Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of updates. I've actually been pretty busy with work, life and my latest project; an alternative history webmanga. I decided to put to pen a story idea I've been throwing around for a while, namely aliens against humans during World War 2 using retro mecha. Yes, I've read one too many Harry Turtledove novels, but I wanted to give it a try.

The universe itself is not just alternative due to aliens, I decided to pursue the idea that the American Civil War triggered a wave of global self determination, in part an aftermath of the liberal movements of 1848, then followed by socialist movements in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I had a lot of fun basically decomposing a number of countries, including the Axis (Germany, Italy and Japan) countries and the United States.

I was lucky to pair up with the artist Lonewolf, who was interested in the same subject matter. I guess you might say the overall project was triggered by a desire to see a more "serious" Strike Witches.

Anyway, today is the big launch. If you have some time, please check it out at:

http://www.projektmuse.com

You come to a point in your life where you make the realization that you are not the main character in the story that is unfolding. I think I've held center stage at a few points in my life, and that certainly informs me as to the difference to me about being in the foreground or the background. When you are not a main character, your successes, failures, happiness and sadness are of little consequence to the main plot. If you're lucky, perhaps your experience becomes an anecdotal reminder to the hero or heroine about life and love. Fate does not care if your story has a happy ending, in fact, your part might very well be to play a sideshow tragedy or farce, to somehow accentuate the drama onstage or to provide a foil to the central plot. Your thread is but one of a tapestry holding the background up, lending the main action depth and credibility. Perhaps under such circumstances all we can hope for is that the story is somehow an Elizabethan Comedy, where the sideshow characters are married off in some convenient resolution of plots, providing a happy ending, not just for the main characters, but for the entire cast.

When we are young and idealistic and full of so called "potential", the entire world is the canvas, and our lives are the center stage. Every action we take, every moment in our lives contributes to this notion of "living to our potential." The stage is empty, the audience watches every character that comes upon the stage with an equal vigilance. As the story moves forward however, it becomes clear to the audience (if not the poor characters) who the main focus of the story is. Potential turns into actuality, and our roles in the story become set.

Hmm, that came off a bit more moody than I intended. Just watched some good anime, and while cathartic, certainly left me with a twinge of melancholy.

I posted this on Facebook but thats like telling people at a family party what you really think...in other words...wrong place to express yourself. Hahaha, so after over half a year, I return to LiveJournal. LOL.

One month in to the Akiba-Station...slowly but surely we're getting there. We added a forum too. If anyone has any suggestions, please drop us a line. Thanks!

http://www.akiba-station.com

Akiba-station.com's official renewal! Please check out our new site! Please feel free to leave comments, and if you like what you see, tell others!

http://www.akiba-station.com

Thanks!

We are getting very close to a formal launch of the Akiba-Station.com website. Please feel free to check it out and post comments or email them to the link in the sidebar. Thanks!

Hi all. Sorry for the lack of posts.

Work, life drama and other things have conspired against me doing regular posts.

I am starting a bit of an experiment. I was so fed up with the editorial voice of sites like AnimeNewsNetwork, Kotaku, etc., that I am forging a new anime/game blog/review/news site on my own. I'm getting a lot of my friends who used to be a part of Anime Expo to work on it.

I haven't finished any of the graphics, but I decided to start posting on it anyway just to keep in practice.

I'd appreciate it if some of you visit it once in a while... =)

the site is

http://www.akiba-station.com

Thanks!

Hmm...lets see if I can remember it:

Taiho: Full Throttle-
Um, well...I love Taiho, but the sloppy animation is a bit annoying. It does look like the live action TV drama had an effect on this new animated season, because it feels a lot more like that show (for better or worse). The whole Yuri ED has me a bit mystified, unless this show has some kind of Noir ending with a house on fire...

Mokke-
Wow. Madhouse has a very nice anime here. Is this trying to be a Mushishi for a younger audience? I am shocked that this manga ran in a seinen compilation. In any case, looks like they are taking the Miyazaki concept of "empowering young girls to face their fears." Mitsuishi Kotono also plays a character here, so I'm inclined to keep watching. Somehow the grandma and grandpa in this show remind me of my own in an odd way, so this is a good nostalgia piece for me.

