Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas! I'm about to start the drive to my family, so this is a day early, but it's close enough right?

I hope you get to spend a nice relaxing day with your family/waifu.

Holidays

I haven't posted here in ages, even by my own terribly lax standards. That's what happens when final exams are on the horizon, it can't be helped. But that's all over now, and I'm done for the year! The exams were really tough, and not in a fair way, so I hope I did alright. The day after finishing, as if to commiserate with me, a massive thunderstorm descended on the city and my windows were pelted by golf ball sized hailstones. I sat out on my deck for a while and watched the lightning. It was a nice evening.

Flan's wings kinda look like Christmas lights. She even has a present for you!

Now that I've finally got some free time on my hands, I've been hard at work catching up on shows from this season and last. Currently I'm watching:

Chuu2koi - Why does every LN ever have to have a stupidly long name that tries to explain the entire show in a sentence? It's got the usual KyoAni quality to it, and Rikka is pretty cute, though so far Hyouka is still my favourite KyoAni show in recent history.

Jormungand 2 - I'm still catching up on this one so I can't say too much about it yet, though early indications suggest that Koko is still loco.

Psycho-Pass - I went into this with low expectations which it's somewhat exceeding so far, though it could still go either way. It's got a bit of a GitS vibe to it, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Urobuchi takes it.

Robotics;Notes - This took ages to get going, but it looks like some plot is finally happening. I'm not really surprised, Steins;Gate was much the same. The protag has been a bit less annoying as of late, which is a trend I'm hoping continues. It's still too early to say too much about this though.

Shin Sekai Yori - I thought it started out great until it hit the episodes where Saki and whatshisface run around with rats, though I'm hoping it's picking up a bit now. The pacing is pretty slow. The reactions on /a/ to the guys kissing are pretty hilarious.

I also watched Joshiraku. I didn't watch it as it was airing since I didn't find the first episode that funny, but I decided to give it another go because I liked SZS. It was pretty decent, though rarely laugh-out-loud funny, so I'm glad I ended up watching it.

Her socks not so much, but who's complaining?

Apparently it's Christmas soon. The stores are all playing Christmas carols and have trees and decorations up. I haven't really done anything Christmassy myself though, I don't even have a tree. I was considering participating in the secret santa thing that /a/ was doing but I thought better of it. I'd probably get a turd in a box. Which  at least means that the sender really put themselves into the gift in a technical sense, but still isn't the sort of thing I'd like to get in the mail.

I hope everyone is going well.

Kick-Heart

Kickstarter keeps becoming more and more of a thing. It's only been a few weeks since I backed my first project on it (Obsidian's Project Eternity) and now I see a major anime company seeking crowd funding for a short film.

If you haven't heard, yesterday Production I.G. put up a Kickstarter page seeking $150,000 for a short film they want to make called Kick-Heart. It's only planned to be a 10 minute film, though they suggest that enough funding could extend this, but it has some big names attached. Namely, it's directed by Masaaki Yuasa, and Mamoru Oshii is listed as a Project Consultant, whatever that means. The film itself appears to be a fairly light affair about Romeo and Juliet as two pro-wrestlers, and the art-style looks very Yuasa.

It's a strange situation. It'd be the first time as far as I'm aware that an anime studio, let alone a major one, is appealing directly to the English-speaking market. They claim this is an experiment for them, and it's in response to the economic situation in Japan making it difficult to get funding for anything that carries a risk to it. The film, when completed, will be made available to backers as a DRM-free digital download or a region-free Bluray depending on how much each backer put in, so they're choosing reasonable distribution methods too.

And it's looking like it'll be successful. It's still too early to say for sure, but it's only the second day that it's been up and it's already raised over $40,000. If this gets funded it'll be interesting to see if any other anime companies try this approach.

The Kickstarter model in general is proving to be very popular, and it's not hard to see why. Developers/artists get to float their risky (from a sales perspective) ideas to a wide audience and directly gauge interest. Not only that, but they get to raise the income for their projects before they actually commit to them. Making ambitious projects in the traditional way carries the risk of the audience simply not liking it, leading to a huge loss for the makers if sales flop, and this is a big part of the reason why so much media panders to its audience.

Not only does Kickstarter let people propose their ideas in a way that doesn't expose them to crippling loss if they're unpopular, but it's a good way to get interest in general. If a big project gets put on Kickstarter then everyone hears about it, and the funding levels for a number of projects indicates that many people are overwhelmingly happy to buy into this model.

One concern I have is the pricing of the rewards for this particular project. $15 gets you a 480p download, $30 gets you a 720p download and $60 gets you a Bluray with a few extras. Compared to most other Kickstarter projects, and to most other media, that's pretty steep for a 10 minute short. Will they try to bring the Japanese pricing model to the west? Will people buy it anyway? A while back I'd have said no, but this is going strong so far. And when you consider, for example, that the US release of the Kara no Kyoukai box set sold out at a very high price, I'm just not sure.

Saber Alter Maid ver.

It's been a while since I took any photos of my figures, and after spending way too long trying to find the camera, the battery charger, the USB cable etc (all of which were hidden in completely different locations) I'm starting to remember why. Still, I took a few quick photos. My photography skill is as poor as ever, but I'm sure Saber's greatness will shine through anyway. Or something like that.

I actually forgot she was even coming, since she was a prepaid purchase right back at the start of the year. It was a nice surprise when I got the shipping notice. This is the second release of this figure, with the first being in 2010 if I recall. Apparently this rerelease has been given a once-over and has a few improvements in the figure itself, though I'm unsure of the details.

Mini Saber has her own tiny base and mop, and is quite cute.

