The Paradox of Kotori

Being lethargic at work and uninspired to finish projects can lead to random distractions and thoughts such as this.

There's a description of Kotori inside My Anime List as having the main character, Juinichi, become a good friend of Kotori mainly because Juinichi doesn't idolize her. Of course, this leads him to have the idealistic relationship with the idol just because he looks at her as "normal" and, well, of course you get the idea. The paradox comes into the play when we play the character Juinichi (or follow his adventures along in the anime or something) and then grow attached to Kotori, eventually reaching the point which Kotori was always trying to avoid: we begin idolizing her. (My own blog was a partial victim to this.) So here, we're playing a game with a character that's only able to become friends with her because he acts cool and DOESN'T idolize her, and then us players in the background say "Hay Kotori is cute!" And eventually we get pulled into her moe and at some point we become no different than the faceless fanboys inside the game itself, who sees Kotori as this majestic moe beauty that can sing like a siren, causing many to worship her.

So, it becomes somewhat embarassing as a Kotori fan that, the one thing Kotori doesn't want, is us being a fan of her. And yet, its because of Kotori's traits that we ARE fans of her. So, which is truer devotion to Kotori? To worship her like an idol which she doesn't want, or to not worship her which then we pretty much do not acknowledge her at all?

...Maybe this is why in the anime Juinichi does not go after Kotori. :V

Let's consider if I WERE actually playing Juinichi inside the game, but as myself. Would the scenario be different? Most likely. I imagine that my own character would not be the type to go and worship any character seriously and (since in this point I will not know Kotori's true colors) although I would find Kotori cute I probably would not approach her or make any contact with her. Unless its an accident, which happens to Juinichi. Well, maybe, if its an accidental encounter like that, it might be able to work. But for the most part I think Kotori would just be a character I'd miss, just like that potential girl in high school I MIGHT have dated if I by chance ran into her accidentally and started becoming friends!

...probably not.

This paradox makes my head go in circles. Da Capo. Well, it certainly has a new deeper meaning now. Then again these games act so serious at times but are meant to not be taken seriously. And yet there are people who take these visual novels way too seriously.


ARGH! PARADOXES! *explode*

Deep Brain Stimulation

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090529/full/news.2009.529.html?s=news_rss

Project RUBY will soon be upon us! Mwahaha...

The woes of nanotechnology

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/n7246/full/459486b.html

"Goddammit its not coming out of my body again!"

This is really not needed, but I must post for ego-tripping sake.

http://www.moetron.com/2009/05/21/new-haruhi-episode-finally-airs-screenshots-available/

To the anime pessimists and KyoAni haters/ranters of the world, one word:

OWNED

EDIT: now to just wait for the next Haruhi book to come out, which has been on the list for like 2 years already but still no word of its release... :3

Caltech event thing

This sounds quite cool.

http://events.caltech.edu/events/event-5528.html

....:V

http://kotaku.com/5254215/activision-introduces-science-papa-no-relation

Umm... Umm... WELL THEY'RE TRYING, IT MIGHT BE GOOD.

I should show my support for such games! Someone buy me this for my birthday.

Computer Science

My fansubbed anime and EFZ Replays can now be saved FOREVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl803800c

Imagine how useful this will be to archeologists millions of years in the future!

Absolutely...

Random thought:

If Macross F ever comes to the US and they decide to overdub the music for whatever amazing reason...

They should use Taylor Swift for Sheryl's music.

Even better, have her voice Sheryl.

BTW, my blog looks TERRIBLE on a cell phone. TERRIBLE.

Some Meme Thing

According to the prompt:

Comment to this entry and I'll pick three of your fandoms. You must then update your journal and answer the following questions:

01: What got you into this fandom in the first place?
02: Do you think you'll stay in this fandom or eventually move on?
03: Favorite episodes/books/movies/etc.?
04: Do you participate in this fandom (fanfiction, graphics, discussions)?
05: Do you think that more people should get into this fandom?

And so the three choices that were chosen for me were:

Pokemon
1. Some time in middle school, people started talking about it. My first impression was that it was some kind of tomogachi game. I have this memory of me being in McDonalds seeing someone playing Pokemon Red before I got into the fad but I don't quite know if that's a real memory or just my imagination.
2. Its always possible to move on in the fandom. But at the current moment I guess it will be staying. Though I personally think it's been much weaker than it has been before.
3. My favorite pokemon is Diglett. :V
4. I am not really a contributor, of any sorts, in terms of fandom anyway.
5. Well, if it means more people I can play Pokemon against, then yes. But I wouldn't be a missionary out to convert anyone or anything. :V

Air (or anything Key related)
1. Watched the anime on fansub. It was pretty so it attracted me. Then it had a good story so it moved me.
...I'm pretty simplistic like that.
2. On one hand, AIR imo really WAS a good series compared to other anime I've watched so I don't think it will fade from my mind that easily, even if I find a better series. On the other I've been playing EFZ for so long I don't think that would let me forget AIR either, since my main char is Misuzu...
3. EFZ is pretty funny game. Especially after you cried to AIR, then play it and be like "...what the hell"
4. Again, I'm not really a contributor unless playing a doujinshi game where the number of characters outnumber the number of players in North America counts.
5. I WILL try to tell whoever I befriend and is willing to watch anime to at least try watching AIR. I'm actually quite persistent in that, though I don't want to sound pushy. But generally if I made a new friend who watches anime, one of the first anime I will ever suggest, besides ones that actually suit their tastes, is AIR.

FF6
1. My friend gave me a hand-me-down PS and some burned games. One of them was FF6. :V
2. Well, I'm not exactly obsessed with FF6 right now, though I do want to get the Game Boy version... I'd say I'm more obsessed with Seiken Densetsu 3, or more specifically, the character design of one of the characters (Riesz) but that's just because... uh... just because.....well her fanart is everywhere and she suits my tastes-- OH DAMMIT ITS JUST BECAUSE SHE'S MOE
3. Lessee my favorite character would be Gau because he's funny and Relm because she's a loli that kills with a paintbrush.
4. Unless you consider me trying to make Relm the ULTIMATE CHARACTER IN FF6 a contribution, no not really.
5. Ummm.... I'm trying to get into FF13 soon :V I sense a pink haired moe...

The three fandoms she originally chose (Moe things, more moe things, even more moe things) was more accurate, but she changed that I suppose just because... wait, why DID she change that? She obviously had the right idea in the beginning. >.> <.<

Stuff is coming out!! (what is it what is it ewwwww)

http://www.moetron.com/2009/05/07/pokemon-gold-and-silver-ds-remakes-confirmed/

Obligatory Pokemon announcement.


http://kotaku.com/5245006/segas-sakura-wars-finally-coming-stateside-but-not-from-sega

Another reason to get a PS3 soon!!!

Material scIence Topics

Graphene
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/graphene-feature-0504.html

Electrospinning nanofibers
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/electrospun-fibers-0505.html

Da Capo IF

Kotori is my Goddess.

I'm stealing news from other sites.

http://zepy.momotato.com/2009/05/01/konami-is-serious-about-love-plus/

THIS IS FREAKIN AWESOME I AM SO SAD I CANNOT UNDERSTAND JAPANESE AND THE LIKELIHOOD OF THIS COMING TO THE US IS SIMILAR TO THE CHANCE THAT THE SUN WILL SHIFT ITS GRAVITATIONAL FORCE AND DRAW THE EARTH INTO OBLIVION.

:(

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2009-05-01/warners-brothers-acquires-live-action-death-note-rights

Dude, its like, Japanese Anime steal the ideas from Manga Artists and Light Novelists, and now US Movies are stealing the ideas from Japanese Anime!

Conclusion: With the advance of the economic crisis Manga Artists and Light Novelists are now the cornerstone of the visual entertainment industry. :V

A Girl Without Arms

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.

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

Fruit Flies and Computers

The day when computers know what flies are thinking...

