Angel's Anime Rating Guide

Movie List Table Structure This is a quite a bit off-topic and possibly more than a little boring for some people, but, I felt like sharing, so, get over it. I've been collecting movies for many years and managed to amass over 4000 DVDs. As detailed in my post on the Ultimate Otaku Fall Cleanup , I used to have over 2000 VHS tapes. For many years, I kept a spreadsheet with the various titles in my collection. Way back in the misty dawn of time, I produced printed books with a list of movies, but, after the movie list began to exceed 200 pages of printed text, I moved to presenting the list in electronic format using e-readers like Kindle . With e-readers, lists of boring text proved to be ideal as the early generations of e-readers did not really appreciate being asked to render lots of pretty pages with pictures and text. Eventually, the simple spreadsheet that held my movie list became a bit too unwieldy, so, I migrated the movie list to an Access database. This had immed

Blood Marble Sphere This is one of my classic Blood Marble spheres on a Blood Sky floor rendered using POV-Ray 3.6. Since the last post, where I detailed my First Year With The Contempo Template , there have been some additional changes to the Anime Rating Guide . The Wallpaper Page received a makeover including new wallpapers and some CSS animation effects thanks to a page on Cool Image Captions with CSS3 by Thoriq Firdaus . The thumbnail images expand and the descriptions drop down over the thumbnails allowing visitors to read the descriptions (or not), but, still see most of the thumbnail images. Along with the new CSS animations, the page layout was changed to display the wallpapers in multiple columns. Likewise, the Anime List Page received some attention including zebra stripes and a touch of color. Under the hood, the section titles now hide themselves for small screens. I had been using an existing image substitution gadget to swap images on-the-fly for the rat

In a break from my tradition of collecting anime on archival media, I waded back into anime streaming, to watch Frame Arms Girl ... When Ao found the package on her doorstep, she thought it was a present from her father, but inside the box was something truly unexpected: Gourai! A Frame Arms Girl, Gourai is a walking, talking, miniature artificial person with the intelligence of a ten-year-old human and a selection of snap-on weapons and armor. And the reason Gourai needs armor quickly becomes clear as two more Frame Arms Girls, Stylet and Baselard, arrive intent on testing Gourai's combat capabilities! It seems that Ao has been chosen to help test a new toy line and the good news is that she'll get paid for hosting her diminutive charges' battles! Of course, since they're mainly interested in fighting and gathering information, things are going to get awkward when they follow her to school.  According to Anime News Network ... Kotobukiya's Frame Arms models

I really like grumpy old men in anime, so, naturally, Alice and Zoroku had to come home with me... On the run from the research facility that imprisoned her, a little girl named Sana finds herself living with a stern but caring old man named Zoroku. With the abilities to teleport and summon anything she can imagine, Sana has some difficulty integrating into society. Will Sana learn to live a normal life, or is the Wonderland she created the only haven she can depend on?  Alice and Zoroku  starts with Sana's escape from a secret facility. After a fortunate encounter with a mysterious stranger, Sana crosses paths with Zoroku, a grumpy old man with a penchant for doing the right thing. After a wild game of tag involving Sana and two other individuals from the facility, Zoroku, has some sharp words for Sana and her cohorts. But, Zoroku senses that Sana needs a helping hand, so, he invites Sana into his home. Zoroku's granddaughter, Sanae, is just overjoyed with Sana's super

A Centaur's Life  was just sitting around daring me to ignore it, so, of course it had to come home with me... High school is complicated for any young centaur, but shy, sweet Himeno won’t have to clop through it alone! Surrounded by friends, she’ll face life’s trials one day at a time. But her world isn’t all butterflies and rainbows. In this society of hooves, horns, and halos, there’s no room for discrimination, and prejudice -- even if accidental -- is punishable by law. A Centaur's Life is a slice-of-life series that follows the exploits of our local centaur, Himeno, as she goes to school and hangs out with her friends. This is a parallel world were nearly everything is the same, but, the people have floppy ears, wings, horns, halos, tails, snake heads and some are centaurs or merfolk. The series consists of vignettes featuring a cast of animal people. Much of the events in the series are fairly benign like girls at school, girls having doughnuts, girls at home interac

