Gun X Sword Episode 9 – Carmen Returns to her Hometown

This episode was a bit disappointing. In fact, this series has slowly turned out to be more and more disappointing. I guess if you’re into mechs, it’s cool. But their logic and reasoning for getting revenge is pretty stupid, especially with the main character you’re suppose to associate with. This episode, the mechs didn’t even appear, unless you count the opening sequence.

Spoilers:

In the previous episode, you remember Van and the other guy battled the dragon mech and found a encoded computer chip. Van took that computer chip hoping a scientist in a particular city could help them crack it. The 1st thing wrong with this episode is that the fact Van decided to ask for a ride. This a first time when he wasn’t really in a hurry. In fact at the end, he didn’t have a ride anymore and was fine. He actually catches a ride with Carmen, Agent 99 and you find out the city they want to go to is actually her hometown. Back there Carmen meets her best friend Haeta which she hasn’t seen in 6 years. The scientist is actually the Haeta’s father. The scientist decides to help them. Haeta is specialized in breeding flowers, but somewhere down the road, you learn the flowers have a secret behind them…

Detective Academy Q Episode 27 – Disappeared Dragon

Detective Academy Q is also called Tantei Gakuen Q. I usually wait for Soldats fansubs for this series for 2 reasons. 1. Soldats maintains high quality releases. 2. They’re probably the only group still fansubbing this series. But it’s been a very long time since they released an episode. Plus where’s my MONSTER!!! Shinsen suddenly and randomly fansubbed episode 27, probably hoping to continue the series where Soldats has left off. We learnt of the Pluto’s Shadow a few episodes earlier. In this episode they introduce a new character and a mystery that has our main characters trapped.

Spoilers:

In this episode, they introduce a new character: Hongou Tatsumi, a new DDS teacher. DDS, for those that don’t know, stands for Dan’s Detective School, a highly renowned detective school where any student who waves his or her badge will immediately gain police help and support. During this episode, Kyu and Meg got assigned to do some cleaning and they find this mysterious door hidden behind shelf. There was a riddle to be solved before they could open the door and inside they found an mysterious room. What happens afterwards is something you’ll have to watch to find out…

Blood+ Episode 3 – The Place It All Began

This episode was mostly the history/background and begins the explanation of who Saya really is. Not much gore in this one until near the end, but still not that wasn’t much compared to what was shown in episode 1 and 2. You do get to meet mouse #2, but as I predicted in the previous episode, you’ve already met mouse #2.

Spoilers:

You learn that Saya was found during the Vietnam war. I’m still fuzzy between what happens between the Vietnam war and when Saya finally gets adopted. Apparently she was either sleeping or had amnesia since they were waiting for her to be ‘awaken’. They were planning to let Saya naturally remember the past on her own, but with the introduction of American soldiers occupying Japanese ground without permission, they need to use their trump card: Saya. You also find out that Saya’s foster father lost both his wife and daughter before adopting Saya and that both Kai and Rick are adoptees. Saya’s foster father was given till sunset one day to explain and say his goodbyes and would need to return Saya back to the Japanese government. However, the situation changes when Forest, a friend of his shows up and well… something happens.

So I get a call this afternoon from my apartment complex. I was in the middle of work, so I didn’t pick up the call, but the manager left me a message saying I had several packages here, 2 which have been here for quite some time and that I needed to pick it up or else they’ll be shipping it back. What’s funny was I’ve been to the office multiple times already to pick up packages (usually UPS or FedEx leaves me a note), and they’ve never mentioned that I had extra packages. I called back and ask if it would be okay for me to drop by around 3-4 to pick up theses mysterious packages. I really had no idea what they were.

Turns out that I’ve forgotten all about these orders.
1. PQI 512MB SD Card (got this for my uncle who only has a 16MB card for his canon SD300. i think it was like $20 shipped or something @ outpost.com)
2. Philips MMS430 2.1 Speakers (I don’t even remember ordering these. haha!)
3. ADV Films Anime DVDs

I had actually believed my ADV Films order was returned because FedEx told me the package was damaged and they returned it to the sender and I was to contact ADV Films to resolve this. What ended up happening was my emails never got returned and I ended up disputing the charges and either they refunded the money or the dispute went through. I never heard from them again, so I assumed they didn’t bother reshipping the DVDs to me.

