Black Lagoon vol. 1

From the second I hit play, I knew Black Lagoon was two-hands of awesome. I love the opening of the show. It’s got guitar on shredd, pounding drums, and some rock diva screaming into the microphone. Lately, openings have been very pop driven, glossy, and polite. An opening with shredded guitars like in Black Lagoon feels so old-school. It’s like the nineties again and a TNS girl like Priss is what’s hot for an anime babe. That feeling of old-school extends beyond the opening of Black Lagoon, which makes all the difference.

Black Lagoon follows the Lagoon Company, a mercenary band of pirates on the seas off South East Asia. These are adult characters who live in a rough world, cutting deals and risking their lives to put food on the table…and to buy more guns. The non-school-age of the characters is one of the things that appeals to me about Black Lagoon, which in this era of anime seems to be exceedingly uncommon for the main cast to be. Every now and again it just feels good to see anime characters on the screen that won’t be late for school.

Pachira PVC, La Vampire Chica

I was a little surprised at the popularity of this Pachira is Vampire figure from Max Factory — a second run was announced before I even received my first run figure (thanks to my cc classing anime girl pvc figures from Japan as suspicious activity). The Magical Pokan anime isn’t the most popular out there and the previous Magical Pokan figure that Max Factory released really didn’t cause a huge wave of figure fandom, so the rapid sell-out for Pachira (or Pakira if you prefer) wasn’t something I thought would happen.

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Sweet Dreams Rosanna

Rosanna from Sweet Dreams appeared on my doorstep just in time for Shunya Yamashita week, an unofficial official week, but with Mirei-san over at Danny Choo and a couple of posts on Belela-san’s blog (Sera and Yamashita in General), I figure why call it a Shunya party when I can call it a celebration time, so all my friends around the world come on — it’s a celebration. Rosanna looks great. I love her outfit. It’s all wrong from taste to physics, but so right. Rosanna is like take my picture and I’m like let’s do it.

Too bad it was almost three in the morning, so instead of going crazy with background music, I let talk radio whisper to us as we shot. It wasn’t the usual politics, news, infomercial, or sports radio, but weird stuff. Perfect for when the rest of the world is asleep and you’re being otaku creepy with your camera and girly figure.

Anyway, babeage:

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Tohsaka Update

Here’s Rin a few weeks after bending her back into shape. There’s a little bit of warp coming back, but I expected that since the inner tube she’s carrying makes for an imbalance and I didn’t do anything to counteract that weight. So, while the hot water method is a pretty good way of reshaping the figure, it still doesn’t deal with why the figure warped in the first place. At least, it’ll extend the display life for a couple of months depending on the figurine.

The image on the left was taken on April 24 and the one on the right on May 11:

On the other hand, it gives me a reason to start rotating the figures on display instead of just buying another display case to fill up with pvc. And Erwin writes a little about figure warpage and prevention.

GUNxSWORD Volume 7: Last Rites

GunxSword ends well. I knew it would, because through and through it was a well plotted road trip adventure. In the beginning, it might not have felt that way, seeming like it was going to do the standard anime thing and waste the first eight episodes on throwaway plots that are just lame vehicles for character introductions before getting on with the real show. That happens a bit here, only, almost all of that throwaway stuff comes back. That loop around really delivers an efficient pay-off.

DVD Back Cover Blurb: At the bottom of the universe, on the planet named Endless Illusion, a man adorned in a tuxedo has scoured the wild lands…to finally accost the clawed man responsible for the murder of his bride. Outnumbered and outgunned, Ray, Pricilla, Carmen99, Joshua, and the Eldora Four make their last stand at the Claw’s stronghold; however, Van is still missing in action, while the Prison Planel Destroyer system has already initiated. As Wendy confronts her brother Michael for the last time, will everyones’ sacrifices and suffering have been in vain?

I’m trying to make the storytelling in this anime sound a little smart, but really I’m just trying to come up with a different way of saying, man that was cool. When the last little cameo loop around appeared I was clapping. I had a lot of fun with how this road trip played out. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil GunxSword’s ending for you. It is the uncommon anime that ends well, which is all you need to know.

The last three episodes are all about getting to the claw before he can finish the last step and complete his dream. Everyone digs deep to find that last bit of energy, strength, and courage. For everyone that means something different and each character is given time on screen to find it, which is cool for fans of each character. It always sucks when your favorite character gets short-changed or left on the cutting room floor. No. All the guys going against the claw contribute.