Hanaukyo Meido Tai Episode 1
Video courtesy of Maiku Ando’s Anime.
Video technology by DivX.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

2 Anime series were based on the above title, see my entry on the Anime here.

Wishing everyone a happy and prosperious 2009!

For those Fruits Basket Fans heres your image…(stolen from animeyume.com).

Last week me and collegue decided to pay a visit to Gyu Kaku – a Japanese Barbicue Restaurant in Chijmes, I!’d been there before with some Japanese friends and it wasn’t bad, so I figured a second trip was a good idea. Wrong. We arrive late in the evening, and they took us in without hesitation and gave us a table. About 30 minutes into the meal, it became apparent we were not eating fast enough. Suttle hints like unpacking the foil warpped parcels at 10x normal speed, mashing the fish insted of lifting it out etc. We finally finished the main part of the meal, ie the barbicue part, at which point the waiter thought it would be highly funny to inform the rest of the staff we’d finally finished, and shouted out “And they’re done!” in Chinese, which was followed by a loud cheer. Clearly not knowing that my collegue can speak 7 languages, including Japanese and Chinese. This was the rudest behaviour I have ever seen in any type of eatery, and was appalled. When the waiter came back a few moments later, my collegue cut him off before he could say anything, and said “Ice Water, because we’re done!”, the look on the waiters face said it all, and the staff suddenly went rather quiet. We had our ice water, then ordered some ice cream, for no other purpose than to slow it down a bit further and make our point. We paid, collected the change and ensured no optional tip was left – we were foreced to pay a 10% service charge which was auto added on the bill, but they werent getting anything else. They tried to be super friendly as we exited, we ignored them and walked out. We will never, ever visit any of their restaurants again, Singapore or Japan. I suggest you avoid them as well.

Other activites over the last 4 weeks include a mamoth book hunt, we have been checking out the local book shops quite a bit, and as a result I have managed to double my manga collection. I was very pleased to find Hayate The Combat Butler and have now got all but 1 of the first 9 volumes. I do now also have the complete set up to vol 19 of Tsubasa “Reservoir Chronicles”, including Vol 14 – which was apparently quite hard to find, according to someone we met in Borders Orchard Rd, as it turns out a trip down to Kinokuniya Book shop just down the road had a huge stock of said volume. I have also increased my DVD and CD collection with new albums from Guns n Roses and Yui and some more Korean horror movies.

We also took a day out to visit the Anime convention in Suntec the other week, lots of lovly cosplayers, lots of model kits and some manga and dvd stands. Bought a couple of mangas, but nothing else of real interest.

There is a little problem with the blog at the moment, it appears I neglected to set the wordpress option to store content based on date, this means it puts all the files such as photos in one place. Didn’t occur to me however that when it encounters a new upload that happens to have the same name as an existing file, it over writes it without prompting. This has caused some of the pictures from the Asia Mini tour, Singapore, Japan etc to get replaced with photos from other posts. This will take some time to fix, therefore no more photos for a little while.

The Anime side of things has become a little crazy of late, my Anime Blog is coming on nicely, and the video library has taken off to insane levels. It got listed as the first result for “anime video library” in google uk a little while ago, and now its so popular its using over 400GB of traffic per day. Its at www.maikuando.tv – if you get a “suspended, bandwidth exceeded” page come up, its because its used too much traffic that day, so just try again tomorrow, early in the morning CET is best. In addition, I am now the Design Editor for the official Fansub.TV Webzine – j-Zine, our first issue is already out, you can read it here.

I am also pleased to announce that I am leaving the UK and moving to Singapore at the end of October, right now its a crazy time of trying to pack and organise everything for the move, so there wont be much time for updates on here for a little while.

And finally… last week I saw a Meido on the tube, beautiful colourful maid uniform and hello kitty accessories, was at Euston Northern line station, first time I have seen a maid since the MVM Expo at Excell, and first time on the tube – if that was you, or if you have a Meido sighting, leave a comment!

Edit Jan 1st 2009.
Read my review of the original series of Hanaukyo Meido Tai as published in Issue 2 of  FTV’s J-Zine Magazine here.

Edit Aug 15th 2008.
This article has been re-written and re-posted with all the episodes for the original version of the anime available to watch at Maiku Ando’s Anime.

