Archive for January, 2007

From the ashes…

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

A followup to the previous Moé Burger post: turns out that the owners have already put Maidol Cafe up where the glorious Moé Burger used to stand. I suppose the whole “Maids BUT ALSO IDOLS!” thing might cater slightly better to the Akiba crowd, along with waitresses who actually look like normal maid cafe fare (doing the whole looking cute putting your hands together oh GOSHUJIN-CHAMA pose at that!) instead of the vaguely gendered twentysomethings they had before that could barely murmur a single “goshujinsama.” (Of course, three big Japanese-speaking Americans coming into the store might have caught them unawares, but really…) Maybe I just have a thing for plain looking girls, but I don’t really see any overwhelming reason to go next time I’m over there. I’ll just save my yens and go to Mos Burger or something. Or maybe LittleBSD once I turn 20 and somehow work up the courage to go. How can you say no to some of those faces? MOEEEEE~

Kafka on the Shore update

Wednesday, January 24th, 2007

This would have been a good book, if only it was a good book.

I think his method of telegraphing the obvious plot resolutions in the ending, then not actually writing the ending and just ending the book before it, might look clever to some people, but it was actually kind of annoying.

In the future I will restrict myself to reading Murakami books that are provably episodes of Haibane Renmei.

(Though maybe I should read Underground; it’s nonfiction, after all.)

Terrible, terrible news

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007

It pains me to announce to announce that the much-blogged about Moé Burger has had to shut down operations after a mere seven months. It hurts to think that so few of the intrepid pioneers of the English-speaking anime blogosphere that made the place so famous had a chance to keep them afloat by purchasing their delicious 1000 yen burger sets.

Of course, that’s the way most anime fandom works these days. So it goes.

INSTANT REVIEW: Kafka on the Shore, pg 1-106

Thursday, January 4th, 2007

Things I have noticed, so far:

  • The main character wakes up covered in blood with no memory of why.
  • A character has hemophilia, although unfortunately for my theory it is a different character.
  • The book is foreshadowing that half of the main character’s “shadow” is shared with someone else, who hasn’t been the same ever since he went into a coma and lost his memory.

I therefore conclude that all post-2000 Japanese literature plagiarises Tsukihime.

Touhou Violin3

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007


Voted this album is pretty good. It’s sort of overproduced, which doesn’t really work out when you’re a doujin circle and have no money to produce things, but you take what violin video game remixes you get.

Naturally there’s also a Touhou Violin 1 and 2, which I haven’t heard yet.

Here’s an amateurish and short video included with the CD.

CURRENT STANDINGS OF TOUHOU MUSICS: TouhouJAZZ > this > a lot of other stuff I stole from rabidkimba but haven’t listened to > ZUN originals > metal, except for “Aqua Style – Visual Gakudan (PCB 4B)”

CURRENT STATUS OF THIS BLOG: I promise I’ll write about fansubbing or cartoons or anonymous internet forums or something soon.