The original series had well-matured characters that would not get emotionally worked up, agitated, or hyperactive over trivial problems and situations such as manners (which was seen at the end of LE2 ep1). But, I guess even if they did get worked up, their choice of words should probably be along the lines of “You are in the presence of the princess!” in a stronger voice rather than something passive like “[WTF?!] Where are your manners?”. The characters themselves felt like they lived in the world and spoke that way given the situation rather than using some of today’s generic personas.

A trait I’m starting to notice and really liked about the original series was that although the most characters were mature, they all seem to still cling on a single childish aspect that really brings out them well.

Alex Row: Represents a bullied victim. He was laughed at while struggling on the brink of death and now spends his time waiting patiently to get revenge.
Delphine Eracles: Represents a spoiled child. She wants everything, wastes everything, and doesn’t seem to care about anything.
Dio Eracles: Represents the curiosity of a child. He got interested in Claus after an encounter and spends most of the series with him.
Lucciola: Represents a child’s brotherly friendship (one of the most touching part in the series). Although the series doesn’t show how imitate Dio and Lucciola’s relationship were, it was sudden hit close to the end as it all came out.
Sophia Forrester: I thought she was more of adult out of most characters being able to leave the place she wanted to be at to take up her responsibilities. If I were to give her a childish aspect, it’d probably be somewhere along the lines of wanting to play in her comfort zone.
Tatiana Wisla: Represents the attention of a child. I think (IIRC) she wants to be the best pilot there is to make her parents/family proud.

Sadly, I think Claus, Lavi, and Alvis were the characters that didn’t change much from beginning to end, and I don’t think they have any childish aspects associated to them. Either that, or I may have missed it.

The new series seems to lack this level of depth and maturity in their designs. Character development in the new series is very much disappointing as the character personas can be found in many anime series today. But, I’ll still watch it to see how it turns out; hopefully for the better. -.-

“You are extremely afraid of any kind of initial contact aren’t you? Are you that afraid of other people? I know that by keeping others at a distance you avoid a betrayal of your trust. But while you may not be hurt that way, you mustn’t forget that you must endure the loneliness. Man can never completely erase this sadness, because all men are fundamentally alone. Pain is something that man must endure in his heart. And since the heart feels pain so easily some believe life is pain itself.” ~Neon Genesis Evangelion: Death and Rebirth, Gendo Ikari

Probably one of the most memorable quote out of all the anime series I’ve seen. I should… watch that series again to see if I see it in a different light now…

• The story was weird, I didn’t want to think too deeply about it to see if I could understand it…
• The story mainly focused around events, and character development seems a bit empty
• The characters weren’t well developed or flushed out as I expected it to be

Thinking about this, I think what makes a series great is when there is the element in how you engage different situations to your characters, and learn how they react to it based on their personality to make them feel more alive (considering DTB). The first 2 to 4 episodes were great in this sense, but then it moves onto mainly focusing on the events of the story. Some scenes were well expressed when truths were unfolded between characters, but it felt that characters were no longer developed or changed at all at that point.

Overall, a bit disappointing series since I was expecting more out of it from the first few episodes I saw.

Story: Very little, or no development at all has been done on this episode. Maybe the only hint so far is that an unknown organization is utilizing an exceptionally skilled agent to complete missions in hopes that they would be able to change the tides of a war. There was also a scene that gives off the impression that the main character has some type of power to visually perceive things differently.

Character: Only the main character has been introduced so far. She seems to be mature, calm, and has a reserved yet childish kind of personality. Mature in a sense that she is accepting to the facts and various situations, and does not appear to outburst her emotions. Childish in a sense that she feels she has to reward herself when she completes her mission, and sets that reward just before she begins the mission out loud. There was also a scene where she seemed excited to introduce herself after someone had introduced themselves to her, but paused for a moment possibly remembering that she cannot give out her name easily (for some reason).

She is experienced as an agent that has been demonstrated through her ability to quickly and safely gather information.

Animation: The backgrounds are well done and very rich in colour. The characters drawn are simple and clean, and uses the darker shades of colors. So far, the colors chosen are more focused towards realistic colors a human would have; like not blue, pink, red, etc. hair colours. So, I guess you can expect more realistic interactions between characters in future episodes, or possibly a “dark” storyline.

Music: The music is great, and fits in with situations well to enhance it. It doesn’t sit in the background quietly trying to help set the atmosphere, but really jumps ahead that you will notice it.

Obviously Fake: Some things I thought was obviously fake. It was probably done to give off some kind of idea or impression, but was just silly to see it happen.

