Just a quick reminder, there’s only 4 days left before the nomination for the Anime Blog Awards is closed off and voting begins. Nominations can be made by anyone, as long as you run an anime blog that was created before February this year and have been maintaining it or at least made a few post since March.

For the rest of you, start preparing your votes because it will be your turn to decide who wins the awards once voting starts on the 25th of this month!

The banners to help promote the Anime Blog Awards is finally out. A bit late IMO, but nonetheless, let’s start putting them up all over the anime blogosphere 😀

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The video seems to be missing its last 15 seconds, but it’s still something worth watching:

The video was uploaded back in 2006 and was just brought to my attention a few hours ago by Carbunkid. I still think that RO was and is still the best MMORPG around, and so do the majority of my old guild.

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Zero executed?

Lelouch is back, but Zero was executed. Or was he?

The starting of Code Geass R2 was a bit puzzling since everything appeared to be back to normal, with a few exceptions. Lelouch is suddenly being chased by Villetta-sensei and taking off with his brother, Rollo.

Who the heck is Rollo? Where is Nunnally? Why didn’t we know (or saw) Rollo before this? And why is Villetta a teacher in their school?

And before long, something else became apparent. Lelouch doesn’t seem to recall that he was the leader of the Order of the Black Knights, the enigmatic Zero. Which brought us to another question, whatever did happen in the cave after the gunshot with Lelouch, Suzaku and Kallen in there? And why was Lelouch “bait” for C.C.? If they knew Lelouch was Zero, why is it that they sure doesn’t look like they do, and if they didn’t why was he “bait”?

Many fans (and everyone else for that matter) have been waiting for Code Geass R2 and one of our major concerns was to find some answers to what actually happened at the end of the first season. But, instead of getting proper answers, Sunrise actually answered our original questions with even more questions.

When we did find out that Suzaku seemed to have “won” after the gunshot, that Lelouch had his memory somehow altered, that C.C. was still alive and that the few remaining uncaught members of the Black Knight are aware of Zero’s true identity, we get a whole new barrage of questions – the biggest of which is how did Lelouch lose his memory in the first place?

The first episode kinda reminds me of Shana II’s first episode, where it mirrors the events of the first episode from the first season. But unlike Shana II, Code Geass pulled it off magnificently, easily making it the best opening episode of the season. Like the first season, the last couple of minutes is the most exciting. Zero is back, meaner than ever before. And that can only mean one thing – utter destruction.

“It’s good to be back…”

This is just too friggin’ exciting. The once grand Order of the Black Knights had been reduced to almost nothingness but it’s only a matter of time (a very short one) before they will rise again from the ashes, bigger, badder and in blacker uniform than before now that their psychopathic evil genius highly esteemed leader has reawakened.

Are we ready for an even more awesome trainwreck that would put Euphie’s massacre to shame?

Yes, your highness!

In case you didn’t notice, the new OP showed that the Emperor also had Geass, possibly from V.V.?

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Reunion. The Power of Uchiha

Rating: 7.5/10

How lucky! Once again we are served with another 1 hour special of Naruto. This 1 hour long show is mainly about the reunion between old friends Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke. Basically, the main character for this episode is Sasuke. Of course, there are a pinch of Naruto, Sakura and Sai here and there. As usual, when friends are reunited after a long time, there will definitely be loads and loads of flashbacks. So, if you have recently started watching Naruto for the first time, you will learn the relationships that are created between the original members of team Kakashi. If you have been following Naruto since the very first episode, you will get bored. It is so because the scenes that are used in the episode are being overused.

Besides that, after watching this episode, I realize that the first part, “Reunion”, cannot stand on its own as an episode. It is pretty slow. There is not much action in it. The first part is basically about Sai’s resolution to help Naruto bring back Sasuke to Konoha. However, team Kakashi, after reading his Bingo book, thinks that he is going to kill Sasuke for the sake of their village – which can be a good thing.

Now, the second part of the episode, “The Power of Uchiha”, is about the awesomeness of Sasuke. He practically owes everyone in their encounters easily. Team Kakashi cannot even lay a finger on him (maybe because they are trying their best not to hurt him). I am pretty sure that Naruto will want to bring back Sasuke in one piece too. So no point going all out on him. Funny thing happen in this episode, Naruto is supposed to come and save Sasuke but instead, Sasuke is the one who saves Naruto.

“Here doggy doggy…”

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OMFG! It’s a Crusader from RO!

By now you should already know that Gonzo has decided to stream 2 of their latest series, The Tower of DRUAGA – the Aegis of URUK – and BLASSREITER online through Crunchyroll, YouTube and BOST TV right after the Japanese debut of each episode. The streaming will allow anyone to enjoy Gonzo’s latest shows for free, while at the same time providing the option to download the high quality version of the episode by donating any amount you like to the studio.

This is truly a step forward in the anime industry, and one I hope many will show their support by donating to download the HQ version. And looking at Crunchyroll, it seems that Gonzo has set very realistic goals to their effort. Apparently, they do not expect fans to donate large sums of money per episode, and even offered an incentive to those who donated USD$2 or more, although its not something which would appeal to everyone.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind paying $2 for each episode I download, and more if the episode was a great one. And I think its a great way to motivate Gonzo to produce better episodes in order to get fire up the fans to donate more and as a signal that the series is taking a downturn when the donation starts to slow down. It’s a direct feedback between fans and the studio, one that will get their attention since it would directly impact their profits.

However, I do have one complain about the downloaded episode. For a file that’s over 300mb, I was expecting a better quality video compared to fansubs, but they are generally the same. And because the link itself is a redirect, that means you can’t use any download managers to resume your download. It took me 2 days to actually download the episode because the file keep showing up as complete halfway. It wasn’t my connection problem either, as Dyna had the same problem I did. This becomes even more of a problem since each link can only be accessed from 5 different IPs, so if you’re ISP is like mine, which gives out dynamic IP and often gives problem, it can be a real headache.

Tengen Top… Oh wait, wrong anime…

The first episode of The Tower of DRUAGA left me very confused. Initially the whole episode seems to be a parody of most generic RPG games, and even the OP animation suggested that they were all playing an MMORPG like in .hack, but the ending as well as the alternate version showed otherwise. Oh, if you didn’t know, there was an alternate version to the first episode of DRUAGA, which shows what actually happened after Jil was knocked unconscious and began his dream. Unfortunately, it’s only available on NicoNico, for now at least. Regardless, DRUAGA has officially caught my interest and gave hope that Gonzo’s effort will not go to waste.

BLASSREITER, on the other hand, was much less appealing. Perhaps what CCY said about adults in anime is true after all. Then again, it could have also been the poorly done CG scenes, or it just looks really bad on Crunchyroll – either way I’ll find out soon enough 😈

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