• K-ON!! (S2 of K-ON!)
• Durarara!!
• Angel Beats!

… is it just me, or are series using !s more and more?
the second season of Hayate no Gotoku! was Hayate no Gotoku!!, for example.
Durarara just has two from the start XD

K-ON!!

Why I Started Watching: because I watched the first season, basically XD

Why I’m Still Watching: S2 is a perfect continuation of S1 – everything I loved about K-ON!: the girls, the music, the humor, still combines into one seriously enjoyable experience.

Why You Should Watch It: the K-ON franchise is based on a 4coma, which means that humor is ever-present. the entire series is very light-hearted and it’s rare that any serious conflicts ever arise between characters (ep 11, I think, of S1 had a teeny bit of drama, as well as 13, but hardly anything, esp in the latter case). not only does K-ON! have energetic OP/EDs, but insert songs are a guarantee, since the story focuses on a five-person all-girl light rock band. There haven’t been any new ones shown yet, I think, but we’ve still got 6 episodes to go! there’s a little bit of girl/girl fanservice if you put your yuri-goggles on, but no pairings are set in stone (something the fanbase definitely takes advantage of…)

Durarara!!

Why I Started Watching: People I know were watching it, and I’d heard the series name a few times on forums and the like.

Why I’m Still Watching: Celty is awesome, Celty & Shinra is adorable and hilarious, Shizuo is <3 and Izaya is certifiable but scarily insightful.

Why You Should Watch It: DRRR!! manages its moderately large cast quite well, making an effort to balance out the focus for the main seven or so and giving time for everyone to tell their own story. DRRR!! covers some heavier topics (ep 2 doesn’t lose any time in showing the series’ more serious side) and offers a thoughtful view on human interaction. the cast is large enough that it’s likely you’ll find someone to love, but no one feels like a stock character – everyone could easily be someone you know, or are. the background music is amazing and fits right in with the mood of the story.

Angel Beats!

Why I Started Watching: I’d seen references to the series on blogs, and saw ads for DVD sales in some of the raw DRRR!! streams I watched. I finally gave in.

Why I’m Still Watching: It’s still hard for me to pin down exactly what I love about this series. I definitely connect with it, though, having watched all six episodes twice in succession. It might be in part due to Girls Dead Monster, an all-girl band that exists within the show and has already had FOUR insert songs in six episodes XD;

Why You Should Watch It: AB! is possibly a bit heavier than DRRR!! even though it contains a fair bit of weird (near?) slapstick comedy. AB! is being created in cooperation with Key – the company that made Clannad, Kanon, Air and Little Busters! – so if you like Key’s works, AB! is probably right up your alley. AB! was not a visual novel first, although it definitely has that feel, in my opinion. The OP, for example, is classic Key style. the cast is a bit more stock than DRRR!! but it’s not the most extreme I’ve seen, and it takes it in stride, poking fun at everyone in turn. the humor can be a bit over the top at times (there’s this strange running gag about people getting hit and the ED theme starting to play…) but the verbal tsukkomis are good XD (I especially like the SSS-renaming discussion in ep 1). AB! is still revealing its true form, so I can’t say more than this, but I’m definitely looking forward to the future episodes (especially after the end of ep 7!)

First, Mio.

She arrived at the beginning of February.

Naturally, she’s wearing the 桜高 winter uniform.

The difference in skirt colors for the school uniform across dolls and figures amuses me a little. The Nendoroid skirts are clearly light blue (although this photo makes them look slightly grey). The Azone fabric skirts are without a doubt completely grey. I’m partial to the plaid skirt used in the original manga/4coma, anyway XD

Mio’s hair actually has highlights/halo effect painted on it, which almost gives the effect of the paint having faded rather than the shiny anime-style XD;

Nendoroids have three head parts: bangs, face/neck and hair. This is Mio without her bangs.

Mio’s bangs and hair pieces

All of the body parts that came with Mio

Some of the hands can be removed from the arms, like this.

Mio’s bass & amp

Mio playing bass

Mio’s o(；△；)/ face

Next up is Yui!

Some box shots:

the insert packaging

Yui’s stand

(kind of looks like mouse ears… XD)

The stand back has a joint so you can tilt up or down as necessary

(if you’re wondering about all the smiley faces you see on joints, the company that’s involved with the nendoroids is called Good Smile…. XD)

And here we have Yui herself, sporting the double v-pose v(^ ^)v

The three faces of (Nendoroid) Yui

All the body parts that came with Yui

Yui’s serious face XD

ギー太! (Giita~!)

Yui’s crying face

close-up of the neck joint

and finally, some pair shots of Yui & Mio together!

Something I noticed when posing them together… the stands are different!