So I was surprised to actually see this package today. However, now with the tracking # and reference #, which ADV Films never bother telling me, I see that one of the package was delivered on 10/5/2005 and the other was returned to sender on 10/6/2005. The 2nd package I believe were wall scrolls, which I couldn’t find in this box. Do note, this was ordered way back on Labor Day weekend and with no response from ADV Films, I had no choice but to dispute the charges. Anyway, let’s see what’ll happen.

Anyway, now with the goodies:

Noir DVD 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 + Box + T-Shirt – Noir is a very dark anime about an underground society which runs the world called Soldats. An analogous group would be the Free Masonry with all this Da Vinci Code hype recently. Among this group, they have 2 elite assassins called Noir. Both have somewhat of a hazy memory of their past, but they excel at what they do: killing. Story line was great, but what made this series even better was the soundtrack. It had one amazing soundtrack which I just can’t describe in words about how great it is. If you want to check out one of my favorite songs from Noir, check out Canta Per Me. If you like it, you might want to check out the rest of the 1st soundtrack of Noir.

Full Metal Panic DVD 1, 6 + Box – Full Metal Panic is a really short but fast pace and fun anime. It mixes up robots with high school girls, a plus for most anime geeks. It’s about a boy, who knows nothing besides fighting and war because he was a soldier since a very young age. Now he tries to adapt to a regular society to protect someone as a mission and as you can imagine, he’s having a hell of a problem trying to cope with regular life. If you enjoy Full Metal Panic, you MUST check out Full Metal Panic Fumoffu (a bunch of short stories which are hilarious) and Full Metal Panic – The Second Raid (the 2nd season of FMP).

Neon Genesis Evangelion DVD 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Resurrection, Genesis Reborn – NGE has always been one of those controversial animes. It had a great beginning. Aliens were attacking earth and the only way to stop them were these robots. However, these robots requires special pilots that could somehow link/connect with it spiritually. However, as the series went out, it got really weird and the ending was just disastrous with you staring at the screen asking yourself… what happend?

Azumanga Diaoh DVD 1,3 + Box – I’ve just started watching Azumanga Diaoh, though I’ve been recommended to watch it a billion times. Some of my friends are shocked I haven’t watched it yet. I’m shocked myself after watching the 1st few episodes on how I was able to let this slip by for so long. Azumanga Diaoh is about a bunch of high school girls and their daily lifes. However, it’s so funny and so cute at the same time. There’s this girl that’s obsessed with kittens (not sure why) and stuff animals (all her stuff animals are SOOOOO cute). I’d admit the kittens drawn on this anime are super cute. Then there’s another girl who’s like a super genius, entering high school at the age of something like 10. She has these bouncy pony tails and some are trying to figure out why they keep bouncing. Then there’s another girl who transferred from Osaka. Not exactly sure why she transferred but she’s a dud. She tries to concentrate but the only thing she can do is concentrate on trying to concentrate. It’s a hilarious series and I’m trying to watch it along with the new stuff that’s coming out. Sorta like Detective Conan, it’s all going to be watched some day.

Rurouni Kenshin DVD Trust, Betrayal, Reflection – If you know me, I’m a big Kenshin nut. That’s where my (^_^x) smiely comes from. I actually own the Trust and Betrayal DVD already, but the Reflection DVD by itself was like $7 and for $8 more, I could get 2 more DVDs + the box, so I thought it was a better deal. For those that own the Kenshin OVAs, did you know if you don’t like the Samurai X DVD covers, you can take them out and invert them and it’ll become the Japanese cover showing Rurouni Kenshin (るろうに剣心). Kenshin is still my favorite anime of all time. I still remember waiting in IRC channels waiting for the next episode to be released. This was so far back, they only had VHS rips and the quality was pretty bad and was encoded in .rm format. Each file was about 50megs and I had to d/l them on 36.6kbps and later on 56k. It was like crack. I was totally addicted to it. It’s pretty hard to find an anime series that has that effect on me nowadays. Not even Naruto.

So they were giving away free gifts during the labor day sale and apparently I got a Gawl DVD and Noir lunch box. Pretty neat, but I’ve never heard of Gawl. The Noir lunch box is pretty nice though.

What Grinds My Gears: DVD Pakaging. I’ve always liked opening new packages, but when opening a new package becomes work, that’s past the line. I like the fresh new smell of DVD, but besides the outside plastic layer, they have an additional 3 tapes on each side of the case which I have to rip off before I can get to the DVD itself. And these tapes aren’t just some wimpy tape, these are some strong security tape. Takes me like 3 minutes before I can actually rip them all off. Plus they don’t always rip off nicely. Sometimes they leave the sticky gooey stuff on the cover. grrrrrrrrrrrrr.