So there you go, 366+ manga for this year. Like I said many times before, making that New Year's resolution of an average of one book a day was pretty dumb, but I was true to my words.

For next year, I'm making no promises. I'm definitely not going to make an artificial target for my reading and who knows, I may even read more. But there's a lot of other DVDs, CDs, and games that I had to sacrifice and postpone until 2005 because of comics. I need to get rid of those first.

As for this site, I'll continue in low-priority mode until February. I'll put up manga magazine reviews as it's a waste to let them sit around. However, for everything else like anime DVDs, manga, and games, I'm going to put on pause (or many just a very few updates). There's something that I wanted to do since last year, but do to time constraints, couldn't start it. January will be devoted to that. I also want to spruce up this site for the new year, so that's in the works too.

Anyhow, that's it for now.

Happy New Year!

And here's the leftover pile from 2004 that I'll hopefully have time to finish next year.

The Negima desktop accessories has been released and with it comes 11 new mascots. So add that up with the ones from Love Hina, it means a lot of RAM wasted on little cute icons. They give 5 mascots (Eva, Chachamaru, Ayaka, Yue, and Kufei) and you're supposed to play the game to unlock the other 6 (Nodoka, Chisame, Chiu, Setsuna, Konoka, and of course, Asuna). I've only managed to find Nodoka so far.

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1/1/05 Update:
I managed to get all the mascots and have updated the picture above accordingly. Just for future reference, you get wallpapers by playing the story game and defeating the 5 beasts, desktop clocks by talking to characters before starting class, and voices from just talking to characters in each room. The mascots are a bit more tricky:

Konoka: This is the hardest mascot to get. You have to go to her fortune-telling room and answer a series of 5-10 questions (I forgot how many). The questions are limited, but you get a different set everytime. The goal is to answer the questions correctly and get a good fortune. I think each response is assigned a score and your total score has to pass a certain threshold. Your fortune can range from a moster in the Library Island (bad), popular teacher (slightly good), principle of Mahora (good), an excellent mage (very good), one more which I forgot that gives you a very good, and finally, the teacher of 3-A (excellent, I think it was 3rd year but could have been 2nd). You only get the mascot when you get an excellent.

Asuna: Slighly difficult to get. As Asuna, you have to play 4 rounds of paper-rock-sissors with your fellow Baka Rangers, Ku fei, Makie, Kaede, and finally Yue. There seems to be a pattern with the earlier opponents, but luck ultimately prevails. You have to play all 4 rounds in a row, winning 6 rounds each without losing 6 rounds, to get Asuna. If you lose, you start all over again.

Setsuna: You get this by playing the Library Gollum mini-game from the mini-games menu (not during the story game). It's a rapid clicking, whack-a-mole type game, so it wasn't too difficult. Having played it many times during the story game, I just started it up at level 5 and beat it. There might be a certain minimum score to beat, but I passed it the first time I tried it.

Chiu & Chisame: You have to play the "Who is Fuuka and Fumika" reflex game. You get a vocal prompt from one of the twins saying "Who's elder/younger sister," or "Who's Fumika/Fuuka" or "Who am I" (if she uses "Boku" it's Fuuka, if she uses "Watashi" it's Fumika). You're then presented with two pictures and you have to click one within 1 second and pick the right girl. Most of the pictures show their hair, so it's easy to pick it out as Fumika, the younger one, has her hair in buns. The tougher ones are with face-shots where you have to learn it from just playing it. You have to get all 10 tries correct and maybe there's a minimum score too (~3500?).

Nodoka: Easiest to get. During the story game, go in the school house and take Kamo's 50 question quiz. You don't have to get them all in one sitting as it remembers what questions you answered and doesn't clear your record if you miss questions. However, the positions of the answers do change.
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The first edition of the software also comes with calendar cards that have the wacky versions of Negi's partner cards. They look quite nice alongside the other cards I got from the first editions of each character CD single.

As always, if you want those mascots, CD Japan has all the desktop accessories from Love Hina and Negima on sale.

Title: ラジオすかいてんぷる (Radio Sky Temple) OP Single
Original Creator: Age
Vocals: 浅井清己 (Kiyomi Asai) and 吉住梢 (Kozue Yoshizumi)
Release Date: 12/29/04
Catalog No.: LACM-4172
Rating: 4/4

This CD contains the intro to Radio Sky Temple, a segment on the Kiminozo radio program. The songs are good, but the included DVD music clip is awesome. For fans of Kiminozo, the music video is a real treat. It has cameos with the seiyuu for all the main characters of Kiminozo (Joy-max is in there too).

