amane~ ^_^ (家庭教師のおねえさん) - click for gelbooru

Hey there folks think I’m pretty overdue for an update here ^^;;  Curious why the updates have dried up?  Want to know what I’m up to? (well, normally i wouldn’t be so bold as to suggest people would actually be interested in that but hell, that’s one of the main reasons for twitter, no? ^^;;)  Read on for some enlightenment and even some anime blabberings if that’s your cup of tea.

First things first let’s talk about updates… things have dropped off quite a bit this past month, even below my record low I had previously ^^;  Biggest reason?  Laziness.  There, I admit it!  Well, maybe not the biggest reason, but the most shameful ^^;

click for gelbooru~

Next big reason is… well, if you’ve been monitoring my preorder list at tsukiboard… well, it’s lookin’ pretty dry lately ^^;  The only new review I have pending at the moment in Selvaria, the other is the alternate color Sheryl… BRS anime version is in stock but I have her bundled to ship with dead master… ‘course that’s not to say i don’t have anything to post about.  But if you’re here for the figures, then actually, yes, I have very little to post about at the moment ^^;;

Hoping some exciting stuff will come on the market soon.  Lately I dunno but nothing’s really been tempting me like it has in the past.  Even with Alter I just find myself holding out for slightly more epic 1/7 or greater releases (otherwise I would’ve been all over the railgun releases :P  well… saten’s face looks weird to me too ^^;).

aaand finally there’s the distractions reason ^^;

As you can see I’ve been busy on the starcraft front, but actually the more consuming part has been following the pro scene.  I actually haven’t been playing too much lately but I haven’t missed a single match in season 2 of the GSL Starcraft 2 tournament ^^;  Love watching the epic play, learning about past brood war champions and watching new players come out of nowhere… highly recommended :3  If the korean scene’s not your thing, an exciting MLG season just wrapped up with Team Liquid dominating!

King’s Bounty has also been a huge distraction.  Real cheap on Steam but man it packs a lotta game play.  Think it took > 60 hours for me to complete the first one.  (and damn it’s hard)

click for gelbooru~

Steam had already been bleeding my wallet and spare time… forget if i already posted about it, but recettear (pictured above) took up another 32 hours. (sorry, no touhou characters in the actual game :P) I loved the concept and got more than my money’s worth for that one.  Puzzle quest 2 I’ve logged 34 more hours…

and to top things off i started playing dragon age again ^^;;;; (only played through 1.5 characters ’til now)

oh whoops, almost forgot another huge reason… we were trying to schedule a fumigation for the house i live in for the longest time… and ‘cuz of that i was reluctant to unbox anything until the fumigation was done.  Figures that it took almost 2 months to get the whole thing resolved, but yes, that’s finally over with so that’s no longer an excuse ^^;

Alrighty, at any rate that’s my long list of excuses.  I’ve no intention of stopping so rest assured things will keep on rolling here at wawawawasuremono.  Just, as I’m sure you’re used to by now, slower than before ^^;  Thanks for continuing to stop by, これからも宜しくお願いします～

working!! ep 8

So then, against my better judgment I’ll keep this post going with a brief rundown of anime I’ve been catching up on lately (see, I haven’t been neglecting all of my akibakei hobbies ^^;)~

Finished up working!! some time ago now… gads, was that back in the summer?  Loved pretty much all the characters and in my book that puts in firmly in the thumbs up category ^^  Slice of life lovers, this is highly recommended.

senjyou no valkyria ep 20

So I actually ordered Alter’s Selvaria without having seen or played Valkyria Chronicles.  Fiiinally got around to seeing the anime (since I still don’t have a ps3 orz) and damn I really enjoyed this one too.  Yes yes, I’ve heard the game is 1000 times better, so I will be sure to follow up with that someday ^^  But at any rate, here again, toootally loved the characters, Selvaria is so kick ass.  No cutting corners for the drama in a war setting either (well, I’m trying to keep this spoiler free… but not to say this is better than the game, but compared to some of the other stuff i’ve seen recently, nicely done imo).  Really solid, left me wanting more so I’m glad to hear the game has so much more to offer ^_^

Oh how could i forget.  WTF SPOILERS in the 2nd OP???!?!?  Not really sure why they did that orz.  I mean, I had sorta suspected it by that point but I don’t think there was any strong evidence for it yet?  meh.  Anyhow…

tokyo magnitude 8, ep 4

Yeah, I’m really behind ^^;  Tokyo Magnitude 8 I thought was ok.  Glad they didn’t stretch the series out to 12 or more episodes… though even then I’m not sure I think the execution of the final episode(s?) was necessary… not bad, worth a try.  I’ll have to discuss this (well, all of these ^^;;) in more depth later…

baka to test to shoukanjyuu ep 3

Baka to test to shoukanjyuu!!  I already have a soft spot for love triangles… add in the okama kataomoi, the trap, an abusive couple, tsundere, a voice actress that sounds like chihiro (was surprised to find out it wasn’t the same ^^;)… would definitely watch more ^_^

seitokai yakuindomo ep 7

yet another series with seitokai in the title.  Yet another winner in my book ^^;  Love the humor (slice of life with a bit more of an ecchi slant ^^;  though this ain’t no yosuga no sora ^^;;).  suzu and shino are probably my favorites ^^  Wouldn’t mind another season of this either :P

Also finishing up k-on!! while watching ore no imouto & ookami-san to shichinin no nakamatachi… enjoying all of those as well :3  Unfortunately none of these seem to lend themselves to epic figures!  Well, guess we’ll see.  Hopefully there’ll be some good releases/announcements as wonfes winter approaches~

Alrightythen, that’s all i got for now.  またな～

以上！

angel beats op

I have yet to find a format for these anime posts that i’m happy with so in the meantime… here’s some rambling steam of conscious stuff to help me come to closure with this series ^^;  ~major spoilers~

In a good news & bad news situation I’m a bad news first sorta guy so let’s start with the things that didn’t work out for me…