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.

Cancer

PHD Comics strip worth reading!

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1162

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

Chemistry is Everywhere

Gamers being forced to memorize the periodic table at school, fear no more!

http://kotaku.com/5167821/the-periodic-table-of-video-game-characters

http://kotaku.com/5189388/now-the-periodic-table-of-controllers

I still need that periodic table of moe I posted a while ago. :(

True Tears

This will be a blog post about chickens. True Tears is remarkably emo and a pain to watch through but it does have chickens. So I will talk about chickens.

From here on if you haven't watched the anime you'll have no idea what I'm talking about.


The symbolism behind the chickens seems pretty confusing, but I THINK the purpose is that Raigomaru is the main protagonist, while Ground is supposed to be Noe. The concept of "Flying" is the courage to engage in a relationship... not necessarily with each other (the two chickens, that is), but just the act of trying to confess or be in a relationship itself. The story that the protagonist develops is a symbolic depiction of how the plot of the entire series goes along. With that concept in mind, let's observe how the story goes.
First lets begin with the assumption that the protagonist and Noe have not met yet, or in chicken form, Raigomaru and Ground have not met yet. Rai does not know of his ambitions to fly to the sky, though he can feel it. It is only after they met that Rai begins feeling he should try flying into the sky. Likewise, the protagonist is a coward and a despicable idiot (not implying any personal biases here, nope~) and realizes that he holds feelings for Hiromi, the girl he likes. He also realizes that Hiromi is sad, and wants to do something about it, but he doesn't. This not being able to do anything for the one he loves is the concept of wanting to fly but shows no ambition to fly. After Rai meets Ground (protagonist meets Noe), suddenly he feels more ambitious and wants to fly. It was through the conflict of the protagonist meeting Noe that the stalling between the protagonist and Hiromi finally got on a move. Many things began to happen, and both Hiromi and the protagonist realize they can't just sit around being idle forever. These "many things happening" is the storm that happens in the protagonist's story. Its only after the storm occurs that Rai realizes he wants to try to fly. Likewise its only after all these confusing and conflicting events that the protagonist begins getting ambitious.
However, despite gaining the ambition to fly, things stop him. Rai looks at the ground and finds that Ground is eating food at the ground, so he stops to eat too. Likewise, the protagonist is supposed to look at Hiromi and solve her problems, but ends up looking at Noe (Ground) and tries to deal with her instead. This causes even more problems (the second storm that occurs in the story). At that point, Ground changes and wants to fly too. This could be seen in Ground's restlessness in the second storm. Ground then attempts to fly but ends up hurting himself. Likewise, it was when Noe realizes her feelings were true that she wants to try to approach the protagonist, but its hard for her since she doesn't know how to deal with it. Not only that, she realizes afterwards that the protagonist isn't looking at her; the sky isn't with Noe, its with Hiromi. (For Noe, the sky is with the protagonist, ie you can say she's "looking up" to the protagonist) In the end, Ground is still on the ground and looks to the sky someday to fly, while Rai succeeds finally in taking off and flies away like any bird that's not a chicken.

This seems fairly reasonable enough. By the way, chickens can't shed tears. Therefore the tears are involving a whole different symbolism (probably more with Hiromi), but chickens are cooler than tears.

eufonius is good music. I hope they come for AX 2010/2011/2012 (this is to extend my previous wish for eufonius to come to AX earlier like 3 years ago :( ).

Stats, Protagonists, and Bombs

Akuun accidentally mentioned suggested that I should put this in my blog for random convo purposes.

*bonked on head*

Akuun didn't want me to reveal 66% of the conversation ;o;

Older Brothers

Side-character Onii-chans are inherrently cool because they are RESPONSIBLE, which is something usually the protagonists lack.

Similarly, because the protagonists typically lack RESPONSIBILITY, protagonists that are onii-chans are usually TERRIBLE PEOPLE.

I guess it could be similarly stated that imotos that are side characters are usually innocent and naive about the world while imotos that are protagonists are more aware and want to be more prominent and responsible (like their onii-chan!), but in this case both are still moe.

ACTUALLY I think in general there is just a terrible amount of typical male protagonists out there. Sigh.

YOU KNOW WHAT

I think anime girls with long or semi-long gray hair that's tied back (but not upright in a ponytail) are cute when they are shy. And young.

O:

*adds factor to Moeology*

LOOKINTHESKY

Will JPop and idol songs in the future be looked at the same way Chinese Opera is looked at in modern times? Not that Chinese Opera is looked down upon, just "peculiar" to some people...

...Actually JPop is already considered "peculiar" by many.

Negima Reading

http://zepy.momotato.com/2009/03/14/an-increasing-shift-in-readership-for-negima/

For a harem manga with 40+ girls, most of which are in middle school, I am slightly amused.

Chaos; head (unfinished)

The main character. is. an. IDIOT

Someone told me he'll get better as the series goes along, but its episode 9 and I seem to hate him more and more. Sure, in 3 episodes he'll probably go awesome and suddenly become a hero in spite of all his stupidity but at this point even if he becomes a hero I just think he's a hypocrite that should die to his imoto even if the bad guys win if that happens.

Special A

OMG YUUKO GOTO WAS HIKARI?!?? HOLY CRAP I COULD NOT NOTICE AT ALL


... that's all I really wanted to say about this series. :V I wasn't planning to blog about it at all since it wasn't anything amazing. It did turn out, however, better than it started off. I thought the beginning episodes were quite lame, but it got much better as the series went along. Or maybe I just got used to it. The comedy was funny though. Comedy is always good.

There are no Megumi CGs/fanart/etc anywhere. :( I am very sad. Megumi was my only source of moe and the sole reason I kept watching the anime in the beginning. SHE DESERVES MORE CREDIT FOR HER MOENESS FOR KEEPING ME WITH THIS ok SERIES!!

BTW the main character TOTALLY sounds like a clone of Lelouche. Not surprisingly, they have the same seiyuu.

Also, Rosario and Vampire 2 is making me orz, but the intro is so pretty @.@... elbow gloves!!! I think the intro is the only reason I'm actually still watching this second season of this rather mediocre show...

Plus the Special A manga seems lamer than the show. The manga is requiring even stronger Megumi-moe f0rce power for me to read through it. Ah, I guess in some cases the anime really is better than the manga.

WHERE ARE MY MEGUMI PICS D: DANBOORU YOU FAIL ME

Resumes vs CVs

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1138

THIS IS RELEVANT BECAUSE TODAY I WENT FOR CAREER ADVISING AND THEY BASICALLY TOLD ME THE SAME THING

Strike Witches

I finished this series a while ago and didn't make a write up on it, though I think I should give a few opinions on it. It has moe, after all.

First and foremost, I stand firmly in my belief that Sky Girls is overall better than Strike Witches. Sky Girls came first; I checked the dates on Wikipedia, so I'm absolutely sure about it. The OVA was the first to come out for Sky girls, which then the novels for Strike witches came out. I think then the TV series for Sky Girls came out followed by the Strike Witches OVA + series... regardless, Sky Girls came out first, Sky Girls was more moe, and Sky Girls had better characters/plot/etc.

That being said, Strike Witches was still moe, therefore I still must give it credit for being pretty good imo.

