Happy New Year!

What better a time to have another Join Up Drawing Event? That's right folks, now's your chance to work me to the bone drawing all kinds of pictures for you!

How it works for those who missed the last one:
For the duration of this weekend (January 1st-3rd) with perhaps some spillover, readers will be able to request drawings from me (in either Aetheria Epics or Revenant Braves art styles) of any AE or CRB character in a costume and/or pose of their choice (work safe, of course). The only prerequisite is that you become a member of The Brave Combination Forums and post an introduction thread here with just a few words about yourself. Of course, existing members also each get a request, so even if you don't feel like participating, feel free to stop by here and take a look at the sorts of things we're turning out.

There may also be some spillover into next week if I've been slow or if there is additional interest. Hell, during the last event, one individual made a request two weeks late and I still drew it if that's any indication of how lax I am about the timeline.

For the curious, feel free to check out the last event
here.

But wait, there's more! If new members stick around for two weeks, they get an additional sprite-based request from Sildraug: master of dungeons, purveyor of sprites, and all around cool guy! Here's one he did of Max from the Dark Mage Gang:



So join up and stay a while, it'll be fun!

I received this as a gift months and months ago and kept forgetting to watch it. I don't watch a lot of DVDs, so when I have one it's something I have to consciously think about in order to recall that it's there in contrast to most of the anime that I watch, which sits right there on my PC in my movies folder, which I know I'm going to open at least once in a day. Anyway, I'm sorry I let it go this long without watching it because I enjoyed it quite a lot.

My first instinct is to call it "resembling a Miyazaki movie that's easy on the Miyazaki", but then it occurred to me that I haven't really seen an abundance of Japanese cinema outside of Miyazaki, so maybe that's just me attributing broad, cultural conceits to a single auteur.

Anyway, it was good and for a number of reasons.

But the visuals are beyond a shadow of a doubt the best part of the film. They are a testament to why some things are simply better if done in animation beyond the obvious budgetary considerations. Not only is the animation consistently smooth and crisp for the entirety of the film, but it shows such a vast breadth of distinct people, places and things without any seeming out of place. This is especially important for a film in which half of all events take place within dreams. The real world feels like the real world but more importantly, the dreams feel like dreams.

The film's depiction of dreams is possibly the best I've ever seen in a visual medium. They are reflections of the real world but make no sense by real world standards. The elements that compose them seem completely ordinary, but they've been put together in ways that make no sense. The characters experiencing waking dreams spout grammatically correct, but utterly nonsensical dialogue, the way people talk in their sleep in real life. In the dreams, the characters experience jumps from place to place in a stream of consciousness fashion, but just as you or I wouldn't be surprised or confused by the strange events unfolding in our own dreams, they aren't distrought by these.

Musically, it's fairly unique as well. The main uplifting tune that plays is whimsical and I personally enjoy it, it suits the character of Paprika, but I don't know how well it suits the plot of the film. Other pieces of music are equally whimsical, but at once slightly disturbing, which I found a lot more fitting. I think the uplifting theme perhaps does a lot towards making the movie seem brighter than it is. Whether this is a good or bad thing, I'm not sure.

This is a minor thing, but I really liked the wordplay with the name "Paprika" and that they waited to start using it far enough into the movie that I'd already accepted the word as a name. If it'd been used as a double entendre for spice too early on it would've felt contrived.

The story itself is captivating and takes a few unexpected turns so it's nothing to complain about, but the visuals and depiction of dreams are the true stars of the show.

The following short story takes place between chapter 4 and chapter 5 of Circumstances of the Revenant Braves...

It was one of those rainy days where the clouds are so dark that it feels like dusk all day long. We'd just come back from lunch break and I was already counting the seconds until the end of the school day. Three rows to my left an overly energetic Aoyama Fio struggled to sit still at her desk. Ichikawa Celeste sat calmly at the desk in front of her, hands on her lap and facing forward. They say the quiet ones turn out to be serial killers, don't they? Nah, Ichikawa's too cute to be a serial killer. Wait, don't they say to watch out for the cute ones as well?

