vyctori pointed out this entry's comments on talesoftheabyss, which basically asks for Everyone's Thoughts on the Tales of the Abyss Anime. Having seen the pilot episode of this particular wankfest before, I avoided that entry like the plague, but I trust vyctori when she says that nearly everyone and their dog is bitching about how absolutely shitty the animation was.

Seriously? This is shitty?!*

Excuse me while I go claw my eyes out,filet them, and then eat them with a good few dashes of nummy garlic salt.

...

...

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*burp*

What are people using as a yardstick for TotA? Code Geass, apparently. Here's a scene on YouTube, although it looks like a major spoiler.

So, okay, fine. I totally admit that Code Geass has good animation. But:

1) It's probably only one or two small notches above TotA.
2) I can't find hard numbers, but based on the Wikipedia entry, it seems safe to say that Code Geass probably had a much higher budget than TotA considering that gutterfucking CLAMP was hired to do the character designs for this series and that Code Geass is apparently sponsored by an assload of companies, including Pizza Hut!
3) Wiccapedes also says that Code Geass initially had the Saturday evening prime timeslot, which was later changed to a Thursday late night time slot. Compare this with Tales of the Abyss, which has always had a 2:00am timeslot. HMM, GEE. I CAN'T SEE WHY THAT WOULD INFLUENCE THE ANIMATION BUDGET AT ALL.
4) Also, I wonder if anyone noticed that Code Geass and TotA are produced by Sunrise? LOL.

I'm told other comparisons are being made to Gundam00 (here's an episode clip) and cutscenes done by the studio Production I.G., which I don't even know where to start with the stupidity of that. Look, I know that PIG (lulz) has done a fair amount of anime that are generally considered high quality, but comparing their cutscenes work to an entire anime or an entire anime episode? Just...no. No.

At least Tales of the Abyss gets an anime! Even more, it's a full-length TV series at 26 episodes, as opposed to a four-episode OVA for Tales of Phantasia! I would fucking kill the Dalai Lama** to get a four-episode OVA for Golden Sun or Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, never mind a 26-episode TV series!

In conclusion: I hate you, TotA fandom. Die in a Mystic Cage.

-Reileen
you better get ready to die

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*Okay, granted, that's an attack sequence, which has the benefit of being all dressied up and stuff, but...
**No, not really, but you get the idea.

Today is the last day of my TuTh classes. As some people may remember from this entry, my ART105 participation grade was on the edge of adversely affecting my final grade. So, last night, after helping vyctori out with a problem of hers, I went to sleep relatively early - before midnight instead of after.

I woke up today to find my mom knocking on my door, demanding to know if I've actually got classes today or not.

I looked at my cell phone, which was supposed to wake me up - as it usually did - at 9:15am on Tuesdays and Thursday.

The display showed the time as 10:45am.

Class would start in an hour.

If I still lived on campus, it would be no big deal. But seeing that I'm stuck down here in the 'burbs, there was no way I was getting to class anywhere on time.

*sigh* It bites that I'm going to end up with a B in my ART105 class just because of my attendance grade. It's not the fact that it's a B that's bothering me (witness me being ecstatic about a week from now if I find out I've got a B for HON301). It's that I'm getting one in a really easy art class about two-dimensional foundations of art. Ridonkulous, y'all. Just ridonkulous.

Consolation prizes: I'm coasting on a 96% for JPN105, which is far higher than I originally thought, but hey, I'll take that A. And despite my worries at the beginning of the quarter, I'm likely getting an A in my ART200 class as well. And assuming I don't completely bomb my final argument for HON301, I'll probably end up with a B in that class. That would put my cumulative GPA at 3.545, which is certainly a step up from my current GPA of 3.486, and which gives me more leeway before I lose my scholarship, which has a GPA cutoff of 3.300.

Speaking of HON301, turns out I'm not doing the 9-12 page final paper after all. My HON301 professor is apparently swamped with work and doesn't feel like reading more things than he absolutely has to, so he sent out an e-mail to those of us who had "turned in all of our assignments in a timely manner" (...I'm not sure how or why he included me in this, since I forgot to write two of my critical responses and posted some other ones late) the chance to, instead, come to his office during finals week and talk/discuss/argue with him for about 20 minutes WRT our response to the topic of our final paper. I was waffling back and forth on it for a while, but ultimately decided in the end that it would save time if I just went to his office and babbled about things, and that as long as I did enough prep work and sounded reasonably coherent, I'd be getting a B. Today, in class, we're supposed to sign up for timeslots, so I'm hoping for a Thursday or a Friday time.