Today I’d like to bring special attention to this particular Anime (which is based on the Manga by the same title) as it one of my favorites. This is without a doubt quite an ecchi series in places, however the overall story and the warmth of characters certainly out do the ecchiness and make this lovely and very funny series. Originally 18 episodes, however it ran into production issues and stopped at episode 15.

It was later re-done as Hanaukyō Meido Tai – La verite, which is actually 12 episodes. The latter being released by Geneon (Pioneer) in the US. The original however remains unlicensed in the US and UK.

Now as a special ONE TIME effort, for a limited time I am offering you the chance to exerperience Episode 1.

Please Please note, if this Anime is licensed within your country, then you should instead purchase it from you local authorised retailer. What is offered here is the lower quality FANSUB edition of episode one. If you like this anime then go buy it!

Please leave your comments as a reply to this article, and also give your opinion on the video performance, watchability etc.

Hanaukyō Meido Tai – Episode 1

Edit – The above video is hosted in London.

The following 2 images are a second character which was added about half way through, this character was eventually shot by Board Girl.

Unfortunatly shortly after the shooting Board Girl was “wiped out” by a network diagram, she will be missed.

Been another very tiring week, not had any time to post anything either, today has been the worst so far, seemed to get all the crappy calls today, and very little time between them as well, end up playing catch-up the whole time – talking about how to fix problem Z while still trying to write the email for problem Y and fill out the call log for problem X.

Would have been a good day for a few drinks in the local with some work mates, except they all went and ‘forgot’ to tell me. Thanks alot. Not a problem really, this un-popular, socially banished, misfit has plenty of much better beer at home anyway, and its a fracton of the cost.

To complete todays random splurge, I present Random Doodle 2 – Big Hair – this actually started with a big random swirly wire ball doodle, then I added a face to it for no apparent reason.

Its now the year of the Rat, previous years for the Rat have been 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984 and 1996, the next will be 2020.

The following is an extract from Wikipedia…

Being the first sign of the Chinese zodiacs, rats are leaders, pioneers and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Rat people are endowed with great leadership skills and are the most highly organized, meticulous, and systematic of the twelve signs. Intelligent and cunning at the same time, rats are highly ambitious and strong-willed people who are keen and unapologetic promoters of their own agendas, which often include money and power. They are energetic and versatile and can usually find their way around obstacles, and adapt to various environments easily. A rat’s natural charm and sharp demeanor make it an appealing friend for almost anyone, but rats are usually highly exclusive and selective when choosing friends and so often have only a few very close friends whom they trust.

For all you rats out there, heres a picture of Yuki Sohma in animal form, Yuki is the rat in the Anime Fruits Basket.

Today I was notified by my Veoh TV client of a new version of the client to be installed – I was given no option to choose this version btw, it just auto updates, but that although annoying, is not the reason for these blues…. The problem is that the new version has managed to totally screw up the database, its lost about 4 entire series of Anime that I had

Worse still, is that removing the client and installing the new one, lost the rest. Luckily I had copied the db file off before, I then had the task of trying to re-import it – oh but wait – there are no advanced controls that actually do anything in Veoh. Afther several hours, I finally figured out how this rather crap piece of software operates – it makes a randomly named db file, which on a new install is placed in the /Program Files/veoh networks/veoh/ folder. The trick then, is to copy the name of this file, usally some random numbers then .db at the end, rename your original db file to this name, then copy it over the one in the veoh folder. When Veoh starts, you might have your library back. I’m still missing 4 whole series, but atleast the files are still physically present in the Veoh folder, but re-importing the files dosnt work, as it looses the meta info in them, so it just comes up as unclassified. Oh and it now contstantly keeps trying to download some random episodes that I already have.

Great, well done chaps at Veoh Dev. Dont bother looking through the forums on Veoh for help, I spent an hour in there, and its all people just shouting how much they hate Veoh, with no info on why or what their problem actually was, and then they scream no one helps them. Alot of the screeming is still about their move to convert stuff to FLV, which yes is really rubbish, but its still watchable, apparently it was to save bandwidth costs. Veoh could save a ton of bandwidth however if they stopped making EVERY page on their site auto play a video, if I open a channel, I want to see what it is, I dont want to watch every video straight away. Also I’m one of those annoying people who open all the links I want to see in a new tab when on a page, and go to each tab in order – do that in Veoh’s site, and its trying to play 20 videos at once.

Will update this if I actually manage to fix the problem with the client, however its looking like I’ll have to re-import them or re-download if I want it in channels again.

