Ja**n M**o who now?

About time I lived up to my name here at Mega Megane Moe (lit. I like glasses a damn lot) by providing an easy-to-use compendium slash ranking of all the people with glasses that I know from modern anime. Ever wanted to watch an anime just for the cute characters with glasses, while ignoring plot, character development, or anything else useful? Now you can!

But seriously, it is a little weak point of mine, so I don’t mind doing something silly and filler-ish like this. And, to one up any other people who might also do equivalent rankings on a not-at-all consistent basis, I’ve even included a little picture of each character for reference

And that’s not all! I don’t just cover the grace of anime fanboys ever, the holy meganekko (glasses girl), but also the glasses guys for the fangirls. Or for the guys who want a self-insertion fantasy. Or, for people who just like glasses, damnit.

Note that the qualifications for these rankings are simple: one, I’ve watched the show they’re from, and two, I remember their name. This means such characters as That One Classmate From Tokimeki Memorial With The Glasses That I Think Was Cute aren’t eligible. Additionally, they have to actually wear the glasses for a reasonable span of time, or, barring that, at least indicate that they should wear glasses. Thus, I can’t slot in Mai Kawasumi, who slapped on some specs for about 5 seconds in Kanon, into these rankings.

Finally, note that these rankings reflect somewhat on my enjoyment of the character but also on their glasses-worthiness as well. That is, even if a character is ranked relatively low, that’s not to say I don’t like them; sometimes that just means that I don’t think that the glasses are important to their character. Those who embody the spirit of meganekko will gain bonus points, similarly.

That said, 7 guys, 16 girls: let’s go.
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(Un)fortunately, none of us bloggers will look like this

Well, now that Author’s linked it from his end, I might as well make an official page for it.

As mentioned before in previous posts, I am heading to Fanime, an anime convention in San Jose, Calfornia, this year in 2008. It’ll be my first time and I figured what the heck, let’s make a social-type event out of it, so we can put some faces to the flames … er … posts because I have no friends.

So I proposed a ani-blogger meeting at Fanime, and lo and behold I’ve got something resembling interest. Now you too can be trolled in person by shouta imouto lolikitsune, and be bombarded with the Kanon propaganda of…uh…me, and I imagine that Author will be there too, except you won’t see him because he’ll be on a open-air balcony somewhere sniping people.

Of course I digress and I’m just playing up the stereotypical images for fun, so, y’know, don’t kill me any more than you usually do.

But on topic here somewhere, here’s a little discussion page for any plans for a blogger meetup at Fanime. Frankly, I’m a teenager, I don’t plan things, and it’s my first time at Fanime, so it would probably just end up as a big group of people walking around the convention like any other group, except with more snarkiness and obscure references. But if there’s anything good that’s worth doing outside of the convention, like grabbing a meal (bah, food is for the weak) somewhere, let’s work something out.

Well, assuming we get a group that amounts to something. I don’t want to drag people out to Fanime just for one or two other people, especially when they’re quiet like me (at least, I hope I’m not going to turn into someone who runs around beating people with yaoi yuri paddles).

So yeah. I guess I’ll start camping on some IRC channels if anyone needs to discuss, I’m usually on #animebloggingcollective at Rizon. I suppose I should start hanging out in #animeblogger too, or wherever all the cool kids go.

-CCY

A long, long time again, in a blog post much removed from today’s, I talked a bit about how the OP of a show was something quite vital to the success of a show; maybe it was the show that made the OP, or the OP that made the show, but either way, if I liked one, I probably liked the other.

And usually the music side of not only this, but both bookends to a show, the opening and ending sequences, is focused on when reviewing these sections. It’s logical enough, given that, like many a person has learned from dating in real life, as pretty as something can look, if you can’t stand it when it opens it’s mouth, it’s a bad sign.

Unfortunately a lot of opening and ending sequences are pretty much the same as every other one in the history of the planet (or, perhaps, anime). Show a quick shot of all the characters in the show, perhaps hint at some plot spoilers to come, pan up to the sky, call it a wrap. For an action show, flash through some fight scenes; for a harem/visual-novel show, show a bunch of scenes of the heroines looking alternatively enthusiastic and pensive.

Usually, after the tenth or so iteration of the same thing over and over, it gets boring.
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“How can I praise you for something stupid like that?!? You pooped in the refrigerator? And you ate all the melonpan?”

In the end, Shakugan no Shana II was like an average NASCAR race. It sounds awesome, there’s a lot of action, fire, and people getting punted into walls, but then you realize you’ve been doing circles for a couple hours and you’re exactly where you started at the beginning.
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Been doing some news compilation over the last few days, nothing really worthy enough to deserve its own post but something I found out recently made it all worth it…apparently we might be seeing more Haruhi sooner than we think! Full story after the jump, along with some other noteworthy stories. (more…)

Ma~i.