Yuri

I didn’t think it’d be an issue for me but surprisingly her haruhi similarities did have a negative impact on the show for me.  I kept finding myself comparing her/the show to haruhi, highlighting reasons why the quirkiness worked for the SOS-dan but not in Angel Beats.  Right from the start my first thought was, “ugh, why is she trying to be like haruhi” ^^;;;

angel beats ep 2

She’s got that same aggressive, “I’m always right” sorta personality… coming up with weird plans that feel awkward and out of place… but instead of regular world to act all this out, you’re in this weird purgatory wondering whether or not anyone has any idea how things really work.  Are her plans stupid?  Brilliant?  Because of the haruhi similarity I was inclined to feel like they were just stupid plans and her whims being carried out… and it gave her a “bad haruhi copy” vibe ^^;;  Also it really threw off my sense of what kind of show it was gonna be.  Was it just trying to cater to haruhi nostalgia or other recent hits?  Or be a serious drama or…?  Oh, and having a band in the show?  my first thought was, “they must’ve thrown that in there since k-on was so popular.”  prolly not true but that’s just the mood seeing yuri/haruhi put me in.   Which leads me to…

Pacing/Atmosphere

It really just didn’t sit well with me having the slap stick antics in a deathless society suddenly juxtaposed with the very serious flashbacks/resolutions of issues the individual characters were dealing with.  Not that I’m against comic relief in a dramatic series… I actually like those scenes very much to help you build your relationship with the characters.  But angel beats takes it a little overboard…

angel beats ep 2

Case in point – episode 1 you’re trying to figure out what’s going on, you find out that they’re in some sort of afterlife and can’t die, hahaha there’s a trap that knocks people out of the building if they don’t knock on the door right or whatever… episode 2 people are dying (for the moment) left and right as they navigate traps aaaaand *bam* we find out yuri’s 3 siblings were murdered in her previous life.  … … … ummmm ok.  Child murder in the midst of slapstick death antics  -_-  Just really didn’t work for me.  Why have such a sudden transition?  It was only episode 2!  I hadn’t developed any sorta feelings for yuri (especially since i was trying to fight the urge to compare her to haruhi) so rather than tragic the story just felt awkward and out of place.

angel beats ep 2

Basically they took what could’ve been a really shocking/disturbing reveal and dulled it down by shoving it in their viewers’ faces prematurely.  It’s like meeting someone for a first date and they bust out with, “oh yeah, did I tell you my mother got murdered last week?”  I mean… you can’t help but feel sorry for them but you’re shocked just kinda want to shrug it off and get on with things.

Also I think this sort of stuff works a lot better when you’re dealing with real world emotions… which I argue we are lacking in Angel Beats due to the lack of death in purgatory.  Lots of shows take fantastic elements in their heavy drama then mix it up with slapstick and lighter toned episodes.  Take code geass for example… really serious story at times with character death mixed in with occasional school festivals or cosplay?  Making a giant pizza?  The valentines day game?  But they haven’t altered your core reactions to tragic situations.  They’re not rewiring your emotions.  So with the lighter episodes you bond with the characters and appreciate the fleeting periods of happiness they get to experience.  Tragedy strikes and you’re that much more attached to the characters’ loss.

angel beats ep 9

Angel Beats on the other hand is trying (well, maybe not actively trying but effectively causing you) to rewire your reactions towards death and violence by eliminating any lasting consequences… while trying to build on back stories that rely heavily on your original interpretations of such -_-  Well, at least, that’s how it ended up playing out for me orz

I think the series would’ve benefited without the “no death” rule in the purgatory they were trapped in… did they really need that element?  I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be terribly hard to write it as such.  Honestly, why were they trying to craft an environment where death didn’t matter when the series revolves so heavily around death and matters left unattended because of it?  I guess maybe you could say it’s part of a theme that no hardship, not even death will prevent people from coming to peace with their lives?  But was that worth sacrificing the show’s pacing?

angel beats ep 10

Definitely not saying that a show needs to be all serious or all funny… but it’s just that this show puts you in a new world with new rules so personally it was just really hard to appreciate the lighter moments the same way.  Usually those moments give you a breather from the serious stuff, brief moments of joy to share with the cast and become more familiar with them… Angel beats felt more like they took 2 different shows and just tried to mash them together ;_;

On the other hand…

So then, despite all that I did like main story they were trying to tell… people trapped until they could come to terms with their regrets, wishes and what not of their previous lives…

Once I finally got somewhat acclimated to the bipolar nature of the show making death a slapstick gag one moment and a tear jerking tragedy the next, i finally was able to build some attachment to the characters.

angel beats ep 7

I’m quite the softy so otonashi’s backstory in ep. 7 & 9, yui’s passing in ep 10 and pretty much all of ep 13 were all able to produce some tears from me ^^;  So not to say any series that makes me cry is good but it definitely means I’ve developed a relationship with the characters which is always a good sign.

angel beats ep 8 ed

Music I enjoyed… though I suppose that may have actually hurt my appreciation of the series overall ^^;;  I say that because it was so nice and solemn… somber.  Made me feel like I was watching a serious drama instead of a comedy/drama fusion ^^;

With eva as one of the first anime i watched, rei type characters get on my good side quickly… made it pretty easy for me to like kanade ^^  Though i wish we got to know her better.  …and to that end… why did otonashi like her so much?

In the end

In the end I just feel like the series could’ve been so much more.  To anyone who’s ever played a good tear jerking visual novel perhaps you’ll agree with me when I say this just scratches the surface of what a good story could be.  I really haven’t played too many but all of them I think had better execution/cohesion than angel beats.  I think either delaying the onset of the serious back stories and easing into it more towards the middle would’ve worked better or maybe starting out more serious and giving the audience a break with lighter stuff midway would’ve been a better approach?  Again though, it may just be that the whole premise that you couldn’t die in purgatory really didn’t work for me.

fortune arterial

Alas I have no background in literature or film so I can’t articulate my complaints with anything but an amateur’s vague sense of dissatisfaction… so yeeeaaah, I won’t try to convince any of you who liked it that I’m right ^^;  But for what it’s worth, the series just felt off to me and I wish it was executed better.

