Thus, MOAR IMAGE SPAM.

There are some duplicates from the other post, because everything’s in 720p love this time.  Her voice is godly.  She’s voiced by Nakamichi Mihoko (中道美穂子), who apparently debuted in 2009 in reaaaaaaally tiny minor nameless roles, so this is her first role of significance, I should say?

I really hope she’ll get more roles, and that she wasn’t chosen just because she could speak authentic Kyouto-ben.  She can convey a certain rawness in her voice even if it’s not perfect and is a little forced on one or two lines.  But she deserves a chance to shine.  Goodness knows she’s got only about a centillion* times more talent than, say, the likes of Hikasa Youko (yes, I totally went there).

*That’s 10³⁰³ or 10⁶⁰⁰, by the way.

I’m very sad that I probably won’t get to see her for at least a month, maybe more.  :<

Shinobu feels like a bit of a loner, so I highly doubt she’s participating in the team tournament either.  Boo.

And my mind won’t stop shipping Chihaya with Shinobu either.  I’m sure it’d work out really well if I think of it like how I treat H.G. and Myka’s relationship — just set a cut-off point for canon, and then rampant AU after that.  Since you know the typical shoujo formula for protagonists — oblivious, oblivious, oblivious, oblivious, NOT OBLIVIOUS, THE END.

You know they were made for one another:

ZOMG.  I just had an amazing idea.  Yuri with the shoujo formula.  It’s got to work better than “yuri with the soap opera formula” (SP!), “yuri with mecha” (YOU KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT), “yuri trolololol” (Yamibou), or “yuri and a squick paedo” (Mai-Otome).

So, so, Chihayafuru would be the same, you see, only Taichi would be replaced with, I dunno, some girl voiced by Takagaki who has a crush on Chihaya after seeing her again, and Arata would stay as a platonic childhood friend (kinda like what he is right now), and Kanade would be straight (making her gay too would just result in SP! 2).  And there would be Foe Yay between Chihaya and Shinobu, and Chihaya would be oblivious for the most part.

Crap, now I can’t decide if Seto should be with Takagaki or Nakamichi.  ANYWAY, the show is already 120% better without Miyano.  Which is good.

/more pointless brain thoughts
/crack yuri goggling
/delusional seiyuu fangirl

There is just so, so much love.  <3

… ‘as long as she doesn’t move or talk’.

Making the skirt + sweats look work since 2011.

It’s hard to show Chihaya’s quirks with just a screenshot, but suffice to say I find her really adorable and endearing.

This series review is perhaps a bit different from the other ones I’ve written, in that Chihayafuru is a) still ongoing (which reminds me, I should probably write one for Mawaru PenguinDrum; it’s a series I’m in love with, probably more than SKU), and b) it has no yuri whatsoever.

Not that it’s particularly surprising, since I’ve yet to see a non-villain (or really, even a villain) yuri character in shoujo… uh, apart from Haruka and Michiru, of course.  And, uh, Seiya?  I never watched the later seasons so I’m not entirely sure.  BUT I DIGRESS.

Anyway.  So this series is about karuta, this Japanese card game that Chihaya was introduced to in her childhood, and she becomes deeply interested in playing it competitively, and it’s basically about the trials and tribulations she has to face in getting her childhood friends to play again, to get enough members to form a karuta club, to win the prefectural qualifiers, and for her club to test their mettle against other top players in both a team and individual tournament.  (It seriously sounded like Saki for a moment there.)

If I had to describe it, I would probably say Chihayafuru‘s this blend of tournament style series that you usually see in shounen series, but with a rather shoujo focus on it.  It might be fair to say it’s like the shoujo version of Hikaru no Go rather than, say, Yugioh, Saki, or Shion no Ou (this was a really, really crappy series — the only redeeming point was Paku Romi), for example.

I’m also really pleased that it’s a 26 episode adaptation instead of being rushed or given a lame non-ending.

And now, back to the ‘rather shoujo focus’.  What does that mean exactly, you say?  Well, hello, Two Guys and a Girl TV trope!  What are you doing here?  A love triangle with an oblivious protagonist being the object of both guys’ affections (sort of)?  Why, yes!  Oh, and it also means there’s less action, less yelling, and more pretty art for me to look at.

