Words are lost to me.

Mahou Tsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora (Things that are precious to a mage: Summer Skies), the third entry in the collaboration between writer Norie Yamada and illustrator Kumichi Yoshizuki, is tentatively set for a July air date. The series is more commonly known overseas as Someday’s Dreamers along with its sequel Someday’s Dreamers: Spellbound.

Like its predecessors, Summer Skies takes place in the same world where mages possess the rare gift of using magic. Likewise, it is a coming of age story about a girl named Sora Suzuki who is a bit of a screw-up and travels to the city to refine her skills. Taking the reins from J.C. Staff, Hal Film Maker will be doing the animation for this sequel.

I’ve been reading the scans and the story is more polished compared to the earlier entries in the franchise. So far it’s been pretty interesting, and I’ll definitely blog this show once it airs.

Trading figures have always had a prominent place between low-end gashapons and the pricier scaled statues, but it seems they’ve been in considerable decline lately. Trading figures have made great strides in quality over the past year; Just take a look at GSC’s Nendoroid Puchi, Bandai’s Figure Meister and Alter’s FA4 lines. So why does it seem that trading figures are losing ground?

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Arcana Heart provides half of your daily recommended intake of moe with less calories than the typical moe anime competitor. Examu’s all-girl fighting game brawled its way to North American shores in mid-April courtesy of Atlus USA. Eleven girls, each representing a different facet of moe otaku culture, duke it out in a fighting system highly reminiscent of the Guilty Gear series.

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Found this very awesome fanmade OP set to Bouken Desho Desho while lurking around. Video, despair, etc. Hope you enjoy it.

The concept of gender swapping popular anime and game characters has been around forever, but the infamous practice has recently surged with new life again. The Genderbending of Haruhi Suzumiya - Need I say more? I’ll admit that the revised Kyon-ko is surprisingly cute though. So what’s the appeal in reversing character genders anyway? One can only guess, but let’s explore the options.

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Getting back on the blogwagon should be interesting. This summer will hopefully afford me as much time for reading and writing as I want it to, so long as I make a point of doing that writing. But enough about me, it’s time to go on the offensive.

I saw this article from GamesRadar and decided to give it a read. Certainly, everyone has an opinion about games they feel don’t deserve accolades, but why vocalize my own when I have columnists on fancy-schmancy gaming news sites to do it for me?

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Thanks to Diego for pointing out the comment section had a fatal flaw. The code is now updated to allow comments like it was intended to. I sure do feel like an idiot for not noticing it sooner. To keep things on topic, the backlog is slowly disappearing.

Shana Second is starting to pick up again at episode 19. The problem is that it took way too long to become interesting again. Better late than never, but it just feels like most of the season was wasted time. Maybe it’s because I don’t like Hecate/Konoe, who was the focus in the first half. With all the recent happenings now, it’s strange that the show’s titular character has really felt like a secondary character lately.

Hayate no Gotoku is really feeling like a chore to finish. Chances are slim that I’ll pick up Hayate season 2 unless the last few episodes are epic.

Finally got around to Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei again. Despair is serious business. The episode 6 seiyuu swapping gag was gold. Surprisingly, Tomokazu Sugita really fits well as Itoshiki-sensei in an odd way.

Watched To Love-Ru, and I actually really like it. The thing is that I don’t even know why I like it. At the very least it’ll be a fun show to keep up with. I’ll try to add a couple more of the new shows to my list as the anime backlog gets shorter.

Oha lucky and Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there. I hope you all did something nice for your moms today. This blog has hit its sentimentality quota for the week. Wolf Hurricane will now return to its normally scheduled programming. Getting back on track, there will be a nice article up in a couple days.

I suppose I’ll do a plug for my pal over at ZeroXR too. He’s giving away the pricey Aliph Jawbone bluetooth headset to one lucky winner. I’m not dropping a hint or anything, but you could give it to your mom as a belated Mother’s Day present. The criteria? You have to write a haiku! We all love haiku. If you don’t, then something must be wrong with you. Get the full details here. The deadline is May 19th, so don’t procrastinate.

It’s only a week into May and the days are already so hot. I think I’ll stay inside, watch anime about summer, and live the season vicariously that way. Finals are over for now, so it’s time to kick back and get some R & R. I’ve still got plenty of unfinished posts sitting in the old queue right now, and those will go up eventually. For now I’m just trying to trim down my ever growing anime queue.

The first order of business is to finish up the shows that ended recently. Dragonaut’s ending was corny but passable. My low expectations for the ending were satisfactorily met. Bamboo Blade had a pretty good ending. Curse the production staff for teasing us with that finale leading to the inevitable second season though. Overall Bamboo Blade was an excellent show. Next up is to finally finish Hayate no Gotoku and Shana S2. $5 says I’ll be sick of Rie Kugimiya’s voice when all is said and done. It really doesn’t help to tackle Zero no Tsukaima next…

Been dabbling in game rentals here and there. I was thoroughly unimpressed with Heavenly Sword. While HS was beautiful and visually stunning, it didn’t manage to draw me in. Mario Kart Wii is still more of the same fun but uninspired gameplay. Guess I’ll continue to do the mandatory single player character/track unlocking between anime sessions.