As I tried to chase away the adages in my head that it seemed wouldn't stop picking on Ichikawa, a less abstract enemy was looming over the poor girl. Fio, it seemed, had taken it upon herself to try to steal the daisy from atop Ichikawa's head without her noticing. As I glanced, annoyed, between Fio slowly climbing up onto her desk and the teacher, who must have been completely blind not to notice, I realized that the likelihood of this ending well were slim to nil. It seemed my best chance was just to ignore it and hope it would resolve itself.



Just as I'd resigned myself not to pay anymore attention, though, the desk Fio was precariously perched upon began to wobble. She quickly retracted her left arm, which had been mere centimetres from the daisy and success, and steadied herself. Beads of sweat rolled down my back as I waited for the inevitable. But nothing happened. I let out an audible sigh of relief, but the teacher still didn't seem to notice. By this point, she was turned around and writing something out on the blackboard. There was no hope of her seeing anything now until it would be too late.

When Fio seemed to be comfortable with her level of balance again, once again her hand began to creep over Ichikawa's blonde hair. A flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the window behind her and I thought for sure she would be startled and topple onto Ichikawa, but she didn't seem too phased by it. I was impressed. Unfortunately for Fio, lighting is never alone. The clap of thunder that followed can only be described as "biblical". And in short order, it had the teacher spinning around just in time to see Fio lose absolutely all of her balance and fall on top of Ichikawa, who with a mouse-like squeal, fell out of her chair and onto the floor. The whole class remained completely silent as the daisy floated gracefully through the air to land atop Fio's head.

Needless to say, the teacher wasn't impressed. Ichikawa was lucky, though. Well, as lucky as someone who's just been the victim of an unprovoked, mid-class, accidental, surprise tackling from behind can be. Our teacher wasn't unfamiliar with Fio's inability to sit still and immediately recognized which of the two girls sitting before her in a heap on the floor was to blame for the disruption. While the rest of us were free to go home after school that day, Fio was sentenced to clean the classroom on her own.

As we filed out, Fio boastfully told us to wait for her at the cafe as her cleaning skills were unmatched and that she'd easily be done in ten minutes. I filled Ichikawa in on what I believe Fio had been trying to accomplish during class when everything had gone terribly wrong. She was perplexed and wondered why Fio wouldn't just ask for the daisy. I told her she had a lot to learn about Aoyama Fio, which made it sound like I had a clue as to why Fio didn't just ask or even wanted the damn flower in the first place, but in reality I didn't.

Sol joined up with us and, after I'd filled him in on what'd happened, offered his own unique perspective on what Fio had done. He believed that it was practise for if we ever came across a mission that posed a similar challenge. "The ancient and highly practical art of removing one thing from another thing very slowly and carefully" he called it. As ludicrous as that sounds, when it comes to Fio, nothing would surprise me. And besides that, she and Sol seem to operate on wavelengths that overlap now and then.

Back at the club room along with our spirit companions, we waited. And waited. And waited. And would you believe me if I said we waited some more? After about an hour, Ichikawa was the first to give up and go home. She said that the pirates would be getting hungry. To a normal person that would sound like an idiomatic expression or at least an exaggeration, not literal fact. What a life I live.

Soon afterwards, Sol got up to leave. I was surprised that he'd give up so early and asked him about it. He wasn't going home, but rather out to patrol for vice-like suspicious activities. His dedication to the job is uncanny. I'd say that his future employers will be very lucky to have him, but somehow I doubt his fervent work attitude will translate to non-super hero roles.

In any case, Musashi joined him, but Mecha who was already asleep, stayed behind.

Left alone in the small room above my mother's cafe, the dark rain-filled sky getting darker by the minute and my only company a sleeping Mecha, I felt suddenly overwhelmed by melancholy.

