First, the important issue at hand: the Anime Blogger community is holding a donation drive to help keep the server afloat! The goal is currently set at $1,600USD, which would cover three months of hosting; at the time of this post, we are currently at $994.57USD - we’re almost there! Click *here* to donate!

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Secondly, yes, I’ve once again been MIA. The undergraduate classes that I’ve been taking for the past year and a half have been particularly brutal on my free time. So what has been happening since my last post? I’ve been keeping up with Spice and Wolf, Clannad and Mobile Suit Gundam: 00, although I can’t say I enjoyed Clannad too much past the Tomoyo arc. Spice and Wolf is a unique anime series (The merchant aspect of the series is; the overly cute chibi-esque girls isn’t) that I found to be a good change of pace from what I usually watch. Gundam 00 felt awkward at first, probably because of the exposure that I have to the CE era of Gundam SEED. It’s a good change from the constantly re-used rainbow-beam spamming scenes that incorporated 90% of Gundam SEED and Destiny’s battles - it’s definitely one of my favorites for 2008 thus far and Lockon’s fight with Ali in episode 23 stirred something within me that was present during Kamina’s (GGL: EP#9) and Archer’s (FS/N: EP#14) final fight scenes. Looks like Gundam has added a new GAR-level character to its rosters (Mwu from SEED had his status revoked thanks to a certain director’s terrible decision making during GSD).

As for the spring season series, I’m currently watching Macross and Code Geass. Macross: Frontier had an impressive launch and is something that I am definitely adding to my watch list, although the animation quality seems to have dropped off a bit after episode 2. Code Geass R2, which replaced Gundam 00’s timeslot (Sunrise likely didn’t want competition between their two hit mecha series), shot off its first episode of the season alongside Macross. I’m sure most people have already heard of CG - it’s a huge hit and its R2 was literally hyped to death. I looked a bit into Vampire Knight and Nabari no Ou, but I can’t say I’m too interested in either one. I swear, Code Geass sucks me in and makes me completely uninterested in other anime series - Sunrise is on a roll: first Gundam 00, now this. It’s been another great year so far for the world of anime - although it would be even better if the second season of Haruhi would actually kick off. I’m also hoping that the Kara no Kyokai DVDs become available by the end of the 2008.

Character and Move list for the arcade game, Fate Unlimited/codes - Dark Sakura is missing so I’m assuming that she’s either an unlockable character and/or one of the final bosses.

Gaming-wise, mirror moon has finished and released the translated Unlimited Blade Works route for the Fate Stay/Night visual novel! As if this wasn’t good enough news for Type-Moon fans, mirror moon has also included an option to install full voice acting into your game provided that you own a copy of the Playstation 2 Realta Nua DVD. In addition, Fate/unlimited codes has been floating around for some time now and I’m really looking forward to it being ported in the near future. Trailers ↓:

EDIT: Apparently the cast from Gundam 00 has been unlocked in Bandai’s latest arcade game “Gundam vs. Gundam“. The picture depicts all four of the main Gundam suits, but I’d be pleasantly surprised if Dynames, Kyrios, or Virtue were playable; there seems to be an interesting “backup” attack that involves cut scene-ish special attacks with a suit corresponding to what mobile suit you choose (e.g. Impulse Gundam uses Saviour Gundam). Now I just have to play the waiting game for it be ported console-side since there are no arcades nearby that actually have it /sadface.

Also, has anyone heard of what happened to the “in production” Gundam SEED movie that was announced a good two years ago? It’s extremely odd that there has been no news or updates of it after such a long time; I’m beginning to think if Sunrise was playing a joke on us.

Oh, and to make this post even moar completely random: Warhammer 40k Biel-tan Eldar Farseer art - do want.