Thursday, April 27, 2006

   I love manga!!! (scanlation good)
Well howdy-do! I have returned from Basic Military Training and Tech Training to become a part of the US Air Force. Ain't that nice?? And in three days I'll be getting on a plain to New Mexico to start working in the "Operational" Air Force. So I finished up Tech School and got home Easter sunday. Since then I've mostly just been relaxing and downloading massive amounts of manga! ^_^

Yeah, I was on Anime News Network browsing CLAMP manga titles and I was looking at the page about Kobato, one of the few CLAMP titles that haven't been licensed in English. I just happened to click the "links" and found CLAMP No Lumiere which has scanlations of Kobato! That made me happy. ^_^ Although they only have the first 4 chapters of the story translated so far. It's a pretty nice manga. I'm looking forward to them finishing it.

CLAMP No Lumiere is cool but they didn't have much aside from Kobato. I was still craving manga and it just wasn't enough so I checked to see what all Lililicious had put out since I had been gone. I downloaded some new chapters of Maria-sama ga Miteru and Maka-Maka, but before I got to reading them I stumbled onto a scanlation group from the Lililicious site. They are Kotonoha and they kick ass! They've had a few joint projects with Lililicious and translate some pretty sweet stuff on their own. With the help of the site Myran-san's Manga who hosts files for Kotonoha and some other scanlation groups I've downloaded nearly a GB worth of manga in about a weeks time (that's pretty damn good on this old, crappy dial-up computer). A bunch of Kotonoha's stuff is listed as only being available in bit.torrent on their site but Myran-san's Manga actually hosts pretty much all of their titles. I've downloaded a lot of stuff but I've only really had the time to read 4 titles so far:

Girlfriend
The first manga I read off of Kotonoha was their newest series because the http downloads are available right off of the site. "Girlfriend" isn't the usual romantic comedy manga. It's mostly made up of new, unrelated short stories for each chapter much like Tokyopop's "Boys Be" release. What makes Girlfriend different is that the girls are mostly cold, detached and just want to have sex. It's not the usual silly comedy flirting with sex and perversion using a bunch of fanservice. Girlfriend just puts everything out there (calling it "real" would be the cliche thing to do). Instead of littering the pages with fanservice shots, nearly every chapter has a short soft-core sex scene. I've read a comment once saying that only a pervert can find Girlfriend to be "charming", but these days I wonder, who isn't a little perverted anymore?? I find Girlfriend to be a touching, cute, and refreshing alternative to the usual romance manga. It's interesting and has beautiful artwork. Kotonoha has the first two of the three volumes translated so far and the third is on it's way. I'll definitely be buying the Japanese books the first chance I get after I'm settled into my dorm....

Milk Closet
I've wanted to read this manga ever since I read Hitoshi Tomizawa's later work, Alien 9 a few years back. I was so happy when I saw that Kotonoha was translating it. Then I was sad when I saw it was only available on BT on the site. But then I found out that Myran-san's Manga had it! Yay!! Anyways, Kotonoha has released all but the last 3 chapters of the 4 book series so far and now I'm having the hardest time trying to decide if I like Milk Closet or Alien 9 more.... I'll have to wait until I'm able to finish reading Milk Closet to decide for sure but so far Milk Closet is really amazing and has a strong chance to surpass Alien 9.... Oh yeah, I should probably say what these books are all about, huh? Well, for anyone who has read Alien 9 or seen the anime, Milk Closet is pretty similar. In both stories, little girls use the power of symbiotic aliens to fight against monsters. They rip apart the bad guys, they get scared, and they get ripped apart and get put back together so they can be scared and rip apart more bad guys. Yeah, that's pretty much the basic theme of Alien 9 and Milk Closet. It's a lot of bizarre craziness and I love it. Now for the differences between the two. Alien 9: 6th-7th graders // Milk Closet: 3rd graders // Alien 9: aliens go on the girls' heads // Milk Closet: aliens become tails // Alien 9: aliens are attacking the planet or something.... // Milk Closet: kids slip between different universes and get attacked by the creatures there // Alien 9: drill chain things coming out of symbiotic alien used as weapons and for protection // Milk Closet: kids can change the form of their bodies into blades, stone, or anything else they think to become weapons and protection // Alien 9: some weird goo is used to regenerate girls that get ripped apart // Milk Closet: regeneration is built into the symbiotic creatures.... Okay, I think that's enough about Milk Closet. Damn, these were only supposed to be short summaries.... Anyways, it's really awesome and if this weirdness sounds like your kind of thing, you should check it out, along with Alien 9 while you're at it. ^_^