I love pretty animations.  (Which was why I was in incoherent speechlessness when I first saw the quality Aoi Hana was animated at.)  And who are they trying to market this to, having it air at 1 am?  I’m confuzzled.

Oh, and note to anyone who cares — if you’re allergic to defensive fangirls, you should probably not look up Chihayafuru episode synposes since I just wasted five minutes of my life reading  defensive comments why Arata is better than Taichi, and why Taichi should burn in a fire and die, just because I was looking for screenshots of my faaavourite character in Chihayafuru.  <3

For those of you who’ve been following the series, can you guess who it is?

Wakamiya Shinobu, of course!

IMAGE SPAM, GO!

The first time we see her. She just leaves a wonderful first impression.

A thousand times yes.

She’s so mysterious and refined, right?

Well, prepare yourself for some GAP MOE!

Did I mention she speaks in a lilting Kyouto-ben?  It automatically makes me think of Shizuru, and it’s probably a real Kyouto-ben (like with Shindou Naomi) as both seiyuu are from Kyouto Prefecture.

Hm, I’m sure everyone’s used to my posts devolving into personal fangirlingness, but let’s return back to the series review part of the post.

While I wouldn’t say Chihayafuru is an exercise in amazing masterpieceness, it’s a series that I find very enjoyable.  The story is not as contrived as your average anime series (totally normal, plain, bland dude surrounded by a bunch of really attractive or moe girls who are all drastically different and fit into different archetypes for a various number of reasons) and I feel invested in what’ll happen to Chihaya and the rest of the gang next.

It also makes two very distinct genres blend and work together quite well — the tournament style and shoujo blend I mentioned earlier.  The first several episodes (maybe 5 – 8 of them?  Wild guess.) are on building the relationships between the various characters and on forming the karuta club, and there’s a marked absence of showing the grueling training or anything non-karuta (noticeable and huge time skips from one place of interest to the next — e.g. they’ll say they start training for a tournament a week away, and ten seconds later they’re at the tournament), so you should probably take that into account if you’re considering or toying with the idea of watching it.

The yuri goggler in me is also seeing potential shippability between Chihaya and Shinobu as well.  I guess it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that Shinobu’s the Queen — in other words, the best female karuta player in Japan.  And since this is only really a game that’s played in Japan, you could say Shinobu’s the best female karuta player, period.  Chihaya is aiming to become the Queen, so there’s the competitiveness going on (the most recent shot of Shinobu, you know, the one of her being all Shizuru, is Shinobu’s reaction when Chihaya takes a really hard-to-take card from her).

Of course, any shippability is purely imagined, since there is, I repeat, no yuri in this show.  But it’s still fun.  And I so ship Chihaya x Shinobu now.  Or should it be Shinobu x Chihaya?  I can’t decide!  I definitely like this ship more than Chihaya x Kanade though.  Give me more Kyouto-ben already!  (屮゜Д゜)屮

Saki Biyori ~Buchou Ver.~

Though I’d say, please don’t get your hopes up, because if Hakka-ya were a ’10′ (could you imagine giving it any other score?), Saki Biyori’s more like… uh, a ’2′ at most.  It’s rather uninspired for a 4-koma, I find, and the jokes aren’t really that funny.  Azumanga Daioh is 4-koma done (exceedingly) well.  And if I remember correctly, K-ON was pretty well done too, 4-koma-wise.

Any enjoyment I derived from this was probably purely by virtue of the characters this was about.  Namely Hisa’s cute brand of weird, Wahaha’s “my pace”ness, and Touka’s ojou.  (Mihoko barely got any screen time, and Yumi was largely… tsukkomi-ing.)

It’s the first time I’ve done any translation work on 4-koma, and I have to ask… are the speech bubbles always this small?  =____=  I know when I read 4-koma I hate it when scanlators use dinky dinky little font that I can barely read even if I press my nose to the monitor, so I went with “larger font + text –> blending options –> stroke (white)” instead of trying to squish everything into each little speech bubble.

Hope you enjoy it anyway.

With love from a Hisa and Itou Shizuka fangirl.

See if you spot the edit I made to this picture. 8D // Click to see the original.

