Yeah, things are slowly arriving. This package came from a store that I’m buying from for the first time. BigPfeiffer is a manga store (that sell figures and other stuff as well) stationed in Halifax. Because the store is Canadian, one must factor in the conversion rate between CAD and Yen (right now it’s 1 CAD to 85 yen). On top of that, they do flat rate shipping of 7.5 CAD per order. That’s pretty good considering the size of this thing.

The only problem is that, as the store is based in North America, things get here slower, and there’s also the slight chance that we don’t get enough of said product. This package was actually overdue, not because of the post office or the store. The (one of the) receptionist of my residence building didn’t give me the notice of when the package arrived. I ended up talking way into getting her to check the packages for me, and, as luck would have it, it was there.

Click on to find out what’s in the box (although you probably already know what’s inside)

Yeah, big surprise. Big Lily is finally here, and that box is just…wow…

Blah, details are lacking because of the size difference.

Looks like someone is a bit upset…Just because I left you in the box for about a week doesn’t mean I don’t care about you…Stop looking at me like that! *whithers away*

…and someone else couldn’t care less.

The first package I’ve recieved in ages. Once again, it’s one of those “more interesting” that happened these periods of time and it’s also a time for me to not angst over that stupid mistake I made on my organic chemistry exam (it’s the principle dammit! I want to be the 7th person who got perfect *runs away crying*) <- I’m seriously losing it, please ignore.

Yes, my Saber Lily nendoroid has arrived! I’ve taken her out of the box for like 2 minutes last night and…That’s about it. Weird how I still have no news regarding the scaled version that I’ve ordered from a non-Japanese store.

An update on things from my side: thus far my hands have been full with stuff to do and it’s not even possible to juggle (yeah, I’m starting to fall behind on classes). Two exams last week, two this week, and I’ll be able to breath after this week (I have one more next week but since I’ve been keeping up until now one week is plenty of time to study). It’s rather unfortunate how there are also other things. This is why I haven’t responded to any comments, although I am fully aware of their presence becasue my club executive duties demand that I check my email frequently.

Once again, it’s not about how good the game is, apparently with these kind of stuff it never is. Even though Fate/Extra have just been recently announced with very few details attached, new figures are already in the making.

Attached to the PSP game bundle will include the new, only briefly seen version of Saber in red. So now, it no longer matters how well the game is designed, it’s all about the figma. I can’t say the marketing strategy isn’t effective *mumbling curses*.

Preview under the cut.

A few comments from me: Other than the rather obvious change in colour scheme, Saber’s clothing is somewhat more revealing as well as other small detail changes here and there. The ahoge is more bent (normal version has it sticking up more vertically than horizontally), and it looks a bit more realistic (making her resemble more like Sylvia from Princess Lover! or the other way around). I’m rather liking the ahoge, but the other details still needs some time to get used to. The other thing I’d like to comment on is the stand. The three-quarter circle ring around the waist certainly looks like it can’t handle much abuse. I wonder how you can remove Saber from the stand.

Get or no get depends once again on the price. There are several factors involved here: first, in case no one has yet to realize, is that there seems to be no hint of Excalibur or Caliburn being included with this figma. This is rather big as it’d probably force me to get the regular Saber figma for the extra sword, and most likely casual Saber figma for the shinai. The second, of course, is the price tag on the game bundle. No doubt from previous example, it’d be anything but reasonable. Of course, the third factor in play is that getting the game will also force me to get a PSP. This is actually a rather minor factor as I’ve been thinking of getting one anyway.

I wonder, does this version of Saber have a name yet? (Danny calls her Saber Extra but that’s a stupid name)

Just slightly over a week ago Robyn Lass of AnimeBlips shot me an email, telling me that he wants to interview me for the featured blog of the week on AnimeBlips. Now, between line integrals and SP3 carbons this certainly is a more interesting turn of event in my current life (and at the  moment I’m doing my best to not write amine or amide in place of anime).

Please do read up on my interview here. I had no idea of AnimeBlips’s existance until Mr.Optic had his success. I claimed my blog at that point, and, well, as with everything with negative Gibb’s free energy in the universe, things occured spontaneous and look what happened!

It’s been posted by other folks already, but if you still don’t know what AnimeBlips is (that and it’s here for the sake of being here), this is directly copied from their profile page.

What is AnimeBlips?

