Token Asian’s Anime Blog

“Remove that Play-Doh!” ordered Jordan. Apparently, my good Latino friend has the laziest brother of all time. This little brother constantly irritates our entire weekend nerd/Halo afficionado group. You might say to me “Token Asian, don’t you like kids?” And I would reply “No, I don’t like kids at all. In fact, I’d rather be an 80 year-old virgin rather than have kids.”

Of course, I can’t leave my weekly ranting without one good Halo story. Okay, the scenario is CTF in Zanzibar. The defending team is inside the large power station. Now, you know that gaming nerds are always “OMG THERE’S A GIRL ON MY TEAM, CAN I GET YOUR NUMBER?” Well, I’m pretty sure dear “Kristen” on XBC was a guy… In any case, you know that little corner near the flag post with the Needler? Some nerd, obviously infatuated with the idea of a girl on his team, somehow convinces her to start “filming a porno” Halo-style (translation: mashing the “crouch” button… AKA “humping”).

This continues to escalate over the course of several rounds of back-and-forth battles over the flag. More and more players stop defending our territory and get in on the “action.” By now, Jordan and I are pretty darn sick of the hentai going on down in the flag room. He whispers to me “Watch this!” and sticks a plasma grenade to the offending male. Not to be outdone, I launch my last rocket at the six people bunched up.

Needless to say, they all mashed down the “boot” button and bounced us out of the game.

Ironically, my Xbox Connect username is “Adm Hentai.”

Don’t ask.

EDIT: Dear goddess, I left my Xbox headset comm puck at Jordan’s place. I hope his brother won’t steal it and sell it for drugs… Or his brother’s dog might eat it, thinking that it was an Oreo…

Or the kids… those kids… will steal it…

Peace has returned… for now. Skuld greets Belldandy and it’s clear that she adores her older sister. She decides to “help” Bell by building her a cooking robot, which promptly blows up in her face. Despite the mess, Bell still thanks Skuld for her help. Urd notes to Keiichi that Skuld’s always like that, but despite his protests, she knows that Keiichi is jealous.

The next day, Bell and K-1 are off to school, leaving Skuld behind. Urd tells the spoiled brat that she little girls have to stay home. Some time later, Skuld asks why Belldandy goes to university, and she responds that there are many nice people there. With this childish jealousy, Skuld sets off to sabotage Keiichi’s bike…

Elsewhere, Megumi is talking to a shopkeeper, who thanks her for helping him with his bike, giving her some groceries in return. She heads over to the temple and asks if she can mooch some breakfast in exchange for the groceries. Of course, Bell is glad to make her a breakfast. Meanwhile, Skuld has gotten carried away and upgraded the bike instead of sabotaging it. While Keiichi runs to examine his bike, Megumi asks if Skuld is his daughter. Anyway, Megumi makes some technical critiques on the bike upgrade. While Skuld thinks her upgrades are the cat’s pajamas, Megumi says there are still problems. Skuld forces K-1 to “test” the bike and ends up wiping out. In retaliation for the perceived insult, Skuld is about to Skuld-Bomb Megumi, but fortunately, Belldandy comes and reprimands Skuld for resorting to such measures.

Bell suggests that if they want to fight, they must compete in the same arena. Tamiya and Otaki then pop out of the bushes to help with this competition. Their suggestion? A robot-building and battle competition. While Skuld is enamored with that suggestion, Keiichi has his doubts… in any case, Megumi accepts the challenge. Skuld is now determined to have her revenge…

The competition is to have two robots compete at collecting oil drums. If you’ve seen any generic robot battle television show, this is a pretty typical sort of challenge. Urd notes that Skuld is quite the rough kind of gal…

Back at the university, all hell has broken loose as fanboys surround the two competitors. Working alone, Skuld collects her robot parts and as she heads to build her robot, random students stop to cheer her on. She reveals that this sort of attention scares her. She slips into Megumi’s workshop and sees people helping Megumi, and Skuld assumes that this will be easy since Megumi can’t work alone… but she sees Bell helping out too…

Urd drops in on Skuld’s work and offers some assistance. Bell and Keiichi also stop by, but Skuld decides that she wants to do this on her own. That night, Skuld is late in coming home. Urd says to leave her alone because if Bell helps, it’ll only hurt Skuld in the end. I suppose even Urd knows that Skuld needs to be taught a lesson in being less of an arrogant pain in the arse… while Bell just wants Skuld to be more goddess-like. Keiichi says not to worry, because any sister of Bell will turn out alright, though they should help her out, if discreetly.

