I’m crazy for rhythm music video games. Doesn’t matter if you need to use a dancing pad (Dance Dance Revolution, Pump It Up), press key buttons (Beatmania, Para Para), fiddle on your guitar pad (Guitar Hero) or even press your NDS screen with your stylus (Elite Beat Agent), and requires to do it in rhythm to the music; te most probable is already played it. I’ve even played those obscures Beatmania Anime versions for Game Boy. Try playing Lupin III opening in the squeaky wavy sound of the GB…..it ain’t pretty.
Archive
For those familiar with AB.net blogs, you know the main server has suffered some serious troubles. But after hiring 35 monkeys and Impz , they finaly fixed them using chewing gum, monkey poo and Guncannon private stash of Green Loli pictures. This means Extrange Is Metrosexual can now proceed his interstellar travel of Moé propagation and reviews. (No I’m not drunk or smoked, sleep deprivation is the cause of my temporay insanity.)
Time for another wallpaper, this time Haruhi related. This wallpaper was made by HyDr@, from Hydra-Art.net
Need to see something less……moé for the next days or I’ll never sleep again this week. Guess it’s time for me to see Nanoha A’s.
Last year has been a busy year in personal terms, having almost no time for seeing stuff like Anime or Prison Break, so I’ve been updating myself these couple of months on what I’ve lost. Finished seeing The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya a week ago and surprisingly, even after being spoiled on the plot and seeing it in chronological order….I feel I’m becoming an Haruhiist.
But how the hell this show has managed to capture my attention and interest when, on the first look, seems equal to so many Anime’s out there? After a while thinking, I managed to make a small list of factors who I think contributed to turn it into a worldwide craze.
Why post this scan on the blog? Because I’m turning into a Haruhiist and I need some Moé dosage. And please don’t nosebleed over the monitor…

Haruhi Fujioka is a exception in Ouran High School, the private school for the kids of rich or influent families. Being not any of those two, Haruhi was given entrance due to high grades sucess. One day , while trying to find a quiet to study, Haruhi stumbles upon the Ouran Host Club: a bunch of good looking guys who provide entertainment and charm girls for profit. Tamaki Suou, the prince type; Kyouya Ootori, the cool type; Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin, the devil twin type; Mitsukuni “Hunny” Haninozuka, the loli-shota type and Takashi “Mori” Morinozuka, the Wild type.
After being dazed by the looks of this peculiar group, Haruhi breaks a vase worth 8 million yens. Haruhi was forced then to work for the Host club. But later was added as a Host member itself and included in the Natural type with good sucess.After an accident with a jealous client of Tamaki, he finds out that Haruhi is in fact a girl! ( a detail every Host Club member had already realized before Tamaki.)
From that point, the manga revolves around the relation between Haruhi and the Host Club menbers, their personal stories and their expectations for the future.
Plotwise, the manga is the reverse harem kind, where the guys will get romanticaly involved with the main girl. but as I referenced before , there are a lot of focus on the side stories of each Club member.
Also, the fact of Haruhi being a reverse trap (but not on purpose.) leads to several comedical situations. in terms of art and drawing, the style reveals its origins: the author is Bisco Hatori, a female manga artist who publishes in the Lala magazine (a shojo manga magazine directed to teenage girls.) so the charactes have efeminated traces and details.
I was first lead to this manga (and anime by default) when someone asked for an example of reverse trap. Attracted by the looks of the main character, decided to read it and I’m not regreted that I did. Ouran School is a good light romance/comedy manga who has conquered a niche on my gallery of works to remember.
Not exactly Anime/Manga related, but the video made me think in some sub groups out there (or the translation of Dynasty Warriors ….Cow Pee.)
Time for another wallpaper: Pleinair (the blue haired petite girl) and Usagi-san (the stuffed rabbit) from the guys at FRAGMENTS.
Pleinair is a character who appears in several of Nippon Ichi’s tactical role-playing games ( Disgaea, Disgaea 2, Phantom Brave) and acts as the mascot of the character design creator, Takehito Harada.
