It seems like only yesterday, but the spring shows have now all started and apparently we’re starting into the summer season of anime (Did I sleep through a month or two – how did it flash by so quickly?!) So, because I’m a lazy ass and I haven’t picked any shows for summer yet (seeing as it is winter in Australia) here’s the list of the shows I picked up from spring instead!

• Bus Gamer – Looked kinda cool, apparently about guys who streetfight to get themselves out of money troubles. Only three episodes long, so even if it does suck you don’t have to sit through 25 episodes before you realize. I’ve seen the first ep and it seemed pretty good though. Only moody bishounen’s need apply.
• Itazura na Kiss – I’ve read the manga, I’ve watched the j-drama, so naturally I need to watch the anime too. Basic storyline: Cute, not-so-smart girl likes the smartest guy in the school. She tries to confess her love, but he refuses to even read the letter. Through a series of mental events, the chick’s house collapses, and she and her dad end up living at the smart dude’s house with his family – hijinks ensue. I’m reminded of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ as cool, smart guy acts a lot like our Mr Darcy.
• Amatsuki – Just when I thought anime couldn’t get any weirder/cooler, along comes Amatsuki, with it’s crazy little demon dwarf riding around asking questions like ‘What is reality?’ and the like. But I digress – Two high school boys are touring a Heian era (in the past – not sure how many years, lol) village, when one of them disappears. The other runs around looking for his friend for about 10 minutes, then gets attacked by aforementioned demon dwarf and his evil larger monster counterpart. Dude wakes up, blinded in one eye to find he actually has gone back in time to the Heian era, where demons, samurai and ninja all abound. One hot bishie for you, one clueless but cute bishie for me.
• Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 – You’re going to think I’m a massive idiot, but I haven’t started watching it yet, because I want to rewatch the first season. It’s all good…
• Wagaya no Oinari-sama – Did somebody mention fox demons? Right here! The problem with this old fox is he/she is so old it can’t remember if it’s male or female. Doesn’t matter because male Kuu is gorgeous and female Kuu is cute as a button. Kuu becomes the protector demon for two boys being targetted by other demons, and in doing so becomes involved in their daily lives. Hijinks ensue, especially at school.
• Nabari no Ou – Oi! Fresh order of ninja’s, coming right up! That’s right, ninja’s. It’s a lot better than naruto though, hehehe. Storyline… ummm… something about a kid being born with a secret ninja art inside him that only he can use, lot’s of people fighting to protect him, a samurai chick, some guy that can injure people’s insides without injuring their outsides. I’m rather confused but highly interested.
• Special A – Waaaah! Takishima! Hikaru! Akira! Megumi! Jun! The others who’s names I can’t remember right now! They’re all in cartoon form! This is so cool! I’m using too many exclamation points! I don’t care! Special A! Too excited to write a proper summary! Watch it! It’s out now!
• Soul Eater – To become a proper weapon weilded by the great Shinigami-sama himself, all trainees must consume the souls of 99 evil humans and 1 witch. Sounds easy, right? Hmmm, not so much, seeing as Maka and Soul’s count drops from 99 to 0 after the first episode. Awesome show with human-turning-into-weapon style storyline, lot’s of funny stuff, slightly ecchi but not too much. Maka’s dad reminds me of Tamaki from ‘Host Club’…
• Vampire Knight – Waaaah! Zero! Yuki! Kaname! Aido! Ichijou! Ruka! Seiren! Assorted other’s who I love equally but can’t remember their names right now! They’re in cartoon form! They move around and talk! It’s like manga but sooooo much better! This is soooo cool! I’m using too many exclamation points! I don’t care! Vampire Knight! Too excited to write a proper summary! Watch it! It’s out now!
• Himitsu: The Revelation – This is another one where I got really excited, but I haven’t actually got around to watching it yet. I will though! Gomen, ne?
• Toshokan Sensou – I swear, if the stuff in this show ever actually happened, I’d be so screwed. The Media Enhancement Act has been brought in, meaning that all negative influences (books, magazines, manga etc) have been taken from stores for scrutiny by the Media Enhancement forces. Libraries have become protective havens for books, guarded by heavily armed military forces. Armed skirmishes happen between the two groups constantly. We follow one young woman’s journey as she joins the Library corps to follow in the footsteps of the man who saved her, and her favourite book, from being victimised years earlier. Also, Lt Doujou is a honey, hehehe
• Nijuu Mensou no Musume – More easily referred to as ‘The Daughter of Twenty Faces’, even though she isn’t really his daughter. Twenty Faces is a phantom thief, breaking in and stealing precious objects, then escaping without leaving a trace (except for his calling card, of course!) Twenty Faces rescues the little girl who is being slowly poisoned by her guardians (for her massive inheritance) and introduces her into his dark and unruly life. Car chases, shootings, submarines, TDoTF has them all. *sighs* I wish Twenty Faces was MY ojisan…