When I learnt about this, I kind of felt like the way I did when I saw the glorious, glorious notice at the end of the Marimite 3rd OVA saying the fourth season was greenlit for production.

Only now, I’m imagining all sorts of TOSHINOU KYOUKO!!! delight.

In case it wasn’t really obvious already, Ayano’s my absolute favourite.  <3

FUJITA SAKI FTW.

BRRRRRRRRR <3

… I can’t stop hitting replay.  =___=

… this reminds me of the Kyouko/Ayano drama CD, where it’s scene after scene of delight.  I can’t hold back my fangirly squeals of delight at the yuriffic love.  Kyouko actually gets a moment to act a bit more mature than usual as well — it kind of makes you go, “Aw, I see why Ayano’s so head over heels for her.”

♪ I'm an apple pie! Apple pie! Apple pie! ♪

Lattice-tastic, and what’s more, she won’t try to stalk you or try to start dubious Project Ms.  :D

嫌だわ、早く磨り潰さないと。　ｓｌｋｄｆｊｌｋｓｄｊｆ；さｄｋｊ　（屮゜Д゜）屮

ＬＥＴ’Ｓ　ＤＥＳＴＩＮＹっ！ ノ（°　口 　°）ヽ

How can you not love this woman?

The way that many fanfiction writers or even the original series deals with H.G.’s picking up of modern technology leaves much to be desired, I find.  That was one of the problems I had with “Buried” and “Reset” (other than the other really obvious, HG-related problem).  I don’t think H.G. would’ve really had a chance to perfect her “driving and talking on a cell phone at the same time” skills… nor would she have had much (or any!) exposure to voicemail.  Or be so tech savvy that she could hack into the Warehouse 13 finances/accounts… or be so savvy that she could know and control how much information she were revealing (e.g. GPS locating her whereabouts).  This is, of course, even considering the time she spent between “Time Will Tell” and “For the Team”.  Even just H.G.’s unfamiliarity with laptops in “For the Team” should be enough to illustrate my point, I should think.

On the other hand, the 19th century isn’t really so long ago that everything would be completely alien.  In fact, just Wikipedia-ing various facts I find that I’m rather surprised by the degree of similarity between modern times and the 19th century, iPhones and other electronics-related obviousness aside.  So, I don’t know, I would like to find a happy medium where H.G., the tech whiz that she is, has a period of adjustment where she gets used to things and tries to learn more about this new and foreign world around her.

And also, on my characterisation of Claudia: she’s had a rather difficult childhood to say the least, and is rather socially awkward at times, having missed out on many normal interactions, perhaps especially with peers (e.g. as shown in “For the Team”).  But she’s a bright girl with a fairly outgoing personality and she adjusts quite easily in that sense.  The Warehouse is also the only family she ever has now, her twelve-year estrangement with her brother leaving their relationship much more distant than when they had a much greater age gap between them.  She’s also quite nervous and edgy around H.G. in the beginning (“When and Where”).

Emotionally, I think Claudia is a bit of an overgrown kid (obviously not in the way Pete’s a Man Child).  The way she goes for a hug like with Myka at the end of “For the Team shows that she seeks closeness and intimacy in a way that seems almost child-like, mixed in with some awkwardness/embarrassment that leads her to shy away from a prolonged hug.

And based on Claudia’s mention of “Percussive Maintenance” (in “Burnout”, I think?) I’m going to use her as my TVTropes proxy.  :D

Oh, and it’s rather fun trying to check whether certain words were in use between the period of 1870 – 1890 or so.  I’ve received a bit of linguistic training, and though I never pictured using it this way, it’s quite useful when interpreting the results of whether word or phrase x was in print during a certain time or not.

And of course, One Oxford Centre really is in Downtown Pittsburgh.  I kind of chose it the other way around — I needed a shopping centre type of place close by J. R. Weldin Company, a rather famous historic pen shop.  That’s where Myka buys her gift, and I suppose I haven’t quite decided whether I’ll write more on the pen shop.  But it’s famous enough that several people have posted pictures of its interior, which is rather helpful should I decide to write about it.

