I understand...

I used the time codes in this NOT SAFE FOR WORK page as a suggestion only! I played through each scene from 1-2 minutes prior to 1-2 minutes after. THAT'S how I made my comparisons. Yikes!
That did not work after 1:04:13 on disc 3. The scene at 1:23:19 does not appear at all! No possible match whatsoever. Not even a foul tip, a complete swing and a miss.
''Bob says he's going to be talking to someone at Geneon soon (for other reasons), and will ask about this when he does, so I guess we'll get the official word on it all in a week or so.''.
We're not talking about JetBlue here folks, Geneon is not going to confess that they released something that may or may not be legal in America and could run into legal problems in most of the world. As in Oregon, it's legal. Take it to Vancouver, Canada maybe not.
I can see a Canadian saying: ''But Your Honor, I bought it online from an American distributor!'' and the Canadian Judge saying ''That does not matter, it violates Canadian Law: Guilty''. Guess who else would be facing charges under Canadian Laws!
The idea of facing prison time would be enough incentive for me 'to fix it' alone. As Steven said in his review: ''Complaints: I guess the best way to put it is this: if this series had been filmed with live actors, owning it would be a felony.''. In Canada (and many other countries) it IS a felony. The fact that it's a cartoon changes nothing.
In America I can only say that legally it's in a grey area. It could be legal or not depending on how American Law is interpreted in a particular case.
If I ran Geneon I would err on the side of caution. And I sure would not admit to this mistake. Sweep it under the rug and walk away hoping I don't get caught later.
I will talk about my Employer in this regard (This is way too close to Rule #1 for comfort, but I can document what I'm saying. And I have plenty of witnessess). A reporter asked The Company Spokesman if there would be layoffs at The Company. The Company Spokesman confirmed it to the reporter. The reporter did his job and published the story. It got transmitted to newspapers everywhere. A local paper to me picked up the story and because it involved a local employer, went to print with it.
The Vice President of The Company had to fly to the closest major airport and drive to My Employer's facilities, gather a mandatory meeting of all Employees to say ''What you saw in the paper this morning is not true''. But it was true. The Company Spokesman issued the press release, and it was filed as a report. What was reported was accurate. That's all I am going to say of this subject.
Note: NO, I will not name my Employer, A.K.A. ''The Company''. It is my current Employer, therefore it cannot be named. That's ''Rule #1; Don't bite the hand that feeds you''. I made the details of that story vauge for a reason. I can document what I say, but will not at this time.
UPDATE: This is the first time I've had to remove an already published UPDATE:
But it was nessessary due to the controversial issues at hand. I now understand how those Danish cartoonists feel. It is speech, but it's not nessessarily free. Not even in America...

Singing the Opera...

This is my first post to QWIK HITZ! using Opera 9.2. It's my favorite browser, but it has funky coding that makes it incompatible with various websites. Most work just fine but now and then I come across sites that Opera chokes on. ''Townhall.com'' is one.
A minor bug, it just means I have to cut and paste the URL to Firefox to see it. Considering that I seldom go to ''Townhall.com'' anyway, I see it as a speedbump on the information superhighway.
Blogger (editing/posting mode) is another site that makes Opera flinch. The finished page is not a problem however. Any blog on Blogger works just fine. Just to get the text editor to work at all was tricky!
But not unsolvable. 95% of the sites I visit work fine, the other 5% can be problematic in one way or another. But then again, there are websites that only work properly on IE *&^%$#@!!!
UPDATE: Looks like either Blogger or Opera are still not playing nice with each other. Not suprised, nothing new. I'll keep using Firefox for posting...

The next day...

Let me put it this way; I'm not interested in watching Popotan again anytime soon!!!
While it was enjoyable sleuthing out the question ''ARE there two versions''? (see below, the answer is YES). It was also work, it was draining on me to go through 3 DVDs comparing screenshot to screenshot.
That said, I find myself in the classic ''Which came first the chicken or the egg?'' dilemma. My opinion is the series came first with the hentai game being a sequel to it. I don't discount the possiblity that it's the other way around. Which would make the series a prequel to the game.
Anime HAS been spun off of games before (perfect example: Pokemon). And the series hints at that possiblity in doing an execellent job of suggesting a possible prequel for itself. With Mea having the same role and casting a 20-something man in Ai's role (the origin of Keith perhaps?) and a boy of about 10 in the role(s) of Mai/Mii. With a tragic ending of the house burning down and perhaps one or both dying in the fire or being abandoned to a (pre-WWII) point in time.
BTW, I'm not convinced that each ''jump'' is 5 years. That was only explictly stated when Mea and Mai missed returning to the house to ''jump'' and the house teleports to the same spot 5 years into the future. I tend to think that location and time shift are a pair of varibles that are random until fixed as constants. As in Daichi finding the house as a boy and later as an adult. Purely a roll of the dice. It was clearly unintentional that the aliens would have allowed that to happen. Because Keith tried to kill the adult Daichi to preserve the secret of ''The Quest''. If there were any planning involved, Daichi would have only come across the house at only ONE location and point in time.
That's what I base my reasoning of the future Popotan on. The aliens did not know what they were teleporting into until they did it. Unlike Star Trek where exact coordinates are set before teleportation is initiated. And location is scanned to determine where a safe place is to teleport to.
In other words, the aliens have no ''crystal ball'' sight into the future. They pick a time and place at the spur of the moment, lock it in, and go. Not having any idea what they are going to find when they get there. With location being a random spot in Japan and time point also being of random length. Think ''Near Osaka, 3 years into the future'' as locations in time and space, lock those into the teleporter, and click on ''yes'' when the computer displays ''Are you sure? (Y/N)''...

