Tuesday Notes (July 25)...

Good evening, y'all :) It's cooled down a bit outside, but it's still rather muggy inside since the AC is still not working properly here.... have a fan in my face pretty much all day long to deal with it.

One day away from the computer and you get behind ＿|￣|○ Spent most of Sunday with friends trying to finish characters for a D&D campaign. This time, I'm a dwarven psychic warrior that specializes in firearms (using some of the Iron Kingdoms setting). Figured that might be fun to do, and the party needed another ranged fighter anyways. See how it works out whenever we start the campaign.. I have a knack for getting critical hits and killing bosses in one hit ;)

Anyways, that aside, some of the news from the past week (or more).

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Comic Con Manga/Novel Licenses (via ANN)
Quite a few new manga/novel licenses announced, and here are some that caught my attention.

 
 
Del Ray continues to acquire more younger shoujo titles with Kitchen Princess (Natsumi Ando/Miyuki Kobayashi), Mamotte! Lolipop Mamotte! Lollipop, and Shugo Chara (PEACH-PIT), all of which are serialized in Nakayoshi. I haven't read Kitchen Princess or Mamotte! Lollipop, only read one chapter of Shugo Chara, so I don't know much about any of them. Would like to read more of Shugo Chara, though -- first volume was released recently. Anyways, I'm glad to see someone cares about this market.

Viz picked up both the Shakugan no Shana novel and manga. Y'all have fun translating all the terms there ;)

Gift eternal rainbow Site Open
...why are Nemu and Sakura there? I know I'm not the only person that thought that ;) Kidding aside, the seiyuu have been changed from the original game. Notables include Ui Miyazaki (Aishia@DCSS), Ryoko Shintani, and Ai Shimizu. OLM Team Iwasa (currently doing Utawarerumono) will be handling animation, so that's good. Some of the stuff other OLM teams have done recently hasn't exactly been great... Gift is scheduled to start in the fall.

Happiness! Site Open
And continuing with more anime based on erogame stuff, Happiness!. Unlike the Gift anime, the cast seems to be mostly the same as the game (which means I don't recognize any of the seiyuu). Artland (Mushishi, Bokura ga Ita) will be handling animation. Happiness! is scheduled to start in the fall.

Negima!? on DS
I'm surprised more games like this haven't come out on DS -- there are so many different ways you could utilize the touch screen ;)

NHK ni Youkoso DVD Negative Pack
The first NHK ni Youkoso! DVD will be released October 27 in both regular and "Negative Pack" versions. Among the extras included in the "Negative Pack", are a "doki-doki" Misaki-chan jacket drawn by the character designer, an illustration sheet by Kenji Ooiwa (did the manga) and full-body tights so you can be one of those Hikikomori aliens... I don't know why you'd want to do that, but anyways ;) Both releases will be uncensored... makes me wonder what episode 3 will be like on DVD (^^;;;)

btw, there's now a site for Henshin Mahou Shoujo Pururin, the anime inside the anime ;)

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And one more thing here -- I'm going to have a new laptop soon :) My current HP pavilion ze4125 -- XP Home, Athlon XP 1600+ (1.4GHz), 15.4" 1024x768 screen, 512MB RAM (I added another 256MB stick), 40GB hard drive, CD burner/DVD combo drive, Radeon IGP 320M (integrated graphics) -- is about 4 years old now, and technically belongs to my dad as well. It's served me rather well, but I figured it was about time to upgrade (I don't really care about Vista so I didn't feel like waiting for it).

I ordered a Dell Inspiron E1505 configured as follows: XP Media Center (w/remote so I can be lazy), Intel Core Duo T2050 (1.6Ghz), 1GB RAM, 15.4" widescreen WXGA display, 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 Hypermemory (128MB means 64MB discrete, up to 64MB system memory.. not really a gamer so it'll do), 120GB 5400rpm SATA hard drive, 8x CD/DVD+-R burner.

Pretty much the specs I wanted, in my price range, and for less (had a coupon) than what I had seen around here. A good bit of what I've made working close to full time over the summer will go to paying for it, so less buying anime goods, less going to have lunch downtown, but you've got to sacrifice once in a while... well, wouldn't exactly call it that, but whatever ;)