New Haruhi Eps

It was leaked earlier by some broadcasting station and got subsequently removed as reported by zepy. But it seems it is confirmed. The eight ep of the re-airing will be an new ep. This is because the re-airing is in chronological order and the 笹の葉ラプソディ(bamboo leaf rhapsody) arc was not in the first season. Looking at the storyline in chronological order after this ep the upcoming eps will be a mix of new eps and old eps.

Sooo..... woohooo new haruhi~

image via konachan

Rocket Launch

It seems that the peculiar way of putting on you pants (as seen in the previous post) can be used for other things.

movie via japanprobe
image via gelbooru

Waking up and getting ready

I have never been great at waking up and getting ready. Since I started with the internship I have to wake up have to wake up at 6 in the morning and get ready in just 30 minutes. For me that is already quite fast but it seems it is possible to do it in just 5 minutes.

I must say some of the techniques used are quite interesting like tying the tie. How he puts on his pants looks weird.

image via gelbooru
movie via japanprobe

Sakura & new camera

It has been a while since my last post. I have been quite busy with school and started with an internship. Meanwhile I got myself a new camera. On the trip to japan the old ixus 55 was a bit too limited. Been doubting between a DSLR and a high end compact but in the end I chose for the portability. After some deliberation I chose for the Panasonic Lumix LX3. The reviews on dpreview and dannychoo looked good. It does not have much zoom but after checking the zoom in the japan trip pics the extra zoom was not that necessary.

Been playing with it for a while and in the street there happened to be some sakura trees in bloom. Not enough trees to look like its raining sakura petals so I got a blossom to check the macro qualities of the camera.
I had to get used to the shallow DOF when taking pictures. Often petals in the back were a bit blurred. Love the details you see on the picture like the structure of a petal.
Also lighting was not easy with the lens being so close. In this pic I tried a shutter time of 60 seconds combined with f/8.0 Worked out quite nice.

I must say I like the manual setting of the camera. The whitebalance/focus is still tricky though. Still need more practice with the camera. When I get the hang of the lighting/whitebalance aspect, expect some figure pics.

K1-Max Cosplay Fighter

You'd never think K-1 and cosplay would be related in any way. But now there is Yuuichiro "Jienotsu" Nakajima. He's not just any K1 fighter. He is an anime-otaku K1 fighter.
His love for anime is shown in his K1 ring entrances and appearances at press conferences. In his latest fight he entered in Ranka cosplay and doing her dance from her song Seikan Hikou. He also won that fight with a KO, though in later rounds he got TKOed himself. Too bad he can't fight in cosplay. Would be funny seeing Ranka punching a K1 fighter knockout. Previously he has cosplayed as various anime characters including Hatsune Miku and Haruhi. It is hilarious when all other K1 fighters get pictures taken in fighting pose in a suit while he does a pose in cosplay. I also got quite some laughs with his ring entrances. It seems he has gained quite some support from the akiba-kei. If more people would do this we could get a K1 fight between anime characters~
But still.. cosplay would be preferred over crossplay. Seeing good female cosplayers in the ring would be nice wouldn't it?

Here's a video of his latest appearance:

more videos here
and his blog
image from gelbooru

Anime Sping Season 2009

Winter season is coming to an end so its time to take a look what the spring season is offering.
After a first glance and preliminary filtering the following remains(with respective links to their anidb page):
Shangri-La (like the cover image),
K-on (kyoani of the season),
Sengoku Basara (wondering how they change japanese history),
Senjou no Valkyria(heard good things about the game),
Pandora Hearts(shounen series of the season),
Saki(yeah Mahjong Anime~),
Queens Blade(images in the megami creators makes me wonder what it is about),
Hayate no Gotoku 2(Hinagiku~),
Tears to Tiara(enjoyed the game),
Tayutama (ecchi harem serie of the season),
Polyphonica s2(s1 was reasonable).

Ovas:
Denpa Teki Kanojo(biribiri~?),
To love Ru(because I watched the anime),
Koihime Musou(I don't know why...),
Yurumates(like the art),
To Heart 2adplus(Tama-nee~),
Hayate no Gotoku2 OVA (More Hinagiku~),
Spice & Wolf 2(more economy lessons for current recession),
Higurashi Rei(higurashii~).

Still a large amount of titles -.- I guess the amount will drop after some eps or prioritizing.

image again via 4chan

edit: found a nicovideo of anime in the spring season, ranking of winter season and some previews of the summer season:

1/8 Meiya Mitsurugi review

So I have finally taken some pictures of the Meiya I got last month. For people that don't know the character, Meiya is a female main character from the game MuvLuv made by âge who also made Kimi ga Nozomu Eien. MuvLuv is actually split into two games Extra and Unlimited which take place in two universes. Extra is a normal one where the main characters are schoolmates and one where aliens invaded and humans are fighting them off with giant mecha. Meiya happens to be a pilot of such mecha in the Unlimited universe, hence the skintight pilot suit. The figure is actually based on the sequel Muvluv Alternative which also takes place in the Unlimited universe. It has a great story though some might find it depressing. Also it has some welcome cameo's from KimiNozo.

Enough about the game, on with the figure.
As said before the figure looks great and was modeled well after the original character designs. The suit is painted with glossy paint giving it a shiny finish whereas her head end hair is painted matt using white for highlights. The hair looks great as her hair and hairribbon are modeled in an active pose showing the many layers of her hair.
Though there are some imperfections that are visible when you are looking for them. Her left knee's paint is a bit "chipped" and some casting lines are still visible.

A pic of Meiya in her natural environment. The cardboard backdrop that came with the box.

After some miserable attempts to take pictures in my poorly lit room with a compact camera I decided to move to a more bright environment.. the bathroom.
With plenty of light and bright walls the pictures turned out much better as no flash was needed. Though some exposure adjusting was needed.
Here Meiya was exposed more giving the picture some bloom effect. Her hairribbon disappears into the background.
Frontal view showing her shiny suit.
Side view where if you look closely at her left knee, you can see some paint chips probably caused by removing masking tape.