Adventures in anime

So I've been watching a lot of anime lately. 

An awful lot. A criminal amount. Perhaps even enough to kill a full grown horse if you wanted to be dramatic and hated horses. This all started when I realised a while ago that I hadn't actually watched an anime start to end for a fair while. I used to find time to watch anime - so what's changed? Well it's been a combination of being busy with other more important real life things and old hobbies (if you can call watching anime that) being pushed out of the way for new things - such as wasting time on the internet, which isn't a hobby but bear with me here.

(I will say at this point - that the internet, is a terrible, terrible time sink if you are not careful and that I do not regret quitting  some of the sites I was on to be more productive with actually getting things (no matter how trivial) done.)

So apart from this making me have a closer look at how regularly I should be taking breaks and other ergonomic issues I've been noticing a few trends.

Mainly that out of ten anime. Two will be pants shitingly good, six will be okay to tepid and two are so bad that I check my email and talk to people on steam so that I don't feel like I've totally wasted my time.

Seriously, some of the bottom of the barrel ones feel like they were down to the last 10,00Y on the animation budget and the staff sat around on their lunch break despairing and filling out job applications.

But I digress.

I've been enjoying finding small references, details and probable copyright infringement as I watch.
I'd like to note at this point that Blue Ray anime is fucking amazing and please, please, please for the love of all that is kawaii let there be more Blu Ray re-releases in the future. 

So without further delay lets flick through some of the things I've found - After the jump!

Commission - Black Magic M-66

I've been quite busy with real life lately but I think there is always time for a comission from a good artist.
For today's item we look to Jeffrey Chamba Cruz.

Read on after the jump for the full picture.

(This comission is SFW)

Black Magic M-66: Part 4

Well, it's about that time again I think. Lets have another Black Magic M-66 collection round up! In todays action packed issue we cover rare cells, promotional material and other miscellaneous stuff.
As usual 56K beware, there are many images ahead.

I think when it says Mario, they mean the first half of marionette.

Release #087 - Black Magic M-66 OST

[Strange Scans] is proud to present it's very first audio release, the Black Magic M-66 OST! I am aware that this has been ripped and released before, I'm not clear on how quality that release was actually. But why not have a crack at doing an OST release? I've put up two versions - one which is a 320kb MP3 rip at 90MB, and the other which is a FLAC at 252 MB. This also includes the insert/notes sheet.

320kb MP3
DDL

Mediafire

FLAC

Edit: I am having trouble hosting this, I will fix it when I can.

Sendspace

Megaupload 

Black Magic M-66: Part 3

A third Black Magic M-66 collection round up post? At the risk of seeming obsessive about such things. Why not? This time We'll be having a look at animation cels. Which, while they can be a bit expensive are pretty cool to collect. Mind you, it has to have been made somewhere before 2000 when cels were still in use.

Proceed onwards for the third installment in this fascinating trillogy.

(Image heavy post ahead 56k beware!)

Commission - Black Magic M-66

So here we are yet again with another fantastic comission thanks to the talented Joix. I know I said I had my eye on another Black Lagoon comission last time. But why not diversify a little? This time it's Black Magic M-66. The whole comission is after the jump.

Nope, further down.

Release #080 - Black Magic M-66

[Strange Scans] is proud to present, something different from the usual doujinshi releases. For todays showcase we have what appears to be Cel reference material for Black Magic M-66. I'm not sure of the exact term for these, they're actually a stack of photocopies in a plastic case. My guess is that they're something between the pencil rouch sketch and the genga/douga animation cels. 

 It took a fair bit of cleaning to get them to this point, as you'd imagine for a stack of photocopies from who knows when, they could potentially be from around 1987 when the OVA was released. I did leave a few things in like staples and faded notes though. Also some of them have handwritten notes at a few points, as well as crosses and circle over certain parts of a few sketches.

DDL

Mediafire

Black Magic M-66: Part 2

For todays segment we have the Black Magic resource round up part two: The revenge of the excruciating detail.

The above image is the japanese front/back cover of the original manga without the title/back cover synopsis text on it., I've seen it in poster form somewhere but I passed on it at the time, whoops.

Of course the text and detail is after the break so that the main page isn't filled with this.

Read on for mystery and intrigue (?).

Commissions - Black Magic M-66/Final Fantasy IX

Art comissions you say?

Fuck yeah lets have a look at the most recent two I've had done recently thanks to Megan Sketched. This is of course Sybel from Black Magic M-66. An underappreciated character, for real.

 And Lani from Final Fantasy IX who again - has a criminally low amount of fanart.

Also I'm not a supporter of the Lani/Amarant pairing

Update: I just fixed the images, let me know if they're working/if they break again.

Black Magic M-66: Part 1

Okay so lets have a look at some items I have in my collection that I probably won't be scanning. The focus of this post is (spoilers within this link) Black Magic M-66 a OVA from none other than Masamune Shirow.

 The rest of this post is after the jump because I don't want to cover the front page with it.