Frills and ribbons everywhere. As expected of Alter, the quality's very high. The maid uniform itself is very detailed, and the accessories are too. The rusty bucket in particular is quite nice, though a bit fiddly to attach. It swings loosely, with the handle being two separate parts that attach to small holes in Saber's hand, and at the other end looping through a larger hole in the bucket itself. The mop is just loosely held in place, it won't fall out of her hand but her hand will slide up and down the shaft pretty easily. No, that's not meant to be a euphemism.

Her stockings are just great. It's not so visible in my photos but there are folds and creases around the knees and ankles, and the top of her stockings has all the frills and ribbons you could hope for. Her hair is nicely done too, and has no visible join line.

There are a couple of paint errors, on one of her cuffs and on the ribbon on her back, but nothing particularly noticeable.

The obligatory lewder shots. Just when you didn't think there could be any more ribbons...

And mini Saber diligently mopping her own tiny base. The mop is just resting on her hands, but she's doing her best anyway.

Overall it's bit hard to display just because of how big she is - Saber's 1/6 scale, which is larger than most of my other figures, and the base itself is really large so she takes up even more room. I'll probably have to give her an entire shelf. Damn, I really need more than one Detolf for all my figures to be rotated through.

My photos really don't do her justice, she looks brilliant. She's actually my first 'maid' figure, which is surprising. Maybe they're all this frilly and I'm here getting excited about nothing! Either way, she looks very nice sitting on display with my other Sabers. At least it's not another Miku.

Figure details:

Name: Saber Alter Maid ver.

Series: Fate/Hollow Ataraxia

Scale: 1/6

Company: Alter

Released: August 2012 (rerelease)

I don't even know

It looks like I still don't have much to write about. I haven't made any posts about figures in ages and was planning on taking some photos of my Saber Alter Maid but to my crushing disappointment I figured out that she's being shipped by SAL rather than EMS as I had mistakenly thought. Well, maybe she'll be here by Christmas.

Speaking of figures stuck in the mail...

I tried out Dark Souls recently, with great expectations. I don't have a 360 controller for the PC as was recommended, but I had an old Xbox 1 controller that I'd grafted a USB connection onto (with the judicious application of both solder and luck), and thought that it'd be just as good. I was sorely mistaken. It turns out that the bumpers, which aren't present on the original Xbox controllers, are pretty damn essential, and that it's really not playable if I have to reach for the little black and white buttons to do my basic attack. I did block the shit out of some arrows though, so there was that.

Giving up that idea, I tried to substitute in the keyboard, but the damn mouse cursor wouldn't disappear. It was one of those little things that just frustrated the hell out of me so I decided to close the game for the night. I do have a 360 controller somewhere so I'll have to try and dig that out.

The game did seem pretty fun though, especially after I found the target lock button and stopped flailing at the air beside the enemies with each swing.

Totally age appropriate

I'm still adjudicating school debates, and it's moved onto the primary school competition. Last night I saw this in one of the classrooms as part of a series of poster things on public speaking. I found it rather amusing, and was curious as to whether the teacher who made it knew who the character was. Probably not. Probably for the best.

Monthly post

It's that time of the half-year again, with doujin porn (among other things) flying thick and fast on /jp/. I just realised that Comiket is really the only time I use the board these days. Huh. What have I been doing with myself over the last few months? It is a mystery. 

Anyway, I haven't been following the porn side of things closely but I have been looking into some of the music. There's the usual slew of Touhou stuff, which intimidates me a bit just from the sheer volume of it all so I usually stick to the circles I know, branching out to new stuff when it's specifically recommended or gets a good response. So far I've grabbed albums by DDBY, TAMUSIC, Team Shanghai Alice (obligatory, really), Pizuya's Cell, and probably one or two more that I've already forgotten. I haven't listened to much of it yet, because I'm really damn slow at that sort of thing and it's easier to wait until the stream of releases slows down a bit.

On the non-Touhou side of C82 music, I decided to try out some denpa, a genre I'm not really familiar with. I grabbed the ちぃむdmp☆ album from C82 and it's actually pretty catchy stuff. The album is basically two girls with loli-like voices singing nonsensical pop songs cutely with a lot of onomatopoeia, so if that sounds like your kind of thing then try it out. It'll put a stupid grin on your face.

lolipop is pretty serious business

On the non-weeaboo side of things, I'm also really liking Metric's new album Synthetica. I saw them live when I went to Melbourne a couple of weekends ago and thought they were amazing. Now that I've actually got the album it's getting a lot of play when I feel like something other than Japanese moe-pop. Rare, but it does happen.

I bought the Civ 5 Gods and Kings expansion. My initial impressions were negative - I like the religion aspect but I'm increasingly of the opinion that Civ 4 is the better game. In my first Gods and Kings game I built up an early game army of 4 spearmen, 2 archers and a catapult, and miserably failed to take a single undefended city from the damn French. It just healed for approximately a million hp every turn and melted my troops with its attack. It seems the prevailing strategy is just not to try any sort of invasion early in the tech tree, which strikes me as incredibly boring. And the instant heal promotion still exists only to instil rage in me when a powerful AI unit that I'd been wearing down suddenly springs back to full health.

I still haven't watched more than 2 episodes of any anime this season. I should get onto that, though I probably won't.

tired

Life is busy. One semester ends and the next one starts straight after, and I'm studying stupidly long hours again. I keep meaning to write something, but then I don't. No loss to anyone, I'm sure. Orientation weeks are always terrible experiences, and 9-5 lectures on barely relevant topics make each day feel like a small eternity. Thank god that's over.

I'm taking the day off tomorrow and flying to Melbourne for an early weekend. I hope it's nice there.

Me skipping out on class tomorrow