nenena | Entries tagged with anime/manga: fate stay night

So yeah, I haven't had any chance to play the Ah! My Goddess game this weekend, due to my house being ripped apart and me living in a hotel. And I'm stuck in the hotel for the remainder of this week, which is lame, but whatever. I'm grateful to be getting a flushing toilet installed and to have the school board pay for it (the toilet, not my hotel fees, unfortunately), so I shouldn't complain. For the record, I HAVE finished half of the Past Zone (i.e., the Urd Zone). I want to double-check some translation bits, and then I'll be able to make another post about the game.

And this week, I finally - finally! - got Paypal to recognize my Japanese bank account. Which means that I can now accept Paypal payments. Which means that I can start selling off the gigantic piles of crap that have been accumulating in my apartment this year. Particularly, I have 20-some Suzumiya Haruhi Figumate figures to get rid off. Yep, I had to buy thirty of them before I got a complete set of the original seven. When they say that cosplay!Yuki is rare, they're not kidding. Anyway, I only want to keep one complete set, so I'm selling the rest. I also have piles of magazine furoku and stuff, too. Some of it is pretty cool. But now I'm torn whether to sell all of this crap NOW and deal with the stress of it when I have a million other things on my plate... Or to wait until May when things calm down more. The thing is, my family is coming to visit me in April, and I am more than slightly embarassed to have an apartment filled with nerdy anime collectibles, most of which - for the record - I got for free, I never wanted, and I have no intention of keeping.

Well, before the orgy of selling begins, here's a little something for free, courtesy of

sakuraxsyaoran:

Tainaka Sachi: Symphony of Fate

Sachi Tainaka's debut album (not counting her previous singles) Dear... includes this kick-ass orchestral remix of the two Fate/Stay Night opening themes, "Disillusion" and "Kirameku Namida wa Hoshi ni". Am pimping because this music is simply awesome, even if you have no interest in Fate/Stay Night whatsoever.

Oh, and Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua? Has now officially been pushed back to an April 19th release date. That makes this the third delayed release date since the original December date got pushed back. And BTW, Amazon.co.jp is still telling me that my copy is expected to ship on January 31st. ;)

The other day I was at Heiando and saw a huge display advertising the DVD release of Yoru no Picnic. The lead actress looked veeeery familiar to me, and after a moment of thought I remembered who it was. Oh hey, it's Kou Yaten!!! Well, she's doing well for herself. I think that Tabe Mikako has officially crossed the threshold into Famous Movie Starlet, which is great for her. Yays. Now I want to see this movie just because it has Tabe Mikako in it. I may have to rent the DVD one of these days.

Finally, stolen from

ruuger: The FIC WRITING MEME. Yes, this in a post in which I just complained that I'm totally not a nerdy anime dork. Nope, totally not. Not a dork, not me!

( Okay, I'm a dork. )

And now I leave you with this:

How To Be a Writer in Ten Easy Steps. IT TOTALLY WORKS YOU GUYS.

I am now armed with a brand new ceramic white PS2 memory card! I am so unduly excited about this. Save for "borrowing" access to ye olde Playstation that was always more Julia's than it was mine, I haven't seriously owned or used a gaming system since... Since the days of Sonic the Hedgehog and Echo the Dolphin on my Sega Genesis. ><;; But now I have a Japanese PS2! And I can play the Ah! My Goddess game! AND I could theoretically be playing Fate/Stay Night right now if the release date hadn't been (yet again) pushed back indefinitely! AND in April I will be able to play the Ouran game which I pre-ordered today! Life is good.

Yesterday since I had to drive into Iida to get my memory card anyway, I stopped by Heiando and bought this month's batch of manga magazines. So yeah, some stuff below the cut.

( Shijin Daiden Chapter 002 )

( Ah! My Goddess Chapter 222 and new Mini-Goddess )

( Compy Ace Volume 12 )

( The reason why Mimia-Hime makes me happy )

morchades is made of awesome because thanks to her I now have a whole bucketload of Virgin Comics shipping to me. (Unfortunately, Virgincomicsstore.com was sold out of Ramayana #2, so I will have to hunt that down somewhere.)

ETA: I finally found Ramayana 3392 #2 at Thecomicguru.co.uk. They had only one copy left in stock. Score!

