[ cosplay ] uriu : konata izumi

layer : Uriu
character : Konata Izumi
series : Lucky Star
score : *****

BEST KONATA-GET EVAR ?

personally i've slowly becoming a fan of uriu as of lately. besides, she looks best in cosplaying notable loli characters such as shana, taiga aisaka and most impressively konata of the lucky star fame, among many. +she've done a nice bridget too :3

like it or not, she's [ among ] the nearest a cosplayer could get in impersonating konata. from her looks down to how she carries herself in front of the camera, everything she wears and does in this image set of her has yet to step off the very image of konata i had in mind [ if she were to waltz into the real world, that is ], and most important of all, she had the befitting look of the said character above everything, or everyone else.

choukou sennin haruka volume 1 : out now !

the first episode of choukou sennin haruka has been out for a while now, and i've recently obtained a digital copy of mine about a few hours earlier, from hongfire of course. [ EDIT ] you can now read my overview for the first episode [ here ].

since its ramadhan, i can barely take a peek into the rest of its content, however from the opening scenes [ persistency and curiosity won over faith lol ] i get to see quite an agreeable [ though expectedly less-consistent ] character design as well as fairly decent yet lovely production quality. the battle scenes however, made use of not-so-static shots as with some generic eronime which i am not very fond of since this title contained quite the number of shinobi-actions, yet again this were merely summed from my brief watch of the first 2-3 minutes into the ova... not sure with the rest of the runtime [ and episodes ]; perhaps there could be some nicely / decently choreographed action moment[s] packed into the ova. also worth noting, milky animation manages to incorporate the same opening theme heard from the game of which [ the song ] i have already became a fan of^^

[ fig ] nendoroid mio + zange

two of the latest nendoroids that have caught my attention since zange were still among my top fave charas [ sadistic nuns ftw ] while mio is the charmingly irresistible female bass player [ and a walking moebomb ] of the k-on ! fame which i find very hard for me to ignore, eventhough i am a self-proclaimed mugi-loyalist :3

mio will be sold altogether with her familiar fender jazz bass and an amplifier to complete the musician side of her, as well as the priceless 'please no~'-whatever expression while zange's will be including her trademark signboard, an impurity in the form of a centipede [ which will serve as a good prop for a diorama of her and nagi together, as seen from the official image on gsc's respective page ] and an alternate face which i believe to be hakua's [ zange's human host ].

[ fig ] mio akiyama : k-on !

the first member of hokago tea time [ of k-on ! fame ] to be immortalized by alter, soon to be followed by a yui and her familiar cherry sunburst les paul. +i do greatly hope for the rest of the band to be made as well, especially my beloved mugi and azu-nyan. the mio seen here is armed with her fender jazz bass and a nice pose which seems as if she were performing on-stage, this one might look great upon your shelves or in my case, atop the monitor :3 overall it has a praisingly good design though it differs slightly from the ones seen in both the anime and the 4koma it was based from; the paint job is pretty neat especially with the shadings over her attire as well as the details and the glossy finish on her bass guitar.

[ fig ] tsukasa hiiragi [ summer version ] : lucky star

another figma series based on lucky star, this time the character[s] will be donning their summer uniform with the blobtastic moe-lolicious tsukasa being the second of the line to be made available for pre-order.

bake the cake, it's +ophanium's 1st anniversary ! :3

[ background music : a funk odyssey by jamiroquai ]

it's august 6th, 2009 and today marks the first milestone reached by +ophanium since its foundation a year ago, a journey which began as no more than just a mere random blog created so to become my place of hanging out as i wait for my downloads to complete :3

anyway, this place won't be a 'minor success' as it were today if it wasn't for you peeps who've given us all the [ unintentional ] moral support by randomly / constantly dropping by; we for sure were so much glad and happy each time the feedjit tracker down below registered new traces of daily visitors from wherever place they were from as it shows that even by random jumps led by google searches there are people who bothers on staying for a little while more [ as observed from the online guest counter for a prolonged period ] as well as being kind enough to either fave and / or add this pitiful blog into their blogroll :3

may this [ anniversary ] event would as well return in the years to come for as long as we are able to pour in the same faith, dedication and commitment we've given to this blog on the days and months which have since passed before this very day. once again please let me thank all you people for all the time [ and bandwidths ] you have spared [ or wasted ] over reading whatever entries we had to offer no matter how absurd and ridiculous our grammar, vocab, thoughts, opinions, points etc etc are... god knows how great the appreciation we had over you peeps ^^

very well then, until our next anniversary. megassa best regards from the both of us.
- rayneholde [ hime ] and zange -

akikan !

studio : Brain's Base
director : Yuuji Himaki
serial run : January 3, 2009 - March 28, 2009
total episodes : 12
score : **

NANDE YANE ?

well what can i say, this one absolutely is a complete mess and i dare not give it another recap yet still it is quite surprising / frightening that i was even bothered to complete my watch over it despite having stopped from doing so numerous times after each episodes.

