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That's great to hear about Kousaka, because while I liked him in the anime and I sometimes saw what it was that everyone else liked about him, I would have liked to have learned more about him. Thanks so much for the recommendation!

Great review for Genshiken! I just finished a marathon of it and I must say you've captured my sentiments exactly, particularly when Kasukabe Saki is concerned.

I felt as though the creators structured her character to be the voice of non-otaku in Japanese society so we could see their perspective, as so many who would watch the show would likely have been otaku themselves and not as likely to sympathize with her character, perhaps. I really enjoyed the careful balance they gave her between just pretty much loathing the club and its activities and trying to live in harmony with them, as well as seeing those very selective and tender moments between her and Kousaka. Are these aspect as strongly present in the manga?

I've always been given the impression that the manga, while better, is more on the ridiculous side.

Ah, no worries mate, good to see someone actually thinking about the actual anime, rather than going "Ughhh Wtf Just happened". o.O Asuka, ill be sure to read and comment on that ;D.

Bah, those were just my take on the characters, seeing how the anime was sorta built on Anno's (Hideaki - Producer) personal struggles - its safe to say that ;D. (Not my expertise, farh, im not even an expert in anything ==')

As for the story analysis? Looking at your blog entries, you don't have one ??? Unless its somewhere else (Too lazy to look ;D) Stick to character analysis's... DO GENDO =D

Take care lol. ;D

You're welcome; I hope that you enjoy War in the Pocket.

I've enjoyed all of your blog posts so far, even if I haven't taken the time to comment on each one.

Do I play chess? Hmmm... I guess that I can say that I'm a retired player. I played chess pretty seriously about 30 years ago, and participated in several tournaments around the state of Kansas. I had a USCF rating of about 1300 (yeah, that's not too good!). I simply have no natural aptitude for the game, and it was clear that I would never be better than a 1300-level player no matter how much I studied and practiced. Worse, the effort that I had to expend just to stay at the 1300 level was too much, so I eventually gave up playing seriously.

The highlight of my chess career was participating in a simultaneous exhibition by Grandmaster Walter Browne in Wichita. That was the only time I ever met a grandmaster, and it was frightening to see just how good he was. He was playing at least 30 of us, and he literally made moves as fast as he could walk around the circle. If he actually paused to study your board for a few seconds everyone else would suddenly take notice ("Gasp... he made the grandmaster THINK!"). It was undoubtedly one of the worst games of chess I ever played – I was so rattled that I couldn't even begin to think straight – but I still have my score sheet from the game with his autograph on it.

I still like chess, but I don't play unless someone asks, and I certainly don't expect to win or even try to win all that much.

The sad thing is, I live less than one block from Anatoly Karpov's International School of Chess, but I've never attended any of their activities or even gone to any of their twice-a-month social chess nights:

http://www.anatolykarpovchessschool.org/

Here's your member card from the Misato fanclub :D

Just saw your recommendation for Genshiken and NHK, really good. I loved those shows and it's true they both work really well together.