While my team has done pitches for other people before, this one’s going to be a serious one. Quite a few big wigs at the SMT (Senior Management Team) level are going to be listening in on the conference call. Eclipse players like Dave Thomson and Kevin Haaland may not be present, but there are other ones like the lab director for the Ottawa lab (or is he only the lab director of the one lab I’m in instead of both Ottawa labs, well, whatever). I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not to not have Dave and Kevin show up since our project is “Eclipse-related” (I can say this much according to one of my mentors, Kim Horne, it’s certainly vague enough), and our salaries are being paid for by the budget Dave Thomson’s been given for the projects he manages, but anyway…

I’ve got most of my lines memorized (haha, don’t we all claim that) although it sure was tough concentrating last night. You have no idea as to how badly I wanted to hack on code instead of reciting my lines. Anyway, for additional practice, I’ll likely be reciting them on an endless loop whilst biking to work today. Wish me luck!

The news of the DVD was out a couple of days ago, but an actual date of September 21st was only revealed with the 48th volume of Dengeki hp by various sources. Other news includes an illustration collection by Noizi Ito to be released on August 9th, which is likely going to be similar to her last release with 『紅蓮』. For the second season, it seems that they’re going to bring Mea to the scene. This is quite a curveball and could very well invalidate my predictions about the series ending with the light novel line. The novelization of the tenth novel was also brought up, but that’s old news anyway.

My oh my do I have a ton of stuff to buy. Right now, I’m looking at the third manga, the first manga of sola to be released next month, GARNET CROW’s concert DVD later this month, a new single of theirs next month, and the movie DVD in September. The artbook? Well, I don’t know. If I do I might as well pick up 『紅蓮』 while I’m at it (since I don’t actually own it). It’s hard to say. I mean, if sola proves itself to be the cure for cancer it’s shaping up to be, I may be tempted to buy that series on DVD which will surely drain my financial resources. It’s a make or break, really. Either it goes into my annals of great Japanese animation series like AIR, or it’s going to drop the ball on me like Kyoto Animation’s Kanon remake did. I don’t see much room for any middle ground here, folks.

There’s an ’s’, it’s a plural, there are two. Two that’s actually going to conflict with each other. They really planned that out nicely, oh yeah. We’ve got JAX Asia 2007 in Singapore on November 26th and the 27th and in Jakarta on November 29th and the 30th. Then we’ve got OS Summit Asia on November 26th to the 30th in Hong Kong. I am not going to be there, of course. The flight costs would be ridiculous and I’d be missing too many classes just because of flying alone. I’ll rather miss class in the winter term for EclipseCon 2008 instead.

Well, the art quality of this episode is noticeably a lot better than the previous ones we’ve had so far. Both fight scenes were done very well although I have to say that it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t actually see Matsuri fight due to her injuries. I’d say that the fights are definitely on par with NOMAD’s work on the 『ローゼンメイデン』series. The execution for the end of the second fight was a bit weird though in my opinion. Why was there a huge splash of water when Matsuri fell down when she had actually hit the ground instead of the water? Did she just somehow manage to make such an enormous splash solely because of her contact with a random puddle on the ground after falling down from (maybe something like) ten stories up? I don’t know, maybe they’ll rework that scene on the DVD.

So, Takeshi and Mayuko’s backstory has been revealed in this episode. No surprises there for anyone, I presume. I hope they’ll explain as to how a dead yaka can help turn another yaka back to normal as I’m rather interested in how that works. I’m also wondering what Takeshi and Mayuko is going to do now. Will they do nothing important now for the rest of the story? Is this the end of their “arc”? I don’t know if NOMAD was purposely trying to parody Fate/stay night or not, but Takeshi definitely looked like Shirou with that shirt and hairstyle and of course, let’s not forget Aono’s Unlimited Paper Works or I guess more appropriately Gate of Origami.

Now that we know that a dead yaka can somehow help turn a yaka into a normal being, will this series conclude with the death of Aono or of Matsuri? Since I don’t think Mayuko’s going to die at the end of the series, I’m not including her in my equations. Matsuri mentioned that yaka are born from people’s “malicious” thoughts (per se), but she was able to turn Aono into a yaka, so I’m guessing that that process is only for “originals”? I’m assuming that Matsuri’s an original since she’s never seen the sky before. I’m not sure which of the two do I want dead (that sounds really sadistic if taken out of context now that I think about), but heck, you might possibly need two dead persons. If Aono dies or she turns back into a regular human being, will Yorito cease to exist? Well, I guess we can’t really assume that since we’re still not sure as to how Yorito manifested himself in this world. Now if Matsuri dies, will Yorito want to go on living? Maybe Aono will sacrifice herself to let Matsuri live, and in that process Yorito also disappears. Aono wouldn’t have to live on without Yorito and Yorito would be able to grant Matsuri’s promise as a result. Is this a win-win situation?

This episode provides us with the cliffhanger of an impending fight between Aono and Matsuri that I jokingly brought up in the last episode. Since Matsuri is injured, one would have to assume that she’s probably not going to win this fight. There are three ways that this fight could be ended. One, Takeshi intervenes (for whatever reason), this doesn’t seem likely since the guy probably has to sleep. Well, okay, that’s not a great reason, but in all honesty, I just don’t feel that this is going to happen. Two, Matsuri gets serious and puts Aono in her place. Surely, age must play some role in the strength of a yaka. Regardless, we’ve seen Matsuri enter into SEED mode in episode five, so she must have something up her sleeves, right? But Aono did seem to have entered SEED mode too in the previous episode when she was manipulating Yorito, so is Matsuri doomed? Well, she could be saved if Yorito and Mana arrives to the scene, which would be the third way that this fight could end. I’d prefer that we get a good fight since I’m not sure what having Yorito intervene brings to the table, but if the writers have got this written out in a sane way, I could accept it.

