More Live Action Anime

Do you think this could look more ridiculous?

I've been watching a lot of stuff the last week or so, maybe making up for the months and months of not watching anything. XD Remember how I mentioned last week at the end of my post on the Ranma 1/2 live action movie that my friend had Ouran High School Host Club live action...

Well, I spent this week consuming the entirety of that series. That's really not as impressive as it might sound; the series was only 12 episodes long.

Do you remember last fall when I posted a brief line about watching the first two episodes of OHSHC live action at Anime Weekend Atlanta (here, about 6 paragraphs down) and described it as both epic and horrible all at the same time? I still stand by that description. It is definitely hokey in a lot of places, and the special effects are frequently goofy. Yes, I said special effects. This is a reverse harem drama series with special effects. XD

The live action series roughly follows the anime, keeping most of the more pertinent episodes. They are not 100% identical, but some of the episodes are definitely close to it, especially early on in the series. With the Sailor Moon live action, the different plot line was a major plus for the series. Here having the plot very close to the original anime is a good thing. The live action for OHSHC keeps the feel of the anime. The characters are all very well done, in my opinion.

My verdict on this series: OMG It Is So Freaking Awesome!!!! Since this is not any kind of official review site and is just my place to rant and ramble on random things, I have no qualms with fangirling here. =P I absolutely love this series. I'm still on the fence as to whether I like the live action better than the anime or not. I think the live action version was a little more intense. I almost teared up in the episode where the twins fight (it plays out roughly the same way as it did in the anime) and I don't tear up at movies--I think the last instance where I cried at a movie was after Theodred's funeral in The Two Towers and I blame hormones on that--my 2nd son was only a week old and Theoden's line, "No parent should have to bury their child" really choked me up. Anyways. Back on topic. I thoroughly enjoyed this series. If you liked the anime, I definitely recommend watching this. If you didn't, then chances are, this isn't going to be up your alley either.

Ouran as Promised

I said I was going to write about Ouran High School Host Club, so that's what I'm going to do. Nevermind that I also said that I was going to post that this time last week. =P Plans change. In the last couple of weeks I rewatched OHSHC for the 3rd or 4th time. This time, I made my mom sit through it as part of an anime-marathon vacation. We started the marathon with the first 2 discs of Ouran and ended the main part of the marathon with the last 2 discs of Ouran. In the middle we watched all 10 discs of FMA:B. Needless to say, my mom loved both series. Her favorite host was Tamaki. Mine has always been Kyoya. Who's your favorite host?

What do I like about OHSHC? Honestly it's a kind of silly little series, and it's not the kind of thing I'd normally pick up and really latch onto. For starters, the basic premise behind the series with the super wealthy (and beautiful) getting glimpses into the lives of normal people, or commoners as they are called in the series, interests me. I like how OHSHC approaches that juxtaposition. It's like Titanic but infinitely better. For another, I can appreciate the low-key approach to telling the story. This really became apparent while watching the last 2 discs of OHSHC after watching FMA. After the fairly intense pace of FMA, Ouran's pace was noticeably more relaxed. That said, the story may move at a slower pace, but it still has one. To me, it is very important for a series to have a continuing plot. Although it's still possible that I will like a series where the episodes are unconnected, it is less likely. It's why I generally prefer reading novels to short stories. I just prefer longer more in-depth stories.

Ouran's story-telling pace is not only more relaxed, but the story itself is fairly simple. The series starts out with a frivolous appearance. However, as the story progresses, we start to see glimpses into the interpersonal relationships between the characters, their families, and their pasts. We see that, although on the surface they live very pampered and spoiled lives, they have their share of stresses. We get to see how the friendship that develops between the members of the Host Club helps each one of them grow as individuals and support each other in the face difficult situations. It is a very touching story in the end. I enjoy Ouran's story-telling style as well. I think, if it tried to take itself too seriously, the story would have fallen flat. At the same time, I appreciate that it had a story to tell and wasn't just the crazy antics of the Host Club. All in all, it's a well told, lighthearted story. It is a story designed to appeal primarily to girls, but I made my husband sit down and watch it back in the Spring, and even he said it was a good series. Ouran High School Host Club is definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it before.

What Happened to This Week?

This is a bit of a continuation of last Friday/Saturday's post. XD My plans to do a lot of crafty things went completely out the window, as did keeping up with my normal web stuff, which included my blog. I pretty much spent the entire week in vacation-mode. It was a weird, but good experience. Usually even when I go on vacation, I'm working on art or crocheting something. Instead, I slept.... a lot. And, I watched anime... a lot. This was a very good thing because I also spent most of the week feeling ill, so it was nice to not have any immediate demands on my time or energy so I could rest up.