Skuld peeks in on Megumi and sees her working hard, surrounded by friends. When everyone sees her, Skuld runs off. Megumi admits that working alone is tough and she is to be commended for that, but it’s also a certain type of limitation…

As the work progresses, the date of the final battle draws near! Megumi and Skuld finish their robots… but Skuld collapses from exhaustion as Belldandy flies to her rescue… The next day, the ROBOT BATTLE BEGINS! The two radically different robots begin their competition. We’ll see who wins now! While Skuld’s robot seems focused on sucking everything into its grasp and chewing it up, Megumi’s machine is more mobile and is rapidly scooping up the oil drums and winning the competition. Skuld’s new strategy is to attack Megumi’s robot, which Belldandy wholeheartedly approves of. Megumi uses her robot’s… um, scoop, to trap Skuld’s robot. Skuld won’t lose, so she activates the self-destruct…

After the smoke clears (literally), everyone surveys the damage… except the sempai, who ran away with the bet money. Belldandy comforts Skuld and says that maybe next time, if they work together, they can win. She also encourages Megumi to make peace with Skuld. Megumi gladly shakes Skuld’s hands… but Skuld uses a handheld shock device to zap Megumi. Keiichi notes that Urd and Skuld are quite similar, which Urd vehemently denies. Though it’s quite true, considering that both sisters get caught up in what they’re doing and muck it all up because they’ve lost sight of the original goal.

Still… Skuld, how rude!

My good buddy Love a Riddle and I were working together on a parody comic strip for Aa! Megamisama and after some bumps, he put up the finished product. I take only credit for the script. LAR did all the art.

And no, we didn’t make an Ah! My Goddess hentai doujinshi. This comic strip is suitable for all ages.

Link to the three-page comic can be found here.

Sequel possibilities? What happens when goddesses don’t TIP?!!

(actually, I’m pretty sure that Asians, Japanese included, in general aren’t supposed to tip…)

“Blah blah, Token Asian spent too much this month and didn’t blog much at all…”

Trouble’s brewing up in Heaven, and it’s not over Pat Robertson for once. Yggdrasil is having a massive infestation of Bugs and the stability of Earth is at stake. Apparently the cause is the current system manager’s older sister…

Down on Earth, chaos ensues as Belldandy says goodbye to Keiichi as he heads off… not on his bike, but Sleipnir, the horse of Norse legend. Despite Bell’s best efforts to catch him, he somehow ends up in Urd’s bathtub… with the horse, of course. The two goddesses conclude that there must have been trouble with Yggdrasil, Heaven’s control system. Sitting alone with a cup of tea, Keiichi notices that his drink is bubbling unusually… and out pops another goddess. It’s everyone’s favorite loli… I mean, favorite second-class limited goddess, Skuld!

She runs over and rugs Belldandy and cries about how Yggdrasil is in a funk because Urd ditched her. The latest Bug outbreak has proved problematic and she wants Belldandy to return with her. Oh, and it’s all Keiichi’s fault, since Belldandy’s unstable heart affected the system because he forced Bell to live an unstable life she’s not used to… well, at least according to Skuld. To make matters worse, Keiichi’s turned two-dimensional.

And as the Bugs begin to appear on Earth, the goddesses don their sexy glasses and begin the extermination process. Despite the goddesses’ skill at massacring poor defenseless rabbit-spiders, the Bugs keep multiplying. And Keiichi has now shrunk to a miniature size… Skuld begs Bell to go back with her, but she refuses, saying she has a contract with Keiichi.

