Anime on dennogumi.org

An art-challenged individual's perspective on AI (anime) generated art

Sun, 20 Nov 2022 22:17:41 +0100

You might have heard it in the past few months: some areas of the Internet are buzzing with discussions on “generative art”, that is, artwork generated from “AI” models that were fed with an absurdly large amount of images as training as a base. There are supporters, there are critics, and techology advances: among all this, this post offers my humble experience with computer-generated imagery.

In this post, you’ll be guided by Yumiko, Satsuki, and Maya: the first two are characters created by someone else I know (who wants to remain anonymous) which I then expanded, cooperating with their creator in a certain project from a few years ago; the latter is… well, a character with an interesting history, which will be explained later.

Blast from the past: 超獣機神ダンクーガ (Super Beast Machine God Dancougar)

Sun, 13 Jun 2021 00:26:43 +0100

After quite a long time, I was finally able to take a look at this series: a rather atypical mecha show that despite some bad production, still manages to be interesting.

Hack of the day: extracting comments from Nicovideo

Thu, 03 Jan 2019 23:07:42 +0000

Header image credit: 1840151sudarshan (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA)

A while ago I posted a way to download 実況動画 from Nicovideo. One of my acquaintances publishes videos there, and he wanted to collect the various comments to reply in a follow up video (what the Nico users call the コメント返し). When the comments are more than just a few, it’s hard to find where they refer to without watching them on Nicovideo itself, and its UI is suboptimal. Ideally one would check comments ordered by their position in the video. There are existing programs but their user interface is utterly confusing at best. This called for something simpler, and that’s what I tried to do.

Hack of the day: downloading VOICEROID実況 from Nicovideo

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 23:15:48 +0000

実況? Is it something edible?
#

In recent times, I’ve been watching a lot of VOICEROID実況 (じっきょう, jikkyou, literally “commentary”) videos from the rather famous (in Japan) video service ニコニコ動画, better known as “Nicovideo”. In this case, the commentary actually refers to games: they’re basically a Japanese version of the Let’s Play videos that are all around other places like YouTube.

Just finished - Kami Jigen Game Neptune V

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 13:12:14 +0000

A few days ago I finally completed (after about 3 months) 神次元ゲームネプテューヌV, or “Kami Jigen Game Neptune V”, the latest instalment from Compile Heart in the Neptune franchise of PS3 games. It took quite a while (approximately 3 months), and I think it’s about time to wrap things up.

Unexpected Christmas gifts: THE IDOLM@ASTER

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:04:26 +0000

Sometimes Christmas presents are really unexpected, and today I found out I was given one such gift: the limited edition of _THE IDOLM@STER 2, _PS3 version. It was quite a bulky box, showing all the main characters from the game (and from the recently-ended anime) (click to enlarge):

Of course, having such a box means that there’s a lot of stuff inside. In fact, once opened, there are two game BDs (one being the actual game, the second being the first volume of Gravure for you! starring Haruka), a soundtrack (no songs, though), a booklet, a number of postcards (mine were showing Iori’s ending from episode 2 of the TV series), a booklet and also the first BD of the anime version:

I'm honestly surprised...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:49:13 +0000

By browsing through sites, I noticed that the Spanish site Akihabara Denno Gumi Universe has posted a translation of an interview the webmaster had with me through email.

Here it is (Spanish language). It feels nice to recall some memories of the past once in a while, especially since I couldn’t still believe that dennogumi.org had been such a resource back in the days…

A retrospective view: Galaxy Angel

Wed, 11 May 2011 20:33:16 +0000

Recently I had the opportunity of viewing a DVD that I had bought in 2006 but never had the chance of seeing: it was the third season of Galaxy Angel, of which I had already viewed the first two years before. After viewing it, I realized I could have viewed it sooner, as I liked it quite a bit. Not only that, but I brought myself up to speed by getting what was left in the series, that is the second half of the third season (marketed by Bandai Visual as Galaxy Angel AA) and the fourth and final season (known in the English speaking market as Galaxy Angel X).

Well, I found the whole franchise quite good: and after having explored also other bits of it, including the manga and the games related to it, I thought it’d be nice to have a retrospective with my own views. Which is the point of this post.

Taking video snapshots quickly: KDE VLC Snapper

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 12:40:26 +0000

Some of the oldest readers of this blog are well aware of a certain hobby of mine. Over the years I’ve always wanted to write more about that, including the stuff I’m viewing nowadays, but I found a hassle to collect snapshots from videos / DVDs, selecting them, and so on.

Recently I learnt that VLC has some rather complete Python bindings, and I thought, why not make the process automated? Yesterday I had some free time on my hands and a quick session of hacking brought some results already.

Ar Tonelico III

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:33:20 +0000

It’s been a while since I blogged about anything non-FOSS. This time I’ll be sharing some impressions on one of the games I’m playing at the moment, that is,** Ar Tonelico III** (which arrived at my doorstep two days ago). I admit I haven’t been a fan of Gust games (aside from Ar Tonelico, they’re known mostly for the Atelier series), mostly because technically wise they didn’t really perform that well. While I understood they’re a small company, sometimes it was a little too much.

danbooru2Nepomuk - a Nepomuk tagger for Danbooru images

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 20:25:00 +0000

If you dabble with anime and related things like I do, you may have heard about imageboards. A known variant, which powers sites such as moe.imouto (some links may be NSFW) or Konachan, is Danbooru, a Ruby on Rails application. One of the characteristics of this software is that images stored there can be tagged to be identified as precisely as possible: common tags are for example the magazine where the image was taken from, the characters depicted, and so on.