Guy has his thoughts posted in this post which seem to echo my general feelings towards the series.  I won’t be so bold as to say he agrees with me but if nothing else I guess I can say I’m not alone in my disappointment ^^;  (plus he mentions shigofumi, which I noticed he rated as a 10/10.  not sure i’d say it’s perfect, but i’m pretty sure that’s a vastly under appreciated series ^^)

ETERNAL on the other hand enjoyed it very much if you’d like a contrasting point of view.

TLDR

Despite my complaints, overall I think I’d prolly have to say the series was above average, but again it just felt like it squandered an opportunity to be top notch.

以上！

ep 4

Well that only took me about a year to complete ^^;;;  Think I watched the first episode around when it first aired and didn’t finish the series until  last week.  Thoughts and spoilers (probably?) to follow~

op

Thought I’d post on this one since I enjoyed it so much.  As given away by the title, this series is just another romantic comedy… err given away if you know Japanese, huh? ^^;  初 – hatsu (first) 恋 – koi (love).  mmm though I guess I should mention for those wanting to learn Japanese, those are only one of many readings for those characters.  So don’t be surprised if they are read differently in other words ^^;

ep 7

Anyhow, moving on before I get distracted into a learning Japanese post…  I liked how things quickly get complicated… misao likes ayumi… ayumi likes mamoru… who turns out to be misao’s brother… who is friends with yuuji… who misaki likes… who is mamoru’s osananajimi and love interest… etc etc ^^

ep 6

Not sure I’d put hatsukoi in my top 10 or anything, but I think it holds its own with decent plot and characters.  At first I was having trouble getting into the way characters were thinking/behaving, but then looking at the title… it’s supposed to be about peeps falling in love for the first time.  Viewed in that context I thought it was excellent in capturing the sort of petty-yet-it’s-the-whole-world-as-I-know-it scope of teenage love. ^^;

ep 12

‘nother thing that clicked for me were ayumi and koyoi ^^  かわゆす＾＿＾　物凄く可愛かったっす！  Somehow they managed that without annoying the crap out of me ^^;  K-ON! Yui fans should note toyosaki also voices koyoi, who is a hopeless burakon.

ep 4

Kei covers the tsundere contingency for this series, chikura-chan is an artistic, soft-spoken pettanko.  Rika is for the tom-boy fans and misaki + meguru cover oppai and meganekko.  Pretty much all the characters get their own arcs so it’s not just a mindless jumble of moe (well, or maybe it still is, depending on how critical you are :P).  Hailing from shounen jump, it also has its fair share of fan service :P

ep 6

The series wraps things up in 12 episodes, but the manga was only 4 volumes long so I think it ended up being a good length.  Kinda sucks for mamoru and sogabe but again I liked how it captured the troubles of middle/high school romance.  Things like… your crush likes someone else, is moving away, doesn’t seem interested in you at all, doesn’t seem very intimate, is your sister… ok well, all but that last one are common problems :P

ep 8

prolly just me being an old man, but the nostalgia of these sorts of situations (well, in a loose sense ^^;) really made the series for me.  ^^;;  … that and kei’s tsundere power ^^  I suppose it is pretty ordinary and not so deep if you really look at it… eternal has the perfect post for you if that’s what ya think ^^  Though again for the record, I am easily amused…  so thumbs up from me :P

Oh and almost forgot my other favorite character:

ep 5

takei ftw!

err wouldn’t want to end with swimming hentai man so…

ep 12

Was wondering how they’d work in the obligatory onsen scene :P

Decent series, only 12 episodes.  I’d say at least give it a try if you like romantic comedy.  Or perhaps you’re in the mood for a lighter series that isn’t deep… might be a perfect fit ^^ … hmmm think I’ve forgotten my audience.  Already spoiled the ending for those who haven’t seen it, haven’t i? ^^;;;;  Well, maybe not, since it’s presented more in a vignette style…

alrighty, last thing, i promise.  awesome yui-dubbed-with-various-things-ayumi-says vid (niconico):

Took a few pics of cirno today, hope to have them up soon (no, not an insane 40 pic post like nanoha-chan ^^;;;)

以上！

ep 3

Feeling better, woo!!!  Thought I’d do an anime post for a change and since that’s what I’ve been up to.  Recently just finished sorakake… trying to figure out what the heck it was all about ^^;;  spoilers about, but it finished airing awhile ago, so i assume not an issue for most?

First things first… gotta admit I kinda struggled through this one.  Though let me preface this whole rant with the fact that I watch unsubbed raws and my understanding of things may not have been correct.  Please point me in the right direction as necessary ^^;;; m(_ _)m

Fans of the series, brace yourselves, this is not a beaming review ^^;;

ep 4

These navimen?  naviman?  things?  whatever imoko is… are they supposed to be cute?  Funny?  All I know is that imoko was sorta getting on my nerves…

ep 8

And then akiha… not really a main character i had much emotional investment in.  I mean, yeah ok, she’s supposed to be this “n-th-daughter-of-a-crazy-family-who’s-naive” or what not… which is fine… but… her growth is extremely slow and limited to the end… which left me annoyed with her the whole time so that by the time she decides to get serious I didn’t really believe it/didn’t care.

ep 9

Which kinda leads me to another gripe…  I couldn’t get a feel for how the series wanted to portray itself.  Half the time it felt like it was going to be a serious epic story… but then, as pictured above, they felt they had enough time for an omake-ish baseball episode?  Well fine, nothing wrong with omake-ish episodes.  But the thing is that it totally continued to confuse my understanding of the terrible decisions the characters make.

ep 12

Like in episode 12… it’s not long after kagura came for hako-chan or what not… and yet no one’s prepared at all for the following invasion.  Things like this seemed to happen all the time.  Bad guys just waltz in wherever they want to go… security is a joke!  It’s like they don’t care!  So I subconsciously keep thinking that the story isn’t taking itself seriously… without providing me with characters that amuse me otherwise.

