free and easy

It looks like this weekend I'm going to have a lot of spare time in the sense that there's nothing I've got to do.

Hopefully that means I'll have some time to sort out various odds and sods I've got kicking about. Examples are things like getting a couple of walls and vectors finished that are 'nearly there' and making some more updates for my websites.

Speaking of websites I had a request the other day to pull my finger out and get scan-city moving. Only problem there is I need to pay for some extra webspace for what I've got planned and, more importantly, I need to get a much newer version of photoshop. Both of these mean I need to get a replacement credit card - I chopped them all up when I was having my severe financial troubles last year.

I should also really get watching some anime DVDs (not least of all so I can sell them e-bay, speaking of money troubles :/). stuff has started to fall out of my shelves again where they're so overloaded.

It's been quite a good week on the anime front from one point of view. Funimation has been announcing new licenses like crazy (presumably at comicon, or a similar event in American). Early in the week these include Dragonaut the Resonance, Bamboo Blade, the Aegis of Uruk (but both series) and blassreiter.

These put me in something of a quandary. Dragonaut and Bamboo Blade I'll definitely pick up (eek - more money) and Blassreiter I'm pretty okay just to leave as having watched it online. However, Aegis of Uruk was really quite good and I'd quite like to be ablse to sit down and watch it properly on the telly.

See this is the problem with downloads for me. They'll never be quite as good as DVDs. I just prefer to watch DVDs... but I've already seen (and, more importantly, paid for) the first part of Aegis of Uruk. I dunno. I'll have to think about it.

What I wil definitely be getting is Seto No Hanayome. This was one of the funniest shows I've seen in ages and I've been eagerly waiting to see if someone would pick i tup. Of less interest is El Cazador de la Bruja. Basically it was by the same people that did Noir and Madlax. Not seen Madlax, but Noir was poor in my opionion, and Bruja didn't seem to stray much from the same basic formula.

That's on top of a few other really good shows I want coming on sale like Baccano and Clannad... I thought the anime industry in the west was meant to be in terminal freefall :/.

And talking about anime, I've spent the evenings this week scanning animedia and animage (both of which had a surprisingly good scan count - I thought this month was goign to be a total duffer), and I watched some new anime shows:

• Sora Kake Girl was kinda good actually. It's definitely not a show I would describe as new or innovative, but I dunno, it seemed to have a certain charm to it. Plus it had jiggle and jiggle can count for a lot, although the character designs are a little unusual, but not in an un-appealing way. Dunno, maybe I'm going a bit soft.
• Asu no Yoichi might also be more confirmation that I'm goign soft. As far as I can make out the title actually translates as "Samurai Harem" or similar. To say it's therefore wearing its heart on its sleave is therefore something of an understatement - it's all there in the title. But do you know what, it's actually pretty good. And I think I know why - the main chracter isn't a douche bag. He's nice and kind but also tough and a good fighter. You can kinda see why the girls might like him. Plus it's agot a lot of good gags in it and - you guessed it - more jiggle. Did I mention jiggle can count for a lot?

Hmm, I hope this doesn't turn into one of those seasons where I like everything. I mean there's nothing wrong with that, obviously (why would I be an anime fan if I didn't like the stuff :/), but when you get a string of announcements like Funimation's this week, it also gets bloody expensive!

And on top of that I need a new PC monitor!