Rosario Vampire + Girls Bravo.

Kind of an odd pairing to talk about, but I'll make the link.

While reading Deathnote I kept seeing ads for Rosario Vampire. The cover girl looked cute so that got my attention. Got a couple of issues and this is pretty much what I found: Tenchi Muyo in a high school for monsters. Generally I find the story arcs are well written, but also repetitive. Big bad monster makes havoc, Tsukune makes the save by removing Moka's cross. Monster of the week would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those meddling kids and their bat too. This is the same process for introducing all the main girls.

What has bothered me throughout the series is the high level of violence and blood that these kids find themselves in. The characters are 10-17 years old. Yes it's monster manga, but if it was a college setting, no problem. Then there's the sexual component. While I don't recall anything explicit, just the occasional hands on inappropriate places, shots of upskirts and bras, and girl with open robe on top of guy. Once again it's just the age factor. Especially with Yukari and Koko. Why? I really don't see the need to see these little girls in the situations that they put in all the time.

(What is it with witches in this series? Yukari is totally perverted at such a young age. Openly trying to get Moka and Tsukune in a menage a trois and copping a feel on a grown up Koko. Let's not get started on Ruby.)

I have considered many times dropping Rosario Vampire from my reading list. What keeps me coming back is the writing. While it doesn't have the depth of say Deathnote or the warm fuzzy of Inukami, it's good enough to keep me interested at least.

That's the important part. These characters are growing. They're not stuck in neutral like in Oh My Goddess. Friendships are formed and changed all the time. Most tend to have a deep emotional background as to their motivations. Even Gin. For someone that is hardly ever seen, he is really well put together, both physically and personality wise. That's why I tend to over look the violence and what some call fan service.

I digress to tell this story. A friend of mine has been buying this series for his son. I asked him if he even knows what is in Rosario Vampire. He said he flipped through just to make sure there was nothing he had a problem with. “Hey, it's not like it Hustler Humor.” He told me. He's right. As long as parents take the time to open up the book and see what is inside and not rely on the rather misleading jacket.

On to Girls Bravo. There was a sale at the many Hastings were I live. Buy two get one free. Plenty of Girls Bravo. How can I turn down a good deal like that with such cute girls on the cover? I thought to myself: “Self, you know what you getting into right? It's pretty clear on the covers and the rating on the back.” I was a bit wrong. I though there was going to be nudity everywhere. We get plenty of fan service and compromising positions. When after many volumes we finally get some nudity, it is rather uncleverly censored.

I only have four volumes. I doubt I'm going to continue with it. It's the writing. It's not good. Everybody is stuck in neutral and shoe horned into stories that are pretty generic. There is no growth what so ever. Not even in the outlier characters get much. In Tenchi the characters didn't do much, but at least we saw Yume and Minagi grow, change, and develop.

Now the anime of both series is the opposite of the manga. Rosario Vampire is not well written and not really well animated. Where as Girls Bravo was superbly written and animated. I had low expectations for the anime of Girls Bravo, I was completely blown out of the water. Everybody had motivation, direction, growth, depth, and well thought out character background. The manga's stories were contained within a single chapter. The anime's writers were able to flesh out each one into a twenty minute episode and make it entertaining.

However...

Both series have a problem: the over sexualation of the characters. While I could tolerate the poor writing of Rosario Vampire, I don't get the constant upskirts, Kurumu's much more explicit and has all sorts of sound effects, and Yukari even more perverted. Girls Bravo is a constant stream of nudity distracting from what was a good story.

Maybe I'm just being too conservative on that particular subject. Strange considering my mom let me read Hustler Humor when I was ten.

Ravy 2011 Pg. 31.

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Not sure which is better: transparent PNG or transparent GIF. Both require at leats a $50 program to make possible. And both can't render the graphics from Rosenkreuzstilette correctly.

Macho Madness: The Randy Savage Collection.

Saw this sitting on the shelf for $10 at Wally World and decided to give it a try. What stood out were the matches not included. None from the 70's. Nothing about George "The Animal" Steel. The one where Savage crushed Ricky Steamboat's throat. When Honky Tonk Man hit Savage with the guitar and Elizabeth brought Hogan to the ring. The street fight with Bad News Brown. When Savage beat Jim Duggan for the King of the Ring. And the final WWF match with Crush.

I didn't watch much WCW at the time so I'm not aware of many of Macho Man's antics while there.

What really stood out was the team work of Matt Striker and Maria. They played off each other well, and did a good job reading the script. While it seemed that Maria was there mostly for show, she got in a few good jabs.