The other thing that I used my credit card for yesterday... I bought a cheap used Japanese PS2. The white one. Because the Ah! My Goddess game drops today (and my copy should be on my doorstep by tomorrow morning), so yeah. In other gaming news... Remember Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua? Likely the most hyped game in Japan short of anything with the words Final Fantasy in the title? Yeah, it was supposed to have been released on January 31st. And that's after the initial release date (Christmas 2006) was pushed back a month. And here it is, February 22nd, and no copies of the game are anywhere in sight. I logged onto my Amazon.co.jp account to see what was up. Realta Nua is still listed among my "not yet shipped" orders, even though the "estimated delivery date" is still listed as "February 2nd". Sure.

But Virgin Comics are coming to me, and that makes me happy. ( More Virgin Comics blabbing: End of Story, Asura Analouges, and Nicolas Cage. )

And now, ganked from

morchades: Below is the ALA's list of most frequently challenged books (1990-2000), with a strike through the ones that I have read.

( Behind the cut. )

So... Kara no Kyoukai. Anybody ever heard of it? Flist? Apparently it's a Type Moon property from the late 1990's, which will be turned into an animated movie this year. I only became aware of it because all of the Big Three magazines this month came with promo materials for the movie, including some lovely pullout posters. All I can say for sure right now is:

A) It's Type Moon, therefore the hype machine is already going full steam ahead;

B) It's Type Moon, so the female cast will probably, as usual, be diverse and awesome and there be at least one or two totally kick-ass strong women; and

C) It's set in the same universe as Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night which means potential cameos, yay. Apparently both Tsukihime and Fate/Stay Night contain references to Kara no Kyoukai, but having never read Kara no Kyoukai I had no idea.

This is an insanely complete fansite in English, with a detailed synopsis of each section of the novel, and translations of the teaser sections. Here's the official site for the movie with an online trailer already. And the Wikipedia entry, for completeness.

In other news, the first Fate/Zero novel is due out on Saturday. (!!!!! already?????) When I first heard about the project I thought that it was a prequel game, but no, it looks like it will actually be a series of light illustrated novels. And the identities of the missing two servants have been confirmed: Caster is Gilles de Rais/Bluebeard (and apparently appropriately psychotic in the novel), and Beserker is "The Black Knight." Also, I fail at katakana (or maybe Japan just fails at phonetics, period), and the identity of Assasin is not Hassan ibn Ali. It's actually Hashshashin. Whether "Hashashin" counts as one person or many people remains to be seen. Or maybe it's supposed to be Hassan-i-Sabah. But didn't they already use Hassan-i-Sabah in Fate/Stay Night? Yes, they did. He was the "True Assassin" that Shinji's grandfather summoned after Kojirou was killed. Or something.

So nope, no women this time, except for Arthur. And only two (only two!) of the Masters are women. When I looked at the promo materials and the official website, there was one Master whom I thought was a woman, but apparently is just an effete man. Woe.

However, "The Black Knight" or "Hashshashin" could perhaps turn out to be women. THEORY: WHAT IF THE BLACK KNIGHT IS MORDRED?! OMG OMG OMG.

Went bazarre-hopping and found these. After having about a jillion Fate figures on my wishlist for months, I am now the proud owner of my very first set of Fate figures!

Witness, if you will, two Palm Scenery sets: Saber/Shirou, and Archer/Rin.

( Pics behind the cut. )

So, speaking of Fate figures... The Fate Collection series, which has been building up hype for months, is finally going to release the first bust (Saber) attached to the limited edition Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua, which FINALLY ships this month OMG SQUEE. And to recap the other three figures quickly: Rider comes with the limited edition of volume 3 of the manga, due out in March. Ilya/Heracles is a furoku, attached to the March issue of Comptiq (on sale February 10th). Archer/Rin is also a furoku, with the February issue of Shounen Ace, on sale January 26th.

But wait, there's more. Type Moon revealed this month that they're adding two new busts to the line: a Dark Saber, and a Dark Ilya/Heracles. These will packaged as part of the two upcoming Fate Fantasm box sets. For less than $22, the first Fantasm Box comes with Fate Fanbook Volume 1, the Ilya figure, the BeserKAR (albeit this version has real wheels), and some character playing cards. Then, for less than $22, the second Fantasm Box gets you the second half of the fanbook, the Dark Saber figure, a Dark Saber phone strap, and a B2-sized tapestry.

I'm still looking at the price and boggling. Is that the real price, or a typo? Oh Type Moon, please never stop making collectors like me happy.

Thank you

meiousei and

novel_tea for the lovely Christmas/birthday gifts!