The weak point in Strike Witches, imo, was the overall plot of this whole Neuroi thing. The mere concept of aliens and magical girls in a scenario before WWII is just totally like, "wtf?" :V. About as WTF as a soda can turning into a girl, but lets not go there yet since I haven't watched that anime. Well it doesn't matter, the mass approves of moeness of all types, and I am part of the masses. Indeed, the character designs are very nice and appealing, which always makes the fanservice more *cough* tolerable (because we all know if we don't like the character or its designs, the fanservice can just exacerbate the visual pains...). Character personality as well has been fine-tuned to match moeness of each character, albeit some of the characters' personalities seem faulty at times.
The setting and theme is weak, like the plotline, so that it's not really worth watching if one wants any substance. It's visually appealing and can provide for some good sense of cuddly warmth without the icky emoness that's usually associated with romance-type series. And, according to my mecha-based friend, it has decent enough battle scenes that can even keep the mecha fan entertained, as so long as he can tolerate having a pantsu shot every 3 seconds in the battle. With that all in mind, its no wonder its quite a popular series: 60% moe, 40% action, and 0% plot! What can be better.
Music wise its mediocre. I realize a lot of music has been rather mediocre lately; perhaps the better songs are just somewhere else in the anime world? Well Gundam SEED and SEED Destiny had good music (and that's about the ONLY good thing about the series) so I guess they're there, somewhere.

CHARACTERS I LIKE:
1. LYNNE-CHAN (As if you couldn't tell from my previous Strike Witches post)
2. That night-watch girl that's always sleepy and wears black knee socks. O:
3. Amazingly, that one silent tsundere girl who has a younger sister in the hospital. At first I didn't think she was my type but when she became more "open" I thought she was pretty funny for her military-ness. :V It was quite cute, especially the part when her sister wakes up. "CHAAARRRRRGGEEEEEEEE" *points towards her destination*
4. I guess the white knee socks girl that's the friend of the sleepy black knee socks girl. She's kind of cute, but I think her personality and her voice are a bit... "fake" so to speak. Or maybe just the voice. Although her char design is kind of nice.

Anyway I made this post since it was recently announced that Strike Witches is getting a second season. Good going, especially since Sky Girls already had 24 episodes. More moe is always welcome. Still, you'd have to do some serious amping in plot and character development/personality to match Sky Girls. :( Maybe I'm being too stringent as a Sky Girls fanboy...

Mokke

Ever since I slowed down on playing Disgaea I've been finishing random anime series here and there, but mostly been too lazy to write anything about them. However, since I really liked Mokke and it's not really known, I thought I should make a post or something about it. The aspects of Mokke remind me somewhat of Aria, although Mokke definately has more of a supernatural feeling, rather than a tranquil feeling which Aria provides. Instead of providing an ideal utopia setting that any audience would desire to live in, Mokke puts various everyday life troubles in a supernatural setting, using (I'm assuming) actual references to traditional japanese folklore. Even when a watcher may know next to nothing about japanese folklore, though, the whole mystical setting is attractive.
Admittedly, one of the main reasons that I started watching the series and I continue to watch it was because I thought one of the characters was quite cute in appearance and in personality. It was when I played the Da Capo visual novel that I realized I was probably attracted to the character (that character being the older sister that can see things) because the character reminded me so much of Kotori, not just in appearance and personality but also in (in some sense) her "special power". The little sister was not as "appealing", so to speak, but a well-developed character regardless. I liked the grandfather character a lot, though; his whole understandable knowledge on all the spiritual facts combined with his appearing-cold-and-strict-but-quite-caring personality was pretty cool.
None of the series had any real connection with each other, which is good in some sense so that one would not need to watch the series in order. However I was a bit sad (though its understandable) because I was hoping for some reappearance of some characters or spirits, like the one spirit that tried to encourage a classmate of the older sister to hit on her. :V Haha that one was funny, it even had fanservice :V

ANYWAY IN OTHER NEWS I watched Coraline, which was pretty good, visually. I thought the plot could have been more developed and was speedy at times (I felt it in the American voices, it felt like there were gaps sometimes where there shoudl have been more explanation). This is too bad because the movie wasn't that long in the first place, but maybe because of all the 3D effects they didn't want to make the movie too long or something.

But Mokke is better. Watch Mokke. :D

Internal Conflict Error (Warning: Low Sanity Level, Read With Caution)

T: THIS HAS GOT TO STOP how is it that you can say your internship is teaching you anything when you're sitting there reading comics all day?!? It was already bad enough before you stepped on that landmine and now look you can't even concentrate on work you're supposed to be doing--
G: Look, the work we've been doing so far has been pleasantly received, so is it really any big deal to them what you're doing as long as the work you've been doing so far is being completed in a reasonable amount of time? And it's not like you can spend 6 hours just staring at code and feel preoccupied, especially if you're not finding anything wrong with the code and the program seems to be working--
T: But you can spend 6 hours watching/reading anime related material? The code can ALWAYS be improved. Even right now you can still look at the code and take effort to understand it better. Look into that class-loading application you've been trying to make. Figure out better improvements, anything to show you're doing something helpful--
G: You can't say that if we aren't even getting paid to do this. Why must we be so devoted to helping them out? We're already helping them out a bunch already. Why should we bother making this program so great? Look at the programmers previously working on this. They did a terrible job and left confusing code here and breakpoints there, and they WERE getting paid. We're all just working so hard just to make a good image of ourselves, right? Just so we look "great" and "awesome", huh? Why should we care so much how we look to people?
T: Not to look awesome, but at least to look mature. How can we give an image of maturity if we're looking at comics all day? Try to understand, image can be important. We don't want to look like a hero that can do anything, but at the least respected well enough so that they'd want us like a friend as well as a coworker, and when recommendations come along people will be happy to write what a great intern you were, not that you were reading comics all day--
G: A great image, you say. Image has always been a weakness of yours. You always want to stay neutral and not risk any harm or risk. Limited aggressiveness, unwilling to pursue new things--
T: WHAT DO YOU THINK WE ARE TRYING TO DO RIGHT NOW?!? AND ARE YOU HELPING IT AT ALL WITH ALL THIS ANIME CRAP?!? We have SO MUCH to do-- fixing resume, by CHANCE finding a job even if we can only stay for a year, starting all these damn applications...!
G: --it's because we've been so concerned with all these academic and occupational things that we never have a chance to express other hobbies, such as writing. Everything is always being neglected in pursuit of academics or other things that seem more "important", but do they seem more enjoyable?
T: Academics has had its share of neglectance, thanks to anime related material...
G: Anime has ALWAYS been placed on the backseat, ALWAYS been a "wait till we're all done with this classwork" hobby!! We strive hard to keep it from getting out of control, so to speak, and that's good. But what's wrong with indulging just a little?
T: A little?!? Whenever we get the chance we go all out!! We could spend MONTHS just watching anime, at the rate we download and with all the series we have backlogged!! We can finish a 50 episode series in 2-3 days, and we usually do! At the very least we could try WORKING while we have something to do...
G: It's better than staying home all day with nothing to do and bum around like a loser. We ARE making progress, although you might think its not acceptable. Not only are we volunteering to do work to learn skills in programming and communication, even at home we're trying to practice other things we need to do. Notice how now that there's no more academic material it feels like we have a lot of free time to do whatever we want. But we're trying to keep that under control. Search for Universities. Study for GREs. Work on resumes. We're doing all of that--
T: Yea, for like 10 minutes a day.
G: --which is better than nothing. In any case, we're trying. Sometimes, the human body betrays us and we're feeling less energized and wanting to do anything. Even watching anime, we have that "do we really want to watch it" feeling before we begin to go right into it.
T: It would have been better if that "do you really want to do that" feeling had been kept with reading megatokyo. Now what.
G: Megatokyo is still finite. Eventually we'll finish and then everything will be back to steady pace. It's incredibly unlikely we'll go off and start downloading manga onto a computer that's not ours. Although if Megatokyo wasn't so emoish and suspenseful in every comic it would probably not be as much of a problem.
T: I can agree with that. But we can't put the blame on it.
G: Yea, well. Might as well finish up this blog post--
T: Which was again used to distract us from the work we have to do.
G: Well its not watching anime, either.
T: But that's probably what you're doing afterwards anyway.
G: We finished our work for the day!
T: YOU SPENT A GOOD AMOUNT OF THE DAY READING MEGATOKYO--
G: This is not going to end if we don't stop now.

