Warren Ellis has some pictures of a shuttle launch. Only they’re from the *other* end of the line, the international space station. It’s odd seeing the shuttle bursting through the cloud cover rather than going up toward it. (warrenellis.com)
Just finished watching the 12 episode Japanese TV series from last year, Black Blood Brothers. Being only 12 episodes it’s not exactly epic in scope, but they managed to pack a fair amount of content in a limited run. Also, it looks like there’ll be a movie follow up, possibly already produced, from the Japanese language website. I’m not sure, I can’t read it and wikipedia’s BBB article (warning, spoilers) contains nothing useful on the subject. If you’ve got a translator or can read Kanji, go hit up the official site.
The story’s interesting. It’s about humans and vampires living in a special zone after a catastrophe having occurred in Hong Kong, exposing the public to the existence of the vampires kind. Our protagonist, Jirou, is guarding a small boy whom he refers to as “brother” and obviously has something more going on than he lets on. All of the other cast are either vampires or people aware of their existence who try and keep a wrap on the publics knowledge that they’re still around.
Animation-wise the series gets a bit loose in spots. It’s apparent that Studio Live and Group TAC did the best they had with the studios budget, and I think they eeked out all the value they could. While it’s not overly expensive, they evenly applied effects and more detailed sequences throughout the series to good affect. It’s obvious that Hiroaki Yoshikawa (director) struck a good rhythm producing the series.
So it’s probably worth buying if you like the title. Episode one can be watched at BigGlobe but only in it’s original Japanese. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find it translated if necessary. You might start with Scarywater, as they’ve usually got english subs for non-published work.
Alright! Back from Katsucon 2007. Not too many pictures compared to some people… and a good portion of what we shot was of various friends and acquantences hanging out. You can find them at http://villa-strayligth.net/katsucon_2007.
Overall the con was a good time. Went down with old friends, met up with people I don’t see all that often (as they live a few states over) and then hung out with a great crowd on Sunday morning (in the early-*early* AM) who happened to alse be loitering neer the Connecticon booth.
After the fiftieth round of whatever that childrens show was with the pirates and a woman who, I’m pretty sure, was high on something singing “something something A PIRATE!!” it got a bit old. If only I had a projector and a pocket sized PC to hook it up to…
Coincindentally, people seem to think being asked “Pirates or Ninjas?” at 2AM is odd. At this simple query I ended up getting people that actually gave a sidelong glance and walked faster. I’m asking people, mostly drunk, at an *anime convention* this, mind.
Chilling with the Magfest crowd was a blast, I’ll have to actually make it down to the convention this year (if only it wasn’t right after New Years! 
)
So that’s about it for Katsucon 2007. I imagine there was anime being played, people dressed up in costumes, and various activities. The art room floor was fun, as was the merch cavern (which we noticed was really the parking lot, and the reason we had to drive around endlessly on Thursday looking for parking). Otakon’s coming up and we’re looking at it with a bit of skepticism. The venue wasn’t all that hot last year, but I might make it down.