Oh, Taiga.

Who doesn't love this scene? XD

Anyway~ I found a web comic today: (heavy images under cut!)











So cute artwork! I wish I can make artworks like that.

I got these from this forum. The rumored source is this blog: kouhukuya.blog111.fc2.com. I don't think anyone has confirmed that yet.

Wow. Too bad I can't read Japanese...

Lio

Click on images to full view.

Have you seen the fathers' day special of Lio? If not, it's here:

Ain't that sweet? Lio's dad looks pleased. And here's today's strip for Lio:

I don't mean to compare, because both are great comics on its own, but today's Lio reminded me of this strip from Calvin and Hobbes:


Aww. Poor guy. I'm sure Calvin would appreciate if his dad would be as patient as Lio's.

Lupin III vs Detective Conan (SPOILER ALERT!)

I so did not expect this from a "Lupin III vs Detective Conan" special:







But hey, I'm a Ran x Shinichi fan! Why would I not enjoy it? <3 Anyway.. I promise to make a proper review when I finished watching (I had to stop on part 5, ten more to go! Yay!) so watch out, dear non-existent readers.

Don't worry, you have not really been spoiled. These caps are from the movie special, but not necessarily spoiler material. More of a teaser, actually :D

Death of the Endless

"You get what everyone gets... you get a lifetime"

I never get tired of reading (and rereading) infos about my favorite characters. One of the most interesting characters I've ever known is Death of the Endless from The Sandman comics (DC). The first thing I noticed about her was her similarities to Botan for :

• being a very attractive personification of death;




• being honest, pleasant, down-to-earth, and perky




• having a nurturing personality to people (living and non-living) they encounter




• being often completely overworked

But I'm not really comparing. Both characters are lovable and intriguing on their own way. Death immediately replaced I-don't-remember-who (if it was Rogue or Jubilee or someone else.. I really forgot ^///^) from my most favorite comics character. There's something I didn't notice on her Wiki page before:

According to Gaiman, the initial visual design of Death was based on a friend of Dringenberg's named Cinnamon. From The Sandman Companion:  “ ...so he sent me a drawing based on a woman he knew named Cinnamon — the drawing that was later printed in Sandman 11 — and I looked at it and had the immediate reaction of, "Wow. That's really cool." Later that day, Dave McKean and I went to dinner in Chelsea at the My Old Dutch Pancake House and the waitress who served us was a kind of vision. She was American, had long black hair, was dressed entirely in black — black jeans, T-shirt, etc. — and wore a big silver ankh on a silver necklace. And she looked exactly like Mike Dringenberg's drawing of Death. ”

Oh wow. That girl is so lucky. Imagine being some sort of visual inspiration of the world's #15 greatest comics character?



Something interesting about Death: "One day every century, Death lives (and dies) as a mortal, in order to understand the value of the life she takes." Now, that just made me want to reread The Sandman comics again. How I wish I have a copy of it. ^_^

Kingdom Hearts

Category: Video Games
Genre: Adventure
Console: PlayStation 2

Kingdom Hearts (キングダムハーツ) is an action role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 video game console.

A collaboration between Square Enix and Disney, the game combines characters and settings from Disney's animated features with those from Square's Final Fantasy series.

On first thought, we might consider it an unusual team-up. But once you start to play, you will be surprised to see how well the Disney and Square characters blended to each other's worlds.

The story follows a young hero, Sora, and his friends, Kairi and Riku, who resides in Destiny Islands. Dreaming of finding another world outside the islands, they get ready to set sail, but before they have the chance, the forces of Heartless intervenes. Separated from his childhood friends, Sora finds himself in Traverse Town, where he is eventually joined by Donald Duck and Goofy, who helps him on his quest.

If there's anything I love with this game, I love the story most. More specifically, I love how it links together Sora's story with stories from Disney animations and Final Fantasy games. It's a wonder how they put in Final Fantasy characters and blend in the stories of each character so well that we still recognize them as they were from the stories they came from. We recognize Cloud Strife (from Final Fantasy 7), when Hades paid him to participate in the Olympus games to destroy Sora's team. From it we remember how he worked as a mercernary for Avalanche in FF7, and he appears with the same cold but unsure character he was.

I loved having Ariel too. She fits in with Sora's story very well. Like Sora, she dreamed of visiting the "other worlds". On her part, she meant the world above water, and Sora's part, the world outside the island. It is like they're retelling the old stories with a different twist! And yes, having Beast (Beauty and the Beast) on my party was an honor. His determination to save Belle mirrors Sora's intent to save Kairi from the Heartless. And just who did not appreciate Maleficent's stunning performance as a villainess?

I think Sora, Kairi and Riku's story is simple (with that, I mean not over-complicated and dramatic) but really touching. It has just enough comedy and action to mix with the melee fighting system. Another thing to look forward when playing this game (if you haven't yet) is the FMVs. Their FMVs are, decidedly, some of the bests I've seen.

I have yet to play any Kingdom Hearts sequel, (but I fully intend to) but I just know that Square and Disney combined means the ability to create legends. ;)