-----Original Message-----
> From: hiroshin [mailto:hiroshnken@juno.com] 


     Thanks for trying to put some life back into this place, but it
didn't 
seem to work...
 

--- hiroshin


Well, I am still alive and breathin'; one of the chief things keepin' me
from posting is the fact that my e-mail box is still getting hammered by
some twit who seems to object to some of my opinions at my Briefcase
Fulla Rant (they managed to hack into it just enough to delete the link
to my 
July 4th column (which has a link to the spoken version of it, WMA
format).
Guess they couldn't get into it far enough to actually delete files, and
I had the link repaired within 2 minutes of it's discovery So they have
been launching virus attacks for some time in an attempt to shut down my
e-mail (which is serviced by Yahoo, who took over the SBCAmeritech
service this year). I go to the Yahoo page to delete the spam and virus
attachments (which, if they actually get through that, get stopped by
Norton's). 

It's more of an annoyance than anything else (I have all my website
backed up ((thank you, Zip Up The Web Pro! ^_^)), and the attacks seem
to be slowing down a bit (my 10MB allowance was getting filled up within
two hours, but now it takes a day, sometimes two to fill it up), so I
don't worry so much about bounced e-mails. Still a pain tho'...Think I
should make my next column a political cartoon...^_< 

As for Ranma related, I dunno, but has anyone out there seen the new
Ningyo no Mori television series? I have watched the first ep and have
DL'ed the second (will watch it either tonight or tomorrow). IMO, while
it keeps the general story, the makers must be really allergic to the
copious amounts of violence in the original (this ep adapted the first
story), because the omissions really show. Also, apparently the
animators must have felt that Takahashi-sensei's art for the story was
dated (NOT my opinion) so they changed the character designs
considerably. And the animation itself doesn't seem as polished as even
the Rumic Theater series, let alone Inuyasha.
It's watchable, but IMO it could have been a lot better. I guess I will
give it a few more eps to see where they are going to go with it (I am
assuming that they are going to go at least as far as The Ash Princess
story, since they have scheduled 11 eps). 

And also, I just started buying the Azumanga Daioh manga series as well
as Viz' reprinting of Maison Ikkoku. Very happy with both (having read
the Japanese versions of both, as well as the localized version of
Maison), and Maison has been reformatted. It now reads from Right to
Left and the "missing" chapters have been restored. It seems to be
following the Japanese
Tankobon format (so there will be 15 volumes total). Very happy with
this.
Azumanga-Daioh is also true to the original in format (it even keep the
cover fomat and the color pages (hooray!)). The only slight grouse I
have is the attempt to have some of the characters speak...oddly. (Mind
you, not Shampoo-oddly, but when Osaka's Osaka-ben is translated like
she is a riot grrl with quirks...makes me wonder how they are going to
handle that dialect when the anime comes out here, especially when Osaka
speaks rather quietly in the anime). And Chiyo-chan's speech seems at
odds with her more traditional speech in the original, especially when
they interject the 10 year old's speech with the occasional (taking the
Lord's name in vain) comment. I don't use it, but it is more
understandable in the older girls' speech, but a 10 year old? Sorry but
I am just not used to hearing such speech in a 10 year old. But other
than that, it is an excellent read and well recommended.

Well, I am going to shut up and rest a bit. I am sure that when I send
this, I will get a couple of e-mal in return from my box ^_^).


As usual, this is The Relic, from the outer fringes of the Reality that
is the Ranma ML...and piss off hackers by going to The Home of the
Relic, at
http://clik.to/relic today! ^_<