Sailor Soldier of Love and Justice

The first season of AKB0048 just recently ended. I am excited that it will get a second season.

The premise of the show: Far in the future, humanity has spread out across the stars. Entertainment has been banned on many planets. AKB0048 is a pop idol group that risks their lives to illegally bring music to these planets, making them terrorists across the galaxy. The story follows a group of friends as they escape their anti-entertainment home-planet and join the infamous group.

And it's kinda awesome. Watching it, you feel like the world really can be saved by bubblegum pop. And the concerts/battles are really fun. Microphone light sabers and hair bow tasers. And mechs designed by the guy who worked on macross and escaflowne. The battle in the first episode completely sold me.



When I heard there was going to be an anime based on the real life pop group AKB48, I wasn't too interested. But this show has exceeded all expectations. Definitely worth a try. If you make it to episode 3, you'll be hooked.

Quick thoughts on Shugo Chara Party ep 24:

1. Rikka is officially chibi-usa, aka the spore.
2. Can we be done with the "Rikka is so awesome" story arc now?????
3. IKUTOOOOO!

My mouth stopped bleeding today, so that was nice. The anesthetic wore off though, so I've had to take the max pain killer dosage. That's not so nice.

I spent much of the day alternating between sleeping and watching bad day time tv. The only thing they advertise on tv during the day is yogurt. It made me ashamed to eat my yogurt lunch. But it was fancy-pants greek yogurt, so I'll try to get over it.

My greatest accomplishment of the day was changing my clothes. It was a lot more challenging than you'd expect.

When ben came home, he fed me (I was really hungry) and then we watched Ponyo together. I don't think I liked ponyo very much. It was pretty scary at times. And freaky the rest of the time.

Ben got me ice cream for dessert. Because he is the best and sweetest ever. I'm lucky to have him taking care of me.

I think I'll be going to bed soon. I'm just waiting for my current pain meds to wear off so I can take the next dose. I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night full of hurt.

Also, I have a little bird sitting on my boobs.

This may not be the best music video to play at the end of Shugo Chara....



Can you spot why? :P

This 10 volume series was about a girl named Najika who goes to a prestigious cooking academy in order to find her "flan prince," a boy who gave her pudding with a special spoon once when she was very sad. She's disgustingly perfect in every way and you want to slap her by volume 3.

Of course when she gets to the school, no one likes her even though she's so wonderful. Then the two sons of the director befriend her (And of course they are the most handsome guys at school) and things become slightly better. She eventually makes friends with her greatest enemy, a model in love with one of the director's sons. After that, Najika is more or less accepted at the school.

Despite the story being a complete mary sue, it actually wasn't that terrible. The food in the story saves the day every time. And as a bonus, the books include recipes for everything Najika makes. Really, the manga should have thrown out the entire romance plot and stuck to the cooking contests and challenges. Those were interesting.

The story ends as you would expect. She finds her flan prince, she makes friends with everyone in school, and she excels at her cooking.

I don't think I'd recommend this series unless you are weird like me and cannot resist cooking shows and stories. Instead, I'd suggest the anime Yumeiro Patisserie, which is also about a girl who goes to a prestigious cooking school. The romance is much more mellow - almost invisible. The series is far more focused on the food and while they don't give you recipes, they do spend a lot of time teaching techniques. Which I think are more valuable than recipes anyway.

The weather was freakishly nice this morning. The sun was out and the temperature was in the mid-70s. I took advantage of it to run some errands.

First I stopped at the post office to mail a wedding planning book to amanda. I splurged and got the priority shipping. :P Five cents extra!

After that I bought halloween decorations. I have a theory that maybe we don't get trick or treaters is because they don't know we are here. So now there is garland and skeletons hanging from the door. It is festive and goes well with the strange blood stains that appeared outside our door this week.

The nice weather didn't last long though. By the time I had to go to pottery, it was pouring. I could barely see the road. I'm glad I got there safe!

Pottery has become increasingly frustrating for me. First, katie's yarn bowl cracked again. I told myself that was ok though because I had two extras on the shelf to trim. (It has gotten to the point where I just keep making yarn bowls, expecting them to crack before I get to the end.)