In Another World With My Smartphone  seemed like something I might enjoy... Touya Mochizuki is killed. To make it up to him, God grants Touya a second chance at life in a fantastic new world. Adventure, fame, fortune, and a harem of cute girls await him across this otherworldly realm. But despite being a magical and physical prodigy, balancing the affections of his companions with his day-to-day activities is one challenge he's definitely not prepared for! In a premise similar to the classic live-action movie Here Comes Mr. Jordan , In Another World With My Smartphone updates this classic tale and adds a magical twist of its own. After Touya dies unexpectedly in our world, he has a meeting with God and as part of the bargain for being brought back to life, Touya asks for his smartphone to still work in the non-technological realm where magic use is commonplace. Touya is a nice easy-going guy and although he finds the circumstances a bit inconvenient, Touya handles this unusual

Recently, I took the opportunity to watch Clockwork Planet ... A thousand years after the world was rebuilt with clockwork, machine-obsessed Naoto Miura becomes the master of an automaton named RyuZU. When this beautiful piece of machinery crashed into his apartment, Naoto's superhuman hearing allowed him to fix her broken cogs-but little did he know it would land him squarely in the middle of a horrific government conspiracy. In Clockwork Planet , not unlike Madox-01 , where an advanced piece of exotic hardware literally falls off the back of a truck, RyuZU, likewise falls off the back of a transport vehicle and lands in the apartment of Naoto, a boy so obsessed with clockwork mechanisms, that he keeps a collection of broken clocks in his apartment. Naoto manages to repair the automaton and RyuZU decides to serve Naoto. Although, Naoto professes his love for RyuZU and her marvelous clockwork mechanism, RyuZU finds such a relationship unfitting for a servant and her master. RyuZ

I took the opportunity to see  Grimoire of Zero ... Like most Beastfallen, the half-tiger known as Mercenary hates the witches who created them, so when he's offered a chance to hunt witches, he quickly agrees. But things go spectacularly wrong when he's rescued by a witch instead and she wants him to become her bodyguard! Making matters worse, she's seeking a missing book, the Grimoire of Zero, which contains the secrets of Magic, which could possibly end the world if it falls into the wrong hands. And the author of the book? Zero herself! Worst of all, Zero actually seems to think that Mercenary is cute and cuddly, and wants to do terribly inappropriate things with him! But, if he does as she asks, Zero promises to make Mercenary human, and with that reward in mind, there isn't much that he won't do to help retrieve the Grimoire of Zero! Grimoire Of Zero tells the story of an unnamed beastfallen (a human in beastly form) mercenary, who while hunting for and

Recently, I set aside my disdain for streaming anime, yet again, and took the opportunity to watch Planetarian ... It is thirty years after the failure of the Space Colonization Program. Humanity is nearly extinct. A perpetual and deadly rain falls on the Earth. People known as "junkers" plunder goods and artifacts from the ruins of civilization. One such junker sneaks alone into the most dangerous of all ruins, a "Sarcophagus City". In the center of this dead city, he discovers a pre-War planetarium. And as he enters he is greeted by Yumemi Hoshino, a companion robot. Without a single shred of doubt, she assumes he is the first customer she's had in thirty years. She attempts to show him the stars at once, but the planetarium projector is broken. Unable to make heads or tails of her conversation, he ends up agreeing to try repairing the projector... Planetarian is a fairly short web series with five episodes and a follow-up movie. In the web series, we meet

Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid marks a milestone as this is the first time that I've streamed an entire anime series... What happens when a drunken promise leads to living with a dragon? That's Miss Kobayashi's new reality when Tohru, her new maid-slash-dragon appears in her life! And if one wasn't enough, in comes Kanna, a little dragon with a big attitude. Soon, Kobayashi has a house full of adorable dragons - one serving tail and the other serving serious moe. There are dragons and cute girls -- what more do I need to say, but, of course I had to see  Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid . The series revolves around Kobayashi, a programmer, who, while on a drunken foray into the mountains, encounters a dragon, Tohru, and promptly invites the aforementioned dragon to live in her home as her maid. Imagine Kobayashi's surprise the next day,  when, after the fog of alcohol has worn off, there's a dragon standing four stories tall at her apartment door -- Kobaya

Earlier this year, I started watching Final Space . According to Amazon ... Final Space is a serialized intergalactic space saga about an astronaut named Gary and his adorable, planet-destroying friend, Mooncake. The series will follow their adventures as they embark on a quest to unlock the mystery of "Final Space," the place where the entire universe ends. Season 1 Chapter One Gary carries out the final days of his lonely, five year prison sentence aboard the Galaxy One, when he meets Mooncake, a little green alien, who has the galaxy's most dangerous bounty hunters chasing after it. Gary swears to keep Mooncake safe from the anyone who would do it harm. Little does Gary know, Mooncake is the world's most adorable planet destroying super weapon. Chapter Two Gary and Avocato must chase down the ruthless bounty hunter, Terk, before he can tell the Lord Commander that Mooncake is aboard the Galaxy One. Chapter Three Gary tries to hide Mooncake safely away o

