So having finished GaoGaiGar I've started watching Genshiken.
I was a little reticent about watching Genshiken, as I'd heard a lot of good reviews about it, and I can have this weird reaction to popular stuff, but I must say I love the show.
One of the ways I can tell I like a show is if I'm mentally writing the review as I'm watching it. Well, I also get that for shows I really don't like, but in this case I do like.
I've also had a good look at the new Japanese mags that turned up the other day. Whilst I wouldn't say I'm disappointed I've noticed a bit of a downturn in them recently.
Perhaps it's slightly a reflection of me not having watched any shows from the new season yet (yet another thing on the big ol' to-do list) so the spreads etc that are there don't quite feel that special to me yet, but it's not just that.
In recent mag's there have been far fewer spreads than there were this time last year. Although, sayign that, I've not been collecting for that long, and maybe last year was the aberration and had far more than normal, but it certainly feels like there's just less now.
Part of this is also due to Geass R2, which seems to be eating up large chunks of the mags. Now since I love Geass, this is a bit of mixed bag - I'm glad the mags are enthusiastic about it, but because you only get 1 spread and then a bunch of pages of writing, it doesn't exactly help the pretty picture count.
Friday, 16 May 2008
Thursday, 15 May 2008
New material
Been working on some new material for my sites - mainly trismugistus.com. It's been a long time since I posted any updates, but I've at least started writing some reviews.
I guess there's a couple of walls near completion too, but I've kinda gone off walling at the mo. I've also gone off scanning - I've got a pile of 8 art books to scan (with a bunch more on the way) and of course this month's Japanese mags to scan. To some extent I guess both are kinda backlash effects from what happened with me throwing my stroppy fit over at AP.
But tbh, it really feels like I've had too much on my plate to really keep going with some of my projects and hobbies.
The main problem has been I've had too much to watch. I've a terrible habit of buying far too many DVDs for me to be able to actually watch before I buy the next load. I mean, I must have so many DVDs that I need to watch that I bet if I started watching now and did nothing else I wouldn't get finished before the end of the year.
Now that might sound great, but it costs an absolute fortune. And since I've been struggling a bit, financially, I've been trying to unlock this money by determinedly ploughing through stuff and then selling on the non-keepers on e-bay.
It's surprising how much time e-bay eats up. It's a lot better than it used to be putting auctions on, but you still have all the time it takes to photograph the item, crop the photo, weigh and calculate postage and write the bid. And then there's the time it takes to parcel things up and of course the hours stood in the queue in the post office.
And all that's capped off by there having been quite a lot of good shows on normal TV during winter and spring. Hopefully during summer these will tail off like they normally do and I can really get the job done.
I should also get writing again - I've been having one of those spurts of getting lots of ideas again, but I've lacked the motivation to actually start writing. And of course I need to finish the novel, Man in the Loop.
I guess there's a couple of walls near completion too, but I've kinda gone off walling at the mo. I've also gone off scanning - I've got a pile of 8 art books to scan (with a bunch more on the way) and of course this month's Japanese mags to scan. To some extent I guess both are kinda backlash effects from what happened with me throwing my stroppy fit over at AP.
But tbh, it really feels like I've had too much on my plate to really keep going with some of my projects and hobbies.
The main problem has been I've had too much to watch. I've a terrible habit of buying far too many DVDs for me to be able to actually watch before I buy the next load. I mean, I must have so many DVDs that I need to watch that I bet if I started watching now and did nothing else I wouldn't get finished before the end of the year.
Now that might sound great, but it costs an absolute fortune. And since I've been struggling a bit, financially, I've been trying to unlock this money by determinedly ploughing through stuff and then selling on the non-keepers on e-bay.
It's surprising how much time e-bay eats up. It's a lot better than it used to be putting auctions on, but you still have all the time it takes to photograph the item, crop the photo, weigh and calculate postage and write the bid. And then there's the time it takes to parcel things up and of course the hours stood in the queue in the post office.
And all that's capped off by there having been quite a lot of good shows on normal TV during winter and spring. Hopefully during summer these will tail off like they normally do and I can really get the job done.
