Seriously she could be Ino’s twin! Well I was just going to do 407 and 408 in a double post since not too much happens and I’m [...]
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Its the Clash of the Titans! (about which practically nobody on the blogosphere is interested in anymore). This post could be classified as tl;dr and as such, there’s a quick summary of my point at the end. Naruto. A shounen that has existed in animated form for at least 6 years, garnering interest due to its unique [...]
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Here are today's "really cool products" that I've picked out for you, out of the 30+ new items we've added to the J-List and JBOX.com sites today. Note that some products may be "not safe for work" but that all links will allow you to redirect yourself either to the J-List or JBOX.com websites. To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link. Star Wars USB Hubs *Preorder*. The Japanese product line that's taking the blogosphere by storm, this the R2-D2 and Darth Vader USB Hubs that are coming soon, which you can preorder now. Plug in a USB device into R2 and he comes alive, making noises and moving, while Darth Vader takes plugs into his chest plate, and moves and breathes. J-List is honored to be able to carry these fantastic items for our customers. Blue Slime Plush ~ Dragon Quest. Slime from Dragon Quest is great fun, and we're posting plush toys of the normal Blue Slime and King Slime that are great for decorating any room. Tomica 106 -- *New* Toyota Prius. We've restocked our popular Toyota Prius die-cast car, which gives you a super miniature version of the popular and economical car. Pen'z Gear --Hell & Heaven Version. Interested in pen spinning, called pen-mawashi in Japanese? We've gotten in several cool weighted pens specially made for this fun sport. Blue Dragon Trio Set and Bento Bag. Blue Dragon is coming to American TV, and you can get ready bento-wise with this Trio Set, which gives you a portable spoon, fork and set of chopsticks for enjoying your favorite bento meal. New Japanese Snacks. Enjoy delicious new Japanese snacks, including Glico Cream Collon (Vanilla Flavor), the hilariously named Japanese cookie snack, Fujiya Strong Green Tea Candy, and favorite of mine, Baby Star Yakisoba Noodles (yum!). Paint Jump ~ Art of Naruto. Learn to paint with Naruto, with this great nuri-e (coloring book) that guides you to creating real art with colors. Whether you're using crayon, paint or scanning and coloring with Photoshop, this is a great new item! Deluxe "TENMARI " Bento Box Set. One of our most popular bento sets, it comes with everything you need, from the 2-tiered bento box to chopsticks w/ case to a convenient case to put everything in. Both colors are restocked today. Colorful Fish Shape Soy Sauce Bottle (20 Pieces). For bento fans, we've also restocked several popular accessories, including more of the miniature soy sauce bottles which allow you to take your favorite condiment with your bento lunch. Of course they hold other things as well, from ketchup to mayonnaise and that heavenly sauce. Traditional Items from Japan. Then see some cool restocked traditional items from Japan, including the Retro Paper Balloon set that have been enjoyed in Japan for centuries, a wooden puzzle map of Japan, a traditional ceramic beer mug and the very poplar Traditional Bamboo Flute (Yokobue). Japanese T-shirt "Green Tea." If you like Japan's healthy culture of green tea, we humbly recommend our own "Green Tea" T-shirt, which does its best to turn your body into a giant bottle of Japan's most popular drink. Japanese Barley Tea. Also, remember that summer is a great time to enjoy refreshing mugi-cha, the barley tea that's enjoyed more than any other beverage in the summer. Unsweetened, it's delicious to drink and helps you battle the heat as well as stay healthy. Our deluxe sized bag of barley tea, which makes 40 liters of hot or cold tea, is in stock now! Chibi Maruko chan Kanji Dictionary vol 1 & 2. Students of Japanese, we've restocked a personal favorite item of mine, the Chibi Maruko chan kanji dictionaries, which help you learn how to look up kanji characters just like Japanese elementary school children do. Faces Stamp ~ Emotion Transforming Soft Stamp. The Japanese use hanko or name stamps in place of a legal signature, and here is a cute item in this vein: "face stamps" that can make all kinds of faces, from happy to angry to sad. They're fun, and back in stock today. Laputa 2009 Schedule Book *Preorder*. Castle in the Sky Laputa is one of the best Hayao Miyazaki films ever, with the richest story and most memorable characters. Now you can preorder this 2009 schedule book that's just gorgeous. Sweet Body ~ Happou Bijin Illustration. This collection of Happou Bijin's illustrations is one of our favorite artbooks. Filled with fantastic "ero" illustrations. The artist's name is interesting, too, meaning "eight-direction beautiful woman" which means a person who wants to be liked by everyone. Now you know an interesting Japanese word. Rika Shiraki Cast-Off Figure ~ Bible Black. Bible Black is one of the most famous "H" games and anime series in history, and we're happy to announce another fabulous "cast off" figure that will be released soon. This amazing figure, which can be displayed in normal and "cast off" mode, is really a special one! But stock is limited, so get yours before they're all gone. Muscle Ballerina. A wonderful new "zenra ballet" release, this bring you the first-ever "Muscle Ballerina" featuring expert dancing by a professional trained prima donna who happens to be a body builder. Ahem, interesting, no?
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Yaoi as a whole has always… uh, confused me. I sort of understand the appeal in it (like boys tend to say, “Two hotties are better than one!”) but why the heck do the fricking insane fangirls start squealing over Naruto and Sasuke cosplayers making out? It’s not REALLY Naruto and Sasuke; it’s just a [...]
