I’d say that this episode was pretty good. There wasn’t anything groundbreaking although it did follow the usual SNS formula which was good enough for me for the most parts. There were quite a few good laughs to be had in this episode too for additional bonus points. I had seriously thought that Shana would’ve made a real lunch (even if it was all just eggs like Nerine from Shuffle!)…but I guess not.

Being true to the Shana formula, the fights weren’t anything to call home about. However, the training bit with Wilhelmina was quite cool if you ask me. I don’t know if that’s sad or not, having the “fake” fighting be cooler than the actual fighting. ;) Let’s hope the opening sequence isn’t a total fake and that there’ll be some decent action scenes when Pheles shows up.

From this episode’s preview, it seems that the series is still not changing course to align itself back with the novels. I really don’t know what they’re planning to pull here but I guess I’m cool with it as long as they get back on course later.

Bernhard has officially pushed RC1 out into the wilds. We’ve implemented quite a few new features in addition to fixing a good number of bugs. These new features include, but are not limited to, the following:

• ‘Quick Outline’ via Ctrl+O
• faster ‘Outline’ parsing
• better handling of .NET environments
• improvements to the build mechanism
• console hyperlink support
• launching support for .exe files

I’ve tested this on Eclipse 3.2.2 as well as I20071009-2255 and things look okay. Of course, since I don’t really know too much about C#, I can’t really comment on how well it fares as an actual development environment. So, please do download the zip file and give it a go if you can. If you have any features or bugs that you’d like implemented or fixed, please let us know in our issue tracking system on Sourceforge. :)

I just got wind of this piece of news from my brother a few minutes ago. I am saddened by this although at the same time, as they are no longer making any games based on the Dungeons & Dragons universe, I suppose it doesn’t really affect me all that much.

I’ll be manning a booth for Eclipse at the Ontario Linux Fest tomorrow with Igor. If you happen to be going there, come drop by and say hi! :)

Nothing too special really happened in this episode. At least we finally learn why Rika’s been a target this whole time. I certainly didn’t see that coming. I’m guessing that the trigger that’s killed everyone in Hinamizawa thus far has to be slightly different from what the original syndrome induces. As we saw in episode 5, all the dead people that was in the school didn’t seem to have died from clawing at their own necks.

Ooishi’s always been a likable character and it’s a shame to see him get taken out. I have to admit that it was a pretty cool scene. Certainly a lot cooler than seeing Keiichi and the others try to brew up some pathetic plan. I found their conversation, particularly Shion’s comment about Irie, way too lighthearted for the situation at hand. It seemed really out of place.

The arc seems like it’s going to come to an end soon. So that leaves us with a lot of episodes for “祭囃し編”, which is alright with me. I don’t know how they’re going to fight against Takano’s minions when they show up, but I’m certainly getting pretty riled up about it. Will Satoko’s traps play a role in the next episode at all? Do they even have any weapons?

To be completely honest, the bit with Satoko regaining her freedom was rather anticlimactic. I guess I shouldn’t have been expecting too much since even I personally can’t think of a cooler way that could’ve been employed for Satoko to get out of her uncle’s grip. I have to say that it’s pretty pathetic on Rika’s part to have not convinced Satoko this whole time. I mean, they just made it seem so easy.

Well, Takano was probably one of the most unlikely person that people would’ve guessed to be the mastermind behind all the crap that’s been happening in Hinamizawa. I knew she was the villain some time after the first season as I had willingly spoiled myself (although I have deep regret over this in hindsight) over a couple of plot points. Still, it was a little hard to swallow until this episode.

Now, with the gears in motion and the story not resembling any of the past arcs, I can’t even begin to imagine as to how things are going to unfold for the rest of this arc. I may have spoiled myself a little but there’s still a lot that I don’t know (such as the ending). How will the main characters react to Tomitake and Takano’s death given what Rika had said the night before? How will they defend themselves against the coming horror?

Well, this episode was rather interesting. I personally hadn’t expected them to get this far. I guess they’re really going for some kind of a “good ending” build up here. Of course, the name of the arc, “皆殺し編”, doesn’t really offer much reassurance to any sort of a “good” ending.

I don’t really know what to expect from the rest of this arc as it seems like the Satoko business will be wrapped up in the next episode. It should be about time for the festival soon, so does that mean we’re going to get back to people dropping left and right soon? How will Keiichi’s “powers” come into play here? Will he able to do anything useful once the plot has shifted gears?

I do hope that things will pick up immediately after the resolution of the Satoko case. I know we still have a lot of episodes left but I’d much rather have them slowly elaborate on the plot over some filler episodes. I guess that the current scenario probably doesn’t really give much leeway for fillers, but hey, you never know.

Setting an execution environment in your MANIFEST.MF file isn’t difficult. I mean, PDE provides great tooling for doing this on the ‘Overview’ tab and you can just use the ‘Update the classpath settings’ hyperlink to fix up your other preferences (although I think there’s a bug in a rather odd case, I’ll have to look into it later). Sounds pretty easy, right, just a few mouse clicks?

No, you’re wrong. Because, if Java 6 APIs can somehow sneak in to the Platform, you know there’s something wrong. That issue’s been fixed but 204736 is still an open issue. I hope we can get that resolved quickly. :/

I’m a little surprised by how lazy some people can get. I take the 9 to get home from the Davis Centre and prior to that it’s actually the 13, so it does the usual temporary stop before moving on on the 9’s route. What’s weird is that people seem to enjoy sitting around on the bus and then getting off at its first stop outside South Campus Hall. Seriously, it’s not hard to walk there, I’d say it probably takes less than two minutes of your time. You could’ve walked there before the bus could’ve taken you there. Why do people insist on wasting valuable time lounging around on the bus instead of getting to their destination earlier at the expense of a little leg exercise? I don’t get it.

So, the second season is finally on. I’ve been browsing around online for the past couple of days and it seems that the general consensus is that this first episode is either a work of art or a lame attempt of putting some story behind a recap of the first season. Being the diplomat that I am, I’d have to put myself between these two extremes. There is, without a doubt, no question about the fact that the opening and ending songs and sequences are a work of art. I’ve watched them countless times and am eagerly awaiting its CD release and creditless versions of the videos. I didn’t buy any of the CDs from the first season but I’ll probably at least buy this season’s CD single, at least this first one anyway if the second one isn’t that hot. The best part is that both songs are on the same CD, which helps cut costs tremendously.

The art in question during the actual episode, unfortunately, wasn’t really something to call home about. I think that the fight scenes were improved but a lot of the scenes in the first half of the episode were a little iffy. I felt that practically everyone but Yuji’s face was a little too circular and wide. Maybe it was because it was an illusionary world (ahaha, what a sad excuse), I don’t know, but things just didn’t look very proportional to me for the most part.

I don’t really have any qualms about the story personally. Since I’ve actually played through the game on the NDS, the events that have transpired thus far are kind of like what did happen in the game. I’ll admit that it’s not exactly the same which caught me off guard a little but it’s close enough. I mean, the main idea is there, and that’s what counts. Anyway, here’s to hoping that we’ll get some good fighting next episode or the one after (depending on when Shana will actually fight Mea). I mean, given the art production of this episode, I can only hope that they’re saving their budget for some key scenes. :P