LokiGaming.com Anime, Video Games, Awesome

So after watching Cromartie High School the anime series, I wanted more. So I began googling for more. Along the way I saw that no one owned CromartieHighSchool.com and I thought that was weird. So since I’m a fan I went ahead and started a fan site there.

At the moment I have not done too much with it. I’m pretty busy. I considered putting up character profiles and such but all of that is available already on wikipedia.

I’d really like to find some unusual collectibles for Cromartie and share the pictures on the website. Anyone got some cool Cromartie High swag?

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So for the past few months I’ve been selling pencil bags with characters from Axis Powers Hetalia, a webcomic and anime series. I have not actually watched any of the episodes yet but wikipedia describes it as: “an allegorical interpretation of political and historic events, particularly of the World War II era, in which the various countries are represented by anthropomorphic characters.”

The pencil bags I’ve been selling are designed to look like envelopes with each country’s flag as a stamp. The characters from the show are also on each bag. Some have sold much faster than others and I thought I would share my list here to see how it compares to those who’ve seen the show and have their own favorite characters.

Here is the list starting with most popular:

England/United Kingdom (this guy is by far the most popular)
Canada
Austria
America/USA
Italy
Norway
Germany
Japan
Sweden
Finland
Switzerland
Poland
China
Cuba

Don’t ask me what makes Cuba and China so unpopular. Perhaps they are not mentioned much on the show. Then again, these 14 must all have fans in their own right if they were the ones chosen to be on bags. Also, the most requested country which I do not have a bag of is Russia. I also had some phone straps and keychains with Hetalia characters as well. So far I am having trouble finding other Axis Powers Hetalia collectibles but I am trying.

I hear there is a movie now too so I definitely need to get started watching this show.

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I just finished watching Sakigake! Cromartie High School. It was an amusing anime. It was a shame that there were only 26 episodes made. Especially since the episodes were less than 12 minutes each including the intro and ending songs.

Some of the jokes were dumb but others really had me laughing hard. For favorite character, I am torn between Takenouchi Yutaka and Mekazawa Shinichi. Much of the plot and the humor is absurd, so you have to suspend belief in reality to really appreciate the show. Of course that probably goes without saying if you are aware that one of the students is a gorilla and the other a robot.

I’ve got a Mechazawa plush toy available in my eBay store and he’s pretty sweet looking. My only beef is that they gave him his second button and on the series, he’s missing that button.

I also want to mention that I watched the show with English dubbing. I will very rarely do this because most of the time the voice actors are disappointing and the dialog is sometimes changed entirely. In the case of Cromartie High School, I found the voice actors did a fine job and the dialog was pretty close to the subtitles.

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Are you going to HHN at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida this year?

Want to know where everything is? Well I’ve got picture of the event map up for your viewing pleasure:

Click here to view

I also sell the maps on eBay if you are a collector. I don’t recommend buying these if you are planning to go at a later date this year because the times may be different for shows. Though the houses and scare zones never move.

I went to HHN last night and the houses were fun as always. I was disappointed with the Bill & Ted show. 2007 and 2009 sucked, 2006 and 2008 were great. So I assumed 2010 would be awesome. I was wrong. I’m stunned that Avatar was not even hinted at! I was glad to see a certain someone return to the show. Sorry, I won’t spoil it by saying who.

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I just finished watching densha otoko. The imdb summary says:

The supposedly true story of a 23-year-old otaku (Japanese geek) who intervenes when a drunk man is harassing several women on a train. The otaku ultimately begins dating one of the women, and posts on a website asking for advice every step of the way.

I’d say that’s a very accurate description of the movie. I really enjoyed this movie but let me say that I didn’t think it was the end of all romance movies or anything like that. For nerd romance though, it did well. From the gaijin point-of-view, it gave me more insight into the Japanese culture. I was excited to recognize the Gundam figures. At one point it looks like train_man drops either a Meer or Lacus figure (I’m not sure which) on the ground.

