Nagi takes a seat on the roof of the school.

By now surely everyone has heard about the sudden dip into Serious Territory during the final three episodes of Kannagi. Responses are generally negative, and perhaps only a little bit unfairly so. The shift in tone is jarring, considering Kannagi spent the first 10 episodes almost purely on comedy. I was okay with the change, but then again I also enjoy episodes 25 and 26 of Neon Genesis Evangelion. (In other news, I should totally start using footnotes again.) I want to say Kannagi tried to do for harem comedies what ef ~a tale of memories~ did for moe blobs and what Eva did for giant robots, but unfortunately Kannagi is not nearly as successful.

It’s official: Tsugumi is the Best Girl in Kannagi
Fat lot of good it does ya, sweetheart.

This failure is due to the fact Kannagi’s great strength is comedy. Usually if I like a series it’s because I like the characters, but that’s not the case with Kannagi. This is not to say I dislike its characters, because Tsugumi is a real peach and the rest of the cast is engaging enough, but they’re not the reason I placed (and still place) Kannagi as the top show from Autumn 2008. Kannagi surpassed all expectations and conventions because of its comedic aspects. When you take that away—for any reason—you eliminate the best it has to offer. What’s left is all right, but wouldn’t have been enough to hold off Nodame Cantabile: Pari-Hen or Hyakko for example.

Noda Megumi and Chiaki Shinichi, paper doll edition.

Nodame Cantabile: Paris Chapter started out as my favorite show this season and would have finished first in my End of Season Rankings (more on that later) were it not for a very solid season of Kannagi. Others offered some complaints about Nodame Paris, mostly regarding the new characters (and absence of old ones) and the look of the 3D orchestra. These issues don’t bother me because my primary interests surround Nodame herself.

It is unwise to toy with Nodame. She’ll fuck you up.

It is nice to see her relationship with Chiaki has advanced. These are baby steps to be sure, especially if they’ve known each other four years already, but by anime standards they are leaps and bounds. At least they’re officially a couple now. Granted, they aren’t especially affectionate, but compared to other shows where couples act like total strangers even after one of them literally fucks loves the other one into a coma, Chiaki and Nodame are practically playing grab ass in the street. Okay?

Chiaki helps Nodame relax.

I’m okay with new characters. It’s better than keeping the original cast around forever and adding more and more new characters with each succeeding episode, diluting the screen time for all of them. StrikerS, I’m looking in your direction. Plus it wouldn’t make sense for Nodame to feel homesick if everybody she knew in Japan happened to follow her following Chiaki to Paris. Pari-Hen is very much about Nodame adjusting and maturing as a person and a musician, and keeping her alone serves to promote that goal with the additional benefit of revealing just how needy and lonely Chiaki can be.

Gainax and J.C. Staff try to save a little money.

The 3D orchestra does look bad, and I hope J.C. Staff learns from its previous partnerships and uses some of Gainax’s cost-cutting techniques during season three should the budget get tight. E.g., paper dolls, still frames, and black & white scenes. I find those to be better options than re-using stock footage or leaning on brutal CGI. That’s right, there will be a season three (really just season two part two, seeing as how Paris was only 11 episodes. I have every confidence the next Nodame Cantabile will be a must-see show and I’m looking forward to it already.

Carol Danvers as Captain America.

Just so you know, the Marvel Comics New Mangaverse series is all right.

Testing the new CCFL.

It’s a miracle. I managed to swap out the CCFL on my IBM Thinkpad T42p notebook computer. I am finally back to full UXGA glory. It was actually relatively easy to install the replacement CCFL. The only scary part was snipping off part of the leads before soldering; I was afraid I had cut them too short. (I don’t think you’re supposed to trim the leads before installation, but mine were definitely too long.) Taking out the old CCFL was a different matter. Because of the way the original was secured with tape, I completely destroyed the old light while removing it from the screen in November. I fell into despair after that, to tell you the truth. As you can see, it took me weeks to muster enough nerve to install the new one.

My R50 next to my reborn T42p

If your laptop screen dies, I recommend just buying a whole replacement from eBay for $60 if you’re not reasonably comfortable with soldering and handling extremely fragile objects. I also definitely introduced some dust particles between the sandwich of layers comprising the LCD monitor while replacing the bulb. I presume I was not diligent enough in ensuring clean conditions. Alas.

28:13:15< Evirus> The art in Marvel Mangaverse isn’t that great until the 2006 series.
28:13:16< Divine> I couldn’t read something called “Marvel Mangaverse” on principle
28:13:17< Tir_McDohl> Marvel Moeverse