She says ‘Pooh bear’ to glasses. Ahaha~

Mao, Chairman of the People’s Republic of Kouichi.

Mao and the Great Leap Forward into glasses land.

Tomoyo Before.

Tomoyo After. See what I did there, etc.

Hiromi, basketball player.

Hiromi, grabbing-undies-off-clothesline service gymnast.

Is this some sort of moe sandbagging or something? Hold back on some of the niche appeals, grab a person’s heart through genuine character development, and then, bam! Megane in the closing episodes of the show. Who do I have to thank for this idea?

-CCY

(I feel like I’m missing a few from recent visual novel shows, but this should be plenty disturbing.)

(Clannad and KimiKiss reviews coming up eventually…seriously…)

In case you’re new here to M3, I aspire to be the ultimate (if not a tad stereotypical) geek by not only specializing in anime but also in game programming, and so I’ve taken the liberty here with Randall’s great hosting to combine the two into a near-perfect storm of geekiness (only missing out, I suppose, by not caring about Star Trek, or something).

That is, if you haven’t seen that little Games page at the top navigation bar, and now even if you have, check it out, as it contains some of the freeware games that I’ve programmed for fun (and to avoid work) over the years.

There are two more additions to the page today, which is why it might be worth your time looking at the page again; I’ve detailed the games there (most recent additions are at the top), so I won’t waste my breath here. One of them is CUT/OFF, a commisioned game of an original game show concept - and a two hour production, and the other is the third version of a soon-to-be-franchise-like-substance, Battle Tetris #SEMI-AUTO, an update of the Tetris-with-benefits (er, attacks) game now featuring multiple modes, customization options, and all-out stuff. This was more of a two-month production.

Again, the link is here to all of my games. I hope you enjoy them. And if not, I found more Sacchin pictures. Rejoice! (They’re after the jump, for size issues.) (more…)

It’s red alert at M3 camp following the sudden revelation that all the shows I’ve been watching are ending.

With the combination of some ace 1-cour shows this season with some excellent carryover shows from the fall season, the next week or two is looking to be one giant send-off to many high-tier shows…which looks to be a recipe for a couple nights’ worth of pure anime heaven, followed by a big blank void.

I’m just zetsubou’ing because there doesn’t look to be a whole lot of interesting names in the new season of anime for spring; something that won’t stop me from eventually watching half the shows based on critical praise from around the blogosphere, but still, something that’s distressing, as in the past at least there’s been one or two big names or concepts. Fall had Clannad to leave Key fanatics like me drowning in their own drool. Winter had the combo of H2O / True Tears, two visual novel adaptations which promised to be good…and oddly enough, both were.

Here, the most interesting thing to me is a three episode OVA. (Yes, it’s Bus Gamer, pronounced “Biz Gamer” apparently as it stands for “Business Gamer”. Who came up with that one?)

My stash of backlogged material is probably what will subsist me through the next few months but as I’m still busy looking for the next (last?) big gem to add to that backlog, there’s a certain state of panic here.

One which I must say leaves me very malleable for peer pressure, so, hey, influence me. Details after the jump, along with some advertising for some of the shows I’ll miss dearly: (more…)

 
you can clean MY house anytime, if you know what I - oh, uh, is that a sword in that broom you’ve got there? I think I’ll shut up now.

The real post, as always, will probably come tommorow - if lightning strikes I might be able to do a Kaiji / KimiKiss comparison and contrast post, provided that the latter’s episode 20 is sufficently awe-inspiring as the former’s, which shouldn’t be too hard. At least, I’m good at getting worked up in a good lather of Mao hate. We shall see. Failing that, it’s one or the other, but it’s all good, because both shows have excellent points to discuss.

Until then, I’ve been tinkering around with those random text display things, so here’s some new blogs and shows for pimping. Please enjoy them and give them a fraction of the massive 100-odd hits I get every day. Hopefully Danny Choo will come along soon and tell us how many seconds it takes him to get that many. :P

(Seriously, I’m happy with triple digits, although I wonder why the old Eternity blog still gets more hits than M3.)

Blogs added to the rotation:

• Borderline Hikikomori, because they post a lot, because I like the word ‘hikikomori’ after Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Kiri~), and because they make me feel good that I’m not the only one to watch KGNE / Rumbling Hearts recently. OK, the first one, really.
• Minimum Tempo, because it looks really professional and the articles are a good mix of snarky and smart.
• Anime Academy, because it does what it says on the tin and has academically apt articles about awesome anime. (Alliteration = awesome.)
• The Scrumptious Anime Blog, because KimiKiss. Also, DNAngel. Tokyo Marble Chocolate. etc. Somehow I miss all the really incredibly sappy romantic romances in most of the visual-novel / harem I watch these days.
• The Pink Sylphide, because I didn’t know that many releases of Cardcaptor Sakura existed, much less that some of them were $900 for a full set. Still cheaper per episode than certain controversial pricing schemes, but, wow.
• Gaijin Smash (which yes, I just heard of), because nothing cures Japanophilia better than stories about getting stabbed in the ass by Japanese schoolkids. Although, it does do wonders for splitting your sides.

