Hey everybody, it's a me, again back from another 2 month disappearance.   To be honest I was hoping to get some kind of drawing done and give it to you guys for your amusement, but for some reason it never occurred to me over the last few weekends to actually finish it.  And there, it sits on my desktop, its soul still, but barely, intact, waiting for the people to be places into the field of vision, the word balloons dangling in the air, waiting to fall and crush the speakers.

And surprisingly that was NOT a digression.  Usually I've hit one by now...you know, like this one, where I'm talking about digressions when I should be telling you how much lazier I am than the average bear during hibernation.  And it's fall too where I should be getting ready for the harvest festival and stuff...or at least stuffing my face with honey so I can survive the long torturous winter with no turkey, no presents, and no champagne.  And probably no special chocolate.  I also can't beat Yu Gi Oh because not all of the cards have been released yet...and I bet they are going to force me to take all the fricking exams...those things are hard man.  I don't remember crap, I just remember how to win.  And I'm missing like 25 cards in the entire game.

If that wasn't enough of a digression for you, you'll enjoy the rest of this piece. If you were fine with that amount of digression, then you will have to wait until I or the diety of Portals, Kris, decides to put something up for you to look at.  I mean, we have plans, but that which must be done is being done at the moment.  Hell, I might never get around to actually completing that comic.  You migt be waiting for a donkey to complete a horse race. A really stubborn donkey. With no presents.

Anyway, today's thoughts come from a recent reading of Gakuen Alice manga.  I've mentioned before that the anime was really good.  The apparent satisfactory level of drama, comedy, love and little grls was reached, not to mention that the story was actually really good for a show about a school mostly featuring elementary school students, even with special powers.  Of course, the anime ends in one of those really happy ways, but, while lots of things have been solved, a lot of kinks in the system still exist, and not all of it comes together in the end.  It results in a sort of satisfactory ending, despite it being one of those "To Be Continued" things that won't actually be continued since the main plot was resolved and all is peaceful in Hyrule Japan the National Foundation for Alice Institution.

Some disturbance in the force came when I started reading the manga and started noticing the little things that were taken out of the anime. I don't think all of them were censoring for the sake of the children -- some of them seem more about future localization issues -- but it is rather interesting to see what was taken out of the story, and in fact created a much more cheerful story overall.  This is nothing to, say, trying to turn Shadowstar Narutaru into a show for kids...

For instance, and this is definitely because of indecency, in the anime, Natsume and Ruka definitely get a peek at  poor Mikan's polka-dot panties, starting the lovely cycle of hate that characterizes the first arc of the book.  In the manga though, not only do we see Ruka actually peeking at her dots (in sort of surprise too), Natsume and Ruka actually manage to get her panties off of her before running from the two teachers.  That's definitely not in the anime.

Much more of Gakuen Alice's totalitarian nature is toned down in the anime.  They don't talk a lot about the black cat mask Natsume wears at the beginning in the anime, but you learn just how much of a punishment it is in the manga.  The anime glances over Tsubasa's star on his face where as the manga tells you all about punishment marks and how much of a troublemaker Tsubasa actually is.
Remember those letters from Mikan to her Grandfather that Narumi doesn't send in the anime? In the manga, they burn them. Not kidding.  And her grandfather is much more pale and sickly when he finds out about where Mikan has gone.

Other notable changes include Narumi no longer bleeding from the head all the time, the use of fictional rabbit currency instead of yen (yeah, they use yen in the manga), a larger pronounced difference between the star levels, and much much more noticeable scorn from staff for having the nullification Alice.

I don't know which one I like better: the manga certainly seems darker and more moody than the anime, but that might be because the anime was so overly cheerful (and the manga is just a normal level of cheerness).  I think I need more happyness then.

Suzuku!