thanks for that, but I forgot to bring the file with me on holiday. er.... will submissions still be open in July?

For a time it really affected me in a bad way, I felt. Like several times feeling very aggravated, stressed and having the strongest urge to quit. But I've stuck it out and gotten through the worst of it, I think. Or it may get worse; I anticipate my responsibilities will increase, but only to add to my burden. I'll find something else, fo sho.


I'm going on my trip tomorrow, so yay! Let's not talk about work.

I've done a really crummy fan art, but I'm not sure what the procedure is. Is there a way to submit it online?

Hey guys! I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd mention what I've been up to.

I got a job back in October that was supposed to be part time, but I got pushed to full time because my boss lost an employee. So I had been staying with my grandmother, because the work is based in Sydney. I really wanted to move to Sydney and get away from the town I've always lived in. Over time I came to see my town as superior. Sydney is so busy and very badly designed.

I don't know how much about Sydney you know, but in a country that could snugly fit Europe in it and have a population of 22 million... about 6+ million live in the Sydney area, or commute to it. However, it doesn't have a very good public transportation system and everyone drives. It's not as bad as London, but it's not nice.

I decided that due to the ridiculous cost for a crummy apartment and just how busy Sydney is, I was probably better off on the Coast.

My Grandma is also a very difficult person and I got sick of staying with her. My boss said she'd get someone soon, but that hasn't happened. So I've been commuting a month or so now.

It's been hard to adjust to. My work hours can vary from 7 to 10 hours a day and with the commute... I usually spend 12 hours out each day.

Sadly, I've come to dislike my job. It's so much more physical from what I had been doing, at my other job that is 20 mins down the road and paid the same amount. I've lost money due to spending $70+ a week in petrol. 

I get a bit depressed at times and really have the urge to quit, but I can't quit just yet, because I have to pay for a trip overseas.

Yes, enough complaining! I'm going to the UK and France next week! I'll be gone for 6 weeks. How exciting.

And a nice result from working in Sydney, for a time, is that I enrolled in a Japanese class. Sadly I wasn't able to enrol for the next term because I'm going away and will probably leave my job and stay on the coast, but it was really nice to just get started learning Japanese. I'll have to figure out a way to study it here instead.


So....that's what I've been up to.


OH! And of course, I must do a fan art for the last volume of Excel saga! I must express my love!

Oh boy. Since the last post?

I'll summarise a few I remember.

Heavens Memo Pad
1st half Steins;Gate
Up to the 27 episode mark of One Piece
Sengoku Basara movie
Samurai 7
Mobile Suit Gundam 0083

and so on

I've actually gotten heavily into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I like the 2012 & 2003 versions more than the old series. But...I bought the first series too and am sooo slowly getting through it.

Hi all.

Bought vol 24 just a couple of days ago. Agree with Duomaxwe on the point that not enough progress has been made story-wise, but hoping it's just a bridge to the next volume of awesomeness.

For the most part, I think the forum's quietness is due to the release schedule of the manga. Simply put, if we don't have new anime material, or scanlations coming out every week, the series won't be so fan-able. At least with the way fandoms operate these days, where they're given lots of material to obsess over.

Still, the series is good enough to sustain long-time fans who stick with it. To be fair, you can only have so much patience.

So long!

hiiiiiiiii back

Hiya fellas.

Just popping in to say hi!

I've since dropped the NEET title, but things have been slow, not much going on.

Looking forward to Excel Saga 24. Only 11 days to go.

We all try every once in a while. To resurrect the forum, I mean.  :il_hahaha:


Yeah, it's cool being a NEET. For like, a couple of weeks, then you realise how bored you get. I have things I should be doing, but I put it off and laze around. I half feel like I'm killing all my braincells. Dangerous.

In any case, I should find something soon enough. I'm not worried.

I tried going for a government job, but I'm not experienced enough. I have more qualifications than necessary, but my lack of work experience will probably let me down. I have none of the desirable criterea. Eheh, try again.   :ehail:

I'm not. I'm a NEET.  :il_hahaha:

I don't buy much I can't get easily, since I mostly buy Anime.

If I want something, I go onto Yahoo!Auctions and use a middleman to send it to me. I use Shopping Mall Japan. You have to pay them to do it, so it gets expensive. But if you buy several things they will keep it in their warehouse and send it in one go to save money on shipping.