Minami-ke
I admit it. After this director MAULED Yoakena, I was expecting some kind of horrific atrocity. So far, this show has actually been pretty freaking amusing. I'm not holding my breath, however. My guess is that the director didn't want to get killed walking down the street (since I have said before that I might fly to Japan just to do that). What does it say when the same manga title already has a second studio lined up to do an alternate version of the show before the first one has even aired?

Shugo Chara-
Is Peach Pit the new CLAMP? In any case, I liked Rozen Maiden, but I wasn't as thrilled with Zombie Loan. This show, on the other hand, has appeal. Yeah, its a magical girls show, yeah its geared at a younger audience, but so far it seems pretty appealing.

Clannad-
Wow, second episode and I can't decide if this show is going to be the funniest of the season or the most tragic/tearjerking/emo of the season. Key seems to love tragedy. Man, I need to go and watch Air. Suffice to say, KyoAni execution of this show has been excellent, if not just a tad orthodox. I guess there are too many rabid Clannad fans for them to get too experimental.

Rental Magica-
Um. OK. I think this replaced Lucky Star in terms of time slot, but so far it has been weak. On the other hand, it sounds like it ran in Sneakers...so my guess is that the multi-cultural magic I see is probably part of a way more complicated plot, so maybe this anime will sort itself out. The direction is totally confused. I REALLY HATE when studios learn the wrong lessons from successful anime (Haruhi anyone?). Like when everyone tried to use achronological scene ordering after Anno did it in Eva. Look guys, please know your limitations and your budgets and don't try something you're not capable of.

Suteki Tantei Labyrinth-
Hmm. This along with Night Wizard strike me as trying to mix genres (another Haruhi lesson, I suspect). So far, not too succesful. Another show that loves shifting mood at the drop of a hat. Maybe this will get my attention, but with so many other contenders out there, I'm not sure. The post-Tokyo Earthquake idea sounds interesting, the whole precognition helping fight crime is also interesting, but why have teenage high schoolers running around too?

Night Wizard-
Trying to be funny, and featuring a guy who WANTS to go to school...well, we'll see. I learned my lesson about assuming shows are going to be horrible based on only one episode, but so far this is going low on my priority list. Girl with big gun that she summons out of the air is cool, but aside from making good cover art...well, again, we'll see.

Still more shows this season!

Genshiken 2! Ghost Hound!

And still to be evaluated:

Bamboo Blade, ef, and a few others...

PS-Oh Lovely Complex had a mushy ending...but I guess that is to be expected. I wonder if KyoAni will redo it...hahaha.

Oh yeah...MUST HAVE SrikerS 26!

Hmm...so far the new season looks interesting. Could be better, but still interesting.

I'd have to say that Gundam 00 actually has me excited...but I have been let down after the first episode before...so we'll see.

Clannad. What can I say? Looks like a solid KyoAni title...but honestly Key's stories seem to kind of blur together so I think this will be a decent but not "move the genre forward" title like Haruhi or Lucky Star (ie Kanon).

Blue Drop. Hmm. I was excited about this show...but less so now. I will wait and see, maybe it will get better.

Myself; Yourself. Generic, but reasonably executed. We will see where this one goes.

There are other shows this season worth watching.

Negima live action? Might watch it cause the uniforms are cute...but if I didn't like the anime, I'm doubtful I'll like the drama much.

Hmm, time to watch those shows I didn't want to start because I hate waiting for a new episode every week...

Oh yeah, speaking of which...STRIKERS 26 DAMMIT... =)

Hmm...did Taiho suddenly become a shojou ai title? Um, cause in the ED...were they...um?

At least I got my Yuki Nagato, Sara Werec and Lottie Gelh figures...heh heh heh.

Aaagh. I have not worked on my novel in over a month. That is very bad.

I thought I had a clear idea about how the second half of this novel was going to go...now I'm considering redoing the entire structure. Do I finish it first, or do I go with the major changes? Hmm, I wish I knew I could get this published as a lite novel, cause I think the breaking point at 200ish pages makes more sense.

I'm seriously thinking of taking a few days off to unwind and just find a hole to hide in and write.

I'm going to try and expand the usage of "monkey picked" to describe something of exceptional quality.

OK, I finally got around to watching Shinigami no Ballad. Oh my god, I'm exhausted from all that crying.

And Nanoha StrikerS 24...Oh my.

Up till 4AM working. While sick. Woo.

Oh yeah, love my job...

