I’m about to start transcribing the words that I had gotten down during our NaNoWriMo meeting at the Golden Griddle a few hours ago and I just wanted to note that I was completely unable to recall my lead female character’s name at all while I was there. I thought about it for at least five minutes but it just never came. So instead, I just wrote an ‘X’ in my little notebook as a placeholder. How sad.

I was hacking away on my statistics assignment when I decided to take a little break and surf a little. I came upon the image above and I practically had to bend down to pick up my jaw! It seems that this fellow purchased Mountain of Faith from Palet Mail Service and got this print for kicks! Must resist…impulse purchase…argh!

I really enjoyed this episode personally. Hiro and Miyako have a great chemistry together and I think they make for a very cute couple. I’m also still loving the artistic liberties that SHAFT is taking with these episodes. These obviously wouldn’t fit in your usual anime series but I think that they look great in ef.

I was actually taken aback by Kei’s lacking of cooking skills personally. I thought she knew what she was doing when she bought that cookbook…but, yeah. On the other hand, while Miyako also took the initiative to cook for Hiro, I was not surprised by the fact that her food was actually edible, oddly enough. Before I forget, I’d like to note that the scene of Hiro telling Miyako about the dangers of cooking improperly was absolutely hilarious.

With the strong focus on Hiro’s story this time around, we’re probably going to get a lot of Renji and Chihiro time next episode. I wouldn’t mind that at all as long as nothing “out of the ordinary” happens like what happened in this episode when Renji decided to ask Chihiro if he could kiss her. I was totally not expecting that request. He’s a brave man, that Renji.

While I’m sure we all threw up the ‘Navigator’ view once in a while back in the pre-3.2 days of Eclipse, I can’t say that I’ve opened it up much anymore. With the working set support in the ‘Project Explorer’ view, the ‘Navigator’ is just way too disorganized for me to stand. The only time I ever pull it up nowadays is for a quick view of all the files in my projects (usually for the .* resources that are hidden by default by filters). This is all fine and dandy for us veterans but the presence of two views that seem to offer identical but not actually identical features is a nightmare for new users.

So, if you will, please join the discussion on bug 208693 and voice your opinion on the topic!

I can’t get over how awesome the music from the Touhou games are. I’m really liking “おてんば恋娘” right now and I dare say that I’m probably spending too much time enjoying the tunes instead of working on my novel.

It looks like the wheels of motion has started to turn with this episode. The slow but solid developments in Renji and Chihiro’s story thus far seems to have been balanced back with Hiro, Kei, and Miyako’s story with this episode. However, I wish we could learn a bit more about Yuko and Yu. I don’t see them as often as I’d like but I have a feeling that they’re an integral part of this story in terms of bridging the two “worlds”. Let’s not forget that Yuko was first spotted at a church and Yu had noted that he was waiting for someone at a church in the first episode.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I personally can’t stand Kei. She’s just so annoying and has a crappy, overprotective attitude. One thing I’m worried about with regards to Kei’s character development is how she ends up falling for Kyosuke. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that she’s crazy about Hiro, so why does she suddenly switch her target over to Kyosuke, what does she find in him that she doesn’t find in Hiro? Or is she just manipulating him and trying to get Hiro jealous?

The next episode will probably consist of Hiro trying to come to terms with Kei while Miyako continues being her usual cheerful but “unwelcome” self which causes problems for all involved but her. I don’t know what to expect of Renji and Chihiro’s side as that story’s significantly less linear and predictable than the high school romance triangle we’re seeing with Hiro, Kei, and Miyako.

It’s November, which means it’s another go at fifty thousand words for National Novel Writing Month for me again!

Sorry, I said that this was going to go up yesterday but…yeah, that didn’t happen.

We didn’t get to see much real plot development here although there was some character development. It seems that Shana and Yoshida does have some control over their emotions unlike a certain someone with her “jealousy storm” (Belldandy). Another character of note in this episode is Satou. Comic relief aside with regards to his duel against Yuji, we can see that he’s still very eager to make himself useful for Margery. Of course, since he can’t even lift up the Blutsauger unlike Yuji, one has to wonder if he’ll ever be useful in combat.

I am still eagerly anticipating the disappearance of Fumina Konoe. I don’t like her personality or her looks. I really hope that this arc isn’t going to hook up with the main plot because this arc was completely fabricated outside of the events of the novel and would probably seem rather forced if they did link the two together.

As a whole, the episode was about average. While it fit the episode’s name of 『憂いの少女たち』 perfectly, I kind of wished that there was more to it. The dip in art quality amongst the various scenes didn’t really help its case either. The next episode should be good though as it seems like Wilhelmina is going to have a chit chat with Chigusa. ;)

Well, the details are now up on the official site. The first volume is going to include the first three episodes but only the first episode is going to have an audio commentary track.