Over the weekend, Sammy, Mom and I went to see Solo .... Young Han Solo finds adventure when he joins a gang of galactic smugglers, including a 196-year-old Wookie named Chewbacca. Indebted to the gangster Dryden Vos, the crew devises a daring plan to travel to the mining planet Kessel to steal a batch of valuable coaxium. In need of a fast ship, Solo meets Lando Calrissian, the suave owner of the perfect vessel for the dangerous mission -- the Millennium Falcon. We had made alternate plans for this weekend, but, in the end, events conspired against us and we ended up seeing a movie instead. Upon reflection, I realized that I've seen every theatrical release in the Star Wars franchise since the beginning. It's been a while since Sammy was able to join me, so, he was looking forward to the latest feature. We arrived a little early and found our usual seats waiting for us. There was quite a bit of action and few twists and turns in the story and overall, it was a very nice ad

I've been a fan of Thundercats since the series premiered in Philly in the mid-1980s. So, imagine my surprise when I heard that there was going to be a new Thundercats reboot with a comedy twist, not unlike Teen Titans Go . It looks interesting, but, I can't say with a straight face, that I'm really excited about this new incarnation of the classic series. I'll keep an open mind, but, I do have some doubts. While the angel on my shoulder would like this incarnation of Thundercats to succeed, the devil on the opposite shoulder doesn't like seeing Thundercats as a comedy and has whispered in my ear that the series should crash and burn. By the way, I can't say that I'm a fan of Lion-O's weird ears. They're not quite elf ears or cat ears... Some people have described them as cow ears. Moving on. The rebooted series is expected to air on  Cartoon Network  sometime in 2019.

This post is a bit off-topic, but, I felt I should share. Recently, I got an iRobot to clean the living room (Thanks! Tony). The kitties, Daisy and Chris, eyed the robot with suspicion, but, the robot was surprisingly quiet, so, the kitties were not as upset with the robot as they would have been with the vacuum cleaner. The robot crisscrossed the living room and ricocheted off the furniture in a mysterious pattern, but, somehow managed to do a very good job cleaning the living room. To keep the robot from wandering off into the kitchen, I placed a broom stick in front of the kitchen door as a barrier. Sure, I could have used a virtual wall, but, the broom stick was free and no batteries required. After a few days, the kitties have learned where the robot can and can't go and have staked out viewing spots accordingly. Early on, the robot managed to sneak up on Chris and surprise her, but, lately, Chris has responded by trying out her patented mock charge on the robot in an attemp

Recently, I took the opportunity to watch Wakaba Girl ... Even though her ridiculously wealthy family tries to give her everything, it's not until the sheltered Wakaba Kohashi fails to get into an upscale school that she finds what she really needed: a group of friends who want to know the real her, and not her status. Her new school mates may not be up to date on haute couture, but Wakaba is enthralled by their knowledge about the outside world, including the flashy "gyaru" fashion. Soon, Wakaba is helping (or TRYING to help) her newfound friends with their newfound high school girl problems. From helping innocent Moeko though gymnastics, standing in for Nao in a beauty contest, and inadvertently helping Mao act like a rich girl, to simply enjoying the joys of girl talk and sharing ice cream, there's a whole new world of everyday wonders waiting to be discovered in WAKABA*GIRL! Wakaba Girl is a series of short vignettes featuring the four main characters in a

Today, Sammy and I went to the Wizard World Comic Con in Philadelphia . Highlights of this year's Comic Con in Philadelphia include: Elijah Wood and Billy Boyd, LORD OF THE RINGS, Henry Winkler, HAPPY DAYS, Natalie Dormer, GAME OF THRONES, Stephen Amell, ARROW There were, of course, many, many other people of note in attendance and a whole list of panels and other events included in the cost of admission and a great many paid events that we could go to if that was the sort of thing we wanted to do. Sammy has been away for many years and now that he is home, Sammy desperately wanted to go, but, Sammy had commitments for Saturday, so, this year, Sammy and I went on Sunday. The crowds were noticeably lighter at 10:00am than they were last year on Saturday, but, by 11:00am the crowds had increased dramatically. Sammy and I bought advance tickets and after we checked in, we walked right in. Last year there was a bottleneck as everyone had to empty their pockets, submit to bag