Urd then reminds Skuld that she built a bug-catching machine and that she had said that her inventions never fail. Urd taunts Skuld that her inventions really do break down and Skuld yells at her to shut up because she can fix anything. Realizing her slip, Skuld begins crying because in reality, she was lonely without her big sister and Urd had dumped her.

Now, the “Bug Pac Man” is a giant rice- cooker machine that will supposedly fix all their problems by eliminating the bugs. While she sets up the doomsday device, protected by booby traps, Urd is still hunting Bugs, and accidentally knocks one of Skuld’s trap bombs into the machine, blowing it up. Suddenly, Keiichi disappears and Urd ends up trapped in the television. Irony…

While Keiichi is trapped in all sorts of “bad” places like Tamiya’s towel and Megumi’s history book, Skuld and Bell and flying on a broom after him. While they fly along, she explains to Skuld that her unstable heart isn’t caused by something painful… but she is interrupted by Skuld’s scanners…

… because they’ve found Keiichi in Sayoko’s bathroom. Skuld leaps out of the bathwater and clobbers Sayoko. With some help of Skuld’s aerosol can, they spray Keiichi with some sort of anti-Bug repellant and he’s back to normal, if exhausted. Back home, he speaks to bell about how he’s caused to much trouble and that her heart is unstable. However, Bell doesn’t quite understand it herself and says that she’s going back. Despite the time differences in Heaven and on Earth, she says that she’ll never break the contract and that she’ll be back.

Bell tells Skuld that she’ll be going back to Heaven tomorrow. Urd asks what Keiichi said, and she replies that he told her he’d be waiting. While Bell and Skuld take a bath together, she tells Skuld that if her heart is unstable, it may be because of the feeling she has right now because of being separated from Keiichi, like from before.

Skuld sits alone on the porch and broods, though Keiichi comes and interrupts her. He says she looks lonely and she retorts that he shouldn’t treat her like a child. He says she should be happy because Bell’s going back with her. However, she says she now feels like the bad person because Bell wasn’t unhappy because of the contract. She asks him why he had to make his wish and he replies that that was how he truly felt. With that said, Skuld decides to revive her anti-Bug machine… with Keiichi’s help.

As the two engineers get to work, they seem to be a capable team… even if Keiichi gets abused a bit. When they finish the task, they shake hands for it was a great piece of engineering. They run and tell Bell that she doesn’t have to go back because it’ll be sure to work because she… hah, Skuld corrects herself by saying she and Keiichi worked together on it.

When the machine is switched on, there’s some worrying noises, but the machine works as advertised and the Bugs are all sucked into the machine. Now that the situation is back to normal, Bell and Keiichi can stay together after all… Yikes, but Skuld has decided to stay and watch over the couple… and you know Skuld won’t let him “put his hands” on her.

This episode was a nice introduction to Skuld, but I wish they had kept in the scene where the goddesses are forced to play a game of Twister in order to stem the tidal wave of Bugs… though we do get the goddesses wearing cute glasses AND a Bell and Skuld bath scene. *COUGH* ANYWAY. We also see Skuld’s childlike nature in manipulating her sisters, but we also see Urd’s ability to see through Skuld, and lastly we also see Belldandy’s naïve trust in Skuld, which is true to her personality. This interaction between the three Norns is a crucial part of the AMG franchise, as the way the three act towards each other leads up to a lot of the charm and humor in the series.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure that “Bug Pac Man” is a reference to how Pac Man gobbles up everything in sight…

You’d thank that an Asian guy would spend the majority of his time on a trip to California visiting his relatives and eating his way through the local immigrant cuisine. While I did end up making my tummy very happy on more than one occasion (read: In-N-Out Burger), I spent the majority of my money on the best thing money can buy (besides pie): anime goodies.

If you’ve paid attention to my spending habits, they’re generally rather tame when compared to say… Vinn or moy. I suppose that I have a greater deal of self-control, but that doesn’t prevent me from splurging once in a while, especially if there are some hard to find items that I’ve discovered.

Near the town of Fremont, where I was visiting, lies the city of San Jose, home to a small but vibrant Japantown. Aside from the various scrumptious eateries, there are two well-stocked stores that carry a good deal of anime merchandise.

