JB0

It's subtle, but Kyon's really become a much more active persion since the beginning of the story. Certainly some of it is just that he gets to hang around Mikuru every day, but... The "current" Kyon probably wouldn't give that horrible waste of breath he called a speech that inspired Haruhi to create the SOS Brigade. I think he might even find it offensive(I know I did, and I really hated Kyon's character for a while because of it). Especially since he now knows a plain old ordinary boring person IS changing the world. Hell, he's even saved it from total annihilation a time or two. It kind of undermines the entire premise of that little speech. I wonder that too, actually. Watch them do it someday. And it'll just be "Meanwhile, Kyon(younger) ate dinner. It was take-out. He then went to bed." Well... Being Haruhi's foil makes him a "person of interest" by default. Hence why the Brigade members revealed themselves to Kyon in the first place. He's also someone who needs protection, as the Ryoko incident demonstrated. Given the factions represented in the Brigade would rather NOT see a repeat of Three Years Ago, it's in their interests to look out for Kyon . He's also a convenient common ground. The various factions aren't really working towards the same goal. So Mikiru, Koizumi, and Yuki are limited in what they can do with each other business-wise, even if all three are there merely to observe. But Kyon is neutral, so they have a bit more liberty to work together with him. Mysterique Sign is a good example. Sans Kyon, Yuki just deals with the situation on her own(as she probably has several times before). Add Kyon and it becomes a Brigade activity, with everyone but Haruhi taking part in the monster hunt. The way I understood it, As of Disappearance

Not likely. She reacts to events, she doesn't instigate them. The Compuer Research Society really IS that obsessed with the SOS Brigade. Remember, the president is the person other than Haruhi that visists the Brigade website(while Mysterique Sign could've been a linkspam fluke, he accidentally admits to it in Sagittarius). They established early on that she's got that cliche "really good at everything" thing going for her. Perhaps because she is The Suzumiya. That which she wishes to enjoy, she is capable of. ... Though she's not really a good pitcher. She only knows the fastball. Maybe helping people gives her a sense that she matters. Remember, Three Years Ago happened because she realized her life was meaningless(which is probably why she dumped such an ugly look on Kyon after his "inspirational" speech early on, since he basically told her to just embrace her meaningless existence in the world's background). I still find the Haruhi and Kyon contrast interesting, really. They both approach the same issue from opposite directions. Haruhi realized her insignificance and started doing everything she could to stand out. Not just subconsciously remaking the world, but consciously altering her behavior to be more ... well, weird. Kyon realized his insignificance and more or less quit caring. He started shuffling along with no real goal or motivation. Of course... When you consider that Kyon's living his dreams and having wild adventures every day, and Haruhi is completely ignorant of the amazing things happening all around her as well as the fact that she rules over an alien, an esper, a time traveller, and a Kyon... It makes you wonder if Haruhi's REALLY the one with the super powers... (She almost certainly is, but it's fun to poke at alternate takes on events)

Because the castle isn't really a castle in the strictest sense. It's a mystical WTF that reappears whenever Dracula comes back/is about to come back. Nathan Graves in Circle of the Moon isn't a Belmont or Morris. Yet he gets the Vampire Killer. It's probably safe to assume he's from an offshoot of the Belmont family and has the blood of the Belmonts, though. (I'd actually always assumed John Morris from Bloodlines was a Belmont relative)

They need to remake Hercules in New York.

Mikuru's mole is important. And not just because it's on her breast. Kyon's mole... isn't. I don't believe it was even mentioned in the print stories, so unless the anime starts making lots of stuff up, there's no significance whatsoever to the mole. Lone Island Syndrome also diverges a bit from the print version, for what it's worth. I plowed through all the (then-completed) Baka-Tsuki novel translations shortly after discovering the anime. And started checking back every month or so to see if they'd gotten further. Now I get to curse the lack of new material to translate instead of the lack of translations. And book 1 is on US shelves now. Both in a standard paperback release AND a deluxe limited-edition super-extreme hardcover edition with the original J cover art.

See, here's the thing.... Shadow Chronicles WASN'T that lucractive. Both DVDs were horrible shelfwarmers. The BluRay release I can't really speak to, as I don't look at the BR sections much, what with not owning a BR player. I don't really expect it to move much better. That's about all I really have to say on the issue. I haven't watched Shadow Chronicles.

I'm sure Our Lady Suzumiya can find us a loophole to exploit. She probably gets along really well with the Hory Froating Head. ... Crap in a hat. Some part of my brain just decided that Kawamori's disembodied cranium is what the Integrated Data Sentient Entity Or Whatever The Heck Yuki Called Her Boss looks like. I blame all of you for this.

So it's ten minutes of an empty room? Honestly, I'd like it a lot more without the big gaps of "absolutely nothing is happening." But as-is, the pacing is wonky as hell. The ending of that one IS one of my favorites, along with Live Alive's. You don't get to see Haruhi's "softer side" very often. IKKIMAS! Or not! Or maybe not... Day of Sagitarrius has the preview for Live Alive(in the original broadcast order). "LISTEN TO MY SONG!" "Huh? BOMBA!"