So, it doesn’t seem like Mayuko has any feuds towards others of her kind. So…what does she want with them? Lord knows. If we go by the manga about something or another of some sorts that happened ten (or whatever) years ago, let’s just say that she’s looking for the yaka that turned her…for some reason. However, mjaybe that’s not even Matsuri. She travels around a lot, no? Perhaps the culprit was actually Aono? Going back to this hunting business, the question that has now arisen since now we know Mayuko doesn’t seem to care, why oh why does Takeshi want to slaughter yakas?

The show now is basically about two-thirds of the way complete since it’s supposedly going to be thirteen episodes long (although there will be one additional episode each in the fourth and fifth DVDs) and it continues to leave me wanting more after every episode. Admittedly, the art quality is always wavering randomly. It seems as though the close-ups are either done really well or done really poor. Farther shots of the characters are generally pretty crappy although the backdrops are always done very nicely, especially the skies (one would certainly hope that the skies are done right given the name of the series). The music is great too. I don’t think I dislike any of the major themes that have been replayed throughout the episodes and am looking forward to listening to the whole soundtrack when it is released on the 27th. The story? Well, I don’t think I really need to say anything about that, now do I?

This series just keeps getting better and better. Unfortunately, the art seems to be deteriorating quite a bit on the contrary. Every new episode brings us new questions to ponder over and answers that enlightens us all. I wasn’t sure as to what I was expecting from this episode. I guess it would have been naïve of me to believe that they might have thrown a filler episode in here since Matsuri has disappeared. That wouldn’t have made much sense when you think about it given how much Yorito cares about Matsuri. You just can’t have a filler episode when the main character is clearly busy worrying about something else.

So what exactly are Aono’s motives? The events of this episode seems to back up the predictions I made in my last entry about how Yorito isn’t exactly human. Well, could her motives be as simple as wishing to live with her (presumably “imaginary”) little brother for the rest of eternity? Sounds fair enough I guess, but how long can she hide for? What if Yorito tries to get her out into the sun? Will she have to manipulate him all the time to prevent such things from happening? Is that even a happy life? I don’t know, this one’s really got me stumped.

Now why didn’t Matsuri just leave the city? Of course, if she did, the series would’ve ended, but putting that aside, what held her back? Did she bump into Mayuko somewhere? Wouldn’t Mayuko know that she’s a yaka? I guess this goes back to the question of just what are Takeshi and Mayuko doing on their search? While I wasn’t expecting this initially, the table could be turned around with Takeshi trying to take out Aono if he realizes that there’s some kind of a bond or link between Matsuri and Mayuko. Maybe Takeshi will come to Matsuri’s aid when Aono tries to take her out? Who knows.

I think I’ve probably spent about a day and a half so far trying to get a build system working for our project. The Eclipse build process has a ridiculous amount of intertwining Ant files and it sure ain’t pretty. I mean, how hard could it be to tell Ant to fetch some files from a repository and then run a build on it? Oh, you’d be surprised, believe me.

I don’t often try to read Japanese text without a graphical aid (like in a manga) because it’s generally beyond me to try to comprehend something, but I decided to give it a shot this time around since I was genuinely interested in what this article had to say.

Here are some points that I got out of it with the help of a dictionary on a few words:

• currently, the series composition is being worked on in conjunction with the script
• for the purpose of some key scenes, they are working on new ways of animation
• the story will be focused on Yuji
• Wilhelmina will be playing an important role
• useless bits and pieces will be removed to present a tighter storyline

The first point may seem unimportant but could it possibly imply that they are working with Yashichiro Takahashi to figure out how to align the novel’s conclusion with the second season?

Or maybe not, or well, at least I wouldn’t be feeling well enough to write this now. I was in a biking accident just now about a minute’s biking distance away from work (yes I’m typing this from work). Essentially, my bike went off the pavement and onto the grass and for instinctive reasons, I tried to steer it back onto the pavement. That didn’t really work since I didn’t have enough momentum (or whatever), so I ended up being stuck and then the bike just fell sideways down onto the pavement.

My helmet saved my head but not my sunglasses. The legs appear to be bent way too off for me to be able to fix it with brute force. I can technically still wear it though it’s loose and slightly lop-sided which I’ve always felt is probably bad for the eyes. Well, at least I still have my regular glasses in addition to a spare pair at home.

At least I’m still alive, I guess. The only real injury I’ve suffered is a scratch on my left knee. Other monetary possessions that have been damaged includes my helmet where the visor part essentially completely broke off. Well, to be honest, I wasn’t expecting much out of that plastic part from twenty dollar helmet. My bike’s front wheel is also slightly off. So while the steering…handle (?) is aligned properly, the wheel’s tipped over to the left. It was kind of weird biking the last bit to work having to twist the handle to the right a bit so that I could go straight.

From bug 189314:
“(By the way do committers have to be female? If gender is not important to the role, you can use “they”, “their”, & “them” - which refer to one or more of any combination of genders.)”

Truly an interesting question that I’m sure has been on everyone’s mind. Do committers have to be female? Well, no, they don’t, because I’m a committer and I’m a guy.

I have been trying to phase in the female pronouns to some stuff I write over the male pronoun. It is naturally an extremely difficult task. I also use the plural form at times. I’d say it sounds odd about half the time but can be usable in other times.