Fortress of Perpetual Midnight

For some reason, the Waffen-SS of the Last Battalion were not a military group but an urban gang, and it was up to us Ninja Turtles to deal with them. The Hauptsturmführer's work was easy to identify, as there weren't many others running around with Broomhandle Mausers these days.† Oddly enough, Dok‡ wasn't actually doing anything evil, just researching at a local library.

†It had been replaced as a service pistol even by WWII, although some officers (such as him) still had personal ones. As the only confirmed Werwolfes are him and Ms. Rip-Van, we don't know anything about how they're spawned, so for all we know he may have been a soldier for decades before that. Interestingly enough, the powers they are seen to have seem to relate to firearms: Ms. Rip-Van's dancing musket ball and the Hauptsturmführer's ability to make two long-barreled Mausers look like one normal piece when holstered （笑）. (Speaking of extensible barrels, DM had to make a similar excuse so that typical slugthrower rifles (exemplified by the Czerka Adventurer) can double as BAW E-5 Droid Blaster Carbines due to the changes he's made to the plot.) Tangentially, I'm also amused by the fact that humans like Walter can chop up people with mono-wire, while vampires (there's one who shows up later on, not to spoil anything by saying where) can chop up skyscrapers. There's also the fact that Walter is a gunsmith, yet he fights exclusively with mono-wire. (I've thought of a logical reason for that, but that's ( a spoiler for Book 9. ))

Admittedly, there are Mauser variants chambered in modern calibers, so his work might not be identifiable by the ammo and brass left at the scene if he uses one of those. However, each firearm has a distinct pattern of marks that it leaves on each bullet from the rifling in the barrel. I think I may have heard that it's possible to determine the model as well, but I failed to find confirmation on that; still, they would be able to tell that all of the rounds came from the same two weapons, making it easier to link it to a specific person.

‡Since they're German, I assumed it was an abbreviation of the German word. I don't know whether they use such an affectionate term in German, but I don't imagine Hirano does either. (The dwarf is known as "Chef.") Using German words can lead to some odd things; this one is the same as an Ork word, and "Death Korps" is a bit of a false friend. . . .

Just as I was about ready to start on Project Cow Level, Ms. mizuno_youko happened to be getting rid of an old (but still functional for the moment) scanner, and you know how I feel about free stuff. Just for fun, I tried it out before opening it. As you can see, it's perfectly good quality for a fan-comic—to the point that I should be able to draw each page on an 8½×11 sheet and still have the content of a reasonably sized page. (I may upgrade if I ever get to the point that I can make my own projects.) Since I won't be allowed to publish this one in hard copy, I don't think there's any particular reason to keep consistent whether it's portrait or landscape orientation. Actually, I really have no idea how the Comic Genesis engine works, but it's not a big deal. I'll get to that after my proposal is accepted. (Optimism? Who am I and what have I done with archlords?)

Also, as I noted here, I did a very small number of sketches before getting distracted by new comics. (I just got a bunch more after I finished them, so there won't be any more for quite a while.) They're test designs for a couple of main characters, as well as stock tauren. Some notes: *The mask idea came from my belovèd Poisoned Wind Globadiers. However, I was thinking that dwarves don't use warp-technology like Skaven or chaos energy like gnomes and goblins, so I came up with the lower-tech idea of just using some sort of gauze as a filter. Of course, gauze porosity is rather difficult to represent in comic illustrations. More mechanically importantly, the kerchief doesn't fit well over his muzzle (and makes him look a bit too much like a bandit), so I'll probably use a more direct copy of the Globadiers'. As you can see from the sketch in the middle, I wasn't sure about the framework for the cylinder, but upon closer inspection, there's a metal ring around the end. *Dwarven goggle straps don't fit well on races that have heads extending parallel to their lines of sight. I'll probably have them integrated into a cap (again, like the Globadiers) that buckles below the chin. I like the Globadiers' slightly convex lenses, but these are supposed to be based on a standard design (only altered to fit the tauren), so I'm keeping to the original schematics, excepting logistical changes. *I don't know how to properly draw braids, which are an integral part of the character designs for the project. For Aonghus, at least, they'll be solid black, so no one will notice. (Unlike in AnthraXX, he wears colors, so I don't have to go to the trouble of adding non-black lines to delineate him.) For the others, I'll probably use the primitive method seen here. *Speaking of braids, I considered giving Aonghus eartails but nixed that so you could see the chin-strap. *I don't really like cattle's noses with their big open nostrils, so I squished them. *I'm not sure about whether I should leave Aonghus's horn stump bare or use a cap (a couple of test designs on the middle right). I suppose a metal cap would help to emphasize his cosmopolitan appearance.