Mio’s has a much higher back:

than Yui’s:

(together, for comparison:)

Strangely enough, Yui’s stand suits Mio better because her stand interfered with her long hair. But overall Mio’s stand is more stable and I like it better. It seems like every Nendoroid I’ve bought has a different style stand… Konata’s is similar to Miku!Kagami, but they have some noticeable differences. I applaud GS for trying to constantly improve their stands, and think they’ve nearly reached a perfect setup. I look forward to seeing how they evolve in the future. (With my first Nendoroid, Kona, I didn’t think much about the stands because her long hair helped her balance enough that she didn’t need one XD;)

27

This is a bit more on par with the kinds of photos I’d normally take – Nendoroid Mio arrived on Tuesday. I want to do a specific post just reviewing her, though, so I won’t talk about that too much here. I’m amused that Yui was released first for the Azone dolls, and Mio was first for Nendoroids. Yui’s also first for Figma (which I have pre-ordered, naturally). It’s true Yui fulfills the more typical main character role, but Mio is pretty popular too XD Hard to choose, right?
As I may have mentioned elsewhere, I won’t be getting any Ritsu or Mugi figures. Although I love K-ON! as a whole, Yui & Mio are really my favorites so merch will be limited to them, primarily.

My life has been interrupted yet again by technical failures – Emi’s gone off the deep end and won’t boot, so Sony’s sending me a new hdd to replace the supposedly defective one. That may or may not solve the problem, but it’s a step in the right direction… maybe. I was surprised Sony is trusting me to replace it myself, however. Must be a cost-cutting measure. Harddrives are cheaper to ship than entire laptops, naturally.
So that means I’m back to using Ai as a primary machine (although I never quite stopped, as Emi showed signs of issues only a week or two after arrival). I love her, but her video card is just not up to some of my entertainment tasks. Like facebook flash games. Some of them become painfully slow to use and it’s almost not worth it.

I’ve also been working on my sound novel project, in bits and pieces. I suppose I should poke at nscripter code soon so I can at least play around with it and decide on the feel for the story.

the first was taken in the morning yesterday, before I left.

the second was taken this afternoon, when I disassembled Aryanna in an attempt to restring her with her current elastic.
that was a miserable failure, by the way. her strings were so stretched out it wasn’t possible to even push them to reconnect after I’d trimmed them down. so she’s currently in pieces. Well, her torso (minus head) is assembled currently (^ ^; ) somehow that one was okay.

I ordered new elastic from Luts along with other things I’d been meaning to order (the string puller and forceps were out of stock unfortunately! (T_T)), including two alternate pairs of hands, a face mask (so her faceup doesn’t get dirty in storage), silicon wig cap (to keep the wig from sliding and also to prevent [further] staining), and some pretty extras I happened to notice, like a crown headband~ (^ ^) No clothing items – there wasn’t anything I was particularly interested in, and no other dolls. I’m really out of the loop when it comes to other doll companies, so I don’t even know where to start regarding SD-sized clothing. I want to make most stuff myself, but certain things like shoes I’m definitely never going to make myself…. (^ ^;; ) I’m also tempted by a wig I saw at Leekeworld recently, but a) I need to remember what her wig color was first and b) she has three wigs already so technically she doesn’t need any others….

I have more photos from the disassembling that I might post to flickr later, and I’ll certainly take more photos once she’s been restrung properly (she’ll be able to stand~!).

The other event today was the arrival of my ミックミクかがみ Nendoroid. It’s Kagami in Hatsune Miku’s 「ミックミクしてあげる」 outfit, as seen in the Lucky Star OVA. This Kagamin is #62 in the Nendoroid series – I hadn’t realized there were so many now! (@_@) regular Kagamin is 28a, b & c (Comptiq, HP, and Chara)… and I think Tsukasa and Miyuki were just released not too long ago. Of course I’ve preordered Yui & Mio Nendoroids, but I’m getting a little nervous because some sites don’t seem to cut off their preorders even when they aren’t sure they’ll be able to fill all the orders they get. I suppose it’s no loss to them, if they don’t charge until shipping, if there’s not enough stock, the order just gets canceled – but for the customer, what do you do? Have faith the store you’ve chosen will come through? Place two and cancel the slower one? What if it falls through? Resort to ebay? I managed to snag HP ver Kagamin for a reasonable price (considering her popularity and length of time she’s been discontinued) on ebay, and it’s likely Mio & Yui will stay somewhat reasonable right after release, but there’s always a chance the company will end up with an unusually limited quantity, or they will just be SO popular demand greatly exceeds supply. K-ON! is pretty popular (evidenced by it gaining a second season! so excited!), but has Good Smile anticipated this? Well, one way or another those two will be mine. Ritsu and Mugi are a pass, though. (Sorry girls, one of you interrupts my OTP and the other is, well, entertaining but not my favorite.)

Listening to K-ON! music always makes me smile… and also makes me want a guitar again. We’ll see what happens there.
Tomorrow’s going to be fairly busy, I have no idea what my 365 will turn out to be.