Also still watching these ones from the winter season:

• Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei
• Hakaba Kitaro
• Mnemosyne

And these ones from autumn last year:

• Shion no Ou
• Strait Jacket

And this one from summer last year (good grief…):

• Baccano!

AND the old reliable’s that never seem to end:

• Bleach
• D. Gray-Man
• Hellsing Ultimate

Shounen Onmyouji seems to have moved from stalled to dead with only 2 more episodes left needing to be subbed – waaaaah! It’s always like this with the shows I like!

Any-hoo, that’s all – have a nice day all

Boy Howdy! I did some spring/summer/seasonal cleaning of the site (meaning I deleted all the old comments, seeing as there were hundreds).

So if anybody has any questions or download requests, request them here. That’s HERE! In this thread.

That is all – have a tops new year all!

If Quentin Tarantino had gotten it into his mind to create an anime series, Gun X Sword would have been it. Seriously, it’s that good!

Actually, I think the creative team behind Gun X Sword must have gotten together, got drunk, watched every Tarantino film ever made (it wouldn’t take that long, you know…) then sat down and penned the plotlines.

It has everything you’d need in a series:

• A man in black, who’s fiancee was gunned down clawed to death on their wedding day
• A young girl out for revenge, looking for the man who kidnapped her older brother
• Giant robots (You knew that was coming! If there’s no robots, there’s no point!)
• Gun fights
• Sword fights
• Wicked good hand-to-hand combat scenes
• Funny scenes that are actually funny (Good writers there! Yay!)
• Believable villains (flawed individuals that could have been ‘good’ in another situation)
• A big, bad boss-man reminiscent of ‘Bill’ from the ‘Kill Bill’ movies (He looks like him!! He acts like him!! If he didn’t have a claw hand it would be him!!)

One episode (it was in the first twelve but I can’t remember which – my bad) was taken straight from ‘Pulp Fiction’. I laughed so hard I nearly died. The two main leads, Van and Wendy, were sitting in this cafe, when two tables over a couple starts doing the ‘I love you…’ scene from the beginning of ‘Pulp Fiction’, almost word-for-word. I had to rewind it and watch it again three times to make sure it had actually happened (it had – and was totally worth it!).

I’ve only watched the first 12 eps so far, but I’m expecting the english dubs to arrive soon (The subtitles were so small! My eyes!). I might add more to this later!

Rating:

I give it 10 ‘Western shoot-em-ups’ out of 10! (Van is the coolest!)

No, I’m not talking about mental patients (But wouldn’t it be interesting if I was…?), I am referring to the anime/manga company situated here:

http://www.madman.com.au

Sure, they sell a hell of a lot more than manga and anime, but hey! Back to the story at hand!

Cartoon Network had been flailing around quite badly, with their stagnating selection of cartoons circulating through their late night spot, commonly known as ‘adult swim anime action’. I’ve got to tell you, I was getting pretty sick of watching the first 54 episodes of InuYasha over and over again, followed by Full Metal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex repeats.

All of a sudden, about 7 weeks ago, I turned over to channel 713 expecting the usual stale InuYasha episode, and discovered dubbed episodes of Bleach. Shocked, amazed and extremely happy, I continued to watch and found that after Bleach they were airing Trinity Blood which was one of my favourite subbed anime from the previous year, now also in english.

Also, alternating with Bleach (which aired mondays and tuesdays), they were airing Eureka Seven (airing wednesdays and thursdays), which features giant robots, and became an immediate favourite.

Gazing in awe at the television screen, a little scroll unfurled itself, advertising that these new anime were being provided by the grand old folks at Madman! Huzzah!