Met up with Ferlyn at Akihabara in the afternoon, and the weather was horrid, rainy and windy and very cold. Exactly what we didn’t want for wandering around outside. After a bit of battling through the crowd of umbrellas, we arrived at our first stop the @Home Cafe – this was huge, 3 floors of Maid cafe, and each one has a different theme. The queue was incredible, went down the stairs 3 floors. Decided not to wait and were about to go when we found the lowest floor of @Home had a traditional Japanese style theme – and NO Queue! So we went in. I can see why this place was so popular, really good decor, the costumes were really good and the service was great. We were lucky enough to catch (and be part of) a game of paper scissors stone – I was out first round, Ferlyn got to the second, eventually it came down to 2 very nervous Japanese gentlemen, who then had to compete up in the centre with the Maids. Was all good fun, even if I couldn’t remember the sequence of actions properly lol.

We had a desert and I got a green tea, which the maid prepared in front of us – then came the adding of the love – we had to perform this ritual before being allowed to enjoy the tea, it basically consisted of bringing your hands together to form a heart shape, then saying a couple of words in Japanese, and all 3 of us had to do it at once – the purpose is to add love into the tea to make it extra special. Took a couple of attempts, mainly down to me again not quite getting the sequence right, but after it must have worked – faith – as the tea was great. We also had to partake similar rituals of adding love for each item ordered, and for our desert the maid would pour the source on, but would only stop upon making the correct “mew mew” sound. The cute cat theme was present in other areas, such as part of the paper scissors stone sequence involved a couple of cat like actions, including making of cat ears on our head, all very cute and was good fun.

Then we had a look round one of the big stores which sells like everything, spent a bit of time there looking in the costume section – so many different ones and such amazing designs. Also had a look at the other @Home cafe in there, again big queue, and quite a bit smaller. Then we had dinner at a Okonomiyaki restaurant, and this was quite different from what I’d tried before, but we had 2 different dishes and both were really good, also very filling and couldn’t eat all of it, but glad to have tried it before I left Japan. Then it was time to head back, and took the JR line back to Shinagawa.

Didn’t take any photos that day as the rain and wind were so bad, so here’s a random photo of Ferlyn (on the left) as a maid from back in March at Cosafe. Actually its not random, I love this photo

The second photo is from Christmas Eve at Cosafe (Ferlyn in red), for more Cosafe photos see this post.

After alot of wondering, I had come accross another Maid Cafe, however they had a sliding door, and this extra complexity to entry, put me off at first. I later returned to this place to find a small group of people out side, also complementing entry. I decided to be slightly more brave and hang around the middle of this crowd. It was at this point a maid appeard, obviously wondering why so many people where gathered outside and not entering. As per a classic moment from hundreds of sicoms, as she arrived, all the others in the group, all Japanese, stepped back in uniformally perfect timing, leaving only myself standing right at the front. When she gestured for me to enter, I casually pointed to the rest, only to discover them now standing firmly behind me. It was quite comical, if not a bit embarrassing. I finally thought “what the hell?” she had removed the door complexity by coming out, so I decided to go in. Following my great bravery, the rest of the crowed suddenly followed right BEHIND me. The maid was clearly slightly bemused by this, and assumed we were all together, a bit of pointing and partial explanation by the others in Japanese corrected this, and we had to wait for the tables to be free. The gentleman who had initially hid behind me in the line, then took that moment to thank me, in Japanese, for going ahead and allowing him to come in as well. I only wish I could have explained to him how I had been just as nervous 10 minutes before, and had walked past for the same reason as him, and how it was the presence of the group which helped me.

As it turned out, this was the best Maid Cafe I have visited so far in Tokyo – they had performances every 10 mins or so, dancing maids, paper scissors stone with the audience, stirring service, photo service, decorative service on your food and even a cat basket under your table to put your bag in when you sit down. This was Moe, real Moe at its best. I even shelled out for a polaroid with my maid – see photo above.

The following are some photos from Akihabara, these were taken on different nights, but take a look at this car – amazing, would love a car like that, there were a few people stopping to look at take photos, such detail as well. I want 1!!!!

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

For me, this was the icing on the cake to best Christams I have ever had, the crazy anticts of the maids and the staff, and the fun of trying to cover everyone in silly string and party poppers (see photos) made this a party to never forget.