I pretty much have the first few chapters laid out, so I can get to that whenever I'm less distracted. I was originally going to start with the origin story, but I think it'd be more entertaining if I jumped right into the action. I'm thinking about it putting the flashback in Chapter 2 instead (as Chapter 1 is just an introduction to the team), but I'm afraid of doing that too crudely, like in HELLSING. I at least have an idea to link it to what the characters are doing right after Chapter 1, so hopefully it'll work a bit better.

My readership appears to be at an all-time high (apparently at least two regulars!), but I've accumulated quite a lot of stuff during its absence, to say nothing of my sloth and the fact that I've built up a lot of new things due to year's-end-and-beginning splurging. So, I'd like to see if you have any requests or suggestions. What I've got in the works is as follows:

( Ridiculously long notes )

It occurred to me recently that if I'm going to boycott Bakuretsu Hunter, Trigun, and Uru-sei Yatsu-ra for their lionizing of misogynistic bastards, I should add the James Bond series to the list, too. I don't really care about that. However, it is a significant part of American pop culture, so that does reduce my parody material significantly.

Meanwhile, I know that it's hypocritical that I'm still willing to support series that joke about rape. I wouldn't miss SNL or Whose Line, but I'd have a hell of a time purging all the Slayers files from my hard drive, or the HELLSING parodies from my projects. And I'm certainly not giving up Strawberry Shake, particularly considering that it would require that I not get my favorite magazine and instead wait for each individual serial to be available in compilation. The only excuse I have is that these are all single cases, rather than major parts of the series.

It also occurred to me that the Board consisted of only five people (♂♀♀♀♂), yet still boasted a total of two mustaches and two monocles (three of them because the character designs are homages to characters from other media). I suppose it paints a pretty good picture of a group of upper-crust experienced sorts, but I'm still considering altering those demographics a bit.

For some reason, in the middle of this month, I coincidentally encountered a number of references to the German troops of the World Wars:

1. As noted earlier, I reread HELLSING. In case you've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, the main conflict in the series is with a bunch of SS vampires and werewolves who have hidden away in South America until now, when they come back to wage eternal war.

2. The latest free issue of GTM that I happened to pick up that week at the Game Preserve featured an article on the release of TANNHÄUSER, a game that I had noted earlier as having a damn nifty setting and miniatures (although not enough to warrant buying a board game for them). The concept is that the Germans have prolonged the Great War until the '40s using their arcane knowledge.

3. On the same stop at the Wabash Landing, I happened to notice a special mook? featuring our old friend Erwin Rommel on the cover.

4. That evening, I noted that orbix's IM icon resembled Gleemax. I also checked here to make sure that Hitler's brain was not green. I also realized that there was another Nazi soldier named Erwin. I can only assume that it's not the same guy, as the Desert Fox was teaching at the academy in the '30s, not acting as some stereotypical villain's lackey. Also, one of history's most legendary tacticians deserves a less generic face.

I was struck by the idea of having some crossover featuring the SS from HELLSING hanging out with Haken and Erwin. Unfortunately, I don't happen to have any context for that. Maybe I'll just make a fanart—once I actually bother to learn to draw.

5. I also happened to notice that these guys are an unusually cheap way to get a 40K army. They're actually from another planet almost 39,000 years in the future, but they fit thematically.

6. I ate out with arifyn's parents for Mother's birthday. I don't remember the context, but someone mentioned the fact that some Nazis had fled to South America.

Meanwhile, remember the distinction that, while I may make Nazi jokes, I do not make Holocaust jokes. I can't imagine that HELLSING sells very well in Germany, where you can get three years just for saying the words "Sieg Heil."