Trinity Blood actually finished airing 2 weeks ago, and I wasn’t shocked to discover it being repeated immediately from episode 1 again, in a later timeslot.

However, the Madman folks came through again, replacing it with yet another new anime, one I hadn’t actually seen (which is actually kind of hard to find now-a-days, hehehe) called Black Cat, which, for all intents and purposes, is freakin’ awesome!

Of course, Cartoon Network has not abandoned the die hard fans of InuYasha, seeing as they still air it, just at a later time.

Good form Madman!! My faith in you is un-budge-able!

The adult swim airing times, for anyone that’s interested:

Cartoon Network – Channel 713 (Australian Eastern Standard Times)

10:30pm – Bleach (Mon-Tue), Eureka 7 (Wed-Thu)

11:00 – Black Cat (Mon-Thu)

11:30 – Trinity Blood (Mon-Thu)

12:00 – InuYasha (Mon-Thu)

I’m not including Naruto in this list – I have my reasons, and they are all good

Adult swim website:

http://www.adultswim.com.au/

Madman website:

http://www.madman.com.au

Errrm… Nothing much actually hehehe

However, I have updated the random uploads page with a few new chapters of, oh I don’t know, EVERYTHING!! (Well, pretty much, anyway – there’s some new stuff there, check it out!) Here’s the link to the updated directory:

http://catherineg.wordpress.com/2007/06/15/random-uploads-directory/

And to the uploads page itself:

http://catherineg.badongo.com/

I’ve also started to watch my back-log of anime from about the beginning of last season. I’ve finally caught up with Darker Than BLACK, Claymore and Lovely Complex. Now I’m completely behind with the new shows I’ve started watching. Here’s what’s currently got me interested:

Mononoke – The most bizarre art style I’ve ever seen, and stories that have the capability to freak someone like me out! It’s anime horror and classic story-telling at it’s best!

Devil May Cry – Any show with a main character with the name of Dante instantly becomes a favourite. Oh, and there’s demon’s and stuff… it’s good, trust me!

Zombie Loan – Hey, no worries about dying anymore! Just head over to Z-Loan and hire yourself a zombie body! Comes at quite a high price though, and the things you have to do to pay back your debt can get a little… icky.

Baccano! – Okay, only having seen one episode, I’m still not sure what it’s about, but it’s very exciting, what with the explosions and the regenerating limbs and the car/train crashes and what-not! Thumbs up!

And I’m still hanging onto some of the old reliables:

Bleach – Please come out of filler territory!! Please!!

D. Gray-Man – Haven’t watched it since Ep 25, but I’m still collecting it…

Blood+ – Wooh!

That’s enough from me – I’m heading back to bed for more hibernatin’!!

‘Natsuki Takaya, hmmm… that name sounds familiar…’

Well so it should, seeing as she’s the fantastic mangaka that created ‘Fruits Basket’ which ended either late last year, or early this year depending on your sources.

But what of her other works? According to Manga Updates she’s done 6 manga’s in total, and only 4 of them have been scanlated into english. Also, in my shopping adventures, the only one I’ve been able to find for sale in english is ‘Fruits Basket’.

Boku ga Utau to Kimi wa Waraukara was published as a series of 5 one-shot stories in 1999. Shoujo Magic was good enough to scanlate it for the general populace, and for this we should pour kudos all over them.

Phantom Dream was a 5 volume manga (unknown publication date) of which only the first 2 chapters of volume 1 are available (Yay, Entropy!)

Tsubasa Wo Motsu Mono was published in 1996, before Fruits Basket, and was complete at 6 volumes. Currently, the first volume and most of the second volume have been made available to us by K2less and Red Butterfly, who rock!

So far, nobody has picked up Hoshi wa Utau or Komogomo which were the last two manga’s on her publication list ( http://www.mangaupdates.com/authors.html?id=3 ) even though I’ve seen the raws for Komogomo and it looks pretty damn cool.

‘Why am I posting this?’ You may well ask – here’s why: Fruits Basket is over. But that doesn’t mean we should turn our back’s on Natsuki Takaya, seeing as she’s written loads of other great stuff which just hasn’t made it into english yet. I’m just hoping that someone from some great scanlating team finds this post, sees the manga listed here, and decides to start a scanlation project for Komogomo and Hoshi wa Utau!