ep 18

Another example is in episode 18… really great how kagura just takes akiha away with no resistance.  I know she’s uber or whatever… but *no* resistance?  -_-

ep 13

Speaking of taking things seriously… they put… boxes on their heads?  Then walk around like zombies?  Seriously?  Did no one take a step back and notice it looks ridiculous?  It’s not like I want every show I watch to be super serious the whole time… but when you’re trying to tell a story about powers wrestling for control over humanity and using living humans as parts of a machine… -_-

ep 25

Because of my frustrations with the good guys I ended up doing what I usually do… cheering for the bad guys ^^;  Twin tails to boot, go nami!  ^^;  Felt like she really got the shaft… some about running away from her modeling career but to me at least it seemed like no one in her family was even trying to provide her the support she needed.  So then she gets her hand on some power and goes all murderous… which, ok, fine, is not justifiable… but I just feel like her damn sisters shoulda tried to help her out a bit more…

ep 26

And this was kagura’s plan for saving nami?  “gomen ne?”

ep 26

My response was the same as nami’s.  “haaaa?”

I started out expecting great things… I mean, from trailers and the op and such  it looked like the story of some normal girl getting wrapped with with power/control of this super power canon thing… mysterious mecha woman fighting against energy katana girl… maybe end with some power up awesomeness to starsylph to finally take down the bad guy…

But it seemed like it ended up just going halfway with everything.  You don’t even have a bad guy to focus on once nerval is good all of a sudden…  Felt like in their desire to throw in plot twists they really lost focus…

ep 14

I think in the end my favorite characters were min and bou ^^;  They were my only reliable source of comic relief and the above scene in episode 14 sealed the deal for my sympathy for them ^^;

ep 22

…as opposed to akiha’s temporary loss of imo-chan.  Just when I was finally about to think that the story had decided to get serious/epic…

ep 24

We find out that no, imo-chan lives after all and akiha suffers no loss.

Alas.  Usually I forgive a lot of things that don’t make sense… but that’s when I have some emotional investment in the characters.  Wasn’t the case this time so I got all nit-picky ^^;

Wonder what the general consensus was on this one?  Will have to search around the blagosphere since I avoid anime posts on series I haven’t seen to stay spoiler free ^^;

以上！

Got quite a few recommendations for this one so I was surprised by dialog after dialog after dialog.  ‘course don’t get me wrong – having played my fair share of galge I’m not biased against that or anything.  Rather, was surprised that others weren’t ^^;  pantsu screenshot incoming, don’t say i didn’t warn you.

I suppose with an opening like this though… perhaps it’s not surprising people sat through all that dialogue? :P

pantsu and service aside, I really enjoyed the unique style of the show.  Kinda reminded me of shigofumi and natsu no arashi – not in content, but that both of those shows really captured a certain feel and ran with it.

You may know I’m a japanese language nut so the brief flashes of text on screens really caught my attention and added to my enjoyment -

Not sure if the translators are capturing this in their editorial notes or whatever (well, actually knowing their fanaticism I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already dissected everything in much more detail ^^;)… but here’s my simplistic take on things:

The above screen seems harmless enough.  Two characters and they even have a reading at the bottom.  However, you’ll notice that 黑, in the screenshot isn’t the usual writing of black, 黒 is.  Also, the other character isn’t very common either – it’s not listed in my “compact” nelson japanese character dictionary (i put “compact” in quotes because it still has 3000 kanji ^^;;).  Finally looked it up for this post and it turns out that 齣 means paragraph or section.  It’s kind of hard to describe the feeling if you’re not familiar with characters, but seeing these non-standard ones evoked a unique sort of flavor for the show for me.

I’ve given up on translating the bottom part for now… more crazy characters that aren’t commonly used anymore make it hard to search ^^;

More word fun below:

Usually kanji aren’t used at all for その (sono == that, or in this case, part of “sono ichi” which is like, “part 1″ or, “the first”).  Not toooo weird to use it, but then they go and bust out 壹 for one (ichi)!  One is usually written 一, sometimes you’ll see 壱 for some old school flavor… but this takes it to the next level ^^;  Turns out that this is the character sometimes used in Korean, and I’m sure it must be a Chinese character as well… not sure if the feeling they wished to evoke was ancient Japan, Korea, China… or just uniqueness ^^;;

And on the bottom, it says something like, “Font used: HGP Mincho B”.  What the heck?!   (oh and they used another weird character in place of 体 (tai) ^^;).

Soooo, just imagine that sort of internal conversation/puzzling going on every time they flash text on the screen… that’s what a large part of the viewing experience was for me ^^;

After geeking out on the language aspect, add in 戦場ヶ原 (senjyougahara)

feisty little mayoi-chan

tomboyish suruga

…who, i really thought was a guy all the times i saw the following ^^;

buruma nadeko

meganekko iinchou tsubasa

I liked the short vignette style of story telling with a greater arc coming to a close as the series ended.  Was like that in shigofumi too.  Characters come and go, but, when done well, their arc will leave a lasting impression on you.

Couldn’t get enuf of mayoi’s butchering of araragi’s name ^^

かみまみだ。

^^

Speaking of mayoi kamimamida, there’s a huge craze of マイムマイム (mayim mayim) vids going around niconico in which she has no small part ^^

Think I’ve watched it at least 10 times ^^;

Oh yes, and top things off with an ED song by supercell!

Really grew on me throughout the series and now I’ve set it as my alarm clock song ^^;

Haven’t seen enough (other shows) yet to call it the anime of the year (or even of that season ^^;;) but it was definitely a solid watch for me.  Need to pick up the light novels now ^^

Without my visual novel exposure I’m not sure I would’ve enjoyed this the same way.  Since playing, long dialog and run of the mill everyday conversation have become part of my expectations ^^;

Have you watched it yet?  Favorite character?

