Ai is love

...Well. You know how I said that I only fanboy over one and only one character, the ever-so-perfect Yuki Nagato?

It's quite possible that another character may join this exclusive list.

Amagami is an anime that deals with the age old problem of compressing many routes of a VN into one timeline of anime in a unique way. Every four episodes a girl is pursued then the universe resets to start the next arc. This is because there is no 'true' girl in Amagami, every route is as canon as each other. One of the many side effects of this format is the drastic personality change of the main character, Junichi Tachibana (hereafter referred to as JT) to better fit the arc. So far there has been three arcs, three girls, and three JTs:

• 'Puppy' JT and Haruka Morishima. Haruka is possibly insane, and JT, bless him, reciprocates by acting like a dog. Fetish Fuel: Kissing the back of the knee.
• 'Rival' JT and Kaoru Tanamachi. Bro Arc. Sexy hair. Humorous denial of feelings. 'I'll show you something better than stars'. Fetish Fuel: Making out with a belly button.
• 'Instructor' JT and Sae Nakata. Shrinking Violet. Fourth wall is broken in an attempt to spice up the most boring arc. Fetish Fuel: Between the toes.

But I"m not here to talk about them, as you might have realized. I'm here to talk about none other than the seriously sexy Ai Nakasaki. Yes, that's right. The anime hasn't even focused on this character, and what we have seen of this character is seriously minimal. Anime-wise, Ai is just a satellite character so far.

So why am I gushing over such a character? Well, apparently I am genre savvy enough to recognize a character I would like from a few seconds of animation. I just didn't know how much I would like this character. But she was appealing enough to make me skip to reading the manga as the anime was taking its time to reach her arc. That in itself should have been a clue, as I did something similar with Nagato-san and Disappearance.

And oh, boy, if the anime was half as appealing as the manga was, I would be a very happy man.

• 'Awesome' JT and Ai Nakasaki. Dialog made of win and awesome. Kuudere. Awesome scenes both funny and sexy. Fetish fuel: Ai Nakasaki

Admittedly, Ai is not as awesome as Yuki, being, you know, human. But she makes up for it in pure sex appeal and snark. They both even have awesome character songs.

So, Ai's inclusion into the fanboy list is a great possibility. Kaede from Angel Beats was the last contender up for nomination, but she lost points in her later episodes for losing some of her independence.

So, Ai, are you up for the task of being comparable to the likes of Yuki Nagato? Only time will tell as your arc comes around.

Love +

This is really, really old news. But still, it's worth talking about, as I find it very interesting. A while back, a Japanese (of course) college student married a video game character named Nene Anegasaki. An actual wedding, of course, with all the bells and whistles attached.

Man, how did he break that to his parents.

Um, however, while I can talk about how obsessive and sad the way certain people can take this 'waifu' concept, it has been done repeatedly, I find such a thing boring.

What I find interesting is quite the reverse. Rather than talk about the fall of real man, I shall talk about the rise of the artificial girl. No matter how sad someone might have been in the past, no one would even dream of exchanging vows with an artificial construct. But now, Love plus has broken this barrier (for better or worse, or worse still) and apparently simulated the male's ideal of a mate well enough for this to happen.

Note that I said the male's ideal of a mate. I am in no way saying that Konami have made an accurate female simulation. What they done is take the Tsundere, Yamato Nadesiko, etc. archetypes and made appeals to the otaku heartstrings (through their libidos).

The character married in question is described to be "a mature person", and is one year older than the protagonist. If I had to marry a character from that game...

...you know what? I don't even play the damn thing, so why screw around with metaphysical speculations. I've already met people who claim to have waifus and they creep even me out. Diehard Yuki Nagato fanboy, remember.

And on that note, here's a pic of the very lovely data interfaces of Suzumiya Haruhi.

Purgatory (& emotionless girls)

I've just realized something. I'm an emotionless girl whore.

...

That is to say, I'm a whore for emotionless girls, instead of an emotionless girl who is also a whore. I'm written before on Yuki Nagato, the only thing I'll ever fanboy over, and now I've just marathoned Angel Beats! which has Tachibana Kaede, who has unsurprisingly become my favorite character.

However, look at this.

This is a recent popularity poll for the characters in the anime. The orange bar is Kaede (Tenshi) and has a staggering amount of votes. The only other character that comes even close is TK, who is just so fucking hilarious that's not surprising. I mean, I mean, just watch the damn anime.

And now I'm being distracted. Hah. Later.

The Dice Roller's Dilemma

Technically, when you roll a dice each number has an equal opportunity to land face up. However, we all know this is not the case. We all know that the damn things apply Murphy's Law, and we damn know that the smug little bastard to your left gets all the good rolls. So, naturally, we try to cheat chance, fool fate and do whatever seems reasonable to appease the Random Number God.

Two prevailing theories have led to the dice roller's dilemma:

1. A die that has consistently got good rolls is a 'good' die. Roll this die.
2. A die that has consistently got good rolls has used up its 'luck'. Don't roll this die.

Isn't that sweet?

Mind you, this applies to any random number generator, including gambling and the lottery. Almost every person who buys a ticket chooses numbers that pop up often, following theory one, or rare numbers following theory two.

Which theory, if any, works? That's the thing with random. You never know.