I wasn't worried about her or anything, but I decided to go and find out what was taking Fio so long. I had never thought it would take her the ten minutes she boasted, but it was getting late. The field was wet and windy and I'd foolishly forgotten to bring my raincoat so by the time I got back into the school building, I was pretty well soaked through.

The school was empty and very dark now. It was amazing how different it felt from during the day. Perhaps because I was so used to its halls being flooded with noisy students I found it a bit unsettling. Around every corner, I hoped I'd run into Fio so we could just go back to the cafe and I could get out of these wet clothes, but she was nowhere to be found until I came to our classroom.

Looking in, the room was clearly only half-tidied and sitting half-way through the room at my desk was the gently rising and falling figure of a sleeping Aoyama Fio. I approached her quietly. Obviously I've been well-trained to respect someone else's sleep, but I don't really know why Fio deserves the courtesy.

Unlike the school, it wasn't unsettling to see the usually energetic Fio sleeping so peacefully. Instead it was kind of a relief. I think up until then, part of me wondered if this girl even slept at all, so it was nice to see her showing such normal human behaviour. She moaned slightly and readjusted her head without waking up.



"Kei..."

I was taken aback. At first I thought she had awoken, but it became obvious that she was just dreaming. Of me...?

"Jump off that bridge..."

I was taken aback again, but in a significantly less pleasant way.

"Why? Because I said so..."

God, I hope it isn't the future she's seeing...

I left her alone with her unsavoury dreams and set about doing her job for her by cleaning the rest of the room. Just like her, she didn't wake up until the moment I'd finished.

She started by asking by groggily asking where she was. Then why she was there. And finally, why I was there. I obliged her on all three, being certain to complain that I'd had to do half of her assigned task for her. She immediately became defensive and pointed out that I could have simply woken her up, to which I had no response. It was a short argument.

Reluctantly, she thanked me for helping her, gathered her things and I led her out into the hall. As I stepped through the threshold I felt something tug at my chest. I realized that Fio has lassoed her arms around me and buried her face into my back.



"You're not going anywhere, are you?"

I asked her what she meant.

"I had a bad dream... where you left because I wanted you to do something you didn't want to."

Her surprisingly small hands tightened their grip on the front of my shirt. I swallowed the lump in my throat before replying that it was just a dream and that I wasn't going anywhere.

Her grip loosened and I felt her rubbing her face against my back. We stood there in silence for an indeterminate amount of time. I was lost between the pressure of not knowing what to say next and the happiness of the hug and feeling needed.

Eventually she spoke again.

"Why are you so wet?"

I stated the obvious and said it was raining.

"... sorry if I made it worse."

She slowly released me and put one hand against the center of my back to let me know it was time to keep going.

Once we were fully out in the hall, Fio seemed completely re-energized; happier, even, than usual. I continued my normal walk as she skipped ahead, humming some indecipherable tune to herself. Again I stated the obvious and said that she seemed upbeat.

She stopped humming, but no skipping, just long enough to answer.

"The school's so different after-hours, don't you think? It's nice."

I smiled to myself and mumbled an agreement.

Other than the frantic drawing of requested Brave Combination pictures, I had a pretty uneventful weekend. I did, however, have a pretty cool Friday. I went home for lunch, as I do most days lately. My current job is in a building approximately 50 feet from my front door, so there's not much reason to stick around if I've got more than the 5 minutes it takes to ride the elevator and cross the street to spare. Anyway, finding time to watch anime now that I'm working hasn't been too difficult as a result. I tend to do most of my watching while I eat my mid-day meal. It's always nice because I tend not to watch garbage, but on Fridays it's a particularly special treat. Not only because of the innate awesomeness of the final day of the work week, but because the Haruhi subs tend to be released on Thursday night or Friday morning, giving them ample time to finish downloading for my Friday lunch break.