AnimeBlips was created for otaku crazy about anime and manga, and the news, events, books, movies, and conferences that emerge from the anime and manga worlds. By combining robust technology with spirited editorial, AnimeBlips brings you inside the creative, obsessive world of the most popular anime and manga, removing the hassle of information overload, and providing one-stop access to all the hottest breaking news, rumors, and commentary from expert sources around the Web. If it’s hot, if people are whispering, shouting, searching for, or sounding off on it—you’ll always find it at AnimeBlips.

The Blips Mission

The Blips sites deliver comprehensive, topical editorial coverage in focused communities across a broad range of subject matter from entertainment to sports, technology, politics, and finance. By tracking thousands of blogs in distinct verticals, we surface unique, unheard stories from the big guys to the scrappy creative bloggers in the trenches. AnimeBlips is part of the growing corral of Blips sites brought to you by Future U.S.

I’ll be perfectly honest here, this came out as a rather big surprise. No doubt some of you may have known that it is indeed midterm season, and as luck would have it I have two midterms this week two and two more next week (I’m somewhat lucky in this respect because if I had taken advanced calculus I’d have three midterms this week). Due to all the stuff happening, my posting have been rather lacking the past few weeks, as some of you have no doubt noticed. But despite this, I’ve always thought of myself as an average guy and my blog was in the shadow of most others out there and it was nothing special.

But apparently there are people out there who think otherwise, and I’m greateful. I am honoured by what happened, and I’m rather pleased to see that my profile is rather different from the other writers out there. I’m guessing how I’m living my life has something to do with what happend today. The thing with science (more specifically, physics) is…it gives you a somewhat different train of thought. I’ll be honest and say I’ve never actually planned much ahead; this is not where I imagined I’d be last year, and I honestly can’t say in what direction my blog is heading in the near future (because the universe tends to favour disorder and randomness. This is the scientist’s excuse of not cleaning up his room and there’s nothing anyone can say about it).

And…Honestly…I have no idea how it got to this point, so I’m going to wrap it up.

Once again, thank you Robyn for this opportunity and thank all the readers who are still around. As with many things in this world, I’m still around and you guys are still sticking around here, so I guess I’ve been doing something right.

Oh, my life’s ambition is to win the Nobel Prize, in case anyone is wondering.

Alter has released info on yet more new figures aimed at draining your wallet in the year to come (2010). Now presenting the latest addition of PVC figures to the Nanoha StrikerS.

Yes, as Signum and Vita both have been out for quite a while now it’s only a matter of time when Shamal will be joining the 6th Division (or whatever it was called). Of course, this is to the expected, because owners of Signum and Vita (along with the rest of the crew) would be eagerly waiting for this, to finish the collection of Nanoha A’s for the very least.

The pose is dynamic in its own right, especially considering that Shamal’s character design doesn’t really allow her to do a whole lot more (and supports are rarely given the credit they deserve). Zafira looks rather creepy though.

As yours truely has not heard a word from the university regarding his scholarships as well as not being the owner of any previous Nanoha figures, I will most likely let this one go. Although by the looks of the figure (probably not the inclusion of that demonic looking wolf puppy), my mom would at least approve of this one (only if she doesn’t find out about the price, which is 9800 yen). If Caro and Erio get PVC treatment next year, I’ll probably get them, as well as Reinforce II as well if she ever gets rereleased.

Now, onto the delays…True Sonic Fate T Harlaown has been delayed yet again (I’m actually not sure whether this bit is old news or not, but If memory serves correctly she was said to be released in November during the last announcement), and so has Excellion mode Nanoha and as well as Saber Lily (the 1/8 one). All of the above will be released in December (or before the next announcement), so better plan ahead for Christmas shopping XD <- this also means there’s still the opportunity to poison me into buying Nanoha, you know who you are!

Yeah, somehow just as I was wishing for a long weekend with no worries I ended up getting sick. So on top of being bedridden for about two days I ended up getting no work done, which needs to be handed in later this week.

So as bad as my activity has been ever since school started, the current sitation isn’t helping in the least bit especially with midterms starting next week (meaning I can’t spent time “resting”). The point of this post is to inform anyone that’s still around that I’m not abandoning this place, I will write more decent stuff when I’m feeling up to it.

A new twist on a classic comedy routine, and for some odd reason it gets parodied on World of Warcraft. Either way, whether you have a grudge on the game or not, this is a good laugh.

Yeah, filler post because I’m tired and depressed and this is the first laugh outside of a classroom for since god knows when. Enjoy.

For those who don’t know what’s going on, click on.