Mamotte Shugogetten

Yes well, recently I finished Gundam SEED, watched two movies (PUSH and Shopaholic), but of course, Mamotte Shugogetten is most important. And probably the best although I'm sure people will assassinate me for saying that.

I actually started watching Mamotte Shugogetten a looooong time ago (like, when I first got into watching anime), but I never got the chance to finish it until now, finally. Having finally finished it now, my opinion is... I think that Mamotte Shugogetten wasn't some remarkably great anime. :V In fact, for the most part it was very... simple and straightforward. So straightforward, in fact, that there were episodes where I swore there had to be something fishy behind some characters, but in the end all the characters were pure hearted and etc. and I was like "O:". With that being said, at some points it was remarkably boring. However! MOST IMPORTANTLY... it was a great study in the history of Moe. When the anime was released 10 years ago, there wasn't as much of the moe culture as there is now (the only other possible moe icons I can think of is probably Ah My Goddess). I thought it was really interesting how considerably conservative Mamotte Shugogetten was (comparing to "modern" moe anime, although Shugogetten DID have its ecchi moments).
The first season, I think, showed the general concept of moe in the 90s. The OVAs, I believe, showed much more dramatic change in just the episodes themselves. I feel like the series starts drifting from its conservativeness and heads towards the more fetishy type moe that's predominant in today's culture, imo. The style of the art as well seems to become more towards modern moe standards (and imo more cuter, but that may just be because I feel that modern moe is more appealing). The stories also get more emoish in the OVAs, probably another sign of the difference in interests in these romance/harem type anime. While the first season seemed primarily (cheesy) comedy, the OVAs seemed much more serious. This can be seen in the characters too; the characters in the OVA seem a lot more... entertaining, in a way, while the characters in the original series never seemed that serious. Also, there was better pairing in the OVA compared to the original series, where everyone just went after the main hero and heroine.
On a side note, I read a little bit of the manga today and (as expected) the manga seems more in depth and entertaining. In fact the same is true with ToLOVERu manga, which I'm finding quite entertaining. I don't know why I keep watching these anime that's pretty crappy compared to the mangas, especially since I hate the Love Hina anime most especially since its so crappy compared to the manga... :V
Mamotte Shugogetten: A history of Moe and Harem anime. Don't watch it. :D

More Lessons of Moe

Physics.
http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2009/02/50803679.html

Zoology.
http://en.akibablog.net/archives/2009/02/50805747.html

BEWARE, WORLD!! THE OTAKU ARE GETTING SMARTER.

Maybe.

Strike Witches (Unfinished)

LYNNE-CHANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

SOOOOOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTEEEEE


(possibly because she takes after a certain orange sukumizu char in another very very very very similar show)

LYNNE-CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN~~~!!!!!

Nogizaka Haruka S2

http://www.moetron.com/2009/02/05/nogizaka-haruka-no-himitsu-season-2-announced/


YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Verbal is the Bane of my Existence

I have two things to talk about and they have nothing to do with the title. Or with each other.

Recently I watched and finished ToLOVERu. Again, not exactly one of those awesomely great anime to watch but the preference at the time of deciding what anime to start watching was that of a slapstick comedy that had some cuteness in it. Well, I was starting Hidamari Sketch x365 but it was getting a bit slow for me, albeit it's still a fun show to watch. But ToLOVERu seemed like the one to marathon for the weekend.
Obviously with its 90% ecchi references its not a show that should be taken seriously. Plotwise, there wasn't much to expect, but at some points it was disappointing how an episode would end and the situation in the episode wasn't completely resolved (before they start a new episode about something completely different). It would be nice if they at least resolved issues in the episode itself, or showed how the entire group overcame a giant volcano explosion... oh well what can you expect.
Character cuteness got a high ranking for ToLOVERU. The character designs are the cliche anime moe type, which is understandable since it probably comes from a visual novel with the cliche CG moe type. Not that I mind at all. :V The main character Lala is rather immature at times, so although she looks cute I don't think she's quite the appropriate personality; the main (normal) girl Haruna is much cuter. However the cutest girl in the series has to go to the one that's not even a girl half the time... the concept itself is quite funny already but they top it off by making the girl form of Ran so cute~!! Although in my logical reasoning I have my qualms but then, how can I make any logical reasonings with a character that changes sex when it sneezes. I think it was just some Ranma logic lurking in me. Speaking of other anime it's quite glaringly obvious that one of the characters in the anime is COMPLETELY RIPPED OFF OF SOME PARTICULAR SHONEN ANIME/MANGA WHOSE NAME REPRESENTS AN ANIMAL ASSOCIATED WITH BAD LUCK AND HALLOWEEN. Not just "hey she looks like this char" or "hey they ripped off the char design from this char"; its "lets take this entire character from a different anime and place her ad verbatim into this one. Might as well call this a generous cameo for that character. (Not that I minded much; even though I never finished Black Cat, that character was my favorite in the anime, although in ToLOVERu I thought the char was a bit unrealistic to be cute).
The music is futsuuuuuuuuuuuuu. Not terrible, not awesomely great either. Just catchy enough to be worth downloading whenever I get the time.

The second topic involves a program I made at work internship ( :( ): an XML user interface generator. You can read the incredibly short document with big pictures associated with the file. Since anyone that would possibly read this blog probably doesn't have any XML file at hand, I'm fairly confident that the program will work with HTML too since HTML is almost considered an XML document itself; however, you might get some funky results since it wasn't suited for HTML use. (I could probably change it so any XML document can work, but I'm lazy and this was all my group needed to work efficiently.
Analogies should make sense and be reasonable, dammit.
Stupid blog website that doesn't let you upload small files! >:O Or maybe it does and I'm too stupid/lazy to figure it out. >.> <.<

Disgaea

Technically I haven't really finished a lot of the game yet (my characters are only level 100! YES ONLY LEVEL 100 :( ) but with my overactive creative imagination I have this awesome story idea for the characters I use because lets face it, even though the story is centered around Lahral my green mage is just SO much more awesome and should be the main character.
(consequently she is my highest levelled character, who would have thought :V) BUT FIRST, the boring part: review of Disgaea.

Disgaea is essentially a chess version of Ragnarok Online. You make (RO) a bunch (Chess) of characters which you can control and place onto a map (chess), and depending on your position (chess) you can do a variety of moves, including attack. Each character you make and level up (RO) has individual stats, classes, elements, weapons, and armor (RO). The sprites are also cute and animelike (RO) and a major deciding factor for me in getting and investigating the game. Oh and also, you can reincarnate characters in this game (RO, but I'm pretty darn sure RO ripped this off of Disgaea).

When just starting off the game felt pretty overwhelming. So many characters you could create, level them up to 9999, AND you had to get equips for them each... it seems that the game would take YEARS to understand and master. Furthermore, the character only gets exp if theyhave the last hit to kill the enemy! Well, needless to say I still think the game is pretty overwhelming but they have some tricks around Disgaea they conveniently put in to make matters, such as levelling, easy. Or at least, somewhat less difficult. But nevertheless, with the level limit being 9999, an ability to make an endless array of characters, and the option to reincarnate a character ALL THE WAY BACK to level 1... this game expects you to spend quite some time on it. This, by the way, only covers the "character" aspects of Disgaea. Levelling and customizing items, as well, can almost be a separate game itself.

