I have been waiting so long for another Kawashita Mizuki manga ever since I finished reading Hatsukoi and Ichigo last year. While the Hatsukoi Limited anime features the sexy ladies of the manga, it just doesn’t have the same charm as the print media. Thankfully, the new manga Ane Doki features the same great/sexy art present in Ichigo and Hatsukoi. The main heroine, Higawara Natsuki, looks a lot like Yamamoto Misaki from Hatsukoi and a little like Tojo Aya from Ichigo. Mizuki even references Ichigo when she has Kouta remember Natsuki by her panties. There’s another girl named Kanade Sakurai who reminds me of Nishino Tsukasa from Ichigo.

So far, this manga looks very sexy and interesting. A lot has happened in this 56 page chapter, such as a maid outfit, a somewhat tsundere/cocky girl and Kouta tryna save someone’s life. All I can say is that I’m excited about the new series and can’t wait for chapter two.

This week’s K-On! episode was all about the keion club and Afterschool Teatime’s (as they’re now known) next (last??) performance. Unfortunately, Yui is out sick with what is presumably Ritsu’s cold, but it might also be caused by Sawa-chan sensei’s stage outfit yukata that Yui refused to change out of.

I read this story arc in the manga a few weeks ago but completely forgot about it while watching episode 10 because the whole Ritsu getting jealous of Nodoka+Mio was made up for the anime which threw me off. Of course, this episode ties in closely with the manga’s plot, altho there are a few differences that help to create an end-of-the-series feeling that the manga obviously didn’t have.

plot.

So let’s start with the plot. As I said before, this episode mostly focuses on Yui’s cold and how it affects the keion club’s performance at the Sakura High Festival. It starts off with a funny hallucination that Yui has due to her fever where Mugi reveals that her eyebrows are actually sweet pickled radish (at least, that’s what they looked like to me). Yui then proceeds to eat one of Mugi’s eyebrows and snaps out of her daze to show Ui taking care of her onee-chan.

The focus turns to Ui as she takes care of her sister while worrying over her. There’s even a cute part where Yui tells her to hurry and leave for school before she’s late. Ui agrees and leaves the room only to sneak a peek and make sure Yui’s doing ok. She’s so cute. At school, Ui and Azusa are taking about how Yui’s not getting any better when Ritsu barges in with Mio coming after her to keep her in line. They then recount how Ritsu’s cold might have been spread to Yui and a cute flashback is shown of the obligatory cosplay scene where Sawa-chan forces the keion club to choose their next stage uniform.

Azusa starts to worry a lot about Yui and feels uncomfortable when Mio suggests that she start practicing for the lead guitar part. Of course, Azusa wants to perform with her sempai, but Yui’s condition isn’t getting better. When Ui comes home, she finds Yui wrapped around her guitar, ギータ, which probably meant that she was trying to practice as to not let the keion club and her friends down.

A few days go by (presumably) and the keion club is about to practice again without Yui. Azusa still doesn’t feel right when suddenly Yui pops in the door claiming to feel much better. With everyone happy again, they begin to practice when Mio feels something is a little off. They practice the song one more time and realize that they’re actually playing together in tempo, which never happens. Insanity insues as Yui accidently calls Ritsu and Mugi “Ritsu-san” and “Tsumugi-san” rather than her usual “Ricchan” and “Mugi-chan.” She then calls Azusa “Azusa-chan,” prompting Azusa to ask Yui to recite her nickname. Yui then fails by calling her “Azusaーニ” revealing Yui to be Ui in disguise (Sawa-chan also knew cuz Ui’s boobs are bigger than Yui’s). Ui claims she did all this for Yui because she cared about her and felt bad. What’s really weird is that Ui played everything perfectly while having very little experience.

The day of the festival comes and Yui is still not better, but the keion club still has to perform. Azusa is still very sad about this when Nodoka comes in to do a final head count. The girls are surprised when Nodoka says everyone’s present. Nodoka clarifies her claim by recounting a cute story of chibi Yui and Nodoka where Yui is catching crawfish and filling Nodoka’s tub full of them. She says this is a demonstration of how determined Yui is to follow thru on a goal she has set meaning Yui will forget her cold and definitely show up. Sawa-chan then enters the room and apologizes for being late by revealing that she was working on a special cold-weather version of the stage yukata. Yui then shows up in the doorway looking all cute and healed. An Azu-nyan+Yui moe/yuri moment ensues (nose-bleed).

The focus finally shifts back to Yui as the keion club gets ready to perform. Since Yui left ギータ at home, she decides to run back home to retrieve it. During this time, the keion club is performing a new song on stage.

This scene really touched me because of how it was written. If you recall in the first episode, Yui runs to school after believing she is late. Fast forward to ep.12 and it shows Yui running back to school again, this time with ギータ in hand. As she’s running back to school with flashes of the other girls performing, she recalls herself running to school on the first day trying to decide how she wants to spend her time as a high school student. During this time, she claims that thru all of her experiences in the past two years, she’s grown a lot and is very glad about her decision to join the keion club.