And in geek news today... At Comiket 71, an official announcement was made about Fate/Zero, a prequel to Fate/Stay Night.

Of course, we'll get to see Arthur and Gilgamesh a lot, since from Fate/Stay Night we know that they played a huge role in the previous war. Also appearing will be Alexander/Iskander, Diarmaid o'Dubhne, and Hassan ibn Ali. Two of the hero roles have yet to be revealed, but seeing as so far Arthur is the only woman in the group, I really do hope that they get some female characters to fill the other two roles. In the original Fate/Stay Night, the ratio of female to male heroes was three to four, which isn't bad.

The southeast Asian pantheon is still noticably absent in this games's lineup of mythological heroes. Woe.

For human characters appearing in the game, we will get to see, of course, young!Kotomine and young!Kiritsugu, as well as Rin's parents, Ilya's mother, and another new Master character who looks like a really snappily dressed, gun-toting, femme fatale. Do check out the Material/Zero promo sketchbook in the post linked above; the character designs for Fate/Zero look amazing, particularly Alexander, Diarmaid o'Dubhne, and Rin's parents. I also love Arthur in her androgynous-yet-sexy butler uniform.

I am SO GEEKING OUT ABOUT THIS. Of course, I fear that Type Moon may be spreading themselves too thin, what with the post-holidays delay of Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua and all. But as long as they keep providing the good crack, it's all good.

Edit 2007: Updated info here.

Proof that Kadokawa/Bandai are marketing genius: You, yes you, can vote for the dub voices used in the English version of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi.

Proof that Shakugan no Shana is awesome: Because yaoi makes any bishoujo series even better. Also, self-parody ending credits FTW.

Proof that physics is awesome: These icons. 'Nuff said. ETA: Also these.

Proof that even shudder-inducing internet perverts have their awesome moments: This is still funny.

And finally, proof that Japan is FLIPPIN' INSANE:

( Warning: Extremely large images behind the cut. Saber fanboys, take heart! )

Haruhi licensed by.... Nobody knows! But there's a teaser website up. Um, does the teaser splash page itself count as spoilers for the fourth novel? (*cough*) Also, Anime on DVD celebrates in a way that will warp your vision.

Predictable yet low-simmering idiocy in the reactions around livejournal. Surprisingly, the "OMG NOOOOOO NOW I HAVE TO PAY FOR MY ANIME THOSE BASTARDS" Entitlement Bitches who showed up in the last round on Jason's blog have not yet come out of the woodwork for the current announcement.

Meanwhile, WHOIS and source code examinations of the teaser site lead to wild speculation among fans. (Personally, I'm rooting for FUNI. Please let it be FUNI!)

Finally... Fate/Stay Night R1 DVD review is up! It looks like Geneon replicated the R2 reversible disc covers and the same gorgeous artbox. Yaaaaay!

Likely old news to most, but here goes:

The Ah! My Goddess PS2 game is scheduled to release in February 2007. In unrelated news, the release date for Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua has been pushed back from December to January 2007. So I will not be getting Saber for Christmas, but at least I will have both Saber and Belldandy to entertain me throughout the worst part of the winter!

The official MMV homepage for the A!MG game has been updated with a ton of new information about the gameplay system and stuff. Ignoring the hilarious mispelling of "Hild" all over the site for a moment, let's talk about...
( Behind the cut: Limited edition game goodies revealed! )

Oh yeah, and since a few people have emailed me about this: Yes, there is a gorgeous and (yay) cheap Hidenori Matsubara artbook coming out on November 29th. Promised is: 65 pages of Sakura Taisen, 51 pages of Goddess, and 27 pages of Gankutsuou. It comes with an A3-sized pinup, dunno of who or what. Illustrations from Gungrave, Kenshin, Fushigi no Umi no Nadia (or Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water), and other series are supposedly included. The Amazon page mentions character designs up the wazoo, so that may account for the bulk of the material in the book. (Hopefully not, though: I'd rather see some of his illustrative artwork!)

12/5 Edit: My review of the book now posted here.

x-posted to

ah_my_goddess

Current Mood: cheerful

While at Yamada Denki yesterday I picked up Fate/Stay Night volume 08 (the final disc in the R2 release). I normally don't buy R2 DVDs, let alone a single volume in a series, but this one came with a freakin' hardcover artbook, so I couldn't resist.

( Pictures behind the cut. )

GONZO? Is brilliant.

