somewhat decent show. And actually it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I mean, its definately not any good and not a series I'd recommend to anyone, but it could have been worse. Much worse.
...Although as long as the moe isn't gone I probably would have still watched it.
YES WELL ANYWAY IF I WERE A CANNED DRINK I'D BE ORANGE JUICE BECAUSE I wouldn't be too sweet or too concentrated, but not exactly clean and watery either. A bit sour at times but in a pleasant way, not offensive. A very common and nutritious juice drink.
...And I realize this "review" has not really much review qualities at all... ok lets add some:
-The character design of Melon is really cute but her personality is a bit bland for a tsundere. Its like, wanna-be tsundere but not.
-Grape girly is cute. Especially with her hair down :3
-Perverted childhood friend is funny.
EDIT: AKIKAN WAS BASED OFF A LIGHT NOVEL. No wonder the series is better than it sounds.
Either that or I've just been watching too many of these kinds of shows.
In summary, the last Akikan that shows up can pretty much summarize the entire series: A mix of a bunch of random elements put together in hopes it can become a somewhat decent show. And actually it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I mean, its definately not any good and not a series I'd recommend to anyone, but it could have been worse. Much worse.
...Although as long as the moe isn't gone I probably would have still watched it.
YES WELL ANYWAY IF I WERE A CANNED DRINK I'D BE ORANGE JUICE BECAUSE I wouldn't be too sweet or too concentrated, but not exactly clean and watery either. A bit sour at times but in a pleasant way, not offensive. A very common and nutritious juice drink.
...And I realize this "review" has not really much review qualities at all... ok lets add some:
-The character design of Melon is really cute but her personality is a bit bland for a tsundere. Its like, wanna-be tsundere but not.
-Grape girly is cute. Especially with her hair down :3
-Perverted childhood friend is funny.
EDIT: AKIKAN WAS BASED OFF A LIGHT NOVEL. No wonder the series is better than it sounds.
23.4.09
19.4.09
Zettai Karen Children
About 70% comedy, 20% moe, and 10% shonen, from my observations. A good combination, and works for a 50+ episode series; albeit its hard to make a 50+ episode series without a good portion of it being comedy, regardless of how good it is.
The characterization and personality of the characters, as well as its development, is really good. Consequently, since the series is quite long, it should be obvious that the show either has A. a lot of characters (which is something like Hayate no Gotoku) or B. the characters go through some character development phase. After all, you can only stand a bratty character for so long. Zettai Karen Children still had a lot of characters and appeals to a lot of audiences (although mainly towards lolikons for the most obvious reason), but still, character development was very good imo. Well, maybe sometimes there were some annoyances, such as slight mushy moments and the whole issue with the scientist otaku (I did not like that part but that's more of a personal opinion and quite honestly it works out well, plus the guy got more appearances after he defected).
Plotwise, you can't expect too much since its a 51 episode series, but it seems that each episode, whether filler or not, had some bit of character development and/or overall arching plot, plus the whole non-seriousness of the entire show made it much more entertaining to watch. Some people may disagree, but the sudden comedic moods that interrupt the serious moments are excellent. It's so much fun to see a serious looking evil guy's face and then suddenly a random squirrel makes a snide remark and they start fighting, completely ignoring the heroines in front of them...
The music (both OP and ED) was good for two reasons.
1. The OP songs are sung by genuine lolis. As sad as this seems, you must watch the video to understand how CUTE they are.
2. Since Aya Hirano plays the main character in Zettai Karen Children, she's also one of the singers for the ED. Nothing more needs to be said.
Although I mostly just like the OP. However, I did like the ED for the first quarter of the show, it was the best ED imo.
Since there are quite a lot of characters in the show, there must be the obligatory CHARACTERS I LIKED:
1. Shiho, probably because the main leader of the team is spunky and a main leader, and the other character WOULD have been fine but the megane takes off points. But Shiho has a good sadistic side and the best power (IMO) in the team so I like her out of the three the best.
2. Naomi, aka moebait. Plus yandere at no extra charge. If you watch the show at all you will know exactly why she is moebait.
3. Akira is my favorite guy character in terms of entertainment. Dude, how can you not like a guy with a cool power that replaces the mind of other animals with his own AND vice versa... making his main body twirl in circles going "tweet tweet"...
4. The leader of the Hounds team (Red haired girl) is very cute.
5. Minamoto's old girlfriend is cute too. Better than the main character in the team. :(
6. The scientist otaku WOULD be cool if he wasn't such a weak guy (mentally). I like his skills.
Ah yes as a final comment, I like how characters in Zettai Karen Children were not all about having special powers that can only beat up the opponent. In particular, of the main trio only one can actually do physical direct damage (yes albeit she is superpowered main character), while the others have what looks like lame super powers at first, however they can use their powers cleverly and indirectly damage opponents. With it the team becomes quite impressive. Not only that, characters that seem to have awesome powers that do direct damage is actually a collection of multiple ESP skills that are combined together cleverly to make a character seem like a stronger type of character, such as the wolf girl. Although I like the guy beside her better, because his role is quite entertaining.
The characterization and personality of the characters, as well as its development, is really good. Consequently, since the series is quite long, it should be obvious that the show either has A. a lot of characters (which is something like Hayate no Gotoku) or B. the characters go through some character development phase. After all, you can only stand a bratty character for so long. Zettai Karen Children still had a lot of characters and appeals to a lot of audiences (although mainly towards lolikons for the most obvious reason), but still, character development was very good imo. Well, maybe sometimes there were some annoyances, such as slight mushy moments and the whole issue with the scientist otaku (I did not like that part but that's more of a personal opinion and quite honestly it works out well, plus the guy got more appearances after he defected).