Back at the auditorium, Yui arrives just in time as the first song ends. She then gets back up on stage and apologizes for always causing them so much trouble. She thanks Sawa-chan as she leaves the stage (who is showered in applause and screams from all the fangirls) and reintroduces the keion club. She recounts how the club’s goal was to perform live. She recounts how everyone got a part-time job to help buy her guitar and how they would always have tea in the clubroom. She recounts the training camps at Mugi’s vacation homes and how the club searched hard to find new members. She also recounts that they never really seriously practiced, but she’s so happy to be on the stage performing at the festival.

They then perform a very heartfelt Fuwa Fuwa Time/K-On! montage which is met with an encore, after which Nodoka has to remind Yui that they’re out of time. The episode ends with a preview of a special 13th episode which will be the final one of the series (season if they announce a second one).

in conclusion.

What I really liked about this episode was the fact that the focus shifted back to Yui and sort of went full circle back to the “running to school” scene. The past few episodes have been mostly about Azusa (not that I’m complaining) and the ones before that were mostly about Mio-moe, but I’m really glad that they focused on Yui this time around.

Choosing this story arc in the manga for the last episode actually worked really well imo. This gave them the oppurtunity to show the running scene (which wasn’t in the manga) and allowed for Yui’s monologue about her growth and experiences throughout her highschool carrier and with the keion club.

The fact that they did a full 360 helps create a comforting feeling and helps close it nicely, altho of course, I wish it’ll never end. My only concern is that this episode’s nice ending might be ruined by next week’s episode, but of course more K-On! is always a good things.

All I can say is that I’ve enjoyed the experience. This is the first and only anime I’ve watched in time with the Japanese airings. I watched every single episode as soon as they were available and couldn’t wait for the next. This is rare for be cuz I tend to lose interest. For example, while I love Basquash! and Eden of the East, I haven’t watched the last few episodes; K-On! was the only one I was consistent with. This is proof that this anime was really amazing and shows how much I enjoyed it. I will admit that the plot is minimal and it’s basically a bunch of moe moments, but it was a light anime that was really enjoyable to watch. I don’t believe there will be anything else that can replace it in my heart.

Thank you Kyo-Ani and Kakifly for this amazing anime/experience. I cannot wait for the 13th episode and for future manga chapters to release on my fav scanslation site. I also can’t wait for figures to start being released of the K-On! girls, and of course I will buy as many as my wallet allows.

Sorry for such a long post, but thank you for reading. If you still haven’t watched K-On!, I highly recommend it; it’s easily the best anime of this season and might be the best of the entire year. I’m gonna miss you Azu-nyan (and all of the other girls too).

gawker hybrid.

Gawker, I believe, is a blog/news network made up of different blogs that blog about different subjects, such as electronics/gadgets (Gizmodo), video games (Kotaku), cars (Jalopnik) and more. I currently read Gizmodo, Kotaku, Jalopnik and Lifehacker, which is about a bunch of things that have to do with “hacking” life, whether it be tech-wise or health related. Before, I would have different bookmarks on my bookmarks tab of Firefox to read each individual site, but now I can use Gawker Hybrid to create a hybrid website of any combination of Gawker blogs I want. This makes it much easier to read up on the latest news that I am concerned about.

Basically, you go on to any of the Gawker websites and login (you can use your Facebook account if you don’t feel like creating a new username on another site) and from there you can create a Gawker Hybrid of your own. It’s a fairly simple process and I made one right away knowing it would save space on my bookmarks bar.

a good/bad review.

Of course, having one page to read everything is very helpful and convenient, but sometimes it might be a bit confusing for those who are used to checking each individual site, much like myself. Of course, I got used to it after a few seconds cuz I can adjust.

One problem I came across is that there is no next page/previous posts option, meaning you can’t check previous posts past the amount the Hybrid displays. Of course, this might be fixed sometime in the future, but as of right now, I have to check every individual site instead of using the Hybrid if I haven’t checked in a long time, such as after work or in the morning.

Despite this one major problem, it’s a pretty good website. Everything on the Hybrid is in condensed view which allows for more posts to be displayed and for faster skimming imo. While I decided to keep all of the individual sites in expanded view, it was only to have the images displayed larger for when I’m skimming thru. If I find anything interesting, I open the page in a new tab anyways, so it’s no big deal.

conclusion.

For now, I’ll continue using the Hybrid solely because I’m too lazy to add all the sites back to my bookmarks toolbar, but it’s also a nice concept. If they fix the no next page/previous posts problem, then it would be perfect, but only time will tell. I know subscribing to the RSS feeds would be a lot easier, but for some reason, I don’t want to RSS those websites. I already RSS a bunch of other things so it’s not like I’m avoiding RSS feeds althogether. So for those of you who read any of the Gawker sites, you should try out Gawker Hybrid.

Microsoft.

1. 1080P video streaming
2. Facebook/Twitter integration
3. Last.fm streaming
4. Netflix Queue editing (2-4 are X360 apps)
5. Natal motion controls – a camera that tracks motion
6. Avatars getting props and stuff and a store
7. Full X360 game downloads for $19.99 using USD, not Microsoft Points
8. FFXIII on X360 spring 2010 – better not come out on X360 before PS3
9. Metal Gear game for X360 = I don’t care

Nintendo.