GOTH
So there's a series simply called "GOTH"?? Well, personally, I was a little put off at first because of the name. I didn't really feel in the mood to read about some gloomy kids talking about how the world sucks or some shit.... But I downloaded it and started reading it and all I have to say is, goddamn, this is some twisted, fucked up shit! Yeah, sorry for the pointless, childish use of profanity, but really, this manga is insane. It's only one volume long, all of which is available from Kotonoha, but that is plenty long. It's about a guy and a girl who are really interested in murder, death, and torture. They have a very odd relationship to say the least, especially from the guy's point of view. They do a little detective work on a few murder cases and get into some weird situations.... I don't really want to give away anything in the story so I won't say anymore. Just check it out if it sounds like your kind of thing.... I found it to be really creepy. I almost began to shake at times. Also, chapter 2 has just about the most disturbing picture I have ever seen anywhere....

Chokotto Sister
And now to do a complete 180, the last manga I've began to read from Kotonoha probably can't be any more different from "GOTH". It's a cute story about a little kid who asks god to bring him a little sister after his mother has a miscarriage and loses the ability to have children. Well, years pass by and after he's nearly forgotten about his wish, Santa comes along and gives him his new sister.... I've only read the first chapter so far so all I can really say about it is, "cute! soooo cute!" Yeah, I'm getting myself a good manga sugar fix before I head off to New Mexico. Kotonoha is about half way through translating the 4th volume, so any fans of big brother & little sister cuteness, enjoy. ^_^

And that is all for now.... So long. Damn. Anyways, next time I post something I'll be over in the dry heat and all that good(?) junk. Laters!

=Drake Aaron Rain
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Thursday, December 1, 2005

   List: Top 25 Favorite Anime/Manga Girls
Making lists is fun! In this list I decided that I would rank and explain my love for fictional girls from Japanese animation and manga. Yes, this is kind of pointless. Yes, this is kind of creepy. Yes, this is kind of pathetic. But you know, I don't really care. Just so this isn't totally pointless though, I made a display picture for each character, multiple pictures for some of the girls. Feel free to use any of them if you like, just don't direct link them. Anyways, on to the girls!!



25. Pixy -- Monster Rancher
When Monster Rancher was on TV in the US, the only reason I watched more than one episode was in hopes that I would see Pixy. She's also just about the only reason that I wanted to get the Monster Rancher 2 video game. Yeah, I'll admit now that about 90% of why I like her so much is because of her character design. She looks damn good for a monster. But I also really like her brooding, evil, conflicted personality. Also, her original Japanese voice was done by Kotono Mitsuishi. That makes me want to dig up Monster Rancher fansubs....



24. Scarlett O'Hara -- Steamboy
I'm not really sure why I love this spoiled little brat so much. I should probably think she's just an annoying brat who gets in the way but the way she acts just seems so silly that she starts to be cute, or something. She ended up being one of my favorite things about the Steamboy movie. I heard that there are actually plans to make a spinoff story for Scarlett where she becomes "Steamgirl" or something. I really looking forward to that, especially with the picture of her during the credits of the movie having red hair and standing by a plane....



23. Cynthia "Cindy" McDougal -- A.I. Love You
Love Hina is my favorite manga. I love it. However, I'm not really all that found of Ken Akamatsu's first big professional work, A.I. Love You (AI Ga Tomaranai). It's not really bad, it's just decent. While Love Hina is number one on my list of favorite manga, A.I. Love You isn't even in the top 20. Maybe not even in my top 30. There doesn't really seem to be much of any plot or character development and the ending seems a bit rushed and cheep. One of the few big redeeming qualities of the series is Cindy and her story arc. She is a really nice character who is very straightforward about her love for the main character, which is very refreshing in that type of story. She also happens to be Akamatsu's favorite character from the series. I wish he would have ended it with her arc....