She is often paired with her stuffed bunny (Usagi-san, who has disturbing similarities with the gun-loving violent bunny Max from Sam&Max) or her stuffed shark (Sama-chan).
The character atracted me because of 2 reasons: 1st one is being part of Disgaea series of games, which I devoured like Hunny-san after his cakes; the 2nd reason is being a petite, blue haired and shy girl, which matches my perverted loli tastes like a glove.
You can really find some pearls in the middle of the junk that composes Internet. This discovery started with a comment of Hikago on AB.net IRC saying he had pressed a NSFW link. Curious as I am, asked Hikago for the link. It wasn’t really much NSFW (Flat chested loli, and everyone knows I got only eyes for Nodoka-chan.) but it was the cover for a music artist called DJ Sharpnel.
DJ Sharpnel is actualy Jea and Lemmy,a pair of Japanese electronic artists with their own independent label called Sharpnel Sound. Their style consist of hardcore, breakcore, happyhardcore, j-core, speedcore, terror, rave, techno, hardstyle, hardtrance and several other electronic variants. But what distinguishes them for other artists is their samples: they often use voices of several Anime and japanese pop music, but they also use samples from other sources such as Eminen, Pulp Fiction, Powerpuff Girls and Tatu.
This duo is extremely prolific, having already over 50 albums where they contributed or made by themselves.
DJ Sharpel is a great addition to anyone’s track collection, specially if you are a fan of speedcore and anime. Just make sure you got no neighbours around when you hear it or they will think you are molesting a entire rooms of japanese lolitas…
To hear them check SharpnelSound Myspace and this fan Myspace (has AMV videos as bonus.)
Sometimes you see a game, read a book or see any story in particular and think : “Damn, this would be sweet if it was an Anime!”
This is a personal list of the things that would make great Anime.
1. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure.
I know that Jojo has already several OVA’s made based on part 3 and a new OVA from part 1 is coming, bu i would really like to see it in a TV series format. The GARness of the whole Joestar lineage would be able to cause a mass blood loss from nosebleed all over the world.
2. Shin Megami Tensei (Persona 2).
Megami Tensei is a series of games based on the occult and paranormal with great sucess in Japan . Recently it has expanded to european and american markets with games like Shin Megami Tense: Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga. One of the spin offs of the series, Persona, would give a great Anime. The main plot revolves arond people who perfomed a school ritual called “Persona” and somehow they gained the power to summon their “other self”.
From the Persona games, the better candidate would be Persona 2 where “The main focus of the game is the subjective nature of reality, with rumors holding the power to literally alter the face of reality and change the world itself.” But I’m not sure if someone has the guts (or any other word you want to use for testicles) to adapt a game where Hitler and his zombie friends are the enemies (for some reason the 1st part of the game never saw a English adaptation…I wonder what..)
3. Majin Devil.
Majin Devil was one of the 1st works of Oh! Great (Tenjou Tenge, Air Gear) with only 2 volumes, but it has the potential to be expanded and turned into a good Anime.
The main characters are Decoppa, a boy who has an IQ of 200 and a omnious scar on his forehead, Tetsu, a mysterious demon and Cat-Ear Girl (Yes it’s really a Neko girl), with the plot revolving around the spread of demon incidents around the world.
A good point of the Anime would be the fights: Decoppa fights with his brain instead with muscles alone,and he overpower the enemy with his incredible knowledge and cold blood.
4. Phoenix Wright.
Another game in the list, Phoenix Wright is a series of attorney simulator games, where you need to defend your client and find the guilty. Has versions of the games for GBA and NDS with upcoming releases for Wii and a serialized manga. the whole method of investigation and resolving of the cases gives a different style on the Detectives genre.
5. Castlevania.
The last item on the list is a classical series of games from Konami about the Vampire Hunter family , Belmont. Several rumors were already made about a possible adaptation to animated format but every one of them were rejected by Konami itself. But if someday they decide to make the anime, I’m sure the gothic theme, the whole bunch of classical movie monsters and the presence of the character of Dracula will be it’s greatest assets.