Series added to the rotation:

• Kimi ga Nozomu Eien / Rumbling Hearts. Through episode 5 so far and probably won’t post about it until series conclusion, but it’s sure…interesting. School Days lite (I say lite so far, ha) for sure, the time-jumps are all sorts of mixes of messed up and intriguing, and it’s far too much fun trying to explain this show in brief to others, using the terms of Haruka’s sister. “Well, first he hooked up with the first girl and ate her, and then she got liquified by a car and the other girl went to him and asked him to eat her and then they did and then time paradox and … “
• Tokyo Marble Chocolate, which is probably getting done a disservice by not getting posted about by me. Personally, while it wasn’t godly awesome like Owen and usagijen claimed, it was very touching and a bit tear-inducing; all manners of emotion in short, and that’s what I like about an anime, when it can invoke that sort of thing. I think this show will resonate very differently depending on whether one has actually been in any form of relationship or really, truly longed for one. Being on the other side of the divide, that might be why this didn’t quite hit home as well as it could have.
• Soon, True Tears will be added as well. I haven’t really come up with a way to sum it yet, because it really sort of is typical visual novel stuff, and there’s not a lot that can describe how it stands out. But it doesn’t have that “been there, done that” feel when you look at the characters. It’s strange, but I like it. There’s lots of possibilities for directions it could head, and as Stripey mentioned it’s incredibly hard to get into the head of the characters clearly, something I enjoy.

Also, you’ll notice a new Tiers page at the top of the navigation bar in the banner. This is code for “random page where I dump my list of favorite characters”, since those seem to be common along blogs and I need more space for Sacchin Shiori Sakura Nagato fanboying. It’s getting completed as this update goes live, so if it’s not fleshed-out yet, check later. I hope to make it a bit different by adding some flavor text to the list itself. Oh, and if you’re wondering “why tiers?” it’s because 1) I tend to rank things in groups instead of in absolute 1st, 2nd, 3rd order and 2) I want to make a True Tiers joke.

And, since it’s obligatory for me to make an excuse as to why I’m not posting as much, blame computer science. Wheeeeee cheap fan games~ (P.S. Mikoto, I’m working on your issue for Battle Tetris, will post when it is resolved)

-CCY

Admittedly, it’s gotten harder to write after taking nearly a week off. But luckily, the lack of posting doesn’t mean that we (and by we I mean me) at M3 have stopped trying to bring you the best and most interesting (and by ‘best and most interesting’ we mean ‘most related to Yuki Nagato Satsuki Yumizuka Shiori Misaka’) in anime-related happenings.

As you may recall I mentioned in my last filler post that I was heading down to Anime On Display (a.k.a Anime Overdose) in San Francisco, which was an entertaining if not a small and brief one - I imagine that would describe a lot of anime series I enjoy as well - and now I find myself exceedingly far away on the other side of California in Los Angeles, checking out with family the Happiest Place on Earth (and by that ‘happiest place on earth’ I mean ‘exploring all the Japanese bookstores around Disneyland that I love so much’).

You would be correct in imagining that this doesn’t really help in terms of making time for posting, and so it’s another filler post served up for today, but you know what they say; better something than nothing. As long as the medium in question doesn’t have a finite length of content, at least.

Luckily my extremely disturbingly large - but always worksafe - image folder is definitely not finite, as once again I’ve taken it upon myself to cull a ridiculous amount of images from AnimeSuki and Danbooru into a image pack, this time for Kanon in a 23 MB bundle of both old and new images. Posts will happen when it happens - I’m going to have to take KimiKiss 19 into account for my next harem ranting post now.

Sporadically-updating blogs still turn out well (was going to wank some blogs here but couldn’t find enough; so just smile and nod if you post on a semi-rare basis), so no worries, since the track will be gotten back on before you know it. Cheers until then.

-CCY

(Also in terms of anime happenings, finally starting Ever17, continuing to swear at KimiNozo, trying out the To-LOVE-Ru manga, still trying to get around to comment on all the Valentine’s Day stuff - especially Tokyo Marble Chocolate.

Final note - picked up a $4 Megami magazine, and one of the Code-E DVDs ranked in right next to Clannad - above Lucky Star - in terms of sales. Unless I’m reading random names with numbers next to them wrong, this means that it was a hell of a lot more popular over there than it was over here. I’m impressed - now just to wait for the airdate for season two…)