I should also get writing again - I've been having one of those spurts of getting lots of ideas again, but I've lacked the motivation to actually start writing. And of course I need to finish the novel, Man in the Loop.
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Half finished is not finished at all.
So I finished watching GaoGaiGar: King of Braves last night... only I didn't, actually, because what I thought was the last disk isn't the last disk.
But it is the last one that the company releasing it in the US - AnimeWorks - have released so far. Apparently, they announced a while back that they were putting it on hiatus (they were working on another big show, apparently) and then announced that due to piss poor sales they would just do a subtitle only release. Well, it's been a year and nothing else has come out, so I guess that means the hiatus is a long one.
See, this is part of the problem with being one of those anime fans that buys stuff, rather than just downloading everything illegally. Because anime is such a niche product (and an american niche at that, as far as my buying habits are concerned) it's really difficult to keep up with what's going on. It's not like you can just pick up a copy of Empire and see what's going on.
The thing that threw me and got me thinking the show was finished is that the five volumes released have 5 eps on each disk. So the count is 25, which is approximately what a normal show runs to. If I'd looked on the ANN link above I'd have seen it's a 49 ep show, but I didn't do that - the volumes just stopped being released and so I assumed it was complete.
Y'know, now that I read the above back, that's actually pretty damn dull.
Anyway, the real dilemma I have is that the show isn't all that good. I mean, it's okay, but it's not the type of show I'd hang on too. It's the type of show I sell on via e-bay. But the thing is, do I sell it now, or wait and see if the rest comes out? Am I sufficiently interested in the story that I will buy the rest of it? But then, if the second set of DVDs comes out and I buy them, then they'll probably not fetch a very good price...
It's something of a conundrum.
Granted, not a "war in Iraq" sized conundrum, but a conundrum none the less.
But it is the last one that the company releasing it in the US - AnimeWorks - have released so far. Apparently, they announced a while back that they were putting it on hiatus (they were working on another big show, apparently) and then announced that due to piss poor sales they would just do a subtitle only release. Well, it's been a year and nothing else has come out, so I guess that means the hiatus is a long one.
See, this is part of the problem with being one of those anime fans that buys stuff, rather than just downloading everything illegally. Because anime is such a niche product (and an american niche at that, as far as my buying habits are concerned) it's really difficult to keep up with what's going on. It's not like you can just pick up a copy of Empire and see what's going on.
The thing that threw me and got me thinking the show was finished is that the five volumes released have 5 eps on each disk. So the count is 25, which is approximately what a normal show runs to. If I'd looked on the ANN link above I'd have seen it's a 49 ep show, but I didn't do that - the volumes just stopped being released and so I assumed it was complete.
Y'know, now that I read the above back, that's actually pretty damn dull.
Anyway, the real dilemma I have is that the show isn't all that good. I mean, it's okay, but it's not the type of show I'd hang on too. It's the type of show I sell on via e-bay. But the thing is, do I sell it now, or wait and see if the rest comes out? Am I sufficiently interested in the story that I will buy the rest of it? But then, if the second set of DVDs comes out and I buy them, then they'll probably not fetch a very good price...
It's something of a conundrum.
Granted, not a "war in Iraq" sized conundrum, but a conundrum none the less.
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
So, er... what do you want then?
I've spent all day working on a bid for some work (I have no actual interest in the work itself, truth be told, and that may be part of the problem). The task I've been assigned is putting together the CVs.
Basically, we need 1 proper CV and then a whole bunch of "pen pictures", as they're called. Pen pictures are basically just a little 'taster' to whet your appetite - you can't get everything in, so you pick out the most relevant stuff and then essentially say "and this person is the best thing since sliced brain surgery".
I've done both more times than I care to mention, and generally they're relatively easy to do once you've got the hang of things. The problem here is that one of the hot-buttons we've identified for the customer is the quality of resources. This means that CVs instead of being something that is just sort of there and they don't really pay proper attention to, they will probably read keenly and so they need to be "sexy".
And that's the problem. They need to be sexy, but I don't really know what sexy is. As I say, I have no interest in the whole area of the work, and the bid leader is not really properly articulating what "the sexy" is. It seems it has more to do with format than content.