generally the storytelling theme and concept of akikan ! is pretty unique [ human x cans ? nice ! ] however the megassa huge letdown was the super-darn poor execution of the animation right from the get go, and it is hard for you to proceed on through the entire series after all those suffering felt from the first episode. the character design was a huge disaster [ a major blasphemy committed against the superior art of suzuhira hiro-sensei ] and most of the characters featured throughout its entire run were rather two dimensional, bland or plain stupid [ surprisingly it was the male lead himself who fell into the latter ]. najimi otherwise could become a nice yandere yet the writers did not make any full exploit of this and thus had her character being among those which bores me most, not to mention the tsundereness of melon does not help much in garnering my attention over the series as her personality seems to be rather inconsistent at times for a winning tsundere to take form. also, i greatly hate the way budoko speaks. period.

i won't write much on the story as there's nothing extravagant nor worthy of attention to be pointed out, in fact the story itself might chase your interest away for its numerous plotholes and megassa lack of substance and resolve. the final episode itself was so ridiculous that it had me gone 'what the heck' big time... damn i felt so cheated by just watching D: personally i won't recommend any of ye peeps to dig on the anime take of this series, rather i would suggest that ye peeps go for the manga [ or light novel, if you are handsomely capable of understanding japanese or were just interested in savoring suzuhira-sensei's art ] it was based from instead. believe me, the anime version worth completely nothing and you will be just as disappointed as i am if you were to ignore this v.v

nogizaka haruka no himitsu

studio : Studio Barcelona
director : Munenori Nawa
serial run : July 3, 2008 - September 25, 2008
total episodes : 12
score : ***1/2

SUPER DOJI-MOE GET

what a nice romantic comedy series, and yes i will be greatly delighted to have summore of it soon [ check out the upcoming sequel this october ]. anyway, this is yet another 2008 series which i came to pick as of recent [ i reluctantly had to drop it before due to the highly unstable i-net connection experienced till last june ] and as the chance pops up i quickly go for this and ga-rei zero without even thinking twice, maybe its the mamiko noto factor that has gotten me all fired up into forcing a watch over this one :3

the story unfolds pleasantly sweet and nice, and at times it somewhat reminds me of nanatsuiro drops [ which had also been animated by studio barcelona ] especially the way yuuto and haruka interacts with each other, minus the magical moments of course. both the romance and comedic values of the series were being put into great balance without having to sacrifice much of either factor, topped with a number of delightful heartwarming moments enough to have fans of romantic dramas glued to their monitor for the entire 12 episodes.

i must praise the characters for their outstanding roles within the series, most significantly was the main male lead yuuto ayase himself who has never fail to impress me with the way his personality goes. the two featured maid hazuki and nanami, as well as haruka's imouto mika and sexy-chan shiina also finely serve as the backbones which anchors the series to its mild comedic foundation during [ some of ] the mildly-emotional parts of the story.

interestingly the female lead haruka is an avid otaku as opposed to the common conception of them male lead being the one given the role of such, and to spice things up she had also been given the status of an ojou-sama [ as the eldest daughter of a rich business tycoon ] and the additional extra bonus of being a dojikko [ +1 on the moe factor ]. seto no hanayome anyone ? :3

among the many other highlights of the series is the fact that it is never shy to throw in some direct references to many other well established series such as shakugan no shana [ there's even mami kawada's hishoku no sora playing in the background :3 ], bokusatsu tenshi dokuro-chan, final fantasy vii [ notice cloud strife's cosplayer in the summer comiket episode ], spice and wolf [ horo was briefly mentioned in episode 6, or was it just me who thought that way ? :3 ] and taro aso [ ? ] etc etc which gave out the same feel as with other high profiled close-to-reality series such as lucky star and genshiken just to name a few.

the overall feel of the series is very close to those of [ aforementioned ] nanatsuiro drops and seto no hanayome so if you're a fan of both series [ or either one of them ] you might as well give nogizaka haruka no himitsu a try^^

[ cosplay ] another ibara : megurine luka

layer : Ibara
character : Megurine Luka
series : Vocaloid
score : *****

okay i wasn't quite familiar with the character depicted [ since i am more of a haku yomane-person >///> ] yet even i could pretty much tell that this is one heavenly fine cosplay-get that i shouldn't totally walk away from. once again, as expected from ibara-san. i tried comparing these image set with the few images of megurine luka that i had in keep and frankly speaking i am yet again impressed with ibara-san here, eventhough her costumes weren't that much of a challenge but still you must not ignore the point that she had almost nailed every inch of megurine luka with this cosplay of her, not to mention she looks very much elegant in this kind of costumes / cosplay which is why i would love to see aplenty more of it :3

[ cosplay ] uriu : shana

layer : Uriu
character : Shana
series : Shakugan no Shana
score : *****

hottest shana cosplay in my collection, and one of the best i have seen so far even more so than those of kipi's [ which i once considered to be at the top of the list ] though the wig's sculpt were pretty messy like those of kipi's yoko ritona. nothing much can be said in regards to her costumes as i had quite the guess that she might've bought them from a cosplay boutique, or perhaps i was dead wrong, but nevertheless the construction looks pleasantly flawless save for the bulky piece of cloth [ or whatever it is called ] worn below the collar.