Aurora Derall @ Dreamwidth

Here's something else I wrote several years ago for a friend as a "thank you" for a commission they drew for me. I put up the final proofread edit for reading on AO3 (Thanks again for the help and sorry I took so long in sharing it, Red and Jade!) around the same time I finished Yuletide:

So, a day or two back, I decided to take ruaki's rec from a few months back and decided to check out the Gintama anime series.

I've only watched 6 eps thus far, and... it's fairly amusing and adorable. For those not familiar with the series, the Wiki link there provides a few basic details on it without being all that spoilertastic (unless you consider the details on the characters that you get to learn during the first 6 or so eps as "spoilers," really), but if you want to know the gist of things, basically it's the story of a weirdo samurai and his companions living in the time between the late Edo Period (specifially, at the end of the Tokugawa shogunate)/beginning of the Meiji Era, except that, instead of the Americans/Europeans invading Japan, it was a bunch of highly advanced aliens (of various assorted races/species) known collectively as the "Amanto." Which is basically an excuse to combine late-1800's Japan aesthetics with contemporary (ex: Gintoki rides a scooter) and future-tech (ex: police cars that both run normally on land and can be switched to flying-mode), haha.

Anyway, I know I just made it sound a little dry and uninteresting with that explanation, but really, it IS pretty cute thus far. It even parodies itself, as in some eps, they show glimpses of different AUs with the cast - for example, the 3-Nen Z-Gumi GinPachi-sensei high school AU (Doesn't every non-school series wind up getting one of those? Haha for the author pre-empting the fans! And even more amusing, it actually wound up becoming a novel series of its own! XD), and the Kintama (Which literally means "golden balls," and in slang terms means "testicles") AU, in which Gintoki (known as "Kintoki" in this AU, natch) apparently is a blond (rather than his trademark albino-silver hair) man-whore or something. (Dunno much about this AU yet, as it has only appeared thus far as a quick "promo" of the next episode, rather than the Ginpachi-sensei AU, which got something like 2-3 minutes of airtime at the end of one of the eps.)

Anyhow, enough babble - on to a few random thoughts on the first couple of episodes! (Even though I think the only one who might be interested in these is Roo, eheh... ^^;)

( Cut out of courtesy, not for any real fear of spoilers - it's only the first few eps, after all )


And... that's it for now. I only got to see the first 6 eps the other night, after all, so I don't have much thoughts yet on whether I'm really gonna like this series or not! (Thus far it's cute, but I'm not quite sold just yet!) Anyway, I'll post more on the series whenever I get to see further eps. :D

Link/pic courtesy crystaldawn: MOST. IMPRESSIVE. ZELGADIS. COSPLAY. EVER!!!

redconverse and shinkuu, I mailed out your packages today as promised! I'm a little scared about any abuse your package might receive on its way there, Red, as all they gave me was this flimsy-looking bag-type envelope to mail your box in. Hopefully the box itself is sturdy enough to make the trip! And if not, I put insurance on the thing, so hopefully there won't be a problem, eheh. ^^;

But anyway, hope you both enjoy what I sent! :D


I also picked up Twilight Princess while I was at the mall. I decided to stick with the GC edition, as I can't really justify blowing $250 on the Wii just for this game. I did that with the Super NES and the PS1, and while I don't regret making those decisions back then, as they both turned out to be awesome machines, now I'm a little more economically conservative, so I'll wait until more games come out before I make my choice on whether to get it or not. But man, was I tempted. Nintendo made a shrewd move in making the Wii edition of the game come out earlier than the GC's - not everyone has the patience to wait it out. I know I almost didn't. ^^;

Also, while I was there, I dropped by Suncoast and bought Season 1 of Robot Chicken and vol. 1 of the new Hellsing OVA - it's supposedly going to be more faithful to the manga, so it'll probably be awesome (and hopefully funny - the Hellsing manga's got this sense of humor about itself that the original TV series didn't have, which was kinda sad).

Anyway, that's it for today! Now, to wait for dad to relinquish control of the living room TV so I can watch Anime Network (I was surprised to discover about a week back that we get it on our cable, and it's been Happy Happy Joy Joy for me since then. :D) for a bit. Later, y'all!

I have to say, I didn't think much of Trinity Blood at first other than it being very, very pretty to look at, but tonight's episode on Adult Swim was rather nifty. Rewrite of the Peter Pan concept for the win! :D

You know, I'm glad I gave the Shin-chan anime a chance. The first episode wasn't that amusing, but the ones after it have succeeded in bringing the funny. Granted, a few of the jokes are going to be SUPREMELY dated in a few years' time, but the others are good on their own. And yeah, there's obviously a lot of liberties being taken with the translation, but it's still pretty solid overall.

Anyway, it's a pretty fun, if (extremely) juvenile series. I like.

Tonight I watched My Neighbor Totoro on Cartoon Network. It was too damned cute for the most part, save for that cat-bus - that was just OMGWTFweird.

I promise I'll get back to gaming soon - I'm just too easily distracted by other stuff as of late. ^^;

On Saturday, I saw Castle in the Sky (again, on Toonami's Month of Miyazaki). I missed the first 15-30 minutes of it, but apparently I didn't really miss out on much, as I could follow the plot just fine. It was quite good, actually, right up there with Spirited Away - it seems I like the whimsical, non-preachy adventures best. I also loved the dragonfly-inspired flying machines the pirates had - cool design.

Now, the only movie left is Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I'm kind of dreading it, though - it seems to be considered Miyazaki's magnum opus, and the commercial makes it seem like it's über-über-preachy. We'll just have to see if it can live up to expectations, eh?


Anyway, today I went to pick up Kingdom Hearts 2 from Babbage's (Not going to play it yet, though, as I still have to even so much as START Suikoden V. What can I say, I'm a slacker. ^^;;). I also decided to pick up the SuikoV player's guide, and surprise surprise - remember the artbook + soundtrack freebie that you got for preordering the game that I said I was sad for not getting? The guy at the counter gave me one of their leftover ones! I was so happy! :D I'm so lucky - the people at both that Babbage's and the EB on the first floor of the mall are truly nice. :D :D

I also put in my preorder for Final Fantasy XII while I was there. I've heard a few complaints about the battle system from people who've played the demo, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Saw Spirited Away last night on Cartoon Network. I've never seen a Miyazaki movie before. It was pretty good, actually - Haku and Chihiro are such darlings.

By the way, redconverse, I got both the octopus plate and the artbook a few days back. Thank you! The plate's so cute, and the book's neat! ^o^ (It also reminded me that I have something to mail you since like... Christmas. Just proves that I'm as slackerly as you. ^^;; I'll try to get it out this next week.)