On New Anime, Upcoming Games, and Other Stuff

Yes, I’m still here, and I still know that this blog exists. Plenty to get to today, so I’m just going to list off topics here and expand on it after the jump. So, we’ve got the new CLANNAD anime, the third season of ARIA anime, some video games that I’m looking forward to before 2007 leaves us, and the road trip I’ll be taking next month. Let’s get started.
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涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱, Season 2

Both moetron and Anime News Network are reporting that, according to a prerelease copy of Japan’s NewType magazine—which goes on sale July 10th—a second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya is all but confirmed. The official announcement is expected to take place on July 7th.

As for when it’ll air, I would be surprised if this came out before March 2008. Kyoto Animation (the team behind Haruhi’s stunning visuals) is currently producing Lucky☆Star, and CLANNAD is scheduled to begin airing this fall. KyoAni typically only has one show at a time going, so unless they break from tradition, Haruhi won’t be back on the air until January at the absolute earliest—and that’s only if KyoAni crams CLANNAD into 13 episodes. More likely, we’ll see this hit the airwaves in late March or early April.

Virginia Tech

My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting and their families. It upsets me that the (as yet unidentified) killer felt that this was a necessary action in response to a breakup with his girlfriend. Or so I hear, anyway; without knowing who the murderer was, the authorities don’t really have a place to start looking for a motive.

And that brings me to a point that upsets me even more. Both Destructoid and Kotaku are reporting that, mere hours after the incident, controversial lawyer Jack Thompson was on Fox News asserting that video games were responsible for the tragedy, providing a field on which to “train” and “rehearse” for these killings. With the killer still unidentified, how can anyone, let alone an out-of-state attorney, claim to know the motive beyond reasonable doubt? Short answer: they can’t.

My hope is that, once investigators do find out who the shooter was, they don’t find a single game console or handheld in his residence. Removal of that possibility would put a serious dent in Thompson’s case, and hopefully his reputation.

A Trilogy completed (No, it’s not Star Wars)

Okay, first of all—yes, I’m still alive, and no, the blog’s not disappearing. It’s just that, too often, I’m either not at the computer when I think of something to write about, or I’m sitting at the computer and drawing a blank. That said, when big news shows up while I’m already at the computer, I’ve got little excuse, don’t I?

So, here we go. Earlier today, episode 24 of Kyoto Animation’s adaptation of Kanon aired on Japanese TV, ending the series. A couple of years ago (2005, I think?), KyoAni adapted AIR for the small screen. What’s the connection? The source work for both series was produced by Key, a highly-acclaimed producer of visual novel “games” in Japan.

But that’s in the past. Japanese TV station BS-i announced today that there is an anime adaptation of CLANNAD in the works, again produced by Kyoto Animation. You guessed it, CLANNAD is the third of Key’s major titles. This means that, before too long, all three of these games (Kanon, AIR, and CLANNAD) will have been animated by KyoAni, and I couldn’t be happier for it.

More information is due to go up on BS-i’s CLANNAD page on March 20th, but hit the jump for what we know already.

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Offline no longer

A couple of days ago, UPS showed up at my door with a white cardboard box. Inside that was a smaller, plastic white “box”—specifically, an Xbox 360. Barely over two weeks after I first contacted Xbox support, my 360 had been shipped to Texas, repaired, and shipped back to me. And it is indeed my 360. The serial number on the unit that was returned to me matches identically the one on the box I shipped down. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a few Phantasy Star Universe content updates I need to catch up on…

zOMG FIRST POST!!one1

*ahem* Now that that’s out of the way…

So I’ve got all this space to call my own out on the interwebs, I figure I may as well get some use out of it, no? Especially since I’m done with college and don’t have to worry about homework assignments or the like anymore. (At least for now, but that’s a topic for another post… maybe.)

This is going to be very informal, no real theme to things or an update schedule. Just me blathering along about whatever comes to mind—be it anime, video games, computers (Macs in particular), music, life in general… you get the picture.

There’s a page kicking around up top about where my screen name, “Dark Morford,” came from, and over there on the right you’ll find my Xbox Live GamerCard. Feel free to send me a Friends request on Live, but leave a comment somewhere (or e-mail me, or find me on IM) so I know who you are; I’m not likely to accept requests that just show up out of the blue. Oh, and I’m not available for any online gameplay at the moment (except Halo 2, but be warned that I generally suck at FPS games). My Xbox 360 is in the shop for repairs, but should be back within the week.