Last month, an action figure of Deunan Knute from the tremendously excellent film Appleseed was released in Japan, packaged with a PS2 game by Sega. Fortunately for those who cannot afford to buy an expensive PS2 game, the figure was also released separately, though possibly not in significant quantities since it seems difficult to find. I got mine from an ebay shop, Otaku.com based in Japan, and I’ve only seen it listed sans game from that one dealer.

This is by far the best Deunan figure of the many that have been made since the original comic book by Masamune Shirou debuted many years ago. At least three of the earlier figures were based on her design in the comic book, and two (besides this one) were based on how she looks in the 2004 film.

This newest one is based on her appearance in the film, in a unique pose, and with an interesting ripped pant detail that sets this one apart from the rest (“A superficial slash wound may be viewed on her leg,” one Sega site notes, “but we’re fairly positive she’ll survive”). I’m not usually this much of a fan of anime, but Appleseed was really very good. A sequel, Appleseed: Ex Machina is expected to be released later this year. Here’s the preview for the 2004 film that is already on DVD:

My testimonial for UniKeep’s binders that I’d written in January appeared in this month’s e-newsletter from UniKeep. See relevant part of the newsletter below. Why did I pimp for UniKeep? Just ’cause I like their binders, and also I fondly remember writing the equivalent of ad-copy when I worked at JEMI and I like to keep in practice. There’s a few typos in this (I didn’t pay as much attention to tenses as I should have), but I think I successfully incorporated product names, usage, and ordering information into a story-like format. And, it is honest:

March 22, 2007 / Savings, User Tips & Testimonials 4th Annual UniKeep™ Design Award Contest Sponsored by Creative Techniques and Scrapbooking & Beyond Magazines How do you use your UniKeep products? When it came time for me to move across the country, I knew I had too many DVDs to transport. So I considered ways to bring only my discs without the cases. The search led me to UniKeep binders. The DVD cases went into deep storage. The DVDs themselves went into UniKeep Media Disc Binders, and to Colorado with me. My new apartment now enjoys much more shelf space, with about 500 discs in 10 UniKeep Media Disc Binders with some room to spare — a single shelf of semi-transparent binders less than 17 inches across. It all looks rather futuristic. I’ve preserved the look of the semi-transparent material by using P-Touch labels (black ink on clear tape) to label the spines (A-Z). I’ve been using the 80 disc capacity binders as standard, but I’ve also found that some entire television series can fit into the smaller 48 disc Media Disc Binders; for example, every season of Farscape, Highlander, and Xena fits perfectly. Others I group by genre – 24 and Alias share the same binder. (Speaking of Alias, did anyone else notice the characters use UniKeep binders in the later seasons?) Honestly it took me a while to become used to living without the DVD case art. I could have kept the case art in page protectors within the binders, but I found there was no need. Since I started using a free online database service to keep track of what movies I owned, I no longer need to look at a shelf or flip through the binders. The transition was not dissimilar from moving from CDs to iTunes. I’ve got a lighter environment thanks to UniKeep binders. And I’ve no complaints about them – aside from the relative difficulty in finding them for sale locally. I recently bought a case direct from UniKeep, for future expansion. ~ Will B.

Lesson of the previous night: Do not surf porn and simultaneously read CNN in the last moments before sleeping, not when CNN is all about the pet food crisis. Not unless you want to dream of McGruff the Crime Dog doing unspeakable things.

Just ’cause it doesn’t seem to be getting much press, I’d like to mention that Bill Panzer, co-creator of the Highlander series, has died. The amusing thing about all the tributes to him that various actors and production people have written is that many of them say how they disagreed with some of the directions he tried to take Highlander in — i.e. the crappy directions. But it appears that without Panzer, we would not have had the wonderful Highlander: The Series television series, or the Highlander 4: Endgame film either (both of which I liked very much).