Red Garden turned out not to be what I expected it to be. At all. It didn't turn out to be what *anyone* expected it to be, I would bet, seeing as how for months Gonzo has been putting out this deliberately misleading advertising campaign. Which normally would annoy me (I HATE viral advertising), but in this case, it's different. The point of the first episode of Red Garden is to blindside the viewer - to hook you into the show by making you think that you're watching one thing, and then to reveal (through a series of double-take WTF moments and the OMG-last-thirty-seconds-climax) that you've actually gotten into something else entirely. It's not a cheap advertising trick. It's called keeping the most surprising revelations totally secret and totally unpredictable until the exact moment that they are revealed. Also, the viewer experiences the first episode of the show much the way that the protagonist Kate and her classmates do. There's a sense of confusion, a wait a minutes, WHAT is going on here?! sense of horror that starts to creep in from the very first moment.

I am definitely going to keep watching Red Garden, despite the fact that... Well, for a series supposedly set in an American high school, it doesn't actually look or feel at all like it's set in an American high school. Hell, the characters are supposed to live in New York City, and nothing at all about the show feels like New York City. All of these little Japanese cultural things keep creeping in around the edges, and it's pretty difficult for me to suspend my disbelief and swallow the fact that Kate, Liz, Rachel et al are actually American students. For example, I think that Rachel was supposed to come across as a wild and free rebel, but the vibe that I get from her is purely Japanese ko-gal. Likewise, the SEESCEU (Super Elite, Elegant, and Exclusionary Student Council with their Special Uniforms) girls are mostly a figment of yuri anime imagination, not necessarily an accurate reflection of American high school social hierarchy.

Also, Kate's VA can't sing. I fear that there will be more spontaneous bursting into song in coming episodes, hopefully the VAs will get better at it.

..............

The new Kujian anime still sucks.

..............

I finished Shakugan no Shana (the TV series, that is, since the OAV and movie are still to come). It lacked the beautiful ending and sense of closure that Fate/Stay Night had, of course. But I guess that's to be expected, since Shana's source material (the novels) are still ongoing, and some things have to be left open-ended for the movie to resolve. Grargh, I have got to stop comparing these two series.

Strangely enough, there's nothing that I enjoy more than reading somebody else wittily shredding something that I otherwise really liked, provided that said somebody else does so with a genuine sense of humor. For example, this blogger clearly did not like Fate/Stay Night, but damned if her posts about it aren't the most hilarious and entertaining that I've read yet. Particularly worth checking out are her parody "Shirou Harem Diary" posts, which of course are full of spoilers, but contain such gems as: "Entry 21. As I write this entry, I am bleeding to death at the end of Lancer’s spear, but aside from this minor setback, all is well... Entry 23. Saber and I resolved to put an end to the harem wars once and for all- she would remove the threat of Gilgamesh, whilst I rescued Ilya from Kirei. With the power of the plot on our side, I was sure we could easily snatch victory from their poorly dressed clutches, but unfortunately the path has been more troublesome than I envisioned, for Kirei has the power of unholy tentacles on his side. I only hope that I survive his ravages so that I may claim victory and conclude my diaries."

Only two months until Fate/Stay Night Realta Nua (I.E. the non-pr0n PS2 version of Fate/Stay Night) is released. The limited edition comes with this Saber figure, part of a set of four. Rider will come with volume 3 of the F/SN manga, and Archer/Rin and Ilya/Beserker will be furoku in 2007 editions of Shounen Ace magazine. YES I know that there are already about a million and a half Fate/Stay Night figures and PVC models out there, and YES I know that this is bad for me and inner figure otaku and my wallet. BUT I've decided that if I'm going to get *any* F/SN figures, I will get *these four*. Because they're definitely creative and original and cool-looking enough to stand out from the crowd.

...I am making zero progress on the original F/SN game, and I need to return my rented copy tomorrow. Well, fortunately, thanks to the power of bittorrent, it is now possible to download complete sets of all of the CG from the game, so now I see little point in continuing to play it. I'm sure that the dialouge I can make up in my head while staring at the CG pics will be much more entertaining than anything actually said or written in the original game.

( Ramblings behind the cut. )

Because I like to take my sweet time before I jump on a bandwagon, I only just recently started reading/watching Shakugan no Shana. So far it looks as though it will follow the pattern established by Fate/Stay Night: A lovely and incredibly cool kick-ass heroine, a creative premise and a fascinating plot, and rampant sexism everywhere except where the main heroine is concerned. Other than Shana, the female characters who have appeared so far are a woman with giant boobs, a maid, a shy girl-next-door, and a potentially cool female classmate of the hero who gets killed off in the second episode. So yep, pretty much exactly like Fate/Stay Night, only with bonus minus points because of the maid, and the lack of mythological characters reincarnated as bishounen.