Kind of a long opening for me just to talk about Haruhi (yet again) but the overall theme of this post is gonna be last Friday in particular, so there is a reason for it. But yeah, I am going to talk about Haruhi (yet again). After last week's tension-filled episode, this week's was a nice change. Sure, the resident time-traveler, alien and esper each had their own brief moment of seriousness in there to reassert the sci fi elements and to deepen Kyon's (and by extension our) confusion over what exactly is going on, but all in all, the episode was pretty light hearted.

When this new season began, I counted myself lucky that I hadn't read the novels because it meant this would all be new content for me. When Endless Eight was crushing us all under its mighty girth of frustration, I was starting to feel like I'd just like to know what happens next without having to wade through all this repeated timeline nonsense (it's a cool sci fi concept, but if the loop repeats more than 3 times, 4 tops, you're doing it wrong. Oh, so wrong). Now, I'm not sure where I stand. With actual new stories coming out once again, I'm happy to be surprised and amused by things for the first time. But part of me wonders what's original to the novels and what's KyoAni's doing. Finer touches that I really appreciate like Shamisen the cat struggling to stay on Yuki's shoulder as he debates linguistic philosophy with Kyon or Haruhi's taking a moment to hastily consume the remainder of Kyon's tea before storming out of the cafe. My first guess is that light novels being what they are, smaller details like that are the animation studio's two cents. But then, as I haven't actually read these novels, I really can't say. So I guess mostly, I'm glad that I don't know what'll happen next (this week, it just so happens that I do because, if I'm not mistaken, the next episode ought to be one from the first season, but let's ignore that fact for the sake of this sentence making sense) but I'll admit that there is a curiosity inside me that wants to analyze what belongs to Tanigawa Nagaru and what's Kyoto Animation's.

So I watched that at lunch and it was good stuff. After an afternoon of work and a 100-meter-dash of an Aetheria Epics putting together, I went out for supper with my girlfriend, my sister and her boyfriend (he's also a good friend but I never know if I should specify or if it's just a given). After drinking enough beer to give us to confidence to belt out a few classic Beatles tunes in front of each other, we did just that. Which brings me to Beatles Rock Band.

(Come to think of it, is that the official title? That's what I've been calling it since they announced it, but I never bothered to check. Oh well, official or not, the title fits and you know what I'm talking about when I say it.)

So it's a lot like regular Rock Band, but with the Beatles. A simple recipe but a recipe for success, nonetheless. The backgrounds are what I've heard a lot of people talk about, and while they are very nice (someone definitely put a lot of effort into them), it's all just static noise to me if I'm playing. I generally wouldn't care if they weren't there at all. The song selection is good but I felt as though some were intentionally left out with the intention to sell them individually for download later on. If you're a big enough Beatles fan, though, you tend to know and like them all anyway, so you'll likely be happy enough with the sheer range of available songs. Like regular Rock Band, Hard mode tends to be too easy and Expert tends to be too hard, but that speaks more of my own ability than of the game, I suppose.

The drum peripheral is apparently the same as the one that came with Rock Band 2, but with a fancy new Beatles-esque look. I'd never used the Rock Band 2 drum kit before, but it's definitely an improvement over the first. A lot less noisy on its own and it just seems generally sturdier. The guitar that I tried (not sure if there are more than one kind to go with this game) was also nice. I've been told that we're finally up to something resembling "actual size" for our plastic instrument, meaning that it feels a little bit more "right" in my opinion. Also, the effects switch is a lot harder to accidentally change in the middle of a song and you now have to hold down the start button for it to work, meaning it's less likely I'll be accidentally pausing the game mid-song, which has always been a frustration for not only me, but the people I play with as well.

All in all, I dig it. And with the Rock Band Queen pack supposedly coming out this month, it looks like the game will be seeing a lot more use in our small circle during the next little while than it has over the past several months.

After that, the girlfriend and I went home and had a long and much-needed sleep. The rest of the weekend is just a muddled blur of photoshop, crumpled up pieces of paper and a fequently-refreshed forum window. I'd do it all over again, though.

