I don’t have anything particularly new planned until I get finished with my masters in May (Finally!), but once that arrives, I’m sure to start looking at new things for my blog (of course, if you have any good ideas now, feel free to throw them into a comment anyway).

However, despite my semi-hiatuses and other things (it’s not like I’m an uber active member in the anime community.  I’m like one of those sicknesses that shows up suddenly for a little while, then suddenly disappears to lurk in the darkness again), I have a decent shot of breaking 100,000 visits in the 2009 calendar year.

Believe me, those are numbers which I probably would have never imagined when I started this blog, on my old domain, using some program called Simple PHP writing anime reviews maybe once a week or so (I didn’t even get into episode reviewing until the Spring 07 season, so the end of the current season will also mark 2 years of doing episode reviews).

Shunka arrives in London 3 years after Chiko left Japan in order to visit her. Shunka arrives at Chiko’s place and finds Tome there, but finds out that Chiko is still at school. Shunka goes to Chiko’s school and finds her kicking fencing ass there.

Shunka ends up telling Chiko and Tome all that’s been going on: Tokyo has been rebuilt, Akechi is now a famous detective, and Akine is still pretending to be more important than he actually is.

One day at a market, the trio find a lost boy, and attempt to search for his parents. Shunka believes she sees a man matching his father’s description going into a foggy alley, so Shunka, Chiko, and the boy follow. However, there they end up finding a murderer who has been in the news lately. Chiko is able to fend him off until they can escape, but when the murderer tries to give chase, Ken and Kayama show up to take care of him.

In the end, Tome finds out that the boy’s parents were waiting for him at a police station and the situation is resolved. The trio soon say their goodbyes, however, as Shunka has to return to Japan to get married. Chiko then heads towards a field to pay her respect to Twenty Faces’ gang, where she ends up meeting an old friend…

I suppose this was a fairly decent “where are they now” type episode to wrap up the season. Ken decides that Chiko no longer needs him lurking around and decides to go his own way. Shunka ends up getting married in her arranged marriage. Chiko, meanwhile, had decided to live as much like a normal girl as she can.

It’s also hinted that Twenty Faces may be back to his old ways, but under a new name, with the mysterious “one-eyed thief K’ going around doing things like stealing mummies. And, of course, it’s implied that Twenty Faces and Chiko meet up again at the very end.

I’ll write up my full final thoughts later, but this series was a kind of up and down ride. It kept throwing the unexpected at you with mixed results, and where the characters ended up wasn’t necessarily where I was expecting. I just kind of wish the last episode went out with more of a bang, but at least it wasn’t a total dud either.

As a part of this, I’ve also added three new themes for the site: Please Twins, Shakugan no Shana, and Toradora.  However, unlike the old design, the only thing the theme will change will be the banner.  Colors on the site will remain unchanged.

Another big change was moving from the sandbox theme to thematic, where I am taking full advantage of it’s child theme ability, both with CSS and with php functions, where I’ve taken over a couple of the things that I used to have to edit actual plug-in or core wordpress files to get what I wanted.

Another change is that I have now enabled nested comments, which can go 5 comments deep.

As usual, if you notice any bugs, please let me know.  I think I tested the site pretty thoroughly, but that doesn’t mean I caught everything.  The one thing I know still isn’t fixed as of the launch is going back and redoing all of the youtube video links, but I’ll get around to that when I get around to it (these should now work).  However, everything else should work fine.

This week’s Podcast Stats:
Time: 14:59
Download Size: 10.3 MB

Opening theme:
“I Guess That’s Love” by Mikuni Shimokawa
Opening theme to Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu

Ending theme:
“Misoji Misaki” by Hiromi Konno
16th Ending theme to Lucky Star

You can listen to my podcasts in the following ways:

Flash Player:

Directly: http://www.joshsanimeblog.com/podcast/JABPEpisode87.mp3

You can also download or add my podcast-only RSS feed to your favorite reader or add my podcast using iTunes.

February 17, 2009
Case Closed – Season 4 Box Set
Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful  – Box Set
Nerima Daikon Brothers – Box Set
Pokemon All Stars – Volume 17 (dub)
Pokemon All Stars – Volume 18 (dub)
Ragnarok The Animation – Box Set

February 24, 2009
Akira [Blu-Ray]
Code Geass Leouch of the Rebellion – DVD Set 3
Death Note – Volume 9
E’s Otherwise – Box Set
Jing: King of Bandits – Box Set
Kurau Phantom Memory – Box Set
Love Hina – Box Set
Mobile Suit Gundam F91
Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team – Box Set
Saint Seiya – DVD Set 2
Save Me! Lollipop – Box Set
Shattered Angels – Box Set
Shonen Onmyouji – Volume 6
Sister Princess  – Box Set

February 28, 2009
Moribito – Volume 3

Manga

February 17, 2009
20th Century Boys – Volume 1
Dragon Ball Z: Big Edition – Volume 4
Happy Happy Clover – Volume 1
Jihai – Volume 1
Kekkaishi – Volume 16
Pluto – Volume 1

February 24, 2009
Aventura – Volume 3
Dorothea – Volume 4
Palette of 12 Secret Colors – Volume 5
Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei – Volume 1
Suzuka – Volume 11
Toto! The Wonderful Adventure – Volume 4

February 25, 2009
Gantz – Volume 4
Hitohira – Volume 3
Oh My Goddess! – Volume 11
Tengu-jin – single

February 27, 2009
Puri Puri – Box Set (Volumes 1 – 5)
Tsukihime – Volume 6

February 28, 2009
Afro Samurai – Volume 2
After School Nightmare – Volume 10
Black God – Volume 5
Bogle – Volume 3
Bound Beauty – Volume 2
Doujin Work – Volume 1
Hayate x Blade – Volume 2
Higurashi: When They Cry – Volume 2
Yggdrasil – Volume 3
Zombie-Loan – Volume 5