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I know I promised to keep writing manga reviews, but I’ve been too busy taking stock and making a website where you can buy fabulous doujinshi, doujin music, manga, and more at low low prices! Touhou, Bemani, Rozen Maiden, Haruhi/Lucky Star crossovers, Naruto manga, anime girls with boy parts where their girl parts normally are, [...]
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OP Theme: 「一斉の声」 (Issei no Koe) by Kita Shuuhei - AVI version (12.1MB) | PSP version (coming soon) Of all the new anime that has been released thus far, I feel that this one has the best mix of story, humor, OP/ED, and voice acting. It's a pretty encouraging first episode in my opinion. To begin with, Kamiya Hiroshi (Takemoto in Honey and Clover) and Inoue Kazuhiko (Kakashi in Naruto) delivered their excellenet voice acting as usual. I'm especially impressed with Inoue Kazuhiko here, who can change his voice from sounding silly and childish when Nyanko-sensei (the cat spirit) is in the form of Maneki-Neko, to sounding mature and dangerous when the spirit is in its original form. Upon seeing this episode, I finally realize why Kamiya Hiroshi was chosen to be Natsume and that's because just like Takemoto, Natsume is equally contemplative about his life. Anyway, the only thing that is missing here is a solid animation. The animation/style that they have here is not too bad but I think the series could benefit from a much stronger color palette and less soft filter. I really hope that the second episode will rectify this particular problem.
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As per the first day's coverage for Cosfest 2008, which you can read about in an aggregate post that has all the links to my five (yes 5) parts here, I am starting with the indoor shots I took inside the D'Marquee. As per usual, my camera totally sucks at indoor shots and so my solution was to stay outdoors most of the time. Then again, there were shots that only could have been taken indoors, and so here they are, in somewhat chronological order. I only remember taking shots on two extended periods inside the hall, so yeah.Aggregate post of all known blogs that covered the event can be found here. No more hi-res pictures from either day can be requested from me since I felt they all sucked compared to originals you can find from other peeps that had way better cameras at the event. Check the aggregate post for links to other better pictures.By the way the first shots I took were of the scouts below, and my first shots were all indoors but mostly dumped. Wait for the outdoor shots, which were way better. As usual, feel free to identify any and all cosplayers that I was not able to, and also to correct any mistakes I made.If there is IAHGames (International Association of Horrible Games) , there will be models dressing up as Granado Espada's female stock scout original costume. For sure. They did this at the Zouk Event too, but Eunice was better than these two models, unfortunately for Cosfest. Still they garnered lots of photos. And way to go trying to promote more games using models, IAHFail. I bet you never even bothered to read my open letter that was addressed to you. Templar Guardian from Hellgate: London, same one as from yesterday (pic) I believe. Still neat, her costume. Thanks to Hirito and Fariz for the identification.The guy from the right was identified by Double as Kakkou from Mushi-uta. Not sure if the girl is from the same series. I took one more of the guy, with some other character, in an external shot. When I first saw these two I was like, "Is this from R2's ED?" CI was like, "That ain't Euphie and Cornelia." Unfortunately, proven in an outdoor session later, they were. Nice cosplay indeed, especially the way they did it from the ED scene. Who needs Edward Scissorhands when just a giant pair of scissors will do? Girl identified by Hirito as Souseiseki from Rozen Maiden, and he suspects the male to be from Naruto. Ranka Lee from Macross Frontier, thanks to Hirito for ID. I took a few more of her outside, just so happened to pass her on my way out hence this ultra fail shot. Gundam EXIA. It appears it was only a trial run for him yesterday, and today was the real deal for him. He stayed inside all the way, and the moment he appeared the crowd around him was of staggering proportions. I had no idea he was around until DarkMirage and Double suddenly disappeared from beside me while we were watching the individuals event (not covering either that or the team event). He was in the queue and was moving slowly forward in the queue, and had no idea people were snapping pictures at him until the girl in front of him in the queue kindly informed him. Bunny Mikuru (The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi) was in a real hurry. Dressed like that, it was no wonder she was in a rush the whole time, as she would have seemed appetizing to about 95% of the male population at the event. Maka and Stein from Soul Eater. Maka, I was told, is played by a different person from yesterday's, but Stein was the same guy. He moved around on his chair the entire time inside the hall.That ends the first part. As you can see, I took minimal pictures inside the hall, since I know I will suck at indoor shots. I did take a few pictures with the scouts (lolol), and that was about it. Others took the picture for me so I have no idea if they turned out well.Second and third parts, both on outdoor shots (and more photo-intensive than this one for sure) coming up tomorrow in the morning and at night.Internal shots @ Cosfest Day 2,Panther
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ICv2 posts the BookScan top 20 graphic novels, and it appears that news of the manga bubble bursting may be somewhat premature. 1. Naruto, vol. 29 2. Naruto, vol. 30 3. Bleach, vol. 23 4. Negima!, vol. 18 5. In Odd We Trust 6. Kingdom Hearts II, vol. 2 7. Naruto, vol. 28 8. Rosario+Vampire, vol. 1 9. The Gentlemen’s Alliance+, vol. 6 10. [...]
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Another interesting crossover parody manga – this time Haruhi and Golgo 13 converge, in a tale of school assassins and bloodthirsty rivalry. Will the SOS-dan survive Haruhi’s gun toting rampage? See also Yotsuba-to and Naruto crossover Sasuke&! And the original Japanese:
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A good reason to follow Naruto is to watch the major characters: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura grow up.  Fans write about Naruto’s bratiness and about “how annoying he is” but in the last couple of chapters in the manga he’s demonstrated a lot of maturity.   I won’t go into any more details but Naruto handled XXXXXX’s [...]
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