… or why this weeks show blogging might be light on the ground ^^;. Dragon Quest VIII arrived over the weekend, and its rather good. Its really impressive exactly how well they manage to carry the Akira Toriyama aesthetic across the entire game, from the character designs to the hilly, undulating scenery. I’m not the biggest Akira Toriyama fan (the original Dragonball I really liked, but I’m a bit ambivalent towards what was adapted as DBZ – its alright in moderation). The levelling requirements are rather steep, but it seems like a fun game. Anyhow, since I’m hoping to clock up an hour or two nightly, it cuts down on my anime viewing a little. Not entirely – I did watch the end of Elfen Lied last night (t’was alright, I could have done without a lot of the nudity, which seemed more gratuitous than necessary to the show to me), and I’ll probably be watching some GITS:SAC:2G tonight (far too heavy going and popular to bother blogging, but its superb stuff).

The Fate/Stay Night Curtain Raiser DVD, the promotion video for the upcoming TV adaption of Type-Moons visual novel, is out in Japan this week. My copy has shipped already, of course, having been preordered since it was announced. I think its reasonable to say that I’m looking forward to the show a lot (thats probably an understatement), though to be honest my expectations are probably unreasonably high for it. Looking at the production staff listed on ANN, the director doesn’t particularly inspire confidence from his past work. I suppose I, My, Me wasn’t awful as such, just not particular interesting. The only other thing of any real note he has directed was Yamibou, which I suppose at least has the right kind of atmosphere going for it. Still, Kenji Kawai is doing the music! That, at least, is worth raising a smile about. To be perfectly honest, I suspect that Fate/Stay Night will end up being my favorite show of next year regardless of it actually being particularly great or not – unless there is a third HiME show, of course.