This weekend's Join-Party Choice-Drawing Incentive Event was a resounding success! Several new members joined the forum and some pretty cool pictures came of the various requests (if I do say so myself). Here they are!

Existing member Clinton requested a picture of Iris in a CRB uniform:


New member Lord Shadow requested a picture of Fio doing a fist pump:


Existing members Ryuu and Vuanaunt pooled their requests to ask for a "Fio/Allete moemoe yuri crossover pose". In the end I went easy on the yuri and heavy on the moemoe:


New member Raven requested a picture of Kei in a ready-for-fighting pose with a specific caption:


New member Bri requested a picture of damsel in distress, Lily, riding a steed of some sort. One suggestion was an elk and with warm thoughts of Princess Mononoke in my heart, I went with it:


New member Skala requested a simple knight ver. Frey with two thumbs up and a hearty grin:


Existing member Masterly requested a highly paladined-up Frey with sword in hand, signaling us to stop:


Existing member Pinky requested the last panel of this page of CRB redone larger and in the AE style:


And finally, new member Epsilon requested a picture of "Ninja Allete, assassinating air itself" :


Again, I believe that this event was a success and I'll definitely be up for doing it again some time! For now, though, I've gotta get working on other stuff, like the CRB redesign, getting AE's polls to work more consistently, the upcoming podcast, and as always, bringing in new readers.

This event is to be held on the weekend of September 12-13 (with perhaps some spillover depending on its success).

Basically, the idea is that if you're a reader of Circumstances of the Revenant Braves or Aetheria Epics (hereafter known aggregately as The Brave Combination, just for the record), then I invite you to join the forum and start an introduction thread with a just few sentences about yourself here. By doing so, you'll get the opportunity to have a free picture of any CRB or AE character in a costume and/or pose of your choice (PG-13 or safer) in either the CRB or AE art style drawn for you.

After your intro thread is posted, the specific request can be made in this thread. When I've completed the drawing, I'll quote the original post and post the completed drawing there as well.

My loyal forum-goers who have been members all along may also have a drawing if they choose to request one.

So! If you like things neatly laid out in point form, here it is!:

- Go here and join up as a member of the forums
- Go here and post a short introduction thread, just telling us who you are, how you found us and maybe some of the other stuff you're into.
- Go here and request a picture, being sure to include the name of the character you want drawn and the costume and/or pose you'd like them to be in (again, PG-13 or safer or it ain't happenin')
- Check back here now and then over the course of the weekend for your picture.

Well, there it is. Have fun, I hope lots of you participate and I look forward to seeing/drawing what you come up with!

Four votes, huh? That's a far cry from the over seventy I get at AE every day, but dem's the breaks when you don't update your blog in over a month. But I'll take it seeing as I started to lean toward the final option anyway (it was the poll winner, for the record) and I'm tremendously impatient. So expect a new layout around here some time in the next little while.

Other than that I've been contemplating ways to drum up both site traffic in general as well as forum participation. The latter I'm thinking of accomplishing by holding some kind of event on the forum. Incentive-type stuff, you know? So once I go over it a few times in my head to make sure I don't get in over my head or anything, I'll mention that both here and on the AE site.

As for the former, I'll probably roll out another wave of advertising (mainly for AE, because it seems to give off a better first impression than CRB, especially given that CRB's updates have become remarkably tortoise-like as of late). But as always, if any of you out there have any ideas on getting either or both of the sites more attention, I'd love to hear it. Heck, I don't even have to hear it, you can just go ahead and do it if you want. If CRB and AE (man, I've gotta come up with a collective term for my sites) do well, it's good for everyone. Readers get "I liked it before it was cool" bragging rights and should they ever be popular enough to make me an income off of them, well that just means I have more time to focus on and make more content for them.

But anyway, first thing's first. I'm trying to charge some life back into CRB as you may have noticed and I'm not done yet, so on top of everything else, keep an eye out for more CRB updates.