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I finished Kore wa zombie desu ka of the dead. I'm not entirely sure if it was worse than the first season exactly, but I know I didn't like it all the same.

I finished Heartcatch Precure a bit ago. Fantastic mahou shoujo for what it was with fantastic characters. Gotta hunt down the rest of the figuarts I'm missing.

Anyway, spring season is almost over. Things have ended, are ending...Assassination Classroom, (which I ended up not caring for ultimately (though two or so of the later episodes were actually interesting)), Owari no Seraph (which was all in all, through and through, a huge pile of ), Ame-iro Cocoa (whoooo caaaares), Mikagura School Suite (which stopped being worthwhile two episodes in), I can't understand what my husband is saying 2 (guess it was ok ish), Punch Line (pretty solid, not as well fleshed out as I would have liked, game will probably be better), and Nisekoi: (this season made me super sad and even got me regretting my Chitoge and Kosaki nendoroid preorders. Why you gotta do this to me Nisekoi. I used to really like you).

The last show I'm watching ends tom...today. Tesagure has been a really solid and fresh show all season and the finale to this spin-off should be no less great. I expect it will be one thing this season that I have unambiguous positive feelings towards.

Spring kinda sucked. Pretty disappointing showing all in all...I really liked the winter season, and was hoping I may start watching some better shows going forward from that, but I'd rate spring a solid meh-. I can only hope the summer brings better things. And since I'm gonna be watching 15 shows...it better.

I think the Protector of Water's color scheme works all right, but it's definitely not my favorite color scheme of the Protectors. The hands are a different color than the feet, the lower arms are a different color than the lower legs, and the upper arms are a different color than the upper legs. It ends up feeling a bit chaotic compared to the other Protectors, and I don't particularly like that.

Now, two things that bother a lot of other people but don't really bother me are the Dark Azur being isolated to the mask and the use of multiple transparent colors. For me, Dark Azur is a close enough match to Tr. Light Blue as far as hue is concerned that the mask doesn't seem "lonely", and both are far enough from Tr. Blue that they can be identified as distinct colors.

Yeah, the lack of consistency with the limbs' colors is one of my main peeves, and one of the first things I fixed when I got the set. The fact that it uses black feet and silver hands is particularly problematic, I think. I'd like to make them match, but making the hands black leaves the chest with the only silver piece in the set, which looks weird. But I can't make the feet silver because, well, I don't have any extras, and it kinda takes away from the color scheme a bit too (and removes the symmetry of having half the protectors with silver feet and the other half with black ones).

The mask being the only dark azure piece is probably my biggest beef with the set though. It is much too bright a shade for me to see it as matching the trans light blue--which is, although somewhat close in shade, a little dull. It stands out way too much and looks pretty awful in my opinion. I got an extra size 5 azure shell for the chest, which (combined with the aforementioned limb color adjustments) made the whole thing look much, much better.

With some modding it's a solid figure, but as it is I am definitely not a big fan of it.

The protector of water is the worst protector. It has a very poor color scheme. I don't like it very much.

I was thinking, when Rose and Pearl fused, wouldn't Rose know why Pearl was really fusing with her; to make Greg jealous, seeing as how their minds were also fused?

Rose may not find that terribly objectionable, none of the gems really treated him with much respect (as was addressed later) so they were not above teasing him. And it's not like Pearl made any effort to hide how she felt generally speaking. So Rose was either aware and played along or just ignored it as a Pearl thing. It's not like she hasn't spent thousands of years with her or fused with her before. She definitely should know how Pearl thinks by that point.

On the other hand, while making Greg jealous/uncomfortable was her goal, it's not like Pearl didn't just want to fuse with Rose anyway, what with being crazy in love with her and all that. And the jealousy stems from that love, and Garnet has told us that when gems fused it's not as simple or concrete as just two people being in one body, they become one person and are fueled by the two's mix of emotions. I guess my headcanon would be that everything that is Pearl's love (including her jealousy, loyalty, possessiveness, etc.) kinda gets muddied together without the specifics coming into play. So Rainbow Quartz as an entity wouldn't necessarily be aware (or care) what Pearl's motives are, since they're just a small part of what she is.