Aside from gameplay, the other aspects are sadly, rather mediocre. (Take this comment, though, with a grain of salt, considering I've only gotten one (good) ending in the entire game). The storyline is good in terms of humor, as is the general descriptions of items and pretty much most of the game. However, at the end of the one ending I've managed to get so far, I thought the conclusion was quite cheesey and although they attempted some character development I felt that instead, the characters became worse off as the games went on. But overall, the story still managed to amuse, so that's fine.
One of the interesting aspects about the music of the game is that you can "buy" the background music and set it as the background music for a "mini" (though seriously, its not mini) game where you go into a particular item you have. Which is great, because the Item World is LOOOOOOONG and I don't want to be listening to some BGM I think is terrible, which was the case for the first couple runs through Item world when I was too poor to buy any of the music. The BGMs, for the most part, aren't that great and I'd still prefer to listen to my own music instead. The American Dubs are TERRIBLE and most absolutely unfortunately the japanese dubs are for PSP and PS2 only, which makes me kind of sad (although admittedly DS makes up for it with its extremely handy overview system for the top screen, which makes it incredibly easy to see what is where especially in really whacked up and stupid maps that Item World gives you sometimes). However, despite the DS's lacking capabilities in terms of graphics, the sprites and character designs are still cute and worthy enough to keep me amused throughout the game even if the plot does slowly degenerate.

So the (one) plotline (that I actually went through) degenerates, and the main characters for those plotlines are characters I rarely use anyway. What can make up for it? WHY, MY OWN CUSTOMIZED STORY INVOLVING THE CHARACTERS I USE, OF COURSE.

(Disclaimer: Even though I state that the plotline for Disgaea isn't that great I'm not going to dissemble the fact that my plot idea is better; it could just as well be just as cheesey and not interesting. Oh look I used a GRE vocab word in that last sentence)

The story idea I came up with has some basis on the master-slave system they have in the game. See if you can figure out who are the masters and their respective servants are from the descriptions I give for the chars later. ALSO IF ANY OF THE NAMES LOOK FAMILIAR... well, obviously I'd name characters after characters I or other people made before due to my lack of originality in names.

General Plot Synopsis: The setting takes place in a fantasy/medieval type setting (appropriately enough), and begins in a moderate sized town situated in a clearing within a dense forest. The town has a fairly renowned mage academy, where many prospective students and wizard teachers reside peacefully with the local inhabitants of the town. One local resident of the town, a young child named Aria, is fascinated with magic and is eager to join the academy. Unfortunately, her magic potential did not seem very high and because of this, she was initially rejected by the academy for her poor performance during the entrance exams. Dejected, she ran away into the forest with tears swelling up in her eyes, too absorbed in her rejection to remember the dangers and warnings of going into the forest alone. After several hours had passed and Aria still had not come home, her two younger sisters, Ruby and Kyrie, set out to look for her since they were worried. They soon after found her talking with a mysterious dark nebulus, as if in some kind of trance. Aria had ran into a mysterious being and disclosed to it her inability to summon fire and/or ice during the trial. The being appeared to recognize Aria has having very large potential and volunteered to help her, under the condition that she makes a pact with it. Upon given the offer, Aria was first a bit skeptical, but then in an act of desperation. Upon performing the pact, the being revealed to Aria: if she had been asked to perform wind magic instead of ice or fire, she would have succeeded. The cloudy figure emitted a dark laugh, and Aria was only able to comprehend momentarily before she fell unconscious.
The next morning she woke up, feeling dazed and tired. It took her a second to realize she was not sleeping comfortably in her bed, and another second to realize the disastrous scene around her: the entire village, along with the academy, had been destroyed. Panicked, she quickly began looking around for any signs of life. Soon after she heard a voice of someone shouting out: it was Saifa, a good longtime childhood friend of hers. Saifa had gone out into the forest along with Aria's sisters to search for her, apparently, when an extremely large tornado hit the town. Saifa ran back to the village but it was too late; everything had already been destroyed. Shocked, Aria implored Saifa to tell her if there were any survivors; Saifa reluctantly stated she couldn't find any. Aria's parents were dead, and her sisters were missing. It was then Aria thought about the night before, and then realized what happened: She had done all this. Aria fell to her knees, helpless. Saifa inquired what was wrong, and Aria told her. Saifa was silent, for a while, while Aria looked down onto the floor with a guilty look on her face. It was then Saifa told her, "Let's go!" and to prepare for a journey. When asked why, Saifa asked, with an optimistic face, "To look for the person who tricked you, of course!" Aria was dumbfounded, then touched. Her best friend would still stick with her even though she had inadvertently destroyed her hometown which they lived in. She looked onto her hand and, just then, realized a small marking, indicating the pact. She reached for the skies, swearing that one day she'll get back at the person who made her do this.
The story takes place one or two years later, where the characters should be like, 13, 14ish years old? :V
(Right, short synopsis, indeed >.> )

CHARACTERS and their jobs. (the more interesting part)
Aria (Green Mage): The main character of the story. She has long, light (grassy?) green hair which flows smoothly and reflects light. Her eyes are sapphire-bluish and still retains a bit of innocence in them, although it is said that when she is under control her eyes become a dull red color. She wears a proper mage "schoolgirl" outfit reminiscent of those brown schoolgirl outfits in Shuffle. She is generally lighthearted, kind, and a bit reticent; she prefers to read a good book rather than fight. However she acknowledges she must find the person who she made a pact with and consequently, this person has many soldiers and monsters under his command, which she must fight against in order to reach her destination.

Saifa (Female Warrior >> Miko): The childhood best friend of Aria. She's a sporty, tomboyish type that's cheerful and optimistic about everything. However, she'd be more willing to get into a brawl if needed, and typically she's in the front lines protecting her friend. During her childhood her father was a weaponsmith and she was taught the ways of a spear, so she is a fairly skillful fighter in that respect. She has rather short, brownish hair and brownish eyes. At the beginning of the journey she has rather poor and tattered clothes mixed in with some armor from her father's shop that had endured the disaster. Later she takes on the same noble appearance as that of Plagal, appearing something like a kendo warrior. She has a strong dislike of Plagal and considers her, at best, a bitter rival.

Flonne (...Flonne): The only really major character from the game series that I'll mention here. Basically given godlike status and is over 1000 years old, though she still looks and acts very childish and idealistic. Always preeching about peace and flowers. Although it appears that she doesn't like to fight and says she doesn't want to fight, she actually enjoys battling and can become VERY scary if she gets an opportunity. Luckily she has two guardians which follow and protect her, and also keep her from getting out of control. Her current purpose is to investigate the dark matter similar to what Aria had encountered and to stop disasters caused by those who had been afflicted by the dark matter. Flonne takes interest in Aria since she has presumably made a pact yet still holds her own free will, and wants to know why.

Plagal (Miko): One of Flonne's two guardians. Typical cool-tsundere type character, always calm but serious. When Flonne and her guardians first heard about Aria and Saifa, Plagal attempted to attack them, believing that they were under the influence of the dark matter, but was later stopped by Flonne. In general throughout the journey she remains highly suspicious at Aria and Saifa. Otherwise, she is very loyal and always does her best to protect Flonne, like a typical devoted knight. Her appearance is that which if she wasn't a fighter she'd look like any other girl; she has long, slightly wavey hair that's silvery white in color, and is usually tied back in a ponytail because of her occupation. Wears traditional japanese kendo robe...thing.

Sanctus (Priest): The other guardian of Flonne. In contrast to Plagal's cold attitude, Sanctus emits an aura of maternity and empathy, and it is not unusual for her to act like the mother of Flonne at times. (She certainly appears like that, in any case, despite Flonne being much older than her) She dislikes fighting at all, but to prevent Flonne from entering the battlefield she learned some powerful light spells to accompany her potent healing spells. She is very willing to trust Aria and Saifa, and agrees with Flonne that they are allies. Her appearance is something like a typical caring maternal figure in a Ragnarok Online priest outfit. She has long light purple hair, slightly more horizontalish eyes (as an indicator of maturity, not sinisterness), and uh... a maternal figure, as I stated before. :V

Aya and Ara (Brawlers): Two high ranking henchmen of the mysterious nemisis for the group. They always appear together and look almost identical aside from their hair color. Aya is the older of the two, has short brownish-yellow hair, and is much more willing to talk smack to her opponents. Ara is the younger twin, has short reddish hair, and usually finishes her work quickly and stealthily. Aside from their usual tasks of blowing up innocent towns and causing terror, they are both assigned to look after Aria's group and occasionally cause trouble for them. Aya also mysteriously alludes to Aria that they are alike, which Aria denies vehemently. Both have slitted eyes and appear and disappear from scenes like ninjas. And has this cliche "evilness" aura around them.

