life line by line

I’m so weak-willed.

I’ll have a more detail entry sometime this weekend, but to put it simply: It’s over.

Yes, I’m quitting the anime blogging world. To tell you the truth, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve only been actively blogging for five-six months until I hit a major slump around last May. Even since then, I’ve been blogging pretty irregularly and nowadays with a 9-5 job (well really 10-4) I just don’t have time anymore. Maybe “old” age is becoming of me but it usually takes me anywhere from one to three hours to whip up a blog entry; especially the “recent” parody screencaps ones. If I hope to somehow keep up with my daily ‘net and anime watching activities, blogging has to unfortunately go.

I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest ever since I semi-announced I’m quitting anime blogging. I always felt bad how I up and up stopped blogging certain series I initially thought I’ll do til the end. Tried even fixing that problem by going bad-humored screenshot caption style, but that was only a temporarily solution at best. Better now I announced that I’ve stopped rather than keeping my three and a half readers waiting for something that’ll never come.

For all the “burden” anime blogging has caused me in the past, it has been a fun ride. In the year or so of “life line by line” being up, I saw many changes in the anime blogging community. I won’t name names because I know I’ll be leaving out someone(s), but there were many rises and falls of anime blogs. Some of which readers of those blogs never expected. However, considering how anime blogging was a year ago compared to now, it’s starting to look like a “Golden Era”. For every one anime blogger that stops, five new anime bloggers will appear. And with that, new and innovative styles emerge. I can already see other more popular blogs taking on styles that I would personally like to think I had a hand in starting… like being a King of Anime Blogging Screenshots(TM).

There are way too many individuals I have to say thanks to. And to make sure I don’t accdentally leave anyone out, I’ll just simply say “Thank You” and hope those individuals know I’m talking about them It’s a cop out but rather that than tread on someone’s toes. Also, of course, I have to thank you the reader for sticking with my pitiful anime blog for so long! I wouldn’t have made it this far without any of ‘ya all!

For anyone (yes, all three of you) that enjoy my quirky blog entries I’m still posting on my personal blog 11~15% suki every now and then. If anything else, you can get a good laugh or be jealous over my “woe is me for spending money on anime” posts and pictures. LOL.

I may, may eventually take up anime blogging again sometime down the line. I don’t want to give anyone hope but who knows. If a specfic episode or series interest me enough, I might put something together that’ll resemble a competent anime blog post. Also wouldn’t mind doing a collaboration of sorts with other anime bloggers if the opportunity ever arises. Don’t worry, I’ll still be around haunting the anime blogging community at the usual places, so don’t expect me to totally disappear!

Once again, thanks to everyone for visiting for so long!

Before I write anything else, I have to mention that Maruto! Diary Room is where I’ve been getting the majority of my Mai-HiME and Mai-Otome fanart. Definitely check out the site as it’s a must bookmark for any anime fan!

Anyway, Sergay and Rouschach are in luv-luv suki-suki mode trading love letters and secrets no one should know about. Meanwhile for the underaged Otomes, exams are around the corner and it’s rather obvious Arika is ill prepared. After the majority of exams are over, only one is left: make 10,000 friends in one day survival/endurance test. For some reason most of the girls are scared but good old drugged up Arika is ready to give it a go!

Everyone arrives at the beach for the obligatory beach swimsuit fanservice scenes only to be disappointed they’ll be roughing it in nature. So while the younger girls setup base for CounterStrike, the higher uppers settle down at the local five star hotel with some extra baggage in the form of Mashiro, Sergay, and Nagi. Some flirting goes on with Nagi first hitting on Mashiro, Sergay, and finally John Smith but nothing much comes from his pimping. The following day the younger girls set off on a 100km hike as their survival test when in reality, Natsuki is simply too cheap to pay for the transportation. Also didn’t help that Natsuki spent the money on new bikinis for all the older Otomes instead; not like the students will ever know.

Speaking of the students, the system of pairing each of them off has done its job well as the only competent group seems to be Nina and Tomoe. Irina is the next Ryoga/Zoro in-training while Erstin’s heavy baggage eventually lags her and Arika behind. Things don’t get much better for the students as poor choice in food source, inability to cook, idol worshipping, sabotage, and forced yuri-ness slowly take its toll on them. Erstin takes the worst of the punishment having to get naked after a fever sets in with Arika the only hope of being rescued! Too bad for Arika, just when she thinks she found help, it turns out to be one of Midori’s Sentai of Evil ™ members… a crossdressing one at that! Arika not complimenting him on his horrible awesome fashion sense unfortunately ends up being her downfall, literally, as she falls off the cliff hitting the sea soonafter thereby ending the rest of Mai-Otome ending the episode.