22. Yomiko "The Paper" Readman -- Read Or Die
I practically fell in love with Yomiko within the first five minutes of the R.O.D. OVA. She was just so damn cute when she was shopping for books! There's really not much else to say about her. She's super cute and can kick your ass with paper. What more can you ask for?? Okay, she has big boobs too for you types....



21. Haruka Urashima -- Love Hina
Ah, time for the first Love Hina girl on my list. My first pick from the Love Hina cast is Keitarou's aunt Haruka. The anime version doesn't really get into her part of the story and it ends before it really gets into the really good parts about her. She's a lot like a more grown up version of Naru except she does a better job at keeping her cool is a lot more dangerous when she does get really pissed off. She also has moments of extreme cuteness, although there aren't many....



20. Ami Mizuno / Sailor Mercury -- Sailor Moon
Ah yes, Sailor Moon, the first anime I ever really watched, getting up early every morning before school so I could watch this weird show about weird girls fighting weird monsters while wearing weird outfits. When I was 10years-old I had no idea why I liked that show so much. But I remember that I also really liked Sailor Mercury. She was my original favorite anime girl, and now she's number 20. But I still like her. She's cute, smart, and nice. Not much else to it, really....



19. Nodoka Miyazaki -- Mahou Sensei Negima
And here's another "cute, smart, nice" type of girl. From Ken Akamatsu's current project, Nodoka is the quiet little library girl in love with Negi-sensei. She's just adorable....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



18. Hikaru "Rabi-en-Rose" Usada -- Di Gi Charat
I just recently got around to seeing the original Di Gi Charat anime and also read a lot of the manga anthologies. Usada is definitely my favorite character from the series. The girl in the bunny ears determained to beat Degiko but also has a soft heart and is really best friends with Degiko (they may actually be each other's only friends in a way). She's really cute whenever she gets concerned for Degiko. And she looks really nice in her school uniform and glasses (extra picture 3)....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



17. Saga Bergman -- Snow Fairy Sugar
One of the cutest things I've ever seen was when Kanon kissed her on the cheek and said, "daisuki Saga-mama." Saga is cute, organized, responsible, and a great pianist. She could also see fairies and has her share of problems. The main picture I'm using is of Saga from the Summer Special when she's 15. I think she looks better older, and it makes me feel a little less lolicon....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



16. Kanako Urashima -- Love Hina
The second Love Hina girl on my list! This time it's Keitarou's adoptive sister, Kanako. The lonely, obsessive loligoth girl with a major brother complex. She kind of plays the villain for a while but she has a good heart....

Extra Picture: 1



15. Hotaru Tomoe / Sailor Saturn -- Sailor Moon
For a while in high school, I was a little obsessed with Sailor Saturn for some reason. Probably something to do with the dark cuteness. Yeah, that's why I seem to still like her now at least. Although really, my feelings towards her seem more daughter-like than anything. I want to give Hotaru a hug....



14. Asuka Langley Sohyru -- Evangelion
Asuka or Rei?? I actually thought I was a bigger Rei fan, but when I really thought hard about it I found out that I actually like Asuka more. I don't know, Rei kind of makes me feel weird, almost scared. Asuka has that nice red hair and she's aggressive. I seem to like that in girls. Plus she has major problems and would kick my ass if I got out of line. Yes, I also seem to like that in girls....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



13. Makoto Kino / Sailor Jupiter -- Sailor Moon
It turns out that Sailor Jupiter is actually my favorite character from Sailor Moon. Who would have guessed that?? She's tomboy-ish but elegant, tall, strong, pretty, and straightforward. She can also blast a thunder bolt up your ass....

Extra Picture: 1



12. Anko Uehara -- GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka
This girl has problems. She torments the geeky Yoshikawa to the point where he tries to kill himself (twice) and then ends up falling in love with him. She may be a violent, evil bitch in the beginning but she had a good excuse and felt remorse after she realized how wrong she's been. She ends up being pretty cute, especially when she goes to the festival with Yoshikawa....