Me? Respect for the dead? Dream on.

YesAsia.com uses USPS for its free shipping, so you can track an order once it makes landfall on this side of the pond. Thus, when it arrived in Illinois on Sunday, I was full of anticipation. Sadly, however, it arrived in Missouri four days later. I have no idea what was with that, but it somehow managed to get here this afternoon nonetheless—right after I'd finished rereading HELLSING.

In any case, I didn't manage to get any YuriHime Comics publications in this batch, but I still had one high-priority item: HAYATE CROSS BLADE Vol. 7. There'll be spoilers for up to that point, but there's only one person who has me on the friends list who's likely to ever read it, and I reckon she already has.

Ms. Zhū is still damn nifty, but more important was the much-awaited Shit-Bourgeois fight (or "kakumei vs. anarchy," as seems more appropriate now). I also notice that the ten battle is between the two S-rankers with weird belts. Ms. Inori must feel a bit left out, being the only one of the four combatants who speaks like a normal person.

Of course, with Ms. Mikado and Ms. Inori stepping into the spotlight, it's the perfect time to debut their Shigeru-Family mascots. Ms. Mikado gets tsun-dere points for her reaction to that. And I'm sure Ms. Kikkawa and I weren't the only ones surprised that Ms. Mikado took Shigeno rather than Shigerō.

We also get the first real glimpse of their background. I can't say I appreciate the direction of Ms. Mikado's motivation, but I do like her challenge to Ms. Inori the second time they met. I'm guessing that she was down about the business with Ryōichi, and it was the perfect time for Ms. Mikado to step in with a line like that. In the present day, it looks like Ms. Mikado is resigned to Ms. Inori's quitting because of it, but I'm hoping that it'll turn out all right, if Chopin's etude has anything to say about it. Also, it's interesting to note that the gender-like appearance and personalities of the heirs to the two rival corporations started out opposite one another and both reversed somewhere in-between. . . . (Ms. Amachi still has a lot of story left in her, so we'll presumably see what changed her at this point. Her father also looks rather young, if you ask me. . . .)

Meanwhile, the fight itself was predictably brief, even with the handicap. (Ironically, the word "punk" also has a similar meaning to "zako" in English.) The previous white-suit fight had a similarly obvious result, but Ms. Amachi drew it out for aesthetic purposes (although not as far as she claimed in the side story about the drama CD). Speaking of aesthetics, Ms. Shidō's and Ms. Tonami's custom blades looked rather cartoony to me. The latter is probably just because the basket hilt is too big in comparison to the more important blade, but in the former case I would have to commend Ms. Hayashiya for thinking up a logical reason for having a ridiculously large sword in a system that's essentially to first blood, even if it doesn't look good.

Also, the extras include the results of the second character-popularity contest (but not the episode-popularity one, oddly enough). The top two ranks are the same as before (which is perhaps why the numerical scores are not listed this time, as it made everyone but Ms. Kuga look pretty sad before), but I'm happy to have spent $1 to contribute to Ms. Mikado's placing at 4th, right behind Ms. Inori. As she already featured Ms. Kuga and Ms. Shizuma, Ms. Hayashiya instead included a gift illustration of the aforementioned runners-up (and our heroine) that would be suitable for daily_yuri if I could get a scan of it, but sadly no side story about them this time. Predictably, my other three votes didn't even manage to bump the poor side characters 20th place (which means they lost to what appears to be either a mascot or a cookie), but at least the captain of the nurse-tai appeared in one frame again, much to my surprise.

Coincidentally, Ms.? Maitake is in the middle of putting on a week-long HAYATE CROSS BLADE solo festival, centering on one couple each day. It sounds a bit lonely, so I at least will be sure to drop by on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Day 2 reminded me of something that I had overlooked: Ms. Hoshikawa and Ms. Tsukishima are now D-Rankers (last we heard), which means that they would be perfect targets for Ms. Nagi, who's going to be a big fish in a small pond when she gets there. She hasn't been mentioned for a long time except in the Kurogane×Shizuma battle, but I haven't given up on her. . . .