Sheryl (Archer) and Wolf (Scout): A Romeo and Juliet-esque scenario in which both Sheryl and Wolf are outcasted by their traditional guild for having affections with each other, reason being the weapons they used. (Archers think Guns have no spiritual power, Scouts think bows are outdated, blah blah blah... becomes a faction and now no one knows why but they just hate each other.) Having been outcasted from their guilds, Ara provides them with shelter in return for their devotion to their army. However, neither of them like plundering towns and completely disagree with what they do, yet at that time they had no option and felt as if they could not back out of the contract. Then they met Aria, who made them realize that they didn't have to follow everything that their "master" told them to do. They rebelled against Ara and joined Aria's journeys.
Sheryl in general is a very meek character. She has slightly curly pink hair and tends to blush a lot. Typically when she's talking to strangers she will stutter and act as if she was a dojikko. However, despite her appearance she is an expert archer that can snipe as well as any other ranged item user. Her power lies more in delivering a single fatal attack rather than a barrage of multiple hits. Wolf on the other hand is more aggressive, speaks rather roughly and is quick to fire one too many shots. He is quite agile and good with getting around on land, making him very convenient for being... well... a scout. Sheryl and Wolf's relationship, interestingly enough, is one in which Sheryl dominates. In fact, Sheryl only speaks to Wolf with confidence and when she speaks to Wolf she always sounds commanding. Wolf, on the other hand, while appearing tough to outsiders, cannot help but wince whenever Sheryl seems the least bit angry (any anger Sheryl has at the moment is always directed towards him). In spite of everything they seem to love each other very much.
Also interesting to note that Wolf (so far) is my only male character in the game (besides the default characters), obviously so he can have a harem. There will be more male characters later, I think. :V
Oppai (Succubus monster): A monster which Flonne captured. Flonne uses her as a doormat. Is, in general, comedy relief. Although at first she was furious and humiliated at her capture, she later comes to respect her master and learns some spells from her. I think, given her status as "Succubus" and her name as "Oppai", I need not describe her personality or appearance. :V

MORE CHARACTERS (possibly) TO COME. Maybe after I reach level 1000. Aria is going to transmigrate into a galaxy mage soon~~

(BTW this took over a week to finish, I am so slow)

London Pictures

England Winter 2008-2009

Other People Blogging reminded me that I should Blog too

...uh. You'd think that now that I no longer have school that I'd have more time to blog about stuff. Actually, on the contrary, now that there's less school there's less need to have a distraction as a result of my ADHD to write about since there's not as much going on.

Such as me going to England for two weeks. Nothing out of the ordinary there.

I DID take pictures, but currently me and my fellow investigators (ie my sister) are looking into the mysterious port size my (mom's) cell phone has and laboriously moving all of my 150 pictures one by one onto a microSD card.

Rest assured, even when I upload the pictures there will be no one posing in any sort. I mean, come on, who wants to take pictures of friends and themselves when they have the awesome background scenery or beautiful exhibit to see.

ALSO I have been playing lots of Disgaea and even though I beat the game once and got one ending I am still not finished yet. I should probably make a writeup about it in the future. Maybe after I make Flonne master axes.

JBuilder vs. Netbeans

OMG.


I emailed one of my advisors about information in Java programming, in comparing JBuilder vs. Netbeans. I just wanted a rather simple answer on why we were using Netbeans and JBuilder.

My advisor, in 15 minutes, sent back a 35 page technical report on the comparison between JBuilder and Netbeans.


...||orz....

Shugo Chara (Unfinished)

FIRST TRAP IN EPISODE 25.


THEN TERRIBLE REFERENCE IN EPISODE 38.


And this show is LEGITIMATELY DIRECTED TOWARDS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GIRLS. Yes. GIRLS. MAN WHAT IS JAPAN TEACHING THEIR CHILDREN.


BUT HAHAHA THIS IS SO AMUSING IN MANY MANY WAYS

Moeology

I'M GOING TO DO SOMETHING WITH THIS TERM IN THE FUTURE.

Maybe.

Goddammit the blog address for this word is taken by some random guy named Moe.


"Moeology: Study of the components, influences, and significance of Moe."

I want to have subcategories!

Biomoeology
Sociomoeology
Moechemistry
Moephysics

...:V

EDIT: I FORGOT MOENGINEERING

Makoto's Instant Cancel.

Makoto ICs.

*GRAAAAWH!!!!*

I have a presentation tomorrow.

*GRAAAAAWH!!!!!*

I have to wake up at 6:30 AM.

*GRAAAAAAWH!!!*

LEVEL THREE SUPAR

*GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWH!!!!*

I already learned how to use Makoto's FM as an antiair. My next goal is to end every round in arcade mode either with a *GRAAAAAAWRGH* super or a *GRAAAAAAWRGH* IC.

Blog Gendering and Sal2ing

http://genderanalyzer.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fenigmatic-cube.blogspot.com%2F

"We guess http://enigmatic-cube.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (54%), however it's quite gender neutral."

Wrong its written by an inanimate object!!


And for anyone who ever wondered what Sal2 looked like:

http://fc16.deviantart.com/fs30/i/2008/062/a/d/Nidoking_by_BuckWulf.jpg

This is pretty nice.

15 random things

This is the stuff I do when the presentation I've been worried for 3 months 6 months over a year is 2 days away. Posted on my facebook.

"Once you've been tagged you have to write a [note] with 15 weird/random facts about you. At the end you choose 15 people to tag."


1. I'm always seen wearing long pants of some sort. Whether it be jeans or slacks or whatnot.

2. I think better when I pace.

3. I'm much more hardcore otaku than I tend to want to be. If had no self-control I'd be 110% hikikomori.

4. My moe is medium wavey hair and elbow gloves. :(

5. I can forget what I was doing in less than 2 seconds.

6. I'm not as intelligent as I appear to be to people. My image seems to give out that feeling though.

7. I'm not as emotionally inert as I appear to be to people.

8. I tend to not care about things not concerning me, but I will tend to listen to them, even if I don't appear to be listening.

9. I think up random story/plot ideas almost involuntarily. However because I prioritize school over other hobbies I usually never build on them, although someday I wish I will build on them.

10. I prioritize my studies over almost everything else, but really admire those who have other hobbies that they prioritize over their schoolwork.

11. I'm actually more organized than people give me credit for. But things tend to go wrong anyway. :V

12. I like stupid-looking birds. Like pigeons, ducks, and chickens. :V

13. Similar to how I like coming up with plot and ideas, I like coming up with different mathematical sequences and structures. Sadly this is wasted on trivial things like making combos in EFZ or stat builds in Ragnarok Online.

14. I am generally bad at reading any forms of text more than 3 lines long. Beyond that, if I'm actually interested I will probably read only like 70% of the words most of the time, while it is significantly less if I'm NOT interested in the subject. Even in math I am terrible in interpreting symbols; its only when I can visualize what's going on that then I would understand it.
tl;dr I can't read.

15. I watch nico videos, read anime related stuff, and facebook while I am working as a technician in my lab. And I should really stop doing that.

OH MY GOD IT EXISTS

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Election Day

In what I regard as an interesting act on my part, I did actually took the initiative to submit a ballot today. I say this is interesting because I had and currently still have the mindset that many fervent patriots and campaigners fear the most: that I don't care too much about the election, that I don't regard my vote as being of high value, and that ultimately whatever results I'm going to deal with it. So it comes to the question as to why I voted in the first place.

I discussed this with a few of my friends already, since the whole voting propaganda was EVERYWHERE so you couldn't avoid one or two conversations with it. My main reason for voting is....stupid people.

