Rupee Shards

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anime, encoding, fansubbing, images, internet, manga, music, video games, youtube

Created By Desbreko

Ara Ara Ufufu~

My Aria the Origination DVD box set arrived today. I feel like dropping everything and just having an Aria marathon through the night.

Also, I finally got around to watching Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei. I went through all five episodes in a row last night, and wow, I'd forgotten just how great Higurashi is when you see it for the first time. Rewatching the first series with my friends has been entertaining, but it does lose something when you already know what's going to happen.

The Maria-sama ga Miteru parody in ep5 made me pause the video and laugh until my eyes were watering, by the way. That may just be the best comedic episode in the entire show.

2.1 Lines per Second

After making a 266 line ASS script for the 127 second ep7 of Nyoro–n Churuya-san, I needed to do something else for a bit. So I decided to make this little GIF I thought of while working on the episode last night.

Sometimes I wonder if Dagger rages over translating all the weird and complex signs in Zetsubou Sensei like I do typesetting them.

YOU are SHOCK

The Des decided to do fansubbing again. As I've mentioned to some people already, about a week and a half ago I poked Dagger about translating the Lucky Star OVA. I got the first part of the script a week ago and today we released the finished sub; not a bad turnaround time for a forty-two minute episode with nearly seven hundred lines of dialogue and a bunch of signs to typeset, I think. I'm a little disappointed that EnA beat us to release by mere hours (especially since I think our release is better >_>), but whatever. Like the previous Aria episode we subbed, I wanted to do it primarily for ourselves so I'm not too concerned.

As for the OVA itself, it's obviously awesome—it's Lucky Star, after all—but it's also got several points of greater awesome. First, Kagami being forced into Hatsune Miku cosplay, which I have dubbed Kagamiku. This is too moe for words. Second, the whole MMORPG chapter. We never got to see the MMO that Konata plays in the series but they animated the in-game scenes this time. And, finally, Lucky Channel—in live-action. I would say more but I don't want to spoil its awesome.

My Aria the Animation box set arrived a few days ago and I've fallen in love with the series all over again. I've only watched the first DVD (ep1-4) so far, since I was busy with subbing and all the new fall anime starting, but every moment of every episode is pure bliss.

Speaking of the fall season anime, I've been and will continue to post thoughts in Shinmaru's Fall '08 Anime Season thread over on OtakuBoards rather than here, so check that out of you want to see what I'm watching. Though I need to make another post and update my list again.

Isogashii Isogashii

Lots has been going on lately but I've been too lazy to post about things individually.

Two chains please, extra heavy.
I hired two new moderators on OB recently; congrats to Korey and Darren who joined us in the Arcade and Theater, respectively. Picking out new staff almost always takes a long time and this was no exception. It's also a rather boring process so it's become one of my least favorite parts of being an admin. But it's one of the most important parts of my job, so I do it anyway and take satisfaction in knowing I play such a central role on the site.

It's funny, though, that even after I became an admin, but before I took over hiring new staff, that I never really thought about what was involved in it. So when James came along and said, "Hey, I'd like to put you in charge of hiring," I was just sort of like, "Okay." Then when it came time to actually find some new mods I was like, "Oh snap, I see why he doesn't have time for this anymore." But it's worked out nicely since I do have the time, even if I find it boring compared to other stuff I do.

Walk outside and you'll get cancer. No, really.
As some know, I went on a short vacation with my family over the fourth of July weekend to the Eureka area on the coast. We went partly to escape the smoke that has been covering most of northern California for weeks now. It's been clearing up lately but for a while it was so thick here that visibility was reduced to only a couple hundred yards. I don't think there had ever been another time in the summer here when I couldn't see blue sky for a week straight.

The vacation itself was a mix of fun and not-so-fun. For some reason both my and my mom's stomachs decided to be a pain after we went out for dinner on the fourth so we ended up having stomach cramps instead of watching fireworks. That was certainly not a good trade. But our visit to Fern Canyon the next day was a lot of fun and we took some nice pictures, which I may get around to posting later.

The Des does fansubbing.
There was a DVD-only bonus episode of Aria the Origination that was released a few weeks ago in Japan but, after waiting a while, it seemed no was was going to sub it. And, since I'd rather not have waited who knows how long for the R1 DVDs to see it (the first season of Aria is only now being released in the US this September and Origination is the third season), I found a raw and managed to get Dagger to translate it for me.

I had never produced any subtitles or worked with Aegisub (the best open source software for creating ASS format subtitles) before but I learned fast. And, for a first time effort, I think I did a pretty awesome job. It was an interesting experience, though I don't plan on doing any more subbing unless another similar situation presents itself or Dagger wants me to sub something.