Don’t expect too much mention of anime, manga or games. They take a backseat to the story itself. Our train_man and his love interest, nicknamed “Hermes” after a gift she gives him early in the movie, are aided by some amusing characters on the internet. I had suspected that train_man was posting on 2ch (the inspiration for 4chan). Wikipedia confirmed that the “true story” originated on 2ch.net.

What really interested me most was the lack of griefers. Those people who came to train_man’s aid were genuinely trying to help. I just cannot believe that no one came along and gave bad advice on purpose, pretending to be Hermes or some attempted to antagonize train_man in some way. Perhaps that is how it really happened but that was left out of the movie to keep us focused on the main plot of the story. Either that, or 2ch is predominantly full of decent people and Rickrolls are non-existent.

I also understand that there is a T.V. show based on the story as well. I’m not sure I will bother as I’m sure they will just drag out the 100-minute movie into 10-13 episodes. I definitely recommend the movie though.

Another interesting fact is the tea company mentioned in the movie, Benoist, is NOT the only tea company to hold a set of three Royal Warrants. According to wikipedia, “a search of the Royal Warrant Holders Association website reveals this to actually be true of R. Twining & Co.” Even so, Benoist found their sales tripled after the release of the movie. That is some powerful marketing!

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I thought the merchant selection sucked this year. I don’t know if it was just in my head but it didn’t seem like there were as many selling. Even in the artists area, last year they were set up on both sides while this year they were only on one side. The vendors that were set up this year did have some good stuff. There just was not enough vendors for my taste.

I did get to stay for two days (Friday and Saturday). The anime chessboard was entertaining but the audio sucked if you were sitting back in the bleechers. Myself and at least a dozen others around me were all like “what did Mitsurugi just say?” and forget trying to understand anything that was being said when they had the characters on screens like Auron and Belldandy. Naruto was hilarious and what happened to him at the end…well I understood the standing ovation.

Later I was watching some of the AMVs for the awards shows. This time I sat closer so that I could hear. Unfortunately, those screens they used were washed or something as the pictures were faint. There was a third screen above and some people laid beneath it, I guess to see the clear picture. I thought the Golden Girls / Lucky Star skit was hilarious.

For the anime costume contest, I think they should have renamed it as a talent show. From what I could tell, the costumes took a back seat to performance. I was very entertained by the skits though. I didn’t stay to see who won the awards but I think one of the Vocaloid boys was carrying around a Nintendo Wii box later so I guess they won. Cool prize.

Cosplayers in the halls were awesome. I got some pictures, check them out here. I didn’t identify everyone though I knew who most of the people were supposed to be. There were quite a few cosplayers as Yoko from Gurren Lagann and Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid. The only costumes coming close in number were probably the Sebastian and Ciel cosplay couples. I was very excited to see Terra from Final Fantasy 6 (3). There was a Gogo at Megacon earlier this year. I’m hoping to get a picture of every character. Also, special thanks to the cosplayer of Yomi from Black?Rock Shooter. I didn’t know who she was and I broke taboo by inquiring. I had to though, because I’d been seeing pictures of that character in different places so I wanted to know the name of the show so I could check it out.

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Starcraft II Wings of Liberty is available to purchase! As a way to commemorate this wonderful event, I am putting my StarCraft figures on sale. I do not have very many left.

***Edit*** According to Slickdeals.net, if you buy a copy of StarCraft II from K-mart, you’ll receive a $20 gift card good on any future game purchase. Good only at in store purchases. This is something K-mart is only doing until 7/31/10 so get it fast if you don’t already have a copy of the game.

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I’m not going to say Ina Steiner is full of crap, that would be unfair. According to the charts posted on her AB blog, eBay has been losing rank for unique visitor traffic in the U.S.A. She says Amazon is receiving more traffic and that Craig’s List (a company partially owned by eBay) is on track to surpass eBay as well.