以上！

Do you get exercise regularly?  It’s been on and off with me… and specifically most of the past year… off orz.  However!  These past 3 weeks I’ve finally gotten back to a daily routine which means daily anime again (watch while working out) ^^ 一石二鳥！(isseki nichou == killing two birds w/1 stone).  Daily anime means finally finishing off some series and that brings me to natsu no arashi ^^;

Created by School Rumble author Kobayashi Jin, that was reason enough for me to try the series out ^^

Got hooked right away especially by the quirky style.  Well, not sure quirky is really the word for it… but at any rate it has a pretty unique feel that set it apart from the other shows I’ve been watching recently.

Add in time travel,

kawaii arashi, (with some mysterious powers)

kawaii kaya, (also mysterious powers ^^;)

boin no sayaka,

aniki-teki na murata, (i love this guy ^^;)

genki na hajime (gakippoi kedo nakanaka omoroi kara)

himitsu ga aru jyun,

kawaisou na okyakusan,

and a nice mix of more serious themes

…and slapstick…

Love the characters and the style… we’ll see how the story goes (only on the 8th episode so far ^^;) but that’s been fine so far.  … Though… let’s hope we get a ending that actually wraps things up :P

While I’ve got anime on the mind… any new shows I should drop everything for and watch immediately?  According to that sankaku post, bakemonogatari & saki faired pretty well. Just finished up saki but that’s the only one in the top 10 I got around to orz. And the next season is already upon us! orz^3

Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 turn out?  That one looked promising but I haven’t even tried out episode 1 yet ^^;;;;;

Saber’s in the mail, hopefully have a review by the end of the weekend ^^

以上！

episode 12

Could they have used those episodes to more effectively dole out haruhi goodness?  Well, certainly.  Was it an utter disappointment to countless fans across the globe?  No doubt.  Was there anyone involved who actually supported the insanity?  Not the seiyuu nor many others it seems.

episode 13

Despite all that, as a one off, epic wtf arc that I was really only half watching anyway while doing other things… excellent!  I had already given up on there even being another season of haruhi so as a casual fan, anything new was agreeable.  Loved how kyon’s helplessness at the end of each episode was practically palatable.  And to boot, a haruhi tsundere moment at the finale ^^

episode 14

My biggest gripe was mostly that given the title, after episode 2 you had a pretty good idea that it was gonna be 8 episodes of insanity.  There was maybe a slight chance it’d be a 3 or 4 episode arc… but definitely after 4… I’m sure everyone assumed correctly that it was going for 8.  On the one hand, that should’ve helped set expectations that the 8 episodes were actually just 1.05 new episodes of content.  On the other it really made the later episodes predictable and even more difficult to sympathize with kyon’s struggle.

episode 15

If kyoani had just announced that they were only going to do 4 new episodes instead of a full season (with 1 of the episodes actually being the 8 episode endless arc) perhaps it would’ve gone over better.  I kind of see it that way, which, combined with my haruhi apathy, is why I don’t really feel outraged and enjoyed it.  Or maybe I enjoyed it the way reading forum flame wars is amusing… ^^;;

episode 16

At any rate, it’s gonna be interesting to see how dvd sales are (and if they don’t bundle all 8 episodes for the price of 1, the person in charge of sales marketing is an utter idiot).  Niconico users who haven’t seen it yet or want to relive the glory can watch all 8 episodes simultaneously in this glorious video.

click for the niconico video

My peculiar tastes aside, the question just begs to be asked… who the hell is at the helm of this accursed haruhi ship and why are they sailing it to obscurity and ruin?  I just don’t see how this could be good for the franchise in any way.  Perhaps the folks in charge are under the illusion that they have some ace up their sleeve to redeem themselves with?  Can’t really see that happening at this point but if somehow… somehow, someway they made an epic comeback… well, at that point maybe I’d put it on par with #37.

episode 19

p.s. it’s funny that this blog actually has quite a bit of haruhi fandom built into it, despite my aforementioned apathy.  Not only the name of the blog itself, but you’ve probably noticed i end each post with 「以上！」, (ijyou!) which is taken from the very first episode — haruhi’s weird way to end her weird introduction ^^;  (not a weird thing to say, just in that context it’s weird.  usually means something like, “that is all.”)

以上！

Those looking for oppai, pettanko, nekomimi, bishoujo or whatever other moe need not apply.  We’re talking about old men, yakuza, gambling, thugs, and life & death situations mixed in with mahjong.

If that whets your appetite, I think you’ll be very pleased with the offerings of this series.  Focusing very heavily on the actual game play, I take back anything I ever said about Saki having a decent amount of mahjong play in it ^^;  Here we’ve got lots of strategy revolving around the opponents’ psyche, discarded tiles, choosing which tile to discard to maximize your potential waits without dealing into a ron… good stuff ^^

For a rough spoiler free overview, lessee… Basically it’s the story of Akagi, a young boy whose mahjong prowess exceeds all logic, and his epic matches against opponents ranging from yakuza thugs to insane billionaires.  If you like dark heroes, akagi may be up your alley.

I happened upon the series when the saki + akagi mashup videos started turning up on niconico ^^;  Glad I followed up and watched.  The series did seem to peter out towards the end (got a bit long winded and drawn out feeling) but overall a nice 26 episode offering for mahjong lovers.

If you happen upon a subbed version, the explanatory notes will likely be very useful… there’s a lot of jargon non-mahjong players will need to learn.

I don’t think there’s a single female character in the show ^^;  Just a buncha old dudes with prominently drawn noses.

The show comes from a manga, which I actually picked up over the weekend.

So!  If you love mahjong, check it out!  aaand, now onto some more details regarding the Japanese rules.

役 (yaku)

So assuming you know what constitutes a valid hand, now you need to know how to make your hand worth more points.  To do that, you need to make a yaku – a winning hand.

Yaku are worth 飜 (han) – the more  han, the more points, but the more difficult to create.  You can combine different types of yaku to get more han.  Covered in the last post, you already know one type of yaku – riichi.  When you declare riichi, your hand gains 1 han.