Unfortunately, I'm also the sort of person that puts those two things the other way around - 1. the content then 2. how it looks, is how my brain generally works on these things.
So, whilst I have achieved plenty today, it doesn't feel like I have.
Oh well, at least it's home time.
Basically, we need 1 proper CV and then a whole bunch of "pen pictures", as they're called. Pen pictures are basically just a little 'taster' to whet your appetite - you can't get everything in, so you pick out the most relevant stuff and then essentially say "and this person is the best thing since sliced brain surgery".
I've done both more times than I care to mention, and generally they're relatively easy to do once you've got the hang of things. The problem here is that one of the hot-buttons we've identified for the customer is the quality of resources. This means that CVs instead of being something that is just sort of there and they don't really pay proper attention to, they will probably read keenly and so they need to be "sexy".
And that's the problem. They need to be sexy, but I don't really know what sexy is. As I say, I have no interest in the whole area of the work, and the bid leader is not really properly articulating what "the sexy" is. It seems it has more to do with format than content.
Unfortunately, I'm also the sort of person that puts those two things the other way around - 1. the content then 2. how it looks, is how my brain generally works on these things.
So, whilst I have achieved plenty today, it doesn't feel like I have.
Oh well, at least it's home time.
Delivery from Japan
My copies of June NewType, Animedia and Animage turned up last night.
That's pretty quick again this month. I seem to recall I only got the "we're sending them to you" e-mails mid-last week, so it's only taken about a week to cross the world.
Time for a quick plug, I think. I use a site called cd-japan. Just click on the magazine subscriptions thing at the top for the er... magazine subscriptions (stating the obvious: ten points).
I used to use j-list's subscriptions and, not wanting to make my first proper bloggage a hate-fest, but they were rubbish. On one occasion I remember getting the magazines for one month after I'd got the following month. Although this is the only area where I ever had any problems with j-list - otherwise they were fine.
I also tend to get all my figures from cd-japan as well. One of the reasons for this is that they have one of those e-mail newsletter things, and it's pretty good. They're very regular (several a week) and it just lists out all the stuff that's new to pre-order with a link so you can go look on the site.
For me, this is an ideal approach. I get several e-mail newsletters and tbh, I much prefer the cd-japan method. The ones that try to be all journalistic and proper newsletter-ish kinda turn me off - I already know they're just trying to sell me stuff, that's why I subscribed, so I don't want to wade through a bunch of flibber just to get to the list of goodies for sale.
But maybe that's just me.
Anyway, it was actually kinda a bonanza night of goodies last night. My latest comics from tfaw turned up, and cd-japan also sent me my latest ikkitousen figure as well as a particular DVD I'd ordered.
I was like a pig in shit :).
That's pretty quick again this month. I seem to recall I only got the "we're sending them to you" e-mails mid-last week, so it's only taken about a week to cross the world.
Time for a quick plug, I think. I use a site called cd-japan. Just click on the magazine subscriptions thing at the top for the er... magazine subscriptions (stating the obvious: ten points).
I used to use j-list's subscriptions and, not wanting to make my first proper bloggage a hate-fest, but they were rubbish. On one occasion I remember getting the magazines for one month after I'd got the following month. Although this is the only area where I ever had any problems with j-list - otherwise they were fine.
I also tend to get all my figures from cd-japan as well. One of the reasons for this is that they have one of those e-mail newsletter things, and it's pretty good. They're very regular (several a week) and it just lists out all the stuff that's new to pre-order with a link so you can go look on the site.
For me, this is an ideal approach. I get several e-mail newsletters and tbh, I much prefer the cd-japan method. The ones that try to be all journalistic and proper newsletter-ish kinda turn me off - I already know they're just trying to sell me stuff, that's why I subscribed, so I don't want to wade through a bunch of flibber just to get to the list of goodies for sale.
But maybe that's just me.
Anyway, it was actually kinda a bonanza night of goodies last night. My latest comics from tfaw turned up, and cd-japan also sent me my latest ikkitousen figure as well as a particular DVD I'd ordered.
I was like a pig in shit :).
Monday, 12 May 2008
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