To Aru Majutsu no Index Episodes 1 and 2 - Anime Review

Just started watching this today on a whim and it was really nothing like I expected it to be. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. To Aru Majutsu no Index started out as a series of light novels by Kazuma Kamachi and was made into an anime last year and as of now is up to episode 24. I had accumulated about 20 episodes and figured I should finally start watching this series. Kamijou Touma has horrible luck, and he lives in a "school city" full of students, where science is extremely advanced and where people have esper powers. He doesn't believe in magic, however, until he stumbles upon a girl that claims to be the embodiment of 103,000 volumes of magic locked away by the church. And that's where I begin to have problems. The esper x science element seemed really cool, and then they have to throw some weird religious mumbo-jumbo in there. And I know that it's majorly thematic of both the light novels and the anime. It seems fairly action-packed so far, and I may continue to give it a fair shot, but I think ultimately the religious themes will probably end up putting me off of this by episode 10 or so.

Anyway, the series hits the ground running, not really explaining what's going on right away, but it kind of integrates what's going on into the story without being blatant about it. The only real complaint I had was that the relationship between Touma and Misaka seems really nebulous. At the beginning of episode 1, it seems as though he doesn't even know her, and then toward the middle, into episode 2 they seem like old rivals or something. It's revealed in episode one that Index is running from someone and that she needs to keep moving, and then at the end of ep 1 Touma finds her passed out and bloody on the ground. Enter our antagonist. Ep 2 involves Touma and generic-ish fire-wielding badguy Stiyl-Magnus exchanging words and hard glances, Touma getting a grip on his power and ultimately having to have his teacher (who is a total piece of lolicon fanservice) save Index due to his right hand being the negator of all magic.

All-in-all I think it's a bit of a clusterfuck so far. You have lots and lots of terms thrown at you in the first two eps, and stuff doesn't of necessity make that much sense, or it seems tacked on (or perhaps like it should've been introduced later). You have humans talking about advanced science, esper powers, then magic. The main character's power is negating all of this with his right hand which some of the time it seems like he's known for years, other times it seems like someone just introduced him to it. Some sort of "magic naming system" is mentioned with Index and Magnus that seems like an old aol screenname thing (Magnus being called Fortis931). Like I said above, unless the concentration aims away from the whole religion thing and some clarity comes to the story I'll probably stop watching this series. Which is a shame because I really liked nearly every character except the generic badguy, so far.

Chara Hobby 2008 Limited Gundam 00 Exia Trans-Am Mode

Over six months ago I saw and then purchased the limited edition version of the 1/60 Exia model that was up for sale at Chara Hobby 2008, from Yahoo Japan Auctions, via Shopping Mall Japan. It took me until this past week to unbox it and put it together. ^^; All-in-all the kit was pretty easy to put together, it took me about a day-and-a-half from start to finish, since almost all parts were translucent and not meant to be painted or sanded at all. As compared with the more common -- and recent -- release of the 1/100 scale Trans-Am Exia, this version is clearly superior. A proud purchase and a nice project to boot! ^_^

Nendroids 欲しい！

So my Yoko Nendroid is finally on her way, (the preorder info said Feb release, and yeah, second to the last day of February it comes out) and I have two more Nens in the hopper for next month, too! I have to say, SD renditions of our favorite characters don't always necessarily come out all that great, but until the Louise Nendroid -- which even had a poll taken for what she should look like -- I've yet to be disappointed with any of Goodsmile's entire line. The Louise debacle is truly a shame, too, because she is one of my favorite characters, and they managed to eff her up face-wise. It actually seems to me that very few people can make a good sculpt of Louise, SD or not, and that's why I only own two figures of her and only really like one. Bustier version by Alter (surprise, surprise that that's the one I like) and then another version by Cospa in which her face looks almost lopsided. And then there are two versions by Alter releasing in the coming months. One, the "goth punk" version of Louise, looks fantastic. The other in her seifuku is pretty terrific, again except for the face. Her head/face are too wide and the coloring seems a little off, I think they spent too much time on her pantsu.

The two Nendroids I have preordered for March are Hirai Yukio's Pixel Maritan and Itoshiki from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and they both look like perfect SD versions of themselves (Well I guess Maritan is technically always SD, but...).

Creme Brulee and Yokoppais, ooh la la!

I wouldn't necessarily say that it's the best flavor of ice cream that I've ever tasted, but Ben and Jerry's Creme Brulee is definitely in my top 10. Incidentally I think my whole top 10 would be populated with Ben and Jerry's flavors, and accented by the Azuki Mochi ice cream, made by a company whose name I forget. ^^; Intended to start watching Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo or Toaru Majutsu no Index today, but ended up catching up on the two episodes of House that I hadn't seen yet, instead. >< Oh well, tomorrow's another day. Anyway enjoy some creme brulee and Yoko boob.

ebay Oddities...

So today, rather than keep the two games that came with my 360 -- that I'll never, ever play -- I've decided to offload Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Forza Motorsport. These games net between like $7 and $9, so sayeth ebay's wizened item averager. Then I went to post an auction of my copy of Final Fight Guy for SNES. Though rare, I would almost certainly expect two 360 games to outweigh the one SNES game pricewise. So let's say optimistically the 360 games fetch $20, Final Fight still nets $22, which makes me chuckle. Also, browsing through to substantiate the auto-pricer's claim on Guitar Hero for PS2, I found it to be more or less true. Apparently GH1 with the guitar fetches less than without. For GH1 with the guitar you'll get on average $9-14, whereas GH1 sans guitar will get you closer to $20. The only thing I can figure here is that people have wireless guitars now and don't need our old-fashioned 2005 version wired guitars. And also they don't want to pay shipping on a large, awkward package that has contents that are useless to them. Enjoy my random photo posts of Evangelion Clock and God of War PSP. (Not this one)

Yokopalooza!

So a while back I bought a new shelf from Ikea. At the end of last summer I starting selling off all of my old stuff that would probably never see the light of day again, so I had a ton of space in my already giant closet. Once I'd built the shelf, into the closet it went, and then it stayed empty until I started to receive more preorders in the post. I had way more than enough preorders from November to January to fill all 4 shelves and thensome. Until finally at the end of last month I decided to restructure, and I ended up with what you see here! There's more below, but I'll save those for later. Suffice it to say that everything is series-themed, top shelf being Gurren Lagann (obviously) with three other shelves to go. ^^;

Nunchaku Master

Found this on Japan Probe, a master nunchaku wielder from Sapporo does various things like opening a bottle of champagne (which is easily the most impressive thing in the video, imo), golfing at a driving range and playing badminton! Another video of him doing batting practice here. Nunchaku is in katakana, I presume, because in kanji it's rendered as: 双節棍, which is pronounced sousetsukon.

Keroro Gunsou Movie 3 DVD Special Box

My Keroro Movie 3 DVD set arrived the other day, and I was really excited to get the limited edition waterglobe that came with it. The DVD and film bookmark were also pretty cool extras, but the waterglobe is just fantastic. It has a base themed like the Machu Picchu ruins at the beginning of the movie.

After a long hiatus...

After being away for a while due at first to ebay, then oversaturation by fanservice anime and manga and then reenlisting in the ranks of the Horde, I've finally gotten back into the swing of things. Incidentally, I have been getting new figures and such, but I really haven't posted much. I'll be catching up on my backlog of figures and games and other neat paraphernalia I've collected soonish, but for now here's a limited edition Moetan I snagged from YHJ auctions.

HamHam!

My cute little blueberry ham running on his wheel! Watch the video too!