There is a match that really had my attention: WWF Champion Macho Man and Intercontinental Champion Bret Hart VS Ric Flair and Sean Michaels with Curt Hinnig and Sheri Martel. Thinking about the history of all these players up to that point, and then to today was just mind blowing.

Thinking back, Randy Savage should be considered one of the best Intercontinental Champions of all time. Like other great champions such as Sean Michaels and Honky Tonk Man, Savage cheated, got DQ'ed, counted out, and just plain pinned his opponents. This got a reaction from the crowed because the fans wanted to see the heel beaten and their hero the champion.

One final thought about Macho Madness: The Randy Savage Collection. For me there was a overall sadness to it. In the back of my mind the whole time was the death of Miss Elizabeth a few years ago and the death of Randy Poffo a few weeks earlier.

Fact checking can be such a bitch.

Here's a couple of stories you should get a kick out of.

Many many years ago I saw the movie 2010. Then a while later I watched 2001. That's just the way they played on my local channel. I noted that the Discovery looked quite a bit different. As many have noted the interior of the ship was changed up quite a bit in both movies. But I swear the exterior of the ship was drastically redesigned. I went to the Wikipedia articles and movie mistakes sites to see if anybody else had noted it. Nothing. I thought maybe I had caught something no one else had. There were a couple of other movies I had caught mistakes in that no one else had. Running away with that high, I decide to tell the world about the mistake made in a movie from over 25 years ago.

But first the research.

Boy did I ever save myself from a ton of stupidity. I took screen shot of the Discovery from both movie and compared them. Identical. I don't really know why I thought they were different. My best guess is that I originally watched 2010 and 2001 on a sixteen inch floor model TV on a analog broadcast signal. The quality left a lot to be desired. My research was done with DVDs on a 23 inch LCD flatscreen. (You should see the spelling suggestions for flatscreen. “Disgruntled?" Oddly appropriate.)

The next boo-boo was about a minute away from happening when I stopped myself. I used to have a navigation menu at the bottom of each page for Season 2011. To update it I had to open each page and paste in the new link. A major pain in the ass when doing it 10, 20, and 30 pages at a time. How could I make a single change to one file that updates them all? I eventually came upon the iframe tag. It displays the menu and I could update on the new page and it changes all the other pages. I go and add this in to all the current pages for Season 2011. With one minute to go before the big update, I finally test to see if the links still work and discover the horrible mistake I was about to make. It opened up the new page inside of the iframe. Not change the whole page like I expected. Panic set in. What do I do, I really wanted this menu, but not piss off the reader anymore than I already do. So It's gone, No more menu.

I've looked into other ways, but most wind up with the same effect. Javascripting is a way, but is extremely difficult for me to get right. Plus with java blockers in most browsers it won't show up. I know because I used to have used Google Analytics and it showed me nothing while my web host was much more forthcoming. Flash would solve it, except the time it takes to update the flash file it just about as long as it is to update 50 pages with copy/paste. And again with most people flash is blocked and doesn't work with iPhones and iPads.

Once again looking at the stats, no one bothers with the menu anyway. Most just look at the home page. The occasional victim...er... potential fan that finds a page through Google looks at what he finds, goes back and forth, then leaves.

This mistake slipped by for six months. Those button that I have on top of the home page and each page of Season 2011? Two were messed up. I never checked them. The one for 2011 was supposed to go to the first page of 2011. Instead it went to the home page. The button for Season 18 didn't work. I only found out because when I was copy/pasting the table over to a new page, the images got jostled. In order to get them realigned I had to look directly at the code. I saw that there was no link associated with the image to Season 18. So I had to go through over twenty pages to fix it. It was a few weeks later when I found the link was wrong for 2011. Went through the same process again

I tell these stories not just for laughs. I tell them as teachable moments. Learn from my mistakes. Don't make them again. A simple five minute fact check can save you from sticking your foot in your mouth. And athlete's tongue is no joke.

(Addendum a day late: Should have taken an extra five minutes to re-read this before it was posted, because spell check doesn't catch gamma.)

Ravy 2011 Pg. 30.

Press the button just to the left of the scroll wheel on you mouse. Your mouse has one, doesn't it? If not why not? Catch up to the 90's already.

Wait a minute, does a Mac mouse have a scroll wheel? I don't ever remember seeing one. Hold it, some don't even have buttons to press. Poopie.

I was going to talk more about the Daisukino sisters, ran out of time.