11. Tohru Honda -- Fruits Basket
If empathy were a super power, Tohru would be an invincible hero (heroine). It seems like she can help to heal just about any psychological damage. She really is amazing. She's extremely cheerful, kind and strong despite the things she's had to go through in her life. Tohru is just such a wonderful person....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



10. Sora Naegino -- Kaleido Star
Sora has a dream to become a great performer and leaves home to go out on her own to pursue that dream and never gives up. She's nice, cheerful, and kicks ass at gymnastics and such. She also has a cute pet seal! It'd be a lot of fun to be around her or just to watch her show....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



9. Naru Narusegawa -- Love Hina
The third Love Hina girl on my list, Naru is Keitarou's main love interest in the story. Some people tend to see her as a bit of a bitch since she's always giving Keitarou a hard time, always kicking his ass, but she really does love him, even if it takes a few years for her to admit it. She may be a short tempered, violent girl but she is also very caring. Even though they have a lot of problems, Keitarou and Naru are my favorite manga couple....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



8. Yuuko Ichihara -- XXXHolic / Tsubasa
Yuuko is the coolest, sexiest, funniest, silliest, laziest, most elegant and beautiful alcoholic time space witch ever! She's very mysterious and can be dead serious one moment and a few seconds later she'd say something totally random and silly. I would love to trade places with Watanuke if I could. Working for Yuuko would be hard at times, but it would also be a lot of fun. Just being around her would make all of the craziness of the job worth it....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



7. Asuna Kagurazaka -- Mahou Sensei Negima
Asuna is kind of like the Naru of Negima, except she's not quite as violent, although it's a little harder to kick the ass of your cute 10year-old teacher as apposed to a lame 20year-old loser. She's Negi-sensei's main love interest and also acts as his guardian and something of a big sister for him in Japan. She has a weird cuteness similar to Naru's and has a high sense of duty and responsibility. I also like her red hair and different colored eyes....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



6. Sakura Kinomoto -- Cardcaptor Sakura / Tsubasa / XXXHolic
Cardcaptor Sakura is my favorite mahou shoujo series. I think Sakura is the cutest "normal" character ever created (normal meaning excluding super deformed characters, fairies, etc.). She is just a very determined and extremely kind person. Personally, I kind of like the older Tsubasa alternate universe version of Sakura, partly because (like with Saga) it makes me feel a little less like a dirty old lolicon man....

Extra Pictures: (Tsubasa) 1, 2, 3; (CCS) 4, 5, 6



5. Nana Osaki -- Nana
Nana Osaki is an extremely cool girl. There isn't much else to say about it. She just acts super cool and is the lead vocalist for a super cool rock band. But she can also be pretty sensitive and has her share of insecurities. She's probably the most "real" person on this list, whatever that means....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2



4. Sakaki-san -- Azumanga Daioh
The tall, quiet, cool girl who is obsessed with cute things. Personally, I think she's the cutest character in Azumanga Daioh, just barely beating Chiyo-chan and Osaka, especially whenever she's with Mayaa. I really like the tall girl types and having Yuu Asakawa's voice in the anime is a big plus....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



3. Kanako Ohno -- Genshiken
The cute, shy cosplaying otaku girl from Genshiken. Kanako actually gets a huge boost in the ratings for the simple fact that if these girls were real, I may actually have a good chance of hooking up with her. She's my age, she's otaku, and she actually has a thing for older looking bald guys!! If I put on a pair of sunglass I just may be the man of her dreams! Yeah, anyway, Ohno-san is a very nice girl....



2. Motoko Aoyama -- Love Hina
And my favorite Love Hina girl is Motoko Aoyama! What? She's number two on the list? Someone beat her?? Yeah.... But anyways, I really like Motoko. She could easily kick my ass and for some reason I seem to like that in a girl. She's also a tall girl type like I like and is really cute in her own way. There are times in the manga that I wish I could just give her a hug. It's kind of sad that she never finds a guy of her own in the series, but I might actually like her more because of that. And like Sakaki-san, her anime voice is also done by Yuu Asakawa, one of my favorite voice actresses....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3



1. Urumi Kanzaki -- GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka
And we have a winner!! To put bluntly, this girl is fucking out of her fucking mind. She has problems, lots of problems, and I love her for it. Kanzaki is something of an evil genius. Her mom actually had sperm genetically engineered to make Kanzaki super smart, and that really fucked her up. She tried to kill herself three times. The first time wasn't totally serious, but the other two times made me cry. She also did a lot of bad things to other people, the worst being when she set up three of her classmates to be sold to some old rich guys to be raped. But I still love Kanzaki. She can be really cute sometimes, act very carefree. I'd want to hug her even more than Motoko. Too bad Onizuka is probably the only man alive who can handle her. Hey, and her anime voice is done by Kotono Mitsuishi. Looks like my list has come around full circle....

