Aozora Shoujotai: An otaku room study

While curiously absent from the cover illustrations, Isurugi Takuya, the male lead from from 青空少女隊 (Aozora Shōjotai), also knowns as 801 T.T.S. Airbats, is a gigantic nerd (in a good way). He doesn’t go around spouting anime references like other people sharing his passion would do if this was any other series, instead the shelves in his room is filled to the brim with figures and toys.

The original manga ran from July 1991 – October 1992 in Shounen Monthly Captain and for the reader with a keen eye, provides an interesting glimpse into what shows were popular back then. Or at least what the author, Toshimitsu Shimizu, preferred.

Lovers of Bubblegum Crisis will have a riot as hardsuit-clad Priss is featured in almost every photo. Speaking of which, I also suspect Toshimitsu may be a fan of BGC episode 8, since Vision’s spider-like tank makes two appearances. A man after my own heart, this guy

A robot from Armored Trooper Votoms also appears twice, as does King, the lion cub from Nadia: Secret of Blue Water though not Nadia herself, strangely enough.
Other interesting appearances are Rabby and Patty from Gallforce: First Story and Magical Taruruuto-kun, from the series with the same name.
For the lover of older anime there’s Maetel from Galaxy Express 999 and Tetsujin 28.
There’s silhouettes resembling Onyomiko (Kaku Rei) from Genji Tsuushin Agedama and Tekkaman Blade. Something that looks like a Sailor Moon figure is also in there as well as the Thunderbird 2. Even Totoro and the Moomins show up once.

In 1994 the series got an anime adaption and the reference hijinks continues, this time in color!

Hooo boy, there’s a lot in there. Obvious ones that I can tell right away is the Millennium Falcon, Ultraman, Sailor Jupiter, B-ko from Project A-ko, donning her battle suit, Gunbuster, Kinu Himuro from Ghost Sweeper Mikami, Nuku Nuku from All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku (say that one fast three times) and even a not yet painted figure of Kagurazaka Yuna from Galaxy Fraulein Yuna. Evangelion also makes an appearance in the shape of a poster and somewhat more obscure is a figure of Cyomi from the (in)famous Viper-games by Sogna.

There’s even a lovingly reproduced brief homage to Namco’s Air Combat, the predecessor to the excellent Ace Combat game series.

Phew!
I think that was all I could catch, but there’s probably more in there. I love it when manga authors and anime studios show their love for other works in this way. It’s like a pop-quiz extravaganza for the viewer “in the know”, so to speak.

In other news, I’m still waiting to stuff to arrive. Bleh.

The waiting game

I just ordered a bunch of stuff I thought I might need in order to connect things to the new scaler I bought. The clock just turned sunday, so those orders probably won’t start getting worked on until tomorrow at best. Thus begins *dun dun DUN* the Waiting Game.

The scaler I just got, a DVDO VP30 performs much, much better than that cheap thing I wrote about a while back. It’s also got the ATB102 deinterlacing card, and that’s a good idea if you’re planning on using it for games. Though, Game mode 1 looks a bit too sharpened, waxy in my opinion but it’s fast and works well.

I figured the best thing I could do now is to get better cords for the stuff that will go into the scaler. I’m reluctant about modifying my game systems, mostly because of cost (I mean, you have to find someone that can mod them, then pay for shipping and the actual mod work), so getting the best possible cable sounds like a better option.
The built-in comb filter in the VP30 isn’t all that great, so, stuff that uses composite (like my PCE and LD-player) could look better. But I’ve heard about people using DVD recorders as external comb filters for such purposes, so I will look into that.

Another problem I have right now is my setup, which is currently split into two sections. One for SD-gaming and one for HD. I’m planning to get rid of my CRT TV and merge these into one. I’m just no sure when I will do that – but until then, I will be unable to properly utilize the scaler, because while I can connect some stuff to it, I can’t play games because the controller cords don’t reach too well n_n;

So, right now I’m waiting. Waiting for stuff I need and for me to start moving things around.

…waiting sure is boring…

Another MD-recorder acquired

I got another MD recorder off eBay. This time it’s a Sharp MT832, and I must say, it seems to work quite well. Even the battery is still holding a decent charge, especially for a pre-2000 model. My other recorder is a Sony MZ-N10. It’s one of those NET-MD players which you can connect to a computer in order to quickly record songs. Except I can’t get it to work. In any case, my Sony is a bit temperamental and I find the stick-remote to be bit flawed. Older Sony stick remotes almost seems better thought out, weirdly enough.
The Sharp is a bit fatter and a little bigger but most importantly weighs more than the Sony. That it’s only drawback really, even though it does feel more sturdy than the Sony. Sound quality-wise they’re both good. Maybe the Sony is a little bit sharper (ha!) but I still prefer the 832 because of the dedicated bass-button and overall ease of use.

But! “It’s 2012, why are you digging up old tech, you dumbnut?” you ask. Short answer: They’re cool. Long answer: They’re cool and have great sound quality. And as long as the cables match up, you can record essentially anything, using analog or optical line in. For example, I recorded almost all song performances from my Idol Defense Force Hummingbird LDs. And last night I recorded the best songs from a pair of instruction cassette tapes back when I used to play drums. They’re produced 1987 and there are some cool original tracks on there. Minidisc is good for odd jobs like that. Though, an optical recording from a high quality source like a CD yields the best results, of course.

They might not be very practical nowadays and there is undoubtedly a bit of work involved, but the joy of physical media is hard to beat. Especially when it’s this cool. Sleek & modern or retro-futuristic, there is an MD-player for everyone. And the discs themselves are beautiful and available in different styles & colors.