Plotwise, you can't expect too much since its a 51 episode series, but it seems that each episode, whether filler or not, had some bit of character development and/or overall arching plot, plus the whole non-seriousness of the entire show made it much more entertaining to watch. Some people may disagree, but the sudden comedic moods that interrupt the serious moments are excellent. It's so much fun to see a serious looking evil guy's face and then suddenly a random squirrel makes a snide remark and they start fighting, completely ignoring the heroines in front of them...
The music (both OP and ED) was good for two reasons.
1. The OP songs are sung by genuine lolis. As sad as this seems, you must watch the video to understand how CUTE they are.
2. Since Aya Hirano plays the main character in Zettai Karen Children, she's also one of the singers for the ED. Nothing more needs to be said.
Although I mostly just like the OP. However, I did like the ED for the first quarter of the show, it was the best ED imo.
Since there are quite a lot of characters in the show, there must be the obligatory CHARACTERS I LIKED:
1. Shiho, probably because the main leader of the team is spunky and a main leader, and the other character WOULD have been fine but the megane takes off points. But Shiho has a good sadistic side and the best power (IMO) in the team so I like her out of the three the best.
2. Naomi, aka moebait. Plus yandere at no extra charge. If you watch the show at all you will know exactly why she is moebait.
3. Akira is my favorite guy character in terms of entertainment. Dude, how can you not like a guy with a cool power that replaces the mind of other animals with his own AND vice versa... making his main body twirl in circles going "tweet tweet"...
4. The leader of the Hounds team (Red haired girl) is very cute.
5. Minamoto's old girlfriend is cute too. Better than the main character in the team. :(
6. The scientist otaku WOULD be cool if he wasn't such a weak guy (mentally). I like his skills.
Ah yes as a final comment, I like how characters in Zettai Karen Children were not all about having special powers that can only beat up the opponent. In particular, of the main trio only one can actually do physical direct damage (yes albeit she is superpowered main character), while the others have what looks like lame super powers at first, however they can use their powers cleverly and indirectly damage opponents. With it the team becomes quite impressive. Not only that, characters that seem to have awesome powers that do direct damage is actually a collection of multiple ESP skills that are combined together cleverly to make a character seem like a stronger type of character, such as the wolf girl. Although I like the guy beside her better, because his role is quite entertaining.
18.4.09
Academia News
Though the application date is still far away, its good to have an idea of what kind of research is going on in a school one might be going to. Time to time I will now be posting news that is relevant to my interests, mostly as a place for future reference in case I need to go back and see what the school had been up to but also in case people are interested in seeing what kind of interesting research is going on. It will mostly be pertaining to biology/biological engineering type material, though.
Viruses building Batteries:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/virus-battery-0402.html
Protein model and design:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/designer-protein-0415.html
How cooperation supports evolution!
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/yeast-games-0406.html
Ah, what better life it is to watch anime while reading about science news while the OP song rolls by!
Viruses building Batteries:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/virus-battery-0402.html
Protein model and design:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/designer-protein-0415.html
How cooperation supports evolution!
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/yeast-games-0406.html
Ah, what better life it is to watch anime while reading about science news while the OP song rolls by!
17.4.09
If I wasn't a science major...
...I'd be writing textbook chapters like these.
http://www.corneredangel.com/amwess/papers/sleeping_beauty.doc
ITS GOOD PEOPLE! READ IT! READ IT NOW!
EDIT: BTW Personally I think Uta Kata is a MUCH better representation of maturation than CCS but CCS is more worldly renowned. And accepted, for that matter.
CCS isn't bad at all though.
http://www.corneredangel.com/amwess/papers/sleeping_beauty.doc
ITS GOOD PEOPLE! READ IT! READ IT NOW!
EDIT: BTW Personally I think Uta Kata is a MUCH better representation of maturation than CCS but CCS is more worldly renowned. And accepted, for that matter.
CCS isn't bad at all though.
16.4.09
Zettai Karen Children (Unfinished)
SHIHO HAS THE BEST ZETTAI RYOUIKI OUT OF ALL THE THREE GIRLS.
...which makes you wonder, how exactly can you classify differences between Zettai Ryouiki... WELL IT DOESN'T MATTER SHIHO IS SUPERIOR REGARDLESS.
Although why is her hair all messy when she's in adult form :( Why can't it be short poofy and cute like her regular form :(.
OH YES WILDCAT YANDERE IS MOEBAIT TOO
...which makes you wonder, how exactly can you classify differences between Zettai Ryouiki... WELL IT DOESN'T MATTER SHIHO IS SUPERIOR REGARDLESS.
Although why is her hair all messy when she's in adult form :( Why can't it be short poofy and cute like her regular form :(.
OH YES WILDCAT YANDERE IS MOEBAIT TOO
8.4.09
FMP LA?
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-04-07/mandalay-pictures-licenses-full-metal-panic-film-rights
Not exactly a big FMP fan, but I am amused. If they can manage to get 1/10th of...that white haired girl (goddammit I FORGOT HER NAME)'s moeness I will applaud.
Not exactly a big FMP fan, but I am amused. If they can manage to get 1/10th of...that white haired girl (goddammit I FORGOT HER NAME)'s moeness I will applaud.
6.4.09
Update
As you can see I am now conducting research which investigates the habitat and livelihood of endangered species existing in the World Wide Web. Follow the links on the side for more information.
Should anyone provide additional sources which could aid in my groundbreaking research, your support is heartily appreciated. Thank you! I will cite you in my future Nature publications and be sure to acknowledge your name when I am making my speech for my Nobel Prize.
Should anyone provide additional sources which could aid in my groundbreaking research, your support is heartily appreciated. Thank you! I will cite you in my future Nature publications and be sure to acknowledge your name when I am making my speech for my Nobel Prize.
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