Don’t worry; my to-do list includes a whole bunch of articles. So let’s get started with the catch-up first!

Anime:
- I’m trying to include more “interesting read” articles these days, and here’s one: a Gundam Wing retrospective.

- Dot Anime is now officially streaming the first episode of Super Robot Wars OG Divine Wars.

- Off in Japan, two of the Tales OVAs– Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Fantasia — are being released in Blu-Ray box sets.

- In case you didn’t believe me, I just got a press release confirming that FUNi has licensed Save Me! Lollipop.

Manga:
- Debbie at manga.about.com spots DMP’s new Speed Racer website.

- The Yomiuri has an article on manga that focus on traditional Japanese theater forms Noh and Kabuki.

- German yaoi publisher Fire Angels is planning on publishing in English– specifically, they’ll be releasing an English translated version of K-A-E 29th Secret. I’ve heard tell that yaoi is even bigger in Germany than in the US, and/or that their OEL market is huge, so this should be interesting to watch.

- Alafista has the winners of this year’s Japan Mangaka Association Award, which includes Monster creator Naoki Urasawa as grand prize winner for 20th Century Boys and 21st Century Boys. The other winner of the grand prize is Hiroko Minami for Hina-chan no Nichijo. Make sure you check out alafista’s article, which includes the Excellence Awards and special awards.

Movies:
- And if you hate yourself and want to be miserable, check out the first official Dragon Ball Z movie promo pic.

- This is only vaguely tangentially related to anime, but a Witchblade movie is in the works.

- Yes, Speed Racer isn’t doing as well as people had hoped, but at the #2 spot, it’s not completely floundering either.

Misc:
- AkibaBlog reports on various Miku Hatsune itasha (car decor).

- What Japan Thinks informs us of the cutest corporate mascots in Japan, and Japan picks the toucan over the viking kitty. WTF?

- Oh, here, this might explain it: Sankaku Complex discussing the decline in both IQ and lust suffered by Japan’s youth.

Current Mood:  Huzzah!

To make up for being all gone and stuff over the weekend, I thought I’d share a few photos.

Apparently in the future of Final Fantasy VII, someone invented a holodeck or a time/universe travel machine, or something, because I can’t fathom any other reason for Tifa to be in a Renaissance village. On the other hand, it was technically a “Renaissance/Fantasy” faire. I just didn’t expect it to be a “Renaissance/Final Fantasy” faire. (There were a couple of Clouds there too, and neither appeared to be with this Tifa, which is kind of funny. Also, she seemed amazed that I recognized the character. Huh.)

Okay, we may not have full-on itasha, but I still love the fact that I live in a city where you can have an UltraMan sticker on your car and not only will other people (like me) recognize it, you also won’t have your windows smashed in and your car keyed for it.

They were out of chocolate T_T so I had to get “cream” instead. (Dirty!) it was super-yummy though. A lot bigger than Konata’s. (Dirtier!) Also, they ARE kinda hard to eat. I started from the big end but because of the spiraly shape it was hard to tear off a bite cleanly so it was kinda messy and the cream got everywhere. (DIRTIEST!) But it was super yummy. I also got a maple pan that I had for breakfast this morning that was pretty good. ♥

And yes, I do have a lot of posters. Even more now that I just got my shipment of newtype/animage/animedia/comptiq/megami. I AM OUT OF WALL SPACE. (And I can’t reach the cieling.) What am I gonna do? @_@