Don has decided to update his list of top anime babes, and is calling for nominations.

I nominated Rushuna (Grenadier), Setsuna (Shingu), and Kan'u Unchou (Ikki Tousen), whose name I spelled wrong (blush). I'll let Ubu nominate Lyar.

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Ryskind is one of the few political cartoonists who seems willing to lampoon our new president. (Not coincidentally, he doesn't have a gig. He posts his cartoons to his blog.)

He has seized on a running joke: every time he draws Obama, there's a cigarette and a teleprompter. Here's his latest:

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Well, it's neat music, anyway.

I really do need to get off my butt and finish updating the top rotation. Right now my excuse for procrastinating is that I'm waiting for the second half of Negima!? to plunder for frame grabs.

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THAT Animblog's season previews have been the definitive ones for me, in terms of completeness. Here's the latest one.

UPDATE: Little seems to have changed since the last one. This season still looks to be a waste of time.

But there will be fan service. At least we'll have that. Queen's Blade is going to be a mess, but lots of fan service. Tayutama is going to be a mess, but it's an eroge adaptation. Saki is described as "moe fanservice with every fetish under the sun". Shangri-la is the latest series from Gonzo. When has any Gonzo series not had fan service? Not recently, if at all.

Fight Ippatsu! is based on a manga from the mangaka that gave us Mahoromatic, so the smart money bets on fan service from this one, too.

I don't see anything in there that I'd be tempted to watch, let alone to buy if it were released here. But there's enough to make it worth visiting the blogs that do frame grabs. So the spring season shouldn't be quite as bad as winter was.

Besides which, Clannad will be over. (Relief!)

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1 Juuden-chan's work outfit is designed to display camel-toe at all times, so, yeah, expect a bit of fan-service in that one.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at March 08, 2009 01:30 PM (2XtN5)

2 Ditama Bow has drawn another manga that is being adapted to anime.  But it's not exactly "Mahoromatic II."  It's called kissXsis, and view with great caution, as the title gives a clear indication of the contents.  Cute art, though.

Posted by: Toren at March 08, 2009 04:07 PM (RH0jB)

3 Just based on what little I've heard about it, plus the title, that one definitely rates high on the icky scale.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 08, 2009 06:08 PM (+rSRq)

4 Trust me, it's VERY high on the icky scale.  

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 08, 2009 07:42 PM (tMdKd)

5  Trust Wonderduck, it's VERY high on the icky scale.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 08, 2009 09:01 PM (PiXy!)

6 And all of you have seen it. My education is lacking.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at March 08, 2009 09:05 PM (+rSRq)

7 His comic art is so light and bouncy and cute, it's downright bizarre to read that kind of story while looking at that kind of art.  The anime is a little more to-the-point.  Alarmingly to-the-point.

Posted by: Toren at March 08, 2009 11:28 PM (HUk7J)

8 Hey, there's a new season of Chi's Sweet Home!  Woot!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 09, 2009 05:40 AM (PiXy!)

9 I luck out this season too, guess I'll have to find something else to waste my evenings with.

Posted by: Andy Janes at March 09, 2009 11:20 AM (8sv/y)

10 KissxSis:  Disturbingly high on the icky scale. Because in the back of your mind, you can't help going, "Hell yeah, at his age, I'd have hit on sisters like that!"

Posted by: ubu at March 09, 2009 11:51 AM (i7ZAU)

11 I just skimmed the plot of the first volume of Fight Ippatsu!, and I'd describe it as "Minawa's slightly less clumsy twin sister working as an invisible anti-depression agent".

I haven't spotted the official name of the Juuden-chan ("charge girls") agency, but Our Heroine is Plug Cryostat, and her senpai/rival is Arrester Blanket. They can fly around in both their short-skirted office uniforms (pantsu!) as well as their skin-tight plug-suits. Plug's the only one who wears bunny-ears, though.

Oh, and there was a bookmark of some random character nobody would care about.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at March 09, 2009 01:53 PM (2XtN5)

12 Umm, it says "Ikki-tou-sen" right on top of the image.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at March 09, 2009 02:30 PM (/ppBw)

13 ...and I named the file mou-chan.jpg for a reason...

Posted by: J Greely at March 09, 2009 02:42 PM (2XtN5)

14 I am quite fond of Mou-chan...

Posted by: Wonderduck at March 09, 2009 07:02 PM (tMdKd)

15 Plug Cryostat?  Arrester Blanket?

Do want.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at March 09, 2009 08:05 PM (PiXy!)

16 The tails in their insulated costumes are for grounding them when they jam those huge plugs into the people they're helping. I'm sure it's a coincidence that the aasu cable is attached to their rear ends...

Oh, and the site linked from the preview has some amusing costume-design comments. They specifically call out the visibility of a "white triangle" in the office uniforms, and mention a very small change in the plug-suits, most likely cutting back on the camel-toe.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at March 09, 2009 09:00 PM (2XtN5)

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James has been following our discussion of geek canon, and points out that we seem to be talking about SF/gamer/otaku geeks.

And wonders what would be in gun geek canon. His first choice is the Dirty Harry movies, and I think he's right.

But who can forget this? "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."