Death Note anime already premiered. The same guy who did Tamaki's voice in Ouran is doing Light's voice. I'm still kind of WTFing over that.

I picked up some more Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Hollow Atraxia official doujinshi anthologies at Heiando today. It's always a shot-in-the-dark buying these things, because there's no way to preview them in the store. The first couple that I bought, I am definitely dumping on ebay soon. But the ones that I got today are keepers, yay. My favorite story so far is a short about Gilgamesh hanging out at an Animate store and buying all of the Saber posters, wallscrolls, figures, plushies, and postcards that they have. Then he goes home and cuts a bunch of Saber pictures out of some anime magazines, and glues them into pictures of himself. AHAHAHAHA. Poor Gil. Honorable mentions among other doujinshi stories include all of the men transforming into magical girls, Ilya bringing Heracles to school for show and tell (that was priceless), Lancer being slashably slashy with everyone, Medea being slashably slashy with everyone, the apocalyptic volleyball tournament, Issei getting some serious "screentime" (yay Issei), and finally, Lancer pulls a Mara and gets a part-time job at a fast food joint, only to end up accidentally saving the universe through the power of hamburger (long story).

Lancer is awesome. So is Chibi!Gilgamesh. (In Hollow Atraxia Gil pulls a Peorth and ends up in the body of a ten-year-old boy, which does much to humble him and much more to bring teh funny into the story.) Medusa is just awesome because if anybody tries to steal her takoyaki she can turn them into stone. Useful power, that.

( Excalibur in Tokyo: The unintended feminism of Fate/Stay Night. HUGE SPOILERS behind the cut. )

Shin Petshop of Horrors?! One of my all-time favorite manga is in the midst of getting the sequel treatment and I was totally clueless?! Wow, I am really behind the times. Also of note: The original Petshop of Horrors manga is being re-released, and thank God because it sucks being a fan of a manga that's been out of print for fifteen years. I still have vivid memories of the days I spent combing every Book-Off in Nagoya and surrounding areas trying to find all ten volumes of the Petshop of Horrors manga. Eventually I got seven out of ten, which isn't too bad, if I do say so myself.

Finally, Akino Matsuri just released a fantastic and long-overdue Petshop of Horrors artbook. I picked up my copy today in Heiando and it was like, fangasm after fangasm. Fangasmic.

Also, you know what I love? The fact that the two most recent fandoms I've jumped into (Fate/Stay Night and Disgaea, respectively) are owned by creators that encourage and publish official doujinshi anthologies. Disgaea has four volumes of official doujinshi anthology, Disgaea 2 has two, and there are more on the way I believe. I have the first three Disgaea anthologies and they are made of awesome. (Yes, scans are coming.) Fate/Stay Night is up to... What, like, fourteen volumes by now? Maybe more. It's too overwhelming to try to keep up with all of the officially-endorsed Fate/Stay Night doujinshi anthologies, so today at Heiando I randomly picked up three that looked like they had good cover art. Grrrr shrink-wrapped comics I can't browse through in the store. How am I supposed to know if it's any good?

Finally, it's official: The anime VAs are going to be doing the voiceover work for the Ah! My Goddess PS2 game. Scan of new advertisements should be on my site ASAP.

EDIT: The new Kujibiki Unbalance anime and manga blows. /judgemental.

Paper Moon

The Dreamwidth version.

Entries tagged with anime/manga: fate stay night

Random fandom tidbits and fic writing meme of doom.

March manga reviews... And puppies!!!

I buy things online.

Fate/Zero and Kara no Kyoukai

Fun with Palm Fate/Stay Night figures

Fate/Stay Night Prequel

Nifty-spamming

Haruhi = Apocalypse. (Will the world be saved by a kiss, again? Please?)

Ah! My Goddess game: release date, goodies, and more. Plus artbook news!

Fate/Stay Night R2 DVD volume 8

Red Garden First Impressions.

Shirou's harem diaries.

Shana, Saber, and Ito Noizi ramblings.

Shana and Gil.

If unintended misogyny is still misogyny, is unintended feminism still feminism?

New petshop, more mythology porn.