First stop was Far Out Toys, what appears to be a family-owned establishment. A guy, probably in his twenties, appeared to be the owner of the store. Genuinely a nice fellow, he gave me a decent deal on some Genshiken trading figures, well, not a cheap deal, but at least I knew what figures were in the boxes, since I’m not the “buy from HLJ and get six bike pants Shinjis” type (ask moy about that story sometime). More on this store later.

Next stop is Nikaku Animart, down the street from Far Out. It’s a tad hard to find this place since they have no “store front” to speak of, but just a door with a sign on it. You basically have to walk up a dark flight of stairs to what appears to be a generic Asian ceramic bowl store, take a right, turn all the way around, and only then do you see their anime merchandise. From chatting with the owner, he was genuinely a nice guy that cared about the products he sold. We complained to each other about the proliferation of bootlegs and so-called “bargain shoppers” who haggle over already low prices. In any case, I got my “Field of Goddess” artbook and some pencil boards.

The owner of Far Out told me that Kinokuniya was about ten minutes away by car (not the thirty minutes I had assumed), so I set the GPS to take me there. Sure enough, it was ten minutes away. Nothing much in this bookstore that caught my eye (heck, their “Field of Goddess” was $10 more than Nikaku). I picked up a few copies of the My Neighbor Totoro picture book for kids (the kids at church will love this one) and some random old Dark Horse AMG trade paperback at half price. Not a bad haul, but nothing inspiring. Do note that the Kinokuniya in San Jose is next to a nice Japanese supermarket that is well-stocked in things like fresh takeout food and Giant Pocky.

Back at the place where I’m staying, I open up the Genshiken trading figures. The Saki and Kousaka figurines are not painted. Instant “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.” Now here’s where the adventure starts.

I call up the store. Lousy phone I’m using causes me to misinterpret the automated message as saying the store opens at 11:00. I go there at noon, the store is closed. Now, they’re supposed to close at 8:00…

… so I go back at 7:30, and the store is closed. Considering that I have a plane to catch in less than 48 hours, I’m getting a bit concerned here. So the next day, I go in around 6:00, hoping that my luck will change. Sure enough, the store is open and I trade in my unpainted figures for some that were already painted (for the record, I’ve never heard of trading figures that weren’t painted). I also picked up some GSD trading figurines. Didn’t get the Lunamaria Hawke one that I wanted, but you can’t win at everything.

Oh, I did have a good laugh with the store owner that it was all part of his masterful plan to get me to come back to the store to get those GSD figures. He’s a smart one… or maybe I’m just… yeah, most likely to spend too much. This incident kept be going on the plane when the airline seemed to have dropped the ball and sat me next to some paranoid old man who kept praying and shaking until the airplane landed. Of course, six hours of sleep lost isn’t much, right?

Back to normal blogging schedule soon, now that the holidays and pre-semester chaos are over. Whew!

I just got back from California. Turns out that the San Jose area does have quite a bit of places to choose from if you’re into the world of buying your way into debt via anime purchases. My digital camera is on the fritz, so I’ll put a hold on any detailed blogging for now.

However, I do have to say that the Gundam SEED Destiny Heroines trading figures are undeniably very cute. I picked up one from Far Out Toys in Japantown, San Jose. All I can say is… WOW. I really wanted the Lunamaria Hawke one but luck wasn’t on my side.

Instead of going the usual HLJ route, I might try to order them from Far Out instead since it seems like the classic “mom and pop” store of my childhood memories and such a friendly store certainly deserves some of my spending money. Wonder if they have a spare chair for my Genshiken trading figure set… Meh, no big deal, Sasahara gets put back in the box. Never was fond of that guy anyway.

I also managed to pick up the “Field of Goddess” artbook that keeps popping up for sale. It was only $41.95 at the Nikaku Animart, which I took to be quite a good deal since it would be much more expensive online with shipping and whatnot.

More details later. Sleep and SOCOM 3 time.

EDIT: I found the missing chair.