• She falls off a helicopter down into the forest, and we don’t see the parachute release. This isn’t a big deal, but it does make you wonder how she survived.
• A lieutenant fires multiple shots at a target that is only posing, but fails to hit the target it seems. This is obviously not possible! I guess this was suppose to give off the impression of inferiority or difference in skill level between the lieutenant and his target.
• She fires a machine gun next to her hears. Ouch! My ears! -_-

Summary: I like the music that accompanies the situation, and the character’s personality so far.

<?php

function date_ago($time) {
  if ($time < 60) {
    $num = $time;
    $unit = 'second';
  }
  elseif ($time < 3600) {
    $num = floor($time / 60);
    $unit = 'minute';
  }
  elseif ($time < 86400) {
    $num = floor($time / 3600);
    $unit = 'hour';
  }
  elseif ($time < 604800) {
    $num = floor($time / 86400);
    $unit = 'day';
  }
  elseif ($time < 2419200) {
    $num = floor($time / 604800);
    $unit = 'week';
  }
  elseif ($time < 29030400) {
    $num = floor($time / 2419200);
    $unit = 'month';
  }
  return $num . ' ' . $unit . ($num > 1 ? 's' : '');
}

This doesn’t use forking since I wrote this on a windows machine, so resources will have to be downloaded 1 at a time. Files are automatically overwritten if they exists. The destination directory is automatically created if one does not exists.

<?php

/* incoming data */
$url = $_SERVER['argv'][1];
$dir = $_SERVER['argv'][2];
$min = (int)$_SERVER['argv'][3];
$max = (int)$_SERVER['argv'][4];
$len = isset($_SERVER['argv'][5]) ? (int)$_SERVER['argv'][5] : 0; 

if (count($_SERVER['argv']) < 5) {
  output('SYNTAX: php download.php <url> <dir> <min> <max> [len]');
  output('  <url> - url to download resource, use %i to indicate the index');
  output('  <dir> - directory to save the resource');
  output('  <min> - starting index value');
  output('  <max> - ending index value');
  output('  [len] - optional length value for padding zeroes', true);
}

/* validate data */
if ($min < 0) output('ERROR: <min> must be greater than 0', true);
if ($max < 0) output('ERROR: <max> must be greater than 0', true);
if ($max < $min) output('ERROR: <max> cannot be less than <min>', true); 

/* initialize */
if (!file_exists($dir)) mkdir($dir);
if (!preg_match('/\/$/', $dir)) $dir .= '/'; 

/* execute */
for ($i = $min; $i <= $max; $i++) {
  $newi = str_pad($i, $len, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT);
  $newurl = preg_replace('/%i/', $newi, $url);
  $info = pathinfo($newurl);
  $file = $info['basename']; 

  $data = @file_get_contents($newurl);
  if ($data === false) output('Failed to download file, "' . $file . '".');
  elseif (@file_put_contents($dir . $file, $data) === false) output('Failed to write file, "' . $file . '".');
  else {
    $size = strlen($data);
    output('Saved file, "' . $file . '" (' . $size . ' bytes).');
  }
}

/* functions */
function output($msg = '', $end = false) {
  echo $msg . "\r\n";
  if ($end) die;
}

?>

Yeah, upgrades are great since (hopefully) its more secure, but there’s no reason to drastically change the GUI on every single upgrade. Its just eye-candy, and I’m just using it to chat.

Now I’m forced to either upgrade or not use their service. This is the message I got when I tried to login today.

Time to use Pidgin I guess!

The second half of the episode is regarding to the ritual to call the god, and it goes into Senjougahara’s background and explains the cause of her weight.

Interactions between the 2 main characters seems to be rather cold, direct, and slightly hostile. The female lead (Senjougahara Hitagi) seems to be distancing herself from others and becomes aggressive when others try to uncover her personal matters. She is always direct in what she has to say, has little consideration for others, and is always cautious or paranoid about their intent. Though, I thought it was strange on how she showed a lot of trust in Shino’s words compared to her past usual cautious behaviour shown towards Araragi. The male lead (Araragi Koyomi)… well… kinda reminds me of Emiya Shirou (from Fate/Stay Night) in how he freely offers help to someone he just met for the first time ignoring their recent aggressive action towards him. He shows concern for Senjougahara’s unusual problem by learning more about her from others even though she’s more or less a stranger to him at that point.

Overall, this series is looking really positive so far, and I’m sure it’ll be able to maintain its quality and consistency.

Blogging isn’t really something I enjoy doing at the moment other than the few rare times where I get strong feelings towards a series or show that I just finished it, and have to write something to let it all out. But aside from that, I feel I should be writing constructively on a regular basis to develop and maintain my writing skills, since as a developer, you’re pretty much either writing code, documentation, or some other technical document that gives thought to a process or system in great detail and spelling it out so that others could easily understand it. So, there is hardly room for creative writing or writing of any other form in my daily life, and hopefully this could kick-start it off.