I guess? I dunno if that makes sense.

I haven't really played many Lego games, least not since the last decade or something...I really like the original Star Wars, really. It was simple, but the concept was fresh an the whole thing was fun. I really enjoyed it. Other than that, I love the first Batman game. I think that one is probably my favorite, just...it's so much dang fun. So many characters, original stories, the villain stories, the suits and everything. It was great.

The most recent game I've played (first one since Indiana Jones 2, actually) was the Chima game. I really liked it for the Chima angle, cause I love Chima, but as a game it wasn't all that hot I think. A bit too short.

Sworn to the Sword is like my new favorite episode. Any episode with a song is a winner in my book, make that two, make it a Steven and Connie episode + feature my favorite gem strongly while going off with Rose feels. Best episode, is what I'm saying.

Also, new intro, not as fancy as the old one but pretty great.

All great episodes though, lots of interesting stuff especially with Garnet and of course Malachite...And we're getting another Steven Bomb next month so that's gonna rock.

Went with number 3, I think it's my favorite Metalbeard in the contest and all around a great likeness of the character. Not to mention a fantastic MOC.

I went with #4 on this one. I hadn't seen it before, it kinda surprised me. It's not an extremely accurate replica of the movie or set micromanagers, and noticeably forgoes the entire blocky shape, but the entire feel and aesthetic carried over extremely well, I think. It looks pretty impressive,

I guess I may have misread or misremembered, but didn't the product pages from Best Buy say that the Warrior/Slicer/Basher combiner would have multiple heads? Cause there's a distinct lack of more than a single head on that combiner. Kind of a bummer.

$40 for ~200 parts remains a very poor cost/part ratio for any LEGO set.

These con-exclusive sets are always like this. Very expensive for their price. It's just how they work with exclusive things like these, I guess. Offsetting the cost of making a whole set in limited quantities or taking advantage of the demand or something like that.

Finished the first season of Kore wa Zombie desu ka. Honestly, the only thing keeping me from thinking it was garbage was the extremely, undeservingly superb ost. This show has some good music. I don't care for it at all otherwise. Second season has been even worse. Though the music is still pretty great. That being said, I do like Sarasvati, I think. The harem genre usually being full of girls who fall for the main character for no real discernible reason (this show included/especially), the notion of a character who just likes the mc because he has a hot butt is...fresh, and really pretty hilarious. So yeah, I guess she's ok.

Anyway, I watched Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun over the span of two days (that's some sort of record for me I think). I. Really liked it. The characters are unique, the whole thing is a really unusual and fun romance (I don't think I've ever seen so many confessions in any anime before, these people are honest.). The whole show is funny and charming and kinda weird but most of all, really good. But...unfortunately, like too many anime, it suffers from having a criminally low amount of episodes to really do itself justice. The same studio that did this series did Kuragehime, which is one of my all time favorite anime as well as one of the most unfortunate. It only had 11 episodes, so ended just as things were getting great. Abruptly, and in the middle of things. And Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun (though it had 2 more episodes) is pretty much the same deal. It built up to a really good spot for the first stretch of the show, but the last couple of episodes or so were sort of trying to build up some plot threads that never got to mean much since it ended in a really awkward final episode. (pretty sure it's a filler ending too, it didn't feel like something any manga would have to do ever). So even though I think it was mostly fantastic, in the end I'm just left kinda conflicted. And with a massive desire to read the manga. So I will do that. Thankfully, this once it turns out a manga I'm interested in is being licensed over here. Woo.

Oh yeah, and I started Nichijou a few days ago. It's pretty much amazing. The animation is great, which is really important. But mostly it's just a really really hilarious show. It's a lot of fun.

And. I watched Summer Wars yesterday or something. It was ok I suppose. Maybe.

For some reason I drew a short comic strip about this. Dunno why, but here it is anyways:

 

[comic]

Ok, not gonna lie. I was kind of disappointed that the plot of this comic didn't involve someone launching the bird at the Lego person (you know, Angry Birds style), shooting them over the line. That. That would have been really clever. But. Jetpack. Ok.