Not just for me, of course – but for the entire english reading manga community!

(This has been a public service announcement on behalf of Natsuki Takaya fans who are desperate for fresh manga since Fruits Basket finished – end transmission!)

The title pretty much says it all – I’m happy to be on holidays, mostly so I can catch up on the 10 weeks worth of anime I’ve downloaded and have been too knackered to watch until now. Actually, I’m still just trying to accept the fact that ‘Death Note’ has finished… *sighs* I’m really looking forward to watching it, even though 5 million other bloggers have already SPOILED THE ENDING FOR EVERYBODY!!!!! (Yeah, yeah, I know – I probably shouldn’t have sought out the spoilers in the first place…) Have a nice monday everybody!

 http://catherineg.badongo.com/

In other words, the stuff that’s actually available for download in one easy list (which will hopefully be updated constantly – if not, just *poke* this post every so often for updates!)

EDIT: Updated 8/09/07

Manga:

• Batman: Child of Dreams – Volume 1 Pts 1-2
• Bleach – Chapters 240-286
• Blood+ – Volumes 1-2
• Bloody Kiss One-shots – Bloody Kiss I, II and III
• Boku ga Utau to Kimi wa Waraukara – 1 Volume Complete
• Claymore – Volumes 1-12, Volume 13 Ch 70-73 + Extra Scenes 1 + 2
• Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Ch 1-5
• Code Geass: Suzaku of the Counterattack Ch 1
• Code Geass: Knightmare of Nunnally Ch 1
• D. Gray-Man – Volumes 1-13, Volume 14 Ch 127
• Darker Than BLACK – Ch 1-2
• Darren Shan – Chapter 001
• DN Angel – Volumes 8-11
• Fate/Stay Night – Volumes 1-2, Volume 3 Ch 10-13
• Fruits Basket – Chapter 136 (The Final Chapter)
• Full Metal Panic Novels – The End of Day By Day, A Dancing Very Merry Christmas, Continuing On My Own, Burning One Man Force (Ongoing) + Short Stories
• Fushigi Yuugi – Volumes 13-18
• Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) – Volume 1, Volume 2 Ch 6-8
• InuYasha – Volumes 47-51, Volume 52 Ch 509-515
• Karin – Volumes 1-5, Volume 6 Ch 23-25
• Koko ni Iru Suiren – 1 Volume Complete
• Kyo Kara Maou – Volume 1 Ch 1-6
• La Corda d’Oro – Volume 1, Volume 2 Ch 5-6
• Loveless – Volume 7, Volume 8 Ch 1-3
• Lovely Complex – Volumes 1-7, Volume 8 Ch 29-31
• Lovely Complex Plus – Vol 01 Ch 1
• Mahou Sensei Negima – Chapters 165-175
• Negima! Neo – Volume 01 Ch 000-004
• Ouran High School Host Club – Chapter 037
• Phantom Dream – Chapters 001-002
• Romeo x Juliet – Vol 01 Ch 001
• Tsubasa Wo Motso Mono – Volume 1, Volume 2 Ch 4-7

Music

• Ghost Hunt Original Soundtrack
• D. Gray-Man Original Soundtrack

That’s it so far

 http://catherineg.badongo.com/

Due to the unforseeable circumstance of all the bandwidth being used up last month (somehow…) I haven’t been able to upload anything… until now that is!

• Bleach – Ch 275-277
• D. Gray-Man – Volume 13 Ch 117-120
• InuYasha – Volume 51 Ch 505-508
• Claymore – Volume 13 Ch 70-72
• Mahou Sensei Negima – Ch 165-174

And, just because it’s cool:

• Blood+ – Volume 01

And now I’m off to enjoy the long weekend! Happy birthday, Your Majesty!

NOTE: I just noticed some of the file names are, errm, stuffed – basically they have an extra ‘0′ after the file name – so no, I didn’t just post Bleach Chapter 2770, it actually is chapter 277 (Why, Badongo?! Why do you mock me so?!)

http://catherineg.badongo.com/

Have updated again!

• Bleach – Chapter 274
• D. Gray-Man – Chapter 116
• Loveless – Volume 7 Ch 3
• Fushigi Yuugi – Volumes 13-18
• InuYasha – Volume 51 Ch 504
• Claymore – Volumes 1-12 (in single chapter chunks)