animemiz’s scribblings..

I have no idea why I am suddenly using those = titles, but I figure it seems interesting to do that for a while. Makes my post entry pop out more… anyway I just got to say that I love Black Lagoon.. there’s so many violent gun fights… and so many pretty cool women in the story itself. Each with their own idea of dark justice, honor or lack of it. I got the art book last year, and never really spoke about it.. but because I rushed after work, with a 40% off coupon and snagged the third volume of the Viz release off the shelf, I felt inspired to show case this gem.

I only took my favorite pictures from the artbook, and for potential buyers… there’s not that much of Black Lagoon pictures, but from what I can see – it is smoking hot! The rest of the art book actually covers other art work illustrated by Rei Hiroe, including images of Fate/stay night and several short mangas.

Irregardless of most of the guys anf guy friends that are out there that are fans of this series, I believe that I am not the only female out there that believes that Levi is one cool gal…. I actually also took a cosplayer picture of someone as Levi before.

If I were to put up a feature of my top 10 Anime females, she is sure to make the list along with Balalaika, I mean just in Vol 3, you get to see the actions of Shen Hua in drawing action.. that’s enough to make me sigh. Here’s a slide show with some of my favorite images, and excuse my camera, that is getting on it’s years – should be replaced really…

Oh and I am really not sure if Barrage will get a domestic release, but who knows – with every Viz release for the three volumes of the English language, on the bio of each one, they mentioned Barrage. If Black Lagoon proves to be popular in the United States, then who knows if there is not going to be an American distribution like Card Captor Sakura, Ranma 1/2, One Piece, Naruto or Hana Kimi art books? For the Japanese release though and ordering it… the ISBN number is 9784091998903 and it goes for about 2,000 yen.

Oh and because of the book series being rated as M and with the warnings of Explicit content label, so far the copies I have gotten from the few times I go to Borders is all shrink wrapped and I so love that, because it would be safely away from the prying greasy hands of the phrase MAL’s as Gar Gar recently labeled them as…

As a shopper of books, my motto is if I purchase any book, any damage to the book is only of my own doing and in my own presence.. so there.. that was an out of side comment/rant.

Yesterday on my weekly book stop hopping, let’s say I just broke a portion of my piggy bank with the things I got from Bookoff, Kinokuniya, and Asahiya. Have to say that I thought of the things as pretty worth it though. One thing I got from Asahiya, other than Ghibli no Uta was the 藤島康介画集―「ああっ女神さまっ」1988-2008 and this is Kōsuke Fujishima’s 20th anniversary release of an Ah My Goddess Artbook and let me say the pictures are stunning.

The book has seven chapters of goodies. Many old pictures and some pictures I have never seen before:

Chapter 1- In Goddess We Trust
Chapter 2- Goddesses in Spectrum
Chapter 3-Cover Arts for “Afternoon”
Chapter 4-Various Memories
Chapter 5 -Artworks From the Trade Paperback Edition
Chapter 6-Editor’s Choice of favorite scenes from the Manga
Chapter 7-Kosuke Fujishima Long Interview

Toward the beginning of the art book book, there are several pages of special drawings of Belldandy, Urd and Skuld.

I have a fondness for collecting artbooks, and let’s just say that this book does not disappoint me one bit at all. There is also one page of stickers that denote the 20th anniversary year of Ah My Goddess. I doubt this will ever see a domestic release in terms of the U.S. public, but what the heck… the book is going for 3,200 yen and the ISBN is here 9784063647518.

I took several pictures of my favorite images from the book itself and placed it as a slideshow.

I recently acquired this limited edition CD/DVD, and I can say that it is really good. I started to like Mell, from when she sang the theme song to Black Lagoon. I just thought, that she has a rich vibrant voice. So let’s just say I snapped up the cd when I saw it at Kino.  For this cd, there are songs that remind me of Nightwish or Evanescence songs, and and the DVD is interesting as well. It showed of Mell’s trip of actually traveling to Paris to film images provided for this CD/DVD as well as scenery for the pv of the song Scope.

The pv for no vain- another side, also reminded me acutely of Madonna’s Frozen MV.

This is a link to CD Japan for the catalog number.

This is a link to Wikipedia for the track listing.

Woooh.. I got it! I got it.. upon browsing my usual haunts. Got it.. and it’s lovely.. I oogled at the pictures of the artbook while I was riding the train. At this point, I don’t really know which of the couples I like more. My friend likes them all.. but Romantica, Egoist, and Terrorist has such different couples, that I can’t help but try to make connections. Read more…

Finally the single came. I was pretty surprised at myself for even ordering this single/DVD… but it’s all right. I didn’t really like the packaging, but I have to ignore it. I have this thing against people sweating and on the back it shows a picture of HG sweating. Kero said it probably looks like make up though, since he asked if it was glitter on his perspiration. Young Man is the Japanese version of Village People’s YMCA.

Read more…

Yep, so this is one of my recent purchases as with some other things I purchased as well. I guess buying this is my anticipation of the next game coming out and because it is literally the first book of this video game that I believe is an art book. I had the impression the other books were strategy guides so I didn’t pay it much mind. For a peek at to what I am referring about, check this link – where there are some screen shots of the book. This art book has styles reminiscent to the graphic novels that are being published now. What I like about this book, is that there is English and Japanese text, thereby making this a semi-bilingual book. Also this book covers aspects of all three video games, Kingdom Hearts 1, Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 2, making the cost of the book worth the $37+ of it as an import.

I feel that like the imported OST’s, that there is probably a slim chance this books gets republished by an American company and even then, if this book is published, then the feel is different.

I had recently listened/watch the 10th Anniversary Release of One Piece’s Super Best. It was a limited release, so that meant it was a double disc with audio cd and DVD.

On the DVD disc, on the root menu… there options for the creditless 26 Openings and Endings, with a scene selector option as well. Then there is the Sogeking music video.

Then the hight light for me came in the form of a brief recap of the seasons.

• Season 1 was the beginning at East Blue. Meeting Ussop, Sanji and Nami. Season 1 ends with Louge Town.
• Season 2 had the Mugiwara entering the Grand Line, meeting Laboon, Miss. Wednesday aka Princess Vivi, the conflict of Whiskey Peak, meeting the Elbaf soliders.
• Season 3 introduced Chopper at Drum Island.
• Season 4 was the Alabasta Arc.
• Season 5 had nothing but anime fillers – Robin joins the crew.
• Season 6 is the Skypia Arc
• Season 7 was with the Davey Fights Back Tournaments.
• Season 8 began with Water 7, the introductions of the CP9, Franky and the capture of Robin. This is the season where the Enis Lobby Arc occurred.
• Season 9 is bound to be Florian Triangle.

The rest of the DVD had recaps of the TV specials, and was all about a good purchase for wanting to be reminded of this very long series. It definitely reminded me of the happy memories I have of this wonderful series.