UPDATE: Good heavens! Looking further down that list of quotes, I find this:

The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits.

Didn't I hear that just recently? Or things a hell of a lot like it?

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Peter's daughter is buying a new wardrobe in preparation to entering middle school:

There's no place quite like Japan for that paradigm-shifting-without-a-clutch experience. My daughter starts Junior High School next month, and she's been happily getting her school supplies together. The other day I saw her picking a new wardrobe at an online retailer that carried all the brands girls are wearing these days, like Beverly Hills Polo Club, School Scene, and of course, Playboy. Say what? It turns out that in Japan, the famous bunny logo is extremely popular with fashionable girls, who think it looks oshare (oh-SHA-reh), or stylish and chic. Hiding my surprise, I asked her what "Playboy" was, and she replied, "It's a famous maker of girls' clothes. Don't you know anything, Dad?"

Christy has corrupted another one.

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Sixten has been burning the midnight oil, and has finished the 4th and last volume of "Miao Diary". He's reposted all the earlier parts, as well:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

...which just goes to prove that even 12 year old otaku can find true love. Or at least a reasonable facsimile.

(What I wanna know is what "deluxe punishment" entails. The mind boggles)

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Brian Tiemann has been absorbed by the BSG Borg and become a raging fanboi. Oh, dear.

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1 But only just now?  Weird, from what I've heard of the series, its to the point where any new viewer would go "Why would I want to watch this, its too depressing."

( and the old viewers are mostly still in it for the chance Starbuck will die horribly. . . 8cough* )

Posted by: metaphysician at February 23, 2009 11:11 AM (h4nEy)

2 Personally, I still watch Battleshark Galactica only for the bemused grins... because the writers  have jumped so many sharks, crashed so many trains, and killed so many dogs that I just can't take it seriously anymore.

Oddly, I would have expected shotgunning the series to exasperate these issues, not make them better.  There are far too many cases of people being of a certain mindset, and then acting like they were *totally different people all along* a few episodes later, just to advance whatever the newest dark subplot is (and I'm talking about the humans).  The characterization is hugely inconsistent, and key plot points that mattered at one point in the series (such as food and water) have miraculously disappeared the last couple of seasons, only to re-appear recently just because they were needed for yet another recycled plot.

The CG is outstanding, though, although instead of recycling clips, these days they just have fewer stories that require any scenes set outside the hull.

Posted by: BigD at February 23, 2009 04:37 PM (LjWr8)

3

Oddly, I would have expected shotgunning the series to exasperate these issues, not make them better.

I think you meant "exacerbate", but I like "exasperate" better in that sentence! (I don't ordinarily pounce on spelling errors, but this one was particularly funny to me.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 23, 2009 05:06 PM (+rSRq)

4 Sigh... it seems that for me, at least, synonyms are going to be the first things to go--I have always prided myself on never needing a thesaurus, so it's particularly jarring to me.

It's... exacerbating.

Posted by: BigD at February 23, 2009 06:01 PM (LjWr8)

5 Welcome to old age.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 23, 2009 06:17 PM (+rSRq)

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Greg Dean discovers the danger.

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I just discovered my favorite food. I've never tasted it, but I'm sure it is: chicken-fried bacon.

Life doesn't get any better than that.

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1 How about bacon-fried chicken?  Heck, bacon-fried bacon!

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 17, 2009 05:23 PM (tMdKd)

2

I actually had this a few weeks ago, in a restaurant in Cat Spring, TX.  It's quite good if you like chicken-fried things (which I believe is a requirement for living in Texas).  According to the chef the thickness of the bacon is important to make sure it crisps up by the time the breading is done.

 

Posted by: mparker762 at February 17, 2009 05:48 PM (v5JFU)

3 I think I stroked out just looking at the picture.

Posted by: Toren at February 17, 2009 06:45 PM (EyyBN)

4

Wonderduck, you have heard of "chicken-fried steak", have you not? The "chicken-fried" part refers to breading and frying, so "chicken-fried steak" more-or-less means "steak prepared as if it was fried chicken".

And chicken-fried bacon in turn is...

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at February 17, 2009 07:00 PM (+rSRq)

5 When I was in the Air Force in New Mexico, the chow hall chicken-fried everything - except chicken, strangely enough.  My friends and I were of the opinion that they did this to hide the appearance of the meat underneath the batter.

Posted by: Siergen at February 17, 2009 07:06 PM (DWJZQ)

6 If chili wasn't already the state dish of Texas, CFS would be.

One of the worst parts of being exiled in North Carolina was that they just couldn't understand the concept--they were too busy putting vinegar on their barbecue and cole slaw on their burgers.

I'll have to keep my eye out for this chicken-fried bacon--if done properly, it's probably really tasty.  I would imagine it'd be really easy to mess it up, though...

Posted by: BigD at February 17, 2009 09:04 PM (LjWr8)

7 Of course, Steven... in fact, I rather like chicken-fried steak.  But bacon is probably the greatest food ever (except for rye bread, but that's a duck thing), and thus what would be better than inventing "bacon-fried" food?

And, continuing that thought, bacon-fried bacon would then be the ne plus ultra of cuisine!

Posted by: Wonderduck at February 17, 2009 09:41 PM (tMdKd)

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