Anyway.

This sounds kind of weird. I'm not sure how it'll translate to Lego, but I'm equally curious. Guess we'll see how this goes.

This is really cool. Lots of great concept work here. It's interesting to see the bats and scorpions were there from the get go, and that the idea for the second year was already forming even back then. Those insect characters look really cool, especially the beetle. And the zombies too, look even cooler than what we got.

Anyway, since I'm way over the spring season and we are close enough to summer to pretty much know everything that's going on with that, the time has come again. How are your summers looking, anime-wise?

Every season I feel like I want to cut back on the amount of series I'm watching yet almost always I end up with even more than before, it's a real issue. Anyway my summer watch list is looking like this.

-World Trigger (continuing from spring)

-Go! Princess Precure (continuing from spring)

-The Heroic Legend of Arslan (continuing from spring)

-Ninja Slayer from Animation (continuing from spring)

-My Love Story!! (continuing from spring)

-DRRR!!x2 Ten (for once really looking forward to this)

-Gatchaman Crowds Insight (all the hype)

-The iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls 2nd Season (should be fun)

-Wooser's Hand-to-Mouth Life Mugen-hen (guess so)

-Charlotte (apparent spiritual successor to angel beats? sign me the heck up)

-Classroom*Crisis (looks good, like the director)

-Himouto! Umaru-chan (seems to be pretty funny)

-Jitsu wa Watashi wa (art style looks good, have liked the director's previous work on ika musume)

-Castle Town Dandelion (premise seems promising)

-Sore ga Seiyuu! (anime based on a manga made by a seiyuu. should be interesting.)

There's a couple others under my "maybe" category, but these are what I'm planning on watching. It's a lot! :/

Anyone know how long it usually takes for an Anime adaption to be made from a manga? I'm craving a One-Punch Man show, or at least a Boku no Hero one. 

 

Though, it probably won't be until at least 200 chapters in. 

Anime adaptations are never a definite thing for any manga. It's a matter of its popularity and a studio's interest, in the end.

But, if you want a One-Punch Man anime, you are in luck. One is slated to start this fall.

I made a big manga order last week. Finally finished getting Soul Eater and Bakuman, caught up with Centaur no Nayami (so great) and threw in Railgun 4 because why not. (it is certainly the best Railgun up to that point. Sisters arc is good like that). It feels good to finally put those series to rest. I'm planning on getting the Nausicaa box set and start buying Bunny Drop and Yotsuba& soon...Maybe finally get past volume 10 of Bleach?

I started Kore wa Zombie desu ka? like, a week ago or something? I've watched five episodes it's mostly uninteresting.

The season is nearing an end now. Probably about as good a time as any to rank all the stuff I'm watching.

1. Ore Monogatari!!

2. Tesagure! Bukatsumono Spin-off Purupurun Charm to Asobou

3. Punchline

4. Go! Princess Precure

4. Arslan Senki

6. Assassination Classroom

6. World Trigger

6. Nisekoi:

9. Mikagura Gakuen Kumikyoku

9. Ninja Slayer from Animation

9. I Can't Understand What My Husband is Saying 2

12. Ame-iro Cocoa

13. Owari no Seraph

Ore Monogatari!! is great!! It hits all the right notes every episode. Great romance story, friendship story, story...It's cute and it's charming and it has a lot of heart and brains. It's great.

Tesagure! kind of lost me the last two episodes with the Yuriwolf thing but other than that it's been an amazing and hilarious season that has really only upped the amount of innovation they've been doing. Even the Yuriwolf game, though I don't think it was a great success, was entirely in line with the show's purposes. Also, Aoi's punchline was amazing as always. Oh, Yua...

Punchline's great. The story has gotten really involved and twisty and all. Characters are interesting, whole thing is pretty silly but very good. Nothing out of line here considering it's written by the Zero Escape guy.

Precure's fun. I started watching the infinitely better Heartcatch a while ago, and the comparisons aren't kind to Princess. It's still a solid and very fun series though.

Arslan's good. It feels like it's still really just waiting for something to happen. Who knows what. It's been interesting though.