One Oxford Centre is like a mix of business offices and shopping-mall-ness.  It has a food court and some eateries and shops.  I’ve taken some liberties with the actual shops in the centre, but the cafe at which Myka and H.G. dine is Au Bon Pain, an actual restaurant there.

Oh, and live piano music really does play in the atrium.  :D

And the bracelet might look something like this, though I kind of imagined something that was a bit more dangly and dainty:

And since H.G.’s voiced her awesome “I know a thing or two about the opposite sex”, it’s probably not too far of a stretch to say that Pete knows about the “one” rule — that he may reveal the true nature of his work to one person.  I haven’t exactly thought through how to address Pete and Kelly’s relationship, though it’s obvious they won’t get much (if any) focus since I’m all gaga over H.G.  :D

My favourite part of this section (or even the whole ‘episode’) was probably writing the scene where H.G. flirts, since I get to go all fangirly.  :D

I frequently consulted this picture when I wrote about her Launcher of a Thousand Ships, Memetic Sex God(dess)ness:

Me: *____*   … *writing* …  *_______*!

^That was basically how it went.

Except in this episode H.G.’s in an AWESOMETASTIC vest.  Hrm, kind of like the “When and Where” one, except without the frilly thing in the back.  <3

And hilariously, I tried to mix things up a bit by having a female (instead of male) manager, but she turned out to be kind of bitchy, so I’m not sure if I ended up doing much in that sense.  Considering the demographics of Pittsburgh (I totally just Wikipedia’d this), Hispanic seems like a reasonable choice.

And another thing — I really dislike it when Myka’s permanently reduced to a blushing awkward school girl in fan fiction.  Of course, she does have her moments around H.G. (take her expression for example, in “Emily Lake”/”Stand” when H.G.’s first projected from the whatchamacallit black ball since “3…2…1″).  But c’mon, this is Myka we’re talking about!  Just check out the pilot or the earlier seasons.  Even though her thing with “I don’t eat sugar” is completely warped by now (what with Twizzlers placement ads and whatnot), that Myka is still there somewhere.

The reason why H.G./Myka even appeals to me is precisely because they’re both strong and independent women who can take care of themselves.  (^__^)b

And because I rather like my seizon senryaku emoticon: ノ(°　口 　°)ヽ!

From the original creator of Shoujo Kakumei Utena.

I’ve only watched one episode of it, and I’m still in a state of delightful “WTF :D?”.  Don’t we all need amazing transformation sequences like these?  I can’t make sense of the sequence at all, and I don’t want to!  Plus, the palette is so wonderously bright and cheery.

My second favourite part of the transformation sequence (first is 1 min 41 seconds in) is WHEN SHE STEPS ON THE PENGUINS’ HEADS.  :D

I love how Utena-ish it all is.  Music-wise, surrealness-wise, and the yank-something-out-of-your-chest-ness.  The voice acting is a bit clunky and raw, but Himari’s voice still has its appeal to me.

SEIZON SENRYAKUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!  ノ(°　口 　°)ヽ

I admit I largely did this because she said that.

Well, at least now I have a new avatar over at FF.net.

Sexy, less used, British spellings FTW, by the way.  And totally justified, because the fake H. G. Wells used it in The Invisible Man.

But there was nothing to throw light on the connexion between the Invisible Man and the Tramp; for Mr. Marvel had supplied no information about the three books, or the money with which he was lined.

The way I’ve done it is having written up the whole “episode” already, but I’ve broken it up into three parts, since reading upwards of 12,000 words at one sitting without any place to bookmark the thing is a bit of a doozy, and perhaps a bit annoying if you don’t have the time to read that much at once.

This assessment is based on how it took me over 1.5 hours to read from beginning to end in the final revision, editing and rearranging included.  Even supposing one reads an average of a page of material in one minute (give or take 250 – 300 words, I suppose), it’d still take 40 – 48 minutes to read it all at once.  And besides, it’s going to take me ages to write the second part, so breaking it up seems like a good decision.

