Former AKB48 member Natsumi Hirajima (平嶋夏海) debuted at age 13, but I’d never heard of her until she was all grown up. Now 24, and quite easy on the eyes.

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Steven Den Beste liked harem comedies, but it wasn’t enough for the girls to be gorgeous; the story had to go somewhere, and the boy in the middle had to “get a grip”. Asobi Ni Iku Yo! hit all his buttons, and while his full review is currently offline, you can still read his many blog entries about the show, including the storytelling, and one of his more whimsical speculations.

And then there’s his favorite episode, which includes this sad little song:

[Update: it appears that you only get the translated subtitles if you click through to view it on Youtube]

Over the past few years, my email exchanges with Steven Den Beste dropped off, to the point that the only time he wrote this year was to tell me the comments were broken on my blog. As with most of his online friends, most of our interaction was in blog comments, here, there, and elsewhere.

The last long email I received from him was in March, 2012, and it was a technical question about photography. He’d come across some pictures and couldn’t figure out how the photographer was pulling off the trick focus.

In his typical way, he explained precisely what the effect was and how it would be accomplished with view camera movements, but he couldn’t figure out how someone had done it with a live model in a public place, as part of an otherwise unexceptional glamour shoot. Surely he hadn’t set up a heavy camera and tripod and gotten the naked girl to hold still while he painstakingly tilted the focus plane.

In answer, I sent him a link to Lensbaby, a product he hadn’t heard of.

I don’t think I still have those (NSFW) photos, but here’s something I was saving for a cheer-up-Steven day: the ultimate anime cheesecake figure.

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It is reported that Steven Den Beste has passed away. No further details at the moment.

There’s a hole in the Web where there used to be a friend.

[Update: I was saving this picture for a slow day when I wanted something that would amuse Steven. There will be memorial cheesecake later, but meanwhile…]

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Tokimune does not rhyme with “Sailor Moon”. I’m sorry that the people who hired you for the Civilization 6 voiceovers didn’t provide a pronunciation guide for all the foreign words and names.

I wouldn’t mind so much, except that the load time is just long enough that I have to hear “tokimoon” every time I start the game.

I love the “exotic Japanese martial arts” vibe from this Sixties movie poster.

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