more scanning

I've been doing some scanning in the evenings this week.

I didn't really get the chance to do any scanning last weekend. Actually, that's not true - I did some scanning, what I mean is, I didn't get the chance to scan any of the magazine backlog.

What I scanned instead were the covers of a whole bunch of manga and some DVDs. These scans will accompany some forthcoming reviews over on trismugistus.com.

I actually found the evening scanning went quite smoothly and I got more done in less time than I was expecting. I actually remember this effect from before I stopped scanning - it's like a classic example of practice makes perfect. The more I do, the easier and quicker it becomes.

I think there are two main reasons for this. First off, you get better at the whole position thing. See, all of the Japanese magazines are slightly bigger than A4 in size. To resolve this I ended up buying a cheap A3 scanner, but A3 is way bigger than the magazines.

That means I have to use the controls to select only a chunk of the full-area to scan and it also means I have to make sure that the page I'm scanning is lined up in that area. So you can easily see how with practice I get better at doing that.

The second one is more difficult to explain as it's basically that it becomes more like second nature. So where when I start I had to think about it, as I've done more of it, it's not something I have to think as much about, which seems to make it quicker.

Anyway, I've been checking out some more fansubs as I've scanned:


Mayoi Neko Overrun

Oh dear.

I think pretty much every season there's at least one harem type show. Sometimes there are several, but in other seasons it'll be just one. I think this is because there are some studios that basically specialise in this type of show and then there are those that dabble in them.

Plus of course they're perennially popular in Japan. They wouldn't keep making them if the Japanese Otaku didn't lap them up. And you get a lot of manga that falls into this bracket as well, so there's plenty of raw material available for adaptation.

What's interesting about these types of shows recently is they all seem to be adopting a cat theme. I dunno why, but there's loads of them been cropping up either featuring cats directly or cat-girls or characters obsessed with cats. It seems to be the in-thing.

And that's part of the problem with Mayoi Neko Overrun - it's coming at a point where it's main gimmick - cats - has already been done several times just recently. What kills it is that everything in the show has been done recently (and loads of times before in fairness).

I mean, it doesn't really even manage to have loads of fan-service or anything like that so it can appeal to the lowest common denominator. It's just a collection of clichés.


Occult Academy

I wasn't quite sure about Occult Academy after the first episode.

See, I'd stumbled across a few things that had basically said it was hilarious, and watching the first episode I didn't really find it all that funny. Now don't get me wrong here - I enjoyed it, but the point is I think I only actually laughed our loud once.

And the bit I laughed at came right at the end and I'm pretty sure the hilarious tag wasn't pinned entirely on a silhouette of a dude's cock falling across a girl's face (you have to watch it for that to make sense). However, while I still wouldn't classify the show as hilarious I did find the second episode a lot funnier.

There were some possible sources of worry, though. For example, Maya, the heroine, kept slapping, hitting and throwing things at the man guy, Fumiaki. Which is a gag that, as the world of harem anime has proven, tends to get a bit tiresome after a while. And if it's also a hint that the show is really just a high school (academy = high-school) rom-com with more garnish than usual, that would be a worry.

But overall, I enjoyed what I watched.


Toriko (the link is to the manga, as the OAV doesn't seem to have a page)

Right, imagine something like Fist of the North Star or Dragonball Z - an anime where it's basically all about the fisticuffs, and then cross that with a fishing program. Chuck in a little bit of Ray Mears style surviving and cooking in the wild and then add in a sous-son of Jamie Oliver, and, if you can get your head around it, that's pretty much Toriko.

It's kinda bonkers, but bonkers in a fun and amusing way.

I think really this is the sort of thing that could only exist in Japan. The Japanese are not at all squeamish about their food, which isn't uncommon in Asia, but they also aspire to high gastronomy as well.

So out of that you've got a series that's basically about a huge, muscle-bound dude going around beating up plants and animals... so that he can eat them.

I did enjoy it, but I would imagine it's one of those things that repeats itself over-and-over, so could get tiresome in the long run.