As I stated earlier, I'm not too concerned for the outcome of the elections and hold no real favors as to whether I'm democrat or republican. (Actually if it ever had the chance I'd vote Green Party) But once in a while I go in and read people's arguments. It could have been anyone's argument from either side. I read them and I OTL. I can't stand the amount of ferventness they have when they know so little about the subject, researched so little on the other side yet condemning them so much. This person was my one reason to vote. I had to cancel out at least this person's ferventness, make at least one stupid person's vote neutralized. I cannot say I did any more than that.

There you go already. I voted, not because of patriotism, not because I favor a particular party, not because I think my vote will do any better, not because of the chickens (although that proposition WAS quite amusing to me), but because of stupid people.

...My god, stupid people, I wish you guys would stop voting so I don't have to counteract... *sigh*. Yes, Americans, let the stupid people vote to keep me voting.

EDIT: LOL MY FRIEND JUST MADE ME THINK UP THE BEST PHRASE TO DESCRIBE ME: "Tsundere Voter"

WHAT COULD BE MORE ANNOYING THAN TYPHOON AT LOW LIFE?

Why, when some particular nuisance IMs you when you're at low life.

No hard feelings to that person, just the timing that he IMs is AMAZINGLY annoying. I mean, he must seriously be watching me somewhere and timing when he decides to IM me just so I can purposely screw up on some sort of game. :V

That aside, I have to stop trying to RG through youmu's super dash-slash attack. OMG playing so many Mais has had me conditioned to doing that. :V

Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu

MY MOE WEAKNESS.

When looking at this anime from an objective view, I can't say it's that great. The storyline, while better than the typical harem anime (I'm really happy that the main girl and guy gets matched up immediately... AND STAY MATCHED UP) is really quite mediocre. There are things that are quite obvious in what will happen so nothing is really that new... still... in the present anime world where tsunderes dominate, to have a sweet deredere rich girl to play the main role this time... it's pure awesomeness. To top it off, her character design is one that I find incredibly attractive so I can't say any more than "It's my moe fantasy." A world where everything goes according to plan, practically... you get a rich, prostegious, intelligent, innocent, otaku girl falling for you.

...You can't get ANY further from reality than this.

Anyway, as I've already stated, the art design for this anime is SPECTACULARLY MOE. It's the addictive drug that drives my main ambition to watch anime (in contrast to say a live action movie). The music is pretty fun too, although similar to the plot: cute, yet not great. Without a doubt, the strongest point of this anime is the sheer cuteness in the artwork, and I HIGHLY suggest people who like stuff just because of the moe anime design, and pretty much solely for the anime design, to watch it. And I HIGHLY suggest anyone who doesn't like anime just for its artwork and is looking for something with substance, to avoid it.

OMG I AM SOOOOO HAPPY HARUKA IS A MAIN CHARACTER! A MAAAAIIIIN CHARACTER THAT I LIKE, SO GODDAMN CUTE!!!

...consequently I think the other girls in this show aren't as good, which is pretty unusual. I MEAN THE MAIN CHARACTER IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER HOW WEIRD IS THAT--Well, Haruka is unique in that way (in these types of anime these days) so that's why I like it.

Well, there's ONE other character that I liked... it was one of the friends of the little sister who I thought was also incredibly moe but she played a very small role in the anime... hmm... I wonder if the manga is better... *checks it out*

Arithmetic

What is the school semester without a test rant!! Yes, even on this very last semester of mine, even though only 3 out of my 5 classes actually have midterms/finals, even though all 3 of those classes only has ONE midterm the ENTIRE SEMESTER... we still can't have a school semester without a rant about midterms!!! But HEY!! It's the LAST SEMESTER SO THAT MEANS THE LAST RANT ON (school) TESTS!!! REJOICE (until I start complaining about GREs and graduate applications)!!!!

Understandably there have been rants in this blog that have dealt with errors, confidence, and other extraneous material relating to reasons why a test score would be lower than it appeared to have been. In particular the mere concept of arithmetic errors seems to be one of the most influential and annoying reasons a test score may be lowered. At first, this seems trivial. After all, why mark a student down when he forgets to put a minus sign instead of a plus sign in the very last equation of his problem, making him off by only a small amount? It would seem unfair...

However, if relating to the problems addressed in real life, perfection, in all sorts, is desperately needed to avoid serious errors. Relating to experiences in lab, perhaps one small miscalculation doesn't seem much in one part of the experiment, but if in the end it causes a large variation in your data, rendering it unusable, that "small" calculation isn't looking so small either. There are other stories people have constantly noted, such as the collapse of a bridge because of a misestimation, computer programs misfunctioning, etc... the list goes on. Therefore getting marked down is quite an accurate representation of the types of problems one can encounter in real life.
It's always particularly difficult,though, when you have so many lines and lines of equations to calculate and you err in one line. In general one always feels that for the most part it seems alright and doesn't need to be redone. Even if one tries to redo it, they will likely just follow their own equations and say "yes that makes sense" although if they truly look into it, it doesn't make sense. Its a sense of confidence that is unneeded. And I believe I had in the past mentioned something on confidence and how it makes people err more (well, actually maybe that's just me). And I think if I continue talking like this I'll be getting nowhere so I'm going to cut this short now.

GRE'S ARE NEXT, PREPARE YOURSELVESSSSS

Credit

People will often treat ideas like things they own. And like things they own, if other people use those ideas people often accuse them of "stealing".

In general, from any reasonable perspective, this is complete BS.

Ideas or even discoveries that are patented just because someone submitted it to the patent office is the stupidest concept I've ever seen before. Ideas are just concepts floating around that can be used and thought up by anyone and everyone; there's no such thing as "I thought this up first" or "this is my idea", because ideas take little more than a few burning mitochondrias in your head think up. Its the people who happened to put their ideas into practicality and make some sort of invention or publication... that end result is what ends up getting any profit, if at all. But the idea behind that creation... anyone can take that and make something else from it. Even if its rather similar to your new invention, as long as it isn't blatantly copied that you can actually SUE them for copyright issues, there's nothing stopping them from using any idea and not giving you any credit for it.

(Although people try to sue others for stealing their ideas...)

Credit would be nice, but its a privledge, not a right. It would be nice if people said "Thanks ____ for the idea!" But that rarely happens. No, people will usually just take the idea as their own, implement it, and display it blatantly even in front of the original person who may have thought it up. But wait, maybe that person who originally thought it up might have built his ideas off of other people's ideas. Still, maybe he'll get angry about it and try to complain to the person who made the idea. For a person who came up with this great idea, this is pretty stupid.
All people may see an idea and think "that's awesome! I wonder what I can do with it." Credit or not, this is quite fine; in fact, its people's desire to mix and match and come up with new things that keeps this world going, whether it be in science, technology, or in arts. But maybe it's human nature that people will get angry if they see their idea being used and doing well, but they don't get any credit for it. Its too bad, people (especially those intelligent enough to come up with these ideas) should realize that they should just be grateful that their ideas are being put to good use, and don't think much else about it.

I'm not here to attack all the complainers of those who had their ideas stolen.

I just felt that, sometimes, I have things I came up with, and people wouldn't say much about it and use it. Even though its not important and not really significant to me, I can't help feeling a bit bothered by it. I think I still need some time to mature. (Many people would agree.)

By the way I'm not saying that if you have an idea that revolutionizes the world that if someone else plucks it off you and gets all the credit, you should be happy about it. But it should be enough motivation to work as fast as you can to make your own creation from your own idea before someone else does, and take whatever credit you want from it. Money, fame, your name on a company.
It also tells you that keeping quiet can be beneficial at times.

Well, my issue at hand has more to do with the actual concept coming into being but the others taking it anyway, and I didn't really put a name on it (or rather, don't know how to) so it really IS a situation I can't do much about.