If you’re the slightest bit interested, minidisc.org is a great place to check out.

A recent computer building adventure

A seemingly innocent decision on my part, to buy a new graphics card, resulted in much more work than I could’ve imagined.

Last summer, at least I’m pretty sure it was last summer, I decided that instead of buying a new pre-built computer to replace my ageing ticking bomb of a Compaq-system, I was going to try and build one myself. With (almost) enough money saved and all parts I deemed necessary, the work began. With the help of a friend my new system was up and running after an evening. It has worked well since then, but recently I decided that I maybe wanted to get back into PC-gaming. If the most serious offender behind this train of thought was TERA Online, which recently entered a closed beta I paid to enter, I will not say. Anyway, since the graphics card in my old build, a rather cute GeForce 210 with passive cooling, was something I just bought because I felt I needed some sort of graphics card, so that I could use multiple screens, watch youtube in HD and play the occasional older game – it performed poorly. Although I was impressed that I could actually play the Crysis demo on the lowest settings, since my old computer couldn’t even start it. :p

Anyway, so I went and hunted down a card. Then, it turned out, it was bigger than I thought it would be and the only place it would fit inside the case was near the bottom, making it overheat thanks to a lack of cold air being sucked in.
Because of that, I decided to buy a better, for the purpose more optimized case – on a budget. Cases can easily get expensive. So, I picked up the Corsair Carbide 300R and quickly transferred all the stuff to my new case, just to run into another problem. One that I probably caused myself.

The graphics card was now behaving (still not running as cold as the tests I’ve read – but I don’t know what witchcraft they use) but my CPU started to reach heat levels very close to overheating under the slightest load. So, seeing as the CPU cooler probably might’ve come a bit loose with me moving the motherboard and stuff around, I decided that, as I would have clean out and replace the cooling paste anyway, I should take this opportunity and install a new cooler as well.

And that I did, and I ran into some trouble but things thankfully got solved. Turns out this particular cooler wasn’t made to be installed with the motherboard still in the case :p Anyway, it’s up and running, it works and while there are some loose ends I think I’ve learned a lot of things during all of this.

Phew.

Signs that I should get a life…

I did it. I finally got all achievements in Just Cause 2. Having gotten all in the first Just Cause (which was a guilty pleasure of mine) I swore to do the same in the sequel. A task that initially seemed neigh impossible have been completed. The number of games in which I’ve cleared all achievements have now reached the staggering number of…two. That is, JC 1 & JC 2.

…I hate multiplayer achievements.

+ Christmas 2011 + (artwork)

And it’s christmas time once again. I’ve had a few different ideas for a picture this year but as usual, I had too grand plans and started too late – had to abandon my first idea because it didn’t turn out that great. Soo, here you go :p

Click me!

Copying the description from DA because I’m tired:

I could spend all day pointing out all the mistakes but I won’t. At the time of writing this – about 15 minutes left to the 24th. I MADE IT IN TIME. OHYEAH!

A bit “rough” but consider this- originally “inked” with a black ballpoint pen : s

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays~

Room progress 2011-12-18

Took some time but things are looking pretty good now. Not all things have found a new place yet, some stuff are still packed down (most of my drawing supplies, for example). But something like this is what I had in mind.
There isn’t that much to say so I just thought I’d drop some pictures instead…

The old room layout:

A couple of problems with the old layout was that, while quite comfy, the drum set ate a lot of space and the CRT was both in the way for a door and not exactly useful anywhere. The computers you see there aren’t really in use just…stuffed under there because I didn’t have another place for them (still don’t). My computer was downstairs.

Times like this, it feels like I have too many consoles – but then I remember that no, one can’t have too many consoles.

The new room layout:

It would make sense to have the desk face the wall but I’d rather look out through the window and over the room given a choice. Maybe I’ll change my mind later, we’ll see. My CRT now has a proper use (but it might be replaced in the foreseeable future – I’d rather a 4:3 one) and my game systems are split up between the two TV sets. I also moved up my computer and picked up a second screen, and some other things, quite cheap.

Oh and I moved the bed, got new lightning and another rug.

The room feels a bit more practical now – maybe a bit odd-looking but practical. : )

Oh, and one last thing, I’m working on a picture in time for christmas this year as well but things aren’t looking that hot at the moment. I’ve been busy with both the room and other things and I’m not sure I like what I’m working on…we’ll just have to see what happens.

My room is a mess

…and that’s positively my fault. For a while now I’ve felt that my old room layout, while comfy, didn’t meet my increasing need of, well, space. So, I’ve tried to make it better. Inspired by those “show you room, guys”-threads from 2ch, I thought I had come up with a pretty good idea for a layout – only half way through I stopped because I didn’t like it anymore. I think I might have a better idea now, in theory anyway – we’ll just have to see if that works out well or not.

The really weird thing is, my room, while containing massive amounts of floor space, is actually pretty hard to properly decorate. Two wardrobes/general storage space, a large window and a door has resulted in a lack of good, uninterrupted wall space – every wall is occupied with something.

My work hasn’t been all for naught though, in the process of moving around things I’ve also cleaned out a lot of old stuff that’s basically been hidden in drawers and the like. Say, for example, the Mega Drive-poster in the last post.

My TV and consoles got a bit buried behind some stuff with all this moving around but it’s soon to be dug up again, after all I haven’t finished my hard-difficulty playthrough of MML yet, along with a whole bunch of Saturn & PCE games…