Time for a look at another volume of Megami Magazine. This issue has a lot of goodies in terms of posters, and some very very nice extras which you will find near the bottom of this post.

Haven’t seen one of these larger posters in a while. The front features Kyou and Ryou Fujibayashi from Clannad.

On the reverse side are the girls from everyone’s favourite anime this season, K-ON. After seeing Mugi-chan in a nurse costume and here in a maid costume, I have concluded that she should be a professional cosplayer. Poor Mio looks so embarrassed.

I wonder how Nodoka is able to keep that towel around herself.

I finally have the Taiga nopan poster ^.^

Queen’s Blade is too much ecchi and not enough story for my tastes.

I watched the first episode of Asura Cryin and it just looked like an amalgamation of every anime genre possible: supernatural, magic, mystery, adventure, mecha, ninjas, etc.

Nice poster of the girls from Tayutama.

Not sure which anime this is from, but I like the girl on the left (pink hair is always a plus).

The K-ON girls in swimsuits ^.^

I thought this was a very nice poster of Fate and Teana. I think Teana looks better with her hair down.

I was too busy looking at the girl to notice the huge number of cats in the background at first.

Currently enjoying Natsu no Arashi, but I wish the animation was a bit better.

Yoko’s right oppai looks really deformed with the strap like that…

It looks like Ein doesn’t go anywhere without her gun.

Second episode of Kissxsis comes out on May 22.

I really like this Higurashi poster. I wish the Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Rei OVA episodes would be released sooner.

*smoooch*

One more Nagi poster for all the Kannagi fans.

I liked the variety of posters that they had this time around. Only K-ON had more than one poster so there’s sure to be something for everyone in this volume. I also liked how they included past, current, and upcoming series this time. On to more of the magazine itself:

Looking forward to To Aru Kagaku no Railgun. More Mikoto and Kuroko ftw (though I actually like Kuroko more than Mikoto).

Can’t wait for the new Nanoha movie to come out.

I just love Fate’s pose on this page.

I read the Hatsukoi Limited manga, and although it was easy to get lost in all the characters, it was still enjoyable. I would have to say my favourite character is Koyoi.

I did not know that the school swimsuit mecha nurse girl nana figure was cast-offable >.>

Episode 3 of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei is almost out, only 1 more week! The 3rd and 4th episodes will be released on June 24 and August 21 respectively.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this volume came with some very nice extras, and here they are:

First is a Nanoha pencil board, with Nanoha on one side

and Fate on the other. I really love Fate’s pose, hope they make a poster of it in the future.

The other extra that came with this volume is Megami Magazine’s volume 1.5 of the Nanoha Visual Collection. Since it’s volume 1.5, there aren’t as many pics as a full volume, but they’re still really nice. Resized scans are below, the originals were too huge, but if enough people want them then I might post them somewhere.

This is definitely one of the better Megami Magazines I’ve seen (maybe even the best). Lots of variety to appeal to a larger audience, and although there was no large poster this time, I thought the Nanoha goodies more than made up for that. If you’re planning on buying a Megami Magazine, I would recommend volume 109.

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine

Here’s the original screenshot:

and here’s what I came up with (just click the image to see the fullsize version):

Believe it or not, this took me several hours to finish (mainly because I had no clue where anything was in photoshop).

Well, after practicing using the pen tool on the title, I decided to actually vector an anime character next. Once again, I took another screenshot from the opening of higurashi (this time of Rika):

and here’s the result:

I didn’t really like the flower petals in the original image so I left them out. I also made the colours slightly darker since I was going to use a dark background. The part that gave me the most trouble was the eyes. I didn’t like the way that anime eyes turned out based on the tutorials that I read on anime vectoring so I modified them and came up with my own method of drawing eyes. Basically what I did was put a few layers of colours on top of each other and used the eraser tool with opacity set to 10-20% and erase parts of the top colours to reveal the bottom colours. This way, the colours seem to flow into each other if you know what I mean.

The last wallpaper I made was of Hanyuu, using this screenshot:

Once again, this is what I produced:

Personally, I think I did a better job on Hanyuu than Rika. The only trouble I had with Hanyuu was the really light parts in her hair; it’s really close in colour to her regular hair colour so it was hard to make out where the boundaries between the two colours were.

Anyone is welcome to use these wallpapers, but if you repost them online, I’d appreciate it if a link back here is added along with the wallpapers.

This issue features the main character from Sora Wo Kakeru Shoujo on the cover. I watched the first episode of this anime and it just seemed a bit too weird for me.

The posters this time had a good mix of just-finished and currently airing series.

I never understood why Kannagi was so popular. It seems to be getting quite a few posters in Megami Magazine, and this volume has a book-in-book thing featuring Kannagi.

I have to say that Toradora is one of the better love comedies that I’ve seen. It’s good to see that Taiga and Ami are getting along now, and I hope the ending turns out well.

White Album is another one of those eroge (erotic games) that have been adapted into an anime. Going from eroge -> anime is pretty common nowadays, but I don’t think the stories are very good. I guess the main reason for making an anime out of an eroge is to please the game’s fans by animating the characters and making more money.

I haven’t seen Asu no Yoichi, but from what I’ve heard it sounds a bit like Love Hina. The shredding of clothes in this poster just makes it look like Love Hina even more.

Kotomi and Tomoyo seem so excited about the snow.

I wonder how that little yellow thing in Sora wo Kakeru works. I was so surprised when it flew out of the head of a maid.

What is that girl holding o.o

“You can’t ask someone to do something you’re not willing to do yourself” is why I think both the painter and model are naked in this poster.

That alien must be really happy.

After finishing Macademi Wasshoi, I realized that there was absolutely no plot in the series except at the end when they tried to put something together and failed miserably.

Those things on that coco*natts fan look kinda scary.

As always, Megami Magazine always has the latest info on upcoming anime releases. The Toaru Majutsu no Index volume 1 blu-rays and dvds were released on Jan. 23, and the second volume will be released on Feb. 25.

There has been a lot of criticism on the animation quality of Minami-ke Okaeri, but as long as it’s watchable I think it’s ok.

Ami always has the best swimsuits :)

The first episode of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei will finally be released on Feb. 25, everyone mark your calendars :D

This is a page from the Kannagi book-in-book that is featured in this volume of Megami Magazine. It’s nice to see anime characters in different costumes since most older anime and even some current ones keep their characters in the same clothes throughout the series.

Chaos;Head Noah for the Xbox 360 comes out soon in Japan. The screenshots here make it look like a tempting game to get, but if the ending is anything like the anime, then it’s not worth getting. You can read about my Chaos;Head ramblings here.

More dvd releases, this time for Jigoku Shoujo. I thought all of the sending to hell in Jigoku Shoujo was pretty good until it got really repetitive.

All of the Weib Schwarz advertisements in Megami Magazine are so nice, it makes me want to buy their cards.

Of course, the back of the magazine reminds us once again that Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Rei will be available on Feb. 25.

The big poster that came with this volume features Code Geass R2 on one side with Lelouch’s harem (minus Sumeragi for some unknown reason) in swimsuits by the pool, and it seems like they’re undressing CC.

The other side features the good and bad characters (if you can classify them that way) from Nanoha Strikers. I think they should’ve made Nanoha’s pose more aggressive; it looks like she was just surprised by something.

I thought volume 105 was a good volume. All of the pages with blu-ray and dvd release dates were accompanied by a nice full-page image and now I finally have a Code Geass poster to put on my wall.

–>Subscribe to Megami Magazine