'Popotan'; My takes...

UPDATE: A tip of the hat to Steven. He confirmed what I'd suspected was true for some time. THERE ARE INDEED TWO VERSIONS!!!
The early release has the numbers 12343, 12344 and 12345 on ''the shiny side'' of the discs themselves. The later release has the numbers 12343, 12344 and 12346.
That is the version I have. When I saw the screenshots that are NOT SAFE FOR WORK, I compared them to what was on my DVDs. There are differences though not as many as I initally thought, but they are indeed different.
On the 3^rd disc I can't even match the time coding!
For those playing at home, I used VLC running on XP MCE to watch DVDs.
NOTE: VLC makes screenshots a breeze, but it outputs them as .png files. Load the pic into your favorite editing software (MS Paint will do in a pinch) and resave the pic as a .jpg .
Everyone will thank you for doing so. I make mistakes so you don't have to.

I had no influence on changing Steven's rating of it from 'one star/thumbs down' to 'two and a half stars/thumbs up'. He did that on his own.

First I need to clarify what Steven got wrong in the development (and marketing) of the series. It was plainly developed for Japanese TV first. He claims in his review (and other writings) that the series was derived from an X-rated hentai game that's not available in America (and VERY likely won't be).
In a recent post about what is quite possibly from the hentai game Steven says ''Still no explanation of that wrecked spaceship though.''.

Here's your explantion Steven: The footage makes perfect sense for a sequel.
In the series, the overall plot arc spans between 1970 to roughly 2005 (the house not only jumps from location to location, but from point in time to point in time). In any sequel the story would have to move into the future.

This is likely the ending of a potential sequel of some sort.
Here is my guess on how the story would go: Somewhere in Japan in roughly 2035 the spaceship teleports into Earth airspace to teleport (''jump'') the house. Tragedy strikes in the form of the spaceship teleporting directly into the path of a large rocket or (more likely) an airliner. They collide, and the spaceship takes major damage. Unable to either teleport the house, teleport itself out of Earth airspace or even counter gravity, it falls to Earth.

As noted, it's immense.

Something that huge coming down would likely have the effect of an (at least) 7.0 earthquake.

This also explains the different house.

Viewed full-screen these buildings show cracks consistent with the effects of a serious earthquake. The Christmas shop was likely destroyed under or near the crashed spaceship. In the series Mea's job was not only to maintain the house/Christmas shop but to protect the girls as much as possible. (BTW, I'd say Mea is a cyborg) Figuring out something has gone horribly wrong she is duty-bound to evacuate the girls to safety. And does so. The different house is their new residence. With the overall story ending with Mea and the girls coping with life where ''The Quest'' is most definetly over.
I'll let others speculate as to what occurs in the hentai game itself.
As noted above I'm quite convinced the TV series came first but for the DVD release it was likely decided that it needed to be ''spiced up'' to encourage sales (to give those in Japan a reason to buy what has already been broadcast. As in ''COPS: too hot for TV''). Likely at the same time the hentai game was produced to use the nude scenes for both releases and also to take advantage of the marketing for the DVD release.
When it was decided to licence it for region 1 Genon took the DVDs that were already being sold in Japan, subbed it, dubbed it and shipped it to America. The version Steven saw plainly should not have left Japan.
Genon got wind of Americans reaction to what Steven calls ''the lolicon aspects to it'' and realized ''UH, OH, we gotta fix this!!!'' (simply to avoid legal issues). I'm guessing they pulled the early release from the market, inserted footage from the original TV show (removing most of the nude scenes) and re-released it for export out of Japan. That is the version I got for Christmas, watched and quite liked. And DO recommend.

So what does God think of this...

Well you should go to his blog and ask him...

I'm not accustomed to XML...

I'm comfortable with HTML. That makes turning off the ''blogger bar'' and bringing my icon here a bit tricky. But as you can see, NOT impossible...

Buh-bye, ''blogger bar''...

Didn't take me long to remove THAT. It really IS such a simple hack.
I couldn't let my new blog wear a ''Blogger bar'' for long could I?
I HAD to shut it off right away...

Why I did it...

Because Blogger made it too easy. I can access and edit either blog from the Blogger Dashboard.
That's what ''sold me'' on this idea. So far I am able to switch back and forth from Qwik Hitz! to YIH with no problem whatsoever. I can have both open in different tabs using Firefox.
I've not tried it with Opera yet. Opera and Blogger don't get along with each other that well (for blogging, I use Firefox, for general web surfing I perfer Opera).
I'd rather not speak of IE because I can't do so without swearing. There are times when I have no choice but to use it, BUT I STILL HATE IT!!!

OOPS, I did it again...

Sometimes my mind works so fast that even I can't keep up. I was thinking of creating another blog and dadgummit, that's exactly what I did. I was thinking ''I wonder if 'qwikhitz.blogspot.com' is available?''. As of 2/18/7, NOT ANYMORE!!!
Right now it has a ''generic blogger'' template, ''the Orange B'' icon, and no Haloscan.
Not a problem, all of these are quite fixable. Time consuming, but fixable.
Your Image Here just gave birth to a new blog, now let's see what kind of parent it will be...