OK, so, to top everything off...it appears I'm sick. Woo.

In my ranty post it makes it sound like there are family assets. I just meant the property my family owns, etc.

Anyway, I reread that post after calming down a bit and I realized that it sounded like I was suggesting my kid would somehow inherit vast sums of wealth. Haw.

Man, in Oklahoma again. Work has me so bummed out. I feel like my job description has completely changed from what it used to be. I gotta find a way out of this mess before I go nuts. I am firmly in the school of "work should be enjoyable." I am not feeling the love. The sad thing is the longer I sit in this job, the less chance I will have to move back into the regular game industry. Maybe I just didn't understand the scope of the project when it was started. In any case it is way more complex than was first explained to me, and I don't seem to have enough resources to complete the task. I felt like I had a handle on the prior project. This one, on the other hand, just feels like its a neverending road of "didn't you know this" and "didn't you know that?"

Oh well, time to start looking. This job is no fun, and even less so since it feels like I am just barely scraping by on my supposedly "industry average" salary. If I wasn't so stressed out over personal finances I might be inclined to stick around...but I get the feeling if I stay all I'm going to get are the non-game titles. When I thought I was actually helping teach negotiations or helping out with medical research then the job seemed worth it. Now...the negatives are not outweighting the positives.

I don't know if I can get a callback from a larger studio, however. I guess I should focus on smaller studios. Not sure I want to jump back into the publisher rat race.

Ooops. I may have done something stupid and just got slammed in another friend's blog. Mercifully its anonymous and vague, so it only makes sense to me. Hmm, I guess this is the universe's way of telling me to shut up, stop complaining and crawl under a rock. Woo?

Ugh. Women drive me crazy. On one hand I can't imagine life without them...but...somehow, they always end up driving me crazy...friends, family, strangers...its somehow all the same.

I kept thinking to myself, go out, meet new women, look for a slice of personal happiness in the world. Now, I think being a lonely hikkikomori makes more sense.

And to think for a few moments I was actually thinking...hmm, does it really make sense for the family name to go away and all of the families asets to go away when I die? Now I'm thinking...meh, who cares.

As usual, I gambled too much. Stupid Monopoly, they keep making new games. So hard to walk away. I am weak.

OK. Well, now life is really getting interesting. For the longest time it was my intent to someday break out and form my own game studio focused on anime-centric online games. Everywhere I worked, it seemed like nobody would ever take my ideas or plans seriously. Well, as it turns out, there are several well funded companies out there by big names in the industry that are making ideas that sound a lot like the powerpoint presentation I made about a year ago. I only shared those plans with a few people because I am a "nobody" in the industry.

Hmm, well after about a year of talking about it, my boss seems to be recognizing that I just might know a thing or two about the MMO market, and that a lot of things I said a year ago are slowly starting to happen (ie other people had the same idea that I did, but were in a better position to make it reality). Also, I really wish I had been at TGS this year. It looks like Japan might save itself from its own self-inflicted crisis. I saw some interesting games using cell-shading and some interesting story ideas. Focus on core competency, develop your technology when it contributes to gameplay (not just some mindless dance to see who can throw more polys to make the scene pretty...) and provide interesting narratives. I'm getting really really tired of the same game over and over again. At least there are a few companies that are pushing the narrative envelope.

With some friends help I'm slowly climbing out of debt. In a year, I'll probably be in pretty good shape, and in another year I might actually have some money so I can make things happen in my life...that gives me some hope. It makes trying to live off of $2-3 meals every day have some meaning.

Maybe, just maybe, I might actually get to do the kinds of things I want to do without having to completely run off and do everything by myself. That would be sweet, because I know I don't know enough to do everything, but I am just chomping at the bit to get a chance to do the things that I know how to do, which my current job just isn't letting me do. We shall see.

Anyway, I'm taking a short break in Vegas this weekend before heading out to Oklahoma. Off to the casino!

Work is kinda crazy as we prepare to depart for Oklahoma next week...but I thought I would take a short break. I got an email asking me to do my paper presentation...at some Mensa event sometime early next year.

Mensa huh? My IQ tested pretty high when I was a kid (I forget what genius was...hahaha)...but then again the younger you take the IQ test the better you score, IIRC. By now I'm probably negative. Hmm, no I just read that that was only the original IQ test.

Anyway, its goofy...