Somehow she neglects to mention that on the global scale, eBay is still dominating both Amazon and Craig’s List (80 million vs 67 million and 59 million). eBay is actually growing and leaving Amazon and Craig’s List behind. In the last month CL actually went down 1.52%. Have a look at the chart below:

[click to enlarge]

In the 21st century, global is much more relevant than national. To be fair, both Ina’s chart and the chart I took from Compete.com mean very little. The money is made from conversion of traffic, not from how many people click a link and then close it without buying anything. I’m not even sure why CL gets mentioned. People go there looking to find prostitutes or haggle for their neighbor’s lawnmower.

I would love to learn how many of eBay’s 80 million visitors actually made purchases. The same with Amazon’s 67 million. I would love to compare the percent of buyers versus bouncers. I’d love to look at the percentage of return visitors.

Source of my comparison chart

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What is Japanese Suspense?

It’s that unimaginative vagueness you’ll see in anime, dorama and movies from Japan. The most common will usually be two people commenting about a third person. They will say something along the lines of, “Doesn’t he remind you of that person?” They say “that person” to hold you in suspense because if they revealed “that person”‘s name to you at that stage of the movie, you would have a heart attack and die. Other times you’ll be watching an action scene and one character will suggest a secret move/technique and it will be referred to as “that technique.” For example: “Ryu, you’re getting your but kicked by Sakura! I think it’s time you unleash your TRUE power and use ‘that technique’ on her.” Once again, if you were to know the name of “that technique” 5 minutes before they reveal the name (you can be sure the user will give the name before or during use) you would die!

“That place” and “that time” are also frequently used. I love it! I certainly don’t want to die from the SHOKKU! Of having that whatever revealed to me too early…

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Ok here is a list of knights you may or may not have heard of. If I’m missing any, please let me know!

Sir Amic, the potter.
Sir Aphim, the winged knight
Sir Atonin, the sleepy knight
Sir Bia
Sir Culate
Sir Culonimbus, his head is always in the clouds.
Sir Cuss, the foul mouthed knight.
Sir Chengine
Sir Chparty
Sir Chandestroy
Sir Culate
Sir Culonimbus, his head is always in the clouds.
Sir Cut
Sir Cumstance
Sir Cumference
Sir Cumnavigate
Sir Cumvent
Sir Cumscision
Sir Cool
Sir Cular
Sir Cull
Sir Clet
Sir Cough-a-gus
Sir Ebral
Sir Ebro, knight of the X-men
Sir En
Sir Face, the handsome good guy
Sir Fuss
Sir F, who was about to swear but I stopped him.
Sir Fur who is the arch nemesis of PETA.
Sir Gin, the alcoholic medical knight.
Sir Iname
Sir Inge, he always gets straight to the point.
Sir Iously
Sir Je (surge)
Sir Jickle
Sir Jury, Sometimes I ache after I am around Sir Jury. His Greek name is Sir Juries.
Sir Kiss
Sir Kit
Sir Kuljerk
Sir Lee
Sir Loin
Sir Mise
Sir Mounted, not to be confused with Sir Mount who lives in Sir Mountable
Sir Mun
Sir Name
Sir O, one of the Spanish knights.
Sir Plus, the math teacher
Sir Pass, received an “A” in Sir Plus’s advanced class
Sir Past, I just saw him yesterday.
Sir Prize
Sir Pent, the repressed knight.
Sir Pentine
Sir Row, another Spanish knight born on a hill
Sir Rogate
Sir Round
Sir Renity
Sir Rendipitous
Sir Rious
Sir Real
Sir Riff
Sir Rus
Sir Ria
Sir Render
Sir Reen
Sir Rated (met him at the movies, he is edgy!)
Sir S. Business is an internet knight who does not joke around!
Sir Tain or in China he’s known as Sir Tain Lee
Sir Tificate
Sir Tified
Sir Ts, who’s breath is always the most fragrant.
Sir Up, never sleeps.
Sir Vant who always aims to please.
Sir Vent who will rant to any who’ll listen.
Sir Vint
Sir Vir
Sir Ver
Sir Vix
Sir Viss
Sir Vive
Sir Vivor
Sir Vontace
Sir Vey, oy!
Sir Xes
Sir Yessir, the knight in training

That’s 80 so far.

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