1. Wii MotionPlus update – new games shown
2. Super Mario Galaxy 2 – now with more Yoshi
3. Golden Sun DS = awesome
4. Wii Fit Plus
5. Wii Vitality – pulse reader for Wii = wtf -__-

Sony.

1. full of win
2. Sony motion control tech demo
3. FFXIV online
4. Team Ico’s new game: The Last Guardian
5. PSP Go – looks ugly, but interesting
6. still no PS3 slim, but it’ll come, just wait…

I’m sure there’s more but I can’t remember. Anyways, off to pick up my brother from school, then work.

So far Gizmodo has said…

• nice looking environment, very detailed
• titan rises out of lava = awesome
• doesn’t seem like much more than a graphical boost when compared to God of War III

March 2010 for Ps3. Already have mine preordered from Amazon, so all I do is wait 9 months -____-

It features a little boy running from something who is snatched up from a ledge by a flying feathered cow/cat/monkey creature, thus saving him from death. The art style is interesting in that the boy is a cartoon and everything else is realistic.

Lol, Gizmodo said that the trailer is so amazing, the audience needs a moment before applauding; I wish I could have seen it.

Of course, Microsoft had their announcement yesterday at E3, but I only got the idea to post this a few seconds ago after seeing Sony’s and Nintendo’s, so whatever. Keep in mind that what I type here is only what I know or believe to know. This means what I type might not be accurate.

Microsoft.

I’ll start with Microsoft cuz they announced theirs first. Microsoft is launching their motion control concept called Natal that will, instead of usuing a controller, utilize a camera to capture complete body motion and recreate it within the game.

Probably won’t be getting this cuz I rarely use my X360 as it is and I doubt they’ll add motion control to my fav genre, RPG.

Nintendo.

Wii MotionPlus, ’nuff said. Annouced at E3 last year, it’s nothing but another Wiimote add-on that’ll track movement better than the Wiimote can do on its own. The Wiimote should have had this technology to start with, but whatever.

I’ll probably be getting this just to try out Wii Resort or whatever, but each one costs $20 a piece or $50 for the Wii Resort combo. Comes out next week by itself or in July with the game.

Sony.

Sony literally just got done announcing this while I finished up Nintendo’s Wii MotionPlus, but Sony’s new motion control looks amazing. It’s a controller much like the Wiimote but has a purple ball at the tip. The reason for this is because the Playstation Motion Controller uses Hollywood Mo-cap technology using the PSEye to track the movement of the ball and relay the movement onscreen.

Basically, the motion tracking is 1:1 with sub-millimeter accuracy, which the Wii MotionPlus somewhat fails to do. The tech demo showed different things being done with the controller, such as playing tennis, an FPS, a tank RTS and even archery. Gizmodo says that the 1:1 tracking, HD and physics capabilities makes it “Wii to the Max.” I agree. Also, while Microsoft has similar technology albeit without a controller, Sony feels that sometimes buttons are necessary so that’s why they decided on a controller similar to the Wii’s.

It’ll be out in Spring of 2010, so in about 9 months. Plenty of time for developers to make amazing games for this and for people to stress out over waiting for it to release. I might be getting this, but depends on the games that’ll support it.

In closing.

All three companies now have motion control in their consoles via different methods. My favorite so far is Sony’s use of motion capture technology in conjunction with a controller. It’s like a mix of Microsoft and Nintendo, and it works (in theory).

I don’t know the release date of Microsoft’s Natal, but I’m pretty sure I’ll eventually buy two Wii MotionPlus add-ons so I can play the Wii MotionPlus exclusive Red Steel 2 and I’ll consider Sony’s depending on the games and the price. As for Microsoft’s, we’ll see but I doubt it. All I want from Microsoft is for them to turn back the clock and undo region locking so I can play some Death Smiles.

Great news for those who love mmos, but this isn’t for me. All I care about for now is FFXIII and FFvsXIII. If FFXIV production is slowing down FFXIII and Versus, I’m gonna be pissed.

FFXIV Online will be exclusive to PS3 and will release in 2010.

I know this is a pointless post if I don’t have pictures, but I’m really tired from working all week. I will try to upload them in another post along with a bunch of other figures (all the ones I got when I came home from college about three weeks ago and probably all the other ones that I’ve had at home all this time). Hopefully I’ll get a day off soon, but who knows.

O, and I got Negima vol.23 and I’m finally finishing Black Cat; I only have vol.17-20 left (Eve is so cute XD). Btw, who read the latest To Love-Ru?? (spoiler) Golden Darkness meets an assassin named Black who looks like Train Heartnet (Black Cat from Black Cat). He even mentions that Golden Darkness was created by a Dr. Tearju. I always assumed the Golden Darkness was just an Eve lookalike, but now I think she’s actually Eve and that her and Black had some kinda falling out and she ended up in space or something?? But she’s an alien, not a human, so maybe everything is just coincidental, but who knows (end spoiler).

Ok, goodnight everyone!