We released the episode publicly since there weren't—and still aren't—any other subbed releases by the time I finished. Look around and you should be able to find it if you're interested in seeing our work.

You need to go watch Slayers nao.
The new Summer season anime started around the beginning of the month so I've been picking up some new shows. The highlight of the season is Slayers Revolution, which marks the continuation of the first three Slayers TV series after eleven years, so that's totally awesome. And I couldn't be happier with Revolution; it's staying incredibly true to the series' roots while featuring some nice upgrades in the animation and music. In addition to Slayers, you can read my opinions on the other new shows I'm watching in the Summer Anime '08 thread on OB.

You know what you doing. Take off every sig.
I've been working with boothten in organizing signature of the week contests on OB. The current winner will get a little SOTW graphic in their member title, which I'll be handling since only admins can edit titles. Hopefully it'll be another fun, ongoing project for the graphics people out there and also a way for others to get involved in the Art Studio forum through voting on the signatures.

Adam: im thinking about implementing chat on theO
Everyone should be aware of theO's impending chat room launch by now. I was involved in testing it, which was fun. I made Aaryanna cry by trying out the warn feature on her. (And then I did it again later. Aren't I horrible?) And I'll be there for its launch tomorrow at 9:00 PM Eastern Time (6:00 PM Pacific Time for me), helping out with moderation whenever I happen to be in the chat.

I look forward to using the chat to find more people to own in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Boku wa makeru wake ni wa ikanainda!

Bits of Des

Contrary to my low posting frequency, I actually think of subjects I could write about somewhat often. I'm just too lazy to bother most of the time. So here's an assortment of the recent ones all at once:

Aria Love +1

Aria the Origination, which aired last season, finally finished getting subbed and with that the Aria series ended. It's a beautiful and wonderful series and, like Dagger, its ending had me alternating between grinning like an idiot and crying tears of joy.

Aria the Animation (the first season) got licensed and is being released in a sub-only set with all thirteen episodes for about $40. This is totally for the freaking win because, like, I can actually afford it since they aren't price gouging with single DVD releases and making me pay for a dub I don't care about. It's being released in September and more of the series is supposed to follow after that. The only reason I haven't pre-ordered it yet is because I'm trying to decide if I should pick up some of the manga at the same time to save on shipping.

Zetsubou Fight!

Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei also finished getting subbed recently. Anon releases had been trickling out for a while but I hadn't bothered watching any since I was still holding out hope that a.f.k. would continue subbing it. My patience finally dissolved when the last episode was released so I got them and picked up at ep5. Amazingly, the anon subs were actually pretty good.

I really missed the insanity of Zetsubou Sensei—it was my second favorite show from last season, after Aria. I'm still hoping a.f.k. will continue their subs at some point but going ahead and watching the others was totally worth it. Here's to hoping for a third season.

Oh, and the Hatsune Miku cameo was amusing.

Miku Miku

Speaking of Hatsune Miku, I've been hunting down a few more songs. This one titled echoes (Nico Nico, YouTube) is my favorite out of the latest ones I've downloaded. Though a torrent popped up on one of the sites I watch for new anime releases with a Miku song titled マケナイワタシノコイノウタ (Makenai Watashi no Koi no Uta) which is also pretty good.

Also, zomg, Miku playing a harp.

【初音ミク】「泉の女神」～月夜の森にて～【3DPV】

Nico Nico version: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3264508

IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER

I've been watching Magic Knight Rayearth in between new releases and catching up on shows from last season and I came across this:

Last time I had to add both the lazer and the caption. This time, only the caption. The prospect of this pattern continuing excites me.

MP: 0/90

I haven't played FFIV any more since my previous post about the Dark Elf. I've been distracted by a free, month-long reactivation of my PlanetSide account and I've also been playing Guild Wars more often again. Apparently PlanetSide is undergoing a server merge later this month, which will result in there being only a single US server instead of two, for east and west. (And I think there used to be three US servers in the past, before I started playing.) The game's community always had plenty of doomsday prophets predicting its demise ever since I started playing but now I'm starting to think they might be right.

The Tower of Zot is up next in FFIV which, in my experience, tends to be one of the harder dungeons in the game. It's just barely scraping half way through the game but a sudden jump in monster strength combined with not having a dedicated healer in your party really does a number on you. You've got Tellah who, while he knows pretty much every white magic spell, is capped at 90 MP and thus can only cast thirty Cures or ten Curas before he's out; and you've got Cecil, whose Cure spells are really weak. If I'm really on top of things I can make it between save points without resorting to using Ethers (yay for Tents) but it's very difficult.