Both the songs included are very upbeat songs sung by the seiyuu for Ayu and Mayu (on the cover, read the name of the duo backwards). If this CD didn't come with a DVD, I might have dismissed these two songs. The second one is decent. The first song is very catchy, but what sold me was watching the music video.

The DVD is about 5 minutes long. The video has a prologue and epilogue, which are pretty much live-action Kiminozo. It starts with a short prologue at the Sky Temple restaurant where the Kisyo (Takayuki's seiyuu) and Chiaki (Mitsuki) are arguing about Kisyo seeing another girl (implying Haruka). He wants more coffee and finds out that his cup is empty, so he asks for more. Video then starts with Kiyomi and Kozue. Near the end of the video, everyone at the restuarant starts dancing around. Kisyo and Chiaki are there as are Minami (Haruka), Kaori (Akane), and Joymax. After the video is over, Kisyo and Chiaki walk out, arm in arm. The waitresses have done their job well.

Title: まほらば (Mahoraba) Vol. 8 LE
Artist/Author: 小島あきら (Akira Kojima)
Book Size/Pages: B-6, 178pp., w/furigana
Original Serialization: Monthly GANGAN Wing 6/04-10/04
First Printing: 1/27/05
Rating: 4/4

Like most of the previous volumes, this volume is also excellent. Ryuushi and Kozue finally start dating (after 8 books, sheesh). Because of that, a bit more is devoted to serious issues, but as always, the gags are hilarious. Can't wait until the anime comes out on DVD.

Limited edition comes with an extra booklet that allows you to play a choose-your-own-adventure by following the numbers labeled next to each paragraph. First printing also comes with a Haibara/Johnny tarot card. Chapter includes a deluxe version of Subcharacter's bonus comic.

Title: 成恵の世界 (The World of Narue) Vol. 7
Artist/Author: 丸川トモヒロ (Tomohiro Marukawa)
Book Size/Pages: B-6, 200pp., w/furigana
Original Serialization: Monthly Shonen Ace 2/04-9/04
First Printing: 12/25/04
Rating: 4/4

This volume was original slated to be released in October but got delayed until Christmas. The stories included keep with the "Heart-Warming" theme that the author always claims is World of Narue. It doesn't feel like anythings coming to a conclusion yet (and the author does state that there's going to be a volume 8) and Rin gets a lot of face-time in these chapters.

Bonus comes with colored pages and a bonus comic in the back.

Title: まぶらほ (Maburaho) Vol. 2 LE
Artist/Author: 宮下未紀 (Miki Miyashita)
Original Creator: 築地俊彦 (Toshihiko Tsukiji)
Character Design: 駒都えーじ (Eiji Komatsu)
Book Size/Pages: B-6, 160pp., w/furigana
Volume: 2/2
Original Serialization: Monthly Dragon Age 1/04-10/04
First Printing: 12/8/04
Rating: 3/4

After watching most of the anime since the first volume, I have a better understanding of the characters, so relating to the stories here was easier. Unfortunately, having been spoiled by the new Maburaho Colorful Comic, the artwork in Miki Miyashita's version is quite bland.

Limited edition comes with a Yuuna figurine. The volume has a bonus chapter (in color).

Title: 魔法先生ネギま！　３月：文化部４人組 (Magic Teacher Negima! March: The Four From the Culture Club)
Original Creator: 赤松健 (Ken Akamatsu)
Vocals: 笹川亜矢奈 (Ayana Sasagawa), 小林美佐 (Misa Kobayashi), 相沢舞 (Mai Aizawa), and 猪口有佳 (Yuka Inokuchi)
Release Date: 12/22/04
Catalog No.: KICM-3060
Rating: 2/4

Maybe I'm in a good mood, but the song included is tolerable. The last four characters are Kazumi, Chizuru, Natsumi, and Zazie. The regular mix of the song is a soft rock, the remix version has more of a beat, but is pretty much the same.

The drama has Kazumi, who is currently in a slump without any new breaking news, asking around for anything. She hears from Natsuki that Chizuru might have something and ends up following Zazie around as she seems a little suspicious. Turns out that Zazie is just meeting up with a kindergartener that Chizuru helps take care up and tries to cheer her up with magic. At the end, Zazie performs a disappearing trick, but Kazumi jumps in and her clothes disappear.

The seiyuu talk isn't all that interesting with talk related to the drama like illusions and magic.