Comedy (a possible stand up sketch)

Ahem. Hello, hello. Ah. This is my first time to do a stand up, so please be gentle, okay?

As this is my first time to this sort of thing, I have tried to look up how to make this little thing entertaining. So, I searched for things that make people laugh.

And you know they did scientific reseach on this topic, and you know what they found to be the most likely things to make people laugh?

Things that are not actually funny.

...I'm screwed.

But have you noticed that comedians don't really tell jokes anymore? No, do you know what they do? They talk about stuff. Apparently real life is so ridiculous that comedians make people laugh just by talking about it. That's really sad when you think about it. Of course, they tell it with a certain flair that makes it funny instead of depressing. This 'flair' really depends on your audience. If your audience is left-wing, you talk about the stupidity of the right-wing. If your audience is right-wing, you talk about the stupidity of the left-wing. If you are Anglo-Saxon you talk about Indians. If you are Indian you talk about the Japanese. If you are Japanese there will be two of you; one to be stupid and the other to provide the physical abuse that signals for the audience that it is okay to laugh now.

Now the only thing left is for some smart-ass to realise this and attempt a stand up based around this... oh, wait. Ha.

You can can either laugh at the stupidity of life or you can cry because of it, folks.

The pre-tens in review (2000-2009)

As the year comes to a close, so too does the decade. It almost seems like yesterday that I was in year one...

Actually, no, it doesn't feel like yesterday at all.

Anyway, this blog post shall try and review humanity's first decade in the new millenium. How did we go? Well, let's find out.

2000
International Year for the Culture of Peace, World Mathematical Year, Final Year of the 20th Century and 2nd Millenium.
In this year, the mini Y2K story arc came to a rather anti-climatic ending, with nothing much actually happening. While the author of Peanuts, Charles Schulz dies, America begins its period of shame and stupidity, when George W. Bush gets elected. ILOVEYOU gets created in the Philippines, cementing the threat of computer viruses. Australia hosts the Olympics this year; go us, and the International Space Station starts its continous manning, meaning that there will always be a human presence out there.

2001
Officially the first year of the 3rd Millenium
Wikipedia, the most 'reliable' source on the internet, is born. Nothing much else happens, meaning everyone was taken by suprise when planes suddenly crash in the World Trade Centers, heralding the beginning of the 'War on Terror' arc, starting much bigotry and bloodshed.

2002
Year of Ecotourism, Year of the Outback
"Weapons of Mass Destruction" get continually said in this year. Aside from that, nothing much actually happens.

2003
Year of Freshwater
The year everyone says "Bullshit!" to the supposed 'War on Terror', yet America invades Iraq anyway.

2004
Year of the Rice (I don't really get it either)
The CIA admits the 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' were all fabricated. The Lord of the Rings wins 11 Oscars. Madrid get bombed. Athens says "Olympics, welcome home." John Howard beats Mark Latham. Bush also gets relected, which decreases everyone's view of American voters tenfold. At the end of the year a Tsunami strikes south-east Asia, killing thousands.

2005
The Year of Discovery
We discover tha t North Korea has Nuclear weapons. We discover America and Australia and big twats when it comes to climate change. We discover that John Paul II wasn't immortal, but awesome none the less. We discover that the 'War on Terror' had been effectively useless as bombs go off in London. We discover that the American Government is incompetant even with home affairs when Hurricane Katrina hit. We discover Australia was being targeted when the Bali Bombings occured. We discover we aere one second behind, so we added another one.

2006
Year of Deserts
Fittingly, Sydney has its hottest day on record in the first day of the year. The Beaconsfield Mine collapses, causing two men; Todd Russel and Brant Webb, to become acquainted. Wii and Ps3 get released, and England records this as their hottest year. Oh, and Pluto loses 'Planet' status.

2007
Year of Anniversaries
Final Harry Potter book released. Howard defeated by Rudd.

2008
Earth Year
Kevin Rudd says 'Sorry' to the Stolen Generations. Earthquake rocks China, before it hosts the Olympics. Global Financial Crisis begins. Bush finally out of office, replaced by Obama. Another second added.

2009
Year of Astronomy
Victorian Bushfires after the hottest fucking (sorry) day recorded in Melbourne. Swine Flu breaks out. Michael Jackson dies. Massacre happens in Maguindanao.

---

And that's it.

Irrational Philosophy no Ichizon

One must consider the differences in media...

Absolutely correct, Student Council President.

Congratulations on your new anime, by the way.

---

Some anime just run on referencing others.

Okay, just two.

One is the phenomenal Lucky Star (or the anime with the really annoying theme), while the other is Seitokai no Ichizon.

Ken Sugisaki has finally got what he wanted. A whole 'harem' of cute girls to himself in the form of the Student Council. However, his goal is the extremely lofty harem end, and Ichizon isn't really an eroge...

What a sane person would have done would be to go after the one girl that takes his fancy, but Ken confesses his love to the entire council at the same time. Um.

To be fair, I would have come to the Visual Novel conclusion as well; the council girls do fulfill their respective stereotypes (tsundere, loli, etc...), yet I would go after... uh... Actually that's quite difficult... Well, I wouldn't go for all of them at once.

Where was I? Oh yes. The number of references in this anime is staggering, unfortunately making it rather bland once you remove the references. But I'll keep an eye on it, just in case...