You can combine types of yaku to raise the amount of han your hand is worth.  For example (following images from wikipedia):

Toitoi – everything in your hand is a 3 of a kind (excluding the necessary pair).  2 han, open or closed (open means you took an opponents’ discard to complete one of the three of a kinds (unless it was a ron)).

Sanankou – your hand contains three closed three of a kinds.  The fourth meld can be a run of 3 or three of a kind, and can be open.  2 han.

So now, let’s say you were working on a sanankou and had an open 3 of a kind for the 4th meld.  Then you’d have both toitoi and sanankou – and you get the hand values for both.  Now your hand is worth 4 han.  If you were able to declare riichi, it would normally add an additional han for 5.  However in this case, to declare riichi your hand would need to be closed… which would mean 4 concealed triplets… which would mean a yakuman (covered later, worth a lot more points) ^^;

There’s a ton of different hands worth anywhere from 1 to 6 han, and special hands worth even more.  Some of the yaku not based on hand composition include (ah quick note, I’m using the abbreviated names in this post):

自摸 – tsumo – on a closed hand, if you self draw your winning tile.  1 han.

一発 – ippatsu – when you obtain your winning tile within 1 round of declaring riichi (can be through ron or tsumo).  1 han.

海底 – haitei – when the winning tile is obtained from/after the last tile is drawn (after that, play would end for the round). 1 han.

嶺上 – rinshan – when you win from the extra tile drawn from a kan.  1 han.  Seems like saki’s favorite move :P

Some other common yaku (often combined with other yaku to make higher scoring hands):

断么 – tan’yao – all simples.  That is, no 1 or 9 tiles.  1 han.

tanyao dora

(in the above shot, I believe the dora tile was 4 bamboo, hence the 5 bamboo in her hand gets the dora bonus.  see the next section for info on dora)

一盃口 – iipeikou – two identical sequences.  This hand must be closed. 1 han.  In the above example, it’s the 3,3-4,4-5,5 (the first 6 tiles)

平和 – pinfu – all sequences.  This hand must be closed.  Also, it can’t be worth any fu points – so the pair can’t be a special tile, and you must be have a two-sided wait (i.e. a 3-4 waiting on 2 or 5.  Or a 6-7 waiting on 5 or 8.  Not valid if it was 1-2 and you needed 3 or 8-9 and you needed 7, nor 4-6 waiting on a 5.  It follows that you can’t be waiting to complete your pair either).  Pretty complicated for a crappy 1 han value ^^;;  Yet it’s definitely not as hard as it sounds, hence to low score.

It may seem like a lot, but if you watch/play/read enough you’ll get used to them.  Here’s a full list at wikipedia.  Oh yes, though before going on, I should mention chiitoi – it’s a special hand that breaks the regular rules – made up of 7 pairs.  Worth 2 han, it has it’s own special fu calculation, but I’ll leave that to you if you’re interested ^^;

ドラ (dora)

Dora play a big role in Japanese rules because they can be worth a ton of points.  I guess it makes sense because the Japanese rules are sometimes referred to as riichi/dora.

The dora tile is a tile that’s flipped over at the start of the round, as seen in the screenshot below (the green dragon & 4 dot).  If you hold the successor to the tile that is flipped over, each one you have in your hand adds 1 han.  So for example if you have a 7 dot dora, every 8 dot tile in your hand will give you an extra han.  If the dora tile is a 9, the successor is 1.  Winds go in clockwise order, dragons are white -> green -> red -> white

nodoka absentmindedly discards a chun which gets picked up (note dora tiles face up in the wall)

Add in the fact that you can have multiple dora tiles and you can see how your hand can quickly gain a large number of points.  Multiple dora tiles can be created by two things (that I know of ^^;)

-When the winning player had declared riichi.  When this happens the tile sitting underneath the dora tile becomes a new dora.  Only revealed after the round is over.

-When any player declares a kan a new dora tile is flipped over.  Therefore if someone makes a kan and the winner had riichi, now there will be 4 dora tiles (2 + the 2 underneath).  Because of this, you want to avoid making kans (and hence more doras) if you don’t think you’ll be able to win the round.

Calculating Points

So you’ve figured out your han value, now how do you start spewing out those seemingly random numbers at your opponents?  Unfortunately there’s another item to deal with first.  When your hand is worth 4 han or less, you must calculate 符 (fu).  Fu are another type of points with their own set of rules (yes, I know, whoever came up with this system was insane).  For example:

20 points for having a winning hand (i.e. you always get this)
10 points for winning by ron when your hand was closed
2 points for any dragon tile pair
2 points for any wind pair that matches your seat or the round (if your seat & round wind are the same, 4 points)
32 points for each closed 4 of a kind
4 points for an open 3 of a kind
0 points for a sequence

etc. (refer to a full list here)

Sooooo, now just apply the formula:

fu * 2 ^(2 + han)

So for 30 fu and a 3 han hand:

30 * 2 ^ (2 + 3) = 30 * 2 ^ (5) = 30 * 32 = 960

This is the value of your hand (let’s call it HV for short), which is then modified to determine how much the other players owe you.  Unfortunately even that is complicated:

-When you win by ron, the person that discarded the tile pays everything.  If the winner was the dealer, this value is 6HV, if the winner was not the dealer, it is 4HV.
-When you win by tsumo, the dealer has to pay more than everyone else.  Assuming the winner was not the dealer, everyone pays 1HV, and the dealer pays 2HV.  If the winner was the dealer, everyone pays the same amount, but they have to pay more than usual, 2HV.
-For a quick reference, the total amount  of points the winner receives will be approximately 6HV (dealer) or 4HV (non-dealer)

So without getting bogged down in the details, if you’re just trying to understand what’s going on, some key points are:

-When you’re the dealer, your wins are worth more
-Dealing into a ron means you have to pay that person a lot more points than if they had won by tsumo.
-When a non-dealer wins by tsumo, the dealer has to pay more than usual.

You might be wondering, how the heck do regular people play this game?  Well, they memorize the following table.  (taken from wikipedia.  sorry it may go off your screen if your resolution isn’t high enough):

Dealer and Non-dealer refers to the person that won the hand.