Yes, this is for garage kits. You'd be suprised how many there are out there you never knew existed.

yeah, thought it might get one laugh.

I was into Excel Saga most strongly when in High School. As much as high school is supposed to suck, I have a number of tv shows, music and manga that I was into at that time and bring me back to it with a nostalgic feeling.

Manga was such a high school thing, I barely touch it now.

Go! It's nice!

Been quiet huh?

I haven't been as frequent here as usually... sometimes I felt like I was part of a four(?) man group who kept this place breathing.

I still like Excel Saga, but admitably I don't consider myself a no. 1 fan at this point. Maybe the honeymoons over, we've been married 5 years or so and we're a bit bored of each other. Hard to keep the love alive, y'know. He's away so often...

lol, okay.

What have I been up to? Not much. Lazing around.

Last post in this thread by me was the excursion I took in December. Eheh.... Well, it's been a loooong time.

Short story of what my life has been like since then:

Jan - end of April: Working full-time. Quit at the end.
May: Germany
June: Land of chocolate.... came home halfway through the month
Since then? Lazing around.

So it's not like I did anything that exciting. Well, I went to Germany. There isn't that much to say about it though. I went there, saw stuff and came back. It was pretty. I genuinely don't think it's worth talking about.

I'll stop by again. This forum is one of the nicest around and I like y'all. I don't think I'll be here that often, but I get sad at the thought of this place becoming a dead site.

Going back... ooh, a couple months back I bought House of Five Leaves. This anime was very different for me, but also fair to say it's a rather unique anime. Mostly drama and character study, it's a story about an out-of-work ronin Masa who makes the acquaintance of the yakuza looking Yaiichi. Yaiichi initialy hires him to protect him, but Masa realises that he ended up being an accomplice to a kidnapping. He's very intrigued by the friendships he makes with the other members of the kidnapping group the Five Leaves, and Yaiichi mostly, but feels conflicted at the idea of committing crimes. His struggle is one of his stomach against his spine too, as he has little other chance of getting work due to his personality, which is very shy and lacking in confidence.
I was hooked, it's good stuff.


Now for something completely different.


I started watching Gintama. Currently I'm up to episode 235, but I think I can make a fair assessment of the show at this point.
Somewhat Excel Saga anime like with screwball comedy, mindscrew storyline and positively out of left field, I wasn't too hooked on the show initially. Basically, I thought it swung and missed with me, I didn't like the humor, I thought it was stupid - it didn't know where it was going, crude, with too much toilet humor (I've never watched a show with toilet humor, or at least this much). It was like shooting hundred of arrows blindfolded in the hopes of hitting the target at least once. But I reasoned to myself "If this series has 250 episodes, clearly there must be something about it that's good". So I stuck it out. And you know what? It does get to you.
I never really liked the original Ruruoni Kenshin anime to begin with, but when I got to those awesome fight scenes and I fell in love with Kenshin's voice, I wanted more. More! Gintama is kind of like that. I still get a bit bored in arcs because they're often an episode or two too long. The humor sometimes hits on something epic. At the very least, there's eye candy. And Voice-actor ear candy.  Tomokazu Sugita (Gintoki) and Kazuya Nakai (Hijikata) were already much loved voice actors of mine. Kazuya voiced Date Masamune and Mugen, and Tomokazu voiced Kyon! Takasugi's voice is like whoa! Too deep for that guy.
I'm going to be a bit sad at finishing it. I rushed the series, and would download several episodes a day. But at the same time the rewatchability of most episodes was pretty low too.
What can I say, I like it a lot. But I'm also very much aware it's not the best thing out there, nor does it aspire to be. I'll probably stop fangirling soon after finishing, but I definitely want to support the series and will buy the dvds when they start releasing past the 4th set (they currently only have 50 episodes out and the movie which I already bought) and want to get all the manga volumes even though Viz stopped releasing past volume 23.
If I start talking about characters and storyling this will turn into a definite wall of text, so I'll end it here.

The hands were hard because one hand had a thumb that needed to be attached and the sword may have been a little bent. It was just hard to make sure everything fit perfectly.

I used oil paints. That's part of the reason it took so long. All handpainted.

I'll bring Haku round soon hopefully.