Pete reminds me that I haven’t recently expressed appreciation for the talents of Haruka Tomatsu, who caught my attention not for her voice-acting in the popular anime series Kannagi, but for her insane cuteness (or cute insanity) in the music video for the OP.

Then I saw the ED…

Sadly, some of the songs she’s recorded for other series aren’t as good as either of the Kannagi songs, but they seem to sell well, and her pretty-seiyuu singing group Sphere seems to be successful. She makes a darn nice bikini model, too.

[side note: the embedded video neatly demonstrates why most fansub “typographers”/“typesetters” should be bound with duct tape, sealed in a barrel, and dropped off a cliff. The whole point of supplying karaoke-style romanized lyrics is so that someone can sight-read them to learn the words. Gratuitous animation (bounce! bounce!) significantly reduces readability. Use a crisp clean font, with good contrast and the entire phrase displayed at once, and save the special effects for your MySpace site.]

Live-action adaptation of Noir in the works. I have mixed feelings about this, but as long as they don’t use that damn song, I’ll give it a shot.

Just spotted on Amazon: Kaleido Star: Season Two with Bonus OVA

Nice to see a box set with the OVA, but that’s not the fun part. This is:

Frequently bought with…

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Stumbling across this screencap from the current Strike Witches 2 episode, I found it curiously Kino-esque.

One wonders if her legs talk.

My friend Dan is a member of the 501st. No, not that one (fortunately); the other one. It occurred to me, though, that there’s a cosplay opportunity here. Crossing the streams, as it were.

I’m not the first to think of it, although the execution leaves a bit to be desired…

Next time, please start with a femtrooper, preferably one built along the lines of Lynette Bishop or Shirley Yeager…

1. Hire a live-in maid/cook/combat android.
2. Hide porn in your bedroom.

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You don’t see a lot of this in Japan: thinpack re-releases of anime series at a less-than-rapacious price. Usually you have to buy the N-year-old DVDs at their original insane price with little or no discount, unless you have a reshipping service to handle used-goods dealers who don’t ship internationally.

I guess that Mahoromatic is still a hot property, because both seasons are getting “limited edition” thin-packs, released a month apart for ¥5400 each (1, 2).

(ah, turns out there was an earlier box set for about twice this price, and a recent Blu-ray set for about three times this price)

Speaking of One Piece, here’s a picture of a well-stacked Nami, courtesy of Mari Yaguchi’s blog (Mari sings the current OP for the series):

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