Tears to Tiara - Blu-Ray volume 1

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:57:08 +0000

Today, after some customs delay and courier problems, I finally received the first volume of Tears to Tiara. Having got a PS3, I chose the Blu-Ray version (priced 8,192 yen, quite steep if you hear me): as I preordered it soon enough, I got the first presse edition, which, according to CDJapan, was comprised of a “deluxe outer case”, a “stick poster” and a booklet, in addition to the Blu-ray itself.

Tears to Tiara in animation - faithful?

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:40:58 +0000

So I’ve heard that _Tears to Tiara _is coming in animated form. Being in the middle of playing its PS3 incarnation, Tears to Tiara - Kaikan no Daichi, I decided to take a look at some images that have been recently published on news.dengeki.com. It was already known that the anime would be an adaptation of the PS3 game, which is a good thing (I didn’t like the original character design). Animation is done by _Oriental Light and _Magic (OLM), and the same staff who adapted another Aquaplus game, Utawarerumono (or should I say Underwater Ray Romano ? snicker).

Kurokami - The Animation - episode 1

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:06:13 +0000

New season, new anime to see. Since a certain guy kept me telling wonders about Kurokami (黒神), a manga serialized in Young Gangan by Dall-Young Lim and Sung-woo Park, two Korean artists, I decided to give a go to the animated version, produced by Bandai Visual, which has just been out.

Slayers Revolution - a comeback

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:24:00 +0000

It’s been a long time since Slayers had aired on TV, basically since Slayers TRY was released, which means more than 10 years ago. Then, this year news told that two new series were planned, and this post is about the first episode (out of 13, aired on July 2nd; the second series will start sometime around January).

More novels

Sun, 04 May 2008 07:26:49 +0000

Yesterday I got a few novels that I’ve been waiting for a while: _Slayers _(the last two volumes published by Tokyopop, as ) and Shakugan no Shana 2. I bought the latter as a “final warning” because I’m not very sure I’ll ever continue: the first Shana was written poorly and with a plot that didn’t make much sense (but again, I don’t think the animated version was shining in that respect).

Ookami to koshinryo - DVD 1

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:10:47 +0000

A rather large number of days ago I got the first DVD of Ookami to koshinryo, better known as Spice and Wolf, which I when the first episode was released. I got the limited edition, which came in with a number of extra features (which still don’t justify its ~ ¥6800 price tag, though). The main one is the inclusion of a 300 piece puzzle, illustrated by the artist who works on the original novels.

Okami to Koshinryo, episode 1

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:57:28 +0000

Interested by some promotional art and by a resemblance of the main female character to my brother’s own Yumiko, I took a look at the first episode of Ookami to Koshinryo, better known as Spice and Wolf. I’m being told it is inspired by a series of novels and that there is also a manga version.

FFXI-URUSHI-Chaos: 01-02-03

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 09:24:39 +0000

For a change, my brother has found a place (DLsite.com) that sells dojinshi even to non-Japanese people, and also found three non-hentai Final Fantasy XI dojins, which I’m going to cover in this post. For reference, they are available with these prices:

Publishing idiocy

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 22:26:34 +0000

When Tokyopop announced _Slayers, Kino no Tabi _and _Scrapped Princess _my interest was piqued: even more when I read about Seikai no Monsho. After getting what was available (three volumes of Scrapped Princess, the whole Seikai no Monsho trilogy and the single volume of Kino no Tabi) I waited for the rest.

Blast from the past: Akihabara Denno Gumi PataPi!

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:30:43 +0000

After a long time I’ve finally got hold (thanks, Melissa) of Akihabara Denno Gumi PataPi!, that is the manga version of Akihabara Denno Gumi (or Cyber Team in Akihabara, if you prefer): some of you may even remember a rather sparse description on this very page when it was still devoted to ADG (almost eight years ago, time flies…).

Clannad 1

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:48:17 +0000

Straight out of my anime backlog, I watched the first episode of Clannad. I don’t know much about the original name (save for the time it took to be released), but I knew that the animation studio who did this series was Kyoto Animation (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Air, Kanon and Lucky Star).

Prism Ark 1

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:52:34 +0000

From the already large backlog of new series, I recently watched the first episode of Prism Ark, an anime adaptation of the H-Game _PRISM ARK ~ PRISM HEART II ~ _by Pajamas Soft (I wonder how some Japanese companies get to choose their names…). It is being directed by Masami Obari, who did Dancougar Nova the last season.

Saber Revoltech figure

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:05:26 +0000

I’m back from holidays, and when I got back I found the Saber Revoltech figure I had preordered in May (!) in the mail. This is the package when I pulled it out from the box it came in (apologies for the image quality, I only had my mobile phone to take it):

Nanoha StrikerS DVD 1

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 20:00:47 +0000

Today I got the first Maho Shojo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS R2 DVD in the mail. Even though I haven’t watched it properly yet (I plan on doing so tomorrow) I can say I’m already impressed. Usually Japanese DVDs are little more than improved video tapes: they provide just the bare minimum (and not for a cheap price). However, this is not the case with Nanoha StrikerS.

Nanoha licensed for the USA

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 18:26:00 +0000

According to the Anime News Network, Geneon Entertainment has bought the license for distributing Maho Shojo Lyrical Nanoha and Nanoha A’s in the United States.

Fans rejoice? I think not. Being outside of the USA market, I view things with a different approach. The companies here in Italy have all their problems, but to a certain degree they care about delivering to the user something more than just the episodes. Extras that can also be an incentive over downloading (illegally) over the Internet.