The first one, I cut a hole through the bottom. The second one was not leather hard yet, so I couldn't trim it.

I made another one today that will hopefully be leather hard next week. One of these is going to make it to the end.

Bizarrely, while the yarn bowl and another bowl I made 3 weeks ago were still as wet as when I made them, a third bowl I made that day was bone dry. Which made it VERY hard to trim.

I got it trimmed in the end, but I wasn't able to add the embellishments I wanted to try.

In addition to yet another yarn bowl, I also threw an extra regular bowl. Let's see what they end up doing next week.

I think I might re-take beginner's pottery 2. I feel like I need a refresher because I've been having so much trouble lately. It might help if I had a teacher reinforcing the basics for me and pointing out what I've been doing wrong lately.

After pottery, it was still pouring. I had wanted to go to the used book store, but decided it wasn't worth marching over there in this weather.

As soon as I pulled out of the parking lot, it stopped raining.

As soon as I pulled into the apartment parking lot, it started to pour again. I just can't win.

I have spent the rest of the evening doing laundry and watching card captor sakura. I finally finished the second season! Now I'm onto the third. Eriol is very suave. Yue is very pretty, but has a terrible personality. He needs to lighten up.

I need to go to bed soon because tomorrow I am having an adventure with allicia again. We're going to eastern market!

1. New Season Announced

The 103rd issue of Tora Dayo., the free news handout from the Toranoana bookstore chain, displays the cover from the October issue of Kodansha's Nakayoshi magazine with an announcement of a new Shugo Chara! anime program. According to the Nakayoshi cover image in Tora Dayo., Shugo Chara Party! will premiere in Japan on Saturday, October 3. The October issue of Nakayoshi will actually ship on September 3. Shugo Chara!! Doki—, the current anime series based on Peach-Pit's Shugo Chara! magical girl manga, is airing on Saturdays in Japan.

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2. Crazy Stuff Announced

An early copy of the October issue of Kodansha's Nakayoshi magazine has revealed that the new Shugo Chara Party! television program will have anime and live-action segments. (The October issue will officially ship on September 3.) The main segment of the new program will be the Shugo Chara!!! Dokki Doki anime, which the magazine describes as a power-up of the ongoing Shugo Chara!! Doki— anime adaptation of Peach-Pit's Shugo Chara! manga. A new character named Rikka will appear.

The new program will also include Shugo Chara Pucchi Puchi! anime shorts. Super-deformed versions of the characters Ran, Miki, and Su will star in these shorts. Shugo Chara!! Doki— director Kenji Yasuda will continue to oversee both Shugo Chara!!! Dokki Doki and Shugo Chara Pucchi Puchi! at the Satelight anime studio.

In addition to the anime, Shugo Chara Party! will have regular appearances by the Shugo Chara Egg! female idol group as program hosts. However, the group will have a new lineup: Mizuki Fukumura as Amulet Heart, Akari Saho as Amulet Spade, and Irori Maeda as Amulet Clover. An open audition will be held for the fourth member, Amulet Diamond. The winner of the audition, which is open to unsigned girls in elementary and junior high schools, will perform as part of the group and appear on the Shugo Chara Party! program. The group will sing the theme song of Shugo Chara!!! Dokki Doki as well.

Nagi's egg finally hatched! Yay!

His character is actually pretty lame, but I'm happy for him. (I still miss Temari!)

Also, I had a thought. Does anyone else think Rima and Nagi are going to be a couple? They have so much in common! Like both being Amu's best friend and both being a guardian... Also, Rima did hate Nagi at the start, which I think certainly means romance later on.

I really need to find a shugo chara icon. But I haven't found any I like yet. Bah.

Shugo Chara makes me feel happy no matter how stupid the day has been.

Does anyone know how to download videos off of crunchyroll and include the subtitle file? I can get the video, but not subtitles. (Even though I heard their subtitles are pretty bad.)

I prefer to watch videos on my tv, which is hard to do with streaming videos.

Really I want to just stab crunchyroll for bullying my fansubbers into discontinuing the shows I watch...