As part of my research for Project AnthraXX, I was looking through this. (You can probably guess why if you look carefully enough at my notes, but I know you won't, so you'll have to wait until it's hypothetically drawn so it'll be obvious.) Sadly, one of the problems with Wikipedia, just like its English counterpart, is that for fiction, almost the entire article is under the "spoiler alert" tag, so you can never be sure not to learn something you weren't supposed to learn yet unless you've already read the entire thing. It's especially difficult with Japanese comics, where the writers can get information from the serials, while I have to wait for the compilations. Naturally, I did happen to run into one.

Meanwhile, I was actually motivated to go back and read the seven volumes that I have. I stopped following the series a couple years back due to the refocus of my priorities, but it's still an entertaining series. I was particularly surprised at how much of the Millennium stuff I didn't remember after reading once (particularly the part about Walter and the tall, stoic, nameless Werwolf captain), as compared to the parts up to the HELLSING/Iscariote meeting, which I had read in two languages and seen in the TV series. Now that I'm more experienced and had already read through it, I was able to catch more of the design elements.

I remember one of the first impressions I had of the series was Arucard's crazy eyes. Now that I look at it more carefully, the same trait is displayed by pretty much every adult male character (and Ms. Blitz). Even the unaltered humans like Maxwell look positively abnormal. Of course, that is not terribly surprising, as a good proportion of the principal characters is made up of bloodthirsty megalomaniacs. The series also has possibly the highest eyewear quotient of any I've seen, between the spectacles (apparently vampirism can cure aging, but not astigmatism), sunglasses, Walter's monocle, and Doc's goggles. The illustrator particularly likes to show people with their faces shrouded in darkness (even when standing in places where the rest of their bodies are illuminated) and glare off their lenses. I also noted that people seem to have really long arms (reaching about to their knees), but I don't have anything in particular to say about that.

Another thing that struck me when coming back to the comics was the gags. I've said before that I don't believe in the concept of the "smart joke" (although there are certainly some more intellectual than others), but I find it hard to call these ones even jokes. I liked the fact that they removed them from the TV series, but I hear that they have been retained in the OVAs.

Also, another unusual thing for an action series is that we never have to worry about the hero. The introductory stories (the village of Cheddars, the Northern Ireland mission, and the Valentine Bros. siege) serve mostly to introduce us and Ms. Victoria to the fact that Arucard is ridiculously powerful. In fact, among all the weird monsters, the chief protagonist is often the one who seems the most hideously inhuman. He also uses my favorite speech patterns (after a brief attempt at "ore" in the first chapter, later retconned), but so does half of the rest of the cast.

Incidentally, it appears that, officially, the TV series is now known as Hellsing Rescript, while the OVAs are just HELLSING. This is because this was another one where the TV series got ahead of the original comics, so they had to make up their own ending. This has happened with all three of the animations of Young King Ours series I've seen; no surprise, as they say that HELLSING only runs every other month, which means about one volume a year. In the meantime, I see that Koyasu plays Luke Valentine in both versions. It's different from my image of him for him to get such a zako role, but at least unlike his brother, he was supposed to seem like a tough guy. After all, he plays the part that shows us to the full degree that Arucard is so ridiculously powerful. Many of the other parts have been recast for the OVAs, resulting in Andersen being played by Wakamoto. I would be quite amused if it turned out that his true form is an unidentifiable round yellow creature.

Well, apparently I jinxed myself by talking so much about driving and luck yesterday. While I was looking to see where the place where I had to take my drug test was, I didn't notice the car stopped behind another stopped in the left lane to turn and plowed into the former, knocking it into the latter. No one was injured (my airbag didn't deploy, and I wouldn't think it should, since it wasn't a bad enough crash to cause me to bump my head anyway), and Mother's car was the only one seriously damaged. As most of you know, I'm a horrible driver (especially my perception), so it was bound to happen eventually.

The main problem here is my temporary lack of transportation. I talked to the insurance company this morning, so the decision of whether to try to salvage the car will hopefully soon be made. My hours are in the middle of the night, so I may be able to use Mother's main car. If not, I may rent a car just to make sure I don't lose the job.

