odds and sods

Bit of an odds and sods weekend.

The Hungarian Grand Prix was on Sunday, but I generally also watch the practice sessions and qualifying as well as the build-up on the BBC. This means a Grand Prix weekend actually means roughly an additional 8 hours of TV viewing. To be fair, I often watch it only in the sense of having it on while I'm also engaged in other stuff too - especially for the practice sessions.

And when it's something like the Hungarian Grand Prix I'll also do stuff during the actual race too, using the PVR pause function to build up a buffer and skip-back if I miss anything important. The reason for this is that Hungary is usually pretty dull. It's really difficult to overtake - they call it Monaco without the buildings - and so it often processional, although it's apparently a good one to actually go to as a spectator.

It's saying something about this season that even this year's Hungarian and Monaco GPs have been quite good.

Another thing I did was lots of scanning. I've now finished all the New Types. Actually that's not at all true - I finished the New Types that I'd put together in a batch about 4 months ago, so I've still got all the New Types I've received since then to do.

I also unglued all the animage's in the same big batch. This takes ages, but once done I'm hoping my old memories of blasting through animages proves true and I can get them done surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, point is I watched some more fansubs while I scanned.


Hime Chen! Otogi Chikku Idol Lilpri

This is one of those shows aimed at little girls. And when I say aimed at, I mean I get the distinct impression it's aimed at relieving them of their pocket money to buy toys and stuff.

I have to be honest - I didn't really get much further than about half way through as it's just not my cup of tea. But then it would be a bit weird


Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru

I wasn't really impressed by this wither. Not because it was another kid's shows - let's put it this way: If it had said it was written by CLAMP, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Actually, I would have been surprised, because although CLAMP constantly (and annoyingly) recycle their character designs, they don't tend to recycle their plots. Which is to say, this is seemed to be pretty much exactly the same as CLAMP's X series.

It was also clearly a very shoujo series with a lot of bishounen, so you can see why it just wasn't my cup of tea.


Giant Killing

I think I might secretly be a sports anime fan.

Considering I don't really like the majority of sports, this is something of a surprise for me, but I can't argue with the facts. Over the last few months I've sampled a good few sports based anime and I've pretty much enjoyed them all. I mean Giant Killing is a football anime of all things, and I even enjoyed that.

To be fair, I think this is actually because the sports anime I've watched bear little to no resemblance to the actual sports depicted. I think there's a tendency for what I've sampled to depict everything as if it was a game of chess, rather than as the actual sport. So since I like chess, I'm using that as my excuse


Senkou no Night Raid

Surprisingly, this was the last anime (well, fansubbed anime) of the spring season I've watched and usually the last few shows I watch are the dregs - stuff I didn't fancy so left until last.

I knew next to nothing about Senko and was surprised to find it's a bit of a hybrid between a spy thriller and a psychic powers fantasy, all set in 1930s China. This is the only dodgy element - as I understand it, China in the 1930s was occupied by the Japanese and they were not a particularly pleasant occupying force, so I'm slightly worried there's a bit of a revisionist slant, because the Japanese aren't exactly being portrayed in a bad light.

Still, setting that aside this seems like an intelligent and engaging story, so I think on balance it gets the thumbs up.