Armplay
by Denise Sawicki on July 24, 2011

So, It seems like our frequent thunderstorms have programmed me to become wide awake at bizarre times even when there isn't a storm. I am definitely going back to bed. First I wanted to comment on a strange trend in anime. I have not watched all that much anime, but something weird always seems to happen to people's arms. I will try to avoid spoilers for anyone who cares by just using generic words such as "someone"...
Someone borrows or steals someone else's arm and uses it as if it were their own:
-Fullmetal Alchemist (two important cases)
-Trigun
-Claymore
Someone has a mechanical arm:
-Fullmetal Alchemist
-Trigun (frankly I don't know if they are animal, vegetable, or mineral but "mechanical" seems to describe the arms in question reasonably well)
-Cowboy Bebop
-Gankutsuou (Someone's arm seems to be composed of a canister containing a special pen. There is no word as to why or how this is the case)
Not *as* weird, but someone loses an arm:
Most of the above, plus:
-Gantz
-Le Chevalier D'Eon
In contrast, anime I have seen in which I can't remember anything weird happening to anyone's arms:
-Evangelion (there is a leg lost)
-Eden of the East
-Fruits Basket (something weird happens to people's entire bodies but it's not specifically about their arms except for the hugging bit)
Two Replies to Armplay
Denise Sawicki | July 25, 2011
Hand-gun, I love it... Maybe he gets a lot of iron in his diet.
Prayer for the Paranoid
Denise Sawicki posts whatever she feels able to post without serious consequences Read more »

I didn't like Brokeback Mountain
I know I'm a number of years too late to be talking about this, but I finally happened to see Brokeback Mountain and I have to say I didn't like it terribly much. Yes, I realize this is an extremely unpopular opinion to the point of being just plain wrong as an objective fact. Note, I do not have a problem with gay people or gay behavior. Go »
Another Irritating Thing
The Indian episode isn't the only irritating thing that happened with The Cedars recently. A while before that, Darrell received an e-mail from someone claiming to be from MTV saying they had listened to his songs on the Jones Soda website, liked them, and wanted a CD to consider including in their show. Now this sounds like an obvious fake, but the thing is, some research showed that the person who sent the e-mail does exist and does work at MTV, the e-mail address was verifiable, the phone number led to a seemingly legitimate voice mail, and the address was an actual office at MTV. Go »
Giant flakes of cereal
The big news of today is we found a big flake of raisin bran crunch. I don't know if it's quite as big as the one featured in the coming link but it's pretty big. You can get some idea of what my life is like because I then proceeded to google for "largest flake" and "giant flake". Go »
The British know how to make TV
Correction to my earlier post - we have now seen almost to the end of season 2 of QAF (Darrell decided to watch it after all) and it seems only season 1 is really amazing. Perhaps it gets better again later, I don't know. Is it any coincidence that season 1 is the one copied almost directly from the British version? Go »
Annoying
Darrell tells me that people actually care about *my* approval and they think I am rejecting them when in fact I am trying to keep away from them to protect them from my insanity. You guys are all awesome by the way... Wish I wasn't too insane to interact comfortably with anyone... Go »
Scott Hardie | July 24, 2011
For some reason I'm reminded of the game Final Fantasy VII, as steeped in anime influence as any other in the series, in which a character has his severed hand replaced by a machine gun. The weapon has a life of its own, sometimes firing when he gets angry, which he seems to be often. It never runs out of ammunition or needs to be reloaded, and indeed there isn't even a place to insert bullets; it just has an endless supply. Even in a fantasy game, the implausibility of that hand-gun always bugged me. But, this is a game where an entire town transforms into a cannon, so I probably shouldn't overthink this.