...what are you watching...

From all the posts and news articles, I thought she'd be more fat, more naked and perform more badly than she did. If you'd missed it, mtv.com has the whole show up for streaming on their site. It was all bland if you ask me. When did Timbaland and P.Diddy take over mtv?...oh yeah, probably years and years ago.

Something better than mtv...

Seirei no Moribito 20-21! Balsa, Chagum, Tanda and Torogai settle in a hidden cave for the winter. Chagum is mildly depressed after hearing about his brother's death and about his impending one. Balsa tells her story. It's always nice to hear the background stories of characters you've grown to like.


New Heroes cms have started...but I don't see a start date. House starts Sept 25. The radio personnel are hyping 'Pushing Daisies' and 'Bionic Woman', but they look very snooze-worthy. Anyway, is Smallville's Bizarro as funny as the cartoon version was?

There was a storm that past through Thursday afternoon knocking down trees and powerlines and causing floods. Therefore, I strained my eyes catching up on my reading by the power of a dozen candles. Reading by candlelight sounds romantic and soothing, but it isn't. The light is too dim and flickers too much; also no A/C->hot->fire->more hot. And the smell of scented wax isn't that great; blech, who gave us the peony-scented candle?. Anyway, glad to see lj didn't blow up during my 2.5 day absence. What have I missed?


Love★Com 18! Koizumi reaches her 54th birthday and is still mooning over Otani, but there is progress. There's even a symphonic overture pinging in during the special moment. Gotta love Koizumi's reaction.

I hope that's some form of Dr. Spock in Gundam00.


Seirei no Moribito 17! is another solid episode as the chase is on. Poor Suga. He tries to be well-informed, but lacks critical information and he finds Chagum, but gets beaten up by a single blow from a woman. And for a character with long purple hair, he isn't that cute.


Romeo x Juliet 17! Ah! good episode. If only all the previous episodes could be erased, this would be a great series. In episode 17, you've got revelations that rival those found in soap operas. Oh darn~ the next episode looks like a filler.


Naruto Shippuden 24! Is there going to be a new opening anytime soon? The visuals for this episode's opening & ending were promoting the new Naruto movie. In this episode, the Team Gai's fights with their clones are entertaining. Sakura's looking rather butch these days, isn't she?

Darn, broke my post-a-day streak.


Darker than Black 15! More Pizza Hut. I like that they have "Look" and "Nifty" in the one scene. Glad I stuck with this series. It's slowly been building into interestingly complex show. In this episode (with new op/ed), November and his group try to find February/Amber. Once Hei finds out she is in town, he goes hunting for her. She is traveling with a cute kid with mis-match eyes, Maki, who's been blowing things up around town. No clue about the what's and why's. There seems to be a bunch of scientists who use contractors to do something and during the previous something South America was destroyed or something....yeah, something like that.


Seirei no Moribito 15! Definitely didn't expect Sagum to bite the dust. He always looked weird, so I thought he was sick or evil. Was he still alive at the end? Anyway, Balsa and Chagum travel to find out more about the egg.

Romeo x Juliet 15! In the last episode, Romeo failed to make Pinocchio into a real boy, but becomes friends with his mining buddies. We also get a new ending song which is definitely not as jarring as the previous one, but still a boring female pop song. Blech boring, low quality episode.

Seirei no Moribito 13! Getting into some action in this episode as Balsa is challenged by someone from her past. Her vow to not kill is threatened. Her concern for Chagum makes her a tad unhinged. Nice spear-fighting for about 10 seconds there.


Naruto Shippuden 19! More fighting...ya! but 75% of the time was spent staring-down the enemy. The fight between Chiyo and Sasori was actually very cool in the manga so I hope the anime is just as exciting. There was a new ending song with still images of the characters in a high school manga-like setting. (no episode next week)

Romeo x Juliet 12! If Romeo and Juliet were any stupider, they would have already been dead by now. In this episode, they play the domestic couple while everyone searches for them. Of course they get caught since they both lack common sense and sword-fighting skills. The show tries to push their tragic love onto the viewer, but the audience can't feel sympathy for them if the writers keep making them act like blind hillbillies in love. On second thought, I'd probably feel sorry for the hillbillies.

Romeo x Juliet 10! Gotta give a gold star to the translator who translated Tybalt's description of Francisco as, 'limp-wristed blond fop,' because that is probably the best and most accurate description of Francisco ever. This episode featured the balcony scene which was pretty lame in terms of romance. Can't really take a guy standing on a bush too seriously. Can't really take this show very seriously when its dramatizations are so obvious. Still, would like to see what Montague's tree is all about...I'm hoping it's not the tree of life which brings Romeo and Juliet back to life when they die...or something equally sentimental.


Seirei no Moribito 11! This is centered around Tanda and his abilities as a medical person. He gets to visit the land beyond as he frees his soul from his body to save another soul. This is another decent episode with pretty animation; love the rich colors they use in this show.