The number on top is the value paid if it was a ron.

The numbers on bottom refer to how much each player pays in the event of a tsumo.  If there are two numbers, it’s non-dealer/dealer (which is why there’s only one number on bottom on the dealer side).  You can see the dealer pays about twice the amount of a non-dealer when it’s a non-dealer tsumo.

So for an example, let’s say you’re the dealer and you win with a tsumo, 50 fu, 1 han hand.  That corresponds to 2400 (800) in the table.  Since it was a tsumo, ignore the top number – everyone pays you the bottom number (800 a piece).  Now let’s say you’re not the dealer, and you win by tsumo, 40 fu, 3 han.  That’s 5200 (1300/2600) in the table.  Since it was a tsumo we look at (1300/2600) – the two other people who weren’t the dealer pay you 1300, and the dealer pays you 2600.

A version of this table is in saki ep 1…

The non-dealer section is on top, and the fu rows are divided in two – ron on top and tsumo on bottom.  Err here’s all the characters on the chart:

子 – non-dealer (lit. child)
親 – dealer (lit. parent)
飜 – han
府 – fu
跳満 – haneman (see below)
倍満 – baiman (see below)
ロン – ron
ツモ – tsumo

Still with me? You must really love mahjong! High five! *ahem* continuing on… (what, aren’t you curious about mangan? :P)

Mangan and Beyond

When the hand value is greater than 2000, you don’t have to worry about that table.  At this point you have at least a mangan hand.  The hand value is fixed at the limit — 2,000.  Using the rules from above, that means that if you discard into a dealer’s ron, you’re gonna pay 6HV = 6 * 2000 = 12,000. (non-dealer ron would be 4HV = 8,000)

To makes things more fun, it doesn’t stop there:

跳満 – haneman – 6-7 han – HV = 3000, so total points = 18,000/12,000 (dealer/non-dealer)

倍満 – baiman – 8-10 han – HV = 4000, payout of 24,000/16,000

３倍満 – sanbaiman – 11-12 han – HV = 6000, payout of 36,000/24,000

役満 – yakuman – special hands or 13+ han – HV = 8000, payout of 48,000/32,000

Remember, to calculate the actual payments for each player:

non-dealer tsumo: 1 HV for non-dealer, 2HV for dealer
dealer tsumo: 2HV for all
non-dealer ron: 4HV
dealer ron: 6HV

Yakuman

These are the neat rare hands as mentioned above.  They are worth the most points (and some are even worth double this amount).

Here’s a couple examples:

国士無双 – kokushi musou – 1 & 9 from the three suits, one of each wind, one of each dragon, and a final tile that matches any to make the pair.  kokushi – distinguished person, musou – peerless, unparalleled.  If you complete the set and are only waiting on the pair to win, it’s a double yakuman.  Also referred to as the 13 orphans.

大四喜 – dai suu shii – 3 of a kind of all of the winds.  Double yakuman.  There’s a slightly easier version of this where you have 3 of a kind of 3 winds and a pair of the 4th.  That one is ‘only’ worth one yakuman.

There are many others like 3 of a kind of all the dragons (dai sangen) or 4 concealed triplets (suu ankou).

Regular games start each player at around 25,000 points or so, so you can see how these hands can easily turn the tides, or even end a session if realized by a ron (the session will end immediately if any player goes below 0 points)… which brings me to our next topic:

Final Score

So let’s say we’ve played through an entire session and we’ve got scores for everyone… what does that have to do with the much smaller numbers you may have seen? (i.e. +23, -5, +13, +/- 0 etc)  We’ve got yet ANOTHER scoring system on our hands.  Time to play a conversion game:

1. Subtract 30,000 from your score
2. If you won the round, add (30,000 – starting points) * 4 to that value.  Since starting points are generally 25,000, it’s 5,000 * 4 = 20,000.
3. Divide by 1,000
4. Sometimes there’s a bonus applied (i.e. a 10/5 spread would be +10 to 1st place, +5 to 2nd, -5 for 3rd, and -10 to forth)
5. Convert the final numbers to money. (i.e. $1, $5, $100, etc. per point)

So now the following saki screenshot should make sense:

Let’s look at saki’s score:

41,700
-30,000 = 11,700 -> 12,000 (round)
+20,000 (first place) = 32,000
/ 1,000 = 32

woo hoo!  See!  Method to the madness.  One more for fun, let’s look at poor yuuki:

400
-30,000 = -29,600 -> -30,000
yuuki didn’t win, so we don’t add anything
/ 1,000 = -30

Now you can see why saki’s ability to get puramai (plus minus) zero session after session is amazing.  She purposely gets the hands whose point values will ensure that she ends up at 30,000.  (30,000 – 30,000 = 0, 0/1,000 = 0 final score).

Again… this is all just what I’ve learned as a beginner and not an official report by a pro, so if you see mistakes, please let me know ^^;

References:

Wikipedia – Japanese Mahjong Scoring Rules and Japanese Mahjong Yaku

Japanese Mahjong Scoring

Sloperama – Why wouldn’t the computer let me declare mahjong?

以上！

And I say preferred because hisa & mako wear their seifuku plenty long.  In conclusion, saki is a liar.  She loves short skirts :P

I’m sure there are plenty of other things to poke holes in but this one caught my attention :P

Maybe someday someone will unravel the mystery of nodoka’s impossibly large oppai.

Anyhow, this short post was just an excuse to post more saki pics and tell y’all I’ve been enjoying some much needed down time this weekend.  Reviews to resume soon!

以上！

Click for gelbooru

Finally decided to learn more about mahjong and figure out what the heck was going on in 咲 (saki).  Do you know the rules?  The Japanese rules?  Thought I’d throw together a little summary of my research for those who are curious but haven’t gotten around to it yet :P

How to Play!