Hmmm. I have a feeling that my rants have this "trying to be objective and apathetic but sort of showing more emotion than desired" type of voice. But at least stating this out is good for general relief. Now I can get back to doing my work. Maybe. :V

Lucky Star OVA

Actually the OVA was so AWESO^H^H^H^H^H similar to the regular Lucky Star series that it doesn't really need another full review. Instead, have a 15 minute Lucky Star music video I've been addicted to for the last 2 weeks.




EDIT: FOR THOSE WITHOUT A NICO ACCOUNT, ENJOY... NIPON ＼(≧∇≦)／
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtVhKHgruSU

Raven and his overheads

ARG if tenken only did overheads like Raven does I wouldn't be able to beat him.

ARG ARG GARG Raven and his damn unpredictable overheads ARG. I can only be consulted by the fact that I beat him in some games. sure, 1 in 10 games, but still. :V

REISEN

...was never moe until SWR came out. THANK YOU SWR

EDIT: As a side note I REALLY need to stop going to #swr. My sleep schedule is already screwed, I don't need more SWR battles to deprive me of any form of rest possible...

Magic Battle Arena

YOU HAVE NOT FELT PAIN IN THIS GAME UNTIL YOU GET GANGRAPED BY 5 SAKURAS.


...


This game is very pretty. :V And memory-consuming. Its quite fun actually, albeit simple as some have already stated. Aside from the fancy graphics the gameplay is rather easy to understand (in spite of the 9 buttons I have to remember). Loading takes a HELL of a long time considering it takes more than twice the amount of time needed to load the game than the time they give you per round to finish (wtf only 200 seconds which it takes like 10 minutes to load the round)...blame the fancy graphics. I totally love their conceptual idea though. Needs Moetan. Needs Shugo Chara. Needs EFZ Sayuri. NEEDS MAGICAL CELL PLASMA B-CHAN...

DA CAPO OVA

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2008-09-06/d.c.i.f-da-capo-if-part-i-ova-announced


KOTORI IS THE MAIN CHARACTER~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In related news, now that I have a job I am less hesitant to buy the translated game as soon as it comes out in October. WakuWaku, I can't wait :3

(except I'll be having exams at about the same time so this might suck)

V=IR

(Slightly emo, people that actually read this, please disregard.)

Just a few moments ago one of the new members of my lab posed a simple question to me regarding the Hudson-Huxley equation which soon proved to be a devastating blow to my pride and confidence. Even though I had a vague idea of what the HH equation was all about (and pretty much told much of what I knew about it), she wanted a much simpler answer, one that established HOW Hudson and Huxley came up with the equation and essentially the basis of neuroscience which stood behind it. After struggling for a good amount of time another lab member revealed the answer to me: "V=IR".

Although the question posed was simple and seemingly trivial, it felt almost as bad (possibly worse) than getting a low test grade. Even if I got a low test grade, I can somewhat redeem myself by scoring better later in the course; I cannot redeem myself for this. It exemplified the difference between "knowing" and more properly "UNDERSTANDING" the material, a difference between an average person and a genius. The fact that I could not figure out what she talked about even with all the hints she provided proves, in my mind, that I am a much bigger idiot than I thought I was. And I'm sure she thinks so now too. This however is more trivial.

Although perhaps I am concerned of her perception of me. I don't want her to regard me as a genius but the fact that I couldn't figure out her simple question now makes me think that she regards me as possessing less potential intelligence than what she thought of before. In reality this should be of no concern, though of course it is human nature to want to have a good image of their self to others.

The aspect of having nothing that I can do about it is perhaps what's most devastating to me. I cannot redeem myself in any way from this small err I made. I am not only a biologist in a neuroscience lab but a biomedical engineer, who has been taught to remember "V=IR" ever since BME 101, where the teacher said, "if you drop BME and never want to take another engineering course again, you should at least remember V=IR". I felt that, though I am graduating this semester, I have failed. I have failed to grasp 4 years of engineering studies, thinking it is more like a fun game with interesting math problems than an aspect of innovation that can be applied to reality and promote a better state of living. In truth I had somewhat of an idea that I'm not quite applying engineering courses as much as I should be, since I could never really see the big picture: I only saw the math problems behind them, and solved them. I never thought "this is the problem I encounter when I make something like this". I only saw "there is a math problem. Let me solve it."

Not only that, I have failed in the biology aspect of the world as well. I have delved too deeply into understanding so much of the specifics that I forgotten that we need to look at the overall picture. One of my undergraduate labmates made a collage (he's part art major) based on such an idea that everyone looks so much about the small details that when they suddenly realize they should step back and see what they've done... it's a mess. It's like that. I look into my brain searching for answers and there's a bunch of answers, but they're all junk. They're all obscuring the true answer, the simple equation that established many different aspects of reality in many different fields.

There was no use sulking about this for a long period of time and this is partly why I wrote this up. While I'm not particularly happy this blog somewhat public, its a good enough place to write about it. I don't know what else I can do about what happened... I want to talk to the person who posed the question to me again but due to my poor conversation skills I wouldn't know what to say.

But maybe, I can try. In all cases even in a defeat like that I'll still have to get back up and do better. I already acknowledge I'm not some sort of genius. I'm not as smart as I appear to be. But I want to try, and that's mostly what my motivation for going through school and education is all about. This failure is devastating to me, yet essential and necessary for me to understand, since failure is the only way I truly learn. I hope to do better from now on, and never forget the simple things again. Such as V=IR.

School Days

One of the few anime where I can endure watching it even though the main protagonist and one other character is completely horrible and despicable in character personality yet watchable because--SPOILER but not really because anyone who has the faintest idea what School Days is should be able to guess-- they die at the end. And die beautifully. The one girl that I like and find absolutely moe is the girl that survives, albeit insane. However, that's sort of why I liked the show. My friend says I have an unhealthy obsession with yandere just because I find them so fascinating...moreso than tsundere. Although I think in School Days the yandere had a good reason to go psychotic since she was pressured on so many degrees and, while trying desperately to maintain her innocence and true love, logically breaks down after so many people betray her. At least in my mind and in this anime, she was logically yandere.
There are of course others who are not particularly logically yandere. I think these yandere are more scary in that aspect, yet just like how horror fascinates people, I still find them rather particular. Ryoko from Haruhi is a different kind of yandere, one I call a "calm, smiling" yandere. In a way her relation to her victims sort of is like a human to a mouse in a science experiment, unable to fully relate to their subject. While on one hand this seems cruel, on another (especially since I'm going into a science field where this is often seen everyday) it's sort of a "that's how it is, it can't be helped" attitude. Other yandere, especially Kaede from Shuffle, can be rather scary. Kaede (although it could be attributed to her young age) had a less noble reason for killing and stems more from "I need someone to blame" than for a true reason. This is a scary yandere.
But I digress. Aside from the characters and plot, the music varies. The ending changes from episode to episode, and I liked some of them and didn't like so much some of the others. The opening wasn't that great either. The main thing the show had going was the art, which was near CG quality. I find the character designs quite beautiful and even more so by the fact that the most moe character turns yandere at the end...:V

"Nice Boat."- I couldn't figure out what this had to do with the anime at first. I mean, sure there's a boat near the end of the show but so what? I found out using wikipedia that it was some 4chan comment turned meme and eventually became crazy popular for whatever reason. Something about people being angry at the series and the guy just randomly pops in and says "Nice Boat". Oh well. 4chan, you don't expect logic in that. :V

Additional Comments: I finished Tokimeki Memorial Only Love before School Days, which is a decent anime except for the emo parts (like all these series). Now I'm watching To Heart 2. Kind of like To Heart 1, kind of boring, but there's no emoing at least. But it feels awkward watching it after School Days. Kind of like "I wonder if Konomi will pull out a knife now and go on a killing spree" awkward.
Sigh. More Schoolgirl/harem anime should end like School Days. :(