I also noticed that the person at the collision repair office told my mother that I looked really shaken up when I got there. I certainly had to pretend to be sorry to the other drivers, but I didn't notice any distress after I had left the scene. Obviously my inability to control my emotions or appearance is still a problem.

Incidentally, I believe my entire police record (speeding warning, fingerprints, and accident report) has been written by female cops. However, judging by the situations, I don't believe any of them was a vampire.

When my brother was home for Spring Break this year and playing Ogre Battle 64, I realized that it was yet another Japanese video game where the hero deserts the evil empire and joins the resistance. I thought that this seemed odd, considering how traditional and conformist Japanese society is (although it's starting to change). I guess that's a sign that fiction is a radical, non-mainstream element of society. Just to illustrate this, I decided to list a bunch of adventure stories I knew from modern media and see how they add up. Hopefully I wasn't too biased in which ones came to mind.

For these purposes, "establishment" is the main power in the setting, whether it's the most powerful nation, the state religion, the secret society behind the throne, the student council, the local gang, super-powerful invading aliens, God, destiny, or whatever. Where the protagonists' motives change throughout the story, I list the one that they choose in the end (as far as I've seen). Where there are multiple paths, I list the main one. Where the series has more than one separate storyline, I hope I've listed which I mean. Where I couldn't decide (for instance, in SIMOUN, where it's a war between as-far-as-I-know two equally powerful nations), I've left them out. I've also recused (?) sentai and mahō shōjo shows, as they'd almost always end up in the first one—which means, of course, that there is a bias there. Meanwhile, haven't bothered to use official capitalizations, as it's too much trouble to look them all up. And no, I'm not making links for all those. You can find them yourselves.

Protagonists for Establishment: Akira, Bleach (Shinigami Daikō-hen), Cain Series, Cattō Ninden Teyande~! [sic], Chrno Crusade, Cowboy Bebop, Godzilla, .hack//SIGN, .hack/Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu, Hellsing, Peace Maker Kurogane, R.O.D Read or Die, Rurōni Kenshin (Kyōto-hen, Jinchū-hen), Shin Seiki Evangelion/Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenchi Muyō!, Uchū no Stellvia, Versailles no Bara, Yami no Matsuei

Protagonists against Establishment: Abenobashi Mahō Shōtengai, Biohazard Code:Veronica, Bleach (Soul Society Kyūshutsu-hen), Blue Drop, Chrono Trigger, Devil & Devil, Dystopia, Escaflowne, Et Cetera, Eternal Arcadia, Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy VI, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy Tactics, FLCL, Fushigi no Kuni no Miyuki-chan/Miyukichan in the Wonderland, Grandia II, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi/Fullmetal [sic] Alchemist, Himitsu no Angelis, Hōshin Engi, Kannazuki no Miko, L A S T E X I L E, Loveless, Mahō Kishi Rayearth/Magic Knight Rayearth (first series), Mononoke-Hime, My HiME, My Otome, Ogre Battle, Ogre Battle 64, R.O.D the TV, Rurōni Kenshin (Bakumatsu-hen), Samurai Champloo, Samurai 7, Seiken Densetsu II, Shichi-nin no Samurai, Shimpi no Sekai El-Hazard, Shining Force, Shining Force II, Shōjo Kakumei Utena, Slayers TRY, Super Mario Bros., Tenjho Tenge, Tenshi Kinryōku/Angel Sanctuary, Texhnolyze, Tokyo-under Ground, Top o Nerae!/Gunbuster, Top o Nerae 2!/Die Buster, Yōjimbō, Zelda no Densetsu

All right, for those of you who have read HELLSING and read/watched AZUMANGA DAIOH (which means arifyn, I suppose):

No, I did not make it myself.

Well, when I watched Hagane no Renkinjutsushi (subtitled FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, which is an interesting translation), I assumed the ending was just one of those that the animators tacked on to deal with the fact that the comics hadn't ended yet, like they did in HELLSING*. But then I saw this (spoiler if you haven't seen the whole series, but it didn't spoil the movie for me, even though it still sits unwatched on Mother's hard drive).

*Speaking of HELLSING, I never did figure out what the Rescripts were. Too lazy to read up about it myself.