It started off relatively slow but has always had potential to end really well. It took a while, and I wasn’t really sure how I felt about it. Now I can say that Nabari no Ou is a good show…thus far. I’ve only watched the first nineteen episodes, assuming twenty-six in all. Most of that has been development of characters. The main plot is a little light. Basically, there is still time for this show to suck.

Okay, first lets start with the OP, it is my favorite amongst the shows I’m currently following. Yeah, it’s the “sha la la.”

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I’m not really all that hard to please. I’ve stated before, I only ask for a good story and interesting characters. That’s about it. Admittedly, these aspects of a show are very subjective. To that end, it is my opinion that Nabari no Ou has both. Of interest is the show’s male lead. It’s hard not to like Miharu simply because he doesn’t fall into the standard male lead molds.  We don’t often get a main male character that is defined mostly as feminine and apathetic towards the world.

The key element being that “apathy.” Usually, to explain this type of character’s distance from the world, shyness is used. Miharu, at first, simply doesn’t care too much about anything. Of course, we see a refreshing devilish side to his character surface every now and again. Oddly, that devilish aspect of his character tells us much about him. It shows that while he distances himself from the world he doesn’t necessarily have a lack of understanding of that world. In fact, he does understand; yet, he chooses to be seperate from it. Why exactly he has made this choice is exactly what the story seems to be examining.

The outsider, the loner, the outcast. These are all standard fair in the world of anime. In particular, among lead characters, they are used to reinforce the role of that character in the eyes of the viewer. That status plays no small role in the place that the plot has for them.

It also plays no small part in the effectiveness of relating to the viewer. No one really feels “common.” We know too much about the intricacies of ourselves to feel “common.” The problem is that others don’t see us the same way we see ourselves. Taken from the vantage of the outside world, we are remarkably similar. We have two hands, two feet, two eyes, two ears, and one nose. We speak and hear. We see and feel. The world has a place for those that are remarkable and those that are not so much remarkable. But, if you asked anyone they would say most people are “normal” or “common.”

While we don’t really feel normal or common, we learn to accept what the world is telling us. That we are normal and common. At the very least, most do not fight the assumption much. We still don’t feel common or normal.

Then we find something that we relate to. We are drawn to it because it seems familiar. There is a substance or spark of recognition. In this story, Miharu finds Yoite. He doesn’t simply empathizes with him. That wouldn’t fit into his character. Miharu is drawn to Yoite.

That which seems familiar in Yoite, he finds confusing. Is it that he is confused by his own intentions, his own self? Miharu stated goal in the first episode is to lead a “carefree life.” Until he developed a connection with Yoite that could be taken literally, as in not caring (apathy). After his interaction with Yoite that goal is pretty much gone.

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Maybe it’s just me, but I think it would be so totally awesome to have bat-wings and a tail =)

After three seasons of Zero no Tsukaima, one would think that the show’s main gag would have gotten old by now.  Well, after much thought and deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that it will absolutely never get old…never!

When taken to its most basic storyline, ZnT is about the dysfunctional relationship between Louise and her boyfriend/familiar Saito. When we take that, put in some domestic abuse, breast sizes that span the entire spectrum of breast sizes, not-abnormally horny Saito, then what have we got? Gold Jerry, gold!

It’s a classic formula Boobs + Beatings = WIN. This is not to be confused with the Rosario + Vampire Lemma, which basically shows that female anime Vampires are a mixture of panties and boobs.

Virtually all bloggers have to deal with it eventually. Virtually every website will eventually have to take some type of action. Some call it theft, and others call it ignorance. In reality it is a bit of both. After all, the web is supposed to be a free and open place. It’s supposed to be a place where information, ideas, and ideals are shared openly. That’s why many people don’t really give any thought to linking directly to images and other content on differing websites in order to display that content on another.

The concept is called “hotlinking,” and it is well known to almost every blogger and web developer. It’s not really a problem for most of us.  For that matter, it isn’t too much of an issue for this blog. However, I was a bit bored so I decided to dust off my PHP skillz and see if I could get something that would reasonably benefit all parties concerned.

Goals:

1. Allow linkers to retain the image.
2. Display a “watermark” or marker of some kind on the image.
3. Reduce the quality to conserve bandwidth.
4. reduce processing cost as much as possible.

Basically, I created a few processing scripts that will allow people to view images in their high quality PNG format while on my blog. Everyone should see images in PNG format, like the one below, when surfing around far away no where blog.

When not on my blog, the images will (should) appear as below. They will have the address banners across the top and bottom with a reduced JPG quality. On average, reducing quality and increasing compression with the JPEG file format allows me to save about 80% on bandwidth that would normally go to hotlinkers.

Lastly, these down converted images are cached and served on subsequent requests. This saves me processing overhead, since I’m on a shared hosting plan.

None of this is really too complicated, or new. I managed to get a working model done in a little over two days of spare time. I’m still working out all the details and looking for bugs. I’ll share the code once I’m sure everything is working well enough.

My test confirm functionality in: IE , Firefox, Opera, ??

The purpose of this post is to get feedback about any problems visitors are experiencing. If you seem to be having a problem with viewing images, please leave a comment or email me using the contact item in the sidebar.

Thanks,

- j.valdez

Okay, so lolikit and IcyStorm have decided to become innocent anime heroines and try to become “kindness, care, love, beauty, cheerfulness, friendliness.” In summary, they’re going to look past the “not wonderful” world of ours, trying to find the proverbial silver lining. They want to look past all the bad things to see the good aspects of events in their lives and in others.

I’m as full of kindness and care as anyone, but I not only think that being kind/caring 100% of the time is not possible; I think it is a bad idea. It’s as natural for people to be uncaring as it is for them to be caring. Don’t forget that “not caring” is the same thing as general apathy in some instances. It’s necessary that people realize that not everyone loves them or cares for them. This makes the ones that do all the more meaningful.

Their experiment isn’t actually about “loving” people. It seems to be geared toward showing a simple respect and good outlook. Oddly, the criteria they intend to follow doesn’t seem all that stringent. The one main problem is that the goal is essentially anti-conflict in nature.

Humans still live in a world in which we compete for “resources,” even at a local level. The concept of “resources” can be abstracted anywhere from a mate to a good seat at the movie theater. Basically, what I’m getting at is, conflict too is in the nature of us. We need to conflict in order to grow, to learn, and to prosper. Ask yourself, why does humanity strive for any goal? What is the purpose of our civilizations? Finally, what was the driving force behind that growth? I think you’ll find the answer quite obvious.

A quote from a book I read a long time ago comes to mind, Everyday Ethics by Joshua Halberstam:

Imagine a world where your behavior is never evaluated: no one ever praises you, no one ever criticizes you. Whenever you do something wrong, people say, “Ah, you know how she is, you can’t really blame her. If you knew about her upbringing, you’d understand.” Most people hate to be excused in that dismissive manner. We want people to hold us responsible for what we do, even if that means ticking them off. We would much prefer to have people angry with us than have them pity us.

Judging other people’s actions is rooted in conflict. That particular passage of the book goes on to talk about how condescending not judging other people is, showing a disrespect of that person.

People have a right to be punished. They have a right to be treated like adults, not like children or animals. When you refuse to judge someone,  you refuse to take that person seriously.

With regard to lolikit and Icystorm’s experiment, while the goal is admirable, I think the method is flawed.