As promised, some brief notes.  Most of the schedule is a 
continuation of what we were watching last semester, so most of you 
alreayd know the drill.

Densha Otoko - Aka "Train Boy", a live-action drama series about a hapless 
otaku dork (is that redundant?) who meets a beautiful woman and falls in 
love with her.  Cue geek romance and ELO on the soundtrack.  It's awesome.

Paradise Kiss - The continuing saga of starving fashion design students in 
love, wherein a high school senior is drafted by said students to be their 
model.  Cue romance, wacky hijinx, and the awesome Franz Ferdinand end 
theme.

Again, this will finish up both these shows and we'll be watching them 
during the second half of every meeting.  The one exception is the last 
meeting, as Paradise Kiss will have wrapped up a week earlier.

As for the regular features:

Live-Action Cromartie High School movie - Everyone's favorite absurdist 
school thugs return in this feature film.  Salty Boy!  Mechazawa-kun! 
Freddy Mercury!  The gangs all here, with more than a few professional 
wrestlers in the cast.  This looks to be ten kinds of awesome.

Kamichu - The further adventures of the middle school girl who waks up one 
morning to discover she's a goddess.  Miracles!  Mythology!  Young love! 
It's so damn cute it hurts.

Master Keaton - What sort of work is out there for a former member of the 
British Special Air Service?  How about becoming an insurance agent for 
Lloyd's of London?  Keaton travels around the world, encountering 
particularly tricky cases, violent or otherwise, and is generally 
completely awesome.  We'll probably watch an action episode and one of his 
more low-key adventures.

Gallery Fake - The further adventures of the world's most bad-ass 
counterfiet art dealer, using his store as a front to sell the real thing 
and occasionally engaging in daring feats of art restoration.  No, really. 
It rules.  Seriously.

Live-Action Gokusen - Rookie teacher Kumiko Yamaguchi's first job isn't 
exactly a dream assignment: a class full of high school thug delinquints 
with no intention of learning and bad attitudes all around...which fazes 
her not at all, as she's the granddaugther of a Yakuza mob boss.  Cue 
wacky hijinx, heartwarming lessons, and budding romance with - a cop? 
Having watched Gokusen off and on for ages we'll finally finish off the 
project this summer.

Touch Movie 1 - Touch is a classic 80s anime about a love triangle between 
two twin brothers and their childhood friend, with a lot of baseball mixed 
in.  There's drama here, but it's all very laid back, with plenty of 
comedy (and boxing) to keep things from getting too heavy.  We'll be 
watching the first movie, which condenses the first major story arc of the 
TV series; don't worry, you won't be lost and there's a solid ending.

Mushishi - The further supernatural adventures of a "Mushishi", a 
wanderer who understands the mysterious world of the primal spirits known 
as mushi and helps those he encounters in a seris of lush, haunting short 
stories.

Rumiko Takahashi Suprise - So, Ben Elgin and I realized we both had large 
chunks of Takahashi shows laying around and figured we should dig up some 
one-shot episodes to enjoy.  I'll be contributing an episode of Maison 
Ikkoku, about a starving college student who falls in love with his 
apartment manager and suffers endless abuse from his insane neighbors and 
rival suitors.  Meanwhile, Ben will dig up an episode of Urusei Yatsura, 
about a raging pervert who finds himself engaged to a rabidly jealous 
alien princess with electrical powers and a tendancy to shock the hell out 
of fiances who look at other women.  In both cases, goofy comedy is on the 
agenda.

Take the X Train - A very odd one-shot OVA directed by Rin "Galaxy 
Express, Metropolis, and X...though we don't hold the later against him" 
Taro, about a young man working for a train buff who finds himself 
connected to the mysterious, destructive phantom X Train that's raising 
hell in town.  Like I said, it's odd.

Roujin Z - Based on the manga by Katsuhrio "Akira" Otomo, Roujin Z is a 
near-future story about Japan's attempt to cope with it's increasingly 
large elderly population.  The solution: a deluxe mechanical bed designed 
to tend to every need of the nursing home set without human intervention, 
thanks to it's high-tech AI system.  That is, it's military grade AI 
system that promptly runs amok.  All hell breaks loose, and it's up to the 
test subject's nursing student caretaker to save him, with the aid of 
Welfare Ministry officials and geriatric hackers.  God, I love this movie.

My Neighbors the Yamadas - Finally, a fairly recent Studio Ghibli feature 
courtesy of the all-powerful Isao Takahata, adapting a series of gag comic 
strips about an everyday family to the big screen.  Takahata renders the 
strips in a gorgeous (if exagerated) pastel style, and the result 
practically radiates charm as we share in the joys, misunderstandings, and 
occasional sorrows of suburban life in Japan.

And there you have it.  Woo!  Summer schedule!