That's what everyone wanted in 1984? Okay, I grant more Minmay songs. I reiterate: The story HAD an ending. It had TWO endings, even. The post-war arc is almost painful with it's re-opening of the love triangle. (I love the fact that the show actually deals with the ramifications of the end of the world, but the core love triangle makes me cringe.) Throw in DYRL's alternate version and there's THREE endings. The original cast's story is over. All we'll get out of revisiting them is a bunch of Minmay fans whining about how Hikaru needs to break it off with Misa. ... Or worse yet, he WILL break it off with Misa and start the triangle all over again.

It could easily be that the noise is in the original masters. I don't have a copy of the CD to check, but it wouldn't surprise me. I know a lot of early CDs that were re-releases of older albums had a note on the back informing people that CDs were so good they brought out flaws in the original recording/apologizing for background noise they could do nothing about at the time.

Much happier. A thousand thanks.

Given a full ten minutes of it is Yuki sitting in a corner reading a book... I mean, I love Yuki, but... she can't carry a scene by herself. Especially not alone.

Making of should be a core arc, like Melancholy was. If Disappearance fills that role this season... awww, they can do two core arcs. Please no.... Someday in the Rain was largely worthless. Still just two of those? Hell, the series' premiere episode was Adventures of Mikuru Asahina. I think hilarious and nonsensical is actually REQUIRED. Give in to your fanboy. You know you want to. Yuki stories are always good! I'd actually like to see Endless Eight done. Personal whim. I'm not sure it would convert well to animation, though. So much of it is conveyed in Kyon's impressions, which don't always make it to the anime totally intact, occasionally with awkward results. (Mysterique sign. Random liquid helium line, goooo! I'm still not sure why they kept that line in, other than Kyon was too quiet.) Melancholy V had a similar problem. The pure sterility of is a hard thing to illustrate, especially with the limits of animation reducing the contrast with . Most of Kyon's impressions are cut, presumably, for time. So it winds up being somewhat underwhelming. Especially when (Sanitized to protect Lady Suzumiya's newest acolyte from spoilage.) I can see Endless Eight suffering from similar issues. I'm still torn on Day of Sagitarrius. Animating everyone IN the game was priceless, but the climax was so much more impressive in text, though I can see where simplifying it made for better animation . Last quibble, and one I can't figure out why it happened... In Melancholy III you can clearly see Kyon parking by the no parking signs. They even take time to focus on it as Kyon rides up. In the book it's left ambiguous. Kyon never saw the sign when he was parking, obviously. Maaaybe he was in a rush and just missed the sign. Seems odd to add that focus on the signage to me. It changes the general tone of that sequence, given Kyon is learning about the events of Three Years Ago and what kind of person Haruhi is at that point. ... Man, I have an urge to reread everything now. GIMME BOOK TEN!!!

Given they're quoting some of Nintendo's "DS is a third pillar" statements VERBATIM... But then. the DS was new hardware. PSPGo isn't.

Wasn't a port. Was a remake. Yes, I am anal and nitpick those terms. And either way, you don't mention the SNES. HISTORY DEMANDS ACCURACY!1111

Because this week was Mysterique Sign, not a new episode.

I had to wait days between episodes. "Let's see, the fansubs hit about this time last week... REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH REFRESH!"

How can you leave the original Star Ocean out of your list? Star Ocean (Super Famicom, why the crap didn't it come to America? Oh well, that's what ROM hackers are for.)

Welcome to the Holy Order of Suzumiya. Here is your Ultra-Fan armband. And remember, you must never let The Suzumiya learn of her gift. Or become bored. Also, if they animate Sighs of Suzumiya Haruhi, the movie will become even more hilarious. Sighs is the "making of" story. And a lot of the random nonsense, like Yuki's ad-lipped leap attack after the Mikuru Beam, are immensely more amusing. You might notice that the light reflector(that piece of cardboard Koizumi's stuck holding up in several scenes) is taped together when he wanders in-frame for later scenes. There's a reason.

Of course it only has one analog stick. It's a PSP with no disk drive. Not a PSP2. Anyways... I never really saw much use for a second analog stick in a most situations. Yes, it's good for some things, but it's also one of the first controls I'd scrap if I were trying to free up some space(Really, I'd scrap BOTH analog sticks, but Sony didn't ask me).

I liked the Robotech novels... but not End of the Circle. That one was awfulawful. Ahhh, 2036.

It's probably not as badly-formatted as you think. The show as a whole is 16:9. Most, but not all, of episode 1 was 4:3. So it's pillarboxed by design. In a 4:3 display, it's both letterboxed AND pillarboxed! This caused almost as much confusion when I first watched the show(fullscreened on a CRT monitor) as the episode itself did. Though at least the black frame made sense by the time the episode was over. It was another two episodes before I understood the rest of the premiere. If you mean it was riddled with compression artifacts... okay, now we can blame YouTube. If you mean it was horribly edited... blame the ultra director. But it's noy my fault if The Suzumiya takes issue with your critiques.

*looks at PSOne Classics* I'm sure there's going to be a way to convert your existing disks for use on the PSP. No way they'd charge you again for the same game. PSP Go is about as inspiring to me as the GameBoy Micro was.

Heh. I think Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody with no subs might actually be a better introduction to the series than The Adventures of Mikuru Asahina. MIGHT.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Doubly so for the Robotech version.