Around the world people play mahjong with over 20 different sets of rules… for the sake of Saki I’ll only be going into the Japanese rules ^^;

Simply put… each player starts with 13 tiles.  On your turn you draw 1 tile and discard 1 tile.  To win you must simply convert your hand into 4 sets of 3 plus one pair.  For the sets of 3 they must be 3 of the exact same tile (same number, if applicable, and same suit) or a consecutive run of 3 of the same suit (1-2-3, 6-7-8, etc).  The two tiles in your pair must also be same suit.  Note that 4×3 + 2 = 14 — the 14th tile is the last tile that you draw.

You can also declare sets of 4 but when that happens you can no longer discard those tiles.  If you think about it it’s kind of like losing a tile, so to make up for it you get to draw another tile from the wall (if you think of the tiles as playing cards, the wall is like the remaining deck).

When someone discards, you can claim it if it completes a 3/4 of a kind or run of 3.  However, you must reveal those tiles.

There are some exceptions to what I’ve listed above and I could go into a lot more detail, but let’s keep it simple and move on to some verbal queues…

Things to Listen For!

ポン！ (PON!)

aka “pung”… or bump, phoong, pong, tri, bango … Yelled when you take someone’s discard to complete a 3 of a kind.

カン！ (KAN!)

aka “kong”… or quong, koong, gang, kung, gong… Yelled when you take someone’s discard to complete a 4 of a kind.

チー！ (CHII!)

aka “chow”… or sheung, seams, seq, chih…Yelled when you take someone’s discard to complete a run of 3 (can only be done when the person before you discards)

自摸！ (ツモ! (TSUMO!))

Declared when you win by drawing the tile yourself (i.e. not from another player’s discard).  After you calculate the value of your hand, the other three players pay the winner an amount based on the hand value.

栄！ (ロン！(RON!))

Declared when you win by taking another player’s discard (unlike the chii, you can take any player’s discard if it allows you to win the round).  I think in this case the player that discarded the tile you took must shoulder the entire point burden of your hand so it’s really dangerous to discard a ron tile.

立直！ (リーチ！(RIICHI!))

If your hand is closed (you haven’t taken any discards from other players), you can declare riichi when you only need 1 more tile to win.  You must put out 1000 points (the stick in saki’s hand) when you declare.  Now why the heck would you do that?  That brings us to the next section…

Scoring!

Have you ever been confused by a computer version of mahjong that wouldn’t let you win even though your hand looked fine?  Hopefully I’m not the only one ^^;;;  Finally discovered why – in the Japanese rules, you can’t win a round unless your hand is worth something!  Special combinations of tiles, certain conditions like riichi and such give hands values which play into the complicated scoring system.

Declaring riichi adds a value of 1 飜 (han) to your hand – which under most circumstances is sufficient to declare victory in a round.  More complicated hands get you more han, and thus more points.  han stack so you can get a high value hand by combining different winning conditions.

An example of combining score conditions… Saki’s crazy hand in the 2nd episode:

riichi – saki declared earlier that she was waiting for one tile to win. (or at least, i thought that’s what one of the characters said ^^;;)

四暗刻　(suuankou) – 4 concealed triplets – concealed meaning she completed them without taking any discard tiles.  This is actually special type of hand called a 役満 (yakuman).  Yakuman are all extremely difficult to pull off and as such are awarded a loooot of points.  Other examples of yakuman are getting triplets/quads of all the dragon tiles or triplets/quads of all four winds.

嶺上開花 (rinshan kaihou) – when you complete a kan (4 of a kind), you must draw an extra tile from the wall (that’s why saki got to draw two consecutive tiles).  If that tile causes you to win, it’s a rinshan kaihou.  I believe that’s worth 1 han.

Well, rather than being a combination special hand and riichi, the much more interesting thing was the suuankou ^^;;  With the other 3 players picking up and discarding tiles throughout the round it’s insanely difficult to draw all the necessary tiles from the wall.  There’s only 4 of each tile, so as soon as 2 of a tile is discarded, you can no longer complete a triplet.

I was actually playing and got a yakuman by dumb luck.

All winds and/or dragons ^_^  Because yakuman hands are worth so much, you can win an entire session with them (like I did above).

There’s lists of the different hands all over the place if you want to see more.  I have a hell of a time remembering them all, especially when some disallow taking discards to complete the hand. (yet another thing that might turn your awesome hand into a worthless unwinnable hand)

A Few more Terms…

聴牌 (tenpai) – When a round ends without a winner, players that were waiting for 1 more tile to go out are tenpai.  They get a small amount of points.

ノー聴　(no-ten) – When a round ends without a winner and you’re waiting for more than 1 tile to complete your hand.

furiten – A condition that prevents you from taking a discard tile that would otherwise complete your hand.  This is caused by a few things, such as if you require a tile that you previously discarded.  i.e. If another player discards a tile that you had discarded previously, you cannot claim that tile for a ron.  This is another thing that may be preventing the computer from letting you win in what otherwise looks like a perfectly legal move.

Another furiten condition include passing up a winning tile – say you need a 1 or 2 dot to win.  If someone discards a 2, you pass, then the next player discards a 1 – you cannot claim it.  (you might be doing something like that to get a higher scoring hand).

[source]

Finally, if you declare riichi, after passing up a winning tile, you are no longer eligible to win by discard.  From then on you must win by tsumo.

Crazy Table

It actually exists!!  These things shuffle and stack the tiles and everything.  Wish I had one ^^;

From what I read you actually need 2 sets – it delivers the pre-shuffled one then sorts and stacks the other while you’re playing.  Think you can actually get one for ~$1000?  I’d soooo get one if it wasn’t more than a dslr ^^;

In Closing…

Hopefully that was beneficial rather than confusing people further ^^;  If you’d like to give it a try, here’s a free flash game that lets you play against the computer.  It even explains the rules and valid hands if you scroll down the page.

For more information, this site I’ve been linking throughout has a wealth of information from rules to determining if your set is made of ivory or bone ^^;  Or if you’re specifically looking for an exhaustive explanation of the Japanese rules, check here.

Kinda random post, but I love mahjong ^__^

以上！