Now, if I was a much better organized person, I'd have had several pre-written blog posts that I could have snuck in, but that fails at the organized-requirement. I've never been a super organized person, so yeah... no pre-prepared posts here. Everything's written pretty much real-time. The plus side is that everything I post is pertinent and recent. On the down side, there will inevitably be times where I miss posting. Usually it won't be as bad as this where I miss a whole week--I think final count is this: I completely missed posting anything Monday and Wednesday, and today (Friday) and last Friday's posts are just random, why I didn't post anything pertinent posts. There will probably be vacation periods where I miss posting. Also, around convention times it's entirely likely that I'll be missing 1-2 posts right before the convention. That's just how things are around here.

This past week, my mom and I watched all of Ouran High School Host Club and all of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. We also watched a couple of episodes each of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Soul Eater. She enjoyed all of it, especially FMA. It was fun rewatching both series. To any who have not seen them yet, go watch them.... now. For real. That's about all we did though, so that's about it for this post. =P We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming Monday.

Animazement Artist Alley Loot

Today's blog is to show off all the awesome art I got from Animazement's Artist Alley. =)

I'm going to start with the buttons. My good friend, Melissa, bought the top two for me. The first one is China from Hetalia--he's a guy with long hair and a panda, what's not to love? The second is Mai from Avatar: the Last Airbender--she got the trio of bad girls, Azula for herself, since she was supposed to have been cosplaying Azula, Ty Lee for my cousin, who was cosplaying Ty Lee, and Mai for me since I was cosplaying Mai. Sunday I went back and got the bottom two buttons + an Aang. I gave the Aang to my other cousin who was at AZ and cosplaying Aang. The Zuko is for my husband, and the Iroh is for our friend who was cosplaying Iroh, but he left the convention before I could get the button to him. So, it'll just hang out on the yarn braid here (made for me by Ty) until our next D&D game.

Next up is this amazing print of Terra from Final Fantasy VI. I loved the coloring especially, but the whole print is just plain awesome. I had to take it home with me. XD I'm thinking the artist was just trying to get rid of these prints since she was selling them for only $1. Honestly it's worth a lot more in my opinion. I also bought a key chain from her table. It had Lina on one side and Gourry on the other. <3 Slayers!!! There aren't any pictures of the key chain because it's attached to the car keys which are in my husband's pocket. XD I really liked this artist; she had tons of non-mainstream stuff.

Dumb flash on the camera wouldn't function properly this morning... During our wanderings of artist alley, Ty made sure we found every artist selling Pokemon stuff. This one had a set of bookmarks to go with the various Eevee evolutions. She was out of my favorites, but Ty liked the water one, and the fire one is one of my runner up favorites, so I picked out the set of 3. The water one will go to Ty, the electric to my mom, and I'll either keep the fire one or give it to Luke. I want to laminate these so they're usable without risking tearing them up--this is why I laminate all of my bookmarks in really thick plastic.

This artist had a lot of cool Sailor Moon stuff, and it was tough to narrow down which prints I wanted to buy. With the chibi Sailor Moon set, I got all of the inner scouts, so I didn't have to pick which one I liked the most. =D I got the Ouran Host Club print because 1) they were on special if you got 2, and 2) I've been more than a little obsessed with Ouran High School Host Club lately. XD I really liked these chibis though; they pretty much nailed the cast and their personalities.

Finally, I got 2 badges and 2 magnets from Mystcloud (the one artist I actually have a gallery address for). I got the Sailor Venus because she's one of my favorites--love the color orange (purple's my second favorite color, but it's on my sites because purple goes better with a Gothic Panda than orange). The Nekozawa badge and Kyoya magnet go with my Ouran High School Host Club obsession. Kyoya's my favorite host, and Nekozawa is just plain awesome. The James magnet was for my kids to go on our fridge--they're all obsessed with Pokemon. The camera would not cooperate with getting pictures of these. Flash on: there's a glare. *fail* Flash off: the camera won't focus. I'm posting 3 picutres, 1 with flash, 1 without flash that's almost not half bad, and 1 without flash that reflects what pictures taken indoors without a flash usually look like. XD

Flash: Horrible glare on Nekozawa.

Almost not bad; Sailor Venus and James are ok at least.

This is what my camera normally does w/ no flash.