“Who” is the tank

“What” is the mage

“Why” is the rogue

“I don’t know” is the priest

“Because” is the hunter

“Tomorrow” is the warlock

“I don’t care” is the paladin.

I thought it was funny…

Sorry for the long period of inactivity, this is more of a time management issue as opposed to being busy (which still has a part to play in this), since I’ve somehow got involved in kendo club.

Anyway, you may or may not know this, but I am the VP incharge of communications for our school’s anime club. Meetings and activities have officially started for the 2008-2009 term, hopefully as an executive member I could shed some more light on our club.

Yeah, some of the pictures were recycled from my Clubs Week post

My DLSR still hasn’t recovered so I couldn’t take pictures for most of the meetings, a former president came back to visit and she took the shots for me.

So here is our humble little booth set up to advertise our club. We attract members more by them seeking us out, seeing as people wouldn’t be interested if they didn’t know what anime was in the first place. One other reason, stated by our senior advisor, is that we don’t want to appear too weird to the point that we’d be scaring people off (such as, we do not scream “FREE FANSERVICE”). However, we do do our introductions properly so that mildly interested people have a good chance of joining, as well as keeping Narutards away from us (during clubs week we had on average of one per day).

Our club run shows on a bi-weekly schedule, from 5:30 to around 10 pm. Closing time is rarely set in stone as the executive team likes to stay behind and chat, frequently with other members joined in the conversations. The schedule is usually two anime series, with three episodes showing, followed by an OVA or a movie that lasts until the end or whenever it eneds.

University of Western Ontario has a comparably smaller student body than…say…The University of Toronto. Thus, WAVE is naturally smaller than UTAMA (University of Toronto Anime and Manga Association). We have around a hundred registered members. However, we hold shows bi-weekly and have informal meetings every other week (which, from what I heard, is more frequent than theirs). This is a simple comparison and nothing else, I’m not bashing those guys.

The president is the one with the armband, incase anyone is wondering

Our executive team are dedicated to what we do and we adhere to the rules the student council sets, such as not stealing chairs or advertising out of our booth space. During clubs week, there were multiple occasions where five executive members were manning the booth at the same time. Another interesting fact about the executive team is that all but one learned/is learning one form of martial arts or another.

Making introduction speeches and answering inquiries is a great way to improve your effective speaking skills

Our current line up is Black Lagoon, Welcome to the NHK and Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni. We do warn members about certain things such as gore, H, etc and members are allowed to step out for the time being (I’ve done it countless times), seeing as some people may feel uncomfortable or may simply not like what we’re showing, which is totally understandable. We also understand that sitting for prolonged periods of time isn’t very pleasant, so we give breaks of 10-20 minutes as we rotate DVDs. In the mean time, members either chat amongst themselves or watch our senior advisor put on games or hilarious YouTube videos.

Contrary to popular thought, anime clubs do not show fansubbed anime. There are several reasons behind this, the main one is the fact that showing fansubbed anime is actually illegal. The second reason is that it’s rather pointless. If you REALLY want to watch something you can just download it and watch it at home. Partly why some fans don’t join anime clubs is the fact that, they feel it’s more suitable to watch anime by themselves at home, since they have control of what they want to watch – this isn’t the point of the club. Clubs exist as a way of meeting people and making new friends. If anything, anime clubs are a more direct solution to otaku-hikkikomori problems.

Unfortunately all the legal stuff makes changing the scheduled line-up abruptly is pretty much impossible, since the process begins first by getting permission to show the titles from publishing companies (I’m in charge of this part, and my life has been made much harder with the closure of Geneon and FUNimations because now I have to track titles by browsing their websites as Wikipedia and ANN aren’t updated). After that is purchasing the DVDs. Our club is different from the other ones as the DVDs are not club property, they’re bought by executuve members with personal funds.

Anime clubs are a great way to meet people. During our off weeks, we hold what was originally called “Drawing Club”, but due to lack of artistic talents on the executive team it is now just an informal social gathering for the club members. Overall, on top of promoting anime and the Japanese culture, it’s a great way to make new friends with similar interest and different backgrounds. We also have end of term dinners as a way of relaxing before final exams, as well as a ten hour long anniversary show in Janurary. I will be writing more on those when the time comes.

It seems TYPE-MOON’s Fate Project is not ending with Fate/Unlimited Codes Portable. Yet another title will be added into its filed. This time things are more fresh as the game will not be a pure visual novel like the original nor will it be a fighting game like Fatal/Fake and Fate/Unlimited Codes. Fate/EXTRA will be an RPG intended for the PSP.