So, prep time schedule for finals:

-Friday I have no class, so I'm thinking that tonight and tomorrow I'll be working on my ART105 final project, to get it out of the way (even though it's not due 'til next Wednesday).
-Saturday and Sunday will be devoted to Japanese. And partially to ART105 if I don't finish what I need to on Thursday and Friday.
-Monday through Wednesday or Thursday (depending on when I get my timeslot) will be devoted to HON301.
-ART200 doesn't really require studying because it's an open book, open note final that requires us to do what we've been doing for, like, the past couple of weeks. A bit involved and somewhat tedious, but doesn't actually require studying.

***

The gals over at Disgrasian posted this special effects video done by a 12-year-old. I demand to see this kid working in Hollywood!

Penny Arcade, meanwhile, takes me back to my brief days of working at Gamestop with this comic.

theta_aquarii on Twitter posted this wicked awesome link of 'shopped movie poster spoofs. I think one of my favorites has to be You Don't Mess with the Lohan. President Evil: Extinction is pretty loltastic, too. Humper shouldn't be that funny to me, but it is.

I have next to no faith in my ability, as a writer, to write decent sex scenes. However, I do have the small consolation that my sex scenes will probably be better than this dreck from a published (not self-published) fantasy novel called Silk & Steel by Ron Miller. I swear, it's like this guy had a case of purple balls while writing this thing! (BONUS: Check out the horrifying fanart a commenter did based on the copious description of the heroine. Yeah, I'd definitely hit that...WITH A MYSTIC ARTE.) And just when you think it can't get worse, it does. I can't decide which gets me the most. The flaming phallus? (Or should that be "phlaming phallus"?) The buzzing pubes? The names "Spikenard" and "Thud Mollockle", both of which sound like names JKR would come up with if she were drunk and stoned out of her mind?

EDIT: o hai u gaiz it wuz intentionally bad LOL.

And LEAVE RON MILLER ALONE! Also, his paintings, while competent, are kind of dated. He did the covers for this particular series of books, too.

-Reileen
'cause you're hot and you're cold, you're yes then you're no

From Kotaku: Suspect arrested for threatening to blow up Hudson

Metropolitan Police have arrested a 29-year-old man for threatening to blow up Japanese game maker Hudson. The suspect, Takao Ike of Kanagawa Prefecture, was apparently dissatisfied with the quality of Hudson's games.

From October 2008 to January 16 of this year, the suspect threatened Hudson 11 times, sending emails that said things like he was sending a bomb to the company that would kill everyone or demanding that 80 trillion yen be brought to JR Takamatsu Station.

JR Takamatsu Station is in Kanagawa Prefecture. The suspect worked part-time as a courier.

In a signed affidavit, the suspect admitted, "I did it because I posted my demands concerning the games, but the games didn't improve."

This is seriously too perfect to be real. I have to admit, I'm torn between "Protesting: URE DOIN IT RONG" and "Yeah, YOU GIVE THOSE LAZY SONS-OF-BITCHES AT HUDSON THE WHAT FOR!"

(Thanks to blackryuomega4 for bringing this to my attention!)

***

In other (less amusing) news, there's been some changes to the whitewashed casting of the live-action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie! Dev Patel is slated to star as Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation. Okay, so, great, we've got an Actor of Color...but he has to play the villain? When all of the heroes are white and the "ethnics" are only okay to show on-screen as background scenery? No. Just no. You fail at multiculturalism, Hollywood. I suppose it's just coincidence that Mr. Patel had the lead role on a little film called Slumdog Millionaire, right?

Also, Jessica Jade Andres (who?) is, according to this article, supposed to play "the Earth Kingdom's representative, Suki." Say what? She's going to play this chick?! (Also, what's up with that "Earth Kingdom's representative" deal? Kyoshi Island is considered Earth Kingdom, yes, but they didn't really have much connection to the big Earth Kingdom powerhouses of Omashu and Ba Sing Se.) (Also also, that article states that Shyamalan is planning a three-movie story arc. Oh my Gods, I weep to think of how he's going to end up butchering Toph's character. OH M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN NOOOOOOO) Just...ARGH.

Anyone who comes up to me and goes "Geez, there's just no pleasing you people, is there?" is going to get hexed nine times to Hades and back. Seriously, is it too much to ask for some fair - note the qualifier! - representation of people who look like me in popular media in this supposedly enlightened age that elected a black man to the office POTUS? It's not an issue of "political correctness" (STABBITY STAB I HATE THAT TERM, IT NEEDS TO DIE IN A FIRE AND THEN BE FROZEN IN ETERNITY IN JUDECCA) - it's an issue of respecting the diversity present in the world, and in the United States in particular since that's where this fuckover is happening.

-Reileen
I want everything back but you