When I posted the shoot for that Rosanna figure, everyone kind of had fun speculating just how her pantsu stayed on. Theories ranged from the perverse to the hilarious. Well, there’s actually a real world product. It seems a UK lingerie company sells something called the C-string, an undergarment without anything on the sides — the garment hugs the body to stay on target. Shockingly, it’s not just for women.

Saw the link to it on Jewaira’s blog.

I finished watching Diamond Daydreams (Diamond Dust Drops) for the second time the other day. After watching the series over two nights it struck me that I really like Hokkaido as a setting. I’ve seen two other shows where I enjoyed the Hokkaido setting, Figure 17 and Noein. Hokkaido just feels like it’s from a slightly different time, rather than being just some other part of Japan. It feels cleaner, less preoccupied, and somewhat more pastel. I guess I could say the same thing about anyplace with lots of cows, such as rural Pennsylvania, but it’s more exotic when the farm hands speak Japanese (nevermind that I watch these shows dubbed in English, I still imagine they speak Japanese).

Actually during one of the extras on the Noein dvds, the director mentioned that he chose to set Noein in Hokkaido primarily because he felt the setting gave it a very different feel than if he set it in Tokyo. I might be putting words in his mouth, but that’s the impression I got, that it would be harder to convey the innocence of their friendships if it were set in Tokyo. That and he wanted snow.

Even though Hokkaido probably isn’t all that exciting, I’d love to visit there someday. It looks pretty.

What other good anime are set in Hokkaido?

After all the overblown doom and gloom this week about the status of anime in America, re the ICV2 article and the concern over some English dub-production being shipped to Odex, I’m happy to see some good news. Yeah, I don’t do news, so I’m not posting to inform you about Air being licensed (you already know it by now), just saying I’m happy is all. Sure I know nothing about it, other than it’s got pretty art. What’s got me in a good mood is it’s often been said it would never get picked up due to the cost and the market. Maybe this means R1 companies, or at least ADV, aren’t on as much life-support as some seem to think or maybe it doesn’t mean anything. Maybe ADV is nuts!

Seeing an impossibility turn possible is a great way to log-off my work computer and start off the weekend. Will have another figure photo thing on Monday or Tuesday. Whatever you do, have fun.

It wasn’t more than a couple of weeks ago that I lamented the lack of pvc I wanted to get. The last month and likely the next will see only a few figure updates, unless I decide to do shoots of figures I never bothered to shoot (there’s like six or seven, but these are all four or more months old). But for the past week, it seems like everytime I check Ikimashou, Randall’s pointing to another figure to go on my pre-order list. I think I’ve added eight figures in the past week.

Note to the awesome figurine companies in Japan, please spread the goodness to all the months of the calendar year. Then again, this let the wallet breathe season might be a good thing. Anyway, things should start picking up again on the figure front soon.

I’ve modified the stylesheet of the Tarski theme so that the background is dark gray with light colored text, hopefully it isn’t too hard to read. Anyway, pictures look better when set against a dark gray background, which is why I changed the colors. Only downside is gray isn’t usually a “happy” color. If the dark background messes with your eyes, let me know.

Also, this is my first use of an “aside” and I think I have it so they don’t show up on the main RSS feed. If it does show up, sorry about that, I didn’t do something right.