And it should be noted that a large part of my motivation for writing “Connexion” is my displeasure with both S2 and S3 finales (though I could potentially like the S3 one if they do S4 right).  Hence the AU, which is set right after the end of “When and Where” (the 1961, time-machine-involving episode), on two conditions:

• a) that H.G. has already voiced her golden “I know a thing or two about the opposite sex” line (in “Buried” in canon), and has effectively outted herself.
• b) that although Artie conceded to H.G.’s presence in the Warehouse (by calling her ‘Helena’ by the end of “When and Where”), I choose to make Artie’s attitude change more gradual.  I interpret the scene more as ‘Artie apologising to Myka and trying to smooth things over with her’ more than ‘Artie suddenly thinks H.G. is not-evil and will sing the Barney song with her’.  In addition, I think the writers were trying to set the mood for H.G.’s ‘ZOMG betrayal’ in an ‘Even Artie warmed up to her’ kind of way instead of Artie going ‘Hah!  I TOLD YOU SO.”

But now, onto matters of greater importance — the notes.

As usual, please refrain from reading the rest of this post until you’ve read the chapter in question.

——

H. G. Wells is pretty amazing, as one of the forefathers of the science fiction genre.  He wrote novels that served as social commentary *and* offered trajectories of how the future would or could look like in x years.  I don’t know about you, but I tip my hat off to someone who basically freaking invented a new genre.

Rewatching “When and Where” is probably a good idea if it’s been awhile.  I do reference bits of it, but mostly the whole ‘dysfunctional family’ scene (you know, where Claudia drops her glass, Pete gripes about gold stars, and Myka tries to side with H.G. so she feels at ease with her little family).

And yay, Post-its!

Whooo.  I don’t know about you, but I love playing with them and sticking them on my finger again and again until it’s not sticky anymore.  :D

Oh, and I apologise if I mess up amazing lines in classic movies, but I don’t watch movies much, old or contemporary.  And it’s really not Pete unless he makes some random old movie reference things that I don’t understand.

RE: Tallywhacker scene
The scene is considerably funny, and probably side-rippingly so if you have the sense of humour of a preteen or teenaged boy.  As such, you probably don’t want to watch this video with your grandmother around, as there’s sexual humour abound.

I’ve only hacked into the basic PBP files for the Nichols’ case.

PBP = Pittsburgh Bureau of Police.  The Internets tells me locally they’re known as either the Bureau or PBP.

Empyrean Services LLC is a real company name, and it is based in Pittsburgh.  I grabbed it off a list of one of the fastest-growing companies (in Pittsburgh), but I found out that its headquarters is actually located in the suburbs, which really isn’t what I had in mind, so I relocated it to Downtown Pittsburgh.  Yay artistic licence.

And while Moon Township sounds like a rather weird name for a place, it’s one of the suburbs closest to the airport, so that’s that.

And the geography, if you’re interested.  The rightmost circle is where the University of Pittsburgh is located, but I suppose that’s a bit of a spoiler.  :D

Oh, and this doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but if I had to pick a black rental SUV for Myka & co., I’d go with a Toyota Highlander.  (x-shopping is what I do when I don’t feel inspired to write, which is, just so you know, always.)

Isn't it cute? :D

We checked the PICS and sales database but there’s nothing registered under his name.  Do you know if he somehow acquired a firearm out of state or through some other means recently?

PICS = Pennsylvania Instant Check System.  It basically checks if someone’s eligible to carry a firearm.  But Pennsylvanian state law also dictates that gun owners’ information cannot be registered (why anyone would think that’s a good idea is beyond me), which is why Myka has to ask Joseph Nichols for this information.  As such, “some other means” is code for “Do you know if he acquired a gun illegally?”

Oh, by the way, I know nothing about guns apart from cursory research and reading up pages of  totally pro-gun dudes and dudettes (a large number of whom are totally creepotastic, as far as I’m concerned, ranting about how they’re being restricted by “repressive” gun laws.  Apparently they cannot even begin to conceive of the idea that guns can be — *gasp* — misused).  So apologies if I get some of the terminology wrong.

P.S.  Wow, this is embarrassing.  I implied Harper Lee had passed away when she… uh, hasn’t.  >_>;  (RE: “Bram Stoker and Harper Lee were surely rolling in their graves.”)

Oh, and since S3 doesn’t exist in my AU, we don’t get “Walter Shakespeare” or the “Bird of Avon” from Pete.  :’<