Assassination Classroom is ok. Just. Ok, mostly. This latest island arc has been uncharacteristically interesting though.

Things are happening in World Trigger. This is a novel thing for World Trigger.

Nisekoi: is. I don't know. I want to like it, I really do. I loved everything in this series up till episode 2 of :. But I just. I don't even care anymore. I don't even know fully what happened. I miss when it was just Raku, Kosaki and Chitoge, I suppose.

Mikagura took a general dive in quality as far as animation and art go as early as episode 2. And it just. Hasn't been all that interesting in any area for a while. I guess it's there.

Ninja Slayer is, well, it's still Ninja Slayer. And...it's. I dunno. Adjectives like "good" or "bad" seem to lose any semblance of meaning near a show like this.

The Husband show hasn't changed a bit. It's kind of amusing and inoffensive but that is as far as it goes.

There wasn't anything to say about Ameiro Cocoa when it started and there's still nothing to say about it now.

Owari no Seraph is awful. Awful and generic and poorly animated and utterly, utterly boring. Really though the animation is just terrible. I may be able to forgive a show as awful as this if it at least bothered to look pretty, but as choppy and cruddy as it is it just accentuates all the awfulness in the show rather than make me want to ignore it. Terrible show.

edit: oh yeah RGZ+ started too. That sure happened. First episode was ok? May be worth waiting until it's all out to watch it though, dunno.

All in all I'm not very impressed with this season at all. There's a handful of pretty solid series but a lot of it is just not that great. Kinda missing the winter season over here.

The difference is admittedly not quite as noticeable in smaller pieces. I remember when I got Vakama Metru (my first Bionicle set) I spent a while trying to figure out what color exactly the eye stalk is. I think it becomes clear what color it is in bigger pieces though, like Pohatu's bones. Those are trans fluor. green too, and, sadly, clearly not yellow.

 

 

1. More eye colors - The Masters need to have different eye colors. I would like Tahu's eye to be darker blue, Lewa's light green, Pohatu's orange, and Ouna's dark green. Kopaka light blue eyes and Gali's yellow eyes are okay.

 

 

Lewa does have light green eyes. Specifically he has Trans. Fluorescent Green eyes, the lightest shade of trans green there is (with Trans Bright Green and Trans Green being darker). Gali's eyes are also trans fluor. green, not trans yellow.

 

 

 

But in all seriousness, how can you tell the difference?

 

Difference in what? Fluorescent green and yellow? Well. One of them is green. And. The other is yellow? That's about it really.

1. More eye colors - The Masters need to have different eye colors. I would like Tahu's eye to be darker blue, Lewa's light green, Pohatu's orange, and Ouna's dark green. Kopaka light blue eyes and Gali's yellow eyes are okay.

 

Lewa does have light green eyes. Specifically he has Trans. Fluorescent Green eyes, the lightest shade of trans green there is (with Trans Bright Green and Trans Green being darker). Gali's eyes are also trans fluor. green, not trans yellow.

Hot dang, is that printed Chima armor? That's new. Looks like a neat minifigure.

Epics 5, the long awaited sequel to Epics 3.6. This franchise is infamous for its nonsensical naming scheme. It's a bother to all.

Some serious non-goof totally ninjad my spotlight here.

It's the master of fire, before. He mastered it.

That's a lot of colons. Perhaps. Even. Too many colons? POSSIBLY. Results are inconclusive.

 

 

 

SRMTHFG! (Bonus points to whomever figures this one out)

 

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go! I've been searching everywhere for that show to watch it again, but I've had no luck...

Try Kisscartoon, pretty sure they have it.

 

Anyway, I think this may accurately reflect how I felt about about the Colbert Report ending a mere nine months after I started watching. It sucked!

He taking over for Letterman this September, FYI.

 

Oh, yeah, I know that. It won't really be the same though, his character from the Report isn't carrying over, it won't be satire or the same format and all. I'm really excited for him taking over the Late Show, but I still can't really help but miss the Report.

Shame about the piano.

The Maze is a really cool project though, I'm glad it passed.