Extra Pictures: 1, 2, 3


Honorable Mentions: Here are a few girls that either came really close to making the list or I just don't know them quite well enough yet (haven't read enough manga or watched enough anime) to make a good decision about them, or they may have just slipped my mind while I was making the list until it was to late to put them in. If I redo this list in a few years, some of these girls may be on it.... Makino Tsukushi from Boys Over Flowers. Sango from Inuyasha. Himeno Awayuki from Pretear. Zakuro Fujiwara / Mew Zakuro from Tokyo Mew Mew. Sunako from The Wallflower (Perfect Girl Evolution). Haruhi Fujioka from Ouran High School Host Club. Mizuho Kazami from Please Teacher! Sachiko Ogasawara from Maria-sama ga Miteru. Karin Karino from Kare First Love. Alice Seno from Alice 19th. Kyo Aizawa from Girl Got Game (Power!!).


And that is pretty much it. That's a lot of girls, huh? Yeah, that may have been a bit of a lame way to spend a lot of my time, but hey, I get bored sometimes. This will be my last post here on myOtaku until I get back from my military training for the Air Force so enjoy it while I'm gone. I'm leaving monday and stuff. Yay!!!

=Drake Aaron Rain
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Friday, November 18, 2005

   myOtaku makes me feel old....
So I was looking around at other profiles on here. Out of the first 3 random profiles I looked at, two of them were for 13year-olds.... And my ass began to feel old at 21.... I mean, I saw "1992" in their birthdays and I just thought to myself, "damn, I fucking remember that year!" It was the year that Bill Clinton first ran for president and I was starting the 3rd grade. I remember that I was going to vote for Ross Perot just because he looked funny and he was a 3rd party candidate that had no chance of winning. Of course, 8year-olds can't vote. :P But yeah, I was feeling kind of old because of that. I wonder if these young wipper-snappers even know who Ross Perot is? Well, after a closer look, it seems that 16year-olds (1989) are probably the most common people here. And it also seems like girls vastly outnumber the guys.... Interesting.

Anyways, on a totally unrelated note, out of mass amounts of boredom and lack of anything better to do while I'm on the internet, I began making Greetings pictures yesterday. I've made four so far and I'll probably have many more later. Ugly things happen when you're bored....

=Drake Aaron Rain
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Saturday, November 5, 2005

   Mommy, can I have a chocobo?.... *NO*
Okay, so it turns out that I had one more piece of artwork that I could put up here on MyOtaku. It's a big posterboard picture of a chocobo from the Final Fantasy series. I drew it as a visual aid for a speech I had to do in public speaking class back in college. We were supposed to do a sales pitch for a product and I was selling the chocobo services of Choco Bill's Chocobo Agency where you can rent or buy your very own chocobo!!

Yeah, only a few people in the class actually knew what a chocobo is. In a later speech that we had to do music, I did the evolution of Nobuo Uematsu's Final Fantasy music. Ahh, geek for life.... I don't remember what grades I got on the speeches but I got an 'A' in the class so they must not have been too bad.

Anyway, take a look at that big yellow bird after it's posted in my Fan Art section, okay? This will really be the last piece of art I put up here, for real.

=Drake Aaron Rain
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Friday, November 4, 2005

   I never stood a chance....
In today's Anime Corner Store newsletter, they announced the winner of the pumpkin carving contest they had this year.... Just look at that huge fucking pumpkin!! Yeah.... I carved a pumpkin for the contest but I ended up not submitting it because I didn't get to do all I wanted to do with it. But yeah, even if I painted it up all nice like I wanted, I still never stood a chance against that beast.... :(

=Drake Aaron Rain
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Thursday, November 3, 2005

   Look at my art!!
Yeah, so I'm new here and I have put up 6 pieces of fanart. You should look at them and comment on them and rate them if you feel so inclined. Okay? Okay.

That will actually be all the art I put up for a while because I am going into the US Air Force and I won't be able to draw or use a computer for at least 3months after I leave for BMT.

So yeah, wait for wonderful things upon my return!!!

=Drake Aaron Rain
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