One way to spend the Night Shift...

Trust the French to be so much more adventurous than I and my colleagues at ASDA ever were during the nights. Usually it was stuff like folding (the special 'ASDA fold' at that) and tidying the towels display for us...

Lucky Star – It Begins

All right, it's about time I got my visitors introduced properly to this wacky show called Lucky Star. You'll either love it or you'll hate it, or perhaps simply wonder what on earth it's all about.

I resisted it for a long time, because of the underlying nature that originally made me a little uncomfortable; but it's actually okay after all, or a good 98% of it is, with even the more 'adult' themes very tame (I think: I'm no expert on this).

Here is the first episode of the 24 anime shows, dubbed into English and in full High Definition if desired. It's surprisingly addictive. It draws you in with its exploration of the trivial, and with its sharply-written dialogue and its well-defined main characters. It's mostly a metaphor for explaining everyday life, with no particular overarching storyline, but does it so well that you (probably) won't be able to help sticking with it.

You don't have to go into the Lucky Channel bit at the end: although it is amusing in its own way, this regular segment won't appeal to everyone, nor the oddball song at the very end, different for each episode.

If you decide to continue with the series, the next episode is always listed at YouTube so it is easy to follow for as long as you wish.

Give it a go, and see what I mean about this surprisingly compelling series...

Project Mirai

This is a variation on the Project Diva game, this time featuring what I call the 'diminutives' of the six Crypton vocaloid characters: Meiko, Kaito, Miku, Luka, Rin and Len. I do not know whether this will follow the original game to the West if that goes ahead, as looks very possible.

Although it's not really my type of thing, I have to say that it is very well done and at top quality, as this introductory video (with no actual game-play) from Sega shows. No doubt it will be hugely popular, as the chibi-style characters already are and have been for a few years now...

My Neighbour

Totoro, Totoro, one of Studio Ghibli's most famous, charming and enduring productions, released in 1988. Totoro is so famous and so well loved that he even appears throughout Toy Story 3 (!) This is just the original movie's closing theme with some scenes to accompany it...

Dancing Cockatoo

This is Frostie the cockatoo, here dancing to (appropriately) Shake Your Tail Feather. I am grateful to Miki Branescu (a.k.a. neutrinoP) for pointing me to this.

I might well feature other examples of this rising star's talent in future...