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すごい

I just finished re-watching the first season of Kaleido Star. This was my second time watching it, and of course I plan on starting the second season again soon.

After I watched the series once it went straight into my top five anime list because of how utterly amazing it is. I had some lingering doubts, though—would it be as good the second time I watched it? Replay value is a large factor in how I determine my favorites so I wondered if it would be able to hold onto its spot in my top five. Now I'm happy to say that it's only solidified its grip.

It's exceedingly rare that an anime remains just as funny, exciting, or tear jerking the second time I watch it. All of them in my top five come close because, like I said, I weigh replay value heavily, but I think Kaleido Star pulled it off the best. A few parts were less interesting because I remembered all the major story events but most still kept me on the edge of my chair, still made my eyes get misty, and the ending was still literally breathtaking.

I hope season two remains just as amazing the second time as season one was.

Overnight Fame

As I posted over on the Watercooler a few days ago, I threw together a new comment design for myOtaku since it seemed no one else had taken up Adam's offer. I never use myO anymore since creating my World here so I did it pretty much on a whim, because I could and I felt like doing some HTML coding. It was fun and I've ended up spending about five, maybe six hours on it total.

Adam implemented it last night and then we made some more tweaks to add improvements, like the user name links opening in the parent window. Since then I've gotten lots of thanks in his post's comments and a couple guestbook entries. It's really cool to make something and know that a bunch of people will be using and enjoying it so I'm glad it's gotten such a good reception.

It makes me wonder, though. If I can do something like this in only five or six hours, what could everyone else do if they put all their time spent nagging Adam about stuff into something constructive instead? He told me while we were talking over AIM that the number of things people nag him about is infinite. So I'm thinking that, if people really did divert their time and energy into useful things, we might just be able to solve an infinite number of the world's problems. Who's with me?

Mega Man X - Rangda Bangda - No damage

Someone asked me about this boss in the comments on my D-Rex video so I decided to make a video for it. I hadn't played Mega Man X in quite a while so I was a bit rusty at first (accidentally doing regular wall jumps instead of dash wall jumping got me killed a fair bit...) but playing through the first two Sigma levels to reach Rangda Bangda got me back into the groove. Though it helped that this boss doesn't require especially fine control.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Mega Man X - Rangda Bangda - No damage

Rangda Bangda beaten without taking damage using the X-buster. Its weakness is the Chameleon Sting.

Rangda Bangda is made up of three parts—two eyes and a nose—which will take turns attacking. While one is active the other two can neither take nor cause damage so don't worry about them. And, while there's only one life bar on screen, each section must be destroyed separately. Rangda Bangda's attacks themselves are not very powerful or hard to avoid but it's instant death if you get knocked onto the spikes in the center of the floor.

The eyes have three ways of attacking, which you'll be able to tell apart by their color when they open. Blue means that it will fly out in a straight line towards you, which is easily dodged. Green means it will shoot a single fireball directly at you, which is also easily avoided but doesn't allow much time to counter-attack. Red means it will shoot a spread of three fireballs at you and sometimes also fly towards you at the same time. There are a number of ways to dodge the blue and green attacks, depending on where you are in the room, but for red attacks you should always stay on the opposite side of the room so you'll be able to slip between the fireballs.

The hardest part of the fight comes when the nose attacks. It will close the walls in on either side of the room so that the only floor left is covered by the spikes, forcing you to cling to the wall. It will then move around in one of two patterns. To dodge it as it moves, stay in the top-right corner and watch the direction that the nose moves in first. If it moves left first, immediately drop down to a lower position on the wall and then jump back up after it's vacated the corner you were in. If it moves right first, stay up in the corner until it bounces off the wall below you, then drop down until it's bounced off the right wall again before climbing back into the corner. There are a few different times when you can attack it during this, though I find it easiest to fire as I drop down from the corner.

While all three parts are alive, Rangda Bangda's attacks are fairly random so watch the eyes and walls carefully to see what it will do next. Once one eye has been destroyed the other will almost always use red attacks. If both eyes are destroyed, the walls will close in permanently until the nose is destroyed. If the nose is destroyed before both eyes then the walls won't close in anymore.

Bits of Des

Contrary to my low posting frequency, I actually think of subjects I could write about somewhat often. I'm just too lazy to bother most of the time. So here's an assortment of the recent ones all at once:

Aria Love +1

Aria the Origination, which aired last season, finally finished getting subbed and with that the Aria series ended. It's a beautiful and wonderful series and, like Dagger, its ending had me alternating between grinning like an idiot and crying tears of joy.

Aria the Animation (the first season) got licensed and is being released in a sub-only set with all thirteen episodes for about $40. This is totally for the freaking win because, like, I can actually afford it since they aren't price gouging with single DVD releases and making me pay for a dub I don't care about. It's being released in September and more of the series is supposed to follow after that. The only reason I haven't pre-ordered it yet is because I'm trying to decide if I should pick up some of the manga at the same time to save on shipping.

Zetsubou Fight!

Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei also finished getting subbed recently. Anon releases had been trickling out for a while but I hadn't bothered watching any since I was still holding out hope that a.f.k. would continue subbing it. My patience finally dissolved when the last episode was released so I got them and picked up at ep5. Amazingly, the anon subs were actually pretty good.

I really missed the insanity of Zetsubou Sensei—it was my second favorite show from last season, after Aria. I'm still hoping a.f.k. will continue their subs at some point but going ahead and watching the others was totally worth it. Here's to hoping for a third season.

Oh, and the Hatsune Miku cameo was amusing.

Miku Miku

Speaking of Hatsune Miku, I've been hunting down a few more songs. This one titled echoes (Nico Nico, YouTube) is my favorite out of the latest ones I've downloaded. Though a torrent popped up on one of the sites I watch for new anime releases with a Miku song titled マケナイワタシノコイノウタ (Makenai Watashi no Koi no Uta) which is also pretty good.

Also, zomg, Miku playing a harp.

【初音ミク】「泉の女神」～月夜の森にて～【3DPV】

Nico Nico version: http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3264508

IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER

I've been watching Magic Knight Rayearth in between new releases and catching up on shows from last season and I came across this:

Last time I had to add both the lazer and the caption. This time, only the caption. The prospect of this pattern continuing excites me.

MP: 0/90

I haven't played FFIV any more since my previous post about the Dark Elf. I've been distracted by a free, month-long reactivation of my PlanetSide account and I've also been playing Guild Wars more often again. Apparently PlanetSide is undergoing a server merge later this month, which will result in there being only a single US server instead of two, for east and west. (And I think there used to be three US servers in the past, before I started playing.) The game's community always had plenty of doomsday prophets predicting its demise ever since I started playing but now I'm starting to think they might be right.

The Tower of Zot is up next in FFIV which, in my experience, tends to be one of the harder dungeons in the game. It's just barely scraping half way through the game but a sudden jump in monster strength combined with not having a dedicated healer in your party really does a number on you. You've got Tellah who, while he knows pretty much every white magic spell, is capped at 90 MP and thus can only cast thirty Cures or ten Curas before he's out; and you've got Cecil, whose Cure spells are really weak. If I'm really on top of things I can make it between save points without resorting to using Ethers (yay for Tents) but it's very difficult.

Mochi Mochi Pon Pon

Every time a new episode of Aria the Origination gets subbed, it makes me remember what the term moe really means. There's just no other word that can describe the feelings I get when I watch the show. And having to wait weeks between episodes (I was almost to the point of hunting down some raws before HnK released ep10) has amplified that by, like, ten times.

Now please excuse me while I hug my Aria-shachou plushie and wish for ep11.