"Pete" writes:

What you capptured is actually a Logitech Marble, not a trackball. The surface of the "ball" is a touch sensor, like a laptop touchpad.

I dunno, it still looks like a trackball to me.

P.S. When are you going to have e-mail address in the "about" page?

Probably never, since last time I listed one I almost never received any interesting mail. Maybe I'll experiment with enabling comments for a while.

In other news, holy heterochromia, that page dates back more than five years.

I noticed you didn't mention the AYAKO DOCTRINE for Scrapped Princess, I must say even though Winia was a secondary character, it deserves mention.
-Epi

Ah, quite right.

< Shikabane_Evirus> Anyway, I am totally going to blog about my AVANT-GARDE anime twitter, and ani-nouto is going to say it is a great or terrible idea...

Normally I would but I'm so shocked by Nanoha (or, actually, Fate) that I am thinking anime is ruined for me now, what to say about blogging and twittering.
-- Pete

Most Nanoha advocates aren't objective enough to caveat their recommendations with a qualification acknowledging that the series is rather polarizing. Many will sidestep the matter by suggesting new viewers skip directly to A's which is widely regarded as far and away the best series of the trilogy.

I disagree in so much that I feel A's has its own flaws. Also, despite some very nice fights, they don't measure up to My-Otome levels of mahou shoujo thrashings in my view. In fact, I'm tempted to claim the first series is the best of the three, merely because I prefer the dynamic having Fate as an antagonist provides.

I maintain that the most provocative aspects of the Nanoha series are the unanswered questions that everyone seems to pass over. E.g. In re Fate's Final Offer and In re the Fate of the Numbers.

Naturally, I don't think the Nanoha series is sophisticated enough to have introduced these questions deliberately—a larger flaw in my view than the pandering fan service, towards which I'm entirely ambivalent.

Cure White could choke both of these chicks out, easy.

Richard V. writes:

Just a bit of info about Heartcatch. It seems that it is actually going to be the second season of Fresh! Pretty Cure rather than a replacement. Info found at chartfag.wordpress.com.

I believe that chart contains incorrect information. My understanding is Heartcatch Precure will be a new series with new characters as depicted above.

Episode one really picks up when Natsuki appears.

There are rips available now of the My-HiME Blu-ray discs. The episode I watched probably could have been encoded at a higher bitrate, but still looked really nice. It also had an English dub track and a Chinese dub track, but no subtitles. So what are the chances we'll ever see this in the United States? If I understand Blu-ray region coding correctly, both the United States and Japan are in Region A, so I could import the disc, but lacking subtitles somewhat discourages me from doing so.

I'm not just saying that because Natsuki
shoots Mai to test for HiME powers.

I believe Blu-ray theoretically permits the addition of subtitle streams as downloadable content, but I could be way wrong about that and I'm certainly not aware of it being used in practice. There's also the possibility an American company could license this for release and fuck it up royal instead of just doing a bit-for-bit transfer and slapping on a subtitle track. Memo to prospective investors: I want to buy a My-HiME Blu-ray box set even though I already own the seven-disc Bandai DVD box set. Just don't screw it up, and you'll have my money in a heartbeat. (I'm still on the fence regarding Monster for really regrettable reasons, though. Sigh.)

Update: Pedro writes:

The My-HIME blu-ray box does have English subtitles (except for the trailers and the new 4 minute animation). So will the Otome blu-ray box coming in March.
The subtitle and audio options are listed on the Bandai Visual pages for both of them. This box is nice.

http://product.bandaivisual.co.jp/web_service/shop_product_info.asp?item_no=BCXA-0210
http://product.bandaivisual.co.jp/web_service/shop_product_info.asp?item_no=BCXA-0211

If American releases aren't announced soon, then it looks like I'm importing these providing they don't end up costing me a bajillion moon dollars. (Currently about $270 shipped, which isn't outrageous, but is still some pretty serious otaku money.)

J.R. writes:

Ever consider having a comments section under each blog entry?

I thought about it. I decided against it.

IKnight writes:

Puella Magi Madoka Magica has me stumped too (and magica seems redundant in both versions of the title). It does look like either a joke or a mistake, or it really is meant to read 'Magician's Magical Girl Madoka', which might perhaps make sense if Madoka has some kind of male magician-patron, or something.

At this point I'm just going to assume it's the Latin equivalent of Engrish.

Minko's date is off to a good start.

Ron writes:

I've been a fan of your blog since June 2003....I especially enjoy jumping in the way-back machine for stuff like Nuku Nuku and SDF Macross. Lots of fond memories of those particular anime.

How do you feel about bulimia, Minchi?

Man, I've been doing this a long time. If you include the non-anime Geocities years, it's been almost 12 years. 12 years! I can't even remember what I posted about before this turned into an anime blog. I think there was one month dedicated to supermodels wearing stockings.

Wait, what do these pictures have to do with anything?

P.S. I also like how comments have never been enabled.

Well, I did add that Twitter button jobbie. Confidentially, comments are disabled so I can milk new entries out of reader responses instead of writing updates like, "Hanasaku Iroha was really good this week," and posting four pictures of Minko suffering through what was almost a date.

Oh.

P.S. Hanasaku Iroha episode 12 was really good—probably the best episode of the series so far. I don't despise Ohana's mother anymore. Tomoe > Minko > Ohana > Yuina > Ohana's grandmother > Namiko (Koichi's co-worker) > Ohana's mom > Nako (what is with all the KO names?) > Yuina's grandmother > annoying consultant lady.