However, whoever named the game was not aware that Fate/EXTRA is already currently in use. There is a custom map in Warcraft 3 that’s called Fate/EXTRA, unfortunately all the tool tips disappear when you run the game in English and players are left bamboozled at what to do.

My bad, had the name wrong.

The game will depart from general Fate/JRPG convention and allow the player to select the protagonist’s gender; otherwise series mainstays such as Saber and Rin will be making their inevitable appearances.

Gameplay itself is apparently a dungeon crawling battle game with school segments, a formula which will doubtless be familiar from certain other titles.

The main character (you) will not be Shiro, he/she will be a male/female character named [insert name here]. You may also have noticed that the style of characters have changed (possibly not making people run for the bathroom at first sight of Shinji). They said it will be an RPG, but I don’t it from the screenshots/pictures. Maybe someone can explain to me how it works over in Japan.

Personally, I’m not liking the new design. Saber in red just doesn’t look right (Lancer on the other hand looks as badass as ever). That said, the game is only 60% done so there’s still plenty of time/space for changes. I am thinking of getting a PSP because of Valkyria Chronicles 2, if I like what I see (and I get that project for the summer), I’ll definitely be getting this.

Via Sankaku Complex

I apologize for my lack of activity, which I won’t explain in this sentence because I will be explaining it in the next one. The last week really did a dent on my poor life because of clubs week. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but somehow between waking up at 7:30, looking after the club table, attending classes and doing homework left me unbelievably fatigued by the end of day three.

For the record, I did not fall behind in school work in a mathematician and physicist’s point of view. I am still currently ahead in my physics and calculus class, but have falled behind in classical studies as I’ve yet to take notes on the readings I was supposed to do for Thursday’s class (I understood the lecture, but some stuff come from readings that aren’t mentioned in the lecture, which can be tested).

So basically, as you probably (most likely not, actually) my brief coverage on clubs week last year, this year is more than less the same. Basically, we have about 80 different university clubs (non athletic) putting up booths in the university community center to display their stuff and (hopefully) attract members. This year, as part of the executive team of our school’s anime club, part of my responsibility was to watch over our booth, introduce our club, answer questions, etc.

This would be around 9 o’clock ish. We love to come early for some reason, even though club registrations don’t actually start until after 10 (because no one really shows up before then anyway). This is actually the second day, as a few minutes of the first day was directed at locating our booth (we don’t get the precise location for some reason).All of the people here are executives/volunteers from various clubs setting up their booth.

More people started showing up after a while. There are a lot more people than this later on in the week, during early afternoon time.

I think this is Tuesday (day 2) at around 2 pm

I think she noticed me

Our guys setting up the stuff

The funny thing about our club, and exclusive to our club, is that having five people looking over our table at the same time is a rather common thing. Right now, four are in the picture, and yours truely is behind the camera.

This year the student council inplanted a new registration system. Each club handed out little tickets, and registration is done at computers set up on the side. Up to five clubs can be joined at once, and the tickets are stamped as proof of payment. Despite this new electronic system, it’s still cash only. Which really defeats the purpose of having things done electronically.

This is our humble little booth.

Perspective from behind the table.

A lot of people actually registered, but only like 30% of the folks showed up for our first show.

The rest are some pictures of other club stuff that I took, which I thought was cool.

The Japanese Student Association is the only other Japanese culture club (the other being us). They’re really nice people, as I was a member last year. Long line-up on Friday didn’t allow me to join, I’ve still got some time to consider. Also, they apparently got Doraemon to advertise their club (he promised me that he’d drop by our booth, but he never did =( )

Below are some rather interesting stuff displayed by the Taiwanese group. The instant noodle pack would be more likely be found at Japanese culture clubs, except probably JSA didn’t want anything to do with that and for obvious reasons we don’t either. I have no idea why the Taiwanese guys would do this.

The clubs I joined included Western Anime Video Explosion (I’m VP of Communications, even so I still have to pay for membership), the culinary and dining club, pre-med society (for discount on MCAT prep course) and kendo club (even though they weren’t part of clubs week).

I did hope for this post to have been published around three hours earlier during our club’s first meeting (which I will cover once I recieve the pictures from someone else), but betweenthe shows, chit chat and practicing kendo (yeah, I joined the kendo club this year), this kind of slipped out of my mind (plus my laptop stationed so people could leave me their contact info. Took place tonight was also our first anime club meeting, I will get that coverage up soon.