WARNING: This post contains lengthy narrative and ranting. Viewer discretion is advised.
QUOTE(LinktheMaster @ Feb 13 2007, 03:31 PM)
Nice.
What background is that, though? It looks like Ken Akamatsu's work, but I have yet to see it before.
It is Ken Akamatsu's work. It's from AI Love You (or Ai Ga Tomarenai! As it was called in Japan- either way there's a pun with "Ai"), his first major series (preceeding and slightly overalapping Love Hina). The artwork in the series mostly looks a bit (ranging from slightly to completely) different from this, because he drew new cover art for a rerelease of the series a few years ago (which are subsequently the covers it made it to America with- plus a bunch of blue matrixy rubbish Tokyopop added to make it more xtreme).
Anyway, long story short, AILY is about a boy who is
awfully similar to Keitarou (...and Ken Akamatsu...), loser, no friends, short black hair, etc. No glasses, which is ironic because his forte is computer programming. Indeed, with naught but Windows 3.1 and probably like 15GB (his parents are rich- and spend all their time overseas) hard drive space and 1.44MB floppies, he's created a human-like artificial intelligence (with a fully rendered body of course)- his newest work, and apparently his 30th attempt as she is named, cleverly, "program number 30". Of course this is quickly amended as he starts calling her "Saati" (and yes, that is an engrish joke- and she makes up her own surname,
Namba). Anyway, lightning strikes near Hitoshi's house, which somehow (we find out muuuuch later that it jump-started an experimental "reality module" stored somewhere in the house- and that he was using something a little more feasable to support all this since Ken realized it was incredibly silly that 30+ AIs fit on one 1996-era HD) brings Saati to life.
Of course this leads to the situation of "clueless robot-esque girl must learn about world with human boyfriend who's a loser" (but that was, in all fairness, a little more original in 1996), but things gradually get more complicated and Saati becomes VERY human. Two other programs are eventually brought to life similarly, one by accident and one intentionally with accidents mixed in, and for the main bulk of the story the group has lots of silly episodic misadventures which become more and more perverse as the series continues, intermixed with some more serious stories/emotional/mental development for the characters. Then near the end, the story gets much more continuous and most of the last two books respectively revolve around two major story arcs which are, in my opinion, the best part of the series (and the art was looking awesome by then, too).
Ken Akamatsu's major work/work any Americans know anything about run something like this:
Ai Ga Tomarenai/AI Love You - 1996 - 1999 (originally 9 volumes, recompiled into 8 volumes in Japan and the US release)
Itsudatte My Santa! 1999 (one chapter that never became a series- but it has recently been remade and expanded as an OVA)
Love Hina - Late 1998 - 2002 (14 volumes)
Negima! Magister Negi Magi - 2003 - present (15 so far that I know of... 12 in the US)
At any rate, AILY is good but bordering on obscure, especially in America. You can find unsold copies sitting around nearly any bookstore that sells manga, because Tokyopop pushed it hoping to cash in on Love Hina's American success and beat Del Ray's release of Negima! to the punch (which they sort of did... but it didn't sell better). I really really like the series, and I think were it produced with Love Hina or Negima's skill and continuity of storyline, it would've been my favorite Ken Akamatsu series of all time (and there were plans back in 1999 to continue it... which fizzled with Love Hina and Negima of course, but I'm holding out vague hope until another different series starts- especially since Itsudatte my Santa! rose from the grave to become an OVA). As it is is has obvious flaws, but is lots of fun, and the last two books almost snag that favorite spot.
If you're curious, very nice scanslations of Itsudatte My Santa! do exist, but I'm not sure how obtainable they still are/a site to find them on. Of course, I downloaded it the minute I found it ^^
QUOTE
Also, I've seen someone else with the anime girl in the bottom right hand corner. What program does that anyway? It's kind of cute, even though it's pointless.
Those are windows mascots. What you see in the picture is most of what they do; most have a blinking animation (and some get fancier than that), and a few have voice samples that play when certain things happen. Many also respond when clicked on. A set exists for Love Hina but it's not the complete character group (irritatingly, those in charge saw fit to make characters like Kanako and Tsuruko and even Mei, but no Mutsumi... and Shinobu and Motoko weren't made until the second batch, while Sarah and Mei were in the first... I swear they said "Okay, let's make Naru first, then make others at random- we can roll dice! Last one up is a rotten egg!"). There's also a Negima set which, while comprehensive, isn't complete either- but at least all the main, important characters
*grumblegrumbleMutsumigrumble* are there. They also have the very neat little feature of actually conversing with each other (of course, I have no clue what they're saying); open two at the same time and they'll call each other by name ("Se-chan!!" "o... o..Ojou-sama!") and say something brief. It's very cute ^^
Such official mascots are very tricky to find. If you're interested in them (or Itsudatte my Santa), you can PM me for further information. Oh, and I found some very nice large-size good quality pictues of LH and AILY cover art like what I used for my wallpaper there, too.
Book over. Sorry about that XD
Edited by Mitsukara, 13 February 2007 - 06:38 PM.