The returning Mai-HiME female cast in swimsuits, need I say more? Actually yes I do, as this was a rather good episode that only makes me want more as pieces of drama and plot are slowly being revealed. Will Nagi turn to the Dark Side Schwarz after his one night of passion with John Smith? Will the Haruka versus Midori showdown be as hot as I hope? Will we ever see more Arika X Erstin, Erstin X Nina, Tomoe X Nina, Tomoe X Shizuru, or Shizuru X Natsuki? Will the girls ever be in swimsuits again? Where did Nagi and Sergay get their kick arse Hawaiian shirts? Most importantly however, will we ever physically get to see where exactly Shizuru gave Natsuki some tender loving!?

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Now that Natsuki’s bong has been found, she and Shizuru start to make preparations as other druggies fractions begin to make their move towards it. The source of half their troubles, Arika, has been punished by making her learn the finer arts of Janitor-Ken while cleaning Fumi’s memorial site. The other girls drop by to see a hot and sweaty Arika in all her underaged glory, also offering useless help and good food.

Arika is later at the library trying to figure out how to break the contract, as Mashiro’s nightly S&M sessions are starting to take a toll on Arika’s body. In comes Shizuru, swooning girls left and right, as she pimps her game to Arika easily finding the truth about what happened the day before. In the background Tomoe looks on longingly wishing she was Arika instead…

In the evening, Arika runs into her longtime childhood friend slash potential love interest Miyu (along with her emergency food rations, Alyssa). The two catch up on old times until Mashiro rudely interrupts the two; she’s here because she can’t sleep without her Arika hug pillow. Actually, the two are still stuck to the contract without any ideas what to do next. Arika and Mashiro run into some luck, however, as Miyu apparently makes an excellent jewel thief, taking out the GEMs neither of the two could do themselves. Unfortunately the contract is still in effect and left with little choice, Arika must now turn to a life of crime to be free.

The next evening she gets the rest of the Arika-gumi to help her sneak into Fumi’s memorial site, which also doubles as the school’s database library, graveyard, and emergency brothel. The group, after overcoming many obstacles the cheap security system, make their way into Nagi’s personal porn library the school’s database system only to be denied access since no one is a l33t h0×0r. Luckily they do find the room with grave markings of past Otomes, which is also Miss Maria’s hiding place when she loses confidence in her sex appeal. Miss Maria gives the youngin’s an history lesson involving her ex-lover Monica and some cock-and-bull question about fighting friends. Arika gives the secret third choice answer correctly, but then Miss Maria notices Arika’s GEM is gone so…

…the Arika-gumi are punished by cleaning up Fumi’s memorial site of the mess Mai did that one time she got hammered when she used to be an student there. And if life can’t get any more fun for Arika, her chain-and-ball lover Master decides to drop by to yell at her again!

Oh yea, evil bad guys are revealed and Midori is apparently the ring leader of the group. Rip off Char mask included. Go fig.

Good episode that setup a lot of potential plot. I just needed more Miyu and Midori to make the episode even better. Speaking of Midori, I’m sourly hoping when her group engages the Otomes, Midori will have a kick arse “evil villian speech” ready to say! Even if Midori is evil, she just wouldn’t be Midori without some over-the-top monologue speech!

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Mashiro dreams of moutains of ice cream and whipped cream until a nightmare that she might be a man a fake princess suddenly plagues her. She soon wakes up from the nightmare, finding out using Mikoto as a hugging pillow was a bad idea. Quickly going back to sleep thereafter, Mashiro dreams of throwing pies at the newly appointed court jester, Arika.

The following day, Arika heads off for some actual work, doing construction, while everyone else enjoys their time off. A bitch slap by Mashiro to Arika, another love letter by Black Valley, and Nagi almost getting to second base with Mashiro eventually lead the female dynamic duo to hidden ruins underneath the castle. Arika and Mashiro stumble upon the world’s biggest bong, but before they get a chance to smoke up, the two cause all glass-like material around the area to break. Mikoto then pulls an Wizard of Oz on the two girls saying they need more harmony and members if they ever plan to start their all-girl idol group want to use the bong freely.

Pondering who they can get to join their idol group, Arika and Mashiro are interrupted when a Bugrom from El Hazard decides to drop by. Finally realizing the big arse pendant around her neck isn’t just cool bing-bing, Arika calls forth the power of the blue sapphire GEM to go magical girl… Strike Freedom Meister Arika arrives!

After a quick battle that included some S&M and Magical Lyrical Nanoha A’s plagiarism, Mashiro and Arika eventually find a way back to the castle much to no one’s joy. The two by now have become lovers good friends after their forced Master-Otome contract; evening share a kiss at the end!

HGMS Strike Freedom: Version Arika was very cool. I thought we needed more chibi-Mashiro and Mikoto though. Also, apparently working under Mashiro will make an individual gain a few pounds through the years, as exemplifed by Sakomizu and Mikoto

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