my moral standing is lying down

Since I will not be going to AnimeUSA, I was thinking of possibly going to see this. If anyone's interested, let me know.

GENIUS PARTY
Directed by Atsuko Fukushima, Shoji Kawamori, Shinji Kimura, Yoji Fukuyama, Hideki Futamura, Masaaki Yuasa, Shinichiro Watanabe

*NY PREMIERE*
Sunday, October 12th
Begins 2pm
Tickets are $13 online

Anthology Film Archives (MAP)
32 Second Avenue
New York, NY
US 10003

Running time: 102 min.

"GENIUS PARTY" is an anthology of short animated films from Studio 4.C, who are best known for their "Animatrix" and "Tekkonkinkreet" projects. The project’s theme given to seven and five selected directors for "Genius Party" (2007) and was "ZERO regulation on creation." Under this ultimate freedom, 12 geniuses created something special and unique for themselves.

Director Shinichiro Watanabe ("Cowboy Bepop," "Samurai Champloo") said in an interview, "All of my anime is about guns, swords, blood, etc. Using this opportunity, I just wanted to make a real love story which I’ve never done before." His "Baby Blue" in "Genius Party", featuring the voice of Yuya Kagura ("Nobody Knows") and Rinko Kikuchi ("Babel") is a beautiful love story that cannot be missed.

It seems that Katsucon was not the end of my insane busyness. Last night I had an awesome time at dinner with Yoshi, Jamael (of whom it has been decided that Jerry is a clone, rather than the actual same person, though I'm still skeptical), Will, Raheem, and Maryann. It was really great to see people I haven't seen in what feels like freaking forever, and most especially Jamael, whom I don't think I've seen since the first time he left! Over a year ago?! Yeah -- it was Black Friday 2006! Crazy.

We went to Nyonya, a Malaysian restaurant on Grand between Mott and Mulberry, in Chinatown. It was yummy, especially since I haven't had Malaysian in a long time, but IMO it doesn't compare to Taste Good in Elmhurst, or even Penang in Chinatown. I think the flavoring is more mild. Still, I was more disappointed with the roti canai/chicken curry and the satay beef and peanut sauce than the spicy thai/hainan chicken that I got for my meal. And the hainan rice is actually better than the hainan rice from either of the other places, so I guess I would say each place has its strengths and weaknesses. I'll have to try the belacan from there one day.

There was one poor fish in the fishtank right behind our table who kept swimming around upside down. It really turned into a hot topic at the dinner. I suggested they might have an item on the menu called Upside Down Fish; who knows.

Split with them around 8, but I had other things to address and ended up leaving the city around 10pm. Maryann and I must have gotten home at just about 11, but we still had other things to take care of and ended up getting to sleep at like 1am. So I'm kind of falling asleep at my desk a little this morning. =/ Japanese class is tonight, which I look forward to, but I know I'm not going to be very animated since I'm already starting the day by being beat. Hopefully I'll get a second wind.

I have something to do every night this week, dammit. But I think Saturday I'm going to sleep late and do nothing but stay in. Maybe watch some anime. I am somehow in the mood to watch anime. Who has seen Tactics? I caught an episode on CN and it looked kind of dramatic and silly. I seem to be in the mood for it. (Though the voice acting was quite painful to hear.) I could try and finish Spiral since it's along the same lines of dramatic and silly.

List 10 Anime/Manga Females that you like, or at least think are tolerable.

In no particular order (except for Michiru):

1. Michiru (Sailor Neptune) from Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
   
2. Haruka (Sailor Uranus) from Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
   
3. Usagi (Sailor Moon) from Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon
   
4. Miyazawa from Kareshi Kanojo no Jijou
   
5. Arashi from X/1999
   
6. Sana from Kodomo no Omocha
   
7. Juri from Shoujo Kakumei Utena
   
8. Anri from Get You by Sugi Emiko
   
9. Izumo no Okuni from Samurai Deeper Kyo
   
10. Shiina Yuya from Samurai Deeper Kyo
    
11. Mireille from Noir

taken from zerotwofan

Well, that's 11. I know I'm missing someone really important so that later on I'll *facepalm*.

Contrary to what seems like much of the yaoi fandom, I acutally *gasp* like anime girls! I guess it helps that I'm a big fan of het and yuri, too. ^_~

That's what I sound like. Slightly over a week ago I went to sleep in the path of the air conditioner with too little clothing on. ^_~ And woke up the next morning with chest congestion and coughing. It sucks.

Let's see... I registered for Onna! over the weekend, and sent an email to Erica yesterday saying that I'd registered and can I volunteer? So now I'm working "Special Ops," which is some security, some miscellaneous stuff. Dunno how long I'll be volunteering for because I do want to hang out with friends, but I think I'll have fun volunteering too.

I noticed another small bug with the layout and dutifully reported it on s2flexisquares. So far afuna, my knight in shining code-armor, has not come up with a fix (that worked), but I ended up manipulating some code for someone else's layout! That was fun. =D

Although Angelica gave me Samurai Champloo and Flame of Recca (which I've seen already, but am in the mood to see over) last night, I didn't watch anything. She also told me to give her her DVDs back. And now I feel weird, like, I should buy a DVD burner right now so I can make copies of the anime series so that if I want to watch them I don't have to ask her. Especially 'cause what if she's at her grandmother's house for the weekend or something? Maybe I can buy a pack of DVD-Rs and she can make me copies of stuff for now until I buy a DVD burner. What do you think, Angelica? And after you mentioned Anita wanting an external hard drive, I got to thinking -- maybe I should get one for my laptop too. And then I thought, should I get an external hard drive instead of the DVD burner? Or just get it first, then a DVD burner later? And now I'm going crazy trying to figure out what to do, and it's making me feel really weird and pressured 'cause you want your DVDs back and now I can't watch anime.

