a start

Well I think I can say I've officially "made a start" on the scanning backlog.

Over this last weekend I spent many hours scanning away. I have to admit I didn't seem to achieve as much as I'd hoped - I basically only scanning one animedia and one newtype. With the megami I scanned during the week that means I actually haven't quite finished the first month of the backlog.

To be frank, though, I think this is in part because the mags I was scanning were all quite heavy with scans. Sometimes each of the mags can go up and down in the number of things that can be scanned, and in the month I'm scanning I think they all hit a high.

Plus I'm a bit rusty, so that can't have helped.

Anyway, while I scanned, I also watched some anime:


Pandora Hearts

This was a bit of an odd one, as I wasn't entirely sure if I liked it or disliked it.

My problem was that for everything that seems interesting or intriguing there was something I found annoying or tedious.

In the end I had to come down on the side of not really liking it, though it'd be a show I would probably be willing to give a second go.


07-Ghost

It's a bishounen (pretty boy) show. Basically it's an action adventure type series, but with few to no women and all the men are pretty. So if that sort of thing sounds like your cup of tea your mileage may be better than mine.


Phantom ~ Requiem for the phantom ~

Well now, going into this I wasn't expecting much. It's by the same people that did El Cazador de la Bruga, Noir and Madlax. I've never seen Madlax, but I hated Noir. Cazador seemed like Noir but set in a pseudo-wild west and I understand the plot of Madlax is similar too, so I was expecting Phantom would be more of the same.

Well it is, but it also isn't. In those other series the formula is always one sassy chick and a girl whose lost her memories (and her personality with it). As the show goes on the bland one usually starts remembering stuff and coming out of her shell.

Well in this show they've got two main protagonists again, but one of them's a guy. Plus they're both without memory and slightly impassive, though the impassiveness appears to be closer to 'breaking' from the start.

What I'm basically saying was I quite enjoyed the start of this and I'd want to watch more, but my optimism is cautious and tempered by the knowledge of the previous shows.


Taisho Yakyuu Musume

Okay, first I should categorically state that baseball, like most sports, doesn't really hold any appeal for me. However, for the second time in this last few seasons (Cross Game being the first time) I've found myself really liking a baseball-based series.

Of course the fundamental point of all story telling is that it's all about characters, so I'm going to use that as my excuse as to how come I like 2 baseball shows.

To be fair, Taisho is a lot less 'about' Baseball than it is the girls in the show - and it is all girls. Indeed, if I had my cynical hat on I'd be banding around words like "Moe" and how it's all been done before.

Well this is true (although it's actually set during the inter-war period and you don't' get too many shows set then) but the point is it charmed the pants off me (get your mind out of the gutter). Indeed, so much so that I would actually put this towards the top of a 'recommended' list for this last couple of seasons.


Element Hunters

I found this to be quite tedious.

I think the idea is it's meant to be educational. It certainly has lots of science (chemistry mainly) related stuff in it. The problem on this front is it's got loads of ridiculous non-science and stupidness in it too.

But also it falls roughly into a sort of boy's (shounen) pokemon-eskue battle-based type genre that always leaves me cold.

I just found it very boring.