Music:
The opening to Romeo x Juliet is out, Lena Park's "inori ~You Raise Me Up~". She has a decent voice, but it's a little grating or just high pitched? d/l? I'd have preferred a Korean male pop singer singing this

Or Namie Amuro would have sounded really lovely singing that song. Her new album, "PLAY," is out. This album and her recent PVs remind me a little of Gwen Stefani's newer stuff with all the horn sounds, but without the little Japanese backup pips. Never really noticed Namie Amuro's music before, since it's similar to what you can listen to on the radio, but this album has fun, attractive pop and dance tunes all the way through; 7 new songs plus Hide & Seek, Baby Don't Cry, Funkytown, Can't Sleep.. and the oft mentioned, ill-titled Violet Sauce (love the swooshy dress in that video).

Is it too much to ask that one US-licensed manga I buy NOT have a spelling mistake or gender error or missing verbs or wrong translations? And English was actually one of my weaker subject areas in school..."SCHOOL" was spelled wrong!!!! they forgot the 'C' and no, it wasn't part of a joke. Who are they hiring as editors!? Spell-check deficient twelve year olds from the middle of a poverty-stricken country?

ANYWAY eh hem.

Emma S2 7! Hans, poor Hans. You are neither quite as happening as Hakim nor do you have a harem, but you sure try. Mr. Campbell is creepy...I foresee more creepiness.

Seirei no Moribito 9! Why does L'arc's opening song sound like it's coming from a cave? In this episode, we are shown that Chagum's brother, Sagum, is a decent guy.

Love★Com 9! There is much sighing and crying.

Gotta love how wank rises and falls so quickly. Glad to see ppl f-locking their journals and admitting to having pervy, possible illegal things written in their journals...or admitting to being weak-minded.

Anyway,
>
Emma S2 5! mmm...Fleshy Rubenesque nude woman...Mrs. Molders is hot. (pinchable peaches is what my art prof liked to say) And a little tug on a corset, makes Emma's cleavage nice and plump...poor William had to take a peek. Thus, good episode all around.

Seirei no Moribito 7! Chagum learns about the almighty dollar..or yen.

Romeo x Juliet 5! Romeo feels guilty and/or pervy for almost touching Juliet's boob. In this episode the emancipated-looking-Clow-Read-look-alike doctor seems to be headings towards an end to his stint on the show. In the preview, Curio and Francisco appear to be imitating the love of Kurogane and Fay. who knew?

Seirei no Moribito 5! The shaman reveals a little more about the water fiend egg in Chagum. Balsa comes up with a plan to flee. The show is developing slowly, but nicely.

Death Note 30! huh, 30 already. Mello is not dead and gives Near a clue. It's nice to see that everyone knows Light is Kira, but they don't quite have the brains to catch him red-handed...y'know, like planting a bug on him.

Bleach 125! hm...Aizen wants to go after the King? Is that a filler storyline? Thought save-Orihime was next. Might be skipping through the next few episodes til Nell shows up.

...sufficiently anime-ed out now...

Seirei no Moribito 3! totally changed my mind about this show due to nicely orchestrated action and a cute little flashback involving the prince. This series is based on a series of novels so I'm hoping that the plot develops as richly as other novel-based anime. Plus, all the summaries describing the show say that the prince will lay some eggs and I sooo want to see that. In this episode Balsa fights the soldiers who were hired to take the prince back (i think i called them assassins before..my bad). She gets injured and we meet Tanda.

Seirei no Moribito 1! I guess this aired early as a special preview? I'm not too impressed with this show and the only reason I watched was to listen to L'Arc~en~Ciel's new song, Shine...which is almost the only good thing the show has going for it.

+ great animation by PIG.
- but they are known for inconsistent quality in this genre of anime.
- dull story
- uninteresting character design
- uninteresting seiyuu performance

Quick impression~ A woman (I'll call her Xena the warrior princess) is traveling along a bridge when a convoy's cow gets spooked and throws a little boy (someone else fell, but who cares) into the river. Xena saves him. The little boy has a glowy, magical egg or something inside of him that protect them in the water. Later, The boy's mother (they are members of royalty in a feudal asia-type setting) wants to hire Xena to protect her son. Xena rejects the payment of gaudy jewels, takes the boy and torches the place. I didn't quite catch all of the why's. This is already licensed by Geneon USA, but I don't really see the attraction. It has lovely backdrops and Laruku's song is ok, but I don't foresee anything very special with the story. Plus, the characters are far from likable; manly, big-chested woman and a weak boy?...uh, pass.

Hayate the Combat Butler 1! only watched because the title is fun. Very quick review~ Poor boy meets rich girl. He tries to protect her. Lame animation, lame comedy, lame all around.

Naruto Shippuden 6-7! the hour long special dragged as they interspersed a-day-in-the-life-of Naruto with Gaara being kidnapped. No excitement whatsoever.

ETA: sis pointed out the Lena Park was singing Josh Groban's song on the Romeo x Juliet homepage. I fail at being a Groban fan for not recognizing it earlier.