T_T;

I think you should help me decide what I should do.

My computer is back, which is very nice. Unfortunately, they didn't do a clone like the guy I talked to over the phone said they would, so I lost lots and lots of files (the only ones I'm really mad over, though, are the scanlations that are gone). Do you know how long it took Liz and I to download those?! Not even that, but finding them! I don't know if we'll be able to get them again -- especially the licensed stuff. It's really painful when I think about it, so this is pretty much the extent to which I will comment on it. Best to pack up and move on since there's nothing much I can do about it.

Angelica showed me a few teasers to several anime on Monday -- Beck, Meine Leibe, Gankutsurou (or something like that), and a bit of Gundam SEED Destiny. They all looked pretty interesting, and I feel like I'm getting back into watching anime again -- after quite a hiatus. It feels quite nice, I must say. I saw 4 episodes of Beck (and actually have been a bit impatient to get the rest from her, so I've been downloading a few more episodes on my own, which is only because I had some unexpected free time that I don't expect to continue). I'm waiting to get episodes of the other anime from her, but I do look forward to seeing them! I've actually been finishing watching Hikaru no Go (I'd stopped at around episode 52 or so), and it's got me all excited again! Teehee.

It seems that Warp 11's third album has not yet been released (big surprise), but it should be out this year. Hopefully soon because I'm getting pretty desperate for it. I downloaded from their message board a few "bootlegs" of some of their live shows, so at least I'll be able to hear some of their new songs if the third album takes even longer to come out than I expect it to! Also! I bought a Creative Labs Zen Micro from ebay. It's "only" 5gb, but it has FM radio, so it is perfect for me. I can't imagine filling up the 5gb with music, although I do probably have over 5gb of music on my computer (which, thankfully, were not lost in the computer crash!).

I've also been catching more episodes of Teen Titans again -- Louie re-awakened my delight with the show recently by telling me about some really cute fics she's been reading. Oh yes! On Saturday night, Louie, Maryann, Lee & Zoila, and I went to a goth/dance club on the Upper East Side. At first there weren't too many people dancing, but eventually it filled up. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite Lee's scene, and she wanted to leave, but we stayed (mostly because I kind of ignored it 'cause I had just gotten started, and I felt a bit guilty about that, but) it turned out alright in the end. We were there for about 4.5 hours, and danced for most of that time, and boy it was fun! Too bad the place only is open? meets? once a month, but at least I know that I'll probably get some of them to come back with me next month (and I won't leave some of my stuff at Lee & Zoila's place, in case they want to go home early).

I took one pic of my new haircut (before I dyed it, though), so here it is. It isn't too good a pic -- you can't quite see the cut so clearly, but you get the idea. And I'll have to take another pic of it now that it's dyed 'cause it's really cute!

… but this doesn’t mean that I DIDN’T enjoy Otakon this year… it was just a bit disappointing in comparison to last year.

Have I mentioned the lack of good video programming in the viewing rooms? I was very disappointed! THIS was one of the major things I was looking forward to! Last year they had a great selection. While there was no chance I could’ve seen everything they had planned (nor did I want to), I did flit in and out of the viewing rooms with great frequency (I did return to the Kare Kano viewing room quite often, I must admit – even though I’d already seen the whole thing by that time). But they also had a lot of new stuff; Kaikan Phrase, the Utena movie, the Escaflowne movie, the Maze OVA, Gundam Wing: TV & Endless Waltz, and most importantly, they had a midnight showing of YAOI stuff, like Zetsuai 1989, Fish in the Trap (I think) and Lesson XX.

This year, they had nothing.

Nothing.

There was barely any new stuff at all. Yes, they had Ayashi no Ceres, but even THAT had been a last-minute schedule change. Yes, they had the first 2 episodes of GTO, but that was in the morning on Friday when most people are still on the registration lines! Aside from Blood: The Last Vampire (which I didn’t particularly care to see anyway because of someone’s summary & lukewarm review) and the 3 random episodes of Kodomo no Omocha (55-57 or thereabouts) that was unsubbed there was nothing I was even remotely interested in peeping in on! Most of the anime I saw listed was all old. Not that I have anything against old anime – classics are classics, after all. But I’d think that you’d want to show the new, up & coming stuff at a convention, wouldn’t you? Stuff like Infinite Ryvius which was only recently released in Japan and has already been fansubbed (the first few episodes, at least). Or maybe the very popular Gensoumaden Saiyuki, of which at least 8 episodes have already been fansubbed. Or Yu-Gi-Oh! (subbed at least up to 8), and if they were going to show old Gundam series, why not TurnA Gundam instead? Granted, it didn’t get hot reviews, but at least it’s something that hasn’t been seen before.

I don’t think I’m being unfair. I mean, I’m even naming stuff that’s not necessarily "shoujo" or shounen-ai-ish.

And speaking of "shounen-ai"… they didn’t even have a midnight showing this year! The turnout last year was great, there was a big crowd and it was cool to meet other YAOI fangirls… and surprisingly, a fanboy or two. ^_~

::sigh:: I’d have liked to see Yami no Matsuei at Otakon, even if I’d seen it all already.

That was one of the big disappointments. I hope they have a better selection of anime next year… and hopefully a midnight showing of shounen-ai/YAOI – not instead of, but in addition to – the regular hentai stuff.